Would it be possible for a PC to survive Ceremorphosis and gan the power of a mind flayer?

Would it be possible for a PC to survive Ceremorphosis and gan the power of a mind flayer?

What roll would this need?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illithid
d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSwitchTrue.htm
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No, it is not. By definition, if they survived the process failed.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illithid
>When an Illithid undergoes ceremorphosis, it can occasionally take on some elements of the absorbed host creature's former mind, such as mannerisms. This typically manifests as a minor personality feature, such as a nervous habit or reaction (e.g., nail-biting or tapping one's foot), although the process that determines the type and number of traits so inherited appears to be stochastic. Some adult Illithids have even been known to hum a tune that its host knew in life. Usually, when a mind flayer inherits a trait like this, it keeps it a closely guarded secret, because, were its peers to learn of it, the Illithid in question would most likely be killed. This is due to an Illithid legend of a being called the "Adversary". The legend holds that, eventually, an Illithid larva that undergoes ceremorphosis will take on the host's personality and memory in its entirety. This Adversary would, mind and soul, still be the host, but with all the inherent abilities of an Illithid."

is it possible for a PC to become an Adversary

Nothing in that paragraph confirms that an Adversary can actually exist, only that the myth has a cultural impact on Illithids in general.

not him, but in fariness, mindflayers are paranoid, but they're not like beholder who imagine up the threats they might face.

There usually has to be some basis of reality for it to happen. So if mindflayer culture has a 'myth' it likely happened at least once.

Are you implying that a myth or legend is, should be, or probably is just a myth or legend in a fantasy setting?

There is a basis: sometimes an Illithid retains a trait. The story is obviously based on the idea that if a single trait might be inherited, more may also.

It does not follow that the logical extreme is actually possible. Ceremorphosis involves destroying and consuming the host brain. It is absolutely inevitable that at least some, if not the vast majority, of what was present within the meat be destroyed in the process.

No roll required. This kind of event would be a once-in-a-millennium kind of occurrence and should only happen at the behest of plot. You and the DM should discuss if this is the option that works best for the campaign, with the DM being the final arbiter as usual. It should also be noted that the DM should read up thoroughly on illithids and their history, biology, culture, and nature before making any kind of decision on if ceremorphosis is survivable.

By the way, if you're asking me, personally, if I'd allow it, the answer is no. Ceremorphosis is by definition entirely lethal. Outside of a single theoretical instance, it has always killed its victim and I see no compelling reason to change that for a PC. If a PC is captured by illithids and remains in their custody for a lengthy period of time, they become food or die, end of story. The moral is this: don't get captured by illithids.

I could see a high level psion maybe being able to project their mind out of their body. If that's possible, then it might be possible to reenter a body that retains a fraction of their personality/memory. From there it might be possible to overpower and remove the Illithid mind.
Note I said "maybe", "if", "might be", "might be". I'm not saying it's likely by a long fucking shot but something as niche as surviving your brain getting eaten requires a shitload of improvisation. You will NOT find any goddamn rules in stone about that.

Between the home field advantage and the fact that Illithids are basically as powerful as innate psionics get, I'd still say that's crazy talk. Never mind the bit where you're using powers based in your big throbbing brain to survive having said brain eaten. Seems kinda contradictory.

user, this is the third thread you're creating.

If you wanna play an illithid or some inkling monstergirl weebshit, just say so.
Stop being a faggot and start being another, more bearable, kind of faggot.

as the Goa'uld would say, nothing of the host remains

His does make me wonder about the ways in which the process of ceremorphosis could go wrong, i.e., illithid developmental abnormalities. None of them are going to involve the survival of the host, of course, but you can imagine funny problems like an illithid larva that consumes the spinal cord as well as the brain, resulting in a (short-lived) quadriplegic illithid, or an illithid which fails to develop the appropriate jaw structure, retaining the host’s, or... lots of things, really.

>Cerebromorphis survival via Roll
No.
I've talked about this before- the basis of the transformation is literally the work of a invasive parasitic organism invading a host body, consuming the grey matter from back to front, ending with the frontal lobe, cause irrevocable brain damage, and the complete loss of personality- if you knew jack shit about the front lobe and lobotomies, or the subject of the layers of the brain from neo-cortex to the fucking amgydala, you'd know of the aftereffects of trauma caused by brain damage to any given humanoid body- one of the core reasons why there are "traits" left in a host is because of a level of memory covered in IQ tests still being left intact, but these are equivalent of reflexes and the like.

The biggest fucking problem with illithid that everyone forgets is a thing is that after Cerebromorhpis is done, the Brain is not only destroyed, but the body, has a parasite that has subsumed it's use, the body has badly been hijacked and in a similar crude way to chemical recycling done prior transformation or other evolutionary biological traits humans have been turned into a massive suction organ, which allows the Illithid to consume grey matter with Ease- this subsequently leaves the Illithid in a state of perpertual agony that is only solved via them learning to control their innate powers- something which is supervised and maintained through their communities, if this is not done, the Illithid suffers the aytpical Psychic backlash and literally risks it's head exploding. This is also the reason why their entire species are pure fucking evil- they literally DO NOT have anything remotely close to a layered human brain, and any Illithid written otherwise is the work of a fucking retard amateur who doesn't know dick, It's the kind of lobotomized cult shit you'd get from a Dalek.

And this process takes 21 years.
Oh right- the biggest mystery of a subject of cerebromorphis?

Before the shift to hermaphroditism, they had dicks, as Drizzt kicked one square in the balls- but there's the fact that they only reproduce twice in a lifetime and those tadpoles have to come from somewhere-
Now, despite this important change, somehow, stupid 3.5+ writers were still giving them genders- but then I realized, it only ever stated they reproduced hermaphroditically.
This then lead me to believe we actually have no information surrounding the notion that the Illithid's body has vestigal genitals from it's previous hosts body, and that for all intents and purposes- the "Tad poles" might actually be the motherfucking testicles and ovaries of a respective host transformed into what is effectively massive sperm cells of a sort.

So yeah, that's a thing- but the just of it is is that the current Illithid form isn't really sustainable and they're all fucking suffering from Dalek retardation syndrome- but for all intents and purposes, every part of an Illithid is pure fucking malice because there is nothing good from them on a fundamental thinking level.

Lastly, no- Magical mind rape and redemptive suffering with stockholm syndrome are not fucking redemption, nor is an Illithid that eats emotions, If you see this shit, please remember to talk shit about the author ASAP.

A strong will, a genius personality, godlike charisma, or any other notable non-physical trait has zero bearing on whether or not you can overcome an illithid tadpole eating your brain.

>58200495
>Launching your mind out of your body, waiting for some asshole to put a new brain in there, and then mind-suplexing them out of it and taking over again
brutal

If it was real, they wouldn't call it a legend.

chekhov's gun

>The ancient lich of legend, Lord Calcizar the Eternal, will soon rise! It is written!
>pff it's just a fuckin legend let's go legalise gay marriage

To be fair, they've got to mind suplex a baby, even one with a fair amount of psionic potential is still a baby.

The problem, is that you gotta project for long enough for the cerebromorphing to compleat, then mind suplex the baby.

This is basically the point where you need to start thinking about psionic phylacteries you can sort of rest your astral form into while waiting for an illithid to mind suplex.

But then, why not cut out the middle man and just find any random illithid mastermind and use psionics to take over it?

The only trouble is finding one of the damn things.

They seek them here, they seek them there, those damn psions seek masterminds everywhere.

Bump

Astral Seed.

As part of ceremorphosis, the tadpole eats and replaces the host's brain. So, you tell me: can your PC survive having their brain eaten?

If a 20th level mystic can survive total death by peacing out of existence of a bit then sure.

IRON HEART SURGE

> This power weaves strands of astral ectoplasm into a crystal containing the seed of your living mind (hardness 1 and 1 hit point). You can have only one astral seed in existence at any one time. Until such time as you perish, the astral seed (also called the storage crystal) is utterly inert. If you are slain at some later date, your soul transfers into the storage crystal, which begins to dimly glow.

>Once your body’s physical demise activates the storage crystal, you have the abilities of a psicrystal of the appropriate level, plus all the powers you knew and the maximum power points you possessed when astral seed was manifested—but you also have a negative level that cannot be healed and that does not convert to real level loss in your current crystalline form. You have thirty days to grow an organic body, after which time your sentience fades and your soul passes on if it hasn’t entered a new body.

>To grow a body, you (in the storage crystal) must spend ten days in uninterrupted solitude. The body’s constituent parts are pulled as ectoplasm from the Astral Plane, then slowly molded and transformed into a living, breathing body that is an exact duplicate of your body at the time you manifested astral seed (the crystal itself breaks down and becomes a part of the new organic body). When the tenth day ends, you completely and totally inhabit the new body. You possess all the abilities you possessed when astral seed was manifested, at one level lower, but you have none of your equipment.

>If the body is struck for any amount of damage during the ten-day period when it is growing, it is destroyed and your soul passes on.

>Conceivably, you could manifest mind switch to utilize a temporary body, but only an evil creature would smash his own temporarily empty storage crystal to permanently usurp a subject’s organic body (unless the subject is itself irredeemably evil).

I'm not talking about in-universe stuff. I'm talking about these meta descriptions.

>108▶
>Would it be possible for a PC to survive Ceremorph

What if a fresh lich went through ceremorphis? Would he respawn at his phylactery while the mindflayer version of himself keeps walking around?

Man I really fucked up that post somehow.

What did you even do

I can't imagine a lich brain would be a healthy meal, but yes the lich would respawn.

when the writers don't define something 100% they usually leave it up to the GM as a piece of inspiration

tfw mystics are better liches than necromancers

psionics were a mistake

dice+2d6

Rolled 12, 17 = 29 (2d20)

>psionics were a mistake
No, the mystic was a mistake. And I honestly think they're intentionally making the mystic bad for the same reasons Savage Species in 3.5 was intentionally made to be obtuse and shitty.

>Denys the possibilitie entirely.

t. Ilithid defense force.

I’m on to you squid face fucks!

So basically project into a new body until the mindflayer takes over and then astral seed back? Seems like a cool plot device desu

I just want you all to know, it wasn't me this time.
t. Your character undergoes ceremorphosis what do user

He's a barbarian, he wasn't using it anyway.

Logic's got nothing to do with it: it's cooler for a strong and important character to die, and then through force of will come back as some kind of illithid enemy number one with just enough of his old mind to save the party. It's so cool in fact it has to be in the realm of possibility, especially considering the fact that this is fantasy and nothing works on your logic anyways. This is the same genre where powerful enraged barbarians bodies should continue to chop people down for a few turns after their heads have been cut off.

>thinking your mortal logic applies to the life cycle of lovecraftian squid people
How could you be so naive?

why are you doing this

I never got the point of savage species.

It gave you less helpful rules than the original monster manual and had worse options than core.

>bad news your pcs dead, he got his brain eaten by an illithid tadpole

>good news, you get to play the mindflayer they made out of him

I would make the player roll for that chance to happen with the will save modifier as a bonus to the roll on a DC of 12. If he fails, roll new PC. If he succeeds, Roll an Illithid Adversary PC.

That’s at least how I would do it

d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSwitchTrue.htm

Conjure familiar and some good deception checks.