Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Vermin (Insects)

There are two types of vermin creatures in the Monster Manual. Insects are described as "Giant", and everything else is described as "Monstrous". So, either the one who came up with these names loved insects so much that they did not consider them monstrous even when they are 10 meters long, or they hated insects so much that they thought them already monstrous in their natural size. Your guess. Of course, there will be a handful of exception in later books (Giant sun spider from Lost Empires of Faerun, Giant Lobster from Dr321...), but overall this rule stands and seems intended.

All monstrous vermin come in several sizes, while most giant vermin come in roles, or specialties. That makes them slightly more interesting, as they have a chance to have various abilities, but most of the time they will be almost as identical as monstrous vermin.

Generally, Vermin are very similar to animals, in that they invariably have acceptable physical stats and +0 to +2 Wis, but a hit to charisma and -8 intelligence (shot up to 3 from mindless). However, their physical stats are generally worse than animals', but they make up for it with very good natural armor, and immunity to mind-affecting effects.

Giant Ant, Worker, 2 RHD: And we start with an ant. You know how ants are supposed to be extremely strong and be able to carry several times their mass? Well, they clearly don't retain any of that when they grow up. No physical bonus at all and a weak bite (you'll probably be able to take a mouthpick weapon later). However, you have +7 natural armor, which is incredible at low level, 50ft speed, mind affecting immunity, and track. That seems like some decent Totemist chassis. 1 RHD, LA+1 and DLA-1? That seems even.

Giant Ant, Soldier, 2 RHD: Eeeerrrr... What is this doing here exactly? Compared to the riding dog, which was already at the very top of 1 RHD+1, you have -4 Dex and -2 Con, but +10ft land speed, a 20ft climb speed, +3 natural armor, Improved Grab, Darkvision instead of low-light, a simili-Constrict with the acid stinger, and freaking mind-affecting immunity. I don't think it would be balanced with less than 2 RHD. And obviously DLA-0.

Giant Ant, Queen, 4 RHD: It's pretty obvious that this is supposed to stay in the anthill and not do anything. 2 more RHD and Large size, but lower speed and Dex than the soldier, no reach, only +2 natural armor and Str... Still, Large size is good on something with Improved Grab and almost-Constrict. 2 RHD, DLA-1

Giant Bee, 3 RHD: Bees. They fly. That's pretty much all. +4 Dex, -8 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Cha are really bad modifiers, you only have +2 natural armor. And finally, the worst natural weapon in all of D&D. The only monster that kills itself when it tries to attack. I really see nothing of value here. Maybe an unarmed swordsage? Yeah, maybe. 1 RHD, DLA-2, escaping the DLA-3 just because of that nice flight speed.

Giant bombardier beetle, 2 RHD: A soldier ant without most of what made the soldier ant good. +2 Str, +4 Con, -8 Int, +2 Wis, +6 natural armor, these leave as much to be desired on a beetle as they did on an ant soldier, but you don't have the speed or the grappling, or the bonus feat, or anything really except an unscaling acid attack that becomes irrelevant after 3 levels. I suggest a pretty strong 1 RHD and DLA-1.

Giant Fire Beetle, 1 RHD: No, you don't have fireball as an SLA 1/day. Your name comes from the fact that you're able to light up your eyes, but it doesn't give you a better darkvision than any other vermin and only illuminates 10ft. For comparison, a regular torch illuminates 20ft. You are almost strictly worse than any PHB race, with no physical ability boosts, -4 Cha and -8 Int, no manipulators, no improved speed... You only have +5 natural armor and immunity to mind-affecting which, while good, do not make up for your body type. DLA-1.

Giant Stag Beetle, 7 RHD: You won't be able to use this giant insect to transport you through Hallownest, with its 20ft movement speed, but it should be a pretty good bruiser with less RHD. It's like a bison with 20ft less speed, +6 natural armor and immunity to mind-affecting. 3 RHD should make it playable, and DLA-3 will offset the terrible Racial Hit Dice.

Giant Praying Mantis, 4 RHD: I like the fact that they gave it a poor flying speed to represent the fact that it can jump incredible heights but not really fly. That's like the early versions of superman, where he just could jump several miles because of the Earth's reduced gravity. Then again, in the context of the game, poor flying isn't really good, and having a +20 to Jump checks would have benefitted the GPM much more. The rest of your stats are not strictly bad, but nothing stands out as amazing. At least you get two natural attacks. A weak 2 RHD and DLA-1 should fit the praying mantis.

Giant Wasp, 5 RHD: Do you like wasps enough to play them? Absolutely not. Nobody does. If you're playing that, it's only to be able to be the worst murderhobo thief ever and still be able to say "that's what my character would do" with nobody being able to object*. Wasps are like bees, but more combat oriented, with +8 Str, +2 Dex, +4 Con, and an actually useable stinger with a somewhat lackluster poison (1d6 Dex/1d6 Dex) but 1-1/2Str on damage. Still, 5 RHD is way too much for what it brings. Maybe 2 RHD? Probably average at this level thanks to your poison. And DLA-2.


The discrepancy between high natural armor and super low ability scores make the vermin not that easy to rate. Still, I'm pretty content with the result (and I feel like nobody will ever play those, in an actual game or in an optimisation competition, so there's no issue even if one of them is overpowered). Next time we'll be looking at monstrous vermin. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Vermin (Monstrous ones)

Hey everybody! You know what time it is? It's new year time! Happy 2022 to all of you! And you know what that means? That means everybody deserves to be happy, even those who want to play as Elder Centipede from One-Punch Man. So, as the last entry of the MM1, let's review the monstrous vermin!

Monstrous vermin are the various non-insect invertebrates of unusual size of the monster manual, ranging from a few dozen times to several hundreds of times larger than their real life counterparts. And as for the elementals (and most monsters except Oozes, really), the best way WotC found to represent them being big and sturdy is increasing their number of RHD up to ridiculous amounts. Which, even if you handwave their mindlessness, would make all monstrous vermin above medium size completely unplayable. Let's see how we can reduce that.

Even more so than elementals, monstrous vermin are similar to each other:
-Absolutely awful stats with almost no progression except strength. Monstrous vermin gain +2 Con going from Large to Huge, lose -2 Dex going from Gargantuan to Colossal, gain 4 to 6 Str per size category, and. That's. ALL. This is pathetic even by evolved monsters standards. They also all have -/10/2 as their mental stats, very similar to other vermin but with unusable Charisma on top of it. More than anything else, this is what makes monstrous vermin this weak.
-Animal body shape, with more legs, with all the problems that entails (no manipulator, no reach when Large...). At least spiders and centipedes have a bite attack for an eventual mouthpick weapon.
-They all get bonuses on Climb, Hide and Spot checks, and bonus Weapon Finesse. Of course, there's usually no point since they have more strength than dexterity when at least Huge, but that's nice for the small ones.
-They all get some poison, scaling with their size, until they become really interesting later on. That's the reason you want to play one of those.

Monstrous Centipede
Starting stats, excluding Str: +4 Dex, +0 Con, -8 Int, +0 Wis, -8 Cha
Spiders have their webs, scorpions have Improved Grab, but centipedes have nothing (except a racial +8 on Hide checks). They're the weakest monstous vermin, with the lowest stats and natural armor. Their poison damages Dex, which is probably the least useful physical stat to damage, since it's vital to almost nobody yet everybody has at least a decent value in it. They also have only one bite as their natural weapon.
Tiny, 1 RHD: -10 Str, no Natural armor, 20ft speed, poison deals 1 Dex. The weakest poison in the game and a 2lb light load without heavy investment (for those wondering, that's the weight of a component pouch). Even with some Ur-priest levels, I can't see this being overpowered with DLA-2. I really don't see what to do with it.
Small, 1 RHD: -6 Str, +1 NA, 30ft speed, poison deals 1d2 Dex. At least you can now carry a few items and have reach. Still, your body shape is really bad, your poison is unuseable and you are dumb as a brick. DLA-1
Medium, 1 RHD: -2 Str, +2 NA, 40ft speed, poison deals 1d3 Dex. Negligible improvement. DLA-1
Large, 3 RHD: +2 Str, +2 NA, 40ft speed, poison deals 1d4 Dex. Still negligible improvement (you'll still use dexterity and not Str to hit), and since you lose Hide bonus and to-hit, this is probably weaker than Medium. 1 RHD, DLA-2
Huge, 6 RHD: +6 Str, +6 NA, 40ft speed, poison deals 1d6 Dex (lots of 6s with this one).
The strength and poison are now pretty useable, and you got reach. You'd like some grappling support. 3 RHD, DLA-2
Gargantuan, 12 RHD: +12 Str, +10 NA, 40ft speed, poison deals 1d8 Dex.
When the best benefit you get from being one size larger is... being one size larger, there's a problem. 4 RHD, DLA-5
Colossal, 24 RHD: +16 Str, +16 NA, 40ft speed, poison deals 2d6 Dex.
This reminds me of an animated object, with no good immunity and less HP, less Str, less reach and a worse body type. Still, 2d6 Dex is good, sad that it's keyed off Con. 5 RHD

Monstrous Scorpion
Starting stats, excluding Str: +0 Dex, +4 Con, -8 Int, +0 Wis, -8 Cha
The beefiest monstrous vermin, with the highest natural armor and constitution. It also gets 3 natural weapons (claw/claw/sting) and Con poison. Nice. Sad that the poison is on the secondary sting. You also get tremorsense, and especially Improved Grab/Constrict on its claws, which will be extremely useful for the really big ones. That's strong enough that Tiny and Small both got +0 in the original thread.
Medium, 2 RHD: +2 Str, +4 NA, 40ft speed, poison deals 1d3 Con.
Also probably weaker than Small. 1 RHD, DLA-1
Large, 5 RHD: +8 Str, +7 NA, 50ft speed, poison deals 1d4 Con.
You start to grapple pretty well. The poison is still pretty irrelevant, but may be decent to put on other weapons with Craft (Poison). 3 RHD, DLA-1.
Huge, 10 RHD: +12 Str, +12 NA, 50ft speed, poison deals 1d6 Con.
The Con boost is nice for poison DC, Huge size is nice for grappling. 5 RHD, DLA-3
Gargantuan, 20 RHD: +20 Str, +18 NA, 50ft speed, poison deals 1d8 Con.
Only size category with +8 Str. A strong 6 RHD, or a weak 7 RHD, DLA-9
Colossal, 40 RHD: +24 Str, +25 NA, 50ft speed, poison deals 1d10 Con.
That's some really high natural armor there. Also, even with 8 RHD, you have +42 to grapple. Nobody ain't getting off these big, meaty claws.

Monstrous Spider
Starting stats, excluding Str: +6 Dex, +0 Con, -8 Int, +0 Wis, -8 Cha
Just be a web-spinner. Hunters have a +10 on Jump checks, so they make better swordsages and warblades, so that's probably even in terms of pure power, but if you're a spider, it's much cooler to be able to ensnare your preys from afar and create web traps. Spiders are also the slowest monstrous vermin, and have only one bite, but get Tremorsense as the scorpion, and weirdly also gets +2 Con when becoming Medium, on top of Huge. Spider poison deals Str damage, which is nice both against casters and bruisers, and also has the highest numbers, with 2d8 Str for the colossal spider.
Tiny, 1 RHD: -8 Str, no natural armor, 20ft speed, poison deals 1d2 Str.
The web doesn't scale based on size category, only HD. So that's really good, since you have a full-fledged web with no level investment. Still, you have such a bad body type that this feels like DLA-1.
Small, 1 RHD: -4 Str, no natural armor, 30ft speed, poison deals 1d3 Str.
The spider reached its maximum speed. Negligible improvement otherwise. DLA-1
Medium, 2 RHD: +0 Str, +1 NA, 30ft speed, poison deals 1d4 Str.
Just play the Small one. 1 RHD, DLA-1
Large, 4 RHD: +4 Str, +2 NA, 30ft speed, poison deals 1d6 Str.
There's not much here, you're not strong enough for grappling and not small enough for hiding. Still, your poison starts to be decent. 1 RHD, LA+1, DLA-2
Huge, 8 RHD: +8 Str, +5 NA, 30ft speed, poison deals 1d8 Str.
Marginally better than the centipede, but still very similar except for the web. High 3 RHD, DLA-3
Gargntuan, 16 RHD: +14 Str, +10 NA, 30ft speed, poison deals 2d6 Str.
That's a really good poison you've got there. By this point, you should have invested in a Mouthpick weapon, but you could craft really nice poisons with it. 5 RHD, DLA-8
Colossal, 32 RHD: +20 Str, +18 NA, 30ft speed, poison deals 2d8 Str.
And it continues. Nothing new, just more numbers. At these sizes, hunter spiders may be better, since Jump scales with strength and web scales with constitution. 7 RHD

And that is all the vermin! As always, do not hesitate to argue that my ratings are unbalanced, and once again a merry christmas and a happy new year to all!!

[Beni-Kujaku]

And with that, every -0 creature in the Monster Manual has been given a negative LA! Thank you all for the support and comments you have written all along!

Starting next week, we'll go over the Heroes of Horror creatures, then the Monster Manual III. Do you have any suggestions to change the way these creatures should be reviewed? Any previous creatures that you want rere(re)viewed? If so, speak up, and we'll see about that.

Thank you again for sticking around and see you next time!

[Emberlily]

Just want to say how thankful I am that you're putting all this effort in. 8HD Colossal Scorpion sounds like a character I'd love to try out tbh. The party can ride you like a tank...

[H_H_F_F]

Just want to say how thankful I am that you're putting all this effort in.

+1 to this sentiment. Very well done, Beni.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Mission accomplished! Forward and onward!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Just want to say how thankful I am that you're putting all this effort in. 8HD Colossal Scorpion sounds like a character I'd love to try out tbh. The party can ride you like a tank...

You're very welcome, I'm just glad some people read and maybe will one day use these monsters in a game. WotC's weird and quirky monsters are just too interesting to just be abandoned in a random splatbook forever.

About playing the scorpion, I had a kinda similar character once, it was a paraplegic gnome riding in an iron golem. My advice for that is: be aware of your limitations. A colossal scorpion won't be able to enter most buildings, will have difficulties getting out of random obstacles, but will on the other hand trivialize others, including a few boss fights if your DM doesn't know what to expect. Don't try to be always useful or to force yourself on your party. Your time will eventually come. Try to overcome your weakness by being creative more than just using magic items, both bcause you'll probably be less useful than your teammates with the same items anyway, and because playing a monstrous race is more about having a unique experience than playing any kind of "normal" play.

[Emberlily]

The experience of being big enough that yr friends can build a house on you...

That's one reason I love this thread so much. It's a work in taking the weird and wild types of characters that D&D theoretically allows and making them even remotely able to contribute adequately to the systems D&D necessitates you engage with, without just going "well be a wizard and use the infinite power to limit yrself to a weird niche"

[Beni-Kujaku]

Bloodrot

And we're back! And for today, we have the quintessence of this thread: the bloodrot. So, remember how oozes had some of the worst stats compared to their HD and their only good ability score was constitution? What if... We made them undead. Good idea, huh? Yeah, I thought so. Now, bloodrot are not really oozes per se, not even reanimated dead oozes. Just animated blood and other fluids from people dissolved in acid. Makes me wonder what made a necromancer choose to try to animate what is essentially only acid at this point, and how the newly formed bloodrot got out of the acid considering it doesn't have any acid resistance. In fact, the bloodrot is much closer to an elemental than an ooze, with only a slam attack and the weird DR 5/-. Of course, 4e expectedly didn't get the memo, and the bloodrot is now ooze-typed (as well as undead, since 4e doesn't have creature types the way 3.X does). 4e also gives us this great bit of flavor text: "The creature is a vaguely humanoid-shaped mass that reeks of blood."



The "humanoid-shapedness" will be left to the reader's appreciation.


Ok, so, what does being a mass of blood with roughly 5 times as many hit points as the creature it comes from gets you?

- 10 Undead RHD. Off to a great start. Undead grants you very good immunities, but that doesn't excuse the downright awful perks of the type after a few RHD.
- +6 Str, -10 Dex, no Con, -8 Int, -10 Wis, +4 Cha (total -18), NO natural armor. Are you kidding me? What are these stats exactly? There are 1 RHD creatures with better Str and Cha than that, and without the 3 unuseable stats. Also, you have no Con, which is a problem when you'd like most of your HD to be class levels. The fact that it has no natural armor and -10 Dex continues the tradition of ooze(-like) monsters having some of the lowest AC in all of D&D, with only 4 AC more than the absolute lowest AC possible, the Elder Black Pudding. If it wasn't clear by now, this is worse than awful.
- One 10ft reach slam with blood fever. This is strong disease, with 1d6 Con/1d4 Cha damage, and really hard to heal (Break Enchantment or Remove Curse, plus a Heal check), but still a disease, with a 1 min incubation. Hence probably irrelevant. That also means that your only way to use your less-than-decent Strength is to hit people one at a time, with no way to use either gloves of man or mouthpick weapons.
- 20ft land and climb speed. Not only can you not hit people effectively, you can't reach them effctively either. Did I mention this monster is awful?
- Improved Grab, Constrict. You're medium, with only +6 Str and Improved Grab only on your slam. You won't use it.
- Blindsight 60ft, DR 5/-... Okay, that's actually pretty good, especially with...
- Sanguineous Mount. If you infect someone with blood fever, you can enter their body and nauseate them for as long as you wish. Effectively, this is a Save-or-Lose, since not only are they unable to attack, the blood fever continues to affect them and they will slowly die. On the other hand, dual-save SoL are not new, and most of them do not require you to stay motionless the whole time while letting to your enemy the choice of throwing themselves off a cliff to kill you in the process.

So... What can you do with that? Well, decent strength and charisma look like barbarian fuel, but with low HP, low speed and your main ability requiring you to not tank anymore, that's not really good. I think it would make an acceptable glaivelock, which would allow it to have some iteratives while having some actual class features. The other way would be to go monk, but Evasion doesn't really work with -10 Dex, and you get no Wisdom either. Now, is this even worth 1 RHD? Most of your chassis is awful, but you still get really good immunities, blindsight, DR... That should make it a pretty strong 1 RHD, LA+1. Maybe you could even get someone out of the picture if you hit them with hideous blow into Improved Grab into blood fever into Sanguineous mount... Once in a blue moon. And undead RHD being some of the absolute worst there is, even DLA-7 doesn't seem exxagerated.


The bloodrot is a combination of the worst parts of two of the worst types there is. It is extremely passive by itself, and the absence of split hurts it even more than other oozes. Still, that's a good introduction to Heroes of Horror, which is the only book reviewed so far in the LA-assignment thread with not even one monster above LA+0. Buckle up boyzengirls, we're going on a ride!

[emulord]

I think the downsides of unusable mental + hit me dexterity are enough that it seems unusable at 3 RHD. Undead immunities are nice, but no other defense, effectively 10 Con HP as some kind of melee character makes me think 1 RHD is more appropriate.

I can see -5 DNLA because otherwise its base attack bonus > level which would break stuff. This route would have decent HP at least

[Beni-Kujaku]

I think the downsides of unusable mental + hit me dexterity are enough that it seems unusable at 3 RHD. Undead immunities are nice, but no other defense, effectively 10 Con HP as some kind of melee character makes me think 1 RHD is more appropriate.

I would agree‚ if you were only going for a melee character. You're too slow‚ too frail‚ too weak for that. But you don't really have to. Your int is awful‚ yes‚ but your charisma isn't bad and you don't really need wisdom with your mind-affecting immunity (at least at low-to-mid levels). A warlock‚ or even a favored soul or sorcerer‚ would not have to spend the whole fight in melee‚ and appreciates most of the immunity while dodging attacks without relying too much on AC (miss chance‚ flight‚ invisibility...). -8 int is still ridiculously low‚ but those classes don't need to PrC as much as martials. Also‚ low HP will only matter against spells. Against physical attacks‚ your excellent DR 5/- will more than make up for it. I really don't think this should be put in an ECL 1 environment. Now‚ I agree that 3 is probably too many‚ and I'll gladly reduce it to 2RHD or 1+1LA if other people speak up.

[QuadraticGish]

I would agree‚ if you were only going for a melee character. You're too slow‚ too frail‚ too weak for that. But you don't really have to. Your int is awful‚ yes‚ but your charisma isn't bad and you don't really need wisdom with your mind-affecting immunity (at least at low-to-mid levels). A warlock‚ or even a favored soul or sorcerer‚ would not have to spend the whole fight in melee‚ and appreciates most of the immunity while dodging attacks without relying too much on AC (miss chance‚ flight‚ invisibility...). -8 int is still ridiculously low‚ but those classes don't need to PrC as much as martials. Also‚ low HP will only matter against spells. Against physical attacks‚ your excellent DR 5/- will more than make up for it. I really don't think this should be put in an ECL 1 environment. Now‚ I agree that 3 is probably too many‚ and I'll gladly reduce it to 2RHD or 1+1LA if other people speak up.

I feel like 1+1LA is more appropriate for this thing, especially if used as a caster as suggested. I could also imagine some silly things happening with this thing on a mount if you could simultaneously find a way to inflict your disease by touch and speed up incubation. Probably if you leverage some touch attack maneuvers?

[Dalmosh]

Hello, love your work, and don't mean to derail your thread....

But, looking at your vermin in particular, this jumps out at me.

Do you think there are instances where reducing the HD of a monster PC race should trigger an accompanying size reduction?

I can see arguments either way.
On the one hand, level drain from Negative Energy is a means of incurring one without the other - though is quite background dependent and not applicable to constructs and undead. A reduced HD Great Wyrm makes a lot more intuitive sense than a reduced HD animated house.

On the other, if you are representing monsters as a weaker/younger form of their normal statblock (and they are going to "grow" by taking class levels instead of their normal HD) it might make more sense to drop the size as well. If you have to shave half the HD of a dinosaur to make it viable, why should it retain it's size category? Maybe this is more relevant to the gestalt approach...

[Beni-Kujaku]

I feel like 1+1LA is more appropriate for this thing, especially if used as a caster as suggested. I could also imagine some silly things happening with this thing on a mount if you could simultaneously find a way to inflict your disease by touch and speed up incubation. Probably if you leverage some touch attack maneuvers?

Yeah, 1 RHD+1LA should do. I still think it would be a bit strong, but not overwhelmingly so. However, for your melee tactics, I'm much more doubtful.

First, this thing on a mount. No. You "have a diameter of roughly 8 feet and a thickness of 2 to 6 inches. A typical specimen weighs about 400 pounds.". First, what? The hell is thickness for something like that*? Anyway, you're supposed to be mostly liquid, you'd leak on the side of your horse, and you're at least a medium load (or a heavy one, if you're on a light horse), which means you're not going faster than 40ft either way. If you can make your Ride checks. With -10 Dex. But that's only the first problem. The second one is that you're a bloodrot. Your horse will get blood fever the second you try to get on it, and die in a few days. You are not riding anything anytime soon.

Then, speeding up incubation. I don't think there is even one spell or class feature that allows you to skip the incubation period of diseases (if you know of one, please let me know). If there was, this thing would be much much better. The damage from the disease is really high and you infect your opponents with any touch, specifically including grappling and them attacking you unarmed. Normally, everything you fight is supposed to die in the next weeks if they don't have access to a cleric with some ranks in Heal. That's why the thing is CR 7 (that and Split). It's just that it doesn't actually help them during the fight.

And touch maneuvers. Why not. Especially the Setting Sun throws, which use your strength and have an actual effect apart from the disease.


*(After calculation, what they meant was that this is supposed to be a flattened half-sphere with the surface touching the ground being 8ft in diameter and 2 to 6 inch "tall", like some sort of gigantic bloodbloater. With a "thickness" of 3 inches, such a shape would weigh 450 pounds. Obviously this looks nothing like either the picture in Heroes of Horror or the description from 4e. I like this monster more with every new piece of information I get on it.)

Hello, love your work, and don't mean to derail your thread....

But, looking at your vermin in particular, this jumps out at me.

Do you think there are instances where reducing the HD of a monster PC race should trigger an accompanying size reduction?

No, I don't think we should reduce a monster's size. We're trying to rate a monster to find when they are playable, not when a smaller version is playable. Most of the time, being big is an advantage all by itself, and reducing it would necessitate to rate them again, and so on and so forth. Some monsters could even get several appropriate ratings. For example, if we said the scorpion becomes Medium at 2 RHD and Large at 5 RHD, then the process to rate the "Huge" scorpion would be:
-rate it as Huge, give it 5 RHD.
-Make it smaller because a scorpion is not huge at 5 RHD.
- rate it as if it was Large, give it 4 RHD (maybe 3 but whatever)
- Make it smaller because a scorpion is not large at 4 RHD.
- rate it as if it was Medium, give it 3 RHD.
- A scorpion is indeed Medium at 3 RHD, so we keep it that way.

This is way too complicated, reduces the difference between different versions of the same monster (all the elementals would be medium or small, for example), and overall goes against the spirit of the thread which is to allow people to play weird creatures. A colossal decapod below ECL 10 is definitely a weird creature, and it would hurt me to not allow it.

Also, that's not even counting the fact that we would have to choose arbitrarily the threshold at which a creature becomes larger (when does a Remorhaz become Huge exactly? Do we have to consider the lore and only reduce the size of non-outsiders, non-construct, non-undead, because they are created as-is and do not grow, for the most part?), if they get the standard stats for having their size? What of the will-o-wisp, which probably becomes Tiny, and has a negative Strength score? The elder black pudding, and its -7 natural armor?

No, that creates waaaaaaay too many problems for almost no advantage beyond verisimilitude. And when we're talking of houses, rat swarms and mushrooms going out adventuring to become wizards, verisimilitude becomes the least of our problem.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Boneleaf

What makes something a plant? The cambridge dictionary tells us that a plant is "a living thing that grows in earth, in water, or on other plants, usually has a stem, leaves, roots, and flowers, and produces seeds". A boneleaf grows in earth, has stem, leaves and roots, and may have seeds, since we have no idea how it reproduces outside of vegetative reproduction by rhizomes. (Also, it's almost indistinguishable from a plant so it may have fruits and seeds to complete the illusion) This may be an aberration, but almost any biologist would tell you that this is in fact a carnivorous plant, using illusions to lure humanoids the way Saracennia uses sweet nectar to lure insects.

Also, this creature is among the less discussed ones in d&d as a whole it seems. There has been no official text even mentioning it beyond HoH. We know absolutely nothing of the thing except the one paragraph in Heroes of Horror, and even that doesn't answer much, like how it reproduces or how it came to be (however, how it hunts and how it feeds is extremely well-described, which is honestly what you need for such a monster, so I can't really throw the first stone). Even on the internet, I've seen exactly two websites mentioning it, beyond simple creature lists and translations of the first two. That is, GitP, with the LA assignment thread and another thread asking what happens when you wild shape into one, and a confused guy on RPG Stackexchange who asked how to kill it, and whose question was copied on a few other websites. That is absurdly low, so let's give the guy a bit more love, and maybe let some of you play it to rekindle some interest in the weird plant thing!


-You are an aberration. Let's be honest, that's not good. A plant would have been much better. Also‚ you're litterally several white bushes grouped together‚ using vines to attack. I have no idea how item slots work in that case‚ but you'll certainly miss a few.
-The boneleaf has average stats for a Large melee 7 RHD monster, with +14 Str, +4 Dex, +12 Con, -2 Int, +6 Wis, +2 Cha (not having awful intelligence is a nice change of pace in this thread), with +8 natural armor (that will help balance out the difficulty to get an armor adapted to your body shape).
-You also get 4 natural weapons, of which you can only use 2 per round. Your two slams have higher damage than your two tendrils, which have greater reach, Improved Grab and Constrict. Constrict uses your slam damage. That's not half bad. Your strategy will be pretty simple: grab two people with your tendrils, then pummel them with your slams.
-Plant immunity are really good, with notably mind-affecting immunity. The rest is less useful, but it will come into play once in a while.
-You can create Major Images that last 1d6+1 rounds. That will only be useful to amuse children, since the duration is so short, but that's a fun ability for RP moments.
-The real problem here is your speed. 10ft land speed is really low. Even with a level of barbarian and the Burst power, you'll struggle to move around.

In the end, the boneleaf will be an excellent grappling Psychic Warrior, with stats very well-fit for this role, but you'll have a lot of trouble with your speed. Your first goal should be to find something that allows you to fly with a fixed speed. Owlfeather armor (if you can find a blacksmith who will make one for you), or a winged vest (if you can afford a standard action at the beginning of each fight, which you probably can't), or a standard continuous Fly item (supposedly 27k gp).

You have much better stats than the shambling mounds, better natural weapons and reach, but worse type, worse body shape‚ slightly worse immunities and skills, and half its speed. I think the boneleaf is still slightly stronger, especially with that good Wis, but not enough for one more RHD. I suggest 6 RHD and DLA-1.


That one actually wasn't that bad. However, this is only a respite before next time. We'll have another of those monsters where WotC assumed one of their subsystem would be successful enough to have some support, then they didn't print any. See you then for the Corruption Eater!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

With the Scorpion's Grasp feat to improve your in-combat mobility, 6 RHD seems fair to me. Maybe a bit high, actually, since these guys will probably be missing some item slots, which will especially hurt if they go Totemist. So yeah, 6 or 5 RHD.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Corruption Eater

"Kenzen naru tamashii wa, kenzen naru seishin to, kenzen naru nikutai ni nai de yadoru."
"Ein gesunder Geisteskrankegehirn in einem gesunden Körper."
“נפש לא בריאה בגוף בריא”
"Un esprit malsain dans un corps sain."
"An unhealthy mind in a healthy body."
"Mens insana in corpore sano."

That idiom is the opposite of the stupid one which has spread throughout the world. It represents the need for someone to care about nothing and neglect their state of mind to be able to not see the eldritch horrors behind the veil and live a happy life. The corruption eater embodies that philosophy exactly, draining one's corruption from their body and spewing it back to cloud their mind. This allows you to progress faster through depravity as you forget improving in your chosen field and learn new skills to help killing your friends.

One single whiff of its tainted exhalation and you'll not be able to live without it ever again! Just give the Eater one single temporary hit point (but more is always better) and you'll feel your mind deformity expand in no time! You can come back any time if you feel your body being corrupted again. That will only make it ever stronger.


What a nice creature, helping poor creatures in need. The corruption eater is one of the many creatures in Heroes of Horror based on the concept of the Taint of Evil. Each creature can have a score of depravity (making them become insane and un able to perceive reality as it is when it increases) and corruption (which is body decay due to exposure to evil). The corruption eater is specialized in fighting creatures with corruption score and adept in decreasing it by using its bite while being able to slowly increase their depravity with its breath attack.

Now, the issue with that monster is that taint is not (it should be) used in most campaign worlds. So all its special abilities will be moot against the vast majority of regular enemies, leaving it as a big beatstick with lowish stats and a bite which damages itself. It's also one of these monsters where you don't really know why WotC gave it so many HD. 15 RHD on a medium creature is very nonstandard, and doesn't really make sense. That feels like an attempt to make it as a DM tool instead of a real monster, and just have it at least get a chance to use its bite so that PCs realize that it reduces their corruption and that they can use it.

- 15 Aberration RHD, Medium size. Whatever starts with so many is already sure to end up in this thread, but the Corruption Eater (that makes CE, like its alignment. Do you think that was intended? Me neither.) is especially bad.
- +10 Str, +10 Dex, +8 Con, +2 Int, +4 Wis, +4 Cha, with +6 natural armor. Those would be really good stats for a 7- or 8-HD creature with some actual abilities. On the Corruption Eater, that's ridiculously low.
- An average bite you will never use in combat, since it deals damage to you when it hits a creature with no corruption score, and two secondary tentacles with mediocre damage (1/2 Str) and Rake. You'll have to take a mouthpick weapon asap, but otherwise that's pretty standard, if a bit weak as an attack routine.
- Lots of abilities when you fight corrupted creatures: DR 10/Good, your tainted exhalation deals more damage, you can Scent them, and your bite reduces their corruption but gives you a lot of pretty good bonuses: +1 to hit, to damage, to saving throws, and 5 temporary hit points for one hour. I'm pretty sure the temp HP is supposed to stack, but not only is it not written, you'll generally never get to use any of these abilities in an actual play.
- Tainted Exhalation. That's it. That's the Corruption Eater's one ability that it can use in a normal campaign. And if it's not really useful in battle, it may help your friends a lot. Getting to high depravity scores can give people two free feats in exchange for a few disadvantages if they don't mind becoming neutral or evil in the process and violating their code of conduct.
In the end, the Corruption Eater can exhale whenever it has temporary hit points, which is pretty easy to come by, and give the equivalent of a flaw+bonus feat to everyone in the party. That is extremely good. If you can choose your Depravity symptom, then I suggest Compulsive->Delusional->Unresponsive. Your character has OCD, becomes conspiracist and apathetic, but the only mechanical effect is 1d4 nonlethal damage per day, -2 Wisdom and an additional -2 on Wisdom skill checks. If you can't choose your symptoms, then I advise you to not go up to severe depravity, because some of those are really harsh to play with (would you want to be confused every other turn?).


In the end, I'm not really sure how to rate that. It has very balanced stats which kind of remind me of an ettercap on steroids, but only Medium size and no ability. On the other hand, potentially giving two feats to each member of the party is incredibly good. I'd say something like 6 RHD would be balanced, but really not fun to play, since a lot of that is just spewing on your party members in your downtime. Maybe 5 RHD and DLA-6 would make for something interesting? I'd like some feedback.

Spoiler: If your DM is crazy

Show

There is something interesting with taint. Creatures with the Evil subtype are automatically considered to have corruption and depravity scores equal to half of their Charisma score. What that may mean is that a Corruption Eater could eat corruption infinitely from an Evil outsider (if you consider "corruption effective score" to be edible). In that case, then a Corruption Eater with 5 levels of wizard, Stormguard Warrior and Improved Familiar can glue their lips to the imp familiar's ass and get an average of +600 to hit, damage rolls and saving throws. I'm not sure how that would affect the rating, since TO infinite damage loops have always been possible around level 10, especially if there's some wizard levels in there, but that's that.

So, that was "how not to make a creature based on a niche subsystem". Next week, we'll have "how to make a creature based on the same niche subsystem which can actually stand on its own two legs". See you then for the Taint Elemental!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Taint Elemental (Large or larger)

Taint elementals ask and answer a lot of questions about what taint really is, since they litterally are a physical manifestation of it. First, they speak Abyssal and have the [Evil] subtype, which would mean that Taint is probably linked to the Abyss in some way, shape, or form. However, they don't have the Chaotic subtype, even though they're usually chaotic. So it's probably either some part of the Abyss using a place of great evil to leak into our world in order to corrupt it (and since it can only appear in places of evil and not chaos, it loses some of its chaos), or it's from a more moderately chaotic plane like Carceri. Anyway, Taint Elemental are what would an elemental be if it was created by the substance of an Outer Plane instead of an Inner Plane. Its dimension door ability is also very interesting. The same way a fire elemental summoned in the Material Plane forms from a nearby fire and "animates" it, the Taint Elemental doesn't have a substance of its own. It "animates" the evil around it and concentrates it into a solid form. That means that, since there is evil everywhere, it can dissipate its own body then animate the taint existing afar. That's how it seems to teleport, it's the same creature with the same conscience, but not the same body.


Taint Elementals are really close to regular elementals. Decent starting ability scores, but failing to scale with its RHD doubling with each size category. Only slam attacks, but two of them starting with the Large size, and a DR/- scaling slowly with its category. It, however has a few abilities taking it apart from the others. Instead of Vortex/Whirlwind/Earthglide, the Taint Elemental has a 3/day dimension door as a move action, which doesn't prevent it from taking action afterwards. Really good. Shadowpouncer, anybody? Instead of gaining +1 or inflicting -1 on a few rolls when they are close to their element, the Taint Elemental gains Surge of Malevolence as a bonus feat, which gives them a pretty substantial bonus on one roll (+9, if you play your cards well), but only 1/day. Overall, I feel like I prefer that to an Element Mastery, since you are sure to have access to it when needed, and it opens access to Debilitating Strike (2/day your attack deals 4 Wisdom damage or 2 Con damage, no save). It also gets better ability scores than most elementals, with notably no intelligence penalty. It also deals corruption with its Slam attacks, which may give your party bonus feats but is expectedly useless in combat.

That makes for an above average elemental, but still slightly weaker than Air at low levels. Teleporting 400ft is nice, but that's not 100ft (perfect) flying. However, the difference in pure ability scores makes the Taint Elemental better later on. Their role are also different. The air elemental is more of a rogue or unarmed swordsage, while the Taint Elemental would be a much more standard Warblade, or Cleric. It could be anything, really, with those balanced stats. Maybe Duskblade or psychic warrior, but you'll suffer the loss of many caster levels.


Large, 8 RHD: +10 Str, +4 Dex, +10 Con, +2 Int, +4 Wis, +4 Cha. +9 Natural Armor. As always, becoming Large is a boon for an elemental, with DR 5/-, 2 slams, and overall excellent stats. This would be almost playable as-is, really. You get some utility with Dimension Door, and you're overall almost as tough as the Earth Elemental, but with decent mental stats and more dexterity and mobility. A pretty good 7 RHD, DLA-1.

Huge, 16 RHD: And, expectedly, you don't get 8 ECL worth of abilities. You now have 40ft movement speed, +14 Str, +8 Dex, +12 Con, +2 Int, +4 Wis, +4 Cha, +9 NA. Yeah, that should be worth 2 RHD more than Large. 9 RHD, DLA-3, like Air.

Greater, 20 RHD: You double your DR, and gain +2 Dex, Str, and Int. Nothing worth more than 10 RHD, and DLA-5.

Elder, 24 RHD: Once again, +2 Str, Dex, and Int. It's weird that you don't increase your natural armor with these categories. 11 RHD, DLA-8


It's interesting to see how WotC revisited the elemental chassis with these ones. I feel like if they had to rewrite the monster manual with the knowledge from 3.5, to make some sort of new edition, they would give elementals stats scaling more like that, with more than one stat increasing with each size category, and more weird abilities like Touch of Taint. *looks at the 5e air elemental statblock, which is almost a carbon copy of the Large 3.5 Air Elemental* ... Nevermind.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Dusk Giant

The Dusk Giant, standing between the Sun Giant and the Moon Giant, and weaker than them both. This creature is most well-known for the industrial amount of cheese that it produces when you try to Polymorph into one. Cannibalize means you can gain as many HD as you want and qualify for any number of feats before the end of the Polymorph effect, while also somehow gaining Charisma. Suffice to say, such an ability can never be allowed in normal play, and was immediately asterisked.

Without cannibalize, the dusk giant is still a giant with overall much better stats for its number of RHD, especially in its mental scores (as seems to be a motif in Heroes of Horror) and even a few SLAs for the greater versions. They also get a weird aura akin to the No Light cantrip, but also giving -2 to saves to people in the area. Won't probably ever be game-changing, but flavorful. So, what do we have here:

Least Dusk Giant, 6 RHD: This is one of the very few Medium-sized giants in the game. It has pretty good ability scores for its number of RHD, with +10 Str, +2 Dex, +8 Con, +4 Int, +4 Wis, +4 Cha, +6 Natural armor. Its aura only has a 10-ft radius. 2 claws, one bite, and Rend on its claws. There is nothing particularly useful here, and being Medium sized is not ideal for something that clearly wants to be in melee. But the stats are really good, and I would easily see a paladin or ranger Least Dusk Giant. 5 RHD, DLA-0

Lesser Dusk Giant, 12 RHD: The authors of Heroes of Horror learned from their predecessors' errors and made the advanced version of their monsters actually much more powerful than the lesser one. +24 Str, +0 Dex, +14 Con, +4 Int, +4 Wis, +6 Cha. Now we're talking melee. Compared to a frost giant, you have -4 Str, +2 Dex, +4 Con, +4 Int, +6 Cha, +2 natural armor, and you get Enervation and Ray of Enfeeblement 1/day. Much stronger than a Frost Giant, and more on par with a Cloud Giant's level. Let's go with 9 RHD, DLA-2.

Greater Dusk Giant, 18 RHD: And the biggest of them all, Huge in size, with an impressive +38 Str, +22 Con (stronger than a Great Gold Wyrm! I didn't think the Wyrms would be outmatched that quickly), but not much else to show. The SLAs are nice, notably Energy Drain, but most of the time you'll just go in melee and start hitting stuff. Still better than a Storm Giant, but not having the continuous Freedom of Movement is a problem. 13 RHD, DLA-3

It's nice to see good mental scores on martial characters once in a while, and Heroes of Horror delivers on the subject. Apparently, you have to be smart to be efficiently evil. And the next monster (and last of the book) will certainly not go against that principle. See you next time for the Phantasmal Slayer!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Phantasmal Slayer

This image intentionally left blank, please fill in your greatest fear.

Ugh. These guys. I can excuse hard-to-rate creatures. I can excuse creatures with no lore and I can even excuse unnecessarily edgy creatures. However, the Phantasmal Slayer is both hard-to-rate for all the wrong reasons, so completely unnecessarily edgy that it prevents them from having any meaningful lore, and very boring as a creature all at once, both as a monster and especially so as a PC. Don't play this one, folks, nobody will like it and especially not you. It really pains me that such an art is wasted on such a monster. Because yeah, the art is pretty great, one of the best ones in this book in my opinion. That's a good combination of all the most common phobias and fits the monster perfectly.

So, the phantasmal slayer, an [Evil] Outsider which exists only to spread fear, for no reason whatsoever. It's Native, most probably because the writers couldn't think of a home Plane for it, but there's no mention of what it eats, how it lives or why it spreads fear. They even prefer to let their victims go unharmed so that they can "pass the tale of terror", which really makes no sense for a creature which needs to eat to survive...

- 16 Outsider HD, [Evil, Native, Incorporeal]. Great RHD, with all the goodies of being incorporeal. Obviously, sixteen is a lot, and even reduced a bit it won't allow for a lot of customization. The skill list is very close to a wizard's, with lots of Knowledge, Spellcraft and Concentration. Shame that losing more than 10 caster levels has never made for a good caster.
- Str -, Dex+10, Con+10, Int+12, Wis+6, Cha+16, 4+Cha Deflection to AC. Those are great, well-rounded stats. Along with the incorporeal outsider type, they would already probably be worth 8 or 9 RHD. The charisma bonus is especially good for the DC of your SLAs and of Phantasmal Facade.
- A few SLAs, mostly mind-affecting, and the not mind-affecting ones are not really good. Most of the time, you'll only use Feeblemind 1/day.
- Two incorporeal touches with uninteresting damage, really only useful to channel Phantasmal Facade.
- 60ft fly speed, nice to catch up to people to touch them.
- Immunity to fear effects, 100ft telepathy, Spell Resistance 6+HD, ability to bypass any DR not bypassed by a specific material. All pretty good abilities, but don't make or break the creature.
- Finally, Phantasmal Facade. When a creature sees you, they have to make a Will save to disbelieve seeing their worst fear "as Phantasmal Killer". These last words mean this is probably [Mind-affecting]. If one succeeds at this save, they are dazed (!) for a round and get immunity for 24 hours. If they fail, they have no immediate adverse effect, but the next time they are hit by the PS's touch attack, they have to make a Fort save against death, and even if they succeed, they take 3d6 additional damage. If they succeed, they can also attempt the Will save once again, with the same risk of getting dazed.

The Phantasmal Slayer has a lot of things going for it, but nothing particularly interesting, except Phantasmal Facade. It's a weird ability forcing a lot of saves, but in essence, either your opponent is dazed for 1 round, or your touch attack gets a SoD rider against them. This is extremely strong, especially the free action AoE daze on everything that sees you. The best way to abuse that is to hide or become invisible and only appear when your party close enough to take advantage of dazed enemies. The problem here is that any enemy immune to mind-affecting or fear effects, as well as any one immune to death effect will be completely immune to it (the daze effect is not a death effect, but a creature immune to death can willingly fail all their saving throws and take absolutely no damage from this ability. This makes the Phantasmal Slayer pretty much a one-trick-pony, with phantasmal facade being overwhelming in some fights and completely useless against a lot of enemies and pretty much every boss battle. With that in mind, it still has lots of good resistances and excellent ability scores. Maybe something like 12 RHD would let it get some levels of something to increase its versatility and make use of that charisma. Maybe Warlock would be good, or Binder. And 4 more Outsider HD may make for a pretty strong DLA-2, I guess. What do you think?


Well, the last monster of Heroes of Horror was in the image of the whole book: Evil for the sake of being evil, even if it doesn't really make sense, lots of good ideas, but pretty terrible and unbalanced execution. Starting next week, we'll have a lot more variety in our monsters' alignment, with the Monster Manual III and its overflowing number of -0s. Out of the 156 creatures in the book, 119 have been rated as LA-0 in the LA assignment thread. That's more than 75% of the book, and the first of those gentlecreatures will be the fabled Arcane Ooze! See you then!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Arcane Ooze

That one is so bad it makes me wonder if we need to start tracking a king-of-the-hill style position for 'Worst Choice for PC.' -0 all the way.

Need I say more? The arcane ooze has all the worst points of oozes (notably four unuseable stats, including Int, and no natural armor) on top of 15 RHD and a special ability that will hurt your party much more often than your foes. Yep, this one would like some negative LA. Let's give it some!

- Huge size, 15 ooze RHD. Oozes have pretty good immunities, but really? This many RHD? Huge size is interesting for a grappler build, even though having Engulf would be better than simply Improved Grab.
- +12 Str, -10 Dex, +16 Con, -8 Int, -10 Wis, -10 Cha. Abandon all hope of making this any kind of caster. This is a martial and a martial only. You'll also have abysmal saves apart from Fortitude, considering oozes have no good save.
- One slam attack with acid damage, Improved Grab and Constrict. Really would have been better to have more than one natural attack. Plus, your potential unarmed strike do not benefit from Improved Grab (but do still deal +2d6 acid)
- 60ft blindsight (always good), 20ft movement speed (really bad, especially considering it is hard to buff and has no item slot)
- Magic immunity, Spell Siphon. That's the one thing these oozes have for them. They have a golem-like immunity to magic which will be really great in a fight and will help alleviate its awful saves. A dragon breath will still destroy it though. And Spell Siphon would be pretty good if you could deactivate it. As it is now, any arcane spellcaster in your party will quickly hate you for making them lose their highest level spell slots almost every round they're closer than 60ft from you.


Playing an arcane ooze is doable in a party with no arcane spellcaster (Spell Siphon doesn't affect divine casters, or manifesters). However, no item and immunity to magic means you'll probably be playing that thing with no buff whatsoever for the whole campaign. For a martial with no built-in ability to fly, this is awful. First, I thought the only class with which it may be passable is warlock, with Fell Flight at level 6 and Eldritch Glaive at level 1. But then you lose on your big Str bonus, since Eldritch Glaive only deals Blast damage. Hideous Blow would be better, but no touch attack means you'll hit much less often. And Fell Flight also has its own problems. It uses your land speed, so only a 20ft fly speed, and it arguably checks Spell Resistance on yourself, so you can't even use it. Barbarian may be the way to go after all, but that's really bad. In the end, I think the better stats and magic immunity make it better than the Black Pudding, despite... Well, despite magic immunity, but not as good as the Gargantuan Elder Black Pudding. 5 RHD, and DLA-7. I suggest so much DNLA because the inability to get buffed will become more and more crippling as you level up, and is already a huge problem at ECL 8.


A sad monster, that one. The concept is nice, and it makes for an interesting fight just before the final boss, to nerf the party's casters, but that's exactly why it's so unuseable as a PC. This is an immoveable blob that cannot be either improved or weakened, and that doesn't make for a balanced PC.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Avalancher

The avalancher: when you absolutely, positively want to use the environmental hazards rules without it feeling (too) forced.

That Breath of the Wild's Guardian-looking monster is best known for its eponymous ability to cause avalanches, even though it's probably its least useful trait as a PC. They can emit sonorous hums (not the spell) that destabilize rocks on a slope and create a rock slide to bury their opponents. The flavor text says that they can ride their avalanche, but considering they usually "hunt" on cliff sides and they aren't immune to fall damage, I'd say that's unlikely.

The best part about this monster in my opinion is that it's specifically stated to be delicious to eat, to the point that some people go hunt CR 5 monsters just to be able to eat them. Others are stated to "herd" them in plains, which makes roughly as little sense as locking up vampires in cages, considering they have both a burrowing speed and transmute rock to mud. Ya gotta work for yer high quality meal, goddammit!


- Large size, 6 Magical Beast RHD, weird that it isn't an aberration or an elemental, but I'll take the full BAB, thank you very much.
- +12 Str, +2 Dex, +10 Con, -6 Int, +2 Wis, +0 Cha. +8 natural armor. Welp, that is a beatstick if I ever saw one. The hit to int hurts, but otherwise those are decent, if expected, stats. +8 natural armor is pretty good.
- 40ft movement speed, 10ft burrowing, all-around vision, immunity to bludgeoning (!). These are... Really good, in fact. A bit of mobility is nice for a fighter-type and a lot of creatures only have one slam, or unarmed strikes, to deal damage. Unfortunately, this immunity doesn't extend to partially bludgeoning damage, such as a bite. Still, these traits help a lot.
- Avalanche, Transmute Rock to Mud: Avalanche is nice, but two saves and this kind of restriction to use (sloped terrain, unstable rocks) make it pretty unlikely to ever see use. TRtM, however, is some really nice BFC at low level, and will be invaluable to improve the avalancher's utility.
- Only one slam, no arms. Ouch. That's really what brings the avanlancher down. One level of Monk is all but necessary, and one or two of totemist would also not be superfluous to make use of its strength.

In the end, this is clearly much stronger than the rhino, and more on par or slightly stronger than the brown bear (+2 BAB, immunity to bludgeoning and TRtM against +6 Str and two more natural weapons). 5 RHD, DLA-0.


I didn't know this monster, and honestly it feels interesting enough to put in a game, maybe as support for a boss or just on a cliffside to try and bull rush people over. As a PC it's... less interesting, to say the least, but may still make for some funny plays. Next time, we'll rate the impaler of the battlefields, the strongest shrubbery there is, the Battlebriar!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Battlebriars

Honestly, when I first learned about these monsters, they didn't seem much to me. Just another Big Bushy Beatstick™ like we've had at least two or three before. But after taking a closer look, they are honestly really well-designed. They're fighter-types clearly centered around battlefield control, aiming to deny the opponent any kind of movement in its threatened area then lock them even more with Improved Grab and Impale. But contrary to other creatures specialized in one single thing, the battlebriars also have a few other things they can do even if their opponent cannot be grappled or is afar, namely, Thorn Volley and Thorn Field. And it even has a bit of lore, with the being magically-genetically engineered (magenetically?) plants to be living siege weapons, which subsequently escaped the control of their masters, leaving only their lesser, weaker and tamer cousins, the Warbound Impaler, in regular armies, while true 'briars are only controlled by high-level druids and druid circles. I understand why this is one of the few MM3 creatures that was ported to 4e.

First, I'd like to precise that I'll be considering this creature as capable of holding weapons. There was a whole discussion in the original thread about it not being able to, but the battlebriar is described as capable on walking its two rearmost limbs, and its limbs being "gorilla-like", which includes hands and opposable thumbs, also visible on the creatures' art. I don't really understand why it couldn't hold weapons, or magic items for that matter, and it's even intelligent enough for simple tactics. This also means that both briars could attack with a two handed weapon then use two slams with its middle limbs, threatening to grapple. Same thing with attacks of opportunity. With even one limb free, a briar can use all of its attack of opportunity with its slam, making a grapple check each time and Impaling Medium opponents as a free action.

Battlebriar, 25 RHD:
- Huge Plant, 25 RHD. Obviously we're going to reduce this frankly ridiculous number of RHD. Plant RHD are really not good, but immunity to mind-affecting is an extremely good trait to have when you're otherwise that bulky and that good to ward off conventional attacks (resistance 20 to fire and lightning helps here).
- +22 Str, -4 Dex, +16 Con, -6 Int, +0 Wis, -4 Cha. +24 natural armor. Underwhelming stats for such a big creature. 24 NA is really good, but the rest is a bit below the curve and more on par with giants with 10 less RHD. Also, you're not going to be skilled. -6 Int and a skill list with only Hide on a Huge creature? Yeah, no.
- 4 arms, 4 slams with Improved Grab and Impale. Impale allows you to stick a Medium or smaller creature on the thorns on your back, which allows you to act normally while grappling them and not take an arm for it. Really good grappling package, especially with this chassis. Not bad damage either for a natural attack.
- Thorn Field. The dream of any lockdown fighter. Built-in Combat Reflexes, Tumbling to avoid AoO takes a -10 penalty, and small creatures can't move in your space.
- Trample, Thorn Volley. Your alternative attacks. Trample is really bad, especially if you gain Pounce somehow, which you should, but may be interesting against large groups of mooks. Thorn Volley is good to hit flying opponents and if you somehow get immobilized, but the damage is a bit low, even if the save is Str-based and hence pretty high. Overall a bit of utility goes a long way to not have the 'briar stay on the side during some fights.


This is very clearly a grappler. I'd say my first 4 levels would be PsyWarrior 2 with Practiced Manifester for Expansion, Barbarian 1 for Pounce or Fast Movement, then Binder 1 for Naberius and Body Fuel, to be able to swift expansion all day long without worrying. With that said, the stats are still worse than a Cloud Giant's, with worse reach and worse speed, but more natural weapons, Thorn Field, Thorn Volley, the grappling package and much better natural armor. I'd say the battlebriar would be a bit better, with more options. I suggest 10 RHD.

Warbound Impaler, 12 RHD:
The Warbound Impaler follows the evolution pattern of other monsters, but backwards. For half the RHD, you really only lose a size category and the equivalent in stats, including half your natural armor.

- Large size, +12 Str, -4 Dex, +12 Con, -6 Int, +0 Wis, +4 Cha, +12 natural armor. The stats are better than those of the battlebriar for its number of RHD, but are still not great, except the NA. Being Large is much worse than Huge for a grappler with Improved Grab, and you're basically required to abuse Expansion if you want to play an Impaler.
- Only two slams and reduced Volley damage from 8d6 to 5d6. You don't care about the slams, as you were gonna use two arms for a weapon anyway. Your Volley was never your primary mode of attack anyway.

Overall, the Warbound Impaler doesn't lose that much, and would be much better than the full battlebriar, but being smaller than its greater cousin really hurts the poor bush. Definitely stronger than a Hill Giant, but not quite on Stone Giant level. A pretty strong 7 RHD in my opinion, and DLA-3, since class levels really help the Impaler a lot, and delaying them reduces its power level quickly.


I am really impressed with the quality of monsters in the MM3 so far. They all seem pretty interesting as encounters, with well-rounded characteristics and unique features. The battlebriar in particular almost seems designed to allow PC use, with lots of varied abilities to supplement its one trick. Let's hope it continues for the whole boo... and the next creature is another wolf. Silvanus damn it! See you next time for the Bearhound!

[Metastachydium]

Plant RHD are really not good

Wait, what? It's easily one of the best types of RHD (I'd put it down as the third best myself; undead are overrated). It's only true downside is the vulnerability to fire (which the fire resistance offsets somewhat); otherwise the sole problem with it is that it keeps getting used to make boring, dumb bruisers for which other types would probably offer a more appropriate chassis.

I am really impressed with the quality of monsters in the MM3 so far. They all seem pretty interesting as encounters, with well-rounded characteristics and unique features.

It's one of the better books indeed. I like it a lot, although not for stuff like

the Bearhound!

I have some serious difficulty figuring out why anyone thought that's a good idea.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Wait, what? It's easily one of the best types of RHD (I'd put it down as the third best myself; undead are overrated). It's only true downside is the vulnerability to fire (which the fire resistance offsets somewhat); otherwise the sole problem with it is that it keeps getting used to make boring, dumb bruisers for which other types would probably offer a more appropriate chassis.

The type itself is pretty good, with a few good immunities (although obviously not on par with Construct and Undead), even if it has no proficiency, but the Hit Dice themselves are really bad, giving d8 HP, 3/4 BAB, 2+int skill points and only one good save. For a beatstick, the only worse hit dice are the 1/2 BAB ones. Even Humanoid is probably better, since Reflex is more useful than Fortitude when you have so much Con. That's what I meant by "Plant RHD are really not good".

Also, vulnerability to fire? No type has any real vulnerability, and only the [Cold] subtype has vulnerability to fire.

[Metastachydium]

The type itself is pretty good, with a few good immunities (although obviously not on par with Construct and Undead),

I'll continue to hold that undead and especially construct are seriously overrated; undead has half-BAB, one good save (which is Will of all things), no CON score, is difficult to heal, dies at 0 hp and can't really be brought back. Construct has no good save, no CON, is even more of a pain to patch up once damaged, dies at 0 hp and can't be brought back. Plant has fewer immunities, but much fewer drawbacks at the same time.

even if it has no proficiency, but the Hit Dice themselves are really bad, giving d8 HP, 3/4 BAB, 2+int skill points and only one good save. For a beatstick, the only worse hit dice are the 1/2 BAB ones. Even Humanoid is probably better, since Reflex is more useful than Fortitude when you have so much Con. That's what I meant by "Plant RHD are really not good".

Ah, got it. (Still, even then, it easily edges out aberration, elemental, giant and ooze).

[Beni-Kujaku]

Bearhound

"Many laugh at the mention of the elusive bearhound."

I'm not laughing, I'm bored. That's our 5th wolf in this thread alone, and far from the last. Were you so proud of the Trip ability that you wanted to create as many creatures with it as possible? The bearhound has no lore. Like, at all. It's impressive how hollow that monster feels.

In terms of abilities, it's not much better. The bearhound is a Large Magical Beast with 10 RHD (a lot of good RHD doesn't a good creature make). It has physical scores equivalent to a bear (+16 Str, +4 Dex, +10 Con), mental scores absolutely not equivalent to a hound, not even a hound archon (the bearhound is surprisingly intelligent, with +6 Int, +4 Wis, +2 Cha), the wolf-standard Trip on its bite, the bear-standard Improved Grab on its claws, and a few weird abilities that probably won't matter much for the creature.
The druid's trackless step and the ranger's Track and wild empathy may help enter prestige classes, but since most ranger and druid prestige classes are spellcasting-focused classes, these will probably be niche at best.
And finally, Cold Resistance 10 and a permanent Magic Fang on all its natural weapons... Why? See, WotC? That's why we usually have lore, to explain why something that sounds like it's an owlbear-type wizard-did-it creature is neutral good and has resistance to cold damage and druid abilities.


The bearhound is kinda strong, and with full BAB and good intelligence, most classes would fit the bearhound. Maybe Duskblade 5 then Warblade? Yeah, seems decent. This should be good with 8 RHD and DLA-1. Next time, we'll cover the Boneclaw.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Boneclaw

Though I think that might be question we should start considering, which I have with this book: how many RHD would you need to shave off to reach LA +0 ? For this, I would be shaving off a of minimum 4 to reach your 4th iterative, but would still be too weak to consider. If it could use humanoid equipment without a problem, I might say LA +0 at 5 RHD.

this seems like it would be good for its own thread. How many LA -0's could be made at least +0 by removing some RHD and nothing else from them, and how many would it take for each LA -0.

If this thing hand, like, four RHD, it might be worth using.

ViperMagnum, Remuko, Celestia, if you can read me, you are right. It would indeed be good for its own thread . And thank you for making my job easier here.


There is only one constant in D&D: if a monster's name starts with "bone", then it's an undead. The boneclaw is no exception, and is in fact kind of bland. It's mostly just a Large, stronger skeleton. It has pretty good ability scores, with +10 Str, +8 Dex and Cha, and +4 Int to actually give it skills. Then the standard "intelligent skeleton" package (DR 5/bludg, immune to Cold, +2 against turning,..). And, really, not much else. The only interesting ability of the boneclaw is, unsurprisingly, its claws (which only deal piercing damage for some reason). 2d6 damage and 20ft reach is extremely interesting. The claws are probably too long for it to wield other weapons effectively, but their damage output means it won't matter as much as for other creatures. The boneclaw also gets Unholy Toughness, which offsets the absence of Con bonus to HP of undead. All in all, that's decent, but completely crippled by the 10 Undead RHD. Unholy Toughness does not an effective brawler make when your RHD only has half BAB.

The boneclaw is better than most melee undead, especially as a lockdown fighter, using its great claw reach, but will really need lots of feats or class abilities to feel a bit less bland. I agree with Remuko and ViperMagnum, this feels like 4 or 5 RHD. I'm gonna be cautious and call a kind of weak 5 RHD, since having good intelligence may go a long way to allow PrC and give some more utility, and undead immunity are always really good. Undead RHD, on the other hand, are really bad, especially for a beatstick, and will not give it much more than more HP. I believe DLA-3 would not be problematic, and prevent it from being turned, which is a pain in the bony *ss for a PC.


"Bone" creatures never come alone, and next time we'll review another undead, the Bonedrinker!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Bonedrinker

"Because, b**tch, I drink people."

What is it with undead keeping their guts as creepy wormlike weapons when they come to unlife? Between the mohrg, the bonedrinker, and arguably the skulking cyst, we could make an entire party of adventurers and call them the win-nards.

When you Create Undead on a goblin or bugbear's corpse, it animates as a bonedrinker, an intelligent undead with an inescapable craving for bones. The bonedrinker is what vampires would be if they drank bone marrow instead of blood. And if they lost most of their cool abilities and replaced it with bland "+X to Y" abilities. And had freakish tentacles coming out of their belly. Interestingly, the fact that only bugbears and goblins are changed into bonedrinkers is only due to tradition, and the book says that you could change other humanoids into bonedrinkers by slightly altering the ritual. It's just that the ritual is almost only known to hobgoblin casters, and those don't want to animate corpses of other races (which they consider as enemies) as pretty powerful undead retaining the mind they have in life (the ritual is said to be similar to the one creating mummies, which retains the base creature's mind, and the first bonedrinkers were created out of "fallen bugbear warriors", so probably on the battlefield. On the battlefield, there's no reason to not apply the ritual to all corpses available, except if the reanimated enemies have a chance to attack you). I "like" how they explain the origin of the rituals and the tradition of hobgoblin clerics, but they don't explain why in Baator, the bonedrinkers have tentacles sprouting out their chest, or why... You know... They drink bones.

Bonedrinkers have a few nice abilities, but not only do they not make a coherent whole, their number of RHD immediately doomed them to unuseability.
Regular Bonedrinker, 11 RHD:
- +10 Str, +4 Dex, - Con, -2 Int, +4 Wis, +4 Cha, +4 natural armor. These stats would be decent on a 4 RHD brawler. But you're a 11 RHD Undead.
- 2 tentacles, 2 claws, Improved Grab on the tentacles (and +4 on grapple checks), Pounce, and Bonedrink. Pounce is always good, especially with some natural attacks not linked to your hands. Improved Grab, on the other hand, is not that great on a Medium creature (since it will only affect Small or smaller creatures). Your main ability is keyed off grappling, and you're not good at grappling.
- Resistance 10 to cold, fire and sonic, DR 5/Silver or Good, Unholy Toughness (Charisma to HP), all pretty good abilities to have.

I believe something like 5 RHD is good here. Not awful intelligence, good natural weapons and Pounce, along with all the goodies of Undead without most of its drawbacks, but bad BAB. And DLA-4, because you have really nothing to do with Undead RHD.

Lesser Bonedrinker, 7 RHD:
- Compared to the greater version, 4 fewer RHD, -6 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Wis, -3 NA, and your energy resistances are only 5. You like your Str, so that hurts.
- One size category smaller, no +4 to grappling checks. Okay, now it's just sad. Your Improved Grab works only on Tiny opponents and you're litterally worse at it than a 1st level human warrior. Let's just say you're not gonna bonedrink your opponent anytime soon.

Well, nothing really interesting here except 4 natural weapons and Pounce. 3 RHD, DLA-2


Go out and get some vitamin D, folks! Osteoporosis is bad, and we don't need a reanimated goblin with tentacles to catch it in the real world. Next time, we'll review the Formian Quee... Er, the Brood Keeper!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Brood Keeper (and Lava Swarm)

Maybe it's a weird question, but do you own a vermicomposting worm bin? That's a bin with several "floors" covered with dirt, on which earthworms live that is supposed to replicate the natural soil. You put organic waste on the top floor, and the worms eat it and progressively change it into fertilizer, that you can use afterwards for your garden. It's a great thing to have, but pretty disgusting when you open it to put some food and the worms come crawling out. The brood keeper comes equipped with the same thing on its back, being a living uterus able to open its back to reveal its larva.

In terms of other abilities, however, it's really sad. It's a hot-potch of every low-level abilities that you could find on regular animals, which is not inherently bad, since they synergize decently good, but you really lack too much utility and overall stats to thrive in mid-to-high level plays. Also... What does the poison do? The brood keeper's statblock mentions that there is poison on its bite, but I can't for the life of me find what damage it deals. I don't know, is there an errata I missed? It might qualify it for Venomfire, though.

- Huge Magical Beast, 22 RHD. You are a beatstick. That's what you do. So full BAB is good.
- +14 Str, +6 Dex, +14 Con, -4 Int, +6 Wis, -2 Cha. +14 Natural armor. That's... pretty low for such a high-RHD creature, but in mid-levels, that would be decent. Good repartition for a beatstick. Having 10 Int would be nice, though.
- One bite, 2 claws, Pounce, Rake (four claws), Improved Grab, Rend, 60ft movement speed. Wow. That's... a lot of attacks. That's a great way to use your high strength and BAB. And you can even choose a mouthpick weapon, but you're not even forced to to be efficient. Honestly, a level of monk (not two) or unarmed swordsage (not as much a problem as it is for others to lose one claw attack) will make the brood keeper a great PC.
- Evasion, SR 4+HD, DR 5/-, fast healing 5. I mean... okay? These are great abilities to have, they really are, but why? DR/- is rare on monsters, and generally reserved for elementals and amorphous creatures. There is nothing in that creature's lore to explain all of that.
- Fear. When you rend somebody (so, normally in the first round of combat), everybody makes a Will save or is frightened for 1d10 rounds. Even if they succeed, they're shaken for 1d4 rounds. That's really good. Considering how fear effects stack, this may very well become a free action AoE frighten for 1d4 rounds in most fights.
- Larva Swarm. The larve swarm is pretty bad, but summoning a 22 RHD swarm at mid-level may be really useful.


There's a lot of things here. Fear is great and doesn't cost an action, and you can just muscle through most encounters with so many attacks. I don't think it's as good as a kraken (even though the brood keeper is surprisingly more versatile despite its low intelligence), but it may be good with 11 RHD. Maybe even 12 RHD, to be conservative. Less Str and worse body shape than a cloud giant, but more abilities, way more attacks and more abilities, including the ability to attack flying opponents.

Larva swarm

The swarm has 22 Magical Beast RHD, but since it can't natively attack, it doesn't help it. However, Evasion and Fast Healing 1 are great for something that can't easily be healed with magic. SR equal to its HD is interesting but not game-changing, and your natural armor is pretty bad, especially for something that still takes half-damage from weapon damage, a bit offset by your +14 Dex.
It suffers from all the worse drawbacks of being a swarm (no item, no non-AoE buff, -8 Int, no somatic components...) and doesn't have immunity to weapon damage. It may still make an acceptable cleric, with its +6 Wis and flying speed, but even with all the goodies it gets and its 5d6 swarm attack, I can't give it more than 5 RHD.


There is a distinct lack of lore on the creature of this book. This is what you get when the next edition throws all existing lore out the window and the following one has litterally ten times fewer sourcebooks than 3.5.
Fortunately, a few monsters have still been adapted, including our next one, the Cadaver Collector, also featured in 5e's Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes!