New Mindflayer Info

[Plane Sailing]

Following new information gained from Worlds and Monsters

per encounter
Mind Blast is now a renewable power, usable once per encounter to daze all creatures caught in its area. (a lot less powerful!)

Dominate a foe usable once per encounter

At will
The at will powers are listed in "a cascading, intuitive style". One at the top of the list is available every round, while those farther down require no attention until successful attacks make them available.

The basic illithid attack is a tentacle lash and grab. Only if the mind flayer succeeds in grabbing its prey does the bore into brain power come into play.

The next entry, Thrall, matters only if bore into brain succeeded but the illithid decides to fashion a thrall instead of eating the victim.

Only once it has made the choice to create a thrall does the Interpose Thrall power matter, forcing its new-made ally to stand in the way of danger


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I have to say I do like the sound of this. It has been mentioned before that the old mind flayer 'mental blast at will to stun for 3-12 rounds could take most of a party out of a melee and leave people just sitting around while the fun stuff happens. Depending on the exact mechanics (like the new DDM daze?) can still be useful but not combat-ending.

I do like the support for greater depth )) of tentacle-boring goodness. Also fact that thralldom is now explicitly supported rather than implied through some combination of charm and stuff.

Overall good stuff.

 

[Dunamin]

Sounds awesome!

Especially the limitation of Mind Blast to 1/encounter, that stuff can "bench" players for the rest of combat in 3E, especially with the abscence of effects to remove the "stunned" condition.

 

[erf_beto]

Awesome indeed!

I also liked the 'cascading, intuitive style' of at-will powers. I suppose that'll be happening for PCs as well (so it won't bog the game with 30 levels and something shiny at each: the power list would be huge!)

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I don't know, this attack chain seems a little too much like Step-by-step instructions. Not to say that its a bad thing, but hopefully this isn't what monsters are limited to.

Round 1 attack
Round 2 Use attck based power
Round 3 Use final power
Round 4 See Round 1

Seems a little redundant to me.

 

[Imban]

Woo, I think this pretty much sold me on 4e Mindflayers having enough mechanical stuff, at least. I mean, yeah, they have a strategy that has them using a defined attack chain, but... that's kinda how that has to work, and they can always mix it up with Mind Blasts and Dominates, especially if they're not trying to go solo vs. the party.

 

[Falling Icicle]

So mind flayers can still bore into people's skulls and kill them. I thought save or die type stuff was going to be gone in 4e?

 

[AntlerDruid]

Hopefully their powers were described as "Psionic"??

 

[Walking Dad]

So mind flayers can still bore into people's skulls and kill them. I thought save or die type stuff was going to be gone in 4e?

Who said bore into brain equals death? It could be just damage over time. it is bore into not rip out!

And even if it is instant death, they never said you will have a chance to save

 

[Dunamin]

So mind flayers can still bore into people's skulls and kill them. I thought save or die type stuff was going to be gone in 4e?

What gave you that idea? If it works remotely like in 3E its a battle of grapple checks, no saves involved.

 

[Imban]

So mind flayers can still bore into people's skulls and kill them. I thought save or die type stuff was going to be gone in 4e?

They did suggest that, yes. However, they have also said that "instant death" abilities aren't going away entirely: Beholders and stuff like that can still kill you by turning you into stone, they just need to hit you with their petrification attack multiple times.

Requiring successful grapple checks - possibly multiple successful grapple checks, if it's the way it used to work - before you're at risk of an instant death attack sounds about right, here.