Author Topic: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)  (Read 5722 times)

Offline Clanjos

  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 319
  • Super Smiting Robot!
    • View Profile
The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« on: December 23, 2012, 04:08:27 PM »
This builds off my question about the Spellwarped Template, and the fact that its speed increases, RAW, are permanent and stack. So let's begin.We're going to build us a Santa who can deliver presents to all the good children of your campaign setting of choice in one night- the Winter Solstice. We're assuming one toy per child, approximately 1 child per two adults (actually less), and a total world population of 1 billion (as per the USCB world population estimates for 1850. Reasons include medieval farming techniques mixed with the existence of clerics). First let's do some math.

With 1 billion people, we've got to narrow down to see how many children Santa's got to deliver to. So let's assume that there's approximately one child for every two adults. This means there are 333,300,000 children in this hypothetical campaign setting. However, Santa's not going to deliver gifts to every one of them- the naughty list is a thing after all. Let's assume an equal number of children of each alignment (Chaotic evil Orc and Goblin children, lawful evil bugbear children, neutral evil other children). That would leave us with about 37,033,000 children of each alignment. So since evil children don't get gifts, and chaotic neutral children probably get coal for naughtiness, that leaves us with five alignments- and 185,166,667 toys for Santa to deliver. That's still a lot of houses to hit in one night.

Now, here's the thing- Santa would actually probably travel faster with the Spellwarped template than he would using reindeer. So let's assume the reindeer are what he uses to get back to his workshop. No, instead Santa is a very quick man thanks to his magical Spellwarped Template. To make sure he's fast enough, every time he speaks the command word (Ho!) his belt casts a 4th-level spell on him as a 7-th level wizard- not enough to puncture ECL 20 Santa's SR 28. However, the spell from his belt increases his ground speed by a full 20 feet with every laugh. This raises the question of how Santa travels over water, carries the toys, and gets into houses.

Magic items again. By pressing his nose as a free action, Santa activates his Quickened Dimension Door ring, allowing him to bypass locks and gates in order to deliver gifts and return at will. To get to higher ground, Santa need only don his magical airwalking boots to have the spell continuously active. He holds a magic sack which is actually a portal to a genesis'd demiplane. With Quick Draw, he can take the presents from the bag as he passes through each home and drop them as a free action.

And of course, when his rounds are done, he sits in his sleigh, hitches up his magic Dire Elks, and activates his final magic item for the night. When he shouts "MERRY SOLSTICE TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!", Santa's sleigh casts Gate to return him to the workshop to begin preparations for next year. The legendary Santa Claus, Wedded to History (as a Elder of Legend), has made his rounds.


The consequences of this are rather interesting- Santa's coming is not heralded by the gentle ringing of sleigh bells, but by a sonic boom. Christmas trees are there to give Santa a target for dropping the gifts so they don't punch holes in the walls from momentum. And if I could figure out how, Santa would go give every Evil-aligned child a black eye and a note with a stern warning for the Solstice.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2012, 04:49:02 PM by Clanjos »
Quote from:  a weekly game
"Sometimes, even an adventurer needs a backrub."

Offline Clanjos

  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 319
  • Super Smiting Robot!
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2012, 05:07:19 PM »
Prices of the magic items:

Belt: 4*7*1800= 50,400
Quickened Dimension Door Ring: 8*15*2000=240,000
Airwalking Boots: 4*7*2000*1.5=84000
Sleigh: 9*17*1800/5 (one use per day)= 55,080.
Quote from:  a weekly game
"Sometimes, even an adventurer needs a backrub."

Offline Bauglir

  • Hero Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 629
  • Constrained
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2012, 08:22:24 PM »
We can be a little more lore-friendly by having the reindeer be spell-warped, and the whip cast the spells every time it is cracked. Also, we may wish to incorporate temporal acceleration, time stop, or some variety of celerity in order to allow Santa to take the move actions required to fetch each gift from his bag (which is presumably a modified Handy Haversack, or else nested Haversacks or something).

Offline Clanjos

  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 319
  • Super Smiting Robot!
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2012, 08:39:40 PM »
I think our best bet for the reindeer would be the Megaloceros from Frostburn (117). Advanced to say, 12 HD for SR 23. The whip casts something like, say, Mass Cure Light Wounds on them.

I think Time Stop might be our best option, short of Santa and the Reindeer somehow turning ethereal and dropping the presents in the house as they pass through it. But at that point, why not just go cleric and DMM persist it? With Quick Draw, he could reach into the bag and drop the presents down the chimney as a free action.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2012, 12:03:41 AM by Clanjos »
Quote from:  a weekly game
"Sometimes, even an adventurer needs a backrub."

Offline Halinn

  • Legendary Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 2067
  • My personal text is impersonal.
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2012, 09:48:15 PM »
Quickened Passwall is probably a better bet than dimension door, since dimension door ends your turn. It's also cheaper in an item, due to the 1 hour/level duration.
Some kind of time dilation or other method of extra actions in a turn would also be valuable, since you don't have enough rounds in a night to do one swift action per house.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2012, 09:49:54 PM by Halinn »

Offline dman11235

  • DnD Handbook Writer
  • ****
  • Posts: 2571
  • Disclaimer: not at full capacity yet
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #5 on: December 24, 2012, 10:41:26 PM »
Note: Santa must be able to visit at least 12859 houses every round.  There are 14400 rounds in 24 hours, and with that many houses (one house per family) that's how many per round he would need to visit to do this.  It jumps by a lot going by the real world population, by the way.
My Sig's Handy Haversack  Need help?  Want to see what I've done?  Want to see what others have done well?  Check it out.

Avatar d20

Offline Clanjos

  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 319
  • Super Smiting Robot!
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #6 on: December 24, 2012, 11:15:10 PM »
According to this, Quicken Spell makes them a free action. I forgot about that part of Dimension Door. Maybe a continuous Ethereal Jaunt effect. While expensive, it's still enough to get him into houses so he can reach into his bag (Quick Draw makes it a free action, alternatively designate the sack as a spell component pouch) and drop gifts.

However, I'm not really worried about cost- Santa would have a lot of money, I'd imagine, to pay his workshop full of Midgard Dwarves.

As for population, it's based on the 1850 estimates because D&D has a medieval technology level. We want time dilation, fine, Santa is now a cleric with DMM Persisted Time Stop.

Meanwhile, Spellwarped Reindeer Santa has a speed of infinity and can drop presents down chimneys or onto doorstops as a free action.
Quote from:  a weekly game
"Sometimes, even an adventurer needs a backrub."

Offline Nytemare3701

  • DnD Handbook Writer
  • ****
  • Posts: 1650
  • 50% Cripple, 50% Awesome. Flip a coin.
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #7 on: December 24, 2012, 11:39:22 PM »
According to this, Quicken Spell makes them a free action.

Quicken spell was errata'd to be a swift action when swift actions were added to the game.

Offline Sneaky_Sable

  • Legendary Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1361
  • Watching Ponies
    • View Profile
    • DOUBLE EXPOSURE
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #8 on: December 27, 2012, 10:27:15 AM »
You're also assuming Santa does all of this alone. If we're going to give him insane gear and persistent spells, are a few (hundred) dozen Clones too outlandish?

Let's break the universe, nevermind clones. Santa's just one man, right?
Link to my homebrews

(Offsite server may be unstable. Report broken / unresponsive link with Post Upvote button)

Offline Shadowhunter

  • Hero Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 765
  • E6/E8 fanboy.
    • View Profile
    • The additional vestige collection for all you Binder players out there.
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #9 on: December 27, 2012, 10:46:49 AM »
I feel I'd like to point you all to this:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20021225x

Offline Clanjos

  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 319
  • Super Smiting Robot!
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #10 on: December 31, 2012, 01:04:40 PM »
Well, that's one way to do it. Maybe this is a Santa who goes around giving gifts on the Summer Solstice.

Still need to figure out how to give him the ability to punch any naughty people he passes. With effectively infinite speed, I think he can cover a bit of ground. Bonus points if he can punch people on multiple passes.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2012, 01:27:00 PM by Clanjos »
Quote from:  a weekly game
"Sometimes, even an adventurer needs a backrub."

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

  • Epic Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 7639
  • classique style , invisible tail
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2012, 03:45:24 PM »
No no no -- naughty children get Coal.
 :P

So they don't freeze to death over winter
... so they can play again next year.

Your codpiece is a mimic.

Offline Clanjos

  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 319
  • Super Smiting Robot!
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #12 on: December 31, 2012, 03:58:27 PM »
Yes, naughty children get coal. EVIL children and adventurers get a black eye.
Quote from:  a weekly game
"Sometimes, even an adventurer needs a backrub."

Offline ariasderros

  • Epic Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 2507
  • PM me what you're giving Kudos for please.
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #13 on: January 29, 2013, 10:24:50 PM »
We can be a little more lore-friendly by having the reindeer be spell-warped, and the whip cast the spells every time it is cracked. Also, we may wish to incorporate temporal acceleration, time stop, or some variety of celerity in order to allow Santa to take the move actions required to fetch each gift from his bag (which is presumably a modified Handy Haversack, or else nested Haversacks or something).

Not the whip. The Jingle Bells are actually Magic Traps of Sonic Snap.

The 'Elves' or actually gnomes as the WotC article uses, are Artificers and Magewrites.

Nick himself would be a level 20 Spellthief with a tooth or other at-will magic battery and Master Spellthief. This is easier than the magic item costs. Although this could be improved with a drakehelm. Any-who, Time Stop at-will to let him have enough actions and turns to do everything + at-will Dimension Door (Time Stop means it doesn't matter that it ends your turn). If you add in Celerity too, and you either negate the Daze or rule that it occurs on the first round in the Time Stop, then he could conceivably seem to do everything within the same round.
My new Sig
Hi, Welcome

Offline Clanjos

  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 319
  • Super Smiting Robot!
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #14 on: January 29, 2013, 11:05:02 PM »
Look, if he's using time stop, he might as well just be a cleric and DMM Persist it. Quick Draw to pull things out of the bag, free action to drop them, Spellwarped speed to travel around and drop off the gifts. Then he drops alchemist's fire on the evil children. Naughty ones get coal.
Quote from:  a weekly game
"Sometimes, even an adventurer needs a backrub."

Offline Jackinthegreen

  • DnD Handbook Writer
  • ****
  • Posts: 6176
  • I like green.
    • View Profile
Re: The Most Jolly Adventurer of All (3.5 for the Holidays)
« Reply #15 on: January 29, 2013, 11:59:46 PM »
While I know this is YBIYBI and iffy territory is king, do keep in mind that Time Stop is usually thought of as technically an instantaneous spell despite it cramming 1d4+1 rounds of actions into that instant.  That or persisting it means you take the 1d41 rounds while everyone else has 24 hours, so effectively time has stopped for the caster.

The 3.0 FAQ specifically changed RAW on that to nerf it.