How does Summon Spirit fit in here?
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The only interaction I see is a cost reduction in the negotiation, and a significant increase in the length of the negotiated task. I guess it makes it closer to a permanent 18 HD - can be class levels - companion (So essentially a nigh permanent cohort for 1800 GP every CL minutes? You could get a bunch with several uses, but each additional one adds a temporary negative level (as effectively permanent as the ghost).
--
In addition to Frostbite, options include:
Demiplanes - Huge volume
Greater Dispel Magic - yikes. Essentially targeted Mage's Disjunction on creatures
Holy Word - CL independent function on successful save
Icy Prison - works even on save
Finger of Death - works even on save
Reach Slay Living - works even on save
Wail of the Banshee - doesn't work at all on save
Others probably.
I think Frostbite (maybe tagged with Elemental Spell) will work on most everything but undead and constructs.
Thantopic Finger of Death/Slay Living will probably deal with undead, and Icy Prison will probably deal with constructs (that aren't outright immune to magic anyway) -- Id like lower level options, if available
I especially like the idea of spawning a ~ 16 mile radius quasi-sphere of ice around my opponent with Icy Prison. (A million inches is a lot - I'm lowballing this thread at merely a million CL). That sphere would last a million minutes -> 694 days. It would have hardness 0 and 3000000 hp. And would require a STR check of 1000015 to break. I imagine somebody might be able to target sections of the sphere to tunnel out more quickly than the spell otherwise suggests.
What other spells are affected by absurd CL?
I'm looking for thing beyond the obvious time/range boost.
I suppose any class SP and SU abilities could also be considered (as one could just dip Witch/Sorcerer/Magus/Arcanist to qualify)
(N.B. I don't think any of this will fly with a sane GM, but there is some humor in observing the absurd)
>.>
<.<
... no one ever said I was sane...
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Animate dead can be terrifying if you can ever get your hands on enough onyx to make it worth the effort.
I've seen a large number of arguments that the caster level is only checked at the moment of the cast, so if it dropped afterwards, we wouldn't be losing control of the undead. If we assume that's the case, this becomes downright terrifying, as we can boost our caster level, animate as many undead as possible, and then sally forth with them.
We may not even need the onyx if we can use blood money and a summon slave crystal, although it will take longer. First we'll use summon monster IX to summon a Ghaele Azata and possess it via our summon slave crystal (chosen because it was medium and wouldn't throw off the formation too badly). We'll cast blood money, taking 24 strength damage to the Azata to generate 12,000g worth of material components, followed immediately by animate dead to animate 480 HD of undead. One quick restoration to get rid of the ability damage, and we're back on route to animate some more dead.
By my calculations, assuming we don't use deathwine, or undead mastery, or any animation unique tricks, we can animate 5,737,596 HD of undead, or 8,606,394 HD if we have a one level dip in Juju oracle for the Spirit Vessels revelation. This would take 11,954 castings of animate dead/restoration to reach that cap, or 17,930 castings for the character with the Juju oracle dip.
We could probably get more animated out of each cast if we got our Azata through planar binding, and then let it borrow a +6 strength belt. At this point, I'd be willing to invest in the manual of strength to get it a +5 inherent bonus to strength. That'd get us 17,000g worth of onyx each cast, for 680 HD of undead, bringing us down to just 8,438 and 12,657 casts of animate dead, respectively.
Assuming we burn all of our fourth level and up spell slots on animate dead but one. Saving that last spell slot for planar bindings and emergencies. Also assuming we are are not a mystic theurge, and are not using pearls of power, largely to make the math easier, we should be able to cast animate dead 37 times a day, with the occasional spell leftover. It will take the straight caster 229 days to animate all of the undead, with the caster with a juju oracle dip taking 343 days.
If we do use pearls of power, the number of days saved is drastic. While every pearl of power has a depreciating value, this is only due to affecting a reduced number of days, as the previous pearls of power used have already reduced the number of days necessary. Ten fourth level pearls of power save us 45 days as a straight caster and 67 days if we had the oracle dip. Given the amount of clout we're swinging here. 160k in pearls shouldn't be an issue. Interestingly enough, it takes 56 pearls of power, or 77 for the juju oracle dip build, before the addition of a new pearl of power no longer reduces the time of this process by at least one full day. At that point we're taking 92 and 113 days, respectively, to finish.
This is all, of course, assuming that an Azata would even tolerate a plan to animate 5+ million HD of undead. Among the other, myriad assumptions in this post. This is by no means something to do, but it was fun to think about and math out.
There are probably better ways to do it too. Anthropomorphic animal and awaken can definitely let us take a high strength creature and turn it into something we can use for blood money shenanigans, but I haven't trawled the list recently to see what's worth bipedaling.
Now I'm curious, though. What would you actually do with 8,606,394 HD worth of undead? If you make them into 1 HD zombies, it will be more zombies than the population of New York City.
*edit*
I just realized the logistics of gathering all of these corpses into one location, and it's quite horrifying. I was thinking about the number crunching of animating our not-so-little army, and didn't realize the practical genocide that would have to happen prior to its creation. There would have to be literally millions of corpses, piled close enough that you can reach 680 of them at a time. I know the casting time is a standard action and all, but I don't think I could poke that many people within 6 seconds, even if they were all laying still.
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Animate dead can be terrifying if you can ever get your hands on enough onyx to make it worth the effort.
<snip lots of fun undead shenanigans>
So, going to help out on this one - just make sure your coven has a Winter Hag (or some sort of Hag) so that you get ALL those Coven Spell like abilities. And cast Animate Dead to your hearts content over and over and over and over...
See: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/hag
That means - Animate Dead. As a spell like ability. Which means, no focus, no material components, no verbal, no somatic, etc. So, no more worries about costs. Muahahaha. Similarly, works well for that pesky Simulacrum spell if you have a Winter Hag - no more worries about rubies and ice sculptures and what not.
So - onyx issue put to rest. Time to overrun the world with undead and simulacra.
Animate dead can be terrifying if you can ever get your hands on enough onyx to make it worth the effort.
<snip lots of fun undead shenanigans>
So, going to help out on this one - just make sure your coven has a Winter Hag (or some sort of Hag) so that you get ALL those Coven Spell like abilities. And cast Animate Dead to your hearts content over and over and over and over...
See: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/hag
That means - Animate Dead. As a spell like ability. Which means, no focus, no material components, no verbal, no somatic, etc. So, no more worries about costs. Muahahaha. Similarly, works well for that pesky Simulacrum spell if you have a Winter Hag - no more worries about rubies and ice sculptures and what not.
So - onyx issue put to rest. Time to overrun the world with undead and simulacra.
That even overcomes the issue with time. Now we just need a literal mountain of corpses and we're good to go. If we're willing to cast desecrate first, and we should be, we could animate them all in a single round.
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You know, hypothetically speaking, a caster could do this by themselves, with the simulacrum. It would, at least, explain where all those witches with the Coven hex were coming from...Note also that the winter hag adds simulacrum to the coven list as a spell like ability... So it wouldn't cost a bunch either.
That catapults mine, Onyxlion's, and Kain's old coven aiding thing from "possible but completely impractical needing thousands of different high level casters" to "reasonably practical for one caster and a hag, given enough time." And the transformation patron gives beast shape III (diminutive) at 10th, which is early enough for a simulacrum of a 20th level witch to get it, so the full 625 aid anothers per space is reasonably practical as well. Heh, wow. Cool. Thanks.
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As long as we are going full on with the coven SLAs, we could consider all witch simulacrums to be subject to Baleful Polymorph (bat), as a more permanent transformation to diminuitive than beast shape. I'd shamelessly slaughter the bats that failed their second save for being too weak
Then you don't need to be high level either.
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Okay, but only if the lead witch intends to use her immense caster level to fight crime!
(You still want the simulacrums to have at least +9 on their Aid Another caster level check, though)
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Okay, but only if the lead witch intends to use her immense caster level to fight crime!
Ha!
I think I made my leaning on the pro/anti crime thing clear with
I'd shamelessly slaughter the bats that failed their second save for being too weak
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As far as I can tell, the minimum level for assured success is 12 - a few well positioned level 6 simulacrum clerics with magic domain (variant channel) and quick channel will give a blanket +3 to caster level checks, which will ensure success for the level 6 simulacrum bat witch swarm.
Level 12 is also where sorcerers and arcanists (accursed bloodline) would get access to the simulacrum spell to produce the winter hag and self-copy for the 3 member coven initiation fee -- though they could grab scrolls earlier.
I realize level 10 simulacrums (of level 20 PC classes) are much more hardy in battle -- But it is not always assured that a GM will allow you to generate a caster stat block on the fly - especially for high level casters. (I personally wouldn't have an issue with someone making a simulacrum of a PC class of an equivalently leveled character, but would raise an eyebrow at a level 10 character getting a (effective 10) simulacrum of a level 20 character - I recognize this is not a problem to some people)
It probably doesn't matter, though, if a GM is already going to allow the !?!?! CL that we're aiming for.
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(Technically it might not be "slaughter" - they're not "creatures", per se, but "spell effects" so you might be able to squeak by...)
((Enjoying it too much, though, is right out...))
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In addition to Frostbite, options include:
Demiplanes - Huge volume
Greater Dispel Magic - yikes. Essentially targeted Mage's Disjunction on creatures
Holy Word - CL independent function on successful save
Icy Prison - works even on save
Finger of Death - works even on save
Reach Slay Living - works even on save
Wail of the Banshee - doesn't work at all on save
Others probably.
Control Winds 40 ft./level radius cylinder 40 ft. high
For every three caster levels, you can increase or decrease wind strength by one level.You can wreak havoc to everything outside the "eye" that contains your helpers.
/cevah
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I just got the Ranged Tactics Toolbox, and saw the Seeking Spell Metamagic Feat (Link)
I immediately thought of this thread.
-- Now the Death Star Witch + Bat Swarm doesn't even need to *see* the targeted opponent (though it may be assumed that a curved line of effect must exist between caster/opponent).
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More fun:
Control Water water in a volume of 10 ft./level by 10 ft./level by 2 ft./level
Fire Storm two 10-ft. cubes per level (S)
Forbiddance 60-ft. cube/level
Glyph Of Warding object touched or up to 5 sq. ft./level
Glyph of Warding, Greater object touched or up to 5 sq. ft./level
Guards and Wards up to 200 sq. ft./level
Hallucinatory Terrain one 30-ft. cube/level
Heavy Water cylinder of water (5-ft. radius/level, 30 ft. deep)
Hex Glyph object touched or up to 5 sq. ft./level
Hex Glyph, Greater object touched or up to 5 sq. ft./level
Locate Creature circle, centered on you, with a radius of 400 ft. + 40 ft./level
Locate Object circle, centered on you, with a radius of 400 ft. + 40 ft./level
Mage's Private Sanctum 30-ft. cube/level
Mirage Arcana one 20-ft. cube/level
Path Of Glory four 5-ft. squares/level (see text)
Path Of Glory, Greater four 5-ft. squares/level (see text)
Quench one 20-ft. cube/level (S)
Repulsion up to 10-ft.-radius/level emanation centered on you
Reverse Gravity up to one 10-ft. cube/level (S)
Screen 30-ft. cube/level
Soften Earth and Stone 10-ft. square/level; see text
Spellscar two 10-ft. cubes per level (S)
Spike Growth one 20-ft. square/level
Spike Stones one 20-ft. square/level
Teleport Trap one 40-ft. cube/level (S)
Transmute Mud to Rock up to two 10-ft. cubes/level
Transmute Rock to Mud up to two 10-ft. cubes/level
Village Veil one 10-ft. cube per level
Vinetrap radius spread of up to 10 ft./level, 90 ft. high
At high level, imagine the fun you can have flooding the land, whipping the winds so high that buildings fail, glyphs that ward countries, hide what a country really looks like with hallucinatory terrain, and so on. Add to that the effects of metamagic to widen, intensify, and otherwise exaggerate these spells.
/cevah
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Putting the thread on a tangent:
Magical Crafting feats require specific Caster Levels. And the crafter of Constructs then has to meet a minimum Caster Level on top of that. Most of the suggestions in this thread pertain to the casting of spells, or rely on short-lived bonuses. But what if you want to create a Golem at the lowest possible level?
The Orange Prism Ioun Stone could be used to meet the feat requirements one level earlier (if you could afford it), and AEther and Death Knell could conceivably be used during the crafting process. But from what I can tell, all the other sources of bonuses either work only on spells, or would have to be refreshed every six seconds, eight hours a day for a few weeks...
Did I miss any? I'd love to have a 4th level Adept follower cranking out Wax Golems if I keep him funded (and high on aether).
Sharesister looks like it could give you up to a +3, depending on who's casting it (but, since you're looking at a 4th level adept, it's probably just going to be a +1, and that via a magic item). It specificially notes that it increases the [caster level] and the [spell DCs] (as two separate things) for the duration.
That's about all I've got, though.
Still, that should net you an (effective) CL 7, enough for craft construct though not the CL 9 needed for wax golems.
I thought there was a demon or daemon that could enhance your magic, but I can't find it, I'm afraid.
Aaaaaaaaaaaactually, I just realized, you could take the spell, create a magic item that used it "at will" (totally possible with the Spellcraft Check and Aid Another) with an 11th caster level.
Choose a fifth level anyone to give the item to, and gain a +2 instead of a +1.
If you want to go for broke, depending on your interpretation, you actually can do so rather well. Get a single homunculus, and make it your gender (easily done), but increase it's HD to 7 or more. You can then tool your share sister item to a CL of 16, and the homunculus can take 6 negative levels.
It's possible that the Construct subtype is not subject to negative levels, in which case, it doesn't matter... but the description doesn't actually say that (only "energy drain").
With the extra +2 that you get from the homunculus, you get a grand total of the CL 9 you need for making wax golems.
Voila, and enjoy! :D
All of this can be done by a 4th level adept.
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Nice one! But...
It's possible that the Construct subtype is not subject to negative levels
I'd be more concerned with the sex issue: I'm not so sure that giving a Homunculus a penis makes it "male"...
All of this can be done by a 4th level adept.
...with a sugar daddy or fairy godmother - the costs are staggering. But hey, that was the basic premise anyway.
** spoiler omitted **
The only interaction I see is a cost reduction in the negotiation, and a significant increase in the length of the negotiated task. I guess it makes it closer to a permanent 18 HD - can be class levels - companion (So essentially a nigh permanent cohort for 1800 GP every CL minutes? You could get a bunch with several uses, but each additional one adds a temporary negative level (as effectively permanent as the ghost).
No, I'm meaning that Incorporeal creatures can inhabit the squares of other creatures, incorporeal or not, so, with this in mind, you could have up to 19 18HD witches per witch within the sphere (or the water elemental).
Right? My rules-fu has always been lacking.
But how many incorporeal witches can dance on the head of a pin?
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High level caster's *Raise Dead*
I was reminded of this thread and thought of a way to increase the CL bonus from the coven. Crunching the numbers, I found my number smaller than the +1,434,372 that Kain Darkwind came up with. So I looked at his numbers and found two errors.
Using the ring and Fools for Friends does create a bonus of +3 per witch.
...
625 diminutive witches per 5 ft. cube.
The Fools for Friends is a trait bonus to the check being aided, so it won't stack with another aid.
Also, diminutive are 1', so you get 5*5*5 per cube, or 125. The 625 is 5 squared and squared again.
That brings that CL down to +191,248. Only 13.33% of the original calculation. But I did find a way to pump it back up some.
A beast bonded witch with the agility or animals patron gets Animal Shapes at 16th level. This has the effect of a Mass Beast Shape III, at an hour per level and a target per level for each use of the spell. Additionally, they can get a magic jar effect to upgrade their body to a colossal body that has swallow whole. This means you can swallow a gargantuan creature or the equivalent in smaller creatures. That is, your internal capacity is a 20' cube [64 cubes at 5']. Additionally, as a gargantuan creature, the 30' distance is from your outside, not the center of your space. That gives you, inside and out, a total of 2056 cubes at 5'. With each cube holding 125 coven members who are flying, that is a total of 257,000 members of the coven. With the Ring of Tactical Precision making the aids into +2, that gives a bonus of +514,000 CL from the coven alone.
/cevah
I got *confused* and cast *raise dead* again.
Perusing some traps, I found the Mage Breath trap.
Mage breath boosts magical abilities, increasing the effective caster level of spellcasters within the mist by two. In addition, ...
So this is an untyped +2 CL. The downsides are mitigated by a DC 16 fort (easily made at this level), and if failed, a DC 15 will (also easily made) allows the caster to ignore its effects for that round.
/cevah
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For every diminutive grippli that is adjacent to the main caster, 3 levels of investigator with the effortless aid talent can allow all of them to use their aid another three times per round, so long as they're adjacent.
So the main caster is gargantuan, meaning 20 squares are adjacent on the same level and 36 squares are adjacent both above and below the caster, so a total of 92 adjacent squares. 92 square's worth of coven members can have 3 levels of Investigator and each provide 3 aid another actions. At +2 per witch per aid (for a total of +4 per witch added to the equation) and 125 witches per square, the ones adjacent provide an additional 138,000 (125*92*6*2), making the CL based on what Cevah stated 652,000
My post made the witch a colossal creature, or 6x6x6 cubes. This gets 294 adjacent cubes outside and 60 adjacent cubes inside for 44,250 coven members. However, the coven's Aid Another can be done within 30', so all members could do this.
However, I don't think multiple aid another actions from the same person. Essentially the "same source" stacking issue.
If it did, that would be +1,542,000 CL from the coven.
/cevah
My post made the witch a colossal creature, or 6x6x6 cubes. This gets 294 adjacent cubes outside and 60 adjacent cubes inside for 44,250 coven members. However, the coven's Aid Another can be done within 30', so all members could do this.
However, I don't think multiple aid another actions from the same person. Essentially the "same source" stacking issue.
If it did, that would be +1,542,000 CL from the coven.
/cevah
Reviving this thread to observe that the duration of the ascension spell, which grants a (normally extremely temporary) mythic tier 1, is 2 hours per caster level (4 with a greater extend rod).
Starting with a straightforward CL 21 (20th level, ioun stone) and a baseline of the +514,000 CL from 257,000 coven members from Cevah a few posts up, that gives us a coven-assisted caster level of 514,021 when we first cast ascension. That means that you, a nonmythic caster, can make yourself tier 1 mythic for 234 years and change, which is already a pretty attractive entry in the list of things you can actually use your super CL for.
But you can also do the same for 171,340 (one per three caster levels) of your closest friends. They are only mythic while within 100 ft of you (assuming you carry the focus), but this entire exercise already involves getting all your helpers closer to you than that...
Furthermore, this makes the mythic improvement option accessible without the fairly hard requirement that the caster must already be in a Mythic game as well as the extremely hard requirement that they must already possess enormous numbers of mythic marshal coven-witch friends with the Perfect Aid path ability. Mythic options for further increasing the CL never got much attention in this thread. Presumably because if not just you but also all the helpers have to be mythic, well, that's a completely impractical corner case...
...but it's no longer impractical at all if you don't have to find hundreds of thousands of mythic marshals, you can create them without even needing to start out mythic yourself. I think not requiring all the helpers to start out mythic makes it more reasonable to factor this in.
Using the nonmythic CL boost to cast ascension twice will allow you to make the entirety of your initial coven into mythic marshals and thus get Perfect Aid on every Aid Another boost you receive (adding, effectively, 257,000d6+257,000 caster levels to the amount you will get from Aid) for a total, assuming average die rolls, of 514,000 (calculated by Cevah) plus 1,156,500 (Perfect Aid) = +1,670,500 from the coven alone.
Without requiring you to be in a Mythic game.
Here's a couple thoughts.
Squeezing. A creature's space is it's fighting space. A creature can squeeze into only half that space without a check, though taking some ac and atk penalties.
Additionally, entering another creature's space is allowed if 3 sizes smaller than said creature or if the 3 smallest size categories including diminutive.
Both of these should allow significantly more allies into range.