Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Ssvaklor

Ssvaklors are dragon yuan-tis. How does that work exactly? Yuan-tis are a race reproducing exclusively with each other and by giving magic brewings to turn humans into Histachii. Dragons have nothing to do with any of these methods, and ssvaklors are not half-dragon yuan-tis anyway. Apparently they were "mingled with yuan-ti' the same way yuan-tis are humans mingled with snakes, which strongly implies that it's just the Sarrukhs' doing. And, well, considering the rest of their creations, let's say the ssvaklors are a bit disappointing.

- Medium Dragon with 15 RHD. Very high number of RHD for its size category. As often, Dragon is extremely good.
- +8 Str, +2 Dex, +14 Con, -2 Int, -2 Wis, +2 Cha, total +22, +11 NA. That's not actually too bad. Dragon with decent intelligence means lots of skills, and the rest is as usual for a dragon. Still very low overall for the number of RHD.
- 40ft land and swim, claw/claw/bite. Nice, but always a problem to not have hands.
- DR 10/Magic, SR 3+RHD, true dragon senses. Small upsides, but all upsides
- Weakish breath weapon (1d4 Con, 30ft cone), useless SLAs (entangle is decent, the rest is of no use), and a paralysis poison on your bite. The paralysing bite is good, but you have better things to do than use this breath weapon or your SLAs.


I'm left wanting for more here. It feels a bit too much like a filler monster with abilities added at random to fill a certain niche. All in all, dragon RHD are still good, and there's nothing particularly bad, except not having hands. Maybe 8 RHD, DLA-2? More RHD does help quite a bit, with better paralysis DC, better SR, better to-hit...

Greater Ssvaklor, 30 RHD: Man, they really had nothing in mind with this thing. They created a greater version just for the kick of giving it twice the number of RHD. It even gives us this piece of text:
"A greater ssvaklor is much larger and more physically imposing than its lesser version, being nearly twice its size. From nose to tail it is 16 feet long, and it weighs 400 pounds."

So, the first part is "It's bigger. It's bigger, because it's bigger." And the second part is "it's twice as long, and about three times as heavy", which means it's about two and a half times less dense than the lesser version.
Mechanically, it's Large, and gains the usual +8 Str and +4 Con, but also gains +2 Dex, +2 Wis and +9 Natural Armor. It's DR is now 15/Magic. It also gains +10ft speed, a new way to use its poison (as a ranged touch attack), an increase to its breath attack Con damage, and Animal Shapes as an SLA that works only to make snakes. All in all, a mechanically interesting greater version, if not a conceptually novel one. 12 RHD, DLA-12


Yep, that was boring. See you next time for the Stonesinger!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Stonesinger

Gosh, the stonesinger is such a hit to me. The design isn't just a chimera of animals, it's a weird creature that seems very unique and honestly makes me question how it can work evolution-wise. It has an interesting background (being mistaken for earth elementals and probably the descendants of outsiders from the Earth Plane having migrated long ago to the Material Plane). It has an interesting ecology being abolutely stellar to create an atmosphere in a real game (it eats fossilized creatures by encasing them in a stone coccoon and poisons them to transform them into a fossile, letting players come to rescue them and see a lair covered in coccooned and petrified creatures). Its atmosphere is improved again dramatically by how it lives: by singing. They love singing, and they love that people can appreciate their singing. Coccooned people are even often used as unwilling audience, making the lair even more creepy by addinga background opera song as the PCs progress through it. On top of that, it has explicitly a built-in way to bypass its encounter through RP since it will appreciate the players performing a musical number and may let them go. And all of that comes with a really good statblock with very unique mechanics, notably with the stonesinger singing to control stones with its SLAs, and using a unique way to use a (Su) by using a skill check as a touch attack, almost two years before Tome of Battle and its Tiger Claw maneuvers using AC as the DC for jump checks. An absolutely incredible monster, and in my opinion the very best design in the whole book, with no real flaw I can see. If you were curious, other creatures I loved that I considered before writing that are the Avalancher, the Cadaver Collector, the Death Giant, the Grisgol, the Runehound, the Dread Blossom Swarm, and the Trilloch.

This is understandable, as this monster was already years in the making when Monster Manual 3 came out. In fact, the stonesinger was one of the first creatures created for 3rd edition, and was published in Dragon Magazine #285 less than a year after MM1 3.0 and way before even Monster Manual II came out. There, it was called a Tralusk, and had even more avantgarde ability design, with it rolling a Perform check and getting to use a different SLA depending on the result, from Stone Shape at DC 23, to Wall of Stone at DC 26, to Earthquake at DC 35. I guess it was too mechanically complex for a monster of the week like a tralusk, and they only kept it singing to shape stone in the required vocal component for the stonesinger's SLAs. Interestingly (and terrifyingly) its petrifying poison manifested on each of the claws instead of the bite, and dealt Dexterity drain. The tralusk is a good example of how Dragon Magazine was used at times as a lab to see what monsters were popular before printing them in an official book. #285, notably, was stock-full of great creatures that were later reprinted. Apart from the tralusk, Monster Manual II's ruzanakyr and breathdrinker and Complete Arcane's elemental grues first appeared there. If you want a complete list of Dragon Magazine monsters you can check this page on ENworld.


But the real question, as always, is: can I play this? And the answer is "Not from a Jedi with so many RHD".
- 9 RHD Large Aberration with reach
- +10 Str, +0 Dex, +8 Con, +6 Int, +0 Wis, +8 Cha, +12 Natural Armor. Those are actually good to great stats, with no crippling penalty and each bonus being really useful.
- One bite, 6 claws. Unimpressive damage, but the bite deals a weakish poison (1d4/1d4 Dex) that turns people to stone if they reach 0 Dex.
- 30ft land speed, 20ft burrow and climb, 120ft darkvision, DR 5/Magic. The burrow speed is always nice. Otherwise average.
- Shattering Shriek. The touch attack Perform check will always basically hit, and deals 12d6 with no save, plus requires a Fort save or be stunned for 1d6 rounds. It's really, really good. Even if they make their save, 12d6 is nothing to scoff at at this level, and having +8 Con makes the DC nontrivial. It's the main reason why you're probably bumping Con before Cha.
- Spell-likes: 3/day—meld into stone, stone shape; 1/day—wall of stone, also good BFC. What's not to love here!

Overall, that's not too bad, except the absence of manipulators and the loss of BAB due to Aberration RHDs. Would probably make a decent bard (I can see the tralusk being a good user of the Snowflake Wardance, even if Perform (dance) is a bit off-lore) or a rogue to add Sneak Attack to your attacks. If you can get your DM to waive either the "innate" or the "mind-affecting" part of the prerequisites, then Siren seems like a good direction to go. Either way, a strong 7 RHD seems a good estimation, and DLA-1, though maybe slightly less interesting, should not be problematic.

Well, that was a great monster. And on top of that, we just reached 100,000 views on the thread, which is a very nice threshold than not every thread reaches, and of which I am honestly proud. Next time, we will have one of the only monsters that might be more playable at high level than low, the Summoning Ooze! See you then!

[dhasenan]

So, the first part is "It's bigger. It's bigger, because it's bigger." And the second part is "it's twice as long, and about three times as heavy", which means it's about two and a half times less dense than the lesser version.

The regular ssvaklor is a chubby little bean, while the greater is svelte, I guess?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Summoning Ooze

Living Summon Monster: now balanced for PC play!

It feels like this one should have had an official level adjustment already. Despite being an ooze, it has intelligence, is capable of formulating tactics, and has a versatile ability that is already balanced enough to not be broken when wielded by a PC, while the restrictions are almost irrelevant when fighting the Summoning Ooze as a monster. Fortunately, we're here to right this wrong!

The Summoning Ooze, like the Conflagration Ooze, has an intelligence score despite its type making it mindless, and like the conflagration ooze, it has a bonus to Hide and Move Silently, and Listen on top of that. Seriously, what's with that? Is it because oozes are supposed to slide on the floor and all be almost transparent, even with the Summoning Ooze having glowing runes all over its body? Hell if I know.

But the most interesting part of the Ooze is its signature ability: an at-will scaling CL 20 Summon Monster useable with a standard action, that also explicitly benefits from the oozes bonus Augment Summoning. That's actually extremely good, as Summon Monster is supremely versatile, and gives access to dozens of SLAs through the summoned creatures (I highestly recommand the Summoner's Desk Reference).
However, there are two things preventing the Summoning Ooze from being bonkers: first, you're 4 levels behind an equivalent wizard (at 5 HD, you can cast SM1, at 7th level, it's SM2, up to SM6 at 15 HD), and second, you have a weird per-day limit of twice your HD. It's unclearly written, but the board's consensus seems to be "can summon creatures with total HD up to twice your own number of HD". That means that you won't be able to summon bruisers, since they have high numbers of RHD, and will prefer focusing on outsiders and utility-based summons, and even then you'll probably summon 3 to 4 times per day at most at higher levels, though a 5 RHD Summoning Ooze could summon 10 Small spiders a day. This last limitation means you won't be able to completely focus on it, but it will be a really great side-ability, especially since you can immediately take Quicken Spell-Like.
Someone suggested taking Dragon Familiar to go through the first levels with a Gold Wyrmling. That would have been great, but that just doesn't work. Though they register as arcane to Arcane Sight, SLAs are neither arcane nor divine, and all familiar-improving feats require high arcane CL. You could take high-level crafting feats, but you don't have hands to use them. You're barred from basically all shenanigans except the basic uses.

Still, even with Summon Monster only as an aside, the summoning ooze is not actually that bad:
- Medium 5 RHD Ooze, with immunity to mind-affecting and 60ft blindsight
- +4 Str, +6 Con, +2 Wis, +4 Cha, +7 NA are really good stats, especially having natural armor as an ooze. Nothing spectacular, but there's no Int penalty, and most of it is useful.
- 2 slams with 1d6 acid. Why two? Not complaining.
- Fast Healing 5, immune to fire and acid. What's the reasoning here? Once again, not complaining, Fast Healing especially is great.
- Summon Monster. Exceptional.


The Summoning Ooze is there to tell us how bad the ooze type is that even with ability scores, Fast Healing and a scaling versatile SLA, it's still not worth 5 RHD. No arms, cannot speak, all bad saves, slow movement speed, the ooze type is not the most well-loved one... The two acidified slams will probably make for a good initiator (I'd say Crusader), with Summon Monster as utility and to provide swift action flanking (with Quickened SLA). Sadly, since the ability scales with your HD, RHDR doesn't help reducing the four levels your summoning stands at compared to an actual caster. DNLA does, though. 3 RHD, and DLA-1.

Once again, we see that MM3 tries to make something interesting out of creatures types previously left out, and I'm all for it, but why oh why did they put the 2xHD restrictions!? The creature would be so much better without it! Maybe instead have a 1/5rd, or even a "only one at a time" clause, or even a "as a 20th level sorcerer" to give it a big dragon familiar to compensate, but I felt like Zaq wondering why the Laws of Sequence and Resistance exist.

Next time, the Susurrus, for if you want to play Bonolenov from Hunter x Hunter!

[loky1109]

I always read its limitation as 2xHD SM levels per day.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I always read its limitation as 2xHD SM levels per day.

I very much doubt that. " A summoning ooze can summon a maximum of twice its Hit Dice in creatures per day." There's no mention of SM levels here, and it's even before they say that the Summon Monster SLA scales with the Ooze's HD. The debate is whether this means "A 7 RHD Summoning Ooze can summon 14 creatures from the SM2 list, whatever they are", or "A 7 RHD Summoning Ooze can summon 14 RHD of creatures, so 14 eagles, 7 Lemures, or 4 Large centipedes".

[Beni-Kujaku]

Susurrus

The susurrus has a weird history. It has existed since 1st edition, and if the base concept of a headless creature putting undead to "sleep" hasn't changed, its design has varied so much that it would be hard to tell that it's the same creature. In 1st edition Fiend Folio, they were headless apes. In the 2nd edition "Fiend Folio Appendix", they were humanoid piles of bamboo (surprisingly described as related to shambling mounds), and finally, they are a sculpture-like humanoid aberration that seems to be made out of glass in the MM3. What a wild ride! If it had been published in 4e and 5e, it might even have changed more than the Will-o-wisp! And like the will-o-wisp, they strived to keep similar abilities despite the wildly different look. It honestly makes the susurros look even more mysterious as if they're so rare that the manual itself isn't sure of what they look like.

Spoiler: Yes, these are all susurros

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In all its incarnations, the susurri's body is honeycombed with small holes, letting air pass through the susurro. The susurri detect infinitesimal variations in the flux of air passing through their body to "see" and "hear" with an absurd precision around themselves, hence their blindsight ability despite the susurrorum's lack of "regular" sensory organs.
It's also where the susurrorum's signature ability, the dronesong, comes from. As the susurrus moves, it can absorb a part of the air going through the holes in its body. Not only is it what the susurrus feeds on, it subtly modifies the sound of the wind, creating a soothing melody sounding like wind through the trees (which interestingly dates back to 1e, even before the susurro's plant-like appearance from 2e), which can lull undead to the so-called "sleep of the dead", a state of relaxation in which undead, intelligent or not, will just stay immobile and listen to the music. Interestingly, though it is described as a Turn Undead attempt in 3e, one thing that hasn't changed since 1e is that the dronesong can be heard from a quarter-mile away and isn't blocked by door or windy tunnels. The susurrus is not just a monster that is quite good at destroying undead, it's a creature designed to fight whole armies of undead, single-handedly immobilizing all but the strongest of them to allow the living to win. It's a pretty good plot hook for an adventure: the country is attacked by a necromancer's army, that one adventuring party must search for help and find the last susurrus on the continent, which could single-handedly turn the tide of the war against the dead.


Now, as a PC, the susurrus is pretty good against undead, but leaves a lot to be desired everywhere else.
- Large 8 RHD Aberration with Blindsight 60ft
- +10 Str, +2 Dex, +6 Con, -4 Int, +6 Cha, +9 NA, sadly the Int hit is justified lore-wise, as they're kinda fixated on destroying undead and nothing else, but it still stings.
- 2 weak claws with Improved Grab, and Barbed Defense, which deals 1d4+6 to people striking the susurrus in melee or grappled by it. Why 1d4+6? We'll never know.
- Undead-killing package: permanent Detect Undead, Ghost Touch natural attacks, and dronesong. Dronesong is described here as a modified rebuke undead attempt, with the susurro's HD as cleric level. That's stupid. That representation makes no sense whatsoever. The dronesong is supposed to be constantly audible as it's the way the susurrus breathes and sustains itself, making it an activated ability not only contradicts that, but defeats the most important role of a susurrus in a story, that is a large-scale undead negation. How does that work with the fact that the dronesong is described as being audible a quarter-mile away? Who knows!

I'm simply not convinced this stacks up to ECL 8 martials, so -0 LA it is. If you want to balance this for player use, remove three HD and it should be fine.

Oh, well, if you insist. 5 RHD, DLA-2.


They were so focused on finding a good design for this monster, they forgot to find a reason why it exists. Shambling mounds are created by discharges from the quasi-elemental plane of lightning hitting heaps of rotting plants, but susurri seem to be just a naturally occuring creature, that lives longer than 1000 years and has abilities tailor-made to destroy undead, something that definitely never appears naturally. Yeah, fat chance. My guess is that, the same way as shambling mounds, susurri are created when a small portal opens, not to the plane of lightning, but directly the Positive Energy Plane, breathing new life where there was none. This explains why it has so many different appearances, the positive energy could have animated an ape's corpse, or a heap of bamboos, or simply broken glass. I feel like that's not a bad take, but the MM3 tells us "they mate only infrequently". What? So these aberrations that have no apparent sexual organs, and whose existence seems dedicated to destroying undead, reproduce sexually!? What the f*ck.

Man, I've been rambling a lot about the last few creatures. They're all so unique! Fortunately, next time is the Swamp Strider swarm, which deserves no more than 5 lines, and a fireball. Probably two, just to be sure.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Swamp Strider Swarm

Ever wanted to play a bunch of Gerris bugs? Me neither.
The Swamp Strider Swarm is Diminutive, has Wounding and Distraction, and can walk on water. Still better than the Locust Swarm, for almost exactly equal stats. 3 RHD, DLA-4

There, less than 5 lines. Next time are topiary guardians, probably the only template that could ever end up here.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Topiary Guardians

Aren't they terrifying?

Living Topiaries as guardians for a rich house are such an obvious idea for D&D that it's surprising they didn't do it earlier. The most likely reason is that players already start casting buffs everytime they see a slightly humanoid sculpture, they weren't going to add shrubberies as "obvious-but shouldn't-be" threats.

Topiary Guardians are unique in that they are presented as a template in most forms (including a type requirement to apply it), but really isn't. It's not acquired, nor inherited. It isn't "applied" to a creature, it's just that there could exist Topiary Guardians of any animal, each being their own creature. And you know what that means? I have to assign a negative LA to every single animal in the game with this template!! Sadly, I don't have the time for this, at least not until April's Fools is over. But what I can do is finding all animals that would (probably) be LA+0 with this template!

Topiary guardian is a really simple template that gives fixed HD, natural armor and ability scores depending on the size of the animal-sculpted topiary. Interestingly, there seems to have been some amount of regret about not creating Topiary guardians of every size, since in the Monster Manual 3 errata, they added natural armor for the three regular Topiary sizes, but also for bigger and smaller guardians. Considering the stats seem to follow the regular monster advancement, and that the number of RHD follows the number of RHD of Monstrous Scorpions one size larger than the topiary guardian, we can infer statblocks for Topiary Guardians Diminutive to Gargantuan, leaving out only the seismosaurus outside the DrMagazine:

Diminutive: 1/2 RHD, +0 Natural armor, Str 7, Dex 22, Con 12, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 1.
Tiny: 1 RHD, +0 Natural armor, Str 9, Dex 20, Con 12, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 1.
Small: 2 RHD, +2 Natural armor, Str 14, Dex 18, Con 12, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 1.
Medium: 5 RHD, +4 Natural armor, Str 17, Dex 16, Con 14, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 1.
Large: 10 RHD, +6 Natural armor, Str 25, Dex 14, Con 18, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 1.
Huge: 20 RHD, +9 Natural armor, Str 33, Dex 12, Con 22, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 1.
Gargantuan: 40 RHD, +12 Natural armor, Str 41, Dex 12, Con 26, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 1.

This would actually make the Diminutive and Tiny topiary guardians pretty good, with excellent Dex to balance the useless Int and Cha, as well as the good DR 10/slashing, mind-affecting immunity and Tremorsense 90 ft that all Topiary Guardian get. The loss of flight means that even the bat probably doesn't get +1, but it should be playable.

Spoiler: Interesting animals

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Diminutive
Bat: 1/2 RHD, extremely good defenses on top of a great bonus to Hide checks and blindsense. I'd like to see a psychic rogue of it. Snail pace probably still means it's LA+0, but I could see it holding its own at +1.
Viper swarm (Fiend Folio): You know, how does that work exactly? Can you animate each branch of a poisonous shrub separately to make a viper swarm? Anyway, all swarm goodies, the disadvantages of hive mind negated by the plant type, no need to rely on strength for poison since the swarm has poison... Definitely a very strong contender for most playable Topiary Guardian, if swarms are allowed. Probably even enough for LA+2

Tiny
Monkey: Much better stats than the original, better defenses, and probably still the ability to use tools. It just has to be rated higher the the regular monkey. LA +2
Tiny Viper: The poison damage not scaling with size means even the Tiny Viper can deal 1d6 Con per bite. A good LA+1, despite the lowish stats.
Needletooth Swarm (MM3): Even besides being vulnerable to weapon attacks, Tiny animal swarms are generally weaker than the Diminutive ones. This one at least has Wounding and Scent. LA+1

Small
Badger: Rage is one of the few ways to increase a topiary's stats, and a small topiary guardian already has much better stats than a badger. Three natural attacks on top of that make for a fearsome opponent. LA+1
Serval (Savannah Wildcat) (Sandstorm): And here we have the first of the "great cats". In 3.5 felines almost all come with claw/claw/bite, Improved Grab, Pounce and Rake. For a template replacing everything except special attacks and qualities, it's absolutely great, and definitely worth a pretty strong LA+1 despite the awful mental stats. Would make a great rogue, psychic rogue or swordsage.
Sewerm Snake (Serpent Kingdoms): What? Did you think Serpent Kingdoms of all books would sit this one out? Of course it also has broken animals. The sewerm snake is a grappling genius. Yes, you read that right. Despite its Small size, it has Attach to grapple a creature of any size, and an absolutely immense bonus of +16 to grapple, that is to say it grapples as a Gargantuan creature. Oh yeah, and it has skill bonuses up the a**, and topiary guardian balances its low stats and defenses. Completely broken, and at least LA+2, maybe +3.

Medium
Boar: The "official" Medium Topiary Guardian is better than the original in about every way, even AC thanks to its increased Dex. 3 RHD, DLA-1
Leopard: the Medium "great cat". Stronger than the Serval, but cannot keep up with the increased RHD. 4 RHD, DLA-0
Fleshraker (MM3): When the Topiary Guardian's 5 RHD cripples everything else, the Fleshraker reminds us once again how broken it is for an animal. Leaping pounce is such a ridiculous ability, but it has poison on top of that, and of course 4 natural weapons, allowing it to wield a mouthpick weapon on top of three natural attacks. The original was an extremely strong +0 with 4 RHD. The topiary guardian has lower stats, but much better defenses, and is well worth LA+0 with 5 RHD.
Legendary Ape (MM2): notable only because it has prehensile hands as well as three natural attacks. Rend is not very good, but it should still make a good character with 4 RHD.
Nifern (Serpent Kingdoms): ... F**k. I didn't want to include more than one from the same book except those covered by the LA thread, but SK is so much more bonkers than everything else that I couldn't help it. The nifern. Better stats than the riding dog, Track, Blindsight 60ft (How is it not a magical beast!?), four natural attacks including one with a poison that paralyzes the opponent for 1d10 rounds. I think I just found something even stronger than the fleshraker. And you know the best part? It only has 2 RHD! Even as a Topiary Guardian and with 5 RHD, it would be strong with LA+0.


Large
Lion: The Large "great cat", as well as the official example for the Large Topiary Guardian. Not too bad, but not worth more than 6 RHD. DLA-3
Giant Octopus: I guess you were waiting for this one. 9 natural weapons, improved grab, constrict, improved reach... and Topiary Guardian greatly improves its stats while shoring up its defenses. Can't use its swim speed as a Topiary Guardian, but Jet is probably still useable, as well as its decent land speed. Maybe even playable with 8 RHD, as a hard-hitting barbarian, and DLA-2.
Fhorge (FF): Put here as a counter-example. When the main seeling point is stats, losing most of it hurts, and the fhorge only has one attack, despite its numerous interesting abilities, including rage. 5 RHD, DLA-4.
Su-Monster (Web, archived ZIP): Don't ask me why this is an animal and not a Psionic Beast, I don't know. Anyway, the Su-Monster, on top of three natural weapons, can manifest Schism at will, as well as Lesser Body Adjustment (the 3.0 version), which effectively means that it gains Fast Healing 1d8 and can cure any ability damage. Hellfire warlock, maybe? Still, even with these, it's not worth 10 RHD. 6 RHD, maybe? And DLA-3.

Huge
Triceratops: the official huge Topiary Guardian doesn't have anything for it. Only one attack with Powerful Charge, and that's all. 6 RHD, DLA-11
Giant Squid: like the octopus, but more so. The problem? As a topiary guardian, it doesn't have any speed. If Jet works, then it will be an uber-zombie, either moving at 200ft a round or doing 11 attacks with 30ft reach, but never both at the same time. If Jet doesn't work, then this is as worthless as a mute shrieker. 9 or 5 RHD, DLA-7 or DLA-12.
Battletitan (MM3): It's much better than the regular version, if only because it has half as many RHD. It keeps its great speed, four natural attacks, and few abilities, but the fact that the battletitan is listed here should tell you that not much is worthy of attention among Huge animals. 7 RHD, DLA-10.

Gargantuan
Roc: I'm not denying that a roc topiary would be incredibly badass, but a flightless roc is absolutely unsalvageable, even with DR 10/slashing and better strength. 8 RHD, DLA-26
Giganotosaurus (Dr318): At this size, the only historical animals are whales (with no land speed, yaaaay...) and big dinosaurs. From Dragon Magazine comes this little gem, basically a bigger T-rex, with two claws, Improved Grab, Swallow Whole, Improved Crit on its bite (19-20/x3), Wounding Bite (2 points of Con damage if it crits with its bite) and Pinning (can pin people under its foot to free its mouth). 10 RHD, DLA-23

Spoiler: Fun things with size-increasing magic

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You know how the size of a topiary guardian dictates its RHD? Well what happens if your size changes? It's quite easy too, just take a few levels of Psychic Warrior, Practiced Manifester, and a 5 RHD Cheetah Guardian could turn into a 20 RHD Huge shrub for a fight. This is already pretty weird, and risks messing with the group's XP at the end, but it gets worse! With 15 more RHD, you gain 5 new feats, that you should be able to choose, maybe even including epic feats. And if you can Dark Chaos Shuffle these feats, they might not disappear at the end of the duration of Expansion. You could spend a fight with Infinite Deflection and Legendary Wrestler, then go back to your usual self but keep five bonus feats.
Even funnier is Chameleon's floating feat. Now, qualifying for Chameleon is nigh-impossible for a topiary guardian. Having enough skill points, and having an ally cast polymorph on you to change you into a human just before gaining a level (hence resetting your physical stats to 10/10/10), not once, but twice to take Able Learner then the first level of Chameleon, all this requires much preparation, but the result is worth it, just for the ability of being able to choose and keep any single feat you'd like each day without messing with your ECL during combat. At 23:59, you cast expansion on yourself, gain 15 RHD with the corresponding skill points and prerequisite feats. At 00:00, you choose your floating feat, then deactivate Expansion. You lose all prerequisites, but since the feat is a bonus feat, you only need the prerequisites to select it, not to use it, and you can choose any Martial Study (Ancient Colossus Hammer), or Open Soul Chakra, or Weapon Supremacy, or anything else.

Of course, this is just RAW sillyness, and won't nor should affect the negative LA of alternative Topiary Guardians, but what would you do with such a power to modify basically at will your number of RHD?

The topiary guardians are the only living creatures that can be created using Craft Construct. This means that, despite being not that good, they make better long-time guardians due to their ability to heal themselves by resting. You may even ask your monkey topiary to go and water your lion and triceratops topiary if you go in vacation around the globe. Make sure to create your guardians out of evergreen shrubs if you ask them to clean the inside of your mansion, so that they can work the whole year without having dead leaves all around the corridors in autumn.
Also, you thought this was a weird monster? Just wait for next week, we'll cover one the mechanically weirdest monster in the whole edition, the Trilloch!

[Beni-Kujaku]

[Beni-Kujaku]

Trilloch

How nothing came to be
Have you ever imagined what non-existence would feel like? During your life, you have interacted with countless people, some only entering your gaze for a second, others being so close to you that you would be a completely different person if you hadn't met them. The Trilloch hasn't. Or maybe it has, in another time, in another shape.

Once upon a time, an unaging creature existed in a demiplane in the deep ethereal. Was it born there, created with the demiplane or brought here through the ethereal plane? Was the plane itself naturally occuring, or created by the gods or by a powerful wizard? It was all forgotten to time.
By a cruel twist of fate, this demiplane started drifting towards the negative energy plane. Across centuries, the negative energy slowly filled the once-safe haven of the dimensional pocket. At one point, new life stopped being born, and the last living beings were left starving. By that point, the creature had been mutating for centuries, and started feeding on the most abundant resource on the plane: the evaporating life-force of dying creatures. That's how it survived the last decades before the plane was finally engulfed by the negative plane.

When you live in the absolute darkness of death, there's no reason to reflect light. Where the jaws of death quickly erode everything that exists, then a body becomes a burden. If magic could undo what you are, why would you let it affect you? In the plane of non-existence, even existing is an absurdity.
Sometimes, the trilloch finds a new creature to eat. Often, it's the victim of a wizard who was sent to the negative plane, and the trilloch only has to wait for it to die like all living creatures do. But sometimes, creatures come to the plane of death of their own accord. The trilloch understands all languages, and knows enough about the mortal mind to understand that they are its one hope to finally get out of there. But whatever it does, the creatures don't see it. No light to see, no scent to smell, no texture to touch. They go their own way, ignoring the trilloch. Have you ever imagined what non-existence feels like?

So, in a desperate attempt to finally be noticed, to keep the travellers there for a while longer, the trilloch makes them angry. No more spell, no more planar travel. Maybe now they could notice it? But they only fight among themselves, and finally, like all mortals, they die. The trilloch eats, then is alone again.
And the worst part is, even if they could see it, it wouldn't change anything. The trilloch's defenses are its prison, and its own immunity to magic means no magic short of a Gate could planeshift it out of the negative energy plane.


Do you want to play nothing?

But what if a trilloch miraculously found its way to the Material Plane and could restrain its chaotic instincts long enough to join an adventuring party? Well, that's what we're here to determine. The trilloch is such a weird creature that despite being there since 1st edition (first published in 1981's Fiend Folio), there's a vanishingly low number of articles discussing it. Both in and out of universe, we know basically nothing of how it came to be, and the very fact that it has a true appearance revealed through True Seeing wasn't explicit until 3rd edition. Before that, we only knew that See Invisibility and Detect Magic both revealed an amorphous chaotic aura where the trilloch was. And damn is that appearance weird, looking like an eyeless fly with Alkekengi fruits as wings (see previous post).

As a creature, the trilloch is defined as being almost absent at all times. Cannot speak, cannot manipulate items, invisible, incorporeal and not affected by magic. It's not only that it will be the last man standing in the party, it's that it will be a rare occurence for it to ever take damage in a campaign. However, it goes both ways. The trilloch has basically no way of communicating with the rest of the party, and its offensive capabilities are nigh-inexistent. It can create two auras: an aura of rage, increasing Str, Con and will, but preventing every living creature in 180ft from it from casting spells or doing anything requiring concentration, and an aura of Death Knell, killing every creature at 0 HP or less. Both are unfriendly, but the trilloch can probably position itself to affect only the people it wants. That's all. No regular attack possible.

Apart from that:
- 8 Outsider RHD, the best kind of RHD without a doubt, making the trilloch probably the single best possible scout in the game.
- Blindsight 60ft, DR 15/Lawful, natural invisibility (only pierced by True Seeing), incorporeal, immunity to magic. Every single one of these abilities are extremely strong. All of them together are broken beyond belief.
- 40ft (perfect) flying
- No Str, +8 Dex, +6 Con, +0 Int, +8 Wis, +8 Cha, total +30. Great, great stats for an incorporeal creature, to allow the trilloch to do basically anything.

And now the eternal question: what to do? Your stats allow almost any non-fighting class. Your defense is absolute, what you need is something to do in and out of combat. If possible something fun, or you'll find the campaign quite boring. You absolutely need a way to communicate. Ardent seems like an easy enough way to go, but doesn't really benefit from the Outsider RHD, and the high RHD will hurt you a lot at low level. Regular spellcasting classes are straight out since you have no mouth, so even Surrogate Spellcasting cannot allow you to cast spells. It should however be enough to make you a decent warlock. A warlock trilloch at least has infinite Eldritch Blasts to finish off enemies even if its party was TPK'd, and could get a raven familiar with Obtain Familiar. The raven can talk, and could relay morse code messages from the trilloch to the rest of the party. You could also go Incarnate (since your Essentia capacity only depends on your global level, not only your class levels), with Necrocarnum Circlet to gain a servant able to speak in your behalf. My favorite class for combat would be going Beastmaster (maybe with one level of Mystic Ranger for the skill requirement). You gain one to four animal companions that will both act as decoy, benefit from your rage, be useful in combat (especially against enemies who can't cast spells anymore) and might even relay your messages if they're intelligent enough (a lenient DM might make that count as an animal trick). But more importantly, it gives you someone on which to use your WBL. Since you are very non-human and very incorporeal, you might have difficulty finding gear for yourself. A well-trained ape can use it in your stead!

All in all, I guess 5 RHD gives you enough leeway to create an interesting character without having nigh-invincibility at too low a level. And despite Outsider levels being so good, they mostly just give you HP and skill points. DLA-2


Alkekengis have so many nicknames in all languages. Bladder cherries, winter cherries, Chinese lanterns... But my favorite is in french: "Amour en cage". Translating to "caged Love", for the orange berry "caged" inside the skeletal network of the calyce (the "lantern"), it's such a cool name, and I find it very fitting as the wings of the trilloch, a creature which only brings death and despair and cannot be loved by anyone due to its own protection mechanisms.
Next time, we will have much, much simpler monsters, it's the MM3 trolls!

[Remuko]

why is the picture for this one its own comment? and why is the text color for the main post of the creature the same color as the background such that the post appears to just be a giant blank space?

[Metastachydium]

why is the picture for this one its own comment? and why is the text color for the main post of the creature the same color as the background such that the post appears to just be a giant blank space?

It's kind of fitting, with something that could as well not be (invisible to the eye and magic alike, coming from a place that's the opposite of existence…) and the image, well, I don't think it comes in whitetext.

At any rate, playing this at ECL 5 would be WILD.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Indeed, the trilloch is so out of sight that even its entry is invisible (I even removed my signature for the occasion). The picture being in another post is obviously because you can't make a picture invisible, but also to symbolize the trilloch being locked in a dead plane with no way to get out and planar travel not working on it.

At any rate, playing this at ECL 5 would be WILD.

I honestly would like so much to be able to play this thing in a one-shot someday, but if you ever get the occasion, I'd strongly advise to have at least one class level. Not being there is indeed a crazy character concept, but you will get bored pretty soon if you're just watching people play and saying "I want this guy to rage" once in a while.

[Remuko]

Indeed, the trilloch is so out of sight that even its entry is invisible (I even removed my signature for the occasion). The picture being in another post is obviously because you can't make a picture invisible, but also to symbolize the trilloch being locked in a dead plane with no way to get out and planar travel not working on it.



I honestly would like so much to be able to play this thing in a one-shot someday, but if you ever get the occasion, I'd strongly advise to have at least one class level. Not being there is indeed a crazy character concept, but you will get bored pretty soon if you're just watching people play and saying "I want this guy to rage" once in a while.

while that is cute; for this thread to be helpful in its primary intention, tricking a lot of people who would just see a blank post, isn't especially helpful.

[Beni-Kujaku]

while that is cute; for this thread to be helpful in its primary intention, tricking a lot of people who would just see a blank post, isn't especially helpful.

I mean, people here know how this forum works. White text isn't exactly uncommon, and you cannot post with less than 10 characters. Plus, the title is underlined since it's a link, and the previous post is the picture of the creature we're discussing. I believe there are enough hints that a big white wall isn't actually blank. Maybe I should have posted it on April's Fools?
But hey, if I cannot have fun posting about monsters I like, then there's no point in all of this, and I might as well give every monster the swamp strider swarm treatment and dryly give negative LA with no superfluous discussion. I don't know if you'd rather I do that, but I sure wouldn't. The number of monsters here that will actually see play, I very aware of that fact, is extremely low, requiring both DM and player aware of this thread, and a pretty lenient DMing on top of that. If I can get the attention of even one more person by having an intriguing post, then it's a win. If it discourages people from reading, then it's a lose, but what can you do? You can't just do the same thing for two years now without wanting to try things. If I didn't like experimenting with new things, I wouldn't have read the LA assignment thread in the first place

[Metastachydium]

I honestly would like so much to be able to play this thing in a one-shot someday, but if you ever get the occasion, I'd strongly advise to have at least one class level. Not being there is indeed a crazy character concept, but you will get bored pretty soon if you're just watching people play and saying "I want this guy to rage" once in a while.

You make a convincing point there, certainly. It would still be a ride 'till it gets old, but varietas certe delectat. (Almost related anecdote: I did, in fact, have the pleasure to participate in a crazy 6th level one-shot where one of the characters was a Bard 1, the rest of the build consisting of the +5 LA of ghost. It was scarily effective and she spent the latter half of the game puppeteering a stool-themed Remorhaz we found in the bathroom.)

[Remuko]

I mean, people here know how this forum works. White text isn't exactly uncommon, and you cannot post with less than 10 characters. Plus, the title is underlined since it's a link, and the previous post is the picture of the creature we're discussing. I believe there are enough hints that a big white wall isn't actually blank. Maybe I should have posted it on April's Fools?
But hey, if I cannot have fun posting about monsters I like, then there's no point in all of this, and I might as well give every monster the swamp strider swarm treatment and dryly give negative LA with no superfluous discussion. I don't know if you'd rather I do that, but I sure wouldn't. The number of monsters here that will actually see play, I very aware of that fact, is extremely low, requiring both DM and player aware of this thread, and a pretty lenient DMing on top of that. If I can get the attention of even one more person by having an intriguing post, then it's a win. If it discourages people from reading, then it's a lose, but what can you do? You can't just do the same thing for two years now without wanting to try things. If I didn't like experimenting with new things, I wouldn't have read the LA assignment thread in the first place

fair enough

[Beni-Kujaku]

(Bad) Trolls

Sometimes, I don't want to worry about my spells, I don't want to worry about strategy, and I don't want to worry about dying. I just want to go in melee and hit people with a big stick. In that case, I play a troll.
Trolls are as humanoid as it gets, so they have no body-shape-related issues, and they are the absolute definition of a beatstick: they go in melee, they hit hard, they draw the aggro, and they don't die for it. The Regeneration ability that most of them get means that even if they overdo it, they won't cost the party any gold for resurrection. The ultimate team players!

The troll of course originates from 1st edition, and even much before that, the idea of trolls having regenerative abilities originates from the 1961 fantasy novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, on which the alignment system was also arguably based. Even earlier, the name "troll" to describe a humanoid fantasy monster dates back at least to the prose Edda in the 12th century, where it described what D&D would call things from hags to titans, or even ghosts. So, what can Monster Manual 3 do to put a new twist on a creature almost a millenium old? Well, they slightly changed its size and created a crystal variant. Spectacular.


The first troll in the Monster Manual got LA+1 with 6 RHD due to its strength, rending claws and bite, and regeneration (and might have gotten +0 if it was rated later), and two of the five variant trolls in MM3 got LA+0, despite their higher number of RHD. We will focus on the three that got LA-0: the crystalline, forest and mountain trolls.

Crystalline Troll, 10 RHD: If even playing a troll is not enough to quell your fear of being killed in combat, what about regeneration only bypassed by the rarest energy damage in the game? The crystalline troll is basically identical to the troll, with +2 Cha, +2 natural armor, regeneration bypassed by sonic only, and vulnerability to sonic damage. All in all, slightly better than a regular troll, notably because it's extremely hard to coup-de-grace it, but not worth one more ECL in my book. 7 RHD, DLA-2

Forest Troll, 5 RHD: "What if trolls had a real society and created tools to hunt together?" I mean, yeah, that's a good idea, but it would go against most everything we know about trolls, that their regeneration makes them reckless hunters that don't care about fighting alone against much bigger threats. "No problem, just remove their regeneration!"
So, forest trolls are only medium-sized, with expected stats for something with "civilized trolls" as a premise: +6 Str, +6 Dex, +10 Con, +0 Int, +0 Wis, -4 Cha, +5 Natural armor. They also have Fast Healing 5 instead of regeneration, which means they need to be a bit more careful, but will still start every fight with full HP. They also have a poisonous saliva that... doesn't apply to their bite attack. This to me means that they have to manufacture the poison, but since they don't have Craft (Poison), or anything, it's probably simply that the saliva becomes poisonous when exposed to oxygen, or that they need to use a lot of saliva to get the 1d6 Con/1d6 Con poison, more than they can inject with a simple bite. In any case, they can explicitly coat every weapon they have with it, with no mention of it losing effectiveness with time. This means that the first attack in every fight by every team member will have a 1d6/1d6 Con poison attached to it, and that Forest Trolls can make terrific archers, with each arrow delivering poison. I'm half-convinced to keep it at 5 RHD, but 4 RHD, DLA-0 is probably better, as most people in the original thread agreed on.

Mountain Troll, 15 RHD: In the mountains, everything is bigger, just ask the mountain giant. It also makes no sense whatsoever since there's less food at high altitude, not more, but maybe mountains in Faerun are so high that the gravity up there is noticeably weaker, and can accomodate bigger bodies?
Mountain Trolls are very physically strong, being Huge with +24 Str, +2 Dex, +20 Con, -4 Int, -4 Cha, +13 Natural Armor. They also have Knockdown instead of rend, which is basically Trip, and slightly interesting considering the Mountain Troll's size and strength. However, they have no other abilities, and don't even have regeneration. I understood fast healing for the forest troll, but mountain trolls are described as knowing no fear, which would indicate that they think themselves invincible, so the lack of regen is weird.
Anyway, they're still much stronger than regular trolls, but don't hold a candle to war trolls. They're probably comparable to cave trolls. 9 RHD, DLA-4


Despite everything, and the mechanical blandness, WotC succeeded in giving these new trolls interesting new behaviors, with the Forest troll having civilization, war trolls acting as mercenaries for humanoids, cave trolls just being "thing-that-kills-you" (still interesting as a contrast with a troll with which you could reason), and mountain trolls pushing small groups of smaller trolls as minions through threats. Still a successful monster to me.
Next time, we will have the monster with the most difference between the smaller and the immediately evolved version, the vasuthant!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Vasuthant

"Mom, can I play as an Umbral Blot?"
"We have Umbral Blots at home."
Umbral Blots at home:

Like Nightshades, the vasuthants seem to be undead "composed of equal parts darkness and absolute evil". which is probably why people had a whole discussion about how they were undead who were never alive in the original thread. To these people, I say: what? No. Vasuthants were definitely alive once. Did you read the whole entry? Granted, we don't have a lot of info about how they are created, but we have enough to infer that they are simply created when powerful, evil arcane casters die in a catastrophic event involving a LOT of magic. The sun elves of Aryvandaar wanted always more power and it led to their downfall? Poof, vasuthants! Evil drow casters were trapped in Undermountain when Halaster inadvertently killed himself by having the mountain cave in and were hit by all the nightmarish mind magic of the crazy archmage? Poof, more vasuthants! (those can be found, obviously, in expedition to Undermountain)
It's quite simple, really. And it explains why vasuthants retain powerful magic, notably a form of time magic, able to stop, alter and even turn back time in some capacity.
But even more unique is its advanced entry. Most advanced monsters have about twice, or sometimes three times the number of RHD, but the horrific vasuthant goes from 2 to 25 RHD. And as much as the art in the book still needs a background, at least it makes the picture adapt to any size for the vasuthant.

Spoiler: What's the difference between a Small and a Gargantuan vasuthant? Presentation!

Show

A non-advanced vasuthant telling its descendants to not make the same mistake


A gargantuan horrific vasuthant has found its next meal.

Vasuthants have a lot of abilities for a 2 RHD creature.
- 2 RHD Small Undead with +2 turn resistance and Unholy Toughness. Good immunities and basically none of the issues.
- +6 Dex, -6 Int, +2 Wis, +4 Cha, no Con, +3 natural armor. Average stats for a 2 RHD creature, the low Int hurts.
- Blindsight 60ft, with a 60ft emanation of shadow. Sadly, it's penetrated by low-light vision and darkvision, and suppresses any magical source of light, which means that it won't incapacitate any enemy, but will be unfriendly to your human allies. Blindsight is good, though.
- Perfect 30ft Flying
- Immune to acid and cold, resistance 5 to fire and electricity, immune to any [light] spells and any spell of the Sun domain (what a weird and specific immunity). Get it? The vasuthant is hard to blast with magic!
- Reality Distorsion: 3/day, can reroll any die or force a reroll. Can't make it much simpler. Very interesting that it doesn't have a range limit, though. If the vasuthant knows someone is rolling, it can say no, simple as that. Really great for a caster, or for a party with a caster, which is all of them.
- Grappling: Improved Grab, Improved Grapple, 1d4 Str damage and heals 1d4 damage when it grapples something.

In a word: "I'm a guy who heard you say you were good at grappling. Which, you know. Cool. EXCEPT YOU'RE NOT AND I'LL PROVE IT!"
The problem, of course, is that neither Improved Grab nor Enervating Crush work on creatures bigger than the vasuthant, which means that, considering the regular vasuthant is Small, everything past CR 2 will be immune to your "main" schtick. This is obviously meant for advanced vasuthants, but we're not rating them today. And I absolutely have no intention of rating the advanced forms of any monster in the books ever.

Still, Small vasuthants have good defenses, perfect flight and the excellent Reality Distorsion, but as Sunny the beholder puts it, "Ugh, hands and feet are so overpowered!". They are a blob of darkness with almost no item slot and no way to meaningfully communicate, as well as a detrimental ability for most parties. A warlock or ardent could work, of course, and could steamroll the first levels, but the body limitations will hinder the vasuthant's progression really fast. I guess it's about balanced at 1 RHD+1 LA, just to not allow double-save-or-die at ECL 1, where items are useless anyway. Maybe you could allow it with only 1 RHD if the campaign starts above level 5. And DLA-1, obviously.

Horrific Vasuthant: Oh lawd, he coming. The vasuthant is now an old undead, and has eaten more than his fair share of negative energy. It's now Huge, and could become Gargantuan with one more RHD. It still has all the grappling goodies of the Small, but each and every ability becomes stronger.
Enervating crush deals 1d8 Str (how was that supposed to scale exactly? Three size categories should change 1d4 into 1d10, not 1d8. Whatever.).
Low-light vision cannot pierce Absorb Light (though darkvision still can).
Its energy resistances are now 25.
It has actually good stats (+22 Str, +12 Dex, +0 Int, +6 Wis, +12 Cha).
But more than all of that, it can now force rerolls 1/round instead of 3/day. A terrifying prospect at these higher levels.
It also gains more time-related SLAs, like Slow and Temporal Stasis, and other SLAs that are not related to anything, like waves of fatigue/exhaustion, or reverse gravity. Overall, not bad at all, though Time Stop would have been even better. Oh, wait, it has that too! Sadly not that much to use it on, but that's still an extremely powerful spell to have.
And if all else fails, there's Alter Past. This extremely obnoxious ability allows the horrific vasuthant to replay its turn, 3/day. Once again, simple as that. The opponent critted on their attack of opportunity? They made their save against Temporal Stasis? Twice with Reality Distorsion? Let them experience once again what it's like! In total, it is very easy for a horrific vasuthant to force four save or lose in a single turn, as well as gain informations on opponent's countermeasures. An absolutely broken ability, that even the extremely epic Phane cannot spam without concentrating for 4 rounds beforehand.

With no SLA nor time manipulation, this would probably be worth around 7 to 9 RHD. A Huge grappler is nice, but Undead RHD are extremely bad. With how it can mess with the balance of an encounter, I don't think I'm comfortable with less than 12 RHD, maybe even 13 if the party has a lot of SoL with relatively high saves, or a way to give you item slots, and DLA-9. As often with grapplers, Psychic Warrior is good, but I definitely think the best is Warblade, to give you a lot of options for SoL or at least save-or-big-damage of your own, and much more sustainability of your combat capabilities along the day.


Next time, the creature that is also the name of a prestige class, the Vermin Lord!

[Metastachydium]

and any spell of the Sun domain (what a weird and specific immunity)

Well, that it is immune to Endure Elements is hilarious indeed, but given that
1. it's kind of thematic;
2. for some reason Searing Light (really bad for this guy) doesn't have the [Light] descriptor; and
3. Flame Strike,
it makes a modicum of sense.

The problem, of course, is that neither Improved Grab nor Enervating Crush work on creatures bigger than the vasuthant, which means that, considering the regular vasuthant is Small, everything past CR 2 will be immune to your "main" schtick.

Mephits, pixies, magmins and the many Small races that allow for adding levels beg to differ.

Overall, not bad at all, though Time Stop would have been even better.

The Chronotyryn (a.k.a. Eat Yout Heart Out, Action Economy: The Bird) says hi.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Vermin Lord

Okay, why is this thing on the Material Plane? CR 17 is just too much for a humanoid population. Creatures that strong are either dragons (dragons generally stay hidden enough to not trigger large-scale responses, or are wyrms and just don't care), or they are classified as disasters and killed by adventurers or legendary characters the like of Elminster, Dalamar or Mordenkainen. But the Vermin Lord doesn't hide, it often comes out and kidnaps people, and worse than that, it's implied that there are several of them. Several CR 17 creatures in the Material Plane are just a bait for a campaign-wide extermination, or a severe sign for the arrival of an Elder Evil. The only explanation I can find is that they dwell deep in the Underdark, which is kinda implied by the fact that they terrorize drows, but becomes a bit weird when you ask how they would interact with illithids, driders, and even Lolth's drows. Just forget about them, it's wiser. And, let's be honest, who here even remembered this thing existed before now? I probably could have invented the monster on the spot and it wouldn't be any different (except I would be disappointed by myself).
Also, the art is just an armored thri-kreen. I get there are not that many ways to make a four-armed bug warrior, but this thing is way too generic for a near-epic critter.


- Large Monstrous Humanoid with 25 RHD. Aaaaand, LA-0 it is. Let's see how many RHD we'll have to shave off.
- +8 Str, +10 Dex, +12 Con, +8 Int, +2 Wis, +6 Cha, +11 NA. Nice stats for something with half the RHD.
- 2 claws, bite and sting, useable with iteratives, 1d8 Con/1d8 Con poison on bite and sting, Improved Grab on the claws
- Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Regeneration 5/cold, Immunity to mind-affecting, and every creature within 5ft at the end of its move makes a Fort save against being nauseated. Damn. The thing's pretty hard to break, escaping all spells and nauseating fighters coming too close.
- 60ft movement speed, 30ft (average) fly, 30ft burrow, 30ft climb. Another reason why these things still exist: they are harder to kill than cockroaches and can flee faster than a running horse if need be.
- And finally, a bit of offense to round the chassis. Or more accurately, all the short-term minionmancy you'll ever need. Summon swarm for spiders, Insect Plague for 6 locust swarms, Creeping Doom for 10 centipede swarms, then Giant Vermin to change 3 of them into CR 9 colossal size abominations with +42 to grapple. By the way, could you summon 6 centipede swarms in the same square to deal 12d6 and force 6 saves against nauseated at the same time? Your swarms would probably attack each other, but really, who cares, it's not like you're gonna use a standard action each round to command them. Oh yeah, and if that wasn't enough, no Vermin can attack you thanks to at-will Repel Vermin and you can Dominate Monster at will any Vermin you find.

The minionmancy is really the reason why this thing is so high a CR. It's pretty hard to stop it from getting off its main combo of Creeping Doom->Giant Vermin, and having three colossal vermin in close combat is hardly recommended. All in all, that seems like a worthy 14 RHD, DLA-9, though it might run out of gas in case of repeated fights in the same day, especially if it uses Quicken Spell-Like (Giant Vermin), which it should. (but its close combat capabilities make it still able to contribute a bit). Ironically, the Vermin Lord PrC would go pretty well with a Vermin Lord, with probably cleric as the base spellcasting class to get the most of Rebuke Undead. The 4th level ability, notably, allows you to always have scorpions or spiders if you want to vary your giant vermins. Alternatively, Warblade is always good when you have so many stat bonuses. You look like a thri-kreen, might as well fight like one.


I want to see two of these things fight against each other. They don't want to approach to not be nauseated, and they have so many abilities against vermin that their SLAs are next to useless. It would quickly turn into a staring contest, or the biggest vermin present constantly switching sides as both spam their Dominate Monster on it. Both goofy and a bit terrifying as the arena is crawling with thousands of vermin of all sizes.
Skipping over the visilight, the creature that was in my opinion the most unfairly ripped off of its iconic ability because it could be abused if there's a Naberius binder or Leadership in the party, and the warforged which I'm impressed all got LA+0, we turn our gazes to the Witchknife, which is... a bullywug crossbred with a Neraphim? Sure...

[Beni-Kujaku]

Witchknife

Ok, first. 9 Constitution ? Do you know how many Small or larger creatures have a constitution penalty ? Not counting elves, fifteen. Out of the four thousand-ish officially and less-than-officially published creatures, fifteen. Out of those, one self-destructs as its main mean of offense, 2 cast spells, 2 have regeneration, one has dominate monster as an SLA, and the rest is CR 1 or lower. Except the witchknife. The witchknife doesn’t have jacksh*t, and to top it all off, it has 9 RHD as printed. With a CR of 4. And a printed LA of +3. Yep, a CR 4 creature in an ECL 12 environment. Thanks WotC for your insight. We're gonna reduce that.

Athames (the actual name of witchknives, in the athame's language, probably Undercommon) think they have a manifest destiny of ruling all humanoids in the world, but were robbed of this right when gods... created languages, hence preventing them from using their Command SLA. Languages. Including Common, the language that litterally every humanoid speaks and that witchknives know. Not hard to see that athames are just a completely delusional and violent people trying to gain a bit of power, failing miserably, and trying to find excuses. They're just too weak to make a widespread impact individually and too few in numbers to make a worthy army. Still, if what's in MM3 is to be trusted, elves and orcs once allied to destroy witchknives settlements, as well as dwarves and giants, which would only happen if the athames were a real threat, so maybe they really did form a powerful army or civilisation once, but were overthrown by their slaves once those realized that each athame could really immobilize only one person indefinitely.

- Medium Monstrous Humanoid, 9 RHD (whyyyy)
- +0 Str, +6 Dex, -2 Con, +2 Int, +4 Wis, +6 Cha, +1 NA. You know that's bad, I know that's bad, but at least you'll actually be using Cha and Dex.
- 30ft speed, fire resistance 5, vulnerability to sonic. I'm more and more convinved athames were supposed to be a 2 to 4 RHD people, and were assigned 9 RHD only because they technically can cast a 5th level spell, and gods forbid monsters have any nice thing.
- Sneak Attack+2d6, nice. Problem is athames have no natural weapon, low strength and no stealth bonus. Also, they kinda like having their standard action for SLAs. Still a good thing to have.
- SLAs: Command and Silence at will (with the fun bonus of being able to dismiss Silence as a free action), and Greater Command 1/day. Greater Command is decent but 1/day, Silence is anti-synergistic with the rest of the SLAs, and cannot be used to effectively shut down spellcasters since it's self-only, Command is a fun but not excellent 1st-level spell and all of the caster level being 9 means the athame cannot even take Quicken SLA. Far from enough to save the athame, but enough to give it versatility and utility.

All in all, The witchknife is still much better than an elf rogue 3 (which is already weak and far from optimized). At 4 RHD, DLA-4, its stats and full BAB should make up for the delay in abilities. It's better than a sneak attack fighter, and probably worse or equivalent to a swordsage. Might be interesting as a swordsage or TWF warblade.

Next time, we'll have the morning wood of the MM3.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Wood Woad

What the hell is a woad? The only thing I could find was a plant used to create pastel paint. The awful french name, "woody", is predictably useless, and I don't find any clue in its abilities, so I don't know nor understand why they called it that way.

The wood woad is a creature more boring than a monstrous vermin, with abilities that only make it more annoying to kill (Treewalk is completely useless except as a charging tool or to run away since it doesn't have useful ranged abilities, and Warp Wood is only minorly inconveniencing to martials with wooden weapon or, once again, to flee by warping a door or a tree to block the way), and both of them can really only be used in a forest, restricting the environment in which the wood woad can be used as a monster. Oh, yeah, and it also has no lore except "it's a plant". Just go and look it up, it's just miserable. Surely such a worthless creature would be immediately forgotten, right? No! They reprinted it! Twice! The tralusk never appeared outside of 3e, but the wood woad was featured both in 4e and 5e! That's infuriating. And they didn't even make it better. 4e just removed its movement options in favor of something akin to a damaging Entangle and made it always angry against every humanoid because some humanoids have cut some trees in the past. That's such a "don't discuss, it tries to kill you, roll initiative" reason but we're used to that with 4e. In 5e, they gave it back treewalk at least, and made it a kind of golem created by planting a seed inside a human's heart then putting the heart inside a tree drenched with the victim's blood. Damn. I mean, at least now we know, and it doesn't even contradict the 3e statement that they reproduce through seeds. So that's why they tend to warp trees around them constantly, they try to hide evidence.

Anyway, no helpful ability, basically no utility, low Int, no natural weapon, middling ability scores and a challenge rating being half its number of RHD do not a good PC make. Surprisingly good skill list, but still, a strong 2 RHD, and a weak DLA-4.
Verdict: At least it has hands.


We're reaching the very end of MM3! Next time, the terrifying Yugoloths will start making terrifying PCs!

[Metastachydium]

What the hell is a woad? The only thing I could find was a plant used to create pastel paint.

That one extremely dumb King Arthur movie used it metonymically in reference to (and as a somewhat derogative exonym for) its fictional rendering of "that one barbarian population painted/tattooed with woad-based blue" that historiography knows by another, similar exonym, the Picts. Maybe the authors saw the movie, thought it means "wild man in synch with nature", never bothered to check and ran with it? It might also be a misremembered/typoed-and-left-in variant for wood wose.

it also has no lore except "it's a plant".

That's a pretty nifty lore if you ask me, given that they could have gone with the ususal "it's a plant, which means it's less intelligent than a human and thirsts for blood" which they apparently did later anyway, v. the whole

4e just removed its movement options in favor of something akin to a damaging Entangle and made it always angry against every humanoid because some humanoids have cut some trees in the past. That's such a "don't discuss, it tries to kill you, roll initiative" reason but we're used to that with 4e. In 5e, they gave it back treewalk at least, and made it a kind of golem created by planting a seed inside a human's heart then putting the heart inside a tree drenched with the victim's blood.

But yeah, if I want a tree person or a discount treant, I'll just go take a Volodni, a Wizened Elder or slap Woodling on something, thank you very much.

We're reaching the very end of MM3!

Go Beni! You rock! (…which is not to imply you should leave. Or that you have higher than usual mineral content. (What? We are on Pedantry: the Forum.) Anyhow, congratulations on approaching yet another important milestone!)

[Beni-Kujaku]

That one extremely dumb King Arthur movie used it metonymically in reference to (and as a somewhat derogative exonym for) its fictional rendering of "that one barbarian population painted/tattooed with woad-based blue" that historiography knows by another, similar exonym, the Picts. Maybe the authors saw the movie, thought it means "wild man in synch with nature", never bothered to check and ran with it?

Oh, yeah, sure, that's fine, especially since MM3 was published only two months after this movie was released... If it wasn't for the fact that both woad and pict refer to paint and that this monster doesn't have a stain on it! *sigh* Thank you WotC as always for your great and in-depth research.

That's a pretty nifty lore if you ask me, given that they could have gone with the ususal "it's a plant, which means it's less intelligent than a human and thirsts for blood" which they apparently did later anyway

Eh, you're kinda right, with 11 Plants being mindless and 30 having less than 10 Int for only 13 having 10 or more out of a total of 54 plants (data taken in the representative test sample of all monsters in the Monster Manuals except MM2, all Completes, the environmental series, ToB, HoH, all Web monsters, XPH, Fiend Folio and Libris Mortis, BoED, BoVD, Draconomicon and Lords of Madness. Don't question my methods!). That's a worse ratio than all other types except Animals, Oozes, Construct, Vermin and Magical Beast (still not such a bad score, they're just 9/14, not counting Beast and Deathless), and closely followed by the Elementals, with 31/80 having more than 10 Int. Looking at it, it's surprising how "human" is a good average for monster intelligence. Out of the 1700ish monsters, 282 are mindless and 632 have less than 10, and 871 have 10 or more.
But hey, that just means you are in the top 20% of plants! Congrats Meta!

But yeah, if I want a tree person or a discount treant, I'll just go take a Volodni, a Wizened Elder or slap Woodling on something, thank you very much.

I'm shocked, appaled and saddened that the topiary guardians are not in that list. Isn't a big triceratops bush not enough for you!!?

Go Beni! You rock! (…which is not to imply you should leave. Or that you have higher than usual mineral content. (What? We are on Pedantry: the Forum.) Anyhow, congratulations on approaching yet another important milestone!)

I choose to take that to mean that I'm on a roll and that my content is still solid after these few years ^^

[Metastachydium]

Oh, yeah, sure, that's fine, especially since MM3 was published only two months after this movie was released... If it wasn't for the fact that both woad and pict refer to paint and that this monster doesn't have a stain on it! *sigh* Thank you WotC as always for your great and in-depth research.

Look, at least they didn't cross the treant with, say, a carrion crawler, as per their usual modus operandi when out of ideas (yes, I've been recently reminded that the Gulguthydra is a thing).

Eh, you're kinda right, with 11 Plants being mindless and 30 having less than 10 Int for only 13 having 10 or more out of a total of 54 plants (data taken in the representative test sample of all monsters in the Monster Manuals except MM2, all Completes, the environmental series, ToB, HoH, all Web monsters, XPH, Fiend Folio and Libris Mortis, BoED, BoVD, Draconomicon and Lords of Madness. Don't question my methods!). That's a worse ratio than all other types except Animals, Oozes, Construct, Vermin and Magical Beast (still not such a bad score, they're just 9/14, not counting Beast and Deathless), and closely followed by the Elementals, with 31/80 having more than 10 Int. Looking at it, it's surprising how "human" is a good average for monster intelligence. Out of the 1700ish monsters, 282 are mindless and 632 have less than 10, and 871 have 10 or more.
But hey, that just means you are in the top 20% of plants! Congrats Meta!

Yaaaaay.

I'm shocked, appaled and saddened that the topiary guardians are not in that list. Isn't a big triceratops bush not enough for you!!?

It's really cute and I adore it, but it's, like, not that good. (Whereas Greenbound rocks, but hell, is it overpriced!)

I choose to take that to mean that I'm on a roll and that my content is still solid after these few years ^^

Oh, wow. I keep forgetting how old (comparatively) this is. (Also, yes, you rock, you roll!)

[Beni-Kujaku]

(Bipedal) Yugoloths

I have to make a confession: I dislike fiends in D&D. I want to like them, they're such an integral part of the cosmology, their blood war is basically the background on which the whole world was created, but I just find myself sighing everytime I think about them. Not individually, mind you. I love the vrock's design, both graphically and as an encounter, imps make great minions for villains, ultroloths are such good eminences in shadows and there's little better than a pit fiend or a balor to make your players understand that they're not messing around anymore. But as a group, they lack way too much individuality. I don't mind not being able to tell apart creatures that are supposed to be related (I'd have some trouble telling which wolf if a dire wolf and which one is a worg, but that's fine). But when creatures are part of a group, they should have common characteristics. True dragons have four legs, two wings, are scaly, intelligent and have a breath weapon. Illithidkin have tentacles, molted skin and eat brains or have a brain theme. Archons are anthropomorphic animals standing tall with a noble attitude. Angels have big feathery wings and sometimes glowing eyes and weirdly-colored skin but are otherwise extremely humanoid. Beholderkin are big floating balls with either one center eye or many eyes on tendrils. Eladrins are elf-like outsiders who can turn into various kinds of elements or into balls of light.
On the other hands, demons are... evil and sometimes humanoid. Devils are evil and sometimes humanoid. And yugoloths are evil and sometimes humanoid. Between these two obese psychopaths, which one's a demon and which one's a devil? What about these two sexy winged dominatrices? Or these two big red flying horned humanoids? Among these five insectoid monsters, one is a tanar'ri, one is a baatezu, one is a yugoloth and two are not fiends at all. Can you find all of them? Maybe. Tell me below how many you got wrong. But now, if you ask people around you that do not play D&D, or are not as savvy as people from this forum, can they do the same? See the problem here? There should be at least some sort of common theme.

Spoiler: Demon, Devil or Daemon, image edition

Show

Spoiler: Obese psychopathic fiends

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Spoiler: Answer

Show

Top: Nupperibo, baatezu devil (or possibly ancient Baatorian)
Bottom: Mane, Tanar'ri demon

Spoiler: Winged lady fiends

Show

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Top: two succubi, tanar'ri demons (though unaligned fiends in 4e, but who cares about 4e)
Bottom: a summoned erynie,baatezu devil

Spoiler: Powerful red winged horned fiends

Show

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Of course, top is a pit fiend devil, and bottom is a balor demon with its signature weapons

Spoiler: Insectoid fiends

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1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Spoiler: Answer

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1) Ice devil Gelugon, a baatezu devil
2) Mezzoloth, a yugoloth
3) A simple thri-kreen, a creature from the Material Plane
4) A Chasme, a fly-like tanar'ri from the demonic Abyss
5) A formian taskmaster, an inhabitant of the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus

For example, demons have at least one animal part, and more powerful ones become more chaotic and start becoming an amalgamation of several kinds of animals, like Demogorgon is. Devils could all be some approximation of the human shape, with or without horns and wings. In that description, lemures at the bottom would be almost indistinguishable and more powerful baatezu would be coming closer to that "ideal shape" represented at the top by Asmodeus, almost completely human except for his horns and red skin. In the middle, yugoloths would be generally humanoids, with some limbs missing or added to fit their role better, like two of the yugoloths in the MM3 having four arms and one missing its eyes but somehow seeing even better.
That would have been cooler, I think, but demons, devils and daemons have been characterized so long ago, in the old days of 1st edition, that it would be nigh-impossible to change all of that now without a complete lore overhaul like that of 4e.


Anyway, Yugoloths! In a surprising twist, the only yugoloth that cannot manipulate items, the Canoloth, is the only one who got a positive level adjustment in the original thread, despite the general sentiment against creatures with no thumb (Justice for the gelatinous cube! And the shrieker. I want people to play shriekers). The reason is not too hard to understand: good natural weapons, good movement speed and especially, the lowest amount of RHD. On the other hand, the mezzoloth, nyctaloth (Nique ta lotte! What? People here don't understand french, I can make dirty puns if I want without anybody noticing.) and ultroloth have respectively 10, 14 and 18 RHD, which is just a bit too many for what they bring to the table. Which is not to say that they're that bad. They all have very good Spell Resistance (7+RHD for the ultroloth, 10+RHD for the nyctaloth and 12+RHD for the canoloth), somewhat decent stats with a focus on Con, resistance or immunity to all energies except sonic, and of course Summon Yugoloth when they have time to prepare before a battle. Let's see how they fare!

Mezzoloth, 10 RHD:
Already this one make very little sense. It has four arms, right? Two with claws and two with prehensile "hands" that can manipulate items and weapons. Then why can't it attack with both claws and a weapon at the same time? Or use a bite, or anything else really? Also, it has a limit per day on its Greater Teleport (self+50lbs), which is something I don't think I've ever seen before. At least it can teleport. It has low stats (including -4 Int, +10 Con and +4 Cha, for a total of +18), and its spell-like abilities are kinda bad, except Cloudkill 2/day and Dispel Magic CL 10 2/day, which are really good, especially sinc you're immune to poison. And since Outsider HDs are still so good that even with an Int penalty you still gain more skill points than most classes, I guess this is good enough for 7 RHD, though maybe a bit weak, and a weak DLA-2 as well.

Nyctaloth, 14 RHD:
"Nyctaloth are an elite cavalry in yugoloth armies". Do they know what cavalry means? The nyctaloth flies fast (90ft Good), has four arms that can manipulate weapons (with the standard statblock wielding a 2-handed axe and using its other two for Improved Grab (which weirdly only works if the nyctaloth hits with two claws instead of one), and has a load of defensive SLAs (invisibility, mirror image, deeper darkness) to be sure to not be attacked until it attacks itself. Also, pretty good ability scores (+10, +4, +14, +2, +0, +6, +12 natural armor) and a stacking Bleeding Wounds which incentivises the use of its claws even if it can't grapple. All in all a pretty good warrior with a few tricks, that I could very well see compared to a bear warrior build with a few spells. 10 RHD, DLA-2

Nyctaloth Commander, 25 RHD:
Bigger, better, tougher, stronger! The commander of the yugoloth cavalry is one size category bigger, but has stat boosts all over the place. +4 Str, +6 Con, +2 Wis, +2 Cha, +4 natural armor. What. WotC, you took the time to normalize size adjustments to ability scores, why not use it here? 8 Str, 4 Con, does that ring a bell? Also, it didn't gain Spell Resistance? Aren't monsters supposed to gain spell resistance as they increase in CR due to their HD? Like the Mivilorn from the same book? (it doesn't exactly follow 1 SR/1 CR because the elite mount also has the Warbeast template which adds one) Or the Odopi? Or the splinterwaif, or the ssvaklor ? Why does the nyctaloth not get the exact same treatment?? Anyway, more stats and a size more, but effectively less SR means 12 RHD, DLA-9.

Ultroloth, 18 RHD: So let's get this out of the way, yes these stats are garbage. +2 Str, +6 Dex, +10 Con, +6 Int, +4 Dex, +8 Cha, +8 Natural armor would be par for an outsider with half these HD. But damn, these SLAs are nice. At will scrying, invisibility, gaseous form, suggestion, wall of fire, 3/day mass suggestion, enervation, freaking binding if you don't want to kill enemies or to take your time using your Geas 3/day (sadly it says that it allows a save, I assume Will), and 1/day symbol of death if all else fails. And of course the hypnotic pattern gaze can allow the party to flee in a bind, although it is unfriendly. Scrying at will, especially, will make the whole party basically all-knowing in a few days (note that the 24h-immunity only applies if the target succeeds on the save, not if its SR blocks the scrying). The ultroloth makes such a good face with its massive amount of skills and charisma, and its at-wills are on par with a pretty high-level warlock, although the lack of UMD hurts and it's mostly "Will negates". Sadly, they're quite limited in combat against any creature immune to mind-affecting effects, and is generally more of a general that controls lower-level minions with its enchantments rather than fighting themselves (remember that Geas can be as long as needed, including "do not resist when I cast Geas on you again"). All in all, the ultroloth is the incarnation of why Leadership is problematic, but it still does really well in its field. 12 RHD, might have been 13 if it still had Alter self like its flavor text implies. And DLA-4, since despite the great kind of RHD, more RHD don't really increase the power of its SLA.


That was quite a long post for only 4 monsters, but I think the ultroloths deserve it. What do you think of them? How would you change them? Would you like to see old yugoloths come back, like the great baernaloths, rumored to have created all fiendish races like the sarrukhs did with the scalykind, the lords oinoloths with full power over the plagues of the first layer of Hades, or the warrior yagnoloths who could eat both levels and ability scores at a frightening pace?

Next time, we will finish the Monster Manual 3 with the Zezir, then I'll come back to all near-epic creatures to which I've not assigned a DNLA and see how we can fix that! Have a good day!

[Metastachydium]

Archons are anthropomorphic animals standing tall with a noble attitude.

Except not really, that's the Guardinals. Except the Owl Archon, Warden Archon and Hound Archon totally are that. But the rest? Mostly (Justice, Trumpet, Word, Sword, Throne…) angels, aesthetically speaking. Now, Archons are the Lawful ones! They sure follow a two themes, right? Well, not even that. Enter the Lantern Archon (one of the cutest things in the damn game, but I digress) which is… Not really like anything from among the exemplars, except the non-humanoid forms of certain Eladrins.

Sorry, Archons. You are doing this Lawful thing wrong.

For example, demons have at least one animal part, and more powerful ones become more chaotic and start becoming an amalgamation of several kinds of animals, like Demogorgon

Or the Stitched Devil! (Which is, of course a Devil.)

And the shrieker. I want people to play shriekers

I'm sure the Shriekers would feel the same if they had a mind. Or feelings. Or anything other than an ability to signal to other species that they are food.

nyctaloth (Nique ta lotte! What? People here don't understand french, I can make dirty puns if I want without anybody noticing.)

It's spelled nycaloth, actually, without the t. (Hah! No French puns for you!)

"Nyctaloth are an elite cavalry in yugoloth armies". Do they know what cavalry means?

I suppose they are big enough to be sat on?

or the warrior yagnoloths who could eat both levels and ability scores at a frightening pace?

Oh, on that: I've got good news and very bad news! So, in order: they were officially statted up for 3e; but that happened in MM2.

EDIT: One more thing, in case you didn't notice: there was an actual recruitment for a game on this site that had your NLA stuff as allowed content!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Zezir

And to cap off the fantastic Monster Manual 3, we have the Zezir! ...No? Nobody? You know, the Zezir, the giant ostriches/velociraptors from the Plane of Fire probably inspired by 1e's giant striders! ... Yeah, we're not finishing on a high note. They are avians with reptilian features, so basically dinosaurs, and eat the ash of the things they burn with their breath, which makes me wonder how they eat in the fire plane of Fernia in Eberron. Despite everything pointing to "animal", they are relatively intelligent, making ambush attacks with "spies" and cooperation tactics, and enjoying the chaos of burning things.

The zezir is an exceeding simple monster mechanically. It"s a Medium Magical Beast with 9 RHD and regular melee monster stats (+8 in all physical stats, -6 Int, +2 Wis and Cha, +3 NA), Fire subtype and fast healing that is not mentioned anywhere in the fluff. It has 2 claws and one bite, and a very underwhelming double ability allowing it to first spew a red-hot goo in a 30ft cone dealing 2d6, then spewing sparks at a single enemy inside that cone, which ignites the goo and deals 1d6 bonus damage for a few rounds. Sadly, this takes two standard actions, so you most probably will never use it. The most interesting part being the stats (which, granted, are not that bad for an initiator), it doesn't deserve more than 4 RHD, DLA-3, despite the decent racial hit dice.


It's been almost 15 months since the beginning of MM3, during which we had a good mix of original and bland monsters. This book had one job: being another Monster Manual, with half of the monsters being callbacks to MM1 and the other half being actually new monsters. Sometimes taking a monster too seriously leads to a less original result, like we saw with the mindshredders, and sometimes we had genuinely great ideas like the tralusk, the Dread Blossom Swarm or the shrieking terror. Sometimes the callbacks were unsalvageable garbage, like the skullcrusher ogre, and sometimes we had actually interesting variations, like the War Troll, the various swarms and the Rakshasa Ak'Chazar. And there were even a few monsters that marked D&D's history, like the living spells, the changelings, the cadaver collector and sadly the wood woad, and others that deserved it but were instead forgotten to time, like the Odopi, the Night Twist or the Grisgol. It was a wild ride, and I'm curious to see what the Libris Mortis will have in store for us... Once again, see you next time!