How to Build Santa Claus

[White Blade]

Is it possible to build Santa Claus who can, at least, break into 100,000,000 households in a 48 hour period? And leave shiny toys without getting caught by tiny children?

I'm actually serious. I know I can't build it, but is it possible to build?

[Genth]

You are a monster. If you stat it, they will kill it. DO YOU WANT TO KILL SANTA?!

[Hazrond]

Is it possible to build Santa Claus who can, at least, break into 100,000,000 households in a 48 hour period? And leave shiny toys without getting caught by tiny children?

I'm actually serious. I know I can't build it, but is it possible to build?

Its possible using a incantatrix/wizard to persist time stop and then proceed to leisurely walk around the world during your 24 hours that takes 6 seconds irl time destributing gifts, recast as many times as necessary to finish the entire planet

[atomicwaffle]

Is it possible to build Santa Claus who can, at least, break into 100,000,000 households in a 48 hour period? And leave shiny toys without getting caught by tiny children?

I'm actually serious. I know I can't build it, but is it possible to build?

draw inspiration from the animated film, Rise of the Guardians. Santa was cool in that film (well, i think the whole darn film is cool). Dual Cutlass wielding rogue with craft: toys and profession: delivery man

[Hazrond]

draw inspiration from the animated film, Rise of the Guardians. Santa was cool in that film (well, i think the whole darn film is cool). Dual Cutlass wielding rogue with craft: toys and profession: delivery man

nah he needs to be a sorcerer incantatrix so he can persist time stop and be able to deliver 1000s of toys in spans of 6 seconds

[White Blade]

nah he needs to be a sorcerer incantatrix so he can persist time stop and be able to deliver 1000s of toys in spans of 6 seconds
Is there no other way to achieve this goal?

[Hazrond]

Is there no other way to achieve this goal?

Well whatever he is needs to be able to cast 9th level spells from the sorcerer/wizard list so he can cast time stop, then he would need 3 levels of incantatrix to be able to persist the time stop, that leaves 7 levels before 20 if you are willing to make santa a beholder mage :smalltongue:

[ArqArturo]

Santa Claus should be an angry warforged artificier, with access to wands with magic missile/assorted ranged touch spells, and riding a sled of custom-made Iron Defenders.

[Hazrond]

What, no one has any thoughts on beholder-clause? :smalltongue:

[Ramza00]

The north pole is its own plane.

Santa clause has reindeer but these reindeer are effectively nightmares allowing santa clause to teleport at will due to unlimited astral projection and etheralness.

[Vhaidara]

Wait, Santa is a Planar Shepard of the Elemental Plane of Toys. It has an adjusted time trait (24 hours Material = 50 years EPoT). This also gives him plenty of time to make toys.

[Hazrond]

Wait, Santa is a Planar Shepard of the Elemental Plane of Toys. It has an adjusted time trait (24 hours Material = 50 years EPoT). This also gives him plenty of time to make toys.

so how does he deliver the toys in a single night? he would need to enter the material plane to drop it off and that would mean leaving his time bubble :smalltongue:

[Vhaidara]

Doesn't Planar Shepard give a Planar Bubble that gives you an aura of the time trait of your plain? Isn't that why Dal Quor is broken (10 turns/turn)?

[Hazrond]

Doesn't Planar Shepard give a Planar Bubble that gives you an aura of the time trait of your plain? Isn't that why Dal Quor is broken (10 turns/turn)?

Yes, but i remember when i read it realizing that the bubble was static, it doesnt move with you so you would literally have to walk 5 feet, recast and repeat :smalltongue:

[Vhaidara]

I would argue that, since it emanates from you, it moves with you, keeping you at the center.

[Hazrond]

I would argue that, since it emanates from you, it moves with you, keeping you at the center.

Reread the ability, i may be wrong here but it says the duration is concentration so doesnt that mean you cant move? i thought that concentrating on a spell ate your move action

[Vhaidara]

It does, but you can use your standard to move. And there are also tricks for getting easier concentration. Maybe Santa has a little gem (Psicrystal) that maintains his bubble while he works.

I would honestly probably build Santa as a gestalt. On one side you have the Druid into Planar Shepherd, on the other you have Telepath, for determining who's been bad or good.

[Cowardly Griffo]

Okay, I've got it.

Step one: spend as much time as you require sending an Elf on the Shelf (or other kitschy decoration of choice) to every house you need to hit. These "toys" are actually small wondrous items / constructs with a very specific use: on the night of Christmas Eve, they animate, walk over to the Christmas Tree, and chant Santa's name.

His true name.

That's right, guys. Santa is a level 20 Truenamer. With Quick Draw and a Scroll of Greater Invisibility.

Exactly 24 hours prior to the appointed moment, he has his Not-on-the-shelf-elves cast Shrink Item on all the toys he's going to deliver, and load them into the many tiny pockets on his fancy red robe. Even with 100,000,000 houses to hit, there should be more than enough space considering how ridiculously tiny Shrink Item makes things, and considering how small the toys would already be. And just before midnight, he reads the scroll, turning himself invisible.

Next we abuse some RAW:

1. Talking is a free action. Supernatural abilities are a standard action unless otherwise noted–but in this case it's a supernatural ability that you possess, not anyone else who knows this little snippet of your Truename (which is only a syllable or two by description). So they're not actually activating a supernatural ability, they're just talking. Thus, Say My Name And I Am There is a free action which can get you anywhere.

2. Quick Draw allows you to draw weapons as a free action. By RAW, this is only weapons–but it's easy enough to declare that the toys are improvised weapons, so boom. Done.

3. Dropping a weapon (or an improvised weapon) is a free action.

4. You can take any number of free actions in a round.

End result? Santa's creepy toy informants go to every Christmas tree around the world and chant his name until he arrives, as a free action. When he arrives, he quick-draws a toy as a free action and drops it under the tree as a free action. When every house has been visited, in a single round, he is recalled back to the North Pole, again as a free action, and his toy-friends go back to being just another figurine that dad should really consider selling at the next garage sale because man that is creepy. And since he's been invisible the entire time, no child ever saw him. The toys just magically appeared under the tree.

[jiriku]

There are only 28,800 rounds in 48 hours. Even if he can somehow visit one house with each standard, move, and swift action, Santa doesn't possibly have enough actions to visit more than 86,400 houses in 48 hours... unless he messes with time.

Since errata has clarified that time stop can not be made persistent, Santa is clearly abusing planar shepherd. If he is operating in 10x normal timestream, that increases his theoretical maximum to 864,000 houses in 48 hours. Still not enough.

Perhaps Santa is a red wizard (appropriate, neh?) who has used circle magic to heighten all of his spell slots to 9th level, replace them via rary's arcane conversion with time stop, and then maximize and empower them using more circle magic. This would take most of the year to prepare, which explains why he only does it once annually. Incidentally, this would help us understand his mode of travel. Santa keeps the nine members of his circle nearby when adventuring, buffed with overland flight and polymorphed into nine tiny reindeer. The one with the red nose is likely his cohort, and higher level than the others (who are probably no more than 6th level followers). The sleigh is probably some magic device for distributing his buffs to the entire group.

Assuming Santa is a 20th level focused specialist transmuter with a 36 Int, he has 84 spell slots. If they are all maximized empowered time stop, he can invest 84 actions to cast them and generate ~525 additional rounds. Hmm. Not enough. Planar shepherd would be better.

I must consider this....

Edit: If Santa shapechanges into a choker (great way to keep the elves in line) and then uses alter self to resume his normal, jolly appearance, he can take 1/3 more total actions, which allows planar shepherd santa to potentially visit up to 1,152,000 homes. This is about 1% of the desired total, so we're going to need much more dakka....

[Sith_Happens]

*yawn*

Santa Claus is obviously a Psion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?177889-Brainstorm-for-Psionic-Tricks-Tactics-and-Combos-Handbook). Incarnum Recharge + Mad Minute = done.

[Kaeso]

nah he needs to be a sorcerer incantatrix so he can persist time stop and be able to deliver 1000s of toys in spans of 6 seconds

You can presist timestop. But remember, Santa only needs to do this once per year.
He could very well spend the rest of the year slaying the horrible monsters that roam the North Pole for EXP, crafting various scrolls of time stop, teleport and fabricate etc.

Then, when the Holy Night is there, he takes his sled full of scrolls and teleports from household to household, fabricating gifts for all the good little children and stopping time once in a while.

Being Santa is a 365 days per year job, it's not as easy as you think it is.

[Sir Chuckles]

Hey now, WoTC already made us Santa:
See? (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/Santa.pdf)

Of course, his Reindeer can't fly and lacks much the abilities that Santa would have, and instead gains the ability to Wild Shape and Turn Undead.

[Muggins]

Didn't we basically have this thread a month ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?358401-Making-a-Real-Santy-Claus)?

My answer is still Rockdeworld's marvelous Santa (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14384481&postcount=71) for Iron Chef 40. Ramza00 already hinted at it.

[Cowardly Griffo]

Turn Undead.Yeah but that's canon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQMGq9_GrqA).

(Fair warning: some B-Movie gore is involved.)

[SoraWolf7]

Didn't we basically have this thread a month ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?358401-Making-a-Real-Santy-Claus)?

My answer is still Rockdeworld's marvelous Santa (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14384481&postcount=71) for Iron Chef 40. Ramza00 already hinted at it.

Yeah, we had this thread about a month ago. I love Rockdeworld's build so much I bookmarked it in case I need to do a Christmas campaign.

[AvatarVecna]

Being Santa is a 365 days per year job, it's not as easy as you think it is.

That's it.

That's the answer! It's a full time job! We've been talking about stopping time (which isn't allowed by RAW, since Persistent Spell can't be applied to Time Stop due to Time Stop's duration), but we haven't been considering time travel (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pg/20030409b)!

Combine with Simulacrum, Time Stop, Teleport, Genesis, and other powerful spells, and this becomes easy.

Edit: Leadership! Can't forget about Leadership!

[A_S]

My answer is still Rockdeworld's marvelous Santa (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14384481&postcount=71) for Iron Chef 40. Ramza00 already hinted at it.
Came here to post this. Too slow.

[INoKnowNames]

Santa's definitely magic even in our world. I don't see why he wouldn't have a custom spell, using circle magic with all his elves, with the ritual component of it being Christmas Eve / Morning, and also fueled by the merriment and joy of everyone who believes. Which is why people make such a big deal about not believing in Santa; if you don't believe, he can't use his magic, and Christmas is doomed!

[Cowardly Griffo]

Leadership! Can't forget about Leadership!Can you take past / future / alternate timeline versions of yourself for your Cohort and hirelings?

[Sith_Happens]

Santa's definitely magic even in our world. I don't see why he wouldn't have a custom spell, using circle magic with all his elves, with the ritual component of it being Christmas Eve / Morning, and also fueled by the merriment and joy of everyone who believes. Which is why people make such a big deal about not believing in Santa; if you don't believe, he can't use his magic, and Christmas is doomed!

New campaign idea.

[Cowardly Griffo]

I'm just going to leave this (http://www.evilhat.com/home/spirit-of-the-season/) here.

[Nettlekid]

This doesn't work because of Errata nerfing the Duskblade's full attack channeling to affecting each struck target with the spell only once per casting, but if you ignore that then a Duskblade/Telflammar Shadowlord (a bit tricky to fit in) manages to Channel Dimension Hop into his weapon, smack himself, teleport, gain a full attack, and smack himself again. With a whip and the Lasher PrC (if you can fit it in), you could sling presents around while warping around everywhere.

[AvatarVecna]

Can you take past / future / alternate timeline versions of yourself for your Cohort and hirelings?

Sadly, the spell says that meeting yourself is akin to a frenzy. It would be like Highlander, but with an all-Santa cast.

Not that that doesn't sound like solid awesome.

[INoKnowNames]

New campaign idea.

How has someone -NOT- done a story where some evil mage is trying to usurp Santa's power, and goes around making people not believe in Christmas to weaken his magic, before invading the North Pole? That's a classic Christmas Game scenario! Or at least it should be!

[A_S]

How has someone -NOT- done a story where some evil mage is trying to usurp Santa's power, and goes around making people not believe in Christmas to weaken his magic, before invading the North Pole? That's a classic Christmas Game scenario! Or at least it should be!
Too blatant a Hogfather ripoff; my players would never stand for it.

[INoKnowNames]

Too blatant a Hogfather ripoff; my players would never stand for it.

Note to self: Google Hogfather.

[Forrestfire]

Obviously, Santa is a Lightning Thief (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?142080-3-5-The-Lightning-Thief-Epic-Sleight-of-Hand-Abuse).

[khadgar567]

little question why we use deity(major) and elf work shipers that summons avatar of him in target houses and cast domain spell to teleport toys in location then teleport out of there maybe time stop as deity power so they can leasurely transfer toys and tp out of location

[Sith_Happens]

[Paraphrase:] He could be a deity.

Sure, but that's easy mode.:smalltongue: