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

[TiaC]

I think Entomb doesn't work on flying enemies, which weakens it a lot for the levels you'll be able to play this at.

[remetagross]

Is it possible for an entomber to repeatedly entomb itself so that it can tunnel downward quickly?

MAN can I sig this ?

This is the kind of nonsense I come on these forums to read and rejoice about

@MorphicTide do you have a strong backing for affirming that Entomb will be triggered by any Strike conveyed through the slam attack?

[AvatarVecna]

MAN can I sig this ?

This is the kind of nonsense I come on these forums to read and rejoice about

@MorphicTide do you have a strong backing for affirming that Entomb will be triggered by any Strike conveyed through the slam attack?

Relevant quotes:

Entomb (Su): Whenever an entomber succeeds on a slam attack, it can attempt to entomb its foe.

Strike: A strike is a maneuver that allows a special attack. A warblade who delivers a single blow that slays an ogre is using a strike. A strike imparts some advantage or bonus over a standard attack, such as extra damage, an additional effect such as blinding a foe, and so forth.

Strikes almost always require a standard or full-round action to complete. Most of them involve a melee attack as part of completing the maneuver. If the attack hits, your opponent typically takes normal melee damage, as well as suffering the effect of the strike. When making a strike, you use your base attack bonus, all attack and damage modifiers, weapon damage, and so forth, as normal. You can make a critical hit with a strike, and in a few cases, a critical hit grants you additional benefits. You do not multiply extra damage from a strike with a successful critical hit. You treat it just as you would extra damage from another special ability, such as sneak attack.

Because strikes allow for a specific form of attack, you cannot benefit from spells or effects that grant you extra attacks when making a strike (such as the haste spell or a speed weapon). You are not taking a full attack action when you initiate a strike, even if its initiation action is 1 full-round action. In addition, you cannot combine special attacks such as sunder or bull rush with strikes, even if you have feats that make such special attacks more potent. However, some strikes enable you to make special attacks as part of their initiation; see the specific maneuver descriptions in Chapter 4 for details.

So a "Strike" isn't mechanically separate from making an attack, it's a particular kind of attack that has something additional happen. The last section looks like it might not allow the combo, but my reading is that the last paragraph is about full attacks where you make trips instead of attacks or something, and that it still allows for something like...if you have the Knockdown feat, and your Strike deals enough damage, you should still get a free trip attempt. Similarly, since a Strike is an attack, if you're making a Strike using your slam, then you succeeded on a slam attack, and thus Entomb should trigger.

However, I'm also a bit of a ToB newb so I'd need an additional question clarified: I vaguely recall that particular weapons are associated with each 'school' of maneuvers, and I don't think any of them were natural weapons except for unarmed strike. So if using maneuvers from a particular 'school' of maneuvers requires a weapon associated with that school, then I don't think you can use Strikes with a natural weapon. If somebody could clarify either way, that'd be helpful to me.

[danielxcutter]

Nah, the associated weapon thing is mostly fluff aside a couple of feats. Entomb would still activate on a strike using a slam attack.

[No brains]

MAN can I sig this ?

This is the kind of nonsense I come on these forums to read and rejoice about

@MorphicTide do you have a strong backing for affirming that Entomb will be triggered by any Strike conveyed through the slam attack?

Sure! Glad to have brightened your day!

The nonsense really is where it's at for me.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

False; undead really can’t use Incarnum as well as living creatures.

Undead can't use many Incarnum feats, true, but that's honestly not a big deal. Missing out on the higher chakra binds sucks, sure, but even just the totem chakra (and assorted unbound soulmelds) is well worth a two level dip. Is it as good as it would be for a living character? No. But it still fills in gaps in the build, which was my point. An Entomber 8/Totemist 2/Crusader 1 stands up well next to a Warlock 11 (who is just getting their own save-or-lose).

[danielxcutter]

Undead can't use many Incarnum feats, true, but that's honestly not a big deal. Missing out on the higher chakra binds sucks, sure, but even just the totem chakra (and assorted unbound soulmelds) is well worth a two level dip. Is it as good as it would be for a living character? No. But it still fills in gaps in the build, which was my point. An Entomber 8/Totemist 2/Crusader 1 stands up well next to a Warlock 11 (who is just getting their own save-or-lose).

You can't shape soulmelds at ALL without Undead Meldshaper, and that does not actually allow you to take Incarnum feats.

Plus you could have been a full Crusader or Totemist. An ogre probably has comparable damage and three times the hit points at that level.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

You can't shape soulmelds at ALL without Undead Meldshaper, and that does not actually allow you to take Incarnum feats.

That's true, but I wasn't trying to argue you could. My point is that you don't need incarnum feats for it to be a worthwhile investment. The fact that you can't take them is moot if you weren't going to focus fully on incarnum anyway.

You could, of course, go full ToB. I'm merely pointing out that dipping incarnum is also an option.

[danielxcutter]

Honestly I still think Incarnum is a horrible example in general. Maybe ToB, but not that.

[Morphic tide]

You can't shape soulmelds at ALL without Undead Meldshaper, and that does not actually allow you to take Incarnum feats.

Plus you could have been a full Crusader or Totemist. An ogre probably has comparable damage and three times the hit points at that level.

Correction, you can't take most Incarnum feats. Split Chakra and Dual Chakra seem to be oddly still available from lacking a Con prerequisite, meaning you can still get the basics covered perfectly well... If you can meet the Meldshaper level requirement. Which is kinda terrible because Totemist does vanishingly little for your Slam attack, which too much of your power is tied up in, unless you abuse the everliving hell out of Dual Chakra to apply that +6 damage bonus from Strength a ridiculous number of times on a regular basis, which is actually the exact opposite of what the Entomber is doing.

Much better to compare to a Crusader or Swordsage. Former directly makes up for your weaknesses quite bluntly, latter gives you even more stupid Armor Class with a Touch AC bonus and lets you compare Setting Sun with Entomb for battlefield control.

[Falontani]

Correction, you can't take most Incarnum feats. Split Chakra and Dual Chakra seem to be oddly still available from lacking a Con prerequisite, meaning you can still get the basics covered perfectly well... If you can meet the Meldshaper level requirement. Which is kinda terrible because Totemist does vanishingly little for your Slam attack, which too much of your power is tied up in, unless you abuse the everliving hell out of Dual Chakra to apply that +6 damage bonus from Strength a ridiculous number of times on a regular basis, which is actually the exact opposite of what the Entomber is doing.

Much better to compare to a Crusader or Swordsage. Former directly makes up for your weaknesses quite bluntly, latter gives you even more stupid Armor Class with a Touch AC bonus and lets you compare Setting Sun with Entomb for battlefield control.

Get large size, and all of your "armlike limbs" now can make slam attacks. Girralon Arms grant 4 claw attacks, and describe growing 4 arms with claws on them. Sounds like you now have 6 "armlike limbs" to make slam attacks out of.

[Debatra]

Get large size, and all of your "armlike limbs" now can make slam attacks. Girralon Arms grant 4 claw attacks, and describe growing 4 arms with claws on them. Sounds like you now have 6 "armlike limbs" to make slam attacks out of.

For those wondering about the Entomber's natural advancement, you don't get Large size natively until 17 HD. But of course there are far better ways.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Entomb doesn't actually say how deep you are putting said creature underground beyond shallow grave which is technically anything under 6' deep.

D&D breaks space into five-foot increments, so we can probably assume five feet a pop. Still, even if it's only one or two, being able to move down 10-20 feet per minute isn't nothing—it's way faster than humans can dig. I have no idea what problem that would solve, but it would solve it better than a noncaster human.

You can't shape soulmelds at ALL without Undead Meldshaper, and that does not actually allow you to take Incarnum feats.

To my surprise, characters without Constitution scores aren't very good as Con-based classes.

Get large size, and all of your "armlike limbs" now can make slam attacks. Girralon Arms grant 4 claw attacks, and describe growing 4 arms with claws on them. Sounds like you now have 6 "armlike limbs" to make slam attacks out of.

Are we sure it works this way? I was under the impression that the "Large+ creatures have one slam per armlike limb" was descriptive rather than prescriptive—ie, it's describing how monsters are designed, not saying that creatures automatically get extra slams when they get big enough. Are there documented examples of creatures getting extra slams when sizing up in any WotC books?

[liquidformat]

D&D breaks space into five-foot increments, so we can probably assume five feet a pop. Still, even if it's only one or two, being able to move down 10-20 feet per minute isn't nothing—it's way faster than humans can dig. I have no idea what problem that would solve, but it would solve it better than a noncaster human.

It already has a burrow speed of 10 ft. I suppose you could from a fluff perspective say their burrow speed is a variant use of entomb; however, I would rather move 10' as a move action than 5' as a standard action so I think the whole question is moot.

[GreatWyrmGold]

It already has a burrow speed of 10 ft.

Oh, right. I guess that means self-Entomb's only purpose would be humor. Which is a valid purpose, but not one that could conceivably affect level adjustment.

[No brains]

It already has a burrow speed of 10 ft. I suppose you could from a fluff perspective say their burrow speed is a variant use of entomb; however, I would rather move 10' as a move action than 5' as a standard action so I think the whole question is moot.

Oh, right. I guess that means self-Entomb's only purpose would be humor. Which is a valid purpose, but not one that could conceivably affect level adjustment.

I suppose it's theoretically possible to give an entomber more attacks than it has squares of movement. If it could get 3 good slams in a turn, it could burrow 10 feet and then self-entomb another 15(?) feet.

[danielxcutter]

I would honestly be happier with the burrow speed being related to Entomb if Entomb wasn't (Su) and the burrow speed is probably (Ex).

[Debatra]

Even with one or two borderline votes, the vote is +0 by a wide margin. Entropic Reaper coming up.

[Debatra]

Entropic Reaper

Size & Type: Medium Undead (Extraplanar, Chaotic)
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
HD: 19 - Well, we've had a few high-HD monsters in this book that were surprisingly playable. Let's see. At least it's not Epic.
Speed: 30'
Ability Scores: Str +18, Dex +4, Con -, Int +0, Wis +10, Cha +4 - Net 36, no penalties
Natural Armor: 8
Natural Weapons: N/A
Skill List: Concentration, K: Planes, Listen, Spot
Body Shape: Humanoid
Speech (Languages): Common, Abyssal, Celestial
CR: 12 ...Okay, probably not then.
WotC LA: -
Our LA: -0

The chasis is decent. Solid ability scores, Fast Healing 10, and DR 10/cold iron and lawful. Spell Resistance 22 is basically irrelevant. It can cast Plane Shift once per day. Its Master of the Scythe ability lets it wield scythes one size category larger than normal. No word on whether this stacks with anything. Any scythe it wields is also treated as having the Mighty Cleaving property.

Entropic Blade on the other hand, applies to any weapon the Reaper wields. On every hit, the target must make a Charisma-based Fortitude save or enter an entropic state in which its form "melts, flows, writhes, and boils". In this state, the victim can't cast spells or "use magic items". 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. Either way, it takes a -4 to attacks and suffers a 50% miss chance. Every round spent in this state deals a point of Wisdom drain. If they hit zero, they fade to nothing. There is no listed duration, so it's presumably permanent until cured/death.

Victims can take a standard action to attempt a Charisma check with the same DC as the initial save. On a success, they become immune to the Entropic State for one minute. On failure, they can still try again until they succeed. This is specifically not a disease or curse, so the things that deal with those are ineffective. Shapechange or Stoneskin won't cure it, but will suppress the effects for as long as the spells remain. Heal, Restoration, or Greater Restoration will cure it, though you'll need another Restoration for the Wisdom drain.

This could be interesting at its CR, but you need a lot more to keep up at level twenty.

[Morphic tide]

So, realistically, the question we need to ask is "Can we make this work with good feat selection?" And at DC... What, 25 tops? Yeah, that's not getting past many Fortitude saves at 20. And being de-facto stuck with a Large Scythe almost forces you into crit-fishing, which is normally a subset of two-weapon fighting and focuses on threat range for obvious reasons, and you don't have the BAB for that. You can't even really do Swordsage properly because that AC bonus is at level 2, so you lose AC compared to the standard character of that build (well, okay, provided they decide to become a 30+ Wisdom absurdity). LA -0 easily because you have no good hooks for feats and can't turn anything good on with your one pre-Epic class level.

[Efrate]

Easy -0 . It doesn't do near enough at level 19.

[AvatarVecna]

BAB +9 and Str +18 at lvl 19. Human Fighter 19 who has the same base Str score as you will have a better attack bonus. Granted, -1 attack for a huge damage bonus isn't the worst tradeoff but...

BAB +9 at lvl 19 means no third iterative no matter what you do, so while your Damage Per Attack is higher than that Human Fighter would have, your Damage Per Round will almost certainly be lower.

SR 22 at lvl 19 is meaningless. Fast Healing 10 means you won't need healing in between battles, but even that much isn't enough to truly save you from rocket tag, and your undead HP isn't great.

Entropic Blade favors making as many attacks as possible, probably via Dual-Wielding. Master Of The Scythe and Str +18/Dex +4 heavily favors wielding one big weapon. There's a single potential saving grace here: the Entropic Reaper has the HD necessary to get 7 feats, and they have 7 feats listed. One of these is Whirlwind Attack, despite them not qualifying for it. If you can convince your DM to let you start with Whirlwind Attack without having to spend 5 feats getting it, and while still being allowed to dump your Int down low, that might make Whirlwind Attack worth using. It won't make Entropic Blade stronger against BBEG, but it's something?

Speaking of mistakes that might drastically change scoring if your DM decides they're not mistakes but are instead unmentioned mechanics: this guy has BAB +9 and Str 29, so why is scythe attack bonus +13? Where is this unmentioned -5 coming from? It's not nonproficiency - that'd be a -4. It's not from Oversized Weapon - that's a -2. It's not from both, that'd be a -6.

Somebody mentioned crit-fishing earlier. If you really wanted to do that with a scythe, it'd probably need to be with a Kaorti Resin Scythe. Additionally, it might behoove you to invest in things that improve the effective size of your weapon, since you're effectively getting one such upgrade for free.

Ultimately, despite how cool Entropic Blade is, I don't really see this being viable. Entropic Reaper Monk 1 will have Dex +4/Wis +10/NA +8, so pretty great AC, and monk will also give them an additional +2 to all saves, and the ability to flurry (so they'll be able to get a third attack by taking another attack penalty). Even then though, I'm not sure that the coolness of Entropic Blade would make up for getting so many fewer attacks than a monk 20 would get, or a Fighter 20. I think no matter how you build the Entropic Reaper up with feats, they're just not going to be as good as a Fighter 19 focused on his scythe. -0.

[danielxcutter]

BAB +9 and Str +18 at lvl 19. Human Fighter 19 who has the same base Str score as you will have a better attack bonus. Granted, -1 attack for a huge damage bonus isn't the worst tradeoff but...

BAB +9 at lvl 19 means no third iterative no matter what you do, so while your Damage Per Attack is higher than that Human Fighter would have, your Damage Per Round will almost certainly be lower.

And it's not too hard for a Fighter to invest in feats that would boost damage. I mean sure, Weapon Specialization et al. aren't that great, but it's not terribly hard to get much better at using a scythe as a Fighter than one of thee.

SR 22 at lvl 19 is meaningless. Fast Healing 10 means you won't need healing in between battles, but even that much isn't enough to truly save you from rocket tag, and your undead HP isn't great.

If you take that BoVD feat and that vest from the PHB2 you can get SR 29... but I doubt it's worth it even then.

Entropic Blade favors making as many attacks as possible, probably via Dual-Wielding. Master Of The Scythe and Str +18/Dex +4 heavily favors wielding one big weapon. There's a single potential saving grace here: the Entropic Reaper has the HD necessary to get 7 feats, and they have 7 feats listed. One of these is Whirlwind Attack, despite them not qualifying for it. If you can convince your DM to let you start with Whirlwind Attack without having to spend 5 feats getting it, and while still being allowed to dump your Int down low, that might make Whirlwind Attack worth using. It won't make Entropic Blade stronger against BBEG, but it's something?

I'm fairly sure that blasting spells are probably better at cleaning up mooks than that at this level.

Speaking of mistakes that might drastically change scoring if your DM decides they're not mistakes but are instead unmentioned mechanics: this guy has BAB +9 and Str 29, so why is scythe attack bonus +13? Where is this unmentioned -5 coming from? It's not nonproficiency - that'd be a -4. It's not from Oversized Weapon - that's a -2. It's not from both, that'd be a -6.

...You know, I was joking when I called this book the Book of Bad Editing, but... well, it's not as bad as Tome of Magic I guess?

Somebody mentioned crit-fishing earlier. If you really wanted to do that with a scythe, it'd probably need to be with a Kaorti Resin Scythe. Additionally, it might behoove you to invest in things that improve the effective size of your weapon, since you're effectively getting one such upgrade for free.

Kaotri Resin does jack squat for scythes. It just sets the critical multiplier to x4, which scythes are already atk. You're probably better off finding ways to increase your threat range than multiplier.

Ultimately, despite how cool Entropic Blade is, I don't really see this being viable. Entropic Reaper Monk 1 will have Dex +4/Wis +10/NA +8, so pretty great AC, and monk will also give them an additional +2 to all saves, and the ability to flurry (so they'll be able to get a third attack by taking another attack penalty). Even then though, I'm not sure that the coolness of Entropic Blade would make up for getting so many fewer attacks than a monk 20 would get, or a Fighter 20. I think no matter how you build the Entropic Reaper up with feats, they're just not going to be as good as a Fighter 19 focused on his scythe. -0.

Yeah, sounds about right.

[AvatarVecna]

And it's not too hard for a Fighter to invest in feats that would boost damage. I mean sure, Weapon Specialization et al. aren't that great, but it's not terribly hard to get much better at using a scythe as a Fighter than one of thee.



If you take that BoVD feat and that vest from the PHB2 you can get SR 29... but I doubt it's worth it even then.



I'm fairly sure that blasting spells are probably better at cleaning up mooks than that at this level.



...You know, I was joking when I called this book the Book of Bad Editing, but... well, it's not as bad as Tome of Magic I guess?



Kaotri Resin does jack squat for scythes. It just sets the critical multiplier to x4, which scythes are already atk. You're probably better off finding ways to increase your threat range than multiplier.



Yeah, sounds about right.

For soem reason I thought it gave the 18-20. So that can't combo with getting an oversized scythe, although it does make non-scythe weapons viable in comparison. Even then, crit-fishing to take advantage of your huge Str bonus is still crit-fishing, and crit-fishing isn't great cuz it gets shut down by a bunch of creature types and item properties.

EDIT: And I don't disagree that blasting spells are better for mook cleaning than Whirlwind Attack and/or Cleave. I'm just mentioning it because if you can get Whirlwind Attack for a single feat, that makes it miles better than it was, so your friendly neighborhood mage can save the 3rd lvl slots for stronger utilities instead of wasting them on Fireballs. But even then it's not great, just significantly less terrible.

[Debatra]

The misc -5 is from assuming it uses Power Attack, as noted by the asterisk. But then it doesn't even get that right, because it gives a -5 to attack and a +5 to damage with a two-handed weapon.

[danielxcutter]

So, how well do they fit the CR then? I suppose if they just get the feats listed on their statblocks and get the numerical errors fixed they'd do okay?

[AvatarVecna]

So, how well do they fit the CR then? I suppose if they just get the feats listed on their statblocks and get the numerical errors fixed they'd do okay?

For CR 12, they're doing great. +18 to-hit, Fast Healing 10, SR 22, DR 10/cold iron+lawful, plenty of HP, plenty of damage twice a round with the Entropic rider.

[H_H_F_F]

This thing is pretty damn scary for CR 12, IMO. I could see it getting CR 14 just fine. However, it's pretty irrelevant at ECL 19. There's no real way to utilize the huge Wis bonus for anything interesting, SR is too low to be a bother, and the titular ability is way too easy to save from.

I'd probably say the best thing to do is still maximize Charisma as much as possible to try and get something out of entropic blade, so maybe a marshal dip is the thing to do with your remaining level?

Still, even in low op groups, the reaper would be largely a nuisance. It was not designed to operate at these power levels. That's a -0 from me.

[AvatarVecna]

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.

[danielxcutter]

You sure? I mean I suppose it's not impossible, but gestalt doesn't help with your Con score and I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of other monsters who would benefit just as much if not even more than this.