(3.P) Fastest Way to Rebuild a Character

[Rubik]

What's the fastest way to perform a character rebuild? I know you can use Psychic Reformation (using Linked Power to do it within one round) and the Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle (DCFS) to swap out feats (and, with PsyRef, skills, powers, spells, and class abilities) fairly quickly, but beyond what's in the PHB II, what ways are there to replace your class levels?

One way I know of is as follows: nab a thought bottle, store your XP total, take a bunch of level drain, and fail your saves, making those lost levels permanent. Then use your thought bottle to restore your XP total and choose your levels all over again. Doesn't work for your first level, though a rebuilding quest for that first level shouldn't take *that* long.

Any other RAW ways anyone knows of?

[shaikujin]

Are you looking for the fastest way to rebuild your 3000 HD build?

Or are you looking to re-spec in-combat?

Quick ideas:

1) Do the Linked Power Psychic Reform while under the effects of a Timeless pane or Timestop

2) For the 1st level issue, use 1 HD humanoid race. Upon taking the choice to get a class level, that 1st HD is replaced by the class level. So you are doing a PsyRef of the choice of getting that 1st level. Will this will get around the limitation?

3) For fast in comabt re-spec, find a way to get the Assume/Consume Identity ability of an Ethereal Doppelganger or Greater Doppelganger (Illithid Savant, Greater Doppelganger werwolf as a Symbiotic guest etc) Rebuild your character during downtime as a L20 Melee, then L20 Crafter, then L20 Spellcaster etc. Ice Assasin yourself each time, and eat it's brain (may require Polymorph Any Object on the Ice Assasin into something with a brain).

Switch to whichever build you wish as a standard action. Does this work?



Edit: Right, idea 2 doesn't work I think. I believe the issue for not being able to do level 1 is not due to PsyRef limitations, but is due to level draining the first HD will kill the character... In that case, maybe make the 1st HD be something that's always useful, like a baby Phaerimm...

[Rubik]

Are you looking for the fastest way to rebuild your 3000 HD build?Well, it'll be added to that, but this is mostly just for curiosity, really. That, and for lower levels, since those are the most difficult to survive. Switching builds relatively quickly to go from, say, an abrupt jaunt wizard build to a psion (all 9ths) build without having to go through several weeks or months of downtime is definitely better than having to rebuild each level one at a time.


Or are you looking to re-spec in-combat?There's that, too, I guess. Could be useful for all sorts of characters, not just me.


Quick ideas:

1) Do the Linked Power Psychic Reform while under the effects of a Timeless plane or TimestopI don't think PsyRef swaps out class levels, though I suppose it could be read that way, if you really wanted to.


2) For the 1st level issue, use 1 HD humanoid race. Upon taking the choice to get a class level, that 1st HD is replaced by the class level. So you are doing a PsyRef of the choice of getting that 1st level. Will this will get around the limitation?That Humanoid HD is replaced from the beginning, and you don't get it back, even if you retrain. Plus, de-leveling from 1st means you die and rise as a wight. Not good.


3) For fast in comabt re-spec, find a way to get the Assume/Consume Identity ability of an Ethereal Doppelganger or Greater Doppelganger (Illithid Savant, Greater Doppelganger werwolf as a Symbiotic guest etc) Rebuild your character during downtime as a L20 Melee, then L20 Crafter, then L20 Spellcaster etc. Ice Assasin yourself each time, and eat it's brain (may require Polymorph Any Object on the Ice Assasin into something with a brain).

Switch to whichever build you wish as a standard action. Does this work?That's a nifty ability, but a bit higher level than I was wanting, and it comes with a bunch of provisos that I don't much care for. Nice catch, though.


Edit: Right, idea 2 doesn't work I think. I believe the issue for not being able to do level 1 is not due to PsyRef limitations, but is due to level draining the first HD will kill the character... In that case, maybe make the 1st HD be something that's always useful, like a baby Phaerimm...Right.

[shaikujin]

Yeah, I don't think PsyRef can chage classes. Idea #1 was just trying to get around the 1 round delay for using linked power.

Another cheesy idea:

4) Chamber with 2 groups of auto-resetting magic traps

Group 1 - Traps that does enough damage to kill off the character. Characters with high HP will require more traps.
Trigger condition: Trigger while a character of at least 2 HD steps into chamber.


Group 2 - Magic trap of Resurrection (the level 7 one)
Trigger condition: Trigger while any dead characters is in chamber


What happens:
Store XP in thought bottle.
3000 HD creature use a move action to step into chamber, takes ni damage and dies.
Resurrection trap triggers. Character immediately resurrected with 1 HD loss.
If character is still of 2 HD or higher, ni damage traps triggers, and kills character again. Res trap triggers.

Entire process repeats until character has 1 HD left.

Use move action to exit chamber. Use thought bottle and re-choose levels.

For giggles, mount chamber on executioner platform 5 ft off the ground. Use a free action to fall through chamber. Character is instantly a 1 HD character when he reaches the ground from falling. Full round worth of actions still remains since falling is a free action.

For even more giggles, have the chamber be shaped like a telephone booth and make it portable (wheels, wagons, Tenser's etc). Make like Superman and step into booth as a commoner, when you step out, you are re-spec'd as a Wizard.

There's probably a lower level spell besides Resurrection that would work, if so, this make it more viable for lower wealth/ECL characters.



5) AFB, but iirc Savage Species have rituals to change race. If you change to a race with less LA or HD, you can replace them with class levels. (I think)

One of the ways to chage race described in the book is to use a Wish.

So this is another method to do it within a single round. Requires Wish though, which means it's normally only available to higher level characters.


Does either of the above work at all?