Easy way to get Curse Water as a Spell like ability (to avoid the material component)

[Yogibear41]

Is there an easy way to get Curse Water as a Spell like ability on an evil paladin or evil cleric in order to avoid the 25gp cost for casting it? Preferably around ECL 6-9 earlier is even better.

Of if not as a spell like ability, maybe some sort of way to repeatedly cast it without paying the cost. (maybe 1 time cost of 500gp or something to create an altar so that I don't have to pay the 25gp for each casting over a long time of mass production)

[Khatoblepas]

Innate Spell can give you it 1/round with a material focus that costs 1250gp.

Alternatively, according to the item creation rules, an at-will item of Curse Water would be around 2250gp, unless I've got my math wrong.

A Juvenile Styx Dragon has Curse Water at-will, it has 14HD. If you can get a Necrotic Cyst in it, you can force it to work factory style on any water you give it.

Edit: Or get a Shadowcraft Mage to mimic Dragon Ally to bring forth a Styx Dragon for 1d day/level without components.

[Socksy]

Nah, what you really want to get is Spider Climb as a spell-like ability to avoid the material component. :p

If you don't have the Necrotic Cyst I guess you could Dominate Person on the Dragon. The Psionic version which lets you augment to work on Dragons. Possibly Dominate Monster. Something like that.

[ericgrau]

I found two versions of innate spell. One is only 3/day and required 2 other feats. The other requires a 9th level spell slot and 3 other feats, but it's at will.

Custom magic items are fishy on anything spam ab-usable. Since the guidelines aren't rules, it's especially important for the DM to take a good look and he'll likely say no.

But if you pull it off I can imagine what the barrels and barrels of holy water will do for the eradication of undead. Btw total immersion in acid does 10d6 damage and holy water works like acid towards undead. So you might say that it does 10d6. Or 20d4 since holy water does more damage than acid. RAW doesn't have a clear answer; the damage is not necessarily stackable without individual flasks. It could be a flat 2d4 for being "splashed", just as easily as 2000d4.

[Yogibear41]

Actually its Unholy water, for the specific purpose of creating Plague Walkers from MM 4 for free. (the only component is 800 gp worth of unholy water aka 32 unholy waters and body parts) Granted a 6hd corporeal undead isn't exactly anything to write home about, but making tons of them for free(i'm sure I could find a few dead things lying around) I might just be able to do something with that. Using the Faerun version of innate spell I could make one every 11 day, but I'm not sure that it is worth using up 3 feats for that ability.

[Promises Kept]

You could get a Spellstitched... any undead with 10+ Wisdom (including a 1 HD Skeleton) with Curse Water as one of its SLA's via rebuking. That gives you 4 castings/day at no cost, and you can easily command it at Cleric 6+. Now, Complete Arcane lacks rules for applying the template yourself, so you'll need to get the DM to create one, but it's an easy way to get a reasonable rate of production.

[ericgrau]

Actually its Unholy water, for the specific purpose of creating Plague Walkers from MM 4 for free. (the only component is 800 gp worth of unholy water aka 32 unholy waters and body parts) Granted a 6hd corporeal undead isn't exactly anything to write home about, but making tons of them for free(i'm sure I could find a few dead things lying around) I might just be able to do something with that. Using the Faerun version of innate spell I could make one every 11 day, but I'm not sure that it is worth using up 3 feats for that ability.

My reading comp is pretty meh in the morning, heh.

All kinds of things you can do with a huge army yeah. Disposable minions, overwhelming forces, etc.

[Forrestfire]

One (admittedly exceptionally cheesy) way to do it is to use Leadership for an artificer buddy and just grabbing a wand of Curse Water (2000gp, and your buddy can craft one for cheaper when he's 6th level).

Once the artificer is level 5, he gets access to the Power Surge infusion, letting you get a temporary charge on the wand by spending 5 exp. That'll get you one basically-free unholy water per day, which is decent (especially on top of the rest of neat stuff the artificer brings).

It's sadly outside the range you said (and likely not very useful by then anyway), but the real fun starts at level 12, when your artificer can make a custom staff of Reach Spell Curse Water [2 charges] (base price = 3*8*750*.5 + 1250 = 10,250). Your artificer can then use the Power Surge infusion on the staff and the Metamagic Item infusion to apply Chain Spell to your Reach Curse Water. You've now got a staff of Chain Reach Curse Water that can be used once for free, at the cost of 15 exp and the two infusions.

We're not done, though. Your artificer friend probably has a Use Magic Device check right now of... 15 for ranks, let's say 4 for Cha, and +2 for a masterwork tool. Your evil cleric casts Guidance of the Avatar on the artificer, netting him another +20. He UMDs the staff, emulating the class feature of having a caster level. If he gets a 1, his caster level for the staff is 21, getting you 20 chain copies of Reach Curse Water.

Silly and higher level than what you're looking for, but a totally viable way of making your undead army, since it gives you three Plague Walkers every five days with a small pile of excess unholy waters for the future.

[heavyfuel]

One (admittedly exceptionally cheesy) way to do it is to use Leadership for an artificer buddy and just grabbing a wand of Curse Water (2000gp, and your buddy can craft one for cheaper when he's 6th level).

This reminds me, by RAW, an Eternal Wand (2/day but no total charges) doesn't require you to pay for the material component cost like a regular Wand. As such, you can spend the gran total of 820GP for 2/day Curse Water.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work by itself because Eternal Wand has an Arcane spell limitation. That's where Extra Spell comes in! Again, by a strict RAW reading of the feat, you can have a Wizard that can cast 2nd lv spells learn Curse Water as an Arcane Spell. Have him craft the Eternal Wand for you, and now all that you need is an Arcane caster to activate the wand (even if he doesn't have the spell in his spell list)

Yup, this is cheesy as hell, but if your groups optimization level is one that can handle cheddar such as this, it's an option.

[Jeff the Green]

This reminds me, by RAW, an Eternal Wand (2/day but no total charges) doesn't require you to pay for the material component cost like a regular Wand. As such, you can spend the gran total of 820GP for 2/day Curse Water.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work by itself because Eternal Wand has an Arcane spell limitation. That's where Extra Spell comes in! Again, by a strict RAW reading of the feat, you can have a Wizard that can cast 2nd lv spells learn Curse Water as an Arcane Spell. Have him craft the Eternal Wand for you, and now all that you need is an Arcane caster to activate the wand (even if he doesn't have the spell in his spell list)

Yup, this is cheesy as hell, but if your groups optimization level is one that can handle cheddar such as this, it's an option.

Equally cheesy, but more RAW-adherent, would be getting it through a rainbow warsnake.

[heavyfuel]

Equally cheesy, but more RAW-adherent, would be getting it through a rainbow warsnake.

Isn't Rainbow Servant itself cheesy though? Full Arcane Spellcasting, all Cleric spells to class list and some sugar on top with the Domains, (Sp) at will and Wings can make the Mystic Theurge cry. At least he can use all those spell slots to wipe his tears :smallbiggrin:

But I digress. After re-reading the class, I don't think it works. The capstone has this reading: "Such spells are cast as divine spells". So the Curse Water is still a divine spell and as such can't be put in an Eternal Wand

[Necroticplague]

Equally cheesy, but more RAW-adherent, would be getting it through a rainbow warsnake.

But doesn't it say that if the spell isn't on bard or wizard lists, its still a divine spell for you?

Edit: A rainbow servant geomancer, however, could cast a divine spell as an arcane one, which should help.

[Jeff the Green]

But doesn't it say that if the spell isn't on bard or wizard lists, its still a divine spell for you?

Edit: A rainbow servant geomancer, however, could cast a divine spell as an arcane one, which should help.

Huh, I didn't know that. When I read Complete Divine I saw half-casting and said "nope." Then I heard about the rainbow warsnake and my view spun around until it got to "nope" from the other direction, so I've never really payed attention to it.

Alternate Source Spell would do it too, I think, though it has the curious effect of allowing you to prepare them now. Apparently the writer didn't think sorcerers would ever become Mystic Theurges. :smallconfused:

[Necroticplague]

Huh, I didn't know that. When I read Complete Divine I saw half-casting and said "nope." Then I heard about the rainbow warsnake and my view spun around until it got to "nope" from the other direction, so I've never really payed attention to it.

Alternate Source Spell would do it too, I think, though it has the curious effect of allowing you to prepare them now. Apparently the writer didn't think sorcerers would ever become Mystic Theurges. :smallconfused:

Well, and the fact thanks to text>table, its actually full casting. So if you got the skills (and with a little finagling, you can qualify at second level), it's better than straight sorceror, pretty comparable for straight wizard, and a godsend for fixed-list casters.

...Oddly enough, you're right on that one.Man, somebody needed to think that one over. Like having both the arcane and divine sides be prepared casters? (divine souls do exist, after all) as its prerequisite.

[Alex12]

This reminds me, by RAW, an Eternal Wand (2/day but no total charges) doesn't require you to pay for the material component cost like a regular Wand. As such, you can spend the gran total of 820GP for 2/day Curse Water.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work by itself because Eternal Wand has an Arcane spell limitation. That's where Extra Spell comes in! Again, by a strict RAW reading of the feat, you can have a Wizard that can cast 2nd lv spells learn Curse Water as an Arcane Spell. Have him craft the Eternal Wand for you, and now all that you need is an Arcane caster to activate the wand (even if he doesn't have the spell in his spell list)

Yup, this is cheesy as hell, but if your groups optimization level is one that can handle cheddar such as this, it's an option.

Actually, a Dread Necromancer's Advanced Learning can get necromancy spells (like Curse Water) off either the cleric list or the wizard list. So if you have or are a Dread Necromancer (and DN undead minionmancy is easily on par with that of a Cleric) you could get an eternal wand that way. And Death Masters from Dragon Compendium have it on their list and are arcanists.

And, since arcane spells count as a class feature, you should be able to use and eternal wand with a DC 21 UMD check to emulate a class feature of a level 1 character.

[Reshy]

Just grab Dragon Cohort and attract a Juvenile Styx. Dragon Cohort kills off three effective HD, or another option is possibly get a Very Young Styx and use age cursing on it until it's juvenile. An even cheesier option is to have one that's become a Dragonborn so they become a dragon (Dragonblooded) creature at the adult stage.