Permanent boosting/training effects

[ooogooman]

If I wanted to build a 3.5/PF character who had the schtick of being able to make NPCs stronger in a permanent, lasting fashion- something thematically like Exalted's Tiger Warrior Training Technique, which lets you take housewives and schoolkids and make them the equal of elite soldiers, over the course of mere months of training- what published 3.5 or Pathfinder things would I use to accomplish that end, first-party, third party or homebrew?

Things I can think of off the top of my head include using crafting-cost-reduction shenanigans on Graft Flesh (Artificer/Fleshwarper being the logical class progression to do it with), the Nar Fiendbond spell, and Pathfinder's Fleshwarper feat. But nothing I can think of would let me look at a 1st-level commoner and say 'You're a 5th-level warblade now. Enjoy, kid.' Closest thing I can think of is the SoM Leadership Sphere's Drill Sergeant talent, but those bonus HD go away over time if they're no longer under your command.

Psychic Reformation or the Time sphere's Reversion and Complete Reversion would let me take a 5th-level commoner and make them into a 5th-level warblade, which is certainly something.

[Gruftzwerg]

Polymorph any Object (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorphAnyObject.htm)and stack Duration Factor to 9+ and thus make it permanent.

Or go the pun-pun route:
- wild shape into a Sarrukh
- use Assume Supernatural Ability (Savage Species) to use the Manipulate Form ability
but only works on scaled ones.

I guess not the things you where looking for, but the closest I could get right off the bat.

Dunno, are there any teachable templates maybe?

[ooogooman]

Good catch: I hadn't remembered PaO being quite so flexible.

Hmmm. Dinyomi (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?429524-quot-I-Refuse-No-Road-to-Power-quot-Mythic-3-5) isn't terrible in this respect. Even more unlikely than usual for homebrew to get approved in an actual game, but when I'm looking for something this mechanically out-there that's kind of to be expected.

[Rebel7284]

Inspire Greatness optimization + Clone + Murder might let you give the target +1 or more HD per loop. Also PTSD.
Similarly Fusion + Astral Seed + Murder.

There is also Extract Gift which is Permanent (but can be dispelled). Maybe combine with Dweomerkeeper's Supernatural Spell to make it more difficult to dispel.

Infecting your trainees with Lyconthrapy would also make them notably stronger. Werebears in particular would be hilarious as it would turn all the neutral and evil folks good unless they get really lucky with those saves!

[Gruftzwerg]

I got another idea. Imho it would be reasonable to use Profession (teacher) to teach the basics of your class. Given enough training time imho it should be reasonable to give them their first class lvl at least, without having to invest some kind of XP. This should even allow for picking a similar class as the teacher and shouldn't force the pupil into the same class.

Imho good examples of picking similar classes.

Sorcerers can be played as thrown out of arcane schools (but still somehow got their basics there). On the other side a Sorcerer might raise a pupil who needs to write everything down to grasp and read the spell every day if he wants to cast it (wizard casting).

Barbarian - Fighter - Crusader - Warblade - (Paladin)

Cleric - Druid - (Paladin) (Ranger)

Sorcerer - Wizard - (Warlock) - (Bard)

Druid - Ranger - (Cleric)

This is just a quick base and not fully thought through. It should just reflect that under special circumstances oddities might happen. A Fighter might raise someone who is such a religious person that he might become a Paladin (but not a Cleric) and so on.

[Uncle Pine]

Take Leadership and fluff attracting higher level followers as having trained lower-level followers to where they are now.

[icefractal]

Spheres of Power, Alteration, Permanent Transformation.
Has no cost besides the points to cast it, and makes it instantaneous, not removable except by a few effects.

You can get this going by 7th level, and since there are a number of ways to boost CL in a controlled setting, you can be applying changes better than you'd get in combat. It won't be martial skill per-se, but depending on which alterations you pick they could get a significant boost to ass-kicking while still looking normal.

[ooogooman]

There's the Sherem Transformation spell from Ghostwalk, which when cast upon an unborn child gives them a feat that acts much like the old 3.0 Spellcasting Prodigy. That's a little long-term, though.


Dunno, are there any teachable templates maybe?


Infecting your trainees with Lyconthrapy would also make them notably stronger.

There are definitely acquired templates, and as Rebel notes 'acquired' doesn't necessarily mean 'trained.' Many of the good ones are evil-only, though.

Wendigo (Fiend Folio) is infectious like lycanthropy and fairly strong, if always Chaotic Evil.

There are the intelligent-undead templates- Ghost, Death Knight, the various kinds of Vampire and Lich. Necropolitan is notable for not being evil-only and for having a fully explicit way of making the transformation. And the undead-upgrade templates- Spellstitched and Evolved Undead.

You'd think that Eberron would have Deathless equivilents, but as far as I can tell all the means to create Deathless don't apply a template to someone, they just create specific Not-Undead creatures.

The various Half-Golems (MM2) will be more beatsticky, but at best they'll be a lot dumber and at worst become mindless. Not the kind of thing anyone will sign up for.

Mineral Warrior has many of the same virtues and drawbacks of Half-Golem, toned down a bit, with the added virtue of an explicit mechanical means of applying it- the Mineralize Warrior spell.

Voidmind (MM3) is actually quite strong. If you can find three Mind Flayers willing to do the work for you, ones you can somehow leverage into not using the free Dominate it gives them, it could be a seriously bizarre transhumanist option.

The only two 3.5 templates actually defined as being applicable through training per se are Warbeast (MM2), which is animal-only, and Hooded Pupil (Lords of Madness), which is evil-only. Annoying.

There's lots of stuff that can be applied through divine intervention, which interesting but not really *useful* here- Lloth-Touched, Saint, Monster of Legend...

Looking over the Pathfinder end of things, it's much the same: the vast majority of stuff is either evil-only, explicitly malformed and miserable, or just not applicable to ordinary humanoids. The Runescarred template is the only thing that jumps out at me as being even remotely usable for this purpose, and even then it's no great shakes.

[zlefin]

I can't think of anything, but it'd be pretty easy to homebrew something serviceable; not aware of any pre-existing homebrew that would do that. Exalted has a pretty high power level to my understanding (I haven't played it), so being able to train people up that well wouldn't happen until the training char was near 20th, or maybe even epic.

[Khatoblepas]

Forcing an NPC to sleep at a fey oasis will grant them the Mirage Mullah template for +6 Cha and a bunch of spell like abilities. You can then use Ability Rip twice to rid them of their Oasis Dependency and Daylight Weakness.

[ooogooman]

Forcing an NPC to sleep at a fey oasis will grant them the Mirage Mullah template for +6 Cha and a bunch of spell like abilities. You can then use Ability Rip twice to rid them of their Oasis Dependency and Daylight Weakness.

Bwahaha, I like it. While we're at the practice of repurposing templates with features that would otherwise make them unusable, a lot of the intelligent-undead ones would be close to ideal if they can be de-eviled. A Helm of Opposite Alignment could work if the DM rules it's soul-affecting rather than mind-affecting- doesn't explicitly say, either way- and Sanctify the Wicked ought to work regardless.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

Programmed Amnesia(Spell Compendium) is a 9th level Enchantment spell that lets you rewrite the subject's memories. It explicitly allows you to grant negative levels by deleting the person's knowledge of their class abilities. It wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that you should be able to grant class abilities in the same way, presumably with various limits. BoVD has a spell that does similar stuff, but vaguer, with a duration of Instant rather than permanent, and with the Evil descriptor.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Be a natural lycanthrope, even if it's just a leopard or something. If you're Good or Neutral, tell your victims friends and allies and get their permission for you to pass it to them. Even if you're Evil, you'll probably want to get permission from those close to you, if only so you don't encourage them to kill you. Even for those who you don't care about, make sure to take care lest you screw yourself over by calling the law down on your head.

And hey, if you've got Leadership or levels in thrallherd, having an army of loyal lycanthropes can be quite nice.

Alternately, C.Divine's curse of lycanthropy spell is Permanent, but it grants the same benefits, so you can always take it away if your victims allies betray you. Unfortunately, it's also dispellable. It shouldn't, however, penalize your XP gain, because they're not actual levels, and you don't gain actual LA. I don't think, anyway.

[Vizzerdrix]

Alternately, C.Divine's curse of lycanthropy spell is Permanent, but it grants the same benefits, so you can always take it away if your victims allies betray you. Unfortunately, it's also dispellable. It shouldn't, however, penalize your XP gain, because they're not actual levels, and you don't gain actual LA. I don't think, anyway.

Didn't Curse of Lycanthropy get an update in Spell Compendium? It works differently now. Makes 4 wererats pop out of a person now.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Didn't Curse of Lycanthropy get an update in Spell Compendium? It works differently now. Makes 4 wererats pop out of a person now.They're two entirely different spells with entirely different effects, and both have been going back and forth throughout the entire run of 3.5.

I'm pretty sure that neither author knew about the other spell, else that wouldn't have happened. (Also, that version is stupid. Creating sapient life from nothing at that level? No.)

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Infecting your trainees with Lyconthrapy would also make them notably stronger. Werebears in particular would be hilarious as it would turn all the neutral and evil folks good unless they get really lucky with those saves!

Yeah that's the easiest way. OTOH, infecting someone with any form of lycanthropy is typically considered pure evil, since even the good variants overwrite the original personality. Maybe as an alternative to capitol punishment? Or with enough research into the ancestry of your subjects, you could reliably inflict Quasilycanthropy.

Much the same benefit and moral problem with contagious forms of undeath; vampires are probably your best bet here.

And on that note, let's complete our gothic horror trio by mentioning Half-Golems. This one could also bypass the morality, if your subjects are optimized to make the saving throw against going insane. Isn't there a Diamond Mind counter that lets you replace a Will save with a concentration skill check, getting around the "nat 1 is an auto-fail" problem? This can also be done repeatedly (once per body part), for multiple tiers of enhanced followers.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Yeah that's the easiest way. OTOH, infecting someone with any form of lycanthropy is typically considered pure evil, since even the good variants overwrite the original personality. Maybe as an alternative to capitol punishment? Or with enough research into the ancestry of your subjects, you could reliably inflict Quasilycanthropy.Altering someone's alignment isn't evil unless you're altering them to Evil. Mindrape Sanctify the wicked is an exalted spell, programmed amnesia isn't evil, and the helm of opposite alignment is cursed, not evil.

So no, that's not it at all. I'm pretty sure that doing good acts is good, and turning someone to Good alignment is a good act. So if you're a Lawful Good werebear? Inflicting bear lycanthropy is both Lawful and Good in that case.

So, soon there will be a flash mob of bears helping little old ladies across the street soon, I just know it.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

They're two entirely different spells with entirely different effects, and both have been going back and forth throughout the entire run of 3.5.

I'm pretty sure that neither author knew about the other spell, else that wouldn't have happened. (Also, that version is stupid. Creating sapient life from nothing at that level? No.)Same name, same level from the same domain, same material component, I'm pretty sure the SPC version is an intentional update.

That said, I agree with you. The SPC version is both useless(lvl 6 Domain spell, touch attack, Fort negates, to summon 1d6 cr2 monsters that aren't even under the control of the caster? Never use it) and too powerful(create 1d6 humans with a 6th-level slot). Maybe they thought the Comp Div version was too powerful for giving Lycanthropy "for free", but this is clearly not a good solution.

[Vizzerdrix]

They're two entirely different spells with entirely different effects, and both have been going back and forth throughout the entire run of 3.5.

I'm pretty sure that neither author knew about the other spell, else that wouldn't have happened. (Also, that version is stupid. Creating sapient life from nothing at that level? No.)

Well said! I'm of a similar mind on the subject. I also think both versions of amanuensis are separate. The cantrip is not a replacement for the 3rd level spell in my eyes.


Same name, same level from the same domain, same material component, I'm pretty sure the SPC version is an intentional update.

That said, I agree with you. The SPC version is both useless(lvl 6 Domain spell, touch attack, Fort negates, to summon 1d6 cr2 monsters that aren't even under the control of the caster? Never use it) and too powerful(create 1d6 humans with a 6th-level slot). Maybe they thought the Comp Div version was too powerful for giving Lycanthropy "for free", but this is clearly not a good solution.

I've always wanted to use that spell as the start of a campaign. The heroes are all wererats that spring forth from a dying caster to finish his parties quest.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Spheres of Power, Alteration, Permanent Transformation.
Has no cost besides the points to cast it, and makes it instantaneous, not removable except by a few effects.

You can get this going by 7th level, and since there are a number of ways to boost CL in a controlled setting, you can be applying changes better than you'd get in combat. It won't be martial skill per-se, but depending on which alterations you pick they could get a significant boost to ass-kicking while still looking normal.

Or Spheres of Might, using the Leadership sphere to recruit them as Cohorts then applying the Drill Sergeant talent to increase their level

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Loyalty's Reward (from the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide, which is an Official WotC Licensed ProductTM) allows you to craft your own feat that you grant both to yourself and to your followers. They get this feat so long as they follow you.

[ooogooman]

Reading Loyalty's Reward, it's less than clear to me whether you're granting the feat itself or the option to take that feat.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Reading Loyalty's Reward, it's less than clear to me whether you're granting the feat itself or the option to take that feat.It outright says that you grant others the benefit of the feat.

There's no leeway for misinterpretation at all.

[FauxKnee]

Many people have suggested lycanthropy. If you're willing to abuse cheese, you can make your followers arbitrarily powerful by doing the following:


Find a person you want to buff. That person has X hit dice. (Depending on interpretation, X might need to be at least 2.)
Infect them with lycanthropy. Based on the type of animal, they will gain Y hit dice.
Wait until the first night of the full moon, so that the template applies properly. (No symptoms until full moon probably means no animal HD until then.)
Hit the creature with level drain, using a controlled wight or something.
Wait 24 hours and have the creature fail their save, causing them to lose a level. (You can debuff them if not allowed to fail intentionally.) Their XP is now halfway between levels (X+Y-1) and (X+Y) based on the rules for losing levels.
Have the creature use a Thought Bottle (complete arcane) to store their XP.
Cure their lycanthropy with break enchantment or something. They now have X (or X-1) levels. (DM might insist they lose a "base" hit die instead of one of the animal HD to the level drain.)
Have them use the thought bottle, causing them to level back up to where they were in step 7. Optionally argue that having been a lycanthrope causes them to count as exceptional and they should be able to select PC classes (instead of NPC classes) when levelling up to X+Y-1.
Optionally repeat steps 2-8 until they are as strong as you desire. Hopefully they didn't level up as classes with disease immunity...

[Rebel7284]

Many people have suggested lycanthropy. If you're willing to abuse cheese, you can make your followers arbitrarily powerful by doing the following:


Find a person you want to buff. That person has X hit dice. (Depending on interpretation, X might need to be at least 2.)
Infect them with lycanthropy. Based on the type of animal, they will gain Y hit dice.
Wait until the first night of the full moon, so that the template applies properly. (No symptoms until full moon probably means no animal HD until then.)
Hit the creature with level drain, using a controlled wight or something.
Wait 24 hours and have the creature fail their save, causing them to lose a level. (You can debuff them if not allowed to fail intentionally.) Their XP is now halfway between levels (X+Y-1) and (X+Y) based on the rules for losing levels.
Have the creature use a Thought Bottle (complete arcane) to store their XP.
Cure their lycanthropy with break enchantment or something. They now have X (or X-1) levels. (DM might insist they lose a "base" hit die instead of one of the animal HD to the level drain.)
Have them use the thought bottle, causing them to level back up to where they were in step 7. Optionally argue that having been a lycanthrope causes them to count as exceptional and they should be able to select PC classes (instead of NPC classes) when levelling up to X+Y-1.
Optionally repeat steps 2-8 until they are as strong as you desire. Hopefully they didn't level up as classes with disease immunity...


This seems to me on the same level of cheese as healing by drowning. Just because the rules about losing a level don't take into account the corner case where you have HD above your character level, doesn't mean that level drain makes your experience go UP!

[Vizzerdrix]

Book of exalted deeds has a critter you can kill for a handful of bonuses. +2 wis and SR to name a few. I remember the namae started with an A.