How best to build this ECL 10 Thrallherd?

[Grandjester]

My DM is preparing us for a new campaign where we must play evil characters summoned by a similarly evil god and forced into working for him to complete unknown tasks. The DM has been very elusive as to what we should expect, but he's been quite open to character options. Everything first-party published has been okay'd outside of Dragon Magazine, even leadership and thrallherd. So far, the only character idea I've had shot down has been dragonwrought kobold cheese, but now I've settled on something that I haven't tried before and probably won't get to try again.

With that out of the way, I'd like help with this build. It's not necessarily the most optimized build, as I'm not a veteran of the game and this is my first time getting to play with cohorts/thralls. My only requirements that I've settled on for the build are that I want to progress fully through Thrallherd, and that I'd also like to focus on Metamorphosis as my primary combat power, preferably with Metamorphic Transfer for fun/powerful options.

Unfortunately, while I have access to pretty much all splashbooks outside of third-party (although the DM might okay those in some cases), the campaign has some very strange and unfortunate mechanics. Firstly, we are only awarded XP at the end of each successful 'task' that this evil god will send us on, and this XP is always set to increase our level to the start of the next ECL. This makes several options likely off the table, such as crafting my own items or buying off LA, unless I want to lag behind the party until the end of the campaign. Secondly, instead of wealth-per-level, the DM just said we'll be given magic items and gear as he sees fit rather than being able to progress normally. I'm not certain as to whether I can even gain wealth once the campaign begins.

Taking those problems into account, what build would you all suggest? My current build is a CE Neraphim Egoist 5/Thrallherd 5, so that I can morph into Outsiders for their useful supernatural abilities. As I do not want to overshadow the party, my thralls will likely be in support roles, or possibly used as expendable crafting reserves. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[AvatarVecna]

The "Crystal Cult" trick
A Thrallherd is incapable of taking the Leadership feat, and their thralls and believers are also prohibited from taking Leadership. A Thrallherd and their thralls are not, however, prevented from having Undead Leadership, psicrystals, or other Leadership-like abilities, nor are thralls prevented from taking levels in Thrallherd.

Wanna know why psicrystals were included in that list? It's because of how psicrystals advance: by RAW, a psicrystal has half its master's HP, and has HD equal to its master--but only Psion and Wilder HD count, since psicrystals actually gain HD, they advance as any other creature would, including by gaining feats...like Leadership, Undead Leadership, Leadership-increasing feats, and Vow of Poverty. An easy-to-understand interpretation is that the psicrystal advances based on manifester level, which can be increased by the Improved Psicrystal feat. To prevent this from being easily abused, I limit this to character level, allowing a psion/wilder who multiclasses to keep their psicrystal fairly close in power to them.

Throw in some Epic Thrallherd progression, and you get the Crystal Cult. I did a full stat write-up a while back, and it ended up with thousands of believers and followers, many of them being Necropolitans.

I made this trick a little while back. It takes basic leadership abuse and ramps it up to 11. All characters involved have levels in Thrallherd, a Psicrystal, and Undead Leadership; the psicrystals themselves have at least 3 different Leadership-equivalent feats; each of their cohorts should be a thrallherd as well. It gets absolutely ridiculous if you min-max this idea out; I kid you not, hundreds of thousands of believers and followers and cohorts and thralls by ECL 20; once Epic Leadership (and Epic Leadership Score) are on the table, it gets even worse.

But that's only if you're wanting the DM to hate you; I recommend not using this trick to its full power, you should ramp it back at least a little for a IRL game. Anyway, have fun!

[Grandjester]

Thanks for the speedy response! I did read about how psicrystals can gain feats, however I'm not sure my DM would be okay with a psicrystal having the Leadership feat, but it's an interesting thought. Perhaps I could mitigate the 24 hour 'respawn' time for thralls who have outlived their usefulness by creating this cult. It could even work from a roleplay standpoint if I did it well. I'll ask my DM about it tomorrow.

I also played a character with Vow of Poverty in the previous campaign this DM ran, but somehow never thought of giving it to my psicrystal. Is it possible to get my crystal this feat while I'm playing an evil character? I might be wrong, but it requires the character to be of good alignment to take exalted feats, yes?

[AvatarVecna]

Thanks for the speedy response! I did read about how psicrystals can gain feats, however I'm not sure my DM would be okay with a psicrystal having the Leadership feat, but it's an interesting thought. Perhaps I could mitigate the 24 hour 'respawn' time for thralls who have outlived their usefulness by creating this cult. It could even work from a roleplay standpoint if I did it well. I'll ask my DM about it tomorrow.

I also played a character with Vow of Poverty in the previous campaign this DM ran, but somehow never thought of giving it to my psicrystal. Is it possible to get my crystal this feat while I'm playing an evil character? I might be wrong, but it requires the character to be of good alignment to take exalted feats, yes?

While I'm not sure about the RAW of it, my gut says that's sketchy as hell. Still, it's your DM. Anyway, Leadership on your crystals isn't necessary to abuse this, just to absolutely maximize the beating you're giving the RAI. And messing with that 24 reset is how I turned a crystal cult into a diabolical whorehouse in the "Is there prostitution in D&D?" thread a while back. You work your lowest-believers to the bone, with no food or sleep time until they keel over from something, then have your more important (and healthy) believers kill them for sustenance. If you stagger your low-level whores properly, you can have a near-constant income. Especially important is making sure that the company has life insurance on all the workers.

It's also great for shifting priorities on the fly, because the power of a low-level mob is fantastically abusable. Need to run somebody out of business? Reset until you've got all the town gossips spreading the word of their terrible practices. Need a village razed to the ground without looking personally suspicious? Reset until the orc village in the nearby hills is yours to command, and have them do it (bonus points if you use your psionic power to kill the invaders and save the town). Need a forest chopped down, or tons of arms and armor made on the fly? With just a touch of training, your mob of followers is capable of aiding another to ultimate productivity.

EDIT: I feel a need to respond to this bolded part. Yes, to take an Exalted feat, you must be not just good, and not just Good, but Exalted Good. Exalted feats are literally divine gifts bestowed upon you buy immortal forces of Ultimate Good, just because you're such a moral person. By the fluff of Exalted, it's easier to lose your exalted status than to fall as a paladin, and for Good reason: it's hard being morally perfect, at least for mortals; you've got to be giving 110 percent to even come close to Exalted Good.

Now, while an evil character definitely can't take VoP, it could be argued that, since your psicrystal is the hyperbolized physical manifestation of who you are, it's possible for your psicrystal to be the one spot of pure white left on your evil-stained soul, and that one spot is so pure and good that it's worth a divine blessing. Please note: this is a very, very tough sell, and if I was your DM, I would blanket-ban that kind of thing unless I knew for sure that you could roleplay that situation well enough to win an Emmy.

[Grandjester]

While I'm not sure about the RAW of it, my gut says that's sketchy as hell. Still, it's your DM. Anyway, Leadership on your crystals isn't necessary to abuse this, just to absolutely maximize the beating you're giving the RAI. And messing with that 24 reset is how I turned a crystal cult into a diabolical whorehouse in the "Is there prostitution in D&D?" thread a while back. You work your lowest-believers to the bone, with no food or sleep time until they keel over from something, then have your more important (and healthy) believers kill them for sustenance. If you stagger your low-level whores properly, you can have a near-constant income. Especially important is making sure that the company has life insurance on all the workers.

It's also great for shifting priorities on the fly, because the power of a low-level mob is fantastically abusable. Need to run somebody out of business? Reset until you've got all the town gossips spreading the word of their terrible practices. Need a village razed to the ground without looking personally suspicious? Reset until the orc village in the nearby hills is yours to command, and have them do it (bonus points if you use your psionic power to kill the invaders and save the town). Need a forest chopped down, or tons of arms and armor made on the fly? With just a touch of training, your mob of followers is capable of aiding another to ultimate productivity.

Now this is the kind of diabolical scheme that I've been thinking about since I started this build! It would fit perfectly into this campaign as a side plot, as my character spreads misery and profit across the lands while keeping in the shadows. Now I just need to think about how much I want to invest in the leadership score. Is it worth building from Wilder for the charisma synergy?


EDIT: I feel a need to respond to this bolded part. Yes, to take an Exalted feat, you must be not just good, and not just Good, but Exalted Good. Exalted feats are literally divine gifts bestowed upon you buy immortal forces of Ultimate Good, just because you're such a moral person. By the fluff of Exalted, it's easier to lose your exalted status than to fall as a paladin, and for Good reason: it's hard being morally perfect, at least for mortals; you've got to be giving 110 percent to even come close to Exalted Good.

Well, I'm glad my DM didn't look too closely at the fluff in the last campaign. That might have caused me some issues.


Now, while an evil character definitely can't take VoP, it could be argued that, since your psicrystal is the hyperbolized physical manifestation of who you are, it's possible for your psicrystal to be the one spot of pure white left on your evil-stained soul, and that one spot is so pure and good that it's worth a divine blessing. Please note: this is a very, very tough sell, and if I was your DM, I would blanket-ban that kind of thing unless I knew for sure that you could roleplay that situation well enough to win an Emmy.

Knowing my DM, I'd be required to have my psicrystal rebel against my tyranny and break away from my control, using its leadership feat to attract followers to attempt to foil my evil plans at every turn. It would be amusing, but I think I'd rather take a different path. :smalltongue:

[AvatarVecna]

Now this is the kind of diabolical scheme that I've been thinking about since I started this build! It would fit perfectly into this campaign as a side plot, as my character spreads misery and profit across the lands while keeping in the shadows. Now I just need to think about how much I want to invest in the leadership score. Is it worth building from Wilder for the charisma synergy?

Glad to inspire somebody. As for Wilder...it's personal preference. Thrallherd gives "Leadership Score" of Character Level+Thrallherd Level+Cha mod; at your level, with Charisma 10, your LS is 15; by Thrallherd 10, it will be 25, where it maxes out. Your Charisma matters more for any other Leadership abilities you have, such as Undead Leadership, but even then it's fairly trivial to maximize your LS other ways (items, for instance). Still, Wilder is about as good an entry as any other; if nothing else, you'll hit that minion cap quicker, and have access to them sooner and for longer. It's what I'd use, if I was really trying to min-max something like this.

Honestly, even normal Leadership is incredibly overpowered, and having 6 different sources of it (as this trick uses) while maximizing your score is honestly kind of overkill. It's more for the theoretical "how many could you get?" than "guys, I have this awesome character concept I want to play in a real game". If I were playing something like this in a real game, and wanted to go beyond just Thrallherd, I'd probably just take Undead Leadership, make my thrall(s) and cohort thrallherds, and stop the trick there, making the rest of the thralls and believers more useful minions rather than minion-generating machines. That gives my group a total of 6 Leadership-like abilities (8 once you get the second thrall at Thrallherd 10). Part of the reason is that my DM would bury me under a pile of thrown books for bringing a character like that to a real game; the other part is that keeping track of what thralls you have of each level and stat block is a chore when they reach 5 digit numbers, and that's before you level up. It's an accounting nightmare running a build like this in a real game, and it's only for the crazy dedicated player.

[Sagetim]

psion/thrallherd with whatever else you want, but one thing you will invest in is a sacraficial knife and full ranks of knowledge religion.

why?

Because you can use the Book of Vile Darkness sacrifice rules to offer your believers up to your evil god for bonuses. And get a new believer the next day. And not suffer any leadership penalties for it. Thrallherd has the best kind of leadership- the kind that it doesn't matter what you do, you replenish your followers for free the next day. While they are not infinite cannon fodder, they will be more than enough to supply your sacrifical needs for whatever you and the rest of the party gets up to.

I would also suggest investing in some item creation feats, so you can make use of sacrifice rules to get dark craft xp and dark craft gold to craft items with. Sure, the towns people might get a little freaked out when they start losing townies one by one each day, but you'll have enough time to get a little crafting done before you skeedadle to the next town, rinse, and repeat. That's assuming you aren't going to get the rest of your party in on this sacrifical train though. Your DM may be willing to allow Dark Craft Gold and Dark Craft XP to be used to cast spells in place of xp or gold components. If so, then you can not only start sacrificing for fun and profit, but also for an army of undead monsters at the command of your friends. While I can't think of one off the top of my head, there's probably some means of getting Create Undead before level 11. Not sure if it will help any, but your piles of bodies can become piles of bodies with swords. All for the low low price of being a horrific monster.

And if you or your party members take undead leadership, they can release the older undead they make and pick them up as followers :D

Yes, this is ridiculous, and cheesy, and awful. But your dm wants you to run team evil campaign, so cranking it up to speeds of 3 sounds about right. Yeah, Vecna gave you leadership tricks up to 11...I think mine is about 3. Also, I'm encouraging you to engage in party synergy, which means working together as team evil instead of being individual ***** and stabbing each other in the back.

[AvatarVecna]

psion/thrallherd with whatever else you want, but one thing you will invest in is a sacraficial knife and full ranks of knowledge religion.

why?

Because you can use the Book of Vile Darkness sacrifice rules to offer your believers up to your evil god for bonuses. And get a new believer the next day. And not suffer any leadership penalties for it. Thrallherd has the best kind of leadership- the kind that it doesn't matter what you do, you replenish your followers for free the next day. While they are not infinite cannon fodder, they will be more than enough to supply your sacrifical needs for whatever you and the rest of the party gets up to.

I would also suggest investing in some item creation feats, so you can make use of sacrifice rules to get dark craft xp and dark craft gold to craft items with. Sure, the towns people might get a little freaked out when they start losing townies one by one each day, but you'll have enough time to get a little crafting done before you skeedadle to the next town, rinse, and repeat. That's assuming you aren't going to get the rest of your party in on this sacrifical train though. Your DM may be willing to allow Dark Craft Gold and Dark Craft XP to be used to cast spells in place of xp or gold components. If so, then you can not only start sacrificing for fun and profit, but also for an army of undead monsters at the command of your friends. While I can't think of one off the top of my head, there's probably some means of getting Create Undead before level 11. Not sure if it will help any, but your piles of bodies can become piles of bodies with swords. All for the low low price of being a horrific monster.

And if you or your party members take undead leadership, they can release the older undead they make and pick them up as followers :D

Yes, this is ridiculous, and cheesy, and awful. But your dm wants you to run team evil campaign, so cranking it up to speeds of 3 sounds about right. Yeah, Vecna gave you leadership tricks up to 11...I think mine is about 3. Also, I'm encouraging you to engage in party synergy, which means working together as team evil instead of being individual ***** and stabbing each other in the back.

I love everything about this, it's absolutely wonderful. And yeah, you're right; you should never turn your char-op up to 11 in a real game unless everybody's on that level; I pointed out the TO Crystal Cult trick so that it could be used as inspiration ("see? There's lots of ways to stack leadership!") for a more PO build (like having you and your thralls have Undead Leadership).

[Sagetim]

I love everything about this, it's absolutely wonderful. And yeah, you're right; you should never turn your char-op up to 11 in a real game unless everybody's on that level; I pointed out the TO Crystal Cult trick so that it could be used as inspiration ("see? There's lots of ways to stack leadership!") for a more PO build (like having you and your thralls have Undead Leadership).

well, you definately can't take....almost anything but Ancestral Relic from the Book of Exalted Deeds while playing an evil character. It's the only general feat in that book that I can think of that doesn't require or imply that you have to be good to keep the feat. So going in the other direction...the party is already evil, why not be Vile? (and a team that actually works together without backstabbing each other. You Do have an evil god uniting the party as a factor).

Between a psion, or if you want to get really jerky, Erudite/Thrallherd, a wizard, a cleric, and a beguiler (because they get trapfinding and mind control, so who needs rogues?) you could make a team evil that does none of it's own dirty work. The main reason you would want a wizard is to snag spells from with the Erudite ability to convert spells into powers known, for vile powers. Leave mindrape to the wannabe evil overlords, and go straight for things like Steal Life...no, wait, you don't need that. You can remove your age limit by being an Elan already. Erudite can still be useful for having a wide range of powers known, even if you're particularly limited in how many different ones you can use in a day.

And don't forget the pain extractors, so you can not only get the sacrifice bonus for having tortured your willing believer, but also get a dose of liquid pain that you can use for all manner of dastardly things...or just sell/get people addicted to.

[Grandjester]

When I posted the thread, I was mostly wondering about a good progression from 10-15, to max thrallherd and making the best of starting at level 10, but I'm happy it went in a different direction! When it comes to things like the crystal cult trick, I tend not to worry about how broken it could be, since I could always play it in a suboptimal way or limit myself to how many times I stack leadership so that it isn't too broken. Simply knowing what my power ceiling is allows me more room to build up what I envisioned, and there's no need to have to touch that ceiling at any point if I don't want to. Thankfully, the way this evil god plot works pretty much forces our party to work with each other to all our benefit, since the evil god will punish anyone who causes any unneeded problems. So I can be a chaotic evil backstabbing bastard without having to cause my party any issues.


psion/thrallherd with whatever else you want, but one thing you will invest in is a sacraficial knife and full ranks of knowledge religion.

why?

Because you can use the Book of Vile Darkness sacrifice rules to offer your believers up to your evil god for bonuses. And get a new believer the next day. And not suffer any leadership penalties for it. Thrallherd has the best kind of leadership- the kind that it doesn't matter what you do, you replenish your followers for free the next day. While they are not infinite cannon fodder, they will be more than enough to supply your sacrifical needs for whatever you and the rest of the party gets up to.

I would also suggest investing in some item creation feats, so you can make use of sacrifice rules to get dark craft xp and dark craft gold to craft items with. Sure, the towns people might get a little freaked out when they start losing townies one by one each day, but you'll have enough time to get a little crafting done before you skeedadle to the next town, rinse, and repeat. That's assuming you aren't going to get the rest of your party in on this sacrifical train though.

This sounds like something I'll seriously consider, in fact it's unlikely I won't go this route now that I know about it. Giving myself the means to craft/gain expendable XP without having to rely on my thralls as disposable crafters actually leaves me feeling less cheesy somewhat. My DM also loves that kind of evil stuff, which is why he came up with this campaign, so it works for everyone's benefit. I don't think I want to go into undead creation, it's not really something I'm interested in adding to my cult, and I believe we already have some kind of necromancer in our party (along with a shadowdancer and some kind of blaster-type arcane caster). However, adding item creation feats onto my egoist/thrallherd build I was going with might make a metamorphosis build using Metamorphic Transfer a bit too difficult to fit in, if I stick with playing a Neraphim.

Speaking of which, what are your opinions on playing a Neraphim for the purposes of metamorphing into outsiders? I don't want my combat role focused on my followers, that's more of a utility-side of my character than a combat one, so I wanted to have metamorphosis as my prime way of fighting. I've thought of going Shaper instead of Egoist, and using expanded knowledge to get metamorphosis at level 12 (since my ML is down 1 thanks to thrallherd and I don't get a feat at level 10 to grab it when it's available with EK), but the idea of lacking that spell at the start of the campaign doesn't sit right with me. I'm also not sure if I would want to use Astral Constructs, even though I know how great they are. Outside of my thralls and believers, I think I should only rely on myself.


Between a psion, or if you want to get really jerky, Erudite/Thrallherd, a wizard, a cleric, and a beguiler (because they get trapfinding and mind control, so who needs rogues?) you could make a team evil that does none of it's own dirty work. The main reason you would want a wizard is to snag spells from with the Erudite ability to convert spells into powers known, for vile powers. Leave mindrape to the wannabe evil overlords, and go straight for things like Steal Life...no, wait, you don't need that. You can remove your age limit by being an Elan already. Erudite can still be useful for having a wide range of powers known, even if you're particularly limited in how many different ones you can use in a day.

And don't forget the pain extractors, so you can not only get the sacrifice bonus for having tortured your willing believer, but also get a dose of liquid pain that you can use for all manner of dastardly things...or just sell/get people addicted to.

Erudite, huh? I've never actually looked into the Erudite before. Going by what you just said, it means I could gain arcane spells as powers by stealing them from wizards? That sounds like it would synergize well with Thrallherd by taking spells from spellcaster thralls. That's a big change to what I had in mind though, I'll go read about it more. Also, I think I remember seeing something called 'Spells to Power' as a web enhancement somewhere, was that the feature you're talking about or is it in the books somewhere?

[Segev]

This may not be what you're looking for, but it would be compatible with a Thrallherd.

Elan Psion going into Thrallherd. Quickly after becoming a Thrallherd, acquire a scroll of PAO or hire a wizard who knows it to cast it to turn you into a 5-HD Beholder. This will have a duration of permanent.

Make sure you have Metamorphic Transfer to give yourself the anti-magic eye and eyebeams. (Eyebeams are one power, so you get them all with one dose of Metamorphic Transfer.) Do not use them. Sacrifice the central eye to become a Beholder Mage. You will be sacrificing eyestalk eyebeams for spellstalks, which are class features and thus aren't limited to 3x use before permanent exhaustion.

Once you hit level 2 in Beholder Mage, you qualify for Cerebromancer; run that until you at least have access to overland flight. Or don't, and rely on your Believers carrying you around on a palanquin. The one thing you won't have that you'll wish you did is the natural flight of a Beholder. So you'll want your believers to carry you around until you can cast overland flight (or have another means of easily moving about).

If you get fewer than 5 levels of Beholder Mage+Cerebromancer, you should have room for all 10 levels of Thrallherd (though going for 10 effective levels of Beholder Mage will be FAR more powerful).

Note that as a Beholder Mage, you can use a free action to cast one spell of each level you know (via the spellstalks), and a standard action to manifest a psionic power (as that does not require speech; the "spellsong" a Beholder Mage sings to enable his spellstalks precludes spellcasting via other means in the same round, but doesn't prevent psionics)!

[Grandjester]

This may not be what you're looking for, but it would be compatible with a Thrallherd.

Elan Psion going into Thrallherd. Quickly after becoming a Thrallherd, acquire a scroll of PAO or hire a wizard who knows it to cast it to turn you into a 5-HD Beholder. This will have a duration of permanent.

Make sure you have Metamorphic Transfer to give yourself the anti-magic eye and eyebeams. (Eyebeams are one power, so you get them all with one dose of Metamorphic Transfer.) Do not use them. Sacrifice the central eye to become a Beholder Mage. You will be sacrificing eyestalk eyebeams for spellstalks, which are class features and thus aren't limited to 3x use before permanent exhaustion.

Once you hit level 2 in Beholder Mage, you qualify for Cerebromancer; run that until you at least have access to overland flight. Or don't, and rely on your Believers carrying you around on a palanquin. The one thing you won't have that you'll wish you did is the natural flight of a Beholder. So you'll want your believers to carry you around until you can cast overland flight (or have another means of easily moving about).

If you get fewer than 5 levels of Beholder Mage+Cerebromancer, you should have room for all 10 levels of Thrallherd (though going for 10 effective levels of Beholder Mage will be FAR more powerful).

Note that as a Beholder Mage, you can use a free action to cast one spell of each level you know (via the spellstalks), and a standard action to manifest a psionic power (as that does not require speech; the "spellsong" a Beholder Mage sings to enable his spellstalks precludes spellcasting via other means in the same round, but doesn't prevent psionics)!

I've read about the Beholder Mage and the potential for gaining it as a PC through such means, but it's indeed not what I'm looking for. Would be fun if I ever end up rerolling in this campaign, but not for now. Thanks for the idea, though.

EDIT: Dang, Erudite uses XP to learn new powers, which is something that won't mesh with this particular campaign. I'll have to stick with Psion or Wilder, though it's good to know what the Erudite can do for future reference.

[Segev]

I'm personally not a fan of Erudite, as it is a bit of a mess, mechanically (requiring DM call to determine if it's brokenly hard to play or brokenly powerful), and seems to me to be creating an arbitrary mechanical restriction to balance something conceptually neat but mechanically would obsolete the Psion. And the spell-to-power Erudite is just... what were they thinking?

For optimization of the straight Thrallherd, there is a Mind's Eye article somewhere which allows you to play a Telepath and give up your fifth level bonus Psion feat for 100 ft. telepathy. This is very useful for a Thrallherd so he can pass orders around without having to bother to speak or manifest mindlink, as well as opening him up for tasty feats like Mindsight. In addition, part of optimizing a Thrallherd is optimizing your Thrall and Believers. Consider getting either creatures or Believes with animal handling to handle animal-like creatures with senses that are of use to you; sense link is better than the wizard's link with his familiar for scouting and for relying on others' senses. It can be used on your psicrystal, too, to share your psicrystal's 40 ft. radius of telepathic "sight" that is unimpeded by even magical darkness or all-concealing fog.

This trick works for any psionic character who can share senses with his psicrystal: envelop yourself in obscuring mist or other all-concealing item and use your psicrystal's senses to shoot crossbow bolts, crystal shards, or other attacks, because you're not bothered by the concealment anymore.

I believe the forced version of sharing senses can let you share yours (or your psicrystal's) senses with your believers and thralls.

With an active mindlink, you can also use believers who are sense linked with you as patsies for negotiation.

If they're going into combat with you, arm your low-level believers with longspears and tower shields and order them to provide cover and Aid Another actions to the front line fighters in your party. They can also form pikemen phalanxes to block chargers from coming at you.

Even if you're perfectly capable of walking, don't pass up the style points of having a palanquin upon which you lounge while your minions carry you around, either. There are probably ways to optimize this, but honestly the cool factor for the arrogant Thrallherd is the most attractive bit of it, to me.

[Sagetim]

Yeah, I would have posted yesterday that Erudite is in the back of Complete Psionic and that the spells to powers thing eats up xp. But then the weather made me sick all day. Anyway, going with psion/thrallherd, you can't go wrong with Shaper. Between Fabricate, Greater Fabricate (which you can pick up at 12 as a 6th level power known) some crafting skills, and probably some other low level powers that I'm not thinking of right now you can roll into a town and set your personal mansion up in the woods nearby within a day or two. From there, getting the party cleric to unhallow the ritual site shouldn't be too hard, which sets up your ability to sacrifice whatever believers are subpar. Are you in civilized lands and don't need those goblins looking out of place? sac them and get some human follows as replacements. Are you out in the dangerous wilds? Sac your humans to get some monstrous followers who are probably better at combat.

Shapers can get Fabricate as a 4th level power, and as I recall, Greater Fabricate as a 6th level power. You can always pick up mindlink for thrallherd via a feat, and if you really want to mix things up using metamorphosis, I'm sure you can pick that up as your 6th or 9th level feat. I would suggest using things like Mind Thrust, Energy Ray, and Astral Construct in combat, however. d4 hit dies are always going to be dangerous to go into melee with. No matter how high your ac may get, no matter how high your attacks may get, you're going to be attacked a lot more often than you will be attacking your opponents, and that means they will have more chances to roll a nat 20 and make you wish you had the DR and Fast Healing that a Sangehirn gets. Even with those, it's unwise at best to go into melee. Your HP will thank you if you stay out of the thick of combat and abuse your ranged powers and minions/minion making.

To divert a bit: In a game of dnd I was in a small party of a Shaper (my character), a Spirit Shaman, and a Fighter. We found ourselves stuck in a location fighting a steady supply of zombies, which only through appropriately paranoid planning did we managed to force into taking us on by moving through a single square width hallway. We were level 2, and between my steady supply of Astral Constructs (Magic Murder Monkies), the fighter's decent ac and two handed weapon, and the spirit shaman keeping him up with healing magic, we barely managed to survive that fight. If I had spent my power points doing anything else but throwing disposable little bodies out there to strike and be struck at (missed mostly) then the three of our characters would have died to zombies. That's something that should never happen to players. Death by zombies. I suggest picking up Astral Construct, even if you're not going Shaper.

Oh, also: Shaper's get minor creation as a first level power. If I recall right, you can potentially use that to make wooden balls with natural toxins in them, then toss said items at your targets. There is, of course, an inherent danger in this. It might be safer to hand such an item off to one of your believers to strap to their chest and charge at someone to hug the poison up against them.

[Grandjester]

Yeah, I would have posted yesterday that Erudite is in the back of Complete Psionic and that the spells to powers thing eats up xp. But then the weather made me sick all day. Anyway, going with psion/thrallherd, you can't go wrong with Shaper. Between Fabricate, Greater Fabricate (which you can pick up at 12 as a 6th level power known) some crafting skills, and probably some other low level powers that I'm not thinking of right now you can roll into a town and set your personal mansion up in the woods nearby within a day or two. From there, getting the party cleric to unhallow the ritual site shouldn't be too hard, which sets up your ability to sacrifice whatever believers are subpar. Are you in civilized lands and don't need those goblins looking out of place? sac them and get some human follows as replacements. Are you out in the dangerous wilds? Sac your humans to get some monstrous followers who are probably better at combat.

Shapers can get Fabricate as a 4th level power, and as I recall, Greater Fabricate as a 6th level power. You can always pick up mindlink for thrallherd via a feat, and if you really want to mix things up using metamorphosis, I'm sure you can pick that up as your 6th or 9th level feat. I would suggest using things like Mind Thrust, Energy Ray, and Astral Construct in combat, however. d4 hit dies are always going to be dangerous to go into melee with. No matter how high your ac may get, no matter how high your attacks may get, you're going to be attacked a lot more often than you will be attacking your opponents, and that means they will have more chances to roll a nat 20 and make you wish you had the DR and Fast Healing that a Sangehirn gets. Even with those, it's unwise at best to go into melee. Your HP will thank you if you stay out of the thick of combat and abuse your ranged powers and minions/minion making.

To divert a bit: In a game of dnd I was in a small party of a Shaper (my character), a Spirit Shaman, and a Fighter. We found ourselves stuck in a location fighting a steady supply of zombies, which only through appropriately paranoid planning did we managed to force into taking us on by moving through a single square width hallway. We were level 2, and between my steady supply of Astral Constructs (Magic Murder Monkies), the fighter's decent ac and two handed weapon, and the spirit shaman keeping him up with healing magic, we barely managed to survive that fight. If I had spent my power points doing anything else but throwing disposable little bodies out there to strike and be struck at (missed mostly) then the three of our characters would have died to zombies. That's something that should never happen to players. Death by zombies. I suggest picking up Astral Construct, even if you're not going Shaper.

Oh, also: Shaper's get minor creation as a first level power. If I recall right, you can potentially use that to make wooden balls with natural toxins in them, then toss said items at your targets. There is, of course, an inherent danger in this. It might be safer to hand such an item off to one of your believers to strap to their chest and charge at someone to hug the poison up against them.

For some reason I thought metamorphosis was a 5th level power, and so I had thought I could only pick it up at the start by going Egoist. I feel a bit silly now. Shaper certainly seems like a nice choice, either that or Telepath for an easier time getting Mindlink. Telepath would make more sense for Neraphim, so I can have outsider forms and mind link without spending a feat, and I think Kalashtar would be a fantastic shaper thanks to having inherent mindlink, that or Warforged for obvious reasons. Hm, Warforged would also give me construct forms wouldn't it?

[Sagetim]

For some reason I thought metamorphosis was a 5th level power, and so I had thought I could only pick it up at the start by going Egoist. I feel a bit silly now. Shaper certainly seems like a nice choice, either that or Telepath for an easier time getting Mindlink. Telepath would make more sense for Neraphim, so I can have outsider forms and mind link without spending a feat, and I think Kalashtar would be a fantastic shaper thanks to having inherent mindlink, that or Warforged for obvious reasons. Hm, Warforged would also give me construct forms wouldn't it?

I don't think warforged works that way. I'm pretty sure warforged using metamorphosis would have the normal limits of the power. I'm pretty sure that Kashalatar doesn't count as having mind link for the purpose of qualifying for the prestige class because it's a psi like ability, not a power known. If you want to be able to use/abuse fabricate, you're probably going to want to go shaper, since it only takes one feat to get mindlink for thrallherd, while it would take multiple feats at higher levels to pick up fabricate, greater, etc.

But yeah, Metamorphosis is a third level power, so you could go something like 3rd level feat- Expanded Knowledge (Mindlink), 9th level feat Expanded Knowledge (Metamorphosis). Unfortunately you can only pick up a power of 1 lower than your cap, so you can't use your 6th level feat to pick up a third level power (like metamorphosis). This would also mean that if you went not-Shaper, you couldn't pick up greater fabricate until 15.

Another reason not to go telepath is because thrallherd gives you some of the best powers known from the telepath list as class abilities. Psionic Charm and Psionic Dominate are free class abilities for being a Thrallherd. So playing a Telepath is kind of redundant unless you really wanted to have a lot of particular telepathy powers. I like Metaconcert, it's a really sweet power. But if you don't have any other manifesters to use it with (and you probably can't guarantee that your believers are going to have any manifesters in them), then it's not particularly helpful to know. That power, and maybe a few others, would be my main reason for going Telepath over something else. It just seems safer to stick with Shaper and pick up out of discipline powers with expanded knowledge.

Also, if you're using the expanded psionics version of energy missile, that would be a solid level 6 expanded knowledge to pick up. If you're using the updated complete psionics version...not so much.

[Grandjester]

I don't think warforged works that way. I'm pretty sure warforged using metamorphosis would have the normal limits of the power. I'm pretty sure that Kashalatar doesn't count as having mind link for the purpose of qualifying for the prestige class because it's a psi like ability, not a power known. If you want to be able to use/abuse fabricate, you're probably going to want to go shaper, since it only takes one feat to get mindlink for thrallherd, while it would take multiple feats at higher levels to pick up fabricate, greater, etc.

But yeah, Metamorphosis is a third level power, so you could go something like 3rd level feat- Expanded Knowledge (Mindlink), 9th level feat Expanded Knowledge (Metamorphosis). Unfortunately you can only pick up a power of 1 lower than your cap, so you can't use your 6th level feat to pick up a third level power (like metamorphosis). This would also mean that if you went not-Shaper, you couldn't pick up greater fabricate until 15.

Another reason not to go telepath is because thrallherd gives you some of the best powers known from the telepath list as class abilities. Psionic Charm and Psionic Dominate are free class abilities for being a Thrallherd. So playing a Telepath is kind of redundant unless you really wanted to have a lot of particular telepathy powers. I like Metaconcert, it's a really sweet power. But if you don't have any other manifesters to use it with (and you probably can't guarantee that your believers are going to have any manifesters in them), then it's not particularly helpful to know. That power, and maybe a few others, would be my main reason for going Telepath over something else. It just seems safer to stick with Shaper and pick up out of discipline powers with expanded knowledge.

Also, if you're using the expanded psionics version of energy missile, that would be a solid level 6 expanded knowledge to pick up. If you're using the updated complete psionics version...not so much.

I suppose Warforged aren't constructs, but living constructs, which indeed rules them out for interesting metamorph forms. However, Thrallherd doesn't require you to know Mindlink as a power, but simply be able to manifest mindlink, which Kalashtar can do as a psi-like ability. I'm pretty sure that qualifies them. I spent a long time figuring out what I wanted to do after my last post, and so I've settled on Kalashtar Shaper. The bonus PP is just gravy.

Also, Metamorphosis is a 4th level power, not 3rd, although that doesn't change much about what you said. I grabbed it using my 9th level feat, and decided to wait until 12th for Metamorphic Transfer, to see if I'd actually need it or not. Something I need help with though is fabricate, since I've never used anything like it before. Reading the description, it says I need relevant craft skills to craft anything complex, and there's a load of crafting skills I could choose from. Would I need to invest in any of them to make good use of fabricate, or could I get by without worrying about that? Also, I'm pretty sure that my DM will use complete psi versions of powers over their EPH counterparts, so energy missile is off the table.

Final question, and thanks for helping me so far by the way, is that my DM is letting me bring my first thrall with me when we all get summoned by this evil god. Because I have no clue what I'm getting into, I'm thinking of making this thrall a typical meatshield to protect me until I can get a grasp of what I need from future thralls. The question is, if you had to build a thrall in that situation, what would you be aiming for? Battlefield control? Damage? Support magic?

[Sagetim]

I suppose Warforged aren't constructs, but living constructs, which indeed rules them out for interesting metamorph forms. However, Thrallherd doesn't require you to know Mindlink as a power, but simply be able to manifest mindlink, which Kalashtar can do as a psi-like ability. I'm pretty sure that qualifies them. I spent a long time figuring out what I wanted to do after my last post, and so I've settled on Kalashtar Shaper. The bonus PP is just gravy.

Also, Metamorphosis is a 4th level power, not 3rd, although that doesn't change much about what you said. I grabbed it using my 9th level feat, and decided to wait until 12th for Metamorphic Transfer, to see if I'd actually need it or not. Something I need help with though is fabricate, since I've never used anything like it before. Reading the description, it says I need relevant craft skills to craft anything complex, and there's a load of crafting skills I could choose from. Would I need to invest in any of them to make good use of fabricate, or could I get by without worrying about that? Also, I'm pretty sure that my DM will use complete psi versions of powers over their EPH counterparts, so energy missile is off the table.

Final question, and thanks for helping me so far by the way, is that my DM is letting me bring my first thrall with me when we all get summoned by this evil god. Because I have no clue what I'm getting into, I'm thinking of making this thrall a typical meatshield to protect me until I can get a grasp of what I need from future thralls. The question is, if you had to build a thrall in that situation, what would you be aiming for? Battlefield control? Damage? Support magic?

If I'm allowed to build the thrall myself? I'm probably going to go for an initiator of some kind. Probably a straight leveled warblade with the intent of using them as an enforcer and melee power house. Warblades can do a lot of damage, and depending on the build, do it while very mobile.

On Fabricate: There's probably threads going on and on about how it can be used this way and that. If nothing else, I would drop some skill points into craft (carpentry), Craft (masonry), Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering), Craft (Blacksmithing), Craft (armor) and Craft (Weaponry). You only need to be able to consistently hit a dc of 20 for most crafting to handle the masterwork component. Some craft skills will need more, and those are the ones you would invest more points in. But with a high int mod (as you'll have at high level), and even a few supporting items (be they masterwork tools or +5 skill bonus items) you can consistently hit a dc 20 by taking 10. You're not using fabricate in stressful situations anyway (or shouldn't be).

The other reason I would go with warblade as a thrall would be so that you could roleplay that you're having the thrall train your believers in warblading stuff during downtime, so that you can have some of your followers (with dm's permission) be warblades instead of whatever they showed up as. I don't think there are any explicit rules for that kind of thing, but if your DM is letting you run a thrallherd, some of your followers being warblades shouldn't be a huge additional problem (especially because they can be your vanguard). It also fulfills the fluff reasoning for why believers show up to follow thrallherds- they are looking for meaning and direction in their life. You give the thrall meaning and direction by having him train more warblades, and the believers by being trained and having duties based on their newly found combat prowess.

When it comes to craft skills, you should just look over the complete list of craft skills and probably put at least one rank into each one if you can (if you can, without negatively impacting the rest of your build). Having a single rank means the skill is trained and that's just important*. It means you can do anything that anyone with the same skill at the same bonus could do even if they have more ranks to get to that same modifier. Someone with a +15 to craft blacksmithing and no ranks is limited in what they can accomplish, while someone with +15 to craft blacksmithing and even just half a rank can do anything that someone who has a +15 to craft blacksmithing from 15 ranks of blacksmithing can do.

*There are skill tricks or some such thing, but I'm not familiar with them.