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Thread: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
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2009-06-04, 10:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Hey guys,
Right now I'm working on a (very cheesy) epic spell named Ending, but I'm kinda stuck.
The plan is to have a spell that conjures three cubes of adamantine (cubes cause it's standard, adamantine cause it's, well, hard) with the conjure seed.
These three cubes are then brought to life with the life seed. Finally, I give them a spell-like ability to cast the Ending spell themselves.
So basically what you get is a spell which conjures three cubes, who then conjure nine extra cubes, who then conjure 27 cubes, who then conjure 81 cubes and so on, creating a Grey Goo effect.
But there's a few problems with this spell;
1) How the hell do the cubes know they should cast the spell? Should I use a Compel seed? Or can I just say the Life seed gives them a basic instinct to cast the spell ASAP?
2) The cubes can cast the Ending spell as a spell-like ability. Do they require a Charisma score of 20 (10+spell level) to cast this epic spell-like ability? As I understand it, you don't, but I wanted to make sure.
3) How can I get this castable? The casting DC is going to be high, even without the Compel seed and Fortify seed for charisma (166 at the very least). I can't burn xp or take backlash damage, since the cubes can't do so. And increasing the casting time would ruin the Grey Goo effect.
So, any thoughts? Or should I just forget the whole thing?
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2009-06-04, 10:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
That seems pretty creative!
I would say the life seed can give them the inborn desire to cast ending.
The bigger problem is the ad-hoc DC for giving an epic spell like ability to a creature. Since SLAs dont cost XP or anything, I wouldnt let you do it.
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2009-06-04, 10:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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2009-06-04, 11:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Thanks for the fast answer !
Well, I read this in the Conjure seed description:
The Conjure seed can be used in conjunction with the life and fortify seeds for an epic spell that creates an entirely new creature, if made permanent. To give a creature spell-like abilities, apply other epic seeds to the epic spell that replicate the desired ability.
Since SLAs dont cost XP or anything
Oh, I just looked it up, and you're right! Spell-like abilities don't burn any XP! Woohoo!
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2009-06-04, 11:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Huh. The Adorable Fuzzball Goo is pretty cool. But the Ending spell makes it possible to let the cubes reproduce every round, instead of every 73 days- makes it go a little faster ...
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2009-06-04, 11:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
I just encountered another problem after reading the adorable fuzzball goo description... Apparently I need to add another fortification seed to the spell to bring the creature up to 1HD, which costs me another 25 in DC. Not a lot, but it brings the DC to 223. Even when burning 20.000 XP it still gives me a casting DC of 23, which is way too high for the cubes.
However; this isn't an epic spell, it's a spell-like ability that happens to do exactly the same thing as an epic spell. And spell-like abilities don't have casting DCs like epic spells have, right?
So basically they don't HAVE to make that roll, only the caster himself needs to roll 23 (which should be ridiculously easy for an epic level character)...
Am I right?
EDIT: the final spell DC would be 48, not 23... still manageable, right?Last edited by DemonSlayer; 2009-06-04 at 11:40 AM.
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2009-06-04, 11:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
15 Int (18 base+2 from race+5 from levels+5 inherent+2 age+8 from item) + 24 ranks in Knowledge(Arcane) gives you 39 base. If you take 10, you get 49 , just enough, and without going into item-cheese either.
48 is managable, with items and different spells, people reach 100s...
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2009-06-04, 12:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Thanks ! Ok then, if it's manageable, then the spell is pretty much done. Woohoo!
ENDING (Conjuration [Creation])
Spellcraft DC: 48
Components: V, S, XP
Range: 0 ft.
Duration: 24 hours
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 432.000 gp; 9 days; 17280 XP.
Seeds: conjure (DC 21), life (DC 27), fortify (DC 17), fortify (DC 17). Factors: Three additional cubes (+6 DC), +14 Will save (+28 DC), grant 1 HD (+8 DC), grant spell like ability (ending) (+99 DC). Mitigating factors: Burn 20.000 XP
This spell starts out completely harmless, creating three adamantine, living cubes. Each cube has 3d6 Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma, and a racial +14 bonus to Will saves. For each cube you need to make a will save (DC 11), otherwise that cube will not come to life.
Each cube has a spell-like ability which duplicates the effect of the Ending spell, but since it is a spell-like ability rather than the actual spell, using the spell-like ability burns no XP and requires no casting roll. Cubes still need to make a Will save (DC 11) for each cube they create. The spell-like ability is usable once per day, and the cube will use the ability as soon as it is created, creating three more cubes.
Cubes exist for only 24 hours, but that is more than enough to do their terrible world. In 24 hours, this spell will have easily covered the entire atmosphere of a planet in self-reproducing adamantine cubes. This would extinguish all life on a planet. Even then, per round more new cubes would be spawned than old cubes would vanish. Eventually this spell could extinguish all life in the universe.
XP cost: 20.000
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2009-06-04, 02:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Theoretically speaking, what would happen if a cube wasn't able to cast the spell (on account of already being completely surrounded by other cubes)? How quickly a new cube would use its ability (instanteously?) and how long does the "casting" take? What's the size of a single cube?
If the effect is instant, then in theory whole universe would be filled with cubes the moment the spell is cast by the wizard; if not, we could calculate the speed at which the mass of cubes would expand (the rate at which cubes would be disappearing after 24h would be negligible).
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2009-06-04, 03:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Well, I figure new cubes would be cast on top of old ones, so there'd always be space. Otherwise it probably gets shunted a few feet? I dunno .
I should specify size, thanks for pointing that out.
Cubes use their ability instantaneously, but the casting time is one minute. I'm not sure I should change this, though. It would be easy enough to make it instantaneous (it's a friggin' +28 DC to make it quickened!), but that would leave no room to fight the cubes off should I ever use it in a campaign... And I like the idea of players having a chance to actually stop the undoing of the universe ;)...
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2009-06-04, 03:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Well, for purpose of campaign, you can always change the stats a little (make them last for a week and change casting time to 10 minutes or something like that).
As for the new cubes being completely surrounded by each other, can they actually move by themselves? They could be "programmed" to move away from each other to "populate" world more efficiently. If not, then we'd need a formula for the maximum speed at which they would pile up on each other to see what would be the maximum distance between a cube that started its casting a minute ago and the nearest available space where new cubes could materialize.
As for getting rid of them, shifting them all to one of the layers of the Abyss (or creating one for them) would do the trick (what with each layer being infinite in size). Creating a new layer would probably be better, since dumping the cubes into an existing one could piss off its inhabitants
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2009-06-05, 06:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Ok, updated the spell:
ENDING (Conjuration [Creation])
Spellcraft DC: 50
Components: V, S, XP
Range: 5 ft.
Duration: 24 hours
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 450.000 gp; 9 days; 18000 XP.
Seeds: conjure (DC 21), life (DC 27), fortify (DC 17), fortify (DC 17)
Factors: Three additional cubes (+6 DC), +14 Will save (+28 DC), grant 1 HD (+8 DC), grant spell like ability (ending) (+99 DC), add 5ft. to range (ad hoc +2 DC). Mitigating factors: Burn 20.000 XP
This spell starts out completely harmless, creating three adamantine, living cubes, each 1 cubic ft. in size. Each cube has 3d6 Intelligence, Wisom and Charisma, and a racial +14 bonus to Will saves. The cubes have 5 hit points each, but have additional hit points for being adamantine. They have one HD. For each cube you need to make a will save (DC 11), otherwise that cube will not come to life.
Each cube has a spell-like ability which duplicates the effect of the Ending spell, but since it is a spell-like ability rather than the actual spell, using the spell-like ability burns no XP and requires no casting roll. Cubes still need to make a Will save (DC 11) for each cube they create. The spell-like ability is usable once per day, and the cube will use the ability as soon as it is created, creating three more cubes.
Cubes exist for only 24 hours, but that is more than enough to do their terrible world. In 24 hours, this spell will have easily covered the entire atmosphere of a planet in self-reproducing adamantine cubes. This would extinguish all life on a planet. Even then, per round more new cubes would be spawned than old cubes would vanish. Eventually this spell could extinguish all life in the universe.
XP cost: 20.000
Divine Focus: A small adamantine cube
Specified size and added some range to the spell. I gave it a 5 ft. range, which should be enough considering that the cubes are only one cubic ft. big.
Thanks for your input, guys! Still, I'm wondering; I could make the thing quickened for an increase of 56 in DC, which would probably mean the cubes would reproduce every round, instead of every 10 rounds. But is it worth it?
Another thing; I'm using the life seed, so I need a divine focus for the spell (I chose an adamantine cube for that purpose). But it says nowhere that the spell itself needs to be divine, so it doesn't have to be, right? Cause I kind of want this to be an arcane spell.Last edited by DemonSlayer; 2009-06-05 at 06:28 AM.
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2009-06-05, 06:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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2009-06-05, 07:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Well change the world "universe" out for "plane" and you've got it more accurate.
Enough/quickly deployed walls of force could contain them to stop their spread, I believe, even if they weren't persisted to the point of outlasting the cubes unless the cubes conjuration can either bypass walls of force or be held until it can be released rather than fizzling due to not being able to be released through the surface of either the cube itself or another of the adamantium cubes.
I'd say describe the growth of the mass of cubes as each cube sprouts another cube from one of its open faces or the nearest open face of another cube in the same continuous mass of cubes, preferring to spread first in a manner parallel to the "ground" of the plane or otherwise described as "horizontal" if such an idea is discernible on the plane and then inevitably growing deeper as less "horizontal" faces become open compared to the number of cubes waiting to be 'birthed.' (This being so that it spreads out area wise first rather than basically risking becoming a tower, however improbable.... unless you just want a collapsed/collapsing pile of adamantium cubes to basically squish the world first by making it into a collosal ball pit.... Possibly actually physically destroying much of the world due to the impact of the cubes due to their weight and adamantium ignoring hardness...
Where does the DC 11 Will save to successfully bestow life come in? Is that the effect of the life seed or sommat?
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2009-06-05, 10:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
A divine focus is a holy symbol.
Where does the DC 11 Will save to successfully bestow life come in? Is that the effect of the life seed or sommat?
The wall of force idea could certainly work of the casters found out soon enough... in just 5 minutes there'd be more than 1000 cubes already in place. Try hedging that in .
I'll clarify how they spread out; to my, they'd spread out kind of randomly (though each cube would cast as close to itself as possible), since, well, they're cubes. Not much spatial awareness going on .
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2009-06-05, 12:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Have you thought of any rules for killing (rather than containing) them? How much hp do they have, can they be sneak attacked, which spells affect them/which spells they're immune to? Can their ability to spawn new cubes be nullified?
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2009-06-05, 05:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
You also want it to destroy whatever it is that's already there - so you can use the Transform seed, instead, for the power - it's a new critter (CR ... whatever ... doesn't matter too much) that has the ability to Transform another arbitrary object into a copy of itself (complete with the ability to Transform other objects). It's actually a pretty straightforward use of the Transform seed. Plus that gives you the option of making it a Swift action (you don't need to mitigate the Transform ability to 0 prior to attaching it to the creature like you do with the Create ability). Make sure you go to the expense of making the transformation an Ex ability, and it can't be dispelled and won't go away in an AMF; as it is by default Permanent, you're set.
Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.
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2009-06-06, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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2009-06-06, 12:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
This is awesome. Of course, it demands being cast in conjunction with a free action Epic Planeshift to somewhere not cubey. By the way, the material plane is limited, right?
Something has to go; me, or this wallpaper
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2009-06-06, 12:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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2009-06-06, 12:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Planets, however, are very much not infinite. Nor are crystal spheres... which should by all rights stop this spell dead in its tracks, because, well, they're impervious to just about everything.
Also it's possible to circumnavigate the Great Wheel without resorting to portals. So the planes are only infinite in a few directions I guess?
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2009-06-06, 12:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Why exactly do you need +14 Will on the cubes? You need DC11, which means you need +9 modifier (natural 1 is a fail either way, there's a 1/20 chance per cube that your pile doesn't quadruple every minute, but increases in a lesser percentage.)
That would reduce the DC by 10...
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2009-06-07, 07:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Have you thought of any rules for killing (rather than containing) them? How much hp do they have, can they be sneak attacked, which spells affect them/which spells they're immune to? Can their ability to spawn new cubes be nullified?
You also want it to destroy whatever it is that's already there - so you can use the Transform seed, instead
Spell-like abilities don't require components or focuses of any kind.
And animated objects can use spell-like abilities if they have them.
Planets, however, are very much not infinite. Nor are crystal spheres... which should by all rights stop this spell dead in its tracks, because, well, they're impervious to just about everything.
Why exactly do you need +14 Will on the cubes?
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2009-06-07, 08:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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2009-06-07, 08:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Ok, updated the spell:
ENDING (Conjuration [Creation])
Spellcraft DC: 10
Components: V, S, XP
Range: 5 ft.
Duration: 24 hours
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 90.000 gp; 2 days; 3600 XP.
Seeds: conjure (DC 21), animate (DC 25), fortify (DC 17). Factors: Three additional cubes (+6 DC), grant 1 HD (+8 DC), grant spell like ability (ending) (+79 DC), add 5ft. to range (ad hoc +2 DC). Mitigating factors: Burn 14.800 XP
This spell starts out completely harmless, creating three adamantine, animated cubes, each 1 cubic ft. in size. The cubes have 5 hit points each, but have additional hit points for being adamantine. They have one HD each.
Cubes have no sensen, and therefore always count as flanked. They are constructs and have construct traits.
Each cube has a spell-like ability which duplicates the effect of the Ending spell, but since it is a spell-like ability rather than the actual spell, using the spell-like ability burns no XP and requires no casting roll. The spell-like ability is usable once per day, and the cube will use the ability as soon as it is created, creating three more cubes. The cube's spellcasting can be dispelled, but other attacks will not stop the cube from casting. Since they are mindless, their concentration cannot be broken.
Cubes exist for only 24 hours, but that is more than enough to do their terrible world. In 24 hours, this spell will have easily covered the entire atmosphere of a planet in self-reproducing adamantine cubes. This would extinguish all life on a planet. Even then, per round more new cubes would be spawned than old cubes would vanish. Eventually this spell could extinguish all life on a single plane.
XP cost: 14.800
Ok, added stuff on fighting/resisting the cubes. I also used animate instead of life, so that I no longer need to boost their will save. Which saves me a LOT on DC. So now the spell is that much cheaper XP-wise, and that much easier DC-wise...Last edited by DemonSlayer; 2009-06-07 at 08:42 AM.
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2009-06-07, 08:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Conjure, Life and Compel seeds
Give +13 then. With -4 penalty, and +13 base, you get +9. You fail at natural 1 either way, so that lets you get 11 most efficiently. Only 2 lower DC, but every bit counts.
But now that I use the animate seed instead of the life seed, they don't need a will save anymore .