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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 928566" data-attributes="member: 8158">As some of you may recall, way back in the same month that the 3e Monster Manual came out, Dragon Magazine had a big monster extravaganza issue. There was an article introducing several monsters that inhabited the WormCrawl, which was Kyuss's hangout back before he became a minor deity of undeath. Of all those monsters, I found the Avolakia particularly interesting. The idea of a shapeshifitng race of aberations that work together in small tribes to create their own personal havens of undead, using them for food as well as defense ("Although they can digest dead or living flesh, they find both disgusting....They prefer to eat undead flesh--"fresh" off a zombie's flank is best") had the potential to become a major new monstrous race IMO. There was one problem though; its package of monstrous abilities was just this side of unimpressive. And having been represented in last year's MMII, I still am uncertain as to what's supposed to make them live up to their design concept. For a 10 HD/10 CR monster, I can't finger what abilities it can bring to bear to make it worth its salt (i.e. XP value) in either a direct confrontation, or as a boss monster. I figure maybe I'm being too hard on it, so I thought I'd see what you guys think.Here's its basic package:1) It has a pretty potent Suggestion ability (DC 19, -2 if looking into its eyes while it speaks), but only when it polymorphs itself into human form, and only against a single humanoid at a time. Seems more suited to subtle, incognito manipulations than combat.2) It has the following assortment of spell-like abilities: At will--gentle repose, chill touch, disrupt undead, cause fear, ghoul touch, magic hand, polymorph (humanoid forms only), detect magic, spectral hand; 3/day--animate dead, create undead, vampiric touch, enervation. Essentially, we're looking at some mostly bottom-rung spells usable at will, and a few sub-fourth-level-range spells usable three times a day. Vampiric touch and enervation can be effective spells, but not exactly heavy-hitters for a 10 CR3) In melee, its primary attack is a big bite (+10 attack bonus, 2d6+4 damage) followed up with 8 little claw attacks (+8 attack bonus, 1d4+2 damage). The bite's got a poison that does Wisdom damage (DC 18 Fort save). Defensively, it's got an average of 75 hit points and an 18 AC. Again, not total crap in this deparment, but nothing to challenge 10th-level warriors either. So what does the MMII say the avolakia's tactics are in combat? Well, it makes mention of staying at a distance and using its spells and spell-like abilities while its undead minions close in. The avolakia doesn't have spells though, and it has no means to control its minions. The latter is really disappointing, since it pretty much screws the pooch as far as the basic concept goes. Note that the Create Undead spell doesn't grant you automatic control over the undead you create; it just says clerics can attempt to command the undead as it forms with a turning check, but that's not an ability that the avolakia actually possesses. The MMII makes mention of avolakias taking cleric and sorcerer levels, which IMO seems like a kludgey way to make a 10HD creature appropriately powerful. For instance, the "avolakia society" section states that "avolakia clerics make good use of the create greater undead spell to create mummies, spectres, vampires, and ghosts". But that means we're talking about taking 15-20 levels of cleric in addition to its 10 monster hit dice to do that. That pretty much defeats the entire point of the avolakia as a monster; it's not doing anything a human can't do, and a hell of a lot less efficiently at that (FYI, the MMII assigns an avolakia an ECL of 15).Kind of as a side note, the most depressing thing about the avolakia's presentation is its MMII illustration. The one in Dragon really captured its essence as a creature of sinister intelligence and disgustingly alien mindset. The sort of thing that reclines in its den, thinking up vile shemes as it gnaws on a twitching zombie leg the same way we gnaw on a chicken drumstick.  So, what do you guys think? Am I missing the pernicious puissance of this critter? And if not, what can be done to salvage it? I'm almost thinking it has to be rebuilt from the ground up, and given innate spellcasting ability like a dragon or rakshasa rather than just a grab-bag of lukewarm spell-like abilities.</blockquote>

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