Chicken Infested Builds

[JeminiZero]

Dear Forum, partly inspired by this thread, I am trying to come up with a viable build centred around the Chicken Infested Commoner Flaw, mainly for laughs. I am already aware of the exalted flaming chicken thrower, but I am now trying to come up something else. My only idea so far has been...

The War-Cluck: 1 Commoner / X Warlock. Combine Warlock Dead Walk, and a limitless supply of chickens for... a personal army of Zombie Chickens! You have to be at least 1 Commoner / 6 Warlock to start off. And you need some means of quick-drawing as many chickens as needed, and killing them all as a move or free action. Then you could animate their corpses with a standard action in the same round.

E.g. Since you can animate 2x your warlock level in undead, at 1 Commoner / X Warlock, you need to quickdraw X * 2 HD worth of chickens or X * 4 live chickens since they are 1/4 HD, becoming 1/2 HD on Zombification (I assume they are 1/4 HD based on the rather similiar Raven). After quickdrawing them, you need to kill them in a move or free action, and then you can animate them all as a standard action in the same round. If anyone knows of any feat, abilities or combinations thereof that allows one to kill such large numbers of quickdrawn chickens as move or free action, let me know.

Even if doing so as a move action is not possible, as long as you can generate a huge number of quickdrawn dead chickens, as a Full round action, you could make a stockpile of chicken corpses in the 1st round, and then animate a portion of it each subsequent round.

The method of last resort is to build the chicken corpse pile before the fight starts, the normal slow way, and shove them all into a bag of holding. And then flip the bag inside out when you need them (as with any other Warlock, really except you can garuntee your corpse supply in between fights).

Of course, even if I do manage to pull off animating (Warlock level * 4) zombie chickens per round, I'm not sure how viable the build will be. The zombie chicken attacks will only hit on a natural 20, so at level 7 (warlock 6) with 48 zombie chickens in your army, one might expect 2.4 hits per round, doing a measly 1 HP or so damage per hit. Not much damage, and any sort of DR will stop all damage. But presumably, being mobbed by 48 zombie chickens should be more than enough to stop whatever enemy you are facing dead in its tracks (and any killed can be quickly replenished), while the Wizard tries to nail them with a Split Ray Chained Enervation.

And this scales to a total of 152 zombie chickens at level 20 (warlock 19) averaging 7.6 hits per round. One might try to enhance the damage using Corpse Crafter and Deathly Chill to add 1d6 cold damage per hit, giving 2.4-7.6d6 cold damage (average 8.4-26.6) per round which is rather poor damage. Fortunately you have your other Warlock abilities to back you up.

One might also add Destructive Retribution for a 10' 1d6 negative energy burst on undead chicken death. The trouble of course is that the burst has a tendency to kill you should you get caught in it and the party fighter flanking enemy being meleed by chickens, unless you have tomb tainted soul. Trouble then becomes that your undead chicken horde is useless against the undead (since killing a chicken heals both your chicken army and the enemy undead they are meleeing). However, if you do take Destructive Retribution/Tomb Tainted Soul, you can suddenly heal yourself, on top of flooding your enemies with suicide bomber chickens.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Ways of Killing NI quickdrawn chickens per round? Other possible Chicken Infested builds?

[Cuddly]

Commoner 1/Cleric19. DMM persist greater consumptive field.

[marjan]

Ways of Killing NI quickdrawn chickens per round?

Fell Flight. Though you would need to be at least lvl8 Warlock for this. Any form of flying will do. Just fly 10ft above ground and drop chickens. Some might survive (what's HP of chickens anyway), but you should be able to kill at least 1/6 of total amount of chickens drawn.

[JeminiZero]

Commoner 1/Cleric19. DMM persist greater consumptive field.

Hmmm... If I recall correctly Consumptive field grants you temp HP, Str bonus and caster level bonus when cast. Is it applied immediately to anything entering it, or only at the end of your turn? If the former, you can consume chickens immediately upon drawing them, and can effectively consume NI chickens for NI bonus. If the latter, than you can only consume as many chickens who can fit in your field at the end of each round.

Fell Flight. Though you would need to be at least lvl8 Warlock for this. Any form of flying will do. Just fly 10ft above ground and drop chickens. Some might survive (what's HP of chickens anyway), but you should be able to kill at least 1/6 of total amount of chickens drawn.

Depending on who you ask, Chickens may or may not have flight speed. If they do have flight speed, then they can't be dropped to death.

If they don't have flight speed, then you could actually pull something like this off at Warlock 6, provided you had a surface to spiderwalk on. But you would have to spend time moving from the ground up and back again should you run out of chicken corpses mid-fight.

It would be more ideal if you could just kill the Chickens immediately when they are quick drawn. Maybe ranks in Profession: Poultry Neck Snapper? Gloves that deal damage to something in your hand as a free action?

[Swooper]

...Ok, what the hell? I've seen wacky stuff in D&D before, but spontaneously generating chickens? Where is this from?

[JeminiZero]

...Ok, what the hell? I've seen wacky stuff in D&D before, but spontaneously generating chickens? Where is this from?

This post explains the flaw and how it might be abused.

So you can try and come up with builds based on this flaw that are less abusive (and more DM acceptable) than flooding the world with Chickens. Because the only thing funnier than killing your enemy, is doing so with massive numbers of spontaneously generated chickens.

Notably, Arcane and "Mundane" Ranged Builds aren't nearly as compatible with this flaw since you may draw a chicken when you really wanted a spell component, or ammo for your mundane ranged attack. (Edit: Unless Chickens are your Ammo, as with the Exalted Flaming Chicken Thrower.)

[monty]

It's a special commoner flaw from one of the Dragon magazines (don't have time to check which one right now). There're a couple of others too.

[Zenos]

When you need to escape a monster that TPK'ed your party, just make a five mile high pilar of chickens. Good bye monster, I'm now five miles higher than you!

Or just fill the room with chickens so it suffocates.

[Swooper]

Wait a second. By the logic presented in the post you linked, the same thing could be done with a single spell components pouch, on the assumption that it never runs out. You don't create chickens, but you can do essentially the same with... oh, I don't know, bat poo?

It's really just a silly interpretation of the simplification of spell components pouches... but then, filling the world with chickens in the blink of an eye is pretty awesome in a way, so I forgive you

[jcsw]

Quick Draw only allows you to draw weapons as a free action, IIRC, good thing the material component of Melf's Acid Arrow is a dart, so there are a NI amount of darts in a spell component pouch for you to use.

And btw, chickens can still use their wings to slow their fall, although I'm not sure how far you can drop them before they can't survive.

Yeah, and the greater consumptive field thing is sick, try fell animate DMM-ing it.

[MorkaisChosen]

Commoner 1/ Cleric 2 (to get 3 Hit Dice and the next feat) with Profane Lifeleech. Generate an arbitrary number of chickens as a free action and Lifeleech them for HP.

Drunken Master builds are impressive- TWF chickens for damage...

Take Solo's Battle Bard, add something to make opponents flat-footed (Hold Person is good), and Iaijutsu Chicken them to death.

[Solo]

Wait a second. By the logic presented in the post you linked, the same thing could be done with a single spell components pouch, on the assumption that it never runs out. You don't create chickens, but you can do essentially the same with... oh, I don't know, bat poo?

Turn a Decanter of Endless Sand on flow, throw it in a Bag of Holding, and start drawing out handfuls of sand.

Next!

[Fishy]

This sounds like a job for Nanobots. Say, Commoner 1/Swordsage X/ Exemplar. Create an arbitrary number of chickens with 13 ranks in Jump, have them all Aid Another at you, ascend into Valhalla in a blur of feathers and clucking, to never be seen in the mortal world again.

Except that doesn't actually work, because you don't have control over the chickens. Hrm.

EDIT: Infinite chickens + Exemplar + Handle Animal?

[JeminiZero]

Quick Draw only allows you to draw weapons as a free action, IIRC, good thing the material component of Melf's Acid Arrow is a dart, so there are a NI amount of darts in a spell component pouch for you to use.

True. I suppose any Chicken Infested build would have to rely on spell component pouch free action draw then.

Commoner 1/ Cleric 2 (to get 3 Hit Dice and the next feat) with Profane Lifeleech. Generate an arbitrary number of chickens as a free action and Lifeleech them for HP.

Its not really an arbitrary number of chickens. You can only fit so many chickens within Profane Lifeleech's 30' burst. And each chicken only provides 1 HP (if you assume the Chicken is like a Raven). Although it is a good way for an evil cleric to heal early on, before he gets consumptive field.

You could also tag on a 1 Cleric/1 Commoner splash on any primary Cha build (since Rebuke Undead gains more uses with higer Cha). Maybe even the War-Cluck described above.

Take Solo's Battle Bard, add something to make opponents flat-footed (Hold Person is good), and Iaijutsu Chicken them to death.

Where is this Iaijutsu from and what does it do?

EDIT: Infinite chickens + Exemplar + Handle Animal?

I'm not sure how well that would work. It is impractical to transport thousands of trained chickens around since they can be killed quite quickly in a fight. You might use this to help the wizard craft stuff in the safety of your base, but not to boost the AB/AC of a fighter in mid combat.

[MorkaisChosen]

Oriental Adventures, Iaijutsu Focus basically lets you deal+someD6 damage when you attack a flat-footed enemy immediately after drawing a weapon.

[Wabbajack]

Commoner1/ anything with base willsave 5 and 15 int and cha

Just take the dark speech feat, a wand of restoration and craft an army of chicken hiveminds^^

[Duke of URL]

I'm thinking Dread Necromancer with a Fell Animated Negative Energy Aura active. The zombie chickens don't rise until your next turn, but you can keep the supply going indefinitely round to round, limited only by how many chickens you can pack into the aura's radius, and how fast the zombie chickens can move out. Once you've started the cycle, you don't even need to take move or standard actions to continue it (though, controlling/changing commands for the zombies does require an action).

Tack on Destructive Retribution, pack a wand of a low-level AOE spell, and start the kamikaze chicken runs.

[Solo]

Oriental Adventures, Iaijutsu Focus basically lets you deal+someD6 damage when you attack a flat-footed enemy immediately after drawing a weapon.

You make a Iaijutsu check, modified by charisma.

A result of 10-14 gives you 1d6 additional damage, 15-20 gets you 2d6, etc, etc, caps at 9d6.

[Aquillion]

Wait a second. By the logic presented in the post you linked, the same thing could be done with a single spell components pouch, on the assumption that it never runs out. You don't create chickens, but you can do essentially the same with... oh, I don't know, bat poo?

Brilliant! We now have an answer to what happens when you start to fill the world with chickens: A wizard, somewhere in the world, must have Celerity memorized. He sees a solid wall of chickens approaching from all corners of the earth, stretching from horizon to horizon, all the way up into the stars. With his genius-level 36 int, he realizes in an instant what has happened... and he responds by casting celerity and frantically trying to pull bat poop out of his spell component pouch quickly enough to block the encroaching tidal wave of chickens off.

[Tokiko Mima]

Brilliant! We now have an answer to what happens when you start to fill the world with chickens: A wizard, somewhere in the world, must have Celerity memorized. He sees a solid wall of chickens approaching from all corners of the earth, stretching from horizon to horizon, all the way up into the stars. With his genius-level 36 int, he realizes in an instant what has happened... and he responds by casting celerity and frantically trying to pull bat poop out of his spell component pouch quickly enough to block the encroaching tidal wave of chickens off.

Kind of like a 'grey goo stopped by bat poo' scenario....

Technically, just with the fireball spell components, you could create a massive gunpowder based explosive device as a free action, since manipulating spell components is also a free action.

[JeminiZero]

I'm thinking Dread Necromancer with a Fell Animated Negative Energy Aura active. The zombie chickens don't rise until your next turn, but you can keep the supply going indefinitely round to round, limited only by how many chickens you can pack into the aura's radius, and how fast the zombie chickens can move out. Once you've started the cycle, you don't even need to take move or standard actions to continue it (though, controlling/changing commands for the zombies does require an action).

Tack on Destructive Retribution, pack a wand of a low-level AOE spell, and start the kamikaze chicken runs.

My main concern with taking Chicken Infested with any sort of component requiring Caster, is that when you actually want spell components, you may end up pulling Chickens from your pouch (warlocks don't require components and so this isn't a concern). Also:

Even if you kill several creatures with a single Fell Animated spell, you can’t create more HD of undead than twice your Caster level. The standard rules for controlling Undead (PH p198) apply to Zombies created with this feat.

Which strictly means no matter how many chickens you pull fron thin air and kill with the spell, you can only animate 2x caster level HD worth of undead with a single casting.

Oriental Adventures, Iaijutsu Focus basically lets you deal+someD6 damage when you attack a flat-footed enemy immediately after drawing a weapon.

Right. Next question would be how are you going to catch your foe flat-footed. Hold Person would work, but if they are already held, they are pretty much dead anyway, and not everything can be held. Maybe Feint or Hide in Plain Sight?

Also, you won't be hitting very much with the chickens since they can't be enchanted, at least not without Drunken Master and VoP (as per the exalted flaming chicken thrower), or Psionic Meditation/Deep Impact or Fell Shot (does Iaiajutsu apply to range?).

Commoner1/ anything with base willsave 5 and 15 int and cha

Just take the dark speech feat, a wand of restoration and craft an army of chicken hiveminds^^

Never heard of Dark Speech so I tried googling it.

2. When used to create a hivemind among vermin, the speaker can affect up to 200 creatures under 1 HD. The speaker may also use the Dark Speech in additional ways. The DC for these powers is 5 + speaker's HD + speaker's Cha bonus. These abilities all deal 1d4 points of temporary Charisma damage to the speaker with each use.

If I understand this correctly, you can create a single 200 chicken hivemind, but you burn 1d4 Cha for each command you give it. What are the stats of a Chicken Hivemind, and how well does it scale?

Still no way of killing chickens as move/free action?

[Solo]

If only there was some way for you to Eschew Material components.

[Aquillion]

My main concern with taking Chicken Infested with any sort of component requiring Caster, is that when you actually want spell components, you may end up pulling Chickens from your pouch (warlocks don't require components and so this isn't a concern).

So? It's a free action. If you get a chicken, just try again until you get the bat poop.

[Cuddly]

Hmmm... If I recall correctly Consumptive field grants you temp HP, Str bonus and caster level bonus when cast. Is it applied immediately to anything entering it, or only at the end of your turn? If the former, you can consume chickens immediately upon drawing them, and can effectively consume NI chickens for NI bonus. If the latter, than you can only consume as many chickens who can fit in your field at the end of each round.

Anything with 9 or less HP within the radius (it lasts rounds/level) that fails it saves immediately dies. For each creature that dies, you gain +2 str, +1 CL, and +1d8 temp HP. CL caps at 1/2 total your original caster level.

[Emperor Tippy]

CL caps at 1/2 total your original caster level.

Which is why, once your CL is maxed, you recast it.

Original CL: 13
1st casting: 19
2nd casting: 28
3rd casting: 42
4th casting: 66
5th casting: 99

That should be enough for most purposes.

[JeminiZero]

If only there was some way for you to Eschew Material components.

Ah yes. How could I forget that feat.

Anything with 9 or less HP within the radius (it lasts rounds/level) that fails it saves immediately dies. For each creature that dies, you gain +2 str, +1 CL, and +1d8 temp HP. CL caps at 1/2 total your original caster level.

Which is why, once your CL is maxed, you recast it.

The question is whether "original caster level" refers to effective caster level (including consumptive field caster level bonus) when you (re)cast the spell, or your original unenhanced caster level. If the latter, then it won't stack up as quickly.

Still, Consumptive Field may be the solution to the Warlock Chicken Corpse Supply problem.

So you could make a Chicken Infested Eldritch Disciple, and when enemies shows up, cast Consumptive Field, and flood the field with Chickens (who die on entering the field). Cast Dead Walk on Chicken Corpses, and send out wave after wave of Zombie Chickens at your enemies. If and when your enemies do get close, they will be surprised when you smash them with your 300+ Str.

Edit: Anyone know of anyway of immediately commanding the chickens when they appear? Then you could use them directly as attack chickens, and the Nano-bot idea might be feasible.

[Emperor Tippy]

The question is whether "original caster level" refers to effective caster level (including consumptive field caster level bonus) when you (re)cast the spell, or your original unenhanced caster level. If the latter, then it won't stack up as quickly.

Any reference to caster level in any spell is referring to your CL at the time you cast the spell. No spell in the entire game makes a distinction between your unenhanced CL and your CL at the time of casting.

[JeminiZero]

Well, lets see if I got this correct:

Tentative Name: Unlimited Chicken Works

01: Commoner 1- Flaw: Chicken Infested, Flaw Feat: Extend Spell, Char Feat: Persist Spell, Human Feat: Able Learner
02: Warlock 1
03: Cleric 1-Char Feat: Practiced Spellcaster: Cleric
04: Cleric 2
05: Cleric 3
06: Eldritch Disciple 1-Char Feat: Practiced Spellcaster: Warlock
07: Eldritch Disciple 2
08: Eldritch Disciple 3
09: Eldritch Disciple 4-Char Feat: Divine Metamagic (Persist Spell)
10: Eldritch Disciple 5 (Warlock 6-Gain Dead Walk)

On level 10, you effectively have Warlock 6 / Cleric 7, and cast as Warlock 10/Cleric 10. You can DMM Persist Consumptive Field (which I think is spell level 4 and available at Cleric 7), and spontaneously produce chickens as a free action. On entering the field, the chickens die, giving you +1d8 temp HP and +2 Str, lasting 10 rounds. As a level 10 warlock, you can animate 20 HD or 40 zombie chickens/80 Skeleton Chickens in one casting of Dead Walk, each round. And you can do this all day long.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Domains for the Cleric? A better name?

[Douglas]

Two problems, one good, one bad:
Consumptive Field only kills things that are below 0 hp. You have to drop each chicken to negatives by some other means, and you have to be careful to not drop them all the way to -10 when you do. Greater Consumptive Field gets rid of this problem but is significantly higher level.

The bonuses from each death last as long as the field does - or all day, in this case. Kill 10000 chickens and you get 10000d8 temp hp and +20000 strength, all of which lasts for 24 hours or until someone dispels your Consumptive Field. Yes, this is broken.

Which is why, once your CL is maxed, you recast it.

Original CL: 13
1st casting: 19
2nd casting: 28
3rd casting: 42
4th casting: 66
5th casting: 99

That should be enough for most purposes.

The bonus from multiple Consumptive Fields doesn't stack with itself. You'd get this, instead:

Original CL: 13
1st casting: 13+6 = 19
2nd casting: 13+9 = 22
3rd casting: 13+11 = 24
4th casting: 13+12 = 25
5th casting: 13+12 = 25

Without adding certain other cheesy tricks to it, repeated castings of Consumptive Field cannot more than double your caster level.

[MorkaisChosen]

Right. Next question would be how are you going to catch your foe flat-footed. Hold Person would work, but if they are already held, they are pretty much dead anyway, and not everything can be held. Maybe Feint or Hide in Plain Sight?

1 level of Warblade- take Sapphire Nightmare Blade and max ranks in Concentration, so you can use SNB reliably (it requires you to beat the enemy's AC with a Concentration check). You can use SNB every other turn (and make a standard action attack in the turns you're not using it), allowing you to create Chickeny Death.

The Fell Animate Exploding Chicken build is better, though...

The bonus from multiple Consumptive Fields doesn't stack with itself. You'd get this, instead:

Original CL: 13
1st casting: 13+6 = 19
2nd casting: 13+9 = 22
3rd casting: 13+11 = 24
4th casting: 13+12 = 25
5th casting: 13+12 = 25

Without adding certain other cheesy tricks to it, repeated castings of Consumptive Field cannot more than double your caster level.

They aren't stacking, but your CL when you cast the second one is 19. This allows a maximum caster level of (more), so when you kill your next batch of 9999999999999999999999999 chickens, it goes up to (more).

Recast GCF. Create more chickens; your caster level now caps at (lots more).

Repeat ad nauseam.

The bonus isn't stacking, it's overlapping, but the cap is increasing, and since each Chicken Spam Attack allows you to increase your CL arbitrarily high (limited only by the cap), it goes up to the new cap. Recast, get a higher cap, get that cap as CL, recast...