The LA Assignment Thread XI: Better LA'd Than Never

[Debatra]

All in all, I'd like to keep creatures as close to RAW as we can in these threads. Asterisks happen, but our job is to rate the playability of monsters, not to make them playable by changing them.

Anyway, the votes so far:

Tiny
+1 - Troacctid, Blue Jay, Efrate, Remuko, Brackenlord
+2 - Beni-Kujaku, Thurbane, Tzardok, Caelestion

Small
+0/+1 - Beni-Kujaku
-0/+0 - Troacctid
+0 - Blue Jay, Efrate, Remuko, Brackenlord
+1 - Thurbane, Tzardok, Caelestion

Medium
+0 - Troacctid, Blue Jay, Thurbane, Remuko, Tzardok, Caelestion
-0 - Beni-Kujaku, Efrate, Brackenlord

Tiny pulls away with +1, Small gets a bit closer with +0, and Medium is close enough that I don't quite want to call it yet. Give it another day or so before declaring +0 if nothing changes (and that goes for the smaller ones as well).

And everyone seems to agree that Large and bigger gets -0.

[Thurbane]

I don't know anyone else, but I quite like the side banter in these threads.

I know it gets a bit OT at times, but if conversation was strictly confined to votes and current monster, the endeavour would be a bit dry for my tastes.

My 2 coppers anyway.

[Tzardok]

I think I'll agree with Thurbane: tiny +2, small +1, medium +0.

Edit: and about the banter too.

[Debatra]

"Editorializing" was a poor choice of word on my part.

[Caelestion]

I think I'll agree with Thurbane: tiny +2, small +1, medium +0.

I'll go for this too.

[Thurbane]

"Editorializing" was a poor choice of word on my part.

No worries at all.

If things get too bogged down trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to rating a particular monster, or completely shift the goals of how wee rate things, I agree that it can be counterproductive.

[Debatra]

Assassin Jelly

"What seemed to be just a wet spot on the wall is in fact a nearly transparent creature that slithers about like some great, repulsive amoeba."

Yes, that's the best I could do. It was very annoying trying to find something better, even for a joke image, and I spent way too long on it before I decided on this. Feel free to suggest your own, and I'll replace this crap the moment anyone has something better. (For those who can't see it, it's a splotch of off-white against the forum's usual plain-white.)

Size & Type: Medium Ooze
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
HD: 5
Speed: 30', Climb 30'
Ability Scores: Str +4, Dex +4, Con +10, Int +0, Wis +4, Cha -10 - Net +12, one penalty
Natural Armor: 3
Natural Weapons: One Primary Tentacle (1d6 plus paralysis)
Skill List: Climb (+8 racial), Hide (+8 racial), Listen (+8 racial), Move Silently, Spot (+8 racial), Survival (+8 racial when tracking via scent)
Body Shape: Ooze
Speech (Languages): No ("intelligent enough to speak", so can presumably understand languages, but none specified)
CR: 6
WotC LA: -
Our LA: +1

So, a non-mindless Ooze, with a CR higher than its HD to boot! Interestingly; the flavor text mentions that the Assassin Jelly attempts to communicate telepathically when necessary, but it lacks any native ability to actually do that.

"An assassin jelly's underside contains hundreds and hundreds of tiny rasping mouths." So presumably, a pearl of speech could actually work with this.

Despite not being mindless, Assassin Jellies are still immune to mind-affecting. They are also immune to electricity and sonic. Scent, 120' Tremorsense, and DR 5/- cap out an overall nice chassis for a slime. Its Blindsight goes out to 60'. (I could've sworn this was the default range for Oozes, but now I can't find that anywhere, so I'm mentioning it here.)

In addition to the racial Hide bonus, Assassin Jellies have the best version of Hide In Plain Sight - the one that just flat-out lets them hide while observed with no additional restrictions - as well as a special Camouflage ability that forces everything to make a DC 15 Spot check to be able to see them even when not hiding. This does not appear to scale with anything. It also effectively increases any Hide check it makes to 15 if it's lower, but between good Dexterity and the +8 racial bonus, that part probably won't be relevant for very long.

Combat-wise, its tentacles have Improved Grab for anything the same size or smaller than it, as well as forcing a Constitution-based Fortitude save vs 3d6 rounds of paralysis. Note that this is not a poison. (Non-RAW Note: Though the "anesthetic slime" its mouths produce might be harvestable. Something to ask your DM about perhaps.)

Starting on its next turn after establishing a grapple, an Assassin Jelly starts draining its victim's blood for 1d6 Constitution damage per round in addition to its tentacle damage (and presumably, though not specifically, more saves vs paralysis).

[danielxcutter]

You know, while the Cha penalty sucks, not having a similarly crippling penalty to Int kinda helps.

Grappling is kinda bad and being Medium doesn't help with that either, plus there aren't a whole lot of offensive abilities. RHD-based saves also don't scale particularly well, but thanks to the large Con bonus I suspect that it won't immediately fall off though.

Camouflage is probably going to get negated by any items you have on you unless they're also invisible, but with the ginormous bonuses you can get it's probably not even a major loss.

Rogue or Swordsage seems a fairly obvious pick, and since you have the really good version of HiPS you actually might able to pull off a Ninja build. I think there was that Rogue/meldshaper prestige class as well, so that could also work.



Also is it just me, or did anyone else expect this thing to have some form of Sneak Attack due to the name?

[Beni-Kujaku]

For the picture‚ I suggest one of these two:


This one has the assassin-like and the jelly-like look to it‚ plus you have the protective pads of the assassin jelly‚ but it may be misleading regarding the body shape.


And this one is clearly an ooze‚ and has the creepy mouths in the chest‚ but it seems less of an assassin to me.



For the LA‚ I'm not sure. These hiding capabilities are so incredible that they may be of help to parties up to very late‚ and a paralysis (3d6 rounds! They're basically out.) based on an ooze's constitution is very good. Then again‚ it's still an ooze‚ with all the item slots problems. Let's go with a tentative LA+1.

[Troacctid]

And this one is clearly an ooze‚ and has the creepy mouths in the chest‚ but it seems less of an assassin to me.

That's not an assassin ooze. That's an oblex. Completely different ooze.

[Beni-Kujaku]

That's not an assassin ooze. That's an oblex. Completely different ooze.

Obviously. Please excuse my mistake. I have always had difficulty discerning monsters from one another. Not too long ago‚ I mistook a dire wolf for an advanced wolf‚ and even a ghost for a specter. I am unforgivable.

[Efrate]

+1 The intelligence is very nice on an ooze, super hips with a dex bonus and +8 to all stealth and scout skills, camouflage, mind effecting plus more immunities. Definitely want some rogue or such levels, and assassins stance, but this is a very nice sneak chasis.

Item slot limitations hurt, but pretty sure RAW hips and camouflage they wouldn't be visible so should not effect anything. Any listing of feats, bonus or otherwise, or are the 2 they should have locked in?

An always on scaling SoL rider is nice as well, allowing you to just nope some encounters. Since it's hiding see invisible will not help and it conceivable you can instagib some casters since actual perception skills are not usually invested in, and mind effecting protects from other detection methods.

[liquidformat]

For the picture‚ I suggest one of these two:


This one has the assassin-like and the jelly-like look to it‚ plus you have the protective pads of the assassin jelly‚ but it may be misleading regarding the body shape.

Isn't this one actually called assassin jelly in yu-gi-oh?

On to the rating, assassin jelly is quite nasty, I could actually see someone leaning hard into grappling on this taking either psychic warrior or war mind and adding in some fist of the forest for giggles. Alternatively going hard into the stealth side seems reasonable too and with unarmed swordsage it could do both rather well. I think this is the high end of +1, it has great stats as long as you don't care about cha (note what happens if you drop to 0 cha, seems like anything that does cha damage could take this thing out really quickly), and has a lot of nasty abilities to boot.

[Tzardok]

Nah. I'm pretty sure it's called "Human Slime" or something like that.

[danielxcutter]

Specifically, it’s called Humanoid Slime.

[Thurbane]

Slithering Tracker +

• Medium Ooze.
• 5 RHD (d10 hp, medium BAB, no good saves, 2 skill points/"level").
• 30 ft move, climb 30 ft: decent move rates for an ooze.
• +3 natural AC.
• Tentacle 1d6 + paralysis.
• Constitution damage: 1d6 Con on a successful grapple check.
• Improved grab: not bad, but not great being medium.
• Paralysis: 3d6 rounds: Fort save negates. Nice save or lose.
• Blindsight 60 ft, scent, tremorsense 120 feet: nice senses, but you are effectively blind beyond 60 ft. The tremorsense helps with this quite a bit.
• Camouflage: Automatic DC 15 hide check, even if you aren't actively hiding.
• DR 5/--.
• Hide in plain sight: very nice for any stealth character.
• Immunities (electricity, sonic, and mind effects): two elemental immunities with no vulnerabilities is nice; keeping immunity to mind affecting even though you have Int is great!
• Ooze traits: blind, immune to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, stunning, critical hits and flanking; don't sleep.
• Str +4, Dex +4, Con +10, Wis +4, Cha -10: net +12. -10 to any stat is nasty, but Cha is also a fairly common dump stat.
• Small-ish skill list, but decent skills (mainly stealth and perception). +8 racial bonus to Climb, Hide, Listen, and Spot, and +8 to Survival to track by scent.

About as nonstandard body type as you can get; cannot speak (besides a cryptic reference to telepathy); they have a tentacle, but I can't imagine would be great at wielding or manipulating objects. Body slots may be all but nonexistent: ask your DM. I doubt, as a DM, I would let your "mouths" count as such for Pearl of Speech, for example. Couple of threads that may be of interest: Spellcasting Oozes / Items for Nonhumanoid Creatures.

I'm assuming you'll want something stealthy. Maybe Swordsage, and concentrate on natural attacks and grappling? Sneak Attack classes may also be good.

Another difficult one to rate. You get A LOT of good stuff - inbuilt save or lose, a bunch of immunities, inbuilt stealth abilities, nice ability mods where you're likely to want them. The cons are 5 RHD, and one of the worst body types a PC could be saddled with.

I'm voting a tentative LA +1.

[Temotei]

After much internal debate, I'll vote +1 for now.

[Blue Jay]

I like LA +1 for the assassin jelly. In addition to the stealth abilities everyone else has talked about, the assassin jelly's senses are pretty amazing: blindsight, scent and tremorsense, along with the Track feat and big racial bonuses to Listen, Spot and Survival (though I'm not sure how a blind creature uses the Spot skill). And it retains its immunity to mind-affecting effects, despite not being mindless.

The one natural attack is pretty weak, except for the rider effects. The only feats I know of for optimizing a tentacle attack are Improved Natural Attack and Extended Reach. Extended Reach + Combat Reflexes might be a good way to boost your ambush abilities (but the sit-and-wait strategy is probably not the most interesting way to play a PC). With boosts to both Str and Dex, it's easy for the assassin jelly to qualify for Multigrab and Greater Multigrab, but Medium size and the lack of any additional attacks make that route less productive. The paralysis is pretty potent, but type-based immunity to paralysis is pretty common (constructs, elementals, oozes, plants, undead and (true) dragons are all immune to paralysis).

{Edit to Add: It still bothers me a little that we chose not to go with RAW for item slots, and I keep forgetting to factor in item-slot limitations. Those are really tough on oozes. The chakra limits are also rough for oozes, because the big Con bonuses would be so nice with incarnum!

Actually, the Aberrant Limbs template we just rated would be quite useful for an ooze PC.}

[Debatra]

Seems like a solidha+1.

...Next on the list is the Astral Tasker, though I'm honestly not sure why except for the sake of absolute completeness. It's basically an Unseen Servant (even being directly compared to them in their description) made of ectoplasm. Including the utter inability to attack anything and only existing for an hour/ML.

I mean, they have full statblocks (and for various different shapes and sizes of them), so I'll do them with those details asterisked if we really want. But until that desire makes itself clear, I'm just going to skip ahead to the Bile Wrapped in Beauty.

[liquidformat]

Seems reasonable to skip Astral Tasker.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Seems like a solidha+1.

...Next on the list is the Astral Tasker, though I'm honestly not sure why except for the sake of absolute completeness. It's basically an Unseen Servant (even being directly compared to them in their description) made of ectoplasm. Including the utter inability to attack anything and only existing for an hour/ML.

I mean, they have full statblocks (and for various different shapes and sizes of them), so I'll do them with those details asterisked if we really want. But until that desire makes itself clear, I'm just going to skip ahead to the Bile Wrapped in Beauty.

Shrieker Fungus: "Finally! A worthy opponent! Our battle will be legendary!!"

I would be tempted to review them, with only the 1 hour/ML asterisked. No, seriously. This is not the first monster we've reviewed which cannot make attack rolls, and this one at least has more than decent defenses and freaking Hardness 5 on a 1 RHD creature. Granted, it can't attack at all, so even truenaming and psionics are out, but it can move! And carry things! That could make for a really interesting support character! And if there ever is another monster mash, I'd like to be able to review that. Is it worth +2 Str and Dex and -10 Wis and Cha, I don't know. But I don't think we should brush them aside that easily. At least not the 1 RHD one. The others can go in the LA -0 dumpster right away.

[Debatra]

Bile Wrapped in Beauty

(No official image, as is the norm for these. Couldn't think of a good joke, and this was the closest I could get.)

Size & Type: Medium Fey
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
HD: 8
Speed: 30'
Ability Scores: Str +4, Dex +8, Con +0, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +6 - Net +18, no penalties
Natural Armor: 4
Natural Weapons: One Primary Slam (1d4 plus 2d6 Acid)
Skill List: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Escape Artist, Intimidate, Listen, Speak Language, Spot, Survival, Use Rope
Body Shape: Humanoid
Speech (Languages): Yes (Common, plus Speak Language is always a Class Skill. The default BWiB has five ranks in the skill, giving it Dwarven, Elven, Halfling, Orc, and Sylvan.)
CR: 5
WotC LA: +3
Our LA: -0

ECL 11 for a CR 5 monster? Cute. That said, its stats greatly favor the Face over the Fist, and three of that is WotC's ridiculous LA. Let's see if that makes up the difference.

It's chasis is overall pretty good, capping off with acid immunity, fire vulnerability, and DR 5/cold iron. Anything that touches (or is touched by) it takes 2d6 acid damage. Metal weapons that damage a BWiB (specifically damage, not just hit) take 4d6 damage with no save. This is the same double-edged sword that all equipment-damaging abilities are - that's the loot you're breaking! Once per day, these creatures can earn their nickname of "Acid Spitter" by spraying a 20' cone of acid for 4d6 damage, with no listed save to avoid it. It can Improved Grab a creature up to a size category larger than it with its slam.

Finally, it can cast Mending and Reflective Disguise (detailed under the creature's stats in the above link) at will. CL and saves default to being eight and Charisma-based. Mending especially help with its clothes, which also fall apart from the acid it excretes. A set of ordinary clothes can last about a month if Mended daily, and only last a day or two otherwise. So, you know... get yourself some acid-resistant gear.

[Debatra]

Shrieker Fungus: "Finally! A worthy opponent! Our battle will be legendary!!"

I would be tempted to review them, with only the 1 hour/ML asterisked. No, seriously. This is not the first monster we've reviewed which cannot make attack rolls, and this one at least has more than decent defenses and freaking Hardness 5 on a 1 RHD creature. Granted, it can't attack at all, so even truenaming and psionics are out, but it can move! And carry things! That could make for a really interesting support character! And if there ever is another monster mash, I'd like to be able to review that. Is it worth +2 Str and Dex and -10 Wis and Cha, I don't know. But I don't think we should brush them aside that easily. At least not the 1 RHD one. The others can go in the LA -0 dumpster right away.

That is entirely reasonable. To asterisk an inability to attack would be to shove aside all the other various ways a character can be effective. And even if you use "anything that would break an Invisibility spell" as your definition of attack, you can still be a decent BFC at the very least. ("I put this Solid Fog directly in front of the enemy. It's not my fault if they run into it.")

I still want to do the BWiB first (mainly because, as you can see above, I've already typed it up), but I'm certainly open to doing the Astral Tasker.

[Troacctid]

I don't mind giving it +0. It's a little weak for 8, but only a little, and you could do a lot worse than fey HD.

[emulord]

+0 for BwiB. It doesn't seem optimized, but it would be a usable generalist fighter with a unique trait. Vow of Poverty might even be good since your gear would melt anyway, but also might be a trap option, not sure. Build would probably go for grappler for automatic acid damage and sundering, or a Chr based gish maybe. Would have to dive into source books to find good classes in that case.

Excited for the Astral tracker, that might be a very unique PC if it ends up playable.

[liquidformat]

+0 for BwiB. It doesn't seem optimized, but it would be a usable generalist fighter with a unique trait. Vow of Poverty might even be good since your gear would melt anyway, but also might be a trap option, not sure. Build would probably go for grappler for automatic acid damage and sundering, or a Chr based gish maybe. Would have to dive into source books to find good classes in that case.

Excited for the Astral tracker, that might be a very unique PC if it ends up playable.

what are you talking about this thing is a nightmare, fey get d6 and 1/2 bab, even adding in +4 str that gets you to +6 bab with 8hd in no way is this a good grappler. Grappling is a trap with this thing and VoP is also a trap. This thing doesn't have the stats or creature type to be a good grappler (seriously this should be a type of haag and be monstrous humanoid), it destroys gear (both worn and anything being used by enemies), has disguise but much worse, and a couple ok-ish skill points and list.

In no way is this a +0 it is barely better than running an expert 8, easy -0 la.

[danielxcutter]

Also, DR 5/cold iron isn't a lot - it's not nothing, and it's a bit less likely to be penetrated unless you fight either archers or enemies with the same DR a lot compared to DR/silver, but that's still not a particularly large number either.

[Troacctid]

I thought it was pretty obvious that it's a rogue type, not a fighter type. Most fey are. How does it compare against an 8th-level rogue, spellthief, or ninja? Not too badly, I'd wager.

[Remuko]

this thing seems like an easy -0 for me. CR 5 and 8HD? yeah its not +0.

[Troacctid]

Side by side comparison:

	Rogue 8	Ninja 8	BwiB
HD	d6	d6	d6
BAB	+6	+6	+4
Ability scores	+0	+0	+18
Base saves	+2/+6/+2	+2/+6/+2	+2/+6/+6
Skill points	8 + Int	6 + Int	6 + Int
Defensive abilities	Evasion, trap sense, (improved) uncanny dodge	Ki power, AC bonus, ghost step (invisible), ki dodge	DR 5, acid flesh, natural armor +4 (acid immunity/fire vulnerability cancel each other out)
Offensive abilities	Sneak attack +4d6	Sudden strike +4d6, poison use, ghost step (invisible), ghost strike	Acid flesh +2d6, slam attack, improved grab, acid spray
Other abilities	Trapfinding	Trapfinding, great leap, acrobatics +2, speed climb	Mending, reflective disguise
By taking 2 more levels of rogue or ninja, you would gain...	+1d6 sneak attack, +1 trap sense, special ability	+1d6 sudden strike, +1 ki point, improved poison use, ghost step (ethereal)	+1d6 sneak attack, trapfinding, evasion // +1d6 sudden strike, trapfinding, ki power, AC bonus, ghost step (invisible)

Who do we think wins out?

EDIT: Added another row.