HP boosting?

[Xaroth]

Greetings everyone, so I was talking with my group's traditional DM and I challenged him to create a level 65 within 5 minutes. He somehow managed to succeed but his HP was in the millions. It was incorrect math on his part, but he said afterwards that it is possible to have that much HP just by taking feats.

So far the major HP boosting feats I've found are:

Epic Toughness: +30 Hit points, can be taken multiple times, stacks.
Improved Toughness: Gain permanent hit points equal to current hit die, increases as the number of hit die the creature has increases.
Slow: +1 to hit points each level, base land speed is halved (rounded down).

Are there any other feats/combinations of feats that could accomplish HP in the millions? If books and descriptions of the feats could be provided as well, that would be much appreciated.

Edit: I'd like to clarify that I meant within 65 levels, or even lower than 65 if possible.

[Seerow]

At level 65, taking the Epic Constitution feat is more efficient than Epic Toughness (2 feats for +65 hp and +1 fort v 1 feat for +30 hp).

But getting into the millions with just feats? There must be a feat somewhere that acts as a multiplier, or he's just wrong.

[Xaroth]

At level 65, taking the Epic Constitution feat is more efficient than Epic Toughness (2 feats for +65 hp and +1 fort v 1 feat for +30 hp).

But getting into the millions with just feats? There must be a feat somewhere that acts as a multiplier, or he's just wrong.

I was quite skeptical about it myself, but he seemed absolutely confident. He's a very experienced DM and has been running D&D for much longer than I have been playing it.

[Kazudo]

I was quite skeptical about it myself, but he seemed absolutely confident. He's a very experienced DM and has been running D&D for much longer than I have been playing it.

I doubt seriously that there are actual, non-homebrew feats that give you multipliers or something to that effect with JUST feats. I mean, there's got to be a template combo that does the same thing. Similar to using Dustform Creature/Incarnate Construct infinite times to get infinite STR and CHA.

[Xaroth]

I doubt seriously that there are actual, non-homebrew feats that give you multipliers or something to that effect with JUST feats. I mean, there's got to be a template combo that does the same thing. Similar to using Dustform Creature/Incarnate Construct infinite times to get infinite STR and CHA.

Our DM doesn't allow template combos, so I don't see why he would use one of them.

I know that taking any undead template would increase ALL HD to d12, but at the limit of one template I don't see how it could be done with the aid of a template. I can see how it would add to it, but not increase it to the millions.

Assuming we're not limited to feats, but are limited to one template, then?

[Seerow]

I'd actually be more inclined to believe a spell did it. There's enough infinite loops out there that I'm sure there's one or two that will give you as arbitrarily much hp as you want.

Alternatively it's very likely he's utilizing homebrew material (possibly unintentionally. DanDwiki is awful like that) or misreading some important rule in a way that causes hilarious side effects.

[dascarletm]

I don't think Undead would be the way to go. The lack of the con multiplier would hurt too much. Going a class with d12 base would be far better.

[Xaroth]

I'd actually be more inclined to believe a spell did it. There's enough infinite loops out there that I'm sure there's one or two that will give you as arbitrarily much hp as you want.

Alternatively it's very likely he's utilizing homebrew material (possibly unintentionally. DanDwiki is awful like that) or misreading some important rule in a way that causes hilarious side effects.

More than likely the latter, my DM despises the dandwiki.

[Kazudo]

Our DM doesn't allow template combos, so I don't see why he would use one of them.

I know that taking any undead template would increase ALL HD to d12, but at the limit of one template I don't see how it could be done with the aid of a template. I can see how it would add to it, but not increase it to the millions.

Assuming we're not limited to feats, but are limited to one template, then?

Actually becoming undead would be the WORST thing you could do to boost HP, since your CON score becomes null, and boosting CON is one of the best ways to go about it since it brings up the bottom line of average HP. Take high HD classes and such.

[Xaroth]

I don't think Undead would be the way to go. The lack of the con multiplier would hurt too much. Going a class with d12 base would be far better.

I know Barbarian and Knight have d12 base, but I've had no luck finding any others. Can you suggest any?

And what if your race granted d10 and you took Half-Dragon template?

[Xaroth]

Actually becoming undead would be the WORST thing you could do to boost HP, since your CON score becomes null, and boosting CON is one of the best ways to go about it since it brings up the bottom line of average HP. Take high HD classes and such.

Any suggestions other than Barbarian and Knight?

[Kazudo]

I know Barbarian and Knight have d12 base, but I've had no luck finding any others. Can you suggest any?

And what if your race granted d10 and you took Half-Dragon template?

Actually, now that I think about it if you're using strict RAW cheese, there are more than enough spell combos to get infinite hit point damage. If you're undead and figure out a way to convert that into negative energy damage, you'd have effectively infinite HP since any damage dealt to you, if it did not outright kill you, would be healed fully and immediately.

[Seerow]

So fun thought for a rule misreading that might give these results: How much HP would you end up with if you blew every epic feat on Epic Toughness, and Epic toughness was applied per HD instead of once? That's nearly 2000 hp per time you take epic toughness at level 65. A Fighter 65 has 45 epic levels, granting him 22 bonus epic feats and 15 regular epic feats. Together that's 37 instances of Epic Toughness for.... 74,000hp. Even with giving it a whopping 40 base con and 65d10hd that's still only a hairsbreadth over 75,000hp (though interesting note: a level 65 fighter with 40 con and no other modifiers taking average hp has exactly 1337 hp. I laughed).

Yeah, I got nothing.

[Fouredged Sword]

He is probobly doing a caster with an epic spell boosting con, or an elf caster with mysteries for int to HP and an Int in the mid thousands.

[dextercorvia]

My guess is assuming that you can take Psionic Body multiple times (you can't). If you could, that would be 2^22 = 4,194,304 hp.

No, that's not right

[Xaroth]

Actually, now that I think about it if you're using strict RAW cheese, there are more than enough spell combos to get infinite hit point damage. If you're undead and figure out a way to convert that into negative energy damage, you'd have effectively infinite HP since any damage dealt to you, if it did not outright kill you, would be healed fully and immediately.

Huh, that's neat.

[Xaroth]

So fun thought for a rule misreading that might give these results: How much HP would you end up with if you blew every epic feat on Epic Toughness, and Epic toughness was applied per HD instead of once? That's nearly 2000 hp per time you take epic toughness at level 65. A Fighter 65 has 45 epic levels, granting him 22 bonus epic feats and 15 regular epic feats. Together that's 37 instances of Epic Toughness for.... 74,000hp. Even with giving it a whopping 40 base con and 65d10hd that's still only a hairsbreadth over 75,000hp (though interesting note: a level 65 fighter with 40 con and no other modifiers taking average hp has exactly 1337 hp. I laughed).

Yeah, I got nothing.

Gave me a good chuckle, thanks regardless!

[EisenKreutzer]

I know Barbarian and Knight have d12 base, but I've had no luck finding any others. Can you suggest any?

And what if your race granted d10 and you took Half-Dragon template?

Warblade has d12.

[Xaroth]

My guess is assuming that you can take Psionic Body multiple times (you can't). If you could, that would be 2^22 = 4,194,304 hp.

...oh my god that would be ridiculous.

Imagine that at level 100.

234 = 17,179,869,184 hp.

[Xaroth]

Int in the mid thousands.

What.

WHAT.

WHAT?!

[Seerow]

...oh my god that would be ridiculous.

Imagine that at level 100.

234 = 17,179,869,184 hp.

Don't forget Epic Bonus feat progression. Psychic Warrior gets 8 feats over 20 levels, then continues gaining 4 feats every 10 epic levels after that. So you're looking at 274=18,889,465,931,478,580,854,784 HP at level 100.

For those bad with really large numbers, that is just shy of 19 sextillion hit points.



Also you would break 1,000,000 at 220. You can get that as early as level 27 I believe.

[Xaroth]

Don't forget Epic Bonus feat progression. Psychic Warrior gets 8 feats over 20 levels, then continues gaining 4 feats every 10 epic levels after that. So you're looking at 274=18,889,465,931,478,580,854,784 HP at level 100.

For those bad with really large numbers, that is just shy of 19 sextillion hit points.



Also you would break 1,000,000 at 220. You can get that as early as level 27 I believe.

Well I'll be damned.

[Urpriest]

Our DM doesn't allow template combos, so I don't see why he would use one of them.

I'm curious how he defines what a "combo" is. Unless he literally means creatures with more than one template, in which case is he aware that there are templates written to be applied after other templates?

Anyway, it's possible to get absurd numbers of feats with enough cheese. I can't dig up the record at the moment, but it's in the thousands at least, and that's for a level 20 character. So maybe that's what your DM was thinking of?

[OldTrees1]

What.

WHAT.

WHAT?!

Epic Spellcasting.

[Person_Man]

The Incarnate's Vitality Belt soulmeld grants you meldshaper level * essentia invested bonus hit points. For an Incarnate, this works out to a maximum of 160 (20*8) hit points pre-epic, and a lot more at Epic levels (since both your meldshaper level and your essentia capacity continue to scale). You can access any soulmeld via the Shape Soulmeld Feat, and gain essentia points a variety of different ways (including Feats), though the meldshaper level of soulmelds gained through Feats is equal to 1/2 your hit dice. Magic of Incarnum.

Heart of Incarnum Feat gives you bonus hit points equal to your essentia pool. For a Totemist, Incarnate, or either/PrC build, your essentia pool will typically be around your meldshaper class level * 1.5ish. (Again, you can get essentia from a lot of sources). The noteworthy exploit to this Feat is the Necrocarnate prestige class, which can get bonus essentia points from the corpses of recently dead creatures. Played "as intended" you get a number of essentia points equal to one-half your Necrocarnate prestige class level (a 13 level PrC) for 24 hours each time anyone in your party kills a living creature (though harvesting essentia from a corpse requires 1 minute of time per creature). But RAW, there's nothing that stops you from just pouring boiling water on an ant hill or buying 100 cheap animals to slaughter or whatnot. The Feat also requires the ability to bind your Heart chakra, which makes it an ECL 15+ ability for the Incarnate, Totemist, Necrocarnate, or Ironsoul Forgemaster, and an Epic Feat option for everyone else.

(Theraputic Mantle soulmeld is also noteworthy for hit point management, in that it increases the effectiveness of any "spell or effect that heals hit point damage" on you. The often overlooked trick with this soulmeld is that it specifically works on any effect that heals hit points, and not just spells. Fast Healing 1 from the Lesser Vitality spell becomes Fast Healing 1 + essentia invested, an investment in the Divine Spirit stance would mean that every melee attack you make would heal you 2 + essentia invested, a Vampiric Weapon enhancement would heal 1d6 + essentia on each attack, and so on. Stack 3-4 different sources of healing on yourself, throw a couple other defensive soulmelds, and you'll often be at full hit points at the end of every turn).

Deformity (Obese) Feat gives you +2 Con, an additional +2 on Saves vs Poison, +2 on Intimidate checks, and -2 Dex. It also requires the (mostly useless) Willing Deformity Feat, and the Dex penalty is just pure suck. But it's another way to increase your hit points with a Feat. Book of Vile Darkness.

[Xaroth]

I'm curious how he defines what a "combo" is. Unless he literally means creatures with more than one template, in which case is he aware that there are templates written to be applied after other templates?

Anyway, it's possible to get absurd numbers of feats with enough cheese. I can't dig up the record at the moment, but it's in the thousands at least, and that's for a level 20 character. So maybe that's what your DM was thinking of?

Yes, he means creatures with more than one template.

I'm still unsure on what the definition of "cheese" is, but most likely.

[Urpriest]

Yes, he means creatures with more than one template.

I'm still unsure on what the definition of "cheese" is, but most likely.

In this case I think it involved getting feats by creating Legacy items, then using the Dark Chaos Shuffle (if you're not familiar with that it can be explained) to turn them into whatever you want. Magical locations like the Otyugh hole help too.

[Xaroth]

The Incarnate's Vitality Belt soulmeld grants you meldshaper level * essentia invested bonus hit points.

Call me uninformed, but I've never heard of essentia before. What is it?

[Xaroth]

In this case I think it involved getting feats by creating Legacy items, then using the Dark Chaos Shuffle (if you're not familiar with that it can be explained) to turn them into whatever you want. Magical locations like the Otyugh hole help too.

I am indeed unfamiliar with it.

[Kazudo]

So if the Geomancer's Spell Versatility is read incredibly literally, one could theoretically change all damage inflicted by a spell into negative energy.

There's a spell that takes half of the damage dealt to one creature and puts it onto someone else, and a spell that recursively deals damage to the source of the damage equal to one half of the damage dealt to them. I forget the name of the spells.

Anyway, you get four of your favorite undead buddies, throw the shared pain spell on yourself geomancied to deal only negative energy damage, throw the feedback spell on the four dudes geomancied to deal only negative damage, cause an infinite feedback loop by having someone come along and stab you for some damage, it quickly becomes infinite negative energy damage which, for undead, ain't exactly a bad thing.

Again, away from book.

[Fouredged Sword]

Essence and all related things are in Magic of Incarnum and a few web articles. It's a cool tier 3 system that allows you to create interesting pseudo items each morning and use them to do all kinds of things.

[Story]

Our DM doesn't allow template combos, so I don't see why he would use one of them.

I know that taking any undead template would increase ALL HD to d12, but at the limit of one template I don't see how it could be done with the aid of a template. I can see how it would add to it, but not increase it to the millions.

Assuming we're not limited to feats, but are limited to one template, then?

Could you do a Symbiote Shambling Mound perhaps?



Actually becoming undead would be the WORST thing you could do to boost HP, since your CON score becomes null, and boosting CON is one of the best ways to go about it since it brings up the bottom line of average HP. Take high HD classes and such.

Undead is ok with FMI.


Call me uninformed, but I've never heard of essentia before. What is it?

It's a subsystem from Magic of Incarnum.

[Urpriest]

I am indeed unfamiliar with it.

There are two spells in Fiendish Codex I, Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos. One of them switches one of your feats for an Abyssal Heritor feat (a type of feat introduced in the book that gives you mutant abyss powers), and the other switches one Abyssal Heritor feat for any feat you qualify for. Neither specifies that it can't be used on bonus feats, so by using both you can convert any feat you have into any other feat you qualify for, including bonus feats. From there, all you need is a source of lots and lots of bonus feats.

[Xaroth]

There are two spells in Fiendish Codex I, Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos. One of them switches one of your feats for an Abyssal Heritor feat (a type of feat introduced in the book that gives you mutant abyss powers), and the other switches one Abyssal Heritor feat for any feat you qualify for. Neither specifies that it can't be used on bonus feats, so by using both you can convert any feat you have into any other feat you qualify for, including bonus feats. From there, all you need is a source of lots and lots of bonus feats.

That's... incredibly helpful, actually. Which classes can use these spells?

[Urpriest]

That's... incredibly helpful, actually. Which classes can use these spells?

Cleric and Sorc/Wiz.

[Xaroth]

Could you do a Symbiote Shambling Mound perhaps?

Which book is Symbiote in?


Undead is ok with FMI.

FMI?


It's a subsystem from Magic of Incarnum.

Ah, alright.

[Xaroth]

Cleric and Sorc/Wiz.

What level?

[Urpriest]

What level?

8. If you want the full details of how the spells work you should probably check the books. :smalltongue:

[dextercorvia]

...oh my god that would be ridiculous.

Imagine that at level 100.

234 = 17,179,869,184 hp.


Don't forget Epic Bonus feat progression. Psychic Warrior gets 8 feats over 20 levels, then continues gaining 4 feats every 10 epic levels after that. So you're looking at 274=18,889,465,931,478,580,854,784 HP at level 100.

For those bad with really large numbers, that is just shy of 19 sextillion hit points.



Also you would break 1,000,000 at 220. You can get that as early as level 27 I believe.

Unfortunately I did my math too quick. It would actually be HP of only 2n^2 for n instances of Psionic Body. You'd need 708 feats to break a million.

[Story]

Which book is Symbiote in?

FMI?



Symbiote is from Savage Species, one of the most broken templates from a notoriously broken book.

FMI = Faerie Mysteries Initiate, a feat that gives Int to HP bonus.

[Xaroth]

Unfortunately I did my math too quick. It would actually be HP of only 2n^2 for n instances of Psionic Body. You'd need 708 feats to break a million.

Riiiiiight. Are there any classes that give more bonus feats than the fighter?

[Xaroth]

Symbiote is from Savage Species, one of the most broken templates from a notoriously broken book.

FMI = Faerie Mysteries Initiate, a feat that gives Int to HP bonus.

Oooo, that seems like it'd be quite neat to have. Is it per hit die as Con would be?

[mabriss lethe]

You need 3 creatures to pull it off, but an arbitrarily high HP can be acquired far below epic.


Creature 1, The Target: An Illithid with levels in the Illithid Savant PrC.

Creature 2, The Catalyst: An enslaved or otherwise pliant Deepspawn (LEoF)

Creature 3, The Reheated Dinner: A commoner with the Toughness feat.


The Illithid Savant acquires the other two creatures. The Deepspawn then eats the commoner. Now the deepspawn can create commoner clones, each with the Toughness feat. The Illithid Savant then chows down on the regurgitated commoner clones, acquiring an instance of Toughness for every clone brain he devours. This same trick can be used to acquire an arbitrarily high Power point base or Essential pool.

[Svata]

Yep. And Unholy Toughness(CHA mod*HD to HP) is nice too, if somewhat difficult to get (10 levels of Walker in the Waste (Cleric PrC, Sandstorm, p. 89) to become a Dry Lich is the easiest way I can think of).

[amalcon]

The best non-infinite trick I'm coming up with is to Psionic Sandwich into something with a *LOT* of HP (level 65 WBL buys a pretty big chunk of obdurium). For those unfamiliar with the Psionic Sandwich trick:

Get the object that you want to become your body.
Have it Polymorph Any Object'ed into a frog.
True Mind Switch with the frog (it's fine to do this from a power stone or something, if you don't want to be a high level Telepath).
Dispel the PAO (or wait for it to expire).

Of course, to get over one million hit points from an object made of Obdurium, you'll need to be a sphere about 14000 feet across. After doing this, however, you cast Shapechange or something to get a reasonable form -- retaining your HP.

This can be done more cheaply with other materials, but you'll need to be much larger. You could always Mind Switch with the moon or something.

[Story]

The best non-infinite trick I'm coming up with is to Psionic Sandwich into something with a *LOT* of HP (level 65 WBL buys a pretty big chunk of obdurium). For those unfamiliar with the Psionic Sandwich trick:

Get the object that you want to become your body.
Have it Polymorph Any Object'ed into a frog.
True Mind Switch with the frog (it's fine to do this from a power stone or something, if you don't want to be a high level Telepath).
Dispel the PAO (or wait for it to expire).

Of course, to get over one million hit points from an object made of Obdurium, you'll need to be a sphere about 14000 feet across. After doing this, however, you cast Shapechange or something to get a reasonable form -- retaining your HP.

This can be done more cheaply with other materials, but you'll need to be much larger. You could always Mind Switch with the moon or something.

Reminds me of the story Tippy posted about his wizard turning himself into a living planet. IIRC he used Genesis to create the materials rather than buying them, since this was pre-epic.