The LA-assignment thread VII: LA LA Land

[ViperMagnum357]

[LIST]

[*]Str +16, Dex +4, Con --, Int +6, Wis +10, Cha +10: net +56, one non-ability, and no penalties.

Net +46 with one non-ability, so not quite that good.

[Thurbane]

Net +46 with one non-ability, so not quite that good.

Oops, thanks for that, I'll go back and fix it.

[danielxcutter]

I was surprised to see this being rated so highly, considering it has 12 undead HD. Then I checked and it turns out this is CR 14.

I mean, it's honestly a bit squishy for that, but it's got a bunch of other nice things too, and lacks the sunlight vulnerability of normal vampires. Hey, can they use vampire-specific PrCs and that stuff?

[No brains]

Now that we're closer to page 50, I want to cast my lot for I Have No Mouth and Must S,V,M. I'm partial to the rearrange, but its in Inevitability's hands if they want to use the proper V,S,M.

[Caelestion]

I think the vampire LA gag is better for thread eight.

[liquidformat]

Now that we're closet to page 50, I want to cast my lot for I Have No Mouth and Must S,V,M. I'm partial to the rearrange, but its in Inevitability's hands if they want to use the proper V,S,M.

I have always been partial to this one.

+0 LA for demon vamp, it has just enough to makeup for being undead...

[Thurbane]

Now that we're closer to page 50, I want to cast my lot for I Have No Mouth and Must S,V,M. I'm partial to the rearrange, but its in Inevitability's hands if they want to use the proper V,S,M.

My vote is I Have No Mouth and Must V,S,M. S,V,M just looks...wrong to me. Besides, V (or verbal), is the closest to scream anyway, so having it first makes sense IMHO.

[danielxcutter]

Hrm... Honestly I'd love for the vampire one to be thread 8, and VSM be the next after that. Can I vote early for thread 9 as well?

[ZamielVanWeber]

+0 for the demon vamp and put me down for the vamp name for the next thread. This is our prime opportunity.

[Thurbane]

Hrm... Honestly I'd love for the vampire one to be thread 8, and VSM be the next after that. Can I vote early for thread 9 as well?

Good point, I amend my vote for the Vampire pun for thread VIII.

[No brains]

I don't really want to bad-talk the opposition because my dumb pun can stand on its own, but there is always going to be some pithy number joke to go with a thread. Coming up next we'll have 9th level spells and Book of 9 Swords to reference. Later we can talk about 10RHD is too much or how we don't talk about 10th-level spells.

When I first pitched my joke about inhuman anatomy making a monster player want to scream, one of the first creatures of that thread was the Lurking Strangler, a.k.a. Eye-Bolas. It would have been perfect. Not having hands is one of the reasons why so many creatures have a 'playable' LA of '0'.

Then again, every time we go without using that title, it feeds a meta joke about torture over something that can't happen. Huh. Either way it's a win-win.

[Luccan]

That title is shaping up to be the Waluigi of these threads

[Sutr]

I vote +1 for the demon vampire.

[Caelestion]

Dominate monster, energy drain and teleport without error are all powers that are much more powerful in the hands of players rather than monsters. This creature is easily LA +1.

[Debatra]

I don't really want to bad-talk the opposition because my dumb pun can stand on its own, but there is always going to be some pithy number joke to go with a thread. Coming up next we'll have 9th level spells and Book of 9 Swords to reference. Later we can talk about 10RHD is too much or how we don't talk about 10th-level spells.

When I first pitched my joke about inhuman anatomy making a monster player want to scream, one of the first creatures of that thread was the Lurking Strangler, a.k.a. Eye-Bolas. It would have been perfect. Not having hands is one of the reasons why so many creatures have a 'playable' LA of '0'.

Then again, every time we go without using that title, it feeds a meta joke about torture over something that can't happen. Huh. Either way it's a win-win.

Well unlike the Dysfunction and RAW Q&A threads, these are specifically about monsters. Vampires are just a somewhat infamous example of something with too much LA. I Have No Mouth can work for just about any thread number.

[liquidformat]

Well unlike the Dysfunction and RAW Q&A threads, these are specifically about monsters. Vampires are just a somewhat infamous example of something with too much LA. I Have No Mouth can work for just about any thread number.

I have no mouth could have worked well for thread five since V is five, so maybe we wait for thread 15?

[Efrate]

Throw in a vote for vampire joke for me for thread 8.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Dominate monster, energy drain and teleport without error are all powers that are much more powerful in the hands of players rather than monsters. This creature is easily LA +1.

Point of order: the blood fiend doesn't have energy drain at will (that's a 9th-level spell inflicting 2d4 negative levels), it has Energy Drain (Su) and enervation at will, which inflict one/claw (four claws) and 1d4 negative levels respectively.

I also disagree that negative levels are much more powerful in the hands of players. Monsters typically die from damage or save-or-dies before the negative levels become threatening (barring serious investment in metamagic reduction, as with Twinned Empowered enervation at level 9), limiting PC use of negative levels. Players, on the other hand, stand to lose XP or even levels permanently if they don't have the right spells available to clear negative levels, and, more immediately, PC spellcasters lose many of their best spells to negative levels, so monsters using Energy Drain or energy drain are quite dangerous.

All of this doesn't mean that your rating is off, by the way, I just want to address the specific arguments.

[Dimers]

I'll go LA +1 for the blood fiend.

[Thurbane]

Point of order: the blood fiend doesn't have energy drain at will (that's a 9th-level spell inflicting 2d4 negative levels), it has Energy Drain (Su) and enervation at will, which inflict one/claw (four claws) and 1d4 negative levels respectively.

I don't think Blood Fiend has enervation at all...Alkilith was the one with at will Enervation.

[TiaC]

I think this needs at least +1, possibly more. At-will Dominate Monster as a Su is insanely good. Once your target fails one save, you can just keep reapplying it. It can't be dispelled or resisted with SR. Mind-affecting immunity exists, but your tons of permanent minions will deal with that. It's a ridiculous swiss army knife of a spell, and it's pretty good even compared to other 9ths. Also, this has 1/day CL 18 blasphemy, which wrecks encounters with 13 HD or less.

[danielxcutter]

I think this needs at least +1, possibly more. At-will Dominate Monster as a Su is insanely good. Once your target fails one save, you can just keep reapplying it. It can't be dispelled or resisted with SR. Mind-affecting immunity exists, but your tons of permanent minions will deal with that. It's a ridiculous swiss army knife of a spell, and it's pretty good even compared to other 9ths. Also, this has 1/day CL 18 blasphemy, which wrecks encounters with 13 HD or less.

Think the Dominate Monster should rate an asterix(or however you spell that), and yeah the Blasphemy is a 1/day nuke - and no, the very likely possibility of accidentally nuking your own teammates doesn't alleviate that at all.

Question: is this worth the CR 14 typical blood fiends are? Sure, they have a severe shortage of hit points for their CR, but arguably that's the only real weakness they have, and the DR and high AC cover that somewhat.

[Inevitability]

Bolded info!

+0: 8 votes
+1: 5 votes

Sizeable minority favors +1, but in the end +0 wins out. On to the next monster!

[Inevitability]

Klurichir

I Have Two Mouths And I Must Scream

These horrifying greater demons supposedly exceed balors (also 20 RHD, got +0 LA) in power. Let's see if their playable versions reflect that.

Ability scores are a bit disappointing: nothing goes higher than 29 strength and the lowest stat is a pitiful 15 dexterity. Huge size is nice, as is DR 20 that can only be overcome by Good and (cold?) Iron weapons. 90 ft. fly speed is certainly good. SR 36 is high enough to be relevant.

The klurichir has a few natural weapons. Its spines deal moderate damage and deliver a strength-damaging poison (not too relevant), while its two pinchers both get improved grab and more importantly maneuver grabbed foes to its vorpal pinchers. This second set can, as the name implies, cut off heads to instantaneously kill opponents, and does so on any crit (not just a roll of 20). It's a 19-20 weapon by default, too.

Additionally, klurichirs can Rend anything they hit with both pinchers (mostly unimpressive damage), can permanently See Invisibility, and have an aura of Fear (as the spell, relatively ally-friendly).

They also get 10th-level sorcerer casting, which is quite useful, and a number of SLAs. The most notable of them are at-will Blasphemy, Desecrate, Greater Dispel Magic, Mass Charm Monster, Mass Suggestion, Telekinesis, and self-only Greater Teleport. They also get a few useful 3/day spells, like Implosion and Destruction.

Finally, there's the ability to summon demons. There's no chance of failure, it's usable once per day, and the possibilities range from a few dozen dretches to two balors.

So what to rate this? Balors, with their better stats, worse magic, and similarly impressive summons and special abilities, got +0 LA. The klurichir seems like it deserves quite a bit more than that, so I'll be going with +3 LA.

[Zecrin]

The best possible saving throws, highest possible BAB paired with bread and butter combat abilities like improved grab and reach, excellent skills, good armor, good speed, access to epic feats, save or suck aura, all the symbol spells without any material components at will, greater dispel magic at will (at CL 20 no less), unholy aura at will for the entire party, multiple 8th level spells at will, multiple 7th level spells at will, exceedingly good DR and SR, on top of 10th level sorcerer casting.

And then there’s the summon ability, which is virtually the equivalent of casting a gate spell at 0 XP cost. Here you get access to a plethora of additional SLAs (including wish with the Glabrezu). Moreover, summoning in two balors is probably going to end any 20th level encounter instantly, at virtually no cost to yourself.

These guys seem so much better than a standard sorcerer, which is saying something because these guys aren't technically full casters and receive just about every goodie that the full-caster chassis lacks.

I vote LA +4

[liquidformat]

Honestly I think this thing deserves some LA but the question comes down to how much, also it is important to note adding any LA to them at all pushes them into Epic levels. I think in this case we should be comparing them to other monsters rather than class levels, let's look at Planetar, Solar, Pit Fiend, and Balor for our reference points.

For starters the Klurichir's ability scores are comparable to the planetar which has 6 rhd lower and is noticeably behind the Solar, Pit Fiend, and Balor. Honestly I am a bit on the fence about its natural attack routine, on the plus side pincers can be used while using a weapon and their improved grapple EX is very nice and vorpal pincers are powerful if you are able to grapple an opponent. On the other hand freedom of movement is a hard stop to grappling, has been around for many levels, and is on quite a number of monsters. So over all while a nice routine I don't see it being overly powerful at level 20. Let me give this as an example in order to use vorpal pincer you must do the following: hit with pincers, initiate a grapple, succeed a grapple check, hit a crit on vorpal pincers attack and each round you want to try and vorpal pincer you must succeed a grapple check then make a crit with the pincers. In all actuality that is a lot of rolls to be making compared to a wizards save or loose spell. Also did anyone else notice that the Klurichir is entitled to make a bite attack on any grappled opponent but no where else in their monster entry are bite attack mentioned or spec'ed? Anyways I think there attack routine is on par with the pit fiend or only slightly better.

At level 20 being able to cast spells as a level 10 sorcerer is not amazing and unlike planetar and solar it will take 10 class levels into epic levels before you can use any epic level spells which is a huge detractor for the Klurichir.

The Klurichir's SLAs are slightly better than Planetar, Pit Fiend, and Balor while on par with the Solar, and has been said the summoning ability is strictly better than the Pit Fiend's or Balor's. Over all The Klurichir is more powerful than a Pit Fiend or Balor but not a Planetar nor Solar so I believe that puts its LA firmly between 2-3. I think given the advantage a Klurichir has over a Pit Fiend at the same ECL my vote goes with +3 LA.

[Efrate]

+2 for me, purely on summoning. The rest is all fine and good enough for a +0, but the ton of spells available by essentially gating in fiends for free is worth enough to push it up.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't think Blood Fiend has enervation at all...Alkilith was the one with at will Enervation.

You're right, I'm looking at the wrong SLA block.



For the klurichir, the 1/day double balor summon is a bit crazy. Without that, they'd be LA +0, no problem, but with it... the balors stick around for a full hour, too, which gate can't do without some significant payment (if you want to get two balors a day, it adds up). Then again, I don't want to push them too far into epic, or their other abilities become too weak... it's between +1 and +2. Let's say... LA +1?

[danielxcutter]

They can use weapons, as the statblock has them using one by default, and they still have all their natural weapons, and they have an obvious progression as Sorcerer + Abjurant Champion... I'm not entirely sure if they're worthy of their CR 25(which puts them over the demon lords reprinted in FCI), but they sure are a whole lot stronger than the average balor, and that's before changing out their spell loadout for things like Wraithstrike.

What CR should these be, really?

[Debatra]

Epic is a strange and terrifying creature. I'm hesitant to push anything far across that line. But this thing is supposed to be CR 25, meaning it's technically supposed to be there already. Those are some really nice SLAs though, and the sorcerer levels, while lacking raw power for this level, can be devastating with the right spell selection.

And of course, summoning a pair of Balors each day without failure would probably be worth an extra point of LA all on its own.

Hmm... +2 doesn't feel like enough, but +3 feels like too much.