[URBIS] Illithid template

La Bete · Oct 24, 2002

waaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!

Arg....... just noticed this thread after my players left (after about 10 sessions) Slaveworld, a world conquered by MF's - the ideas in this thread are fab.......

Might have to get my players (kicking and screaming, no doubt) back there.

Jürgen Hubert · Oct 24, 2002

green slime said:
I had the "auto" psion powers be relevant to their best stat*, so in this case, the Dire Illithibear would be using a powers from the Discipline of Psychometabolism, rather than Telepathy. These could be [/i]Claws of the Vampire[/i], Body Adjustment, and the power that lets you reduce damage to subdual damage.

*I've given Illithids 8 class levels in psion (8 because thats how many HD they have) instead of "free use psionics", except the plane shift, astral travelling powers that are beyond the reach of an 8th level psion. Then progression beyond that point is per standard rules "As character class". This gets illithids more powers, but they are limited to a (greater) number of power points.

Interesting, but I think I'll stick to my version here. There's nothing that says that an Illithid Dire Bear can't take additional levels in psion or pschic warrior - and in fact, most probably will. The "free use psionics" are just the powers innate to their species...

Jürgen Hubert · Oct 24, 2002

Re: Illithid dire bear figure

Tewligan said:
Anyway, just wanted to mention my progress - hopefully (knock on wood), I'll have him finished and painted over the weekend. I'll get pics up on this thread if I can bend the digital camera to my will.

Cool, cool, cool... Would you mind if I put this up on my Urbis Homepage (with your credits and any links to your homepage and email address, of course)?

green slime · Oct 26, 2002

Jürgen Hubert said:
Interesting, but I think I'll stick to my version here. There's nothing that says that an Illithid Dire Bear can't take additional levels in psion or pschic warrior - and in fact, most probably will. The "free use psionics" are just the powers innate to their species...

Yeah, I know, except I find it gets wonky:

8 HD Illithid with 3 levels of Psion has so few power points its silly, (IMHO). It isn't that much more powerful than a twinkie little Illithid. (hardly a CR11)

In fact, its low number of power points then becomes a liability!

Should the psion player do something really rash and engage in psionic combat with it, the illithid will find it quickly runs out of defenses! (which is rather strange, don't you think?)

So it can mindblast all day, but after defending itself for two rounds of "tower of iron will" it starts losing stats at an alarming rate?

Just my 2 copper pieces...

Jürgen Hubert · Oct 29, 2002

green slime said:
Yeah, I know, except I find it gets wonky:

8 HD Illithid with 3 levels of Psion has so few power points its silly, (IMHO). It isn't that much more powerful than a twinkie little Illithid. (hardly a CR11)

Speaking of which, I won't even attempt to figure out the CR modifiers for the Illithid template... It's too complex.

In fact, its low number of power points then becomes a liability!

Should the psion player do something really rash and engage in psionic combat with it, the illithid will find it quickly runs out of defenses! (which is rather strange, don't you think?)

So it can mindblast all day, but after defending itself for two rounds of "tower of iron will" it starts losing stats at an alarming rate?

This raises a question: Since mind flayers are natural psychics, should it be possible to attack them as such with psionic combat? Or do they count as "non-psions" for this?

(Personally, I'd just give illithids some defense mode that they can manifest for free...)

Johno · Oct 30, 2002

Hi Jürgen!

I can only say, that with my method, they are susceptible to psionic combat, and a character that has taken the Mind Trap or Disarm Mind feat actually has some use for it against psionically endowed monsters.

But this also leads to a much more serious question: What to do about psionic combat? I have ideas, and I'm going to run them through a little analysis of my own. If you are interested then I could post my ideas here.

Maybe you are right, Just giving them a psionic defense or two with free manifestation. I need ot go think about this a while.

Albert_Fish · Nov 10, 2002

BUMP...for good measure

Guilt Puppy · Nov 10, 2002

Beautiful idea... I am so stealing it for my next campaign (it actually fits in and expands upon the role of illithids I originally had.)

Also: illithid dragon... Oh, man.