Buffing a 1 HD commoner into a walking apocalypse as a wizard

[chaincomplex]

So I'm thinking what a (say 20th-level) wizard's options are to turn a 1 HD commoner into a force to be reckoned with. Trivially the wizard could just toss contingent shapechange and all other sorts of nonsense onto the commoner, but Craft Contingent Spell isn't an elegant option and I'd rather avoid it. The other trivial solution is to encase the commoner in insane magic items but that's also not elegant; it's prohibitively expensive too so I can't make an army of superpeasants this way.

A lot of Core wizard buffs otherwise run into the issue of being personal or short term. The latter makes this question less obvious if I want the commoner to be independent enough not to have a wizard holding their hand every few minutes. I've considered polymorph any object, which actually works perfectly fine and is great but this only fixes their natural qualities and extraordinary attacks. Much more than just being able to hit hard and move fast is needed to face high-level challenges.

So what I'm looking for is mainly (i) what spells and spell combinations in or out of Core should I be considering, and to a lesser degree (ii) what other class, feat, metamagic, and so on tricks are there to get the actually good personal buffs onto our commoner friend?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Curse of lycanthropy (the better one that doesn't make sapient life out of nothing as a 6th level spell) can grant lycanthropy to one target. A wizard can nab that through wish (or via limited wish with some Sanctum Spell shenanigans). The lycanthrope template can be stacked an infinite number of times, each one granting bonus HD, various ability bonuses, and everything that goes along with them. So just Sanctum Spell (limited wish) a whole bunch of castings of Sanctum curse of lycanthropy to turn the commoner into a 5,000 HD (literal) beast, along with a bunch of other buffs to turn him into (as you say) a walking apocalypse.

[chaincomplex]

How do we know that lycanthropy stacks? But besides that this reminds me of those tricks where you polymorph someone then awaken them repeatedly.

[Doctor Despair]

Use negative levels to turn the Commoner into a Wight. Start the wightpocalypse.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

How do we know that lycanthropy stacks? But besides that this reminds me of those tricks where you polymorph someone then awaken them repeatedly.You still qualify for lycanthropy after taking the template, and each type of lycanthropy grants a different kind of lycanthropy, based on the animal.

[icefractal]

The template technically stacks (I think), but the spell wouldn't - it's Permanent rather than Instantaneous. Still, a single casting seems great for this purpose, adding much needed HD.

Also, if we assume limited resources (gold and XP costs matter), then the Wizard doesn't want to spend more than a few Limited Wishes on this project anyway.

And if we assume unlimited resources - then add all applicable magic items, done. It's not as interesting a scenario.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The template technically stacks (I think), but the spell wouldn't - it's Permanent rather than Instantaneous. Still, a single casting seems great for this purpose, adding much needed HD.Well, under "Casting Spells," there is the sentence: "Same Effect with Differing Results: The same spell can sometimes produce varying effects if applied to the same recipient more than once." Granted, it's followed by: "Usually the last spell in the series trumps the others." But since multiple strains of lycanthropy can stack, I don't see why an effect that applies multiple strains of lycanthropy couldn't stack.

[icefractal]

This wouldn't be separate effects (like, say, Resist Energy x2 = Fire 30 + Cold 30), but rather directly cumulative effects (like Resist Energy x2 = Fire 60), which doesn't seem at all kosher to stack.

At best a case could be made for becoming a gestalt of all the lycanthrope types selected - as in, gain the highest amount of HD, the highest modifier for each stat, etc.

[Gusmo]

Is there a way to polymorph them into a dusk giant (which can gain HD), and then turn them back into a human, but cheat the HD into remaining?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Is there a way to polymorph them into a dusk giant (which can gain HD), and then turn them back into a human, but cheat the HD into remaining?Polymorph is limited by both the caster's CL and the target's HD. Metamorphosis, on the other hand, doesn't have the latter restriction, although it's self-only.

[Mechalich]

Use negative levels to turn the Commoner into a Wight. Start the wightpocalypse.

Along these lines, you can also just kill them and cast Create Greater Undead to turn them into a Devourer. That's not bad, and can be augmented in various ways.

[chaincomplex]

Dang I guess I'm really appreciating that the best ways to help a peasant involve inflicting them with lycanthropy or just straight-up murdering them.

Really puts into perspective what it means to be a commoner huh. :smalltongue:

[Doctor Despair]

Dang I guess I'm really appreciating that the best ways to help a peasant involve inflicting them with lycanthropy or just straight-up murdering them.

Really puts into perspective what it means to be a commoner huh. :smalltongue:

You didn't ask how to HELP the peasant. You asked how to turn them into a walking apocalypse. The best way to make the peasant as strong as possible would be to party with them and train them (retrain the commoner level, and do some optimized build from there). This would take longer than making them a world-ending threat, so naturally suggested answers took a more drastic turn.

[chaincomplex]

You didn't ask how to HELP the peasant. You asked how to turn them into a walking apocalypse. The best way to make the peasant as strong as possible would be to party with them and train them (retrain the commoner level, and do some optimized build from there). This would take longer than making them a world-ending threat, so naturally suggested answers took a more drastic turn.

Yeah I was just being facetious, I appreciate what the responses so far are trying to do, i.e. increasing the numerical threat posed by our peasant ASAP.

[Pezzo]

Conquer or create a kingdom, make him king, now the commoner can order you (level 20 wizard) and his army to do anything he wishes.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Use greater planar binding to call a genie and use a wish to make a thought bottle, pre-attuned to the commoner, with enough XP in it to catapult him into excessively high level. He's now NI level and can do pretty much anything he wants.

[chaincomplex]

Hmm, could I polymorph the commoner then make them my familiar to apply all the usual familiar-buffing tricks?

Or better yet, have a commoner familiar. :)

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Hmm, could I polymorph the commoner then make them my familiar to apply all the usual familiar-buffing tricks?

Or better yet, have a commoner familiar. :)Deities of DvR 1 or above can take any creature at all as a familiar, so this would work directly. And with the right setup, the deity could cast buffing spells on the familiar commoner from quite a long distance away. And most deities with wizard levels take all 20 levels and so would qualify for the wizard 20 posited in the OP.

[chaincomplex]

While a useful tidbit to know next time I play a deity (which would also be the first time I play a deity), I imagine there is no way besides getting divine rank to take a commoner as a familiar directly?

In which case I should explore the polymorph approach.

[sreservoir]

A familiar is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a sorcerer or wizard.

It's going to be hard to justify a polymorphed commoner being a normal animal before you turn them into a familiar

[chaincomplex]

Unfortunate, though I get polymorphed aristocrat vibes from most cats.

[AvatarVecna]

So I'm thinking what a (say 20th-level) wizard's options are to turn a 1 HD commoner into a force to be reckoned with. Trivially the wizard could just toss contingent shapechange and all other sorts of nonsense onto the commoner, but Craft Contingent Spell isn't an elegant option and I'd rather avoid it. The other trivial solution is to encase the commoner in insane magic items but that's also not elegant; it's prohibitively expensive too so I can't make an army of superpeasants this way.

A lot of Core wizard buffs otherwise run into the issue of being personal or short term. The latter makes this question less obvious if I want the commoner to be independent enough not to have a wizard holding their hand every few minutes. I've considered polymorph any object, which actually works perfectly fine and is great but this only fixes their natural qualities and extraordinary attacks. Much more than just being able to hit hard and move fast is needed to face high-level challenges.

So what I'm looking for is mainly (i) what spells and spell combinations in or out of Core should I be considering, and to a lesser degree (ii) what other class, feat, metamagic, and so on tricks are there to get the actually good personal buffs onto our commoner friend?

Without getting directly into cheesy tactics, "short term" and "personal duration" can both be solved by building magic items.

If we're getting into cheesy tactics with items, the "item prereqs" reduce actual market price, and thus allow a wider range of things to have market price under 200k (and thus, be "pre-epic items". Artificers crafting by mimicking specific casters with weird spell lists and caster levels can exacerbate this further. A wizard 20 with arbitrary resources and access to interplanar markets can gain access to such items pretty trivially. Probably Curse them all to be unremoveable as well. This also allows you to give this commoner non-wizard buffs.

[chaincomplex]

I mean that is a good solution but one I want to exclude because magic items are a universal panacea. I'm looking for something that can be accomplished cheaply and quickly and last. Giving were HD was a good idea -- well, at least the first casting which is unambiguous -- so was turning the commoner into an undead, though both solutions are rather unfortunate ways to treat nominal allies. Or maybe the commoner wants to be an undead werewolf, I don't know, I can't really interpret what D&D characters want even on a good day. D&D has that "bad things good and good things bad" energy sometimes.

[AvatarVecna]

I mean that is a good solution but one I want to exclude because magic items are a universal panacea. I'm looking for something that can be accomplished cheaply and quickly and last. Giving were HD was a good idea -- well, at least the first casting which is unambiguous -- so was turning the commoner into an undead, though both solutions are rather unfortunate ways to treat nominal allies. Or maybe the commoner wants to be an undead werewolf, I don't know, I can't really interpret what D&D characters want even on a good day. D&D has that "bad things good and good things bad" energy sometimes.

Well if you're unsure that two spells both giving lycanthropy to late should stack, lycanthropy and entomanothropy should definitely stack. The latter is "lycanthropy but for vermin instead of animals". Best bet here, assuming a Medium Commoner, is a Bonespear (Fiend Folio pg 24), which gives 15 HD and some decent abilities.

As far as duration issues go: if you give the commoner an Acorn Of Far Travel that's linked to a tree on a timeless plane, the buffs should last forever.

As far as range issues go, Ocular Spell can turn a personal-range spell into a 30 ft range spell.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You could always mind-swap him into a custom-designed riverine animated object in whatever shape you want via magic jar. Now he's indestructible aside from a very small number of means of harming him, and if you train him as a wizard or psion or whatever, he'll have phenomenal cosmic power to back him up. After all, one of the reasons golems are considered to be crap is because they're mindless, and now this one isn't...


the buffs should last forever.THE BUFFS SHOULD LAST FOREVER!!!

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c8/94/a9/c894a9194854cfc0b1d9972ed40954e2--the-sky-the-ojays.jpg

(Also: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?546179-Un-Hallow-that-Stacks)

[AvatarVecna]

You could always mind-swap him into a custom-designed riverine animated object in whatever shape you want via magic jar. Now he's indestructible aside from a very small number of means of harming him, and if you train him as a wizard or psion or whatever, he'll have phenomenal cosmic power to back him up. After all, one of the reasons golems are considered to be crap is because they're mindless, and now this one isn't...

If we're turning a commoner into a wizard as part of a step in the process, we should probably do that before their character level/effective character level turns weird. If nothing else, leveling up a commoner is probably easier than leveling up a golem. As for how we do it...

Toads breed in large quantities (hundreds at a time), and mature in months (40-70 days). A toad is a CR 1/10th creature. It is slow, literally incapable of attacking adventures, and gives 30 XP upon defeat by a character who isn't lvl 7 or higher. It takes 700 toad murders to get a commoner from lvl 1 to lvl 7. Since the wizard is breeding the toads, he could maybe breed them for a particular aspect (like strength or intelligence), effectively giving these toads the elite array and allowing them to count as CR 1. This would allow the commoner to gain 8 levels instead of 6 before needing a different source of XP, and it would only take 120 elite toad deaths to level (and they aren't any harder to kill than normal ones unless you bred for dex or con).

EDIT: At that point, you've got a commoner 1/wizard 8. The toughest encounter they can get XP from would be CR 16. If you can find a CR 16 monster that's weak enough it can be more-or-less beaten 100% of the time by an 8-headed pyro/cyrohydra in 8 rounds, the commoner should be able to kill a bunch of those to level up a ton.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If we're turning a commoner into a wizard as part of a step in the process, we should probably do that before their character level/effective character level turns weird. If nothing else, leveling up a commoner is probably easier than leveling up a golem. As for how we do it...

Toads breed in large quantities (hundreds at a time), and mature in months (40-70 days). A toad is a CR 1/10th creature. It is slow, literally incapable of attacking adventures, and gives 30 XP upon defeat by a character who isn't lvl 7 or higher. It takes 700 toad murders to get a commoner from lvl 1 to lvl 7. Since the wizard is breeding the toads, he could maybe breed them for a particular aspect (like strength or intelligence), effectively giving these toads the elite array and allowing them to count as CR 1. This would allow the commoner to gain 8 levels instead of 6 before needing a different source of XP, and it would only take 120 elite toad deaths to level (and they aren't any harder to kill than normal ones unless you bred for dex or con).

EDIT: At that point, you've got a commoner 1/wizard 8. The toughest encounter they can get XP from would be CR 16. If you can find a CR 16 monster that's weak enough it can be more-or-less beaten 100% of the time by an 8-headed pyro/cyrohydra in 8 rounds, the commoner should be able to kill a bunch of those to level up a ton.Ray of stupidity is level 2, one-shots any animal hit by it on a ranged touch attack, and works wonders on, say, an elephant herd. So if the newly-minted level 1 wizard has Precocious Apprentice (Ray of Stupidity) as his 1st level feat, and you provide him with some scrolls affected by Chain Spell...

[AvatarVecna]

Ray of stupidity is level 2, one-shots any animal hit by it on a ranged touch attack, and works wonders on, say, an elephant herd. So if the newly-minted level 1 wizard has Precocious Apprentice (Ray of Stupidity) as his 1st level feat, and you provide him with some scrolls affected by Chain Spell...

Yup. Lots of paths to absolute nonsense. Leveling up isn't difficult, and winning fights with magic cheese isn't either. If the commoner is capable of getting XP, turning them into a god wizard doesn't take very long at all.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You could team up with a psion to create one of these (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#skinofProteus) at maximum ML (that is, 15). Metamorphosis is not capped by the target's HD, just by the manifester's ML, so you aren't limited like you would be with polymorph.

Now he can turn into a phasm (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/phasm.htm). Note the phasm's alternate form ability: "A phasm can assume any form of Large size or smaller as a standard action. A phasm can remain in its alternate form until it chooses to assume a new one or return to its natural form."

So if the level 1 commoner took Assume Supernatural Ability (Phasm's Alternate Form) as one of his feats, he could turn into something like a leshay (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/leshay.htm) or an umbral blot (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/umbralBlot.htm), since the phasm's ability isn't restricted in the type or HD/CR of the creature you can assume...

[Doctor Despair]

Remember that abilities scale with stats. The Commoner wouldn't inherit the Leshay's HD or Cha, so the charm monster DC wouldn't be 58

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Remember that abilities scale with stats. The Commoner wouldn't inherit the Leshay's HD or Cha, so the charm monster DC wouldn't be 58Totally buffable, though. And at-will charm is still pretty nice; if at first you can't succeed...

[chaincomplex]

Wizards really did just publish the phasm and forget to cap its Alternate Form huh. :smallconfused: I'm guessing it should've been capped to the phasm's HD?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Hmm. On the earlier topic of lycanthropy, swarms of animals are considered singular critters with the [swarm] subtype, so you can become a swarm lycanthrope, and dove swarms are immune to weapon damage...

[Doctor Despair]

Wizards really did just publish the phasm and forget to cap its Alternate Form huh. :smallconfused: I'm guessing it should've been capped to the phasm's HD?

Changelings can get the same thing with Cabinet Trickster

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Changelings can get the same thing with Cabinet TricksterExcept they're restricted to being humanoids. Phasms aren't.

[Doctor Despair]

Except they're restricted to being humanoids. Phasms aren't.

True enough

[MaxiDuRaritry]

True enoughSome of the shapeshifting PrCs can be entered via changeling, so there's that.

Anyway, this is off-topic, methinks.

[Arael666]

I'm seconding the curse of lycanthropy use, with a single casting and using dire tiger blood you get 17 hd creature. But before that you cast mineralize warrior.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'm seconding the curse of lycanthropy use, with a single casting and using dire tiger blood you get 17 hd creature. But before that you cast mineralize warrior.The legendary tiger (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/legendaryAnimal.htm#) has 26 HD.

Feel free to retrain those HD into class levels via thought bottle shenanigans.

[edit]

Give him a sealed container full of brown mold (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/traps-hazards-and-special-terrains/hazards/special-hazards/brown-mold-cr-2/) and teleport him to a volcano. Instruct him to toss it in. Congrats; he just doomed the planet.

Alternatively, he can toss it into a portal to the elemental plane of fire. Now it's the elemental plane of brown mold (or soon will be).