Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Hm. That combined with how it's just ugly incarnate unkillable destruction, except against foes with fire immunity whom it simply cannot really harm (such as Devils) kind of screams "experimental weapon from the Nine Hells gone native".

Wouldn't surprise me. After the demonflesh golem, nothing surprises me anymore

THEY SEE YOU.

OH NO! I'm not even properly dressed!

I'm just really not sure. 50' (perfect) (or 450' (you can't be serious)) flight with those defenses at ECL 6 is simply broken, and not really balanced at all by the lack of items. I mean, what, exactly, within 6th level WBL can give anything that can compete with these stats, mobility and defenses? And that's before the serious BFC capabilities, that aren't even fully dependant on not being immune to fire (because of the wind-wind element). I would consider going higher.

I get what you're saying. I was thinking of later levels, where the holocaust's abilities fall behind much faster than most other creatures, with no possibilities to balance it with items. I was also thinking of fire-immune creatures, but really that's only a marginal problem until ECL 10+, and you have the rest of the party anyway. Increased to 7 RHD.

Sorry in advance for opening this can of worms, but... this is the intended use case for LA Buyoff. Something like 5HD with +2LA lets you start (significantly weakened) at ECL 7 where your powers are strong and your lack of items is less significant. Then 6 and 9 class levels later, at ECL 13 and 15, when items are better and your lack of scaling from class levels is more significant, you can buyoff a point of LA and be better balanced to the party again.

Okay, no. Introducing 1 RHD+1LA was already quite weird, but it made sense to give a rating corresponding to "one single level behind a PHB race". Combining RHD and LA further would both be redundant with the current system (having multiple ratings the same delay), be vastly more complicated for a negligible gain, and make several vastly different ratings almost equally valid for a single creature. A noble salamander already has 8 RHD and 15RHD-3LA as ratings, one that uses LA, the other using RHD as a balancing device. But it could also be 1 RHD+5 LA, or 5 RHD+2LA. which are no less valid. If I give it to the living holocaust, I have to give it to everyone else (monsters can be jealous children like that). and I'm not going to make the whole thread worse for a single fiery Beyblade.

According to ToM 'Drawing a [binding] seal requires the ability to mark a surface and 1 minute of concentration". It could draw the seal using Fiery Windspike to char, melt or corrode surfaces.
It just wouldn't have a way to then "touch" the seal during the binding ritual without resorting to something silly like Shapeshifter Druid or a loose interpretation of psicrystals, that would defeat the purpose.

Pretty competent Psion though.

I can see two things happening. Either the holocaust draws really intricate pyrography using its windspikes, not only binding vestiges, but actually making pretty good art, before getting bored in a "perfectionist artist" kind of way and burning not only its own work but the whole neighborhood, or it starts "drawing" in crops using its fire aura rather than its windspike, drawing lines of burned wheat 60ft large and making the largest binding circles you've ever laid your eyes on, Nazca lines-style.

That said, Psion? With 7 lost manifester levels? I'm not sure how that would work exactly.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Lucent Worm

- Mom, can I have a Gelatinous Cube?
- We have a Gelatinous Cube at home.
The Gelatinous Cube at home :


Big dumb bruisers with no limbs? Check.
Paralysis on touch? Check.
Strong grappling focus culminating in eating their opponents alive? Check.
Somewhat translucent, both making them harder to see and making the remains of their last meal apparent? Check!

Congratulations, that's 4 for 4 in our "this monster didn't need to exist" checklist! You, Lucent Worm, can now claim the title of most useless and page-filler monster of the book! Claim it, go home, and don't contact us again.

The Lucent Worm does not even have the excuse of being ported from 1st edition FF, it's strictly a 3rd edition monster. It's almost funny how this monster has nothing for it. Inspired by a much better monster, but without what made it iconic, it has many characteristics of an Ooze, but is a Magical Beast despite having almost nothing magical going for it. Its most memorable characteristics is being see-through (to the point that its name in french is just "Ver transparent", or "transparent/see-through worm"), but since it is so big the only way they found was to make it invest all its skill points into Hide, and stack an enormous +15 racial bonus on top of it, but they forgot to add its racial bonus in its statblock, so if you don't read it well you can assume it hides about as well as a 1st level halfling rogue. It is also CR 17, which is grossly overestimating its capabilities in combat, so in actual play it will almost always get taken out immediately if put against a level 17 party. And obviously, it is a very, very bad PC. No hand, basically no item slot, one single natural attack, not enough stats for its HD... Let's fix that, shall we?

- Gargantuan 22 RHD Magical Beast. Ew.
- +24 Str, -2 Dex, +14 Con, -10 Int, +0 Wis, -2 Cha, +18 natural armor. I love not having skills and being unable to enter most prestige classes! At least it knows what it wants to do, I guess.
- 40ft speed, 30ft burrow, 30ft swim. Quite good speed, nothing to complain about.
- One bite with Improved Grab and Swallow Whole, and paralysis for 4 rounds if they fail a Fort save. I can't say that's bad. It's even quite good below ECL 10. Having more attacks or having iteratives would, obviously, be better, but you do what you can with what you get.
- Engulf Crush, dealing some damage, pinning and paralyzing those the Lucent Worm runs over.
- DR 15/Magic and Piercing or Slashing. It's technically better than DR/Magic, but so many attacks are piercing or slashing that it might as well not be.
- No energy resistance, no other ability. Such a well-designed CR 17 monster.

You hit hard, and you can tank many hits. At least you have a head, so you can have helmets and have a few Soulmeld placements that the Gelatinous Cube does not. Con-based Fort save against paralysis should take a few foes out of the fight, and burrow is as good as always, which is to say occasionally. Don't expect to be a multifacetted character, though, or to make Will saves. 8 RHD, DLA-10


Let's all forget this ever existed. Oh, look, next time is another much better CR 17 monster, let's pay attention to the Maulgoth instead!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Big dumb bruisers with no limbs? Check.
Paralysis on touch? Check.
Strong grappling focus culminating in eating their opponents alive? Check.
Somewhat translucent, both making them harder to see and making the remains of their last meal apparent? Check!

Congratulations, that's 4 for 4 in our "this monster didn't need to exist" checklist!

Hey now, that's unfair. The lucent worm is also a less interesting shape than the gelatinous cube.

Well, it's also a magical beast and has better movement options. So that's something.

Its most memorable characteristics is being see-through (to the point that its name in french is just "Ver transparent", or "transparent/see-through worm"), but since it is so big the only way they found was to make it invest all its skill points into Hide, and stack an enormous +15 racial bonus on top of it, but they forgot to add its racial bonus in its statblock, so if you don't read it well you can assume it hides about as well as a 1st level halfling rogue.

God, just make it literally invisible at that point.

...and burrow is as good as always, which is to say occasionally.

In some campaigns, with the right player, burrowing can be an absolutely game-breaking ability. Well, if it's flexible enough—I doubt the lucent worm has earth glide's perfect preservation of any walls you move through, but it might be able to move through stone.

If not, then...yeah, the occasion where it's useful are pretty rare. Good for outdoor ambushes, handy for indoor trespassing if the enemy castle doesn't have much in the way of foundations. Not much help in a cave.

[Dalmosh]

That said, Psion? With 7 lost manifester levels? I'm not sure how that would work exactly.

Well, you're not competing with a high tier pure Psion, you're competing with a Rogue that can't do anything except burn stuff and aiming for the top of tier 4 as a floor.

Psionics are pretty versatile and you have a lot of options even at entry level. I'm hardly an expert but surely a 7HD, near infinitely fast flying character with an Int bonus, who can burn anything flammable, can meaningfully add to its utility this way enough to stay relevant at least up until about level 12?

You are basically tacking on low level psionics to try to emulate some of the basic physical manipulation you are missing, to let you sometimes do other stuff that isn't default FIERY INFERNO.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Comparisons are always weird when you're taking class levels to emulate things other characters can do because of their race, and using your racial abilities to do things other characters need class levels for.

[Metastachydium]

Comparisons are always weird when you're taking class levels to emulate things other characters can do because of their race, and using your racial abilities to do things other characters need class levels for.

Heh. Good point there. 3.5 is bad and I'm lovin' it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

To be fair, 3.5 was never designed for like 90% of the things we're assigning level adjustments to. "How does my character shake hands without incinerating the diplomat?" is not a problem you are supposed to have.

[Metastachydium]

Unless you're playing a Salamander (playable since ever!). Or a Magmin (post-Savage Species). Otherwise, that's fair enough.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Maulgoth

The Maulgoth is a very original creature, with no real inspiration I can find, except maybe as a variant Xorn, which is more of a self-reference. It's a monster I would expect to be around since first edition, but it was instead created for 3e. On the flip side, it's not surprising that the Maulgoth did not show up in later editions, since most of its interest stems from its very good mechanical design rather than its lore. The Maulgoth is to Xorns what the Lucent Worm is to Gelatinous Cubes, a much more high-powered version of an iconic Monster Manual 1 monster. However, they actually gave the Maulgoth enough options to match its CR 17, and versatile abilities and traits that make the fight more intricate than "Me hit you". This can only be achieved in the frame of 3e, where high-level monsters are expected to have many abilities, where there are many movement options with combat relevance, and where defensive abilities like SR and DR are very tunable to give personality to monsters. In 5e, the Maulgoth would require some legendary actions and resistances, probably one or two lair effects, which would conflict with its status as a high-level monster of the week rather than an evil mastermind.


The Maulgoth is one of the more powerful melee-centered monsters, and there were a few people clamoring for LA+0 in the original thread. However, between the Aberration type and the lack of hands, it tumbled down to here.

- 20 RHD Huge Aberration (Earth). The worst part of the monster.
- 60ft speed, 60ft climb, 60ft burrowing with Earth Glide through any stone. As GWG said, with the right player, it can be a game-breaking ability. It also fast enough to really matter in combat. I like how they describe the Maulgoth as using Spring Attack with it, emerging just enough to use its Ethereal touch then burrowing back down. It really shows they thought of how it would do in combat.
- +18 Str, +14 Dex, +16 Con, +6 Int, +6 Wis, +8 Cha, +24 natural armor. Damn. Those are really, really good stats. No min-maxing, but no score feels out of place. Really good AC too.
- 4 tentacles (20ft reach) dealing good damage (2d6) with Improved Grab and Constrict, secondary bite for Mouthpick if needed.
- Ethereal Jolt. Somehow the Maulgoth can open portals and push someone through to the Ethereal with a standard action, a touch attack and a Str-based Fortitude save. Actually good ability, though it makes no sense in its lore, since it cannot itself move through planes. See what I said with "they favored mechanics over lore on this one"?
- Lots of SLAs (CL 13) : At-will calm animals, control plants, cure light wounds, dominate animal, soften earth and stone, stone tell, transmute mud to rock, transmute rock to mud, 5/day —cure serious wounds, true seeing, wall of stone. Infinite out of combat healing for the whole group with no restriction is definitely nothing to frown upon, at-will stone tell can give really good intel, 5/day wall of stone that you can pass through is good as well... Pretty good selection.
- Tremorsense, SR HD+17, DR 15/magic and adamantine. The SR is extremely good, the DR is also relevant even very late.

Amazing stats, defenses, versatile SLAs, save-or-lose touch, large reach battlefield control with many limbs... Everything is good, except the type and body shape. The Maulgoth can quite literally do it all successfully (except full casting, of course). Probably 16 RHD, DLA-3, but for once I'd rather play the DNLA version.


That thing is one of the many horrors lurking in the Underdark. It eats... Well, I don't really know, but I assume meat since it attacks... foes, but it also has stone along its back. It's exclusively solitary, so it reproduces by... Huh, I don't really know either. They can control and move through stone through magic similar to that of druids that comes from... Somewhere. Raaah, there's so much to explain and so little explained! And it was such a great monster too! I. Am. So. Angry right now, I want to just end the post immediately without even introducing the next mons

[GreatWyrmGold]

Unless you're playing a Salamander (playable since ever!). Or a Magmin (post-Savage Species). Otherwise, that's fair enough.

Those guys at least have hands. Living holocausts just have infernos.

It's exclusively solitary, so it reproduces by... Huh, I don't really know either.

Just because an animal is solitary doesn't mean it's physically incapable of having a peaceful liason with its own kind. Though maulgoths aren't exactly normal enemies, so they might reproduce with windblown pollen or by budding or something.

[Metastachydium]

Those guys at least have hands. Living holocausts just have infernos.

That's Inferno SPIKES! But true. Although the whirlwind thing could be argued to work as some kind of a very enthusiastic hug, I suppose?

they might reproduce with windblown pollen or by budding or something.

Careful. I might start to like you.

Maulgoth

The Maulgoth is a very original creature, with no real inspiration I can find, except maybe as a variant Xorn, which is more of a self-reference.

It kinda looks like it's part Otyugh. Maybe an unusually demented hybrid? That would cover reproduction as well.

- +18 Str, +14 Dex, +16 Con, +6 Int, +6 Wis, +8 Cha, +24 natural armor. Damn. Those are really, really good stats. No min-maxing, but no score feels out of place. Really good AC too.
- 4 tentacles (20ft reach) dealing good damage (2d6) with Improved Grab and Constrict, secondary bite for Mouthpick if needed.

Intelligent Huge bruiser with a solid touch AC?! What universe is this?!

- Ethereal Jolt. Somehow the Maulgoth can open portals and push someone through to the Ethereal with a standard action, a touch attack and a Str-based Fortitude save. Actually good ability, though it makes no sense in its lore, since it cannot itself move through planes. See what I said with "they favored mechanics over lore on this one"?

Maybe they looked at the crystals and their minds wandered all the way back to the Ethereal Ooze?

Amazing stats, defenses, versatile SLAs, save-or-lose touch, large reach battlefield control with many limbs... Everything is good, except the type and body shape. The Maulgoth can quite literally do it all successfully (except full casting, of course). Probably 16 RHD, DLA-3, but for once I'd rather play the DNLA version.

Yeah. I can see what the +0 camp was thinking. I do, in fact, see an argument for a lighter reduction, even. If it leans into bruising, the BAB lost is trivial to compansate for (I mean, it has five attacks by default and a +18 to STR) and it will still have stuff to do while not bruising.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Those guys at least have hands. Living holocausts just have infernos.

To be fair, the official LA has its fair share of oddities that is sometimes worse than our reassigned LA. If hands are what distinguish the kinds of problems that PCs are designed for against "it is not a problem you are supposed to have", then let me present you the Hook Horror (more likely to skewer the diplomat than shake anything), the Stone Spike (what? Stony morningstars can do anthing hands can, can't they?), and worst I could find in 10 minutes, the Ixitxachitl is literally just a manta ray with human intelligence. Who the hell chose to give the last one a level adjustment!? Even in an aquatic campaign, I can't understand how they would fare in a normal-ish party. If those are playable, then why isn't literally everything else? What makes the Ixitxachitl special (apart from the... Unique name)? Same thing but on land, we have the Swamplight Lynx, who not only has no hand, but explicitly cannot speak. Great way to add unique interplayer dynamics.
I don't think there's anything as extreme as a permanent damaging aura like the holocaust's (though it wouldn't surprise me if there was), but we have a playable creature that is both permanently invisible, does not have a fixed appearance and has a paralyzing gaze (Breathdrinker), an incorporeal creature with no canon appearance (Unbodied), and a creature that permanently blinds any humanoid looking at her (Nymph). The Avolakia is playable, but the Kelpie and the Jackalwere aren't. And despite all this weirdness, the Movanic Deva (a humanoid-shaped creature with 6 RHD who can speak and has hands) is still not playable.
If WotC had a checklist of what problems PCs should or should not face, it's nebulous at best and honestly less consistent than our "Give everything an LA, let the DMs sort them out." method.

Just because an animal is solitary doesn't mean it's physically incapable of having a peaceful liason with its own kind. Though maulgoths aren't exactly normal enemies, so they might reproduce with windblown pollen or by budding or something.

True, they may not be incapable to meet others of their kind, but the book goes out of its way to say twice that they are solitary. Maybe they do bud, my point was that we do not get anything written about where they come from, about their ecology, about how they live outside of combat. There are things here and there that are pointed out (it can send people to the Ethereal, its magic is similar to that of druids, but the Maulgoth does not respect nature to gain it, experienced people can tell that the stones on its back are in fact hardened skin), but without any focus on any of those nor any true explanation, we don't have enough to create a plot hook, and the monster remains as a purely combat-oriented encounter, which is bad in a roleplaying game.

It kinda looks like it's part Otyugh. Maybe an unusually demented hybrid? That would cover reproduction as well.

I mean... Kinda? It has legs and tentacles, but not the right amount of either, and Otyughs have nothing to do with either earth or druidic magic. Xorn seems like the better bet.

Intelligent Huge bruiser with a solid touch AC?! What universe is this?!

It's a wonderful world that we get a glimpse of! Like the sunlight poking through the clouds, and warming our soul, before the rain starts falling again.

Yeah. I can see what the +0 camp was thinking. I do, in fact, see an argument for a lighter reduction, even. If it leans into bruising, the BAB lost is trivial to compansate for (I mean, it has five attacks by default and a +18 to STR) and it will still have stuff to do while not bruising.

We're at high enough level that everything is extremely competitive. 16 RHD is enough that everyone else is finishing their prestige class, and to reach that level with no hand is really hard. I don't think a Maulgoth with 4 levels would be overpowered in a 20th level environment. I'm fine with keeping it that way for now.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Megatherium

Or giant land sloth, as it is unscientifically named. Or dire sloth, which is as close to an oxymoron as I can get without actually writing an oxymoron.

Megatheria were ancestors of modern sloths, and were absolute badasses, bigger, stronger and more dominant than the cave bear, dominating South America the way mammoths ruled North America and Asia. Sadly, being a big, slow herbivore may protect you against regular predators, but it does nothing except put a target on your head as soon as spear-armed humans colonized the area. Combined with the final push of the end of the ice age, Megatherium went extinct a few dozen millenia ago.

In D&D, the Megatherium looks like a powercrept dire bear. Slightly less strength but much more durable, the megatherium is one size category bigger, and compliments the dire bear's improved grab with Trample and Pin Down, an ability that simply means the megatherium steps on a grappled creature, pinning them and dealing claw damage each round while freeing its hands. The ideal state of life all megatherium strive for is fighting three people with one under each foot and one in its arms, in range of its bite.

- 13 RHD Huge Animal
- +18 Str, +2 Dex, +14 Con, -8 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Cha, +15 NA
- 40ft speed
- One bite, two claws with Improved Grab and Pin Down
- Trample, Scent

I don't see anything pointing to it being significantly better or worse than the Indricothere. 7 RHD, DLA-4

Next time, newts making more newts, the ophidians come out crawling with no swimsuit!

[Metastachydium]

I mean... Kinda? It has legs and tentacles, but not the right amount of either, and Otyughs have nothing to do with either earth or druidic magic. Xorn seems like the better bet.

I'm talking more general body plan (big mouth on the front, tentacles on the back, legs protruding from the side) than number of appendages, at which point Xorn (mouth on top, four arms below and around it, legs underneath the body, eyes on all sides of the same body) starts looking a lot less similar. Also, Otyughs are subterranean so, um, live in dirt? That's an earth connection (if not an Earth connection)!

The Maulgoth can also kinda fill a similar niche, dealing in waste disposal if it puts its mind to it, even as "eat ****" and "propel **** into the Ethereal" are different enough to make that, khm, somewhat tenuous as connections go.

We're at high enough level that everything is extremely competitive. 16 RHD is enough that everyone else is finishing their prestige class, and to reach that level with no hand is really hard.

Hrm. I wonder how's that affect the Maulgoth, though, specifically. It doesn't need hands to fight, doesn't need them for skill checks, is unlikely to use spell completion/trigger items and in a party, it will have people to attach magical clothing to its body slots.

Megatherium

Or giant land sloth, as it is unscientifically named.

I mean, its scientific name literally just means 'Big Beast'.

a big, slow herbivore

+14 Con

(…)

- 40ft speed

(…)

- Trample,

Heh.

Pin Down, an ability that simply means the megatherium steps on a grappled creature, pinning them and dealing claw damage each round while freeing its hands.

I kinda feel like really big grapplers should get that feature more often.

At any rate, as far as I'm bale to tell, your numbers should check out. It is a big-dumb-hit-things with Animal HD at the end of the day, even if it can also sit on things it hits.

[loky1109]

Xorn has three arms, legs and eyes.

[Emberlily]

The ideal state of life all megatherium strive for is fighting three people with one under each foot and one in its arms, in range of its bite.

your commentary you add to all of your ratings here is always a very strong element for this thread but I just want to point out how extremely delightful this bit is

[GreatWyrmGold]

I mean, its scientific name literally just means 'Big Beast'.

Early paleontologists were bad at naming things.

[Metastachydium]

Early paleontologists were bad at naming things.

I kinda wish the game just rolled with that and went all in on calling, say, Gigantosaurs Giant Lizards and the like.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Xorn has three arms, legs and eyes.

Xorn (mouth on top, four arms below and around it, legs underneath the body, eyes on all sides of the same body) starts looking a lot less similar. Also, Otyughs are subterranean so, um, live in dirt? That's an earth connection (if not an Earth connection)!

The Maulgoth can also kinda fill a similar niche, dealing in waste disposal if it puts its mind to it, even as "eat ****" and "propel **** into the Ethereal" are different enough to make that, khm, somewhat tenuous as connections go.

I was more talking about the combat role, with earth gliding being clearly an important part of the monster (and makes a point of calling it "Xorn Movement" rather than Earth Glide, which could be both a nod to the Xorn itself. I initially thought it could also mean the Maulgoth gained this ability through its innate druidic magic rather than due to
its nature, but not only is the Xorn Movement not a druid spell, the ability is explicitly (Ex), so it most probably references the Xorn more directly). But yeah, overall, there's no real link to anything else, apart from red-strings-and-thumb-tacks conspiracy theories.

Hrm. I wonder how's that affect the Maulgoth, though, specifically. It doesn't need hands to fight, doesn't need them for skill checks, is unlikely to use spell completion/trigger items and in a party, it will have people to attach magical clothing to its body slots.

To fully take advantage of earth glide, for once. Being able to appear anywhere undetected doesn't mean much if you can't steal or move anything. One-use items are often useful, be they wondrous items or magic weapons with specific properties. In most unsplit parties, it shouldn't be that much of a problem but simply an inconvenience, but there will always be situations where "being able to move items, draw and activate mechanisms" will be useful.

I mean, its scientific name literally just means 'Big Beast'.

Well, it's big, isn't it? And prehistoric animals were Beasts in 3.0. So it is a big beast, or rather a Huge Beast. That looks accurate to me.

your commentary you add to all of your ratings here is always a very strong element for this thread but I just want to point out how extremely delightful this bit is

Thank you for the kind words, I'm always happy to deliver and to read this!

Early paleontologists were bad at naming things.

I kinda wish the game just rolled with that and went all in on calling, say, Gigantosaurs Giant Lizards and the like.

Foreign languages are always better. Just see the Cauchemar Nightmare. It gives a sense of mystery to a monster. Would you even give a second glance to a Giant Lizard the way you look at a Gigantosaur? To a living holocaust instead of a Living All-burner? Or a Drowning Otter instead of an Ahuizotl? These weird names are marks of the monster's inspiration, give an insight into the designer's mind and encourages to look up creatures outside of our silly little tabletop game. It might be funny to have a few giant lizards and drowning otters, but I wouldn't trade the ones we have for anything.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The question is whether D&D dinosaurs should have names which evoke the mystique we feel towards them in the real world, or ones which make them seem as mundane as an elk or seahorse. Do you want to make the creature seem fantastical, or to make the world seem so fantastical that dinosaurs are unremarkable? (It's not like they breathe petrifying gas or project a displaced image or anything!)

[Beni-Kujaku]

Ophidian

Ophidians are snakes with humanoid arms (though the 3e art also shows legs, contrary to all descriptions and previous representations) who can either reproduce sexually or infect humanoids to transform them into more of themselves. That's pretty similar to the yuan-tis, who the ophidians recognize as their masters and serve almost religiously. The transforming curse they transmit with their bite was initially from a Netherese artifact corrupted by sarrukhs. Don't mess with the tomb of ancient overpowered snake-people, guys.

Ophidians are 3 RHD Monstrous Humanoid with okay stats (+2 Str, +4 Dex, -2 Int), decent movement options (20ft speed, but 15ft climb and 50ft swim), a bite attack with a curse that transforms the target into an ophidian and wipes their memories (interesting, but since it takes 1d4+1 day for it to set off, generally irrelevant in terms of power level), and a scaly color-changing skin that gives them +3 natural armor and a +10 to Hide in forest and underground terrain.
Stronger than a regular +0 race, but slightly weak even as a 1 RHD+1 LA creature. DLA-1.

Phiuhl

Ladies and gentlemen, and that technicolor rainbow in-between, we have another one. What the hell am I looking at? The Phiuhl is a vaguely humanoid amalgamation of poisonous gas residing in Gehenna, the slightly lawful and very evil outer plane of eternal slopes always reminding you that you are bad at your job and that you can only try to push your boulder a little further uphill before it rolls down and sends you tumbling to the fiery pit of failure.
This one is a great example of the book lying to you about a monster's lore for excellent reasons. The first sentence of the monster description starts with "Believed to be the insubstantial spirits of slain elementals", which is an inaccurate description because it is there to say that, in-universe, nobody really knows what this monster is. Let's read the 2e equivalent : "Despite rumors claiming that these creatures are some form of undead elemental, no priest has ever been able to successfully turn a phiuhl.". They're not undead, they're not elementals, and they're certainly not outsiders. They're just aberrations, anomalies even to this multiverse. And as we read on, the oddities keep piling on.

Phiuhls fly perfectly and have a gaseous form like air elementals, but they also emit high quantities of heat. They are quite intelligent, but their mind is so profoundly alien and twisted that anybody trying to read or affect it can be hit with Feeblemind. They are seemingly insane, attacking anything and everything living they find in Gehenna, and yet, somehow, they always live in pairs and communicate exclusively with their mate.

2e tells us that a single person in history successfully peeked inside the mind of one of these things. Though unclear, the general gyst is that the Phiuhl is the result of a conflict between the elemental planes of air and fire. The wind dukes of Aqaa (also known as Vaati and only present in 3.5 through an Oriental Adventures web enhancement (download link)) were Lawful-aligned Outsiders of the elemental plane of air, who at some point decided to cut their greatest enemies, the Obyrith and other demons, from the support of the elemental plane of fire, and specifically that of the efreet lords of the City of Brass. The way they did it, and to prevent any possible resurrection by the other efreeti, was to kill the efreet lords, animate their spirits as undead, then merge with them by forfeiting their own life to become a spirit themselves, and creating a "melded prison of steam" to hold them both : the gaseous body of the Phiuhl. But then, why are the Phiuhls so weak? CR 11 is obviously nothing to sneeze at, but I'd expect more from the fusion of many Vaati outsiders with noble Efreet. My guess is that, beyond simply merging the spirits, the Vaati have separated the mind of the efreeti between two Phiuhls, thus making them individually weaker, and explaining both their organization as couples (along the centuries, every Phiuhl has finally found their litteral soulmate) and why they are so mad, in any meaning of the word : it's half of an evil genie's soul, trapped in a corporeal prison and merged with several other spirits of outsiders, no wonder its mind is such a mess.

The last unexplained thing is why it's found in Gehenna. And the answer is the same as why its CR is so high despite it only having 9 RHD : the prison of steam cannot fully sustain the spirits in it and constantly emits hellishly powerful poison as well as scorching heat and negative energy. The best way to fully contain it is to put all Phiuhls in a plane dominated by devils, who are immune to both poison and fire. The obvious issue is that, as a PC, this poison is even more harmful to your party and the people they meet than the living holocaust's heat aura.


- 9 RHD Large extraplanar Aberration
- Gaseous Form, the poor man's incorporeality. Like for the living holocaust, this ability is mainly a giant liability, preventing the Phiuhl from ever manipulating items, entering water and running, without even giving it better DR, but allowing it to go through small opening and enter other creatures' space. However, the Phiuhl has a Str score for some reason, though it does not use it for anything. Leave it to WotC to not be consistent with the same ability twice in the same book.
- +0 Str, +10 Dex, +8 Con, +0 Int, Wis and Cha, +2 natural armor. Wow. This is worthless.
- 2 Heat touches (1d10 fire). Like for the holocaust, a rogue career may work
- 40ft land speed, 30ft perfect flying. When a gas has a faster land speed than flying speed, you know it's dense. With how similar it is to the living holocaust, I should make a chlorine gas joke, but that's below me. Far below. Around trench level, in fact.
- Heat aura, 30ft, Fort or 1d6 fire damage/round
- Dessicate : Any creature that shares the Phiuhl's space has to make a Fort save or take 2 negative levels per round. Actually really strong ability.
- Death Gas : Continuous inhaled poison aura of 50ft dealing 1d10 Con/1d10 Con with a 24h immunity if you make the save. It's both really strong and extremely unwieldy. 50ft is a lot and the Phiuhl is not fast enough to be able to reposition itself in a single round to affect the opponents but not the party. At higher level, the number of outsiders, plants, undead, elementals, constructs and oozes immune to poison will skyrocket, which means this already problematic ability will become more and more of an actual liability.
- Fire and poison immunity, electricity resistance 20, DR 10/Magic, SR 12+HD, Inscrutable Mind (any attempt to dominate or read a Phiuhl's mind will result in the caster being feebleminded unless a Will save is made). The SR in particular is really good.

The Phiuhl is pretty similar to swarms in the difficulty to advance it, but also through its abilities. Basically, all its natural abilities require is moving around, and it is easy, and I'd even say optimal to make a "no rolling dice" build with it. Its ability scores are much worse than the Living Holocaust's and its defenses apart from SR are lacking, but its offensive abilities are brutal, and negative levels will always work even against poison-immune opponents. I'd say the same score of 7 RHD, DLA-2 is pretty good.


I'm really torn on this monster. On the one hand, its origin is really unique, and having to look up the lore in previous editions for a monster meant to be really mysterious is really fitting (especially since so many hints that something is wrong are sprinkled here and there). The mechanical side of it is also pretty good. The problem is, put simply, that nobody is going to look up previous editions lore for such a niche monster. And if you limit yourself to 3rd edition, the Phiuhl is a Maulgoth-style tantalizing lore-bait. Many intriguing points, but no hook, and absolutely no way to infer its actual origin, especially since 3e does not have noble efreet nor did it have Vaati at the time. And that makes it a really bare-bones monster to put here. At least the next one has muscles, though we're still not at the point where we can afford skin. See you for the flayed zombie, the Quth-Maren!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Quth-Maren

First take your chosen corpse and carefully remove every bit of skin still left on the muscles. Take care not to damage the muscles. Plunge the whole body in formalin, then leave to dessicate for three days. When the corpse's legs are about half as thick as they started, start adding necromantic magic and alternate necromancy with prayers to Kiaransalee until the corpse starts moving on its own. Congratulations! You made your very own Quth-Maren!

Kiaransalee was a chaotic evil drow lich before becoming a goddess of undeath. Does it really surprise anybody that her favorite undead is just a flayed zombie with acid coursing through its veins and a terrifying gaze? The only odd thing is that the Quth-Maren has an intelligence score. Kiaransalee is known to see undead as tools and to prefer armies of mindless corpses to powerful intelligent undead.

- 10 RHD Medium Undead. Pretty bad.
- +6 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Int, +4 Wis, +4 Cha, +3 NA. Good stats for a creature with 3 RHD.
- 2 slams dealing 1d6+1d6 acid. Also deals 1d6 when hit by a natural attack. Pretty sure a greatsword will be more effective.
- Spit Blood : 10ft range touch attack, 2d6 acid damage, every 1d4 rounds. This has nothing to do in an ECL 5+ environment.
- Command Undead. Explicitly does not count as rebuke undead, and while controlling a few 2 RHD skeletons will please Kiaransalee, it will do nothing in combat above level 5, especially since the Quth-Maren cannot create undead
by itself.
- Fast Healing 4, electricity and fire resistance 15, acid immunity, turn resistance +2. Now we're getting somewhere!
- Horrifying gaze : 30ft unfriendly gaze attack, Will or cower, no listed duration, no 24 hrs immunity. Wait what?

The Quth-Maren has the stats and many abilities of a CR 3-4 monster, decent to good energy resistances, and then its gaze is the purest definition of a Save-or-Lose, disabling those affected until the end of combat (RAW is forever, but RAW is stupid, probably the most sane reading would be "until the Quth-Maren is more than 30ft away"). Fun way to balance your monster, WotC. And of course you will constantly disable your allies as well, unless you can always position yourself more than 40ft away from them in combat, or accept to not use your most powerful ability. The Narrowed Gaze feat is strongly recommended. Anyway, the overall stats being worse than the Umber Hulk, 6 RHD, DLA-3 seems fair. Next time, the Sarkrith leader, the Spelleater!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Sarkrith Spelleater

Do you remember the forsaker? That one prestige class from Masters of the Wild that hated any kind of magic and forbade you from using any spell or magic item in exchange from giving you ungodly amounts of scaling spell resistance (specifically the only source of SR that stacks with innate SR in the game), and inherent bonuses to your ability scores. Well sarkrith are a whole race of forsakers, with an ideology that can be summarized as "magic bad". These half-dragon-looking self-supremacists value physical strength above anything else and thus consider magic to be cheating them from their natural place at the top of the world. Funnily, even if magic-using creatures are stronger than them even without using magic, such as dragons, they will still dismiss them since "all nonsarkrith are tainted by magic's foul touch". Envy, double standard or misplaced pride? Probably all of the above, with a sprinkling of hypocrisy.

Even within their own society, sarkrith hardly practice their "might makes right" preachings. Their leaders are called the spelleaters, with bodyguards called thanes. And while the spelleaters do have a few more RHDs and more intelligence than the thanes, everything else about them is inferior. Both have SR 12+CR and the same Str and Con, but while the spelleater can use a dispelling ray, the thane can instead deploy a swift action antimagic field, much better at dealing with casters. And while the spelleater has nothing else of note, the thane can adapt to resist any kind of destructive energy, treat all bludgeoning damage as nonlethal, and have a whole extra action per round. Needless to say, while the thane got LA+1, the spelleater tumbled down here.


- 15 RHD Large Monstrous Humanoid
- +16 Str, +8 Dex, +18 Con, +6 Int, +2 Wis, -4 Cha, +4 NA. Not sure why their Cha is so low, considering they are such a proud race, probably to drive home that they won't speak to you unless you inconditionally surrender first. Anyway, very good stats. No outlier, but you have bonuses where you want them.
- SR 10+HD. You'd think they'd have at least CR+15 if they were to fight magic-users without using spells or magic items themselves. Any spell that fails to pierce it heals the spelleater by as many HP as its level. Consider a level of warlock for infinite out-of-combat healing.
- CL 20 targetted Greater Dispel Magic at will as a ray. First, having a (Su) that reproduces a spell does not really fit the "hates magic" aesthetic, but also it requires a ranged touch attack and overall is rarely worth using in combat since it requires using the spelleater's action. Still an insanely useful thing to have.
- One bite with no rider, Scent, cannot be tracked by scent.
- Shot on the Run as a bonus feat. Oh, yeah, it's supposed to be an archer. You didn't see that by watching its stats? Me neither. Funnily, the standard spelleater wields a bow that isn't even adapted to its strength. It's only +4, maybe to allow PCs to make use of it.

Compared to the thane, not having double actions and antimagic definitely hurts the spelleater, but it's still an extremely good beater, hard to affect with magic, with easy access to infinite healing. Something like 9 RHD, DLA-4 should be good. Any initiator class is good.


The sarkrith weren't reprinted in later editions. It's a shame, in my opinion. Their anti-magic crusade would have been fun to adapt to 5e. The main reason is that they were probably created as a tool for DMs to "beat" the martial-caster gap, and "punish" players for playing casters, which is not a good enough reason for them to exist in several editions, and is already a very petty thing to add in 3e, which makes their description as hypocritical murderhobos be even more ironic. But the initial idea of a magic-hating civilization is not that bad, and 5e is known to shore up the lore of preexisting monsters and make them less one-dimensional. I would have liked to see it.
Did you enjoy the Kelpie? The aquatic horse-human shapechanger? What if it was a seal? See you next time for the Selkie.

[Metastachydium]

Do you remember the forsaker? That one prestige class from Masters of the Wild that hated any kind of magic and forbade you from using any spell or magic item in exchange from giving you ungodly amounts of scaling spell resistance (specifically the only source of SR that stacks with innate SR in the game), and inherent bonuses to your ability scores. Well sarkrith are a whole race of forsakers, with an ideology that can be summarized as "magic bad". These half-dragon-looking self-supremacists value physical strength above anything else and thus consider magic to be cheating them from their natural place at the top of the world. Funnily, even if magic-using creatures are stronger than them even without using magic, such as dragons, they will still dismiss them since "all nonsarkrith are tainted by magic's foul touch". Envy, double standard or misplaced pride? Probably all of the above, with a sprinkling of hypocrisy.

Even within their own society, sarkrith hardly practice their "might makes right" preachings. Their leaders are called the spelleaters, with bodyguards called thanes. And while the spelleaters do have a few more RHDs and more intelligence than the thanes, everything else about them is inferior. Both have SR 12+CR and the same Str and Con, but while the spelleater can use a dispelling ray, the thane can instead deploy a swift action antimagic field, much better at dealing with casters. And while the spelleater has nothing else of note, the thane can adapt to resist any kind of destructive energy, treat all bludgeoning damage as nonlethal, and have a whole extra action per round. Needless to say, while the thane got LA+1, the spelleater tumbled down here.

STOP HATING OUR REPTILIAN OVERLORDS, YOU! (Also, I kind of didn't remember the Thane was that good, so thanks for the reminder.)

- CL 20 targetted Greater Dispel Magic at will as a ray. First, having a (Su) that reproduces a spell does not really fit the "hates magic" aesthetic, but also it requires a ranged touch attack and overall is rarely worth using in combat since it requires using the spelleater's action. Still an insanely useful thing to have.

(…)

- Shot on the Run as a bonus feat. Oh, yeah, it's supposed to be an archer. You didn't see that by watching its stats? Me neither. Funnily, the standard spelleater wields a bow that isn't even adapted to its strength. It's only +4, maybe to allow PCs to make use of it.

Hm. Could it be that they thought the Dispel Ray ranged touch attack is weaponlike enough tio work with the feat?

Compared to the thane, not having double actions and antimagic definitely hurts the spelleater, but it's still an extremely good beater, hard to affect with magic, with easy access to infinite healing. Something like 9 RHD, DLA-4 should be good. Any initiator class is good.

I don't know. A high CL, Su, at-will Greater Dispel (something available in a weaker form to Warlocks 2 and to casters 3 levels later at the earliest) on top of that chassis (those are some stats!) makes me feel a tad unsure about 9 HD. Man, extreme outlier abilities on an otherwise uninspired design do make for balance issues.

Did you enjoy the Kelpie? The aquatic horse-human shapechanger? What if it was a seal? See you next time for the Selkie.

What? It still beats the Seawolf as a concept.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Selkie

Humans changing into seals from the Shetlands. Their single notable tale is one where a selkie's seal skin is stolen by a human while she's in human form, and she's coerced by him to become his wife. They have two children until the selkie finally finds her skin, and promptly leaves the man a single father. Don't base your relationships on blackmail, people.

This statblock's great! It doesn't have that many abilities, but the stats are good for a caster (-2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Cha), and while being forced to change into a seal and lose the powers of all your magic items and your armor everytime you go into water is kinda bad, at least the seal has decent natural armor (+5). Sadly, it has 3 Humanoid RHD. And those are unneeded.

Really, the only question here is if the selkie is meaningfully stronger than a human or a lesser aasimar. And the answer is no. The lesser Aasimar has similar though slightly worse stats, but has elemental resistances and SLAs. 1 RHD, DLA-2.

Slasrath

One day, a yugoloth found a giant worm in Gehenna, and immediately thought : "You know what would make it better? Wings.". One dark magic ritual later, and the yugoloths now had flying mounts.

- Large 8 RHD Aberration
- +10 Str, +4 Dex, +8 Con, -10 Int, +0 Wis, +0 Cha, +6 NA.
- 10ft speed, 50ft (perfect) flying.
- One bite attack, and one poisoned sting attack. The poison is of the more unique variety, dealing 1d4 Str and Dex as primary damage, and 2d6 Con as secondary, making it one of the very few poisons able to damage three different ability scores. It also makes the poison quite weak, since it's spread so thin and relies so much on the secondary damage.
- Wing Slash : At the end of a charge, the Slasrath can, instead of attacking with its sting, make a wide slash with the blades on its wings, with apparently a set +9 to hit all opponents in reach for decent damage. Any armored target must make a Reflex save or have their armor shredded into pieces. Very unique rider, but rarely useful, especially with the RAW reading that the attack bonus does not increase.

Perfect flying is always good, and a good sting or wing slash can make the dream work, but worm anatomy is crippling. 5 RHD, DLA-2.

Two big piles of nothing. Next time, the spectral lurker.

[Dualight]

One day, a yugoloth found a giant worm in Gehenna, and immediately thought : "You know what would make it better? Wings.".

That yugoloth wasn't exactly wrong, now were they?

[Metastachydium]

Selkie

being forced to change into a seal and lose the powers of all your magic items and your armor everytime you go into water is kinda bad

Well, yes, but what kind of halfway sane PC ever goes near water?! That thing is DEATH.

Slasrath

I keep reading that as Slashrat. Having an ability called Slash doesn't help.

- Large 8 RHD Aberration
- +10 Str, +4 Dex, +8 Con, -10 Int, +0 Wis, +0 Cha, +6 NA.
- 10ft speed, 50ft (perfect) flying.
- One bite attack, and one poisoned sting attack. The poison is of the more unique variety, dealing 1d4 Str and Dex as primary damage, and 2d6 as secondary, making it one of the very few poisons able to damage three different ability scores. It also makes the poison quite weak, since it's spread so thin and relies so much on the secondary damage.
- Wing Slash : At the end of a charge, the Slasrath can, instead of attacking, with its sting, make a wide slash with the blades on its wings, with apparently a set +9 to hit all opponents in reach for decent damage. Any armored target must make a Reflex save or have their armor shredded into pieces. Very unique rider, but rarely useful, especially with the RAW reading that the attack bonus does not increase.

Perfect flying is always good, and a good sting or wing slash can make the dream work, but worm anatomy is crippling. 5 RHD, DLA-2.

Also, I kinda hate this thing. Perfect flight is a big selling point certainly, but otherwise… It gets Poison and one unique ability that [drum roll] destroys loot. I'm not sure I wouldn't just take Ogre at ECL 4 over this and call it a day, even with RHDR. Not that I'm sure I'd be comfortable going lower than 5 there either, on the other hand. So bad.

[Dalmosh]

Selkie has been a surprisingly common character concept pitched in my low level games. Obviously this monster race is pants as written, and there is no RAW way to emulate it with Druid variants either. The simplest option is to just make a Seal Totem Druid and leave the rest to the player to flavour.

I ended up finding a homebrewed ECL 0 race with the core traits and then slapping on some physical traits from the seal presented in Frostburn to make the alternate form a bit more meaningful, inc. adding cold endurance.

I wanted to retain the option of advancing through 2 monster HD if desired, for verisimilitude, so made those levels about gradually increasing speed and lung capacity, getting the bonus Weapon Finesse at level 2, and padding the rest out with some typical Fey abilities.

One thing to note with Selkie is that 90 ft swim speed is really good. Nothing melee orientated can come close to catching a Selkie in the water, and if you're playing one, its likely in a game where there will be 3D aquatic combat.

Not being able to control shapeshifting (which I already loosened considerably to include coastal regions and islands in general, lakes, rivers etc) was really frustrating for the player, and as flavour didn't add much to gameplay. Its also almost impossible for a PC to improve upon within the rules of the game, as its wording is so vague.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Spectral Lurker

I imagine monsters often gather in discussion groups to talk about their life and how it can sometimes be hard in their everyday life. In "Create Spawn anonymous", everyone comes to take a break from their parental lives or come in a hurry during the 1d4 days before their victims reanimate to take advice on how to care for them during the first weeks. In "Unfriendly Aura anonymous", the Nymph, the Drowned and the Bhut gather in a big room to talk about how to make friends while staying 30ft from each other. As for the Spectral Lurker, he is a part of a very select group with the Aboleth and the Ethereal Ooze called "I can show you my world", where they volunteer to show people searching for new sensations what it's like to live on the Ethereal Plane, or in the deep sea, or to be incorporeal themselves. They meet in the depths of the oceans, where the Ooze brings them to the ethereal and, together, they stare for hours through the oddly revealing veil between the planes at the eerie beauty of the fish of the dark depths.

The spectral lurker is... weird. It's basically an immense incorporeal slug with a mouth full of pointed teeth and tentacles that reach into the corporeal world. It's said to act like a ghost and to attack the people coming to try and exorcise it, which makes me think that it hides in walls and pops up to spook the residents of houses, ghostbuster style. I imagine it going around holding a white sheet and when people go to investigate it, it reveals itself as the eyesore that it is.

When the spectral lurker finds a suitable prey, it attacks it with its tentacles, grapples it, and then makes it incorporeal. The tactics say that it then brings it inside a wall and releases it to shunt it to the nearest open space, dealing 1d6 damage per 5ft traversed, which makes me think that they forgot that incorporeal creatures have to stay adjacent to an open space, which means the victim would be dealt a maximum of 3d6 damage from this whole maneuver. Not quite as effective as a CR 17 monster should be. Or a CR 10, for that matter. It would actually be better to simply grab someone, being them in the wall, and not letting them go, instead battering them while the rest of the party cannot intervene. Still not good, but at least useable.

- Huge 16 RHD incorporeal Aberration. Did you notice that it did not have full BAB on top of not having a Str score? Such a good design for a grappler.
- No Str, +16 Dex, +10 Con, +0 Int, +4 Wis, +8 Cha
- One bite, two tentacles with Improved Grab and Constrict. All attacks have Ghost Touch, but are still touch attacks, which is pretty good for a melee fighter. However, they don't have Str bonuses, of course. Any grappled creature immediately becomes incorporeal until let go, and must make a Fort save or be drained of 1d6 Dex per round.
- 50ft speed, 40ft perfect flying. Once again, what is the point of an incorporeal creature with a land speed? Is its underbelly ghost touch too so it can slither on the ground?
- All-around vision, Blindsight 60ft, immune to cold, electricity and sonic, SR 12+HD, DR 20/magic. Thank you, magic DR on an incorporeal creature, now I know the damage from attacks by Serrenwood weapons is reduced by 20.

This thing has the defenses of a CR 14 creature, and the offense of a CR 8. Touch melee attacks could make for a decent base for martial maneuvers, even without Str bonuses. On the other hand, Incorporealize is really useless. Its intended use case is pathetically weak, and even just going through a wall to fight somebody in the other room falls into the same drawbacks as the Ethereal Ooze, which is that it singles you out from your party as much as your opponent. It can't even be used to temporarily buff an ally, since every round you drain their Dex. And you have no other actual ability. Still, the defenses are extremely good (except the DR), the stats are nice and there are things to do with touch attacks. All in all, 9 RHD, DLA-5 seems good.


I wonder if this monster was ever proofread. The land speed, the DR, the tactics not working because of the rules, the fact that it "looks like a ghost from afar", which it absolutely does not, the art showing it emerging from a hallway and not from the wall, and especially the CR make me think that this creature was previously two creatures, one incorporeal vaguely humanoid one that could make people incorporeal, and a CR 17 slug-like corporeal creature with weird tentacles. Whether the other creature did not get any art done, or they thought that a creature that made you incorporeal needed to be more eldritch than a weird-looking ghost, they combined the two into what we got today, left some weird things in there and couldn't really play with it to check the CR.

Next time, we have something especially bad, the Spore Bat! And yes, these creatures with wings, claws, eyes and way too many RHD are supposed to be plants.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Sporebat

Judge and jurors, I would like to present to the court exhibit A : the 3.0 picture for the Sporebat !

Spoiler: Both tamer and weirder than usual

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Membraned bat-like wings, sharp orange eyes with a horizontal slit pupil that can shoot a ray of negative energy, a long reptilian tail and very animal-looking claws. And yet, the sporebat is somehow a Plant creature. What went wrong here? Also, no energy immunity except a full immunity to fire, for a plant that looks like it would burn really easily. Something's definitely going on here. As often, when something does not make sense, we can go back to previous iterations of the monster. Surely the 2e version was more plant-like and explains this creature type, right?

Spoiler: Nope, not even close

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It's actually even worse! These claws look even more bird-like, we can now see that its wings are based on long fingers like those of bats, and that these fingers have joints. And are those abs I see? How is it still a "fungoid" monster? And still immune to heat and fire! On top of it, we have more info on its society, planting its spores on its prey's dead body to feed the 'clutch" of baby mushroom bats. They live together with their clutch their whole life, having a strong sense of brotherhood and getting enraged if their siblings are killed. The bats communicate with each other using a language so mysterious that nobody can understand it and that even reading the mind of the bat gives only a series of incomprehensible images.
A one-eyed creature shooting beams of deadly energy that is surprisingly intelligent, but with a mind so alien that you can't read it with magic? That's not a Plant, that's an aberration. If I didn't know any better I'd say it is another creation of the beholders, like the Lurking Strangler. It's even also called a "living eye". But it is not. It does not fit the D&D universe because it is not FROM the D&D universe! Let me present to you Exhibit C : TSR's D&D-adjacent sci-fi nuclear-themed post-apocalyptic TTRPG: Gamma World! The obb, or "living eye", is an iconic monster in this game from its first edition, who got the honor of being featured on the cover of the 4th edition rulebook:

Spoiler: The bat, the myth, the legend

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There, the obb is actually classified as a plant, but that word has a much wider definition in Gamma World. Everything there is defined by mutations, and plants can be as humanoid or as monstrous as wanted, including for players characters. In a way, that level of customization prefigures this thread's effort. The obb was actually a high-level monster there, shooting rays of concentrated radiation. Which explains everything, from its aberration-like traits (mutated creatures are generally aberrations in 3.x) to its ray of poison in 2e which got changed to negative energy in 3e (two incomplete ways to represent radiation), to its immunity to fire (if it uses high-energy radiation itself, it stands to reason that it is immune to radiation, which is the main reason why fire is hot), to even how over-CRed it is. The sporebat is CR 10, but should probably be around CR 7 instead. Maybe its enervating ray was overrated due to its former glory as one of the more dangerous radiation-based monsters in GWorld.
Still, explaining is not justifying, and it should either have been an aberration or change to something more clearly plant-like. There are ways to do that without forsaking the monster's nature too, just make the mushroom more prominent and replace the claws with something more bark-like :

Thank you Pokemon Infinite Fusion for your endless number of unique sprites

This is another unassuming monster in appearance, but with a deep rabbit hole once you start looking into it. I wonder how many monsters in each edition is adapted, how many are taken from mythology, and how many are actually new creations. Was the beholder created because Terry Kuntz wanted a way to challenge a high-level party and was just figuring out action economy, or did he see his daughter draw a face on a balloon and forget one of its eyes ? How many small miracles had to occur for us to be here discussing how to play a flying mushroom bat?

Well, how to play it? Hardly, that's how. The sporebat has 15 RHD, no level-relevant ability, and no stellar stat. In its 3e iteration, the radiation ray is a far cry from how terrifying it once was.

- Medium Plant, 15 RHD
- 5ft speed, 60ft good flying
- +4 Str, +10 Dex, +4 Con, -2 Int, +0 Wis, -6 Cha, no natural armor. These are NOT the stats I'd expect on a 15 RHD creature.
- 2 claws, one tail rake, no rider, no opposable thumb. At least it can take Prehensile Tail.
- Immune to fire, 40% concealment outside of daylight, artificial light and light spells. Including artificial light in the list means that it will rarely benefit from this ability (remember that plants have low-light vision but not darkvision), but it's still quite powerful.
- 150ft range Enervation every two rounds. The ray is brown because it's radiation and not negative energy. Why is radiation brown? I don't know.

That's a glorified giant eagle, but smaller. The concealment anf enervation ray aren't bad, but the former only inconsistently activates while the latter will fall out of relevance pretty fast. 5 RHD, DLA-7, just for how hard it is to advance.

The sporebat manages to be a terrible monster while still being a piece of history. I'm torn between "throw it in the bin" and "tell its tale to your children". Fortunately, with the negative LA thread, I can do both! Next time, we will review 57,500 creatures all at once! That's right, we will rate the many swarms of the Fiend Folio, who all got LA-0 without exception.