[D&D 3.5] Caster Level <1 and Templates

[Kevingway]

Hey guys,

I have a few questions for some theorycrafting I'm doing. Is it possible, say as a Wizard, to cast a level 1 spell at a caster level that's 1/2 or lower? Basically meaning that you're superficially casting it at a lower caster level than it should be through any possible means. Also, would there be any spells for any classes that would automatically be cast at a 1/2 caster level? Is this naturally possible?

Now, can a humanoid creature, through templates only, become an animal or magical beast? I know that this would break the Savage Species template progression, so I'm asking for ways that would take priority over the type pyramid (incarnate construct, for example).

Finally, if a creature with 1/2 HD gains a template that changes its HD to, for example, d10's, would these HD be 1d10's or 1/2d10's?

I know these seem random, but if everything works out, I'll post my results.

Thanks!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You cannot cast a spell at a lower caster level than the minimum required class level to gain spells of that level. "You can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question, and all level-dependent features must be based on the same caster level. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm#casterLevel)"

Edit: If it's a spell-like ability, then the above does not apply. "The creature’s caster level never affects which spell-like abilities the creature has; sometimes the given caster level is lower than the level a spellcasting character would need to cast the spell of the same name. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellLikeAbilities)"

Animals always have an intelligence score of 1 or 2, if your Int score is 3 or higher (3 is the minimum for a PC), then you're not an animal. Magical Beasts are typically not humanoid in shape, as they tend to be Monstrous Humanoids.

If a base creature has 1/2 HD, or one hit die even, then starts taking class levels, your racial hit dice are replaced by your first class level. This only doesn't happen if your base creature has two or more racial hit dice. So most often a 1/2 HD becomes irrelevant for a PC. For a monster changing creature types, it would depend entirely on the method by which they changed types. For example, a Fiendish or Celestial animal would become a magical beast, but its hit dice would not be modified. "Do not recalculate the creature’s Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saves, or skill points if its type changes. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/fiendishCreature.htm)" Any template that changes creature types may say something different from that, though.

What type of character/monster are you trying to build?

[Kevingway]

Thanks for the response!

I'm just theorycrafting template stacking on a radical degree, working with Living Spell as my base. My end result is what I hoped to be a tauric creature made from both a living spell converted humanoid and a living spell converted animal/magical beast, with no racial hit dice present and only the +3 level adjustment from the template.

Living spells have HD based on their caster level, so if I could find two spells that somehow conjure up a human-like effect and an animal-like effect with a 1/2 caster level each, then stack templates until they qualify for the tauric creature, I could have a tauric creature with no racial hit dice.

However, I'm unsure how to achieve this with an animal/magical beast; with a humanoid, I can go Silent Image (base spell)-->Living Spell-->Dustform-->Incarnate-->(Tauric), but I'm cut off at that point by how I can get an animal-like creature resulting from any number of templates starting with a spell as a base.