Interesting Body Outside Body Combinations

[RaiKirah]

For some time now I have been fascinated by the Wu Jen spell Body Outside Body. When practicing your Google-fu you come across the general and overwhelming consensus that the spell is stupid good – particularly for gishes – but little to no discussion of specific usages other than the couple mentioned in LOD’s Dirty Tricks (#3: Attack of the Clones), wherein he discusses the potential of essentially leveraging theurge builds with a non-spellcasting side. While these uses are undeniably powerful, they’re not terribly interesting in an of themselves (at least in my opinion). I’ve created and come across a number of specific interactions with the spell that I find interesting (there was a great one in the Oozemaster ICOC round), though I will only enumerate mine below so as not to step on any toes. I am curious what other interesting interactions with Body Outside Body the Playground has come up with. Please share yours!



Squire Outside Squire:
This particular interaction is between BOB and Squire of Legend. A Reikhardt focused Squire of Legend has two abilities that can be severely leveraged via Body Outside Body; Squire’s Burden Least and Lesser (the Greater version and Faithful Companion abilities are both useful with BOB, but less impactful). The Least Burden allows a Squire to forgo actions to grant an ally an equivalent one. Each clone can grant an additional standard action outside of initiative order – in other words, you get to cast an additional spell per clone. Since you can use your higher level Squire’s Burden abilities to power Least abilities, you can get 3xClones number of extra standard actions (or move if you want) per casting of BOB. The Lesser Squire’s Burden allows a clone to grant you (or an ally) another use of a 1/day Su or Ex ability. There are quite a few such that you may acquire, and removing the 1/day gate on those abilities is usually pretty swell.

Sample Squire Outside Squire:
Race: Human
Stub: Wu Jen 4/Squire of Legend 3/Magical Trickster 3/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7/XXX +3
Feats (Bold are required, others are user’s choice):
1: Spell Focus (Abjuration)
H: Skill Focus (Spellcraft)
B1: Quicken Spell
3: Knowledge Devotion
6: Invisible Spell
9: Arcane Disciple (War)
B9: Greater Spell Focus (Abjuration)
12: Echoing Spell
15: Twin Spell
18: Arcane Strike

More in-depth discussion of this build can be found here: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23684779&postcount=28)



Bard Outside Bard:
This combination makes use of Inspire Courage/Dragonfire Inspiration optimization, two levels of Chameleon, and Persisted Body Outside Body to push your IC/DFI bonus anywhere from +7 to hit, +41d6+7 to damage, up to +10 to hit, +61d6+10 to damage. This range depends on reading of the Words of Creation feat, as well as assumes some level of items. The idea is to have your Persisted clones swap the Chameleon bonus feat to have different Draconic Heritage feats to cover all five elemental flavors for your Dragonfire Inspiration.

Sample Bard Outside Bard:
Race: Human, Mulan
Stub: Cloistered Cleric 1/Bard 7/Chameleon 2/Sublime Chord 2/Geomancer 2/Wyrm Wizard 2/Geomancer +4
Feats (Bold are required, others are user’s choice):
1: Dragontouched
H: Able Learner
B1: Extended Spell (Planning Domain Granted Power)
B2: Knowledge Devotion (Trade Knowledge Domain for Devotion Feat)
3: Dragonfire Inspiration
6: Southern Magician
B7: Song of the Heart (Swap Suggestion as per Music of Creation ACF from ECS)
9: Persistent Spell
12: Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell)
15: Words of Creation
18: Arcane Disciple (Competition Domain)


More in-depth discussion of how this all works can be found here: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23306648&postcount=1)



The Self Shadowpouncer:
The idea here is to pair the Hellbreaker fourth level ability Stowaway with a method of Shadowpouncing (a fairly awesome idea by itself) along with Body Outside Body to be able to get additional free full attacks by piggybacking on your clones’ teleports with Stowaway. It is worth noting that all of your clones can also make use of this interaction to get a fairly absurd number of overall full attacks. When I first worked this one out I was convinced I needed to get Persistent Spell onto Body Outside Body, and while it is possible, it requires a lot of cheese (Elder Evils and Faustian Pact) and leaves you completely useless until level 15 when you can squeeze in Arcane Disciple to pick up Divine Power. The build below does not include Persistent Spell, and as such can be considered to be ‘simple,’ though it is still fairly useless until level 15 despite being an improvement over the Persisted version. If anyone has ideas on how to make this build work 1-20 that would be awesome.

Sample Self Shadowpouncer:
Race: Azurin
Stub: Cobra Strike Monk 2/Cloistered Cleric 1/Sneak Attack Fighter 1/Rogue 1/Hellbreaker 4/Telflammar Shadowlord 4/Wyrm Wizard 1/Warrior Skald 1/Sublime Chord 4/Wyrm Wizard +1
Feats (Bold are required, others are user’s choice):
1: Combat Expertise
H: Improved Feint
F1: Power Attack
F2: Hidden Talent (Dimension Hop)
MB1: Dodge
MB2: Mobility
3: Undo Resistance
CC: Travel Devotion, [/b]Blind Fight[/b], Knowledge Devotion (K. Arcana)
6: Shape Soulmeld (Blink Shirt)
9: Spring Attack
12: Cleave
15: Arcane Disciple (War)
18: Unassigned

For a budget version of this play a Dvati and don’t worry about getting Body Outside Body



The Phoenix Bomb:
This is less a combo as it is an entertaining interaction. The tenth level Jade Phoenix Mage ability Emerald Immolation allows a JPM to explode for 20d6 damage as a Spell Like Ability 1/week. This means your clones can explode too. Tack on the Mineral Warrior Template as well as the feat Final Strike, and each of your clones can explode for 39d6 damage (more with Empower Supernatural Ability). Whether or not the clones reform 1d6 rounds later is an open question. For a bonus, this build also allows you to pick up the Dessert Wind maneuver Ring of Fire to allow all your clones to light everyone in a ring on fire.

Sample Phoenix Bomb:
Race: Any
Stub: Swordsage 1/Wu Jen 5/Jade Phoenix Mage 10/XXX +4
Feats: All open, choose to taste



So there’s the combos I’ve come up with for this spell – I would love to hear what other interesting things folks have done with Body Outside Body!

[flappeercraft]

StP Erudite and BOB is considered one of its best applications. It supposedly only disallows the use of spells and not of powers which are technically SLAs.

[TheCount]

Arcane duelist capstone.

its good in itself.
Better with fission.
with this? if you can get them....wow.
extra point if you also got shcism (or whatever it is that lets you manifest another power independently)
iirc there is also a wu jen spell that lets you concentrate on 2 spells?

now, you, the clones, the clones of your clones and all of your alter ego (or whatever shcism is) can have concentrate spells/powers...

even better if your GM agree that its one 1 usage of the capstone, even with all of your clones using it, not to mention the all can affect the same target.

[Endarire]

Remember, Complete Mage has a wondrous location called 'Metamagic Storm' where you get a metamagic feat for which you meet all prereqs, but this feat can't be a prereq. You must also be an arcane caster.

[RaiKirah]

Remember, Complete Mage has a wondrous location called 'Metamagic Storm' where you get a metamagic feat for which you meet all prereqs, but this feat can't be a prereq. You must also be an arcane caster.

Forgive me if I'm being dense, but how does this pair with Body Outside Body?

[flappeercraft]

Forgive me if I'm being dense, but how does this pair with Body Outside Body?

Probably by having each one have a different feat

[RaiKirah]

Probably by having each one have a different feat

Sure, but the clones last for 1 minute unless persisting, and they can't cast spells and so don't benefit from the metamagic feat. I suppose there's probably a way to abuse that with Dark Chaos Shuffling the feats but I'm not sure if worth the effort.

[Kalkra]

It can get you Persistent Spell.

[RaiKirah]

It can get you Persistent Spell.

True enough, though you still need the infrastructure to use it on a 7th level spell. Would save a feat slot, and those are tight

[TalonOfAnathrax]

The Self Shadowpouncer:
The idea here is to pair the Hellbreaker fourth level ability Stowaway with a method of Shadowpouncing (a fairly awesome idea by itself) along with Body Outside Body to be able to get additional free full attacks by piggybacking on your clones’ teleports with Stowaway. It is worth noting that all of your clones can also make use of this interaction to get a fairly absurd number of overall full attacks. When I first worked this one out I was convinced I needed to get Persistent Spell onto Body Outside Body, and while it is possible, it requires a lot of cheese (Elder Evils and Faustian Pact) and leaves you completely useless until level 15 when you can squeeze in Arcane Disciple to pick up Divine Power. The build below does not include Persistent Spell, and as such can be considered to be ‘simple,’ though it is still fairly useless until level 15 despite being an improvement over the Persisted version. If anyone has ideas on how to make this build work 1-20 that would be awesome.

Sample Self Shadowpouncer:
Race: Azurin
Stub: Cobra Strike Monk 2/Cloistered Cleric 1/Sneak Attack Fighter 1/Rogue 1/Hellbreaker 4/Telflammar Shadowlord 4/Wyrm Wizard 1/Warrior Skald 1/Sublime Chord 4/Wyrm Wizard +1
Feats (Bold are required, others are user’s choice):
1: Combat Expertise
H: Improved Feint
F1: Power Attack
F2: Hidden Talent (Dimension Hop)
MB1: Dodge
MB2: Mobility
3: Undo Resistance
CC: Travel Devotion, [/b]Blind Fight[/b], Knowledge Devotion (K. Arcana)
6: Shape Soulmeld (Blink Shirt)
9: Spring Attack
12: Cleave
15: Arcane Disciple (War)
18: Unassigned

For a budget version of this play a Dvati and don’t worry about getting Body Outside Body


Very cool build!

It doesn't seem to work though.
How do you qualify for Wyrm Wizard without a metamagic feat?

[RaiKirah]

Very cool build!

It doesn't seem to work though.
How do you qualify for Wyrm Wizard without a metamagic feat?

You are correct, that did not get carried over in the transition to the non-persisting version of the build, my apologies. Simplest answer to that issue is to swap Travel Domain (and hence Travel Devotion) for Planning Domain.

[ben-zayb]

The following tricks are derived from this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19184664&postcount=94) Junkyard Wars entry


TRICK 1
Minimum Requirements: Spellthief 1 + Shadowcraft Mage 3 + Incantatrix 2 + Heighten Spell feat
Explanation: While your clones can't cast spells, they still have it prepared. Thus, you can still steal these level 1 Silent Image spells. Cast the stolen Silent Image, and have your clones use Cooperative Metamagic to apply Heighten Spell on it.

This downtime trick gives you a lot of free spells within a minute or so.



TRICK 2
Minimum Requirements: Incantatrix 2 + Repeat Spell + 2 BoB
Explanation: Cast the 1st BoB to geet clones, then in the next turn cast the 2nd BoB that will be modified with Repeat Spell via Cooperative Metamagic of your clones. Repeat Spell will make it so that a 3rd BoB spell will be automatically cast the next turn. Since the 3rd spell is still not modified by Repeat Spell, any of your clones can use Cooperative Metamagic again to then apply Repeat Spell on it. 4th spell also gets modified, and so on, and so forth.

This trick thus allows a new BoB spell to be automatically cast every turn, as long as at least 1 clone per turn can successfully use Cooperative Metamagic on the current spell.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14561219&postcount=156) junkyard wars entry had BOB with Incantatrix shenanigans after turning himself into a pit fiend.

[RaiKirah]

The following tricks are derived from this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19184664&postcount=94) Junkyard Wars entry


TRICK 1
Minimum Requirements: Spellthief 1 + Shadowcraft Mage 3 + Incantatrix 2 + Heighten Spell feat
Explanation: While your clones can't cast spells, they still have it prepared. Thus, you can still steal these level 1 Silent Image spells. Cast the stolen Silent Image, and have your clones use Cooperative Metamagic to apply Heighten Spell on it.

This downtime trick gives you a lot of free spells within a minute or so.



TRICK 2
Minimum Requirements: Incantatrix 2 + Repeat Spell + 2 BoB
Explanation: Cast the 1st BoB to geet clones, then in the next turn cast the 2nd BoB that will be modified with Repeat Spell via Cooperative Metamagic of your clones. Repeat Spell will make it so that a 3rd BoB spell will be automatically cast the next turn. Since the 3rd spell is still not modified by Repeat Spell, any of your clones can use Cooperative Metamagic again to then apply Repeat Spell on it. 4th spell also gets modified, and so on, and so forth.

This trick thus allows a new BoB spell to be automatically cast every turn, as long as at least 1 clone per turn can successfully use Cooperative Metamagic on the current spell.

Those are very slick! I'm going to need to spend some more time with these to really wrap my mind around them. I've never really seen a use for Cooperative Metamagic in a PC, and this is a strong case for it!