New Mindflayer Info

[grimslade]

If the 4e dazed mechanic is similar to the miniatures dazed condition, then the dazed creature:

1. Grants combat advantage to all attackers
2. Cannot flank creatures
3. Can only act on its turn
4. Cannot make opportunity attacks or use immediate actions

It looks like another implementation of the philosophy that PCs should be able to act at least once per round, which neither the old stunned or dazed condition would have allowed.

This Daze power is still pretty potent.
Iterative attacks are, in likelyhood, gone. There are several talents/feats/powers that grant actions out of your initiative (i.e. the dragon tail slap for flankers)
So the Daze limits your PCs to one attack on their turn only. It seems to hose rogues a bit. Fighters will not be controlling the area around them. Not as fearsome.
No Opportunity attacks for Disarms, Trips, Grapples and Tentacle lashes
Grants huge benefits to Thrall Rogues and Strikers

It isn't the same as a Mind Flayer Monk with different enhancements to his tentacles in 3E for shock value but it helps.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I mean that the flayer being the "weak link" in this encounter doesn't do the flayer justice.
From the powers the flayer has it looks to me like it depends on its minions to subdue the party before it can move in instead of using its minions as expandable meatshields.

How it should look: Flayer sends in its minions. When those are death the flayer steps in, laughs at the party who think they did win anything. *Real battle begins now*

How it looks like it will look: Flayer sends minions in. When those are death the flayer uses Mind Blast and runs away as without minions it is very weak.

I think that was exactly the way the Mind Flayer worked in 3.x already. He needed someone to protect him from those that remained unstunned. The only think that could remedy this was that he could "Mind Lock" everyone, but if that worked out, it didn't make an interesting encounter - more a frustrating one.

I think there is a reason why Mind Flayers like to make their Thralls (IIRC, they are even noted in his "Organisation" entry in the 3.x MMs). They need them. Not just for simple work, but also for protection.

---

There's a big difference between a mind blast that allows NO actions and a mind blast that still allows the victim to act on its own turn.

I didn't know that dazing would still allow actions. That changes a lot, unless being unable to take AoOs and Immediate actions is more critical in 4E then in 3E. But only if the 4E Daze works this way at all. (If I am not mistaken, this comes from the Mini rules?)

 

[jaer]

One flayer and a bunch of thralls doesn't do the 'flayer justice?

What the heck is the Umber Hulk for?

(PS: Use 2 elites instead of 4 regular, it'll make the 'flayer stick out more, because I agree that a squid head in a crowd is perhaps less than riveting )

I think 1 flayer can easily be central to a fight along with 4 thralls (even better if its 3 thralls and 4 minion thralls). He can make it the most rivetign fight ever, depending on how some of his abilities actually end up working.

We don't know that a flayer thrall is effected by the mind balst, do we? Opens up a lot of possibilities if they aren't. Especially if the Mind Blast is rechargeable through brain eating!

Think of the flayer positioning his thralls before him, fighting the party. He dazes the party and not his thralls. The thralls are a big threat, being that they are right there smashing the party. They seem to be out shining the Flayer as the danger of the group, even though the daze effect is really screwing everything up (considering the potential daze effect, a Fighter's ability to control and defend are dropped to nothing if he is dazed since his defender capabilities seem mostly based on opportunity attacks). So now everyone is hurt, not just the defender. Everyone is getting brutalized. Thralls are running amok.

But wait! The one thrall that was hurt the most stumbled back to the Flayer! What's the flayer going to do? Heal it? That would be stupid! That wouldn't make any sense at all, that just-Wait! It just ate the thrall's brain! (No grappel or pinning necessary, no struggle could equal instant eats.)

And now the most weakened Thrall is dead (whoop-dee-doo - it was going in that direction anyway) and the flayer has another mind blast on deck to keep the party dazed and keep his other thralls wrecking house on them. This would work wonders if the Flayer has both regular monsters (for being the beef of the fight) and minions (for being chomp fodder). The Flayer becomes more of a threat the more thralls it has with it at any time. The flayer would not want to eat a solo monster's brain for a recharge (of course, I am assuming that that is a recharge...which is so cool of an idea, i really hope it is!) unless that creature was nearly dead anyway. Better to have weaklings, ones that won't overly weaken the flayer's position if he needed to kill them himself.

The party's first thought was "take down the thralls and get to the flayer," but it soon changes to "if we don't hammer that flayer down, these thralls are going to stomp us!" which is how I think the battle should go. The flayer should be a major threat without being the one doing the major damage, as it were. He should be controlling and planning and disabling, but not in the battle physically unless it is safe for him to do so.

 

[Benimoto]

I think the fact that the mind blast is "renewable" means that it will be possible to recharge it and use it again in a combat provided some condition is met. Perhaps it will be the mind flayer eating a brain, or maybe something else in the combat, like a thrall critting, or the mind flayer reaching half HP will do it. Maybe, like the dwarf in the miniatures rulebook, the mind flayer's ability will be recharged if there are ever two PCs adjacent to it. It does seem like the mind blast is weakened, but that's not inherently bad.

Maybe the mind flayer being described is only the baseline version, and like the multiple fire archons detailed in the fire archon article, there will be multiple mind flayers, some with more powerful mind blasts. Perhaps being dazed twice will worsen the condition, so if two mind flayers hit the same character with a mind blast, the character will move to staggered or stunned.

The more I hear, the more I want to know...

 

[lkj]

Thanks for the lifeline, bud.



The last thing I want is for mind flayers to NOT elicit shrieks of panic from the players. Hell, I want that. I want to be-- to remain-- one of the players who shrieks like a girl when a mind flayer shows up.

A once-per-encounter daze isn't going to do that.

I'm with you in principle-- the want for mindflayers to make players scream like little girls. I also agree that the mind blast by itself doesn't do that. However, getting your brain sucked out does illicit that response, and if it's a real threat to have that happen with the new mindflayer, then I'm fine. And it isn't clear to me yet. It depends on how hard it is to grapple for your brain.

Now, if what happens is the following-- You get mind blasted and dazed. The mind flayer comes at you with its tentacle attack. You are at a combat disadvantage (plus to the attack roll), you can't push it away because you are dazed (no opportunity attacks)-- you are therefore softened up for what's really scary-- Getting dominated or having your brain sucked out.

If that's the case-- I'm fine. It's still scary. The mind blast softens you up and the baddie comes in to suck out your brain. This is all dependent of course on how easy it is for the flayer to grapple you. So we'll see.

AD

 

[Remathilis]

Since I'm not exactly batting 1.000 today-- what's the 5th level effect that removes stun?

Well there's Panacea (Spell Compendium) which is cleric 4, druid 5. It basically gets rid of all status ailments that a heal spell does, but doesn't restore hit points nor anything that restoration does. Its a great little guy there.

So technically, a 4th level cleric (5th druid) ability can remove a stun, but that's still a rather potent ability in 3.5, esp if you allow core-only.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Mind Flayers in 4e will probably *always* be accompanied by thralls/bodyguards. Some of the those minions will probably be lurkers/strikers, so if you're dazed by the flayer's blast you're in for some trouble.

Rather than doing instant kills by eating brains, I hope mind flayers instead do damage over time - when you're down to 0 hp, you're brain has been eaten! I think this dramatically increases the squick factor - as you lose hitpoints, that means the mindflayer is slowly worming its way through your skull and eating your brains!!! Having hit point loss happen over the course of rounds, and telling the player what is happening to make them lose their hitpoints, would send the tension through the roof. It also has the added benefit of not killing the PC outright, which is usually pretty boring.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Mind Flayers in 4e will probably *always* be accompanied by thralls/bodyguards. Some of the those minions will probably be lurkers/strikers, so if you're dazed by the flayer's blast you're in for some trouble.

Rather than doing instant kills by eating brains, I hope mind flayers instead do damage over time - when you're down to 0 hp, you're brain has been eaten! I think this dramatically increases the squick factor - as you lose hitpoints, that means the mindflayer is slowly worming its way through your skull and eating your brains!!! Having hit point loss happen over the course of rounds, and telling the player what is happening to make them lose their hitpoints, would send the tension through the roof. It also has the added benefit of not killing the PC outright, which is usually pretty boring.

Let this be the 4E motto: "Prolonged suffering instead of swift death!"

 

[TwoSix]

I simply can't think of flayers as primary melee guys, and as they lack any ranged attack power they do look as if they are controllers who stand in the back (to dominate) and are easily killed when the enemy gets to them.

I always that was what mind flayers were supposed to be. They scared the crap out of the party because if they got the drop on you, you were in serious trouble. But it was only mind blast that made them that way, physically, they should be very weak.

I think 1 flayer can easily be central to a fight along with 4 thralls (even better if its 3 thralls and 4 minion thralls). He can make it the most rivetign fight ever, depending on how some of his abilities actually end up working.

We don't know that a flayer thrall is effected by the mind balst, do we? Opens up a lot of possibilities if they aren't. Especially if the Mind Blast is rechargeable through brain eating!

Think of the flayer positioning his thralls before him, fighting the party. He dazes the party and not his thralls. The thralls are a big threat, being that they are right there smashing the party. They seem to be out shining the Flayer as the danger of the group, even though the daze effect is really screwing everything up (considering the potential daze effect, a Fighter's ability to control and defend are dropped to nothing if he is dazed since his defender capabilities seem mostly based on opportunity attacks). So now everyone is hurt, not just the defender. Everyone is getting brutalized. Thralls are running amok.

But wait! The one thrall that was hurt the most stumbled back to the Flayer! What's the flayer going to do? Heal it? That would be stupid! That wouldn't make any sense at all, that just-Wait! It just ate the thrall's brain! (No grappel or pinning necessary, no struggle could equal instant eats.)

And now the most weakened Thrall is dead (whoop-dee-doo - it was going in that direction anyway) and the flayer has another mind blast on deck to keep the party dazed and keep his other thralls wrecking house on them. This would work wonders if the Flayer has both regular monsters (for being the beef of the fight) and minions (for being chomp fodder). The Flayer becomes more of a threat the more thralls it has with it at any time. The flayer would not want to eat a solo monster's brain for a recharge (of course, I am assuming that that is a recharge...which is so cool of an idea, i really hope it is!) unless that creature was nearly dead anyway. Better to have weaklings, ones that won't overly weaken the flayer's position if he needed to kill them himself.

The party's first thought was "take down the thralls and get to the flayer," but it soon changes to "if we don't hammer that flayer down, these thralls are going to stomp us!" which is how I think the battle should go. The flayer should be a major threat without being the one doing the major damage, as it were. He should be controlling and planning and disabling, but not in the battle physically unless it is safe for him to do so.

If this is the case, I will be a happy camper.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Let this be the 4E motto: "Prolonged suffering instead of swift death!"

Yes, please!

Cheers, LT.