Starting Int of 29? How can we use this?

[Vortenger]

Hey Guys. Couple of questions came up as a friend of mine and I were bandying around character ideas for him. He was reminiscing about a time when I let him play an awakened flying squirrel Kineticist (had to play his 1 racial HD out before being a psion) and were trying to decide on off-beat non-humanoid characters, so I opened up to Awaken for some inspiration. That's when I noticed that if you had a druid buddy, say former character or benefactor, mentor, etc., that Awaken can be both Empowered and Maximized. How can we use this to help make an optimized character

If I'm getting that right then that means any animal could at 1 HD have a 29 Int and +6 Cha (and then suddenly find themselves at 3 HD). Similarly a tree/plant would have a Int/Wis/Cha of 29 each and is granted mobility (can move its limbs, roots, etc.) ,though speed is unlisted. Also would the bonus HD count against a LA? As its based on a spell effect I would think not.

So how can we as players use this? Is there a precedent for rules concerning letting a player be a baboon? Or a small birch tree? Looking through SS gave ideas, but nothing concrete. Same with sir Ur-Priest's monster guide.

Any ideas?

Note: My original thought had been to build a baboon factotum (Rafiki, eat yer heart,out). He couldn't talk but was a smarter monkey than any human. The use of SLA's would be no problem.

[Roguenewb]

Ummm....wizard? Seems trite, but it could work. At low levels, all the save-or-X spells would basically always be the X effect.

[Urpriest]

HD are HD, so they would still count towards ECL. You'd have to mock up an LA for the thing, based on its ability scores and the like. Probably in the +1 to +2 range, maybe better if you've got a monster with interesting abilities.

[CTrees]

HD are HD, so they would still count towards ECL. You'd have to mock up an LA for the thing, based on its ability scores and the like. Probably in the +1 to +2 range, maybe better if you've got a monster with interesting abilities.

Well, if you're already going the backstory route of "a wizard druid did it," and thereby justifying an empowered, maximized awaken... why not also have "and then, my awakened lemur was fighting some wights, got level drained a few times, and voluntarily failed some saves to make the drains hitting his RHD permanent, thereby losing those levels and only keeping his wizard levels, conveniently lowering his ECL."

[Flickerdart]

That's not how Maximize and Empower interact, first of all. Second of all, a Maximized Empowered Awaken is a 10th level slot, so you're going to have to find a really high level Druid with a specific feat selection. And lastly, animals don't have a listed LA so they aren't playable, and even if they did, this would definitely add LA. Consider mineralize warrior, a spell that does a similar thing - Mineral Warrior isn't as good as Awaken, and still adds 1 LA.

What you would actually get in terms of ability scores is 18+(3d6/2, average 5) Intelligence, and +3+(1d3/2, average 1) Charisma.

[Vortenger]

Urpriest: I'm not sure about you assertation that HD are HD in this sense. I must ask if spell effected LA's are corner cases when adjudicating LA for advancement.

I.e.: If you were playing a paladin who was rewarded for a quest with a casting of an Axiomatic Creature (BoED) spell, which would grant the axiomatic template to said paladin forever after, you are saying you would impose the LA of that template onto that paladin? Even though it was granted from an extraneous source (specifically a spell effect)? The reward now makes him leveled above his team for a suite of unimpressive abilities? (If so, that makes a Celestial Mystic running around making all his party mates take xp hits and forcing the 'XP river' by granting unneeded LA amusing, and the idea of the spell as a boon abhorrent...)

I do not see Awaken as being different in this regard. If I'm playing a raven as a regular old raven at level 1. I'm a bird. Then Happy the Helpful Druid passes along and Awakens me. I am now arbitrarily 2 levels higher for advancement purposes because I got buffed? Then I'm still just a bird but now with reason. No new abilites, class features, skills (animals suck in this vein). To whit, no new awesome. That doesn't seem reasonable.

That being said, I trust your judgement on the issue, I have followed your crusade on understanding Monsters and LA's for some time, and appreciate your efforts. I just find this falls into a grey area from my understanding of the rules.

To refine the question, how would you adjudicate the ECL of an Awakened 1 HD Animal? Similarly, How would you adjudicate playing an awakened plant at all, ECL or otherwise? (The Green Shrubbery Druid rides again!)

and thanks for the quick replies!

[gbprime]

Second of all, a Maximized Empowered Awaken is a 10th level slot, so you're going to have to find a really high level Druid with a specific feat selection.

Or a druid who knows Empower (or Sudden Empower) and who has a Metamagic Rod of Maximize. With Empower it's a 7th level spell and would take a 121,500 gp Metamagic Rod. With Sudden Empower, it's 5th level and requires at 54,000gp Rod... a lot more doable.

Hmm... Neutral Evil druid making animals with 24 INT and getting them trained as Swashbucklers and Factotums... to take over the TRI-STATE AREA! (Opposed, of course by other Awakened animals in fedoras...)

[Vortenger]

Wow, I get a couple of the greats answering me? Sweet!

Flicker: Thanks for the reply! Yes, RAW you can't be an animal or a shrub, but the player requests a medium, and anthropomorphic isn't cutting muster here for thematic purposes, so we're trying to make something work. This seemed a possible avenue, and thematically appropriate, but requires some extrapolation of the rules. SS gives us some guidelines, I was rather hoping those of you with some experience at this might help guide me through the details.

One of the mainstays in the campaign world we run in is the Mordenkainen/Elminster/Archmage-y guy who in this world is an epic archdruid (sacred excorcist with DMM persist) trying to maintain the balance between good and evil. Evil is currently winning, and so new champions must be forged, blah blah blah. Point being: A maximized/awakened/Uttercold/whatever is entirely possible to hand wave away in this instance. 10th level spell slot? not really, but still not a problem.

Also, you are quite right in your math concerning the interplay of the two feats in question. But you've lowered the expected int of this exercise to an average of 23, still higher than what most cheesewrought kobolds drool after. I don't see that as being bad, though not as ridiculous. I still find the idea of a shrub druid with all 20+ mental stats riding a...well anything really, into combat hilariously awesome.

CTree: Doable, and yep, it works! Its a little more cheesy than we like to go though, and the "A caster did it" is already worked into the campaign intro...so, yeah.

Roguenewb: Wizard is the pinnacle, no doubt. Most of the creatures in this excercise don't have have language options...at all. Makes them verbal components a pain. In the case of a plant...well...no. Psionics or natural spell, though...

[Douglas]

Why not go whole hog and get an epic druid to make it an Intensified (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#intensifySpell) Awaken for 36 intelligence (and wisdom and charisma if you do it with a plant)?

Edit:

One of the mainstays in the campaign world we run in is the Mordenkainen/Elminster/Archmage-y guy who in this world is an epic archdruid (sacred excorcist with DMM persist) trying to maintain the balance between good and evil. Evil is currently winning, and so new champions must be forged, blah blah blah. Point being: A maximized/awakened/Uttercold/whatever is entirely possible to hand wave away in this instance. 10th level spell slot? not really, but still not a problem.
Oh, so the guy being "blamed" for this is already declared to be epic? Definitely bring on the Intensify if your DM is up for it, then.:smallbiggrin:


Roguenewb: Wizard is the pinnacle, no doubt. Most of the creatures in this excercise don't have have language options...at all. Makes them verbal components a pain. In the case of a plant...well...no. Psionics or natural spell, though...
An awakened tree or animal can speak one language that you know, plus one additional language that you know per point of Intelligence bonus (if any). (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/awaken.htm)

[Vortenger]

Now I just can't help myself, all these ideas keep coming up. Just think of the possibilities!

Rocky and Bullwinkle!
A raccoon that really is the thief it looks like!
A coyote (or similar) artificer! (Meep meep!)
Almost any marsupial as a swashbuckler! (Disney and Pirates of Dark Water)
A sarcastic telepathic fat orange tabby cat! (Garfield)
A philosophical bear always on the search for honey (Pooh)
A bear wild shaped into a bear riding a bear while summoning bears!

I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist. The possibilities seem endless.

[Alabenson]

Why not go whole hog and get an epic druid to make it an Intensified (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#intensifySpell) Awaken for 36 intelligence (and wisdom and charisma if you do it with a plant)?

Edit:

Oh, so the guy being "blamed" for this is already declared to be epic? Definitely bring on the Intensify if your DM is up for it, then.:smallbiggrin:


An awakened tree or animal can speak one language that you know, plus one additional language that you know per point of Intelligence bonus (if any). (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/awaken.htm)

Ok...I'm going to have to make an NPC ficus tree wizard with this as his backstory now. :smalltongue:

[killem2]

Isn't there a feat that lets you use your INT for your to hit chance?

[gbprime]

Isn't there a feat that lets you use your INT for your to hit chance?

That's called "Factotum". :smallbiggrin:

Although if you take the path of

Awakened Animal 3HD / Swashbuckler 3 / Iaijutsu Master X

you get INT to damage and to AC as well as having a full BAB.

[Vortenger]

douglas: Thanks! I appreciate the catch on awakened. Intensified is awesome, no doubt. I can almost garantee that we're already pushing our boundaries with the metamagic enhancement at all. And this is assuming we come up with something solid for ruling on animals/plants at all. But if anyone else can use it, hey! As for the blame thing...the druid was another players character that retired after hitting 20 in an old campaign we ran. He's become the 'iconic campaign patron' for most of the games in this world since he's ambivalent on the goods vs. evil issue, and it seems to work (mostly). The epic thing is sort of an honorific. I can imagine you know how it is with old PC's being used as NPC's...they're like a sacred institution (of hand-waving for the DM )

[Flickerdart]

Vortenger: If you need a champion manufactured by some high levels, why not just chain Awakens? Polymorph Any Object bestows type, so you can loop PAO and Awaken for infinite Charisma, and drain away the HD.

[Morph Bark]

First off, you got your math wrong, the maximum starting Int (or Int/Wis/Cha for awakened plants) is 27. Furthermore, you still need to roll the dice for the Empowered part, thus meaning that while 27 is the maximum possible result, you could get a result as low as 21.

[Douglas]

you could get a result as low as 21.
No, the minimum is 19. 18 (maximized) + (3 (minimum possible roll) / 2 (for Empower)) = 19.5, which gets rounded down to 19.

[nedz]

This is an interesting idea.

For some reason Trees get better Cha then Animals. So this gives us the Tree-Bard perhaps ?

Whilst large animals with Str, Con and Dex awakened with Int and Wis would make excellent Monks (no really - Elephant Monk anyone ?), well this solves the MAD problem anway; Animal HD are fairly poor though.

I quite like the idea of a low HD animal being a wizard, but I'm not sure how to get them a Humanoid 'Familier'. Their Cha is too low for leadership, or most of the other tricks ?

[Rubik]

The Ability Enhancer feat (Dragon Compendium p91) grants an additional +2 bonus to transmutation spells that boost ability scores.

Awaken qualifies.

Also, a fun way to boost all of your mental stats is to use Metamorphosis to turn yourself into bamboo, then get an Intensified Awaken cast on you. If you're a Magic Mantled StP erudite with Extra Spell (Awaken) then you can do this yourself (though Intensifying it may be an issue).

[edit] But note that metapsionics doesn't have the 'cannot use the same metapsionic feat more than once' clause, so it's time to double-Empower it.

[Morph Bark]

No, the minimum is 19. 18 (maximized) + (3 (minimum possible roll) / 2 (for Empower)) = 19.5, which gets rounded down to 19.

Note that I did not say 21 to be the minimum, just a possible "low" amount. :smallwink:

Thanks for expanding upon my point though.

[gbprime]

Animal HD are fairly poor though.

They actually end up with Magical Beast hit dice. So they're full BAB and good Fort and Ref saves. Not the best, but the BAB isn't wasted if they melee for a living.

[Thurbane]

It always annoyed me that WotC never made an official ruling on the LA (or CR, for that matter) of awakened creatures...I mean, they introduce this spell into the core rules, and didn't think to provide rules for it's obvious use to create PCs and NPCs. :smallmad:

Sure Savage Species has rules for Anthro Animals, but it's just not the same (n ot to mention hilariously broken in some cases).

[Chronos]

Actually, an awakened animal is a Magical Beast (Augmented animal), and the rules for the Augmented subtype say that you only have the HD, BAB, etc. of the original type. So you're stuck with medium BAB progression.

And personally, I'd allow awakened animals with no LA, since for most animals the racial HD are going to be punishment enough (as long as you don't do anything cheesy like deliberately level-drain them away).

[FMArthur]

I know you've already mentioned a Kineticist was used but it doesn't sound like you used this: Use Control Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/controlBody.htm) on yourself and Solicit Psicrystal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/solicitPsicrystal.htm) as a Swift action to free up your actions to keep casting while you whack people. You have to have humanoid-like physiology so the awakened animal would need to be a primate, like a monkey, in this scenario.

Using Control Body to attack puts Int on your attack rolls, your damage rolls and your AC while you zap people with your Int-based casting at the same time. A Factotum dip with multiple Fonts of Inpiration could have you stacking up more iterations of your Intelligence in combat than d20s are rolled.

[Rubik]

I know you've already mentioned a Kineticist was used but it doesn't sound like you used this: Use Control Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/controlBody.htm) on yourself and Solicit Psicrystal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/solicitPsicrystal.htm) as a Swift action to free up your actions to keep casting while you whack people. You have to have humanoid-like physiology so the awakened animal would need to be a primate, like a monkey, in this scenario.

Using Control Body to attack puts Int on your attack rolls, your damage rolls and your AC while you zap people with your Int-based casting at the same time. A Factotum dip with multiple Fonts of Inpiration could have you stacking up more iterations of your Intelligence in combat than d20s are rolled.I hope you have a really high Concentration skill, 'cuz it'll require checks every time you manifest anything.

[Metahuman1]

I suddenly want to make a dungeonbred awakened Unicorn Wizard now.

[Flickerdart]

You can't awaken a Unicorn, they're Magical Beasts and already intelligent.

[Urpriest]

Urpriest: I'm not sure about you assertation that HD are HD in this sense. I must ask if spell effected LA's are corner cases when adjudicating LA for advancement.

I.e.: If you were playing a paladin who was rewarded for a quest with a casting of an Axiomatic Creature (BoED) spell, which would grant the axiomatic template to said paladin forever after, you are saying you would impose the LA of that template onto that paladin? Even though it was granted from an extraneous source (specifically a spell effect)? The reward now makes him leveled above his team for a suite of unimpressive abilities? (If so, that makes a Celestial Mystic running around making all his party mates take xp hits and forcing the 'XP river' by granting unneeded LA amusing, and the idea of the spell as a boon abhorrent...)

I do not see Awaken as being different in this regard. If I'm playing a raven as a regular old raven at level 1. I'm a bird. Then Happy the Helpful Druid passes along and Awakens me. I am now arbitrarily 2 levels higher for advancement purposes because I got buffed? Then I'm still just a bird but now with reason. No new abilites, class features, skills (animals suck in this vein). To whit, no new awesome. That doesn't seem reasonable.

That being said, I trust your judgement on the issue, I have followed your crusade on understanding Monsters and LA's for some time, and appreciate your efforts. I just find this falls into a grey area from my understanding of the rules.

To refine the question, how would you adjudicate the ECL of an Awakened 1 HD Animal? Similarly, How would you adjudicate playing an awakened plant at all, ECL or otherwise? (The Green Shrubbery Druid rides again!)

and thanks for the quick replies!

Well, here's the issue: nowhere does it say that you get to avoid the LA hit for things like Axiomatic Creature, or even more obvious things like Dragon Disciple and Dread Necromancer. It should have been obvious to the game designers after a few books that the topic needed to be addressed, but it never was. Furthermore, I'm not even aware of any examples in the form of example characters or the like that might shed some light on the issue. It's almost entirely left ambiguous.

With that said, it defaults to either asking Curmudgeon to make something up based on whichever dictionary he happens to have closest to hand, or trying to figure out what is reasonable and consistent with other rules. It seems sensible that if something like Dread Necromancer or Dragon Disciple would warn players if they magically added LA at the last level, so it would be reasonable to assume that taking 20 levels of Dread Necro or 10 levels of Dragon Disciple is payment enough for the template. The spell is a corner case. Based on things like Mineralize Warrior I'd say it gives LA, but it's not so clear.

For HD, though, I definitely wouldn't let them get ignored. Giving a player HD that doesn't count for ECL is effectively giving negative LA, and that way lies madness. HD greater than ECL is breaking a big cornerstone of the level system, and would be a really fundamental change in the way characters and monsters are put together. Just look at what happens with things like Incarnate Construct if you need any motivation.

Honestly, if you want PCs who play animals then Awaken is probably not your best bet. I'd either grab one of the homebrew monster classes, or mock up a new race like a non-shapeshifting Hengeyokoi or Tibbit.

[Flickerdart]

Why would there have to be LA on Awaken? There's no LA on animals. Animals aren't playable. Awakened animals are also not playable. It's not avoiding LA, because it's not LA0. It's LA --.

[nedz]

They actually end up with Magical Beast hit dice. So they're full BAB and good Fort and Ref saves. Not the best, but the BAB isn't wasted if they melee for a living.

But they start with the base stats, and we want them to take character levels ?


You can't awaken a Unicorn, they're Magical Beasts and already intelligent.

You could awaken a Rhinoceros though, now that would be an interesting Gish.

Myself, I still want to see the Awakened Larch Tree Band :smallbiggrin:
What instruments could they play ?

[Rubik]

Myself, I still want to see the Awakened Larch Tree Band :smallbiggrin:
What instruments could they play ?Um...woodwinds?

[Flickerdart]

Myself, I still want to see the Awakened Larch Tree Band :smallbiggrin:
What instruments could they play ?
Lutes. Because making instruments out of the corpses of your own species is very metal.

[Urpriest]

Why would there have to be LA on Awaken? There's no LA on animals. Animals aren't playable. Awakened animals are also not playable. It's not avoiding LA, because it's not LA0. It's LA --.

I was assuming that this was after the OP had already homebrewed an appropriate LA for the purpose.