best ways to gain hp

[Tyndmyr]

What are the best generic ways to get hp? Specifically, by spells?

After all, a bonus 4 con for a reasonable duration is core, surely other fun ways exist.

I'm sort of idly considering how many hp you could theoretically slap on a lvl 20 char.

[Ernir]

Do temporary HP count? Those are usually easier to get.

Aside from those, you're probably just looking at juicing up your Con. Do you have a class/spell list to use in mind?

[Tyndmyr]

Wiz/sorc is prolly easiest to use. That said, I'm comfortable w item abuse to utilize spells from other lists.

[faceroll]

Giant size gets you +12 con at caster level 19 or something.
Vigor + Share Power + Share Pain + Psicrystal gets you oodles of temp HP.

[Bakkan]

Heart of Earth (spell, Complete Mage) gives you 2xCaster Level temporary HP for 1 hour/level.

[Claudius Maximus]

1. Get a bound, possibly mindraped Tome Archon.

2. Cast Extended Persistent Power Leech (BoVD), using your choice of metamagic reducers and range fixers. The Archon will use its restoration SLA to mitigate the ability damage.

3. Enjoy your +2880 enhancement bonus to constitution, which is at least 57400 HP.

You can also apply the bonus to e.g. intelligence, which is great fun if you're a Sanctified One of Wee Jas.

[Tvtyrant]

Sudden Empowered Maximized Vampiric Touch at level 20 gets you... 90 HP at level 20. Its temporary, but not bad. I'm a bit shakey on this part, but I believe you can combine it with sneak attack and get the sneak attack damage back due to the wording of the spell. So with a very specific build you could get something like 120 temporary HP.

[drakir_nosslin]

What happened to the shapechange to shambling mound trick?

[Tvtyrant]

What happened to the shapechange to shambling mound trick?

I don't think you get their con anymore due to errata meant to reduce Druid power.

[drakir_nosslin]

I don't think you get their con anymore due to errata meant to reduce Druid power.

Orly? Do you have the sauce on this? It's an errata that I've missed.

[TroubleBrewing]

1. Get a bound, possibly mindraped Tome Archon.

2. Cast Extended Persistent Power Leech (BoVD), using your choice of metamagic reducers and range fixers. The Archon will use its restoration SLA to mitigate the ability damage.

3. Enjoy your +2880 enhancement bonus to constitution, which is at least 57400 HP.

You can also apply the bonus to e.g. intelligence, which is great fun if you're a Sanctified one of Wee Jas.

Well, the OP didn't specify, but now I'm curious: Are there any ways that aren't pure, unfiltered evil? I mean, don't get me wrong, most of the ludicrous power tricks available in D&D (to say nothing of RPGs in general) are so shockingly malevolent they cause kittens to combust, whales to beach themselves and pandas to lose their mojo.

[ericgrau]

Empowered false life is my favorite because it lasts all day until used. At level 20 empowered maximized. Or quicken a vampiric touch if you can afford to get in melee. Or target your familiar and then get him somewhere safe.

[MammonAzrael]

Plane Shift to the Positive Energy plane! :smallamused: Just be sure to leave before you've worn out your welcome!

For practical optimization purposes, I suspect the psion's vigor/share pain trick with his psycrystal is probably the best. (also has the benefit of not being evil)

[Claudius Maximus]

If we're willing to consider broader options we can always make the HP go further. I think you can get a character to take only 1/512th their assigned damage, provided you're willing to share it with two abberations, a rock, four kids and a statue. But then I think we're back into evil.

[Tvtyrant]

Orly? Do you have the sauce on this? It's an errata that I've missed.

It appears I was wrong and you do indeed get its con. Guess I got it and Wildshape mixed up. Sorry to waste your time :P

[drakir_nosslin]

It appears I was wrong and you do indeed get its con. Guess I got it and Wildshape mixed up. Sorry to waste your time :P

No problem, I don't have anything better to do :smalltongue:

[Havelock]

you retain your own HP in wildshape, no?

Vigor-share pain-psicrystal trick gives 200 temp HP. Hard to beat that.

[Talbot]

Faerie Mysteries Initiate lets you switch your Int in place of your Con which will help on castery types.

Every level you take of Dragon Warrior adds your Wis to you HP, although it's not exactly a smart class to take if you're, say, not a martial character.

IIRC, Drunken Master does interesting things with Con that can be used to get your HP pretty high on a temporary basis.

[gbprime]

High level character, eh? Do you know a non-lawful mage capable of casting 8th level spells?

1 - Find and spend time in an Otyugh Hole. Gain Iron Will feat.
2 - Get said wizard to cast Embrace the Dark Chaos and then Shun the Dark Chaos on you, replacing the Iron Will feat with Improved Toughness.
3 - Repeat

You can do this as often as you like, but the Mage will be spending 500xp on you every time you need step 2.

If you ARE the wizard, then level up as a Dweomerkeeper (Complete Divine Web Enhancement) and you can cast Embrace/Shun for no XP.

[Curmudgeon]

Sudden Empowered Maximized Vampiric Touch at level 20 gets you... 90 HP at level 20. Its temporary, but not bad. I'm a bit shakey on this part, but I believe you can combine it with sneak attack and get the sneak attack damage back due to the wording of the spell. So with a very specific build you could get something like 120 temporary HP.
You're right about the sneak attack (it adds to your damage and you get total temp HP = total damage dealt) which means the best approach is to skip all the casting class stuff and Use Magic Device a wand at CL 20 instead. (The Sudden feats are 1/day, and that means 23 hours with poor HP since the temp HP only last for 1 hour.)

It's easy enough to have a sneak attacker with 17d6+20:

Rogue 9/Assassin 9/Unseen Seer 1/Justiciar of Taiia 1 gives 12d6
A Necklace of Natural Attacks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060707a) with the deadly precision and heartfinder enhancements adds +2d6 (though heartfinder isn't strictly sneak attack)
Martial Study + Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance) adds +2d6
A Rogue's Vest adds +1d6
Craven adds +20

Add decent unarmed damage (because you can deliver a touch attack with a smack as well as a touch) as follows:

Be Small in size.
Superior Unarmed Strike feat: 2d6 base unarmed damage
1 daily casting of Greater Mighty Wallop @ CL 20 boosts this 5 size categories to Colossal: 12d6 unarmed damage
A Fanged Ring grants Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike): 16d6 unarmed damage
So you'll have

10d6 (wand of Vampiric Touch)
16d6 (unarmed damage)
17d6+20 (sneak attack)
Total: 43d6+20 = 170.5 points (on average), with more from STR bonus, Knowledge Devotion, critical hits, and so on. (More optimization is quite feasible here, but this gives the core of the scheme.)

Edit: Uses of Vampiric Touch overlap rather than stack. This means that you won't get the same boost with additional hits, but you will get the best of all your hits. That means that the longer the combat lasts, the greater your push toward the maximum possible total temp HP of 278 (before STR bonus, & c.). So the difference between Vampiric Touch (average 35 HP) and Vampiric Touch with Maximize Spell (60 HP) decreases with repeated hits, meaning that metamagic feat doesn't give more than a few extra temp HP in a long combat. Plus you get the best of everything combined (unarmed + sneak + spell damage), which will greatly exceed the extra boosts a spellcaster could add to Vampiric Touch alone.

[Thurbane]

A Wrathful Healing weapon (+3 equivalent, Enemies & Allies) heals half of the damage you deal on each hit, but only up to max HP. Still, if you're dishing out a lot of damage (Power Attack, Leap Attack etc.) it keeps you nicely topped up.

[Andion Isurand]

Shapechanging into a Marruspawn Abomination will maximize the HP you get from each hit die.

Silthilar Bones Graft (Lords of Madness) can improve your constitution by 2.

The you have the +0 LA Arctic Template (Dragon 306) +2 Con, -2 Cha.

You could also get +2 Con from Warp Touch.

Deformity (Obese) = -2 Dex, +2 Con

Dragonborn = -2 Dex, +2 Con

[Tenebris]

I'm sort of idly considering how many hp you could theoretically slap on a lvl 20 char.

If this is only about this, then lvl 20 Incarnate is the most reasonable choice. Shape Vitality belt, invest max. essentia (let's assume that is 7, but sure some people can do better) and you get bonus 140 hp. Constitution is probably the only important stat for you. Let's say it's 30, which equals 200 bonus hp. You have 20d6 hd = 72 hp. Improved Toughness feat gives you 20 hp. Total of 432 hp. There are surely more ways to increase that.

[Zaq]

The Renegade Mastermaker (Magic of Eberron 81) gets the ability to embed/attach warforged component parts into themselves, and every part they embed or attach gives them 1 HP. ECS 268 states that any magic item can be made as a warforged component, so just find the cheapest slotless item you can make, craft a million of them (with all the cost-reduction shenanigans you're comfortable using), and embed them all into yourself for obscenely high HP.

If you want to get cheesy about it, ECS 268 does say "Any character capable of making a magic item can make the same magic item as a warforged component" with no limitations on whether those items must be items that normally are worn instead of held, so you could theoretically make level 0 scrolls or Blessed Bandages or +1 arrows or something silly like that and just embed them into your body. If you don't like that, a quick glance through the MIC shows the Safewing Emblem, which costs 250 GP, to be one of the cheapest items that normally occupies a body slot, so that's 500 market price for a slotless version. I'm sure we can do better, though.