Animating origami

[natael]

I'm trying to make a character that folds origami animals and then sends them off the fight/endure for her.

With the obvious craft(origami) aside, I'm starting to think this may be a little closer to impossible than I had thought... The only way I've been able to find that I could possibly accomplish this would be through the Animate Objects spell, or a Craft Construct feat, both of which have severe limitations. Animate Objects is a 6th level spell, making it not very accessible for repeated use till the higher levels, and Craft Construct has not only a high level requirement, but a large time requirement for every construction. So, my question is, does anyone know of a way I might be able to pull something like this off at a lower level? and be able to do it a decent amount of times a day?

I did look at shadow magic mystery that animates objects, but even that wouldn't be available until 10th level, and one could only use it 2 times a day, correct?

is there a way perhaps to do it with prestidigitation maybe?

thanks for any help you can provide with this

[Set]

natael wrote:

I'm trying to make a character that folds origami animals and then sends them off the fight/endure for her.

Options;

1) Some sort of Summon Monster / Summon Nature's Ally variant that replaces the material and somatic components with the (really, really fast) paperfolding act would be one option. It would be entirely cosmetic, at first, but once the character reaches 3rd level, she could take the Craft Wondrous Item feat and begin making one shot magic items that act as the spell (1/50th item creation costs for a one charge item seems reasonable). Alternately, her self-made Scrolls could require folding, rather than reading, to activate.

2) The GM might allow some sort of custom feat that allows her to add rounds to the duration by taking extra time with the crafting (and a Craft (paperfolding) skill check, with the difficulty based on how many extra rounds of duration she wants to build into one of her 'paper tigers'). She could thus spend an entire minute folding up a crane (stats as a summoned eagle) and have it last 9 extra rounds, so long as she makes a Craft (paperfolding) check at DC 10 + spell level + extra rounds (which would be 20, in this case, for a 1st level spell with 9 extra rounds).

3) Using the Summon Dustform Creature spell from Sandstorm as a basis, one could even summon up paper constructs of the creatures on the summon list, replacing any Celestial / Fiendish template with the Construct one. Instead of 'dustform,' they would be 'paperform,' and they might have a weakness vs. fire and any DR would be overcome by Slashing, for instance. Then again, that might be overly complicated and require creating and balancing a 'paperform' template against the Dustform, Celestial, Fiendish, etc. ones, so it might be easier to just rule that her 'paper tigers' become real, albeit temporary, tigers, or at least *function* as real tigers, even if they still appear to be made of folded paper and 'bleed' ink when damaged.

Rather than create a new system, look at what the game already provides, and try to work within that. She makes little critters out of paper, and the Summon Monster (or Summon Nature's Ally, Summon Dustform creature, Summon Ice Beast, whatever) spells already cover that, so try to tweak one of those spell options to fit what you are looking for.

[Fake Healer]

I would just use Summon Monster but with some flavor changes if you need them to be combatants. If you need to make something that is smaller and non-combatant, talk to your DM about creating a 0-level spell that lets you animate the construct with no combat abilities that can function out to a certain distance from the caster(with line of sight maybe) and can follow basic mental commands (follow, go that way, stay, run, return, stuff like that). Pretty much all stats would be low except maybe dex and use paper's hardness and HP for it. Also make sure that there is a limit on how many you can have at one time, maybe 6ish.

Edit- Great minds, eh Set?

[The Jade]

I created an origamist class for a game setting book last year. While I don't want to give away any of those ideas publically, playing such a character wound up being a sustainably good time.

Have fun with it. :)

[natael]

thanks! :D I hadn't even considered tweaking a summoning spell, but that should work out great. thanks a lot for the fast replies !

[Saurstalk]

Dragon Magazine, Issue No. 341, p.42:

Golem, Paper [CR01, N Sm. Construct (razor-critical cuts)]

[natael]

ok, So I think I figured out how to play it. My main questions now are if it seems over/under powered, I'm sure a few things will need to be tweaked... and if I should consider it as simply a wizard variant or a completely different class, which is just very similar to the wizard.

if it is better suited as a wizard variant, what else should I remove? maybe restrict another school?

to start, I took all the Conjurer variants from Unearthed Arcana, it says that all of them can be in a single character since they all remove different abilities. they can be seen here: Specialist Wizard Variants

and then I figured at first level the character would get a "Paperform Summoning" ability, something like this:

"With a successful Craft(Origami) check, the wizard is able to invoke her summoning through her paper creations. Creatures summoned this way gain special paperform characteristics."

a successful check would be: 10 + spell level (and something else maybe?)

for the special paperform characteristics, I was considering using the abilities from the Paper Golem, they don't seem too powerful, I've summarized them below :

Augmented Critical - the razor thin arms allow it to make lethal attacks, the creature threatens a critical hit on an 18-20 and deals x3 damage

Immunity to Magic - immune to any spell or spell like ability that allows spell resistance

Vulnerable to Fire - any fire spell deals an extra 50% damage, regardless if creature makes the save, paper creature also catches on fire, taking 1/2 the initial damage on the following round

Vulnerable to Slashing - creature takes additional 50% damage from slashing attacks

-----

I'm also thinking about how I should handle the creatures that can be summoned, I see that a
lot of the listed creatures gain another template, should I just say that the paperform ability cancels any other template that a creature may have, or would that severely hurt the higher level summon monster spells? once again, thanks for all the help!

[Set]

natael wrote:

"With a successful Craft(Origami) check, the wizard is able to invoke her summoning through her paper creations. Creatures summoned this way gain special paperform characteristics."

a successful check would be: 10 + spell level (and something else maybe?)

for the special paperform characteristics, I was considering using the abilities from the Paper Golem, they don't seem too powerful, I've summarized them below :

Augmented Critical - the razor thin arms allow it to make lethal attacks, the creature threatens a critical hit on an 18-20 and deals x3 damage

The base creatures (even if Fiendish or Celestial) are limited to 20/x2 crits, so even a 19-20/x2 crit is going to be a marked improvement. 18-20/x3 seems a bit much, IMO.

natael wrote:

Immunity to Magic - immune to any spell or spell like ability that allows spell resistance

Giving the paperform construct the same Construct immunities that the Dustform and Ice Beast creatures get (standard Construct immunities from the SRD / MM) should be fine. Total immunity to spells is way too much, IMO.

natael wrote:

Vulnerable to Fire - any fire spell deals an extra 50% damage, regardless if creature makes the save, paper creature also catches on fire, taking 1/2 the initial damage on the following round

This is a neat idea, and would balance out the Construct Immunities.

natael wrote:

Vulnerable to Slashing - creature takes additional 50% damage from slashing attacks

If limited to Construct Immunities and 19-20/x2 crits, this would be unneeded for balance, IMO. If using immune to spells and 18-20/x3 crits, it should be retained, and some other limitation added, as those are some pretty radical abilities when compared to the Celestial and Fiendish templates!

natael wrote:

I'm also thinking about how I should handle the creatures that can be summoned, I see that a lot of the listed creatures gain another template, should I just say that the paperform ability cancels any other template that a creature may have, or would that severely hurt the...

Definitely. The Dustform and Ice Beast templates replace the Celestial and Fiendish templates, and they give only the Construct immunities (and some natural armor, IIRC), so you definitely shouldn't stack Celestial / Fiendish on top of Paperform (particularly since Fiendish in particular includes Damage Reduction and Fire Resistance, which would end up insulating the Paperform critter from it's main weaknesses!).

[Gary Teter]

This probably isn't precisely what you're looking for, but you might find this RPG Superstar Top 32 magic item interesting: Paper Folding Instructions of Master Mo.

[natael]

Thanks Set, all of your suggestions make perfect sense. I had missed the default construct immunities, and they do seem a lot better than the ones the paper golem used. 19-20/x2 is better too.

do you have any suggestions on how I should present the class? ( as in wizard variant vs stand-alone base). I'm leaning towards trying to make it work simply as a wizard variant, but it seems to powerful to label that way.

As for Paper Folding Instructions of Master Mo, that is a great item! It wont work directly with what I'm trying to do there, but I definitely want to try and use it another time. thanks for pointing it out!

[kickedoffagain]

natael wrote:

do you have any suggestions on how I should present the class? ( as in wizard variant vs stand-alone base). I'm leaning towards trying to make it work simply as a wizard variant, but it seems to powerful to label that way.

[posting under another login, this is Set]

The Dustform creature and Ice Beast spells were designed to be balanced with the Summon Monster spells, and the paperfolding replacing the other material/somatic components is just cosmetic, so I'd consider this perfectly suitable to just call a variant spell line, and play a base Wizard (or Sorcerer, whichever). Use your spells known / spells learned class features to pick up the next level of 'Summon Paperform Creature X' and it's good to go.

If you later want to customize Scribed Scrolls or Wondrous Items as Origami constructs, that also is more a cosmetic thing than a game mechanical change, and, as long as your DM is cool with it, you're good to go.

A stand-alone 20 level class based on Paperfolding would likely be a much more complicated beastie, with a much smaller spell selection and perhaps some Monk abilities? In any case, I'd avoid that.

Wizard (or Sorcerer) with some tweaked Summon Monster spells. Usable right out of the box, really. You could also have some of your other spells follow the theme as well. Color Spray could resemble brightly colored streamers and ribbons of paper flying from your sleeve and perplexing your foes. A Fireball could appear as a small red origami flower that spins through the air lazily to it's target and then unfolds and unfolds and unfolds, filling the entire 20' radius with red paper 'flames' that burn for very real damage. Your Mount spell might create a full-sized horse made of folded paper that you ride.

So long as there are no mechanical effects, and it's all cosmetic, or, as with the Summon Paperform Critter spells, any changes are balanced against pre-existing content (and I'd really advise against tweaking any other spells, changing the Summon Monster spells is *more* than adequate for a dramatic change!), I wouldn't have any problem allowing such a character into a standard 3.5 game.

Actually, I'd probably prefer it to someone who took those Conjure Ice Beast / etc. spells from Frostburn / Sandstorm, since combining various features of those books (Feats that enhance cold / fire spells, the spells themselves, and then PrCs that further enhance cold / fire spells) they tend to get pretty scary.

[natael]

ok, I typed up a template/spell description. Reading the Ice Beast template, I found I liked the way it was worded better than the Dustform, so most of this is based off of ice beast. I also found a better way to utilized a Craft(origami) check, which I think fits nicely with the concept of paperfolding. I uploaded the pdf to rapidshare here: Paperform Creature

again, any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[Mark Moreland]

The Jade wrote:

I created an origamist class for a game setting book last year. While I don't want to give away any of those ideas publically, playing such a character wound up being a sustainably good time.

Have fun with it. :)

Sounds awesome. What book? I'll check it out if it's in print.