Author Topic: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!  (Read 7237 times)

Offline TheGeometer

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The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« on: September 09, 2012, 01:48:02 AM »
Have you heard of the awesome spell Surelife? It's practically begging to be used to break the game, with its vagueness and its potential for invulnerability. Here's what I thought up when I saw it:

Step 1: Get a second head. There's an item, from Dragon Magazine, I think, that gives you one, but it might be evil, so let's try something else. The multi-headed template from Races of the Wild gives you exactly that, but for a steep LA. We only need this to be temporary, so it would be much easier to use scrolls (if you're not a caster already) to transform into an Ettin, a Hydra, or (with Wild Shaping) a 2-headed snake, which is a perfectly normal animal mentioned in some other sourcebook.

Step 2: Find a cave with a precarious stalactite barely hanging on to the ceiling and stand right underneath it. Wait, it gets better.

Step 3: Cast Surelife on yourself, keeping you alive if you happen to (completely accidentally) get slashed by a 10-ton, naturally sharpened slab of rock. You know, just in case.

Step 4: Put on a Ring of Regeneration. See where I'm going with this?

Step 5: Oops. The stalactite just happens to fall and slices you in half. Not to worry, though. For 1 minute / 2 CL, each of your 2 halves are still alive. You regrow the rest of your body within 1 round, "even heads of multi-headed creatures," and suddenly there are 2 of you, each with exactly the same properties as you had before this process, and each one undeniably still "you."

Step 6: Repeat. Surelife lasts for minutes, and each stage of the cycle takes only 1 round, so feel free to look for other similar natural ways to get cleaved in two before the spell wears off. Do this enough times, and you should have a potent army.

The clones are all still "you" for all intents and purposes. Does that mean that you share spell slots, HP, turns, and familiars with them? Do you get less XP for being in a group, or the same amount because you're really alone? Can you use the Fusion power to become a super-character? I have absolutely no idea. But it's an interesting, low cost, low time, low requirement method to take over the world, so I'd say it's a TO mission accomplished.

Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2012, 01:55:18 AM »
"Duration:    1 minute/2 levels" has me somewhat curious since it doesn't specifically list what kind of "levels" it's talking about.  Caster Level? Character Level? Spell Level?  Oh the possibilities.

Offline dman11235

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2012, 08:36:36 AM »
Wow.  And normally, that spell is so terrible that I didn't even know it existed.  I mean, an 8th level spell slot only available in a domain for protection against a single natural cause of death?  That spell should be general and level 2.  Maybe.  If it was permanent, then possibly level 8.

I would assume that it's caster level, because the SRD doesn't have "caster" in front of any of the "caster level" phrases in the spell stat block.

As this is TO, we take the best possible interpretation.  However, having separate mental abilities means that you get xp as a group, rather than alone.  Since this is not enough to overcome the whole "I have twice as many spells now" thing, I think this is the better interpretation.  Actually, look at the......Dvanti?  Dvati?  Whatever that twin race is.  That should be how this works.

EDIT: Oh, and a possible foil to this working: is that really how regeneration would work?  If you are not touching the body part, do mind that it takes 2d10 rounds, not 1.  And if you are touching the body part, the body part reattaches itself, so no duplication.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2012, 08:39:38 AM by dman11235 »
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Offline littha

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2012, 08:56:05 AM »
"Duration:    1 minute/2 levels" has me somewhat curious since it doesn't specifically list what kind of "levels" it's talking about.  Caster Level? Character Level? Spell Level?  Oh the possibilities.

Caster level. All the spells in the SRD are done like that.

Offline TheGeometer

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2012, 10:02:08 AM »
EDIT: Oh, and a possible foil to this working: is that really how regeneration would work?  If you are not touching the body part, do mind that it takes 2d10 rounds, not 1.  And if you are touching the body part, the body part reattaches itself, so no duplication.

Oh yeah, I didn't see that. We definitely want to regenerate the other half of the body, not just reattach it, so I guess the process takes 2d10 rounds, or about 1 minute. A 3000 GP scroll of Surelife will give you 6 minutes, so if all the clones each find a way to get naturally chopped in half in the time it takes them to regenerate, and you pass the Ring of Regeneration around efficiently enough, you should have between 8 and 1073741824 of you by the end of a single scroll (64 on average).

EDIT: You know, it could be argued that you don't even need a second head to get this to work. The Regeneration spell says that it grows back all organs, so if your head got chopped in half, I'm sure each half would regrow the other.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2012, 10:10:20 AM by TheGeometer »

Offline kitep

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2012, 03:50:32 PM »
I thought only the largest chunk regenerated.  That's why when you slash into a troll and send blood splatlets everywhere, you don't wind up with an army of trolls.

It's amusing to think you can be crushed beneath the stalactite with a head missing, and you "feel no discomfort".

It does seem like it could also protect you from dying from old age - and I think it's persistable.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2012, 03:52:34 PM by kitep »

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2012, 04:20:09 PM »
or ...
step 1) ... 2-headed Template is also in Savage Species
step 1a) ... PAO into a 2-head version of yourself = permanent
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Offline dman11235

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2012, 04:20:53 PM »
I'd have to look at the PHB text, so I will do that right now.  Anyone know if any errata exists for it?

Well, looking at the PHB text, it's the same as the SRD.  And it says nothing about "largest chunk".  I think it's assuming that you have a designated "you" chunk, which would regrow, but nothing else would.HOwever, since it's not explicit, we are free to interpret it in any way possible.  I think the best possible interpretation would be one possible "you", and that's your brain.  So you have to have two of them, or one split in two without damage somehow.  Since that would be a racial ability (with no damage means that the resulting pieces can both operate without hindrance or loss of ability), and I can't think of any race that has this, multiple brains would be necessary.  Also, each brain must be attached to a hand with a finger with the ring, or otherwise have Regenerate cast on them independently.

The other option I see is that only one part of the body can be regenerated, and then only limbs, since they do use the phrase "limbs are regenerated".  I think that the intent was that head+body='you', and limbs are the only things regenerated.  Possibly head is included in that, but mostly I think it's intended for anything that would not kill you instantly.

So I think this trick still works given a very liberal interpretation of the rules, but has some more restrictions that you need to keep in mind.
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Offline TheGeometer

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #8 on: September 09, 2012, 07:03:52 PM »
The spell says specifically that limbs and other organs regenerate, as well as the heads of multiheaded creatures. It can only be cast on "you," so it only affects the being that cast the spell. To cast a spell, a creature must have a brain, or something similar to keep track of prepared spells (after all, you must meditate and concentrate to gain spells in the first place). Thus, Regenerate can only heal the part of you that has the brain - in this case, both halves. Regenerating a body from an arm won't work, but growing back the left side of your body will. At least, that's the most common-sense interpretation.

Offline Kasz

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #9 on: November 02, 2012, 07:01:51 AM »
I don't think common sense really has a place in a discussion on the best way to cut yourself in half to double yourself.

You'd have a hard time convincing a DM that both halves regenerate, personally if a player did this to me in a game I was DMing, I'd state whichever side of the body had more of the prefrontal cortex intact is the regenerating half. You'd have a VERY hard time convincing me you'd chopped your prefrontal cortex in PERFECT surgical halves using a stalactite. If you did manage to chop your prefrontal cortex in half perfectly, you'd still only regen from one side determined at random.

If you did manage to convince me to allow both sides to regenerate you're now two people. two completely separate individuals. Clones wouldn't share spell slots or XP in my mind... however your clone is not under your control, it's under mine, You've just given the DM yourself as a DMPC. Yes it's goals and motivations are the same as yours at the time of separation but then that individual is going to go off and have experiences and it's goals might change. Call it sliding doors or nature vs nurture or whatever.

Also, this trick doesn't clone equipment, in fact it probably damages anything your wearing, so you'd want to do it naked, if you need to wear a ring of regeneration make sure your method doesn't damage that ring or you'll probably just die when surelife runs out.

TL:DR - this comes off as a "regeneration doesn't say that I don't grow back into two people" argument which I think is flawed.

Offline Bauglir

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #10 on: November 03, 2012, 12:32:39 AM »
Wouldn't you need two rings? Otherwise one half of you is no longer wearing it.

Offline Halinn

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #11 on: November 03, 2012, 09:27:18 AM »
Wouldn't you need two rings? Otherwise one half of you is no longer wearing it.
That'd only be enough for one iteration. As I understand it, the idea is to pass around the ring for just long enough for the 'clones' to regenerate.

Also, if it works at all, it doesn't take 1 round for each ring, as written in the original post, it takes 2d10 rounds to fully regenerate, as per the spell. Unless you just want to reattach the other half, in which case your trick is quite pointless.
note to self: read the thread first.

Edit: hm, regenerate doesn't specify that the body itself would grow back. Broken bones, limbs, ruined organs (not even missing ones, just ruined ones). Nothing about, say, a torso
« Last Edit: November 03, 2012, 09:31:06 AM by Halinn »

Offline Bauglir

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #12 on: November 03, 2012, 02:14:27 PM »
Right, I mean you could pass around 2 rings probably, at the cost of efficiency. But you still would need 2, or else each split would still result in one half just dying.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #13 on: November 05, 2012, 07:33:05 PM »
 :beathorse
Rocks falling on you, cutting you perfectly in half, isn't a Death of Natural Causes1, 2, 3, 4

Offline Halinn

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #14 on: November 05, 2012, 10:04:50 PM »
:beathorse
Rocks falling on you, cutting you perfectly in half, isn't a Death of Natural Causes1, 2, 3, 4
I dunno, it's pretty natural that you die when cut in half. Also pretty natural that you die when an axe cleaves your skull, etc. ;)

Offline Mithril Leaf

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Re: The Surelife Trick - An Infinite Clone Army!
« Reply #15 on: November 06, 2012, 04:17:11 AM »
:beathorse
Rocks falling on you, cutting you perfectly in half, isn't a Death of Natural Causes1, 2, 3, 4
I dunno, it's pretty natural that you die when cut in half. Also pretty natural that you die when an axe cleaves your skull, etc. ;)
Most Drow die a natural death in the Underdark, as a knife in the back most naturally ends one's life.