A Wizard Wants to Do It

[Zaq]

Crazy wizards are a fantasy staple, no less in D&D than in anywhere else, and indeed have some lasting impact on the D&D world as a whole. One word: Owlbear. Hardly the only example where the rulebooks out and out say "a wizard did it," but the easiest one to think of, and one of the more humorous.

Now, let's say you want to be that wizard. Sure, you won't be forging new species anytime soon (Origin of Species is an epic spell, after all), but you want to go about playing the wizard who creates things others find completely, totally inexplicable. (To be honest, the explanation is pretty mundane: you got really, really bored one day.) Maybe you won't be spreading ecologically significant populations of strange new creatures throughout the planes just yet, but you'll get there someday. For now... hey, what if we tried THIS?

So, two questions.

1) How would you go about doing this?
2) What's the earliest level you can envision this archetype working (that is to say, this tactic being the one that defines most of your abilities)? Why?

I mean, there are already a couple spells that fall into this vein, but I'm not sure they're enough on their own. Permanent duration spells are ideal, but those are few and far between, and often very high level. I understand that the mad genius responsible for the first owlbears probably wasn't some singe-digit apprentice, but that's not the point. As far as I'm concerned, the earlier you can get any given concept working, the better.

Polymorph Any Object is a good start, but I want more. What would you folks do to represent a low level Wizard Who Will Do It? Not a specific level, since this isn't a character I'm making for real, just kind of a thought experiment. How would you represent this?

One other note... custom spell research would be a glorious thing here, and if I were to actually play a character like this, I'd probably rely heavily on it, or at least try to. If you want to talk about custom spell research, go ahead, but give some examples of what your custom spells would do, and more importantly, what level they would be and why. Wizards are broken enough without making a second-level spell that can permanently give him (and his fighter buddy, and his rogue buddy, and everyone else in the party) a spiffy new pair of wings, for example, but if you make the spell too high of a level, we might as well just use PaO, and that's no fun. (Well, it's fun, but it's totally not the point.) So keep that in mind.

[JellyPooga]

Arguably even a 1st level Wizard is capable of this. As you say, researching your own wacky spells and churning out scrolls is the first step. By doing so you can get a reputation across the world as the guy who invented Xargles Magnificent Beer Cooler (a very popular spell for tavern goers). As you rise in level and get more Item Creation Feats, it goes beyond merely spells and you enter the realm of crazy magic items (Now you no longer need knowledge of the arcane! Get your very own Xargles Enchanted Beer Mug and never drink warm beer again!). Origin of Species is merely the top end of this, by which point you've already made staves, wands, scrolls, beer mugs, rings, intelligent swords, cursed armour and all manner of other unique doodahs and wotsits. Eventually someone is going to say about one of your things "who in Baator thought this pile of junk up?" to which the reply is, of course "A wizard did it!".

[chiasaur11]

Arguably even a 1st level Wizard is capable of this. As you say, researching your own wacky spells and churning out scrolls is the first step. By doing so you can get a reputation across the world as the guy who invented Xargles Magnificent Beer Cooler (a very popular spell for tavern goers). As you rise in level and get more Item Creation Feats, it goes beyond merely spells and you enter the realm of crazy magic items (Now you no longer need knowledge of the arcane! Get your very own Xargles Enchanted Beer Mug and never drink warm beer again!). Origin of Species is merely the top end of this, by which point you've already made staves, wands, scrolls, beer mugs, rings, intelligent swords, cursed armour and all manner of other unique doodahs and wotsits. Eventually someone is going to say about one of your things "who in Baator thought this pile of junk up?" to which the reply is, of course "A wizard did it!".

If the response isn't "#*&*#&ing Wizards." your stuff isn't weird enough.

[MCerberus]

Well I'd say the minimum level would be level 3, when you can get CWI. Flerg's Burning Underwear is a simple 1/day 1st level spell magic items. When you put them on, you burn your nether region with burning hands.

[Dixieboy]

Level 1 wizards can do it in another way than item crafting.

Pretisti... that THING i can't pronounce, let alone spell.

You recolor stuff, if somehow you could get close enough to stuff without being epically pwned you could create an entire tribe of pink kobolds, a village of purple Elves or the deadly forest of pink trees and Tartan critters.

granted actually doing this would take a helluva long time, but who said the wizard "Did it" in one day?

I think i just rewrote a popular saying. Jolly good job there.

[Olo Demonsbane]

An interesting 3rd level spell is Glowing Orb. Its an orb that sheds light at will, and it lasts forever. Now, an item that casts at will dancing lights is 1,000 gp. Enchant the orb with this, and, for bonus points, make it intellegent and give it lots of ranks in Knowledge (astronomy).

Now you have a sun with 4 planets orbiting around it! If you want to scare intruders off, you can have it switch to glowing humanoid form dancing lights and send it after them. Because nothing says scary like an incorporeal creature holding a glowing ball that looks like its about to shoot you

[chiasaur11]

Level 1 wizards can do it in another way than item crafting.

Pretisti... that THING i can't pronounce, let alone spell.

You recolor stuff, if somehow you could get close enough to stuff without being epically pwned you could create an entire tribe of pink kobolds, a village of purple Elves or the deadly forest of pink trees and Tartan critters.

granted actually doing this would take a helluva long time, but who said the wizard "Did it" in one day?

I think i just rewrote a popular saying. Jolly good job there.

Prestidigitation is a good start. Parlor tricks, odd little trinkets, good beginning bit. Might even give you some ideas for later on.

[Faleldir]

Prestidigitation can't be used with Permanency.

[Ganurath]

A continuous effect Prestidigitation item. Since the temporary effects last until the duration ends, and the item has an unlimited duration... So that's where drow came from.

[Jack_Simth]

Well, 3.5 is quite silent on what happens if a creature under the effect of Polymorph mates. So a 7th level Wizard could find, say, a female goat in heat, Polymorph a snail into a male goat, and have them go at it. Would the female's child be a normal goat, or a cross between a snail and a goat (and would that be a snoat or a gail?).

[Harperfan7]

I would say that if a ploymorph effect is permanent, they are (goats) and have (goat) DNA. As for wizards creating crazy stuff, the only reason I don't have rules for it is because PC wizards are too busy dealing with the crazy crap other wizards come up with to do any of his own. They might make their own spells, build a base of their own, or make items, but not anything that requires extensive trial and error or experimentation.

In my campaign, a-mage-did-it, a-dragon-did-it, or a-god-did-it are very common explanations for pretty much everything. All the better, I say, because that just makes the world more intereting.

[Claudius Maximus]

Well, 3.5 is quite silent on what happens if a creature under the effect of Polymorph mates. So a 7th level Wizard could find, say, a female goat in heat, Polymorph a snail into a male goat, and have them go at it. Would the female's child be a normal goat, or a cross between a snail and a goat (and would that be a snoat or a gail?).

I'm pretty sure a polymorphed creature breeds as its true form. This is certainly better than the alternative when it comes to, say, Half-Dragons.

[Ganurath]

Half-dragons are more than sufficient support of that hypothesis. Although, personally, I'd prefer to polymorph a fleshraker into a male orc so I can use suggestion on it to ensure mating with the female orcs I got off the black market.

Edit: Scratch that, the females can be of any humanoid race. The male, however, is to be an aboleth volunteer. Perfect genetic memory.

[chiasaur11]

Well, 3.5 is quite silent on what happens if a creature under the effect of Polymorph mates. So a 7th level Wizard could find, say, a female goat in heat, Polymorph a snail into a male goat, and have them go at it. Would the female's child be a normal goat, or a cross between a snail and a goat (and would that be a snoat or a gail?).

Going for a more crude form of a wizard-did-it, eh?

[Jack_Simth]

Going for a more crude form of a wizard-did-it, eh?

Well, one that's a bit more explicable, anyway. This method doesn't require new spells, just the DM filling in a few blank spots for where the rules are silent.

[holywhippet]

Statwise, I'd go for a high INT and a low WIS. Basically your character loves to tinker and do stuff - like make a three headed dog for extra bite. However, he doesn't use common sense or think long term or consider the potential ramifications of his actions.

I'd make the character constantly curious. Examining everything and anything - especially things people wouldn't normally give a second glance to.

[Crel]

Oh... My... God...

I say this because in the campaign I am currently running, one of the PCs is a focused specialist transmuter. If he sees this thread... I'll probably have to kill him off before he makes the owlbear or duckbunny look sane.

However, I may use this myself for an insane wizard the party faces. Its pretty interesting, and some ideas on this list are friggin' hilarious. Nice work. Now for my contribution...

Worms with the spell-like ability for fireball at will at 20th caster level? How long would the world last? Or, would it just be a world already ruled by worms? So many questions!

[Ganurath]

Oh... My... God...

I say this because in the campaign I am currently running, one of the PCs is a focused specialist transmuter. If he sees this thread... I'll probably have to kill him off before he makes the owlbear or duckbunny look sane.

However, I may use this myself for an insane wizard the party faces. Its pretty interesting, and some ideas on this list are friggin' hilarious. Nice work. Now for my contribution...

Worms with the spell-like ability for fireball at will at 20th caster level? How long would the world last? Or, would it just be a world already ruled by worms? So many questions!

Yuan-ti. Nuff said.

[InaVegt]

I'd create a floor that would turn to complete inferno once every few hours to clean it.

Fireproof furniture and rings of fire resistance to accompany it of course, I got the magic, after all.

[Lycanthromancer]

I'd go totally Island of Doctor Moreau with slightly modified (and greatly extended) versions of Bite of the Were-X (where X = Bear, Wolf, Hyena, Cheetah, Panda, Tiger, Budgie, and all sorts of other animals), which would permanently transform anyone bitten into the hybrid form of a were-creature.

Then the next campaign would be chock-full of anthropomorphic animals.

[Zaq]

I guess I should have been clearer in my original post. While these are some excellent suggestions for crazynuts wizard tricks, they're not what I was actually asking.

Owlbears, we are told, resulted from wizard experimentation. Owlbears are not the only example of creatures that simply have no business existing, but do, because, well, a wizard did it. What if you want to play a wizard who goes around creating these insane new creatures? You start out modifying old ones ("Check out what I did to your bunny!"), adding permanent changes, eventually figuring out how to make these changes breed true (Lamarckian evolution gogogo!). You move up to the mix-and-match stuff that gave us owlbears to begin with. Eventually you're creating stuff that only existed in your own mind, rather than taking one creature and making it more like another one, or even (at epic levels, with the Origin of Species spell) creating them out of nothing. How do you go about doing this? What pre-existing spells do you use (BESIDES Polymorph any Object, I mean! That's way too high level!), what spells do you research, what levels do you make the spells that you research, what character level would you think you could be to make this actually work, all of these questions! How do we go about tinkering with biology in truly unhealthy ways?

[Ganurath]

Just plain Polymorph is only a 4th level spell, and a Gnome can speak with animals 1/day. Get a male... Let's say rat. Take some time to talk to it, persuade it to be your willing target. Then, use repeated castings of charm person to kidnap a female goblin. Then, when they're together, use hold person on one and polymorph the other. With a few days patience, some repeated castings, and a single copper piece, you've just created a Skaven at 7th level. 8th, if you go Sorceror.

The Sorceror option may be better, if you take the Domain Access varient from p52 of Complete Champion. Calm Animal, Charm Animal, Dominate Animal... This is how Owlbears are made. Just make sure that the owl is the male so that you have the properly protective Mama Bear to raise your abomination against nature.

[Lycanthromancer]

Unleash bite of the were-X into various animal populations, make the changes permanent, and inheritable?

[Chronos]

Not directly apropos, but I feel I should mention that the description of the Duckbunny explicitly states that it's a practice monster, for crazy crossbreeding wizards who don't want to start off with something dangerous like an owlbear.

[chiasaur11]

Not directly apropos, but I feel I should mention that the description of the Duckbunny explicitly states that it's a practice monster, for crazy crossbreeding wizards who don't want to start off with something dangerous like an owlbear.

Which is great.

I mean, it means that there isn't just one insane monster mixing wizard.

There are enough to have predefined practice monsters.

[The Glyphstone]

Unleash bite of the were-X into various animal populations, make the changes permanent, and inheritable?

What would that do besides improve their stats? The Bite spells don't actually involve lycantrophy in any way, they just give the caster sweet bonus stat modifiers, some natural weapons, and a bonus feat(s) that vary based on the spell...

[Lycanthromancer]

Check my post prior to that one.

[TSED]

Let's look at spells that could potentially be used for this from the PHB by level.

I am going to make the assumption that when something gives birth under a magical effect, its children are at least slightly altered on account of them being:
1) Based off their parent.
2) It being a permanent, instantaneous effect.

Let's assume that magic changes DNA temporarily, or something. I don't know. But it's integral to some of the ideas down below.

That being said, let's have at her!:

0) Prestidigation is the ultimate answer for the first level mage.
Ghost Sound could be useful in certain places (trying to get certain things to mate) though.

1) Mount. Try mating a thing with a magical construct of pure ... magic. Yeah. It could work, assuming the Mount is the male. The female would give birth to magical beasts, no?
Bonus points for using a spell that SOUNDS sexual.

Hypnotism / Sleep: creepy.

Disguise Self miiiight. If you could research some sort of "Ensure Offspring Viability" spell. That's really friggin' creepy, though. As the old joke goes, though... centaurs.

Enlarge / Reduce Person / Animal / etc. could be used on a pregnant organism giving birth / laying eggs. Wonder what would happen?

Summon Monster I through IX could be useful, too.

2nd) Resist Energy is probably important if you're going to try some of the more... dangerous... magical-combinations. Ash rats, any one?

Summon Swarm... I'm not entirely sure how but something that produces a swarm of vermin's got to be handy if you're trying to create abominations.

Touch of Idiocy: You might have to do this to yourself a time or two. Just make sure you can still write down your ideas.

Darkness: In conjunction with the Disguise Self theory above, this would be pretty much mandatory. Ewww.

Or Blindness / Deafness.

Command Undead: Oh gods no.

Ghoul Touch: Why is this so wrong all of a sudden?

Alter Self: Disguise Self above getting better.

Animal's Statistic: Useful for a variety of reasons. I mean, children are based off their parent, right? Cast this on the parent right before they create new life, and suddenly you've got supernaturally strong / dextrous / whatever babies.

Spider Climb: This spell is useful for a variety of reasons. Firstly, you've got access to new places that you couldn't reach before. Secondly, sometimes your ridiculous wrong experiments will need help. Picture, say, a 10 foot tall wolf and a poodle.

3rd) Phantom Steed: See Mount in 1st.

Tongues: Obvious if you're trying to make two species of the same type create hybrids.

Deep Slumber / Hold Person: No.

Suggestion: I am beginning to hate myself.

Gentle Repose:

Gaseous Form: Uh... Wonder what'd happen to things birthed by a mother in gaseous form?

Water Breathing: Important if you want aquatic or amphibious terrors.

4th) Dimensional Anchor will be handy at times.

Stoneskin: ??!

Minor Creation: Creates wood or cloth. Which, to me, is dead but organic matter. Be creative, use that Touch of Idiocy, and see if you can figure something out.

Locate Creature: Handy!

Charm Monster: Handy!

Geas, Lesser: Handy, but creepy.

Hallucinatory Terrain: How else to get a romantic evening or whatever?

Shadow Conjuration: Partially unreal hybrids? ... I am intrigued.

Animate Dead: Ok, if you're making partially undead partially alive creatures, this will be handy. Still, no wonder adventuring parties keep hacking up your creations.

Polymorph: The king of hybrid-making. As was discussed above, viable offspring that are combinations of the two are created by polymorphed mating, as seen by the precedent of half-dragons.

5th) Major Creation: I see inorganic materials. I don't know how it will be useful, but it could, and... let's discuss some stuff afterwords.

Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound: Well, now you've got ANOTHER magical creature to mix with things.

Contact Other Plane: Most obnoxious 'wanna go on a date?' ever.

Animal Growth: The aforementioned Enlarge Person deal at level 1.

Permanency: I don't know. Be creative. SOMETHING will probably need this sooner or later.

6th) Contingency might be useful for having something go off. You're not sure when the cow is going to give birth? "Contingency: if cow is about to give birth, cast Bull's Strength on it." Or whatever.

Create Undead: ewww.

Stone To Flesh: Useful if joined with "Craft (Sculpture)" or something, I imagine.

7th) Shadow Conjuration, Greater: Less unreal but still partially unreal real things... Yay!

Control Undead: still so very wrong.

Limited Wish: Yeah, you know already.

8th) Otto's Irresistible Dance: If only it could do mating dances, too. You don't know that it can't. Some animals won't know any other 'dance.' Voila?

Antipathy / Sympathy: Useful for getting specimens you want.

Clone: You already know. (P.S. What would happen if something cloned itself, put on a belt of opposite gender, and then...)

Create Greater Undead: Still so very wrong.

Iron Body: Useful if you're trying to make metallic monsters.

Polymorph Any Object: The holy grail.

9th:
Shapechange: Useful if you decide you want your son to be a half dragon / half troll. Or something. I don't know.

Time Stop: Useful if you need to get more done NOW than is possible.

Wish: Useful if you say 'screw it, I wish I had an owlbear.'





Ok, so let's look at some ways to do it:


Possible Path 1: Polymorph two creatures. Have them mate. Keep the mothers, have their young be the new generation of horrors.

Possible Path 2: Use minor / major creation to make a corpse of something, based on the idea that it can create dead organic material. Use Animate Dead on the terrifying barely-counts-as-one fake-corpse. Use a researched 'Always Viable Offspring' spell and mate it with something else (that poor, poor something-else). Major creation can add in neat things like metal or stone body parts as NATURAL. Maybe this is REALLY where Warforged came from? Fabricate will speed this along.

Possible Path 3: Use one of the many spells to create an animal of pure magic. Have it mate with a female thing. The offspring should be magical beasts.

Possible Path 4: Be a druid or a transmuter, and apply transmutations to things about to give birth. The magic becomes an integral part of the child if my theory holds water (why wouldn't it? A wizard did it, after all)... Thank Gods magic is weird.

Undead Creatures Path: The aforementioned "Always Viable Offspring" thingummy plus undead will create some very... interesting... crossbreeds. Superfluous with, say, vampires, but I've got no idea how a lich is supposed to impregnate something. Is the offspring's phylactery going to be like, the after birth or something?



So, what would this "Always Viable Offspring" spell be like? I'm thinking 10 minutes / caster level duration and a 2nd level spell, or some such. And a corollary, of course (never-viable-offspring). What happens when they interact, and one is imbued with the spell and one is not?

[TSED]

Additionally, I feel the urge to come up with a reasoning for an owlbear:

Bears are omnivorous.
Owls are not.


Mix the two, and you get the bear's crazy brute strength and size, the owl's nasty beak, and the fact that it only eats meat gives it presence as an intimidating guardian / whatever.

[TrashCat]

Am I the only one who read the title of this thread and started giggling uncontrollably?

Apparently, I have the sensibilities of a 12-year-old boy. This is unsettling news.

:: introspects ::