Mearls, please give the mind flayer a makeover!

Tuzenbach · Sep 1, 2006

Dark Psion said:
They really need a make over, purple is so out.

Weren't they supposed to be mauve? Mauve is MILES away from purple!!!

Plane Sailing · Sep 1, 2006

Felon said:
Its only other attack ability is charm monster, another Will save ability, but one that players will have a +5 to save against once engaged in combat.

What about suggestion? I would think that is one of the mind flayers most potent offensive abilities, especially since it delivers it via telepathy. You can stir up a lot of intra-party problems using suggestion.

My favourite allies for Mind Flayers are elementals - they are immune to stunning, so they can mix it up with his foes while ignoring psionic blasts going off. The mind flayers once attempted to invade my campaign world by using the elemental plane of air as a staging ground, and the party only just closed the gate before the army of thousands of air elementals arrived...

FWIW I think that one of the changes between 3.0 and 3.5 which was particularly detrimental to the 'mastermind' capability of the mindflayer was the removal of the 'astral projection' power. Needless to say all my mindflayers kept that power.

it was just SO useful for the mindflayers to be living on a different plane and astrally projecting to the prime material, because it meant that the party could never really kill them here, and the mindflayer once 'killed' could just project again later and start up his plans once more, knowing all the more about the techniques and capabilities of the party.

Bring back astral projection and your mindflayers will become a campaign shaking menace once more

- I agree about the 'no fun' aspect of being taken out by psionic blast though - 10 melee rounds might be an hour or two of the evening!

Cheers

Fishbone · Sep 1, 2006

The Athach is totally over the top for its CR in my opinion, but how many times does it get used? Exactly. The Rakshasa is a pretty easy fix in my mind, lop a point or two off of the CR and give it Sorcerer levels for more gear, spells, and the elite scores. Its not going to rock anybody's world but its still solid. The Hydra is an absolute clusterf...ornication, yeah, thats it, clusterfornication. 3 years later and debates still rage as to what the text means.
Girallons been done, Grick isn't worth the effort, Ghaele is fine, Doppleganger could use a tune up but is fine as-is, Klurichir, maybe, but its pretty obscure and won't touch off a good debate. In my mind its Bodak(lacks identity and has a reviled gamebusting ability) Mind Flayer(could use a power up) and Hydra. Hydra really needs it, so I voted Hydra.

Felon · Sep 1, 2006

BryonD said:
And the lack of "equally good tricks" is completely resolved by the XPH.

Great for those who incorporate psionics as a rules subsystem. Many (probably most) don't.

Felon · Sep 1, 2006

Plane Sailing said:
I agree about the 'no fun' aspect of being taken out by psionic blast though - 10 melee rounds might be an hour or two of the evening!

Exactly.

pawsplay · Sep 1, 2006

I don't want the MM to get a power up. At the level it is now, it's ideal for a boss fight for level 5-9 PCs, and in numbers, as a nasty encounter for higher level characters.

Nightfall · Sep 3, 2006

*just wants an EN World make over* We need to get this place spruced up a bit.

Felon · Sep 9, 2006

The results are in, and guess who made it to the top of the makeover list?

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060908a

Glad to have made a difference.

Sejs · Sep 10, 2006

Plane Sailing said:
- I agree about the 'no fun' aspect of being taken out by psionic blast though - 10 melee rounds might be an hour or two of the evening!

Or, much more likely, the rest of your entire life.

Another option for mind blast could be to give it a re-save every round after the first or something similar.