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Chrizzt
2010-07-04, 04:52 PM
Hello Folks!

I have been thinking about creating a not overly optimized necromancer specialist wizard and using the Skeletal Minion Variant from Unearted Arcana as a Familiar Substitution.

However, I intend taking the Master Specialist PrC at Level 4, so if my reading is correct, my Skeletal Minion will only achieve 3 HD and stay at 3 HD.

Is there any way to give the Skeletal Minion HD Progression, that is not tied to your Wizard Class Level but to your character level?

The only way I can think of is trading the familiar ability away for something else and then taking the "obtain familiar" feat from uh.. complete arcane (I think). Instead of obtaining the familiar you could take the Skeletal Minion, which is then not tied to your class level anymore.

But perhaps anyone out there know's of another way which does not necessarily include burning a feat?

Thank you all in Advance!

Khellendross
2010-07-04, 04:55 PM
I would look for a class variant that gives you something in replace for the familiar and then when you become third level take the obtain familiar feat so you get one that levels up with you no matter what class you take. Then you can multiclass and take prestige classes and it will continue to advance.

Devils_Blind
2010-07-04, 11:03 PM
I would look for a class variant that gives you something in replace for the familiar and then when you become third level take the obtain familiar feat so you get one that levels up with you no matter what class you take. Then you can multiclass and take prestige classes and it will continue to advance.

He's already replacing his familiar with a class variant. I don't believe you can replace the effects of a feat with an ACF.

Hague
2010-07-04, 11:23 PM
Sure he can. Since a familiar itself is described as a class feature for Sorcerers, it most certainly can be modified to work with an alternate class feature.

Coidzor
2010-07-04, 11:25 PM
Well, pretty much it's all up to DM adjudication anyway, I personally find it a reasonable thing, but, eh.

Jergmo
2010-07-04, 11:32 PM
Well, you can see if your DM will allow PRC caster levels to progress Familiars. I have in my campaign, and I have a player using a Skeletal Minion. It hasn't caused any problems for me.

Although, a question occurs regarding skeletal minions...it seems to me that there's a rather easy way to exploit it to death.

1.) Take skeletal minion, giving up your ability to summon a familiar.
2.) Take the Obtain Familiar feat.
3.) Take skeletal minion, giving up your ability to summon a familiar...
4.) Etc...

Could you actually do this? :smalleek:

Coidzor
2010-07-04, 11:37 PM
Although, a question occurs regarding skeletal minions...it seems to me that there's a rather easy way to exploit it to death.

1.) Take skeletal minion, giving up your ability to summon a familiar.
2.) Take the Obtain Familiar feat.
3.) Take skeletal minion, giving up your ability to summon a familiar...
4.) Etc...

Could you actually do this? :smalleek:

Pretty sure you can only take the feat once.

Marriclay
2010-07-04, 11:39 PM
Pretty sure you can only take the feat once.
True but technically, you'd be getting two skeletal minions. It's a level of cheese and (questionable) rules lawyering that I don't think most DMs would allow

Coidzor
2010-07-04, 11:49 PM
True but technically, you'd be getting two skeletal minions. It's a level of cheese and (questionable) rules lawyering that I don't think most DMs would allow

Not sure how cheesy it is, considering the first one precludes PrCs if one wants it pumped, and I'm not 100% recalling how useful they are anyway. As it stands, sure, I'd agree with limiting them to only a single skeletal minion. I just said that an infinite loop wouldn't work anyway.

And you do give up a lot of the fun tricks one can do with familiars.

Certainly it means any people who'd be melee can feel free to do something interesting with it, or something else, since the casters would have their wall of bones...

On the other hand, it seems like you could awaken undead the skeletal minions, thus allowing them to do some leadership-esque shenanigans.

Marriclay
2010-07-05, 12:06 AM
On the other hand, it seems like you could awaken undead the skeletal minions, thus allowing them to do some leadership-esque shenanigans.

there it is. The cheese I was talking about. And with two of them, it gets kookie, on top of the fact that you can still get leadership (And bear in mind, that these minions are not familiars, and thus don't incur the leadership penalty) and that's if the skeletons themselves don't take leadership.

SethFahad
2010-07-05, 12:06 AM
A comment and a question:

Comment: If you want undead minion/follower, take a look at Death Master from Dragon Magazine. IIRC lets you have a Zombie Wyvern.

Question: What happens to the (UA) skeletal minion if you take the Fleshwarper PrC which grants you the Aberrant familiar feature?

Aberrant Familiar (Su): Your familiar (if you have one) becomes tainted by your magic. The familiar’s type changes to aberration, it gains darkvision out to 60 feet, and its form becomes warped. Your aberrant familiar gains one of the abilities described below, as chosen by you. At every third level you gain above 1st, your aberrant familiar gains another ability
from those described below. You can’t choose the same ability twice.
If your familiar is killed and you obtain a new one, you can choose new aberrant abilities for your new familiar based on your current fleshwarper level.
Your aberrant familiar grants you a +2 bonus on all saving throws against mind-affecting spells and abilities as long as the familiar is within arm’s reach.
Your fleshwarper class levels stack with all other class levels used to determine the familiar’s other attributes (see page 53 of the Player’s Handbook).
The abilities your aberrant familiar can have are as follows:
Amorphous Form: A familiar with this ability is immune to extra damage from critical hits and sneak attacks.
Scales: The familiar’s natural armor bonus improves by 4.
The familiar gains a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves.
Size Increase: The familiar’s size becomes larger by one category.
Consult the Monster Manual for the effects of this size increase on the familiar’s ability scores and other statistics.
Tentacle: The familiar gains a tentacle attack with a reach of 5 feet. The attack deals 1 point of damage (assuming Tiny size).
It cannot combine this attack with its other natural attacks.
Wings: The familiar can fl y at a speed of 40 feet with good maneuverability. (If the familiar already has a fl y speed, use whichever speed is higher and whichever maneuverability is better.) The familiar gains a +2 bonus on Refl ex saves.

Does this feature "work" with an undead minion??? I wish it does... take scales...size increase...and you have a giant skeleton guardian!!!

Gametime
2010-07-05, 12:11 AM
there it is. The cheese I was talking about. And with two of them, it gets kookie, on top of the fact that you can still get leadership (And bear in mind, that these minions are not familiars, and thus don't incur the leadership penalty) and that's if the skeletons themselves don't take leadership.

That's hardly the easiest way to abuse Leadership, though. That gouda smell isn't coming from the minions, it's coming from Leadership. (The minions mostly smell like bones, with a faint whiff of raspberry.)

Jergmo
2010-07-05, 12:19 AM
That's hardly the easiest way to abuse Leadership, though. That gouda smell isn't coming from the minions, it's coming from Leadership. (The minions mostly smell like bones, with a faint whiff of raspberry.)

How about a Thrallherd with a Thrallherd thrall and Leadership for a Thrallherd cohort...and so on and so forth? :smallwink:

Coidzor
2010-07-05, 12:20 AM
^: IIRC, thralls have some limitation that would preclude that included into their construction.


there it is. The cheese I was talking about. And with two of them, it gets kookie, on top of the fact that you can still get leadership (And bear in mind, that these minions are not familiars, and thus don't incur the leadership penalty) and that's if the skeletons themselves don't take leadership.

Hence why leadership is generally just banned or only allowed as a story award. You can't awaken them yourself until 7th level spells(6th if you have Deathbound, which I think is a domain, not sure on the source of it though, just looked online at this) (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/spells), which means you could pay to get them awakened a few levels before that if such casters are to be had.

Hague
2010-07-05, 12:33 AM
I actually use those Affilation rules in my games. Then I let the player's affiliation do things "off-camera." Then you can add the cohort into and out of the game because they're also doing things away from the PC but for the PC's affiliation at the same time. Then I give a discount for hirelings based on the kind of affiliation they are. Basically, instead of having a huge roster of different characters and levels you just give discounts for the use of certain hirelings. I'll let the player have his own armies if he wants, but that's a lot of book-keeping for me and I'm not about to up and give someone a small army for the same price as learning how to bash with a shield.

Douglas
2010-07-05, 12:42 AM
How about a Thrallherd with a Thrallherd thrall and Leadership for a Thrallherd cohort...and so on and so forth? :smallwink:
That still peters out after a certain number of steps, though. What you really need to abuse Leadership is a Leadership score high enough to get a 6th level follower - not cohort. Oh, and get it by level 6. Unlike cohorts, followers are not capped by your level. Then have your level 6 follower be a copy of your build, so he also has a level 6 follower... who has a level 6 follower, who has a level 6 follower, who has a level 6 follower...

Congrats on your infinite army. All of this assumes you're allowed to build your cohort and followers, but that goes for most Leadership cheese anyway.

Marriclay
2010-07-05, 12:42 AM
I actually use those Affilation rules in my games. Then I let the player's affiliation do things "off-camera." Then you can add the cohort into and out of the game because they're also doing things away from the PC but for the PC's affiliation at the same time. Then I give a discount for hirelings based on the kind of affiliation they are. Basically, instead of having a huge roster of different characters and levels you just give discounts for the use of certain hirelings. I'll let the player have his own armies if he wants, but that's a lot of book-keeping for me and I'm not about to up and give someone a small army for the same price as learning how to bash with a shield.

It's good that you do that - sure, these leadership followers are following the PC because of a feat, but they're still people with thoughts and feelings. The way I usually do it is following the advice for doing large battles present in the Miniatures Handbook. However, on the rare occasions when I'm the one with leadership, it's usually because my character is leading a small army of mercenaries that he's the leader of. For the most part, they go off and do their own thing while he's adventuring, or he tells them to hang back because it's too dangerous. Very fluffy, but very effective, and much less cheese. of course, every once in a while it is nice to have a volley of arrows mixed in with magic missiles centered on your opponents

Hague
2010-07-05, 01:41 AM
I noticed that I forgot to mention that I make Leadership give the character an affiliation then the player build's the affiliation themselves. I let the player know that they generally have to design the focus of the affiliation. By using the affiliation to set standards, it makes it so the player has to set guidelines for what is considered untoward behavior to preclude his loss of status for bad actions. For instance, if you take Leadership and build an affiliation based around cruel underground fighting rings, then having someone die occasionally is not really gonna affect your status in the affiliation but working with the law or betraying the ring's interests. It's easier to track the abstract concepts that an affiliation represents. Then the player's end up being able to indirectly compete with the Bad Guys'(tm) affiliation. Then instead of keeping lists of characters, I can just form out an army by spending money on various sets of hirelings.

Now, the money that the character spends on discounted hirelings is an abstraction to represent that the player is not hiring a simple lackey, but is instead paying to outfit an affiliation member to help them instead. The cohort represents the character's strongest link with the affiliation. If the player betrays the cohort or abuses them, then they suffer greatly in the affiliation.

Volthawk
2010-07-05, 01:44 AM
How about a Thrallherd with a Thrallherd thrall and Leadership for a Thrallherd cohort...and so on and so forth? :smallwink:

Leadership doesn't work with Thrallherd. You have one or the other.

Coidzor
2010-07-05, 02:24 AM
That still peters out after a certain number of steps, though. What you really need to abuse Leadership is a Leadership score high enough to get a 6th level follower - not cohort. Oh, and get it by level 6. Unlike cohorts, followers are not capped by your level. Then have your level 6 follower be a copy of your build, so he also has a level 6 follower... who has a level 6 follower, who has a level 6 follower, who has a level 6 follower...

Congrats on your infinite army. All of this assumes you're allowed to build your cohort and followers, but that goes for most Leadership cheese anyway.

...Now we know how the Persians got that group they called the Immortals.:smallamused: