D&D 3E/3.5 Visage 3.5

Psychotic Jim

First Post
Here's a 3.5 update of my conversion of the visage monster from Dead Gods.
Visage
Medium Size Undead (Extraplanar, Tanar’ri)
Hit Dice: 6d12 (39 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: Fly 40 feet (perfect)
Armor Class: 20 (+2 Dex, +8 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 18
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+6
Attack: Claw +6 melee (1d8+3)
Full Attack: 2 claws +6 melee (1d8+3)
Space\Reach: 5 ft/5ft
Special Attacks: Lucidity Control, Domination, Assume identity
Special Qualities: Damage Reduction 10/magic, SR 16, Turning Resistance +6, Elasticity, Immunities, Undead
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +4, Will+7
Skills: Bluff +12, Concentration +10, Diplomacy +9, Disguise +10 (+12 to act in character), Knowledge (any one)+6, Hide+10, Intimidate +7, Listen +6, Move Silently +10, Sense Motive +9, Spot +6, Survival +9
Feats: Alertness, Fly-by Attack, Track (B), Weapon focus (claws)
Abilities: Str 16, Dex 14, Con -, Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 20
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Solitary or small group (1d6)
Challenge Rating: 6
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always Chaotic Evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: --
Visages are undead tanar’ri, fiendish demons brought back to life by their horrible lord now known as Tenebrous. The former demon lord created them to be his eyes and ears, to infiltrate society and do his dirty will. Visages have the power to literally warp a poor berk’s senses anyway they please, often turning the sod’s mind inside out. Visages is a master of illusion and deception, and they serve Tenebrous well. They are powered by a link to their Lord, not to the Negative Material Plane, so they maybe encountered anywhere.
A visage in its natural form appears to be a creature composed of wispy, dark shadow stuff, with ghastly white masks for heads and no legs. However, a person seeing the visage’s natural form will most likely be killed in order for the Visage to assume his identity and place in society.

Combat
Visages almost never fight in a straight-up combat. Using their illusion powers, they break down a foe’s mind, driving him to the point that he cannot trust his own senses. Then the visage makes good its attack, using hit-and-run, guerilla-war tactics.
Lucidity Control (Su): The visage employs a most unique and most lethal power called lucidity control. With this power, a visage can reach into the mind of any poor soul it sees and take total and utter control of what the person perceives. There is no initial saving throw against this power, but if a victim thinks he senses are being manipulated, he is allowed a Will Save (DC 18) to break the hold of the visage on him. This is why visages are subtle and tricky in their efforts of deception. The victim must continue to make the save each round to remain in control of his senses. Extremely lawful creatures, like modrons or even rogue modrons, are immune to this power, as is creatures immune to illusions. A true seeing spell will negate the effect of the lucidity control too. The save DC is Charisma-based
Domination (Sp): Once per day, a visage may dominate one victim (as in the Dominate Person spell) as a 12th level caster. It cannot use its Lucidity Control power while dominating a victim, so visages sometimes travel in small packs to make the most use of their powers. The save DC is Charisma-based
Assume Identity (Su): A visage may steal the identity, the very soul essence of a person it kills. It temporarily gets his skills, languages, and feats, but not hit points, attack bonus, or other class features or ability scores. On the outside, a visage who took the likeness of a victim appears to be exactly alike the unfortunate soul. The visage has taken his soul, so there is also no way to bring the victim back from the dead. The sod can’t be reincarnated or become a petitioner either. This fate can only be avoided unless the visage that stole his essence is slain within one day. If the fiend keeps the victim’s identity for more than that time period, or the visage gives up its victims identity to assume another one, the victim’s soul is permanently destroyed with no hope of the person coming back to life, or the afterlife for that matter. A visage assuming a stolen identity can still make use of its Domination and Lucidity Control powers
Elasticity (Ex): Although it appears incorporeal, the visage is actually fully material. However, it can fold itself to fit into tiny places that normal humans could not fit in.
Immunities: A visage is immune to cold and holy water.
Undead: Immune to mind-influencing effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and disease. Not subject to critical hits, subdual damage, ability damage, energy drain, or death from massive damage.

The visage first appeared in the 2E Planescape adventure Dead Gods (1997).

Edit: A few minor fixes and addition to the skills to make note of the synergy bonuses.
 
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Psion

Adventurer
1) Cool

2) Lucidity control. I know "no initial saving throw" works for plot purposes, but I think that if you want to use them outside of the dead gods plotline, you should provide one, albeit possibly a boosted one so that characters of the level in dead gods would fail it (say, +10 DC i.e., DC 28)
 

Psychotic Jim

First Post
Thanks for the comments. The suggestion about a higher initial saving throw is a good one. The vague Lucidity Control power is one of those abilities that is difficult to transfer over into the 3rd Ed. style of having tightly defined operational definitions of everything. By 3.0/3.5 standards, it should be a mind-affecting ability, but then there arises a few problems. There was a few monsters in the module (the vampire drow in the prison for instance) that could be affected by the Lucidity Control that are normally immune to mind-influencing effects, and yet the modrons, who are Outsiders, weren't really affected by it. Anybody have any sugguestions?

By the way, there's discussion going on about conversions of the visage in the Planescape conversion thread in the General Monster talk sub-forum
 
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BOZ

Creature Cataloguer
if you were doing a conversion of the module, as opposed to just a conversion of the monster, it might require an entirely different line of thought as to how the power would work. :) i haven't read the module all the way through, so i don't know what role the visages play.
 

Kodam

First Post
Dead Gods

Hi!

I'm DMing Dead Gods and I don't see any problems so far; the modrons would have "construct (extraplanar)" as creature type in 3.5 - voilá no mind-affecting any more.
Concerning the vampire the adventure only says that the visage is "concentrating on using his powers". It is NOT said that its especially the lucidity control. Tenebrous could as well have bestowed some special ability to this single visage... :)

Kodam
 

Cheiromancer

Adventurer
Plants are immune to mind-affecting, aren't they? But there is still a spell called "Control Plants." Likewise for Vermin- Giant Vermin lets you give them commands. Both spells are transmutation with no other sub-types.

Perhaps Lucidity Control should also be a Transmutation? Perhaps with bonuses against chaotic creatures and/or penalties against lawful creatures.
 

BOZ

Creature Cataloguer
control plants, control undead, and halt undead are not mind-affecting - this prevents these creatures from being affected by these spells. :)

and great idea on modrons being construct (extraplanar)!
 

Kodam

First Post
Hi!

BOZ said:
and great idea on modrons being construct (extraplanar)!

Thanks! :eek: It just seemed to fit...

Btw, you dropped the cold iron from the DR of the visages. Was there a special reason to this?

Kodam
 

BOZ

Creature Cataloguer
i did no such thing! :)

Special Qualities: Assume shape, damage reduction 10/cold iron and magic, immunity to cold, electricity, holy water, and poison, resistance to acid 10 and fire 10, spell resistance 16, steal essence, turn resistance +6, undead traits
 

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