Optimize this feat #12: Spirit Sense from Heroes of Horror, p. 124

[daremetoidareyo]

I Love Feats. They are little alterations to the rules and they interface with class features in some really fun and strange ways. Sometimes their utility is circumspect and sometimes they just stink. I'm looking at you Battle Dance. However, there is just something really satisfying about the interplay of feats and rules to produce illogical and unintended effects.

What is this?
So this is the "Optimize this feat" discussion, wherein we work together to plumb the clever and amazing uses for feats in ways the designers could have only dreamt of. Arbitrary credit seems to be important to sway people's incentives, so I have devised the following system to award credit to people who help explore the possibilities of how to use a feat. I'm developing this pseudo-contest on the fly, so rules are subject to change.


All participants in the optimization endeavor post directly into the thread. They may post as many times as they want, just like any thread where you volunteer your ideas. After a week or so, the thread will be evaluated and participants will be assigned a score. That score represents how helpful or novel the poster was in their analysis of a feat's uses, abuses, interactions, and limitations. The rubric by which points are assigned to posters is developed below. The poster's who are most helpful will be announced after a week, and have their name highlighted in bold and in a font color other than black! The guest judge will try to remain interactive in the process, because the contest element to me is secondary to extracting the maximum amount of versatility and power out of the feat resource.

Point Allocation Rubric
The following list is not exhaustive of how points will be allocated, as I imagine that there will be weird end cases.

Suggestion of a non-overtly obvious class feature, spell, feat, skill trick, psi-power, magic/psionic item, or monster that interplays with the feat to produce an exaggerated result.

Overt Obviousness will be judged by the guest judge, but I will generally allocate points generously, What I am trying to avoid is people suggesting feat interplays that are non-exceptional and thus cluttering the thread with lame and uninteresting things. 1 point.

If the suggestion is particularly powerful or clever, an additional point may be allocated to reward the optimizerly thinking. This decision is mine, although I will be swayed by what seems like genuine "co-signing," where other posters in the thread really glom onto the idea and develop it further.

A small build stub, between 5-12 levels, that includes a small write up of how the feat interplays with a few class features, racial features, spells, powers and feats to produce an effect that is far beyond the scope of what the feat of the week is capable of providing on its own. 5 points. +/- 1 point.

A rather undeveloped stub may only receive 4 points if it is a slightly modified rehash of a previous stub. A rather ingenious stub can earn an extra point. In some cases, you may actually do both! All of these are judgement calls as adjudicated by myself.

A fully functional optimization of the feat that ramps it up to its maximum power level where there is no way to possibly make it more amazing, including a 20 level build that follows the same format as iron chef dishes, but with minimal write up, is worthy of 10-12 points.

As the Chair, I will remain interactive throughout the thread, even suggesting a few builds. Commenting on these is fine and all of the rubric points apply to those as well. This means that the thread is not a totally objective competition.

A display of relevant rules expertise that shapes the discussion is worthy of 0 or 1 point. This is the "squishiest" criteria, and will only be allocated when it corrects part of the conversation that is going too far off the rails. Particularly nasty interchanges about RAW may lead to abdication of this point. Being incorrect isn't an immoral offense, so I want an atmosphere where suggestions are flying but staying generally within the real bounds of dnd play. RAW discussions tend to get a little too personal, and hopefully this arbitrary point system can circumvent that. Plus, seeing as how extensive the rules system is, it is easy for me to get excited about how to make an idea work and get lost about the details.

BIAS
I am not a perfect judge. I prefer mundane to magical. I prefer Tier 3 and below to Tier 2 and up. But I do love me some dysfunction. So optimization that requires a lot of high level spells or powers (anything level 4 or up) will be less impressive to me. Go ahead and make your suggestion, I will try to police these biases in myself, but understand that these are factors that are in play.

Other information
All of that said, I have an exhibited tendency to be more forgiving/rules lax, whereas some of you are far more RAW heavy. I really do appreciate ya'll, so don't be afraid to reign in some of the theory and ground it in what is explicitly allowed. Different tables play the game differently. And this forum tends to highlight super polarized ends of this permissiveness spectrum that spans from "RAW to a fault" - "So ridiculously theoretically unbalanced beyond any DM's willingness to allow". Most play tends to be in the middle, if not a little skewed towards RAW: but not all play. With that in mind, if requested, if you are asked to assume that the theoretical DM handwaves your criticism as a special exception, please update your approach and proceed from there if you would like to continue to parse the possibilities that a feat offers. In this way, we can develop the full spectrum of what a feat can do.
This week's Feat is from Heroes of Horror p.124: Spirit Sense

This endeavor concludes at 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time on Sept 3rd

Optimize this Feat 1:Wanderer's Diplomacy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472308-Optimize-This-Feat-1-Wanderer-s-Diplomacy): VAZ
Optimize this Feat 2: Conductivity (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?473047-Optimize-this-Feat-2-Conductivity-from-Unearthed-Arcana&highlight=Conductivity): ben-zayb
Optimize this Feat 3: Swim-by Attack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?474225-Optimize-this-feat-3-Swim-by-attack-from-Stormwrack): WhamBamSam
Optimize this Feat 4: Contagious Paralysis (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?476019-Optimize-this-Feat-4-Contagious-Paralysis-from-Libris-Mortis) WhamBamSam
Optimize this Feat 5: Hammer and Piton (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477681-Optimize-this-Feat-5-Hammer-and-Piton-From-Dungeonscape) Zetapup
Optimize this Feat 6: Residual Rebound (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?479041-Optimize-this-Feat-6-Residual-Rebound-from-Unearthed-Arcana&p=20493024#post20493024) ben-zayb
Optimize this Feat 7: Mark of Phlegethos (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480323-Optimize-this-Feat-7-Mark-of-Phlegethos-from-Fiendish-Codex-2-Tot9H): Darrin
Optimize this Feat 8: Seelie Court Noble Kelir (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?492298-Optimize-this-Feat-8-Seelie-Court-Noble-Kelir-(web)): Jowgen
Optimize this Feat 9: Animal Friends (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?493792-Optimize-this-Feat-9-Races-of-Faerun-s-Animal-friends-p-161): Troacctid
Optimize this Feat 10A: Primary Contact (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?495860-Optimize-this-feat-10-Primary-Contact-plus-Einhander-lightning-round&p=21075488#post21075488): Jormengand & WhamBamSam
Optimize this Feat 10B lightning round: Einhander from PHB2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?495860-Optimize-this-feat-10-Primary-Contact-plus-Einhander-lightning-round): Zaq
Optimize this Feat 11: Supremely Confident from Dragon #335 p.88 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496731-Optimize-this-feat-11-Supremely-Confident-from-Dragon-335-p-88&p=21076906): To Be Determined

Upcoming Schedule:

Don't post your ideas for these on the wrong competition. Save em. Unleash your brilliance on us.
Optimize this feat #13: Cards over Swords from Three-Dragon Ante web supplement
Optimize this feat #14: Dual Plane summons from Dragon #313 with guest judge _________????
Optimize this feat #15 Formation expert from complete warrior p.110
Optimize this feat #16 TBD
Optimize this feat #17: Betrayal of the spirit linked from Dragon #336 with guest judge _____????

[daremetoidareyo]

You can see and communicate with the souls of the recently departed.
Prerequisite: must have had a neardeath experience (that is, must have fallen below 0 hit points), Wisdom 12,
Benefit: You can see the spirits of creatures who have died within a number of minutes equal to your Wisdom bonus. For instance, if your Wisdom is 17 (+3 bonus), you can see the spirits of creatures that have died within the past 3 minutes. You can speak with these spirits, but you gain no special ability to command them or to communicate with them if you do not share a language. These spirits are not creatures per se and cannot be harmed or affected in any way, magical or otherwise. In addition, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus on Listen or Spot checks made to detect incorporeal creatures.

This Clause: "These spirits are not creatures per se and cannot be harmed or affected in any way, magical or otherwise." is the tricky clause. Let's assume that these spirits decision making can be manipulated. If you can talk to them, you can interact with them, and thus you are affecting them with your query. (they feel compelled to answer or not). Remember that they are not creatures per se, and thus you may not be able to force mechanics upon them that require status as a creature.

[Inevitability]

Boost your diplomacy, then convince the spirits to return as ghosts?

[Jormengand]

No can do: diplomacy, intimidate and bluff only work on creatures.

There's pretty much nothing you can do with this feat. You can talk to them, but cannot affect them in any way, which means that you can't change their minds, you can't give them any information, you can't move them, you can't act in a way that would cause them to move... in fact, can people without the feat affect the spirits? Because actually, maybe optimising the feat would centre around not being able to affect them. For example, if you have a ghost touch shield, you can put it on a spirit's head, climb up onto it, and use it to stand on, whereas if you could affect them, you would probably creep them out or crush them. In fact, no matter how much stuff you put onto the ghost touch shield, you still can't affect the spirit.

But yeah, they're not creatures and you can't affect them in any way whatever, which means they might as well be pillars of immateria, hovering a few inches above each dead body. That, after removing all the nonsense, is what we actually have to work with.

[WhamBamSam]

Even if we assume that they are creatures for diplomacy purposes, they'd presumably be undead, and hence you couldn't get them to fanatical (which is mind-affecting).

[Inevitability]

I guess if you use infinite loops of some kind to make your wisdom NI, you could use this to determine the time of a corpse's death. Just strip away the wisdom boosts one by one (or apply successive penalties: an allip might be helpful) until you can't see the ghost anymore. At that point, you'll narrowed the time of death down to a single minute: let modern forensics try to beat that!

[Jormengand]

More to the point, you have a buncha indestructible incorporeal pillars that only you can see. If you're feeling evil, you can make an incorporeal fortress by murdering dead people, then back it up with your choice of corporeal construction material, and have fun. Also, you might be able to wear ghost touch boots (or integrate GT shuriken into the soles) and use the spirits as some method of walking on air in effect, allowing you to ignore all the annoyingness that comes with fly maneuverability.

[thethird]

Aren't spirits defined in PHBII when describing the spirit shaman? I think this feat would be of use to the spirit shaman, specially in conjunction with some of the spirit binding spells from OA.

[MisterKaws]

Well, Spirit Shaman just 'nope's the "cannot be harmed or affected in any way, magical or otherwise" for the most part, but I still don't see any use for it. You could at best kill people to try and get answers from their corpses, but Diplomancy would have been easier, and ArsePlomancy™ would have been funnier.

[Inevitability]

Well, Spirit Shaman just 'nope's the "cannot be harmed or affected in any way, magical or otherwise" for the most part, but I still don't see any use for it. You could at best kill people to try and get answers from their corpses, but Diplomancy would have been easier, and ArsePlomancy™ would have been funnier.

Also, Speak With Death, which was pretty much made for questioning corpses.

[daremetoidareyo]

Just because skill checks and spells can't affect them doesn't mean we can't optimize the ability to interact with spirits.

How do you make an allip? Maybe there is something about petitioners that we can use. Or maybe there's undead that are created by a need for vengeance. It strikes me that individual monster entries are probably the fertile soil for this bad boy.

[Jormengand]

Allips are those who were driven to suicide by madness, whichg affected them in life, which was used in the Madness Tarasquekiller build but doesn't help us with the spirits of the dead.

[daremetoidareyo]

May you can communicate with the prescient unborn soul that you summon with the guardian spirit spell from MOI. Ask them who they will be born to in the future? Maybe... corrupt their destiny somehow? They need to be spirits from dead living things.

Or conversely, use the valiant spirit spell as a means to watch over the people you bless with it. Just cast the spell again on someone else to interrogate the spirit. Actually, you can combine this with fleshbound or lifebound from secrets of sarlona to turn mice into creatures possessed by a "great ancient hero." Although you'll need a wisdom score in the millions to have access to the ancient hero. Is there anyway to look or talk into the past???

Perhaps casting spirit ally to task them with things can turn them into ghosts.

Actually, the best way to optimize this feat is to use it on things that have stats and then force your DM to make decisions on the fly. Remember the prohibition is against you affecting the spirit in anyway. The spirit can affect you or others. Which means that if we can find a way to get infinitely high wisdom, we can use the spirit of the stallion feat to get a spirit to make our handle animal checks on our horse for us.

Mastery of the Dead from PGtE allows you to use a person's spirit as a ghost for a few rounds after you kill them with a death effect. You can make a ghost force it to do terrible things, then heckle it into becoming an undead ghost while it's being a spirit. Orrrr...while it is a ghost and not yet a spirit, you can affect it as a ghost with effects that would continue to affect it as a spirit... perhaps.

Using the spell "When two become one" on a mounted person, killing the amalgam creature creates a spirit that is a combination. While you're at it, why not use spirit steed (from ECS) to blend the spirit of an ancient elf warrior into your steed while you are at it. When that monstrosity dies, what happens to those intermingled spirits? What happens if you cast last breath or reincarnation on that steed? Literally, "your spirit enters the body of your horse (which you must be riding when you cast the spell) and merges with the horse's own." Sounds like a great way to get a horse with class levels...

Lastly, "you can speak with these spirits, but you gain no special ability to command them or to communicate with them if you do not share a language." If you ignore the communicate clause, it reads: "you can speak with these spirits, but you gain no special ability to command them or to communicate with them if you do not share a language." Which means that you have the option of commanding them if you do share a language and they are compliant!

Rules Clarification
Do allies have to be creatures, per se? In other words, do you have to be a creature to have the mechanical definition of ally?

[daremetoidareyo]

How to beat a wizard:

This feat has two features: it implies all living things have spirits that hang out for MINUTES after death. This either happens because of the feat or because that is just how it works in the D&D reality. All that we can say with any certainty with the afterlife then, According to the feat, so long as a spirit is being observed, it does not pass on to the afterlife. Therefor, two people with this feat, if killed at the same time, may be able to perceive each other, even as spirits for at least minutes. During this time as spirits, they are immune to the entirety of effects that could target them because they are not creatures per se. But if there were an effect that destroyed the entirety of the multiverse, people who were spirits during that time would continue to exist after the universe exploded. Now if there is a way for them to planeshift or bring themselves back to life say via an inherent ability, they may be able to survive the apocalypse

[Zaq]

I've always wanted to take this feat in a game where things aren't parsed by hyper-RAW (by which I mean in a game in which it is assumed that you can get useful info out of these spirits by means of social skills), but I never had the chance to. More's the pity. If we're going by true RAW, though, then they were a little bit too free with the word "any" there. "Cannot be affected in any way" is a pretty difficult clause to get around.


How to beat a wizard:

This feat has two features: it implies all living things have spirits that hang out for MINUTES after death. This either happens because of the feat or because that is just how it works in the D&D reality. All that we can say with any certainty with the afterlife then, According to the feat, so long as a spirit is being observed, it does not pass on to the afterlife. Therefor, two people with this feat, if killed at the same time, may be able to perceive each other, even as spirits for at least minutes. During this time as spirits, they are immune to the entirety of effects that could target them because they are not creatures per se. But if there were an effect that destroyed the entirety of the multiverse, people who were spirits during that time would continue to exist after the universe exploded. Now if there is a way for them to planeshift or bring themselves back to life say via an inherent ability, they may be able to survive the apocalypse

You're reading in something that isn't necessarily true in the rules. The afterlife and the process of a creature's spirit moving on are intentionally murky, but there's nothing saying that a dead creature cannot have a fragmented spirit, or can only be in one place at once, or that the spirit that you see by means of Spirit Sense is actually the creature's "true" spirit as opposed to, well, something different. I understand that half the point of Optimize This Feat is to take things way the hell too far, but I feel like you're making a few assumptions and a few declarations that aren't necessarily supported by the actual rules text. (It may sound superficially logical to make an argument like what you're making, but I don't think it's necessarily wise to apply gut logic to something as incredibly vague—not to mention removed from reality—as the round-by-round or minute-by-minute fates of the spirits of recently slain D&D creatures.)

[Thurbane]

Is it Complete Divine, MotP or Planar Handbook that has the most details about exactly what happens to a soul immediately after the bodies death?

AFB at the moment, but I think it's CD?

[daremetoidareyo]

Detecting magic jar possession amongst you (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?501083-Detecting-possession-by-magic-jar)

I'll wrap this up tonight.

[Bucky]

Well, Spirit Shaman just 'nope's the "cannot be harmed or affected in any way, magical or otherwise" for the most part, but I still don't see any use for it.

RAW you can jam a Spirit Shaman's abilities with this feat by looking at the spirits. RAI, probably not.

[Troacctid]

Hey, here's another feat that might be worth looking at: Truebond, from DMG2.

[daremetoidareyo]

Hey, here's another feat that might be worth looking at: Truebond, from DMG2.

I'll put it in the queue

[daremetoidareyo]

Boost your diplomacy, then convince the spirits to return as ghosts?

Maybe? 1 point.


No can do: diplomacy, intimidate and bluff only work on creatures.

There's pretty much nothing you can do with this feat. You can talk to them, but cannot affect them in any way, which means that you can't change their minds, you can't give them any information, you can't move them, you can't act in a way that would cause them to move... in fact, can people without the feat affect the spirits? Because actually, maybe optimising the feat would centre around not being able to affect them. For example, if you have a ghost touch shield, you can put it on a spirit's head, climb up onto it, and use it to stand on, whereas if you could affect them, you would probably creep them out or crush them. In fact, no matter how much stuff you put onto the ghost touch shield, you still can't affect the spirit.

But yeah, they're not creatures and you can't affect them in any way whatever, which means they might as well be pillars of immateria, hovering a few inches above each dead body. That, after removing all the nonsense, is what we actually have to work with.

rules clarification: 1 point
I disagree with the inability to adjust the spirit's cognition through communication. But your arguments are RAW sound. 1 point.


Even if we assume that they are creatures for diplomacy purposes, they'd presumably be undead, and hence you couldn't get them to fanatical (which is mind-affecting).

Good points, but they aren't undead. they are soul stuffs, as per complete divine p.125. Actually looking at complete divine, it seems that magic jar might be able to affect these spirits as an exemption to the general rule, assuming that you have an appropriate receptacle for the spirit.


I guess if you use infinite loops of some kind to make your wisdom NI, you could use this to determine the time of a corpse's death. Just strip away the wisdom boosts one by one (or apply successive penalties: an allip might be helpful) until you can't see the ghost anymore. At that point, you'll narrowed the time of death down to a single minute: let modern forensics try to beat that!

Weird. 1 point.


More to the point, you have a buncha indestructible incorporeal pillars that only you can see. If you're feeling evil, you can make an incorporeal fortress by murdering dead people, then back it up with your choice of corporeal construction material, and have fun. Also, you might be able to wear ghost touch boots (or integrate GT shuriken into the soles) and use the spirits as some method of walking on air in effect, allowing you to ignore all the annoyingness that comes with fly maneuverability.

Presuming ghost touch materials work. yes. 2 points.


Aren't spirits defined in PHBII when describing the spirit shaman? I think this feat would be of use to the spirit shaman, specially in conjunction with some of the spirit binding spells from OA.

It seems like you can use this feat to mess with a spirit shaman more than a spirit shaman can use this feat to mess with you...1 point


Well, Spirit Shaman just 'nope's the "cannot be harmed or affected in any way, magical or otherwise" for the most part, but I still don't see any use for it. You could at best kill people to try and get answers from their corpses, but Diplomancy would have been easier, and ArsePlomancy™ would have been funnier.

HA. Yeah, it's looking that way.


I've always wanted to take this feat in a game where things aren't parsed by hyper-RAW (by which I mean in a game in which it is assumed that you can get useful info out of these spirits by means of social skills), but I never had the chance to. More's the pity. If we're going by true RAW, though, then they were a little bit too free with the word "any" there. "Cannot be affected in any way" is a pretty difficult clause to get around.

You're reading in something that isn't necessarily true in the rules. The afterlife and the process of a creature's spirit moving on are intentionally murky, but there's nothing saying that a dead creature cannot have a fragmented spirit, or can only be in one place at once, or that the spirit that you see by means of Spirit Sense is actually the creature's "true" spirit as opposed to, well, something different. I understand that half the point of Optimize This Feat is to take things way the hell too far, but I feel like you're making a few assumptions and a few declarations that aren't necessarily supported by the actual rules text. (It may sound superficially logical to make an argument like what you're making, but I don't think it's necessarily wise to apply gut logic to something as incredibly vague—not to mention removed from reality—as the round-by-round or minute-by-minute fates of the spirits of recently slain D&D creatures.)

1 point for the idea of fractured spirits. Other than that, I got to disagree here. A spirit is nigh invulnerable, they exist for minutes when they are observed by others with this feat instead of rounds (as per complete divine p.125) there is no prohibition on these spirits from doing very specific things. One of which is gathering ectoplasm to become a ghost. You can influence that by providing ectoplasm. Or conversely, perhaps you are killed by a super evil plot, and thus become a bodak!

The best way that I can think of is the entomathrope template + ghost vermin + spit venom feat. The ghost vermin are made of ectoplasm, in hybrid form you retain that trait. You can spit ectoplasmic venom in a 15' cone with the feat. If you spit the ectoplasm around the spirit, you should be able to make them into a ghost. And ghosts, I'm sure have a way of coming back to life eventually.


Is it Complete Divine, MotP or Planar Handbook that has the most details about exactly what happens to a soul immediately after the bodies death?

AFB at the moment, but I think it's CD?

It is Complete divine, and it has some gems that alter the feat: magic jar, bodaks, and ectoplasm.
1 point.

So there it is, all of the ideas that can be done with this very promising but not very robust feat.

thurbane: 1
zaq: 1
thethird: 1
Jormengand: 3
Dire Stirge: 2

Jormengand, come forward for your crown for optimize this feat #12: Your name in Italicized Spectral Blue Book antiqua:

Jormengand

[Jormengand]

Not to be a sore winner, but I think that one and one and two is four, not three. :smalltongue:

[weckar]

I've had some fun with this feat before on two characters: And Enlightened Spirit and a Spirit Shaman. The former used to get his fallen enemies to atone before meeting their maker, the latter actually had more fun with it due to the "what is a spirit" sidebar.