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View Full Version : [3.5] The Poultrymaster - Instant army, just add chicken



Tohron
2009-01-29, 12:38 PM
Okay, so first, this isn't a fully fleshed out build, since I don't have any sourcebooks, and thus, am not sure how best to optimize this guy.

So here's the concept: an ordinary commoner notices how whenever he tries to retrieve something, he has an odd tendency to pull out a chicken instead. Being smarter than the average commoner, he is intrigued, and when he discovers his innate psionic talent, he sets out to master his abilities. He quickly learns to use his 'flaw' to his advantage, for with wide-area buffs at his disposal, he knows that he can rapidly turn the chickens he creates into a deadly force. Many have underestimated his potency - few have lived to tell the tale. Over his adventures, he gained as a companion a wizard seeking to master the art of augmenting other beings.

So, this guy, let's call him Bill, would be a Commoner 1/Psion 17+. He takes Chicken Infested, and later takes Leadership to get a cohort Wizard PrCing into War Weaver. To create his army, he draws pinches of powder from his spell component pouches as a free action, and about have the granules are chickens instead.

That done, he manifests Affinity Field, and his cohort uses his War Weaver ability to Alter Self a chicken into a good 5 HD Animal (suggestions?). The Affinity Field transfers the affect to all the chickens. They they both go to town with AoE buffs and single-target buffs of 3rd level or lower, and your cohort finishes by casting Suggestion to make them all attack whatever it is they need destroyed. Then they pull out the popcorn, sit back, and watch the action.

I could use some suggestions for good buff spells and feats for both the Psion and his cohort - it would also help to have the base stats for a chicken, which I can't seem to find. It would also be helpful if someone listed all of the War Weaver PrC abilities, and suggestions for Psion PrCs would also be useful.


Now, let's get making some Chicken Swarms of DOOM!

notagain111
2009-01-29, 01:18 PM
All i can think of is animal growth and the usual mass bull's strength, bear's endurance. who needs swarms when you have giant chickens? :P

The Glyphstone
2009-01-29, 01:32 PM
I think you mean War Weaver, not Warshaper -the former is a buffmeister, the latter is a shapechanging expert.

nargbop
2009-01-29, 10:05 PM
The real trouble is getting them chickens to attack your enemies. There is a spell that causes pandemonium (emanation that causes everyone who fails teh Will save to attack each other).

Tohron
2009-01-29, 10:57 PM
I think you mean War Weaver, not Warshaper -the former is a buffmeister, the latter is a shapechanging expert.

Yeah, guess I did mean that. Although, now that I think about it, it would probably be better to be a Psion with a War Weaver cohort, since Affinity Field would be incredibly powerful for this guy.

However, in order to really optimize him, I need the stats for an ordinary chicken. If they're not statted anywhere, that would be a serious problem (at least until you get affinity field and can have your cohort Alter Self them all simultaneously into a nastier animal that is statted)

Baron Malkar
2009-01-30, 05:20 AM
Commoner 1/ Wizard 21 Demilitch who kills then animates enough chicken zombies and skeletons to take over the world seems more appropriate for chicken swarms of doom.:smallamused:

EDIT:Small sized undead are even stated.

Keld Denar
2009-01-30, 12:49 PM
A better build would be Commoner1/Warlock6 Take Corpsecrafter(LM) and Destructive Retribution(LM) at some point. Take The Dead Walk as your Lesser Invocation. Now, whip up a mess of chickens. Kill them all in some way, and use The Dead Walk a couple times till you reach the maximum number of skeletal chickens you can control. This is free, as long as you don't make them permanant. Now, before the duration ends, sick your skeletal chickens on whatever it is that angers you. Army of chickens surrounds the baddy and if he tries to attack it, it BLOWS UP doing 1d6 negative energy damage. Now, you just do an Eldritch Chained EB at your chickens, and you could do a ton of damage, or have your friendly arcanist blaster drop a fireball on them. BOOM! + boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom

etc

Dyllan
2009-01-30, 12:56 PM
Hordes of explosive undead chickens?

I must play this character... but I'm not familiar with the flaw that creates chickens - what is that?

hamishspence
2009-01-30, 01:07 PM
Chicken Infested- Dragon Magzine 330- was part of the April jokey content.

I liked the Delicious flaw "someone cast divine flavor on you."

...Despicable..
2009-01-30, 02:40 PM
Anyone know if there is a way to control the chickens without needing to kill them and make them undead?

I have seen the chicken flaw mentioned quite a bit, but no one really gets into detail about how to control them in their build ideas.

Alleine
2009-01-30, 02:51 PM
Anyone know if there is a way to control the chickens without needing to kill them and make them undead?

If you find a way to boost your handle animal skill up high enough and reduce the amount of time it takes to use it, you could use the "push" option(DC 25) to make a chicken do stuff.
Alternatively, a wand of charm animal. But then it won't follow suicidal orders.

ericgrau
2009-01-30, 05:10 PM
You can simply train your chickens with handle animal. Assuming they have an int of 1, they can learn 3 tricks. I'd go with attack, down and heel. Directing them is a move action.

Olo Demonsbane
2009-01-30, 05:43 PM
Is the chicken flaw summoning? If so...

A) Get Augment Summoning. +4 to Strength and Constitution is nothing to laugh about.

B) Make a character that gets Fatal Flame as a SLA at will. Then give him the Imbued Summoning Feat. The character can grab and throw as many grains of sand as possible. Each turns into a chicken that, if you hit it, it does 1 point of damage to everything within 5 ft of it. Including other chickens. You can fit 4 chickens in one square, and so (see the diagram)
X X X
X O X (O is enemy, X is chicken squares)
X X X
You can get 36 chickens adjacent to the enemy, as Tiny creatures can fit in a medium sized creature's square. Then sit back and watch the fireworks. 36 points of damage if the enemy attacks a chicken. At 3rd level. Usable at will. No Save. It gets even better against extremely large people. A 10ft by 10ft creature takes 64 points of damage. You lose only one feat (and you must get FF as a spell-like ability) from your build.

hamishspence
2009-01-30, 05:48 PM
have the Big bad say "Your poultry powers are no match for me" :smallbiggrin:

Randel
2009-01-31, 12:35 AM
I once tried to play as a first level human cleric who's two feats were Fell Animate and Divine Metamagic (Fell Animate).

Fell Animate raises a creature killed by the spell as a zombie, just as if you had cast raise dead on its corpse. Except this way it costs no gp.

with a charisma mod of 3 it basically meant that once per day I could kill something with a spell and raise it as a zombie under my control. All I would need afterwards would be the Destruction Retribution feat to make them explosive and maybe some sort of area attack spell.

So, use the chicken infested flaw to get a big mass of chickens, stuff them all into a cage, blast them with a fell animate metamagiced spell, then you have an instant army of walking zombie bombs.

Get tomb-tainted soul (which lets you get healed by negative energy) and you can walk in the middle of a crowd of the zombie chickens. Any enemy trying to get close to you would have to wade through the mass of exploding undead... that heal you. If you really want to be crazy, you could strap exploding zombie chickens to your armor and if someone hits you there is a chance that it will set off a chicken that then heals you. Or strap a whole TON of chickens onto yourself, jump on a dragons back, have the wizard hit you with an area attack spell that kills all the chickens on you... and sets off a chain reaction that blows them all up dealing massive damage to the dragon while healing you with negative energy.

And since the chickens made via fell animate are free and permanent (though you can technically only have so many under your control at a time) you can just take a day off to make an army of them, only limited to how many times you can cast a fell animated area spell and how many chickens you can cram into the area! Make a whole mess of them and store them somewhere until you need them.

I had originally though of using sheep since they are relatively cheap to buy and heavier.

NeoVid
2009-01-31, 01:34 AM
Good low HD creature? Fleshraker Dinosaur from MM 3. Druids use em all the time, and if there's anyone you should ask for ways to make things overpowered, it's a druid.

And if you do go the undead route with this character, you'll have to have him be known as the Poultrygeist.

Teron
2009-01-31, 07:07 AM
Can a war weaver cast alter self on other creatures? I assume so, but if not, that's a problem. Another possible problem is that affinity field only transfers spells and powers used on the manifester. That means that the war weaver has to target the psion with alter self and presumably choose a humanoid form. I'm not sure whether the chickens could take the same form, or whether a different form could be chosen for them. I'd be inclined to say they wouldn't be affected at all, on the assumption that variable-effect spells transfered by affinity field have the same effect on all targets, and a form that's legal for the psion isn't for the chickens.