Havin' a Psionic Blast Part 3: Devouring Your Intellect

It's balls.

Today I'd like to take some time to talk about the psionic adversaries of the Monster Manual. There was a whole ecosystem of monsters in AD&D intended to make being a psionic character dangerous, much like rot grubs and ear seekers existed solely to kill off corpse-looting and door-listening characters. 

First off, see the list of attack and defense modes below showing the letters associated with each mode? (posted somewhere on this page, I hope) These letters are important because they are used as a shorthand for denoting the psionic powers possessed by the monsters in the Monster Manual. It should also be noted that the letters demarking modes in the MM do not, on at least a couple of occasions, match up with the powers listed or described in the monster write-up under the stat block. 

As a for instance, the infamous Mind Flayer only has 1 psionic attack listed: "B", which is Mind Thrust. This is significant because Mind Thrust does not affect non-psionic beings so they're really not going to be flaying many minds, right? But if you read the description underneath the monster stats, it states that M. Flayer's "most feared attack mode ... is the mind blast [sic] of psionic power." Clearly that is supposed to be A. Psionic Blast.

Other Monster Manual Oddities:

Stolen from GM Binder

Brain Moles can cause "Permanent insanity in non-psionically endowed creatures employing psionic energy through spells or magic items." SP even though their one attack mode is B, Mind Thrust, they can still get you if you're using a helm of telepathy or using a spell to do psionic-adjacent things. More on this in a later post.

Cerbral Parasite feeds off of a character's psionic strength without the character knowing what's up. And they reproduce as they feed so, after a while, your psionic strength is getting sapped at an extraordinary rate. They cannot be attacked psionically, so you gotta' cure disease to get rid of 'em.

Demogorgon splits its psionic strength between its two heads which is cool because that's 2 psionic attacks and defenses going on at once. But each head has a strength of only 150, which gives an attack strength of only 75, which is not that great. 

Type III Demons have only one attack and one defense mode: E. Psychic Crush and F. Mind Blank. As G. Thought Shield is the only defense you can use whilst attacking with Psychic Crush, Type III demons cannot both attack and defend at the same time. A huge weakness, to be sure. Or, possibly, this was another case where the letter does not match the intended mode but, since the defense mode is not mentioned in the description, we'll never know.

Some larger Grey Oozes can use Psychic Crush, though their psionic strength can be as low as 21 which... still gives you a 50% chance of taking out one of Demogorgons heads in a single blow.

Intellect Devourer not only does this monster have the creepiest illustration in the original Monster Manual (see illustration above) but, like the Mind Flayer, it also has a discrepancy between attack modes listed by letter: "CE", and those described in the text: Ego Whip and Id Insinuation, which would read "CD". 

Thought Eaters don't actually have psionic ability but they do consume the psionic ability of others. Sadly, the MM doesn't tell us how they do it or at what rate, just that it can be done. But this is the first time anyone ever noticed because no one ever included a Thought Eater in an encounter.

Yellow Molds, are similar to grey oozes in that when they form large colonies they can become psionically active. If such a colony senses psionic beings within 120' they can blast them with "the most powerful form of id insinuation." The most powerful Id Insinuation turns any psionic-folk in a 20'x20' area with a Psionic Strength below 260 into a Robot controlled by the victor. That means that a yellow mold could take over each head of Demogorgon at once! It makes one wonder, though, what would it mean to be a robot in service to a mold colony?  [Thanks for the assist, Grodog]