[OSSR]Monster Manual V

[NineInchNall]

That's true, but several of the entries are unclear. For example:

Banshraes in Eberron
Banshraes were residents of Thelanis, the Faerie Court, but an unnamed treachery by the banshraes of old brought the mouthless curse and banishment upon the entire race. Exiled banshraes then spread throughout Khorvaire and beyond, existing as deceitful bagabonds. A few still dwell in the Twilight Demesne in the Eldeen Reaches, but they are unwelcome there. Some fled north to the Demon Wastes to offer their services as spies to the Lords of Dust. More joined with the dark fey that rule the Watching Wood in Droaam, and some of these have pledged their flutes to the service of the Daughters of Sora Kell. It is said that banshraes also inhabit the Whisper Woods of Aundair.

Like ... Do they go on the list of Thelanis creatures or not?

And fuck me but banshraes is annoying to type for some reason.

[Ravengm]

I'm back from out of town and ready to do some more!

Frostwind Virago: Oh wow does this thing have a lot of HD. 30 just seems excessive. That's more than Dalmosh, who is a unique monster that literally houses a dimension inside of him. This, on the other hand, looks like a frostbitten cheerleader:


Something, something, frigid, something.

The Ecology entry even says they average somewhere around 5 feet tall and 90 pounds. Whatever, judging, books, covers, yadda yadda. It has a couple ice-skinned powers (which are entirely interchangeable with other elements just by changing the damage type and/or flavor text) and a captivation ability, being a fey and all.

Garngrath: Oh hey, a CR 20 monster with less HD than the Frostwind Virago. Fancy that.

There's one very important detail that is pretty muddied with this monster's entry, and it really makes the difference between whether it's useless or just mediocre. Here, read the Dimensional Shield ability first:

A garngrath is shrouded by a field of extraplanar energy, granting the beast its deflection bonus to AC and miss chance. Once per day, the shield can be focused to generate the garngrath's spell-like ability.

There is one (Sp) entry on the garngrath, and it is Crystal Horn, which fires a prismatic spray. The kicker is that the entry on Crystal Horn says "As a swift action", and does not mention a times-per-day limit. This leads me to believe that it can only be used once per day as in the Dimensional Shield entry, but I can also see an argument the other way.

So, either the Crystal Horn is usable once per day, or at-will as a swift action. The former is bad, the latter is awesome, and is the only thing keeping this monster to some semblance of fighting ability, since everything else it does is melee/grapple except for a full-round sonic burst. It's also still not immune to basically any save-or-die spells, and its Will save is only +15. It does have immunity to "illusions" though, so, uh, I guess that will stopcreate more arguments at the table for you.

Gem Scarab: These are actually pretty cool. Basically, they're little scarab things that each have the ability to cast one 0-level spell 6/day. The good bit about them is that they're acquirable as an improved familiar, and since they have a 60ft fly speed, 15ft burrow speed, 10ft climb speed, tremorsense, and a cantrip 6/day of the Wizard's choice, they seem just better than a normal familiar.

God-Blooded Creature: Ah, another template. I suspect this will be rife with sample characters nobody cares about. Aaaand... holy crap, there's only one. I'm impressed. Though there is a reasonable amount of padding (this entry is 4 pages), it's mostly stuff I actually want to read. Basically, this template adds an [insert god here]-blooded template to a creature, depending on what god they worship. this gives the creature a couple of abilities and the ability to activate DR 10/- until it absorbs 40 damage, at which point the template goes away permanently. Yes, that includes all of the (Su) abilities granted. Speaking of, I'll go through those quickly.

Gruumsh: Orcs only, because fuck you. Gives a magical laser-eye-beam that paralyzes and the ability to get +4 damage, both once-per-day.

Imix: Evil creatures only, because fuck you. In order to gain this template, the creature has to perform a great deed in the name of Imix, wait for "promising sings and omens", stand in a brass cauldron filled with oil and light it on fire. Then, if Imix is pleased, he grants the template. Note that he doesn't actually put the fire out or protect the devotee from fire in any way. The template can give 4 fire damage to each attack for a turn or add CL in damage to fire spells once per day, does 3 fire damage to anything that attacks it in melee, and explodes when killed for 1d6 x 1/2 CR damage. Moderately useful, if the faithful follower isn't burned alive already.

Kord: Non-evil things of STR 16 or higher. However, you have to defeat the aspect of Kord in a wrestling match, because fuck you. The template grants +4 on saves vs poison/disease, +4 to STR/DEX/grapple checks and +1 to damage for one minute 1/day, and only takes half CON damage. Meh.

Orcus: Evil undead only, because fuck you. You have to sacrifice good-aligned creatures totaling 20 or more HD, and then an aspect of Orcus appears and bukkakes the devotee with a golden chalice full of black blood. ...Ew? Anyway, the template grants +4 turn resistance, +1 DC to their cast necromancy spells, SLAs, and Su abilities, and a minor wand of Orcus, usable 1 min/day. The Mini Death Dildo allows, once a day, for the use to force someone to make a save off a melee touch attack or take 4 Con damage. Woo.

Vecna: Evil creatures capable of casting 2nd-level or higher spells, because fuck you. You must "unravel the Seven Riddles of Vecna", which is more of a story arc than a quest to get a shitty template. In any case, you go to a place called the Oubliette of Secrets and get tortured by the Anchorite and lose any distinguishing characteristics, including hair, striking mouth and nose bits, etc.

Welcome to your new fate.

You do, however, gain the following: 1/day, for 1 minute, there's a 50% chance for anything within 120ft of you at the start of its turn to not be able to attack you. 1/day, flat-footed opponents have -4 on saves to your spells. Your previous life, deeds, name, and whatnot disappear from existence, making you immune to divination spells, and you immediately learn the name, appearance, and location of the caster who attempted the spell. You also retain this immunity even after you lose the other abilities of the template by blowing your DR. This one seems like the shit.

Yeenoghu: Gnolls only, because fuck you. You can only get this template by killing another gnoll that has it and drinking his blood. BUT WHERE DID THE FIRST ONE COME FROM? The template grants an extra bite attack at 1d6, 1/day add 1d6 Con damage to a bite attack, and a 10ft aura of Ewwwww, forcing a Fort save to avoid being sickened.


Well, that took longer than expected. But I'm getting there! Next up: Golems and things.

[Kaelik]

Funny that you would pick the best one to call shit. You get a better Mindblank earlier at no cost, and some useless shit you don't care about.

[ubernoob]

//

[Ravengm]

Funny that you would pick the best one to call shit. You get a better Mindblank earlier at no cost, and some useless shit you don't care about.

The shit. Not shit. The shit. The shit = the bomb = dope = awesome.

This.

[Koumei]

Well he did say "...to get a shitty template". However you could argue that the entire template collection is pretty lame. What's the CR adjustment on them? I can't see a player wanting these (instead, what with them being temporary, you just give them one for a short story arc or something), but you could maybe spice an encounter up I guess.

Also, Fey hit dice are really shit for a monster to have (Undead and Aberrations totally understand). As a PC, you have two good saves (not "Save vs Instant Death" mind you) and loads of skill points so it's better than being a Wizard, but as a monster that is going to be stabbed in the face before it goes around making skill checks, yeah. So basically the options are to either fill them with really solid class features (like the Nymph) or give them buckets of hit dice for their CR (similar to Undead).

The first option is a lot more sensible, the second option means if this thing has something that requires a saving throw, it's seriously 25 before you add the ability modifier to it. They should have gone with the first option there, but if they consistently made intelligent, sound decisions then we wouldn't be looking at D&DNext already, would we?

[Swok]

I assume the 1/day spell like the garngrath gets from the dimensional shield is the 1/day plane shift it has.

Wow that's a terribly explained ability.

[Ravengm]

Well he did say "...to get a shitty template". However you could argue that the entire template collection is pretty lame. What's the CR adjustment on them? I can't see a player wanting these (instead, what with them being temporary, you just give them one for a short story arc or something), but you could maybe spice an encounter up I guess.

I'm writing mostly as a "train of thought" as I go through the entries, so it's a little bit messy. I assumed that entry would be about on the level of the other ones at first. The CR adjustment is +1, so it's not anything crazy. And yeah, it definitely seems like a DM-only option.

Also, Fey hit dice are really shit for a monster to have (Undead and Aberrations totally understand). As a PC, you have two good saves (not "Save vs Instant Death" mind you) and loads of skill points so it's better than being a Wizard, but as a monster that is going to be stabbed in the face before it goes around making skill checks, yeah. So basically the options are to either fill them with really solid class features (like the Nymph) or give them buckets of hit dice for their CR (similar to Undead).

The first option is a lot more sensible, the second option means if this thing has something that requires a saving throw, it's seriously 25 before you add the ability modifier to it. They should have gone with the first option there, but if they consistently made intelligent, sound decisions then we wouldn't be looking at D&DNext already, would we?

It's mostly mystifying to me why they wouldn't just give bullshit bonuses to CON instead of loading up on hit dice. Or giving them the undead treatment and adding their CHA bonus to HP. The latter makes more sense from a mechanical standpoint to me, since it doesn't dick with numbers on other things, but it doesn't really make sense from a flavor perspective.

[Korwin]

I think at that point they where wary of big attribute numbers, because of Polymorph/Shapechange.

[tussock]

Poly never changed a PC's hit points though, nothing's based on Con, and they already had copious physical stats to get from it from the beginning.

3e has low Con on a big Fey because Faeries have low Con. Story-wise. Making a Faerie bruiser gives you a low CR because they're shit at it, but whatever saves you have to make against them will be impossible because ... well, in playtest they only used weak bruisers in big mobs against much higher level PCs and never noticed. Then their system just kept doing that for eight years. See also Monstrous Scorpions.

It's why 4e monsters are just ... all the same, so that can't happen. http://blogofholding.com/?p=512

[Korwin]

Poly never changed a PC's hit points though, nothing's based on Con, and they already had copious physical stats to get from it from the beginning.

Actually thats wrong, once they got Bonus HP. I think it might have been the 3.0 poly Version.

Anyway even if you dont get the HP from the Con score, you still get an better fort save and better concentration.

And if someone Drains your con score you could argue about having some spare con lying around and it doing nothing.

[Koumei]

Actually, there's a hilarious way that you can swindle HP out of it: you change shape, get +$TEXAS to your Con, and your HP doesn't adjust specifically because Polymorph says so. Then you cast Bear's Endurance, and it looks at what your Con is, now that it has that +4 bonus, and gives you HP based on that. So if you went from Con 10 to a Con 40 creature then cast BE, you now have a Con of 44 and suddenly have +17HP per level. But 2HP per level of that will go away as soon as BE runs out! You'll only have level*15 left!