The LA-assignment thread IX: I have no mouth and I must S,V,M

[liquidformat]

Hum I am on the fence with PisClothe, old pissy isn't bad at level 9 but I can't see what direction to send him to keep him relevant at level 10 and on. I feel like it would quickly drop off as useless unless you are adding in a game breaking prc like Urpriest. I will hold off to see other people's thoughts on PisClothe

Skeroloth seems pretty decent for hopping into swordsage or a rogue build or so forth so no real issues there, it also seems relatively well balanced at +0 LA, net 0 ability scores, a small smattering of SLAs, 1d6 sneak attack, 4 claws but no manipulators and uncertain if it can speak. Also worth noting is they do become medium with an extra rhd I don't know if that is going to change anyone's evaluation but it is worth noting.

[Thurbane]

Think I'll tackle these one at a time...

Pisoloth

• Medium Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar)
• 9 RHD (full BAB, all good saves, 8 skill points/"level")
• Speed 30 ft, swim 20 ft.
• +14 natural AC: not bad.
• 2 pincers 2d6, and 8 tentacles which cause paralysis for 2d6 minutes, save negates.
• Augmented critical: 19-20/x3 on pincers. Not bad.
• SLAs: at-will blink, fear, detect good, detect magic, protection from good, scare, see invisibility; 3/day—meld into stone, phantasmal killer, stinking cloud; 2/day greater teleport [self-only]CL 9. Not a bad array. Nothing overly powerful, but some good stuff in there (at will blink is very nice).
• Summon yugoloth: 3/day 4 skeroloths, 60% chance. Alternatively, 1d3 mezzoloths with 30% chance. Not bad, compared to a lot of innate summons.
• All-around vision: which doesn't get detailed? generally a bonus to spot and search, and can't be flanked.
• DR 10/magic: if not updated to something else, not all that useful, but not bad against against some natural attacks.
• Outsider traits.
• SR 20: not bad, but tapers off.
• Yugoloth traits: immune to poison and acid, resist cold, fire and electricity 10; telepathy 100 ft. Nice.
• Str +8, Con +4, Int -4, Cha +4: net +12. The hit to Int is annoying.
• Decent racial skill list. +8 racial bonus to swim.

Medium, vagluely humanoid(ish). Not sure how those pincers will go at wielding or manipulating items. No speech mentioned, but they have telepathy.

It's a bit of a mixed bag, but I think it would be playable at ECL 10. You do get some decent SLAs, and 8 paralysing attacks/round. I'm tentatively going along with LA +1.

I vastly preferred the 1E art for these (I'm a big Holloway fan).

[Thurbane]

Daemonic Flea (Skeroloth)

• Small Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar)
• 4 RHD (full BAB, all good saves, 8 skill points/"level")
• Speed 40 ft, burrow 20 ft, climb 20 ft: nice.
• +6 natural AC: not bad.
• 4 claws 1d3.
• Sneak attack 1d6
• SLAs: at will - daze, detect good, jump; 3/day—burning hands, expeditious retreat; CL 4. All low level, nothing that really stands out.
• Summon yugoloth: 1/day summon skeroloth, 40% chance. Not great.
• Cringe: kind of like like an at will Sanctuary. Low DC.
• Outsider traits.
• Yugoloth traits: immune to poison and acid, resist cold, fire and electricity 10; telepathy 100 ft. Nice.
• Dex +6, Con +2, Int -6, Wis -2: net +0. That hit to Int hurts, a lot - especially if you are planning to skillmonkey.
• Short racial skill list. Useful skills, but not enough of them. +4 racial bonus on hide and move silently; +8 on climb.

Weird body shape, and the claws in that illustration aren't wielding anything. No speech listed, but it has telepathy.

To be honest, I just can't see myself playing this, even at ECL 4. I guess telepathy, movement modes and energy immunities/resistances are good; but the hit to Int, and seeming inability to wield items relegates you to a natural attacker. As a skillmonkey, -6 to Int is just awful; and as a melee type, you're going to have to jump through hoops to wield weapons - also, you are small with no Str bonus. I supposed you could concentrate on boosting sneak attack on your 4 attacks, but in most cases the skill points coming from those classes will be impaired by your Int penalty. I'm not overly familiar with Incarnum, but maybe you could do something with that?

I can't really see a role for this guy. LA -0 from me.

[Efrate]

+0 and -0. Flea is just bad, and I think the other is playable if not great.

[Blue Jay]

I like LA +1 for the piscoloth and LA +0 for the skeroloth. I don't have the energy to much in the way of analysis at the moment, but I'm onboard with Inevitability's and Thurbane's reasoning. The skeroloth is kind of weak for ECL 4, but I think the combination of a burrow speed, 4 claws, some minor SLAs and a bit of Sneak Attack is enough for relevancy at low levels, so I'm voting +, instead of -.

[Inevitability]

Piscoloth:
+1: Thurbane, Blue Jay
+0: Efrate

Skeroloth:
+0: liquid, Blue Jay
-0: Thurbane, Efrate

LA's will remain at +1 and +0, respectively.

[Inevitability]

Yurian

Not to be confused with the smelly tropical fruit.

Despite looking like some scary high-HD aberration, yurians are perfectly playable 3 RHD monstrous humanoids. They explicitly can do fine manipulation with their second set of limbs, and have two additional arms with big 1d6 pinchers on them. Their ability scores are solid: +4 strength and constitution at the cost of 2 intelligence and charisma. Finally, they have a low swim speed.

Yurians also have a 'limited regeneration' ability that lets them regrow limbs and eyestalks (but doesn't provide hit point restoration or anything like it), which is flavorful but unlikely to ever matter in-game.

I like the concept of these creatures, and I feel like they're almost playable, but in the end any yurian PC is stuck taking three RHD that compare infavorably to fighter levels. That said, natural armor and stat boosts are nice, so I guess this is barely worth +0? Probably not worth using in a campaign where water orcs are a benchmark, though.

[Dimers]

Clearly the yurian will be compared against T4 beatsticks, and I think it gets LA +0 for that. Two extra attacks and +6 natural armor compare just fine to what a barbarian or fighter would gain from class levels.

[Efrate]

+0

They compare fine to a t4 beatstick.

[ExLibrisMortis]

LA -0. With one class level, a bit weaker than equivalent beatsticks (even more without a class level). Monstrous humanoid HD aren't the best (related: the yurian appears to have good fort/ref, but it should have good ref/will--not sure if this is a 3.0 thing), skills aren't good, and extra natural attacks aren't that amazing. It can grow to Large size, but only at 6 HD. It's definitely much more playable than the art suggests, though. And I think it's pretty well-written: it mentions limbs, air/water breathing, and speech; on top of that, the limited regeneration ability makes sense without being too powerful. I'd actually play one of these. They seem nice.

[DeTess]

LA+0. It isn't exciting, and it needs a (martial initiator) class level to get going, but once you've got a couple of levels in crusader or whatever the stat bonuses make it good enough to play.

[Remuko]

-0 just doesnt offer enough for 3 HD even for a beatstick.

[Thurbane]

• Medium Monstrous Humanoid (Aquatic)
• 3 RHD (full BAB, 2 good saves, 2 skill points/"level")
• Speed 30 ft, swim 20 ft.
• +6 natural AC
• 2 claws 1d6 (why is the Piscoloth described as having pincers, while these guys are described as having claws?)
• Darkvision 60 ft.
• Limited regeneration: not as exciting as it sounds. Regrow lost limbs - not bad, but how often does it come up in gameplay?
• Str +4, Con +4, Int -2, Cha -2: net +4.
• Small racial skill list. +4 on Hide Checks, +8 on Swim checks.

Basically humanoid in shape. Not sure how those "claws" will go at wielding items, although the smaller limbs are noted to be capable of fine manipulation, and also that they craft items. Can speak, and specifically noted to be able to breathe air and water.

Thoroughly unremarkable race. Is it worth 3RHD? I think it's really borderline. If your DM rules you can wield weapons (which the fluff would lean towards), then I'd say weak LA +0. Obviously more useful in a primarily aquatic campaign.

I kind of wish they weren't so bizarre looking, and more like the 1E Crab Men (although not so cartoony)

Spoiler

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[Debatra]

The stat boosts (or more specifically the penalties) kinda pidgeonhole you into being a beatstick. But you're a decent beatstick. Maybe it'd be a little worse than a straight Fighter or Barbarian, but I'd say it's either a slight upgrade or a sidegrade. +0

[Inevitability]

LA updated to +0, TO cheeseman upcoming.

[Inevitability]

Zodar

The final monster of the book (assuming symbionts don't count as monsters) (wait, do they?) (okay so do you guys want symbionts bc I'll totally rate those).

Zodars are 16 RHD constructs. Their chassis is moderate: a 60 ft. land speed is impressive, but 25 strength is as high as stats get and the zodar has two nonabilities to further complicate matters. In typical first-edition-weirdness fashion, zodars are immune to all 'attacks' except those made by bludgeoning weapons. I'm going to assume this covers weapon and spell attacks, but not something like, say, Fireball.

Offensively, a zodar primarily relies on its two slams. It can also grapple foes (using regular grapple attacks, making this perhaps the first monster to actually rely on those) and then constrict them for a low amount of damage per turn. Furthermore, thrice per day it can double its strength for one round, which is a cool ability hamstrung by uses and poor base damage.

And finally, Zodars get a free (Su) Wish once per year. Even with this ridiculous usage cap, this breaks the game wide open, so an asterisk is definitely in order.

Sadly, with Wish gone all zodars have going for them are some ridiculous defenses, but without powerful AoOs, control abilities, or offensive presence it's hard to claim they will be very relevant in-combat. -0* LA.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Yeah, -0* LA is fine. Its defences are very impressive, but they can be emulated at a lower ECL (starmantle + ruin delver's fortune + friendly fire gets you pretty close) with just WBL, and then you'd actually be good at something besides not dying. Relying on grapples at this ECL is just insulting. I don't see what you'd do with a zodar, really. It's got so little.

Symbionts are definitely monsters. Bring it on!

[Efrate]

Also wanna see symbionts. -0* on Zodar. Though I think by RAW anything that forces a save or imposes a condition counts as an attack so they are super tough, but they just do not do anything other than kind of exist.

[Luccan]

The picture is definitely better, but the pose and general shape makes me think of something out of Zelda CD-i

LA -0* for the Wish-granting grapple-golem

Edit: whether we do Symbiont or not, was the next book decided upon yet?

[Blue Jay]

I like the yurian/crabman, but I'm not too keen on the 3rd edition name and artwork. I kind of like this artwork:

Spoiler: Crabman

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I agree with LA +0 for the yurian: it's good enough, and I'd like to try one sometime; but it's nothing particularly exciting, mechanics-wise.

The option to have one extra-big claw is unique. Potentially having 2 natural attacks with the same name, but different damage values, raises some mechanical questions for me. Like, do you have to treat the big claw and small claw as separate natural weapons? Or do they still count as two of a pair? Maybe the big claw is primary, and the small claw as secondary? Would "Improved Natural Attack (claw)" increase the big one to 2d6 and the little one to 1d8? Or, would you have to take "Improved Natural Attack (big claw)" and "Improved Natural Attack (small claw)" as separate feats? Admittedly minor questions, but they still bother me a bit.

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The zodar is just lame: I don't really have much to say about it, other than LA -0* for the zodar.

[Dalmosh]

Come on, you can't come all this way and not do Cerebral Hood and Ghostly Visage.

[Thurbane]

Agree with LA -0* for Zodar.

I'd be happy to see symbionts.

[danielxcutter]

I like the yurian/crabman, but I'm not too keen on the 3rd edition name and artwork. I kind of like this artwork:

Spoiler: Crabman

Show

I agree with LA +0 for the yurian: it's good enough, and I'd like to try one sometime; but it's nothing particularly exciting, mechanics-wise.

The option to have one extra-big claw is unique. Potentially having 2 natural attacks with the same name, but different damage values, raises some mechanical questions for me. Like, do you have to treat the big claw and small claw as separate natural weapons? Or do they still count as two of a pair? Maybe the big claw is primary, and the small claw as secondary? Would "Improved Natural Attack (claw)" increase the big one to 2d6 and the little one to 1d8? Or, would you have to take "Improved Natural Attack (big claw)" and "Improved Natural Attack (small claw)" as separate feats? Admittedly minor questions, but they still bother me a bit.

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The zodar is just lame: I don't really have much to say about it, other than LA -0* for the zodar.

Pssst, image doesn’t work.

[Thurbane]

Pssst, image doesn’t work.

Does for me?

[danielxcutter]

Well that's weird. It didn't work on mobile for me, at least. Does now on laptop though.

[liquidformat]

-0* for Zodar, also isn't that the name of a power rangers bad guy?

Put me down for the symbionts as well, also have we decided on the next book? I am still voting for DMGII!

[danielxcutter]

-0* for Zodar, also isn't that the name of a power rangers bad guy?

Put me down for the symbionts as well, also have we decided on the next book? I am still voting for DMGII!

Google says no apparently.

[liquidformat]

Google says no apparently.

Hmm guess I was thinking Zordon? Anyways feel like Zodar was used in some cartoon or show...

[Inevitability]

Hmm guess I was thinking Zordon? Anyways feel like Zodar was used in some cartoon or show...

I'm reminded of Zardoz, myself.

[unseenmage]

Hm, guess the real lesson here is that 'Z' names are evil?