DragoonWraith
2009-10-27, 06:00 AM
Living Spell is a Template from the Eberron Campaign Setting as well as the Monster Manual 3. It may be applied to any spell to turn the spell into a mindless Ooze creature. There is an Awaken Ooze spell (I'm told) in Dragon #304, but I do not have that (or any other) issue of Dragon Magazine, so I don't know the text of that spell. More importantly, the Living Spell template, even when the Mindless state is removed via Awaken, does not work particularly well as a player character.
This is, therefore, an attempt to create a Living Spell race, which could be used by PCs. To do so, I'm going to treat this similarly to the way Warforged tones down the Construct template to avoid adding too many abilities to the race.
Awakened Living Spell
An Awakened Living Spell is a living, sentient incarnation of any spell that affects an area. While it is unclear exactly how Living Spells come about, the Awaken Living Spell spell is not a secret, and appears on the Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard spell lists as an 8th level spell. The spell effectively converts a spell that has the Living Spell Template into a creature of the Awakened Living Spell race.
Awakened Living Spell is not, mechanically, a template applied to a Living Spell, so unless specifically mentioned here, an Awakened Living Spell does not have those features found in a regular Living Spell. However, since they are created from Living Spells, the usual restrictions on which spells may be used apply.
Racial Features
An Awakened Living Spell's racial features depend largely on what particular spell the creature is. The spell level influences a lot of the stats for the creature, and the spell list that the spell is taken from is also quite significant.
Size, Hit Dice, and Type:
Size: An Awakened Living Spell's size depends on its original Caster Level (usually, but not necessarily, the minimum Caster Level for a spell of its level). This is just the Caster Level that the spell was originally cast at, and does not imply anything about the Spell's own spellcasting ability, if it has one:
Medium for Caster Level 1st through 6th
Large for Caster Level 7th through 12th
Huge for Caster Level 13th or higher.
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Hit Dice: An Awakened Living Spell has Ooze hit dice (1d10 HD, ¾ BAB, 2+Int skills, and no good saves) equal to its original Caster Level (the one determining its size).
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Type: Ooze (Centralized). Unlike normal Oozes, the magic maintaining the Awakened Living Spell's identity and personality gives it a somewhat more discernible anatomy. In particular, a core of Arcane or Divine power runs through the creature, functioning similarly to the nervous and circulatory systems of normal creatures. This is necessary to allow the Awakened Living Spell to function, but comes at the cost of many of the features of a usual Ooze creature. It also provides the Awakened Living Spell with limbs and something resembling a face, which is at the front of their Core.
Limbs: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells have two arms and two legs. Though the particular shape of an Awakened Living Spell may vary dramatically, the general idea would be a central portion, perhaps roughly spherical, with a 'face', which may not look anything like a face but does make it apparent which direction they are looking, for example, with the four limbs sprouting directly from this Core. This allows them to wield weapons and wear armor. Druid spells share the Druid's prohibition on metal items.
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Intelligent: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells are not Mindless, and are therefore susceptible to Mind-Affecting effects.
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Sensory Perception: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells do not have Blindsight. Instead, they gain sensory information by feeling light and sound with the "face", with an effect similar to the Synesthete Psionic Power. This makes Awakened Living Spells immune to effects that attempt to blind the eyes or deafen the ears specifically, or attempt to overload visual or aural sensors (e.g. Glitterdust, Sonic deafening effects, etc.), but they can be made blind and deaf by covering their face, with the normal effects of blindness and deafness. They are not immune to gaze effects, but if the effect offers a chance to save against it, the Awakened Living Spell gains a +4 bonus on the save, since the gaze cannot be focused specifically on their eyes.
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Awakened Living Spells take 50% longer to don armor or put on clothes, because they must magically attune their clothes so that they can see with the armor or clothes that cover their face.
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This is an (Su) ability (but see below for information on how they interact with effects that diminish, damage, or suppress magic).
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Immunities: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells are not immune to Paralysis or Stunning effects. They are immune to Poison, Sleep, and Polymorph, like most Oozes, and additionally immune to non-magical Disease, Nausea, Fatigue, Exhaustion, and effects that cause the Sickened condition. Magical or supernatural sources of these effects may affect them as usual.
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Critical Hits: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells are susceptible to critical hits and flanking. They do have a discernable (if exotic and somewhat simple) anatomy, which is roughly humanoid in form, and those skilled or lucky enough to hit a weak spot can do additional damage.
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Anyone used to picking out opponents' weak points will recognize the Awakened Living Spell's 'face' and Core for what they are, and can attack them. Branches of "Core material" are also found inside of the creature's limbs, which means effects like attempts to, for example, hamstring the Awakened Living Spell can achieve the normal effect (although what actually happens internally is quite a bit different, since it is more of a disruption to the Spell's ability to control its limbs, rather than physical damage to the body part).
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Eating, Drinking, Sleeping, and Breathing: Like most Oozes, Awakened Living Spells do not need to sleep (though general rest is necessary to regain spells and similar abilities), but can usually passively absorb enough ambient magical energy from most places to replace the needs to eat or breathe.
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Additional Subtypes: Awakened Living Spells also gain an alignment or elemental subtype if the spell in question had the matching descriptor.
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Abilities:
-2 Dexterity
Arcane Awakened Living Spells, as well as Awakened Living Archivist Spells, take a -2 racial penalty to Wisdom. The Spells of Archivists, Beguilers, Wizards, Wu Jens, and other Intelligence based spellcasters gain an Intelligence bonus equal to four times the original spell level (0th level spells are treated as ½ for this calculation). The Spells of Bards, Dread Necromancers, Sorcerers, Warmages, and the like gain the same bonus to Charisma.
Divine Awakened Living Spells take a -2 racial penalty to Intelligence, unless it is an Archivist spell. They also gain a bonus to their Wisdom equal to four times their original spell level (0th level spells being treated as ½ for this calculation).
No Awakened Living Spell should be taking a -2 penalty to the ability modifiers that set its caster's spell DCs or determines its caster's Bonus Spells. If a class uses Wisdom to determine its spells' strength, then the penalty should be to Intelligence, and if the class uses Charisma or Intelligence to determine its spells' strength, then the penalty should be to Wisdom. If the class uses both Intelligence and Wisdom, then, and only then, should the penalty be applied to Charisma. Under no circumstances is this penalty applied to any physical stats (though all Awakened Living Spells take a -2 to Dexterity, regardless).
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The above rules supercede the general rules, where the Archivist is used as an example of an exception. To my knowledge, the Archivist is currently the only published exception, but homebrew or simply books I'm not familiar with may change that.
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Move Speed: 30'
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Armor Class: An Awakened Living Spell has a Deflection bonus to AC equal to its original Spell Level.
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Saving Throws: An Awakened Living Spell has a racial bonus on all saves equal to its original Spell level.
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Damage Reduction X/magic, where X is the spell's original level.
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Spell Resistance 10 + the original Spell Level.
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Spell Effect: An Awakened Living Spell may, once per round, cast itself on any target that it hits with a melee attack, is grappling, or succeeds on a Standard action touch against. A willing target may be touched as a Swift action, or as part of a Move action which takes the Awakened Living Spell past the target. The target is treated as if it was within the area effect of the spell. This only affects the target, even if it is sharing its square with other creatures.
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The Caster Level of this spell is equal to its total hit dice, the Level of the spell is treated as the highest that its original caster could cast at its Caster Level (so an Awakened Living Wizard Spell with 7 total HD would have a Caster Level of 7 and would count as a 4th level spell for the sake of its DC).
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In general, the spell is cast as if cast by its original caster, but with the abilities and general statistics of the Awakened Living Spell and the total number of levels in the original casting class equal to the Awakened Living Spell's HD. Thus, a Cleric or Druid Spell would add its Wisdom modifier, a Wizard Spell would add its Intelligence modifier, and a Sorcerer spell would add its Charisma modifier.
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Magical Body: Because they are made from magic, Dispel Magic, Globe of Invulnerability, Anti-Magic Fields, Dead Magic Zones, and similar effects pose a unique threat to Awakened Living Spells:
Dispel Magic: If an Awakened Living Spell is targeted by Dispel Magic (either specifically, or with the area effect version where it is itself the highest level effect running on its person), roll the Dispel Check against the Caster Level of the spell itself. If it fails this check, the Awakened Living Spell takes Xd6 damage, where X is the difference between the two checks, and they also lose an amount of Damage Reduction and Spell Resistance equal to this value for a number of rounds equal to this value. A successful Will save halves these effects as well as the duration.
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Globe of Invulnerability: To pass through a Globe of Invulnerability or similar effect, an Awakened Living Spell must have a Caster Level greater than the minimum Caster Level of the lowest level spell that could pass through the Globe, as cast by a Cleric or Wizard. Note that in the case of Sorcerer spells or especially in the case of Bard spells and other half-caster spells, this may be a higher Spell Level than the Spell Level used to determine its own DC.
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Alternatively, a successful Will save (DC determined as usual for a spell of the Globe's level cast by the Globe's caster) allows the Awakened Living Spell to pass through, but it takes a -2 penalty on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and skill and ability checks while within the Globe (this penalty does not apply to the original check to enter the Globe in the first place). The Awakened Living Spell does not need a Will save to pass back out of a Globe that it has successfully forced its way into in this fashion.
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Anti-Magic Field: In an Anti-Magic Field, an Awakened Living Spell must make a Will save against the spell, or be suppressed. The Spell is not destroyed or dead, but it does temporarily cease to function, disappearing physically and not itself being aware of anything that goes on during the time in which it is suppressed. The Spell is not physically present, but nonetheless does remain where it was; Scrying on it would show an image of the place where the Spell was before being suppressed. The Spell must make this check each minute it spends in the field, whether it has failed or succeeded - a suppressed Spell that makes a subsequent save is no longer suppressed, and a Spell that had made its save originally can fail its save later and become suppressed.
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A successful save preserves the Spell's Synesthesis, so it does not lose the ability to sense its surroundings (unless suppressed, at which point it is not even aware of the passage of time, much less external stimuli), but it does not preserve the magical attunement with its armor or clothing unless it makes the save by 5 or more - an Awakened Living Spell can be effectively blinded by its clothing or armor while in an Anti-Magic Field. No matter how it does on its save, it cannot cast itself while within the field.
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Dead Magic Zones: In a Dead Magic Zone, an Awakened Living Spell takes 1d4 lethal damage every round, no save. It also takes a -4 penalty on all attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and skill and ability checks, as it takes everything the Spell has just to stay together. Its Synesthesis is eliminated by the zone, and so it is also deaf and blind (the effect returns once the Spell gets out of the Dead Magic Zone).
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Alignment: Usually Neutral, unless the spell in question has an alignment descriptor (in which case it usually is the Neutral version of that alignment).
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Automatic Languages: Druid Spells gain Fey and Druidic and Arcane spells gain Draconic. Non-Druid Divine Spells use languages associated with their subtypes gained from the original spell's descriptors:
Divine Spells of the Good subtype speak Celestial.
Divine Spells of the Evil subtype speak Infernal or Abyssal.
Divine Spells of the Lawful subtype speak Celestial or Infernal.
Divine Spells of the Chaotic subtype speak Celestial or Abyssal.
Divine Spells with two alignment subtypes always speak only the single overlapping language, so a spell can never have its opposing subtype's language as an automatic language.
Divine Spells of the Fire subtype speak Ignan.
Divine Spells of the Cold subtype speak Aquan.
Divine Spells of the Air subtype speak Auran.
Divine Spells of the Earth subtype speak Terran.
Divine Spells lacking any alignment or elemental subtypes speak Fey.
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Bonus Languages: None. An Awakened Living Spell is imbued with knowledge of the language of the spell itself, and it must learn any other ability to communicate by investing in the Speak Languages skill.
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Favored Class: The class that originally cast the spell. A multiclass Awakened Living Spell's levels in this class do not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.
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Level Adjustment: +X, where X is its original Spell Level.
Anyway, I'm really not sure about the balance of this thing. It's got a ton of drawbacks, but I don't know what those immunities and the like are worth. Plus there's the ability to cast the spell itself every turn; dunno what to say about that... So yeah, definitely want feedback.
This is, therefore, an attempt to create a Living Spell race, which could be used by PCs. To do so, I'm going to treat this similarly to the way Warforged tones down the Construct template to avoid adding too many abilities to the race.
Awakened Living Spell
An Awakened Living Spell is a living, sentient incarnation of any spell that affects an area. While it is unclear exactly how Living Spells come about, the Awaken Living Spell spell is not a secret, and appears on the Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard spell lists as an 8th level spell. The spell effectively converts a spell that has the Living Spell Template into a creature of the Awakened Living Spell race.
Awakened Living Spell is not, mechanically, a template applied to a Living Spell, so unless specifically mentioned here, an Awakened Living Spell does not have those features found in a regular Living Spell. However, since they are created from Living Spells, the usual restrictions on which spells may be used apply.
Racial Features
An Awakened Living Spell's racial features depend largely on what particular spell the creature is. The spell level influences a lot of the stats for the creature, and the spell list that the spell is taken from is also quite significant.
Size, Hit Dice, and Type:
Size: An Awakened Living Spell's size depends on its original Caster Level (usually, but not necessarily, the minimum Caster Level for a spell of its level). This is just the Caster Level that the spell was originally cast at, and does not imply anything about the Spell's own spellcasting ability, if it has one:
Medium for Caster Level 1st through 6th
Large for Caster Level 7th through 12th
Huge for Caster Level 13th or higher.
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Hit Dice: An Awakened Living Spell has Ooze hit dice (1d10 HD, ¾ BAB, 2+Int skills, and no good saves) equal to its original Caster Level (the one determining its size).
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Type: Ooze (Centralized). Unlike normal Oozes, the magic maintaining the Awakened Living Spell's identity and personality gives it a somewhat more discernible anatomy. In particular, a core of Arcane or Divine power runs through the creature, functioning similarly to the nervous and circulatory systems of normal creatures. This is necessary to allow the Awakened Living Spell to function, but comes at the cost of many of the features of a usual Ooze creature. It also provides the Awakened Living Spell with limbs and something resembling a face, which is at the front of their Core.
Limbs: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells have two arms and two legs. Though the particular shape of an Awakened Living Spell may vary dramatically, the general idea would be a central portion, perhaps roughly spherical, with a 'face', which may not look anything like a face but does make it apparent which direction they are looking, for example, with the four limbs sprouting directly from this Core. This allows them to wield weapons and wear armor. Druid spells share the Druid's prohibition on metal items.
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Intelligent: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells are not Mindless, and are therefore susceptible to Mind-Affecting effects.
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Sensory Perception: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells do not have Blindsight. Instead, they gain sensory information by feeling light and sound with the "face", with an effect similar to the Synesthete Psionic Power. This makes Awakened Living Spells immune to effects that attempt to blind the eyes or deafen the ears specifically, or attempt to overload visual or aural sensors (e.g. Glitterdust, Sonic deafening effects, etc.), but they can be made blind and deaf by covering their face, with the normal effects of blindness and deafness. They are not immune to gaze effects, but if the effect offers a chance to save against it, the Awakened Living Spell gains a +4 bonus on the save, since the gaze cannot be focused specifically on their eyes.
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Awakened Living Spells take 50% longer to don armor or put on clothes, because they must magically attune their clothes so that they can see with the armor or clothes that cover their face.
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This is an (Su) ability (but see below for information on how they interact with effects that diminish, damage, or suppress magic).
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Immunities: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells are not immune to Paralysis or Stunning effects. They are immune to Poison, Sleep, and Polymorph, like most Oozes, and additionally immune to non-magical Disease, Nausea, Fatigue, Exhaustion, and effects that cause the Sickened condition. Magical or supernatural sources of these effects may affect them as usual.
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Critical Hits: Unlike normal Oozes, Awakened Living Spells are susceptible to critical hits and flanking. They do have a discernable (if exotic and somewhat simple) anatomy, which is roughly humanoid in form, and those skilled or lucky enough to hit a weak spot can do additional damage.
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Anyone used to picking out opponents' weak points will recognize the Awakened Living Spell's 'face' and Core for what they are, and can attack them. Branches of "Core material" are also found inside of the creature's limbs, which means effects like attempts to, for example, hamstring the Awakened Living Spell can achieve the normal effect (although what actually happens internally is quite a bit different, since it is more of a disruption to the Spell's ability to control its limbs, rather than physical damage to the body part).
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Eating, Drinking, Sleeping, and Breathing: Like most Oozes, Awakened Living Spells do not need to sleep (though general rest is necessary to regain spells and similar abilities), but can usually passively absorb enough ambient magical energy from most places to replace the needs to eat or breathe.
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Additional Subtypes: Awakened Living Spells also gain an alignment or elemental subtype if the spell in question had the matching descriptor.
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Abilities:
-2 Dexterity
Arcane Awakened Living Spells, as well as Awakened Living Archivist Spells, take a -2 racial penalty to Wisdom. The Spells of Archivists, Beguilers, Wizards, Wu Jens, and other Intelligence based spellcasters gain an Intelligence bonus equal to four times the original spell level (0th level spells are treated as ½ for this calculation). The Spells of Bards, Dread Necromancers, Sorcerers, Warmages, and the like gain the same bonus to Charisma.
Divine Awakened Living Spells take a -2 racial penalty to Intelligence, unless it is an Archivist spell. They also gain a bonus to their Wisdom equal to four times their original spell level (0th level spells being treated as ½ for this calculation).
No Awakened Living Spell should be taking a -2 penalty to the ability modifiers that set its caster's spell DCs or determines its caster's Bonus Spells. If a class uses Wisdom to determine its spells' strength, then the penalty should be to Intelligence, and if the class uses Charisma or Intelligence to determine its spells' strength, then the penalty should be to Wisdom. If the class uses both Intelligence and Wisdom, then, and only then, should the penalty be applied to Charisma. Under no circumstances is this penalty applied to any physical stats (though all Awakened Living Spells take a -2 to Dexterity, regardless).
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The above rules supercede the general rules, where the Archivist is used as an example of an exception. To my knowledge, the Archivist is currently the only published exception, but homebrew or simply books I'm not familiar with may change that.
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Move Speed: 30'
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Armor Class: An Awakened Living Spell has a Deflection bonus to AC equal to its original Spell Level.
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Saving Throws: An Awakened Living Spell has a racial bonus on all saves equal to its original Spell level.
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Damage Reduction X/magic, where X is the spell's original level.
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Spell Resistance 10 + the original Spell Level.
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Spell Effect: An Awakened Living Spell may, once per round, cast itself on any target that it hits with a melee attack, is grappling, or succeeds on a Standard action touch against. A willing target may be touched as a Swift action, or as part of a Move action which takes the Awakened Living Spell past the target. The target is treated as if it was within the area effect of the spell. This only affects the target, even if it is sharing its square with other creatures.
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The Caster Level of this spell is equal to its total hit dice, the Level of the spell is treated as the highest that its original caster could cast at its Caster Level (so an Awakened Living Wizard Spell with 7 total HD would have a Caster Level of 7 and would count as a 4th level spell for the sake of its DC).
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In general, the spell is cast as if cast by its original caster, but with the abilities and general statistics of the Awakened Living Spell and the total number of levels in the original casting class equal to the Awakened Living Spell's HD. Thus, a Cleric or Druid Spell would add its Wisdom modifier, a Wizard Spell would add its Intelligence modifier, and a Sorcerer spell would add its Charisma modifier.
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Magical Body: Because they are made from magic, Dispel Magic, Globe of Invulnerability, Anti-Magic Fields, Dead Magic Zones, and similar effects pose a unique threat to Awakened Living Spells:
Dispel Magic: If an Awakened Living Spell is targeted by Dispel Magic (either specifically, or with the area effect version where it is itself the highest level effect running on its person), roll the Dispel Check against the Caster Level of the spell itself. If it fails this check, the Awakened Living Spell takes Xd6 damage, where X is the difference between the two checks, and they also lose an amount of Damage Reduction and Spell Resistance equal to this value for a number of rounds equal to this value. A successful Will save halves these effects as well as the duration.
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Globe of Invulnerability: To pass through a Globe of Invulnerability or similar effect, an Awakened Living Spell must have a Caster Level greater than the minimum Caster Level of the lowest level spell that could pass through the Globe, as cast by a Cleric or Wizard. Note that in the case of Sorcerer spells or especially in the case of Bard spells and other half-caster spells, this may be a higher Spell Level than the Spell Level used to determine its own DC.
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Alternatively, a successful Will save (DC determined as usual for a spell of the Globe's level cast by the Globe's caster) allows the Awakened Living Spell to pass through, but it takes a -2 penalty on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and skill and ability checks while within the Globe (this penalty does not apply to the original check to enter the Globe in the first place). The Awakened Living Spell does not need a Will save to pass back out of a Globe that it has successfully forced its way into in this fashion.
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Anti-Magic Field: In an Anti-Magic Field, an Awakened Living Spell must make a Will save against the spell, or be suppressed. The Spell is not destroyed or dead, but it does temporarily cease to function, disappearing physically and not itself being aware of anything that goes on during the time in which it is suppressed. The Spell is not physically present, but nonetheless does remain where it was; Scrying on it would show an image of the place where the Spell was before being suppressed. The Spell must make this check each minute it spends in the field, whether it has failed or succeeded - a suppressed Spell that makes a subsequent save is no longer suppressed, and a Spell that had made its save originally can fail its save later and become suppressed.
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A successful save preserves the Spell's Synesthesis, so it does not lose the ability to sense its surroundings (unless suppressed, at which point it is not even aware of the passage of time, much less external stimuli), but it does not preserve the magical attunement with its armor or clothing unless it makes the save by 5 or more - an Awakened Living Spell can be effectively blinded by its clothing or armor while in an Anti-Magic Field. No matter how it does on its save, it cannot cast itself while within the field.
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Dead Magic Zones: In a Dead Magic Zone, an Awakened Living Spell takes 1d4 lethal damage every round, no save. It also takes a -4 penalty on all attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and skill and ability checks, as it takes everything the Spell has just to stay together. Its Synesthesis is eliminated by the zone, and so it is also deaf and blind (the effect returns once the Spell gets out of the Dead Magic Zone).
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Alignment: Usually Neutral, unless the spell in question has an alignment descriptor (in which case it usually is the Neutral version of that alignment).
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Automatic Languages: Druid Spells gain Fey and Druidic and Arcane spells gain Draconic. Non-Druid Divine Spells use languages associated with their subtypes gained from the original spell's descriptors:
Divine Spells of the Good subtype speak Celestial.
Divine Spells of the Evil subtype speak Infernal or Abyssal.
Divine Spells of the Lawful subtype speak Celestial or Infernal.
Divine Spells of the Chaotic subtype speak Celestial or Abyssal.
Divine Spells with two alignment subtypes always speak only the single overlapping language, so a spell can never have its opposing subtype's language as an automatic language.
Divine Spells of the Fire subtype speak Ignan.
Divine Spells of the Cold subtype speak Aquan.
Divine Spells of the Air subtype speak Auran.
Divine Spells of the Earth subtype speak Terran.
Divine Spells lacking any alignment or elemental subtypes speak Fey.
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Bonus Languages: None. An Awakened Living Spell is imbued with knowledge of the language of the spell itself, and it must learn any other ability to communicate by investing in the Speak Languages skill.
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Favored Class: The class that originally cast the spell. A multiclass Awakened Living Spell's levels in this class do not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.
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Level Adjustment: +X, where X is its original Spell Level.
Anyway, I'm really not sure about the balance of this thing. It's got a ton of drawbacks, but I don't know what those immunities and the like are worth. Plus there's the ability to cast the spell itself every turn; dunno what to say about that... So yeah, definitely want feedback.