The LA-assignment Thread IV: Live Free or Hit Die Hard

[liquidformat]

Also I have mentioned this before: MANYSHOT. It does help curb DR as an archer especially if you can spring for a Composite bow and have a decent Str score (which an arrow deam does have). Dr 10-15 is uncommon, but if you are dealing 4d6+16 damage minimum it isn't curbing your damage as bad you would think. Most two handed builds that aren't some sort of charger are probably only doing slightly more damage than you in exchange for have half your attacks.

But you aren't dealing 4d6+16 damage per shot your dealing 2d6+x per shot with a large composite longbow. symmetrical archery doesn't allow you to deal damage twice with one shot it allows you to take two shots.

On a side note how does wielding two weapons between four arms normally work? I was under the impression that you didn't need the two-weapon fighting chain in the first place to get full iteratives with that, and only needed multi-weapon fighting if you wished to wield four?...

[zergling.exe]

On a side note how does wielding two weapons between four arms normally work? I was under the impression that you didn't need the two-weapon fighting chain in the first place to get full iteratives with that, and only needed multi-weapon fighting if you wished to wield four?...

If you are wielding more than 1 weapon, you need TWF (or MWF for 3+) to get more off hand attacks. There are some exceptions to this, notably braid blades, elbow blades and boots blades allow more attacks without TWF, but they also do not get iterative attacks I don't think. Look at Xill for an example of a long bow dual wielder right in core. Keep in mind that a creature with more than 2 arms is not allowed to take TWF, it is automatically replaced by MWF by RAW. Which sucks because there is no IMWF or GMWF printed anywhere (in 3.5) so they can't get additional off hand attacks without homebrewing equivalents (or updating 3.25 SS content).

[ViperMagnum357]

If you are wielding more than 1 weapon, you need TWF (or MWF for 3+) to get more off hand attacks. There are some exceptions to this, notably braid blades, elbow blades and boots blades allow more attacks without TWF, but they also do not get iterative attacks I don't think. Look at Xill for an example of a long bow dual wielder right in core. Keep in mind that a creature with more than 2 arms is not allowed to take TWF, it is automatically replaced by MWF by RAW. Which sucks because there is no IMWF or GMWF printed anywhere so they can't get additional off hand attacks without homebrewing equivalents.

The Greater and Improved MWF feats are in Savage Species, and are mechanically identical to the TWF line: end result is a 5 feat chain to get your iteratives and look at a net -2/-4 attack penalty depending on whether or not all your off hand weapons are light or not. The Perfect Multiweapon Fighting feat is Epic, and gives you your full array of iteratives.

The Symmetrical Archery (Ex) sidesteps that strictly for bows-any time you could make an attack with a bow, you can make an attack with 2 bows for exactly a -2 penalty and nothing else; so the Arrow Demon gets full iteratives and can apply various feats to their archery, and simply doubling their attacks for a paltry -2 attack penalty. Now, if they wanted to wield anything else, they would need to either use a single weapon or take the full MWF feat chain, but given their ability to threaten and not be threatened when shooting, that should almost never happen.

[Nifft]

Hmm.

How does Symmetrical Archery interact with Soulbow arrows?

Could a Soulbow with MWF fire arrows from all four hands, and then take a symmetrical attack for each of the four original attacks, plus iteratives?

[ViperMagnum357]

Hmm.

How does Symmetrical Archery interact with Soulbow arrows?

Could a Soulbow with MWF fire arrows from all four hands, and then take a symmetrical attack for each of the four original attacks, plus iteratives?

Based on the description, I do not think so-the Soulbow simple creates arrows that are launched at an opponent, and does not actually use a bow; the Symmetrical Archery ability is very specific about using literal bows, rather than caring about the projectiles.

[zergling.exe]

The Greater and Improved MWF feats are in Savage Species, and are mechanically identical to the TWF line: end result is a 5 feat chain to get your iteratives and look at a net -2/-4 attack penalty depending on whether or not all your off hand weapons are light or not. The Perfect Multiweapon Fighting feat is Epic, and gives you your full array of iteratives.

The Symmetrical Archery (Ex) sidesteps that strictly for bows-any time you could make an attack with a bow, you can make an attack with 2 bows for exactly a -2 penalty and nothing else; so the Arrow Demon gets full iteratives and can apply various feats to their archery, and simply doubling their attacks for a paltry -2 attack penalty. Now, if they wanted to wield anything else, they would need to either use a single weapon or take the full MWF feat chain, but given their ability to threaten and not be threatened when shooting, that should almost never happen.

Right, thank you, I forgot they were in 3.0/3.25. Still they were never printed in a full 3.5 book, so some homebrewing is required.

[Lans]

An arrow demon 10/rogue 10 deals 5d6 sneak attack, while a rogue 20 deals 10d6 sneak attack. Having twice as many attacks but half as much rider damage puts you back where you started.

Before level 20, your damage will actually fall short - an arrow demon 10/rogue 5 has only 3d6 SA, while a rogue 15 has 8d6 (more than double).

The arrow demon would have 2 extra attacks due to a greater BAB, and be dealing additional nonrider damage, which should some what make up for the less sneak attack.

[Morphic tide]

If we're going to just tack on 10 levels of a base class for rider damage, Scout does it considerably more consistently than Rogue (it requires you move 10 ft., method is not mentioned, you have at-will D-door) and adds a little more AC. Ranger turns out surprisingly useful, because even just 2nd level Ranger spells is a pretty notable boost to versatility and you get to save a few feats for more important things. I recommend the Archery style, as you'll want and significantly benefit from both, but Manyshot would cost an extra feat for Point Blank Shot that can be better spent on other feats. Like list expansion for better 1st and 2nd level spells and scroll use.

Alternatively, a chunk of the old A-game Paladin build is always useful, though strange errata technicalities or DM handwaves probably need to be invoked to actually qualify for things due to likely needing the Paladin of Slaughter variant. If you can swing for an inverted version (blatantly non-RAW houserule that it is), you're a bonus pack of hope-obliteration that renders moderate threats into utterly trivial encounters through debuffs and sizable bonus damage (which could spike to "trivialize a Great Wyrm" quantities by burning the daily allotment).

Edit:

The Wizards of the Coast preview mentions that it has four Claw attacks. Does the published version still have that? If so, Totemist is actually an amazing choice, even though it offers nothing directly to support what it already does. Sure, you abandon progressing your existing features, but there's a clause that says you can mix natural and manufactured weapons freely. Which means stacking your archery routine on top of your Natural Attack routine whenever you enter melee, and Girallon Arms just so happens to give four extra claws, on top of it's Arm Bind (which would be your "capstone" with LA +1) doubling your Claw damage when at least two hit. Which... Um. They're all primary natural weapons. All of them get full BAB and Strength. A lot of damage is coming off those claws, entirely divorced from the actual intended purpose of the monster as an archer, and the extra Claw attacks can be used freely, even with the original four occupied by using bows, turning you into a melee monster. That's actually mostly an archer. Because screw logic, I guess

[Inevitability]

The demon does indeed have four claw attacks.

However, I'd like to note that similar monsters (such as the sahuagin mutant, which has full BAB, medium size, thumbs, 8 more class levels available and only 4 less strength) weren't considered particularly problematic either.

+1 remains the LA.

[OgresAreCute]

Considering a kobold can start with a claw/claw/bite routine and a level 2 totemist can have a bite/bite/gore/claw/claw/tail routine I don't think having 4 natural attacks is very worrying.

[zergling.exe]

If we're going to just tack on 10 levels of a base class for rider damage, Scout does it considerably more consistently than Rogue (it requires you move 10 ft., method is not mentioned, you have at-will D-door) and adds a little more AC.

Dimension door immediately ends your turn, and prevents you from making AoOs or any immediate actions, on top of taking a standard action so you can't even attack after using it.

[danielxcutter]

These guys kinda get silly with Splitting bows, just wanted to mention.

Also, if they take at least 3 Ranger levels, they get Endurance as a bonus feat, a prereq for Steadfast Determination.

[Flickerdart]

These guys kinda get silly with Splitting bows, just wanted to mention.

Splitting is the thing that's silly in this case. Everything gets silly with Splitting.

[Nifft]

Based on the description, I do not think so-the Soulbow simple creates arrows that are launched at an opponent, and does not actually use a bow; the Symmetrical Archery ability is very specific about using literal bows, rather than caring about the projectiles.

Unfortunately you're wrong. The rules say it's identical to an arrow shot from a bow, which is pretty much exactly why I called it out.

Mind Arrow (Su): As a free action, you can create a semisolid arrow composed of psychic energy distilled from your mind. If your base attack bonus is high enough to grant you multiple attacks, you can create multiple mind arrows as part of an attack. You must have one hand free to create and project a mind arrow.

The bolt is identical in all ways (except visually) to an arrow shot from a composite longbow. (...)

So, yeah.

Anyone else want to chime in about Soulbow on an Arrow Demon?

[zergling.exe]

Unfortunately you're wrong. The rules say it's identical to an arrow shot from a bow, which is pretty much exactly why I called it out.



So, yeah.

Anyone else want to chime in about Soulbow on an Arrow Demon?

Mind Arrow (Su): As a free action, you can create a semisolid arrow composed of psychic energy distilled from your mind. If your base attack bonus is high enough to grant you multiple attacks, you can create multiple mind arrows as part of an attack. You must have one hand free to create and project a mind arrow.

The bolt is identical in all ways (except visually) to an arrow shot from a composite longbow. (...)

Symmetrical Archery (Ex):The arrow demon has an amazing ability to wield two bows at once in unison. Any time the arrow demon could make a single attack with a bow, it can attack with both of its bows

You are creating and firing arrows, not wielding bows.

[OgresAreCute]

You are creating and firing arrows, not wielding bows.

I agree with this conclusion.

[Nifft]

You are creating and firing arrows, not wielding bows.

And yet what you're doing is identical in all ways to shooting an arrow from a bow.

The bolt is identical in all ways (except visually) to an arrow shot from a composite longbow. (...)

Looking at the Arrow Demon, it doesn't need to make an attack with either of its bows, just with a bow.

Any time the arrow demon could make a single attack with a bow, it can attack with both of its bows

So, the Arrow Demon Soulbow makes an attack with a Mind Arrow, which is identical in all ways to making an attack with a composite longbow, and then it gets to attack with both of its bows in addition.

This seems pretty straightforward -- the attack which is identical in all ways to a bow attack is treated as a bow attack.

[OgresAreCute]

And yet what you're doing is identical in all ways to shooting an arrow from a bow.


Looking at the Arrow Demon, it doesn't need to make an attack with either of its bows, just with a bow.



So, the Arrow Demon Soulbow makes an attack with a Mind Arrow, which is identical in all ways to making an attack with a composite longbow, and then it gets to attack with both of its bows in addition.

This seems pretty straightforward -- the attack which is identical in all ways to a bow attack is treated as a bow attack.

The Bolt itself is identical to an arrow fired from a bow, but you are skipping the whole "fire a bow" step, instead using a "create bolt out of mind juju then launch it". Symmetrical Archery requires you to "make a single attack with a bow". Even if the bolt is identical to an arrow, you are not making an attack with a bow.

[Nifft]

The Bolt itself is identical to an arrow fired from a bow, but you are skipping the whole "fire a bow" step, instead using a "create bolt out of mind juju then launch it". Symmetrical Archery requires you to "make a single attack with a bow". Even if the bolt is identical to an arrow, you are not making an attack with a bow.

I'm not making an attack with a bow, I'm making an attack that is identical in all ways to an attack made with a bow.

So the lack of a bow seems irrelevant, since the attack is explicitly identical in all ways to one made from a bow.


If you'll note, I'm repeatedly emphasizing this "identical in all ways" phrase, since I think that's the key bit for this discussion. If you want to distinguish between an attack with a bow and a Mind Arrow attack which is identical in all ways to an attack with a bow, you need to find some way that they differ which isn't explicitly covered by the "identical in all ways" rules text.

[OgresAreCute]

I'm not making an attack with a bow, I'm making an attack that is identical in all ways to an attack made with a bow.

So the lack of a bow seems irrelevant, since the attack is explicitly identical in all ways to one made from a bow.


If you'll note, I'm repeatedly emphasizing this "identical in all ways" phrase, since I think that's the key bit for this discussion. If you want to distinguish between an attack with a bow and a Mind Arrow attack which is identical in all ways to an attack with a bow, you need to find some way that they differ which isn't explicitly covered by the "identical in all ways" rules text.

Your attitude could use a little work. Aside from that, the feature never says it is identical in all ways to a bow attack, merely that the projectile is identical in all ways to an arrow fired from a longbow. Namely, this means that it uses the same statistics for damage and critical range and modifier.

[Inevitability]

Demon, Sorrowsworn

Sorrowsworn demons: highly dangerous, 18 RHD fiends who for some reason look like starving werebat goths. It's kinda neat, though.

Ability scores are predictably high. The lowest one, 17 dexterity, is still quite respectable for a Large creature, whereas the highest stat is an impressive 32 constitution. Strength is not far below constitution, and the mental stats are somewhere in between. 80 ft. fly speed is cool, poor maneuverability less so.

+16 natural armor is quite high, DR 10/cold iron and good is very unlikely to be overcome, immunity to electricity and poison are good to have, and resistance 10 to acid, cold, and fire is obviously useful too, and Telepathy is icing. SR 25 is somewhat less desirable, as it complicates in-combat healing and buffing. Improved Initiative and Improved Toughness for free are neat, though. All in all, not a lot of unexpected traits here.

The demon's special abilities, on the other hand, are more interesting. Aura of Loss is your basic disruptive aura: it reduces saves, attack rolls, and skill checks, and complicates spellcasting. Not that the average wizard is likely to care much (DC 29 is taken care off by 21 ranks, 12 constitution, and a +5 concentration item), but it may be an issue for whatever foes you face that didn't invest in concentration. Do note that it's not friendly, though.

SLAs are, again, reasonably standard. At-will Greater Teleport, Detect Magic, Nondetection, and Invisibility, 3/day Greater Dispel Magic, Touch of Idiocy, and Unholy Blight, and 1/day Feeblemind, Mind Fog, Plane Shift, and Weird. There's some utility there, some save-or-loses, and some useless crap.

Strong Willed is a boring ability that adds a small bonus to the sorrowsworn's already good saves vs. mind-affecting effects. Mind Reading is a unique ability that doesn't take actions, but has uses both in and out of combat. If combined with the Aura of Loss, it imposes a -2 penalty on creature's saves against the demon's Whispers of Loss.

Said ability is also a free action (obviously limited to 1/round), and can either stun a foe for 2 rounds, daze it for 3, or confuse it for 5 rounds. A foe who saves against one effect is immune to it for 24 hours, but can still be affected by the others. The ability is, however, mind-affecting, meaning it's not impossible to block.

That last bit is what keeps the sorrowsworn demon from getting +1 LA. It's got neat tricks, but against any of the many foes that can resist mind-affecting attacks it'll struggle to keep up. The outsider RHD and array of tricks against foes that aren't qualify it for a LA above -0, though.

[Nifft]

Your attitude could use a little work.

Using polite language is an offensive attitude now?

Then what can one possibly do to dial down discord and formalize a conversation?

Aside from that, the feature never says it is identical in all ways to a bow attack, merely that the projectile is identical in all ways to an arrow fired from a longbow. Namely, this means that it uses the same statistics for damage and critical range and modifier.

That's part of what it means, but not all of what it means, since that's two ways rather than "all ways".

The rest of what it means is that you get to apply all the goodies that you'd normally get to apply if you had fired an arrow from a bow.

The main limit I can see here would be that "you need a free hand to manifest a mind arrow" and an Arrow Demon has two hands occupied by its oversized bows, so you could get the benefits of TWF rather than MFW in addition to your regular oversized bow attacks.

Demon, Sorrowsworn

Sorrowsworn demons: highly dangerous, 18 RHD fiends who for some reason look like starving werebat goths. It's kinda neat, though.

Ability scores are predictably high. The lowest one, 17 dexterity, is still quite respectable for a Large creature, whereas the highest stat is an impressive 32 constitution. Strength is not far below constitution, and the mental stats are somewhere in between. 80 ft. fly speed is cool, poor maneuverability less so.

+16 natural armor is quite high, DR 10/cold iron and good is very unlikely to be overcome, immunity to electricity and poison are good to have, and resistance 10 to acid, cold, and fire is obviously useful too, and Telepathy is icing. SR 25 is somewhat less desirable, as it complicates in-combat healing and buffing. Improved Initiative and Improved Toughness for free are neat, though. All in all, not a lot of unexpected traits here.

The demon's special abilities, on the other hand, are more interesting. Aura of Loss is your basic disruptive aura: it reduces saves, attack rolls, and skill checks, and complicates spellcasting. Not that the average wizard is likely to care much (DC 29 is taken care off by 21 ranks, 12 constitution, and a +5 concentration item), but it may be an issue for whatever foes you face that didn't invest in concentration. Do note that it's not friendly, though.

SLAs are, again, reasonably standard. At-will Greater Teleport, Detect Magic, Nondetection, and Invisibility, 3/day Greater Dispel Magic, Touch of Idiocy, and Unholy Blight, and 1/day Feeblemind, Mind Fog, Plane Shift, and Weird. There's some utility there, some save-or-loses, and some useless crap.

Strong Willed is a boring ability that adds a small bonus to the sorrowsworn's already good saves vs. mind-affecting effects. Mind Reading is a unique ability that doesn't take actions, but has uses both in and out of combat. If combined with the Aura of Loss, it imposes a -2 penalty on creature's saves against the demon's Whispers of Loss.

Said ability is also a free action (obviously limited to 1/round), and can either stun a foe for 2 rounds, daze it for 3, or confuse it for 5 rounds. A foe who saves against one effect is immune to it for 24 hours, but can still be affected by the others. The ability is, however, mind-affecting, meaning it's not impossible to block.

Considering everything, I think the sorrowsworn demon is worthy of +1 LA, or at least +0. It can deal some very respectable melee damage while also using a save-or-lose every turn, with the option to use a potentially encounter-ending SLA instead of attacking. Add to that the impressive chassis and I'll rate the sorrowsworn at +1 for now.

It's got a lot of [Mind-Affecting] abilities. At ECL 18 or ECL 19, that's not particularly good.

Enchantment as a school falls off in utility at those levels.

Compared to a T1 caster it's not worth LA +1.

What's your specific benchmark for this?

[javcs]

On the Arrow Demon, per Nifft's theory, I believe one would get 2 attacks - either 2 Mind Arrows, one Mind Arrow and a regular arrow, or two regular arrows.

I think. Not sure what the rules on T/MWF with Mind Arrow, but they'd apply normally.
As for combining MWF Mind Arrow as one or more weapons and Bow Symetry as one weapon ... I'm pretty sure you could, since you only need one hand to hold a bow, and you get to keep a free hand until you're nocking an arrow.


--

As for the Sorrowsworn ... I'd probably say we're comparing to a Beguiler, or a similarly oriented build with an alternative casting class.

However, the Sorrowsworn has no clear advancement path.

Edit: +0, tops. Could easily be -0, though.

[ViperMagnum357]

Leaning towards LA -0 for the Sorrowsworn-it gets massive net abilities, decent AC, usual Tanar'ri traits, and a pile of very short range mental attacks that can be fully nulled so many ways I do not think they are worth expounding upon. At a point where 9th level spells are in vogue...nah.

[Celestia]

It is very tough to make 18 HRS worth it without racial casting. I think this gets close, but not close enough. All its got is spamming a save or lose, which a Warlock can do with Word of Changing. Except the Warlock also has at least 16 levels of class features. I'd much sooner play that than this.

-0 for sure. The only way I'd play one of these is for the roleplay value, but even then, I doubt there's anything I could do with it that couldn't be accomplished by a demon with a third or a quarter of the RHD.

[Caelestion]

I don't think it's sensible to compare anything to a T1 caster, unless it's primarily a casting monster itself.

[ViperMagnum357]

I don't think it's sensible to compare anything to a T1 caster, unless it's primarily a casting monster itself.

I think the closest comparison would be a Hexblade, which is what I compared it to. A competent melee combatant with solid survivability, and a small but potent number of spells or SLAs focused on save-or-suck, with the primary draw being close range debuffs that feed into your direct combat abilities while playing nice with a group. The Sorrowsworn is massively more resilient, but far less flexible than any Hexblade, and cannot do much past charging straight at a mass of enemies and start swinging for the fences while trying to tag them with MIE. In that respect, I will take even a straight Hexblade 18 any day of the week; only in a very lenient Gestalt where you could stack the RHD on 1 side would I feel differently.

So, LA -0. Getting lined up unfavorably to a comparably leveled Hexblade is not where you want to be, no matter how awesome your Saves and HP.

[Nifft]

On the Arrow Demon, per Nifft's theory, I believe one would get 2 attacks - either 2 Mind Arrows, one Mind Arrow and a regular arrow, or two regular arrows.

I think. Not sure what the rules on T/MWF with Mind Arrow, but they'd apply normally.
As for combining MWF Mind Arrow as one or more weapons and Bow Symetry as one weapon ... I'm pretty sure you could, since you only need one hand to hold a bow, and you get to keep a free hand until you're nocking an arrow.

That's basically also my reasoning.

I think Mind Arrow is effectively a one-handed weapon since it requires one free hand to manifest, but it counts as a two-handed bow attack because it says it's identical to that in all ways.

The additional step I take is that I apply Symmetrical Archery, so the 1 Mind Arrow + 1 regular arrow => 1 Mind Arrow + 2 regular arrows.

I don't think it's sensible to compare anything to a T1 caster, unless it's primarily a casting monster itself.

Sounds reasonable.

So what is a good comparison point?

[javcs]

It is very tough to make 18 HRS worth it without racial casting. I think this gets close, but not close enough. All its got is spamming a save or lose, which a Warlock can do with Word of Changing. Except the Warlock also has at least 16 levels of class features. I'd much sooner play that than this.

-0 for sure. The only way I'd play one of these is for the roleplay value, but even then, I doubt there's anything I could do with it that couldn't be accomplished by a demon with a third or a quarter of the RHD.

Word of Changing is probably better because it's not Mind-Affecting.

Transmutation immunity is a lot less common than Mind-Affecting immunity.

Though the Save DC will probably be lower, since WoC is a SLA, not a Su.

[Flickerdart]

It's definitely -0. It has some nifty tricks, but anything T3 or better is going to bring more to the table at that level. Even a half-fey or phrenic fighter has better spell-like utility than this thing, without burning 18 HD.