Possible abuse: Aspect of the Wolf + Awaken

[brujon]

The relevant text:

Aspect of the Wolf: "When you cast this spell you assume the physical appearance and many of the qualities of a wolf(MM 283). While under the effects of this spell, your creature type changes to animal, and your size changes to medium... [etc]"


Awaken: "You awaken a tree or animal to humanlike sentience. To succeed, you must make a Will save (DC 10 + the animal’s current HD, or the HD the tree will have once awakened).

The awakened animal or tree is friendly toward you. You have no special empathy or connection with a creature you awaken, although it serves you in specific tasks or endeavors if you communicate your desires to it.

An awakened tree has characteristics as if it were an animated object, except that it gains the plant type and its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores are each 3d6. An awakened plant gains the ability to move its limbs, roots, vines, creepers, and so forth, and it has senses similar to a human’s.

An awakened animal gets 3d6 Intelligence, +1d3 Charisma, and +2 HD. Its type becomes magical beast (augmented animal). An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount.

An awakened tree or animal can speak one language that you know, plus one additional language that you know per point of Intelligence bonus (if any). "


So you cast Aspect of the Wolf, your type changes to Animal.  You cast Awaken on yourself (you have Natural Spell, right?), and gain 3d6 int, 1d3 charisma, and 2 animal HD. Your type changes to magical beast, but that's irrelevant. When the spell effect ends, you return to your normal type, and repeat, every single time, gaining the bonuses again.

By RAW, does this work?


EDIT: Then you get level drained until you lose all Animal HD (They were gained last, so they are drained first), wait 24 hours and the loss is permanent. So you don't get stuck with useless Animal HD.

[Noliar]

You gain 3d6 Int not +3d6 Int (compare with +1d3 Cha) so I'd say it replaces your Int rather than adding. Still if your starting Int was less than 10 odds are it will improve and I see no reason that you can't keep trying until you roll a satisfactory score. 250xp per go and well worth it!

Edit: Oh, and you need to be reliably making will saves DC 10 + your own HD or the xp and the day is wasted. Actually that's another thing - you will need to remain a wolf for the entire 24 hr casting time so Aspect of the Wolf needs to be extended to longer than 24 hrs.

It's quite a lot of trouble to set up - make sure Awaken is maximized and empowered on your last casting!

[brujon]

You gain 3d6 Int not +3d6 Int (compare with +1d3 Cha) so I'd say it replaces your Int rather than adding. Still if your starting Int was less than 10 odds are it will improve and I see no reason that you can't keep trying until you roll a satisfactory score. 250xp per go and well worth it!

Druid/Sorc/Arcane Hierophant with massive CHA?

[Lycanthromancer]

Also, don't forget to Maximize and Empower your Awaken spell.

[Halinn]

Sorry to be a downer on an otherwise neat trick, but from the natural spell feat:

You can complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape

[brujon]

Sorry to be a downer on an otherwise neat trick, but from the natural spell feat:

You can complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape

Just needs another druid to cast the spell on you, or set up a contingency. But yeah, that's a bummer.

[Noliar]

Sorry to be a downer on an otherwise neat trick, but from the natural spell feat:

You can complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape

The description of Aspect of the Wolf specifically allows casting with natural spell.

[brujon]

Sorry to be a downer on an otherwise neat trick, but from the natural spell feat:

You can complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape

The description of Aspect of the Wolf specifically allows casting with natural spell.

"You cannot speak or cast
spells while in wolf form. However,
if you have the Natural Spell feat, you
can cast spells normally."

YEAH! It's true. The combo is once again really good.

[caelic]

Ironic that they went to so much trouble to PREVENT this combo with their repeated revisions of Polymorph--and then went right ahead and created a new spell that made it possible once again.

[Havok4]

The biggest issue I can see is that doing this will mess up your ability to level due to all of the extra magical beast HD you pick up.

[brujon]

The biggest issue I can see is that doing this will mess up your ability to level due to all of the extra magical beast HD you pick up.

You can get level drained and just wait 24 hours for the loss to be permanent.

[snakeman830]

The biggest issue I can see is that doing this will mess up your ability to level due to all of the extra magical beast HD you pick up.

You can get level drained and just wait 24 hours for the loss to be permanent.

Make friends with a wight?  Get your wizard buddy to occasionally zap you with negative levels?

[X-Codes]

The biggest issue I can see is that doing this will mess up your ability to level due to all of the extra magical beast HD you pick up.

You can get level drained and just wait 24 hours for the loss to be permanent.

Make friends with a wight?  Get your wizard buddy to occasionally zap you with negative levels?

Extended CL 12 Enervation works...

The issue I'm seeing is, can you pay the XP component after picking up the two extra HD?

[snakeman830]

Getting drained sets you at the halfway point for xp between your current level and the next one, so you only need 250 xp to start.

[X-Codes]

Getting drained sets you at the halfway point for xp between your current level and the next one, so you only need 250 xp to start.

Ah, so it's like that, huh... You'll definitely need a tame Wight, then.  Well, a Vampire Spawn would work, too.

[Rebel7284]

I don't necessarily see a need to remove the extra HD.  Eventually (much faster if you can get both spells as spell like abilities), you can just get an arbitrary number of HD and use those to pick up as many epic feats as you need in addition to having ridiculous saves/hit points/attack bonus/etc.

[X-Codes]

I don't necessarily see a need to remove the extra HD.  Eventually (much faster if you can get both spells as spell like abilities), you can just get an arbitrary number of HD and use those to pick up as many epic feats as you need in addition to having ridiculous saves/hit points/attack bonus/etc.

If you gain just enough XP to gain the next level, though, with these animal HD then you'll not have the XP you need to continue casting Awaken.

[Rebel7284]

I don't necessarily see a need to remove the extra HD.  Eventually (much faster if you can get both spells as spell like abilities), you can just get an arbitrary number of HD and use those to pick up as many epic feats as you need in addition to having ridiculous saves/hit points/attack bonus/etc.

If you gain just enough XP to gain the next level, though, with these animal HD then you'll not have the XP you need to continue casting Awaken.

Even more reasons to make it a SLA then.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Edit: Oh, and you need to be reliably making will saves DC 10 + your own HD or the xp and the day is wasted. Actually that's another thing - you will need to remain a wolf for the entire 24 hr casting time so Aspect of the Wolf needs to be extended to longer than 24 hrs.

Alternatively, instead of extending the Aspect of the Wolf to longer than 24 hours... you could be a Druid/Spellsword with a penchant for cutting himself and get the Awaken off in one round?     

Don't know if channeling works on a natural weapon, may need to hold a knife in your mouth to do the job.

[Dictum Mortuum]

I was searching popular low level druid spells for the best druid build thread I recently started and stumbled on Aspect of the Wolf and the fact that it makes you animal, too. Did you draw your inspiration from that?