Spell optimization: When Two Become One - Shugenja 3

[daremetoidareyo]

I'm playing with a build based entirely around this one spell from oriental adventures.


When you cast this spell, 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.
Your own body hunkers low on the horse's back and holds on tight for the duration of the spell; it is a part of the body you and your steed share, but not a particularly useful part.
As a joint creature, you and your mount share all your skills, feats, and abilities.
You make all checks, saves, and attack rolls using the better base number (yours or your horse's) and the better ability score modifier.
You retain your own Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, memory, personality, level and class, alignment, and extraordinary and supernatural abilities.
You gain your horse's Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, speed, natural armor and weapons, and extraordinary abilities.
Opponents can attack either your body or your mount's.
Your body uses the mount's Dexterity bonus to AC, not subject to the maximum Dexterity bonus for your armor type, with your own size modifier, armor bonus, and magical bonuses.
Your mount's body uses its own Dexterity bonus, size modifier, armor bonus, natural armor bonus, and any magical bonuses derived from items on your body other than armor (such as an amulet of natural armor or ring of protection).
You and your mount share a pool of hit points equal to your combined total hit points.
When an opponent hits either your body or your mount's,
the damage is subtracted from this combined pool.
Neither you nor your mount becomes disabled or dying until all these combined hit points are exhausted.
When the spell ends, you divide the hit points remaining in the pool as you choose between you and your mount.

I'm probably relying on a wild cohort to provide a horse. How can we optimize this weird spell? How beefy a horse can we buy?

Druid 6 with extra spell is probably the best chassis, any other ideas?

[Zaq]

Huh.

I’m trying to think of what WotC’s intended non-abusive use of this spell is.

Also, why the hell is “horse” not on the PHB Druid’s animal companion list? EDIT: I apparently don’t know how to read.

[daremetoidareyo]

Huh.

I’m trying to think of what WotC’s intended non-abusive use of this spell is.

They really try to push the scent ability on the water shugenja for some reason.

[BWR]

They really try to push the scent ability on the water shugenja for some reason.

Probably because Water is the element of sensing things.

[Inevitability]

Also, why the hell is “horse” not on the PHB Druid’s animal companion list?

...they are?


Animal Companion (Ex)
A druid may begin play with an animal companion selected from the following list: badger, camel, dire rat, dog, riding dog, eagle, hawk, horse (light or heavy), owl, pony, snake (Small or Medium viper), or wolf. If the campaign takes place wholly or partly in an aquatic environment, the following creatures are also available: porpoise, Medium shark, and squid. This animal is a loyal companion that accompanies the druid on her adventures as appropriate for its kind.

[weckar]

I wonder why it specifies horse, specifically, rather than mount. Are Shugenja known for riding horses, at all? I mean, they don't get Ride as a class skill...

[Inevitability]

This might be a good way to qualify for Horseshoes of Flame. It's significantly less likely to result in flung books than UMDing yourself to count as a horse.

[Fizban]

It's a spell that effectively buffs your mount, letting it use your various base rolls, feats, magic item bonuses, class abilities, and share your hit points, in exchange for the loss of your own actions from that line that says your body doesn't do anything but hold on (or alternatively, it turns you into a horse by borrowing its body). It can also buff your own AC a bit if you have low dex since if they're attacking your body you get armor+ the horse's dex regardless of the armor's dex limit, but if they know what's up they can just attack the horse to deplete your hp instead.. But mostly it just provides survivability- a normal horse won't survive much in the way of monster stuff, but you can make two become one and your horse will survive about as well as you would since you're both smashed together. Or if your body is weakened, you can strap it to a horse and fight with the horse's body and borrow their hp instead.

Optimization-wise, unless you find the body of a horse particularly advantageous for combat or otherwise want to make a horse body do silly things, all it really does is that magic item share. You can do much sillier horse-body things by turning yourself into a horse rather than merging with one.

[Bullet06320]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/horse.htm
horses are listed as having spot and listen, so if you need a boost to those skills or any other the horse has, well there's an interesting way to use them

[Darrin]

I've always wanted to find a use for the valicorn template (Ghostwalk Web Enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20030607a)). However, it changes the type to magical beast, so I'm not sure if it still counts as a horse? Regardless of the creature's type, its appearance hasn't changed, so it would still be referred to as a "horse".

Other templates... well, Warbeast and Magebred template to start with. Some might argue Warbeast doesn't apply because there's already stats for a warhorse, but by RAW that text only disqualifies the warhorse, while a more typical riding horse is still eligible. Mineral Warrior can be added via spell.

I think I'd start with a Prestige Paladin/Supermount.

Race: Strongheart Halfling
Stub: Cleric 1/Ranger 1/Druid 5/Beastmaster 1/Prestige Paladin 2/Halfling Outrider 10
Feats: Mounted Combat (1st), Mounted Archery (1st), Track (2nd), Skill Focus Handle Animal (3rd), Natural Spell (6th), Extra Spell (9th), Devoted Tracker (12th), Natural Bond (15th), Exalted Companion (18th).

Assuming you can still cast spells while merged... hmm... can we get body outside body or giant size in there as well?

[Gruftzwerg]

you should invest into "Horseshoes of Flame": (about 30k gold)
the horse gains a fly speed of 90 feet (good), +1d4 points of fire damage on each successful hoof attack, +2 Dexterity, +10 Intelligence, and +6 Charisma.

Since you become one with the horse, you can profit from the mental buffs too. ;)

[Zaq]

...they are?

Wow, I look dumb now. I had somehow missed the at-level options and only saw the options that apply a penalty to effective Druid level.

[daremetoidareyo]

it might be better to have a magebred warbeast heavy warhorse that you buy, and use your share spells to have your animal companion become 1 with the horse. then the handle animal checks are easy and you beef up your wolf. Throw in a cleric dip for persistomancy and your horsewolf has a trip attack. An urban druid dip can blend in an animated object...

human

1. druid 1: natural bond, feat
2. druid 2:
3. druid 3: southern magician
4. cloistered cleric 1: spider domain, planning domain,
5. urban druid 1
6. druid 4: persistent spell
7. human paragon
8. human paragon obtain familiar
9. human paragon: feat
10. druid 5: extra spell:

two companions, a familiar and a warhorse can all be blended together into a monstrosity. So let's say a monstrous spider, a wolf, and a familiar with all of your skill ranks and half of your hp, can all share a persisted casting and a giant pool of hp. Poison auto trip them into your horse web and trample them there. You can join that hot mess if you want.

[Fouredged Sword]

You can cast. You retain your class abilities and there is a feat to get around the lack of hands and funny mouth shape.

I agree with the above poster, you want to have a seperate companion who can also ride and share spell with it. Silverwood arcanist gives share spell to a wild cohort.

Adding three pools of hp together is better than one. Your mount can be a crazy mage bred warhorse template stacked to high heaven and polymorphed into a dragon.

Then you apply giant size and crush things.

[noob]

Maybe just go artificer and then get all the cool stuff you will ever want and then just cast 1000 times that spell with wand shenanigans(it is a level 3 spell so it can be in a wand then you can use temporary charge addition abuse with a wand of wand charging and then get tons of castings of that spell with which you can make tons of stuff merge with your horse(such as planar bound stuff)).
The simple trick is to merge last and you get to control the thing.

[Thurbane]

You could merge with a Dungeonbred Titanic horse, if you wanted to join with a Gargantuan creature.

[Macabaret]

Ok, folks, let's get weird.

The first thing to mention here is Persistent Spell. The duration is just too short otherwise. So, it probably goes without saying in a thread like this, but there, it's been said. Deal with it.

Second, Tauric Creatures. MM2. It combines "any Small or Medium-size corporeal humanoid (referred to hereafter as the base humanoid)" with another creature that has to meet certain requirements of which a horse qualifies "(referred to hereafter as the base creature)."

"Horse" is not a term defined in D&D. Most likely, we should consider "horse" to be a subtype (like "human" or "elf"), but there is no RAW to support such a claim. (There is, in fact, no RAW to support what qualifies as a horse at all.) Does a Tauric creature that was based on a horse count as being a horse? The argument can certainly be made that it is. (Of course, the argument can certainly be made that it isn't.) It's going to be a DM's call.
But if that call is 'yes', then the template opens up all sorts of new possibilities for creating a "horse" with advanced attack methods, natural armor, skills, etc....

Third, the Doppelganger. Cast Two Become One to merge with a horse, then Change Shape to be human again (with the extra hit points and stuff of your 'original' horse-person form that isn't lost through Change Shape), and then mount another horse and cast the spell again. Change Shape again, mount another horse, cast the spell...rinse and repeat. In fact, you could Quicken Repeat Persistent Two Become One as a swift action, Change Shape as a standard action, mount a new horse as a move action(?) and then let the Repeat Spell happen at the beginning of your next turn. Either that, or Echo Spell can be your friend.

Of note: Doppelgangers qualify for the Human Heritage feat, which would make then humanoid instead of monstrous humanoid, which would in turn let them qualify for the Tauric Creature template. That would let you mount a Doppelganger-Horse Tauric Creature to use as your 'horse' for the spell, granting you Change Shape without having to use RHD and LA.

[daremetoidareyo]

lots of crazy stuff

Bravo.

I would like to point out that you can customize your equine with page 153 of champions of valor.

[Vizzerdrix]

Would this work with either clockwork steeds or undead horses? What about a seahorse?

[weckar]

I just noticed that the horse does not get a save to resist this spell. So it seems you could totally do this to an enemy horse (or horse-like creature).
It seems odd, but this really would have helped me in a game session last Wednesday...

[Zaq]

I feel like a good old-fashioned Supermount build (typically stacking special mount progression and animal companion progression) is a good starting point here, assuming we can still get enough magic to access WTBO somehow.

[Menzath]

So can this be used with the spells phantom steed and bottle of smoke?
What about a horse that has had it's form changed but retains it's creature type?

Or, since the target of the spell is you, could someone/something form change into a horse, you cast this spell, and then they either change to something else or end the change?