LA Assignment Thread X: New Year, New Management, Same Old Unplayable Monsters

[Thurbane]

I'm definitely not saying this is a totally horrible LA -0 (I've definitely rated other -0 creatures that make this look more appealing), but it is probably something I'd never play myself.

I'm not a fan of one gimmick characters, and I also hate characters that lack skill points. Skills open up so many options and choices in the game.

I think the post that Liquidformat made earlier really hit home for me: if I were to join a game where Flesh Golem, Green Hag, Hieracosphinx, Lamia or Skirr were my options, I honestly don't know if Skirr or Flesh golem would be my last choice. Depending on how the Golem's Int was to be gained/ruled (and also how Berserk was handled), I think I'd put Skirr last.

A fair bit of that is personal preference, but everyone's LA votes are colored by personal preference, gaming exsperiences and play style to some degree.

[Lapak]

I'm convinced by the LA +0 arguments, as I have always fallen on the 'is this clearly worse than +0' as my metric for that, and I think the arguments that it can perform in its one or two possible roles are reasonable.

I am also a fan of Better LA'd Than Never for the next thread title.

[Morphic tide]

You say that it is better than the average monk. In damage‚ assuredly‚ nobody here denies it. But the skirr has less‚ in 9 levels‚ than most classes have in 2! The monk has 2 bonus feats and evasion to balance the bad BAB‚ the bard has it's music and spells‚ the swordsage has freaking maneuvers and feats and nifty bonuses. Being a point of BAB behind must pay off. The skirr has no ability. Poor flight means it won't be able to manipulate things while flying‚ reducing drastically it's use. And apart from that‚ it has nothing of worth. This is just a boring monster‚ that I see no reason to use at +0 when I can just play a goliath.

Has an extra size category over Goliath, resulting in quite a chunk more damage as Monk or Unarmed Swordsage as I have described. Also has, again, +13 AC as Monk or Swordsage, before speaking of optimiztion allowences. And most classes are rather heavily frontloaded, right with your first Unarmed Swordsage level you can select from 3rd-level Maneuvers. Sure, a Goliath's going to be rocking their first 6th when you hit your 12th-level feat to online Gargantuan Monk 12 Unarmed Strike damage, but then you're at 4th-level Maneuvers and every single attack you make is dealing quite the chunk more damage.

If they do the same Monk's Belt+Superior Unarmed Strike, they hit Monk 20 at level 11 and will deal equal base damage with Improved Natural Attack, but you still have +4 to damage over a Goliath. Who actually has -2 Dex, so -14 AC compared to you, making it a vast amount of effort to be as durable against enemy beatsticks in reality. And when you hit 16 you get 6d8 base damage, being an additional +6 average damage over the Goliath Unarmed Swordsage on any attack.

As for skills, going Swordsage gives you a base of 6 ranks per level, and we could trade a bit of the AC I mentioned for skills. Bring Int to 14 and you have base 6 Int, giving you 4 ranks per level on your Swordsage levels, and 2 per RHD. Big disadvantage here, but combat capabilities are very much a bit broader from having a not-terrible Grapple capacity entirely innate and surprisingly in the air for damage since Swordsage only gets so many high-level Manevuers to outweigh per-hit damage.

[danielxcutter]

I would like to point out that basically the only thing you do is punch hard and have a high grapple modifier. Do you out-damage a barbarian? Not some kind of ubercharger Frenzied Berserker build, a good-for-honest simple half-orc Barbarian 20.

[Troacctid]

I would like to point out that basically the only thing you do is punch hard and have a high grapple modifier. Do you out-damage a barbarian? Not some kind of ubercharger Frenzied Berserker build, a good-for-honest simple half-orc Barbarian 20.

What is the half-orc barbarian 20 doing besides punching hard and having a high grapple modifier? Are we supposed to be impressed by trap sense, DR 2, and improved uncanny dodge?

[Beni-Kujaku]

If you told me there was a prestige class that would make my character grow two size categories, sprout wings, become immune to mind-affecting abilities, ignore critical hits, and auto-pass Fortitude saves, all while getting bonuses to primary and tertiary ability scores, and in only nine levels, with only a modest skill tax as a prerequisite...I guarantee you it would be a char-op staple. The skirr doesn't need a prestige class—it is the prestige class. You just take it before your base class instead of after.

A prestige class that gives all of this for the low, low price of nearly half your entire progression, and you can't get outside in the middle? My friend, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 ft pole (that I couldn't wield anyway). You know the bear warrior exists, right? It gives better stats and a size increase in 5 levels. That is four levels less! And you keep a full BAB. And you keep your constitution and the HP that comes with it, with a nice bonus when it matters. And a better land speed. And you keep your skills. And you can wield weapons without shenanigans. And you keep your race bonuses. That starts to be an awful lot. With these four levels, you can take one level of totemist to get a flight speed, and you could spend one to be a necropolitan, but why would you? You're a barbarian, you want that constitution, not only for the HP, but also as a prerequisite for feats. In the end, with these 6 to 7 levels, you are much better than a skirr in almost every conceivable way. I believe you are dearly underestimating the power of prestige classes, and to choose which class to take to dip in. "You can do everything better with less levels" is kind of the exact definition of LA -0. I stand by my vote.

Also, a char-op staple? The classes chosen in optimization are chosen because they can do something unique. And "something unique" is definitely not how I would describe the skirr.

What is the half-orc barbarian 20 doing besides punching hard and having a high grapple modifier? Are we supposed to be impressed by trap sense, DR 2, and improved uncanny dodge?

What is the skirr doing besides punching hard and having a high grapple modifier? Are we supposed to be impressed by Improved grab on an unusable attack and poor flying?
What danielxcutter is saying is that even in the only field where the skirr has something to offer, a straight barbarian might overpower it. He chose a barbarian because it is the most straightforward, no-ability-to-speak-of class, and hence can the most easily be compared to the skirr. A non-skirr PC could go straight barbarian, but they could mix and match classes, have much more to bring to the table and be a lot more effective. A skirr loses a whole lot of this versatility for being forced to take 9 levels of skirr. So if the skirr doesn't perform much better than the straight barbarian in what it specializes into, then it isn't worth taking over the aformentioned straight barbarian. And as it is, no, it doesn't perform much better. Some could say it doesn't perform better at all.

[Zarvistic]

Is one if it's feats supposed to be a bonus feat? It has 5 feats total.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Is one if it's feats supposed to be a bonus feat? It has 5 feats total.

That's a common mistake from the book. If none of the feats is explicitly stated as bonus in the statblock (by a (B)), we just consider it is a mistake and remove it.

[Morphic tide]

I would like to point out that basically the only thing you do is punch hard and have a high grapple modifier. Do you out-damage a barbarian? Not some kind of ubercharger Frenzied Berserker build, a good-for-honest simple half-orc Barbarian 20.

Half-Orc Barbarian 20 has +20/+15/+10/+5 BAB, 18(base)+2(racial)+6(enhancement)+8(rage)+5(tome)+ 5(ASIs) Strength for total of 44, giving us a +17 Strength modifier, and definitely Power Attack on a two-hander. Given a Silver +1 Holy Speed Bane of Lawful+Evil Outsiders Greataxe (total +8 weapon) against the AC 40 Pit Fiend targeted in this example, we have +7 to the attack roll from the enhancements and +25 from Strength, for +52/+52/+47/+42/+37, allowing +26/+26/+18/+6/+0 in Power Attack damage and suffer a miss solely from nat 1s on any but the last, each of which has 1d12+6d6+30 damage before Power Attack. This is a total of 5d12+30d6+285 damage, average 422.5 while ignoring the DR 15, killing the Pit Fiend twice over. Their Grapple check is +41 with the bare-bones Improved Grapple, which is already an investment of two feats since they're swinging with a Greataxe

A Skirr Unarmed Swordsage 11 has +12/+7/+2 BAB, and 18+12+6+5+5 Strength for a +18 modifier. With a Necklace of Natural Attacks of the same enhancements set to their Unarmed Strike, they have +37/+37/+32/+27/+22 attacks, dealing 8d8+6d6+23 damage per hit, with the unlikely event of all of them hitting giving an average damage of 400. Their Grapple check with Improved Grapple is 42, with their size modifier neatly negating their BAB disadvantage.

Also note how much of this is coming from the two-hander Strength multiplier: The Barbarian is getting +76 damage on their first three swings to it, +20 on the fourth swing, and +8 on the fifth. 104 damage, nearly a quarter of it, is coming from adding half their Strength an extra time. And this is me assuming you don't get to stack your Natural Attacks with Unarmed Strikes for some edge, which I think is the case but haven't been able to find the relevant rules, and leaving out any Maneuver bonuses, so the Skirr most definitely has some form of damage advantage when you actually play as a Swordsage instead of ignoring literally everything but your AFC-granted giant base damage.

So if the skirr doesn't perform much better than the straight barbarian in what it specializes into, then it isn't worth taking over the aformentioned straight barbarian. And as it is, no, it doesn't perform much better. Some could say it doesn't perform better at all.

As seen above, a Skirr Unarmed Swordsage very readily competes with Barbarian in the bluntest Big Dumb Full Attack scenarios, something Swordsage is ill-suited to (especially when you leave out Maneuvers and Stances like I did...), while being a Swordsage with 7th-level Maneuvers in every other situation. I could re-run the numbers for Barbarian, but I do believe the losses to base damage would outweigh any advantage from Strength.

[Thurbane]

What is the half-orc barbarian 20 doing besides punching hard and having a high grapple modifier? Are we supposed to be impressed by trap sense, DR 2, and improved uncanny dodge?

Potentially? Intimidating effectively. Training animals. Crafting mundane items, if that's campaign appropriate. Tracking (if they use a feat).

Speaking, without needing items or cross class skill points. Side-note: if you've ever been in a game where there is a communication barrier between one more more of the PCs, and the DM is enforcing it, coordinating during a combat can vary between hilarious and utterly infuriating. Oh, your character spotted the hidden Assassin about to Death Attack the Wizard? How exactly do you alert him? I guess you could furiously gesture your weird wing-arm fingers in the direction of the Assassin, and hope for the best.

Having a boatload more PrC options than the Skirr, also (if they want to jump off Barbarian at any point).

[Troacctid]

A prestige class that gives all of this for the low, low price of nearly half your entire progression, and you can't get outside in the middle? My friend, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 ft pole (that I couldn't wield anyway). You know the bear warrior exists, right? It gives better stats and a size increase in 5 levels. That is four levels less! And you keep a full BAB. And you keep your constitution and the HP that comes with it, with a nice bonus when it matters. And a better land speed. And you keep your skills. And you can wield weapons without shenanigans. And you keep your race bonuses. That starts to be an awful lot. With these four levels, you can take one level of totemist to get a flight speed, and you could spend one to be a necropolitan, but why would you? You're a barbarian, you want that constitution, not only for the HP, but also as a prerequisite for feats. In the end, with these 6 to 7 levels, you are much better than a skirr in almost every conceivable way. I believe you are dearly underestimating the power of prestige classes, and to choose which class to take to dip in. "You can do everything better with less levels" is kind of the exact definition of LA -0. I stand by my vote.

Also, a char-op staple? The classes chosen in optimization are chosen because they can do something unique. And "something unique" is definitely not how I would describe the skirr.

A skirr barbarian has higher Strength and AC than a bear warrior barbarian and is a size category larger. It also has those bonuses all the time instead of having a daily limit, and it can fly, and it comes online at a lower ECL.

What is the skirr doing besides punching hard and having a high grapple modifier? Are we supposed to be impressed by Improved grab on an unusable attack and poor flying?
What danielxcutter is saying is that even in the only field where the skirr has something to offer, a straight barbarian might overpower it. He chose a barbarian because it is the most straightforward, no-ability-to-speak-of class, and hence can the most easily be compared to the skirr. A non-skirr PC could go straight barbarian, but they could mix and match classes, have much more to bring to the table and be a lot more effective. A skirr loses a whole lot of this versatility for being forced to take 9 levels of skirr. So if the skirr doesn't perform much better than the straight barbarian in what it specializes into, then it isn't worth taking over the aformentioned straight barbarian. And as it is, no, it doesn't perform much better. Some could say it doesn't perform better at all.

If it's pretty close, sometimes better and sometimes worse, to the point where you can plausibly argue either side, that's an argument for +0.

Potentially? Intimidating effectively. Training animals. Crafting mundane items, if that's campaign appropriate. Tracking (if they use a feat).

Speaking, without needing items or cross class skill points. Side-note: if you've ever been in a game where there is a communication barrier between one more more of the PCs, and the DM is enforcing it, coordinating during a combat can vary between hilarious and utterly infuriating. Oh, your character spotted the hidden Assassin about to Death Attack the Wizard? How exactly do you alert him? I guess you could furiously gesture your weird wing-arm fingers in the direction of the Assassin, and hope for the best.

Having a boatload more PrC options than the Skirr, also (if they want to jump off Barbarian at any point).

Skirrs can intimidate well enough. Training animals, crafting mundane items, and tracking are all kind of a joke and do not significantly impact your power except maybe at low levels. And if a skirr wants to take a barbarian prestige class, it's easy for them to get access to rage.

[danielxcutter]

I still find it worth noting that you have like... no hit points at that level. There’s a good chance the wizard has more than you if they cast Bear’s Endurance on themselves.

[Morphic tide]

I still find it worth noting that you have like... no hit points at that level. There’s a good chance the wizard has more than you if they cast Bear’s Endurance on themselves.

Wizard 20 is 4+19d4+20xCon, Skirr Swordsage 11 is 12+8d12+11d8. Wizard needs 12 Con for Bear's Endurance to bring them on par with a Skirr Swordsage's HP. For fun, Goliath Swordsage 19 has 8+18d8+20xCon, being down exactly from their LA off just an assigned 10. Each point of Con bonus constitutes ~17.6% of a Skirr Swordsage's HP so it's impressively trivial to exceed their health on all sorts of things (like a 16 Con Wizard), but then a Skirr Swordsage reduces hit chances on normal attacks by 65% over any race that doesn't give Dex or Wis (how often is an attack with over 70% accuracy coming your way as a Swordsage?) and has a pile of immunities cutting into damage taken, so there's a lot of situations where it's more durable in the end from not taking damage in the first place.

Like literally any melee beater fight. Save the grapplers, but then really only Totemist is in the clear against those things because they frequently end up getting a solid Grapple check completely incidentally from Girallon Arms. Even so, if you're making level 20 comparisons, PsyWar 11 makes the bar to turn on the Powered Grapple package and has enough PP to put it up every fight enough to function, it's that the start in mid-level is utter torture.

Edit: Base Skirr with 11 levels of 3/4 BAB and the "basic" Strength is, as already mentioned, +42 Grapple, while a Half-Orc PsyWar 20 has +15 BAB and 10 less Strength alongside being Medium instead of Huge, for +31 if I have my math correct. The target I'll set is the +52 Grapple Old Red Dragon, which the Skirr can match for a 1pp +5 Expansion, 5pp +6 Grip of Iron, and two hits with a 3pp Strength of My Enemy. To be allowed to Grapple, the Half-Orc needs a 7pp Expansion to go Huge, which gives +10, then needs to acquire a further +11, which costs 13pp from Grip of Iron if we give the same two Strength of My Enemy hits.

9pp for the Skirr, 23 pp for the Half-Orc. 25.7% of the Skirr's base PP, 18.1% of the Half-Orc's base PP. Skirr at 14 payed-for Wis and +6 item has 22 Wis, Practiced Manifester gives ML 15, resulting in 45 bonus PP, while the Half-Orc assigns 12 to afford Constitution and relies on their +6 item, with ML 20 because they've not lost any, getting 40 bonus PP. With the resultant 80pp, the Skirr is expending 11.3% of their pool on Grapple modifier to equal the Old Red Dragon, while the 167pp pool of the Half-Orc is expending 13.8% of the pool to do the same.

Of course, all this goes firmly in the trash with Psicarnum shenanigans of +12 Girallon Arms and Midnight Augmentation dumpstering PP price tags, but being a feat-based Theurge-gish in a fashion wholly unavailable to the monster makes a rather inappropriate comparison. And boy am I going to have fun running those numbers into the ground once we get out of this book.

[Troacctid]

Yeah, no offense, but you're way off base on the HP issue. You have the same HP as a duskblade with 14 Con, except more because you can take the Slow trait for free. You have reach to cancel any non-reach charges against you. You have tons of AC, enough that most enemies will get frustrated trying to hit you and target someone else instead. The skirr is not squishy by any measure.

[danielxcutter]

I thought we weren't using traits and flaws as default.

[Lilapop]

Not sure I'd equate poor maneuverability with "aint ever gonna bother walking on the ground again". Any time you need to zigzag, or land and take off again multiple times, or generally anything other than floop over in a straight line, your 50 ft flight get penalized down or even prohibited pretty quickly. Sure, we're talking about a 30 ft gap between the two modes in this case, but your wording has been rather generalistic.

[Troacctid]

Not sure I'd equate poor maneuverability with "aint ever gonna bother walking on the ground again". Any time you need to zigzag, or land and take off again multiple times, or generally anything other than floop over in a straight line, your 50 ft flight get penalized down or even prohibited pretty quickly. Sure, we're talking about a 30 ft gap between the two modes in this case, but your wording has been rather generalistic.

That's a problem if you're staying above ground level, but if you fly close to the ground, you can just briefly land every time you want to turn.

[Beni-Kujaku]

A skirr barbarian has higher Strength and AC than a bear warrior barbarian and is a size category larger. It also has those bonuses all the time instead of having a daily limit, and it can fly, and it comes online at a lower ECL.

+12 (skirr) +4 (rage) is not higher than (+16) brown bear. And you keep the abilities of rage, so you can take whirling frenzy without problem. I agree that 7 AC is a lot but I'm far from convinced it makes for having half as much HP. I agree with the daily limit, even though a simple extra rage feat should be more than enough to be able to transform all day. And once again, poor flying is unusable in combat and replaced with advantages by a few points in climb, or just by the wizard outside of it. For the lower ECL, that would be true if the premices of this discussion were not that the skirr is a prestige class by itself! The bear warrior can do what it wants with the seven first levels! It can even take other prestige classes, like, I don't know, frenzied berserker, or a wilderness companion wizard, that will allow to pick objects and act out of combat as if they were flying, plus they gain spells... The skirr just can't! Most of your own comparisons were at level 12 anyway, because the skirr has so few BAB that it isn't fair to compare it at level 9.

Yeah, no offense, but you're way off base on the HP issue. You have the same HP as a duskblade with 14 Con, except more because you can take the Slow trait for free. You have reach to cancel any non-reach charges against you. You have tons of AC, enough that most enemies will get frustrated trying to hit you and target someone else instead. The skirr is not squishy by any measure.

Squishy doesn't only apply to melee attacks, you know, and without any energy protection, a fireball will kill you very fast. And heal will just kill you (or put you at 1 HP).

If it's pretty close, sometimes better and sometimes worse, to the point where you can plausibly argue either side, that's an argument for +0.

Are... Are you even reading what we're writing? Being "almost as good" in one specific thing isn't going to make it interesting to play if everything else is in shambles and if you're stuck in one specific role. The allure of 3.5 is being able to choose where you want to go by taking the levels you want. That is the difference between a monster and a PC. A PC has a party, and things to do outside of combat. And in combat, having 9 of your levels dedicated to do only one thing is not interesting enough to be worth playing, if you're not really good at it.
So, I feel like you don't want to hear this kind of argument and that this discussion hasn't brought anything new in ages and is turning into a dialogue of the deaf. So I'm going to withdraw from it and not post anything else on this particular creature, enjoy.

[Thurbane]

Yeah, no offense, but you're way off base on the HP issue. You have the same HP as a duskblade with 14 Con, except more because you can take the Slow trait for free.

That's the second time you've mentioned them: may be worth noting that Traits are an alternate system that aren't in play at all tables.

A martial with a d10 or d12 HD might be a fairer comparison too, since d8 is literally as low as any full BAB class goes.

Also, I don't know anyone who plays a melee martial type without Con being at least one of their propriety stats. True, with a gish-in-a-can like Duskblade it might be 3rd priority, but for mundane melee types it will often be 2nd.

Having said that, I do agree that IMHO most Undead melee types aren't quite in the dire straits that danielxcutter is presenting.

[Troacctid]

Are... Are you even reading what we're writing? Being "almost as good" in one specific thing isn't going to make it interesting to play if everything else is in shambles and if you're stuck in one specific role. The allure of 3.5 is being able to choose where you want to go by taking the levels you want. That is the difference between a monster and a PC. A PC has a party, and things to do outside of combat. And in combat, having 9 of your levels dedicated to do only one thing is not interesting enough to be worth playing, if you're not really good at it.

Sounds very damning for the standard fighter class, which also does only one thing and has no out-of-combat utility. (I assume Intimidate doesn't count, because if it did, it would count for the skirr too. Ditto for alternative combat styles such as tripping and disarming, as well as mobility skills such as climbing and swimming.) In fact, it's pretty damning for the barbarian too. Are we rating fighter and barbarian at -0 LA now?

[noob]

Sounds very damning for the standard fighter class, which also does only one thing and has no out-of-combat utility. (I assume Intimidate doesn't count, because if it did, it would count for the skirr too. Ditto for alternative combat styles such as tripping and disarming, as well as mobility skills such as climbing and swimming.) In fact, it's pretty damning for the barbarian too. Are we rating fighter and barbarian at -0 LA now?

I believed there was an agreement within LA assignment to comparing the monsters with the classes the most similar to them.
Because else all monsters without ridiculously awesome Slas or sur powers or casting would have -0 LA.
So the Skirr should be compared for example to a fighter or a barbarian or a core only monk but not to a swordsage because the swordsage is not similar to a skirr.

[danielxcutter]

I believed there was an agreement within LA assignment to comparing the monsters with the classes the most similar to them.
Because else all monsters without ridiculously awesome Slas or sur powers or casting would have -0 LA.
So the Skirr should be compared for example to a fighter or a barbarian or a core only monk but not to a swordsage because the swordsage is not similar to a skirr.

Or maybe a Totemist? Isn't that our guideline for natural attackers?

[noob]

Or maybe a Totemist? Isn't that our guideline for natural attackers?

I did not read any post before that compared totemists to skirrs.
A totemist is able to swap out their natural weapon loadout(and do a lot of other things) and a skirr seems to be more based on grappling than natural weapon use and to be focused on a single purpose: grappling and flying to drop people from high.
Fighters, monks and barbarians that are focused on grappling will match its grappling or exceed it but flying from the more readily aviable feats is slower than the skirr's flying.(do totemists fly high?)

[danielxcutter]

I would say that “hitting things” covers a fairly wide spectrum, to be fair.

[noob]

I would say that “hitting things” covers a fairly wide spectrum, to be fair.

The skirr is pretty poor at just hitting things.
It is however correct at flying and above average at grappling.

[danielxcutter]

I dunno if Skirr flight is that good without burning items or fears on it. Though I do think there was an item from Draconomicon that increases flight mobility? Not 100% sure if it works on non-dragons though, but I think a lot of items there do.

How much mobility is good enough for aerial combat in general?

[Tzardok]

I dunno if Skirr flight is that good without burning items or fears on it. Though I do think there was an item from Draconomicon that increases flight mobility? Not 100% sure if it works on non-dragons though, but I think a lot of items there do.

How much mobility is good enough for aerial combat in general?

It does work for non-dragons, and it can be taken more than once (but it can't raise mobility beyond good).

[danielxcutter]

It does work for non-dragons, and it can be taken more than once (but it can't raise mobility beyond good).

No I mean I think there was an item for that. Some harness that gives a continuous Wings of Air effect I think?

[Tzardok]

No I mean I think there was an item for that. Some harness that gives a continuous Wings of Air effect I think?

Sorry. I misread "item". Thought you said "feat".

[Lilapop]

There's both. The feat is called improved maneuverability, and the item is the pectoral of maneuverability (16k gp, torso slot). Both are +1 maneuverability.

To answer your question, you do kinda want "good" so you can hover instead of a minimum forward speed required to stay afloat, allowing non-pounce full attacks (most flying creature's primary natural attack is specifically not the one that deals x2 damage on a dive), summons and other full round actions. Most casters could get way with the lower qualities, relying on standard action spells.


On rating the Skirr, I've been thinking. The -8 int makes it rather difficult to come up with a 0 RHD, LA+0 starting point, but spreading the remaining features (large, huge, natural attacks, improved grab, flight) and the minor bonuses (strength, nat ac, etc) out over 9 class levels... it has highlights a little more often than a barbarian, but they are still tier 4 in style and the minor bonuses are just barely compensating for lost base attack bonus (keep in mind that most of the strength bonus would be a feature of the "base race", not the "class", to even out the int penalty). And yet, the highlights are also bigger than "more rages per day". Add the bells and whistles of the undead type, which are mostly positive, and this can compete.

I vote +0.