D&D 3E/3.5 Kraken Variants

freyar · Sep 1, 2018

Concentration for the added SLAs makes sense to me.

Well, since we're talking about all these SAs, what do you think about making Khalk'ru a full-on obyrith lord? Then I don't mind adding most all of that (well, not the thrice-spoken name bit, but the cross-planar suggestion).

Cleon · Sep 1, 2018

freyar said:
Concentration for the added SLAs makes sense to me.

Well, since we're talking about all these SAs, what do you think about making Khalk'ru a full-on obyrith lord? Then I don't mind adding most all of that (well, not the thrice-spoken name bit, but the cross-planar suggestion).

If we make Khalk'ru a literal Obyrith then perforce it must be native to the Abyss while the original flavour suggests it comes from some unknown alien dimension (possibly the Far Realms?).

So I'd rather not make it an actual Demon, but would be happy giving it some (or many) of an Obyrith Demon Lord's abilities.

Anyhow, I'll update the Khalk'ru Working Draft with Concentration since we've agreed on that.

So shall we settle on the SLAs before arguing over Form of Madness and the "Temptation Equivalent"?

Let's see, a standard obyrith demon lord has got:

At will—astral projection, word of chaos, desecrate, detect good, detect law, greater dispel magic, greater teleport, plane shift, shapechange, telekinesis, unhallow, cloak of chaos, chaos hammer, plus one, plus two.

3/day—any one symbol, plus one, plus two.

1/day—one, two.

I still think we should cut or replace the plane shift since obviously if Khalk'ru could do that it wouldn't have to do all this fussing around with being summoned by worshippers to leave its native dimension. The shapechange also seems inappropriate. Upon reflection I'd also swap out the telekinesis since it never did anything like that in the novel.

We've already discussed dream and suggestion - maybe make it mass suggestion instead? Oh, and I suggested storm of vengeance, enervation, weird, mage's disjunction, and implosion, scrying and greater scrying.

Hmm, what else? Maybe sending and nightmare (for when weird is too potent).

Dang it, I'll just do some swapping of the above and see what I can come up with.

How about the following:

Spell-Like Abilities: At will—astral projection, chaos hammer, cloak of chaos, desecrate, destruction, detect good, detect law, enervation, greater dispel magic, greater scrying, greater teleport, mass suggestion, nightmare, unhallow, word of chaos; 3/day—dream, symbol of insanity, weird; 1/day—implosion, storm of vengeance. Caster level 20th; save DC 18 + spell level.

freyar · Sep 25, 2018

Hmmm. Want to pull from some Great Old One abilities? Pathfinder has these, and there might be some common abilities in Elder Evils.

Your suggested SLAs look good to me!

Cleon · Sep 27, 2018

freyar said:
Hmmm. Want to pull from some Great Old One abilities? Pathfinder has these, and there might be some common abilities in Elder Evils.

That feels like over-egging the pudding. I'd be content with just adding just the "Form of Madness" and "influence creatures on other planes" special abilities already being discussed.

freyar said:
Your suggested SLAs look good to me!

Updating the Khalk'ru Working Draft.

freyar · Oct 17, 2018

Limiting to Form of Madness and cross-planar suggestion or whatever is fine.

Anyway, revising form of madness to Wis drain is fine, though I guess we need a new ability name. Maybe
Maddening Presence (Su): Khalk'ru's presence is so horrific that any creature within 60 feet who observes it are subject to madness. Failure on a DC 33 Will save indicates that the victim takes 1d4 Wis drain. Rather than entering a withdrawn nightmare state, a creature drained to zero Wisdom regains its normal Wisdom score but becomes a fanatical worshiper of Khalk'ru who returns to their home plane and attempts to summon Khalk'ru there. A creature that makes a saving throw against Khalk'ru's maddening presence is immune to it for 24 hours. Blindness is no protection — Khalk'ru's presence is an affront to all five senses. This is a mind-affecting ability. The save DC is Charisma-based.

I removed the immunity for chaotic evil outsiders and restriction on healing the Wis drain. Does that work for you?

Cleon · Oct 17, 2018

freyar said:
Limiting to Form of Madness and cross-planar suggestion or whatever is fine.

Anyway, revising form of madness to Wis drain is fine, though I guess we need a new ability name. Maybe

Maddening Presence (Su): Khalk'ru's presence is so horrific that any creature within 60 feet who observes it are subject to madness. Failure on a DC 33 Will save indicates that the victim takes 1d4 Wis drain. Rather than entering a withdrawn nightmare state, a creature drained to zero Wisdom regains its normal Wisdom score but becomes a fanatical worshiper of Khalk'ru who returns to their home plane and attempts to summon Khalk'ru there. A creature that makes a saving throw against Khalk'ru's maddening presence is immune to it for 24 hours. Blindness is no protection — Khalk'ru's presence is an affront to all five senses. This is a mind-affecting ability. The save DC is Charisma-based.

I removed the immunity for chaotic evil outsiders and restriction on healing the Wis drain. Does that work for you?

That looks very good, although I would suggest a minor tweak.

Demon Prince Obyriths have wider areas for their Form of Madness. The standard appears to be 120 feet since Dagon, Dwiergus, Obox-ob and Ugudenk all have that range.

So I'd change the first sentence to "Khalk'ru is so horrific that any creature within 120 feet who observes Khalk'ru's is subject to madness."

freyar · Nov 3, 2018

Maddening Presence (Su): Khalk'ru's presence is so horrific that any creature within 120 feet who observes it are subject to madness. Failure on a DC 33 Will save indicates that the victim takes 1d4 Wis drain. Rather than entering a withdrawn nightmare state, a creature drained to zero Wisdom regains its normal Wisdom score but becomes a fanatical worshiper of Khalk'ru who returns to their home plane and attempts to summon Khalk'ru there. A creature that makes a saving throw against Khalk'ru's maddening presence is immune to it for 24 hours. Blindness is no protection — Khalk'ru's presence is an affront to all five senses. This is a mind-affecting ability. The save DC is Charisma-based.

How about that cross-planar suggestion? Something like this, perhaps:
Distant Suggestion (Sp): Once per week, Khalk'ru may use suggestion as a spell-like ability on a creature located on a different plane of existence, provided that the target creature knows of Khalk'ru's existence.

Cleon · Nov 3, 2018

freyar said:
Maddening Presence (Su): Khalk'ru's presence is so horrific that any creature within 120 feet who observes it are subject to madness. Failure on a DC 33 Will save indicates that the victim takes 1d4 Wis drain. Rather than entering a withdrawn nightmare state, a creature drained to zero Wisdom regains its normal Wisdom score but becomes a fanatical worshiper of Khalk'ru who returns to their home plane and attempts to summon Khalk'ru there. A creature that makes a saving throw against Khalk'ru's maddening presence is immune to it for 24 hours. Blindness is no protection — Khalk'ru's presence is an affront to all five senses. This is a mind-affecting ability. The save DC is Charisma-based.

That looks fine. I'll add it with the next upate to the Khalk'ru Working Draft.

freyar said:
How about that cross-planar suggestion? Something like this, perhaps:

Distant Suggestion (Sp): Once per week, Khalk'ru may use suggestion as a spell-like ability on a creature located on a different plane of existence, provided that the target creature knows of Khalk'ru's existence.

The wording looks fine but I'm not fond of the name. I'd rather have something more, ah, suggestive of working in another plane than "distant". Maybe "Interdimensional Suggestion" or "Otherworldly Suggestion"?