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Thread: The Lesser Infinite Loop
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2010-09-28, 04:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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The Lesser Infinite Loop
Google searches related to this idea have identified similar, but far more complicated (and admittedly powerful) infinite loops. As far as I know, people have focused on the "you can get infinite spells by making yourself immune to celerity's stunning effect" in combination with greater arcane fusion and metamagic reducers to get infinite 7th level spells.
However, the combination of Greater arcane fusion, sanctum spell in a non-sanctum area, rapid metamagic, and any spammable 4th-level or lower spell of your choice appears to be capable of generating any combination of known 4th-level or lower spell effects in one round, with the cost investment of one eight level spell (to cast the initial Greater Arcane fusion).
To wit:
1: Cast Greater Arcane Fusion, using an eighth level slot. You now have a 7th level spell and a 4th level spell you can immediately (in the same round) cast without using additional slots, as long as the casting time is one standard action for each spell.
2: Pick Sanctum Spelled Greater Arcane Fusion. The spell is treated as one level lower for all purposes, including save dc and so forth, thanks to rapid metamagic it is castable as a standard action. You can now blanket the field with any combination of 4th level or lower spells known to you at no cost. So you can hit everything in line of sight with force orbs, spam anything within 30 feet with wings of flurry, cover the battlefield in stinking cloud/solid fog/web/glitterdust, and buff your party with overland flight for the day with the one eight-level spell slot. Furthermore, whenever you're done setting up nasty spell effects (Sanctum Spelled Cloudkill for example), you can use the last 7th level spell and close the loop on a Greater Dispel Magic or similar.
Also interesting to note is you can use the same loop with arcane fusion to get infinite second-level spells via heavy use of sanctum spell. Since I beleive rapid metamagic can be gained no earlier than 12th level the lesser loop is of some interest as it only requires one 5th level slot.
Why bother with this/why is it interesting when far more powerful loops are avaialble? It's simple!
1: Minimal feat investment. (three feats assuming there is a prerequisite for sanctum spell) Minimal cost. (One eigth level spell slot or one Fifth level slot for the second level spells)
2: Negligible ramp-up time. (The action to cast the initial Greater Arcane Fusion is all that is required. No dancing in an out of an absorbtion field for hours or relying on ten million lackey casters and cooperative spellcasting or circle magic, or bothering Pazuzu)
3: Only one part of the chain involves any gray/debatable area in terms of adjucation. It's a simple DM fix to address the imbalance (address Sanctum spell).
4: Doesn't rely on traditional metamagic reducers for the abuse, such as incantatrix, Improved metamagic, Arcane Thesis et. al.
5: Versatility! Any 4th-level or lower spell (5th level if you want to sanctum spell those too) is spammable for an infinite/arbirarily high number of times for one round, with no extra resource cost and no additional negative afteraffects (Stunning/dazing, etc). Y'know, aside from the environmental damage wrought by cloudkilling everything in line of sight.
The reason I bother posting it is
1: It doesn't show up on the first few pages of google, so it's possible no one has thought of it before. Even if someone has (and if someone comes in here in the next three posts with a link and says "nuh-uh, X came up with this idea on the old boards two years ago), this particular flavor of loop isn't something I've seen bandied about before, although its components are in a more coplex loop with a higher resource cost (templating for immunity to daze).
2: for an infinite damage combination I find it refreshingly direct. It involves no difficult-to-acquire templates, large and convoluted feat combinations, or dodgy uses of spell effects- once you've resolved Sanctum Spell as working the way people appear to use it in this sort of thread, the application is straightforward.
3: I thought of it.
Discuss!
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2010-09-28, 05:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
Yes, this works as noted. And yes, someone has already figured it out. Don't remember who, when, or where, but I've been around these forums and the forums formally known as CharOp for some time, and have been aware of this trick.
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2010-09-28, 05:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
I'm not that good at following:
Why is it infinite?
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2010-09-28, 05:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
You cast a Greater Arcane Fusion (8th level spell). It gives you a free 7th level spell slot and a free 4th level spell slot that are cast immediately as part of the casting of GAF. As your 7th level spell, you cast a SANCTUM Greater Arcane Fusion (effectively a 7th level spell), and any SANCTUM 5th level or lower spell. Sanctum Greater Arcane Fusion gives you another 7th level spell, and another 4th level spell. You plug SANCTUM Greater Arcane Fusion into the 7th level slot, and have another free 4th level slot. You keep doing this ad nausium until you run out of enemies or your DM hits you with a book.
GAF provides the slots and the actions, and Sanctum Spell reduces the spell level enough to fit into the spell. All you need is something to reduce the casting time on MMed Sanctum Spells, which the Rapid Metamagic feat does for you.
Its essentially recursing GAF into itself.
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2010-09-28, 05:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
I knew it! When you get a good idea it is a rare occurrence if someone hasn't thought of it first. However, untill someone finds the older source, I'm the first to publish! I was hoping it had been overlooked since combo-ing with celerity gives infinite 7th level spells (really 8th)
In any case, it's infinite because repeatedly selecting Sanctum Spelled Greater Arcane Fusion as the 7th level spell cast by Greater Arcane Fusion keeps getting you more and more 4th level spells to play with. The extra spells don't cost you anything, and they all go off at once. A lot of the really powerful infinite loops require extensive run-up time, this let's you say
"After doing this three thousand times I select Force orb for the fourth level spells. The opponent takes an axtraordinarily large amount of damage and is blown into its component atoms. Also I'll keep it up for enough solid fog to cover the surrounding square mile, and glitterdust every square that doesn't contain myself or party members... forty times."
"...Oh hey fighter, it's your initiative now."
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2010-09-28, 05:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
Do note that you can apply Sanctum Spell to the lower level slot too, which allows you to cast infinite 5th level spells. You know, just in case you want to Baleful Polymorph someone 15,000,000 times to make sure they have a good chance to fail their save.
Also, while you can CLAIM credit, I doubt you'll actually get credit. As I said, I'm pretty sure someone on the old CharOp forums already came up with it. Unfortunately, WotC is TERRIBLE with their forums, and a bunch of the old content was lost in the Gleemax migration. A wealth of information and knowledge and threads that will boggle your mind were all lost in a single key stroke.
Just because the source of the knowledge was destroyed, doesn't mean the knowledge was destroyed, or that the next person to write it down after the destruction can be credited as its developer in the absense of previous records.
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2010-09-28, 05:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
Take an 8th level spell slot
- 8
Casting Fusion allows you to instead cast one 7th and one 4th immediately
- (7)+4
But instead of using a normal 7th level spell (as intended), you cast a special reduced level Fusion instead, replacing your 7 with another 7+4
- (7+4)+4
Keep doing this, using each 7 to give yourself another chance (and an extra 4)
- 7+4+4+4+4+4+4+...
A clear exploit, which I feel is best handled by having the Sanctum Spelled Arcane Fusion instead provide a 6th and 3rd level slot (as per one level lower for all purposes).
With this adjustment the chain stops nicely.
- 8
- (7)+4
- (6+3)+4
Addendum:
Even with the second rule, Heightened, then normal Arcane Fusion could be applied.
- (5+2)+3+4
- (4+1)+2+3+4
And a Final round of Sanctum Arcane Fusion on those 4s
- (3+0)+1+2+3+(3+0)
So the maximal Action economy you could get from the non-infinite ruleset would be:
3 3rd level spells
1 2nd level spell
1 1st level spell
2 Cantrips
Not bad for certain situations, overall a useful trick to add flexibility and action economy, but probably comparable to other 8th level spell slot and multiple feat combinations.Last edited by sdream; 2010-09-28 at 05:48 PM.
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2010-09-28, 05:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
Yeah, neat trick, but I swear I've seen it before... ON THESE VERY BOARDS!
dun dun dun....
Disclaimer: Above message may contain inanity, irrelevant silliness, and/or madness. Viewer Discretion is Advised.
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2010-09-28, 05:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
why resolve sanctum spell, it may have uses for other things. Just resolve GAF itself.
PC: I cast GAF, my 4th level slot is force orb, my 7th level slot is sanctum GAF
DM: That sounds dodgy, I'm gonna rule that you can't GAF in a GAF.
PC: rats, guess my 7th level slot will be <insert awesome 7th level slot here>Last edited by soulchicken; 2010-09-28 at 05:46 PM.
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2010-09-28, 09:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
I've seen this go both ways, that it is and isn't allowable.
Some say it is, for obvious reasons pointed out above.
Some say it isn't, because GAF checks the spell level before Sanctum Spell is applied. i.e. since GAF is an 8th level spell, even if it occupies a 7th level slot it is still an 8th level spell.
I have no real opinion between the two positions. I can see both.Last edited by BeholderSlayer; 2010-09-28 at 09:23 PM.
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2010-09-28, 09:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
Sanctum Spell quite clearly says that it the spell is a lower level for all intents and purposes. Which is why Sanctum Spell is broken.
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2010-09-28, 09:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
I know it says that. That's why I can see both arguments. It isn't a 7th level spell until Sanctum is applied, so if GAF checks spell level before Sanctum is applied, it doesn't matter that sanctum makes it a 7th level spell after the check.
Basically it's a chicken or the egg conundrum.Last edited by BeholderSlayer; 2010-09-28 at 09:48 PM.
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2010-09-28, 10:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
Proudly without a signature for 5 years. Wait... crap.
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2010-09-28, 10:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-09-29, 12:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
Yep, that clinches it. Except for the part where that's not what Sanctum Spell says at all.
What it actually says is, "All effects dependent on spell level (including save DCs) are calculated according to the adjusted level." The spell is not a lower level, but its effects are calculated as if it were.
(If more is needed, it also says, "A sanctum spell uses a spell slot of the spell's normal level." Which says to me that if you get spells of level X from some source other than spell slots, then they too will use a spell of level X to cast a sanctum spell -- not X-1 nor X+1.)I support paladins and the alignment system.
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2010-09-29, 07:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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2010-09-29, 08:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
I have it in a build on mythweaver's that's been up for a while. I'm 100% certain I was not the first person to notice it, as I've seen references to it that predate my build. By now, Im afraid it's fairly well known.
The "lesser" bit is confusing as well. This implies there is only something like two or three possible infinite loops in 3.5. This is definitely wrong.
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2010-09-29, 08:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
Could somebody tell me the sources for greater arcane fusion and Sanctum Spell? (And if gaf is in the Spell Compendium, if you could provide the source of the spell prior to SC, that'd be greatly appreciated.)
Muchos gracias!John Ling
Frog God Games Lead Pathfinder Developer
Note: unless explicitly stated otherwise, opinions in my posts are my own and not those of Frog God Games.
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2010-09-29, 08:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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2010-09-29, 08:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
If this is Lesser, is there a Least, Greater , and Dark Infinite Loop?
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2010-09-29, 09:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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2010-09-29, 09:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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2010-09-29, 09:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Do I contradict myself?
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2010-09-29, 09:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Lesser Infinite Loop
John Ling
Frog God Games Lead Pathfinder Developer
Note: unless explicitly stated otherwise, opinions in my posts are my own and not those of Frog God Games.