Mind Flayers wimpy!?

[kreynolds]

Right, but the psion vs. illithid battle is much more akin to psion vs. psion; that's all I'm saying.

I'd argue less so. The psion in a psion vs illithid battle has better AC, more powers, and high saving throws where it counts (Will). The biggest one is the AC. The psion in my scenario had an AC of 21. The illithid was hard pressed to hit that a tentacle. In a psion vs psion battle, it's purely a battle of the mind. In a psion vs illithid battle, that psion was actually able to close into melee with the illithid.

My only point is that a CR8 monster is never as powerful as a level 8 character on a regular basis. It all depends on the class and monster combination.

 

[kreynolds]

Though of course the mind flayer's SR is no small potatoes.

And that's what it all comes down to. The psion in this fight had PR 13 (psionic item) and great Will saves. The mind flayer had SR 25. (Don't forget about the transparency for this situation) In the end, all their powers were next to useless. Blind luck, a roll of 1 on a save, would allow their powers to work. When everything was said and done, the psion just closed into melee, or attacked from great range with a light crossbow, and ripped him a new one.

 

[the Jester]

My only point is that a CR8 monster is never as powerful as a level 8 character on a regular basis. It all depends on the class and monster combination.

Well, certain types of monsters are tooled to be most effective against certain classes (such as undead vs. rogues), and certain classes have special abilities to deal with certain types (such as druids with animals or clerics with undead). So there's no way to say that all CR8 monsters are equivelent to all 8th level pcs. But I still think a CR8 monster is roughly equal to one 8th-level pc if you make all the comparisons and average them out.

To be more specific, what I meant when I said it was "more akin" to psion vs. psion was that the two had similar types of abilities and they both had good will saves. As opposed to mind flayer vs. fighter or rogue.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Krey, I'd do it again. Use 2 mind flayers (or one and several level 2 ranger grimlocks - see grimlock monster description) and use it against 4 10th-level characters.

Actually, it is a bit weak. It's charm is useless (opponents get +5 to their save), and the save DC for Mind Blast is lower than what your own psion could put out.

[mini-rant]Why do all those demons have Charisma 16? Even the arcanoloth! Very very low save DCs. Arrghh![/mini-rant]

As for combat modes, give it Ego Whip and Id Insinuation to attack, and any 3 defense modes of choice.

I'd also take the "as powerful as a single character of it's level" with a grain of salt. With it's low AC, poor saving throws (monk = dead mindflayer) etc it isn't a big challenge, but this is true of a lot of creatures.

As has been mentioned before, many creatures are really strong against some classes and weak against others. A demon, for instance, is toast against a paladin of equal level, especially if the paladin (and CR) are 16th-level or above. Holy Sword is a free +2d6 damage, and the Magic Circle is sweet if the demon would rather fly out of reach and use spells. Said paladin can ignore dragon fear, but will get slaughtered regardless.

 

[maddman75]

Some monsters are intended to be used as leaders. Others that spring to mind are beholders and liches. With their abilities to gain the service of mooks and high intelligence they are a formitable foe for even high level parties. Once you can actually get to them, they are usually meat within a round or two.

Mind flayers fall into this category. As for what he would do if he were surrounded and had no mooks? Plane shift away most likely. Or try to charm the guy with the lowest Will save.

As far as what kind of mooks, grimlocks are common. One IMC triggered a war between hobgoblin and dwarves, then made thralls out of the survivors.

 

[rhammer2]

I prefer to use the MR the Mind Flayer had in both 1st and 2nd edition AD&D, 90%. This is equal to a SR of 29 in 3rd edition. A SR of 25 is equal to a MR of 70% in 1st edition.

Yeah, true enough. Actually, there's this funny little thing about that, and it's kinda off-topic, but oh well.

The Mind Flayer has SR 25. Now, with psionic/magic transparency, spell resistance functions as power resistance as well, protecting you from both. However, if you remove this transparency, you assign PR to creatures with SR, and it's equal to their SR - 10. So, a Mind Flayer would have SR 25 and PR 15.

Here's my question for you: Do you think those should be reversed? I mean, here's a monster that is pretty versed with psionics, yet it has a higher SR than PR. Wierd.

Does anyone have any suggestions on whether or not the mind flayer needs to be altered, or some aspects that need to be closely watched, when you remove the psionic/magic transparency?

EDIT: Also, in a game where true psionics are present, how do you handle the Mind Flayer's Mind Blast ability? Do you treat it as is written in the MM? Or do you treat it as the psionic attack mode in the PsiH?

 

[the Jester]

[mini-rant]Why do all those demons have Charisma 16? Even the arcanoloth! Very very low save DCs. Arrghh![/mini-rant]

Keep in mind that that's the AVERAGE stat for all those demon races- the equivelent of a human with a charisma of 10; so you could tweak that very easily to as high as 24 (which would be the same as a human with an 18 charisma). I do that kind of thing often, though I try to lower other stats as well (not always balancing increases and decreases, though; otherwise all my human npcs would have an average stat of 10).

 

[Elric]

A Mind Flayer/Monk 1 with scores about 4 points higher in Dex, Con, Wis and Cha (24 point buy, so very reasonable for a creature with character class levels) would be a much tougher opponent for a lone Psion. AC 22 instead of 15, all saves 4 points higher, save DCs 2 points higher and around 65 (instead of 44) hit points.

As for specialized monsters, a relatively normal level 11 melee fighter will have a very tough time against a low point buy CR 9 Stone Giant Barbarian 1 with Str 35 (while raging), 180 HP (while raging) and a little bit of decent magical equipment.