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

[danielxcutter]

Aside from the lack of an actual Strength score(so no Power Attack feat tree) and not being able to get 9th-level strikes on a martial initiator, this is very, very powerful. It has multiple skills and special abilities that help it avoid the Big Dumb Fighter problem(or as I call it for monsters, the Tarrasque Syndrome), and even gets around the typical issue incorporeals have with physical combat with the Cha damage.

I'm not confident enough to grade this, but you could do far, far worse.

[loky1109]

Wow! I didn't expect something so good! LA +2 seems reasonable. Even with +2 it can achieve +27 weapon due FoP and Legacy Champ.

[H_H_F_F]

This is very good. Not having acces to power attack is unfortunate for such a martial basis...

Fiend of posession, for sure. Then what? To what obvious progression should we calibrate it?

[Beni-Kujaku]

There's really a lot here. Incorporeal is always a boon, and an incorporeal invisible creature can be terrifyingly effective in its own right, even without a weapon. You're basically invincible, you can't be targeted, or heard, or pinpointed. Your DR is also really hard to bypass, if it's really DR/bludgeoning and piercing, which means most of the time they'll have to use AoE spells to hit you, and you have +10 Dex. I'd encourage any Caligostro to take just one level of rogue (or swordsage) and Craven just for the times where it has to go back to its invisible form and sneak attack the hell out of the enemy. But even as a beatstick, it's also really good. Having Charisma apply to both AC and damage is really great (antipaladin maybe?) and up to four bonus feats is far from negligible. Plus, it's an Outsider, which is basically a better fighter in and of itself. My gut tells me +3, so that's what I'm going for, but maybe it's too high and +2 would be better.


Edit: I don't think Fiend of Possession would work here. Since FoP makes you "part of the weapon", you wouldn't be able to manifest a Fiendish Shade without losing your FoP bonus, and the other way around, I don't think animating a weapon counts as having someone wield it, so if you're using FoP you wouldn't be able to activate Fiendish Shade.

Edit 2: Also the art is really great! I love the colors used. I'm not sure if this is its original form or just the Fiendish Shade of an erynie, an angel or a succubus, but anyway I love it.

[danielxcutter]

Wouldn't Crusader be viable? High Charisma, and high Dex to take advantage of Thicket of Blades.

[loky1109]

Actually, there are some methods to take Power Attack being incorporeal.

[danielxcutter]

Do any of them work with this?

[loky1109]

Do any of them work with this?

Yes.
First: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsing...&postcount=105
There is some soulmeld that doing the same thing. Online, if I remember correctly.

[danielxcutter]

Nice. That helps a lot.

[remetagross]

This monster is a complicated mess...but its certainly very powerful. Immune/resistant to a million things, complete incorporeality and invisibility, no Str score, a big Con modifer and added uses for Dex and Cha make it very not MAD.

Funny idea: have the party Monk take Versatile Unarmed Strike so that its unarmed attacks can count as slashing. Note that a Monk's entire body is then a slashing weapon. A helpless, sleeping or paralysed monk could be considered "unattended". Fun ensues when the monk's unarmed strikes are Wounding, Keen and Vorpal.

Have the Monk hit, I don't know, a Kraken with its Improved Grab ability (so it can "wield" the Monk) and voilà, you have a fiend shape of a Kraken clubbing foes around with your fellow Monk PC as a weapon. Having "Weapon focus (Monk)" as a bonus feat is hilarious to me.

Another oddity: by RAW, it's only when possessing a sword, and no other slashing weapon, that the Caligrosto is "immobile and cannot take atack actions". Possess a greataxe and you're good to go. Including making these Str-draining touch attacks (maybe you ready an action to set that off once your wielder connects with a hit?)

More serious note: this guy can go Ardent with Practised Manifester, let himself be the weapon of choice of a fellow PC and spam psionic powers from inside.

LA+2 seems too little to me. I'm going to go with LA +4, so that a Goliath Crusader has Aura of Perfect Order at the same moment, and the same to-hit bonus at the same moment.

[H_H_F_F]

Note that a Monk's entire body is then a slashing weapon.

Disagreed. That's often repeated, but never sourced. A monk can make an unarmed strike with any appendage, but no rule ever says their entire body is considered a weapon.

You can find my judgement for the Shining Blade of Heironeous in my extended sig, my judgement of the entry "Wint" goes into that more significantly.

[remetagross]

Too bad, but then it gets even better: you can possess, say, the Monk's leg, which then comes off when you wrench control of the weapon!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Too bad, but then it gets even better: you can possess, say, the Monk's leg, which then comes off when you wrench control of the weapon!

Sadly, I'm pretty sure a leg is never unattended. Or, well, at least not a leg that can be affected by VUS. And if we're going by pure RAW, the caligrosto can only make the weapon "fly out of [the creature's] hands". The leg is not in the monk's hands, so the caligrosto cannot make it fly away.

[Tzardok]

This discussion is getting out of hand, despite one of the parties not having a leg to stand on.

[remetagross]

Hmmm...

Have a friendly PC with the Detach feat (say, because Troll-blooded granted it regeneration?) and a claw natural attack on a paw (maybe because of a soulmeld or something) throw away his hand. Now that is unattended and you can possess. And then the PC reattaches the hand. Which would allow your ally to throw his arm again at range at a foe, which would then count as an attack for you to manifest a shade of that foe...I don't know that that's a particularly effective trick whatsoever, but it's a neat one.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Sadly, I'm pretty sure a leg is never unattended. Or, well, at least not a leg that can be affected by VUS.

Would a dead monk's body still count? Probably not, since it would lose class features, but what about the body of a monk that is astral projecting?

And if we're going by pure RAW, the caligrosto can only make the weapon "fly out of [the creature's] hands". The leg is not in the monk's hands, so the caligrosto cannot make it fly away.

This one's a way easier fix. Just possess a finger, thumb, or palm.

[Tzardok]

I gotta hand it to you. You are really determined to thumb your nose at realism. I think any monk you tried to convince of this would leg it.

[H_H_F_F]

Guys, let's get back the topic at hand...

[Beni-Kujaku]

I agree, let's not get side-tracked because dismember of the forum had an original idea. Such chaotic discussions belong in Limb-o, not in here.

[Debatra]

Yes. As hilarious as this is, let's get back to the main "body" of discussion.

Having "Weapon focus (Monk)" as a bonus feat is hilarious to me.

That said, this is going to the archive quotes if you don't object.

---

Oh, and I forgot to specifically mention it before, but the Caligrosto is also explicitly considered proficient with any weapon it possesses. I've added that to the main post.

[remetagross]

Please do

In the meantime, I'm standing by my LA+4, this thing is too unkillable and has too many options to not to be an almost auto-pick at ECL 10 (compared to a beatstick anyway).

[Remuko]

Idk what to rate this. Its CR is lower than its HD which is almost always an easy -0. I do not think this is a -0. I also think anything over +2 is way too high too. +0? +1? +2? I have no idea this thing really has me stumped.

[ciopo]

The abilities modifiers alone are an easy +2, it does have racial features that I'd happily dip to take and outsider HD are far from weak.
+2 or more in my opinion, but I'm leaning toward +2 because then it could be RHD8/LA2/prc10 and that's the kind of simplicity I like. It's a strong chassis

[loky1109]

Too bad, but then it gets even better: you can possess, say, the Monk's leg, which then comes off when you wrench control of the weapon!

Not monk's leg, but monk's unarmed strike. Sense difference. )

Sadly, I'm pretty sure a leg is never unattended.

Monk Kensai with Throwing and Ghost Touch Enchs throw his unarmed strike and Caligrosto snatchs it via Snatch Arrow feat.

But it's seriously topic for separate thread. Sorry.

[Debatra]

The Votes so far:

+4 - remetagross
+3 - Beni-Kujaku
+2 - Morphic tide, loky1109, ciopo, Thurbane, liquidformat

Not going to call it just yet.

[Thurbane]

Don't have time for detailed breakdown, but I'd eyeball it as strong +2, or weak +3. I'll vote +2 in this case.

[liquidformat]

So first off DR/piercing and Bludgeoning is actually pretty easily overcome, morningstars a simple weapon and bite attacks both overcome the DR and are both commonly found in fights. With that said I think those are also the only two choices to overcome the DR.

I have been milling over what to rate this thing. I strongly disagree with the notion that the ability scores are enough to justify 2 LA; ability scores are a sliding scale that fall off in importance with level and 8-10 is where we start to see them really drop off when things like wild shape and polymorph really start to come into their own. Granted a large portion of these are mental abilities; however, this thing has 8rhd so that really drops off the significance of mental ability scores. To be frank if we cut everything else off this character and just had its ability scores and incorporeality I think this thing would just be sitting at +0. The immunities are really the first thing that boosts the Caligrosto enough to justify LA. With incorporeality, invisibility, the ability scores, and immunities this thing is a strong +1 LA. While the bonus feats and weapon abilities are nice they are not enough to justify increasing the LA especially since they don't all come online at ecl 8 and comically the more LA you tack on to Caligrosto the less valuable these feats and weapon abilities are. The only other benefit blade possession gives the fiend is really the ability to hide from pretty much any detection. On the down side besides a slashing weapon that Caligrosto will be focusing, equipment and interacting with things is a headache for this monster. The Fiendish shade if I am understanding correctly only provides two benefits, a bonus to attack and that the creature you look like is damaged by the damage that is reduced by the DR and DR is also dependent on being on having Fiendish shade active. With that in mind the fiendish shade ability is quite flavorful and could be useful to do some extra damage to a specific target but isn't that powerful of an ability. Over all Caligrosto feels to me like a strong +1 or a weak +2; I can get behind +2 LA so I will go with that since no one else has voice +1.

I believe Fiend of Possession is a waste of time, you already have very similar abilities that don't play well with the FoP abilities. Ardent, Crusader, Psychic Warrior, and Swordsage all seem like good choices, I actually rather like the thought of Caligrosto/swordsage/warmind; it seems like a pretty good mix of the two paths. For the most part there are really two paths that you would go down with Caligrosto; either martial beatstick or operating as an intelligent weapon. Personally I think the intelligent weapon path is actually a very bad choice and a waste of time. When you are in that form you are scrapping half of your build with little to show for it. Personally I think this is better left to a different monster build like the one recently presented in a different thread.

[Debatra]

And the Caligrosto clocks in at +2. Next up is the Laghathti.

[Debatra]

Demon, Laghathti

Size & Type: Large Outsider (Aquatic, Chaotic, Evil, Extraplanar, Obyrith)
Space/Reach: 10'/5'
HD: 12, 19 (Huge), 25 (Gargantuan)
Speed: 20', Swim 50'
Ability Scores: Str +10, Dex +2, Con +12, Int -6, Wis +4, Cha +2 - Net +24, one penalty
Natural Armor: 14
Natural Weapons: Five Primary Tentacles (1d6 plus Mindwipe), two Secondary Bites (1d8 plus Mindwipe)
Skill List: Climb, Escape Artist, Move Silently, Search, Spot, Swim
Body Shape: Mass of tentacles with a central "knot" in the middle
Speech (Languages): Yes... somehow. (Abyssal)
CR: 10
WotC LA: -
Our LA: +1

So this thing has fast healing 5 and DR 10/Cold Iron or Lawful. It's immune to mind-affecting and poison; with resistance 10 to acid, cold, electricity, and fire. Spell Resistance 21 is still respectable at this level, if not amazing. Though Aquatic, they are also Amphibious. They can Improved Grab creatures of any size and constrict for 1d6. They even have Pounce and at-will Modify Memory. As an Obyrith, the Laghathti should have telepathy, but there is no range listed and no apparent default for the subtype.

Oh yeah, they also have All-Around Vision (she breathes sees through her skin) and permanent True Seeing.

Any creature within 60' that sees a Laghathti has to make a Charisma-based Will save or gain 2d4 negative levels from its Form of Madness. Unlike most negative levels, these are not in any way due to negative energy (though no mention is made of that leading to normally-immune creatures being vulnerable, you may be able to talk to your DM about that), but through wiping the victim's mind. These negative levels stay until cured, but never result in actual level loss. This ability also includes the standard-issue 24-hour immunity clause on a successful save.

The Laghathti's Mindwipe ability adds a single negative level that works the same as those inflicted by Form of Madness (including the save to avoid them, but not the 24-hour immunity) to each of its natural attacks.

[Tzardok]

Speech (Languages): Yes... somehow. (Abyssal)

I do not see the problem. This thing has too many mouths, not too few.