Our Illithid Overlord - Alternate, slow Pun-Pun [3.5e]

[Adumbration]

Now, just today I was reading the killer penguin thread (here), and it got me thinking: is there any way to beat the thing? I came up with this:

I think I've come up with a new way of arbitrarily increasing your character level above the HD of the killer penguin, as well as gaining more abilities than you could possibly imagine. It merely relies on a large amount of accessible 'cattle', as in, people to feed on. And no, it doesn't use a vampire.

Start with an illithid. You go about your illithid life, as any other mind flayer, eating brains, having fun, scheming against your friends, you know the drill. But as you do so, you acquire an abnormal interest in arcane. You take 9 ranks in Knowledge (Arcane).

Then you manage to slay something powerful, say a young adult black dragon. You devour it's brain. Ta-dah! The next time you gain a level, you take a level in Illithid Savant. Here begins your path to ULTIMATE POWER! You slay and devour many, many more creatures and brains, gaining knowledge and class features and experience.

Then you enter the 5th level of illithid savant. You have a clear goal in mind. You use your newfound powers and knowledge to scry and kill a barghest. As you devour it's brain - an irony of ironies - you become aware that you have another option available to you.

Now you do not devour brains alone, you feed on entire corpses of the ones you've slain, gaining hitdice while at it. Now you may move away from feeding on powerful creatures, for even the lowly peasants can provide you with moar dakka. You take your pick from the higher level entities for additional class features and powers.

You come across a curious object. It's a bottle, made out of green glass, capable of storing your memories and experience. You do just so, and seek the services of a level-draining creature. You allow it to drain your levels - or, rather, your newfound hitdice - and then retrieve the experience from the bottle, but rather than acquiring hitdice again, you take more character levels.

You proceed on this path until you are powerful enough to take on gods, gaining divine salient capabilities.

Then you take on the killer penguin.

EDIT: And that, children, is how the illithids will come to rule the world. Or an illithid, rather. No competition allowed.

It's a slow-entry Pun-Pun, I believe, but I think it's a rather neat monster. Does anyone spot a problem along the path - apart from the natural book-to-the-head method any sane DM will employ? Have I reinvented something old, or is this particular method perhaps new?

TL;DR:
Illithid Savant using Barghest Feed special attack to gain arbitrary amount of HD, converted to character levels via level drain and Thought Bottle. Also able to gain any and all feats, class features, special attacks and special qualities.

[Asbestos]

And he only needs to eat 3000 or so meals to take on the penguin at equal terms!
His only real limitation appears to be the size of his stomach.

[Flickerdart]

Using Illithid Savant always makes crazy things happen, but this one is the craziest yet. Definitely beats my Awaken infinite loop, both in speed and abilities gained (that loop would take 1500 days to gain 3000 HD, but you'd get a nice chunk of +3000 Charisma (+4500 if Maximized) that you could use to romance the penguin or something).

[Lycanthromancer]

Using Illithid Savant always makes crazy things happen, but this one is the craziest yet. Definitely beats my Awaken infinite loop, both in speed and abilities gained (that loop would take 1500 days to gain 3000 HD, but you'd get a nice chunk of +3000 Charisma (+4500 if Maximized) that you could use to romance the penguin or something).

And you end up with a penguilithid. With pentacles.

[Volkov]

Using Illithid Savant always makes crazy things happen, but this one is the craziest yet. Definitely beats my Awaken infinite loop, both in speed and abilities gained (that loop would take 1500 days to gain 3000 HD, but you'd get a nice chunk of +3000 Charisma (+4500 if Maximized) that you could use to romance the penguin or something).

I will now soak my brain in lye to clear my mind of that thought.

[Gamerlord]

To the homebrew-mobile!

[Alavar]

Um, I'm almost certain that the Barghest's Feed ability requires you to feed on creatures with Hit Dice greater than your own. So unless something in the Illithid Savant class changes that, you're probably out of luck with this build.

[streakster]

Um, I'm almost certain that the Barghest's Feed ability requires you to feed on creatures with Hit Dice greater than your own. So unless something in the Illithid Savant class changes that, you're probably out of luck with this build.

Just start a barghest farm. Get a trap of summon monster, fill them up, then have them eat each other until they're high enough HD to be food.

Could probably automate that, actually. A super-barghest dispenser...

[Edge]

When a barghest slays a humanoid opponent, it can feed on the corpse, devouring both flesh and life force, as a full-round action...

The barghest only advances by consuming the corpses of creatures whose Hit Dice or levels are equal to or greater than its own current total...

It seems the illithid is limited to only consuming humanoids equal or greater than himself...

It's tricky to pull off, but it works.

[crazedloon]

Just start a barghest farm. Get a trap of summon monster, fill them up, then have them eat each other until they're high enough HD to be food.

Could probably automate that, actually. A super-barghest dispenser...

but they (and thus you) can only go up to 18 hd

"The barghest only advances by consuming the corpses of creatures whose Hit Dice or levels are equal to or greater than its own current total. A barghest that reaches 9 Hit Dice through feeding immediately becomes a greater barghest upon completion of the act. "

"A greater barghest can reach a maximum of 18 Hit Dice through feeding. "

which leads to the weird question when you gain 9 hd with this ability do you become a greater barghest....

[streakster]

but they (and thus you) can only go up to 18 hd

"The barghest only advances by consuming the corpses of creatures whose Hit Dice or levels are equal to or greater than its own current total. A barghest that reaches 9 Hit Dice through feeding immediately becomes a greater barghest upon completion of the act. "

"A greater barghest can reach a maximum of 18 Hit Dice through feeding. "

which leads to the weird question when you gain 9 hd with this ability do you become a greater barghest....

Dang. Maybe a giant lycanthropic strain mixing center?

[Flickerdart]

For reference, here's my Awaken loop:

METHOD:
Step 1: Dominate/Geas/Mindrape/otherwise compel an Arcane caster to cast PAO on you, turning you into any animal.
Step 2: Dominate/Geas/Mindrape/otherwise compel a Druid or Archivist to cast Awaken on you. You gain +1d3 CHA, and 2 HD.
Step 3: Get your Arcane caster to cast Enervation to remove those HD from counting for Awaken's Will save.
Step 4: Get your Arcane caster to PAO you into your original animal form.

Maximizing or Intensifying the Awaken will make you gain the stats faster, but the process is still limited by the casting time of Awaken: 24 hours.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

but they (and thus you) can only go up to 18 hd

"The barghest only advances by consuming the corpses of creatures whose Hit Dice or levels are equal to or greater than its own current total. A barghest that reaches 9 Hit Dice through feeding immediately becomes a greater barghest upon completion of the act. "

Technically, the illithid isn't a barghest, and so wouldn't turn into a greater barghest and hit the limit.

[Dixieboy]

For reference, here's my Awaken loop:

METHOD:
Step 1: Dominate/Geas/Mindrape/otherwise compel an Arcane caster to cast PAO on you, turning you into any animal.
Step 2: Dominate/Geas/Mindrape/otherwise compel a Druid or Archivist to cast Awaken on you. You gain +1d3 CHA, and 2 HD.
Step 3: Get your Arcane caster to cast Enervation to remove those HD from counting for Awaken's Will save.
Step 4: Get your Arcane caster to PAO you into your original animal form.

Maximizing or Intensifying the Awaken will make you gain the stats faster, but the process is still limited by the casting time of Awaken: 24 hours.

I am pretty sure that awaken replaces your cha/int. ^^;

[NEO|Phyte]

Technically, the illithid isn't a barghest, and so wouldn't turn into a greater barghest and hit the limit.

That's the kind of logic that got us Pun-Pun to begin with.

[crazedloon]

Technically, the illithid isn't a barghest, and so wouldn't turn into a greater barghest and hit the limit.

well with that logic than there is no benefit for eating bodys due to

"A barghest advances in Hit Dice by consuming corpses in this fashion. For every three suitable corpses a barghest devours, it gains 1 Hit Die, and its Strength, Constitution, and natural armor increase by +1. Its attack bonus and saves improve as normal for an outsider of its Hit Dice, and it gains skill points, feats, and ability score improvements normally. "

again reference to only barghest benefiting

[taltamir]

yummy crunchy brains and their delicious arbitrary bonuses.

[taltamir]

For reference, here's my Awaken loop:

METHOD:
Step 1: Dominate/Geas/Mindrape/otherwise compel an Arcane caster to cast PAO on you, turning you into any animal.
Step 2: Dominate/Geas/Mindrape/otherwise compel a Druid or Archivist to cast Awaken on you. You gain +1d3 CHA, and 2 HD.
Step 3: Get your Arcane caster to cast Enervation to remove those HD from counting for Awaken's Will save.
Step 4: Get your Arcane caster to PAO you into your original animal form.

Maximizing or Intensifying the Awaken will make you gain the stats faster, but the process is still limited by the casting time of Awaken: 24 hours.

you can willingly fail a will save so step 3 is not necessary. And step 4 is only useful for ENDING the loop... as long as you are in it you should just repeat step 1 again (PAO into animal rather then PAO into original form and then PAO into animal again)

I am pretty sure that awaken replaces your cha/int. ^^;

only if you are a tree (or other thing without a score). if you are an animal it adds to it.

[Prime32]

I thought Pun-Pun used Manipulate Form by definition. You can easily get that by eating a sarrukh's brain though.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

That's the kind of logic that got us Pun-Pun to begin with.

Indeed. Aren't poorly-worded abilities and technicalities wonderful?

[JeminiZero]

Meh. Illithids could already breed unkillable frankenstein trolls to hold off such a monster.

All they really need is some means of actually damaging the sucker. That means finding enough bizarre weapons that overcome its regen to equip their army, or using some psionic power that can damage it, and than spamming it via the affinity/synchronicity/font of power loop.

Illithid Savant using Barghest Feed special attack to gain arbitrary amount of HD, converted to character levels via level drain and Thought Bottle. Also able to gain any and all feats, class features, special attacks and special qualities.

I might be missing something, but does hit dice automatically mean more XP? E.g. Say you're a level 3 Illithid with 3000 xp (yes I know thats too low for the abilities mentioned above, this is just an example with low number that is easier to digest). And he eats someone to gain a 4th HD. Does he automatically jump to level 4 with 6000 xp? Or does he have 4 HD and still 3000 xp, sort of like a reverse LA, which disconnects HD from XP.

[Flickerdart]

you can willingly fail a will save so step 3 is not necessary. And step 4 is only useful for ENDING the loop... as long as you are in it you should just repeat step 1 again (PAO into animal rather then PAO into original form and then PAO into animal again)

The original animal form, as in the one that started the loop...it says animal. Right there. Also, Awaken requires that the caster pass a Will save that's calculated based on HD of the target, which will be a ridiculously high number pretty fast, thus negative levels are needed to keep it down. There was a thread to refine the method already.

[sofawall]

Meh. Illithids could already breed unkillable frankenstein trolls to hold off such a monster.

All they really need is some means of actually damaging the sucker. That means finding enough bizarre weapons that overcome its regen to equip their army, or using some psionic power that can damage it, and than spamming it via the affinity/synchronicity/font of power loop.



I might be missing something, but does hit dice automatically mean more XP? E.g. Say you're a level 3 Illithid with 3000 xp (yes I know thats too low for the abilities mentioned above, this is just an example with low number that is easier to digest). And he eats someone to gain a 4th HD. Does he automatically jump to level 4 with 6000 xp? Or does he have 4 HD and still 3000 xp, sort of like a reverse LA, which disconnects HD from XP.

Increasing in HD does not increase XP. Someone who contracts Lycanthropy and gains a ton of animal HD has a LONG way to go before their next level.

[Volkov]

Meh. Illithids could already breed unkillable frankenstein trolls to hold off such a monster.

All they really need is some means of actually damaging the sucker. That means finding enough bizarre weapons that overcome its regen to equip their army, or using some psionic power that can damage it, and than spamming it via the affinity/synchronicity/font of power loop.



I might be missing something, but does hit dice automatically mean more XP? E.g. Say you're a level 3 Illithid with 3000 xp (yes I know thats too low for the abilities mentioned above, this is just an example with low number that is easier to digest). And he eats someone to gain a 4th HD. Does he automatically jump to level 4 with 6000 xp? Or does he have 4 HD and still 3000 xp, sort of like a reverse LA, which disconnects HD from XP.

To stop one killer rockhopper penguin is hard. To stop the entire race which can gather in rookeries of millions in the far-realm is border-line impossible.

[Flickerdart]

To stop one killer rockhopper penguin is hard. To stop the entire race which can gather in rookeries of millions in the far-realm is border-line impossible.

Then you'll just have to destroy the Far Realms. I'm pretty sure that having the plane you're on destroyed kills you, no save.