[3.5] Thralls: Food for the Soul

[Kyouhen]

So I'm tossing together a Thrallherd that I'll be using in an evil campaign and am wondering if anyone has any ideas for feats that take advantage of a large number of expendable troops.

Few conditions apply: First of all pretty much all of my thralls are going to be randomly generated from NPC classes, so things like stupid high amounts of power points aren't likely to work. I might be able to convince the DM to convert some magic-based feats into psionic variations, he's already approved the one that lets me deal Con damage to an ally for a free application of metamagic. I'm also likely to take Fell Conspiracy because that should be handy.

So does anyone know of any other rituals/powers/tricks that will see me constantly refreshing my thralls?

[unseenmage]

Chain Thrallherd. Make your Cohort a Thrallherd and his cohort etc. And have them take psicrystals and have the psicrystals take Leadership.

Teamwork benefits from DMG2. Even animals can be trained to use these benefits with a trick so you have all your thralls buy at least one animal and teach it the trick. Taadaa, now you have twice the horde you had and they're even cooperating.

More cheesey, all NPCs come with equipment based on the NPC Wealth by Level chart in the DMG. You could farm thrall equipment.

Even more cheesey option is to control a Wight and level drain new thralls then use up their 1/2 level xp for stuff.

Additionally, Polymorph shenanigans. BoVD sacrifice rules. And lastly, Thralls make corpses and corpses make undead.

EDIT: Don't forget to add the Eberron item builder NPC class to your random generation. Makes NPC classed followers suck that little bit less.

[Silva Stormrage]

If you can somehow get an at will energy drain ability you can start hitting your minions with negative levels to get massive amounts of temporary hit points.

If you have your thrall as a wizard or cleric and have it cast http://dndtools.eu/spells/book-of-vile-darkness--37/power-leech--213/ then you can use your believers as temporary stat batteries. Remember to chain and extend the spell for extra fun :smalltongue:

Getting the Legacy Weapon Scythe Caput Mortem from Legacy Weapon (You don't qualify so have your thrall use it) can let you coup de grace your minions to gain permanent unseen servants with no upward cap.

They can become a quick undead army, wight spawn army or something similar (I suggest Spectre's for efficiency). Control one and have it kill all your believers. Then send all of the new undead (Don't send in the original one) to an enemy town or the like and wreck havoc.

Sacrifice them for XP, BoVD has rules for sacrificing souls.

For less mechanical ideas
Bargaining chips, some creatures like Illithids would trade great amounts for plenty of fresh brains. You could probably sell the believers for a decent amount or for more psionic knowledge or items.

Throne carriers, for traveling in style. Why bother walking when you have people to carry you :smalltongue:

[unseenmage]

You could also consider using the Dark Chaos Shuffle to rebuild their feats selections, the retraining rules from DMG2 (IIRC) to rebuild their classes, and/or that one psionic power that lets you rebuild a character.

Even if you're restricted to only NPC classes with these options you can still up their utility quite a bit.

[ahenobarbi]

Sacrifice them to bet boons from dark gods (I don't remember book where rules are).

[XmonkTad]

Bodyguard feats from DotU would make them decent meatshields.

[Silva Stormrage]

You could also consider using the Dark Chaos Shuffle to rebuild their feats selections, the retraining rules from DMG2 (IIRC) to rebuild their classes, and/or that one psionic power that lets you rebuild a character.

Even if you're restricted to only NPC classes with these options you can still up their utility quite a bit.

Oh good suggestion, I would suggest improved binding and bind vestige for your minions that can actually be very useful.

[Vaz]

Yup, with Malphas bound, you have an army of spies. At the very least. Wth Fell Conspiracy, you have Message at Will; fantastic.

It isn't so much Dark Chaos Shuffle, by PsyRef or simply Retraining. It amounts to the same thing but progressively less abusive. Which as a Thrall Herd you're already being abusive anyway if you chain it to stupid amounts.

Might as well try and get some Casters, and get them Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar; taking Mirror Mephits for Simulacrum as an SLA if you are going for stupid broken.

[unseenmage]

Yup, with Malphas bound, you have an army of spies. At the very least. Wth Fell Conspiracy, you have Message at Will; fantastic.

It isn't so much Dark Chaos Shuffle, by PsyRef or simply Retraining. It amounts to the same thing but progressively less abusive. Which as a Thrall Herd you're already being abusive anyway if you chain it to stupid amounts.

Might as well try and get some Casters, and get them Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar; taking Mirror Mephits for Simulacrum as an SLA if you are going for stupid broken.

Oh well in that case you give them each the feat that lets them have a Psicrystal who is stronger than they are, and that psicrystal has a Cohort who has a psicrystal that's stronger than he is which in turn has a Cohort etc etc.

I mean if we're doing stupid broken we might as well do it right. :smallbiggrin:

Work in some Savage Species rituals to apply the Symbiotic Template and bond some extraplanar flowers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259833) to them and things get even more chain inducingly hilarious.

[Silva Stormrage]

Oh also see if you can call creatures with templates. Half Fey human commoner 4 is significantly better than human commoner 6

[unseenmage]

Oh also see if you can call creatures with templates. Half Fey human commoner 4 is significantly better than human commoner 6

You should check also to see if your DM will let you use the Leadership boosting feats interchangeably with the Thrallherd ability. Especially if you're not going to cheese it up. The book Power of Faerun has a lot of Leadership related fluff and crunch that should prove useful regardless.

[thethird]

Don't waste them, mind seed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSeed.htm) them. The best thing about being me... There are so many "me"s.

[unseenmage]

Don't waste them, mind seed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSeed.htm) them. The best thing about being me... There are so many "me"s.

"Mister Anderson...chik-chikka-boom!!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVfCEzdWi-U)

[Kyouhen]

All of these are fantastic ideas, though I was kind of aiming a little lower on the cheese scale. :smalltongue: This is supposed to be a low-power campaign and the DM's already declared that I'm only really going to be attracting NPC classes with Thrallherd. I'm just looking for things I can use them for. Character's likely going to get them all addicted to various drugs for giggles though. Also maybe cover them in contact poison before releasing them back into the general populous. Or diseases. I dunno. :smalltongue:

[Silva Stormrage]

All of these are fantastic ideas, though I was kind of aiming a little lower on the cheese scale. :smalltongue: This is supposed to be a low-power campaign and the DM's already declared that I'm only really going to be attracting NPC classes with Thrallherd. I'm just looking for things I can use them for. Character's likely going to get them all addicted to various drugs for giggles though. Also maybe cover them in contact poison before releasing them back into the general populous. Or diseases. I dunno. :smalltongue:

Well it IS a thrallherd, by default they are a bit cheesy. :smalltongue:

Also by RAW you can't ever release your believers except through death.

[Kyouhen]

Well it IS a thrallherd, by default they are a bit cheesy. :smalltongue:

Also by RAW you can't ever release your believers except through death.

Note that by "release" I mean "send back to their happy homes in the perfect utopian society they came from to spend as much time in close proximity to their friends and family as they can" :smalltongue: