[3.5e]Best non-Thrallheard, Non-Necromancy method for getting lots of minions?

[Maho-Tsukai]

Yes. I do so love having disposable mooks, it's one of the main reasons I love necromancy. Why do the mundane work yourself when you can just send legions of undead to do that while you amass more magical might, search for an evil artifact, strive for lichdoom/demilichdom/godhood/ect..? However, sometimes I want to have lots and lots of minions without playing a Dread Necromancer or Necro Cleric and leadership alone just dose not provide the numbers necromancy dose. Thus, I am asking you all here if you know any ways to amass lots of minions that dose NOT involve any more legwork then necromancy(such as masterminding a coupt to take over a kingdom, playing Uchiha Madara and dominating a ruler ect...) and is not the thrallheard PrC since I generally don't touch psionics and thus am unfamiliar with most psionic content.(I know enough to DM a game with a psion but I don't think I could play on effectively with the knowledge I have of psionics as of now.)

So, any ideas for how non-necromancy themed characters can match a necromancer for number of mooks without having to do all kinds of extra, RP-dependent work or take the thrallheard PrC?

[Zaq]

You could be an Artificer who focuses on constructs (and wands/staves of summons), but necromancy probably does that better.

[Maho-Tsukai]

True, though to make an army of robo-mooks you'd need a massive heap of gold. Necromancy is not cheep either, though, but it still would take more to create a robot army though that would be awesome once achieved I suppose I could always use leadership to get a cohort who's a wizard and have him break wealth by level for me, though.

I do still like the idea of an army of robots/constructs especially since robot minions are, like undead minions, a staple choice of many evil overlords. The main issue is, of course, cost but having a wizard cohort can make up for that. As can just making wands of WBL-breaking spells myself.

Still want other ideas, though.

[Zaq]

If you're an Artificer, breaking WBL is a class feature for you. This only gets better once you hunt down all the cost-reduction feats and tricks. I don't know any of them offhand, but I know they exist. Surely there's a handbook somewhere.

The best thing about going for constructs instead of undead is that unlike undead, there's no HD pool of how many constructs you can have. Gold is the only limiting factor . . . and depending on how dirty you're willing to play, gold limits range from "limiting, but I'm better at it than you are" to "trivial" to "you're joking, right?"

Anyway, other ideas . . . Handle Animal can get you quite a menagerie, especially (but not only) if you combine it with Druid, Wild Cohort, Beastmaster, Beast Heart Adept, and so on.

Planar Binding and its ilk are always good for minion shenanigans.

BoVD has rules for using the Dark Speech to create hiveminds. You only get to automatically give them one Suggestion each, but you can work with that. Find a way of healing or resisting CON damage and you can do this as often as you have critters.

[Jack_Simth]

What level, how much setup time, and do they need to be *useful* minions?

After all, a Cleric-22 with a Rod of Excellent Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/rods.htm#excellentMagic) and the Ignore Material Components (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#ignoreMaterialComponents) feat can have an arbitrary number of Simulacrums (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/simulacrum.htm) by way of Miracle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/miracle.htm) at the rate of 1/day.

The Beget Bogun spell (Spell Compendium page 26) costs a Druid 25 xp per casting, but gives an Instant, mostly-loyal minion (completely loyal, if you have a +10 or better Diplomacy modifier). Of course, each one killed deals the creator 2d10 damage.... and they only have 11 hp.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Thats very true, and that also gets around the fact that Clerics= Better then You since the cleric still has some limit on his army size other then gold.(and no, we're not factoring in spawning tricks.) Too bad I can't see the robo-army working out as well for a wizard...a wizard with a massive robo-army would be awesome...

Also, I'd rather not use clerics, since they can just use necromancy and call it a day. I also don't like the high wisdom RP of a cleric.(and while I've played wisdom clerics every once and a while, for the sake of RP almost every cleric I have made has used the 3rd party feat lost traditions which allows you to set their casting stat to any mental score you want, I usually chose charisma.) Though since I said non-necromancy, non-thrallheard cleric-based ideas are fine to run by me but I'd rather not be a cleric AGAIN.

However, if the same trick can be achieved with an archivist...

Also, usefulness is important, but I don't need an army of supermen. So long as I could use them to effectively take over a kingdom or planet(depending on level) I don't care what they are. They could be an army of sparkly unicorns and care bears for all I care, if they can take over/forge an empire for me then I'll take them.

[WinWin]

Geas/Quest can force a creature to be your minion for a task. As long as they are working toward a goal, their service lasts as long as it takes to complete that goal. Potentially unlimited, especially if you task your minions with gathering more people to be geas'd.

Metamagic abuse. Chain Dominate. Days per level. Requires management to reestablish.

Simulacrum. For laughs, track down a thrallherd and ask for a tissue sample.

edit: Druid mainly. Wildshape into a yellow musk creeper. Turn helpless enemies into semi-intelligent plant zombies.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Yeah, but can chain dominate actually produce the same amount of minions a Necromancer cleric of the same level could produce with undead animation? The whole idea was to have the same amount(or more) of minions that a Necromancer can have without being a Necromancer...hence my comment about leadership not providing enough flunkies. I am trying to match a necromancer cleric and/or Dread Necro's numbers without being a Necro cleric or Dread Necro and thus having a smaller army then the necro cleric is a no-no here. Also, Geass/Quest is not total control, you can only command them to preform one task with it. I'd rather have full control of my minions, thank you. Simmaclurm is always a good trick, though.

[IthroZada]

Surely there's a handbook somewhere.


The Complete Cost Reduction Handbook anyone? (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7274.0)

Edit: Hordeificers are perfectly viable builds that are one of the main options of playing an Artificer.

[Jack_Simth]

Yeah, but can chain dominate actually produce the same amount of minions a Necromancer cleric of the same level could produce with undead animation? Ignoring optimization by the Cleric, yes.

A Cleric-20 can control 20 HD of undead by way of Commanding, and 80 HD of undead by way of Animation. So 100 HD of undead. If they're all human warrior skeletons, that's 100 undead critters.

A Sorcerer-20 with Dominate Person (Sor/Wiz 5) and Chain Spell (+3 metamagic) can potentially dominate 21 human warriors with each casting of his 8th level spell slot. Duration: 20 days. At one casting per day, that's 420 human warrior 1's, potentially. Granted, some of them will save, so let's cut that in half. Sorcerer-20 still wins, investing one 8th level spell slot per day. He's got six, before Charisma bonus slots.

[Thurbane]

You can get hordes of (short term) minions by spamming Charm type effects...I think some of the Warlock/DFA invocations might be handy for this. Maybe throw some Mindbender in there...

[Maho-Tsukai]

True, but I say Necro cleric for a reason. I am fully assuming the Deathbound Domain to be on the cleric so with the deathbound domain would chain-dominating still be able to compete with the cleric? Also, short term is no good here as I want to actually use this army to rule/take over something. A short-term army is great for RAISING empires but poor at conquering them since domination by force/military action would require actually keeping forces in an area to control it. If I just wanted to go around destroying stuff short term minions are fine. As for ruling, not so much. As of now the construct army looks like the best bet and that handbook helps a lot with not going totally broke trying to match the necro cleric's legion of undead on terms of size with a legion of constructs.

The XP-regen trick will come in handy too..just get a Euridite cohort who can spell-to power the necessary wizard spells and have access to anchor plane due to being psionic and we're golden....or if I'm feeling cheeasy and want even more minions I can make my cohort a Thrallheard and have his thrall be a wizard...then just grab extra followers and assemble the horde, have a good charisma score and I I'll have a decient-sized force of living folk and a massive army of robo mooks.

[WinWin]

Also, Geass/Quest is not total control, you can only command them to preform one task with it. I'd rather have full control of my minions, thank you.

Much like Planar Binding (and subsequent chain gating), it is all in the verbiage.

Define the task as "Serve me and assist in my dream of taking over the Kingdom..." Is basically as good as having a minion until you have achieved your goal. Even the Lesser version can be used on helpless, low level enemies for no save. It's potentially an effective method of conscription.

Even open ended service can be obtained for 1 day/level so long as you dont order your flunkies to perform suicidal tasks. Phrase it like "Do my bidding above any and all other obligations."

Risk of geas subversion can easily be reduced via other methods. Notably diplomacy or spells from the enchantment school.

On another note, I am surprised noone has mentioned exemplar yet.

[Maho-Tsukai]

I see. I still fail to see how Geassing and chain-dominating can produce greater numbers then the Necro Cleric can fast enough to actually conquer stuff. The geassing process would work, but seems like it would take centuries...which would be no different then a necro wizard using the spell stitching animate dread warrior trick which can give them an infinite amount of minions over a painfully slow length of time. Chain Dominating certainly has speed but I am doubtful to whether or not it could produce the same numbers a necro cleric, with the deathbound domain and spells like desecrate and general of undeath could.

[Ravens_cry]

Leadership gives you a bunch of low level followers, buff them up until they are useful? Even better if your cohorts also take Leadership, you can basically have an army.

[Coidzor]

I see. I still fail to see how Geassing and chain-dominating can produce greater numbers then the Necro Cleric can fast enough to actually conquer stuff.

You shouldn't be taking over countries by yourself and hogging up gametime and your group shouldn't let you either. :smallconfused:


The geassing process would work, but seems like it would take centuries...which would be no different then a necro wizard using the spell stitching animate dread warrior trick which can give them an infinite amount of minions over a painfully slow length of time.

Even if you just meant that as Hyperbole, no. Besides, one wouldn't even need to be a dedicated necromancer to do that as a wizard. And it gives one more than enough minions for the purposes of actually playing with them rather than them being a figure on a sheet somewhere that only gets mentioned in passing.


Chain Dominating certainly has speed but I am doubtful to whether or not it could produce the same numbers a necro cleric, with the deathbound domain and spells like desecrate and general of undeath could.

Chain Dominating is good because it can be done alongside all of the other spell-based methods(and supplementary to non-spell-based methods) and it's relatively minor in terms of investment because Chain Spell is a pretty solid metamagic for multiple contexts. The main disadvantage of chain dominating is not rivaling the necromancer's pitiful underlings that get dusted en masse by any group with level 2 clerics but in how many levels it takes before it becomes a possibility since it needs 8th level spells, so 15th or 16th level depending upon class. It has the advantage of being able to get larger numbers of humanoids with multiple HD and low will saves though.

Though with bad will save humanoids, one could easily get it so that the 1-2 HD fighter/warrior types could only pass with a natural 20, though even up to about level 11 should be fairly easy to have a domination success rate of ~95%. Since humanoids have poor will saves(generally), humanoids with RHD should also be fair game, especially if there's no fractional saves in play.

IIRC, of those types of spells, that a wizard could get all of with minimal investment, there's got command undead at level 2, lesser geas and animate dead at 4th, dominate person or chain command undead or lesser planar binding at 5th, animate dread warrior and Geas and planar binding at 6th, (edit: simulacrum at 7th), chain dominate and greater planar binding at 8th... Mindrape at 9th, of course. Probably Programmed Amnesia as well. For a real long wait, Sanctify the Wicked+Mind Rape...

All of the non-animate dead ones have an advantage of not being limited to 1 HD creatures in order to maximize the number of minions.

[faceroll]

The best way is Effigy Master. You can make a half-dragon (all 8 of the types, stacking) half-golem half-celestial insectile multiheaded winged feral paragorn pseudonatural goblin for like 2000 gp. Takes you two days to make it. Enjoy your CR30 or 40 monster.

It gets even better with simulacra, as you can make more of these creatures at a 20th of the cost of your effigy.

[Canarr]

Why not simply Dominate a few leader types, and have them issue the appropriate orders to their troops? If you control the officers, and the people below them are good little soldier-types, then they'll obey their leaders. Granted, you may have to invest a bit in propaganda, to make your conquest plans digestible for the average Joe Soldier, but that should easily be done.

Granted, for long-term occupation, Chain Dominate is quite the logistical endeavor, since you need to stagger your Dominations in such a way that you can comfortably renew them regularly, without expending all of your spellslots for the purpose. Regular meetings work quite well for that - or so I've heard...

[Maho-Tsukai]

I mentioned that in the OP and specifically said that for this thread it's not a factor because it takes much greater work then simply animating undead would. Dose it work? Of course, plenty of chessmaster-type villains and evil overlords have done similar things(Uchiha Madara, Wormtoung ect...). It's just that since I am trying to find a way to match necromancy ideally the way to match it would not take any more work then necromancy would. If you want to pull the shadowy power-behind the throne thing you'd have to keep up an elaborate ruse that you don't exist/are not controlling the king or are somehow a good friend/family member/whatever of the ruler to keep suspicion off of you. You would have to find a way to deal with people that have access to detect magic and dispell magic and you'd have to constantly visit the king/ruler to indefinitely keep him under your power AND he'd need to have a low will save. This means if he's got PC class levels in a spellcasting class your utterly screwed unless you use spells like mind fog and such.

Likewise, this kind of thing would be a nightmare to pull off for a standard wizard not using cheese to increase his ability scores since it would require a good charisma(A traditional dumb stat for a wizard.) score to get away with all the deception, and most likely ranks in social skills that a wizard dose not have as class skills. Now a Sorcerer would certainly be better at it with cha as his casting stat and bluff as a class skill but I prefer wizards over sorcs. Especially since sorcs, with their spells known, will need to take staple/generally useful spells(Like teleport and such) if they wanted to actually survive most encounters. This eats into their spells known make it so they can't actually get that many enchantment spells. I suppose there are some PrCs that can KINDA fix that issue, though.(Fiend Blooded seems the best here as it can grab you extra enchantment spells with advance learning....and since it can be from any list I can pick up fun stuff like True Dominate and Monsterous Thrall.)

However, as for the chain dominating I have recently obtained a third party book that can actually make that a viable way to get a massive army that's slower then necromancy but not so painfully slow that the cleric laughs as he conquers kingdoms and I'm stuck waiting for my army to form. A metamagic feat called "Virus Spell" that basically allows a spell to be transmitted like virus...having it effect one person and then whoever gets touched by that person has the spell placed on them and can also spread it. People touched still do get a save against it as normal, but if you virus chain dominate you've not only obtained a small force of minions but a small force of minions that can swell your legions simply by making contact with people. You could take over a city in no time and only keep spreading from there. The only issues are maintaining prolonged control over such a large number of thralls and also the fact that Virus spell is a +4 metamagic feat, meaning without metamagic reducers you can't virus chain dominate until your epic.

However, you could always just chain-dominate as normal and virus somebody else on the side to slowly expand your numbers. Of course, since Geassing was mentioned you could always virus-spell a lesser geass(would make it a level 8) and just chain dominate + leadership+ Extra followers + thrallheard cohort + break wealth by level and make a crapload of constructs and you could match and most likely surpass a Necro cleric as far as sheer numbers go, even if he had undead leadership too.

Of course, if we're using Virus Spell I may as well just bring up skill from encyclopedia arcane series book, Speak High Draconic. If I can obtain a good enough speak high draconic skill I can virus-chain minderape as soon as I get access to 9ths(so level 17 as a wizard) though doing so would require beating a monstrous speak high draconic DC and failure to do so could have some horrific drawbacks.

It looks like once again, third party material save the day here and the encyclopedia arcana series proves to be a valuable resource.

[Canarr]

Okay, looks like I'm still not used to the scale you people operate on here... this, "raise an army to conquer a kingdom" isn't just a figure of speech, right? You're talking thousands of minions - undead or not.

Isn't that a bit beyond the normal scope of an adventuring party? :smallconfused:

[Maho-Tsukai]

Usually, yes..though at the levels we're talking about here being world-shaping is almost a given. Most of the ideas here would only be achievable to characters who are close to, if not epic(Sans chain dominating which can be done as soon as we get level 8s.) and we are not talking about thousands. The Necro cleric can only have aroud undead in 100s, not thousands and thats if their all extremely weak. So no, we're not talking thousands and thousands of soldiers. The only way to obtain that would be through Rp and working with your GM. It would have to be your character's goal and a big part of their story and just could not be achieved through crunch alone..it would be a defining point in the game and most likely your character's primary goal/reason for adventuring. So what we're talking here is more in the hundreads as appose to the thousands. I am simply looking to match the number necromancy can provide without having to be a cleric (Or DN.) and without relying on RP...so therefor we only are discussing numbers in the 100s here as thats about how high the cleric can go as far as undead are concerned.

[Coidzor]

However, as for the chain dominating I have recently obtained a third party book that can actually make that a viable way to get a massive army that's slower then necromancy but not so painfully slow that the cleric laughs as he conquers kingdoms and I'm stuck waiting for my army to form. Yeah, because you're going to have to deal with NPCs doing that which you couldn't just gank and a couple of weeks of in-game time is really all that painfully, painfully slow. :smalltongue:

[Maho-Tsukai]

Chain dominating is not slow...animate dread warrior is and thats what I was refering to when saying "painfully slow." I apologize if it made it sould like I was saying chain dominating is slow and confusing everything. I know chain dominating only takes a few weeks. The Necromancer can just outpace you and animate a bunch of stuff in one day so he can have an army faster then you can theoretically but in actual gameplay he's going to need a lot of black onyx to do that and is also going to need a source of many bodies...so unless he carries around carts of black onyx and knows the exact location of a graveyard or mass-grave he's going to need some prep-time to make his legion. I know full well that when factoring in logic he won't be any faster then you since he'd have to make proper preporations to get his legion. He'd have to hunt around for info on where to find a graveyard/mass grave OR prepare himself to slaughter a bunch of people, locate/obtain a vast ammount of black onyx ect.. which, depending on what the DM wants to do could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks or perhaps even longer.

Theoretically, however, the Necro could easily outpace the enchanter as far as producing lots of minions quickly and this is a theroetical excersize, not a pratical once. After all, if we where being pratical here we'd assume that the Cleric was actually animating something stronger then human warrior skeletons(which would cut into his HD pool and reduce his legion size) and that the wizard could just use his uber wizard powers to bully some always chaotic evil race into being his flunkies.(Goblins and Orcs being the usual suspects here.)

[TroubleBrewing]

Not reading the thread intentionally. If anyone's already mentioned this, cool. If not, here goes:

Chained Leadership feat.

Have your cohort take leadership. Have his cohort take leadership. And so on.

[Jack_Simth]

However, as for the chain dominating I have recently obtained a third party book that can actually make that a viable way to get a massive army that's slower then necromancy but not so painfully slow that the cleric laughs as he conquers kingdoms and I'm stuck waiting for my army to form. A metamagic feat called "Virus Spell" that basically allows a spell to be transmitted like virus...having it effect one person and then whoever gets touched by that person has the spell placed on them and can also spread it. People touched still do get a save against it as normal, but if you virus chain dominate you've not only obtained a small force of minions but a small force of minions that can swell your legions simply by making contact with people. You could take over a city in no time and only keep spreading from there. The only issues are maintaining prolonged control over such a large number of thralls and also the fact that Virus spell is a +4 metamagic feat, meaning without metamagic reducers you can't virus chain dominate until your epic.

Well... does a Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell qualify as a metamagic reducer? It's found in the Magic Item Compendium, on page 165. A Wizard-9 Chaining Dominate Person in that manner would hit 10 targets (one primary, 9 secondary) with one casting, and could do that about 3 times per day. If you assume half the targets save, and he arranges for three spells per day (Enchanter, +5 Int modifier - not really a stretch - and uses three invocations of the Metamagic Rod of Chaining), then he's grabbing 15 people per day, and they stay in his thrall for nine days each. That's 135 people, doable with minor work at level 9, with just two sources needed (Core + Magic Item Compendium... although you might need another source to reference Chain Spell itself). A reasonably vanilla Evil Cleric at that level would be controlling as many as 45 hit dice of undead. And the Chain-Dominate Wizard can hit small-town barracks for Warrior-3's, while if the Cleric is going for sheer numbers, he's limited to 1 HD skeletons.

Oh yes, and as metamagic effects don't change the spell level, a Virus-Dominate can be Chained with the regular metamagic rod....

[tonberrian]

Doesn't one of the invocation classes get Geas or Lesser Geas as an invocation?

[Silva Stormrage]

Well using a metamagic chain rod on Mind rape is certainty one way to get lots of minions. Another is being orc and upping leadership like crazy if your epic. There is a feat that's name is slipping my mind right now but it allows you to add your strength to your leadership score in addition to your charisma. Play a paladin (preferably PF) and you can get massive amounts of followers with Legendary Leader and Epic Leadership. Of course non epic necromancy is the best for getting minions.

One class that seems to be ignored a lot is the horned harbgringer from faith's and pantheons. With a dread necromancer 8 /horned harbringer 2 you lose 2 caster levels but you get a free animate dead and your charisma is added to your caster level for animate dead. If you can get your DM to reasonably rule the DN's undead mastery class feature as based off caster levels you can get an incredibly high amount of undead.

[Maho-Tsukai]

I know of horned harbringer and I have used it in gestalt, however, it it ihas no caster level progression and for a DN, who ALREADY progresses slower then a wizard losing two caster levels can be painful and makes it so you don't get 9ths until level 20. In gestalt it's a wonderful class to take since it dose not hurt your CL, but outside of gestalt it's a horrible class for a spellcasting character.

[Coidzor]

Oh yes, and as metamagic effects don't change the spell level, a Virus-Dominate can be Chained with the regular metamagic rod....

...that's evilly delicious.

[Jack_Simth]

...that's evilly delicious.
Eh, it's one of the very few benefits to that little rule with metamagic'd spells not counting as higher level. Because the default is explicitly that they're treated as they're own level despite the higher spell slot requirements, anything that doesn't have a specific exception to that leaves it treated as being the lower level - metamagic rods, Spell Storing Weapons (but not Rings of Spell Storing), and a few other things benefit from that. But they're fairly uncommon.

[Randel]

Ideas:

Fell Animate metamagic lets you animate a creature into a zombie for free if you use the metamagiked spell to kill it. Destruction Retribution is a feat that makes any undead you craft explode with negative energy when slain. If you can get a steady supply of warm bodies (like farm animals or whatnot) then you can convert them into exploding zombies.


Simulacrum can be made of whatever creature you want as long as you have the XP to craft them. While I'm sure there are other ways to get XP you could make a Distilled Joy Factory (Distilled Joy is from Book of Exalted Deeds) to provide the XP cost. The Distilled Joy spell extracts Ambrosia (which provides 2 XP worth of crafting stuff per dose) from anyone experiencing extreme joy.

A Distilled Joy Factory is composed of a permanant symbol of pain (or other way of generating nondamaging pain), a nipple clamp of masochism (which converts pain into pleasure), someone or something that casts Distill Joy, and someone willing to sit under a symbol of pain (converted into pleasure) for as long as needed. Just get some people to extract Distilled Joy from and use the distilled joy to create simulacrums (or craft the various stuff you need to run this thing).

I think Distill Joy is a 3rd level spell while masochism is 2nd or 1st level. Symbol of Pain and permanancy are both 5th level and simulacrum is 7th. So if you craft simulacrums capable of casting Distill Joy and crafting Nipples Clamps of Masochism then you can have them running a distilled joy factory to get you crafting XP, if they can make permanancied symbols of pain as well then they can build more distilled joy factories for you.

If someone is at least lvl 26 (or twice the level necessary to cast Simulacrum) then they can make simulacrums capable of making more simulacrums (though those simulacrums can't make simulacrums able to make simulacrums... I think). Of course, it takes 24 hours of someone writhing in masochistic bliss under a symbol of pain to create 2xp worth of Distilled Joy... so by the time you're able to mass produce enough of the stuff to really expand the operation in any practical timeframe then you'll have a small country worth of people stuck in Happy Wonderful Dreamland Prisons zapping them full of happy rays to extract their joy.


Or... Polymorph Any Object lets you turn stuff into similar stuff permanently. As long as you can find some loyal minions of some kind (like Kobolds you mindrape into being fanatically loyal or Simulacrums of yourself or whatever) then you can permanently transform them into something hilarious like dragons or blade golems or whatever as long as the loyal minion is similar to whatever you are turning it into.


And finally... you can be a Bard and max your Perform (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#perform) or diplomacy skill to such logic smashingly high levels that it turns everyone around you into fanatics who will fight to the death for you. If you have a Lyre of Building, a suitably high perform stat, and the ability to play for a while without interruption then you can magically fabricate barracks, cities, and aqueducts for your empire while simultaneously turning everyone within earshot into foaming fanatics who will obey your every whim. Find a way to distribute your music across the world and you can probably take it over in short order.

[McSmack]

Best way ever- Cold. Hard. Cash.

Hire a crapton of commoners to do your dirty work. Sure they'll probably die, but when you're offering them a year's wages to do it, you'll probably get a lot to sign up. Or just hire some mercs.

[tiercel]

Diplomancer seems like an obvious possibility. After all it works equally well by RAW pretty much regardless of things like level/HD, Will saves, etc; the DC 30 to convert someone from Indifferent to Helpful (good enough for many purposes) is readily attainable even by characters not optimized for Diplomancy, and for those that are, there's always the (Epic) Fanatic attitude, converting Hostile into Helpful or better in a single round, etc.

Even a modest diplomancer shouldn't have much problem (using Diplomacy checks, naturally) gaining audiences with NPCs of import -- king, head of Wizard's Guid, High Priest, etc -- and once a few key NPCs are Helpful or better their own followers will tend to fall into line.

[faceroll]

A Deepspawn (Monsters of Faerun) can be bought for 10,000gp. It has the curious ability to spawn any creature that it has eaten once every 1d4 days. So you buy two, feed one to the other, then every 1d4 days, you get a Fibonacci sequence of Deepspawn. They are CR8, so on their own serve as fine minions. They are aberrations, so can easily be dominated with dominate monster. Spawn are totally loyal to the Deepspawn that created them. Spawn also keep class levels. The ability cannot be used on outsiders, elementals, undead, or other dual dimensional creatures.

Get the leardership feat, pick up an optimized anything of two levels lower than you, then start feeding your monsters.

Within a month and a half, you will have 6,765 Deepspawn. In another month and a half, you will have 6,765 optimized characters. After which, every 1d4 days, you get another 6,765 optimized characters.

Is that not cool or what?

[Tyndmyr]

Get lots of money as a wizard. Then do This (http://travislerol.com/wordpress/?p=44).

[Veyr]

I didn't read that full article, but quite frankly his initial analysis was so poor ("just three spellcasting levels" "oh and you can lose another by taking Human Paragon to save yourself the Truename Training feat" "summoning in D&D is painful"), that I can't imagine anything good can come out of it.

[mabriss lethe]

I'm glad the deepspawn was already mentioned. Great for a clonetrooper sort of situation. However, Deepspawn can't normally spawn each other. They are Huge aberrations and are restricted to spawning large or smaller creatures. The answer to that, though, is that your second deepspawn is dungeonbred, which makes it into a large creature.

[Tyndmyr]

I didn't read that full article, but quite frankly his initial analysis was so poor ("just three spellcasting levels" "oh and you can lose another by taking Human Paragon to save yourself the Truename Training feat" "summoning in D&D is painful"), that I can't imagine anything good can come out of it.

Er, did you actually read that? Let me quote: "Fiendbinder’s first, fifth and 9th levels do not progress casting. The first is a downside. The later two are unforgivable."

The key is that you get out before you lose more than a single level.

And, in return for giving up a level of spellcasting, you can summon as many demonic buddies as you can fit in a one mile sphere of your location to serve you permanently.

That's a pretty decent trade.

[Zaq]

Simulacrum can be made of whatever creature you want as long as you have the XP to craft them. While I'm sure there are other ways to get XP you could make a Distilled Joy Factory (Distilled Joy is from Book of Exalted Deeds) to provide the XP cost. The Distilled Joy spell extracts Ambrosia (which provides 2 XP worth of crafting stuff per dose) from anyone experiencing extreme joy.

A Distilled Joy Factory is composed of a permanant symbol of pain (or other way of generating nondamaging pain), a nipple clamp of masochism (which converts pain into pleasure), someone or something that casts Distill Joy, and someone willing to sit under a symbol of pain (converted into pleasure) for as long as needed. Just get some people to extract Distilled Joy from and use the distilled joy to create simulacrums (or craft the various stuff you need to run this thing).

I now have a mental image of a wizard who has an Ambrosia factory fueled by really happy demons. Why demons, you ask? Because of the Extract Demonic Essence feat from FC1, which allows you to use a demon (willing or unwilling, but if unwilling, they get a save) to help you pay half the XP cost of crafting an item. This guy summons/binds demons and offers them a deal: if they help him craft this item, he'll make them so unbelievably happy that they're literally capable of creating liquid joy. Demons tend to be pretty selfish, so I imagine that you'd get a fair few to go along with it. Bonus points if you do it without using the pain-to-pleasure rules . . . whether it's some kind of fantastic illusion parlor, or you're just really good at providing enthralling conversation (about killing and maiming, since they're demons), or if you have a Bard friend who puts on heart-wrenchingly beautiful performances (bonus points if they're a Warforged or Neraph or something, so they don't have to sleep or stop), or whatever.

You'd have to find a way around that pesky "10% chance of cursing the item" clause, but if you can get past that, you're golden.

That also leads to some interesting alignment questions. Is the pally comfortable using a Holy sword that's been made with demonic energy? Even though that energy was gathered through the use of good means (Ambrosia's in the BoED for a reason, after all)? Not to mention that a demon having the time of its existence in McCrafty's Ambrosia Joyland is very much not causing havoc, hurting people, crusading against the Upper Planes, or otherwise getting into trouble. How do you feel about your demonic Holy sword now, Sir Paladin? Would you object to bringing joy, even demonic joy, into the world, especially since that joy can be used to help others, like you? Would you prefer that the demons spend their time doing demonic things instead of listening to Unit DF-8772's virtuoso singing? Or are you going leave Mr. McCrafty alone and carry on your little quest of holy justice?

I kind of really want to put that in a campaign now.

[Veyr]

Er, did you actually read that? Let me quote: "Fiendbinder’s first, fifth and 9th levels do not progress casting. The first is a downside. The later two are unforgivable."

The key is that you get out before you lose more than a single level.

And, in return for giving up a level of spellcasting, you can summon as many demonic buddies as you can fit in a one mile sphere of your location to serve you permanently.

That's a pretty decent trade.
The Fiendbinder's summons are generally worse than just casting Planar Binding (Lesser, regular, or Greater). Nothing it gives you is worth even one spellcasting level, much less three, or two (the one he suggests you lose plus the one lost while taking Human Paragon as he suggests).

See Malconvoker for a fiend-summoning PrC that does it right.

Seriously, I wish the Fiendbinder were good. Because it's awesome. And maybe the Fiendbinder should be how powerful summons get, but you can't just slap a Fiendbinder into a game where the Wizard and Planar Binding already exist, and expect it to work. It makes you worse at its schtick than you would be without it.

[Randel]

I kind of really want to put that in a campaign now.

I've always had a facination with villains who somehow harvest energy/resources from their victims like the Borg, Cybermen, or in this case a wizard who extracts joy from people.

I mean in most DnD games the heroes are the ones going around and killing bad guys, but if there is someone who basically sets up a Joy Machine and tries to put people in it (most likely by just saying "Hey guys, step into the big joy machine!" or I suppose he could capture orcs or evil creatures and trap them in there to keep them out of trouble).

DnD magic can already make the Create Food and Water trap that can feed thousands of people every day (thus providing their dietary needs) if you can mass produce a Joy Machine that provides all the the joy a person could need then you've pretty much created heaven on earth (depending on how you measure pleasure).

Technically, you don't even 'need' to harvest distilled joy from them, just set up the free food and happyness land and get a whole bunch of people to go inside and not bother anyone. I suppose the 'good' thing to do would be to mostly put irredemably evil creatures in there so they don't bother people outside... but would that mean that you're rewarding evil people with pure bliss while good people are stuck being outside in the harsh world of reality? I suppose you could keep making more Happy Lands to put everyone in the world inside of but I'm sure that would start attracting the attention of some divine beings or those constructs that go after people who mess up the universe.

Maybe it would be better to just cut out the middle man and cast Genesis to create a little plane that is permeated with Bliss rays or incredibly awesome music and keeps its inhabitants from being injured or aging. Then get some creatures/machines that harvest joy from them and start letting people inside. If you can somehow convert Distilled Joy into more pocket dimension space (I'm pretty sure it would be easy since I think Genesis has an XP component) then you could have an eternally expanding version of Paradise that pretty much lets anyone enter as long as there is room and they don't mind being used as Distilled Joy Generators.

It would be like a Magical Paradise version of the Matrix! Lets see how Paladins respond to THAT (especially since if the Matrix makes the person inside immortal then it would more or less render the afterlife irrelevant and its unlikely that people in a total pleasure field would have much time to pray to any divine beings).

[Tyndmyr]

The Fiendbinder's summons are generally worse than just casting Planar Binding (Lesser, regular, or Greater). Nothing it gives you is worth even one spellcasting level, much less three, or two (the one he suggests you lose plus the one lost while taking Human Paragon as he suggests).

The feat is the primary method suggested. Human paragon is a secondary method, in case your build is feat starved. Losing a single caster level isn't the end of the world.


See Malconvoker for a fiend-summoning PrC that does it right.

It, er, also loses a caster level. At first level.

And then you end up doing things like using the summon monster line, which frankly sucks terribly for anything beyond the odd SLA.


Seriously, I wish the Fiendbinder were good. Because it's awesome. And maybe the Fiendbinder should be how powerful summons get, but you can't just slap a Fiendbinder into a game where the Wizard and Planar Binding already exist, and expect it to work. It makes you worse at its schtick than you would be without it.

Well, you're done with it at level 11 at latest, and are merrily continuing on down your normal caster PrC path. You pick up potent minions without a great deal of investment.

Consider that Planar Binding is accessible at level 11, and gets you, at most, a 12 HD beastie. Fiendbinder, at level 10, hands you a 16 HD minion. All you need is slight skill optimization. On an int based skill. As a wizard.

And this is just the freebie, you can pump gold into getting an arbitrarily large number of somewhat more level appropriate minions. You're a wizard. Breaking the economy is easy.

AND, you don't have the same save difficulties you do with Planar Binding that limits you so. Daily saves? Feh.

Arbitrary numbers of permanently bound minions is exactly what this thread needs.

[Veyr]

Your minions as a Fiendbinder require a Standard Action to direct, and are therefore more like surrogates for you than actual minions, because you can't use your own actions while directing them. Since the bound fiends want nothing to do with you, you really need to be giving commands constantly. The single loyal fiend you get at 3rd is really not that impressive.

In fact, I'm confused why you're bothering with 3 levels for it at all... 1/day for class level rounds is pretty much not at all impressive. Sure, most battles won't last long enough to justify a longer duration, but even so you get one such fiend for one encounter a day. Yay?

Moreover, Malconvoker loses only one spellcasting level (compared to the Fiendbinder's three), and gets far more powerful effects. Your statement that Summon Monster "sucks terribly" is simply flat-out wrong, if we're talking about a Malconvoker.

[Tyndmyr]

Your minions as a Fiendbinder require a Standard Action to direct, and are therefore more like surrogates for you than actual minions, because you can't use your own actions while directing them.

Moreover, Malconvoker loses only one spellcasting level (compared to the Fiendbinder's three), and gets far more powerful effects. Your statement that Summon Monster "sucks terribly" is simply flat-out wrong, if we're talking about a Malconvoker.

Only to change actions. You can give an indefinite amount of them orders like "defend me", and they will all actively do so.

You, again, do not need all of fiendbiner. You only need the first few. It's like mindbender. First level? Fantastic. The rest of it? Worthless.

Summon monster is weak. You summon things far below appropriate encounter level. It has a terrible duration, and a long casting time. Yes, all of these things can be mitigated to some degree, but you're investing resources to do that. By the time you're done, you've invested your entire character into using summon monster competently.

Or, you could just dip fiendbinder, get all the minions you'll ever need, and merrily do whatever with the other 17ish levels of the build.

Edit: You have a limitation on the biggie, yes. The rest of them? No limit. They don't even get released if you die, provided you get rezzed within a day. That's the key. You can just keep summoning more, every single day.

[Veyr]

So a feat and a spellcasting level, plus a reasonably large pile of gold, to gain the service of fiends that probably like you even less than those called by Planar Binding (certainly the actual rules for that are more stringent than found in Planar Binding) — this is cheap? I mean, seriously, just cast Planar Binding a few times.

Or, really focus on the whole summoner thing, and go Malconvoker. It's not worth it if you're not specialized, but if you are, it is. The Fiendbinder is useless if you are specialized (what are you going to do, take more levels in it and get even weaker?), and useless if you aren't (just use Planar Binding for any needs the Fiendbinder might fill). In short, there's really just no reason to take the class.

Also, I'd edited my previous post since you replied to it.

[Tyndmyr]

So a feat and a spellcasting level, plus a reasonably large pile of gold, to gain the service of fiends that probably like you even less than those called by Planar Binding (certainly the actual rules for that are more stringent than found in Planar Binding) — this is cheap? I mean, seriously, just cast Planar Binding a few times.

The default action described in fiendbinding is that it flees. Planar binding states that it can flee or attack, but gives no preference. This would, if anything, indicate that planar binding leads to a higher probability of unfortunate outcomes.

Gold is not a big obstacle. Or at least, it sort of ceases to be when you have bound slaves that will perform whatever you want without ceasing. Levels and feats are the costs a caster build cares about.

One feat and a few levels in a PrC is roughly as inexpensive as you can get outside of Leadership itself. Which, btw, is something you could grab as well. I've got a sufficiently broken build of that over in the damage thread.


Or, really focus on the whole summoner thing, and go Malconvoker. It's not worth it if you're not specialized, but if you are, it is. The Fiendbinder is useless if you are specialized (what are you going to do, take more levels in it and get even weaker?), and useless if you aren't (just use Planar Binding for any needs the Fiendbinder might fill). In short, there's really just no reason to take the class.

Also, I'd edited my previous post since you replied to it.

Planar binding is weaker. Daily saves means that every casting has a reasonably short lifespan before it goes away. This greatly limits the amount of total minions you can get from it.

But, yknow, it's not like you have to throw away Planar Binding to use fiendbinding. You can do both.

A great many problems can be solved with an arbitrarily large horde of demons with at-will SLAs.

[Veyr]

At-wills they aren't going to use unless you spend your actions making them do so.

Also, if you're breaking WBL, why are you even bothering? You've already broken the game, and if you're going there, you can do much worse things than Fiendbinder.

[Tyndmyr]

At-wills they aren't going to use unless you spend your actions making them do so.

Also, if you're breaking WBL, why are you even bothering? You've already broken the game, and if you're going there, you can do much worse things than Fiendbinder.

Ah, that's not raw. "Defend me" doesn't mean melee only.

Non standard wealth doesn't automatically mean a broken game.

[Veyr]

Considering how stupid WBL becomes at higher levels anyway, I'd argue that yes, it does. Especially when it means getting arbitrary numbers of fiends following you everywhere. Assuming strict WBL, how much is Fiendbinder worth?

And Bind Fiend explicitly states that the fiends are very unhappy about the situation, and only follow explicit orders. It even states that careless orders can get you in trouble (with respect to fiends straying more than a mile from your side). Seeing as the fiends really would much rather you die so they'd be free, I would assume that they will always do the absolute bare minimum to complete your order. Even if they do use their SLAs to complete a "Defend Me" order, though, you can't control those SLAs without spending actions.

The entire point of a summoner build is to gain extra actions in the form of minions, and Fiendbinder doesn't want to let you do that.

[nyarlathotep]

Orc warlord it is a prestige class from Races of Faerun that doubles your number of followers and requires you to take might makes right which lets you use strength in place of charisma for your leadership score.

[Coidzor]

And finally... you can be a Bard and max your Perform (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#perform) or diplomacy skill to such logic smashingly high levels that it turns everyone around you into fanatics who will fight to the death for you. If you have a Lyre of Building, a suitably high perform stat, and the ability to play for a while without interruption then you can magically fabricate barracks, cities, and aqueducts for your empire while simultaneously turning everyone within earshot into foaming fanatics who will obey your every whim. Find a way to distribute your music across the world and you can probably take it over in short order.

Bards. They have to turn into Neil Patrick Harris (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_q1SdaWLlw) to take over the world. :smallcool:


That also leads to some interesting alignment questions. Is the pally comfortable using a Holy sword that's been made with demonic energy?

Well, there's an easy way for them to remove any objections to the item in the BoED IIRC anyway. Which might also account for the 10% chance of cursing the item too.


At-wills they aren't going to use unless you spend your actions making them do so.

Also, if you're breaking WBL, why are you even bothering? You've already broken the game, and if you're going there, you can do much worse things than Fiendbinder.

I think you've forgotten the point of the current thread. Its mostly just a TO exercise anyway, so your objection is largely irrelevant. And with a mile radius of demons around you, they're much, much more likely to get attacked and have to defend themselves well before someone could get through all of them to attack the fiendbinder.