[3.5] Granting intelligence without granting a soul

[Phelix-Mu]

Hi everyone,
So, a few preliminaries. My character in an epic campaign is LG. Her allies have access to Epic Spellcasting, so the limit on what is possible is pretty high. But her allies aren't the same alignment, and my character is trying to uphold the LG thing.

Since we have nigh infinite resources at this point, we are gathering forces. We are outside the D&D multiverse, though, so lots of normal avenues (celestials, Mechanus, pretty much anything based on the D&D cosmology aside from elementals) are not open.

And now to the point. My character wants intelligent minions, but also sees appeal in those without souls or otherwise nominal sentience (like constructs), as our opponent Tharizdun is harvesting souls by the planetful.

So, are there templates/spells/techniques out there that can grant a mind to mindless creatures without imparting a soul (i.e., not awaken x or y)? No undead, please.

This is an extension of the gathering minions thread I posted a while back. Any further source of minions are welcome as well.

[ArcturusV]

... Hmm... Tricky one. Undead WOULD be the simple solution, of course...

But since you're an Epic Level Spellcaster, some weird stuff could happen. I'm wondering if perhaps you could use something like a Clone Spell with Animate Object (Or some variant I'm missing) on the meatbags that Clone produces to create an army of Soulless creatures of Flesh and Blood.

So you could pick something like a Lizard that you captured. Rip off it's tail, clone using the tail (And repeat as it regrows tails), animate the lizard clones. Use Dark Speech to bind the Clones into a Hivemind which grants Int and Charisma (though not souls). Hiveminded Lizard Soulless... depending on production possibly an Epic Level Sorcerer in their own right.

Incredibly cheesy, and depending on the DM likely to get slapped down. Depends on a few rules interactions I don't entirely have worked up at the moment. But it was the first method that jumped to mind.

[Everynone]

What do you mean specifically by 'intelligent minions'?

[Emperor Tippy]

Rudimentary Intelligence. It costs an addition 8,000 GP to give a construct you make an Int score equal to 1/2 your CL. It specifically does not mess with the golem being bound to its creators will (so it still obeys all orders).

For extra hilarity creature the construct using Wish (Constructs count as magical items so they are valid Wish's, but you need a Though Bottle to eat the XP cost) and use the Cosmic Descryer's Cosmic Connection class feature combined with Delay Death to boost your CL up to two hundred trillion or so and then end Delay Death so that you die and get ressed with any of the no cost res spells immediately afterword.

Your construct now has an Int score of a hundred trillion or so. :)

Or you can Awaken your construct and then create an Ice Assassin of said construct. It keeps the Constructs mental stats and abilities and you gain a mental link and it regains the requirement to obey all your orders. It's also alot cheaper than paying for more constructs, and quicker to.

[Callin]

Create a HUGE Soul Gem and use it to protect and sustain all of your minions souls.

[Phelix-Mu]

...
But since you're an Epic Level Spellcaster, some weird stuff could happen.


Actually, my character is not an epic level spellcaster (and I'd reiterate the LG, making Dark Speech a suspicious choice of tactics). Monk 16/Wiz1/AbjChamp5/Swordsage1/ShadowsunNinja1/Crusader1/MasterEastWind1/Telepath1. I think that's it. Hehe. Intentionally unoptimized, as I wanted to delay the level at which my system mastery would make combat trivial (that point is rapidly approaching).

She has access to 5th level arcane spells and 1st level powers, to two perfectly obedient wyrm dragons (gold and silver, each casts as a 17th level sorcerer, and can be psychic reform'd if necessary), a bunch of awakened stone golems, and a growing army of simulacra. Access to enough money to do whatever.

The allies with the epic spells will agree to do cool stuff that helps everyone, but probably aren't going to sign onto my army of constructs plan (N epic druid, CN DWK sorcerer/incantatrix mostly into the boom boom).

[Phelix-Mu]

Rudimentary Intelligence. It costs an addition 8,000 GP to give a construct you make an Int score equal to 1/2 your CL. It specifically does not mess with the golem being bound to its creators will (so it still obeys all orders).

For extra hilarity creature the construct using Wish (Constructs count as magical items so they are valid Wish's, but you need a Though Bottle to eat the XP cost) and use the Cosmic Descryer's Cosmic Connection class feature combined with Delay Death to boost your CL up to two hundred trillion or so and then end Delay Death so that you die and get ressed with any of the no cost res spells immediately afterword.

Your construct now has an Int score of a hundred trillion or so. :)

Or you can Awaken your construct and then create an Ice Assassin of said construct. It keeps the Constructs mental stats and abilities and you gain a mental link and it regains the requirement to obey all your orders. It's also alot cheaper than paying for more constructs, and quicker to.

Sources? And, Tippy, you'll be glad to know that this campaign runs off leveling according to plot, so xp went out the window. XP components are now valuable material components worth 5gp/xp (see the comment about virtually unlimited wealth).

I like that ice assassin trick. Every trick with ice assassin just makes me wonder why/how/who came up with that spell. It is a level of silly/awesome that is truly inappropriate.


Create a HUGE Soul Gem and use it to protect and sustain all of your minions souls.

Soul gem? Please explain or give me a source to read about these interesting things.:smallwink:

Anyway, thanks for the help.

The main issue, for those that want an ethics primer, is that my character feels responsible for the fate of those sentient beings on whom she is relying for help. So for her massive hordes, the best option is something like robot hive mind or something; perfectly obedient stuff that lacks a true individual will. Tools, basically. Now, I know undead is basically "this," but necromancy to that end is just off the table. Even if she wasn't LG, the druid would have her head, and her friendship with the CG exalted bard would be over.

OOG, I've been threatened (although jokingly), with IC alignment change because my Kung-Fu Genius monk has been proposing plans that already stretch any semblance of game balance or ethical behavior to their limits, so I'm trying to limit the amoral sketchy factor. She and the party are up against intergalactic/omnidimensional Tharizdun and his Lovecraftian/DOOM-inspired flunkies, and as the innocents die by the 100 millions and whole multiverses fall to his hordes, my character is really giving herself license to bend the rules in any way possible without totally forfeiting her principles. Desperate times, and all. We can discuss the ethics of that mindset, but at least her theorizing and plans consider even the marginally sketchy (and then she looks away while the less reputable party members do x or y).

[Psyren]

Golems do have souls of a sort though - the elemental or what have you bound within them. Hence the Berserk dealy. Although that may not be all of them.

[Phelix-Mu]

Golems do have souls of a sort though - the elemental or what have you bound within them. Hence the Berserk dealy. Although that may not be all of them.

Hmm, you seem to have a point. I will thereby have to revise my plan and only have awakened golems, and use other types of constructs lacking the elemental spirit fluff that is somewhat spuriously mentioned in the Monster Manual.

I assume awakening the golem somehow pacifies and gives will back to the elemental spirit, or there would be some kind of two-souls-one-body dynamic that would almost certainly be bad.

Anywho, thanks for reminding me of that bit of Judeo-Christian legacy in the golem description.

[Emperor Tippy]

Sources?

Rudimentary Intelligence is in Dragon #327.

Cosmic Descryer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/prestigeClasses/cosmicDescryer.htm) is in the SRD

Delay Death is in Races of Destiny.

Ice Assassin is in Frostburn.

Thought Bottle is in Complete Arcane.

[Phelix-Mu]

Thanks, Tippy. Sources are always awesome. Now I just need some way to look at a specific Dragon Mag. Yay, Google!

[The Viscount]

My knowledge of epic things is very poor, but perhaps if we approach it from a different angle. Homunculi do not have souls, as they are animated from the caster's essence. Perhaps if you altered them from there? I don't know what kind of minions you need.

[Phelix-Mu]

My knowledge of epic things is very poor, but perhaps if we approach it from a different angle. Homunculi do not have souls, as they are animated from the caster's essence. Perhaps if you altered them from there? I don't know what kind of minions you need.

Ooh. Homunculi might work. Worth researching, anyway.

But I think the power level might not be high enough. I need minions that can be augmented, psychic reformed, or otherwise boosted into formidable fighters, the kinds that can at least fight innumerable hordes of beasties. In the other thread, someone recommended paragon legendary tiger effigies, and it seemed like a good plan. I'll probably have effigies of some sort, but having intelligent creatures would be best (feats!). We've traveled to high-tech universes, so it's possible I can just get a Pentium for each effigy or something...which would probably amount to the Rudimentary Intelligence thing.

I just want reasonably (epic-level reasonable, mind you) strong minions that my character won't have to worry about them risking their lives for her. She's already gonna be sweating her followers/cohorts and such, so it would be nice for the hordes to be on some kind of autopilot, so to speak.

[avr]

Simulacra are intelligent and, I'm pretty sure, don't have souls.

Edit: yes, sure looks that way. An illusory duplicate of a creature which is partially real. The line about not being able to increase its abilities might be an issue with psychic reformation; ask your DM.

The biggest issue would be negating the XP cost. If you can get simulacrum (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/simulacrum.htm) as a SLA that should do the trick.

[Phelix-Mu]

Simulacra are intelligent and, I'm pretty sure, don't have souls.

Edit: yes, sure looks that way. An illusory duplicate of a creature which is partially real. The line about not being able to increase its abilities might be an issue with psychic reformation; ask your DM.

The biggest issue would be negating the XP cost. If you can get simulacrum (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/simulacrum.htm) as a SLA that should do the trick.

As I mentioned before, no xp in this campaign. Instead, substitute a valuable material component worth 5gp per 1xp in the original spell. Essentially, spells for free, since money is free.

And I'm on the line about simulacra and souls. Flavor-wise, no souls makes sense, but aside from the illusory appearance, the inability to improve, and the weird healing mechanic, they are 100% REAL. So, it copies your mind, your body for sure. Does the spell create a copy soul? Is there are reason trap the soul or similar doesn't work on a simulacrum? The simulacra shares your creature type, I think, so no new immunities crop up. I'd be interested if any of you know of any arguments on this point.

DM already let me psychic reform other similar stuff, and strictly speaking, changing abilities gained at or before level x for other abilities is not inherently an "increase" in it's abilities (the spell is quite radically vague on this point). You trade one thing for another, total increase zero. In actual effectiveness, of course, the new set of abilities may be better, but I don't see that that reflects the spell at all.

Anyway, simulacra is my current favorite trick. At level 28 or whatever, and with personal energy shields and sniper rifles present in our current setting, they are not a totally ineffective considering their price range (pretty dirt cheap, really, considering the ability scores of the resulting copy).

[Twilightwyrm]

Hmm, you seem to have a point. I will thereby have to revise my plan and only have awakened golems, and use other types of constructs lacking the elemental spirit fluff that is somewhat spuriously mentioned in the Monster Manual.

I assume awakening the golem somehow pacifies and gives will back to the elemental spirit, or there would be some kind of two-souls-one-body dynamic that would almost certainly be bad.

Anywho, thanks for reminding me of that bit of Judeo-Christian legacy in the golem description.

The thing is, I'm not so sure what is in golems is elemental souls. The description says spirits, but it strikes more like simply a consciousness than a soul. While admittedly whether there is any metaphysical differences might be up to debate, I'd say that is enough of a technicality to keep the BBEG's minions from harvesting anything from them.

But, if it is a bit to sketchy for you, you can always make yourself an army of shield guardians. They are specifically not golems, and are therefore more like mindless animated objects, which in their case, are not states as having a soul. Of course, this still doesn't overcome the issue of granting them rudimentary intelligence, but there are already a few suggestions here for overcoming that problem. If you want to take the hive mind approach, find some way to have them all keyed to the same amulet, then animate and awaken the amulet. The guardians obey the wearer of the amulet, and if you can convince the amulet to do likewise, it can work well as a central intelligence advancing your will. Best of all, unless the amulet itself is captured, there is no soul your enemies can harvest.

[Phelix-Mu]

The thing is, I'm not so sure what is in golems is elemental souls. The description says spirits, but it strikes more like simply a consciousness than a soul. While admittedly whether there is any metaphysical differences might be up to debate, I'd say that is enough of a technicality to keep the BBEG's minions from harvesting anything from them.

Hmm, perhaps worth some IC research. But, being LG, my character basically can't risk accidentally helping the enemy with her attempts to hurt the enemy. Already accidentally done that a couple times.

[Mutazoia]

Hi everyone,
So, a few preliminaries. My character in an epic campaign is LG. Her allies have access to Epic Spellcasting, so the limit on what is possible is pretty high. But her allies aren't the same alignment, and my character is trying to uphold the LG thing.

Since we have nigh infinite resources at this point, we are gathering forces. We are outside the D&D multiverse, though, so lots of normal avenues (celestials, Mechanus, pretty much anything based on the D&D cosmology aside from elementals) are not open.

And now to the point. My character wants intelligent minions, but also sees appeal in those without souls or otherwise nominal sentience (like constructs), as our opponent Tharizdun is harvesting souls by the planetful.

So, are there templates/spells/techniques out there that can grant a mind to mindless creatures without imparting a soul (i.e., not awaken x or y)? No undead, please.

This is an extension of the gathering minions thread I posted a while back. Any further source of minions are welcome as well.

I don't know if there's a 3.x equivilant but in the 2e splat book Lords of Darkness on PG 39 there's a spell calld Awaken Intelligence:

Awaken Intelligence:
Level: 4;
Range: touch;
Duration: permanent;
Area of effect: 1 creature;
Components:V,S,M;
Casting time: 4 segments;
Saving throw: none.
Gives sentience to a non-sentient
creature (roll 3d6 to select Intelligence
score), or in already sentient creatures,
improves Intelligence by 2d6 points.
Requires a system shock roll to survive
its effects. Awakened Intelligence may
not be passed on to offspring unless
“locked” into the creature’s genetic
makeup by the alter beast spell. The
material components are a dried fish
and a piece of brain coral.

[Phelix-Mu]

Hmm, it might be worth researching such a spell. The campaign is often under some fairly restrictive time pressures, though, so I'm not sure that would work. I guess I can always have one of the simulacra or whatever do the research. Food for thought.

And I just read last night that effigies have the same kind of elemental spirits driving their clockworks that are found in golems. Alas. Shield guardians sounds promising. Hehe. Or I can just awaken all of them and prepare for tragic levels of casualties. Phooey.

[Phelix-Mu]

Shameless self-bump. Hello weekend crowd. Any ideas?

[shaikujin]

Wouldn't simulacrum as suggested above work?

They have no souls to be resurrected from. When reduced to 0 hp, they just disappear.

Also, since they are essentially part of you, you don't have to worry too much about guilt.


Alternatively, intelligent items crafted with Nyrul's (sp?) Psychic Imprint (online wizards article, you can google for it).


Hope it helps. These are on the top of my mind as I am using them for Tippy's monk challenge. Build isn't completed as I kept adding stuff and it kinda grew out of hand.

[Vaz]

Epic Spellcrafting (Seed; life) 'can' give a soul. Nothing suggests that it 'has' to.

[Phelix-Mu]

I guess I could epic spell some stuff with origin of species or similar that explicitly doesn't have a soul. Sadly, my character would need to bribe the druid or the kobold sorcerer to cooperate. Might work, though.

We've already done a lot of the life seed, too. Six-armed large tree creatures wielding gattling guns and used for the capstone for a buffing mythal? I'll take two, please.:smallcool:

[Phelix-Mu]

Wouldn't simulacrum as suggested above work?

They have no souls to be resurrected from. When reduced to 0 hp, they just disappear.

Also, since they are essentially part of you, you don't have to worry too much about guilt.

Alternatively, intelligent items crafted with Nyrul's (sp?) Psychic Imprint (online wizards article, you can google for it).

Hope it helps. These are on the top of my mind as I am using them for Tippy's monk challenge. Build isn't completed as I kept adding stuff and it kinda grew out of hand.

I'll have to scope out the psychic imprint thing. Sounds promising.

As mentioned above, I'm not convinced simulacra don't have souls. The creature created is a real creature. The only part of the illusion in the crunch seems to be the appearance. Other than that, it's a real creature of the type copied, and should be susceptible to the same spells (like trap the soul). Any additional immunities or alterations to type should have been noted by the spell, which is sadly and seriously under-explained.

[shaikujin]

Here's the link

www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20041215a

Doing it from phone, not sure if it works.



Basically, imprint your own psyche (assuming your mental stats are higher than any absolutely loyal minion you can summon) into a gem, then use it to create an intelligent magic item.

Cheaper than AE&G prices for costing mental abilities too.

I'm 99% sure that intelligent items don't have souls and can't be resurrected when they reach 0 HP. Make them our of Aurorum just in case. That way, when they are put back together, they are good as new. Proving that they did not have a soul that went back to their home plane.

[Phelix-Mu]

Here's the link

www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20041215a

Doing it from phone, not sure if it works.



Basically, imprint your own psyche (assuming your mental stats are higher than any absolutely loyal minion you can summon) into a gem, then use it to create an intelligent magic item.

Cheaper than AE&G prices for costing mental abilities too.

I'm 99% sure that intelligent items don't have souls and can't be resurrected when they reach 0 HP. Make them our of Aurorum just in case. That way, when they are put back together, they are good as new. Proving that they did not have a soul that went back to their home plane.

I think I'd have to invent a non-evil version, or get the DM to rule that using it on oneself gets rid of the rather spuriously applied evil descriptor. I could certainly imprint off one of my simulacra, I guess, since they lack an independent will as written (as far as I can tell from the spell description, lol). My character would probably do it to herself, then contingent something or other to get rid of the coma.

Otherwise, it's pretty perfect. Thank for the tip.

As an aside, Nybor sounds like an AWESOME npc. That teleport spell from the article had me roflmao.

I'll probably start another thread to discuss the true nature of simulacra and what is copied, what isn't. The RAW is so ridiculously sparse that I guess the DM just needs to fill in the gaps with houserulings. Meh.

[shaikujin]

Glad to be able to help.

You can always tell your simulacra to cast the spell in your stead.

Regarding spells with the evil descriptor (or any descriptor), would conversion to a power via stp erudite get rid of it?

What about the transmuter acf in phb2 that converts all spells to transmuting school?

Trying to find a way to do this without researching a new spell.

[Emperor Tippy]

It's literally pay 8,000 GP. That's all you have to do per RAW to make intelligent Constructs.

[Phelix-Mu]

Yeah, it's either the Rudimentary Intelligence option from the Dragon Magz, or that spell of Nybor's. The DM missed session yesterday, so I don't have a ruling yet on if it's going to be considered an evil spell. The DM likes to stick to RAW, sadly, but with all my simulacra and cohorts and such, it might be possible to task someone else with the spell research to make a non-evil version.

Thanks to all for helping me arrange the options in a nice way to help with deliberation. So much gold pieces, so little time!

[Twilightwyrm]

Hmm, perhaps worth some IC research. But, being LG, my character basically can't risk accidentally helping the enemy with her attempts to hurt the enemy. Already accidentally done that a couple times.

That's fair. Why not use Shield Guardians as a substitute though? I believe there is even a template for making alternative Shield Guardians, and if you awaken the amulet controlling them, you don't risk the "soul" of an intelligent creature falling into enemy hands.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'll look into those shield guardians. I liked the runic guardian, the upgrade, from way back, and maybe those kinds of constructs will suit my purposes more. That and blackstone gigants.:smallsmile:

By the way, has anyone seen a 3e version of the spiderstone golem? That was one of the cooler ones from back in 2e, but I can't recall seeing an update.