Living Spell Glyph of Warding: New Trick?

[Urpriest]

I've been looking at the various spells that qualify to become Living Spells, and I've found something interesting. Glyph of Warding can affect an Area, which makes it a legitimate choice for a Living Spell. Since it affects any creature that enters the area, it will affect any creature it slams or engulfs. Configured as a Spell Glyph, it can store any harmful spell of its level or lower (3 for Glyph, 6 for Greater Glyph), which can explicitly include targeted spells and even spells that summon creatures in addition to Area: and Effect: spells. This means that the possibilities for a living spell just radically increased.

Is this an old trick? Does it work?

[whibla]

What a horrifying thought.

Engulf a medium creature, summon a medium creature. You've now engulfed 2 medium creatures, so summon 2 more medium creatures. Next round, assuming none of the creatures have escaped the grapple 4 more creatures pop into existance. If the living spell is huge (CL 13+) it could conceivably then pop out 8 more creatures on the following round. And for as long as even a single creature remains within its embrace (and I do not think breaking the grapple will be trivial) more creatures will be summoned every round.

I'm not sure from the monster entry how a living spell gets to Gargantuan or Colossal size however...maybe epic (21+) caster levels?

I can't find anything in either the spell or creature description that would explicitly forbid this, though, based on the creatures preamble, this is certainly not the 'intended' effect.

Good spot though. I suspect I might have to use this as a very frustrating, if slow moving, encounter.

[Tvtyrant]

I haven't seen it before, although how much that is worth is...

Anyways, it is a neat idea. It would work even better if it could summon living spells of itself, but as is its pretty good.

[Answerer]

I'm not sure from the monster entry how a living spell gets to Gargantuan or Colossal size however...maybe epic (21+) caster levels?
Give the thing character levels in Psychic Warrior, and manifest Expansion?

[Kuulvheysoon]

Give the thing character levels in Psychic Warrior, and manifest Expansion?

You'd need to make it fiendish first (or some other Intelligence-granting template), of course, but that is a very, very frightening thought.

[Urpriest]

You'd need to make it fiendish first (or some other Intelligence-granting template), of course, but that is a very, very frightening thought.

Sentry Ooze would make it fairly kickass.

[Kelb_Panthera]

A living glyph of warding sentry ooze w/ class levels? That's one of the most disturbing concepts I've seen in a while. :smalleek:

[Deth Muncher]

And then it becomes The Blob and wipes out civilization. Congratulations guys, you've just made D&D a B-horror film.

[VGLordR2]

The only issue that I can see with summoning creatures is that Glyph of Warding says this:

If the spell summons creatures, they appear as close as possible to the intruder and attack.
So while you can summon many monsters, it seems that they would start attacking each other.

[Tvtyrant]

The only issue that I can see with summoning creatures is that Glyph of Warding says this:

So while you can summon many monsters, it seems that they would start attacking each other.

Could you summon things with Death Throes? Then they would injure people just by dieing!

[Psyren]

The only issue that I can see with summoning creatures is that Glyph of Warding says this:

So while you can summon many monsters, it seems that they would start attacking each other.

While engulfed, you're considered grappling, so the only thing they could attack would be the ooze itself rather than each other. Glyph-summons don't seem to be under anyone's control though, so even once the ooze is gone and they can move freely they'd still be at each other's throats by RAW.

[XQNP]

Summon Jovocs (MMII). Any damage done to them is reflected on non-tanar'ri within 30 feet.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Summon Jovocs (MMII). Any damage done to them is reflected on non-tanar'ri within 30 feet.

You are a bad person :smallfrown:

(Just kidding, of course. :smallwink:)

[Milo v3]

Summon Jovocs (MMII). Any damage done to them is reflected on non-tanar'ri within 30 feet.

That would kill the living spell...

[ThiagoMartell]

Remember that Psyren pointed out living spells are possible targets for the bottled ooze alchemist discovery. :smalleek:

[Augmental]

That would kill the living spell...

Hmm... is there a way to make a tanar'ri living spell?

[XQNP]

That would kill the living spell...

Whisper demons, then. Everyone around is driven suicidally insane, but the living spell itself is immune.

[maximus25]

Hmm... is there a way to make a tanar'ri living spell?

They need some way to win, jeez.

[Necroticplague]

Hmm... is there a way to make a tanar'ri living spell?

Tanar'ri is a subtype, normally by outsiders that often have [evil][extraplanar] and[chaotic] substypes. However, I can think of nothing stating it has to be so,so you could probably use a ritual from savage species that adds a subtype in order to make the living spell an Ooze[tanar'ri].

[Urpriest]

One thing I thought of: Greater Glyph of Warding could let you create a Bacta Tank by imbuing it with Heal (it is a harmful spell! for the undead...).

As for the bottled ooze possibility, you could probably only do it with Glyph of Warding, and then only if you manage to get it at CL 3 or lower. But if possible, that would allow the Alchemist to access pretty much any 3rd level or lower spell on a whim...

[subject42]

You could just bomb the area through Lemure recursion, couldn't you?

The living spell has DR 10/Magic. A large slam attack does... 1d6, I think (away from books).

You can summon 1d3 Lemures with Summon Monster III, which have DR 5/Good or Silver. The SRD says they do 1d4 non-magical damage with their attacks.

The Lemures can't hurt the spell, the lemures can't hurt each other, and the spell can barely hurt the lemures.

Additionally, can't you spawn summons in the same square if they take the squeezing penalty?

Based on that, you should be able to pump out a very large number of Lemures in a very short time.