Flickerdart
2015-06-10, 09:47 AM
I realized something the other day when trying to figure out how to early-entry into Mindbender - it's possible to do it as early as level 2 by using lycanthropy. A were-ape wizard (or a wizard who is a lycanthrope of any other animal with 4+ HD) can use Practiced Spellcaster to qualify for Mindbender, take four levels, and then get himself cured of lycanthropy with a simple remove curse to revert to a wizard 1/mindbender 4.
Obviously, this could be used to cheese other prerequisites - dropping a few filler HDs into an arbitrary place in your build and then removing them should allow you to cherry-pick classes early for any game that starts at a late enough level. This doesn't work as well for feats since you need to pick them up as class-granted bonus feats for them not to revert along with your HD - and you can just do that at the right time anyway. Any PrC with BAB or CL prerequisites works excellently though since it can be used to qualify for itself. A 1st level character that becomes a were-shark (a total of 8 HD and BAB of +7) can immediately enter Divine Crusader upon reaching level 9, take 10 levels of Divine Crusader, and then get cured to become an 11th level character with 9th level spells. He has a BAB of +8 and so still qualifies for the PrC.
It works superbly for ardents - an ardent of any level (let's say 1) can take Practiced Manifester, get infected by an ape lycanthrope, gain another level, learn his allotted powers (as appropriate for a 6th level ardent) and then get cured. He can't manifest the power he learned yet, but it lets him load up on valuable powers early and skip mandatory low-level stinkers, especially in crappy mantles.
What other shenanigans can we get up to, assuming that the hypothetical DM accepts "I was a werewolf in my backstory"?
Obviously, this could be used to cheese other prerequisites - dropping a few filler HDs into an arbitrary place in your build and then removing them should allow you to cherry-pick classes early for any game that starts at a late enough level. This doesn't work as well for feats since you need to pick them up as class-granted bonus feats for them not to revert along with your HD - and you can just do that at the right time anyway. Any PrC with BAB or CL prerequisites works excellently though since it can be used to qualify for itself. A 1st level character that becomes a were-shark (a total of 8 HD and BAB of +7) can immediately enter Divine Crusader upon reaching level 9, take 10 levels of Divine Crusader, and then get cured to become an 11th level character with 9th level spells. He has a BAB of +8 and so still qualifies for the PrC.
It works superbly for ardents - an ardent of any level (let's say 1) can take Practiced Manifester, get infected by an ape lycanthrope, gain another level, learn his allotted powers (as appropriate for a 6th level ardent) and then get cured. He can't manifest the power he learned yet, but it lets him load up on valuable powers early and skip mandatory low-level stinkers, especially in crappy mantles.
What other shenanigans can we get up to, assuming that the hypothetical DM accepts "I was a werewolf in my backstory"?