Sigh. I guess it's time to get back on the horse, or try to anyway. Thinking about Shade a lot today.
Yes, I've been feeling down about it every now and again too. Better not to get morbid about it, I think.
Looking at the original monster, I see a bunch of stuff I think we've missed:
Yes, there's a lot of other bits and bobs to do. Some of them are only mentioned in one entry, so I think we should consider only applying them to the "Wingless Wonder" version of the Alkeda.
Some sort of immunity to stickiness? Or a racial bonus to Escape Artist or similar?
I'd prefer the former option, e.g.:
Immunity To Adhesion (Ex): No known adhesive will stick to a wingless wonder's skin. This makes wingless wonders immune to effects such as tanglefoot bags, adhesive webs (both from monstrous spiders and the
web spell) and even
sovereign glue. This immunity offers no protection against other sorts of grappling or entangling attack.
Immunity to fire for sure. Also looks like fast healing 1 with weird flavor (which I'd be fine with ignoring).
The immunity to fire's fine.
That first bit suggests its Fast Healing 1 might not work against
wounding weapons or attacks that cause Blood Drain.
Permanent mind blank or something like the closed mind feat? I think I like mind blank better.
Using
mind blank seems a much better fit than Closed Mind.
I wonder if we got the psionic blast mixed up. It seems like it should only work during the death throes, and then it is pretty far from the 3.X mind flayer psionic blast. Did mind flayers' blasts previously cause confusion and feebleminding?
Yes, the mental blast only works when it's dying.
Mind flayers stunned their opponents with their special mind blast in 1st edition AD&D, same as later editions. A 1st edition psionic character couldconfuse an opponent with a Psionic Blast and cause idiocy with an Ego Whip. However, standard mind flayers don't have those attacks in that edition - their only psionic attacks are Mind Thrust and their special Mind Blast.
Immunity to stunning? I think the bit about the battlefield is handled by the SR and immunity to fire.
Immunity to stunning, fear and non-lethal damage, perhaps?
Maybe increase that to stunning, mind-affecting effects and non-lethal damage?