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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 8483821" data-attributes="member: 57383">That would mean if it brain-ate a fragile but powerful creature like, say, a wizard, it would not gain any hit points. It would seem better to base it off the Challenge or Level of the victim, but cap it at the max hit points it can roll on its HD.For example, "If a gu'en-deeko eats the brain of a victim of [challenge/level?] # or higher its maximum hit points increase by 1 for every [challenge/level?] above #–1, it cannot gain more hit points than could be rolled on its Hit Dice (6d8+18 has a maximum roll of 66 hp)."The gu'en-deeko in the adventure, Thraaak, has 5+12 HD listed, so it's eaten twelve levels of victims as it gains 1 hp/level on "devouring a human brain" plus their knowledge and any skills and abilities they had.The "human brain" presumably means "humanoid brain" in 5E terms, since Thraaak has the abilities of a 2nd level thief and a dwarf as well as Tizun Thane's spells.He also ate an assassin's brains which caused him to turn against his master, and might have eaten the brains of other enemies of Tizun Thane.However, he can't have eaten that many of them!Thraak had two 3rd-level, two 2nd-level and three 1st-level magic-user spells left over from eating Tizun Thane's brain.He'd need to be at least a 6th-level MU to have those spells.If we assume that Thaaak's other abilities were from a 2nd-level dwarf thief (since the dwarf wasn't given a class or level) and that the assassin he'd eaten was only 1st level (being a patsy), he'd have three hit points from the 3 levels in those brains, which leaves 9 levels to account for.That means Tizun must have been between 6th and 9th level. A 1E AD&D magic-user of that level likely only had 15-22 hp if their Constitution and Hit Dice rolls aren't exceptional.Yes, I think I mentioned somewhere before the original only gained spells as 1-use.I'm just not fond of that, if only because it may make sequential encounters push-overs.Say, a party of adventures fights a gu'en-deeko who chucks a couple of spells at them, prompting the party to retreat. When the adventurers return, prepared to battle a spell-using monster, the gu'en-deeko will be 2 spells less powerful than their first encounter and easier to defeat.I'd rather the gu'en-deeko keeps its spellcasting abilities like it keeps the abilities of other classes it has brain-eaten.If the gu'en-deeko had eaten a class with innate spellcasting rather than memorized spellcasting, its spells wouldn't evaporate. Plus I'd like a gu'en-deeko "mage" to pose as long-term a threat as a gu'en-deeko "warrior" who won't permanently lose its offensive abilities upon using them.If it worked like that, a gu'en-deeko could eat an archmage and become a 16th-level wizard, but then eat an apprentice and drop to a 1st-level wizard.I was thinking something like this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A gu'en-deeko gains proficiency in any skills possessed by a humanoid whose brain it eats.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A gu'en-deeko gains the memories, knowledge-based racial traits and languages of any humanoid whose brain it eats but does not gain any physiological traits of the humanoid's race. For example, if it ate a dwarf it would gain Dwarven Combat Training, Tool Proficiency, Stonecunning and Languages, but it would not gain a dwarf's Ability Score Increase, Size, Speed, Darkvision or Dwarven Resilience.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In addition, a gu'en-deeko gains the class abilities of any humanoids of level # or lower whose brains it eats. These abilities never stack, if it gains multiple abilities only the highest level one applies. For example, if it ate the brains of a 2nd-level cleric, a 3rd-level bard, and a 3rd-level druid a gu'en-deeko gains 3rd-level Spellcasting, not three separate sets of Spellcasting (see below for how Gu'en-Deeko spells function). There are some class abilities that cannot be obtained by devouring brains, such as a warlock's Pact abilities: a gu'en-deeko lacks the godlike patron required for Pact Magic, Pact Boon, Otherworldly Patron, Mystic Arcanum and Eldritch Master abilities, although it can gain a warlock's Eldritch Invocations and Ability Score Improvement abilities. Other classes are left to the DM's discretion.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If a gu'en-deeko eats the brain of a humanoid of level #+1 or higher, if gains the class abilities of that humanoid until it eats the brain of another humanoid of the same level or higher. If that happens, the gu'en-deeko gains the class abilities of the new brain and the class abilities it gained from the previous high-level brain are reduced to a #-level character of that class.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If a gu'en-deeko eats the brain of a humanoid whose level exceeds its [6] Hit Dice, the gu'en-deeko goes insane and believes itself to actually be the individual whose brain it ate, despite any evidence to the contrary.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">[Stuff about how its spellcasting works. Basically I'm thinking it becomes an X-level sorcerer-style spellcaster (i.e. Cha-based) who can swap in new "spells learned" from brains it eats, and if it eats more spells than it can learn it can cast the excess as 1-use spells, which still expends spell slots.]</li> </ul>Does that sound OK to you?</blockquote>

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