Talk:Mind Flayer (5e Class)

2d12 melee damage at 17th level is (my opinion) balanced, because shocking grasp (cantrip) does 4d8 melee damage at 17th level. The average damage for 2d12 is 13, while the average damage for 4d8 is 18. Even if (as it probably would be, given that this is 17th level) the player's int mod is +5, it still only does an average of 18 damage. They also take the same time to use (1 action).

After hearing your argument, you are probably correct, it is balanced in context because you don't have a second attack and the damage is somewhat comparably to the shocking grasp cantrip. I was just worried because the damage is incredibly high compared to other classes' natural weapons. Another thing to note is that you might want to split mental prowess into a two +2, +2 features for an additional feature, but besides that you have done a fantastic job with the class.--Blobby383b (talk) 17:54, 13 July 2017 (MDT)

Hello, fellow wikian(s?)! Here are some comments I would like to share with this class:

Premise. Here is a quote from 5e Class Design Guide: If [the] class is more of "what you are" than "what you do", it may function beter as a race. I am well aware of the existence of illithid or mind flayer, which is one of the most prominent race that D&D franchise has ever produced, but frankly speaking, the premise of the current class!mind flayer seems more of a race than a class. I know that the reproduction method of mind flayers enable this peculiar combination, but I thought that it would work better as a class if it was more of a character, of a fixed race (instead of the host of mind flayer), and somehow learned to emulate the psionic ability of mind flayers. That way, it could be even more dramatic, such as a survivor of a mind flayer-related disaster who learned his/her nemesis' psionic power for revenge, or a xenophile who embraced the "wonders" of mind flayers (much to their disdain, perhaps?).

Equipment. This is just me nitpicking, but you will gain any clothes you need from your background, so having an additional clothes might be a bit redundant. Besides, a class!mind flayer won't need a great amount of weapon in the first place, if the current class features grant the wonderful ways of engaging in combat with psionic powers.

Not-Dead Levels. I see that some class features scale with levels, but then you have to mark them so, just to avoid confusion. Even I thought there were some dead levels here and there until I read the class feature descriptions.

Tentacle Attack. As I have said in the Premise section above, I am against the idea of the race mind flayer as a class, and this is one of the reason why. If you have a number of tentacles from your head as a mind flayer does, can you wield anything with it? The damage is fair for a natural weapon, which means you won't need any weapons in the first place, especially so when it scales with your level.

Devour Brain. Unorthodox for 5e standards, not to mention a big penalty that greatly restricts a character's activities. If you are supposed to eat brains from living creatures, chances are your character will be shunned from a majority of the multiverse just because he/she/it multiclassed into this class, which is not exactly fair for me. If you would go with my suggestion of "just a character who mimics mind flayers" idea, the idea of learning something interesting from a living creature sounds awesome, but a detect thoughts spell does it better.

Mind Blast. The trademark of illithids, oh yeah. Apart from the fact that this might be a bit to strong for a 2nd-level feature and escalates from there, I think this is the feature that defines the class!mind flayer. Oh, and you must set the save DC, which is most likely 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier.

Enhanced Devouring. Yes, I'm against the premise of "becoming something that constantly hurting others just to stay alive". Personally, I think while that sounds awesome enough, edgy and all, but for a D&D character, it doesn't fit very much. I mean, Drizzt is a drow, yeah, and his kind is shunned accordingly, yeah, but he doesn't need to drink blood or anything just to stay alive, does he?

Enhanced Mind Blast. Psychic damage was strong enough, and now it stuns a creature for what, 1 minute? That's like 10 rounds, which is too much. "Until the start of its turn" sounds fair enough, I suggest.

Mental Prowess. I see what you did there. Interesting and fitting, but I thought something else can also be very interesting for a 20th-level feature.

Archetype: Thrall Lord. Here we go:

You do not define "in combat" and "out of combat" in 5th edition. The whole combat rule is just for simplicity, and it does not define who's in the combat and who's not.

Why should you define separate stats for your thralls, when there's no problem using its original statistics? If you think it's solely for "balance issues", the idea of controlling other creature is not balanced enough already, at least not without a penalty or two.

dominate person is redundant at best, when you can control up to, what, ten thralls at a time.

Archetype: Mind Flayer Psion.I thought the very premise of mind flayer is to be a psionic, and it would be much more interesting if a mind flayer could be a spellcaster. You can check your D&D supplements, this is actually official, and even Monster Manual provides a set of spells for an illithid spellcaster. Besides, the current archetype is a butchered pseudo-spellcaster at best, so I don't really think this would make a good archetype.

Overall Wordings. Alright, this is nitpicking at best, but the formats are not exactly... good, for 5th edition standards. I can fix this.

In short: Maybe the basic setting of the class needs reimagination, and the features are not exactly best implemented. I see some potentials in this class, but I also suggest that it would take a big upheaval to see that potentials. I can help improve this class, if you won't mind. --WeirdoWhoever (talk) 09:06, 16 July 2017 (MDT)

Following this

Hey, I like the concept of a Mindflayer as a class in and of itself to develop into.

Might be looking into this and tweaking it according to my here-above sempai's advice :) .

If anyone else has suggestions, please write write them here !

The Other Mind Flayer

I'm working on rewriting a mindflayer class at Mindflayer (5e Class) which I expect to surpass this one in terms of lore-friendliness, mechanics and balance.

If you'd like an example of the problems with this mindflayer, look at Create Thrall. It doesn't have an action or a range. The DC is 4 greater than normal DC calculation. It doesn't explain what it means for a creature to be a thrall. It completely disregards the creature's base statistics. A thrall is supposed to be a completely subservient slave, so if that's the intention here, you've effectively got dominate person, a spell only available to 9th level characters, at 3rd level, but with a higher DC, indefinite duration and doesn't require concentration. Marasmusine (talk) 11:58, 20 March 2019 (MDT)

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