Mind Flaying a Level 1 Party - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Mind Flaying a Level 1 Party

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
dkania
Dec 29, 2009 1:25:03 Hey, I am currently putting together my first mini-adventure for me and my friends who are just strating out. We played through keep of shadowfell and now we have made new characters and i wanted a self made adventure to start things right.

I want to have the quest end with an encounter with a sort of weaked mind flayer. The monster manual shows them starting at level 14, so would it be possible to scale it down to, say, level 3? I wanted the mind flayer to be between two worlds (underdark and the real world) so he would be very weak, like from casting a bad spell to try and get our world. Would this be too much to work with?

Thanks.
#2
archaeologist
Dec 29, 2009 1:57:04 I'd reccommend against a Mind-Flayer, if only because they're supposed to represent a higher-tier of monster, and a new level of threat. Letting your party beat on one, even weakened, kind of reduces that effect.

You'd probably be better off picking a weaker monster to solo, or a diverse encounter with a strong leader.

Of course it's all ultimately your decision. Just giving my opinion.
#3
Novacat
Dec 29, 2009 1:58:05
Hey, I am currently putting together my first mini-adventure for me and my friends who are just strating out. We played through keep of shadowfell and now we have made new characters and i wanted a self made adventure to start things right.

I want to have the quest end with an encounter with a sort of weaked mind flayer. The monster manual shows them starting at level 14, so would it be possible to scale it down to, say, level 3? I wanted the mind flayer to be between two worlds (underdark and the real world) so he would be very weak, like from casting a bad spell to try and get our world. Would this be too much to work with?

Thanks.

The first two rules for being a DM are:
1. There are no rules.
2. Cheat anyways.

Anything's possible. That said, you should give some thought to how exactly to implement such an idea. Even with the numbers scaled down to low levels, a mindflayer is going to be a very... different fight than other elite or solo monsters around the party's level. That is not to say it will necessarily be too hard or too easy; that I could not say. Such extreme circumstances that you've described would, in my opinion, demand new stats. A custom monster would be appropriate.

Being that he's only half in this universe, the Incorporeal property would be a good idea. Other than that, you can find the custom monster creation guidelines on page 184 of the DMG. Remember, though, that they are just guidelines, and you should reality-check your finished product by comparing it to an existing monster of similar level, role, and "value" (normal, elite, or solo). Once you've got some experience under your belt, you'll find that making custom monsters will become so easy that you can practically do it on the fly.
#4
dkania
Dec 29, 2009 2:08:22 yeah, takinga look at creating a monster, it seems easier then trying to scale down a illithid. I wanted to try something more dramatic then just "generic evil sorcerer" and kind of give them a taste of things to come, like letting them know there is some really evil stuff out there.

thanks for the advice though.
#5
dulsi
Dec 29, 2009 12:23:29 There are numerous illithid related creatures you could use. There is a short description of some of them on the wikipedia article. I don't think they have 4E stats so you'll need to design them. Alternatively the Yaggol are a variant from dragonlance that have lost there psionic powers.

I did a similar thing for a game I ran for my nephew. I put him up against a medusa that had been injured. Numerous snake were cut off and her humanoid eyes were blinded. That was my reasoning as to why she couldn't turn people to stone.
#6
dkania
Dec 29, 2009 14:40:10 that sounds pretty cool with the medusa. My adventure im working on deals with a town entranced by a illithid in a nearby cave, like its using the minds of the villagers as an anchor to try and force its way onto this plane.

Its a lot of fun coming up with a backstory, so if anyone has any ideas or tips they wish they had for their first time making an adventure, im all ears.
#7
inthemist123
Dec 29, 2009 19:37:53 DUDE!! Man i do this kind of crazy stuff with my buddies all the time. If you throw a mind flayer at them they'll be like OMG WERE EFFED. What I always do is have some help with them. Gvie them some NPC's on their side or othe monsters helping them. Like one time the PC's were 2 fighter a warlock and a rogue, level 1's and they encountered an owl bear (level 8 Elite Brute lol). They had a group of I think it was 13 kobolds or something helping them. Ever heard of death from a thousand cuts? The kobolds really helped bring this thing down but they did it and got some good xp for only being level 1.

Another time is when the same characters, I think they were level 4 or 5ish, and they came across a Fell Troll (Level 20 Elite Brute rofl). This was after they hacked down about 10 Orcs. The PC's were evil and worshipped Orcus (Demon Prince of the Undead >D lol), he's not a god but he's still insanely awesome, so I had Orcus intervene and the Orcs were raised as Zombie Orcs and they helped pull this beast down.

Basically what I'm saying is that you can have any level characters fight any level monster, you just gotta aid them either with allies, divine interventions, strategic locations, or any other thing you can think of that will make the fight not so impossible, after all, D&D is not DM vs PC's, it's about having fun and doing ridiculously awesome things.

When new players go through a dungeon just doing average things, killing some monsteres here and there, getting treasure, then all of a sudden BALOR!! It's a scary moment when a balor appears in front of you, then right before the balor whips the character with his fiery whip of doom, like 20 angels come from the celestial planes and save the day. See it can be fun to have crazy **** happen to make a boring dungeon that much more fun.

Oh and don't forget, I suggest not giving 22,000 XP to level 1 characters when the balor dies from 20 angels attacking it rofl. Unless you wanna give them like 4 or 5 levels each. lol maybe give them half a level or so. haha anyways I hope you developed some of your own ideas from reading my lengthy response lol. DM for life! :P
#8
Imruphel
Dec 31, 2009 3:30:58 While I do agree that mind flayers are best left for later levels (my players have been terrified of my illithids since 1E), if it suits your game just do it and ignore the naysayers.

There is a 10th-level mind flayer named Tolvul in the Monster Builder from the conversion of The Fortress of the Yuan-ti. It has 83 hit points.

If you de-level him to 4th-level it has 44 hit points, or 88 hit points as an elite.

Why not just re-stat Tolvil as a 4th-level elite lurker? He's still a reasonable threat to your party later encounters with mind flayers will feel similar because of the similar powers and numbers of hit points.

(I've just done this and called it a mind flyer neophyte. It's supposed to represent a freshly created mind flayer. If you want me to post it just let me know.)
#9
CraggleRock
Dec 31, 2009 9:36:04
A possible alternative: the mindflayer is only currently able to project an image into the world to guide his minions with an aim to building a portal/gate/etc. to properly make his way over. Use a grab bag of leader powers from low level monsters (granting minions extra actions, bonuses to allies and penalties to players, and healing) that the mindflayer can use without having a corporal form and then have a skill challenge to destroy/disable the focus allowing the projection and a couple of "bodyguards" for the focus.

Not only do you have a potential for an epic final encounter, but the fact that the party aren't actually able to physically affect the mindflayer means that you have a nemesis all set up to use through to Paragon tier (the rest of the Heroic tier can be the mindflayer working behind the scenes to send trouble to the party before they eventually have the resources to hunt down their antagonist). For inspiration, look to almost any fantasy/sci-fi series with a big bad: heroes have an encounter with main villain at the start while they are weakened in some way and either fend them off or beat a retreat after attaining their goal; series of Big Bad sending minions after heroes; season finale has Big Bad getting free or attaining full power and the heroes having to face them in a big showdown.
#10
beej_silver
Jan 01, 2010 2:03:43 Here's my two copper pieces on the matter:

1)
The monster level system gives you the local neighborhood with which the specific monster can appear - Being level 14, a generic weak mind flayer will be at least level 9, while a generic strong mind flayer will be at most level 19 (-/+ 5). This introduces the relative strength of the creature as a race, and I use it to give a subconscious feel of relative power level in the game.

2)
That being said, I also implement a 2nd rule that looks at the xp value of monsters. The mind flayer infiltrator, as a level 14 standard monster, gives away 1000xp. Now consider a level 5 solo, which gives away the same amount of xp when defeated. Thus, a level 5 solo lurker could effectively represent the same creature as the level 14 standard.

I mostly use this system to represent fights against flights of dragons - instead of using 5 MM young green dragons on a level 14 party (which, due to the numbers, would result in a long but silly fight), I custom make standard level 14 skirmishers with abilities that reflect (but don't copy) those of the MM green dragon. I used DMG tables for expected lvl14 damage, they had encounter power breath weapons, had flyby attack as another encounter power, and only had bite.

If you use it on your mind flayer, the subconscious power scale is still there - if your players get to paragon, they'll notice that the solo of early heroic now needs minions to keep up with the power (level) the players have gained. The sense of growing power is still there.

Combining the two:

A mind flayer infiltrator can be represented by a level 5 solo, weaker versions can be represented by level 1-4 solos, and stronger versions can be represented by level 6-10 solos. For the OP's purposes, a level 3-4 solo lurker is best for a "weakened mind flayer." But you'll have to build it with the DMG damage and ability score expectations. It will be built mostly from the ground up, but you can use the MM Infiltrator's stats as a guide to what the solo's powers will be.

That's how I would have done it, at least. >.>
#11
dulsi
Jan 01, 2010 9:59:34
1)
The monster level system gives you the local neighborhood with which the specific monster can appear - Being level 14, a generic weak mind flayer will be at least level 9, while a generic strong mind flayer will be at most level 19 (-/+ 5). This introduces the relative strength of the creature as a race, and I use it to give a subconscious feel of relative power level in the game.

I think you can create greatly reduced versions if the opponent has some problems. Dkania planes of having a mind flayer who hasn't completly entered the prime material plane. I could also see using a distracted mind flayer. It is spending most of it's mental powers trying to control the townfolk. In such case, reducing him down to zero hit points would mean that he has lost contration and the people are free. At which point the villian would use his escape plan as he is too injured to deal with the party now.
#12
dannoe
Jan 01, 2010 17:24:55 What these guys said about the books putting monsters in a general ballpark is absolutely true. It's true not only because scaling the Attack and Damage rolls is a pain beyond 4 or so levels, but also because the number and types of powers and effects that the monsters have change pretty radically between the tier. Or even from the bottom of a tier to the top of it. As an example, Skirmishers in the Lower Heroic tend to do 1d6 extra damage when they have Combat Advantage. However, at the top of the Tier, their Skirmish damage is 2d6. And it keeps going up as the levels increase.

For that reason, I'd recommend homebrewing your weakened Illithid from scratch. Using the guidelines in the DMG, it's not at all hard, although they changed the rules for Solos a bit with the DMG2.

That said, for your climactic battle, you might want to go with, say, a 3rd Level Elite and some minions vs. a 3rd Level Solo. IMHO, managing Solo battles is a something of a learned art, especially in the lower Heroic tier. It can easily degenerate into a very repetitive battle of At-Will attacks ad-naseum.

Okay, so with that in mind, throw all that out and go dig up the stats for a Fell Taint. It's a Level 4 monster with the same origin (abberant) and many of the same effects and whatnot. Plus, there are plenty of other Abberant critters out there that can work for the thing, or you can do what I did recently and homebrew Far Realm Thrall minions, again using some of the guidelines out of the DMG2.

Does that help? Too much help?
#13
ian.thomson
Jan 01, 2010 18:30:48 Scaling the mind flayer down to level 3 may just be appropriate if you want a level 1 party fighting these things left and right. I scaled down a Tarrasque to party level (it was like 3 or 4), and the party took it out pretty quickly (granted, this group was close to the point where they took on two hard encounters at the same time as if it was a single encounter, but they complained big time about how quickly this thing went down). I think after dropping 5 levels, you ought to count double the levels you drop after that (so a level 14 dropped to level 6 would really be as effective as a level 3 critter as far as I can tell).
#14
Imruphel
Jan 02, 2010 1:04:49 Here's a 4th-level elite version I made using the 10th-level version as a base and then replacing the dominated thrall body guard power with the bugbear strangler's body shield (mainly because this version of the mind flayer doesn't have the dominate ability).

This version of the mind flayer represents a freshly-"hatched" illithid that is now starving for its first brains, similar to a brain-eating zombie in a bad horror movie.

Mind Flayer Neophyte
Level 4 Elite Lurker
Medium aberrant humanoid   XP 350
Initiative +9       Senses Perception +7
HP 88; Bloodied 44
AC 18; Fortitude 14; Reflex 16; Will 17
Saving Throws +2
Speed 6
Action Points 1
m Tentacles (standard; at-will)
+9 vs AC; 1d6 + 4 damage, and the target is grabbed (until escape).
M Bore into Brain (standard; at-will)
Targets a creature grabbed by the mind flayer; +7 vs Fortitude; 2d8 + 4 damage, and the target is dazed (save ends). First failed save: the target is stunned (save ends).
C Mind Blast (standard; recharge 5 6) • Psychic
Close blast 5; does not target mind flayers or creatures dominated by mind flayers; +7 vs Will; 1d10 + 4 psychic damage, and the target is dazed (save ends).
Body Shield (immediate interrupt, when targeted by a melee or a ranged attack against ac or reflex; recharge 4 5 6)
The mind flayer neophyte makes its grabbed victim the target instead. The mind flayer neophyte can’t use this power to redirect attacks made by a creature it is currently grabbing.
Alignment Evil   Languages Deep Speech, telepathy 10
Skills Bluff +12, Diplomacy +12, Dungeoneering +7, Stealth +10
Str 10 (+2)   Dex 17 (+5)   Wis 11 (+2)
Con 14 (+4)   Int 14 (+4)   Cha 20 (+7)
© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.
#15
dannoe
Jan 02, 2010 6:28:36 I like that. Nice job there.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 dkania Dec 29, 2009 1:25:03	Hey, I am currently putting together my first mini-adventure for me and my friends who are just strating out. We played through keep of shadowfell and now we have made new characters and i wanted a self made adventure to start things right. I want to have the quest end with an encounter with a sort of weaked mind flayer. The monster manual shows them starting at level 14, so would it be possible to scale it down to, say, level 3? I wanted the mind flayer to be between two worlds (underdark and the real world) so he would be very weak, like from casting a bad spell to try and get our world. Would this be too much to work with? Thanks.
#2 archaeologist Dec 29, 2009 1:57:04	I'd reccommend against a Mind-Flayer, if only because they're supposed to represent a higher-tier of monster, and a new level of threat. Letting your party beat on one, even weakened, kind of reduces that effect. You'd probably be better off picking a weaker monster to solo, or a diverse encounter with a strong leader. Of course it's all ultimately your decision. Just giving my opinion.
#3 Novacat Dec 29, 2009 1:58:05	Hey, I am currently putting together my first mini-adventure for me and my friends who are just strating out. We played through keep of shadowfell and now we have made new characters and i wanted a self made adventure to start things right. I want to have the quest end with an encounter with a sort of weaked mind flayer. The monster manual shows them starting at level 14, so would it be possible to scale it down to, say, level 3? I wanted the mind flayer to be between two worlds (underdark and the real world) so he would be very weak, like from casting a bad spell to try and get our world. Would this be too much to work with? Thanks. The first two rules for being a DM are: 1. There are no rules. 2. Cheat anyways. Anything's possible. That said, you should give some thought to how exactly to implement such an idea. Even with the numbers scaled down to low levels, a mindflayer is going to be a very... different fight than other elite or solo monsters around the party's level. That is not to say it will necessarily be too hard or too easy; that I could not say. Such extreme circumstances that you've described would, in my opinion, demand new stats. A custom monster would be appropriate. Being that he's only half in this universe, the Incorporeal property would be a good idea. Other than that, you can find the custom monster creation guidelines on page 184 of the DMG. Remember, though, that they are just guidelines, and you should reality-check your finished product by comparing it to an existing monster of similar level, role, and "value" (normal, elite, or solo). Once you've got some experience under your belt, you'll find that making custom monsters will become so easy that you can practically do it on the fly.
#4 dkania Dec 29, 2009 2:08:22	yeah, takinga look at creating a monster, it seems easier then trying to scale down a illithid. I wanted to try something more dramatic then just "generic evil sorcerer" and kind of give them a taste of things to come, like letting them know there is some really evil stuff out there. thanks for the advice though.
#5 dulsi Dec 29, 2009 12:23:29	There are numerous illithid related creatures you could use. There is a short description of some of them on the wikipedia article. I don't think they have 4E stats so you'll need to design them. Alternatively the Yaggol are a variant from dragonlance that have lost there psionic powers. I did a similar thing for a game I ran for my nephew. I put him up against a medusa that had been injured. Numerous snake were cut off and her humanoid eyes were blinded. That was my reasoning as to why she couldn't turn people to stone.
#6 dkania Dec 29, 2009 14:40:10	that sounds pretty cool with the medusa. My adventure im working on deals with a town entranced by a illithid in a nearby cave, like its using the minds of the villagers as an anchor to try and force its way onto this plane. Its a lot of fun coming up with a backstory, so if anyone has any ideas or tips they wish they had for their first time making an adventure, im all ears.
#7 inthemist123 Dec 29, 2009 19:37:53	DUDE!! Man i do this kind of crazy stuff with my buddies all the time. If you throw a mind flayer at them they'll be like OMG WERE EFFED. What I always do is have some help with them. Gvie them some NPC's on their side or othe monsters helping them. Like one time the PC's were 2 fighter a warlock and a rogue, level 1's and they encountered an owl bear (level 8 Elite Brute lol). They had a group of I think it was 13 kobolds or something helping them. Ever heard of death from a thousand cuts? The kobolds really helped bring this thing down but they did it and got some good xp for only being level 1. Another time is when the same characters, I think they were level 4 or 5ish, and they came across a Fell Troll (Level 20 Elite Brute rofl). This was after they hacked down about 10 Orcs. The PC's were evil and worshipped Orcus (Demon Prince of the Undead >D lol), he's not a god but he's still insanely awesome, so I had Orcus intervene and the Orcs were raised as Zombie Orcs and they helped pull this beast down. Basically what I'm saying is that you can have any level characters fight any level monster, you just gotta aid them either with allies, divine interventions, strategic locations, or any other thing you can think of that will make the fight not so impossible, after all, D&D is not DM vs PC's, it's about having fun and doing ridiculously awesome things. When new players go through a dungeon just doing average things, killing some monsteres here and there, getting treasure, then all of a sudden BALOR!! It's a scary moment when a balor appears in front of you, then right before the balor whips the character with his fiery whip of doom, like 20 angels come from the celestial planes and save the day. See it can be fun to have crazy **** happen to make a boring dungeon that much more fun. Oh and don't forget, I suggest not giving 22,000 XP to level 1 characters when the balor dies from 20 angels attacking it rofl. Unless you wanna give them like 4 or 5 levels each. lol maybe give them half a level or so. haha anyways I hope you developed some of your own ideas from reading my lengthy response lol. DM for life! :P
#8 Imruphel Dec 31, 2009 3:30:58	While I do agree that mind flayers are best left for later levels (my players have been terrified of my illithids since 1E), if it suits your game just do it and ignore the naysayers. There is a 10th-level mind flayer named Tolvul in the Monster Builder from the conversion of The Fortress of the Yuan-ti. It has 83 hit points. If you de-level him to 4th-level it has 44 hit points, or 88 hit points as an elite. Why not just re-stat Tolvil as a 4th-level elite lurker? He's still a reasonable threat to your party later encounters with mind flayers will feel similar because of the similar powers and numbers of hit points. (I've just done this and called it a mind flyer neophyte. It's supposed to represent a freshly created mind flayer. If you want me to post it just let me know.)
#9 CraggleRock Dec 31, 2009 9:36:04	A possible alternative: the mindflayer is only currently able to project an image into the world to guide his minions with an aim to building a portal/gate/etc. to properly make his way over. Use a grab bag of leader powers from low level monsters (granting minions extra actions, bonuses to allies and penalties to players, and healing) that the mindflayer can use without having a corporal form and then have a skill challenge to destroy/disable the focus allowing the projection and a couple of "bodyguards" for the focus. Not only do you have a potential for an epic final encounter, but the fact that the party aren't actually able to physically affect the mindflayer means that you have a nemesis all set up to use through to Paragon tier (the rest of the Heroic tier can be the mindflayer working behind the scenes to send trouble to the party before they eventually have the resources to hunt down their antagonist). For inspiration, look to almost any fantasy/sci-fi series with a big bad: heroes have an encounter with main villain at the start while they are weakened in some way and either fend them off or beat a retreat after attaining their goal; series of Big Bad sending minions after heroes; season finale has Big Bad getting free or attaining full power and the heroes having to face them in a big showdown.
#10 beej_silver Jan 01, 2010 2:03:43	Here's my two copper pieces on the matter: 1) The monster level system gives you the local neighborhood with which the specific monster can appear - Being level 14, a generic weak mind flayer will be at least level 9, while a generic strong mind flayer will be at most level 19 (-/+ 5). This introduces the relative strength of the creature as a race, and I use it to give a subconscious feel of relative power level in the game. 2) That being said, I also implement a 2nd rule that looks at the xp value of monsters. The mind flayer infiltrator, as a level 14 standard monster, gives away 1000xp. Now consider a level 5 solo, which gives away the same amount of xp when defeated. Thus, a level 5 solo lurker could effectively represent the same creature as the level 14 standard. I mostly use this system to represent fights against flights of dragons - instead of using 5 MM young green dragons on a level 14 party (which, due to the numbers, would result in a long but silly fight), I custom make standard level 14 skirmishers with abilities that reflect (but don't copy) those of the MM green dragon. I used DMG tables for expected lvl14 damage, they had encounter power breath weapons, had flyby attack as another encounter power, and only had bite. If you use it on your mind flayer, the subconscious power scale is still there - if your players get to paragon, they'll notice that the solo of early heroic now needs minions to keep up with the power (level) the players have gained. The sense of growing power is still there. Combining the two: A mind flayer infiltrator can be represented by a level 5 solo, weaker versions can be represented by level 1-4 solos, and stronger versions can be represented by level 6-10 solos. For the OP's purposes, a level 3-4 solo lurker is best for a "weakened mind flayer." But you'll have to build it with the DMG damage and ability score expectations. It will be built mostly from the ground up, but you can use the MM Infiltrator's stats as a guide to what the solo's powers will be. That's how I would have done it, at least. >.>
#11 dulsi Jan 01, 2010 9:59:34	1) The monster level system gives you the local neighborhood with which the specific monster can appear - Being level 14, a generic weak mind flayer will be at least level 9, while a generic strong mind flayer will be at most level 19 (-/+ 5). This introduces the relative strength of the creature as a race, and I use it to give a subconscious feel of relative power level in the game. I think you can create greatly reduced versions if the opponent has some problems. Dkania planes of having a mind flayer who hasn't completly entered the prime material plane. I could also see using a distracted mind flayer. It is spending most of it's mental powers trying to control the townfolk. In such case, reducing him down to zero hit points would mean that he has lost contration and the people are free. At which point the villian would use his escape plan as he is too injured to deal with the party now.
#12 dannoe Jan 01, 2010 17:24:55	What these guys said about the books putting monsters in a general ballpark is absolutely true. It's true not only because scaling the Attack and Damage rolls is a pain beyond 4 or so levels, but also because the number and types of powers and effects that the monsters have change pretty radically between the tier. Or even from the bottom of a tier to the top of it. As an example, Skirmishers in the Lower Heroic tend to do 1d6 extra damage when they have Combat Advantage. However, at the top of the Tier, their Skirmish damage is 2d6. And it keeps going up as the levels increase. For that reason, I'd recommend homebrewing your weakened Illithid from scratch. Using the guidelines in the DMG, it's not at all hard, although they changed the rules for Solos a bit with the DMG2. That said, for your climactic battle, you might want to go with, say, a 3rd Level Elite and some minions vs. a 3rd Level Solo. IMHO, managing Solo battles is a something of a learned art, especially in the lower Heroic tier. It can easily degenerate into a very repetitive battle of At-Will attacks ad-naseum. Okay, so with that in mind, throw all that out and go dig up the stats for a Fell Taint. It's a Level 4 monster with the same origin (abberant) and many of the same effects and whatnot. Plus, there are plenty of other Abberant critters out there that can work for the thing, or you can do what I did recently and homebrew Far Realm Thrall minions, again using some of the guidelines out of the DMG2. Does that help? Too much help?
#13 ian.thomson Jan 01, 2010 18:30:48	Scaling the mind flayer down to level 3 may just be appropriate if you want a level 1 party fighting these things left and right. I scaled down a Tarrasque to party level (it was like 3 or 4), and the party took it out pretty quickly (granted, this group was close to the point where they took on two hard encounters at the same time as if it was a single encounter, but they complained big time about how quickly this thing went down). I think after dropping 5 levels, you ought to count double the levels you drop after that (so a level 14 dropped to level 6 would really be as effective as a level 3 critter as far as I can tell).
#14 Imruphel Jan 02, 2010 1:04:49	Here's a 4th-level elite version I made using the 10th-level version as a base and then replacing the dominated thrall body guard power with the bugbear strangler's body shield (mainly because this version of the mind flayer doesn't have the dominate ability). This version of the mind flayer represents a freshly-"hatched" illithid that is now starving for its first brains, similar to a brain-eating zombie in a bad horror movie. Mind Flayer Neophyte Level 4 Elite Lurker Medium aberrant humanoid XP 350 Initiative +9 Senses Perception +7 HP 88; Bloodied 44 AC 18; Fortitude 14; Reflex 16; Will 17 Saving Throws +2 Speed 6 Action Points 1 m Tentacles (standard; at-will) +9 vs AC; 1d6 + 4 damage, and the target is grabbed (until escape). M Bore into Brain (standard; at-will) Targets a creature grabbed by the mind flayer; +7 vs Fortitude; 2d8 + 4 damage, and the target is dazed (save ends). First failed save: the target is stunned (save ends). C Mind Blast (standard; recharge 5 6) • Psychic Close blast 5; does not target mind flayers or creatures dominated by mind flayers; +7 vs Will; 1d10 + 4 psychic damage, and the target is dazed (save ends). Body Shield (immediate interrupt, when targeted by a melee or a ranged attack against ac or reflex; recharge 4 5 6) The mind flayer neophyte makes its grabbed victim the target instead. The mind flayer neophyte can’t use this power to redirect attacks made by a creature it is currently grabbing. Alignment Evil Languages Deep Speech, telepathy 10 Skills Bluff +12, Diplomacy +12, Dungeoneering +7, Stealth +10 Str 10 (+2) Dex 17 (+5) Wis 11 (+2) Con 14 (+4) Int 14 (+4) Cha 20 (+7) © 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.
#15 dannoe Jan 02, 2010 6:28:36	I like that. Nice job there.