Talk:Mind Flayer, Prestige (5e Class)

The word "mindflayer" is WoTC product identity so you might have to pick a different name. Marasmusine (talk) 02:06, 15 March 2019 (MDT)

Alhoon

Let's look at the phylactery first. Let's say the player secures it away and goes off on their adventure. What does the DM do with this? If she ignores it, the player is now under no threat, as if they die they simply come back. Alternatively, she check decide or make some rolls to see if the phylactery is stolen or destroyed. I don't think the player would be happy if they were told that they suddenly die without warning. The final approach is that the protection of the phylactery is somehow worked into the quest or narrative, which can be disruptive to the flow of the story that the DM wants to tell.

The process of making a phylactery should have a heavy gold piece value and related construction time.

Next, the effect of the phylactery is that the player can come back when they die. This is like having a permanent revivify spell on you, except it doesn't use spell slots and it doesn't use expensive material components. This spell effect shouldn't be available until a minimum of 5th character level (since it's a 3rd-level spell effect). You might consider a permanent investiture of a 3rd level spell slot, and at least have the material costs rolled in. Marasmusine (talk) 06:39, 18 March 2019 (MDT)

Okay, the curses. This does need a complete rewrite, even if just for terminology if not for balance.

• No action or range
• "Mindflayer level amount of times" - this is on par with a class "Points" system (eg Ki points, Sorcerer points) which we would associate with a major class feature that powers several abilities. Considering that you might have an average of three combat encounters between long rests, and that the curse has a duration, by mid-tier you could be cursing every creature in every battle.
• "per day" - not a term that is used. You can use the feature so many times then you regain the uses at the end of a long rest.
• "complete a Int save against your spell casting ability." - this should be "the target makes an Intelligence saving throw". You establish at the start of the subclass that the subclass's saving throws use your mindflayer spellcasting saving throw.
• "the target loses 1d4 + Int Mod health" - "the target loses hit points equal to 1d4 + your Intelligence modifier"
• "per minute" - Combat encounters are over in 1 minute. Either the players have defeated the enemies, in which case who cares, or the players have retreated or been defeated, in which case the cursed target uses a few actions to get rid of the curse.
• "gains any amount of life" ??
• "A character may rest for 5 minutes to lose all stacks of curses." - why do this when you can an actions to remove 1d4?

All in all, this mechanic seems to be very fiddly. The desired result seems to be damage over time. You may notice an absence of damage over time effects in 5e: they were removed by design to reduce bookkeeping. This curse feature not only has damage over time, but requires bookkeeping to keep track of curse stacks over multiple creatures. Marasmusine (talk) 06:56, 18 March 2019 (MDT)

Next, unholy grasp of the undying.

• "You may use this ability equal to your Mindflayer level" - I'm going to guess that this is how many times you can use the features. As described above, this is on par with "class points", so you could actually tie these features together to use the same resource.
• No action or range to target.
• Spell-like damage in general just uses xdy (e.g. 2d6) with no additions. There are ways to scale spell-like damage to level, but you don't just add character level. There's some process of adding additional damage dice. A spell might use a higher spell slot, or elemental monks use extra ki points, etc. In this case you could allow the player to use additional "Alhoon Points" (name pending).
• Having said that, it is unclear what is meant by "drain". Are we dealing a damage type, or reducing the target's maximum hit points? Are we regaining lost hit points
• "bonus hit points" probably means temporary hit points
• "For every round round you concentrate this ability..." I don't get this sentence. Marasmusine (talk) 07:11, 18 March 2019 (MDT)

Multiclassing

You can not multiclass in to the mind flayer class. Can you multiclass from it? Arquebus (talk) 19:33, 7 February 2020 (MST)

Answer is under Mindflayer_(5e_Class)#Creating a Mind Flayer. Marasmusine (talk) 06:56, 1 September 2020 (MDT)