The LA-assignment thread VII: LA LA Land

[ViperMagnum357]

One point of Int counts as 6 power points in terms of sustenance.

Aaah, fair point, and poor reading on my part; though you still need to bring along multiple people/pets to feed on if none if them can regenerate ability damage, or expend resources bypassing the problem.

[Efrate]

You can journey with a binder and nom your friend as needed, but as awesome as etherealness is you cannot take advantage of it in any meaningful way. Might be a neat pet in a psionic campaign? -0*

[javcs]

Aaah, fair point, and poor reading on my part; though you still need to bring along multiple people/pets to feed on if none if them can regenerate ability damage, or expend resources bypassing the problem.

While true ... it probably isn't that unreasonable to think you'll get encounters with at least 2 points of Int in a day. For that matter, you could probably get away with nomming on random commoners, given you can pop into the Material as part of a move action behind them, make a melee touch attack for Eat Thoughts, and then go Ethereal as a free action. Might even be able to go Material as part of a charge.


But yeah ... weird sustenance requirements can be awkward to manage.

[ZamielVanWeber]

-0*. This does not need much explanation I think. The only thing this has going for it is you look really cool thanks to a hard working artist.

[liquidformat]

-0*. This does not need much explanation I think. The only thing this has going for it is you look really cool thanks to a hard working artist.

I don't know I think the old angry platypus ghost was a more accurate representation of the power level of this thing...

[Dimers]

Honestly, if Dimers is okay with it I'll gladly quote those words of wisdom.

*shrug* I don't grok why people ask. (I follow the example, but I don't understand it.) Way I figure, this's a publicly accessible forum, anything written in it is up for grabs.

LA -0* for thought eater. Now I'm pondering how a medieval human society would be different if thought eaters were common in that part of the gameworld. Domesticated, feral, wild, doesn't matter. Slight silver lining, you'd always have an excuse if you forgot something important ...

[Thurbane]

I'm not going to give a LA vote, but I just want to say: this weird, undead, wingless griffon-thing is NOT a Thought Eater. As someone who has played since 1E, the Thought Eater will always be an emaciated platypus in my heart.

Come on - it's not like native Australian fauna gets much love anywhere else in D&D. Let us have this, no matter how absurd!

[liquidformat]

I'm not going to give a LA vote, but I just want to say: this weird, undead, wingless griffon-thing is NOT a Thought Eater. As someone who has played since 1E, the Thought Eater will always be an emaciated platypus in my heart.

Come on - it's not like native Australian fauna gets much love anywhere else in D&D. Let us have this, no matter how absurd!

Can't agree more +10 to bringing back angry platypus ghost/ emaciated platypus!

[OgresAreCute]

I'm not going to give a LA vote, but I just want to say: this weird, undead, wingless griffon-thing is NOT a Thought Eater. As someone who has played since 1E, the Thought Eater will always be an emaciated platypus in my heart.

Come on - it's not like native Australian fauna gets much love anywhere else in D&D. Let us have this, no matter how absurd!

There's the abrian in fiend folio, which is essentially an evil ostrich/emu thingy. Corollax in MM2 is a colorful parrot able to color-spray at will at cr 1/2. Not a lot, and not as australia-iconic as it could be though.

Side note, I really hate these "drain x amount of power points" monsters. It's not like tome of magic had a crap-ton of monsters draining spell slots or anything. Also, since power point pools increase by so much each level, an amount of power point drain that is a credible threat at one level is going to be a minor inconvenience just one or two levels later.

[Thurbane]

I supposed one could apply the Dungeonbred template to an Axebeak or Terror Bird and call it a cassowary...

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[liquidformat]

I supposed one could apply the Dungeonbred template to an Axebeak or Terror Bird and call it a cassowary...

Spoiler

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I don't know I feel like the entire game is based roughly on Australia the land where everything is trying to kill you...

[Inevitability]

I'm not going to give a LA vote, but I just want to say: this weird, undead, wingless griffon-thing is NOT a Thought Eater. As someone who has played since 1E, the Thought Eater will always be an emaciated platypus in my heart.

Honestly, the impression I got from the statblock was that it's supposed to represent one of those, they just made the last-minute decision to give it some 'generic skeletal predator' art and completely rewrite its fluff.

I can buy a floating platypus having no natural weapons, but not some canine beaked beast.

[danielxcutter]

I once saw a Tumblr post about the Underdark being Australia, what with weird fauna and flora, different dialect, and literally being "down under" and whatnot. Sounds legit to me, honestly.

[Aniikinis]

-0* for the beastie. I agree with thurbane here, bring back the platypus!

I once saw a Tumblr post about the Underdark being Australia, what with weird fauna and flora, different dialect, and literally being "down under" and whatnot. Sounds legit to me, honestly.

I can dig it, but I prefer the underdark as North Korea personally.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Anyone curious what those looked like in earlier versions of D&D? No? Too bad, I had to look at this and so do you.

"Hey, boss, this monster is basically just a mummified platypus. How the heck am I supposed to make that look scary?"
"I dunno. Make an undead-looking monster with a bird head?"
"...Does it have to look anything like the original?"
"God no, even the grognards won't defend that."

[T]hey have a natural touch attack that deals six power points of damage or, against nonpsionic creatures, a single point of intelligence. It shouldn't be hard to see how outright terrible that is.

...That's terrible for both monsters and PCs. Aside from wizards and psions, nobody's going to notice a few points of Intelligence damage. Why do you make so many of your potentially-cool psionic monsters do almost nothing to people without power points, Past!WotC?

[javcs]

"Hey, boss, this monster is basically just a mummified platypus. How the heck am I supposed to make that look scary?"
"I dunno. Make an undead-looking monster with a bird head?"
"...Does it have to look anything like the original?"
"God no, even the grognards won't defend that."


...That's terrible for both monsters and PCs. Aside from wizards and psions, nobody's going to notice a few points of Intelligence damage. Why do you make so many of your potentially-cool psionic monsters do almost nothing to people without power points, Past!WotC?

And, hell, any wizard or psion worth the name isn't actually going to be stopped by one point of Int damage. They're just going to be ticked off and ready an action to nuke the thought eater next time it pops out of the Ethereal. For that matter, so will the rest of the party.

It's just a resource drain monster.

[liquidformat]

I once saw a Tumblr post about the Underdark being Australia, what with weird fauna and flora, different dialect, and literally being "down under" and whatnot. Sounds legit to me, honestly.

from the point of view of a commoner or an expert all of D&D is Australia, it is a land where everything can and will try to kill you!

[Inevitability]

Thought Slayer

Thought eaters: now with actual danger! At least relatively speaking.

The basics: 14 aberration RHD, Huge size, +14 natural armor, and a 3d6 bite. Ability-wise, thought slayers get the expected big boosts to strength and constitution (+16 and +10), with smaller bonuses to everything except intelligence (which is penalized instead).

Their special qualities are a mixed bag. PR 21 is the double-edged sword it's always been, at-will Ethereal Jaunt is still useful but definitely less impressive than it was at ECL 3. Note that in spite of all its added power, the thought slayer still dies if it spends a minute on the material plane, so be aware that a single Dimensional Anchor can kill you (then again, what D&D character doesn't die to the right 4th-level spell?).

The PLAs are neat, but all suffer from being quite low-level and just not all that impressive. At-will Brain Lock would make for an amazing spammable save-or-suck, but sadly the DC of 14 (hard to raise without suffering from MADness) puts a damper on its viability.

Finally, there's the slayer's Mind-Consuming gaze, which could've been interesting and quirky but instead is just another boring save-or-die. Try and not catch your allies in the area, because Narrowed Gaze is hard to get with a -4 intelligence penalty.

Final verdict: the thought slayer has a lot of tricks, but most of them are outdated, hard to use, or just not all that impressive. -0 LA, but I'm open to arguments for +0.

[Zaq]

14 bad RHD and nothing on par with casting. Easy -0.

I will point out that the slayer can be on the Material Plane for longer than the eater, but that doesn’t change my rating.

[javcs]

I thought the Slayer got 10 minutes on the Material. Not that it changes anything.


LA -0*.
Fourteen Aberration RHD needs a lot more than what the slayer has.


Edit: Forgot to give it a star because it's just that wonky.

[ZamielVanWeber]

-0. No attack routine. Un amazing stats. Smoky cat bird just does not hold up the average 14th level character.

[Aniikinis]

-0* for sure. I used a few of these and the little one in a campaign once and they were just not worth their weight in XP.

[StevenC21]

Hmm...

No good attacks? Check.
No good stats? Check.
14 crappy RHD? Check.

Marv, add this one to the -0 pile.

[ViperMagnum357]

LA -0, and onward.

[javcs]

Hmm...

No good attacks? Check.
No good stats? Check.
14 crappy RHD? Check.

Marv, add this one to the -0 pile.

Eh, a Save or Die/Lose gaze attack is actually pretty decent for a melee type. On the other hand, it's a Mind-Affecting Death Effect.


--

Maybe we should've done the Eater and the Slayer at the same time.



At least the Thri-kreen are next, and will actually be worth talking about.

[Efrate]

Easy -0. It doesn't do anything amazing and it dies to almoat any status condition that lasts for 10 rounds or so which is most of then once ecl 10 is crossed.

[liquidformat]

-0 LA not much to say on plus sized platypus

[GreatWyrmGold]

-0* for sure. I used a few of these and the little one in a campaign once and they were just not worth their weight in XP.

I'm not sure where the * comes from. Having to jump out of the material plane every minute sucks, but it's not going to be that much of a pain. It's not like there are places no access to not-the-Material-Plane, let alone anything which would restrict a thought slayer to nearly enough of a degree to affect play. (Beyond a potential roleplaying irritation, I guess, but plenty of monsters we've rated have much bigger obstacles to existing in RP scenes.)

-0, no asterisk

[javcs]

I'm not sure where the * comes from. Having to jump out of the material plane every minute sucks, but it's not going to be that much of a pain. It's not like there are places no access to not-the-Material-Plane, let alone anything which would restrict a thought slayer to nearly enough of a degree to affect play. (Beyond a potential roleplaying irritation, I guess, but plenty of monsters we've rated have much bigger obstacles to existing in RP scenes.)

-0, no asterisk

Actually, that's not necessarily true.
It is possible to block off the Ethereal, or overlay an Ethereal plane obstruction over a Material plane location. Can't go Ethereal if the Ethereal plane you'd be crossing into is occupied.

IIRC, SBG had something about that. Or maybe it was Dungeonscape. Or maybe it was one of the extraplanar splats.

Or somebody slapping Dimensional Anchor on you or a Dimensional Lock on the area. Or a Forbiddance effect.


Anyways, the point is, the kind of place you'd find that kind of obstruction is at higher levels, especially places defended by higher level casters. Places like palaces, mage towers, etc..


Also ... extradimensional spaces wouldn't have an attached Ethereal, so things like Rope Trick (not that you really fit or could otherwise easily get into one) or a Magnificent Mansion are not good for you either.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Actually, that's not necessarily true.
It is possible to block off the Ethereal, or overlay an Ethereal plane obstruction over a Material plane location. Can't go Ethereal if the Ethereal plane you'd be crossing into is occupied.

But from all I recall, those places are rare, and you're not going to find an entire town that just happens to have an ethereal mountain overlapping it completely.

Or somebody slapping Dimensional Anchor on you or a Dimensional Lock on the area. Or a Forbiddance effect.

I classify that as "spells used to kill you," since...you know...you're only killed because a spell interacts poorly with your weakness. We didn't give vampires an asterisk because daylight is extra-deadly to them, nor to golems because of the weird effects their magic immunity has.

Anyways, the point is, the kind of place you'd find that kind of obstruction is at higher levels, especially places defended by higher level casters. Places like palaces, mage towers, etc..

There's nothing in the rulebooks saying such places are common, let alone required. A DM implementing such precautions is hardly unheard of, but I'd put it on the same level as "a DM could really like daylit adventure sites and vampires die in daylight, -0*" ...with the caveat that daylit spaces are far, far more common than dimensionally-warded ones (and only marginally less full of potential adventure, when you consider aboveground ruins/orcish armies on one hand and high-rank imperial bureaucrats/wizards trying studying the distinction between shadow-illusion and conjuration on the other).

Also ... extradimensional spaces wouldn't have an attached Ethereal, so things like Rope Trick (not that you really fit or could otherwise easily get into one) or a Magnificent Mansion are not good for you either.

I haven't read the relevant material lately, but from my understanding, you just need to be not on the Material Plane to survive. Extradimensional spaces, by definition, are not on the Material Plane.
Not that being unable to benefit from a few semi-common spells qualifies you for an asterisk, either. All of those creatures immune to raise dead et al come to mind...


TL;DR: These things suck when they come up, but they're not going to be common or adventure-killing enough to seriously affect a thought slayer unless the DM wanted to say no but didn't have the courage to speak up.