Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Dread Blossom Swarm

I mean, seriously. A swarm of roses flying to embed in your heart to suck your blood? And it can also paralyze you? Masami Kurumada is gonna sue somebody.

First, can I say that I love this monster? Their presentation is such an eerily beautiful scene, with the superposition of a calm flower field and the barely visible bodies on the ground. And when the PCs come to investigate, the swarm takes flight. Do you imagine what it would be in real life? To see a field of roses or red poppiesfly up in a coordinated fashion? And then the fight starts, and you understand that no matter what you're doing, the flowers just regrow, even from severed stems, and you have to burn it all to the ground. Really, this monster has it all. Presentation, mystery, beauty, a fight that you can't win by brute force alone, and especially the mechanics to go with it all... I'm really in love with it.

However, as a PC, the DBS (Dread Blossom Swarm, not Dragon Ball Super) is really not that great. Swarms do not make good PCs, with the lack of hands, of items, and inability to be buffed. And you are only Tiny, so you still take damage from weapons. Finding a way to somehow lose a size category may be worthwhile, but I'm not sure there is any (spell-storing Reduce Person, then permanency, maybe? Does compression work? How do personal spells/powers work on swarms?). For a 7 RHD Plant with only +6 Dex and +4 Con, but -8 in Str, Int and Cha, that's really not good. That said, you have a few abilities which make a world of difference.
First is poison pollen. I know half the Monster Manual is immune to poison, but the half that isn't (basically everything living you'll fight up to level 8-10) will have to contend with a lot of saves versus paralysis. And it doesn't cost an action, so an ardent Dread Blossom Swarm can still spam whatever power they want while still poisoning anybody within 15ft. And it stacks with distraction for a very nice 2-saves or lose per turn. And each time they fail, they lose some Con. Ability Focus, Virulent Poison and Poison Expert all (probably) combine to give a total +5 to your DC. Note that you get the former for free, on top of Alertness and Lightning Reflexes (more reflex is always good for a swarm).
Second is regeneration. Most creatures with regeneration, when they get too much nonlethal damage, are just asking for a coup de grace. A swarm, on the other hand, disperses when it becomes unconscious, and so cannot really be affected efficiently. Creatures with no cold or fire will have a lot of issues with you. Not even counting the fact that being able to heal as a swarm is invaluable. And since most Save-or-Lose have a limited number of targets, regeneration is really great for a swarm.

All of that makes the Dread Blossom Swarm much better than most other swarms, and actually able to contribute in combat, even at high-ish levels. Yet, it's really hit or miss. Either you can completely lock down the opponent, or you just watch from the sidelines with nothing to do. Like always, I advise getting Evasion the fastest possible, then probably taking levels of a psionic class to be able to do things without holding a weapon and without somatic or verbal components (here, we're obviously looking for ardent, seeing the abysmal Int and Cha). I think it should be playable with 5 RHD, if a bit weak. And since it's a case where you get basically nothing from 2 RHD except +1 to all saves and 13 HP (you don't use BAB and it's not enough to make your swarm attack stronger), I'll say DLA-2, but maybe a bit strong this time.


What do you think of this monster? Have you ever used it in an actual game? The overall vibes remind me a lot of Made in Abyss. Next time we'll have another monster with a flavourful aura ability, but who doesn't translate into mechanics as well as the DBS, it's the Drowned!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Drowned

The Drowned, because the drowning rules in D&D are much too punitive for them not to make a monster out of it. And give it 20 Undead RHD. And no level-appropriate ability. After the avalancher and this, I'm expecting a suffocating-based monster next. Oh, right, Voidwraith. Or lava effects... Oh right, there's the Phaethon. Is there a starvation-based monster? Wouldn't surprise me.

The Drowned is a Medium Undead with ability scores worthy of an awakened bear (+14 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Int, +2 Cha, +8 natural armor), 2 weak slams with no abilities, fast healing 5 and unholy toughness. That's... extremely bad. The only redeeming quality of the drowned is its Drowning Aura, an unfriendly 30ft aura forcing everyone to make Constitution checks every turn or go unconscious and start drowning. With Ability Focus, anything with less Con than the Tarrasque will be at risk of instant death with basically no way to boost their resistance. That is honestly really good, but having a creature with half BAB in melee, and risking your own allies drowning if they try to help you in basically any way, is definitely not. And it doesn't work on anything that doesn't breathe, so no Undead, no Construct, no Elementals, and no creature with the ability to breathe underwater. A one-trick pony whose one trick will litterally be more harmful to its teammates than its enemies. I still think it's slightly better than the bear, due to... Well, mostly being able to wield weapons. But really, it won't do anything in combat except moving around enemies and try to drown them. I think I would advance it as a knight or a crusader, to make people stay close to it a much as possible. I'd say something like 6 RHD? Maybe? And Undead RHD are bad. Really bad. Especially when your main ability doesn't scale with them. DLA-11 doesn't seem exaggerated.


The next one will be another undead with an overpowered aura and nothing else to show for it, the Dust Wight!

[Emberlily]

Honestly, dread blossom swarm character sounds like it could be interesting to play, conceptually. Had never heard of them before this thread, actually, either. Kinda really like them!

[remetagross]

I guess you could say the Wendigo template is a starvation-based monster.

I really like these two last monsters, as monsters. As PCs, I agree the Dread Blossom Swarm sucks a little less than ordinary swarms...it should definitely go Ardent, for the ability to do stuff with no hands, to still get high-level powers despite the RHDs, and to get Compression (which I think works just fine on swarms since the target is "you", not "one humanoid"). I dunno about the RHDs and negative LA to give. Yours seem fine, it's hard to gauge such a complicated monster.

The Drowned is an oppressive monster, but yeah, as a PC it's not so good, what with being even more ally-unfriendly than the Dread Blossom Swarm...I like 6 RHD because it can still nab 9th-level maneuvers if going initiator.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Dust Wight

Rust monsters: now with twice the CR and three times the number of RHD!

The Dust Wight is the [Earth] equivalent of the chraal, an undead created by the combination of negative energy and elemental earth (even though the Chraal was an elemental, which makes no sense whatsoever). Basically, it's an obvious reference to the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Dust (the combined part of the Elemental Plane of Earth and the Plane of Negative Energy), even though the Quasi-Elemental Planes are not mentioned anywhere in 3rd edition except as a fleeting sentence in the Manual of the Planes. The Negative Quasi-Elemental Planes are supposed to be the exact opposite (or the representation of the destruction) of the element they're based on. The Quasi-Elemental Plane of Dust represents of course the destruction of stone and metal. And the Dust Wight is hence hell-bent on destroying every worked mineral that crosses its path, reducing it to dust, then eating it. And of course, it can transform people into stone. Because if your hobby is destroying one specific thing, you might as well know how to create that thing just to have more to destroy. Seems the Dust Wight is one of those tormented artists who always destroy their own pieces of art because they're never perfect.

As a PC, the Dust Wight would be awful even with half the number of RHD. It has the stats of a 4-5 RHD beatstick (+10 Str, -2 Dex, -2 Int, +11 Natural armor) with a pretty good DR 5/Adamantine but the worst beatsticky type (Undead with no unholy toughess) and only Medium size, has only two slams as its natural attacks (and probably won't bear any weapon for both the RP hate of metal and the fact that it will prevent it from using its crumbling touch), and has one of its two main abilities that will just destroy loot. If we disregard the loot-destroying, Crumbling Touch is actually pretty interesting but also very limited, since it applies only to the armor of people you're striking with your slams (not a touch attack, despite the name). The armor is slowly destroyed and heals you slightly in the process.
And finally, there's the Petrifying Aura. Now, in general, save-or-lose auras are much better if they have a 24h-immunity, since you can render your whole party immune in the morning. But that's the case for auras with effects limited in time. When the effect of the aura is a flesh to stone effect, you don't want to ever apply it to your friends, especially not the cleric (the effect of the aura can be neutralized if you cast Stone Shape during the first round after someone if affected, but 3rd level spells won't become so expendable that you can cast one for half the party each morning for quite a while). Which means this aura has all the weaknesses of a 24h-immunity without any of its benefits. Also you have no Charisma bonus to improve its DC, and monsters generally have way higher Fortitude than PCs and you're basically useless once they made their first save. That is really once of the worst ways you can implement a SoL aura.

Considering the loot-destroying, ally-petrifying abilities of the thing, I really don't think anyone would play it with more than 6 RHD. Maybe 7 at most. And having decent DC on the petrifying cloud will help tremendously, so maybe the 15 RHD are not as bad as most Undead RHD. Still, DLA-6 is a minimum.


Well, this monster can be summed up with one quote:

Looks like this one will be collecting dust.

Next time, we'll have another creature from a combination of planes: the Storm Elemental!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Storm Elemental (Large and larger)

Storm elementals are a weird amalgamation of all the best parts from the original four elementals: Air's (perfect) flying, Fire's strong slams with additional energy damage, Earth's high Str and Con, and obviously nothing from Water (it only gets the good parts after all). That said, everything isn't perfect, and Storm's dexterity is the lowest of all true elemental reviewed, except Earth. Storm also loses on some versatility, by replacing Air's Alternate Form or Earth's earth glide for just damage. Honestly pretty good damage, with Thunder and Lightning (both a line dealing the Elemental's RHD in d6s and an emanation dealing half as much, both as a single full-round action, sad that it's only 1/min) and a free action 1/rd Shock dealing a bit of nonlethal electricity damage (nonlethal energy damage is pretty rare, but I'm not sure there's a way to abuse it).

Their various perks made them similar enough to get the same rating as Air for the Small and Medium sizes. Let's see how the bigger ones fare:

Large, 8 RHD: Str +12, Con+8, Int-4 Your slam isn't quite as damaging as the fire elemental's is, but it's still pretty good, and contrary to Air, your flight speed steadily increases with size categories. You're now only 20ft short of Air, and deal more damage, but have less AC due to lower Dex. Electricity and Sonic healing mean that the party caster with Storm Bolt can give you unlimited healing. Niche, but effective. Still, the Large Storm Elemental is well-balanced and can hold its own in combat while keeping most of the versatility associated with 80ft (perfect) flying. 7 RHD, DLA-0

Huge, 16 RHD: Str +20, Dex-2, Con +12, Int -4 Well, that's a lot more strength, and even though youre paying a bit of your Dex. That's what happens when you stick too closely to advancement of monsters. You also get better slams, and especially better Shock and Thunder and Lightning (the equivalent of 24d6 as an AoE is nothing to sneeze at, even with saves for half). I'd say a weak 10 RHD, DLA-3 would be good, since it has lots of advantages compared to Air.

Greater, 21 RHD: Slightly better Thunder and Lightning, slightly better ability scores across the board, and DR 10/-. Eh, sure, a weak 11 RHD, DLA-6.

Elder, 24 RHD: I am flabbergasted by this age category. You only get +2 to Int and Dex, and +1 to natural armor. And that all. Nothing else. 11 RHD, DLA-8.


Contrary to the Air elemental, the Storm elemental is definitely intended to be a bruiser in melee, but no class really helps it beyond its racial abilities, since Thunder and Lightning doesn't scale with caster level, or HD (except for DC), or really anything. The best way is probably simply to embrace the melee and go barbarian, or warblade, or maybe psychic warrior (it is in dire need of something to do with its swift actions). Next time, we'll have one of the many swarms with exotic types from the MM3. This time, an undead swarm, the Ephemeral Swarm!

[remetagross]

These dudes, having such a powerful flight ability and elemental damage healing, are more versatile than most pure bruisers. I wonder if there is a way to turn all the damage dealt by a natural attack into energy damage...maybe there's some magical property you could put on a Necklace of Natural Weapons? If yes, add in the Vicious weapon property, where each melee hit deals 1d6 damage to yourself, and you can now auto-heal in combat, or by boxing a house.

Anyway, I like how conservative you went with your estimations there. But if playing with reduced RHD, there would be no point to pick a Greater Storm Elemental over an Elder one, right? Would'nt that be better to assign 12RHD to the Elder one, or maybe 10 to the Greater one?

[Beni-Kujaku]

These dudes, having such a powerful flight ability and elemental damage healing, are more versatile than most pure bruisers. I wonder if there is a way to turn all the damage dealt by a natural attack into energy damage...maybe there's some magical property you could put on a Necklace of Natural Weapons? If yes, add in the Vicious weapon property, where each melee hit deals 1d6 damage to yourself, and you can now auto-heal in combat, or by boxing a house.

Sadly, that doesn't work. Storm elementals have an explicit clause preventing them from healing from their own attack. Otherwise, they could just Thunder and Lightning at themselves and heal that way (the thunder is explicitly an emanation and doesn't include you, but a line starts from any side of your square and in the direction you want, so you can include yourself in it).

Anyway, I like how conservative you went with your estimations there. But if playing with reduced RHD, there would be no point to pick a Greater Storm Elemental over an Elder one, right? Would'nt that be better to assign 12RHD to the Elder one, or maybe 10 to the Greater one?

An ECL is a pretty large estimate. Except in rare circumstances, there's basically no benefit playing an orc compared to a water orc, yet both are +0 because a water orc isn't strong enough to be worth +1 LA and an orc isn't weak enough to deserve LA-0, or a wolf compared to a riding dog, yet both are 1 RHD+1 LA, because the riding dog wouldn't fit with 2 RHD. The point here is to find the place where they would be playable in a regular party, and the differences between the two storm elementals aren't large enough that I think they should be in different ECL. +4 stats, +1 NA and +4d6 for Thunder and Lightning isn't nothing, but it's also not enough that I'd say the Elder belongs with 12 RHD.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Ephemeral swarm

What happens when a martial initiator pisses a DM off by killing hundreds of rats with Blood in the Water to gain enough bonus damage to one-shot the BBEG? Well, first, they get nerfed and/or told politely but firmly to cut it out, but more importantly for in-game purposes, an ephemeral swarm happens. This incorporeal undead swarm arises from the anguish of hundreds of similar Tiny beasts dying from the same event and searches the source of their death to exact revenge.

Now, mechanically, this monster is incredibly frustrating. It has the single three types and subtypes with the highest amount of immunities in the game, being an Undead [incorporeal, swarm]. With all that, you would expect something basically unkillable, that would roam the battlefields slowly draining people's life while shrugging off any effort to harm it. However, in practice, this is far from the case, for two main reasons.
First, its immunities are largely redundant. Undead are immune to death and mind-affecting, but most dangerous death and mind-affecting effects (except a few like cone of dimness, calm emotions, deep slumber, wail of the banshee and some gaze attacks) already don't affect swarms because they're single-target or affect a fixed number of targets. The swarm ability to squeeze in basically any hole is made moot by incorporeal.
Second, and most importantly, the ephemeral swarm is immune to everything EXCEPT the things that will actually kill it. It's not immune or even resistant to pure, dumb energy damage, and takes 1-1/2 damage from it. It is not immune or resistant to Turn Undead. And finally, it's not resistant beyond regular incorporeal miss chance to bludgeoning damage (and has Undead HP, so... not great). Being Tiny is really a pain for these sorrowful rats. The ephemeral swarm is like a tardigrade, that small animal that can resist nuclear radiation, temperatures of hundreds of degrees, decade-long dehydration and the freaking void of space, but dies like anything else when it is eaten and digested, which is the most common way to die.

-12 Undead RHD. That's too much. I believe it's only to allow it to kill people on its own before dying, because there is almost nothing else it affects
- No Str, no Con, +8 Dex, -8 Int, +8 Cha. At least you have really good AC, to go with being incorporeal. You're not unkillable, but still a pain to defeat. Do take up Evasion as fast as possible.
- Your swarm attack deals Str damage instead of HP damage. This explicitly only affects living creatures. You will have a hard time fighting other Undead, and other incorporeal creatures. Still, probably better than just pure damage. You'll be able to weaken your party's opponents and reduce the danger for your friends.

In the end, the Ephemeral Swarm is still really good for a swarm. Being incorporeal has a lot of upsides and its stats are good. However, being Tiny and not Diminutive or Fine is a huge downside, and having no turn resistance might be crippling once in a while. How good is it? Probably similar or stronger than the Dread Blossom Swarm? 5 RHD, DLA-5.


I'm really not sure about this one. It has so much good and so much bad, inertwined with each other. Next time, we will review the feral yowler, a much, much more standard creature.

[remetagross]

I seem to remember there's a swarm of Fine incorporeal undead insects somewhere...these guys are the proto version of it.

They are worse than the dread blossom swarm. They have crappy HPs and do not regenerate. They are not immune to that much more stuff than the flowers are. They have less interesting attack options. If the DBS got 5RHD, I cannot see these guys get 6. They have to have 5 at most too.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I seem to remember there's a swarm of Fine incorporeal undead insects somewhere...these guys are the proto version of it.

I'm pretty sure there's no such swarm (except a swarm-shifter undead to which you apply a ghost template, even swarmshifter cannot be applied to a corporeal undead). Maybe you're thinking of the bloodmote cloud from Libris Mortis? That's a swarm of undead Fine mosquitoes who suck your blood. It's pretty cool. But I believe my favorite swarm (except the DBS, I've really fallen in love with that one) would be the divine wrath swarms from BoED, who represent the 10 Plagues of Egypt from the Bible. Especially the deathraven swarm, just because it is so over the top in its way of killing people. When it hits you, not only does it deal 4d8, it has a built-in SoD in its swarm attack, and even if you survive you have a 20% chance to have your eyes pecked off and become blind until you recieve a Heal spell. Because when the gods don't like you, they really don't like you.

They are worse than the dread blossom swarm. They have crappy HPs and do not regenerate. They are not immune to that much more stuff than the flowers are. They have less interesting attack options. If the DBS got 5RHD, I cannot see these guys get 6. They have to have 5 at most too.

I knew there would be some disputes for this one. I didn't underline it in the review, but incorporeality is really, really good. Basically everything that can hit you (and already not much can hit you since you're a swarm) has 50% chance to just not do anything. What monsters have natural weapons counting as Magic anyway? If you go by the assumption that "natural attacks of monsters with DR/magic bypass DR/magic" works against incorporeal, then you still have only 50% of being affected. If you don't, then nothing will hit you for a very long time (there is literally no monster I can think of that has Mass Cure [...] Wounds as an SLA). You don't resist Fireballs or Meteor Swarms, but they still have only 50% chance of affecting you. Also, crappy HPs? They don't have Con, yes, but they have still d12s. With all their defenses, they should be the last man (?) standing in the party. In terms of defense, and even without Regeneration, the Ephemeral Swarm is noticeably better than the Dread Blossom Swarm. Of course, in terms of offense, it's not as good, and it's not quite balanced by the utility brought by the (incorporeal) nature of the EphSwarm.
Both are extremely good swarms, adding on the qualities of swarms and patching some of their weaknesses. I'm really not sure which is better. But yeah, the EphSwarm is probably worth a bit less than 6 RHD. I'm reluctant to give it less than the DBS, but 5 RHD is probably better. What do y'all think?

[remetagross]

Ah well, maybe that was a made-up memory. And these divine swarms seem quite nice too

Yes, you're incorporeal, but then, what good does that for you? There is so little you can actually do. Your swarming attack does not work on constructs, nor on undead, and a lot of foes do not give a damn about suffering Str damage - until you've drained their last point of it. Any ranged or spellcasting monster will happily trade away HP damage for Str damage - unless the whole party is able to deal that kind of damage, the swarm is not contributing much to actively ending the encounter. And yes you can infiltrate everywhere, but with no physical presence, this is even worse than having no hands - do not that the swarm does not have any hands, in addition to that. So yeah, I stand by that 5 RHD.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Feral Yowler

And we're back to (relative) normalcy with what is (with the hell hound) probably one of the most generic name there is. And lo and behold, it's also a canine! It yowls? It is feral? Then it is a feral yowler! Seriously, there is so much more to this monster than just being "feral", it's just a shame that it isn't reflected in its name. The feral yowler is the product of experiments meant to cross-breed a displacer beast with something else (most probably a shadow mastiff, considering it has Trip and a weaker version of Bay as well as a weaker version of the displacer beast's Displacement) using copious amounts of necromantic powers, to the point that the resulting beast not only looks almost as undead as a krenshar, but is completely immune to energy drain and negative energy as a whole. The thing is, if you're a necromancer, it's a bad idea to create something that is immune to your best spells, that you also can't command (since it is a Magical Beast and not a true Undead). The feral yowlers obviously rebelled, and fled in the wild, where their violent nature and lowish intelligence make them attack anything and everything. I'm not even sure they can really mate.

As a PC, the feral yowler is really not that bad, with a variety of useful abilities (Fast Healing 3 is really nice, and Minor Displacement and Trip on a 7 RHD full BAB chassis make it really good in melee), absolutely excellent ability scores with the crippling exception of Intelligence (Str +8, Dex +6, Con +16, Int -4, Wis +4, Cha +6) and a few situational but useful abilities (immunity to energy drain may save your butt once in a while and Yowl of Fear, while weak, may combo well with Intimidating Rage or Never Outnumbered to make a lot of people terrified for really long). However, the impossibility to hold a non-mouthpick weapon (and even then, losing your Trip) or manipulate items is a real issue, and the claw-claw-bite routine will only take you so far. Medium size is also not ideal for a bruiser. In the end, it deserves some negative LA, but really not much, and I think 6 RHD and DLA-1 should make the feral yowler playable.

What do you think of this? If you were a necromancer, would you create a feral yowler knowing the risk of it escaping if it meant having a chance to create a better creature later? Next time, we'll review the Geriviar, as a good introduction to the high-level giants from this book. Have a nice day!

[dhasenan]

The scariest thing about the Feral Yowler is the implication that there are both Wild and Tame Yowlers.

[remetagross]

I agree that the feral yowler is close to being playable as-is. Its Int penalty is not so big that it makes a PC completely unplayable, it has a variety of immunities and tricks, and it has reasonable ability scores. I'm fine with 6 RHD, DLA-1 too.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Geriviar

The Geriviar hates buildings. This 26 RHD Huge Giant with basically grenades growing on its skin, that we are supposed to make fit into an adventuring party, has an irrational phobia of any permanent building as basically its only personality trait. Need. I. Say. More?

The geriviar is a desperate attempt to make an epic-level beatstick. It has immunity to mind-affecting (but not to death effects), a 70ft movement speed with the ability to move 420ft with a full-round action (which amounts basically to an at-will Dimension Door SLA, which is not bad), the ability to take 10 on Jump checks (for a whopping 15ft-high or 55ft-long jump. Nice for Sudden Leap, but irrelevant to reach flying opponents), and the ability to throw organic "nodules" (they're grenades. They're really just grenades.) with... Infinite range? I mean, I have tried to find the range, but there's nothing in the statblock except "hurl them at its opponents", and nothing in the errata about it. The geriviar was errataed, but only because they forgot to put rock throwing in its full attack. So, you can just throw two 10d6 grenades to anyone in sight by a standard action? I mean, that's still far from worth ECL 26, but that's at least interesting.
It also has some of the worst SLAs I've seen on epic creatures (not counting dragons), notably Invisibility 1/day (...seriously? You're supposed to basically bomb your opponents from miles away. In what world is becoming invisible until you attack ever useful?), Telekinesis (sure, go ahead, use combat maneuvers with a lower bonus than just doing the same with your arms), and Reverse Gravity (what was the use case here? Reverse your own gravity to attack flying casters).

Apart from these few abilities, the chassis is painfully bland. Great stats, with +22 Str, +2 Dex, +16 Con, +0 Int, +6 Wis, +8 Cha, +28 Natural Armor, a nice DR 10/Adamantine and Magic and Regeneration 8/Cold or Acid in defense, 8 slams and rock throwing in offense, SR RHD+2 (useless), ignores object hardness (flavourful but useless at this level), and Improved Bull Rush and Sunder as bonus feats (just a few ECL late).


I don't understand how this is CR 19 when the Kraken is CR 12 with better stats, better natural weapons, better grappling and similar mobility. The defense of the geriviar is much much better, but we all know defense doesn't win fights. Still, the infinite nodule launch is great, and both your natural armor, DR and immunities will allow you to spam it with no regards for opponents in a lot of situation. The absence of SoL is concerning, however, and infinite range damage doesn't matter if you don't spot enemies before they're close to you. I don't know, maybe 13 RHD or 14? How can there be so much and so little to a monster at the same time?


Next time will be even worse, with new and exciting giants. All of them are Large to Huge beatsticks with next to no useful ability besides pure numbers, and epic or near-epic numbers of RHDs. See you then for the Death, Eldritch and Sand giants.

[remetagross]

It's hard to pin down a specific number of RHDs for such bloated creatures, but 13 RHDs fits the "1 RHD for each +4 in ability scores adjustement" rule of thumb, so I guess it works. Reverse Gravity is actually not bad of an SLA, especially if it happens at the same ECL when casters access it.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Giants (Death, Eldritch, Sand)

Giants, now with three flavors of exotic abilities!

As always, MM3 strives to give new twists to old monsters, and if it can be hit or miss (the conflagration ooze was a cluster of unexplained weirdness), I feel like they did a very good job giving these giants a lot of personality with some mechanically minor changes. As PCs, I think it would translate into some really interesting roleplay. So let's give them some negative LA to support it!

Death Giant, 23 RHD: Karsus's Folly taught us that desperate measures taken to save your civilization from attacking phaerimms can backfire much more than expected. And when the desperate measures against phaerimms consist in selling the souls of all current and future Death Giants to entities from the Negative Energy Plane... Well, you can see how it goes. Death Giants are now a depression-riddled lot living with the fear of death and scorn against their ancestors. But they got cool powers from it! As big, strong and intelligent but much more charismatic than Cloud Giants, they can wield the souls of their victims to protect themselves (Cha to saves, initiative and a few checks, really good with their +14 Cha), to make anybody in a 100ft radius panicked while they stay in the area (unfriendly and no 24h-immunity, so watch out) and to be healed by both negative and positive energy. They also get immunity to energy drain and fear effects, and some semi-interesting SLAs, notably Flame Strike and Greater Dispel Magic (CL 16). All in all not an epic character, but really interesting and much stronger than a Cloud Giant, and even probably than a Storm Giant, despite their overall lower ability scores. I'll go with the same rating as the Geriviar, with 13 RHD.

Eldritch Giant, 25 RHD: With +32 Str, the Eldritch Giant is as strong as some Great Wyrms, but that's far from everything it's got for it. Eldritch Giants dedicate their life to studying magic, which gives them the invaluable ability to Greater Dispel (CL 20) at will. This is great to get rid of effects opponents put on your party, even during combat. The feat selection of the standard eldritch giant is honestly pretty good, and Quicken SLA (Greater Dispel) might be one of your first picks. It can basically use spell trigger and spell completion items as if he was a wizard (cue "rogues are tier 3 casters because they get UMD" discussion) and has Globe of Invulnerability 3/day and a racial +6 to Will in defense. Sadly no specific immunity. Still, the Eldritch Giant is extremely good and versatile, and may warrant 14 or 15 RHD.

Sand Giant, 15 RHD: Finally, one of them is non-epic. Only Large and with a lower speed (40ft) than the other two, the Sand Giant is also the most sociable giant so far, creating very organized settlements in the desert, compared to the tribes of giants from the MM1 and the pretty solitary Death and Eldritch giants. Their stats are close to that of a Stone Giant, but with much higher Dex (+10) and Wis (+6). Apart from that, it has Statue and a personal Blur as SLAs, that it is able to maintain basically all day long, which give it surprisingly good defenses. Apart from that, however, there's not much to note, and I don't see the sand giant getting some love with more than 10 RHD. Giant RHD are also pretty bad, and DLA-3 seems fair.


Death Giants are in my opinion the most well-designed of the three, with the souls they have taken from their opponents swirling around them, which prevents resurrection the same way they themselves can't get resurrected as their soul is destroyed in the Negative Plane. I could really see the BBEG of a campaign be a Death Giant who tried to cheat death by all means necessary and became either Adept of the Green Star or simply Undead to become timeless and spends all his time collecting as many souls as possible, to the point that his castle is always engulfed in a maelstrom of howling souls.
Next time, we will review the scottish mermaid/siren/nymph, the glaistig! Until then, enjoy your stay!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I could really see the BBEG of a campaign be a Death Giant who tried to cheat death by all means necessary and became either Adept of the Green Star or simply Undead to become timeless and spends all his time collecting as many souls as possible, to the point that his castle is always engulfed in a maelstrom of howling souls.

I did a Villainous Competition character kinda like that. A Wendigo instead of a Death Giant, and thus driven by purely corporeal hunger, she nonetheless accumulated the souls of her victims in a cloud around her, initially giving her access to a couple of Incarnum powers but ultimately reaching the point where she got the full on Symbiotic Creature template with a Dream Vestige (this was all taking place in the Plane of Dreams).

[remetagross]

These Giants are honestly rather cool. It's nice to seem them doing something else than throwing and catching rocks (has anyone ever tried to optimize that?). Hard to gauge the appropriate RHD on creatures with that many HDs as usual, but your assessment seems fair. At-will CL 20 Greater Dispel Magic is bonkers, I'd veer towards 15 RHS rather than 14 for the eldritch giant I guess.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I did a Villainous Competition character kinda like that. A Wendigo instead of a Death Giant, and thus driven by purely corporeal hunger, she nonetheless accumulated the souls of her victims in a cloud around her, initially giving her access to a couple of Incarnum powers but ultimately reaching the point where she got the full on Symbiotic Creature template with a Dream Vestige (this was all taking place in the Plane of Dreams).

That was a nice read! A possible death giant would probably also see themselves as the victim, doomed from the start by forces they can't control and doing only what they can to survive, maybe even begging the PCs to just let them live alone.

These Giants are honestly rather cool. It's nice to seem them doing something else than throwing and catching rocks (has anyone ever tried to optimize that?). Hard to gauge the appropriate RHD on creatures with that many HDs as usual, but your assessment seems fair. At-will CL 20 Greater Dispel Magic is bonkers, I'd veer towards 15 RHS rather than 14 for the eldritch giant I guess.

I really don't think there's any optimization possible here. The main problem is that the ability is not well-defined enough to have generic support for it. The damage and range of the rock throw is specific to each giant, and is more akin to a special natural weapon than to an ability. For example, a Geriviar throws rocks with a 160ft range increment dealing 2d8+1.5xStr, a Stone Giant has a range increment of 180ft and deals 2d6+1.5xStr, and a Cloud Giant throws rocks at 140ft and deals 2d8+1xStr. There is no rule, no printed way to scale the damage with bigger size categories (although you can infer from Mountain Giants that a Gargantuan Giant would deal 3d8 and a Colossal one would deal 4d8), the damage doesn't follow the improvised weapon rules, so you can't argue that throwing a pointy rock would deal more damage, and thrown weapons really don't get that much love to begin with. Of course, Brutal Throw and Ranged Throw are pretty good, but not only am I not sure they can really apply, since the rocks are not really thrown weapons per se, all of that becomes irrelevant when compared to just one level of Hulking Hurler. Still, it can be interesting for really long distance attacks (900ft max range for the Stone Giant), but optimizing is a bit far-fetched.




On another hand, I recently learned that becoming [Epic] does take into account level adjustment, so a creature with 16 HD and LA+5 can take Epic feats. The main reason why I didn't assign DNLA until now to epic creatures was that I didn't want to deal with Epic feats in a non-epic environment, but the epic LA rule should work in both direction, and DNLA wouldn't create non-epic creatures with epic feats. I'm contemplating assigning a DNLA to epic creatures I didn't before (like, for example, the Death and Eldritch Giants above). Would you find that interesting? Maybe after we're finished with Monster Manual III?

[Emberlily]

On another hand, I recently learned that becoming [Epic] does take into account level adjustment, so a creature with 16 HD and LA+5 can take Epic feats. The main reason why I didn't assign DNLA until now to epic creatures was that I didn't want to deal with Epic feats in a non-epic environment, but the epic LA rule should work in both direction, and DNLA wouldn't create non-epic creatures with epic feats. I'm contemplating assigning a DNLA to epic creatures I didn't before (like, for example, the Death and Eldritch Giants above). Would you find that interesting? Maybe after we're finished with Monster Manual III?

I would definitely be interested, at least.

[remetagross]

Wow, I completely didn't know that. Though to be fair, who in this forum has already played a game where that situation arises?

I find assigning DNLA to be a task more difficult than merely reducing RHDs, so I can only approve if you take the time to do so, but I can't really participate either way.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Glaistig

There is exactly one official picture of a glaistig in D&D and they still managed to miss the two most important details about her: that she has goat legs like a satyr and that she has pointy teeth like a vampire (do note that despite heavy comparisons between the three of them, the actual myths are almost completely independant, with the glaistig being from the Irish folklore, the satyr is from greek mythology and vampires only appeared during the 18th century in Eastern Europe, probably Austria). A glaistig is basically a water dryad, using songs and dance to lure men to the place they're bound to (for the glaistig, a body of water or a river). But, where the dryad generally enrolls them to defend her forest, the glaistig simply drinks their blood and/or drowns them. Or helps them solve their problems, when she's in a good mood. What? She's chaotic neutral, she at least acts like it.

The glaistig is one monster where I'm kind of sad the asterisk of the LA-thread only removes abilities instead of modifying them. As it is, the Symbiosis is removed so that the glaistig can go adventuring, but her most interesting ability, her song (one single person is fascinated and can only come near the glaistig, then is charmed when he is adjacent to her), can still only be used within 300 yards of her designated pool, which makes it useless in basically any campaign.

The glaistig remains a 6 RHD Fey (not the worst RHD) with slightly below average but balanced ability scores (+2 Str, +2 Dex, +4 Con, +2 Int, +4 Wis, +8 Cha, total +22, +4 natural armor), the regular DR 5/cold iron, a bite with a blood drain similar to a vampire's that you will probably never use, and above all some decent-to-good SLAs. Notably (and honestly, almost exclusively), at-will Fog Cloud and Suggestion. I'm sorry glaistig, but you don't really compare to a dryad. But the ability scores make her probably slightly better than a satyr. 4 RHD, DLA-1

Too bad we won't ever see Beguiling Song in the hands of PCs. Or, well, not unless you play a Harpy. But next time, we'll go in the opposite direction from the mouth and instead delve deeper into these goat legs with the Goatfolk!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Ibixians (keep reading, there's more below)

Yes, Ibixians. Because "goatfolk" is a derogatory slang term with roots in the conscription-based oppression of minotaur-like people. Honestly it was that or "horny people, no, not satyrs".

Ibixians are designed as customizable NPC mercenaries, with basically no ability of their own and ability scores only slightly higher than a regular humanoid race, but 3 RHD. That way, you can use them as-is as low-level bosses or in number as mooks, but also give them any class level you want and make a nice PC-like opponent in a dedicated campaign. Of course, this design decision makes them woefully inadapted to PC play as they are.

-Medium size, 3 Monstrous Humanoid RHD, +4 Str, +2 Con, –2 Int, –2 Wis, +2 NA, MWP (greataxe).
- That's all folks!

Creatures whose abilities can be summarized on a single line are rare, and that doesn't bode well for their viability (if you forget about the +2 on attack and damage when they are near other ibixians, which won't come up except with Leadership). Definitely stronger than most humanoid races, it's basically a water orc with 2 natural armor and no light sensitivity. The water orc is at the very top of the LA+0, so I guess this is at the very bottom of 1 RHD, LA+1. Sad. On the other hand, full BAB HD means it will probably hold its own at low level with DLA-1.


Welp, that was quick. And the next ones are golems? Screw it, I'm starting now.

Golems (Alchemical, Gloom, Hangman and Mud)

As always, MMIII tries to reuse old creatures while putting a new spin on them. Today, golems! But not simple golems, noooooo! Golems made of nonsolid matter, planar golems, and a freaking golems made of rope! They even listed golems for every main plane for us to imagine without statting them, like the Amorphion golem from Limbo which emanates wild magic trait. They're great! Well, not as PCs of course, but we can change that.


Golems are still great in melee with immunity to magic and high natural armor and DR, but low or absent Int, hard to buff due to immunity to magic, and generally bad RHD and low stats except Str. They're all Large except the Shadesteel Golem which won't appear today.

Alchemical, 22 RHD: Is that the same kind of membrane as the Conflagration Ooze? How does it not just collapse into a puddle of acid? And above all, who thought 22 RHD was a good idea !? Awful stats, with +12 Str, +2 Dex, -8 Int, -10 Cha, +16 natural armor. It has a mediocre breath weapon dealing 2 Con+5d6 in a small cone that activates everytime it is dealt 10 damage (interesting, but highly abusable by opponents with ranged attacks to damage your allies). And finally, you deal 2d6 acid with your touch. Which doesn't help you much but prevents you from wearing non-magic non-mithral armor and may make using some unprotected magic items difficult. Still, immunity to magic and the ability to fully heal with the Poison spell is extremely good. Overall slightly better than the Stone Golem (despite the worse stats), but I feel like I'd prefer playing an Iron Golem. 11 RHD, DLA-8

Gloom Golem, 8 RHD: Nice alliteration. And we have the first planar golem, made from EVIL stuff from the Wastes of Hades, with a black hole for a head and faces embedded in its skin. Really nice appearance. However, that thing has the ability to apply permanent Crushing Despair effect in a 30ft radius. No 24h-immunity, doesn't seem to go away if you get outside the radius. Yep. Your whole party will most probably get a permanent -2 to all rolls just for adventuring with you. You drain 1d6 charisma with any attack, even with weapons, which is great, especially with your free Exotic Weapon Prodiciency (Spiked Chain). And DR 10/Good is also interesting, especially since your immunity to magic has no exception. And finally, you have lowish stats and average natural armor (+8 Str, +4 Dex, -8 Int, +4 Cha, +11 NA). Really hard to rate, this one. Despair is an awful ability, but how awful is hard to say. You might have deaf party members, or necropolitans, or other people immune to mind-affecting. Or you can have nobody able to cast Good Hope and miss all rolls 10% of the time. Still, the golem isn't that bad and there were a few +0 in the original thread, so 7 RHD and DLA-1.

Hangman Golem, 18 RHD: Ah, back to normalcy (yes, a golem made of ropes is normal now), I was worried golems might end up becoming playable with that last one. This one is definitely bad. The stats are slightly better than Alchemical's, with +16 Str, +4 Dex, -8 Int, -10 Cha, +16 NA (finally, they remembered that golems are supposed to have the same Str and NA bonus. Don't expect any other golem to follow the trend). This golem really has a grappling focus, with great reach, Improved Grab, constrict and the ability to strangle (daze) creatures it grapples. Not really useful, but not that bad, especially with the ability to fully heal 1/day out of combat (I like the fluff of this ability. The golem unravels itself then knots itself back into shape. Takes 1 round per 10 damage healed). Basically a more dextrous Stone Golem, with more interesting abilities but no slow. 10 RHD, DLA-6

Mud Golem, 15 RHD: Well that's not good. +14 Str, -2 Dex, -8 Int, -10 Cha, +13 NA, only 20ft movement speed, Grease+blinded "breath weapon" (only one of these effects would be underwhelming, but both at once is actually interesting), and the ability to engulf opponents with a standard action and a grapple check. I'm not sure if I prefer this or the Clay Golem, so let's go with the same rating. 9 RHD, DLA-4


And that's half of the MM3 golems (on top of the goatfo... Ibixian, sorry)! Next time, we'll continue with the other half, and notably the Prismatic Golem, the only Incorporeal Golem (I think) of the game. Until then, feel free to tell me why my ratings are wrong!

[remetagross]

I agree with the Glaistig. Maybe some tricks involving an Acorn of Far Travel might allow a PC one to keep her Symbiosis ability? Anyway, her ability modifiers are a bit too low to warrant anything other than 4 RHDs, as you've mentioned.

The goatfolk are completely uninteresting, I'm fine with your assessment too.

I think a good trick could be used by the Alchemical Golem: maybe a Persisted Cloud of Knives to deal 10 damage to itself every round so as to spray Con damage everywhere, added to a way to cast Poison to heal itself every now and then. I've seen one in a VGC comp with a ton of soulmelds to overcome the acid-emanating issue for magic items.

The Gloom Golem is actually neat, it's rare to find golems with such a good Cha modifier, and no way to bypass its magic immunity is really nice. I'd play one in a low-powered game, I think. Beware, because the link to the Gloom Golem from the LA-adjustement thread is not good

The two other golems are fun but ultimately useless as PCs.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I agree with the Glaistig. Maybe some tricks involving an Acorn of Far Travel might allow a PC one to keep her Symbiosis ability? Anyway, her ability modifiers are a bit too low to warrant anything other than 4 RHDs, as you've mentioned.

Yeah, maybe. Acorn of Far Travel is a pretty badly written spell, and the intended effect (counting as being in a forested terrain) is way weaker than what people usually use it for (counting as being less than x feet away from something to get an extra effect). That said, Acorn of Far Travel was explicitly initially meant for dryads, and Glaistig are specifically compared to them (mostly because they dislike each other, but still, the term "similar nature" appears in MM3). You could homebrew some sort of "water flask of far travel" that would work for glaistig spellcasters to count as always being close to their bonded pool/river.

I think a good trick could be used by the Alchemical Golem: maybe a Persisted Cloud of Knives to deal 10 damage to itself every round so as to spray Con damage everywhere, added to a way to cast Poison to heal itself every now and then. I've seen one in a VGC comp with a ton of soulmelds to overcome the acid-emanating issue for magic items.

The Gloom Golem is actually neat, it's rare to find golems with such a good Cha modifier, and no way to bypass its magic immunity is really nice. I'd play one in a low-powered game, I think. Beware, because the link to the Gloom Golem from the LA-adjustement thread is not good.

I'm not sure the knives really come from "a direction" that you can control, and you might just create a cloud of poison around yourself since the knives hover above your head. Still not a bad technique, but not worth an 8th level spell (nor DMM and 6 Turn attempts, for that matter). What is a VGC competition?
Yeah, Gloom is cool, the only real problem is its Despair ability. At the level you're at, you might even be able to ask the resident wizard for an extended Trait Removal every day. Of course, since that's a touch spell, you're way better just buying a CL12 extended Trait Removal 1/day item (25960 gp, expensive but fair). That is, if you buy that a golem can lower its spell immunity the way other spell resistance work. If you don't, well, I don't really see what you can do. Maybe gag all the howling faces on your belly?

And thank you for the link, it's fixed.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Golems (Prismatic, Shadesteel and Web)

Do you like being a non-sentient machine only imprinted with the lingering moral code of a plane and the instructions left by your creator? Well, too bad! Today, we rate more golems!

Prismatic Golem, 20 RHD: This golem is very unique. First, it's one of the Planar Golems, made from gems from Elysium. But more importantly, it's the only one in the entirety of the game to be incorporeal. Its body is made from Elysian light reflected through the gems, which supposedly destroys them (since you can't reuse the gems to create other Prismatic Golems). That makes it even more invincible than other golems. Like, how do you even start? SR:No spells generally have a physical effect, which it is immune to or can simply go through. Physical attacks have to go through its 50% miss and its DR 10/evil (/Adamantine and Evil would have been even better, but /evil is already pretty good). There are a lot of creatures with natural attacks counting as evil, but it doesn't work here, since everyone touching the golem gets hit by its prismatic touch and risks getting zapped with 5d6 damage or even Insanity. And finally, even if you can damage it, you have to go through the massive +16 deflection to AC and +22 Dex of the thing. That said, apart from the 1-in-8 chance to inflict insanity with its incorporeal touch (of which it interestingly has 2 per round), the monster is very passive. You have no stats except Dex (no Str, Con or Int, +0 Wis and Cha), you have no item slot, you can't hide (you're a 10ft ball of intense light described as being visible from litterally miles away), you can't speak, you have no hand. What can you do? Well, you probably can be a good warlock. A really good warlock actually. You're not actually required to use actions to use your prismatic touch. Just... Move over someone. And you still have your standard action for Eldritch Blast, or better, for Eldritch Glaive to actually get reach. I'm not sure how to rate this, but the sheer impunity of it all makes me not want to give it less than 12 RHD. And more HD gives you almost nothing, so DLA-6. If you have a build idea, I'm looking forward to it.

Shadesteel Golem, 18 RHD: Yes, this one has its skull-shaped head at the tip of its tail, just for the sake of making its body more spindly. Reminds me weirdly of Mewtwo and its two necks. What did you expect from a golem made using metal from the Plane of Shadow? The shadesteel Golem is the only Medium golem from MM3, and is also probably the most interesting one. Your stats are pretty low (+14 Str, +6 Dex, -8 Int, +0 Wis, -4 Cha, +20 natural), but you get a fly speed (considering one of the biggest problems of golems is getting buffs, it's great), concealment in shadows, an immunity to magic with no drawback, and you are also hasted by Light effects. This might mean that you can keep a Continual Flame on you and always act as hasted, or just that people can target you with a 0th-level spell to haste you for 2d4 rounds (much worse, but probably the intended interaction). And you have a free action 40ft negative energy emanation every 1d4+1 rounds dealing 12d6 damage and breaking turning effects. That's really unique, but maybe a bit niche, except if you're adventuring with a necromancer. Still, that's a good AoE, and you can do nice things if you're continually hasted. 10 RHD, DLA-5.
Greater Shadesteel Golem, 27 RHD: Ah, yeah, advanced golems. Identical to the regular version with DR 15/Adamantine and Magic instead of 10, +10 Str, -2 Dex, +2 natural armor, and Large instead of Medium. 12 RHD, DLA-11.

Web Golem, 11 RHD: Is it really a golem? The MM3 says it's made exclusively of spider web, but it clearly has eyes, and a mouth with poisonous fangs (1d6 Str/1d6 Str). It has lower strength than the clay golem, but better dexterity, Web 3/day and the ability to automatically grapple people when they attack (basically the same ability as a mimic, but only in defense). Your DR is the regular 10/Adamantine and you somehow have Fast Healing. Not bad, but not good enough for +0. Vulnerability to fire is also quite the burden. 8 RHD, DLA-2

And that concludes our golems! See you next time for a creature that could really have been a golem itself, down to the immunity to magic, the Grisgol!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Obviously, the spider webs making up the web golem were not properly cleansed of spiders beforehand. Which makes sense; spider webs are vulnerable to most things spiders are, they're even more fragile, and spiders generally won't abandon their webs even if you ask nicely.

[Morphic tide]

Obviously, the spider webs making up the web golem were not properly cleansed of spiders beforehand. Which makes sense; spider webs are vulnerable to most things spiders are, they're even more fragile, and spiders generally won't abandon their webs even if you ask nicely.

Makes me think of a Living Construct version that's explicit about the magic making a Monstrous Spider "core". Perhaps ask for Giant Vermin, Magic Fang, and Summon Swarm.