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DemonSlayer
2009-06-04, 10:21 AM
Hey guys,

Right now I'm working on a (very cheesy) epic spell named Ending, but I'm kinda stuck.

The plan is to have a spell that conjures three cubes of adamantine (cubes cause it's standard, adamantine cause it's, well, hard) with the conjure seed.

These three cubes are then brought to life with the life seed. Finally, I give them a spell-like ability to cast the Ending spell themselves.

So basically what you get is a spell which conjures three cubes, who then conjure nine extra cubes, who then conjure 27 cubes, who then conjure 81 cubes and so on, creating a Grey Goo effect.

But there's a few problems with this spell;

1) How the hell do the cubes know they should cast the spell? Should I use a Compel seed? Or can I just say the Life seed gives them a basic instinct to cast the spell ASAP?
2) The cubes can cast the Ending spell as a spell-like ability. Do they require a Charisma score of 20 (10+spell level) to cast this epic spell-like ability? As I understand it, you don't, but I wanted to make sure.
3) How can I get this castable? The casting DC is going to be high, even without the Compel seed and Fortify seed for charisma (166 at the very least). I can't burn xp or take backlash damage, since the cubes can't do so. And increasing the casting time would ruin the Grey Goo effect.

So, any thoughts? Or should I just forget the whole thing?

quick_comment
2009-06-04, 10:44 AM
That seems pretty creative!

I would say the life seed can give them the inborn desire to cast ending.

The bigger problem is the ad-hoc DC for giving an epic spell like ability to a creature. Since SLAs dont cost XP or anything, I wouldnt let you do it.

NecroRebel
2009-06-04, 10:59 AM
It's been done. The intent of the following was to actually animate the planet, but it still is a self-replicating Grey Goo (or rather, Adorable Fuzzball Goo) scenario.


You can skip the rules-bending for a Living Spell if you need, and just use Epic spell seeds entirely.
Let's see... self-replicating tribble.....

Need:
Life (making a living critter)
Fortify (to give it stats)
Conjour (to make it in the first place, and find the rules for giving it new abilities)

Life is DC 27, and is used as the base seed (so nothing goes away - it's Instant, after all). We don't need to add anything fancy here. Gives the critter 3d6 Int/Wis/Cha, which is enough for our purposes.
Conjoure is DC 21, but is listed as required to be made Permanent - but that's fine. Just need to remember this aspect after we're done with the rest. No need for any particular size, so no need to tack anything in. We're fine with them being made from normally nonliving matter - how do pebbles sound? Material doesn't much matter, though, so we'll go with the tribble theme and they'll be balls of fur.
We only need them to have 1 HD, so we need to Fortify them to 5 HP - so we're looking at a base 17 Fortify for 1 hp, +8 for an extra 4 HP to get it up to five.

So, before Permanency, we're looking at 27+21+25=73. Making that Permanent gives it a DC of 365.

But wait - we need to add that to the critter itself - so we mitigate it away to 0, such that the doubling of adding it onto the critter as an Ex ability doesn't cost any extra (thus, it's included in the critter's abilities). That's easy - as mentioned in other's posts, Ex abilities don't have Xp components, so if we tack on an XP cost to bring the ability to 0, it works. 365 would require 36,500 xp - which we can't do (cap of 20,000 xp), but we can run it up to the limit to get a -200, leaving 165 to worry about. Spell slots won't be available, and backlash kinda defeats the purpose, so we're left with time - 10 extra minues gives -20, and 145 to worry about. 73 extra days gives us the -146 we need to get it to 0. So with a "gestation period" of 73 days, each of these little balls of fluff can make a perfect copy of themselves. Oh, and having the statistics of constructs of their size, they don't need to eat, breath, or sleep. They just sit there and Concentrate on making more of themselves all day, every day. And they double every 73 days. Wonderful exponential growth, even though you won't see the world overrun in your lifetime (unless you're an Elan).

Mitigate the original however you like (it's only 365 - piece of cake) and drop a couple off in isolated areas, and given a bit of time, the world will be ovverrun with little balls of fluff, that are neither edible nor valuable.

Or little pebbles, or grains of sand, or whatever else you want them to be. Iron or gold technically works too, although they would be harvested and melted down...... hmm... that could be useful (if evil - they are intelligent, after all) flawlessly cut gems might be safe for a long time..... what's the reaction of the typical adventurerer running into a given number of small sapphires at the bottom of a dungeon somewhere?

DemonSlayer
2009-06-04, 11:12 AM
Thanks for the fast answer :smallsmile:!

Well, I read this in the Conjure seed description:


The Conjure seed can be used in conjunction with the life and fortify seeds for an epic spell that creates an entirely new creature, if made permanent. To give a creature spell-like abilities, apply other epic seeds to the epic spell that replicate the desired ability.
That would mean it wouldn't be an ad hoc cost; it's perfectly legal to give a created creature a spell-like ability like this.


Since SLAs dont cost XP or anything
They don't? Huh, didn't know that. Does that mean that even if I set the burn XP factor to, say, 19.700 (for a casting DC of 1), the cubes themselves wouldn't have to burn any XP? Cause that would pretty much solve the problem :smallsmile:!

Oh, I just looked it up, and you're right! Spell-like abilities don't burn any XP! Woohoo!

DemonSlayer
2009-06-04, 11:18 AM
Huh. The Adorable Fuzzball Goo is pretty cool. But the Ending spell makes it possible to let the cubes reproduce every round, instead of every 73 days- makes it go a little faster :smalltongue:...

DemonSlayer
2009-06-04, 11:38 AM
I just encountered another problem after reading the adorable fuzzball goo description... Apparently I need to add another fortification seed to the spell to bring the creature up to 1HD, which costs me another 25 in DC. Not a lot, but it brings the DC to 223. Even when burning 20.000 XP it still gives me a casting DC of 23, which is way too high for the cubes.

However; this isn't an epic spell, it's a spell-like ability that happens to do exactly the same thing as an epic spell. And spell-like abilities don't have casting DCs like epic spells have, right?

So basically they don't HAVE to make that roll, only the caster himself needs to roll 23 (which should be ridiculously easy for an epic level character)...

Am I right?

EDIT: the final spell DC would be 48, not 23... still manageable, right?

Eloel
2009-06-04, 11:59 AM
15 Int (18 base+2 from race+5 from levels+5 inherent+2 age+8 from item) + 24 ranks in Knowledge(Arcane) gives you 39 base. If you take 10, you get 49 , just enough, and without going into item-cheese either.
48 is managable, with items and different spells, people reach 100s...

DemonSlayer
2009-06-04, 12:16 PM
Thanks :smallsmile:! Ok then, if it's manageable, then the spell is pretty much done. Woohoo!

ENDING (Conjuration [Creation])
Spellcraft DC: 48
Components: V, S, XP
Range: 0 ft.
Duration: 24 hours
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 432.000 gp; 9 days; 17280 XP.
Seeds: conjure (DC 21), life (DC 27), fortify (DC 17), fortify (DC 17). Factors: Three additional cubes (+6 DC), +14 Will save (+28 DC), grant 1 HD (+8 DC), grant spell like ability (ending) (+99 DC). Mitigating factors: Burn 20.000 XP

This spell starts out completely harmless, creating three adamantine, living cubes. Each cube has 3d6 Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma, and a racial +14 bonus to Will saves. For each cube you need to make a will save (DC 11), otherwise that cube will not come to life.
Each cube has a spell-like ability which duplicates the effect of the Ending spell, but since it is a spell-like ability rather than the actual spell, using the spell-like ability burns no XP and requires no casting roll. Cubes still need to make a Will save (DC 11) for each cube they create. The spell-like ability is usable once per day, and the cube will use the ability as soon as it is created, creating three more cubes.
Cubes exist for only 24 hours, but that is more than enough to do their terrible world. In 24 hours, this spell will have easily covered the entire atmosphere of a planet in self-reproducing adamantine cubes. This would extinguish all life on a planet. Even then, per round more new cubes would be spawned than old cubes would vanish. Eventually this spell could extinguish all life in the universe.
XP cost: 20.000

MickJay
2009-06-04, 02:28 PM
Theoretically speaking, what would happen if a cube wasn't able to cast the spell (on account of already being completely surrounded by other cubes)? How quickly a new cube would use its ability (instanteously?) and how long does the "casting" take? What's the size of a single cube?

If the effect is instant, then in theory whole universe would be filled with cubes the moment the spell is cast by the wizard; if not, we could calculate the speed at which the mass of cubes would expand (the rate at which cubes would be disappearing after 24h would be negligible).

DemonSlayer
2009-06-04, 03:11 PM
Well, I figure new cubes would be cast on top of old ones, so there'd always be space. Otherwise it probably gets shunted a few feet? I dunno :smallfrown:.

I should specify size, thanks for pointing that out.

Cubes use their ability instantaneously, but the casting time is one minute. I'm not sure I should change this, though. It would be easy enough to make it instantaneous (it's a friggin' +28 DC to make it quickened!), but that would leave no room to fight the cubes off should I ever use it in a campaign... And I like the idea of players having a chance to actually stop the undoing of the universe ;)...

MickJay
2009-06-04, 03:38 PM
Well, for purpose of campaign, you can always change the stats a little (make them last for a week and change casting time to 10 minutes or something like that).

As for the new cubes being completely surrounded by each other, can they actually move by themselves? They could be "programmed" to move away from each other to "populate" world more efficiently. If not, then we'd need a formula for the maximum speed at which they would pile up on each other to see what would be the maximum distance between a cube that started its casting a minute ago and the nearest available space where new cubes could materialize.

As for getting rid of them, shifting them all to one of the layers of the Abyss (or creating one for them) would do the trick (what with each layer being infinite in size). Creating a new layer would probably be better, since dumping the cubes into an existing one could piss off its inhabitants :smalltongue:

DemonSlayer
2009-06-05, 06:19 AM
Ok, updated the spell:


ENDING (Conjuration [Creation])
Spellcraft DC: 50
Components: V, S, XP
Range: 5 ft.
Duration: 24 hours
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 450.000 gp; 9 days; 18000 XP.
Seeds: conjure (DC 21), life (DC 27), fortify (DC 17), fortify (DC 17)
Factors: Three additional cubes (+6 DC), +14 Will save (+28 DC), grant 1 HD (+8 DC), grant spell like ability (ending) (+99 DC), add 5ft. to range (ad hoc +2 DC). Mitigating factors: Burn 20.000 XP

This spell starts out completely harmless, creating three adamantine, living cubes, each 1 cubic ft. in size. Each cube has 3d6 Intelligence, Wisom and Charisma, and a racial +14 bonus to Will saves. The cubes have 5 hit points each, but have additional hit points for being adamantine. They have one HD. For each cube you need to make a will save (DC 11), otherwise that cube will not come to life.
Each cube has a spell-like ability which duplicates the effect of the Ending spell, but since it is a spell-like ability rather than the actual spell, using the spell-like ability burns no XP and requires no casting roll. Cubes still need to make a Will save (DC 11) for each cube they create. The spell-like ability is usable once per day, and the cube will use the ability as soon as it is created, creating three more cubes.
Cubes exist for only 24 hours, but that is more than enough to do their terrible world. In 24 hours, this spell will have easily covered the entire atmosphere of a planet in self-reproducing adamantine cubes. This would extinguish all life on a planet. Even then, per round more new cubes would be spawned than old cubes would vanish. Eventually this spell could extinguish all life in the universe.
XP cost: 20.000
Divine Focus: A small adamantine cube


Specified size and added some range to the spell. I gave it a 5 ft. range, which should be enough considering that the cubes are only one cubic ft. big.

Thanks for your input, guys! Still, I'm wondering; I could make the thing quickened for an increase of 56 in DC, which would probably mean the cubes would reproduce every round, instead of every 10 rounds. But is it worth it?

Another thing; I'm using the life seed, so I need a divine focus for the spell (I chose an adamantine cube for that purpose). But it says nowhere that the spell itself needs to be divine, so it doesn't have to be, right? Cause I kind of want this to be an arcane spell.

Yuki Akuma
2009-06-05, 06:53 AM
A divine focus is a holy symbol. It's an arcane focus which can be anything. You don't need to specify the divine focus in the spell description.

Coidzor
2009-06-05, 07:36 AM
Well change the world "universe" out for "plane" and you've got it more accurate.

Enough/quickly deployed walls of force could contain them to stop their spread, I believe, even if they weren't persisted to the point of outlasting the cubes unless the cubes conjuration can either bypass walls of force or be held until it can be released rather than fizzling due to not being able to be released through the surface of either the cube itself or another of the adamantium cubes.

I'd say describe the growth of the mass of cubes as each cube sprouts another cube from one of its open faces or the nearest open face of another cube in the same continuous mass of cubes, preferring to spread first in a manner parallel to the "ground" of the plane or otherwise described as "horizontal" if such an idea is discernible on the plane and then inevitably growing deeper as less "horizontal" faces become open compared to the number of cubes waiting to be 'birthed.' (This being so that it spreads out area wise first rather than basically risking becoming a tower, however improbable.... unless you just want a collapsed/collapsing pile of adamantium cubes to basically squish the world first by making it into a collosal ball pit.... Possibly actually physically destroying much of the world due to the impact of the cubes due to their weight and adamantium ignoring hardness...

Where does the DC 11 Will save to successfully bestow life come in? Is that the effect of the life seed or sommat?

DemonSlayer
2009-06-05, 10:24 AM
A divine focus is a holy symbol.
Oops. That's gonna be a problem, cause those cubes aren't spawning holy symbols... Do you think this will be a problem? Or should I change the life seed to an animate seed? The DC is 2 lower, but I'm unsure whether animated objects can use spell-like abilities (even if programmed to) :smallfrown:...


Where does the DC 11 Will save to successfully bestow life come in? Is that the effect of the life seed or sommat?
Yeah, that's in the life seed. You need to make a Will save (DC 10 + creature's HD) to succeed in bringing it to life. Of course if I could replace life seed by animate seed, then no will save would be required (which also means I don't have to use the fortify seed to bring the will save up to +10).

The wall of force idea could certainly work of the casters found out soon enough... in just 5 minutes there'd be more than 1000 cubes already in place. Try hedging that in :smallamused:.

I'll clarify how they spread out; to my, they'd spread out kind of randomly (though each cube would cast as close to itself as possible), since, well, they're cubes. Not much spatial awareness going on :smalltongue:.

MickJay
2009-06-05, 12:54 PM
Have you thought of any rules for killing (rather than containing) them? How much hp do they have, can they be sneak attacked, which spells affect them/which spells they're immune to? Can their ability to spawn new cubes be nullified?

Jack_Simth
2009-06-05, 05:07 PM
Huh. The Adorable Fuzzball Goo is pretty cool. But the Ending spell makes it possible to let the cubes reproduce every round, instead of every 73 days- makes it go a little faster :smalltongue:...
You also want it to destroy whatever it is that's already there - so you can use the Transform seed, instead, for the power - it's a new critter (CR ... whatever ... doesn't matter too much) that has the ability to Transform another arbitrary object into a copy of itself (complete with the ability to Transform other objects). It's actually a pretty straightforward use of the Transform seed. Plus that gives you the option of making it a Swift action (you don't need to mitigate the Transform ability to 0 prior to attaching it to the creature like you do with the Create ability). Make sure you go to the expense of making the transformation an Ex ability, and it can't be dispelled and won't go away in an AMF; as it is by default Permanent, you're set.

Yuki Akuma
2009-06-06, 12:00 PM
Oops. That's gonna be a problem, cause those cubes aren't spawning holy symbols... Do you think this will be a problem? Or should I change the life seed to an animate seed? The DC is 2 lower, but I'm unsure whether animated objects can use spell-like abilities (even if programmed to) :smallfrown:...

Spell-like abilities don't require components or focuses of any kind.

And animated objects can use spell-like abilities if they have them.

raptor1056
2009-06-06, 12:22 PM
This is awesome. Of course, it demands being cast in conjunction with a free action Epic Planeshift to somewhere not cubey. By the way, the material plane is limited, right?

Flickerdart
2009-06-06, 12:27 PM
This is awesome. Of course, it demands being cast in conjunction with a free action Epic Planeshift to somewhere not cubey. By the way, the material plane is limited, right?
All planes are infinite, I believe. Demiplanes are not, so you could mess up a wizard's sanctum.

For extra futility, cast in the Abyss.

Yuki Akuma
2009-06-06, 12:30 PM
All planes are infinite, I believe. Demiplanes are not, so you could mess up a wizard's sanctum.

For extra futility, cast in the Abyss.

Planets, however, are very much not infinite. Nor are crystal spheres... which should by all rights stop this spell dead in its tracks, because, well, they're impervious to just about everything.

Also it's possible to circumnavigate the Great Wheel without resorting to portals. So the planes are only infinite in a few directions I guess?

Eloel
2009-06-06, 12:47 PM
Why exactly do you need +14 Will on the cubes? You need DC11, which means you need +9 modifier (natural 1 is a fail either way, there's a 1/20 chance per cube that your pile doesn't quadruple every minute, but increases in a lesser percentage.)
That would reduce the DC by 10...

DemonSlayer
2009-06-07, 07:56 AM
Have you thought of any rules for killing (rather than containing) them? How much hp do they have, can they be sneak attacked, which spells affect them/which spells they're immune to? Can their ability to spawn new cubes be nullified?
That's something I'll need to clarif, too, then. I've already mentioned they have 5 hit points, plus additional hit points and hardness from being adamantine, but stuff like sneak attacks and spell vulnerability should be mentioned.


You also want it to destroy whatever it is that's already there - so you can use the Transform seed, instead
That would be a very cool spell in it's own right, but doesn't quie do the same thing. Theoretically, with the transform seed one could turn the entire planet into an adamantine ball. But the effect would never leave the planet, since "air" doesn't count as an object to be transformed. And even if it did, I think "vaccuum" wouldn't.


Spell-like abilities don't require components or focuses of any kind.
And animated objects can use spell-like abilities if they have them.
Ok, that's good to know. I'll change it to animate then.


Planets, however, are very much not infinite. Nor are crystal spheres... which should by all rights stop this spell dead in its tracks, because, well, they're impervious to just about everything.
Yup, that would be a problem, same as encountering a sun which would simply melt the cubes as they are formed. But I suppose that by the time they're numerous enough to reach other planters, there'll always be enough cubes to keep reprodrucing in different directions.


Why exactly do you need +14 Will on the cubes?
True, but life seed gives the cubes 3d6 Wisdom. Taking the worst scenario into account, that would give them a wisdom score of 3, meaning a -4 penalty to will saves. So I give em +14, not +10.

Eloel
2009-06-07, 08:02 AM
True, but life seed gives the cubes 3d6 Wisdom. Taking the worst scenario into account, that would give them a wisdom score of 3, meaning a -4 penalty to will saves. So I give em +14, not +10.
Give +13 then. With -4 penalty, and +13 base, you get +9. You fail at natural 1 either way, so that lets you get 11 most efficiently. Only 2 lower DC, but every bit counts.

DemonSlayer
2009-06-07, 08:16 AM
Ok, updated the spell:


ENDING (Conjuration [Creation])
Spellcraft DC: 10
Components: V, S, XP
Range: 5 ft.
Duration: 24 hours
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 90.000 gp; 2 days; 3600 XP.
Seeds: conjure (DC 21), animate (DC 25), fortify (DC 17). Factors: Three additional cubes (+6 DC), grant 1 HD (+8 DC), grant spell like ability (ending) (+79 DC), add 5ft. to range (ad hoc +2 DC). Mitigating factors: Burn 14.800 XP

This spell starts out completely harmless, creating three adamantine, animated cubes, each 1 cubic ft. in size. The cubes have 5 hit points each, but have additional hit points for being adamantine. They have one HD each.
Cubes have no sensen, and therefore always count as flanked. They are constructs and have construct traits.
Each cube has a spell-like ability which duplicates the effect of the Ending spell, but since it is a spell-like ability rather than the actual spell, using the spell-like ability burns no XP and requires no casting roll. The spell-like ability is usable once per day, and the cube will use the ability as soon as it is created, creating three more cubes. The cube's spellcasting can be dispelled, but other attacks will not stop the cube from casting. Since they are mindless, their concentration cannot be broken.
Cubes exist for only 24 hours, but that is more than enough to do their terrible world. In 24 hours, this spell will have easily covered the entire atmosphere of a planet in self-reproducing adamantine cubes. This would extinguish all life on a planet. Even then, per round more new cubes would be spawned than old cubes would vanish. Eventually this spell could extinguish all life on a single plane.
XP cost: 14.800


Ok, added stuff on fighting/resisting the cubes. I also used animate instead of life, so that I no longer need to boost their will save. Which saves me a LOT on DC. So now the spell is that much cheaper XP-wise, and that much easier DC-wise...

DemonSlayer
2009-06-07, 08:17 AM
Give +13 then. With -4 penalty, and +13 base, you get +9. You fail at natural 1 either way, so that lets you get 11 most efficiently. Only 2 lower DC, but every bit counts.
Very true. I forgot about the natural fail on a one, since we didn't use that rule in our gaming group (or only when it was funny).
But now that I use the animate seed instead of the life seed, they don't need a will save anymore :smalltongue:.