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

[emulord]

Would be so cool and worth a +0* if it had any of - Full sneak attack bonus, indefinite impersonation, impersonating anyone who has died recently, or gaining special abilities of those it impersonates. As is, it doesn't do its main schtick well. -0*

[Morphic tide]

+12 AC puts it in good company for survivability. Completing this, you could go Sorc 3+Unarmed Swordsage 1+Ascetic Mage for Charimsa to AC, followed by some hideously complicated splicing to fit a Charisma to saves. Or even just go Blackguard of all things and enjoy laughing at the exceedingly vast majority of things vaguely approaching level-appropriate long after your SR is pointless.

The big problem here is figuring out where the heck you're getting damage, which seems to be very specifically constrained to Natural Attack+TWF, somehow, or doing some extremely weird things with low-level Sorcerer spells. Whirling Blade might be a workable example, which is a 2nd-level spell turning a melee weapon into a 60 ft. line that acts as a melee attack in all ways save spellcasting ability to attack and damage, meaning it carries with it Sneak Attack and weapon enhancements. Passable scaling potential.

I'm thinking the overall best bet is Swordsage 1 for 6 Maneuvers of up to 4th level, then Paladin of Slaughter 2 for Charisma to AC and a bit of extra health, then continue Swordsage with 5th-level Maneuvers at ECL 16 and capping at 7th-level for 20. This is for the very specific reason of Tiger Claw + Shadow Hand + Desert Wind, or Attack Volume + Sneak Attack/Con damage + per-hit Fire damage, and you lost only a single IL from the Paladin dip for Cha to AC. Landing a Hand of Death would let you Full Attack with 6d6 Sneak Attack hits, Dancing Mongoose can be triggered to same-round two attacks...

For Swordsage 1, the bluntest force damage I can easily find is Searing Blade+Assassin's Stance+Two-Weapon Fighting, giving you 8d6+7 to each of two attacks at -2, totaling +16d6+14, while a Swordsage 13 in the same vein can do Inferno Blade+Assassin's Stance+Greater Two-Weapon Fighting for 5d6+13 on six attacks, totaling 30d6+75 bonus damage. And the Swordsage has +4 BAB over you, though you almost certainly have +3 Dex bonus if you're both using Weapon Finesse for ability-score-focusing reasons.

Quite far behind on damage, so at Swordsage 3 with ECL 15, setting the Paladin dip back to online your damage, you get 5th-level Maneuvers, while the normal Swordsage has 8ths. This lets you do Dancing Mongoose+Assassin's Stance+Improved Two Weapon Fighting for four attacks at -2 and two attacks at -7, each getting +6d6 damage, for a total of +36d6. The regular Swordsage seems to be best off just sticking with Inferno Blade, increasing to +90 IL-based bonus damage, unless there is some truly astonishing item qualities on their weapons to outweigh the Inferno Blade damage with the four attacks of Raging Mongoose.

This seems to be able to online useful damage via Initiating thanks to the Sneak Attack dice combining well with Tiger Claw with normal frontloading sizes, so I'll give a tentative LA +0* as the functional immortality isn't mutually exclusive with enough offensive ability to matter, even if Charisma to saves is essentially your capstone.

[Troacctid]

I mean, given that these are outsider hit dice, it could be a lot worse. Outsider RHD are basically T5 on their own. Other than that, though, it's really just some numbers and like one-and-a-half good SLAs. I think that would put it pretty close to true dragons with comparable HD just at the baseline, but then it also has numbers that are just better than most true dragons? So, I don't think +0* is as crazy as it sounds here. It wouldn't be too hard to construct a racial class for it that lands in the T4 range, IMO.

[Debatra]

Except they aren't Outsider HD. They're still Undead.

[danielxcutter]

Twelve undead HD. Ew.

Yeah, LA -0.

[liquidformat]

I mean, given that these are outsider hit dice, it could be a lot worse. Outsider RHD are basically T5 on their own. Other than that, though, it's really just some numbers and like one-and-a-half good SLAs. I think that would put it pretty close to true dragons with comparable HD just at the baseline, but then it also has numbers that are just better than most true dragons? So, I don't think +0* is as crazy as it sounds here. It wouldn't be too hard to construct a racial class for it that lands in the T4 range, IMO.

If this had outsider hd progression I would agree with you but it doesn't it has undead hd and having +6 bab on 12hd for a monster that is mostly meant for melee is hard to swallow. Easy -0*, this is a very cool monster and could be good but as is is a far cry from playable.

[NotInventedHere]

The Visage is, like many undead, an interesting concept let down by 1) how bad undead HD are, 2) how the designers compensated for this by piling them on way above the creature's CR. (Incidentally, this is an advantage of Pathfinder's system of 'use CR as ECL'; the Visage looks a lot more reasonable at ECL 9 than at ECL 12.) +4d6 sneak attack damage is 5 levels behind a standard Rogue; the Dex and Charisma bonuses are nice, as is the focused (Su) Major Image effect, which could be used to, e.g., convince one person that their friend is being attacked by a monster, and also that their friend is 5ft over from where they actually are and the monster is where their friend actually is. But the 12 undead RHD weigh it all down too much.

-0*.

[GreatWyrmGold]

First thing's first as usual when it comes up: Uncapped Spawn Ability. Any Evil Outsider the Visage kills becomes a Visage under the control of its killer after 24 hours. Asterisk and move on.

Part of me wants to go through all the undead with uncapped spawn abilities and make a tier list for them.

The Visage is a neat plot device, but limited in some key ways (notably the duration of Assume Identity) and most of what it does can be accomplished with mid- to low-level spells. Probably the most unique thing it can do better than a wizard is induce paranoia via powerful illusions only one person can see, and that's super situational. -0*

The Visage is, like many undead, an interesting concept let down by 1) how bad undead HD are, 2) how the designers compensated for this by piling them on way above the creature's CR.

...which I assume they did to avoid making undead too easily defeated by Turn Undead, which makes me think they probably should have just redesigned that ability, but what do I know.

[Beni-Kujaku]

...which I assume they did to avoid making undead too easily defeated by Turn Undead, which makes me think they probably should have just redesigned that ability, but what do I know.

Also to reduce the power of Animate Dead. If Undead HD were as valuable as other types, then you could have really strong servants kind of early on, just by fighting level-appropriate encounters.

[danielxcutter]

I'm pretty sure it was part of their crusade to keep monster-based abilities out of the hands of PCs, which is stupid and badly done. At least 5e isn't as much of a hack about that.

[Thurbane]

If this had outsider hd progression I would agree with you but it doesn't it has undead hd and having +6 bab on 12hd for a monster that is mostly meant for melee is hard to swallow. Easy -0*, this is a very cool monster and could be good but as is is a far cry from playable.

I must admit, I do really like the concept of the Visage - I hadn't really read their entry before, but I would like to use one in a game I DM at some point.

I can see having a lot of fun with it stalking the party from a hidden position, using illusions to create confusion and paranoia, and potentially dominating one of the party to throw a cat among the pigeons.

If it killed and NPC or someone they knew, it could even use the illusions in plain sight. AFAIK Supernatural abilities don't have an obvious "tell" when you're using them, do they (unless someone in the party has Supernatural Instincts or Supernatural Opportunist, which somehow lets you AoO Su abilities, so presumably you know when they are happening)?

As someone pointed out, though, the limited duration of the impersonation hampers its use in a plot.

If I were to swap out feats for use as a monster encounter, I'd maybe try to get Dark Stalker in there, but definitely Jack of All Trades. Now when you get those skill rank boosts, you can use the untrained skills (if for some unknown reason I was playing one of these, Jack of All Trades would be on my feat list for sure). Obviously Improved Natural Attack for an average of an extra 1 point of damage per claw could be removed with virtually no impact.

Sadly though, even as an encounter, there are plenty of monsters out there that do better at the role of impersonating their victims.

And I still can't get my head around their "ecological" role in the Abyss. Do they impersonate the Demons they've killed? If yes, why - to blend in and not get attacked? Why is their SR so low for their HD/CR on a plane where most creatures have SLAs? Why do they have Dominate Person - how many Humanoids are roaming around the Abyss at any given time? How many positive energy attacks are they encountering on the Abyss that they developed an immunity?

I know their fluff is they were created by Orcus while he was doing his stint as Tenebrous, but how much does that actually explain...

[Beni-Kujaku]

And I still can't get my head around their "ecological" role in the Abyss. Do they impersonate the Demons they've killed? If yes, why - to blend in and not get attacked? Why is their SR so low for their HD/CR on a plane where most creatures have SLAs? Why do they have Dominate Person - how many Humanoids are roaming around the Abyss at any given time? How many positive energy attacks are they encountering on the Abyss that they developed an immunity?

I know their fluff is they were created by Orcus while he was doing his stint as Tenebrous, but how much does that actually explain...

They do impersonate the demons they killed. In fact, as the corpse turns into a visage itself, it's almost as if "killing a demon" is the same as "making it come to their side". They are not supposed to fight anybody in the first place. They are supposed to be spies and relay back their information to their progenitor, by just taking on some dretch and impersonating it. With their multiplication ability, one visage can kill a dozen dretches and impersonate one of them to blend in for one day, then the next day it has ten visages under its command. Each one kills a larva or something and they can roam the opposing base unsuspiciously. If they have to be bigger to get in touch with higher-ups, then they can just "report for duty" to some glabrezu or so, and sneak attack it all at once, while Lucidity Controlling of any witness. The one that deals the finishing blow transforms into the guy (and since it has all its skills, it is arguable that it has some of its memories as well, so there really is no way to distinguish them), so there is no evidence that the murder ever happened (you know, except the body, but that's pretty easy to hide when you have illusion magic).

About the "for PC" abilities, the Turn resistance, Positive immunity and Dominate Person, you have to remember that Visages were created by Tenebrous almost immediately after his rebirth. At the time, Tenebrous didn't only want to regain his throne in the Abyss, but mostly to regain divinity. And the best servants and worshippers are always mortals, especially foolish humanoids. At that point, he had had I think 4 children with humans, founded 2 dynasties on the Prime Material Realm, and wanted nothing more than revenge on Kiaransalee, who was a goddess of the drows. It is really no surprise that a lot of their abilities can deal with Humanoids, since they were never meant to remain in the Abyss (Tenebrous had taken a hold of the Yggdrasil and could travel the Planes at will, and bring visages with him), and were created to gather as much information as possible on Kiaransalee, both in the layer of the Abyss she stole from Orcus and in the Material Realm, where most of her followers dwell.

[Debatra]

And we have a fairly unsurprising -0. Void Wraith is up next.

[danielxcutter]

I have a feeling this one won't be much surprising either.

[Debatra]

Void Wraith

Size & Type: Medium Undead (Air, Incorporeal)
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
HD: 6
Speed: Fly 60' (Perfect)
Ability Scores: Str - (errata'd from +2), Dex +10, Con -, Int -2, Wis +2, Cha +4 - Net +14, one penalty
Natural Armor: N/A (errata'd from 5)
Natural Weapons: One Primary Touch (1d4 plus 1d2 Con Drain)
Skill List: Hide (+4 Racial), Listen, Spot
Body Shape: Mist
Speech (Languages): Yes (Auran)
CR: 6
WotC LA: -
Our LA: -0

Yet another undead elemental that becomes the antithesis of its element. Like its earlier-discussed bretheren, a creature capable of turning both Undead and Air creatures gets a +2 on their turning checks against these guys.

The spaces adjacent to a Void Wraith are a vacuum, forcing any creatures in those spaces to hold their breath to avoid suffocation. (Weird RAW: This does not include the space the Void Wraith occupies. I guess the air is being pulled into its space?) This also makes its Steal Breath ability a bit more relevant. A little. Living creatures hit by its touch must make a Charisma-based Fortitude save or take 1d2 points of Con drain. If it drains something's Con, it gains five temporary HP that last up to an hour. This is also how it satisfies its Inescapable Craving for Constitution.

If a creature is holding their breath when they fail the save, the number of rounds they can safely do so is reduced by two per point of drained Con. Since this is part of the ability and not otherwise noted, I'm going to be generous and assume this is on top of the reduction that would already happen from reduced Constitution. This can explicitly force an immediate suffocation check.

---

An interesting concept to be sure, but there are much faster ways to kill something than by suffocation even if the enemy were made to stand still long enough to worry about it. It's easy enough to get away for a quick breath of air even if you're actively engaging the thing in melee.

[danielxcutter]

I have a feeling a puff of undead gas isn't going to have any body slots. Heck, without a head they may not be able to use ioun stones.

[Beni-Kujaku]

This is pure awesome, and it can theoretically shut down any spellcaster by forcing them to not speak, but if you can stay long enough near someone that they start suffocating, then you could have killed them several times over. Plus they can just walk away. You're not colossal, they just have to take a 5ft step to be able to breath again. Plus they have a Fort save to avoid the Con drain. And you can't wield weapons. And Steal Breath specifically doesn't work with anything else than your touch attack (so some sort of Monk voidwraith doesn't work). And you have no item slot. And you have no real ability except Airless Aura and Steal Breath.

On the plus side, very good AC errata'd, perfect flying and intangibility. Yeah, that's not going to save it. LA-0

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Fun Fact: Incorporeal creatures and corporeal ones can share space; even if trapped in a small room with one of these guys, you're a successful touch attack (made as part of your move no less) away from being able to enter its space and breath freely for a turn. An extremely generous DM might at least say that sharing space with one counts as getting hit by its touch attack.

Actually, as part of a party, you could just have a party member be standing inside you so the space is already filled; ideally a bruiser type so enemies can't easily grapple them and they benefit from adjacent foes being inconvenienced.

-0.

[Efrate]

-0 A whole lot of neat but largely useless abilities. Incoporeal and con damage is nice, but its minor and save negates. The things that will not be able to deal with you will always pass the save, and those that might fail have a ton a tools to wreck you. Lack of slots, no clear advancement.

[Remuko]

Seems like another -0 to me

[danielxcutter]

I suppose a boss encounter could be a warforged gish standing in the middle of their void wraith minion or something?

[liquidformat]

Fun Fact: Incorporeal creatures and corporeal ones can share space; even if trapped in a small room with one of these guys, you're a successful touch attack (made as part of your move no less) away from being able to enter its space and breath freely for a turn. An extremely generous DM might at least say that sharing space with one counts as getting hit by its touch attack.

Actually, as part of a party, you could just have a party member be standing inside you so the space is already filled; ideally a bruiser type so enemies can't easily grapple them and they benefit from adjacent foes being inconvenienced.

-0.

I think it would have to be a very extremely generous DM to have that reading. Most even if they did let you breath inside of the Void Wraith would most likely rule you only have a limited supply of air to breath. But I think the vast majority would just say you can't breath inside of it at all.

Either way void is a pretty weak race for pcs, easy -0 LA.

Looking ahead we only have one left in LM and it looks like another solid -0...

[H_H_F_F]

I agree with LA -0

These guys are pretty good against low CR, but they have nowhere to go - and with a rapidly stagnating tool kit, their undead HD is a very hard sell.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Looking ahead we only have one left in LM and it looks like another solid -0...

I'm not sure about the wheep being -0. That's a lot of Strength and some very high AC‚ without even counting PC stats. Plus unholy grace‚ and an automatic Save or Lose if enemies fail 2 saves... I don't know if it's worth 9 RHD but I would ser it be a pretty good Paladin of Tyanny or Ruby Knight Vindicator.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I must admit, I do really like the concept of the Visage - I hadn't really read their entry before, but I would like to use one in a game I DM at some point.

[...]

As someone pointed out, though, the limited duration of the impersonation hampers its use in a plot.

[...]

And I still can't get my head around their "ecological" role in the Abyss. Do they impersonate the Demons they've killed? If yes, why - to blend in and not get attacked? Why is their SR so low for their HD/CR on a plane where most creatures have SLAs? Why do they have Dominate Person - how many Humanoids are roaming around the Abyss at any given time? How many positive energy attacks are they encountering on the Abyss that they developed an immunity?

Visages are one of those monsters who have some really interesting concepts at work, but if you want to get the most out of them, you need to ignore the mechanical details of their abilities.

I imagine them as somewhere between vampires and doppelgangers, but for demons. They consume demons and take their place in society to avoid detection between feedings.

I suppose a boss encounter could be a warforged gish standing in the middle of their void wraith minion or something?

Or, less esoterically, a lich gish. (Gich? Lish? Glish?) An arch-necromancer that shrouds itself in the specter of an elder air elemental that sucks the breath out of anyone who gets too close sounds like a really cool boss! If Steal Breath was a bit more...I dunno...AoE-ey?

[Tzardok]

There has to be a Widen Supernatural Ability feat somewhere in those dozens of 3rd party books, don't you think?

[ciopo]

Tome of magic has the "meta-SU" feats, iirc

[Thurbane]

Tome of magic has the "meta-SU" feats, iirc

Correct: Empower Supernatural Ability, Enlarge Supernatural Ability, Extend Supernatural Ability and Widen Supernatural Ability. Each only work 1/day, though. You can take them multiple times each, but that's a massive drain on your feats.

VOID WRAITH

• Medium Undead (Air, Incorporeal)
• 6 RHD (d12 hp, poor BAB, one good save, 4 skill points/"level")
• Cha bonus as deflection to AC; standard for incorporeals. I got excited when I read natural AC, as incorporeals normally don't have this, but then I saw it was errata'd away.
• Fly 60 ft perfect.
• Incorporeal touch 1d4 + 1d2 con drain
• Steal breath: for save on a hit or 1d2 Con drain; at first I thought this was in addition to the con drain mentioned under attacks, but I think it's just worded weirdly (incoporeal touch 1d4 + steal breath would have been clearer)? In fact, this whole ability is worded weirdly. Does holding your breath make you immune to the Con drain? OK, I think I get it now, this is how it relates to the Airless Aura forcing someone to hold their breath.
• Airless aura: hold your breath or suffocate. FWIW, as a DM I would 100% rule that being in the creature's square counts as being adjacent, since you are adjacent to the exterior of the creature. YMMV.
• Darkvision 60 ft.
• Elemental turning vulnerability: a small number of opponents get a +2 bonus to turn you.
• Incorporeal traits.
• Inescapable craving: Con drain, naturally.
• Undead traits.
• Str -- (thanks errata) Dex +10, Con --, Int -2, Wis +2, Cha +4
• Very small racial skill list, but at least they are useful skills. +4 racial bonus to hide.

No body shape to speak of: you are an incorporeal cloud. Expect significant issues with gear and manipulating objects. You can speak, which is a small mercy.

The editing of this thing is a hot mess. Two significant issues that required errata, and two abilities that could have been much more clearly written and defined.

Class progression? I dunno, Swordsage? Crusader? There's always the go-to option for monsters that don't have a whole lot going for them: Ur-Priest.

I can't even envisage this thing making a particularly interesting encounter. LA -0. Drop 3 or so HD, and it might become a little more difficult to call.

[Debatra]

Yet another -0? What a surprise. Wheep is coming up.

[danielxcutter]

I imagine a lot of people are going to be Wheeping when they see the statblock.