Best ratio of abilities to HD

[sirpercival]

Once you get to Dis, you can step out and do your own shenanigans, I would think.  Just curious, would you allow a build based on this trick?

Of course, it probably wouldn't get very far since all the minions are undead...

[Tshern]

Once you get to Dis, you can step out and do your own shenanigans, I would think.  Just curious, would you allow a build based on this trick?

Of course, it probably wouldn't get very far since all the minions are undead...

To be fair, I haven't really read the thread yet. If you feel inclined to leave Dis, you can do that (assuming you can) although that is against the spirit of the original challenge. I never had anything against that. I'll give the rest of the thread a proper read and get back you about that.

Btw, I did post a new message to the Iron Siege thing. Let's see if anyone bites.

[ariasderros]

I'll re-ask the question, what ways are there besides Inspire Greatness to gain temporary HD?  Any?

Song of the Heart adds one more temp HD to your use of IG, for three instead of two. That's the only one I know of, though I think there were other ways to enhance IG further.

But yeah, that's the only way I know of to gain Temp HD.

That said, there is always the whole Poly into animal - Awaken - Level Drain method. The HD are not temporary by default, but you do remove them.

[ariasderros]

So first of all, on the topic of Inspire Greatness:
Base, 2 THD
Song of the Heart, +1 THD
Focused Performance, x2 THD on one target
Words of Creation, x2 THD on one target
So you can either end up with +7 THD total, or +9 THD total, depending on whether you get the Song of the heart before or after the multipliers.

Also, on good thing to get:
Lilitu: gain a +2 profane bonus to saves by having her hug you once/day
A level of Fiend of Corruption: +3 untyped bonus to one of your stats
5 levels of Fiend of Possession: +4 profane bonus to all of your stats
Only problem with this is that there is the whole "do they lose the PrC abilities when their type changes" thing.

[skydragonknight]

Why worry about hit dice caps? Level drain is already on the table, so get them to Thought Bottle and after you've level drained them apropriately and gained indefinite control, have them relevel as you see fit with the new XP. As you do so, lose ability points from less important scores and assign them to more important scores.

I's personally use something like Sylph or Black Ethergaint that has racial casting based on Hit Dice. Relevel a Black Ethergaunt as an Archivist, for example and get solid Int-based dual-casting with slightly-higher Int from the reassigned stats.

[zook1shoe]

Sharn are one of the best monsters for the HD

[snakeman830]

Why worry about hit dice caps? Level drain is already on the table, so get them to Thought Bottle and after you've level drained them apropriately and gained indefinite control, have them relevel as you see fit with the new XP. As you do so, lose ability points from less important scores and assign them to more important scores.

I's personally use something like Sylph or Black Ethergaint that has racial casting based on Hit Dice. Relevel a Black Ethergaunt as an Archivist, for example and get solid Int-based dual-casting with slightly-higher Int from the reassigned stats.

For that matter, take monsters where their spellcasting does not equal their HD (Nymphs are a good example, being a 6HD fey with 7th level Druid casting).  I'm sure you can abuse that.

[sirpercival]

OK, let's do this for realz.  Now I'm opening up templates.  (I expect zook to show up shortly with his multi-halfdragon tauric insanity.)

With templates, what's the best 20 HD creature we can create for this ability?  We don't care about Ex abilities which aren't class features, since they are lost, but everything else is fair game.

Can such a specific creature be called via gate?

[zook1shoe]

 


Actually, I've been busy working on my Super Spell List of Descriptions and my List of All Licensed Templates. But I could probably try to pull something really ugly out for 20HD for you.

Is there any abilities you want me to focus towards?

[sirpercival]

Well, SLAs like Wish/Miracle, racial spellcasting, things like that which are multipurpose.  I mean, the other great thing is this method is unlimited, so we can get multiple creatures.  Lol.

BTW, I am personally of the opinion that spellcasting is not (Ex), which actually helps in this case.

[Mister Lamp]

If you're looking for templates to add, would LA affect this at all?It is based on HD so I guess not.

You could add the assorted Half-(whatever) elemental templates from MotP. That would give it:
Immunity to Disease, Air, Cold, Earth, Fire, and water effects
Str +6
Dex +4
Con +8
Int +6
Wis +4
Cha +6
and 40 1/day spell-likes if it has 19+ HD

[zook1shoe]

If you're looking for templates to add, would LA affect this at all?It is based on HD so I guess not.

You could add the assorted Half-(whatever) elemental templates from MotP. That would give it:
Immunity to Disease, Air, Cold, Earth, Fire, and water effects
Str +6
Dex +4
Con +8
Int +6
Wis +4
Cha +6
and 40 1/day spell-likes if it has 19+ HD

Is that all?

Here's what I'm looking at pre-acquired templates ...

 Lycanthropy Paragon Remade Obah-Blessed Maurid Half-Machine Divine Messenger of Kord Chameleon Woodling Mythal Ghost Magebred Master of the Tower Faerzress-Infused Magic-Blooded Arctic Deep Aquatic Desert Glyph Guardian Half-Stone Golem Wild Phynxkin //Entomanothrope Paragon Master of the Tower Faerzress-Infused Divine Messenger of Hextor Half-Machine Remade Obah-Blessed Mythal Ghost Maurid Chameleon Draconic Dark Guardian Acidborn Deep Magic-Blooded Arctic Desert Aquatic Corrupted Wild Medium Monstrous Centipede // Katane Ghul Genden Fetch Glyph Guardian Half-Clay Golem Half-Satyr Primordial Giant Reptilian Winged Fiendish Half-Troll Dungeonbred Shadow Paragon Remade Phrenic Mythal Ghost Maurid Master of the Tower Magister Magic-Blooded Faerzress-Infused Chameleon Dark Draconic Desert Deep Aquatic Anarchic Sharn

[Mister Lamp]

If you're looking for templates to add, would LA affect this at all?It is based on HD so I guess not.

You could add the assorted Half-(whatever) elemental templates from MotP. That would give it:
Immunity to Disease, Air, Cold, Earth, Fire, and water effects
Str +6
Dex +4
Con +8
Int +6
Wis +4
Cha +6
and 40 1/day spell-likes if it has 19+ HD

Is that all?

Here's what I'm looking at pre-acquired templates ...

 Lycanthropy Paragon Remade Obah-Blessed Maurid Half-Machine Divine Messenger of Kord Chameleon Woodling Mythal Ghost Magebred Master of the Tower Faerzress-Infused Magic-Blooded Arctic Deep Aquatic Desert Glyph Guardian Half-Stone Golem Wild Phynxkin //Entomanothrope Paragon Master of the Tower Faerzress-Infused Divine Messenger of Hextor Half-Machine Remade Obah-Blessed Mythal Ghost Maurid Chameleon Draconic Dark Guardian Acidborn Deep Magic-Blooded Arctic Desert Aquatic Corrupted Wild Medium Monstrous Centipede // Katane Ghul Genden Fetch Glyph Guardian Half-Clay Golem Half-Satyr Primordial Giant Reptilian Winged Fiendish Half-Troll Dungeonbred Shadow Paragon Remade Phrenic Mythal Ghost Maurid Master of the Tower Magister Magic-Blooded Faerzress-Infused Chameleon Dark Draconic Desert Deep Aquatic Anarchic Sharn

I was just pointing those out because I thought of those first. Also, I challenge you to list the abilities of one of those. ^^

[zook1shoe]

Lol... I'm still working on the full build.... But I'm adding the Tauric template and will be adding acquired templates after that

[skydragonknight]

Here's what I'm looking at pre-acquired templates ...

 Lycanthropy Paragon Remade Obah-Blessed Maurid Half-Machine Divine Messenger of Kord Chameleon Woodling Mythal Ghost Magebred Master of the Tower Faerzress-Infused Magic-Blooded Arctic Deep Aquatic Desert Glyph Guardian Half-Stone Golem Wild Phynxkin //Entomanothrope Paragon Master of the Tower Faerzress-Infused Divine Messenger of Hextor Half-Machine Remade Obah-Blessed Mythal Ghost Maurid Chameleon Draconic Dark Guardian Acidborn Deep Magic-Blooded Arctic Desert Aquatic Corrupted Wild Medium Monstrous Centipede // Katane Ghul Genden Fetch Glyph Guardian Half-Clay Golem Half-Satyr Primordial Giant Reptilian Winged Fiendish Half-Troll Dungeonbred Shadow Paragon Remade Phrenic Mythal Ghost Maurid Master of the Tower Magister Magic-Blooded Faerzress-Infused Chameleon Dark Draconic Desert Deep Aquatic Anarchic Sharn

A creature can have only one environment template, as per whatever Dragon issue that is. Also, are you sure you're taking into consideration eligable creature types for templates? As far as I know, the templates are applied one at a time so the creature will probably lose eligability to some of them as it gains templates.

[zook1shoe]

I can remove some of those, and actually there's 3 "creatures" there. So i could keep 3 of them


Yes, I'm making sure they're all the proper templates in the proper order.

I have a huge list of templates that sorts them by affected types, and then shows the basic requirements and the new type.


You can't "lose" eligibility for most templates. They are not like feats or classes in that same way.

The main two I can think of that you CAN are Magister and Dragonborn, and they say so specifically.

Edit: did u mean qualify? That's completely different than losing a previously gained template

[skydragonknight]

Yeah, I meant to say "be careful or you might lose qualification for another one applied later."
 I guess I'll wait for you to develop it further and then point out any discrepancies I notice.

[zook1shoe]

I'll be careful...

I actually already had the pre-acquired templates charted out, in a general way. The only big ones are the ones that actually change the creature type. Those are harder to move around

EDIT: rereading that dragon article in my hard copy, i don't see anything that says that only a single environmental template can be applied to a single creature.

if i missed it, please point the text out?


Edit2: that build is being scrapped, I guess the Type Pyramid is standard. Awhile back, I reread it and came to the conconclusion it was more for making things easier vs. RAW

[Halinn]

The type pyramid is 3.0, and thus superseded by the 3.5 monster's manual, which has templates that make no mention of not superseding specific types. That's how I interpret it, at least.

[zook1shoe]

Agreed, but there are a few members here who would argue that... Since there has been nothing printed withdrawing that rule... It still applies.