Monster Mash II: Scary Monsters!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Hello everybody, playdies and gentlegrounders, and all that technicolor rainbow in-between!

I am officially restarting the Monster Mash competition!

This competition, based on the LA-assignment thread to allow optimizers to cook a much wider variety of ingredients, had quite a bit of success and there were many people who wanted another round. However, GreatWyrmGold, the instigator of the competition, disappeared from the forum a few months ago. I couldn't reach him by PM, and he seems to be permanently or semi-permanently off the forum (he's fine, I've seen him on other websites).

This is why I'm taking over for a new round of MONSTER MASH!! Hope you'll enjoy, and make impressive characters!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Monster Mash #2

This competition is for monstrous adventurers, in part to experiment with the possibilities they offer and in part to make use of the revised level adjustments which Inevitability and Debatra have spent five years assigning.
Adventurers designed for this contest must be of a monstrous race. For the purpose of this contest, “monstrous race” excludes all races designed for PC use, unless their level adjustment has been increased by one or more templates.
“Monstrous race” is a somewhat vague category, by necessity. No simple set of rules can exclude every single PC race without also excluding some genuine monsters. Entries which flout this rule with borderline-monstrous races risk a penalty to their Monstrosity score.

For the purpose of this competition, all races use the modified level adjustments listed in the LA Assignment Archive. Races with a -0 level adjustment are treated as if they had a +0 level adjustment. Monsters not rated at the time an entry is submitted may not be used.
Some races' level adjustments include asterisks. These monsters have traits which render them unsuitable for PC use, such as a wight’s spawn creation, a dryad’s tree dependency, or a genie’s wishes; check the linked posts in the archive. For the purpose of this contest, those races do not possess those traits. In cases where it's unclear which traits are removed, please contact the chair for clarification.

Round Theme: Scary Monsters!

One of the first issues when playing a monster is how the NPCs will look at you. You can choose to overcome that instinctive fear to make friends, or you can embrace your nature and spread fear around you. Guess what we're doing today!
(I really liked the idea that was suggested last round to have odd-numbered rounds be pretty vague and open-ended and even-numbered rounds to be more focused and specific. However, it's been a while since the first round, and I feel letting people have more choice, especially with the MMVI currently in review, would lead to more varied entries. We'll have a really focused round for round 4, if we reach this number.)

• The monster race (or template) must have a racial ability to spread fear, be it with SLAs, (Ex) or (Su) abilities.
• Only having Intimidate on your skill list isn't enough to qualify, but Frightful Presence is (you'll be noted on how well you utilize that ability in your build).
• "Spreading fear" here describes the ability to render one or several enemies shaken, terrified or panicked with your abilities.

Contestants
You will need to present a full build for your entry, from its first level to level 20. Also required is a rundown of how your build works at lower levels, to demonstrate that it is a functional character that could be played in a real game.
Traditionally participants in similar competitions give "snapshots" of tactics and abilities at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. Depending on the monstrous race chosen, your character may be unavailable at lower levels; in that case, instead give snapshots at various levels where it is playable. These snapshots should be roughly evenly distributed among what levels it is available at.

Spoiler: Sources and General Rules

Show

32 point-buy is the presumed creation method.
If you do use a different point-buy, please make your case for its necessity in your entry. Keep in mind that for using exceptionally large or small point-buys may warrant deductions in elegance and/or power.
If the monster you're cooking with has no intelligence, or an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, consider the intelligence as 3 (-8 racial modifier). It still retains any immunity to mind-affecting abilities it may have.

Competitors will be free to use any official 1st party (WotC) 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon Compendium is allowed, but Dragon magazine is disallowed. Unearthed Arcana is allowed. Unupdated 3.0 materials, as well as web exclusives by WotC are expressly allowed, but take care to verify that an updated version did not appear in print elsewhere, as this may cause an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion.
Official Errata and 3.5 updates to 3.0 content are considered valid regardless of whether their sources would otherwise be legal. This includes the 3.5 update of Oriental Adventures given in Dragon Magazine, and the 3.5 updates of Dragonlance Campaign Setting content given in later third party Dragonlance books.
Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt or Generic Classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Item Familiars and Taint are also banned from the competition.

Specific bans:

Any material that grants you leadership without you specifically taking it should be ignored and may not be traded away for another feat or ACF. Any variant of Leadership, such as Undead Leadership and Dragon Cohort are likewise banned. Wild Cohort and Obtain Familiar are allowed. If you are not sure if a specific feat violates the 'no leadership' rule, err on the side of caution, or ask me.
However, Leadership may be taken to qualify for another feat or class (such as the Great Captain feat or Legendary Leader prestige class), though a character still doesn't get its usual benefit in those cases. This is to allow characters to access unproblematic material that'd otherwise be made unavailable because of the Leadership ban.

Because this contest involves creating a build up to level 20, no race with a base ECL higher than 20 is allowed.
The Dragonlance Campaign Setting is allowed, but the subsequent books for Dragonlance are considered 3rd party, and are therefore not eligible, despite the "WotC approved" status of those books. The same holds for Oriental Adventures (1st party) and the subsequent Rokugan books (3rd party).
The Illithid Savant and Beholder Mage prestige classes are specifically banned due to their extreme potential for abuse.

Judging
Judging will be based on the following criteria, with each build rated on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (exemplary) in each area: Originality, Power, Elegance, and Monstrosity.
Scores of zero may be applied in cases of exceptional misconduct (plagiarism earns a 0 in Originality, failure to meet prerequisites earns a 0 in Elegance, non-monstrous races earn a 0 in Monstrosity, etc); otherwise, all entries should receive at least one full point in each category.

• Originality: Is it unexpected or novel?
• Power: Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?
• Elegance: Is it mechanically straighforward or “pretty”?
• Monstrosity: Is the monstrous character’s race used?

Spoiler: Precisions on Elegance and Monstrosity

Show

Elegance and Monstrosity demand further elaboration.
Elegance measures how skillfully you put your build together, and whether you sacrificed flavor for power. Use of flaws is considered in poor taste, and judges are asked to take a dim view of this option, taking it into account while grading. Other things that will cause penalties here are excessive multi-classing, and classes that don't fit the concept.
A legal source's relative obscurity should not be considered as penalizing Elegance, excepting the aforementioned issues with Unearthed Arcana. Using conflicting setting material may result in a penalty to Elegance at the judges' discretion, but a book's relative obscurity may not. In that same vein, drawing solely from the Core 3 (and the d20 SRD) should not be punished for lacking Originality.
Monstrosity measures how necessary the entry’s monster race was to the submission. We want to build monstrous adventurers here, not standard Iron Chef builds with a few racial hit dice at the start. Builds which could not function without the monstrous features of their race earn high Monstrosity scores, while builds which could work on any PC race with no changes will take Monstrosity penalties. Builds using non-monstrous races will also take penalties to Monstrosity. For rounds with specific restrictions on the monster race, this category will also include making good use of the mandatory component.

Presentation
Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, I'd like everyone to try to use the following table for their entry.

Spoiler

Show

NAME OF ENTRY

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
2nd	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
3rd	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
4th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
5th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
6th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
7th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
8th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
9th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
10th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
11th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
12th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
13th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
14th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
15th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
16th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
17th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
18th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
19th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
20th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities

Code immediately below (spoiler).

Spoiler

Show

[table="class: head alt1 alt2"]
[tr]
[th][B]Level[/B][/th]
[th][B]Class[/B][/th]
[th][B]Base Attack Bonus[/B][/th]
[th][B]Fort Save[/B][/th]
[th][B]Ref Save[/B][/th]
[th][B]Will Save[/B][/th]
[th][B]Skills[/B][/th]
[th][B]Feats[/B][/th]
[th][B]Class Features[/B][/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1st[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2nd[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3rd[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]12th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]13th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]14th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]15th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]16th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]17th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]18th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]19th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]20th[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

For entries with spellcasting, use the following table for Spells per day and Spells Known. (Spells Known only if necessary, i.e. Sorcerer or Bard, but not Wizard or Warmage)

Spoiler

Show

Spells per Day/Spells Known

Level	0lvl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3rd	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
8th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
10th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
11th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
12th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
13th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
14th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
15th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
16th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
17th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
18th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
20th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Code immediately below (spoiler)

Spoiler

Show

[B]Spells per Day/Spells Known[/B]
[table="class:head alt1 alt2"]
[tr]
[th][B]Level[/B][/th]
[th][B]0lvl[/B][/th]
[th][B]1st[/B][/th]
[th][B]2nd[/B][/th]
[th][B]3rd[/B][/th]
[th][B]4th[/B][/th]
[th][B]5th[/B][/th]
[th][B]6th[/B][/th]
[th][B]7th[/B][/th]
[th][B]8th[/B][/th]
[th][B]9th[/B][/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1st[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2nd[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3rd[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]12th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]13th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]14th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]15th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]16th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]17th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]18th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]19th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]20th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Alternatively, you may use this spreadsheet created by mattie_p.
For other systems (Psionics, ToB, Incarnum, etc.) keep track of PP/maneuvers/essentia separately, preferably in a nice neat list or table.

Speculation
Please don’t post or speculate on possible builds until the reveal, in order to avoid spoiling the surprise if a particular competitor is producing a build along those lines.
Once builds are revealed, please do not comment on errors or rules issues on entries unless you are a judge. If you have such a comment, wait until the final reveal to post it.

Deadlines

Contestants will have until 23:59 GMT Friday 13th of May to create their builds and PM them to the chair. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges will have until 23:59 GMT Friday 27th of May to judge the builds and submit their scores. If no judges have scored by that point, only the scores of the first judge to submit will be counted. Deadlines are subject to extension as/if required.

Submission
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:
PM: Beni-Kujaku
Subject: Monster Mash #, Name of your Entry
For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mailbox.

More questions? Either ask in the thread or PM me with Monster Mash Questions in the header. Please use PMs for any questions relating to a specific build to avoid violating rules against speculation.

Houserules/Clarifications
D&D 3.5 is far from a perfect system, and inflated level adjustments are far from the only example of this. Many rules are ambiguous, absent, or just badly-written. I make no claim to fixing the system, but feel some “house rules” are in order:

Spoiler

Show

• Bonus feats that are granted even if you do not meet the prerequisites do not require you to meet the prerequisites in order to use.
• All creatures are proficient with any natural weapons they may have or acquire.
• Monsters with racial hit dice may gain an additional hit die instead of taking a character level. This functions as advancing a monster this way would under other circumstances. You cannot advance any monster beyond the maximum number of racial hit dice noted in its Advancement entry.
• The DC of a monster's supernatural ability is 10+1/2 number of Hit Dice+mod. This includes class levels.
• Able Learner's benefit applies to the level you take it.
• Weapons from soulmelds are considered to be magic weapons.
• Unarmed Swordsage grants Improved Unarmed Strike at level 1.
• Spelltouched feats are legal and can be taken just like any other feat when you meet the prerequisites and have the feat slot available.
• Possessing innate spellcasting from your race is treated as a spellcasting class for the purposes of prestige classes which provide new spells per day, an increase in caster level, and spells known (if applicable) as if you had gained a level in a spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level.

And now, time to get mashing!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Q&A for this round:

-Do you count class levels as Hit Dice when calculating the DC of a supernatural ability?
Yes, you do. All Hit Dice are counted, even virtual ones like those from Inspire Greatness.

[loky1109]

Maybe I'll judge.

[ciopo]

I've really liked the first MM, and I'm glad to see it back. I can't think of anything interesting/innivative to do with the round theme tho :(

[Beni-Kujaku]

I've really liked the first MM, and I'm glad to see it back. I can't think of anything interesting/innivative to do with the round theme tho :(

Eh‚ it's also always nice to have a simple‚ "down-to-earth" entry ^^ just take a monster with a few abilities and have fun

[Thurbane]

Nice to see this comp re-launched.

I might (a little doubtful, but we'll see) attempt an entry, time permitting.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I got a question about how to calculate the DC of Supernatural abilities. WotC is not quite consistent between books. Some (like the Monster Manual) mention 10+1/2 RHD+mod, while others (like the Rules Compendium) use 10+1/2 HD+mod. For this competition, assume 10+1/2 HD+mod, counting class levels, for all (Su) abilities that don't have other specified way of calculating their DC.

[ciopo]

I have a general question about monster mash, if the competition gains traction.

It's going to be monster, I honestly hope I see stuff with LA and RHD, I will feel somewhat sad if the majority of entries are 1-2 HD with LA 0, because then they will be kindaish more "standard build" than "monster build"

would it make sense for monster mash to codify some rules/guidelines/houserules to structure a way to "savage progression" those monster that don't have a savage progression? to "make up" a way to present how creatures with starting ECL of 6+ would play during the first 5 levels?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I do love the fear mechanics. I want to get something in for this, but my life is a bit busy right now. We'll see if inspiration strikes.

[ciopo]

Do effects whose wording says "character level" count the LA in calculating it, thus usign the ECL, or should we count only "total hit dice" ?

[Beni-Kujaku]

I have a general question about monster mash, if the competition gains traction.

It's going to be monster, I honestly hope I see stuff with LA and RHD, I will feel somewhat sad if the majority of entries are 1-2 HD with LA 0, because then they will be kindaish more "standard build" than "monster build"

would it make sense for monster mash to codify some rules/guidelines/houserules to structure a way to "savage progression" those monster that don't have a savage progression? to "make up" a way to present how creatures with starting ECL of 6+ would play during the first 5 levels?

The first Monster Mash saw a Minotaur with 6 RHD, a Lillend at ECL 9 and a templated Orglash at ECL 10. I'm not worried about only seeing low-ECL monsters ^^

Creating a decent savage progression is incredibly hard, and doing so for all reviewed monsters would take much more than the 5 years it already took to assign their LA. I'm not going down that rabbit hole. If you have a monster with ECL higher than 5, just put your strategies at its starting ECL instead of 5. And if it's higher than 10, don't put your tactics at ECL 5. As long as the judge understands what you're trying to do with your build, it's fine!

Do effects whose wording says "character level" count the LA in calculating it, thus usign the ECL, or should we count only "total hit dice" ?

It only counts total hit dice.

[Morphic tide]

Would it be fine to lop off the top LA of existing savage progressions, moving their bonuses to the next HD? It seems to be the worst-case for porting the adjustment in question, taking the most early penalties and getting the latest benefits of simply shifting the table. For instance, Libre Mortis' Ghoul 4 would have the first three be as-is, with the features of the original's 4th, 5th, and 6th levels as 4th, then get the 7th and 8th as 5th, to what should be the exact same end result as being a Ghast to start with.

Not particularly relevant here due to the requirements, but again, it seems to be the "worst case" reuse of the table.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Would it be fine to lop off the top LA of existing savage progressions, moving their bonuses to the next HD? It seems to be the worst-case for porting the adjustment in question, taking the most early penalties and getting the latest benefits of simply shifting the table. For instance, Libre Mortis' Ghoul 4 would have the first three be as-is, with the features of the original's 4th, 5th, and 6th levels as 4th, then get the 7th and 8th as 5th, to what should be the exact same end result as being a Ghast to start with.

Not particularly relevant here due to the requirements, but again, it seems to be the "worst case" reuse of the table.

I mean, in the case of this competition, you can present your leveling table however you want, and using this for monsters with a savage progression isn't the worst thing, especially since it allows for level tactics below the standard ECL for that monster.

In actual play, it may be better to space out the LA. Most abilities from savage progressions are already concentrated in LA'd levels and later levels, doing as you're saying would create big power spikes at higher levels while having a weaker PC (since it would use the equivalent of the non-reassigned LA) for the early levels, which is the point where you want more HP and more abilities to survive.

My previous statement mostly referred to monsters that don't already have a savage progression, saying that it would be hard to evenly spread all of its abilities across the levels and LA.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Hello everyone, the deadline is slowly approaching‚ is anybody still cooking? Right now I only have two entries‚ which is more than one‚ but I would much much rather have at least three. Don't be shy! Come and build something! If anybody wants an extension‚ I'd be willing and happy to give one.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Well, assuming nobody is still cooking, since I got no new sign of life, I'll do the reveal now. Please do not post until after I'm done.

[Beni-Kujaku]

All his enemies run away. To be fair, if I saw a dancing wendigo late at night, I think I’d do the same.

Spoiler: Intro

Show

We'll be there!
A wink and a smile and a great old time
Yeah, we’ll be there!
Wherever we are
There’s some fun to be found
We'll be there when you turn that corner
We'll jump out the bush
With a big bear hug and a smile
We'll be there!

It's MONSTER MASH, not "yet another dread witch escalation build", I want the racial whatever to be the primadonna of this show!

Sure, it's still going to be fear-related stuff, so let there be escalation with fear-inducing effect by elsewhere by all means, but I want the racial to be "the strongest!!1!11!!"

Given that, bare minimum I want the ability to be usable all day long and have as high a DC I can pump, with the build being in support of that, not in spite of that!

That said, I ended up being a bit of an hodge-podge of, but I'm happy with it, it flows!

Overarching character theme : (horror movie) escaped circus animal

Spoiler: Shakeira, ghastly dancedog

Show

LE middle-age Wendigo^{FF p. 187} Feral yowler^{MMIII p. 51} 7 Racial hit dice / Sorcerer 2 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer^{CS p. 31} 5 / Tattooed Monk^{CW p. 82} 3 / Level Adjustment 2
Str 20 (9 +8 racial +4 template -1 age), Dex 26 (13 +6 racial + 8 template -1 age), Con 30 (11 +16 racial +4 template -1 age), Int 14 (17 -4 racial +1 age), Wis 15 (8 +4 racial +2 template +1 age), Cha 30 (16 +6 racial +4 template +3 level +1 age)
130ft flight speed(perfect manouverability)
HP 6 + 4d8 + 12d6 + 2d4 + 180 (251) , Cook note : at ECL 7 before acquiring the template that changes the creature type to fey, our hit dice was d10,so we had 10 +6d10 + 56 (99) HP
Fast healing 3, regeneration(fire) 5, permanent blur-like effect
naked AC 42 (10 +8 dex + 3 natural + 11 untyped(cha+monk) +10 deflection), touch 39, flat footed 34, +4 mage armor(4hour/casting, 9slots/day) burst +10 4/day for 3 rounds
naked saves 21 fort 22 refl 21 will

Spoiler: numbers with generic items for easier math

Show

Proposed but not assumed, core only items
enhancement bonus(+6) to DEX,CON,CHA 108000 gp
manuals(+4)/tome(+5) to DEX,CON,CHA 357500 gp
cloak/vest of resistance +5 25000gp
amulet of natural armor +5 50000 gp
Bracers of armor +8 64000 gp
leftover 155500 gp for this or that wand/potion/consumable/miscellanea, maybe a +1 monk weapon to penetrate at least DR/magic , and STR enhancement/tome? but beatsticking isn't our role
Str 20, Dex 36, Con 40, Int 14 , Wis 15 , Cha 41
HP 341
AC 70 (10 +8 armor +13 dex + 8 natural + 16 untyped(cha+monk) +15 deflection), touch 54, flat footed 57, burst +10 4/day for 3 rounds, potentially shield for +4 9 times/day for 4 minutes/use
saves 31 fort 32 refl 31 will

All you can fear buffet, in order of acquisition:
Yowl of fear, racial, usable every 1d4 round, all creatures who can hear within 60 ft. get shaken , saving grants immunity for 24 hours. DC 19-31(36), available from ECL 7 onward
Psionic power demoralize, 2/day, enemies within 30 ft. are shaken for 1 minute, DC 17-21(26), available from ECL 7 onward
intimidate skill use demoralize, threatened opponent + every hostile within 10 ft. shaken for 1 round, 1d20+18-31(or more) vs 1d20+HD+wisdom mod+fear bonuses, available from ECL 7 onward
Frightful presence, rider on charges and attacks, enemies within 30 ft. are shaken for 1d6+cha rounds, DC 19-29(34), saving grants immunity for 24 hours. available from ECL 7 onward
Frightful dance, 5/day concentration duration max 11-15 round, enemies within 30 ft. are shaken for duration, DC 24-25(30), first exposure grants immunity for 24 hours. available from ECL 16 onward
Bellflower tattoo 4/day for 3 round as a move action, +10(cha modifier) enhancement bonus to one ability score, if it's CHA, this means +5 to all those DC, and also +10 to AC

Spoiler: leveling table

Show

ECL	HD	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1	1	Racial hit die 1	+1	+2	+2	+0	Hide +4, Knowledge(Religion) +2(4), Perform(dance) +2(4), Sleight of Hand +2(4)	Hidden Talent(Demoralize)EPH p. 67	Darkvision 60 ft., fast healing 3, immunities(fear, negative energy, energy drain), low-light vision, minor displacement, scent, trip, yowl
2	2	RHD 2	+2	+3	+3	+0	Hide 4+1, Knowledge(Religion) 2+0.5(1), Perform(dance) 2+0.5(1), Sleight of Hand 2+0.5(1)
3	3	RHD 3	+3	+3	+3	+1	Hide 5, Intimidate +4, Knowledge(Religion) 2.5, Perform(dance) 2.5, Sleight of Hand 2.5	Martial StudyToB p. 31 (Devoted spirit: Crusader strike)
4	4	RHD 4	+4	+4	+4	+1	Hide 5, Intimidate 4+3, Knowledge(Religion) 2.5, Perform(dance) 2.5, Sleight of Hand 2.5+0.5(1)
5	5	RHD 5	+5	+4	+4	+1	Hide 5, Intimidate 7+1, Knowledge(Religion) 2.5, Perform(dance) 2.5+0.5(1), Sleight of Hand 3+1(2)
6	6	RHD 6	+6/+1	+5	+5	+2	Hide 5, Intimidate 8+1, Knowledge(Religion) 2.5, Perform(dance) 3+1.5(3), Sleight of Hand 4	Frightful PresenceDrc p. 105
7	7	RHD 7	+7/+2	+5	+5	+2	Hide 5, Intimidate 9+1, Knowledge(Religion) 2.5, Perform(dance) 4.5+0.5, Sleight of Hand 4+1(2)
9	7	Wendigo LA 2	-	-	-	-			Fly speed 120 ft. (perfect), Deflection AC bonus equal to CHA, Disease(SU), Maddening Whispers(SU), Ravenous Bite, Cold subtype, Corner of the Eye(SU), Regeneration 5(fire), Wind walk(su), Track, Ability score increase (Str +4, Dex +8, Con +4, Wis +2, Cha +4), racial +8 hide, +8 move silently, +8 survival
10	8	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1	+7/+2	+5	+5	+4	Hide 5, Intimidate 10+1, Knowledge(Religion) 2.5+1.5(3), Perform(dance) 5, Sleight of Hand 5		Ability Score Increase +1 CHA, Familiar(bat)
11	9	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1	+7/+2	+7	+7	+6	Hide 5, Intimidate 11, Knowledge(Religion) 4+1, Perform(dance) 5+5, Sleight of Hand 5	Ability Focus(Yowl of fear), Improved grapplemonk bonus feat	flurry of blows, unarmed strike, unarmed damage, AC bonus, unarmored speed bonus
12	10	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 1	+7/+2	+7	+9	+6	Hide 5, Intimidate 11+2, Knowledge(Religion) 5, Perform(dance) 10, Sleight of Hand 5, Use Magic Device +4, Never outnumberedCS p. 87		Enchanting dance (beguiling dance)
13	11	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 2	+8/+3	+7	+10	+6	Hide 5, Intimidate 13+1, Knowledge(Religion) 5, Perform(dance) 10, Sleight of Hand 5, UMD 4+7		Surprise strike +1d6
14	12	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 3	+9/+4	+8	+10	+7	Hide 5, Intimidate 14+1, Knowledge(Religion) 5+1(2), Perform(dance) 10+2, Sleight of Hand 5, UMD 11+3	Endurance	ASI +1 CHA, Enchanting dance (wearying dance)
15	13	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 4	+10/+5	+8	+11	+7	Concentration +1, Hide 5, Intimidate 15+1, Knowledge(Religion) 6+1(2), Perform(dance) 12+2, Sleight of Hand 5, UMD 14+2		Surprise strike +2d6
16	14	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5	+10/+5	+8	+11	+7	Concentration 1+4, Hide 5, Intimidate 16+1, Knowledge(Religion) 7+1(2), Perform(dance) 14, Sleight of Hand 5, UMD 16+1		Enchanting dance (frightful dance)
17	15	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5 / Tattooed Monk 1	+10/+5	+10	+13	+9	Concentration 5+3, Hide 5, Intimidate 17+1, Knowledge(Religion) 8, Perform(dance) 14, Sleight of Hand 5, UMD 17+1(2)	Steadfast DeterminationPHBII p. 83	Monk abilities, Tattoo:Bellflower
18	16	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5 / Tattooed Monk 2	+11/+6/+1	+11	+14	+10	Concentration 8+3, Hide 5, Intimidate 18+1, Knowledge(Religion) 8, Perform(dance) 14, Sleight of Hand 5, UMD 18+1(2)		ASI +1 CHA
19	17	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 1 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5 / Tattooed Monk 3	+12/+7/+2	+11	+14	+10	Concentration 11+3, Hide 5, Intimidate 19+1, Knowledge(Religion) 8, Perform(dance) 14, Sleight of Hand 5, UMD 19+1(2)		Tattoo:Bellflower
20	18	RHD 7 / Sorcerer 2 / Monk 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5 / Tattooed Monk 3	+13/+8/+3	+11	+14	+11	Concentration 14+1, Hide 5, Intimidate 20+1, Knowledge(Religion) 8, Perform(dance) 14, Sleight of Hand 5, UMD 20+1(2)	Ascetic MageCAdv p. 105

Spoiler: noncore features recap and Powers/spells

Show

race/template:
Wendigo template: acquired, change type to fey(cold), lose native speeds but gain fly 120(perfect), CHA to deflection AC, Bite natural attack with a 18-20/x3 profile and rider disease, rider bleed. A couple 1/day (su) debuffs. Wind walk(su, self only) at will, regeneration 5/fire, track bonus feat, +8 hide/move silenlty/survival
feral yowler : medium magical beast, 3 NA and bite NW, trip(ex) like a wolf. Fast healing 3. always on minor displacement(su, basically blur), immune to fear, negative energy and energy drain. +6 to hide/move silently

feats:
Inner talent(power) : choose a first level power, it becomes a power known, CHA-based if you don't have a psionic class, you gain a power point reserve of 2
Martial(discipline:manouver): the chosen discipline key skill is always a class skill for you, you can use the chosen manouver 1/encounter
Frightful presence: when you charge or attack, enemies within 30 ft must save or be shaken
steadfast determination: CON-to-WIS for will saves, no fumble on fortitude saves
ascetic mage: CHA-to-WIS for unarmored bonus, sorcerer+monk stack for unarmored AC bonus, can swift action sacrifice slot for temporary enhancement bonus to unarmed strikes

Cloaked dancer:
dances are classlevel/day uses, standard action to begin, 10+classlevel+cha DC, enchantment(compulsion) mind affecting abilities. immunity to specific dance for 24 pass or fail. Max dance duration is CON modifier, with concentration
beguiling dance : save or dazed for 1 round, attitude improved by 1 step for duration
wearying dance : save or fatiqued, can escalate to exhausted
frightful dance : save or shaken, can escalate to frightened/panicked
surprise strike : full round action to mantain dance but still be allowed to do a single attack with a light weapon against an affected creature, it's considered flat-footed. counts as suddens trike for prerequisites

Tattooed monk:
Stack with monk for unarmed damage, AC bonus, unarmed speed
gain a tattoo every odd level, tattoos are a move action to activate
bellflower tattoo: "Once per day per tattoo he possesses", effect lasts class level/round. + CHA mod as enhancement to one ability score. Picked twice, it's two uses each, so 4/day uses

Demoralize psionic power : 30ft spread centered on us effect. Save or shaken, DC 11+ CHA mod

Never outnumbered skill trick : the "demoralize an opponent in combat" intimidate skill use affects every hostile within 10ft, Each make his own opposed roll

Sorcerer casting, cantrips omitted no CHA boosting item assumed:

ECL	Caster Level	New Spell known	1st level slots	2nd level slots
10	1	Mage Armor, NerveskitterSC	6	-
13	2	-	7	-
15	3	Shield	8	-
20	4	Wings of CoverRotD p. 119	9	6

Nerveskitter : immediate action +5 untyped bonus to initiative to one close-range creature
Wings of cover : immediate action personal only negate(distrupt line of effect) one melee/ranged/spell/psionic attack. If area of effect, untyped +8 AC/+4 reflex

Spoiler: build decisions

Show

"Ok I got a creature that struck my fancy, now let's tack on as many random bits of fear related stuff to escalate it, then pump CHA as high as possible"

As a refresher on the fear basics, escalating means that if you apply shaken to a target it's already shaken, it becomes frightened, and if it's already frightened, it becomes panicked.
Notably, once fear escalates, the target remains frightened/panicked for the duration of the longest extant fear-inducing source, it doesn't "deescalate" as the shorter effects elapses.

I tried to be tight around meeting prerequisites in an organic way, I wanted frightful presence at level 6, since it has the same scaling as our yowl and our cha mod is quite high.

Why cloaked dancer? because, concentration aside, it has duration keyed to constitution, and my creature pick has a ginormous bonus to constitution on top of a nicely packaged yowl with even some charisma bonus. that the feral yowler looks creepy it's 100% a bonus.

The other bit of build direction we can go from there, is "pump charisma, pump charisma like it's the end of times" My failing here that I can't think of any other way to boost a (su) ability DC, other than ability focus.

Originally, I was flirting with dragon devotee , and the build was battledancer 1 / cloaked dancer 5 / dragon devotee 2 / tatooed monk 3, with dragon devotee neatly boosting our cha even higher and handily giving us improved grapple.

I was however unhappy with the battledancer "any chaotic", I don't like doing alignment changes during the build. Sure, battledancer doesn't have any qualifier that we lose it's bonuses if we stop being chaotic, but I still didn't like it!
Compounded with the issue that we were wasting the cloaked dancer "+1/2 to arcane spellcaster level" made me put back an arcanist of some sort there at the beginning of the build, to then use ascetic mage!

tattooed monk was a serendipity moment, since I was already picking up it's prerequisites between me wanting steadfast determination and battledancer givin us IUS. dragon devotee was an handy bonus feat for improved grapple, it was all fitting beautifically if not for the alignment problems. I consider the creature entry "always chaotic evil" and the template entry "always chaotic evil" much much less binding than a class prerequisite, because I read those as "this is what it's typical for this creature" rather than hardcoded limitations. For much the same reason we're allowed to change the creature default feats.

Spoiler: story/tactics

Show

ECL 7 is the earliest we can exist.
We are a circus animal, woe is us! We're used to scare people in the scary house attraction! And occasionally as punching bags in the underground fightning ring, what with fast healing and the chonky

We have our own yowl, the frightful presence and the 2/day PLA demoralize at this stage, but the DC are high enough we can be fairly sure we land them promptly. Up to you if you want to yowl->presence->demoralize or some other order

ECL 10-11: Oh no! some passing wendigo killed all the circus and then started haunting us!

Well... thank you wendigo for that bag of goodies, at the price of fire vulnerability now we have regeneration on top of fast healing, AND 120 perfect fly speed, AND at will wind walk? AND cha modifier to deflection AC on top of a nice chunky boost of ability scores? I'm gladly paying 2 LA for this.

base classes are preparation stage for later, not much to say tactics related : put the mage armor up, maybe use flurry of blows if you're confident you can hit. Fear related the only two differences are the higher DC of yowl, so you'll probably want to open the dances with that, and that we can incorporate intimidate in our strategy

if we need to sneak, we have a massive +22 to hide/move silently even before factoring ranks
Also somewhat amusingly : I know I'm taking religion only because it's a prerequisite, but with how feral yowlers are "escaped from necromantic experiments" it's somewhat sensible for our Shakeira to be a little useful in identifying undeads!

ECL 12-16: the cloaked dancer enchanting dances are a bit weird ot me, they are worded that it affect the targets when we start or mantain a dance, but the opening paragraph describind enchanting dances says "A creature can’t be affected again by your enchanting dance effect for 24 hours whether or not it succeeds on the saving throw". Does that mean the only point of mantaining a dance (as a concentration effect!! UGH!) is to possibly affect new creatures you may or may not encounter later? I'm feeling I will never concentrate on this one, it's simply another deliverer of fear for the purpose of escalating.
I suppose the practical sequence in combat would be opening with a dance, round 2 using the surprise strike feature to mantain the shaken effect from the dance and trigger frightful presence, round 3 yowl...
Or we could just yowl, dance, full attack/flurry of blows, triggering the presence anyway

the other two dances are nice backup plans for debuffing / tempo controlling if we're engaged with something that's fear immune but not mind-affecting immune, or for social encounter I guess. Changing the attitude to friendly is useful on it's own.

Don't forget we have UMD from now on, there's a bunch of cheap wands we could make use of, but out of the top of my mind : conviction^SC for juicy 2 morale bonus to saves, or a wand of remove fear to help our allies get immunized to our own yowl *before* we actually engage with hostiles. There's just too many useful spell to really make a list of all the wands we can leverage with it, for either us or our party

Why we monk... perhabs a friendly monk with whom we're traveling together now is helping us overcoming our wendigo nature?

ECL 17-20: two bellflower tattoos means four uses of that meaty "add your charisma modifier to any one ability score as enhancement bonus for 3 round" and we're of course using it to pump the DC of our effects even higher. Since it's a move action, nominal fear sequence becomes tattoo+yowl->dance->frightful presence. With the demoralize and the intimidate as backups when one of the above get saved against.
the build capstones with a CHA-to-AC conversion thanks to ascetic mage

I've not included any magic items in the entry because definying the generic items has burnt me on "reliance" in the past, but I do want to say that we would still benefit from cloak of charisma and/or tomes of leadership and influence.
Consider this, we're at 30 CHA and the bellflower bring us to 40. , bringing our yowl from 31 (10+1/2HD+CHAMOD+2) to 36
if we had 41 CHA (6 ehn from cloak, 5 inherent), bellflower would give us +15 ehn for the duration, making us go from 41 to 50, same +5 modifier overall, but there is a world of difference into going from 31 to 36 and going from 36 to 41!

More monk stuff, let's say we go visit that friendly monk monastery to further our control over our wendigo nature

Spoiler: Possible controversies

Show

I got two things I'm squinting at.
Aging and racial hit dice : putting aside there is no handy table for age categories for monsters, giving myself the aging penalties/bonuses on the racial hit dice, specifically skill ranks per die, bothers me a little bit. But I couldn't find any other way to otherwise qualify for everything in a timely manner on those early levels and still take frightful presence as soon as possible. You lower the intelligence bonus and we're one rank short to qualify for cloaked dancer "as soon as possible"

Alignment: "can" we be lawful? we've generally been told to ignore the "alignment: always X" of monster entries, but is this same "alignment: always X" actually binding when it comes to templates? Is a wendigo (always chaotic evil, according to the source) able to overcome his nature with proper nurture? I call on the power of friendship here!

Other smaller ones :
"intimidate is cross class at third level when you take martial study, you're short one skill point to do as you did" : one of the houserules of this competition is "Able Learner's benefit applies to the level you take it", a corollary of this would be "the benefits of feats that grant class skill apply to the level you take it"

"why aren't you maxing perform" : cloaked dancer doens't make use of the perform check, other than requiring 14 for the fear dance, I dislike putting ranks on skills I wouldn't use

[Beni-Kujaku]

Sequel, or more accurately prequel, of the previous post.

Spoiler: The scrapped

Show

You can 100% ignore/gloss over this section, I'm just bummed I had to drop my original idea after I've had more or less finished the entry, I don't want to just throw away the work, so here it is.
The TLDR of it : entry used to be bard 1 / battledancer 1 / cloaked dancer 5 / Siren 4
I was happily using the bard countersong to make my allies immune to my own yowl, and the siren rider on yowl was of course, devastating. It even used to be RHD 7 / Siren 4, because who wouldn't want an high DC Weird-equivalent at ECL 11

Spoiler: Shakeira, growlsinger ghastly dancedog

Show

CE Wendigo^{FF p. 187} Feral yowler^{MMIII p. 51} 7 Racial hit dice / Bard 1 / Battledancer^{DrC p. 26} 1 / Cloaked Dancer^{CS p. 31} 5 / Siren^{SS p. 84} 4 / Level Adjustment 2
Str 20 (8 +8 racial +4 template), Dex 28 (13 +6 racial + 8 template +1 level), Con 34 (14 +16 racial +4 template), Int 12 (15 -4 racial +1 level), Wis 14 (8 +4 racial +2 template), Cha 30 (17 +6 racial +4 template +1 level +2 inherent)
HP 6 + 17d6 + 216 (281) , Cook note : at ECL 7 before acquiring the template that changes the creature type to fey, our hit dice was d10,so we had 10 +6d10 + 70 (113) HP
naked AC 42 (10 +9 dex + 3 natural + 10 untyped(cha) +10 deflection), touch 39, flat footed 33
naked saves 19 fort 23 refl 21 will

All you can fear buffet, in order of acquisition:
Yowl of fear, racial, usable every 1d4 round, all creatures who can hear within 60 ft. get shaken , saving grants immunity for 24 hours. DC 19-35, available from ECL 7 onward
Psionic power demoralize, 2/day, enemies within 30 ft. are shaken for 1 minute, DC 17-23, available from ECL 7 onward
intimidate skill use demoralize, threatened opponent + every hostile within 10 ft. shaken for 1 round, 1d20+15-20 vs 1d20+HD+wisdom mod+fear bonuses, available from ECL 7 onward
Frightful presence, rider on charges and attacks, enemies within 30 ft. are shaken for 1d6+cha rounds, DC 22-31, saving grants immunity for 24 hours. available from ECL 11 onward
Inspire awe, 1day, enemy within 30 ft. are shaken for duration, DC 1d20+13-26, first exposure grants immunity for 24 hours. available from ECL 12 but realistically will never use because countersong takes precedence
Frightful dance, 5/day concentration duration max 13-17 round, enemies within 30 ft. are shaken for duration, DC 24-27, first exposure grants immunity for 24 hours. available from ECL 16 onward
Song of Despair, 1/day rider on yowl of fear, all creatures affected by yowl,range of emotional effects, including fear for 1-5 rounds, DC 23-29, available from ECL 18
Song of nightmare, 5/day rider on yowl of fear, all creatures affected by yowl, phantasmal killer DC 27-29 (pretty much a beefy weird), available from ECL 20

Spoiler: leveling table

Show

ECL	HD	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1	1	Racial hit die 1	+1	+2	+2	+0	Hide +4, Perform(dance) +2(4)	Hidden Talent(Demoralize)EPH p. 67	Darkvision 60 ft., fast healing 3, immunities(fear, negative energy, energy drain), low-light vision, minor displacement, scent, trip, yowl
2	2	RHD 2	+2	+3	+3	+0	Hide 4+1, Perform(dance) 2+0.5(1)
3	3	RHD 3	+3	+3	+3	+1	Hide 5, Intimidate +2, Perform(dance) 2.5	Martial StudyToB p. 31 (Devoted spirit: Crusader strike)
4	4	RHD 4	+4	+4	+4	+1	Hide 5, Intimidate 2+2, Perform(dance) 2.5
5	5	RHD 5	+5	+4	+4	+1	Hide 5, Intimidate 4+2, Perform(dance) 2.5
6	6	RHD 6	+6/+1	+5	+5	+2	Hide 5, Intimidate 6+2, Perform(dance) 2.5	Endurance
7	7	RHD 7	+7/+2	+5	+5	+2	Hide 5, Intimidate 8+1, Perform(dance) 2.5+0.5(1)
9	7	Wendigo LA 2	-	-	-	-			Fly speed 120 ft. (perfect), Deflection AC bonus equal to CHA, Disease(SU), Maddening Whispers(SU), Ravenous Bite, Cold subtype, Corner of the Eye(SU), Regeneration 5(fire), Wind walk(su), Track, Ability score increase (Str +4, Dex +8, Con +4, Wis +2, Cha +4), racial +8 hide, +8 move silently, +8 survival
10	8	RHD 7 / Bard 1	+7/+2	+5	+7	+4	Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Perform(dance) 3+7		Ability Score Increase +1 INT, Bardic music, Lore songDs p. 8, Inspire AweDrM p. 13, Countersong, Healing hymnCC p. 47
11	9	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1	+8/+3	+5	+9	+4	Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Perform(dance) 10, Sleight of hand +5	Frightful PresenceDrc p. 105	AC bonus, Unarmed strike
12	10	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 1	+8/+3	+5	+11	+4	Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Perform(dance) 10, Perform(sing) +5, Sleight of hand 5, Never outnumberedCS p. 87		Enchanting dance (beguiling dance)
13	11	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 2	+9/+4	+5	+12	+4	Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Perform(dance) 10, Perform(sing) 5+1, Sleight of hand 5, Use Magic Device +6		Surprise strike +1d6
14	12	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 3	+10/+5	+6	+12	+5	Bluff +2, Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Perform(dance) 10+2, Perform(sing) 6, Sleight of hand 5, UMD 6+3	Steadfast DeterminationPHBII p. 83	ASI +1 cha, Enchanting dance (wearying dance)
15	13	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 4	+11/+6/+1	+6	+13	+5	Bluff 2+2, Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Perform(dance) 12, Perform(sing) 6+1, Sleight of hand 5, UMD 9+4		Sudden strike +2d6
16	14	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5	+11/+6/+1	+6	+13	+5	Bluff 4+2, Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Know(planes) +1.5(3CC), Perform(dance) 12+2, Perform(sing) 7, Sleight of hand 5, UMD 13		Enchanting dance (frightful dance)
17	15	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5 / Siren 1	+11/+6/+1	+6	+13	+7	Bluff 6, Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Know(planes) 1.5, Perform(dance) 14, Perform(sing) 7+5, Sleight of hand 5, UMD 13	Ability Focus(yowl of fear)	ReverberationSS p. 39
18	16	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5 / Siren 2	+12/+7/+2	+6	+13	+8	Bluff 6, Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Know(planes) 1.5+2(4CC), Perform(dance) 14, Perform(sing) 12+1, Sleight of hand 5, UMD 13		ASI +1 dex, Song of Despair
19	17	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5 / Siren 3	+13/+8/+3	+7	+14	+8	Bluff 6, Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Know(planes) 3.5+2(4CC), Perform(dance) 14, Perform(sing) 13+1, Sleight of hand 5, UMD 13		Charisma bonus +2
20	18	RHD 7 / Bard 1 / Battledancer 1 / Cloaked Dancer 5 / Siren 4	+14/+9/+4	+7	+14	+9	Bluff 6, Hide 5, Intimidate 9, Know(planes) 5.5+2.5(5CC), Perform(dance) 14, Perform(sing) 14, Sleight of hand 5, UMD 13	Planar Touchstone(Catalogue of enlightment:charm)PlH p. 41	Song of nightmare

Spoiler: Powers/spells

Show

Power-like Abilities : Demoralize keyed to Cha , power points reserve 2

Big Use magic device breeches, starting with at least a +14 modifier at ECL 13 and going up from there

Bardic casting : skipping cantrips, We will know 3 bard spells and have up to four 1st level slot. I'm picking Grease, Cure light wounds, Ventriloquism

Spoiler: build decisions

Show

"Ok I got a creature that struck my fancy, now let's tack on as many random bits of fear related stuff to escalate it"

As a refresher on the fear basics, escalating means that if you apply shaken to a target it's already shaken, it becomes frightened, and if it's already frightened, it becomes panicked.
Notably, once fear escalates, the target remains frightened/panicked for the duration of the longest extant fear-inducing source, it doesn't "deescalate" as the shorter effects elapses.

I tried to be tight around meeting prerequisites in an organic way, I wanted frightful presence at level 6, but for one ( 1 ! ) point that would not let me qualify for cloaked dancer :(.

Why cloaked dancer? because, concentration aside, it has duration keyed to constitution, and my creature pic has a ginormous bonus to constitution on top of a nicely packaged yowl with even some charisma bonus. that the feral yowler looks creepy it's 100% a bonus.

A note on the bard level, it's critical to the build and not because of attempting to go fearbard with inspire awe. I picked bard because of, amusingly, countersong!

You see, the yowl of fear affects all creatures, not just hostile creatures, and that's baaaad for adventuring, because it stretches my willing suspesion of disbelief going out and about with a party if every day I subject them to my terrifying yowl. Sure, they become immune for 24 hours after their first successfull save, but we have some big fat DC here!

So, countersong to the rescue, I've put ranks in singing juuuust enough that taking 10 on the countersong neatly beats our own yowl DC. Therefore the first act of every new adventuring day, or last act before going to bed I suppose, is countersonging our own yowl for the benefit of our party members! Not to tooth my own horn too much but I feel damn proud of this little bit of sillyness :D

with the stat spread, either steadfast determination or force of personality^CAdv felt like solid feat picks to shore up our "lagging behind" will save. Of the two, I ended up goign for the two-feat cost of steadfast determination because it's all will saves and the bonus "no fumbles on fortitude saves" is solid on his own.

Most everything else is in service of either boosting yowl DC or having other sources of shaken to escalate.

The only spell we are likely to actually use is grease, because frightened/panicked creatures runs away, and that's annoying, but honestly a wand of entangle is probably a better choice

I almost went for temptation^FCI as the domain power from the touchstone, but in the end I like the 1/day boost from charm^SC domain better than having to finagle the political angle of temptation in such a way that the static DC boosting would apply against "not-me"

Spoiler: story/tactics

Show

ECL 7 is the earliest we can exist.
We are a circus animal, woe is us! We're used to scare people in the scary house attraction! And occasionally as punching bags in the underground fightning ring, what with fast healing and the chonky

We only have our own yowl and the 2/day PLA demoralize at this stage, but the DC are high enough we can be fairly sure we land them promptly. It's probably better to only leave hostile hsakens at this point tho, since we can't bring them down to panicked yet.

ECL 10-11: Oh no! some passing wendigo killed all the circus and then started haunting us!

Well... thank you wendigo for that bag of goodies, at the price of fire vulnerability now we have regeneration on top of fast healing, AND 120 perfect fly speed, AND at will wind walk? AND cha modifier to deflection AC on top of a nice chunky boost of ability scores? I'm gladly paying 2 LA for this.

bard isn't "online" yet, other than the lore song, since I personally don't let perform(dance) qualify for unlocking the bardic performances, but at least it helps pave the way to qualifying for cloaked dancer

battledancer makes our big cha douple up on our AC, and the unarmed strike makes us make a little better use of our physical stats : now we can interative with unarmed strike and then bite as a secondary, thataway our throwaway 20 str sees some use at least

Plus, of course, with frightful presence we are now able to actually panic people!

ECL 12-16: we learn to "play nice with a group" (of other wendigos? would make sense) by way of countersonging our own yowl at the start(end?) of the day, when the situation isn't stressfull and we can therefore take 10 on that perform check, so it's 10+perform ranks+cha modifier against 10+1/2HD+cha modifier, easy peasy to stay ahead of the curve with the perform(sing) ranks
Steadfast endurance covers nicely what our biggest weakness is, having "only" +2 to will saves from wisdom, +10 to the will save modifier for two feats are well worth it to me
the cloaked dancer enchanting dances are a bit weird ot me, they are worded that it affect the targets when we start or mantain a dance, but the opening paragraph describind enchanting dances says "A creature can’t be affected again by your enchanting dance effect for 24 hours whether or not it succeeds on the saving throw". Does that mean the only point of mantaining a dance (as a concentration effect!! UGH!) is to possibly affect new creatures you may or may not encounter later? I'm feeling I will never concentrate on this one, it's simply another deliverer of fear for the purpose of escalating.
I suppose the practical sequence in combat would be opening with a dance, round 2 using the surprise strike feature to mantain the shaken effect from the dance and trigger frightful presence, round 3 yowl...
Or we could just yowl, dance, full attack.

the other two dances are nice backup plans for debuffing / tempo controlling if we're engaged with something that's fear immune but not mind-affecting immune

ECL 17-20: we yowl so hard people straight up die!

I can roughly map the song of despair to do the equivalent effect of one of : good hope, crushing despair, fear, rage and two attitude changing effects. Fear is our ticket here, and it's a strong ticket : straight up panicked on a failed save, or shaken on a successfull save, this as a rider with a separate DC from the yowl itself, not to mention the feat and bonus feat giving us a nice +4 to yowl DC!

Song of nightmare is basically the spell Weird, but with a bigger area, I feel it's a nice capstone to have as a rider on our yowl

Spoiler: Possible controversies

Show

Ok, I'm going to address the big one here:
Is yowl of fear or isn't yowl of fear a sonic, mind affecting effect?
I'm... really bummed here. it was one of thing I did mental gymnastic about, because if it isn't, then countersong woulnd't work and we woulnd't qualify for siren.
I thought on it, and I felt I had a good enough case that yes, yowl of fear is a sound based mind affecting fear effect, I put the lacking of those keywords in the ability description as "poor editing and/or different style of categorizing things between books" and I judged it to be "good enough". Good enough for countersong for sure at least, still a bit shaky about siren, and I was considering dragonsong lyrist^Drc as an alternative for those last four levels because it thematically fit just the same and was a continuation of having taken frightful presence.
But the thing I liked the least about that was that there is a similar controversial thing about dragonsong lyrist : does his song of fear, aka "frightful presence by another name" stack with frightful presence? on one hand, it is another name, and so a different enough source, but on the other hand, it's clearly yet another frightful presence! a gm that allows battledancer/monk/fist of the forest^CC unarmed defense to stack would probably let frightful presence stack, too. but one that didn't, wouldn't.
Especially because the fear escalation rules in heroes of horror specifically calls out that when you are fightning two dragons, their frightful presences don't stack/escalate, so there went that.

I was on a "good enough for me", and so went ahead with Siren because it's more "fear" than "dragon".

It was only in review, when I got to write down this section of the entry, that I looked deeper. In the same book as the yowler there is the giant death, who has the Frightful keening(su) ability, and *this one* has the last paragraph of it stating plainly that "this is a sonic, mind-affecting fear ability". Now I'm sad and asking myself what's the difference? the death giant has many more HD and thus his fear gives panic on fail and shaken on success, but at the end of the day they are both fear effects delivered by sound. Were they different author? I guess we'll never know.

I'm going ahead and submitting, because the entry is all done and this is the wrap up, but sad :(

Other smaller ones :
"intimidate is cross class at third level when you take martial study, you're short one skill point to do as you did" : one of the houserules of this competition is "Able Learner's benefit applies to the level you take it", a corollary of this would be "the benefits of feats that grant class skill apply to the level you take it"

"your HD aren't all d6, siren has d4, battledancer has d8" : it is a little unclear to me if the wendigo template only changes the racial hit dice to d6, or all present and future hit dice, anyway, it makes very little difference in the face of our monstrous constitution score. if it doesn't change future hit dice, we'll have 278 instead of 281 average HP at ECL 20

"why aren't you maxing perform" : cloaked dancer doens't make use of the perform check, other than requiring 14 for the fear dance, and we aren't using the bard performance either, other than countersong, which only needs 1/2HD+4 ranks , it has 1 rank more than needed actually, but I liked leaving intimidate to "exactly enough as teh prerequisite" and having an equal amount of rank on the two performs, from an elegance point of view. It's elegant to me

planar touchstone : we don't need to visit the place to have the base ability, so no need to do planeshifting shenanigans

Spoiler: Sources

Show

CAdv: Complete Adventurer
CC: Complete Champion
CS: Complete Scoundrel
CW: Complete Warrior
Drc: Draconomicon
DrC: Dragon compendium
DrM: Dragon magic
Ds: Dungeonscape
EPH: Expanded Psionics Handbook
FF: Fiend Folio
FCI: Fiendish Codex 1
MMIII: Monster manual 3
PHBII: Player's Handbook 2
PlH: Planar Handbook
RotD: Races of the Dragon
SS: Savage Species
SC: Spell Compendium
ToB: Tome of Battle

[Beni-Kujaku]

-You’re a witch, Har-chon.
-I’m a what ?

Spoiler: Intro

Show

"We toil in shavarath" We are a beacon of light roaming the eternal battlefield, anyone catching sight of us will quake in their boots!

Scary monster and fear escalation.

Well, fear effects are mind affecting, and that's a big weakness given the plethora of creatures that are either immune to all mind affecting, are mindless, or immune to fear specifically from this or that feature.

Luckily, there is the dread witch, one of whose class features is literally "your fears affects even creatures that are otherwise immune"

But it has the catch that it only applies to spells you cast, not spell-likes, not supernatural or extraordinary abilities, spells only.

The "most correct" monster entry to make sure we can fear everything we fancy is, therefore, a monster with racial spellcasting. Only then you will be able to consistently fear even the immunes!

But I boo at the expected aranea, or going the fear bard route. Let's play around instead with a monster that we're only allowed to take dread witch with thanks to the reduced LA from the LA-assigning thread! Trumpet archon!

That it has another "fear" expy in aura of menace is gravy on top, and that one is not tagged as mind-affecting and so works on everything, too!

Spoiler: Trumpetless archon

Show

LG Trumpet Archon, 4 LA / 12 Racial Hit Dice / Dread Witch 4^{HoH p. 98}
Str 20 (8+10 racial +2 miracle), Dex 18 (8 + 6 racial +2 enhancement +2 miracle), Con 24 (10 +12 racial +2 miracle), Int 16 (9 +6 racial +1 miracle), Wis 30 (17 +6 racial +4 enhancement +1 level +2 miracle), Cha 40 (18 +6 racial +6 enhancement +4 sacred +2 miracle +4 morale)
17th "level" cleric of Ayailla (good, glory(exalted) domains)
HP 8 + 11d8 + 4d4 + 112 (179)
AC 47 (10 +4 dex +9 exalted +16 natural +2 deflection +2 dodge +4 insight), touch 22, flat-footed 41; Burst +3 sacred and 2 more deflection
Saves fort +27, Refl +25, Will +34(+15 against fear)
4 primary claw attacks at +22 (14 BAB +3 enh +5 str) for 1d4+8 +1d6 cold; burst +29 for 1d4+13+1d6 (divine power, righteous might)
Spell Resistance 29, Damage Reduction 10/evil

Fear highlights:
Anyone coming within 120ft has to make 3 DC 31 will saves or be escalating shaken/shaken/shaken for 1d4/1d4/1d4 rounds, no default built in immunity
Anyone within 20ft has to make a DC 35 or be "menaced" until they manage to hit us
the bomb : 1 hour cast time to DC 31 shaken and no save blind every evil creature within 1900 ft, for 38 hours

Spoiler: leveling table

Show

ECL	Hit dice	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
4		Inherited Level Adjustment	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
16	12	Racial Hit Dice 12	+12/+7/+2	+8	+8	+8	Concentration +15, Diplomacy +15, Escape Artist +15, Handle Animal +15, Knowledge (Arcana) +15, Listen +15, Perform (wind instruments) +15, Ride +15, Sense Motive +15, Spot +15	1st: Sacred VowBoED p. 45, 3rd: Extend Spell, 6th: Extra Spell(Scare)CA p. 79, 9th: Extra Spell(Righteous Aura), 12th: Vow of PovertyBoED p. 48	Outsider traits, Aura of Menace, Low-light Vision, Electricity and pietrification immunity, permanent magic circle against evil, at will greater teleport (self only), permanent tongues, 14 natural armor, damage reduction 10/evil, spell resistance 29, trumpet, cleric spellcasting, at will: detect evil, continual flame, message
17	13	RHD 12 / Dread Witch 1	+12/+7/+2	+8	+8	+10	Concentration 15, Diplomacy 15, Escape Artist 15, Handle Animal 15, Knowledge (Arcana) 15, Listen 15, Perform (wind instruments) 15, Ride 15, Sense Motive 15, Spellcraft +4 , Spot 15		Master of terror, Unnatural Will
18	14	RHD 12 / Dread Witch 2	+13/+8/+3	+8	+8	+11	Concentration 15, Diplomacy 15, Escape Artist 15, Handle Animal 15, Knowledge (Arcana) 15, Listen 15, Perform (wind instruments) 15, Ride 15, Sense Motive 15, Spellcraft 4+4 , Spot 15	Vow of nonviolenceBoED p. 47, bonus exalted feat	Absorb fear
19	15	RHD 12 / Dread Witch 3	+13/+8/+3	+9	+9	+11	Concentration 15, Diplomacy 15, Escape Artist 15, Handle Animal 15, Knowledge (Arcana) 15, Listen 15, Perform (wind instruments) 15, Ride 15, Sense Motive 15, Spellcraft 8+4 , Spot 15	Extra spell(SnowsongFr)	Fearful empowerment 1/day
20	16	RHD 12 / Dread Witch 4	+14/+9/+4	+9	+9	+12	Concentration 15, Diplomacy 15, Escape Artist 15, Handle Animal 15, Knowledge (Arcana) 15, Listen 15, Perform (wind instruments) 15, Ride 15, Sense Motive 15, Spellcraft 12+4 , Spot 15	Words of creationBoED p. 48, bonus exalted feat	Ability Score Increase +1 WIS, Delay fear, greater master of terror

Spoiler: spells slots and features recap

Show

We start with the equivalent casting of a 14th level cleric at ECL 16, good domain, glory(exalted) domain. we will also have 27 wisdom at the time, so excluding domain slots and orisons, we'd have,, from 1st to 7th level spell slot, this many spell slots:
7/7/6/6/4/4/3
at ECL 18, this becomes 15th cleric equivalent, 1st to 8th:
7/7/7/6/5/4/3/2
at ECL 19, 16th and 1st to 8th:
7/7/7/6/5/4/4/3
at ECL 20, 17th 1st to 9th and wisdom increased to 28, thus enough to double miracle it up to 30, thus the slots :
8/8/7/7/6/6/4/3/2

We're all old hands at optimization here, I doubt you need a breakdown of every spell I will be preparing here, You already know 9th level spells="IWIN". I will thus limit myself to fear related trickstery in the tactic section, rather than pad the wordcount with stuff everybody already knows.

Sacred Vow : mechanically, it's just a +2 perfection bonus to diplomacy checks. Storywise, this is the hook: you've met your deity yourself, who struck fear and awe in your heart (hello dread witch prerequisite), and you vowed to "bring fear to the heart of devil and demons all over, undead too while we're at it"

Extend spell : +1 metamagic to double the duration, so those tasty 19 hours become 38 hours, or those tasty 19 days become 38 days and so on

Extra spell: what it says on the tin, choose a spell from any list of a level lower than the highest you can cast, it is now a known and preparable spell for you. Because I didn't want to do yet another bard dread witch, I don't think I've ever seen a divine dread witch? I feel lucky it's spellcast advancement says "any spellcasting" and not "arcane spellcasting"
I picked this 3 times, and other than scare that was to qualify for dread witch, the other two are there as long-lasting charisma boosts, because DC is a thing we care about.

Vow of Poverty : a big list of bonuses meant to replace items, at the cost of never being allowed to use items anymore, except for a very limited list, of relevance and not rendundant at ECL 20 this gives us :
+6 wisdom, +4 charisma, +2 constitution, these are enhancement bonuses
+2 enhancement bonus to natural armor
+2 deflection armor bonus
+9 exalted bonus to armor class
permanent freedom of movement
two or three bonus exalted feats, I took the side of caution and not picked a bonus feat at RHD 12
these are the major ones, there are others but are not as impactful as these

vow of nonviolence : +4 to the DC of all our stuff against humanoid and monstrous humanoid if they don't deal damage, but we can't deal (lethal) damage to humanoid and monstrous humanoid. That's right, outsiders and undead are fair game. So are animals for some reason but I'm sure we can scare those away if it comes down to it :)

Words of creation : for our purpose, it does 2 things :
it doubles the duration, as per extend metamagic, of our glorious (and fearful) capstone : 9th level spell blinding glory. Also of any other conjuration(creation) spell we may fancy, but there aren't many of these for a cleric, we're good with the capstone!
it increases the caster level by 1 of spells with the good descriptor that have a verbal component. Yes, including the above mentioned blinding glory

master of terror : +1 to the save DC of spells with the fear descriptor
unnatural will : add charisma modifier to will saves against fear

absorb fear : when exposed to a condition that would make us shaken/frightened/panicked, our caster level for fear spells increase by +1/+2/+3. Note that it says exposed, if you pass the will save for that effect, you are still getting the DC increase. Alternative you can immediate cast a 0th/1st/2nd level spell without consuming a spell slot. The stupid question here becomes "can we fear ourselves? maybe we'll look in a mirror?", that's an easy +3 caster level considering delay fear, or casting any one 1st-2nd level spell we fancy without consuming spell slot. That's "uh, we look in a mirror, voluntarily fail our 3 saves to be panicked for 1d4 rounds, delay the panic by 4 rounds that way we can act while panicked, now we cast "any" 2nd level spell without consuming the spell slot, whaaaaaat?"
Yeah, I'm going to read the "a single extra spell" as limiting this to 1/day, because unlimited extra slots would be kinda...

fearful empowerment: 1/day you can add the fear descriptor to any spell you cast that has a visual effect. More on it later
delay fear: you can choose to delay fear effects you generate for minutes/cha, and to delay fear effects affecting you by rounds/cha

greater master of terror : another +1 to the DC of spells with the fear descriptor you cast, and you can affect even creatures that are immune, provided their HD are less than your caster level +4

Spoiler: On monstruosity

Show

I wish I could be "a fear machine" on account of some racial supernatural or extraordinary ability, I really do. I just feel there so little support that can be thrown into improving those racial abilities, for as I've researched it's "get ability focus, increase charisma", that's about it. I'm looking forward to see what will be cooked, because in the meantime I am here stumped, and coasting on the technicality that the casting I am using is racially granted and that aura of menace can pass the sniff test for being a "fear" effect. The question kinda becomes "why is going for your 12 RHD and 4 LA special compared to just doing a cleric 16/dread witch 4" and well, here are some bullet points for you:

• this build was enabled by the LA reassignment thread, otherwise you *couldn't* play a trumpet archon dread witch before epic levels
• Playing a lawful good outsider with lawful good subtypes is a strong shoe in to be allowed exalted feats/spells
• if you fancy playing a vow of poverty but are leery about losing access to items, the chassis is strong!
• our fear DC is fairly higher than what a standard race cleric 16/dread witch 4 would reach, especially if they're denied the exalted glory domain, that bomb is BIG
• theme, I'm placing us as a beacon of dread for them devils and demons in shavarath, this is no place for puny mortals!
• the chassis is significantly chonkier than what a 20HD cleric 16/dread witch 4 would be, we traded high level slots for higher DC and a slew of features basically
• no turn undead means I can leverage those feats that would be dedicated to persistomancy to making the concept without feeling like I'm crippling myself

Spoiler: tactics

Show

This is all for ECL 20

The core of long lasting, big area of effect fear of this build is working with the fearful empowerment feature.

The feature is worded a bit weirdly, it says it adds the fear descriptor to a spell that has some sort of visual manifestation, So far so good.
It mentions fireball and summon monster as examples, and our mind can easily picture the summoned mosnter looking horrible, or the fireball being an horrific blob of darkness or whatever, so far so good.

It then says the fear DC is 10+dread witch level + cha modifier, ok, that's good, but "creatures targeted by the spell", ehr, what? a summon spell doesn't target anyone, and technically neither does fireball, so what gives? does it work only on spells that have a "target:XYZ" line in their card? but that would mean neither example they proposed would actually work with this feature.

And what about non-instaneous spells? assuming we ignore this "target" limitation as poor editing and rule it as it seems intended, that the fear is tied to seeing/observing the empowered spell, like the summon monster above, when and how often do we force a save against fear? On the round we cast the spell? On the first round a creature witness the empowered visual effect of the spell? If we cast a summon monster and one round later another creature enters the room from elsewhere, does that creature have to save? the horrific monster is still here after all!

This will all be GM adjudication here, that can go from very strict (only spells with "target:" lines can be used, shaken effect only on the round it's cast) to very permissive (every round a creature witnessing the visual component of a horrified spell must make a save, no immunity)
Personally, for this competition, I'm going to adjudicate like I would at my tables, so:

• Creatures that succeed on the save are immune from that istance of empowerment for 24 hours, this bypasses the greater master of terror in a "specific trumps general" as it's immunity to the singular spell, and not general immunity to fear/mind-affecting
• if the spell does damage and satisfy the visual component, anything that takes damage from it must save, each time they take damage, unless immune, no self escalation, but does escalate with other sources
• if the spell doesn't deal damage and satisfy the visual component, it affect those creatures within the area of effect of the spell, no arbitrary "how far can it be seen", save on "first exposure"
• If a creature leaves the area affected (because of panic, for example) and later reenters it, it must save again if the empowered spell is still active, unless it was immune from the first bullet point

Nominally prepared spell list

• 9th: 2x miracle, domain Blinding Glory
• 8th: 1x visions of the future, 1x chain dispel, 1x greater spell immunity, domain none or Holy word (can't use the expensive material component for 8th level domain spells)
• 7th: 4x extended snowsong, domain Holy word
• 6th: 1x superior resistance, 3x energy immunity, 2x greater dispel magic, domain blade barrier
• 5th: 1x extended celestial brilliance, 1x extended righteous aura, 1x extended greater luminous armor 3x righteous might domain dispel evil or extended glorious raiment
• 4th: 4x estended girallon blessing, 3x divine power, domain holy smite or extended glorious raiment
• 3rd: 7x adoration of the frightful domain searing light or extended glorious raiment
• 2th: 4x extended conviction, 4x lesser restoration, domain glorious raiment
• 1st: 4x shield of faith, 4x entropic shield, domain distrupt undead

"all day long or more" bonuses, either because the hour/duration is 17+ hours, or 4x extended 10 minutes/level comes to 22 hours duration and chance, ignoring effects that wouldn't stack:

• 1900-2200 ft of bright light illumination, evil-typed outsiders are blinded no save no spell resistance
• +2 sacred bonus to saves, +2 dodge bonus to AC
• 30ft aura that gives allies +4 morale bonus to charisma, +4 insight bonus to AC, fast healing 1, +1d6 cold damage on melee attacks. Enemies have 20% spell failure chance
• +6 resistance bonus to saves
• Immunity to acid, fire, cold damage
• daylight equivalent illumination that damages undead and evil outsiders, lasting 38-44 days per cast
• +4 sacred bonus to charisma, and daylight equivalent illumination
• daylight equivalent illumination, impose -4 penalty on melee attacks
• 4 primary claws attacks with rider rend
• +4 morale bonus to saves.

minute/level duration :
+4 deflection bonus to AC
+3 sacred bonus to AC
upgrade those to +5/+4 if we self inflict some panic to fuel absorb fear

Spells listed are assuming a somewhat solo gameplay, in a group setting, of course we can do the usual cleric group buffing, I'm sure you know the usual suspects. Just be careful of expensive material components

Other than core, the spells are mostly from Spell Compendium, BoED or PHBII


So, onward to fear!

our caster level is 17, 18 for good spells (good domain power), 19 for good spells with a verbal component ( word of creation), we got extend spell, so given those parameters, we can safely have concurrently fear imbued two good spells with hour/level duration, and they would ignore the immunity of creatures with 23HD or less, upped to caster level 22 and 2& or less HD, if we panic ourselves for the absorb fear increased Caster level

Let's get the cheeky one out of the way first: Celestial brilliance
This is day/level, daylight area illumination centered on object touched (our own dirty rags), that also deals damage to undead and evil outsider? DAY LEVEL DURATION. so let's empower it, and now we have a nice 120ft "aura" of shakeness, yum
So... let's pair it with two other hour/level "daylight-like illumination" spells, that way we have three constant "aura of fear from nominally different sources" on at all times, except once every 38-44 days when we have to renew our celestial brilliance.
Those are righteous aura, which also gives us some yummy charisma!, and greater luminous armor, which sadly doesn't stack with the vow of poverty, but still gives movable daylight illumination and the nifty penalty to melee attacks against us.

The only thing I'm sad about is that the save is "only" 31, and there's not much we can do about it other than finding some other ways to boost our charisma even higher. Before you say it, no, I'm not touching unseelie fey template with a 10ft pole until it get adjusted

if they come within 60 ft, we can make them friendly, even if they weren't!
if they are humanoid or monstrous humanoid, the DC is 4 higher, thanks to the nonviolence, it's jsut light!
and, of course, we have the racial aura of menace.

Blinding glory needs a special mention.
It has 1 hour of cast time, but the area of effect is a ginormous 100ft/level (!), lasting 38 hours.
it's problematic because it also gives a no save, no spell resistance blinded condition to any "evil aligned creature in the area", and personally I would rule that the blinded condition makes said creature "immune" to the daylight-fear, because they woulnd't see it.
Still, that big an area is quite the bomb on a battlefield setting, the sheer scale. It also means that if you move around, creature will "exit/enters" the area of effect and thus not be blinded before the get shaken.
and in indoor settings, if you are engaging within a range of 120ft, then it becomes a simple order of application issue, just resolve the fright form the righeous aura/celestial brilliance first.
Or, stupidly, do use your at will greater teleport to "bomb" around. Happily teleport all over the place, to have those damn devil/demons within 120ft, and thus PANICK!

Or, in a more permissive scenario, since the blinded condition is imposed because those evil creature see you.... then the light that YOU are making can very well be something they see, within the scope of "this is blinding them"

Spoiler: Sources

Show

BoED: Book of Exalted Deeds
CA: Complete Arcane
Fr: Frostburn
HoH: Heroes of Horror
PHBII: Player handbook 2
SC: Spell Compendium

[Beni-Kujaku]

And here we are. Only two entries, both by the same person. Loky1109, are you still up to judge?

[Morphic tide]

Yeah, using Fear was probably not the best idea since there's just not many monsters that have it in the first place, and not very many that have any interesting "hook" to it. Hell, there's not a single SRD creature that directly causes Frightened, and only two sources of Shaken, being Frightful Presence and one option of the Cloaker.

Sure, I had an idea for an entry, but finding something to fit 13 levels with disguise and fear racial abilities and a decent suite of Natural Attacks is a bit of an ask. And that's before getting into the absolute mess of the feats to support Intimidate, Charging, and Abominable Form at the same time! I wonder if you can guess what those 13 class levels would be from this.

[loky1109]

And here we are. Only two entries, both by the same person. Loky1109, are you still up to judge?

Yes, I am. Need some time, but not very much.

[ciopo]

Now that we're past reveal, I got a question about this contest houserule

"Possessing innate spellcasting from your race is treated as a spellcasting class for the purposes of prestige classes which provide new spells per day, an increase in caster level, and spells known (if applicable) as if you had gained a level in a spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level."

Would the same go for alternate class features that the creature would qualify for? Examples : a Lillend taking the inspire awe instead of inspire courage, a creature with cleric spellcasting ( including domain) trading the domains for the equivalent devotion, or a domain for divine magician.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Yeah, using Fear was probably not the best idea since there's just not many monsters that have it in the first place, and not very many that have any interesting "hook" to it. Hell, there's not a single SRD creature that directly causes Frightened, and only two sources of Shaken, being Frightful Presence and one option of the Cloaker.

Sure, I had an idea for an entry, but finding something to fit 13 levels with disguise and fear racial abilities and a decent suite of Natural Attacks is a bit of an ask. And that's before getting into the absolute mess of the feats to support Intimidate, Charging, and Abominable Form at the same time! I wonder if you can guess what those 13 class levels would be from this.

Yeah, I feel like I dropped the ball with this round's theme. Would you participate in a next round with another theme with more options?

There are two things I thought of, maybe to use in conjunction:

- First, do as some other similar comps do and suggest three different themes for the people to choose. It wuld also help to gauge the enthusiasm for the comp
- Also, since people don't know the monsters as well as they do the classes, maybe make a list of all currently rated creatures that fit the bill for a given round, and put them at the beginning, to spare them the the hassle of searching for them.

What do you think of these? Do you have other propositions?


Oh, and about your build, an ECL 7 monster with fear, good natural attacks and a lot of disguise, I'd say it's a Maurezhi that would go around transformed, then reveal its hideous form (or waits for its invisibility to run out as it charges to attack) at the start of combat to frighten people with Abominable Form, and chain with any way to get free/swift intimidate and Fear to be sure to make everybody panicked (or maybe reveal yourself in the end to have the condition last longer). I'd say at least 2 levels of totemist to get more claw attacks on which to put paralysis, maybe one or two levels of fighter for intimidating strike (not sure, since using a standard action for attacks is not great when you have so many), definitely barbarian 1 for intimidating rage, and any ACF other than Lion totem (most probably Improved Grab, to combo with BBC later), definitely monk 1/2 to get way more natural attacks (since you can unarmed strike with your feet) and qualify for black blood cultist, and get more feats in the process. Then, your choice and pick of black blood cultist, Thayan gladiator and Kensai (if you want to be a Lawful creature with the [chaotic] subtype).

[Beni-Kujaku]

Now that we're past reveal, I got a question about this contest houserule

"Possessing innate spellcasting from your race is treated as a spellcasting class for the purposes of prestige classes which provide new spells per day, an increase in caster level, and spells known (if applicable) as if you had gained a level in a spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level."

Would the same go for alternate class features that the creature would qualify for? Examples : a Lillend taking the inspire awe instead of inspire courage, a creature with cleric spellcasting ( including domain) trading the domains for the equivalent devotion, or a domain for divine magician.

No. The same way you can't get an ACF if you reach the spellcasting level of a class due to a prestige class, and you can't use an ACF of another class, even if you have the same ability (a rogue with fighter feats and who somehow got heavy armor proficiency cannot then trade these feats for the drow fighter ACF). ACF only work if you use the class for which these ACF were created.

[ciopo]

I feel GWG intent of alternating "class" rounds and "theme" rounds would work, relative to my interest at least.

On the theme side, I think the tricky part is picking a theme where monstering makes sense. A good chunk of it is the chef job, of course, but at least for me the chairman prompt "needs" to have optimization space.

The thing I like the most about all these comps is seeing some new sinergy I haven't seen before, or old sinergies applied in unusual places.

Fear is sadly well explored, at least to my knowledge, and making something solely to flex creative writing isn't my cup of coffee, I liked math and not literature a billion years ago in school and that hasn't changed :D.


I'm probably rambling a bit, but the bottom line is : I like the theme to lend itself to go monster for mechanical reasons, not just because "I fancy playing a monster".

fwiw, I was flirting with a cloaker/siren, but it's just.. insipid, moreso in hindsight considering the IC round is sirens all around, and like, it's cute but not really breaking new grounds?

No. The same way you can't get an ACF if you reach the spellcasting level of a class due to a prestige class, and you can't use an ACF of another class, even if you have the same ability (a rogue with fighter feats and who somehow got heavy armor proficiency cannot then trade these feats for the drow fighter ACF). ACF only work if you use the class for which these ACF were created.

I understand but consider, using lillend as an example, going dread witch for whatever reason, and then something else, let's say dirgesinger because why not.

How do this lillend compare to taking 9 bard levels instead? is not having access to inspire awe within the scope of "I want to make a fear machine" a malus big enough that a potential player may choose to just go normal bard instead?

I mean I feel both "don't" and "do" are fair here. In the sense that I feel it's fair to say lillend doesn't get ACF, because if you allow ACF then it's less about the monster and more about "normal builds".
otoh however, not having access to ACF makes me less likely to take a monster over the base class that monster has some features of, "it weights against" (which is both a bonus and a malus, because it means if I go mosnter I'm committing more)


sidewnote : what about alternate that aren't class specific? those that come to mind is skilled city-dweller, those features that exchange evasion, and dragonscale husk on top of my mind... and taking devotions in place of domains, since the wording on that is specifically "any class that gives a domain can instead take a devotion in place of the domain"

[Morphic tide]

Yeah, I feel like I dropped the ball with this round's theme. Would you participate in a next round with another theme with more options?

There are two things I thought of, maybe to use in conjunction:

- First, do as some other similar comps do and suggest three different themes for the people to choose. It wuld also help to gauge the enthusiasm for the comp
- Also, since people don't know the monsters as well as they do the classes, maybe make a list of all currently rated creatures that fit the bill for a given round, and put them at the beginning, to spare them the the hassle of searching for them.

What do you think of these? Do you have other propositions?

I was actually thinking of the second myself, since what monsters "count" can get a bit fuzzy. The first would also be useful as it'd give some defense from obtuse requirements.

Oh, and about your build, an ECL 7 monster with fear, good natural attacks and a lot of disguise, I'd say it's a Maurezhi that would go around transformed, then reveal its hideous form (or waits for its invisibility to run out as it charges to attack) at the start of combat to frighten people with Abominable Form, and chain with any way to get free/swift intimidate and Fear to be sure to make everybody panicked (or maybe reveal yourself in the end to have the condition last longer). I'd say at least 2 levels of totemist to get more claw attacks on which to put paralysis, maybe one or two levels of fighter for intimidating strike (not sure, since using a standard action for attacks is not great when you have so many), definitely barbarian 1 for intimidating rage, and any ACF other than Lion totem (most probably Improved Grab, to combo with BBC later), definitely monk 1/2 to get way more natural attacks (since you can unarmed strike with your feet) and qualify for black blood cultist, and get more feats in the process. Then, your choice and pick of black blood cultist, Thayan gladiator and Kensai (if you want to be a Lawful creature with the [chaotic] subtype).

Actually it was Samurai 10/Ronin 2/Soul Eater 1 to leverage the Intimidate bonus of Willing Deformity and Abominable Form by using Mass Staredown to get people Shaken so they're Frightened if Abominable Form hits, have more use of the disguise aspect by having it negate a downside of Ronin, and inflict negative levels to get around save DC and HD requirements because normally Abominable Form only affects lower-HD-than-you targets and Intimidate is a level check so Energy Drain's a big help to both, and the second level of Ronin gives a Shock Trooper effect saving up to three feats, if Power Attack isn't needed for something else.

Maurezhi is a very nearly perfect fit for that "core", even having a way to use the +1d6 Sneak Attack on the Banzai Charge. The point was Fear, and one of the few feats to give a Fear ability also dictates a +5 bonus to Intimidate, which is a skill check for Fear, but pretty much the only area-of-effect source is Samurai 10. Imperius Command causes that check to make enemies Cower for a round, which denies AC, which opens a few options to get off the Charge on something with no other way of having its AC denied to add Sneak Attack to a TWF Banzai Charge. Would need Energy Drain to have a disguise and still fit all 13 levels by the pure RAW, but that's somewhat covered by the asterisk.

[loky1109]

Read both entries first time. I'll need to reread them and then can write my judgment. Two to four days.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Thanks for the update‚ loky!

While we're waiting‚ let's suggest a few themes for the next comp :

- Monster-in-charge :
Must have the Pounce or Rake ability
- Keep your monsters close‚ and your enemies closer :
Must have the Improved Grab or Constrict ability
- You can run from a monster‚ but you can't hide :
Must have Track as a bonus feat‚ or otherwise have a way to find creatures from afar (Discern Location SLA‚ Retriever's Find target...)


What do you think of these themes? Which one inspires you the most?

[ciopo]

grabby ones