Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Dualight]

And let's face it, Dragon HD is already better than the bottom two Tiers on its very own.

Ouch. My introduction to D&D was 5e, so I still haven't quite grasped just how wildly divergent the options in 3.x are, but I have to wonder just how it is that one can screw up a class so much that featureless Hit Dice(I know that those also increase skill points, not only HP, and that creature types have associated passives, but still) are better than taking levels in that class.

And now I wonder, are there classes that are so bad, that a PC with only X Dragon HD is better than one with 1 Dragon HD and X-1 levels in that class? (or alternatively, X Dragon HD versus level X with the Dragon creature type). I definitely do not have the familiarity with 3.x to figure out how one would even go about determining which is better.

[Metastachydium]

Ouch. My introduction to D&D was 5e, so I still haven't quite grasped just how wildly divergent the options in 3.x are, but I have to wonder just how it is that one can screw up a class so much that featureless Hit Dice(I know that those also increase skill points, not only HP, and that creature types have associated passives, but still) are better than taking levels in that class.

Dragon HD id d12, full BAB, with all good saves and 6+INT skill points, and yes, that's before traits and racial abilities.

And now I wonder, are there classes that are so bad, that a PC with only X Dragon HD is better than one with 1 Dragon HD and X-1 levels in that class?

Yes, sadly. Too many of them, in fact.

[Beni-Kujaku]

And now I wonder, are there classes that are so bad, that a PC with only X Dragon HD is better than one with 1 Dragon HD and X-1 levels in that class? (or alternatively, X Dragon HD versus level X with the Dragon creature type). I definitely do not have the familiarity with 3.x to figure out how one would even go about determining which is better.

Let's first take an extreme example to showcase how strong dragon HD are: NPC classes. Those are classes that are purposefully designed to be extremely weak and that have no class feature. At the very bottom, you have the commoner.
2+Int mod skill points per level, +1/2 level BAB (base attack bonus, with your to-hit bonus being BAB+Str mod), 1d4 HP/level, and no good saves (good saves are 2+1/2 level+ability mod, while bad saves are 1/3 level+ability mod). Basically, that's a wizard, but with no spell, and no good Will save.

On the other hand, dragons have everything pushed to 11: 6+Int skill points, full BAB, d12 HP, all good saves. (dragons also have darkvision, low-light vision, and immunity to sleep and paralysis, but that's not why we say that they're strong)

So a Commoner 20 with 10 in all stats has 46 skill points, +10 to hit, 50 HP, and +6 in all saves.
A Dragon 10 with 10 in all stats has 78 skill points, +10 to hit, 65 HP, and +7 in all saves.
With half the levels, it's better in basically all respects.

Now let's compare it with what's technically a PC class, but one that they botched incredibly bad: the Soulknife. Basically, soulknives can create a blade out of their mind, and gain a few bonuses with it. At level 10, the blade is a bastard sword (1d10 damage), gains +4 to hit and +2 to damage plus two abilities (let's say they chose the abilities that give +1d6 and +1d4 on damage, which are not even the worst choices, for an average of +6 to damage). The other abilities of the soulknife are generally irrelevant, but they also gain +2d8 on the first hit per fight and if they use their move action for it before attacking. They have 4+Int skill points, d10 HP and 3/4 levels in BAB.
A level 10 soulknife with 16 Str and Con, and 10 elsewhere, has 85 HP, 52 skill points, and attacks at +14, dealing an average of 18 damage, or 27 on the first hit. Its Fort save is +6, the others are +7.
A dragon with the same stats and a bastard sword has 95 HP, 78 skill points, and attacks at +13, dealing an average of 9 damage. Its Fort save is at +10, the others are at +7.

The soulknife has better combat capabilities, dealing more damage with slightly more options, while the dragon has more skill points, HP and a higher Fort save. Which one's better? I'd argue it's still the soulknife, but it's really a toss-up. So yeah, dragon HD can be considered better than low-tier classes. And that's only the HD! In general, dragons have wings, natural attacks and natural armor which make them much much better than soulknives at a similar level. Fortunately, we're not attributing LA compared to soulknives, or this thread would not have many denizens. The "target power level" for martial-type monsters are the Warblade (from Tome of Battle, it has battle maneuvers, it's great), the Psychic Warrior (you know Eldritch Knights? Same, but with a brain) and the Barbarian (with the Pounce alternate class feature, which makes it at least able to move and attack several times in the same round. You 5e-ers, you have it easy).

Yes, sadly. Too many of them, in fact.

I wouldn't say many of them. Fighter and Paladin are still better than dragons is my opinion, but yeah, Monks, Ninjas, Swashbuckler, and CW Samurai (basically everything under Soulknife) are really in the bad side of 3.5.

[H_H_F_F]

I wouldn't say many of them. Fighter and Paladin are still better than dragons is my opinion, but yeah, Monks, Ninjas, Swashbuckler, and CW Samurai (basically everything under Soulknife) are really in the bad side of 3.5.

I think Daring Outlaw gets swashbuckler out of that list. Monks also have some feats that can make them worthwhile enough to be at least equivalent to RHD with the right racial choice (I know, heresy).

Ninjas and Samurais - definitely.

[loky1109]

Beni, you want to say dragon has +12 all saves.
Ouch. I see, Dragon 10.

[Dualight]

Thanks for the responses.
Being only slightly better than a featureless blob of Dragon Hit Dice in battle(and even then only when attacking, with the Dragon-blob being tankier), and worse outside it (less skill points) is very obviously painful.

I have to say that this thread has been very interesting, even with my lack of background knowledge. One of the first things I learnt about 3.x that I knew was specific to the edition(rather than general D&D things) was that there are official rules for playing as monsters, which has fascinated me ever since. This thread is downright fun to read, on top of letting me learn about monster I'd never even heard of.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Chwidencha

"Attention to all drows! You shall dedicate your life to the glory and worship of the great goddess Lolth! Scheme, murder, invade, and rise to the top so that from the depth of the Abyss, she will hear your victims scream your name in fear! Then, and only then will She put you to the test. If you succeed, you will have the ultimate honor of becoming her priestess. But should you fail, you will face being turned into a drider! What? No, not "great", it's supposed to be a punishment. Your whole lower body will become that of a spider, and you will grow fangs that can paralyze people with poison. No, I assure you you can wait for it. You don't understand, it will change your very mind, making you more intelligent and charismatic, as well as giving you magic powers and spell resistan... Yeah, yeah, okay, I see it now."

Yeah, a drow being turned into a drider is really more of a blessing from Lolth than a curse. The driders are exiled, but are otherwise free, and gain cool magical powers with no real drawback. I always thought of it as just a way for Lolth to put drows outside their comfort zone, letting them unleash chaos onto the world far from the relative shackles of the drow society. But if you really piss the goddess of spiders off, she has much worse in store. And that's turning you into a Chwidencha. Instead of gaining intelligence as a drider, you become little more than an animal, still barely able to understand the contemptuous words of your ex-compatriots but unable to speak. Instead of magical powers, you lose your hands, your head and most of your anatomy, replaced by dozens of pointy legs. And you know the worst of all? You have 12 Aberration RHD. Really a fitting punishment for the hubris of a drow who thought she would become a mighty drider.


In 4e, the chwidencha came back, with two basically interchangeable counterparts, the Fithrichen and Mithrenda, depending on Lolth's mood (you know, besides "constantly livid and probably crazy"). The Mithrenda is a deformed spider using its web like a net, while the Fithrichen is a spider with a giant head where its abdomen should be, vomiting smaller spiders and clouds of smoke. Lovely. And now you're probably wondering if those names mean anything? And to that, I say: probably not. It sounds like pure gibberish, and despite a very extensive drow dictionary, no word seems to match. But I can say that in Lord of the Ring, "mith" means grey, so the Mithrenda is actually just a "grey renda", bruh!


The chwidencha fits a really important role lore-wise, but it's mechanically both weak and boring. Not a good combination:
- Large Aberration, 12 RHD
- +12 Str, +6 Dex, +10 Con, -8 Int, +6 Wis, -8 Cha, +9 NA. Did you know it was supposed to be in melee? Incredible, right.
- 4 leg rakes, Improved Grab if it hits with 2, Constrict. Not even Improved Grab on each attack? And the legs can be severed with 20 damage to free a grabbed creature? That's just rude at this point.
- 30ft burrow speed, 60ft Tremorsense. That's actually very fast for a burrow speed. Always good, even if none of your abilities actually take advantage of it.
- Sonic vulnerability.

See how bland it is. It's not weak per se, 4 attacks with that strength, Large size and Improved Grab make for dangerous encounters (Kensai is probably a good class, btw), but there's absolutely nothing unique here except the type of natural weapon, which just means there's no support for it. No hands, mouth, or body means it has almost no body slot and cannot innately communicate with the party, and Pearl of Speech doesn't work. It fights, and that's all.
Verdict: Meh, 4 RHD, DLA-5. Swordsage 4 then Kensai, and you'll be fine.


The drow dictionary is actually pretty interesting. I particularly like the word for a monstrous spider (actually for a "dangerous spider", from here). It's "lhorb", and is seemingly a variation of the regular word for spider "orb". And if you look at the same word in elvish, its "horb" and "orbryn" for a regular spider. But the plural in elvish is "orbra/horbra", following the regular plural rule; while in drow, it's "orbb/lhorbbyth", completely irregular. It's weird, right? If drow is a parent language to elvish, the plural should be as similar as the singular. The only other explanation is that there was a contamination from another language. And the -yth suffix in "lhorbbyth" should make you think of something specific: demons. Marilith, wastrilith, alkilith, cerebrilith, all the way up to the obyrith, many demons have this suffix. What if, when Lolth became a demon lord, her whispers took a touch of Abyssal language, which slowly morphed the way drows pronounce the word Lolth pronounces most often: "An army of monstrous spiderkin".
And if you liked abominations from the bottom of the Abyss, just wait, because next week will be fun: the Crawling Head, a giant undead head with necromantic powers. See you then!

[remetagross]

This is a fascinating foray into the linguistics of drow language. As much as the monster itself is utter crap. The fact that item slots are horrendously reduced turns it from a border 4 to 5 RHD to a 4 RHD one.

I like the crawling headyth, they have quite the look. Plus, it's always interesting to see the challenge set by trying to make a threatening high-CR beatstick.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Crawling Head

- You're the undead head of a giant!? Wow... I guess you absorbed a lot of necromantic energy to become so big.
- Absorbed... What? How big am I?
- I'd say... A storm giant.
- Oh, okay, that's normal then, I actually was the head of a storm giant.
- No, the SIZE of a storm giant.
- ... What the f**k!?

See this thing? That's exactly what this thread is all about. A big monster with great, varied and interesting abilities, but just too many HD to be playable. The crawling head is the head of a giant that was detached, animated necromantically, and somehow gained pointy teeth slicy enough to cut heads clean off and tentacles (supposedly the intestines of the original giant) that allow it to both crawl and climb.
The lore isn't that developed, "animated by a mad necromancer killed by its creation" is basically the default for powerful undead, but the crawling head is mechanically very unique and interesting. First, it's an extremely good necromancer itself, with lots of at-will and 3/day SLAs (notably Animate Dead, Control Undead, Create (Greater) Undead, Harm and Wail of the Banshee). Especially, at-will CL 20 Control Undead means that the crawling has essentially an infinite pool of undead control as long as none of them has more than 40 HD. To give you an idea, if the head constantly uses half of its actions to Control Undead, it will be able to keep control on an astounding 4,000 HD of Undead. And with Create Undead, it can obtain powerful Undead with a surprising amount of variety. Spectral Rider (MM5) to prevent turning and increase the number of HD of all created Undead by 2, Corpse/Bone creatures (BoVD) and Juju zombies if you find interesting creatures and are in the mood to play Pokémon and catch them all, Wraiths and Spectres for incorporeal support, Crypt Chanter to have actual class features at your disposal, or even Devourer to cast Planar Ally if you're really THAT starved for more minionmancy, you name it, it can animate it. It's almost absurd. No, no, there it is, it's absurd.
On top of that, the Crawling Head has a Vorpal Bite. On a roll of 19 or 20, it can thus eat another creature's head. Note that contrary to the regular Vorpal ability, this explicitly requires a critical hit, which means it doesn't work on elementals, undead, constructs... Those generally can survive even without a head so you don't lose much, but it makes the regular warning on vorpal that undead and golems don't care about having a head a bit redondant. Additionally, you can consume a head that you have swallowed (you can keep as many heads at once as you have HD) to either heal 150 HP (so basically, heal to full), gain +6 to any one ability score for an hour or quicken one of your SLAs. This is all as a FREE ACTION, 1/round. Quickened Wail of the Banshee is extremely good, for example.
And to top it all off, when you attack while you have at least 10 heads stored, they produce a cacophony of sounds from beyond the grave. This doesn't cost any action, nor does it cost any head, and makes it so that creatures in a 60ft radius make a Will save each round or cower for the round, losing all actions. This is extremely good. This is also a sonic, mind-affecting effect. And you know what that means? That means we have finally uncovered the perfect monster for Siren! A sonic attack repeatable at will, with no 24h immunity, on a creature with high charisma (the crawling head has +14 Cha)! It's perfect! It's beautiful! I love it! Of course, it won't be able to reach the actually good stuff of Siren pre-epic (no way in Hells am I giving the head less than 15RHD), but it makes for a good choice of career later on. The problem, of course, is that you'll be burning your stored heads in combat like a Remorhaz melts ice. There are ways around it, notably taking one level of Binder and Improved Binding to bind Malphas and be able to summon ravens at-will, that you promptly behead to fuel your abilities, but in general, you're just going to kill dozens of citizens a day. What? You're a giant undead necromancer head. What part of this exactly seems out of character?

So, to summarize:
- Huge Undead, 28 RHD. That's too many HD, but considering this is literally the second most powerful non-unique Undead outside the ELH (with only the Necroclasm, an over-CRed pyroclastic flow composed of undead corpses, being stronger), it's to be expected.
- +20 Str, -4 Dex, _ Con, +10 Int, +8 Wis, +14 Cha, +6 Natural Armor. Really good stats adjustments, with focuses on the Str and Cha you need. The natural armor, though, is pitiful.
- SLAs: At-will: Animate Dead, Control Undead, Death Knell, Inflict Serious Wound, Fear, Gentle Repose, Shield, Speak With Dead. 3/day: Create Undead, Create Greater Undead, Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee. Absolutely, fantastically awesome SLAs.
- Vorpal Bite, Absorb Head, Cacophony. Very unique, very good. Love these abilities.
- 4 tendrils with Improved Grab and Constrict, 1 bite. If you have nothing better to do, a vorpal bite with held Inflict Serious Wound does decent damage, and grappling opposing casters could always be good, if your army of undead didn't already and if you can reach them with your 20ft speed (land and climb).
- DR 20/Magic and Piercing, sadly most monster's natural weapons will bypass it, and SR 3+HD is decent. Immunities to electricity and sonic are super weird, but always appreciated. True Seeing is good.
- I generally do not mention class skills, but the crawling head has a really good list, including Use Magic Device, in case you want more versatility than just necromancy. Sad that there's no face skills.
- And finally, Water Vulnerability. if you touch water, it's 1d6 damage. If you are immerged in water, it's 10d6 per round. If you're outside in the rain... Well, you have Inflict Serious Wound at will to heal yourself, so it's basically irrelevant.


Damn it that necromancy is strong, actually better than a 20th level Dread Necromancer. Cacophony is great, free action full heal 1/round is great, the stats and skills are good. So, it should be worth at least 20 RHD, right?
Well, the first thing is how party-unfriendly the crawling head is. Its most powerful abilities apart from minionmancy are Wail of the Banshee and Cacophony, both large unfriendly areas. Travelling with an army of death is hard, prevents teleportation and hinders the movement of the party in combat, which means you won't be able to bring it with you in every high-level adventure.
Also, it has low versatility despite all its undead, and even less if it is forced to move without them. It has no battlefield control, no buff, no non-Undead enchantment and no out-of-combat utility, and it lacks the class features that regular characters get through their regular or prestige classes. That makes it very vulnerable to Constructs and other creatures with immunity to death and mind-affecting, since most of its powers (apart from its undead) do not affect them, and its melee capabilities, despite the high strength, are pretty bad, considering it's an Undead.
And of course, it loses most magic item slots, and the undead it can create that have hands do not share the skills it could want to use with those hands.
And finally, it's an Undead with no turn resistance (unless it has a spectral rider, of course), which means a level-equivalent cleric can make it flee with no save.

All in all, the sheer power and minionmancy is still absolutely relevant at very high level, and simply pulling off a Devourer's Lesser Planar Ally solves a lot of your problems. I'd say 17 RHD, DLA-7. I'd consider at least a dip in Binder and Improved Binding. Malphas isn't only good to get new heads, at-will Invisibility is great for a minionmancer. Then, two levels of either Marshal or Warblade (focusing on White Raven) to improve your minions and allies. Then, entering into epic levels, you can finally go Siren for the sweet perfection of repeatable AoE Song of Idiocy.


Such a great monster. Just the right amount of everything to make a great monster and an interesting PC. Loved it. And next time, we'll continue in the Halloween theme with another Undead: the Crypt Thing! Enjoy your week!

[loky1109]

I think tentacles were cervical vessels and/or neck muscles.

[Remuko]

Crawling Head

- You're the undead head of a giant!? Wow... I guess you absorbed a lot of necromantic energy to become so big.
- Absorbed... What? How big am I?
- I'd say... A storm giant.
- Oh, okay, that's normal then, I actually was the head of a storm giant.
- No, the SIZE of a storm giant.
- ... What the f**k!?

nice DBZ Abridged World's Strongest reference.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Crypt Thing

When four Undead-looking creatures were touched by cosmic radiations, they found themselves gaining new powers, and became heroes and protectors of all living beings as well as undeadkind. You all know them, they are:

Mr. Psionic, the Unbodied!

The Invisible Stalker!

The Skeletal Torch, an Eye of Fear and Flame!

And of course, the Crypt Thing!

And together, they decided to name themselves after what they were mistaken as to strike fear in the heart of criminals. Thus were born: the Cadaveric Four!!
Cue 1970's animated series opening!

Spoiler: And if you want the rest of the crew...

Show

Yes, you read that right, undead-"looking". In their first appearance, in Fiend Folio 1e, neither the Crypt Thing nor the Eye of Fear and Flame were undead creatures. It was not explained what they are, but they definitely weren't on the "Undead Table", and the Fiend Folio's editor, Don Turnbull, even vehemently pointed that fact to Ed Greenwood in Dragon Magazine #55 when the latter dared say that Fiend Folio should better indicate the origin of its undead creatures. Of course, both the Eye of Fear and Flame and the Crypt Thing were officially changed to undead in their very next appearance (in the same edition for the EoFaF), because come on. They're visually completely identical to skeletons, live in graveyards, and are called "Crypt Things". Not making them undead would border on false advertising.

So now the Crypt Thing is a corpse, either spontaneously animating or animated by a 14th level cleric with Create Undead (in 2e, Create Crypt Thing was a 7th level cleric spell, accessible at 14th level) who has exactly one ability, that has remained consistent throughout editions: once per day, they can teleport every intruder in a certain radius by several hundred feet in a random direction. Roll a d6 for each character, 1 to 4 are cardinal directions, 5 is up, 6 is down; and in a dungeon the latter two made you move up or down a dungeon floor. Then you roll 1d10x100 or 10d10x10 ft for the distance. What was that? "Never split the party"? Too bad, you messed with the wrong skeleton!
This ability is already pretty random by itself, but I just love that 1e explicitly says that the Crypt Thing will tell the party members who made their save that their teammates have been disintegrated instead of simply teleported. It gives just so much personality to the monster, and is a pretty funny prank to pull on your players if they try to open the "obviously important door with a skeleton lying in a corner of the room".

The problem of the monster is that apart from its Scatter Defilers ability, it's just a weak human skeleton with the elite array, 6 RHD, and nothing to show for it. +6 Dex, +4 Wis, +2 Cha, +4 natural armor, 2 claws, +4 Turn Resistance, Deflect Arrows as a bonus feat, and that's all. 3 RHD would probably make for a decent rogue, swordsage, spellthief, binder or warlock, with Scatter Defilers for a funny random effect 1/day (may even be used to transport your allies through walls and into a city in a pinch). And like always, Undead RHD are bad, so DLA-2.


I find myself rather liking the Crypt Thing, and I'm impressed it managed to survive from 1st to 5th edition with little to no change (except for 4th edition, because Ao forbids there is a monster with an ability not exclusively suited for direct combat in 4e). Next time, we will review the singular demon in this book who got LA-0, and surprisingly it's not the 18 RHD one, but the measly 4 RHD aquatic demon, the Skulvyn.

[Metastachydium]

Mr. Psionic, the Unbodied!

Unbodied might be very stupid, but damn, that picture is cute!

The Invisible Stalker!

(I have recently checked the 2e Monstrous Manual for unrelated reasons. That the image for these is literally an empty white square there earned a chuckle from me.)

Yes, you read that right, undead-"looking". In their first appearance, in Fiend Folio 1e, neither the Crypt Thing nor the Eye of Fear and Flame were undead creatures. It was not explained what they are, but they definitely weren't on the "Undead Table", and the Fiend Folio's editor, Don Turnbull, even vehemently pointed that fact to Ed Greenwood in Dragon Magazine #55 when the latter dared say that Fiend Folio should better indicate the origin of its undead creatures. Of course, both the Eye of Fear and Flame and the Crypt Thing were officially changed to undead in their very next appearance (in the same edition for the EoFaF), because come on. They're visually completely identical to skeletons, live in graveyards, and are called "Crypt Things". Not making them undead would border on false advertising.

What? That's entirely reasonable! The Crypt Warden^BoED has the same looks, habitat and love for visitors, and it totally isn't Undead!

This ability is already pretty random by itself, but I just love that 1e explicitly says that the Crypt Thing will tell the party members who made their save that their teammates have been disintegrated instead of simply teleported. It gives just so much personality to the monster, and is a pretty funny prank to pull on your players if they try to open the "obviously important door with a skeleton lying in a corner of the room".

Sad Pile of Bones That Used to Be a Crypt Thing: Totally worth it.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Unbodied might be very stupid, but damn, that picture is cute!

Yeah, he is! The picture is from an episode of the Billy and Mandy show with a really good song from Voltaire, and is basically an alien that eats the brains of an entire city. How cute!

(I have recently checked the 2e Monstrous Manual for unrelated reasons. That the image for these is literally an empty white square there earned a chuckle from me.)

No, you don't get it, it's actually a gorgeous piece of art, you just can't see it without True Seeing.

What? That's entirely reasonable! The Crypt Warden^BoED has the same looks, habitat and love for visitors, and it totally isn't Undead!

Okay, we need to talk. When discussing something about common sense, creature types and especially Undead, we don't talk about the Book of Exalted Deeds. It's just a hastily-put-together counterpart to the Book of Vile Darkness, which was itself little more than Monte Cook enjoying himself, and was released in october 2002, right on time for spooky season. One of my favorite D&D-related quotes is Monte Cook's commentary on BoVD: "My primary concern was, 'What will Wizards of the Coast let me get away with?' The answer turned out to be 'pretty much anything.' "
Of course, there was an uproar from the holier-than-thou population, arguing that this book would corrupt our poor children with the worst kind of fantasies, and making WotC backpedal fast into the Book of Exalted Deeds. The BoED feels like a joke, with everything in it being either exactly the same as BoVD but with a different name that sounds more Good, or an exact opposite.

Spoiler: Can I copy your homework? Okay, just make it Good.

Show

Deathless=Undead
Affliction=Disease
Ravage=Poison
Holy Damage/Damage from a divine source=Unholy Damage/Vile Damage (seriously? Even that? Also, the power level of Vile compared with "from a divine source" is vastly different, but I digress)
Sanctified Spells=Corrupt Spells
Exalted Feats=Vile Feats
Tithe and offerings=Sacrifice
Nonlethal Equipment=Execution Equipment
Ambrosia=Agony
Channeling=Possession
Word of Creation=Dark Chant/Dark Speech

Even the prestige classes can be associated almost one-to-one with BoVD classes, with frightening efficiency:
Anointed Knight=Warrior of Darkness
Apostle of Peace=Ur-Priest
Ten prestige classes serving Paragon Celestials (6 archons, 3 guardinals, 1 eladrin)=Nine prestige classes serving Demon Lord and Devil Princes
Skylord=Verminlord

The BoED isn't a separate book, it's just a message: "See, we could have made it about Good, and it wouldn't have changed a thing, except maybe add hypocrisy". It's so pushed that the next time they "redeemed" a prestige class this way, it was in an April Fool's article. The Crypt Warden (and the whole Deathless type) should never have existed as such, and simply be Undead, powered by other forces than the Negative Energy Plane. Honestly, I feel like it would have opened a design space. A kind of creatures with a dead body, but overflowing with so much Positive Energy that they just can't die. They could be victims (people who died on the Positive Energy Plane, which would actually make some plausible inhabitants for that plane), emissaries of good gods ("You. You don't get to die yet."), or even aberrations (not the creature type, but people who came back from the PEP changed, and could even be infectious, creating tumors and mutations around them the way being on the Positive Plane does). The Deathless type is an idea that was tarnished by a purpose instilled, that of simply being good Undead rather than being interesting creatures.

Sad Pile of Bones That Used to Be a Crypt Thing: Totally worth it.

If you've been brought back against your will to eternally guard a crypt, being destroyed isn't the price to pay for the best joke of your unlife, it's good news that keep coming.

[Morphic tide]

Hell, the fact the Negative Energy Plane isn't a Lower Outer Plane makes it so there's no hard metaphysical reason for Always Evil Undead, WotC just purged all the counterexamples to the point of reserving the Baelnorn for Deathless. Even so, you get outliers like Ghosts and Dry Liches, and awkward technicalities with "Usually" Alignment entries meant for the Law/Chaos axis (insert the five flavors of Undead Bard)

The association makes things needlessly difficult for all the non-Evil Death Gods because the primary "stuff of death" is bolted to Evil because "killing things bad", despite the vast majority of the game rules being how the players can do so.

[Metastachydium]

Yeah, he is! The picture is from an episode of the Billy and Mandy show with a really good song from Voltaire, and is basically an alien that eats the brains of an entire city. How cute!

But it looks so friendly and green!

Okay, we need to talk. When discussing something about common sense, creature types and especially Undead, we don't talk about the Book of Exalted Deeds. It's just a hastily-put-together counterpart to the Book of Vile Darkness, which was itself little more than Monte Cook enjoying himself, and was released in october 2002, right on time for spooky season. One of my favorite D&D-related quotes is Monte Cook's commentary on BoVD: "My primary concern was, 'What will Wizards of the Coast let me get away with?' The answer turned out to be 'pretty much anything.' "
Of course, there was an uproar from the holier-than-thou population, arguing that this book would corrupt our poor children with the worst kind of fantasies, and making WotC backpedal fast into the Book of Exalted Deeds. The BoED feels like a joke, with everything in it being either exactly the same as BoVD but with a different name that sounds more Good, or an exact opposite.

[…]

The BoED isn't a separate book, it's just a message: "See, we could have made it about Good, and it wouldn't have changed a thing, except maybe add hypocrisy". It's so pushed that the next time they "redeemed" a prestige class this way, it was in an April Fool's article.

Hey! It's got good stuff in it! Like
1. some feats (Intuitive Attack (yes, it would be a lot better feat coming from ANY OTHER FREAKING BOOK), Nimbus of Light (okay, it's not that good, but I find the you are a light bulb now part of it it funny and Diplomacy is always a good thing));
2. the Owl Archon (it's a BIRDY!); and
stuff that isn't good by any metric, but which is so uniquely bad that it's worth putting a neon sign on, mainly
3. Risen freakin' Martyr.

I also like the idea of the Aleax. Like an Inevitable, except personal. Very personal.

The Crypt Warden (and the whole Deathless type) should never have existed as such, and simply be Undead, powered by other forces than the Negative Energy Plane.

That's a tricky thing to pull, what with the whole Undead shtick of healed-by-negative, harmed-by-positive.

Honestly, I feel like it would have opened a design space. A kind of creatures with a dead body, but overflowing with so much Positive Energy that they just can't die. They could be victims (people who died on the Positive Energy Plane, which would actually make some plausible inhabitants for that plane), emissaries of good gods ("You. You don't get to die yet."), or even aberrations (not the creature type, but people who came back from the PEP changed, and could even be infectious, creating tumors and mutations around them the way being on the Positive Plane does). The Deathless type is an idea that was tarnished by a purpose instilled, that of simply being good Undead rather than being interesting creatures.

Yeah. I like the core idea of the type. But WotC absolutely doesn't seem to have a coherent idea of what to do with it. (No, Eberron's "it's a weird Elf thing for weird Elf" is not really the solution.)

[Tzardok]

Just means that homebrewers need to pick up the slack.

[Morphic tide]

There's actually a bit of variety in existing "rampant but unwanted growth" Undead that'd have a good fit in Deathless conversions, and said conversions would have the opportunity to tie together quite a bit better. Hivenests or Plaguespewers that actively replenish the swarm, Curst without the jank of something specifically meant to not be able to die being rendered Undead in the process, a Symbiont-pegged riff on Necrotic Cyst using "not necessarily there to screw you over" to give the range of effects to justify this scorecard-statblock, probably a few others.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Hell, the fact the Negative Energy Plane isn't a Lower Outer Plane makes it so there's no hard metaphysical reason for Always Evil Undead.

In 3e (not sure about previous editions), some Undead could be nonevil, but creating and keeping undead in the world is always an evil act because it both traps a soul to power the undead and creates a conduit of negative energy into the world that eventually hinders life (whatever that means). But yeah, that's really an unnecessary piece of lore in my opinion that prevents some interesting roleplay. I would have at least liked if Undead simply staying in the world could be good, rather than bringing more negative energy simply by existing. However, your point on the Baelnorn is wrong. Baelnorns appeared in Monsters of Faerun and were simply Undead. But they're the prime example of what should absolutely be Deathless. They're not hated, even venerated, which implies they don't corrupt the world around them, and can even Turn Undead, which implies they channel Positive Energy. On the other hand, Ghosts and Dry Liches should just be Undead, but with no initial Evil association, letting players decide for themselves rather than categorizing them at the same level as demons and devils.
I don't feel like gods of death are always Evil. It's just that Good gods of death don't use Undead. Kelemvor advocates for destroying Undead, because they defy death as well as life. But actually good gods of death could use some Deathless minions as a counterpart to Undead.

But it looks so friendly and green!

It does look green.

Hey! It's got good stuff in it! Like
1. some feats (Intuitive Attack (yes, it would be a lot better feat coming from ANY OTHER FREAKING BOOK), Nimbus of Light (okay, it's not that good, but I find the you are a light bulb now part of it it funny and Diplomacy is always a good thing));

1. I love the Vow feats. They really are very unique. More feats should include actual roleplay aspects imo. Also, probably no feat in the whole game triggered as much discussion as Vow of Poverty, which also fits the "so uniquely bad it's worth putting a neon sign on" category.
And you know what all the good stuff has in common? It's actually original stuff, rather than copy of BoVD. The book itself isn't bad, and I'd argue it needed to be written in the "there are rules and monsters for everything" edition. It just needed to be an actual book rather than a way to mock the critics of BoVD.

That's a tricky thing to pull, what with the whole Undead shtick of healed-by-negative, harmed-by-positive.

It's not that hard to create a [Positive] subtype that inverts all interactions the way they did [Living Constructs], which technically keeps the door open for Undead powered by other planes (ghosts are [ethereal] Undead, unaffected by both Inflict and Cure, but healing as a living creature when in the Ethereal Plane, Dream Vestiges are [Dreamscape] Undead, healed by sleep and nightmare spells, damaged by any other enchantment; all nonstandard Undead are turned according to their alignment rather than their origin, and neutral nonstandard Undead are turned by both sides and cannot be rebuked). That or keep the Deathless type, but give it many more monsters than the measly six we got, with either a true type identity, or more original ideas.

Just means that homebrewers need to pick up the slack.

And I am very curious and can't wait to see what you come up with! I'd like to see a Deathless composed of several souls acting like a council for actions to take, or a sad Deathless originating from a good Druid that gathers animals the way Undead push them away, but hurts them if they come too close with an aura of uncontrolled healing, which makes it isolate itself.

[Tzardok]

And I am very curious and can't wait to see what you come up with! I'd like to see a Deathless composed of several souls acting like a council for actions to take, or a sad Deathless originating from a good Druid that gathers animals the way Undead push them away, but hurts them if they come too close with an aura of uncontrolled healing, which makes it isolate itself.

And that's why you should never suggest anything. People will make you do work.

I'll see what I can do, but I've got other stuff on my list first.

[Morphic tide]

In 3e (not sure about previous editions), some Undead could be nonevil, but creating and keeping undead in the world is always an evil act because it both traps a soul to power the undead and creates a conduit of negative energy into the world that eventually hinders life (whatever that means).

The trouble with that is that one can make multiple Undead from the same body, of which some are literally disembodied souls. And "hindering life" has no metaphysical reason to be Evil because life/death aren't Good/Evil matters, it's suffering that is. Same goes for all the naturalism arguments, as valuing nature itself is one of very few explicitly Neutral causes, hence the Alignment restrictions on Druid. And I've never actually seen it cited, as best I can tell the only evidence is that True Resurrection needs the Undead to be destroyed.

But yeah, that's really an unnecessary piece of lore in my opinion that prevents some interesting roleplay. I would have at least liked if Undead simply staying in the world could be good, rather than bringing more negative energy simply by existing.

Again, Negative Energy =/= Lower Planes, therefor it cannot be definitionally Evil because Evil = Lower Planes. That is how the metaphysics work, for something to be ontologically Evil it must relate to the Lower Planes in some capacity, yet the Plane of Negative Energy is a completely separate thing.

However, your point on the Baelnorn is wrong. Baelnorns appeared in Monsters of Faerun and were simply Undead. But they're the prime example of what should absolutely be Deathless. They're not hated, even venerated, which implies they don't corrupt the world around them, and can even Turn Undead, which implies they channel Positive Energy.

1. Apologies for the mistake, was probably thinking of Risen Martyrs conceptual overlap.
2. Living Clerics can Rebuke Undead with Negative Energy without being hurt.

I don't feel like gods of death are always Evil. It's just that Good gods of death don't use Undead. Kelemvor advocates for destroying Undead, because they defy death as well as life. But actually good gods of death could use some Deathless minions as a counterpart to Undead.

The point is that Negative Energy causing Undead is a 100% natural process, marking it as the default "death stuff", making it rather awkward that the Lawful Neutral Kelemvor cannot have servants suffused with "death stuff" because of poorly-if-at-all-reasoned "well Undead bad, tho". Random abused children will rise as Slaymates, and have to be forced to fight indicating they don't actually do anything if they aren't snagged by a Necromancer for metamagic reduction. The Pale Aura just boosts Necromancy spells, including utterly benign ones like False Life (which complicates Deathwatch's [Evil] tag by getting temp HP via drawing on Undeath), rather than having any kind of harm.

[Beni-Kujaku]

And "hindering life" has no metaphysical reason to be Evil because life/death aren't Good/Evil matters, it's suffering that is.
Again, Negative Energy =/= Lower Planes, therefor it cannot be definitionally Evil because Evil = Lower Planes. That is how the metaphysics work, for something to be ontologically Evil it must relate to the Lower Planes in some capacity, yet the Plane of Negative Energy is a completely separate thing.

I think you're mistaken about the nature of Lower Planes. These planes are nothing but Evil (and accompanying alignments), and shaped by Evil, but they're not the source of Evil. There can be Evil that isn't linked to the Lower Planes or even Evil gods in any way. The red wizards of Thay, the beholders, the clockwork horrors and the Unseelie court are all comically evil because of their actions which kill, enslave, and generally make people suffer. And Negative Energy, the energy that ends people's life, is definitely linked to Evil. Only nongood clerics can channel negative energy, after all. Why is that? Well, because it causes death, or more accurately the destruction of life.

The very existence of even the weakest undead produces a constant drain on the energies of the Material Plane, which accounts for sensations of cold often attributed to the unliving. As part of the enchantment of their creation, undead “siphon” a bit of the energy flowing from the Material Plane toward the Negative Energy Plane. This “stolen” energy serves to power their ongoing existence

Too much negative energy, and the Material Plane cannot support life anymore. That is Evil.
More generally, destruction and decay are evil, creation and protection of life are good.

The circle of life is natural, it's neutral-aligned. Killing to eat and survive isn't evil, it's necessary for life to continue. Killing for a righteous cause is good, if leaving the victim alive would have caused more death, suffering and evil. But killing for the sake of it, or for one's own pleasure, is evil. There's a reason Assassins are always Evil.
Thus, a god of death isn't necessarily Evil (Kelemvor), but a god of killing is (Cyric, Nerull), and a god of undeath is as well (Myrkul, Kiaransalee, Velsharoon). But death by itself is never good, and only neutral when necessary. The only Good god of death (afaik) is Naralis Analor, god of healing and easing of the pain, and once again, it's because death is FOR a good goal. The eventual destruction of all life brought upon the Prime by an overload of Negative Energy cannot be anything other than Evil. Maybe you think that it shouldn't, and that's a completely valid opinion, but it's not how Good and Evil are represented in d&d, and specifically in d&d 3.5.

The point is that Negative Energy causing Undead is a 100% natural process, marking it as the default "death stuff", making it rather awkward that the Lawful Neutral Kelemvor cannot have servants suffused with "death stuff" because of poorly-if-at-all-reasoned "well Undead bad, tho". Random abused children will rise as Slaymates.

Undeath isn't the default death stuff. It's the default death stuff when the death includes particular evil or negative energy. When a child is abused, when someone dies from energy drain, when serial murderers are not properly executed... Undeath is not natural, undeath is never natural. No undead can ever arise in the animal world with no magical intervention, for example. So... Yeah, "Undead bad, tho", at least in the canon.
That said, the fact that Kelemvor does not use Undead is because he is more a god of repose and of the afterlife than he is of necromancy, and not only because he is Lawful Neutral. That's why he does not give the Death domain in 3e. On the other hand, Wee Jas is also LN, but she allows her followers to create undead, if the undead asked for it when it was alive, and both procuring the corpse and using the undead remain within the bound of the law. Another Neutral goddess of death is Evening Glory, who encourages undeath as a means to the Good-aligned goals of preserving love and beauty through death. Evil means to a good ends strikes me as fairly neutral. Kelemvor considers undeath as a perversion of death, Wee Jas considers it as another stage of death, and Evening Glory sees it as a way to thwart death. And in all cases, encouraging the creation of undead is still evil, and is only given a "pass" if it's for a Good end. Wee Jas simply does not care about Undead, as she is much too Lawful for it.

The trouble with that is that one can make multiple Undead from the same body, of which some are literally disembodied souls. And I've never actually seen it cited, as best I can tell the only evidence is that True Resurrection needs the Undead to be destroyed.

I am not saying that the "fuel soul" is the soul of the body that was animated. It's generally the case when the undead retains its memories (ghost, mohrg, lich, bonesingers...), but for regular zombies, skeletons, and in general most undead, the animating force is an unclearly-defined spirit, generally of evil alignment, thus twisting the mindset of the Undead and explaining all the "always evil" Undead:

A sufficiently heinous act may attract the attention of malicious spirits[...], little more than nodes of unquenchable hunger, wishing only to feed. These comprise many of the mindless undead. Sometimes
these evil influences also manage to reinvigorate the decaying memories of the body’s former host.

In that regard, Undead are little more than golems spewing negative energy everywhere, and with an evil tendency due to both the evil spirit animating it and the negative energy powering its hunger. Even Undead retaining some of the host's memories cannot be assumed to host the original soul (similarly to the Speak With Dead spell), thus negating the "multiple undead" paradox.
My take on the "the Undead must be destroyed for Resurrection to work" is that it's not the soul being trapped that's a problem, it's the overflowing negative energy that would immediately kill the resurrected creature again if it was resurrected while the Undead isn't destroyed.
The evil spirit thing can obviously very easily be changed to allow for good spirits to animate Undead, explaining good-aligned Undead, but not really changing the ethics of summoning an animating spirit and trapping it to power a mindless husk forced to follow its creator's orders. Of course, creating a golem is very similar, and isn't always considered an evil act, so we can assume the "creating Undead is always Evil" mostly pertains to the negative energy conduit.

Obligatory disclaimer that all of the above pertains exclusively to WotC's D&D canon, and mainly for 3rd edition. None of this applies directly to real-world ethics, and any campaign world is obviously entitled to change any of it.

[Tzardok]

Thus, a god of death isn't necessarily Evil (Kelemvor), but a god of killing is (Cyric, Nerull), and a god of undeath is as well (Myrkul, Kiaransalee, Velsharoon). But death by itself is never good, and only neutral when necessary. The only Good god of death (afaik) is Naralis Analor, god of healing and easing of the pain, and once again, it's because death is FOR a good goal.

There are a few more: Osiris of the Pharaonian pantheon is a Lawful Good god of the underworld in addition to one of fertility, growth and so on. Nephtys of the same pantheon is Chaotic Good and mostly a goddess of wealth, but also one of grief, a protector of the dead and those they leave behind. Aluvan of Ghostwalk is a Neutral Good sheppard of souls, one who guides ghosts into the afterlife, Sehanine Moonbow is a death goddess in addition to her many, many other duties (moon, night, dream, sleep, transcendence, prophecy, travel, etc.). Segojan Earthcaller of the Gnome pantheon is Neutral Good and, in addition to a god of earth and stone, a keeper of the dead.

Another Neutral goddess of death is Evening Glory, who encourages undeath as a means to the Good-aligned goals of preserving love and beauty through death. Evil means to a good ends strikes me as fairly neutral. Kelemvor considers undeath as a perversion of death, Wee Jas considers it as another stage of death, and Evening Glory sees it as a way to thwart death. And in all cases, encouraging the creation of undead is still evil, and is only given a "pass" if it's for a Good end. Wee Jas simply does not care about Undead, as she is much too Lawful for it.

Incidentally, there are signs that Evening Glory was originally meant to be Chaotic Good too. No idea why it was changed.

I am not saying that the "fuel soul" is the soul of the body that was animated. It's generally the case when the undead retains its memories (ghost, mohrg, lich, bonesingers...), but for regular zombies, skeletons, and in general most undead, the animating force is an unclearly-defined spirit, generally of evil alignment, thus twisting the mindset of the Undead and explaining all the "always evil" Undead:

IIRC, such a spirit was called an animus in older editions. An animus resembles a soul the same way a clockwork resembles a modern computer. Animi can be made of either positive or negative energy (unlike souls which are always made of positive energy) and mostly appear amongst mindless creatures (a zombie has an animus made of negative energy, a monstrous spider one of positive). Either way, the animus dissolves upon the death/destruction of the creature. There is no afterlife for it.

[Morphic tide]

I think you're mistaken about the nature of Lower Planes. These planes are nothing but Evil (and accompanying alignments), and shaped by Evil, but they're not the source of Evil. There can be Evil that isn't linked to the Lower Planes or even Evil gods in any way. The red wizards of Thay, the beholders, the clockwork horrors and the Unseelie court are all comically evil because of their actions which kill, enslave, and generally make people suffer. And Negative Energy, the energy that ends people's life, is definitely linked to Evil. Only nongood clerics can channel negative energy, after all. Why is that? Well, because it causes death, or more accurately the destruction of life.

And all that pings as Evil because it brings them into Alignment with the Lower Planes. Negative Energy is from a different type of Plane altogether, expressions of it fundamentally cannot be driven by the Lower Plane forces "by default", and this follows through with the Inflict line and False Life. And yet somehow the entirely-cosmologically-independent Positive/Negative interactions are obnoxiously one-sided in that Positive Energy doesn't slather [Good] over things saturated with it anything like Negative-based Undeath does.

Too much negative energy, and the Material Plane cannot support life anymore. That is Evil.
More generally, destruction and decay are evil, creation and protection of life are good.

I legitimately request you cite where "destruction and decay" constitute capital-E ontological-cosmic-alignment Evil. Evil causes those things, but they happen by passive natural processes with no supernatural involvement, sometimes at truly staggering scales. Fimbulwinter's a full-on spell-of-mass-destruction without an [Evil] tag despite the virtual impossibility of a use-case that isn't doing some Evil with that area. You also see no such reflection of "creation and protection of life [is] good" bear out at any remotely comparable scale with [Good]-descriptor spells.

The circle of life is natural, it's neutral-aligned. Killing to eat and survive isn't evil, it's necessary for life to continue. Killing for a righteous cause is good, if leaving the victim alive would have caused more death, suffering and evil. But killing for the sake of it, or for one's own pleasure, is evil. There's a reason Assassins are always Evil.

Killing to eat and survive is, in fact, Evil when you happen to be doing so to something with an Intelligence above 2. Hence Illithids and Ghouls getting their Always Evil. And it is actively Good to kill Fiends, as a genuine rule, to say nothing of "nits make lice" not being contradicted. Actively killing others has a moral value entirely defined by context.

Undeath isn't the default death stuff. It's the default death stuff when the death includes particular evil or negative energy. When a child is abused, when someone dies from energy drain, when serial murderers are not properly executed... Undeath is not natural, undeath is never natural. No undead can ever arise in the animal world with no magical intervention, for example. So... Yeah, "Undead bad, tho", at least in the canon.

There's several kinds of battlefield Undead that are just "a lot of people died in a small area in a short time", no magic needed, only remotely unnatural thing being concentration of death. This very strongly indicates the Positive/Negative symmetry is a natural phenomenon, where any death calls forth Negative Energy if only in the depletion of Positive. And again, "Nature" is Neutral, not Good/Evil, meaning that "Undead are unnatural" is wholly irrelevant to them being Evil.

That said, the fact that Kelemvor does not use Undead is because he is more a god of repose and of the afterlife than he is of necromancy, and not only because he is Lawful Neutral. That's why he does not give the Death domain in 3e. On the other hand, Wee Jas is also LN, but she allows her followers to create undead, if the undead asked for it when it was alive, and both procuring the corpse and using the undead remain within the bound of the law. Another Neutral goddess of death is Evening Glory, who encourages undeath as a means to the Good-aligned goals of preserving love and beauty through death. Evil means to a good ends strikes me as fairly neutral. Kelemvor considers undeath as a perversion of death, Wee Jas considers it as another stage of death, and Evening Glory sees it as a way to thwart death. And in all cases, encouraging the creation of undead is still evil, and is only given a "pass" if it's for a Good end. Wee Jas simply does not care about Undead, as she is much too Lawful for it.

The point is that Undead have such a wide range of spontaneous generation conditions relating to "died in a notably unpleasant way" to the point of special kinds of ghost for Rogues who die to traps that Negative Energy is rather clearly the natural "death stuff" quite capable of being invoked simply by things dying with no exceptional circumstances or specialized magic, and as such the total refusal of servants based on it is a bizarre incoherence. Especially given how the TSR-era Mummy Lords weren't bound in Alignment because their deity typically footed the bill, which is a perfect fit for the Baelnorn use-case.

I am not saying that the "fuel soul" is the soul of the body that was animated.

Then don't say the soul is trapped, when it isn't actually "trapping" anything pre-existing but more typically creating something new that's never existed unbounded.

It's generally the case when the undead retains its memories (ghost, mohrg, lich, bonesingers...), but for regular zombies, skeletons, and in general most undead, the animating force is an unclearly-defined spirit, generally of evil alignment, thus twisting the mindset of the Undead and explaining all the "always evil" Undead:

The mindset of the Undead need not be "twisted", but rather simply be the Undead's mindset, wholly independently of the soul the body originally belonged to. And given the variety of hostile things one can Call and Summon without being slapped with an [Evil] tag, alongside the horror Golems have going on under the hood, it doesn't actually fit with the wider body.

In that regard, Undead are little more than golems spewing negative energy everywhere, and with an evil tendency due to both the evil spirit animating it and the negative energy powering its hunger.

As compared to the burning-hot golems, poison-spewing golems, plague-carrying golems, and so on that aren't Evil? The Shadesteel Golem that does literally exactly the same thing in terms of spewing Negative Energy that is the same Always Neutral as all the other golems?

The evil spirit thing can obviously very easily be changed to allow for good spirits to animate Undead, explaining good-aligned Undead, but not really changing the ethics of summoning an animating spirit and trapping it to power a mindless husk forced to follow its creator's orders. Of course, creating a golem is very similar, and isn't always considered an evil act, so we can assume the "creating Undead is always Evil" mostly pertains to the negative energy conduit.

Creating a Golem is worse by the explicit processes because the reason they go berserk is the enslaved Elemental slipping its bindings and guaranteed homicidally insane from the experience of being used to power and operate a Golem. Meaning that by every single metric for why a Slaymate is Evil, a Shadesteel Golem is much worse.

The point is that Undead=Evil is incoherent because much worse things are given the go-ahead for Neutral applicants, from explicitly-Evil to use under any circumstances Poison to the torturous parasitism of Yellow Musk Creepers to bulk use of Negative Energy as an offensive tool with Shadesteel Golems. There is not a single standard that does not have a genuinely worth bringing out on a regular basis disproof.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Skulvyn

Welcome to another episode of "Damn, that's good, but it's, like, aquatic. And nobody plays aquatic campaigns".

The Skulvyns are aquatic demons. They look like moustached lizards with webbed tails and four tails they use as propellers Buizel-style. They live in the river Styx, which probably explains why they're so dumb, considering the whole amnesia-inducing water thing. They're really good mechanically, with Outsider RHD, nice stats (except intelligence), they have many natural attacks with their tails dealing persistent damage, and they even have a nice party-friendly Slow aura. But they don't have opposable thumbs, technically cannot breathe outside water, and are slow on land anyway. They were given a clear LA+0 for an aquatic campaign, but just didn't make the cut on land. Contrary to the Amphibious template making land-dwelling creatures able to breathe water, there is no easy way to make a water-dwelling creature viable on land, and Amphibious is normally only applicable to Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids. That said, Skulvyns are described as making deals with PCs in Fiendish Codex I, which means they're (probably) at least intended to be able to breathe and speak on land.

- Large Outsider, 4 RHD
- +8 Str, +6 Dex, +4 Con, -6 Int, -2 Wis, +0 Cha, +6 Natural Armor
- One bite, two claws, 4 tail lashes. Each tail attack continues dealing an additional damage each turn until the target receives any magical or mundane healing.
- SR 8+HD, DR 5/good, didn't expect these on such a weak demon, but they're really good.
- Slow Aura, 30ft, 4 rounds. 24h immunity if you succeed on the save, which allows you to make your teammates immune.
- 10ft land speed, 50ft swim speed. Yeah, it's much better in water. Maybe keeping Fast Movement from the level of barbarian you'll inevitably take would be good. Or you just take Pounce, and you find another way to increase your speed (Berserk prestige class, or somehow gain the Celerity domain or the Freedom psionic mantle, for example).

A 10ft speed is a problem, but the rest of the chassis is still so good, that I don't think it deserves less than 3 RHD, and DLA-0, even on land if it can breathe there. If it cannot, there's just no way to make it useable (I don't know, maybe put a water tank around its head?).

And since the Skulvyn is the only LA-0 demon, next time we will go straight to the dire rhino, and maybe the Disenchanter. Stay tuned!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Dire Rhinoceros

You all know what a rhino looks like, and the dire version has nothing unique. If anything, it's weird that it's the only dire animal of Fiend Folio, but otherwise the only intriguing part is how it lacks the regular rhino's only ability Powerful Charge.

- Huge Animal, 17 RHD
- +20 Str, +2 Dex, +18 Con, -8 Int +2 Wis, +0 Cha, +12 NA. See also: tank.
- One single big gore, 2d8, 19-20/x3
- Trample, Scent

More resilient than a dire bear and one more size category, but only one natural attack and no Improved Grab. A weak 7 RHD, and strong DLA-8. Thayan Gladiator and Kensai are obvious choices of advancement, and bear totem barbarian to gain improved grab is also a good choice. Next: the disenchanter.

[Tzardok]

It doesn't have powerful charge because the normal 3.0 rhino didn't have it either. Rhinos only learned that when halflings learnt how to make halberds.

[remetagross]

Most disappointing dire animal ever.

[Metastachydium]

Most disappointing dire animal ever.

I mean, this still has a 2d12 Trample and a heavy gore with Augmented Critical. I'd probably give that dubious distinction to the Dire Barracuda^SW with its ability to [drum roll] deliver its single, 1d8 bite attack from 50% farther away than usual when charging!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Disenchanter

If there's a price for worst design of a monster, the Disenchanter would probably be one of the runner-ups. The monster is supposed to be CR 17, and is basically just a dromedary whose single ability is a melee attack supposed to take away the PCs' equipment. When it hits with its tongue, it permanently removes an ability from an item (a +3 flaming sword becomes a +3 sword, then a +2, then +1, then a regular masterwork sword, charged items lose 1d4x10 charges and continuous items simply become nonmagical).
That's a terrible ability. It plays into the caster/melee divide, since martials are the ones most likely to get in melee and get disenchanted, and are also the ones most reliant on magic items to stay relevant and have a fun gameplay at high-level. It also breaks the "christmas tree" assumption that, as their level increases, a bigger part of the PCs' power comes from magic items (which stems from the existence of Wealth by Level in the first place). If it was at a lower level, where losing a potion of Enlarge Person and maybe a bracer of armor+1 isn't such a big deal and a fighter can afford to get into combat with no magical gear, it would be bearable, but it's supposed to appear right before the final dungeon to make the PCs weaker before the BBEG. And look at that, in 1e it was level 4 and in 2e it gave 650 XP (equivalent to CR 5). What possessed the developers of 3.5 to make it CR 17? Once again, big up to Pathfinder 1e to make a Disenchanter that is vastly more interesting both as an encounter and a part of world-building, and giving it several additional abilities compared to the 3.5 version while keeping it at CR 3. THREE. That's the sweet spot. Not seventeen. And the worst part? It's annoying to fight. SR 30 makes unoptimized casters have a hard time bypassing it, so the melees have to attack it directly, And if they do, well, the Disenchanter is also a grappler, preventing the martial characters from efficiently attacking it if it can get a hold, it heals itself by draining magic, and attacking it with nonmagic weapons will have to go through DR 10/Magic, because we really want it to at least drain something.
All in all, it's a "feel-bad" monster designed to make the PCs feel weaker rather than make their opponents feel stronger, which is bad game design in an adventure game like D&D. Oh yeah, and also it makes a terrible PC, since its only ability is both too slow to make a difference in combat and destroys potential loot for the party. Outstanding.

- Huge Magical Beast, 16 RHD
- +10 Str, +12 Dex, +8 Con, -6 Int, +4 Wis, +0 Cha, +16 NA. Yes, it's also stupid. At least the physical stats are decent.
- One tail slam, 2 hoof attacks, and one tongue with Improved Grab (+8 racial to grapple), Constrict and Drain Magic. Note that you can't use both the tongue and other attacks in the same full attack, which gives you a choice between three weak attacks with no abilities that actually deal damage, or a single attack that can grapple the opponent but destroys the loot and does no damage. Oh hi devil, I was wondering if you were better than the deep blue sea!
- SR 14+HD, DR 10/Magic, and if a magic weapons hits it, it makes a Fort save or loses an ability as if it was hit by the tongue. Because you don't get to choose if you want to destroy loot or not.
- Permanent 3rd-round effect of Detect Magic.

Gosh darn it, how am I supposed to rate that? Without its tongue and its Disenchanting defense, it would probably be 7 RHD, DLA-6. But is the ability to destroy magic items, even against your will, a boon or a curse? It's generally useless and/or detrimental in combat, but may be life-saving in other situations (a magically closed door, or a cursed item come to mind). All in all I guess 8 RHD, DLA-5 should be balanced, but I still don't recommend playing this.


Well that was abysmal. No wonder the disenchanter completely vanished after 3rd edition. Next time, another guy that is annoying to fight and has an ability that is arguably detrimental to it when it is triggered : the Ethereal Ooze!