Limited Wish at third level

[HalfDragonCube]

Right, this was developed from an idea that I got when I first read the sacrifice rules in BoVD. Me and a friend have been pinging messages back and forth refining it.

Warning: Anyone with a fondness for hamsters look away now.

A brief summing up of my plan:

This plan works only for a few characters at third level but many characters can pull it off later on. Currently I am an Int 18 Wizard/Archivist with max ranks in Knowledge (religion). This gives a total +10 bonus to it at third level.

The rules for sacrificing creatures to evil gods are in BoVD. Pretty much, you make a Knowledge (religion) check and then roll on a table to see what they give you. There are some bonuses for certain conditions.

First step, collect lots of hamsters. Hamsters are just an example, but they are handled easily. Make sure these hamsters are 'pure'. Now you must torture them all for one day, then lay them all out on an altar. Gather at least ten spectators and perform a ceremony that lasts an hour, then sacrifice them to a deity that hates hamsters.

If you sacrifice enough hamsters to roll a 20, if you collect enough you should, and add your bonuses from the conditions, and your other modifiers you get 37. Pay for some kind of magic item that gives a +3 bonus on your Knowledge (religion) check, which should cost around 900gp, well within you WBL. This brings it up to 40.

The result of 40 will gain a Limited Wish.

Total time taken: 1 hour
Resources used:

20-ish pure hamsters.

Reusable materials required:

An altar
A 900gp magic item
A torture device suitable for use on hamsters
A bunch of people to spectate

Result given: A Limited Wish cast for you.


Is this wrong anywhere? Please tell me if so.

Also, here is a suggested use for the Limited Wish:

There are some awesome uses for a free one of these but one of the best uses is Create Undead. This shall be used to create a Mohrg from a corpse. Corpses are cheap. The 700gp material component cost is payed by Limited Wish spell. Since the deity, not you, cast it, you can get a Mohrg from your corpse.

[Silva Stormrage]

Well im not sure if it works correctly, don't know the sacrificing rules well enough. But I am pretty sure you wouldn't be summoning the Morhg under your control... So you just created a cr 9 creature that wants to eat you at level 3... Good job :smallbiggrin:

[Bovine Colonel]

How about using it to cast the spell Summon More Hamsters?

[sreservoir]

just go archivist 3 and pick up divine insight (SpC)and guidance of the avatar (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20010504a).

grab some random whatever, and have a minimum of 1 + 6 (ranks) + 4 (int) + 15 (insight) + 20 (competence) = 46. sure, you spent two of your 2nd-level spells, but I think that's worth doing this once.

if you fox's cunning yourself beforehand, that's another +2. grab a masterwork tool for +2 circumstance. guidance of the avatar overlaps the competence item, though.

[Lord_Meyer_IV]

Last halloween I ran a little "monster squad" party.
we had a werewolf made from a 5th level character, an Vampire who started as a level 5 noble, Frankenstiens monster, who was a level 5 fighter with the half golem template, and we made a mummy using the sacrifical limited wish. the charater used was a level 2 paladin, making him about a CR 7 monster, but afterwards we rated him at about ECL 12 character.
The key with this is the alignment, "Usually" lawful evil. it wasnt a strech to allow him to retain his humanity and stay lawful good, but I striped him of his Paladinhood anyway. (duh, he's undead)
he was a grat character, but ended up being hunted down by his former friends. Paladins are not known for their tolerence.

[HalfDragonCube]

Well im not sure if it works correctly, don't know the sacrificing rules well enough. But I am pretty sure you wouldn't be summoning the Morhg under your control... So you just created a cr 9 creature that wants to eat you at level 3... Good job :smallbiggrin:

Right, so the Morhg might not be a good idea until later levels when someone can command it.:smallredface:


How about using it to cast the spell Summon More Hamsters?

Awesome!:smallbiggrin:

Can anyone think of some more long lasting uses of the Limited Wish?


just go archivist 3 and pick up divine insight (SpC)and guidance of the avatar (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20010504a).

grab some random whatever, and have a minimum of 1 + 6 (ranks) + 4 (int) + 15 (insight) + 20 (competence) = 46. sure, you spent two of your 2nd-level spells, but I think that's worth doing this once.

if you fox's cunning yourself beforehand, that's another +2. grab a masterwork tool for +2 circumstance. guidance of the avatar overlaps the competence item, though.

That makes things much easier, now you can just have a sack of hamsters. When you need a Limited Wish, just take one out and cast the spells. Thanks for this.:smallbiggrin:


Last halloween I ran a little "monster squad" party.
we had a werewolf made from a 5th level character, an Vampire who started as a level 5 noble, Frankenstiens monster, who was a level 5 fighter with the half golem template, and we made a mummy using the sacrifical limited wish. the charater used was a level 2 paladin, making him about a CR 7 monster, but afterwards we rated him at about ECL 12 character.
The key with this is the alignment, "Usually" lawful evil. it wasnt a strech to allow him to retain his humanity and stay lawful good, but I striped him of his Paladinhood anyway. (duh, he's undead)
he was a grat character, but ended up being hunted down by his former friends. Paladins are not known for their tolerence.

Why not try the Paladin of Tyranny (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinofTyrannyClassF eatures) variant class next time? They would get extra brownie points for being undead then.:smallwink:

[gomipile]

How about using it to cast the spell Summon More Hamsters?

I prefer Summon Bigger Hamster.

[HalfDragonCube]

I prefer Summon Bigger Hamster.

Since sacrifices with more HD gain bonuses, this might actually be a good way of getting an actual Wish spell.:smallbiggrin:

[Asheram]

"Boo does not approve of you sacrificing his fluffy little friends to evil beings. He will have your eyes for this evildoings, and Minsc will assist!"

[HalfDragonCube]

"Boo does not approve of you sacrificing his fluffy little friends to evil beings. He will have your eyes for this evildoings, and Minsc will assist!"

:eek:

Hamster are just an example, you can sacrifice almost anything you come across, provided there are lots of them and they can be tortured.

[sreservoir]

Since sacrifices with more HD gain bonuses, this might actually be a good way of getting an actual Wish spell.:smallbiggrin:

but, if you add fox's cunning on yourself, and then get either a masterwork tool, or just grab heroism from the bard list, you can automatically make at least 50 anyway!

[HalfDragonCube]

but, if you add fox's cunning on yourself, and then get either a masterwork tool, or just grab heroism from the bard list, you can automatically make at least 50 anyway!

Masterwork tool? How would you get a masterwork tool of knowledge checks? Maybe it would be some kind of book.

[Allanimal]

The next campaign I GM will have the PCs, at least as a sub plot, trying to stop a hamster sacrifice cult.

[under_score]

Is this wrong anywhere? Please tell me if so.

I'm pretty sure that, per strict dnd rules, this is wrong (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#alignment).

:smallbiggrin:

[HalfDragonCube]

The next campaign I GM will have the PCs, at least as a sub plot, trying to stop a hamster sacrifice cult.

Glad to know I have been of help.


I'm pretty sure that, per strict dnd rules, this is wrong (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#alignment).

:smallbiggrin:

Yes, but it is the right kind of wrong.

[NNescio]

Am I the only one who giggled at the following?



There are some awesome uses for a free one of these but one of the best uses is Create Undead. This shall be used to create a Mohrg from a corpse. Corpses are cheap. The 700gp material component cost is payed by Limited Wish spell. Since the deity, not you, cast it, you can get a Mohrg from your corpse.

[Akal Saris]

I believe the BoVD recommends only giving bonuses for a single sacrifice/day, though it's not clear if you can make 20 sacrifices and choose the best roll.

[DLoFunk]

Commonly, the victim is a humanoid, but dark powers might demand the sacrifice of anything from a medusa to a giant to a beholder. The main criteria are that the creature be alive and have an Intelligence score of 3 or higher.


An animal has an Intelligence score of 1 or 2. A creature of humanlike intelligence has a score of at least 3.

Won't work with dumb little critters like hamsters. You need smarter sacrifices. Time to gather the townsfolk and mix up a giant batch of special Kool-Aid.

[Douglas]

Just cast Fox's Cunning on the hamster before sacrificing it.

[Grendus]

So let's spitball here. Using hamsters doesn't work (while you might technically be able to cast Fox's Cunning, it won't really be int 3+... you'd need a lenient DM). Let's say instead that your archivist and his cult raid a village and kidnap a peasant, any old peasant will do.

+6: ranks in Knowledge(Religion)
+6: int bonus (+2 from Fox's Cunning, you can get more if your race has an int modifier)
+8: divine insight
+20: Guidance of the avatar

Total modifier: +50

As a third level archivist, you can succeed on the check to cast a true wish even without a ritual. Grab some random peasant, beat him unconscious, dedicate the kill to your god and cast a few spells before you butcher him and you get a wish. Yay you!





Now let's see if we can do it without Guidance of the Avatar (let's face it, that spell probably won't be allowed, especially for the purposes of cheesing a wish at third level). Start with a gray elf archivist with 18 int, advanced to venerable age and level 4, gives him a total int of 24. He has maxed ranks in Knowledge(Religion) for +6, took his +2 bonus from Lore Mastery in Knowledge(Religion), and took Skill Focus(Knowledge(Religion)). Current bonus is +17.

Now toss in some bonuses from his situation. He can have a +2 masterwork Knowledge(Religion) tool (call it a tome of religious knowledge). As a fourth level archivist, he can cast Divine Insight and Fox's Cunning for an additional +11. Current bonus is +30. He can now cast Limited Wish with a 10 or higher on his roll, not bad, but we haven't gotten to the ritual yet.

Now we get to the sacrifice. Looking at all the bonuses that the cultist can actually control, we get the following:
+1 for a ritual exceeding 1 hour.
+2 for conducting the ritual on an altar
+1 if he casts desecrate before the sacrifice
+1 for performing the ritual in the presence of 10 cultists
+1 for torturing the victim for a day prior
+1 for feeding their limbs to lemures
+1 for hit dice

Total controllable sacrifice bonus is +8, for a total of +38. We need a 2 or higher. If the victim meets any of the other sacrifice bonus conditions (good aligned, cleric, pure, willing, sacrificed in public, etc), if you use a custom magic item for +3 Knowledge(Religion) (or even better, a Crystal Mask of Knowledge) you can cast limited wish on a natural one. By sacrificing a commoner. You do need to have access to Heroes of Horror, Spell Compendium, and Book of Vile Deeds, though, so it's not exactly a core exploit.

Note that you should bring a helmet to the game, because you will be suffering DMG wounds to the head, face, and neck. You have been warned.

[HalfDragonCube]

I believe the BoVD recommends only giving bonuses for a single sacrifice/day, though it's not clear if you can make 20 sacrifices and choose the best roll.

It does say that you can do that.


Won't work with dumb little critters like hamsters. You need smarter sacrifices. Time to gather the townsfolk and mix up a giant batch of special Kool-Aid.

So hamsters don't work?


Just cast Fox's Cunning on the hamster before sacrificing it.

Unless you do this? Or, alternatively get a druid to cast Awaken. They might have something to say about the murder of small fluffeh critters, though.


*snip*

The maths is a little iffy in some parts, but thanks for statting this out. This was never intended for actual use, it's just a theoretical optimisation (kind of). The worrying thing is that my DM is actually going to let me use this. At level three.

[Seatbelt]

Sacrificing Hamsters is dumb. But as a DM I'd probably let you do it too if you invested feats and wealth and other character resources. We don't allow retraining in my group. Have fun adventuring.

[cfalcon]

The issue is that you said you were using hamsters as an example, but part of what you require is a deity that hates hamsters. There probably shouldn't be a god who has that in his portfolio. In fact, most gods don't hate petty stuff. If you *can* find an evil god who hates hamsters (or anything harmless and reasonably easy to find and handle in numbers), then I suspect it will work if your DM is ok with BoVD and this rule in particular- but it's pretty obvious that it's meant to work with sentient beings, or at least, powerful ones enough to meddle with the schemes of a god consistently and thus create "hatred".


Depending on how creative an interpretation, a primordial CE god who hates "all life" or something could work. Still silly, of course.

[HalfDragonCube]

Sacrificing Hamsters is dumb. But as a DM I'd probably let you do it too if you invested feats and wealth and other character resources. We don't allow retraining in my group. Have fun adventuring.

Feats? What, things like Hamster Slayer and Improved Hamster Sacrifice?


The issue is that you said you were using hamsters as an example, but part of what you require is a deity that hates hamsters. There probably shouldn't be a god who has that in his portfolio. In fact, most gods don't hate petty stuff. If you *can* find an evil god who hates hamsters (or anything harmless and reasonably easy to find and handle in numbers), then I suspect it will work if your DM is ok with BoVD and this rule in particular- but it's pretty obvious that it's meant to work with sentient beings, or at least, powerful ones enough to meddle with the schemes of a god consistently and thus create "hatred".


Depending on how creative an interpretation, a primordial CE god who hates "all life" or something could work. Still silly, of course.

If you don't like sacrificing hamsters, then just kidnap a bunch of commoners.

[Tono]

Feats? What, things like Hamster Slayer and Improved Hamster Sacrifice?


"So why do you have a hamster tied to your club?"
"So all my swings get the +1 to hit, duh."

[Allanimal]

"So why do you have a hamster tied to your club?"
"So all my swings get the +1 to hit, duh."

Sounds kinda like this guy... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjZjvEnRgTM)

[HalfDragonCube]

"So why do you have a hamster tied to your club?"
"So all my swings get the +1 to hit, duh."

Hamster Slayer [General]

You find yourself invigorated whenever you end the life of certain small fluffy rodents.

You gain +1 to hit and +1 to damage rolls using any weapon for two turns after you have killed a hamster.

[gbprime]

So hamsters don't work?

Nope. Not smart enough. Go with Moon Rats. in fact, a town might even PAY YOU to cart them off.

[HalfDragonCube]

Nope. Not smart enough. Go with Moon Rats. in fact, a town might even PAY YOU to cart them off.

Moon rats? Payment? For doing evil stuff? How can this plan get any better?

Btw has anyone yet thought of any uses for a Wish/Limited Wish?

[faceroll]

You need intelligent creatures that are capable of having an alignment, I believe. May be harder to maintain a cabal of child sacrifice than hamster sacrifice.

[Grollub]

I'd prob allow it , simply based on the fact that your character is promptly destroyed by a cr9 morgh hamster.. :smalleek:

[Zaq]

Wait a minute, it's based off of K:Religion?

Bloody hell. Getting stupidly high (and I do mean stupidly high) Knowledge checks is one of the only things that Truenamers are actually good at. (INT focus + Knowledge Focus class feature + Universal Aptitude + Hidden Truth + all Knowledges as class skills with very little else to spend points on = oh, my . . .)

Illumian Truenamer, level 3, 18 starting INT. (18's high, but oh well.)

6 ranks
4 INT
2 Naen sigil (you're an illumian Truenamer, you have Naen. Period.)
3 Knowledge Focus class feature
5 Universal Aptitude
10 Hidden Truth

That's +30 before we roll the dice, and before we add in all the bonuses from it being an unholy location with a virgin sacrifice with blah de blah de blah. This does assume that you can affect yourself with both Universal Aptitude and Hidden Truth, but that's not amazingly hard, especially if you use Universal Aptitude as the first of the two. (Level 3 = DC 21 check. 6 ranks + 4 INT + 2 Naen + 3 Skill Focus + 2 for your own truename = +17, so you succeed on a 4. . . and after Universal Aptitude's +5, you autosucceed on the roll for Hidden Truth.)

Dammit, guys. Dammit.

[HalfDragonCube]

*Snip*

Yup. Archivist and Truenamer make sacrifices seriously broken.

Currently trying to achieve this, but the party is in a town when loads of people want to kill us, and king-size altars are expensive. The party has pooled the money and everything is going well, but I have a sneaking feeling that the DM is going to throw some paladins at us or something.

As a backup plan the Dread Necromancer in the group is going to have a potion of Glibness with them. They have a Cha of 21 already, and max ranks in bluff, so it should be fun if there is any interference.

[cfalcon]

If you don't like sacrificing hamsters, then just kidnap a bunch of commoners.

Right, but commoners aren't "easy to handle". Certainly their low power makes it quite possible to cart off a bunch of them, but now you've involved temporal authority because you are a mass murderer. Since the whole shebang is set up to reward mass murderers, then this is working as intended. Whether or not you want it in your game is another thing, but it's not the combo as written above. If you really could sacrifice, say, rats, then you'd probably just be an exterminator getting a bunch of really powerful stuff. If instead you are killing a bunch of innocent people, trading their blood for a limited wish, well, you're doing your job as a bad guy. However, bad guys are famous for having Holy Avenger suppositories at some point after causing a bloodbath in exchange for personal power.

[Akal Saris]

Hamster Slayer [General]

You find yourself invigorated whenever you end the life of certain small fluffy rodents.

You gain +1 to hit and +1 to damage rolls using any weapon for two turns after you have killed a hamster.

Ah ha! Finally a feat to support the old 3.0 'bag of rats' trick! Kill a hamster with full BAB attack, great cleave into opponent. Kill a hamster with BAB -5 attack, great cleave into opponent with full BAB.

[HalfDragonCube]

Right, but commoners aren't "easy to handle". Certainly their low power makes it quite possible to cart off a bunch of them, but now you've involved temporal authority because you are a mass murderer. Since the whole shebang is set up to reward mass murderers, then this is working as intended. Whether or not you want it in your game is another thing, but it's not the combo as written above. If you really could sacrifice, say, rats, then you'd probably just be an exterminator getting a bunch of really powerful stuff. If instead you are killing a bunch of innocent people, trading their blood for a limited wish, well, you're doing your job as a bad guy. However, bad guys are famous for having Holy Avenger suppositories at some point after causing a bloodbath in exchange for personal power.

That's pretty much the idea:
Find innocents.
Sacrifice innocents.
?????
Profit.
Flee from local authorities.


Or take them on, if you prefer, because now you have powah.

[samster712]

wish for a candle of invocation and gate in an efreeti for three free wishes :)

[Anxe]

If I was the DM I would use the old rule, "if you can do it then so can I." I wouldn't worry about Paladins. I'd worry about other evil people using their wishes.

[Suichimo]

Masterwork tool? How would you get a masterwork tool of knowledge checks? Maybe it would be some kind of book.

Pretty much. Knowledge is pretty easy to figure out what masterwork tools should be. Masterwork History Book(Knowledge History), Masterwork Traveler's Guide(Knowledge Local), etc. Some are kind of hard to figure out though. What would a masterwork Concentration item be? Or how about a masterwork Sense Motive item?

[Boci]

Pretty much. Knowledge is pretty easy to figure out what masterwork tools should be. Masterwork History Book(Knowledge History), Masterwork Traveler's Guide(Knowledge Local), etc.

Problem is, with books you should logically only need to use them once, afterward you won't need them, unlike masterwork tools.

[Veyr]

Reference manuals are rarely memorized. I mean, how many tourists do you see walking around with their noses buried in their travel guides? (assumes you live somewhere that tourists visit; if not, any substitute relevant experiences visiting places or otherwise interacting with tourists)

[Boci]

Reference manuals are rarely memorized. I mean, how many tourists do you see walking around with their noses buried in their travel guides? (assumes you live somewhere that tourists visit; if not, any substitute relevant experiences visiting places or otherwise interacting with tourists)

So you only get the +2 bonus if you have the book and consult it. Knowledge checks are supose to be free actions.

[Veyr]

You only get the +2 bonus from Masterwork Lockpicks if you have them in your hand and are using them.

I'll agree that looking something up in a Free Action does stretch credibility a bit, though.

[Incanur]

The BoVD sacrifice rules provide a significant boost by almost any interpretation. They came to play a central role in one of my campaigns. At first the blatant powergaming annoyed me, but uncaring ambition suited the characters involved and committing unspeakable to win boons from dark gods has a compelling flavor to it. The PCs went to great lengths to optimize their Knowledge (Religion) checks and take desirable captives. I'd advise any DMs permitting the rules to understand what they're getting into and decide whether its the right thing for their campaign.

P.S. One of the PCs from the game described above went so far as murder a bunch of people via consumptive field just to boost her caster level for a divination spell. :smalleek: That was just silly, as the player soon realized.

[Seatbelt]

Wait a minute, it's based off of K:Religion?

Bloody hell. Getting stupidly high (and I do mean stupidly high) Knowledge checks is one of the only things that Truenamers are actually good at.

Then you can use your free Wish spell to wish you were something other than a Truenamer.

[faceroll]

Reference manuals are rarely memorized. I mean, how many tourists do you see walking around with their noses buried in their travel guides? (assumes you live somewhere that tourists visit; if not, any substitute relevant experiences visiting places or otherwise interacting with tourists)

Unless you're a doctor.

[NNescio]

Unless you're a doctor.

Most doctors have reference manuals, and I'm sure the majority of them don't memorize the more exotic diseases either. House notwithstanding.

[Veyr]

Doctors do memorize ungodly amounts of data (seriously, most of med school, from what I hear, is hardcore rote memorization), but yeah, they still have reference manuals.

[HalfDragonCube]

So you only get the +2 bonus if you have the book and consult it. Knowledge checks are supose to be free actions.

Hmm... Some kind of really good index?


wish for a candle of invocation and gate in an efreeti for three free wishes :)

Great idea! I'm using this.

[nedz]

So you only get the +2 bonus if you have the book and consult it. Knowledge checks are supose to be free actions.
Hmm... Some kind of really good index?

something like this (http://www.google.co.uk/) perhaps?




wish for a candle of invocation and gate in an efreeti for three free wishes :)
Great idea! I'm using this.

I thought you were supposed to gate in a Sarrukh ?
...
So a Truenamer route to Pun Pun.
How low a level can we do this at ?

[Grendus]

With a kobold? Level 1 (Paizuzu, Paizuzu, Paizuzu).

[HalfDragonCube]

Eventually, all builds lead to Pun-pun...:smallfrown:

[nedz]

With a kobold? Level 1 (Paizuzu, Paizuzu, Paizuzu).

Yes I know, but the thought intrigued me that it might be possible to do this at low level without that trick.

[sreservoir]

Wait a minute, it's based off of K:Religion?

Bloody hell. Getting stupidly high (and I do mean stupidly high) Knowledge checks is one of the only things that Truenamers are actually good at. (INT focus + Knowledge Focus class feature + Universal Aptitude + Hidden Truth + all Knowledges as class skills with very little else to spend points on = oh, my . . .)

Illumian Truenamer, level 3, 18 starting INT. (18's high, but oh well.)

6 ranks
4 INT
2 Naen sigil (you're an illumian Truenamer, you have Naen. Period.)
3 Knowledge Focus class feature
5 Universal Aptitude
10 Hidden Truth

That's +30 before we roll the dice, and before we add in all the bonuses from it being an unholy location with a virgin sacrifice with blah de blah de blah. This does assume that you can affect yourself with both Universal Aptitude and Hidden Truth, but that's not amazingly hard, especially if you use Universal Aptitude as the first of the two. (Level 3 = DC 21 check. 6 ranks + 4 INT + 2 Naen + 3 Skill Focus + 2 for your own truename = +17, so you succeed on a 4. . . and after Universal Aptitude's +5, you autosucceed on the roll for Hidden Truth.)

Dammit, guys. Dammit.

don't forget to UMD that delicious +20 competence from guidance of the avatar out of something. +50 before dice.

if you're a member of the paragnostic assembly (truenamer? yeah, you want to be a member), you can get a further +10 on top of that, and depending on reading, might even be able to take 10 on that check.

[Zaq]

don't forget to UMD that delicious +20 competence from guidance of the avatar out of something. +50 before dice.

if you're a member of the paragnostic assembly (truenamer? yeah, you want to be a member), you can get a further +10 on top of that, and depending on reading, might even be able to take 10 on that check.

Not reliably at level 3, you're not. The Paragnostic Assembly might be critical for proper Truenaming, but there's only so far you can get at any given level. Likewise, while I encourage the use of any GotA items you happen to have sitting around, I'm focusing on stuff that doesn't really require anything beyond a race and class.