LA Assignment Thread X: New Year, New Management, Same Old Unplayable Monsters

[Thurbane]

I'm happy to call this LA +1*. It's too good for LA +0, and the asterisk is for self-stacking.

Maybe a DM could call it LA +1 for the first application, then +1 for each additional two instances? (i.e. +1 at 1, +2 at 3, +3 at 5 etc.)?

[Tzardok]

I'm happy to call this LA +1*. It's too good for LA +0, and the asterisk is for self-stacking.

Maybe a DM could call it LA +1 for the first application, then +1 for each additional two instances? (i.e. +1 at 1, +2 at 3, +3 at 5 etc.)?

In other words, LA +1 on odd instances, LA +0 on even ones? Doesn't even need an asterisk, just a variable.

[AvatarVecna]

It may be because I have next to no experience with rating things, but I don't exactly see why the stacking is a problem. I mean, everything it gives (and it doesn't give a lot) stacks with itself. So why don't we just put a LA on the first iteration and apply it again and again whenever a new iteration is used?

Because each level is more valuable than the last, and thus abilities that were worth a level previously are no longer worth a level when taken the very next level. Even if we all agreed that taking this a single time was always worth a single level, we'd almost certainly all agree that taking it a second time would not also be worth spending a second level to get.

Like...

Let's say that taking lvl 5 in a class is worth 2500 gp, and we all agree that taking this template (instead of taking lvl 5 in the class) is also worth 2500 gp. Taking this template a second time will obviously be worth 2500 gp again, but the issue is that taking lvl 6 in the class would've been worth 3600 gp instead, so compared to where we could've been, we're getting ripped off, we're 1100 gp in value behind where we should be.

[Unavenger]

Because each level is more valuable than the last, and thus abilities that were worth a level previously are no longer worth a level when taken the very next level.

This is also, incidentally, why LA is silly in general, because it always takes your top level, whether that's your level that would have given you second-level spells or your level that would have given you ninth-level spells, and the stuff that you get in return doesn't generally scale in the same sense.

[AvatarVecna]

This is also, incidentally, why LA is silly in general, because it always takes your top level, whether that's your level that would have given you second-level spells or your level that would have given you ninth-level spells, and the stuff that you get in return doesn't generally scale in the same sense.

Indeed. This is generally why Saint is considered one of the "good" templates - because a lot of what it gives you scales with level.

[Blue Jay]

I'm going to vote LA +1 for Evolved Undead. As an evolutionary biologist, I despise this use of the word "evolved," and I really want to hate the template for that reason alone; but it's a fairly solid template, and I regularly seek it out for undead characters. I don't think the asterisk is necessary for this. I also don't think any kind of dynamic LA is a good idea either: it should just get a static LA, like all the other monsters have gotten. I feel like the law of diminishing returns is a good mechanism for naturally regulating something that self-stacks like this template does.

[Prime32]

What about formatting the entry like "+1 (applied once), +2 (total LA if applied 2-3 times), +3 (total LA if applied 4-6 times)"?

This strikes me as a place where it would have been easy to grant +1 turn resistance each time the template is taken, plus maybe Toughness as a bonus feat, which would have smoothed out the issues of template-stacking at least a little. Going the Primordial Giant route of a universal +1 CL bonus would also have let more SLA options come online.

[liquidformat]

What about formatting the entry like "+1 (applied once), +2 (total LA if applied 2-3 times), +3 (total LA if applied 4-6 times)"?

This strikes me as a place where it would have been easy to grant +1 turn resistance each time the template is taken, plus maybe Toughness as a bonus feat, which would have smoothed out the issues of template-stacking at least a little. Going the Primordial Giant route of a universal +1 CL bonus would also have let more SLA options come online.

yeah that is why I thought +1 then +.5 after that was a good option. I do agree adding in toughness and turn res would be nice on this template.

[jindra34]

I'm going to vote LA +1 for Evolved Undead. As an evolutionary biologist, I despise this use of the word "evolved," and I really want to hate the template for that reason alone; but it's a fairly solid template, and I regularly seek it out for undead characters. I don't think the asterisk is necessary for this. I also don't think any kind of dynamic LA is a good idea either: it should just get a static LA, like all the other monsters have gotten. I feel like the law of diminishing returns is a good mechanism for naturally regulating something that self-stacks like this template does.

The issue is that as a goal, we are rating this for play, which means we have to somehow represent diminishing returns on the stacking template as opposed to doing the WotC thing of being punitive to the concept of the player doing something.
Also given that you can't have a spell-like before level 3 because they all have too high a minimum caster level, issues. I'm fine with either La +0 or +1 for the first level, and it definitely deserves an * for the stacking and weird assessment there of.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I'm fine with +1. Really, stacking one template multiple times isn't that different from stacking that one template with other templates; you get diminishing returns the more templates you add relative to your HD. That's a fact of the system, not unique to self-stacking templates, and I don't think it needs an asterisk.

[Prime32]

I'm fine with +1. Really, stacking one template multiple times isn't that different from stacking that one template with other templates; you get diminishing returns the more templates you add relative to your HD. That's a fact of the system, not unique to self-stacking templates, and I don't think it needs an asterisk.

I'd argue that there's a conceptual difference at least. There's a big difference between being a half-dragon half-troll half-elf, and adding slightly further to a trait you already have. Evolved undead outright encourages you to combine it with itself, whereas most templates frown on combining with other templates, if only because the result is likely to be unfocused and weird. It's like the multiheaded template that way, where you can keep adding more heads.
EDIT: Also, while picking up templates with higher LAs mid-game can throw off the party level balance, an LA +1 template like evolved undead is easy to pick up in place of a level up, making it more appealing as a means of advancement instead of just something you add during character creation (never mind that "advancement" is what it's outright fluffed as).

[Caelestion]

It's clearly far too powerful to be a +0 template, so I'll say LA +1*.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Its Master of the Scythe ability lets it wield scythes one size category larger than normal. No word on whether this stacks with anything.

On a related note, why do specifically scythes get this kind of property applied to them so often? I mean, it's just a few monsters, but I don't think I've ever seen a monster that can wield (say) specifically greatswords or specifically whips that are a size category larger.

It also "attacks blindly, unable to tell friend from foe". Note that they are not actually compelled to attack anything. That, or there's a dysfunction here with the next paragraph.

...During this entropic state, the victim cannot cast spells or use magic items, and it attacks blindly, unable to distinguish friend from foe (–4 penalty on attack rolls and a 50% miss chance, regardless of the attack roll). Each round spent in this entropic state, the victim takes 1 point of Wisdom drain from mental shock. If the victim’s Wisdom score falls to 0, it discorporates into nothingness.
A victim can gain control over itself by taking a standard action to attempt a DC 21 Charisma check. Success renders the victim immune from the entropic state for 1 minute. On a failure, the victim can still repeat this check each round until successful. The entropic state is not a disease or a curse, so it is hard to remove. A shapechange or stoneskin spell does not cure an affl icted creature but fixes its state for the duration of the spell. A restoration, heal, or greater restoration spell removes the affliction (though a separate restoration is necessary to restore any drained points of Wisdom). The save DC is Charisma-based.

My read is that you attack blindly unless you make the Charisma check. I'm not sure where the dysfunction comes in.

Also, can we talk about how this is basically just a slightly less debilitating form of the chaos beast's curse? The only advantages it has over the chaos beast are its higher save DC (by six points, for a monster 5 CR/11 HD higher) and that it's a rider on an attack that deals more damage than a thug's dagger, and arguably that you don't spawn a potentially hostile monster whenever something succumbs to it. On the other hand, the victim doesn't get the Dexterity penalty for bulky clothes or the speed penalty from mushy limbs.

I know this doesn't and shouldn't factor into anybody's scores, but this thing gets absurd in gestalt. Fighter, Paladin, or Cleric on the other side will just demolish.

Much as I love the image of a Grim Reaper paladin culling evil with a weapon made of chaos and pain, I'm not convinced that it would be better than gestalting (say) a paladin/cleric. Or a paladin/crusader, if you're averse to the obvious 9th-level spell issue. (And don't get me started on how cleric would probably pair better with something like druid...)

This template can actually be applied more than once. Every hundred years of its existence, an intelligent Undead has a 1% chance to Evolve. This chance increases by 1% for every time it has already done so.

Part of me wants to run an analysis on what we might expect populations of undead to look like after a while—how long and how many undead we'd need to expect a high-level evolved undead—but it's pretty obvious that you'd either need entire nations of undead or timelines that dwarf the already silly timelines present in many fantasy settings. A 1% chance every century is too low. The cumulative nature of evolved undead is a neat idea, but it accumulates too slowly.

In addition to some extra AC and ability scores, an Evolved Undead gains Fast Healing 3 and a once per day Spell-Like Ability from a list.

A disappointingly short list. I've got a couple ideas for how it could be made more interesting, but that's not what this thread is for.

I'm having difficulty imagining a cost that is appropriate for this template regardless of how many times you take it. It's too much for +0 and too little for +1.

Agreed. The fast healing is nice (especially in parties without ready access to negative energy), and the little numerical bonuses are also nice, but they just don't amount to much. A +1 here, a +1 there, a little bit less logistical effort needed for healing. The SLAs are a nice touch, but being able to cast a level-appropriate spell once a day isn't going to change much for a PC.

As an evolutionary biologist, I despise this use of the word "evolved," and I really want to hate the template for that reason alone...

Oh cool, it's not just me.

I'd argue that there's a conceptual difference at least. There's a big difference between being a half-dragon half-troll half-elf, and adding slightly further to a trait you already have. Evolved undead outright encourages you to combine it with itself, whereas most templates frown on combining with other templates, if only because the result is likely to be unfocused and weird. It's like the multiheaded template that way, where you can keep adding more heads.

Also, most templates don't make much sense to stack. You are not forbidden from applying the celestial template to a celestial viper, for instance (or the fiendish template, for that matter), but it doesn't make much sense. Celestial animals are denizens of an outer plane who resemble mortal animals; are celestial celestial animals denizens of the outer planes who resemble denizens of different outer planes? Evolved Undead is different, in that it not only makes sense to stack (it's an undead with even more age and power), but that you're explicitly told you can.


My vote is +1 every odd application, which is mathematically equivalent to "+1 for the first time and +0.5 after that" but worded more snappily. Straight +0.5 is a little too cheap, especially at low levels (e.g. fast healing 6 is a lot stronger if most monsters deal less than a dozen points of damage per round), but straight +1 feels too expensive.

[Tzardok]

On a related note, why do specifically scythes get this kind of property applied to them so often? I mean, it's just a few monsters, but I don't think I've ever seen a monster that can wield (say) specifically greatswords or specifically whips that are a size category larger.

Most likely it has to do with the fact that scythes are so iconic evil weapons. Lots of antagonist scythe users mean the chances that a specialist scythe user with "bigger weapon" are higher than with whips, for example, especially as the whip's associations (slavedriver/bully, dominatrix) differ from the scythe's and don't quite lend themselves to "I have a very big weapon".

[GreatWyrmGold]

Most likely it has to do with the fact that scythes are so iconic evil weapons. Lots of antagonist scythe users mean the chances that a specialist scythe user with "bigger weapon" are higher than with whips, for example, especially as the whip's associations (slavedriver/bully, dominatrix) differ from the scythe's and don't quite lend themselves to "I have a very big weapon".

True. But the same isn't true of swords, axes, or hammers—those are also iconic weapons, and often grossly oversized. Ridiculously huge swords are the most infamous, of course, but axes and hammers with heads bigger than their wielders' are pretty common too.

[danielxcutter]

Well Titans and Storm Giants have oversized weapon thingies, though in the former case I’d probably just switch that “oversized warhammer” with a maul and call it a day.

[Tzardok]

True. But the same isn't true of swords, axes, or hammers—those are also iconic weapons, and often grossly oversized. Ridiculously huge swords are the most infamous, of course, but axes and hammers with heads bigger than their wielders' are pretty common too.

Well, for one those weapons are "normal" in a way scythes aren't, so their wielders fall, like danielxcutter mentioned, more into the category of "I have big weapons in general". For another those weapons are associated with protagonists, which scythes generally, again, aren't, and protagonists in D&D have other iconic "I am brute" abilities. (Of course, it would make the whole thing a bit more anime-esque if fighters and barbarians would get Oversized Weapons as a class feature.)

At least, that's how I explain it for myself.

[Debatra]

I don't think I'm ready to call it yet because there's still some decent discussion going on (though some of that discussion has strayed to the thematics of oversized weapons), but here's the tally so far.

Asterisks are for the stacking feature unless otherwise mentioned.
+1* - NotInventedHere, AvatarVecna, Thurbane, Caelestion,
+0* - Remuko, No brains,
+1* or +0* - jindra34

+1 for the first, +0.5 for future iterations - liquidformat, GreatWyrmGold, Tzardok, Falontani, TiaC
+1 - Blue Jay, PoeticallyPsyco
+1 if applied once, +2 if applied 2-3 times, +3 if applied 4-6 times - Prime32

So if it were called now, it would barely tie thanks to jindra's either/or vote, with the asterisk being the self-stacking. If I had to make a tiebreaker here and now, the call would be +1*. However, I am still uncertain.

As for the asterisk itself, that's seven votes for, eight against. (And as mentioned, only two of the voters seem to think it should stack linearly if there's no asterisk.)

Edited for the below discussion, up to post #628.

[Tzardok]

I add my vote to "+1 for the first, +0.5 for future iterations".

[No brains]

If I'm understanding evolved undead right, in a statistically perfect world, this is what happens.

First application of template after 10,000 years.
Second application after 5,000 years.
Third after 3,300 or so years.
Fourth, 2,500.
Fifth 2,000.
and so on.

That's many thousand years, but it's possible for players to exploit that right? If I'm not mistaken, there are spells, powers, and places that make it so that a PC can choose to while away millennia to coalesce power. If that is the case, what's the optimal choice for the player and what's the best LA call based on that? If it takes 9th-level spells to do this, then no LA is really needed since the game breaks there anyway. But an evolved undead time prison can be done with lower-level spells, then we may want to consider that an undead PC can choose to get these as soon as possible.

Other templates are one-time deals or require costly rituals like the half-construct incarnate construct loop. This one is basically free if a character can hide long enough.

[AvatarVecna]

I think the scythe thing is because all things being equal, it's generally.more optimal to use a greatsword, and 99% of peope who can use one use the other, so the designers shove in a free scythe upgrade that spuldn't apply to greatsword so that you use the weapon you're supposed to.

[Falontani]

I don't think I'm ready to call it yet because there's still some decent discussion going on (though some of that discussion has strayed to the thematics of oversized weapons), but here's the tally so far.

Asterisks are for the stacking feature unless otherwise mentioned.
+1* - NotInventedHere, AvatarVecna, Thurbane, Caelestion,
+0* - Remuko, No brains,
+1* or +0* - jindra34

+1 for the first, +0.5 for future iterations - liquidformat, GreatWyrmGold, Tzardok
+0.5 - Falontani
+1 - Blue Jay, PoeticallyPsyco
+1 if applied once, +2 if applied 2-3 times, +3 if applied 4-6 times - Prime32

So if it were called now, it would be +1*, with the asterisk being the self-stacking.

Just want to point out that:
LA +.5 rounded up and LA +1 for the first and .5 for future iterations are identical.

.5 (1) 1 (1) 1.5 (2) 2 (2)
vs
1 (1) 1.5 (1) 2 (2) 2.5 (2)
unless half an LA rounds up for liquid, GWG, and Tzardok.

That said, to streamline voting I will change my vote to LA +1 for the first, +0.5 for future iterations

[GreatWyrmGold]

I don't think I'm ready to call it yet because there's still some decent discussion going on (though some of that discussion has strayed to the thematics of oversized weapons), but here's the tally so far.

Asterisks are for the stacking feature unless otherwise mentioned.
+1* - NotInventedHere, AvatarVecna, Thurbane, Caelestion,
+0* - Remuko, No brains,
+1* or +0* - jindra34

+1 for the first, +0.5 for future iterations - liquidformat, GreatWyrmGold, Tzardok
+0.5 - Falontani
+1 - Blue Jay, PoeticallyPsyco
+1 if applied once, +2 if applied 2-3 times, +3 if applied 4-6 times - Prime32

So if it were called now, it would be +1*, with the asterisk being the self-stacking.

As of this tally, exactly half the voters think the template shouldn't stack, and just over a third think the LA shouldn't rise linearly with the stacking.

If I'm understanding evolved undead right, in a statistically perfect world, this is what happens.

First application of template after 10,000 years.
Second application after 5,000 years.
Third after 3,300 or so years.
Fourth, 2,500.
Fifth 2,000.
and so on.

You understand the template, but not the statistics. If you roll a d% 70 times, you would have slightly more than a 50% chance of rolling a 100 at least once during that time. (The odds are closer to 50% with one less roll, but...you know.) The odds of not evolving each years are 99%; 0.99^70 ~= 0.5. And obviously, the odds of rolling at least one 100 is equal to one minus the odds of not rolling any 100's.
So you're looking at closer to 7,000 years for the first evolution. By the same logic, you'd expect the second about 3,400 years after the first, the third in about 2,300, the fourth ~1,700 years after that, the fifth after ~1,300, etc.

There are a bunch of reasons this annoys me. First off, even seven thousand years is frankly ridiculous. Second, the durations get shorter, meaning undead who get powerful get more powerful faster, but not faster enough to be particularly meaningful—especially since they get this power spontaneously, not by taking a measure of power from each of their underlings or something. This means that a vampire which was alive for 20,000 or 100,000 years would, by the math, be ridiculously stronger than one just 10-15,000 years old. Practically speaking, that puts evolved undead into a very narrow plausible age range, and that's disappointing.
If I were writing the fluff for the Evolved Undead today, I'd probably rewrite it as an Undead Lord template, applied once for having at least ~10 undead in some kind of magical bondage (as in servitude enforced by some dark ritual, not enchanted BDSM gear), and a second time for...I'm not sure if I'd go for another order of magnitude, or having ~10 undead lords serving you. When I was younger and less drawn to worldbuilding that could act as a metaphor for society, I'd probably have gone with one level after a century, two after a millennium, etc; that way, your 10,000-year-old vampire would be stronger than your 2,000-year-old vampire, without either of them completely breaking the game.

Just want to point out that:
LA +.5 rounded up and LA +1 for the first and .5 for future iterations are identical.

They're identical on odd numbers, yes. But they're only identical on even numbers if you assume that the 0.5's left over would round down.

[No brains]

As of this tally, exactly half the voters think the template shouldn't stack, and just over a third think the LA shouldn't rise linearly with the stacking.



You understand the template, but not the statistics. If you roll a d% 70 times, you would have slightly more than a 50% chance of rolling a 100 at least once during that time. (The odds are closer to 50% with one less roll, but...you know.) The odds of not evolving each years are 99%; 0.99^70 ~= 0.5. And obviously, the odds of rolling at least one 100 is equal to one minus the odds of not rolling any 100's.
So you're looking at closer to 7,000 years for the first evolution. By the same logic, you'd expect the second about 3,400 years after the first, the third in about 2,300, the fourth ~1,700 years after that, the fifth after ~1,300, etc.

There are a bunch of reasons this annoys me. First off, even seven thousand years is frankly ridiculous. Second, the durations get shorter, meaning undead who get powerful get more powerful faster, but not faster enough to be particularly meaningful—especially since they get this power spontaneously, not by taking a measure of power from each of their underlings or something. This means that a vampire which was alive for 20,000 or 100,000 years would, by the math, be ridiculously stronger than one just 10-15,000 years old. Practically speaking, that puts evolved undead into a very narrow plausible age range, and that's disappointing.
If I were writing the fluff for the Evolved Undead today, I'd probably rewrite it as an Undead Lord template, applied once for having at least ~10 undead in some kind of magical bondage (as in servitude enforced by some dark ritual, not enchanted BDSM gear), and a second time for...I'm not sure if I'd go for another order of magnitude, or having ~10 undead lords serving you. When I was younger and less drawn to worldbuilding that could act as a metaphor for society, I'd probably have gone with one level after a century, two after a millennium, etc; that way, your 10,000-year-old vampire would be stronger than your 2,000-year-old vampire, without either of them completely breaking the game.



They're identical on odd numbers, yes. But they're only identical on even numbers if you assume that the 0.5's left over would round down.

Thanks for checking the math. With those timetables, maybe the evolved undead could instead be a metaphor for a civilization. People have been living in some places for over ten thousand years and maybe they do have some 'spirit' drawing them to that spot.

Nobody has any ideas on how to game this? Am I barking up the wrong tree? I just find it odd that there's some uncapped way to accrue power for doing nothing but existing. There has to be some silly way to just exist for a stupidly long time. Maybe with Imprisonment?

[Debatra]

They're identical on odd numbers, yes. But they're only identical on even numbers if you assume that the 0.5's left over would round down.

To be fair, D&D always rounds down unless specified.

Nobody has any ideas on how to game this? Am I barking up the wrong tree? I just find it odd that there's some uncapped way to accrue power for doing nothing but existing. There has to be some silly way to just exist for a stupidly long time. Maybe with Imprisonment?

Yeah, it would surprise me if there wasn't.

[danielxcutter]

Accelerated time planes?

[TiaC]

I will also throw my vote in for "+1 for the first, +0.5 for future iterations".

[Falontani]

They're identical on odd numbers, yes. But they're only identical on even numbers if you assume that the 0.5's left over would round down.

Don't most things in the game round down?

[AvatarVecna]

As far as evolved undead time frames go, I kinda think the percentages should be reversed. The way it currently exists, if you get to Evolved Undead 99, then every 100 years thereafter, you're guaranteed another evolution. There's no upper limit to how many times Evolved Undead can be applied. If the percentages went the other direction (starting at 100%, and then -1% per evolution already possessed), then you would have undead that have been around for awhile growing gradually more powerful with the centuries, but with every passing century it slows down slightly. Eventually, that final evolution will take ~7000 years to achieve, and at that point, you're as powerful as you can get via this method - you've drained as much as you can out of the negative energy plane via the "just wait around unliving for along time" and now you've gotta actually work for your upgrades.

[danielxcutter]

Don't most things in the game round down?

Eh, mostly, but this being 3.5e it’s hard to call that consistent either. Look at the Eldritch Giant Confessor’s CR.