How spontaneous can you get? [3.5]

[jcsw]

So we all know clerics get spontaneous cure spells (Unless they get spontaneous inflict spells)...

...And I happen to know there's a feat called initiate of lathander which allows you to cast [light] spells and spells with light in the name spontaneously... (And also gives you some useful spells)

But how many other types of spells can you cast spontaneously?

Specifically, if I wanted to make a spellcaster able to spontaneously convert his spell list into other spells to make the most versatile spellcaster ever, how would I go about it?

I say this because it's always fun to be able to change you list on the fly. And also keep a surprise up your sleeve.

DM: Hah. I bet you didn't expect him to be a Lich! All those mind affecting spells won't help you now!
Cleric: Sadly, you are right. Which is why I'm converting them into Celestial Brilliance. And then DMM chaining it to every object in the room.
DM: Facepalm

Things so far:
1. Cleric - Cure/Inflict spells
2. Druid - Summon Nature's Ally spells
3. Initiate of Lathander(Champions of Valor, IIRC) - [Light] and spells with light in the name
4. Sanctified Spells in both Champions of Valor and BoED allow good clerics to cast them spontaneously. They (almost) all drain your strength though.

[JMobius]

Tangential; but would those chained celestial brilliance castings stack? I thought they just created an area of light conditions such that they deal damage to certain creatures, which shouldn't stack as far as I can tell.

That said, DMM Maximized + Purified Celestial Brilliance is great broken fun.

[Swooper]

The cleric ACF in PHB2 (I think? Or was it CChamp?) allows you to spontaneously cast spells from one of your domain instead of cure/inflict spells. Can't have both though.

[Suzuro]

Favored Soul. Done.


-Suzuro

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Play a Sorcerer?

Alternatively, get Silent Image on your spell list, and go Shadowcraft Mage. I like doing it with Wizard, and tossing in a dip in Walker of the Wastes, Voyeristic Seer, Arcane Disciple, and a couple others. Spont casting off of a bunch of class lists, including any Evoc or about half of all conjuration spells out of slots one level lower than they are, any 8th level Cleric spell or lower out of an 8th level slot, and no material/XP component.

[Irreverent Fool]

The cleric ACF in PHB2 (I think? Or was it CChamp?) allows you to spontaneously cast spells from one of your domain instead of cure/inflict spells. Can't have both though.

Ah but you can. The Domain Spontaneity feat from Complete Divine lets you spontaneously cast spells from one of your domains by spending a turning attempt. You have to take it for each domain, but it's a good use for those turning attempts if you're not using DMM cheese.

[Zeful]

Tangential; but would those chained celestial brilliance castings stack? I thought they just created an area of light conditions such that they deal damage to certain creatures, which shouldn't stack as far as I can tell.

That said, DMM Maximized + Purified Celestial Brilliance is great broken fun.

The entire room would be covered with it. You wouldn't deal umpteemd6 damage from the overlap as area effects from the same spell don't stack.

[tyckspoon]

The Domain Spontaneity feat in C. Divine allows you to spend a turn attempt to spontaneously convert a spell to one from 1 domain, chosen upon taking the feat. So- Cloistered Cleric UA variant (bonus Knowledge domain) going into the Contemplative prestige class (primary benefit: more domains) and taking Domain Spontaneity as a large share of his feats. The Spell domain would be an excellent one to pick up this way- spontaneous (Greater) Anyspell sounds like nearly the best possible way to cover the concept of 'spontaneous versatility', with Miracle covering the higher spell levels if you take the design all the way to the very high end (the best possible way, of course, is the Shadow Miracle Gnome.)

[Irreverent Fool]

The entire room would be covered with it. You wouldn't deal umpteemd6 damage from the overlap as area effects from the same spell don't stack.

This is the same reason failing to dispel a stack of explosive runes doesn't destroy the earth.

[jcsw]

Favored Soul. Done.


-Suzuro

That would net you a pitifully small spell list...

And regarding Celestial Brilliance not stacking, can you tell me the reference, cause AFAIK there isn't any rule preventing the stacking.

[Zeful]

This is the same reason failing to dispel a stack of explosive runes doesn't destroy the earth.

Actually explosive runes isn't an area effect. Using the Book Dispel Strategy isn't valid because the first spell to resolve destroys the book.

[monty]

Play a Sorcerer?

Alternatively, get Silent Image on your spell list, and go Shadowcraft Mage. I like doing it with Wizard, and tossing in a dip in Walker of the Wastes, Voyeristic Seer, Arcane Disciple, and a couple others. Spont casting off of a bunch of class lists, including any Evoc or about half of all conjuration spells out of slots one level lower than they are, any 8th level Cleric spell or lower out of an 8th level slot, and no material/XP component.

Toss in Earth Spell, Easy Metamagic (Heighten), and Practical Metamagic (Heighten), and you can Miracle from a 7th level slot. Take Residual Magic and you can do it again the next turn from a 1st level slot. Keep in mind that you need to be a spontaneous caster with the Dragonblooded subtype for Practical Metamagic if I remember right.

That means you can spontaneously cast 8th level cleric spells and 7th level spells from any class with 7th/1st level slots. Oh, and with no XP/material costs.

[Talic]

Actually explosive runes isn't an area effect. Using the Book Dispel Strategy isn't valid because the first spell to resolve destroys the book.

The problem with that is that they don't resolve or fail to resolve sequentially. It's an all at once thing. So the first spell to resolve happens at the same time as the 2nd through 1376th.

[ForzaFiori]

The problem with that is that they don't resolve or fail to resolve sequentially. It's an all at once thing. So the first spell to resolve happens at the same time as the 2nd through 1376th.

how are u going to read all 1376 of those at once though? if they're in a stack, you read the top, and if it goes off, it'll destroy the others before you can activate them. If its in a book, you might get 2 to go off at once and destroy the others.

but either way, the rest will be destroyed before you have a chance to see what they are and activate them.

[RTGoodman]

how are u going to read all 1376 of those at once though? if they're in a stack, you read the top, and if it goes off, it'll destroy the others before you can activate them. If its in a book, you might get 2 to go off at once and destroy the others.

but either way, the rest will be destroyed before you have a chance to see what they are and activate them.

It's not reading it that's setting the "bomb" off - a dispel magic on them will set them off, too, and that's the basic plan. You just make a bajillion of them, give them to the (far-off) bad guy, and use dispel to set off the trap.

[Zeful]

how are u going to read all 1376 of those at once though? if they're in a stack, you read the top, and if it goes off, it'll destroy the others before you can activate them. If its in a book, you might get 2 to go off at once and destroy the others.

but either way, the rest will be destroyed before you have a chance to see what they are and activate them.

I call it a Book Dispel strategy. You take a spellbook and in your down time fill it with explosive runes. When it's full you prepare one Dispel magic to be used only for the purpose of failing the dispel role (I.e. declare your failing the dispel roll) triggering everysingle explosive rune in the book, destroying it. You then take during the villians monolouge and throw him the book (or have somebody else throw the book to him and ready an action to cast Dispel magic once he catches it. The book dentonates, dealing 100+d6 in a round.

[monty]

To make it really evil, have a Hulking Hurler throw the book.

[ForzaFiori]

I call it a Book Dispel strategy. You take a spellbook and in your down time fill it with explosive runes. When it's full you prepare one Dispel magic to be used only for the purpose of failing the dispel role (I.e. declare your failing the dispel roll) triggering everysingle explosive rune in the book, destroying it. You then take during the villians monolouge and throw him the book (or have somebody else throw the book to him and ready an action to cast Dispel magic once he catches it. The book dentonates, dealing 100+d6 in a round.

ah, ok. I hadn't heard this strategy.

sorry about my ignorance.

[MisterSaturnine]

To make it really evil, have a Hulking Hurler throw the book.

Hulking Hurlers--bringing new meaning to the term, "I'll throw the book at you," since 1937.

[Vva70]

Maximum spontaneity? Start as a Warmage (Complete Arcane). Take all 10 levels of the Rainbow Servant prestige class (Complete Divine). Ta-dah! You can now spontaneously cast from the entire cleric spell list. Not very optimal though, due to the loss of four levels of spellcasting. But cool.

[monty]

Hulking Hurlers--bringing new meaning to the term, "I'll throw the book at you," since 1937.

Especially since the book in question would have to be the size of a small moon to reach its potential (although, looking at the final stages of the build, it'd have to be larger than the known universe to tax his strength).

That's no moon...

[monty]

Maximum spontaneity? Start as a Warmage (Complete Arcane). Take all 10 levels of the Rainbow Servant prestige class (Complete Divine). Ta-dah! You can now spontaneously cast from the entire cleric spell list. Not very optimal though, due to the loss of four levels of spellcasting. But cool.

Well then there's the whole text-vs-table argument. By RAW, it's full casting progression, which is horribly broken for a warmage (or beguiler, or whatever).

[chiasaur11]

Especially since the book in question would have to be the size of a small moon to reach its potential (although, looking at the final stages of the build, it'd have to be larger than the known universe to tax his strength).

That's no moon...

That's the complete set of rulebooks and splats for DnD 10.7!

[Irreverent Fool]

Maximum spontaneity? Start as a Warmage (Complete Arcane). Take all 10 levels of the Rainbow Servant prestige class (Complete Divine). Ta-dah! You can now spontaneously cast from the entire cleric spell list. Not very optimal though, due to the loss of four levels of spellcasting. But cool.

Wow. That sounds like fun. I'm tempted to say that having the whole cleric list at your spontaneous disposal is the only the only thing worth losing spell advancement for, but sadly I know NOTHING is worth losing spell advancement.

[BobVosh]

Hulking Hurlers--bringing new meaning to the term, "I'll throw the book at you," since 1937.

It is worse when they throw dice at you :(

[Eldariel]

Shadowcraft Mage/Incantatrix with Spontaneous Divination, Practical Metamagic, Easy Metamagic and Earth Spell is pretty much unbeatable. 2.5 schools entirely spontaneous before gaining the ability to spontaneously cast Miracle, and thus any spell of 7th level or lower, in 7th level slots (and a turn later in 1st level slots too!). Add a little trick to infinitely recur the spellslots and you'll effectively be casting an infinite number of any spells all day from the same slots.

[jcsw]

Btw: Can anyone tell me the page with the rule that says celestial brilliance can't stack? I've never found the rule anywhere.

And warmage can't spontaneously DMM his spells. :P

[monty]

Add a little trick to infinitely recur the spellslots and you'll effectively be casting an infinite number of any spells all day from the same slots.

Now you've got my attention. I haven't heard of that before.

[Eldariel]

Now you've got my attention. I haven't heard of that before.

Well, not infinite per ce, but Echoing Spell [Secrets of Xen'drik] applied for free (Easy Metamagic, Practical Metamagic, Arcane Thesis, Incantatrix lvl 10, etc.) to all your Silent Images. Earth Spell (when active) increases your CL by 1 for every level you heighten the spell beyond the first, meaning you'll get epic CL buffs. Then you use Residual Metamagic to cast the next one with even bigger CL returns. This makes the CL -4 penalty pretty much a non-issue and while you can't really cast the spells infinitely, you can cast them maybe 8-9 times per spellslot. And applying this meta didn't cost you anything.

[jcsw]

Well, not infinite per ce, but Echoing Spell [Secrets of Xen'drik] applied for free (Easy Metamagic, Practical Metamagic, Arcane Thesis, Incantatrix lvl 10, etc.) to all your Silent Images. Earth Spell (when active) increases your CL by 1 for every level you heighten the spell beyond the first, meaning you'll get epic CL buffs. Then you use Residual Metamagic to cast the next one with even bigger CL returns. This makes the CL -4 penalty pretty much a non-issue and while you can't really cast the spells infinitely, you can cast them maybe 8-9 times per spellslot. And applying this meta didn't cost you anything.

Anyone have any methods of spontaneity that won't make your DM ban it?