RAW-Legal? Way for Erudites & Psions to Learn 9th-Level Spells as Powers

[Pippin]

Hi there.

So it is well-known that StP Erudites can convert any arcane spell into a power. This is great for Psions, especially if you find a way to convert 9th-level spells. Unfortunately, pre-Epic Erudites can only convert arcane spells of up to 8th level. Some people have suggested a workaround that consists in trading the Psicrystal Affinity feat for the Favored Discipline ACF, and in declaring "Spells" as your favored discipline. This method however is somewhat dubious, because Psicrystal Affinity is not a generic bonus feat (1), and even though StP Erudites do treat spells as discipline powers for the basis of learning them, Spells are not a discipline (2). (Well, you might not agree but this is how I feel about it, okay?)

As a result I have tried to figure out a more legitimate way to do it. I'm sure a great many knowledgeable people already pulled this off correctly, but since I haven't found anything satisfying yet, I thought I could put something forward and see how the playground feels about it. In the following, consider a Telepath 17/Thrallherd 1 PC seeking to learn every single arcane spell in the game as a power.


1. Recruit any arcane spellcaster thrall and make him scribe into scrolls all the spells he knows. (Transference can help.)
2. Keep the scrolls, dismiss the thrall, then hire a new one the next day.
3. Repeat from 1. until you have the scroll of every single arcane spell in the game.
4. Recruit a 17th-level Spell-to-Power Erudite with the following features:

20 skill ranks to Knowledge (Psionics)
20 skill ranks to Psicraft
20 skill ranks to Spellcraft

5. Make him receive two castings of Awaken, raising his ECL to 21.
6. Use Psychic Chirurgery to teach him Fission as well as Psychic Chirurgery.
7. DCFS as many feats as necessary until your new thrall has:

Extend Power
Persistent Power (from Hyperconscious, +12PP)
Metapower (Persistent Power & Fission, down to +10PP)
Practiced Manifester
Open Minded (+4 ranks to Knowledge (Psionics))
Open Minded (+4 ranks to Psicraft)
Open Minded (+4 ranks to Spellcraft)
Overchannel
Epic Manifestation

8. Make your thrall gain enough XP to develop 3 Epic Powers, the cheapest being:

Peripety: 243,000 GP, 5 days, 9,720 XP.
Ruin: 243,000 GP, 5 days, 9,720 XP.
Dreamscape: 261,000 GP, 6 days, 10,400 XP.

9. Ensure that he still has at least 9,000 + 20x21 = 9,420 XP available.
10. Make your thrall manifest a persisted Fission (23 PP) with Overchannel (ML = 17+4+2).
11. The duplicate gets two negative levels that can't be cured, he loses access to two Epic Powers, but he still has one left.
12. The duplicate's ML is 17+4-2 = 19 and the highest level power he can manifest is a 10th-level power.
13. Give the duplicate a scroll and have him learn the spell as a power. This requires 8 hours and 420 XP.
14. When the duplicate is done, have him teach you the new power with Psychic Chirurgery. The duplicate pays the 9,000 XP cost entirely.
15. Kill the duplicate. Your thrall gets a negative level but his XP remain the same.
16. Manifest Psionic Restoration on your thrall to remove the negative level.
17. Repeat from 10. until you know every single arcane spell in the game.


So that's quite a wall of text. I did my best to provide every detail though. What do you think?

Edit. The Epic Power step looks fairly tedious, and it doesn't seem very elegant. The Epic Level Handbook says that the rules for shared XP costs regarding Epic Magic Item creation also apply to Epic Spell/Power development. And these rules say that the Epic Magic Item crafter may receive XP from other PCs as long as he pays at least 25% of the total XP cost. So, if Fission duplicates are considered PCs, you can help your thrall and pay 75% of the cost for free; if Fission duplicates are ruled to be NPCs, you can still help your thrall with the Do the Wight Thing trick (see here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?177889-Brainstorm-for-Psionic-Tricks-Tactics-and-Combos-Handbook)). In either case, the thrall pays 7,460 XP instead of the initial 29,840 XP cost.

As for the GP cost, one easy way to ignore it is (again) to abuse Fission and manifest True Creation as many times as necessary until you have enough material to develop all three Epic Powers. If only they hadn't modified the initial Erudite class (designed by Bruce Cordell, see Dragon Magazine #319), if only they had just copy-pasted it in Complete Psionics without a change! Erudites were supposed to learn discipline powers of up to the highest power level they can manifest. Everything would have been so much simpler.

[Jack_Simth]

After the first Awaken during step 5, he is no longer qualified to be a thrall (racial hit dice count against ECL). What happens? How sure are you he's still your thrall? And if he's not your thrall anymore, why's he spending XP on your behalf?

Other considerations:
Where's it say your thrall has spare XP when you're not adventuring to earn some yourself?

Also note that for your thrall to get the 30,000 xp to develop those Epic powers, you need to gain roughly 35,000 yourself. By which point, you're Epic, too, and can just break the game over your knee that way.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't think that using bloodlines, HD-boosting on a HD-limited cohort, and epic spell development together is more reasonable than using Chameleon Crafting or a Mind Mage.

ELH has this to say on epic spells' spell levels: "Epic spells have no fixed level. However, for purposes of Concentration checks, spell resistance, and other possible situations where spell level is important, epic spells are all treated as if they were 10th-level spells". The same rule applies to powers, and I guess "possible situations" could include "trying to learn a spell as a power", so that's a nice find.

However, I think that Jack's objection is solid. You'd need to add a step to mindrape the cohort, or something, so it stays with you after being HD-boosted.

[Pippin]

After the first Awaken during step 5, he is no longer qualified to be a thrall (racial hit dice count against ECL). What happens? How sure are you he's still your thrall? And if he's not your thrall anymore, why's he spending XP on your behalf?

The relevant excerpt (DMG p106) would be:


Cohort Level: The character can attract a cohort of up to this level.
Regardless of a character’s Leadership score, he can only recruit a
cohort who is two or more levels lower than himself. A 6th-level
paladin with a +3 Charisma bonus, for example, can still only
recruit a cohort of 4th level or lower.

I hadn't read this the same way you did. To me, "attract" and "recruit" are the same thing, so whatever the thrall's ECL becomes after the recruitment, I thought it wouldn't matter. By RAW anyway. The following excerpt (DMG p105) might rule it in my favor:


If a cohort gains enough XP to bring it to a level one lower
than the associated PC’s character level, the cohort does not gain
the new level—its new XP total is 1 less than the amount needed
to attain the next level. This rule is especially significant when
the PC loses one or more levels; a cohort’s level advancement
could be stalled for quite some time until the PC regains his or
her lost levels and gains enough additional XP to be eligible for a
higher-level cohort (see the Leadership feat on the following
page).

If "levels" meant only "two levels" and if something different were to occur when the PC loses a third level, they likely would have said so, don't you think?


Other considerations:
Where's it say your thrall has spare XP when you're not adventuring to earn some yourself?
I think the idea is to make the thrall gain XP during your own adventuring. Not sure if that was your objection.


Also note that for your thrall to get the 30,000 xp to develop those Epic powers, you need to gain roughly 35,000 yourself. By which point, you're Epic, too, and can just break the game over your knee that way.
That, is something I can't argue. Gaining XP is the problem, and I couldn't think of anything quicker and better.


I don't think that using bloodlines, HD-boosting on a HD-limited cohort, and epic spell development together is more reasonable than using Chameleon Crafting or a Mind Mage.
You could skip the bloodline part by making the thrall steal a MindStealer's Absorb Abilities feature with Ability Rip, and have him absorb somebody with enough ranks. Then the thrall could use Astral Seed and die. I don't think we can reach the 24-rank requirement without cheese at some point.

The problem with what you are referring to is that they are Dragon Magazines stuff.


However, I think that Jack's objection is solid. You'd need to add a step to mindrape the cohort, or something, so it stays with you after being HD-boosted.
If you think it would solve the problem, sure.

[Crichton]

So instead of the 'dubious' method you listed, you're going with a method that requires a 3rd party sourcebook to be allowed? Hyperconscious is well thought of and often allowed, of course, but in an attempt to make a 100% RAW-legal method, it seems that using anything 3rd party would be just as dubious.

[Pippin]

So instead of the 'dubious' method you listed, you're going with a method that requires a 3rd party sourcebook to be allowed? Hyperconscious is well thought of and often allowed, of course, but in an attempt to make a 100% RAW-legal method, it seems that using anything 3rd party would be just as dubious.
Well you could use the 100% RAW-legal Persistent Power from Psionics Handbook 3.0, it is better in every way.

[Crichton]

Well you could use the 100% RAW-legal Persistent Power from Psionics Handbook 3.0, it is better in every way.

Good point, I'd forgotten that one.


Did you remember to take into account that using Awaken on an Erudite10/AI7 would probably lower their Int too low to use some/most of their powers? I'm assuming you're going with the (I guess) RAW ok, but really dubious Awaken/Polymorph exploit? To me that's far more dubious than the method you rejected in the beginning.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The problem with what you are referring to is that they are Dragon Magazines stuff.
Yes, I'm saying that I'd rather use Dragon Magazine stuff than epic spellcasting. I think Dragon carries less of a theoretical "cost" than Hyperconscious, and the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, too.

As for absorbing skill ranks: the easiest way is probably to be an Illithid Savant (eat a thrallherd, eat an epic wizard, and so on), but you need a creature with epic skill ranks to absorb. Capturing one "in the wild" isn't that likely (it's an epic caster, and you're not--good luck), but you can create one (simulacrum at CL 42, for example, can create a 21 HD creature). The sample adult force dragon might be an option--at 45 HD, a simulacrum of it would have 22 HD and 25 ranks in all relevant skills. Of course, if ice assassin or polymorph any object on the table, that's even easier.

[Psyren]

Yes, epic powers count as 10th level and thus let you learn 9th-level spells as powers. We've known this one for a while; the main caveat is that for this to work you need to be running an epic spellcasting/manifesting game, at which point balance is pretty much out the window anyways.

[Pippin]

Did you remember to take into account that using Awaken on an Erudite10/AI7 would probably lower their Int too low to use some/most of their powers? I'm assuming you're going with the (I guess) RAW ok, but really dubious Awaken/Polymorph exploit? To me that's far more dubious than the method you rejected in the beginning.
There are ways to have the second Awaken casting maximised: Artificers can do it as well as other PrCs. I believe the thrall only needs INT 20 to fulfill the entire scenario, so a Headband of Intellect should do.


Yes, I'm saying that I'd rather use Dragon Magazine stuff than epic spellcasting. I think Dragon carries less of a theoretical "cost" than Hyperconscious, and the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, too.
Well I can't argue with that, this is rather personal. (I feel the opposite haha)


As for absorbing skill ranks: the easiest way is probably to be an Illithid Savant (eat a thrallherd, eat an epic wizard, and so on), but you need a creature with epic skill ranks to absorb. Capturing one "in the wild" isn't that likely (it's an epic caster, and you're not--good luck), but you can create one (simulacrum at CL 42, for example, can create a 21 HD creature). The sample adult force dragon might be an option--at 45 HD, a simulacrum of it would have 22 HD and 25 ranks in all relevant skills. Of course, if ice assassin or polymorph any object on the table, that's even easier.
Actually I found something much simpler, also much dumber. Just take Open Minded a second time! No more bloodline required, I'm going to edit the OP. Thank you.


Yes, epic powers count as 10th level and thus let you learn 9th-level spells as powers. We've known this one for a while; the main caveat is that for this to work you need to be running an epic spellcasting/manifesting game, at which point balance is pretty much out the window anyways.
The goal was only to find a RAW-legal method. Of course, nobody will ever escape the DM's approval.


Also note that for your thrall to get the 30,000 xp to develop those Epic powers, you need to gain roughly 35,000 yourself. By which point, you're Epic, too, and can just break the game over your knee that way.
Actually, reading the ELH again:


To defray extremely high experience point costs, see the Variant: Cooperative Experience Point Costs sidebar found in Chapter 4: Epic Magic Items, which allows casters to accept the experience point contributions of other characters toward development costs.

Now quoting the sidebar in question:


Using the standard magic item creation rules, the experience point cost for constructing epic magic items can prove beyond the means of most would-be creators. For this reason, the DM may choose to allow the creator’s allies to contribute their own experience points toward this cost.
Such a contribution must be made willingly and without any form of coercion (magical or otherwise). The XP can only come from other PCs, not from NPCs. Even cohorts or other loyal comrades won’t contribute experience points in this way.
The creator of the item must contribute at least one-quarter of the item’s total experience point cost, regardless of the number of allies who also contribute. For example, if an item requires an expenditure of 40,000 XP, the item’s creator (the character with the requisite item creation feats) must contribute at least 10,000 XP.

This says that the thrall has to pay at least 25% of the Epic Power's XP cost, but the rest can be paid by other PCs. So manifest Fission and have your duplicate pay the remaining 75%. It can be argued that your duplicate is a PC, since he "thinks and acts exactly as you do." If the duplicate is ruled to be an NPC, you can always resort to your own Do The Wight Thing trick, which is 100% RAW-legal.

In the end, the thrall has paid 7,500 XP to develop all 3 Epic Powers.