Looking for Monster Stats

[kevin_video]

We've recently fought a gang of them, but apparently they're living APCs for aboleths. They're called Mindsteeds. At least, that's what the DM's told us they're called. However, I can't find anything in the books about them. Anyone got a source? Are they campaign specific, and therefore only exist and Dragon or Dungeon Magazine (the DM uses pre-generated modules)?

[Sinfire Titan]

It may be Faerun in origin. Or from a Dungeon magazine. Possibly Lords of Madness, but I doubt that one.


Have you encountered them all ready? If so, give us some details and we may be able to turn something up.

[kevin_video]

Have you encountered them all ready? If so, give us some details and we may be able to turn something up.

Yeah, we encounted three colossal sized ones, although apparently they're usually much smaller in size. They were ridiculously powerful. I actually had to abandon the group, teleport away, and heal myself until such time that I could go back to them (to which of course another guy got owned, and dropped).

The DM had printed out pictures of the creatures, and placed them on the map, so we saw what they looked like in b&w. They were monstrous creatures, and ugly to boot. I didn't exactly have the best view point of them, but they were drive by aboleths.

As the DM put it "The backs of the creatures were carapaces capable of opening; someone could then climb into the creature, the carapace would close, and they could mentally control the creature through tendrils that attached to their skin."

I couldn't even Google these things.

[Prime32]

They could be homebrew, or maybe your DM reflavoured siege crabs or something.

[kevin_video]

They could be homebrew, or maybe your DM reflavoured siege crabs or something.

Oh no, they exist. Just don't know where they're from or if he named them differently. I mean, I saw pictures of the ugly things. I know the siege crabs well. We had one as our APC last campaign, and I made the joke that we should keep a mindsteed as one this time around. The players have apparently fought these things before, way back before I joined the group. If they're just from the module, it's the shadow pearl module. That might help.

Oh, and they have like 400-600 HP each. Aberations are a favored enemy of mine so I was doing the most damage, short of the shadow half-dragon's negative energy breathing.

[Sinfire Titan]

They could be homebrew, or maybe your DM reflavoured siege crabs or something.

Oh no, they exist. Just don't know where they're from or if he named them differently. I mean, I saw pictures of the ugly things. I know the siege crabs well. We had one as our APC last campaign, and I made the joke that we should keep a mindsteed as one this time around. The players have apparently fought these things before, way back before I joined the group. If they're just from the module, it's the shadow pearl module. That might help.

Oh, and they have like 400-600 HP each. Aberations are a favored enemy of mine so I was doing the most damage, short of the shadow half-dragon's negative energy breathing.

This sounds odd. Most monsters described as mounts never have that many HP. Great Wyrms have an average of 500 HP. This thing has HP somewhere in that area, so I doubt that WotC designed it. Hell, Paizo isn't that stupid to call something like that a "mount".

The pic may have been of something else. If you can get a copy of that pic and upload it here, we may be able to ID it better. Odds are that he home brewed this beast though, as it sounds far too strong for a mere mount, even for an Abeolth. This thing would have somewhere around 30 HD and a high Con score, and if its an Aberration then Will is its best save (meaning its highly unlikely that an Abeolth could dominate one).

[kevin_video]

Well, it's not "mount", it's an APC. You go inside this thing like siege crab, and control it with the tendrels that attach to your skin. Also, the DM doesn't like average HD. He maxes out everything. If it's 12 HD at d12, it has 144 HP + CON mod. As opposed to the 78 it would normally have in the book. Oh, and we're ECL 13, so I think he said that they were like CR 14 or 15.

[Sinfire Titan]

Well, it's not "mount", it's an APC. You go inside this thing like siege crab, and control it with the tendrels that attach to your skin. Also, the DM doesn't like average HD. He maxes out everything. If it's 12 HD at d12, it has 144 HP + CON mod. As opposed to the 78 it would normally have in the book. Oh, and we're ECL 13, so I think he said that they were like CR 14 or 15.

He's tipping the scales in favor of the encounters again. Maxing out HP raises the CR 2 steps for anyone. That thing has HP on par with a CR 24, never mind what other BS he's applied to it. Those things have 75 HD if you assume their Con score is 10. So their actual HD is somewhere around 40 or 50. Their base stats alone should be enough to kill a 13th level party, especially considering your DM's penchant for applying LA to you against your will.

[kevin_video]

Wow, does it really increase it that much? I didn't know that. Does it balance out that we've got max HP as well? Yeah, those bite and claw attacks really cut us down, not including the Powerful Charge it had on it. I think in one round, by one of them, I was taken down by a good 45 points of damage, and he rolled low on the dice. I think they had something like +24 to hit. Not hard considering they're colossal.

I was ECL 13 (with 11 lvls), which is actually higher than what others had (the Favored Soul only had 10).

[Sinfire Titan]

Wow, does it really increase it that much? I didn't know that. Does it balance out that we've got max HP as well? Yeah, those bite and claw attacks really cut us down, not including the Powerful Charge it had on it. I think in one round, by one of them, I was taken down by a good 45 points of damage, and he rolled low on the dice. I think they had something like +24 to hit. Not hard considering they're colossal.

I was ECL 13 (with 11 lvls), which is actually higher than what others had (the Favored Soul only had 10).

No, it doesn't. The reason is that every encounter he throws at you will be at max HP with no resource expenditure, whereas you almost always have to heal up after every encounter. You're fighting 4 encounters/day, and each of the enemies in those encounters will be fresh and ready to fight, whereas you won't be after the first.

From the sounds of it, if they did have 40HD, they only have a 14 Str or so. Size category decreases attack bonus, and Aberrations have Cleric BAB. So +22 BAB, with a 14 Str. That honestly doesn't sound right, so their stats are fairly high, and their HD are around 30 or so. Even still, this is well above a CR 15 for an Aberration.


Edit: You need to get him to these boards so we can educate him. If he even had a slight grasp of optimization, both tactically and stat-wise, he wouldn't suck nearly as bad as he is and wouldn't have to house rule everything so much.

[kevin_video]

Damn, and we had three of them too. Not only that, once the mindsteed was down (had AC 28), we still had to contend with the three aboleths inside, who were at full HP. I'm really glad that he doesn't actually have us do the 4 encounters/day thing. We've been pretty close though. If anything, I'd say we have four encounters worth of enemies in one battle. Which is kind of why they take like three hours to do.

Oh, he'll never come to these boards, short of insulting you all and then leaving forever.