Creating enormous HD but no actual threat (Death Knell Abuse)

[Warchon]

Came up with this idea while going through a spell list, and noting that the duration of Death Knell's recourse effect is 10 minutes per HD of the -victim- rather than the Caster Level of the caster.
Surely there must be other spells that similarly scale in proportion to the target's HD (most likely by using them as a defacto spell component in sacrificing them for the effect).

Obviously there are easier ways to improve the duration of death knell (and whatever effects for other spells) than this, such as metamagic Persisting, but just for fun...

How might a spellcasting character go about acquiring or creating a living designated victim for a spell like this without putting themselves at risk of harm? Sneaking up on a sleeping elder dragon with 30 HD and attempting to tie it up without waking it might sound like a lot of fun, but it probably won't end well and even if it does, it's probably not worth a mere 5 hours with a +1 CL and +1 to hit in melee.

To get something that lasts for days or weeks at a time, you'd need to somehow generate a 'foe' with hundreds of hit dice that is utterly obedient to you and also have some way to relieve them, of what is probably going to be thousands of hitpoints, that's better than kicking them in the head until your leg falls off.

Drowning is probably the easiest way to deal with the hitpoints issue, but that also restricts your list of potential targets because a lot of creatures have automatic stat gain by HD, and with a ridiculous CON score they're gonna be able to hold their breath for hours at least. Chain-casting Avasculate might be another way to tame that particular beast.

Assume that the DM is not going to be very helpful when you ask him to please hand you an Omni-God level victim character with cherries on top, and we have to come up with our own cheese.

And let's shoot for the moon, while we're at it--a full year of Death Knell from a single casting without any metamagic would require a victim with 52,560 HD.

It's probably going to require some kind of an infinite loop scenario, so let's make ourselves a Pun-Pun who staunchly refuses to fight back or run away.

[Venger]

Anything with the feed ability or similar, such as a dusk giant or barghest can have an arbitrary amount of hd. Their cr would be so enormous, being high level clerics, or hiring some spellcasting with their wbl would be trivial.

Sweet talk your victim via a method of your choosing (diplo, mind control, etc) have him cast pact of return "being killed by your character" and bake him a cake or something for once you've got your bonus. This might also make him inclined to forego his save, since with that many hd, even something with poor will and a 1 wis will only fail on a 1 naturally.

[Warchon]

Hmm. That's a tough path, getting a dusk giant to take 13 cleric levels so he can Pact of Return is risky.
You'd have to feed him a whole city, of course, so you would likely have to find a way to betray any pact you make with him. Having him running around with a +50,000 STR mod is probably a -slightly- unbalanced consequence for what you gain out of the deal.

Would the Barghest be eligible? As an outsider, I don't think you can actually -kill- one unless you're on his plane or using some sort of shenanigans. And again, even if you 'kill' one in the standard way, he's not really dead and you've just made an enemy out of something with around (50k^2)/2 hitpoints.

[Venger]

Hmm. That's a tough path, getting a dusk giant to take 13 cleric levels so he can Pact of Return is risky.
You'd have to feed him a whole city, of course, so you would likely have to find a way to betray any pact you make with him. Having him running around with a +50,000 STR mod is probably a -slightly- unbalanced consequence for what you gain out of the deal.

Would the Barghest be eligible? As an outsider, I don't think you can actually -kill- one unless you're on his plane or using some sort of shenanigans. And again, even if you 'kill' one in the standard way, he's not really dead and you've just made an enemy out of something with around (50k^2)/2 hitpoints.

No you don't. You just need one chicken-infested commoner. Like I said, I assumed you had the giant under control via diplomacy, nonmagical suggestion via bluff, charm monster, dominate, etc. prior to any of this.

Of course you can. outsiders can be killed like anyone else. You're thinking of summons. If you kill a summoned creature summoned via a (summoning) effect, you just kill a hologram of him. They can be killed normally on their home plane, or if you summon them via (calling) effects.

He wouldn't need to be a cleric. You could cast the spell on him or hire a spellcaster who's a spellguard of silverymoon or similar. you only need to do this once a year.

[Warchon]

Three issues with this:

1) Pact of Return has a range of Personal, so unless the monster in question happens to be your familiar, you can't include him, and if he -is- your familiar, then I'm not sure whether he can actually meaningfully advance in HD with Feed since it explicitly uses your HD "For effects". Pact of Return doesn't seem to qualify as a defensive spell as defined under the class feature of the Spellguard, though it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask a DM to rule on it.

2) None of these methods of control are really trustworthy. Any creature in possession of a mind of its own is going to reconsider any deals it has made when it gains universe-crushing power, and any forms of magical control are naturally going to expire when the creature dies.

3) Chicken Infested is a hilarious workaround, but the Feed ability only works on humanoids. The Dusk Giant Cannibalize ability would work on the chickens, though he'd have to eat just over a million of them. If we can supply him with one every round, he could accomplish this in around a month and a half, assuming 8 hours of sleep and 16 hours of chowing down every day.

[Venger]

Three issues with this:

1) Pact of Return has a range of Personal, so unless the monster in question happens to be your familiar, you can't include him, and if he -is- your familiar, then I'm not sure whether he can actually meaningfully advance in HD with Feed since it explicitly uses your HD "For effects". Pact of Return doesn't seem to qualify as a defensive spell as defined under the class feature of the Spellguard, though it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask a DM to rule on it.
Use magic of the land.



2) None of these methods of control are really trustworthy. Any creature in possession of a mind of its own is going to reconsider any deals it has made when it gains universe-crushing power, and any forms of magical control are naturally going to expire when the creature dies.
Of course they are. Making someone fanatic explicitly states they're willing to die for you. Even if you aren't a diplomancer, a simple dominate enslaves a monster forever, since you can command them to fail subsequent saves when you need to refresh your control, and a single casting will last for weeks. I have no idea where you're getting the idea magical control expires when your slave is killed, but that's not true either.


3) Chicken Infested is a hilarious workaround, but the Feed ability only works on humanoids. The Dusk Giant Cannibalize ability would work on the chickens, though he'd have to eat just over a million of them. If we can supply him with one every round, he could accomplish this in around a month and a half, assuming 8 hours of sleep and 16 hours of chowing down every day.
Dusk giant's cannibalize ability works on all creatures, including animals. Use a fast time plane and he can eat as much chicken as he wants.

[WhamBamSam]

A Colossal Monstrous Scorpion or Monstrous Spider can have up to 60 HD, but they aren't really all that dangerous if you can, say, fly or make use of some sort of non-Mind Affecting Cha damage, like Maiming Strike.

[Venger]

A Colossal Monstrous Scorpion or Monstrous Spider can have up to 60 HD, but they aren't really all that dangerous if you can, say, fly or make use of some sort of non-Mind Affecting Cha damage, like Maiming Strike.

Sure, so get one of these, rebuke it when it's little via an appropriate domain, raise it mowing down ghost brute shriekers til it advances to colossal, pao into dusk giant, pop in fast time plane, talk to it so it gets hungry and eats every chicken in the plane, and then use your death knell

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Induce near-death in a humanoid of your choice. A weak one, for preference. Use polymorph any object on a rock, if you have moral quandaries about killing humanoids normally. Cast curse of lycanthropy, from Complete Divine, on it. Select the highest HD animal you can that can't really hurt you (such as a great white shark; it's a fish, so if said humanoid manages to transform (if, say, it's already the night of the full moon), he'll be a literal fish out of water). Said humanoid should remain unconscious, as his hp level should remain the same. Repeat a few more times with additional forms of lycanthropy. Cast death knell.

Curse of Lycanthropy
(Complete Divine, p. 160)

Necromancy
Level: Pestilence (CD) 6,
Components: V, S, M, DF,
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Humanoid touched
Duration: Permanent; see text
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You can cause temporary lycanthropy in a humanoid you touch. A humanoid who fails the saving throw contracts lycanthropy, and the condition manifests with the next full moon. Unlike other forms of lycanthropy, the effect of this spell can be broken by remove curse or break enchantment.

You can induce any type of common lycanthropy (and evil clerics frequently experiment with new kinds). As a rule, the lycanthrope's animal form can be any predator between the size of a small dog and a large bear. The source of the material component determines the victim's animal form. (More information on lycanthropes can be found in Appendix 3 of the Monster Manual.)

Material Component: A pint of animal blood.

[Venger]

Good trick. In theorycraft, obvs use the cdiv version. in actual play, check with your gm first, since it was updated in spc to do something completely different.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Good trick. In theorycraft, obvs use the cdiv version. in actual play, check with your gm first, since it was updated in spc to do something completely different.Less of an update and more of a "they gave a completely unrelated spell the same name on accident," and the new one has all sorts of horrific (and stupid) implications.

[Venger]

Less of an update and more of a "they gave a completely unrelated spell the same name on accident," and the new one has all sorts of horrific implications.

Oh, that's undoubtedly what happened, and in actual play that's how I treat it in my games, I'm just speaking from a strict raw perspective.

Creating new monsters whole cloth with a single spell (versus double dipping on pao to turn a rock into whatever monster) is comparatively rare. The only example that comes to me off the top of my head is the halaster's fetch line, but even then, you're just pulling a summon from narnia forever, you're not creating from the ether.

I know by raw, the wererats can speak common, but what kinds of memories do they have? do they just burst forth from the host as adults like athena? what are their values besides whatever alignment wererat imposes?

We know they're considered natural-born lycanthropes, since they're capable of spreading the disease. I do wonder what the 1d6 wererats turn back into. I wonder how old they are. I wonder what they look like. Certainly not raw, but I imagine they're the same species as their host. I wonder if they're all clones of him.

[daremetoidareyo]

This sounds like it should be paired with a persisted sadism spell...

[Venger]

This sounds like it should be paired with a persisted sadism spell...

since sadism only checks damage in the prior round, that might not be so good, unless your character can also deal ni damage. killing a monster this swole would be pretty hard if you did it by just kicking him in the shins versus cdg/drowning/etc.

[unseenmage]

...

Creating new monsters whole cloth with a single spell (versus double dipping on pao to turn a rock into whatever monster) is comparatively rare. The only example that comes to me off the top of my head is the halaster's fetch line, but even then, you're just pulling a summon from narnia forever, you're not creating from the ether.

...
They don't create living things but Awaken Sand and Create Crawling Claw practically make creatures from nothing.

Esp since the Crawling Claw spell never specifies the hands have to have been alive, just severed.
Been carving statues of left-hand-trees for years for just this purpose. (Yeah, I know, ganking a troll is easier. )

Theoretically Greater Humanoid Essence makes them alive since eating, sleeping, etc are part of the Humanoid type description.
The War Spell (Dragon mag) version would likely make them en masse.