Leng Spider

[Rakoa]

Thanks for bringing that up, Ketaro. You've pretty much summed up what I want. Of course, a perfect square is a bit much, but those would be the rough dimensions. I think I may have to reword the ability more to this effect so that there is no more confusion.

[oslecamo]

I don't understand where you are getting this numbers. If you are level 13, you can have a total number of Spider Guards equal to 26 CR, with no single guard having a CR greater than 11. Over an area of 1300 square feet, a spider that is about 60 feet long is pretty big, but by no means overflowing (I have no idea why you would want to build your Web Palace in a ridiculously shaped cone, nor does the class ability say anywhere that you can do so.) You could have two of those, at most. At level 14, there is literally no way to have anywhere close to 200 spiders. The absolute most you could get is just over 100 tiny-sized monstrous spiders with a CR of 1/4 each, and not enough hitpoints to stand in a stiff breeze.

CR doesn't sum up directly. Two CR 11 monsters have a combined CR of 13, not 22. Four have CR 15, not 44. It's a logarhytmic progression. So 26 CR is indeed a crapload of colossal spiders.

On the other hand, if you're going to make the 14th level capstone make the web palace cover a square with  14 000 feet side... Well, that's over two miles length.  That should be more than enough to cover up basically every adventure site ever printed.  You don't need to worry about dragging your enemies to the web palace, they're already inside the web palace before you can see each other.

[Leviathan]

The procedure for combining CRs to which you are referring is for determining the Encounter Level of an encounter. Creatures have Challenge Ratings (CRs); encounters have Encounter Levels.

Are we to read everything you have written about combining CRs as referring to encounter levels instead of normal arithmetic? This makes several classes significantly more powerful than they otherwise would have seemed.

[Rakoa]

I don't understand where you are getting this numbers. If you are level 13, you can have a total number of Spider Guards equal to 26 CR, with no single guard having a CR greater than 11. Over an area of 1300 square feet, a spider that is about 60 feet long is pretty big, but by no means overflowing (I have no idea why you would want to build your Web Palace in a ridiculously shaped cone, nor does the class ability say anywhere that you can do so.) You could have two of those, at most. At level 14, there is literally no way to have anywhere close to 200 spiders. The absolute most you could get is just over 100 tiny-sized monstrous spiders with a CR of 1/4 each, and not enough hitpoints to stand in a stiff breeze.

CR doesn't sum up directly. Two CR 11 monsters have a combined CR of 13, not 22. Four have CR 15, not 44. It's a logarhytmic progression. So 26 CR is indeed a crapload of colossal spiders.

What Leviathan said.

On the other hand, if you're going to make the 14th level capstone make the web palace cover a square with  14 000 feet side... Well, that's over two miles length.  That should be more than enough to cover up basically every adventure site ever printed.  You don't need to worry about dragging your enemies to the web palace, they're already inside the web palace before you can see each other.

On that note, I think that perhaps the area can be cut in half, and a clause included that mentions the Leng Spider must itself travel through any area to be included in the Web Palace, and if it meets any resistance before the Web Palace is finished (IE, takes hit point damage or fails a saving throw), then the Web Charges spent are wasted and the Palace must be started over from scratch. That way, they can only be constructed in safe areas, and the area isn't quite so crazy.

How does that sound?

[oslecamo]

The procedure for combining CRs to which you are referring is for determining the Encounter Level of an encounter. Creatures have Challenge Ratings (CRs); encounters have Encounter Levels.

Are we to read everything you have written about combining CRs as referring to encounter levels instead of normal arithmetic? This makes several classes significantly more powerful than they otherwise would have seemed.

If you say so, changed the relevant monsters to use equivalent encounter level.

Point about leng still stands, because you just showed that there's no formula at all for combining the CR of multiple creatures in a new CR value. It is a term that only makes sense when talking about a single creature by your argument.

I don't understand where you are getting this numbers. If you are level 13, you can have a total number of Spider Guards equal to 26 CR, with no single guard having a CR greater than 11. Over an area of 1300 square feet, a spider that is about 60 feet long is pretty big, but by no means overflowing (I have no idea why you would want to build your Web Palace in a ridiculously shaped cone, nor does the class ability say anywhere that you can do so.) You could have two of those, at most. At level 14, there is literally no way to have anywhere close to 200 spiders. The absolute most you could get is just over 100 tiny-sized monstrous spiders with a CR of 1/4 each, and not enough hitpoints to stand in a stiff breeze.

CR doesn't sum up directly. Two CR 11 monsters have a combined CR of 13, not 22. Four have CR 15, not 44. It's a logarhytmic progression. So 26 CR is indeed a crapload of colossal spiders.

What Leviathan said.

In that case, your ability grants a single spider, because as Leviathan pointed out, CR only makes sense when you're talking about an individual creature. Thus the double/quadruple CR clause is just cluttering stuff up because the single spider minion's level is already capped by CR-2.

Unless you now want to make the case that two colossal monstrous spiders have the same CR as a great wyrm black dragon, that makes absolutely no sense no matter how you look at it, and is counter-intuitive to the reader.

If you want multiple spiders, you'll have to get a new wording.

On the other hand, if you're going to make the 14th level capstone make the web palace cover a square with  14 000 feet side... Well, that's over two miles length.  That should be more than enough to cover up basically every adventure site ever printed.  You don't need to worry about dragging your enemies to the web palace, they're already inside the web palace before you can see each other.

On that note, I think that perhaps the area can be cut in half, and a clause included that mentions the Leng Spider must itself travel through any area to be included in the Web Palace, and if it meets any resistance before the Web Palace is finished (IE, takes hit point damage or fails a saving throw), then the Web Charges spent are wasted and the Palace must be started over from scratch. That way, they can only be constructed in safe areas, and the area isn't quite so crazy.

How does that sound?

It sounds like a logistics nightmare, in particular because you make no mentions if the leng can hide or be hidden by somebody else or if you have to roll intiative if you find opposition.  In particular when it can be shaped any way you want, and this is D&D land, monsters are everywhere, so unless you find some void wasteland, you'll face opposition. You could easily spend multiple gaming sessions just trying to set up a single web palace that goes for miles and miles.

[Rakoa]

Fair enough. I'll put some more thought into it and see what I can do. Possible rehaul over the next few days.

[Rakoa]

Alright, here's what I'm thinking. I've switched Crush the Weak, Advanced Traps, and Web Palace around so that they are obtained at level 8, 4, and 6 respectively. This is because I have removed Spider Guards from the Web Palace, and so I want the ability to make traps to be obtained first to keep it defended. Of course, traps alone aren't going to keep the palace safe, so I also included an ability to the Leng Spider a sort of constant Tremorsense as to the activities in the palace, and the ability to warp there once per day as per Word of Recall while in contact with webs. It can only warp there, though, so it'll have to find it's own way back to the party should it choose to activate this ability. Additionally, enemies within the Web Palace are Shaken, and the Leng Spider can use the "haunting beauty" of the palace to Fascinate enemies, and attempt to wrap them up while they aren't paying attention as long as it manages to remain hidden.

The final ability let's it add it's full ability score modifier to ability DCs while within it's Web Palace, as a sort of homefield advantage.

[oslecamo]

You do realize that if you're shaken, and another thing would make you shaken, then you become frightned?

And that there's plenty of other effects that can make a creature shaken without save, altough those others usually take an action?

So we're back to the "drop web palace over adventure area of the day, pwn everything that isn't outright immune to you" problem.

Also, the new capstone's wording doesn't make much sense. "While within the boundaries of it's Web Palace, the Leng Spider can add it's full Charisma modifier to the DC of it's abilities instead of just half." Eerrr, I can't see any ability that allowed you to add half Cha mod anywhere before, so this doesn't really do anything.

And even if it was just "add Cha mod to all DCs", well, it's still add Cha mod to all DCs all the time for all pratical purposes which kinda breaks things apart even more. Because web palace is still so OP that you'll never want to adventure anywhere outside of it, and you give all the tools to support that style of play (free running away to web palace, covering whole adventure area on it, etc)

[ketaro]

Rakoa, you probably meant being able to add Full HD to DCs instead of Full Ability Score because everything with a DC from any source already uses the full ability modifier. DCs only ever use 1/2 HD though, so you probably wanted full HD to DCs instead of 1/2, instead.

[oslecamo]

What Ketaro said.