Anthrowhale
2015-10-04, 11:55 AM
All spellcasters are defined as having limited access to spells. Can those limits be broken?
Priya (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280365-Priya-the-Prismatic-Priestess-Buffs-Across-the-Spectrum) introduced an idea using [Twin] Repeat Maximized Absorption. But there are at least two issues that a DM might plausibly object to and more generally there are multiple setting sourcebooks involved.
The first issue is that Twin Maximized Absorption is used in a couple places. If you have 2 maximized absorptions cast, is your absorption capacity 10 or 10+10? The relevant rule for stacking magical effects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm#stackingEffects) is:
Spells that provide bonuses ... on ... attributes usually do not stack with themselves.
Attributes is not a game definition. The English definition is pretty broad---absorption capacity is an attribute, and hence the absorption capacity does not stack.
The second issue is powering Absorption. Several suggestions are given with the self-contained ones being something like Glorious Master of the Elements. I could see a DM with a conservative understanding nerfing things. Is the "one creature" that is the target the GMotE recipient? Or is it the multiple creatures that can be targeted over a 5 round duration? Target seems to be used both in 'targeted spell' sense as Absorption requires and separately to just refer to the recipients of ranged touch attacks.
The perpetual motion wizard (Perp) uses the same mechanic with much more minimal sources to achieve extreme effects. Perp is an antipersistomancer---almost no magic is active yet Perp can cast every wizard standard action spell an arbitrary number of times in an instant.
Sources: Player's Handbook, DMG, Player's Handbook II, Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, Dragon Magic, Spell Compendium
Race: any
Abilities: Intelligence at least 24 by character level 18.
Skills: at least Knowledge(arcana) 10, Knowledge(Religion) 10, Spellcraft 9
Languages: Draconic
Items: Frog God's Fane. Maybe an Amulet of Second Chances to make sure Frog God's Fane works.
Wizard 5/Cleric 1/Dweomerkeeper 10/Wyrm Wizard 1/Lore Master 1/Wyrm Wizard 1/?? 1
The classes are exacting if the goal is keeping to common splat books. Many other possibilities exist if more sources are allowed.
Relevant class abilities:
Wizard: Familiar. Having a Familiar effectively doubles the number of actions available per round.
Share Spells. A crazy powerful ability in this build.
Wizard spells to level 9. All the spells required can be acquired automatically on level up.
A full spell book. We can effectively cast every spell in the spellbook, so maybe it's good to have many spells?
Scribe scroll(prerequisite)
Cleric 1: Divine spellcasting (prequisite), Magic domain(prerequisite)
Dweomerkeeper 10: Cloak of Mysteries. Makes +4 metamagic +3 and +3 metamagic +2.
Lore Master 1: Extra Feat. We need arcane thesis for two level 9 spells and don't want to wait until level 21.
Wyrm Wizard 2: Spell Research (Favor of the Martyr). Twin Celerity only works effectively with daze immunity.
We need all the feat slots to power Perp.
1(Wizard) Scribe Scroll
1 Maximize Spell. Used with Absorption and Time Stop, this produces sufficient predictable results.
3 Invisible Spell. Via Arcane Thesis reduces the adjusted levels of metamagic spells by -1.
5(Wizard) Cooperative Spell. Via Arcane Thesis reduces the adjusted levels of metamagic spells by -1. The description does not say what happens to a cooperative spell when cast without a partner so standard rules apply.
6 Repeat Spell. Makes a spell cast this round and next round at the beginning of your turn. The relevant part for personal spells is:
A repeated spell is automatically cast again at the beginning of your turn in the following round.
9 Arcane Thesis[Celerity]. Via Twin Spell, this turns an immediate or swift action into two standard actions.
12 Arcane Thesis[Dominate Person]. Any 5th level targeted spell works. With Twin Spell, this instantly turns absorption capacity into spellcasting capacity.
15 Twin Spell. Makes a spell take effect twice with the second effect having identical decisions to the first. This efficiently powers up spellcasting off Absorption and doubles the actions granted by Celerity.
Frog God's Fane Skill Focus(Knowledge(Religion))
18 Arcane Thesis[Absorption]. A Maximized Absorption can power 10 levels of spellcasting. We'll use just 9.
18(Lore Master) Arcane Thesis[Time Stop]. This converts arbitrary spellcasting into instantaneous arbitrary spellcasting.
The set of spells required to power Perp is relatively minimal.
4 Favor of the Martyr. Needed for effective use of Celerity.
2x4 Twin Invisible Cooperative Celerity (T Celerity). Grants two standard actions for the cost of a swift or immediate action.
4x5 Twin Invisible Cooperative Dominate Person (T Dominate). Powers up absorption for free spellcasting.
6 Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability. Give 3 T Dominate's to the familiar and rely on Share Spells to let them use it inside Celerity or TIme Stop.
8 Repeat Mordenkainen's Lucubration (R Lucubration). Recover 4 level 5- spells with Share Spells.
9 Maximized Invisible Absorption //The seed Absorption to start the cycle
9 Repeat Maximized Invisible Cooperative Absorption (RM Absorption) //A freely cast Absorption to continue the cycle.
9 Repeat Maximized Invisible Cooperative Time Stop (RM Time Stop) //Adds the ability to do everything instantly.
Having one additional memorized spell of each level is highly desirable as it will allow any spell in Perp's spellbook to be cast.
The basic infinite spell mechanic is reasonably simple.
To start, assume that a few spells have been cast:
Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability granting Twin Invisible Cooperative Dominate Person x3 to your familiar. hour/level duration.
Maximized Invisible Absorption 10 minute/level duration.
Favor of the Martyr, granting immunity to daze. minute/level duration.
Now, we have a cycle:
Familiar Standard action: Cast T Dominate on you charging Absorption with 10 levels.
Perp Standard action: Free RM Absorption via charged Absorption.
Perp Swift action: T Celerity
Familiar or Perp Standard: Cast T Dominate on you charging Absorption with 10 levels
Perp Standard: Free <any> standard action spell via charged Absorption.
no action at beginning of next turn: second Maximized Absorption cast on you.
For the cost of 2 level 5 spell slots and 1 level 4 spell slot, we can cast any spell. This would be an interesting curiosity, except that <any> can be R Lucubration. Via Share Spells, this recovers two of Perp's spells of level 5 or less and two of the familiar's spells of level 5 or less. This is 1 more recovery than expenditure. Hence, you can repeat this loop 4 times using R Lucubration 3 times and any other memorized spell with a standard action casting time once.
There is one tricky element---The familiar must only cast 1 L5- spell in some rounds to recharge which is why Perp casts T Dominate on himself part of the time instead.
Since Favor of the Martyr is an L5- spell, it is fully recoverable via Lucubration.
Adding Time Stop into the mix makes the free spells happen in no time, although the spells cannot effect the world.
When the <any> spell is RM Time Stop the first Time Stop goes off, and then the second one triggers just before you act in the first one. If you choose to share spells with first Time Stop but not the second, your familiar will be 'frozen in time' w.r.t. the second Time Stop, but not the first. Essentially, no time passes w.r.t. the first Time Stop while the second Time Stop triggers. Always bringing your familiar with you via Share Spells implies a self-contained infinite spell loop is feasible.
This process can be recursed. RM Time Stop effectively provides 10 rounds while the loop costs 4 rounds, implying +6 rounds. Recursing creates a deeply nested sequence of Time Stops that unwind 6 rounds at a time when you cease casting. With 8 hours of effort, you get 12 hours of time, enough to sleep and rememorize spells.
Time Stop also has the interesting clause
You are undetectable while time stop lasts. which makes Perp a perfect scout for everywhere except antimagic regions
Using Celerity, this loop can be launched as an immediate action.
T Celerity provides two standard actions (or 4, if you count the familiar's) as an immediate action. These can be used to launch Time Stop according to:
Familiar Standard: T Dominate
Perp Standard: RM Absorption
Familiar Standard: T Dominate
Perp Standard RM Time Stop
with the second Absorption presumably triggering just before the second Time Stop. This consume the swift action in the first round of Time Stop, but that is fine---we can afford to waste one round in the Time Stop.
A variation on Celerity allows actions in real time which can affect others, unlike Time Stop.
In the last round of Time Stop ready an action to act as soon as Time Stop ends. Do the action, and then use T Celerity to drop back into a Time Stop warp.
Note that the action can be casting a spell with any level 5 or less spell recoverable via Lucubration. Pretty much everything is vulnerable to some level 5 spell if it's spammed often enough. With enough spamming any spell doing unresisted damage will kill and any spell with a save will have a failed save.
Higher level spells can also be spammed, but you must store enough time to rest for 8 hours and recover spells.
The natural thing for Perp to fear is another Spellcaster. High op wizard combat is well discussed elsewhere. Note that Perp does not have much to dispel and has plenty of remaining resources to expend.
There are many variations naturally.
If Dragon content is available Wizard 15/Wyrm Wizard 1/Lore Master 1/Wyrm Wizard 1 works fine by taking advantage of Easy Metamagic in Dragon 325.
If Extra Spell works for off-list spells (which it apparently although not explicitly does), then Wyrm Wizard is not needed.
An Archivist is another natural choice that works well as long as Alternate Spell Source (Dragon 325) and standard approaches for getting arcane spells on divine scrolls is allowed.
With Genesis you can create a demiplane that enhances chosen spels with any chosen metamagic. Combined with Planar Bubble you can do all of the above with no feats.
Perp avoided using Repeat Twin Dominate Person which would halve the cycle. The only difficulty is that one more +0 metamagic is required for Arcane Thesis fuel. In this vein, another approach is a Repeat Twin Sanctum Charm Monster using an Acorn of Far Travel from an oak tree in your Sanctum so the spell is treated as level 5.
Perp avoided the use of Dual Actions via Shapechange[Chronotyryn] or similar available via Shapechange. This is obviously super-helpful.
I've tried to make Perp as broadly valid as possible, but a few judgements could be questioned. If there are others, I'm curious to see them.
Repeat Time Stop time accumulation. Are rounds of apparent time an attribute? It could be judged either way. If so Repeat Maximized Time Stop does not provide 10 rounds of actions. This means that you cannot store up time in nested Time Stops. Since the basic loop is 4 long and Maximized Time Stop is 5 long you can still cast any standard action spell although a somewhat deeper buffer of T Dominate is required. Swapping spells effectively require use of Rary's Arcane Conversion + Quicken Spell or Arcane Spellsurge.
Lucubration on Familiar spells. Does Lucubration really recover familar spells?
The recalled spell is stored in your mind as through prepared in the normal fashion. You could say the familiar has no 'normal fashion' or that Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability is the normal fashion. There are several other ways to get an ally benefiting from Share Spells.
A familiar is also not really needed with Shapechange[Chronotyryn] and Repeat Twin Dominate.
Priya (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280365-Priya-the-Prismatic-Priestess-Buffs-Across-the-Spectrum) introduced an idea using [Twin] Repeat Maximized Absorption. But there are at least two issues that a DM might plausibly object to and more generally there are multiple setting sourcebooks involved.
The first issue is that Twin Maximized Absorption is used in a couple places. If you have 2 maximized absorptions cast, is your absorption capacity 10 or 10+10? The relevant rule for stacking magical effects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm#stackingEffects) is:
Spells that provide bonuses ... on ... attributes usually do not stack with themselves.
Attributes is not a game definition. The English definition is pretty broad---absorption capacity is an attribute, and hence the absorption capacity does not stack.
The second issue is powering Absorption. Several suggestions are given with the self-contained ones being something like Glorious Master of the Elements. I could see a DM with a conservative understanding nerfing things. Is the "one creature" that is the target the GMotE recipient? Or is it the multiple creatures that can be targeted over a 5 round duration? Target seems to be used both in 'targeted spell' sense as Absorption requires and separately to just refer to the recipients of ranged touch attacks.
The perpetual motion wizard (Perp) uses the same mechanic with much more minimal sources to achieve extreme effects. Perp is an antipersistomancer---almost no magic is active yet Perp can cast every wizard standard action spell an arbitrary number of times in an instant.
Sources: Player's Handbook, DMG, Player's Handbook II, Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, Dragon Magic, Spell Compendium
Race: any
Abilities: Intelligence at least 24 by character level 18.
Skills: at least Knowledge(arcana) 10, Knowledge(Religion) 10, Spellcraft 9
Languages: Draconic
Items: Frog God's Fane. Maybe an Amulet of Second Chances to make sure Frog God's Fane works.
Wizard 5/Cleric 1/Dweomerkeeper 10/Wyrm Wizard 1/Lore Master 1/Wyrm Wizard 1/?? 1
The classes are exacting if the goal is keeping to common splat books. Many other possibilities exist if more sources are allowed.
Relevant class abilities:
Wizard: Familiar. Having a Familiar effectively doubles the number of actions available per round.
Share Spells. A crazy powerful ability in this build.
Wizard spells to level 9. All the spells required can be acquired automatically on level up.
A full spell book. We can effectively cast every spell in the spellbook, so maybe it's good to have many spells?
Scribe scroll(prerequisite)
Cleric 1: Divine spellcasting (prequisite), Magic domain(prerequisite)
Dweomerkeeper 10: Cloak of Mysteries. Makes +4 metamagic +3 and +3 metamagic +2.
Lore Master 1: Extra Feat. We need arcane thesis for two level 9 spells and don't want to wait until level 21.
Wyrm Wizard 2: Spell Research (Favor of the Martyr). Twin Celerity only works effectively with daze immunity.
We need all the feat slots to power Perp.
1(Wizard) Scribe Scroll
1 Maximize Spell. Used with Absorption and Time Stop, this produces sufficient predictable results.
3 Invisible Spell. Via Arcane Thesis reduces the adjusted levels of metamagic spells by -1.
5(Wizard) Cooperative Spell. Via Arcane Thesis reduces the adjusted levels of metamagic spells by -1. The description does not say what happens to a cooperative spell when cast without a partner so standard rules apply.
6 Repeat Spell. Makes a spell cast this round and next round at the beginning of your turn. The relevant part for personal spells is:
A repeated spell is automatically cast again at the beginning of your turn in the following round.
9 Arcane Thesis[Celerity]. Via Twin Spell, this turns an immediate or swift action into two standard actions.
12 Arcane Thesis[Dominate Person]. Any 5th level targeted spell works. With Twin Spell, this instantly turns absorption capacity into spellcasting capacity.
15 Twin Spell. Makes a spell take effect twice with the second effect having identical decisions to the first. This efficiently powers up spellcasting off Absorption and doubles the actions granted by Celerity.
Frog God's Fane Skill Focus(Knowledge(Religion))
18 Arcane Thesis[Absorption]. A Maximized Absorption can power 10 levels of spellcasting. We'll use just 9.
18(Lore Master) Arcane Thesis[Time Stop]. This converts arbitrary spellcasting into instantaneous arbitrary spellcasting.
The set of spells required to power Perp is relatively minimal.
4 Favor of the Martyr. Needed for effective use of Celerity.
2x4 Twin Invisible Cooperative Celerity (T Celerity). Grants two standard actions for the cost of a swift or immediate action.
4x5 Twin Invisible Cooperative Dominate Person (T Dominate). Powers up absorption for free spellcasting.
6 Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability. Give 3 T Dominate's to the familiar and rely on Share Spells to let them use it inside Celerity or TIme Stop.
8 Repeat Mordenkainen's Lucubration (R Lucubration). Recover 4 level 5- spells with Share Spells.
9 Maximized Invisible Absorption //The seed Absorption to start the cycle
9 Repeat Maximized Invisible Cooperative Absorption (RM Absorption) //A freely cast Absorption to continue the cycle.
9 Repeat Maximized Invisible Cooperative Time Stop (RM Time Stop) //Adds the ability to do everything instantly.
Having one additional memorized spell of each level is highly desirable as it will allow any spell in Perp's spellbook to be cast.
The basic infinite spell mechanic is reasonably simple.
To start, assume that a few spells have been cast:
Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability granting Twin Invisible Cooperative Dominate Person x3 to your familiar. hour/level duration.
Maximized Invisible Absorption 10 minute/level duration.
Favor of the Martyr, granting immunity to daze. minute/level duration.
Now, we have a cycle:
Familiar Standard action: Cast T Dominate on you charging Absorption with 10 levels.
Perp Standard action: Free RM Absorption via charged Absorption.
Perp Swift action: T Celerity
Familiar or Perp Standard: Cast T Dominate on you charging Absorption with 10 levels
Perp Standard: Free <any> standard action spell via charged Absorption.
no action at beginning of next turn: second Maximized Absorption cast on you.
For the cost of 2 level 5 spell slots and 1 level 4 spell slot, we can cast any spell. This would be an interesting curiosity, except that <any> can be R Lucubration. Via Share Spells, this recovers two of Perp's spells of level 5 or less and two of the familiar's spells of level 5 or less. This is 1 more recovery than expenditure. Hence, you can repeat this loop 4 times using R Lucubration 3 times and any other memorized spell with a standard action casting time once.
There is one tricky element---The familiar must only cast 1 L5- spell in some rounds to recharge which is why Perp casts T Dominate on himself part of the time instead.
Since Favor of the Martyr is an L5- spell, it is fully recoverable via Lucubration.
Adding Time Stop into the mix makes the free spells happen in no time, although the spells cannot effect the world.
When the <any> spell is RM Time Stop the first Time Stop goes off, and then the second one triggers just before you act in the first one. If you choose to share spells with first Time Stop but not the second, your familiar will be 'frozen in time' w.r.t. the second Time Stop, but not the first. Essentially, no time passes w.r.t. the first Time Stop while the second Time Stop triggers. Always bringing your familiar with you via Share Spells implies a self-contained infinite spell loop is feasible.
This process can be recursed. RM Time Stop effectively provides 10 rounds while the loop costs 4 rounds, implying +6 rounds. Recursing creates a deeply nested sequence of Time Stops that unwind 6 rounds at a time when you cease casting. With 8 hours of effort, you get 12 hours of time, enough to sleep and rememorize spells.
Time Stop also has the interesting clause
You are undetectable while time stop lasts. which makes Perp a perfect scout for everywhere except antimagic regions
Using Celerity, this loop can be launched as an immediate action.
T Celerity provides two standard actions (or 4, if you count the familiar's) as an immediate action. These can be used to launch Time Stop according to:
Familiar Standard: T Dominate
Perp Standard: RM Absorption
Familiar Standard: T Dominate
Perp Standard RM Time Stop
with the second Absorption presumably triggering just before the second Time Stop. This consume the swift action in the first round of Time Stop, but that is fine---we can afford to waste one round in the Time Stop.
A variation on Celerity allows actions in real time which can affect others, unlike Time Stop.
In the last round of Time Stop ready an action to act as soon as Time Stop ends. Do the action, and then use T Celerity to drop back into a Time Stop warp.
Note that the action can be casting a spell with any level 5 or less spell recoverable via Lucubration. Pretty much everything is vulnerable to some level 5 spell if it's spammed often enough. With enough spamming any spell doing unresisted damage will kill and any spell with a save will have a failed save.
Higher level spells can also be spammed, but you must store enough time to rest for 8 hours and recover spells.
The natural thing for Perp to fear is another Spellcaster. High op wizard combat is well discussed elsewhere. Note that Perp does not have much to dispel and has plenty of remaining resources to expend.
There are many variations naturally.
If Dragon content is available Wizard 15/Wyrm Wizard 1/Lore Master 1/Wyrm Wizard 1 works fine by taking advantage of Easy Metamagic in Dragon 325.
If Extra Spell works for off-list spells (which it apparently although not explicitly does), then Wyrm Wizard is not needed.
An Archivist is another natural choice that works well as long as Alternate Spell Source (Dragon 325) and standard approaches for getting arcane spells on divine scrolls is allowed.
With Genesis you can create a demiplane that enhances chosen spels with any chosen metamagic. Combined with Planar Bubble you can do all of the above with no feats.
Perp avoided using Repeat Twin Dominate Person which would halve the cycle. The only difficulty is that one more +0 metamagic is required for Arcane Thesis fuel. In this vein, another approach is a Repeat Twin Sanctum Charm Monster using an Acorn of Far Travel from an oak tree in your Sanctum so the spell is treated as level 5.
Perp avoided the use of Dual Actions via Shapechange[Chronotyryn] or similar available via Shapechange. This is obviously super-helpful.
I've tried to make Perp as broadly valid as possible, but a few judgements could be questioned. If there are others, I'm curious to see them.
Repeat Time Stop time accumulation. Are rounds of apparent time an attribute? It could be judged either way. If so Repeat Maximized Time Stop does not provide 10 rounds of actions. This means that you cannot store up time in nested Time Stops. Since the basic loop is 4 long and Maximized Time Stop is 5 long you can still cast any standard action spell although a somewhat deeper buffer of T Dominate is required. Swapping spells effectively require use of Rary's Arcane Conversion + Quicken Spell or Arcane Spellsurge.
Lucubration on Familiar spells. Does Lucubration really recover familar spells?
The recalled spell is stored in your mind as through prepared in the normal fashion. You could say the familiar has no 'normal fashion' or that Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability is the normal fashion. There are several other ways to get an ally benefiting from Share Spells.
A familiar is also not really needed with Shapechange[Chronotyryn] and Repeat Twin Dominate.