Mind Flayer Paragon v 1.0

[Deaths_Fist]

Okay, I promised everyone a fleshed-out product, so here goes:

Mind Flayer Paragon:
Scheming and alien, mind flayer paragons embody the virtues held dearest by all flayerkin. While mind flayers as a whole naturally develop devastating mental strength and unnatural appetites, mind flayer paragons actively strive to push the limits of their race’s potential. Driven to achieve superiority over all other creatures, the mind flayer paragon is a being who inspires both interest and awe even amongst his own kind.

Adventures: Often, the slaves of the mind flayers, long subservient to their masters, lack the willpower necessary to truly test the limits of a mind flayer’s power. Accordingly, mind flayer paragons adventure in the outside world to try their mental might against creatures who can better exercise the flayer’s dominating will. Only by testing their minds against stronger beings can they attain the mastery necessary to subvert all creatures to their will.

Characteristics: Mind flayer paragons are arrogant, domineerings beings with little to no concern for the welfare of other races. While outwardly cool, internally they are roiling cauldrons of seething, dark emotions. They plot endlessly against those who would thwart their plans for domination.

Alignment: Almost all mind flayer paragons are lawful and evil in alignment, for it takes the outlook and tendencies of their kind amplified manifold to achieve the prowess a mind flayer paragon posesses.

Religion: Mind flayer paragons, like most illithids, shy away from religion in any form a surface-dweller would recognize, being too self-absorbed to perform any act recognizable as worship. Instead they view their deities as beings to respect and emulate. Some few mind flayers with levels in cleric perform religious rites in a more worshipful sense, but this is certainly the exception amongst flayerkin.

Background: Raised in the lightless depths and born into phenomenal psionic puissance, mind flayer paragons learn their skills as standard mind flayers do, trading with subterranean merchants and performing raids for slaves on the surface and elsewhere in the Underdark. Displaying a desire to excell beyond the norm for their kind, they push the resources of their own mind to its furthest extent, eventually developing deeper psychic reservoirs from which to draw.

Races: To a mind flayer paragon, all other races serve two purposes: food and slaves. A mind flayer paragon is exceptional among his kind for assuring other creatures serve their allotted purpose. Any mind flayer paragon who treats another being as an equal is simply biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to dominate and consume the other.

Classes: Mind flayer paragons are most comfortable when surrounded by those they are more certain they can bend to their will, such as Fighters, Rogues, and the like. However, they know they can only better themselves through true contests of will such as they can receive from the strong minds possessed by Wizards, Clerics, and others of powerful will. Psionic classes give them the greatest amount of pause, as they know these classes are capable of resisting their powers far longer than most others.

Game Rule Information
Mind flayer paragons have the following game statistics.
Abilities: Intelligence and Charisma are key abilities for any mind flayer paragon, helping to strengthen their race’s natural talents and make the most of any new abilities they develop. Dexterity is important for avoiding the attacks of any melee combatant who manages to resist the mind flayer paragon’s mental attacks long enough to close in on it. Strength gives the mind flayer paragon an edge in a grapple, helping it get at the tasty brains waiting inside its foe’s skull.

Alignment: Any

Hit Die: d8

Class Skills: The mind flayer paragon’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Diplomacy (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (Any) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spot (Wis).
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Class Features:
All of the following are class features of the mind flayer paragon class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Mind flayer paragons gain no new proficiencies in any weapon or armor.
Variant Choice: Before taking the mind flayer paragon class, one must decide which variant of mind flayer he is using, as this determines a portion of the paragon class's abilities. If using the standard mind flayer from the Monster Manual, disregard Table 2: Mind Flayer Paragon Powers Known and the Powers Known entry after this class feature. If using the psionic variant mind flayer from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, disregard the Dominate Person class feature. Any given mind flayer paragon uses one variant or the other, not both, and as such cannot gain both benefits of this class.
Powers Known: At 2nd and 3rd level, if you are using the psion manifester variant mind flayer from the XPH, a mind flayer paragon gains additional power points per day and access to new powers as if she had gained a level in psion. It does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus psionic feats, and so on).
Ability Boost (Ex): At each level, the mind flayer paragon may choose to add +2 to either its Intelligence or Charisma, but cannot add to the same stat twice in a row. In other words, if the mind flayer paragon chooses +2 Charisma at 1st level, it must choose +2 Intelligence at 2nd level and +2 Charisma again at 3rd, and vice versa.
Grasping Tentacles (Ex): At 1st level, the mind flayer paragon's bonus on grapple checks to oppose an enemy's attempt to escape a grapple with the mind flayer increases to +3 per tentacle already attached instead of +2.
Greater Grasping Tentacles (Ex): At 2nd level, the mind flayer paragon gains Improved Grapple as a bonus feat, even if it doesn't meet any of the feat's prerequisites.
Dominate Person (Sp): At 3rd level, if you are using the standard mind flayer from the MM, the mind flayer paragon gains dominate person as a spell-like ability useable at will. The save DC is equal to (15+Cha modifier).

[B]Table 1: The Mind Flayer Paragon[/B]
[B]Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special[/B]
1st	+0	+0	+0	+2	Grasping Tentacles, Ability Boost, Variant Choice
2nd	+1	+0	+0	+3	Greater Grasping Tentacles, Ability Boost
3rd	+1	+1	+1	+3	Dominate Person, Ability Boost

[B]Table 2: Mind Flayer Paragon Powers Known[/B]
[B]Level	Powers Known[/B]
1st	--
2nd	+1 level of psion
3rd	+1 level of psion

Suggestions? Feel free to read my prior thread on this for some of my thoughts as I put this class together.

EDIT: Thanks to Cabral for the table code thing. Also, I added an entry in the Class Features to clarify the variant mind flayer choice.

 

[Cabral]

Greater Grasping Tentacles (Ex): At 2nd level, the mind flayer paragon gains Improved Grapple as a bonus feat, even if it doesn't meet any of the feat's prerequisites.

I think you mean the Improved Grab special ability.

For formating tables, try the [ Code ] [ /code] tags

[B]Table 1: The Mind Flayer Paragon[/B]
[B]Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special[/B]
1st	+0	+0	+0	+2	Grasping Tentacles, Ability Boost
2nd	+1	+0	+0	+3	Greater Grasping Tentacles, Ability Boost
3rd	+1	+1	+1	+3	Dominate Person, Ability Boost

[B]Table 2: Mind Flayer Paragon Powers Known[/B]
[B]Level	Powers Known[/B]
1st	--
2nd	+1 level of psion
3rd	+1 level of psion

Overall, doesn't really say "evil genius" to me. The improved grab is nice, the dominate person is okay. I would ditch the grapsing tentacles for something to accelerate brain-leeching

Also, I would replace the bonus powers known as a Psion with Power points, powers known, and manifestor level as if he'd gained a level in psion or spells per day, spells known, and caster level as if he'd gained a level in sorcerer (chosen when you first enter the class)

Also, if you're going to grant dominate person at will at 3rd level, I wouldn't suggest also granting a casting/manifesting level at the same level.

 

[Evilhalfling]

how did you justify and ability gain at each level? - its out of scale with what any other class gives.
I also agree with Cabral - no manifesting level with dominate at will
how bout +1 caster level at 1st and 2nd, in psion and +2 int at the end.
If all illithids are psions (as they are in my game) there is no need to boost sorcerer lvls or chr.

 

[Cabral]

The ability gain is out of scale with other paragon classes, but I withheld judgement on it because mind flayers are 8 HD, LA +7 whereas, at most the other paragon class were LA+4 (half-dragon)

As an interesting aside, a half-dragon(Half-elf) can qualify for 4 racial paragon class and possibly enter 3 of them. (not positive you can enter the half-dragon and the half-elf classes)

 

[Deaths_Fist]

I think you mean the Improved Grab special ability.

No, mind flayers already posess that ability. I mean Improved Grapple.

For formating tables, try the [ Code ] [ /code] tags

Thanks, I'll give that a shot in the future.

Overall, doesn't really say "evil genius" to me. The improved grab is nice, the dominate person is okay. I would ditch the grapsing tentacles for something to accelerate brain-leeching

Well, I think this is just a difference of opinion; it does say "evil genius" to me; it's really all in the roleplaying, with stats to back it up. The improved grapple is very nice; it helps keep a mind flayer on par with other grapple-based monsters at both higher CRs and higher player levels. Dominate person is a natural extension of the flayer's extant abilities, but more on that later since there seems to be some confusion on the subject by those not paying full attention to the text. I'll clarify in a bit. As to accelerated brain-leeching, instant death isn't fast enough for you? I wouldn't allow an ability making it any faster in my games, and I certainly wouldn't expect my DM for this one to.

Also, I would replace the bonus powers known as a Psion with Power points, powers known, and manifestor level as if he'd gained a level in psion or spells per day, spells known, and caster level as if he'd gained a level in sorcerer (chosen when you first enter the class)

Also, if you're going to grant dominate person at will at 3rd level, I wouldn't suggest also granting a casting/manifesting level at the same level.

Okay, here's that clarification. When taking levels in this paragon, exactly what one gets depends on which mind flayer variant one is using. For games without the Expanded Psionics Handbook (XPH), the mind flayer does NOT gain the psion manifester levels at class levels 2 and 3. Instead, he gains dominate person at will, quite a powerful spell-like ability to have an unlimited number of times. A fair trade. If one is using the version of the mind flayer suggested in the XPH, which gives the mind flayer the manifesting abilities of a 9th-level psion (telepath), this paragon class adds a manifester level at 2nd and 3rd level. Perhaps this isn't a clear point, but one must pick one benefit or the other, NOT both. Sorry for the confusion.

Also, from the cultural standpoint of the illithids, sorcerors are seen as a somewhat taboo class to enter into, so added levels of that class's spellcasting abilities would be way off base.

 

[Deaths_Fist]

Edited some text in the original post, to make some clarifications. Figured I'd point it out here in case it wasn't obvious.

 

[Deaths_Fist]

The ability gain is out of scale with other paragon classes, but I withheld judgement on it because mind flayers are 8 HD, LA +7 whereas, at most the other paragon class were LA+4 (half-dragon)

As an interesting aside, a half-dragon(Half-elf) can qualify for 4 racial paragon class and possibly enter 3 of them. (not positive you can enter the half-dragon and the half-elf classes)

You hit my reasoning on the ability gain right on the head. Also, that's an interesting note on the half-breed paragon classes. Technically I don't think there's much stopping that. Not that it's abusive or anything, just slightly nonsensical. Nobody embraces their heritage that much!

 

[Cabral]

No, mind flayers already posess that ability. I mean Improved Grapple.

Oh ... heheh. Looked in Monster Manual and didn't see it ... never thought to look in the PH It's even in the SRD... whoops. Okay, so that feat's nice allowing the Mind Flayer to slurp on your noodle.

Well, I think this is just a difference of opinion; it does say "evil genius" to me; it's really all in the roleplaying, with stats to back it up. The improved grapple is very nice; it helps keep a mind flayer on par with other grapple-based monsters at both higher CRs and higher player levels. Dominate person is a natural extension of the flayer's extant abilities, but more on that later since there seems to be some confusion on the subject by those not paying full attention to the text. I'll clarify in a bit. As to accelerated brain-leeching, instant death isn't fast enough for you? I wouldn't allow an ability making it any faster in my games, and I certainly wouldn't expect my DM for this one to.

The only misunderstanding was the Improved Grapple And yes, all the grapple bonuses fall nicely into the category of faster brain-leeching.

The confusion about the confusion about the dominate person was because I was suggesting 2 things at once. 1) change the class to allow a choice of advancing as a sorcerer (after rereading the MM entry, change that to wizard) or as a psion, and 2) not have a manifestor level/spellcasting level advancement on the same level you grant dominate at will.

As a point of reference the casts-as-a-sorcerer, MM version can cast charm monster (4th level spell) at will. What you are suggesting is dominate person (a 5th level spell) at will, a slight upgrade, but in an odd direction. Have you considered Hold Monster (also 5th level) at will? It seems like a nice upgrade in that it doesn't reduce the "target audience" like dominate person does and ties in with the stunning cone.

 

[Deaths_Fist]

The confusion about the confusion about the dominate person was because I was suggesting 2 things at once. 1) change the class to allow a choice of advancing as a sorcerer (after rereading the MM entry, change that to wizard) or as a psion, and 2) not have a manifestor level/spellcasting level advancement on the same level you grant dominate at will.

As a point of reference the casts-as-a-sorcerer, MM version can cast charm monster (4th level spell) at will. What you are suggesting is dominate person (a 5th level spell) at will, a slight upgrade, but in an odd direction. Have you considered Hold Monster (also 5th level) at will? It seems like a nice upgrade in that it doesn't reduce the "target audience" like dominate person does and ties in with the stunning cone.

Well, hopefully by changing the wording in the class you can see that it doesn't matter if I grant psion manifesting power at the same time as I grant dominate person since one can't get both. It's one or the other. And if you want to use a variant granting sorcerer (or wizard) spellcasting instead of psion, go for it; I just wouldn't use that variant unless I also designed a base mind flayer variant that had actual sor or wiz spellcasting instead of its psionic spell-like abilities. I hope that makes sense. I'm trying to make a paragon class that's more immediately useful to someone using out-of-the-book stats without having to design a variant themselves.

I did in fact consider hold monster, and I suppose it would make just as viable a choice, but I feel the mind blast does this a bit more stylishly already, and I personally would want dominate at will even more. Charm might make it your friend, but being able to get even a smaller "target audience," as you put it, to do things more willingly is a large victory from a flayer's point of view. As I view such things, anyway. Feel free to change it for the version you'd like to use. More important to me is to know if the class as it stands is unbalanced statistically or would be not-fun to play.