Weld the golem legs on before you make them half-dragons. Does that work?
(Surely you can make a half-dragon without intercourse, right? ...do trolls even have sex? I think they reproduce via mitosis.)
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Weld the golem legs on before you make them half-dragons. Does that work?
(Surely you can make a half-dragon without intercourse, right? ...do trolls even have sex? I think they reproduce via mitosis.)
I've added a note on the pros/cons of using Antimagic/Null Psionics with the legion.
Unfortunately they have to be born as half dragons first, and only after that can we think about applying grafts. They can't acquire the half dragon template after birth. There is the Dragon disciple PrC, but that cannot be reliably incorporated into the mass production protocol.
The text entry for trolls states that female are slightly larger than male trolls, so yes I think they do have intercourse.
Why's that? I mean, the Dragon Disciple shows that it's possible. Where is it actually written that sex is the only way?Hell, you're already somehow breeding dragons with undead, right?No, you actually justified that. Wow.
Or: you could give them another inherited template that changes their type back to something applicable.
Half-Troll makes its base into a Giant, right? Is a +2 CR too much? Or, alternatively, Half-Scrag--solving your believability and your underwater viability problems simultaneously.
(Half-Troll also gives Fast Healing 5 as an extraordinary ability, which helps a little with the trollbane problem. With the Half-Scrag, though, that only works while underwater.)
You need Emerald Dragon for the Sonic Immunity, right? Well, a Silence spell blocks all Sonic effects. Just have them carry around a permanent item of Silence. Order them to be willing. Get the craft materials from Liquid Pain.
Have the Elder Brain place as many Magic Mouth spells on them as you can muster (Elder Brains have a high CL, so with a couple of boosts, you could easily load your army.) This will ensure that the area dispelling wizards will waste their spells on dispelling Magic Mouth. And if they dispel the silence for 1d4 rounds? Carry spares. On every soldier.
Also, consider Explosive Runes, too, at a very low CL. If they try and dispel the Silence, they might instead trigger off ER, and 6d6 force damage is nothing to sniff at, considering it's completely free. AND the enemy wastes a spell to do it. AND you're immune to the damage.
If you're considering crafting equipment, you'll need to get the money as well as the XP to create stuff. Each Golem requires 40xp and 4000gp to create. That's 13.333 doses of Liquid Pain. But you can also get Dark Craft money from sacrificing someone. The Mongrelfolk idea will give you 14 doses, and to get 4000gp you need to have a high Know (Religion).
Get yourself a priest with it. With a few cheesy tricks and a bard, you'll be able to get a lot of bonuses, maybe even up to a check of 100, if you have a Human Cleric of Your Mindflayer God. You gain x5 your check result in Dark Craft GP. So sacrificing Mongrelfolk after you're done with them gives you MORE resources. Of course, not even the most lenient of rules will allow you to sacrifice the same pebble twice, but that's what Wall of Stone is for. ^^
You might think that the Constructs (1 in 20 of the monsters you make) would have no use due to them having no regeneration and them being uncontrolled? Try rebuking them (Warforged Domain, you can use Mister Knowledge Religion) and using them as slaves in your factory. After all, they're not useless. Or train your Crystalline Trolls to have Endurance and Steadfast Determination.
Whatever method you use, this will take ages. If you have a complex that creates the stone and polymorphs it constantly, and the set up costs meaning that you're using Dark Craft to make more pain extractors... this will take decades to come to fruition.
And then you have to make sure your army doesn't make dumb mistakes, like marching through a portal to the Positive Energy Plane.
Oddly enough Half-Scrag does not provide water breath, only swim speed. Still thats better than nothing I suppose. Although at this point, I calculate the beasties have a 20+ Str modifier, so they can succeed on swim checks in stormy water (DC=20) even on a 1.
However, to incorporate Half-Scrag into the already complicated breeding process was somewhat difficult. I have tried my best but I'm not sure if it works as described (you can read through the breeding process and let me know).
I've also replaced Stained Glass graft with Clay, to protect against Trollbane Alchemical Goo.
Also, Half-Ogre at +0 CR has this interesting little ability:
I wonder if "special abilities and effects" includes the Hlaf-Golem graft. If so, I can replace Half-Scrag with Half-Ogre and knock 2 points of the CR.Quote:
Giant Blood (Ex): For all special abilities and effects, a half ogre is considered a giant in addition to the base creature's type and subtype. Half-ogres can use magic items with racially specific powers as giants.
Good point on the silence. I realize that it would protect against Holy Word as well. That said, with items of silence, the main threat isn't Area Dispel (which only targets spells not items), the main threat is disjunction which simply wipes out all magic in the area.
They are still voidminds, and would hence remain slaves to the cabal, even if they become constructs. Its mainly not having regen thats the problem.
And I'm still looking for ways to protect against supernatural Graymantle. Anyone have any ideas?
Becoming undead or construct loses you CON, so regeneration vanishes.
The traditional Ikea Tarrasque also calls for the Lernean template, I believe, which regenerates everything except the heads (which are immune to the acid and fire needed to cauterize the wound) and grow back. Half-Clay Golem Lernean Ash Rat Swarm is immune to everything, I believe, and a single such rat is CR 8. Or maybe there's a template I'm forgetting.
Question.
Once you have four finished Emerald Legionaire, how do you make more of them? If I remember correctly, any piece you cut off of a Troll... grows into a Troll. However, it kindof sounded like fluff...
But even if that is the way it works, wouldn't you also need several additions such as the Voidmind template and Clay Golem grafts? So... are you going to be having your EL's breeding with each other, or using the original process with the Crystalline Trolls and Scrags and Spark of Life stuff...
Also, how did you get around the whole "Half-Dragons can't accept Golem Grafts."
More questions. Where do Voidmind, Gheden, Crystalline Trolls, Emerald Dragons, Clay Golem Grafts, and Spark of Life magic come from? Can you gimme a link, or should I go searching the Templates and Bestiary stuff in Crystalkeep?
What size are these monsters? What are their stats? What are their reach? How many attacks do they have? What weapon will you give them? (I'm partial to the Greatcleaver because I just saw it on the first page of this subforum...
How do they deal with exhaustion, fatigue, sickened, diseases, poisons, being scared/terrified, confused?
How do you make sure their equipment isn't destroyed? Besides people getting desperate enough to catch oozes/gelatinous cubes and sic them on you, it's possible that the amount of damage from spells, rains of arrows, e.t.c. would simply be ruled as demolishing your monster's equipment.
What about using illusions to screw with them? Like hiding some kind of portal to the positive energy plane (which was mentioned) or ..?
Blindness? Invisible/ethereal creatures?
The Savage Species feat Prehensile Tail might be interesting... if you have a tail attack from half-dragon... or you could houserule the feat to apply to your golem-grafted voidmind tentacle...
Savage Species also have Desmodu-made Breathing Masks... which provide 4 hours of air. Good against noxious fumes and being underwater! Cheap at 1000 gold. The mask is 50gp, and air supply takes a DC 20 alchemical check, costs 950gp.
Also, Savage Species have the Feral and Multi-Headed creature templates. Improved Grab, Pounce, Rake, Rend, Darkvision, Fast Healing from Feral--as well as stat boosts. Multi-headed gives +2 HD, Con, Listen, Search, Spot Checks and +1 AC... per head! A large creature can have 3 extra heads. Multi-headed also gives it Improved Initiative and Combat Reflexes Feats. The base creature also gets Superior Two(or Multi) Weapon Fighting if it can use weapons... or it only has natural attacks (which, if it's Feral, may be the case) it instead gains Improved Multiattack Feat. So no penalties for multiple weapons or natural attacks...
Multi-Headed Creatures can also be Learnean... regrowing 2 heads for each chopped off, in 1d4 round. And this Emerald Legionnaire is immune to Acid and Fire. But now, not only are Vorpal Weapons ineffective... they actually make things worse! MORE bite or breath weapon attacks! Heck, if you have Learnean Multi-Headed beasties, you should probably have them all decapitate each other before a battle and thus go in with double the amount of heads they normally do...
It's a Fort neg. spell, right?
A raggamoffyn using Control Host on your soldiers will give them Construct traits, and change their type to Construct, without making them lose their Con score. You can probably build 5HD constructs with ML5 (1 level in a class or maybe Hidden Talent, 5 HD, and Practised Manifester) and Metamorphic Transfer + a Psychoactive Skin / Alter Self to turn them into Tatterdeanimals. The only problem is you need to get round the Shared Damage ability, which splits all damage the host creature takes between the two creatures. You can mitigate this somewhat with an item of Share Pain (with host creature, who is then immune to it), and Shield Other on the host, but this will mean the polymorphed creature takes 12.5% of the damage the host takes, which isn't good at all. Remember that with Dark Craft, magical items are no object.
This should adequately protect your army. Remember that your army shouldn't just be invincible on it's own, since it's just a load of freaky trolls. You should also, as a Cabal, have war leaders, and other units too, not just nigh-invincible armies. An army of the same unit is a bad idea. Consider the range of Mordenkainen's Disjunction. It's Close. You'd need the wizard to be pretty damn in danger before he can even hinder your army. Thus, you have strike force teams nestled in your troll army. Warlocks, maybe, or even other mages. Some Illithids for good measure. Archers, too. Your army will mow them down before the wizard even gets there, what with your superior evil crafting. (Bows, maybe? Possessed by some other fiends to enhance their capabilities? Leadership feat for each troll. Yum.)
But you should never suppose that making these guys invincible IS actually the answer.
I don't think trolls have that extent of regeneration. It needs the body, or at the very least the section of the body that holds the head, to regenerate back to 1 troll.
Ah yes. Vorpal. I forgot about that nasty little enchantment. I wonder if Half-clay golem Slashing immunity protects against it?
Going 3 Multiheaded Learnean would add +5 to CR and push it to 20, placing it into Tarrasque near epic territory. Although the resulting monster would be far more dangerous as well (the head holds 2 natural attacks, Bite and Tentacle, so adding 2 extra heads would add 4 natural attacks, not to mention the 2 extra 6d8 sonic breath weapons, which is usable once every 1d4 rounds with Dragon Breath feat).
I'll also have to think about how to incorporate Learnean Multiheaded into the breeding protocol.
ELs breeding with one another is probably a bad idea as it will quickly lead to inbreeding. Keep in mind all of them have 2 grandparents in common (the Emerald Dragons). The cabal would likely produce more from the Trolls and scrags.
By applying the Half-Scrag template at the end, which switches their type back to Giant. I would have liked to apply template with +0 CR, but there don't seem to be any other.
Look up crystal keep for templates, use the search function to navigate quickly. It should have most of the details you want. Crytal Troll and Voidmind are both in MM3. Spark of Life may be found in the Spell Compendium.
Large. Haven't fully calculated, 10 ft by default, 15 ft for voidmind tentacle. 4 natural attacks, (2x Claw, 1 Bite, 1 tentacle).
Whatever you want. They have natural attacks, but as Giants, they are proficient with Simple and Martial weapons.
They don't. The main point of the EL is that it can't be stopped. it can be slowed down (as Hellboy did the Golden Army) but over time, they will win by attrition simply because you can't kill them. The above conditions merely impose a penalty on their stats, but won't actually kill them.
Virtually all poisons and diseases deal ability damage and drain, and they are immune to both. So they can be poisoned/diseased, but they won't be affected by it.
Immune to Mind affecting.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyway to protect their equipment. I am still looking for more permanent ways to give them all those immunities without relying on gear.
Strictly speaking, by RAW, unless an attack specifically targets your equipment, it doesn't do anything to the gear. Which is why PCs can salvage armor in perfect condition from their dead foes, after igniting an entire necklace of fireballs at point blank range.
Which is why they need the supervision of a Mindflayer psion. The Psion can observe from a safe distance via scrying, and then issue orders via the telepathic link. The psion can rely on true sight, touch sight, detect psionics and what not to detect stuff like that.
As above, neither Invisible nor Blindness will stop them, only slow them down. Although the overseer Psion can also buff them with touchsight. Ethereal creatures can be hit if they are given the appropriate weapons.
Not a bad idea, it would also help stop starvation and drowning. But at the same time it would make them vulnerable to Slaying Arrows and Mace of Smiting. I would think its far more difficult to access supernatural-spells than core listed magic gear.
The hope is that over time, the rampaging hordes will gain enough XP to pick up class levels.
Isn't there a faerun weapon enhancement that lets you block one spell? +1 Spellgard I think? set that to disjunction or greater Dispel magic (or heck get two, you don't have to be wielding them and make them for free) and they're a lot closer to being undisarmable so long as they need magic gear.
Spellblade; it's in Magic of Faerun. However, IIRC it only negates targeted spells, not AoEs, so the AoE Dispel Magic would still work.
More on-topic, isn't there a rule somewhere that you can't have regeneration if you're immune to non-lethal damage? Or is that just for not having a Con score?
Mor
I like what you're trying to do, but due to the sheer wealth of material released by Wizards of the Coast there's no way to make a creature that can't be killed.
Even the combination of the Multi-headed Lernean Template onto a creature with the Fire Subtype and then adding a Clay Golem Graft can be killed now, thanks to the Searing Spell Metamagic feat from Sandstorm.
Previously, it could only be slowed down, or stopped, but not killed. You could do damage to it with spells that don't allow SR, but there was no way to deal fire or acid damage to the neck stumps. Thus, it would just get up and come at you again.
Stupid Searing Spell metamagic feat. :smallyuk:
These creatures are only going to earn XP from creatures of CR 13 and up (ECL of 22 - not taking into account the +LA from half-golem, as I can't find one) - you'd be struggling to find enough to progress them in class levels. Unless you pit them against each other in order to advance them...
If it helps, here is the Ikea Tarrasque 2.0. Still vulnerable to a few spells, but slapping it on a swarm of any kind alleviates all but Searing Spell AoE spells. That's what we've got to stop, people. These are only CR +7, and can be Voidminded (since Hiveminds have INT 6 or something like that).
Actually, Searing Spell won't even work. Because he used Crystal Trolls, which are only dealt real damaged by Sonic, and Emerald Dragon, which makes the creature immune to Sonic damage. There is no Sonic equivalent to Searing, and if you Energy Sub or Mastery of Elements a Searing Spell to Sonic, Searing will no longer be a legal target and not apply to the final spell. Thus, hitting an Emerald Legionaire with a Searing Orb of Fire will do as little as hitting a normal troll with a Piercing Cold Orb of Cold...which is exactly nothing. It'll take the damage, which will be converted to non-lethal due to the fact that it doesn't overcome the regeneration, and that non-lethal damage will then be negated due to immunity to non-lethal damage.
Now, if they had a MM feat like Ultra High Frequency, which would apply to Sonic spells and allow them to affect things immune to Sonic damage, then you'd have a case, since you could just use a Tippyesque Cindy build to make tricked out Maximized Twinned Empowered Occular Repeating Quickened Ultra High Frequency Orbs of Fire subbed to Sonic with Archmage's Mastery of Elements.
Alas, no such feat exists...
Whilst that is true, the problem still remains that you can't put a Half-Golem template onto a Dragon. Thus, it can't gain the magic immunity and properties of that template, leaving it highly susceptible to magics.
So the problem you end up with, is that this creature doesn't work. Up until that point, it works fine.
This was a problem I encountered when trying to build the original Ikea Tarrasque and Version 2.0 as well - Dragons have great difficulty being templated.
Yeah, I'm not sure of the legitimacy of the breeding steps that he takes.
The only book that deals comprehensively with Template Stacking is Savage Species, and it specifies that a creature cannot drop to a lower Type than it is when a new template is applied, except in specific cases. To use this correctly, you need to be aware of the Type Pyramid, on page 142 of that book.
Thus, once something becomes a Dragon type, it cannot become any kind of humanoid, giant, fey, Animal, Vermin, or Magical Beast.
Not sure where the concept that it retains the mothers base species comes from either.
EDIT: If I understand D&D Genetics correctly (Never thought I'd say this) then you have two options on what happens when you try to mate Half Emerald Dragon Crystalline Trolls with Zombie Half Emerald Dragon Scrags.
1. They aren't able to produce offspring at all, they are incompatible to mate due to the difference in base creatures. Trolls and Scrags, whilst they are able to breed together normally, are unlikely to produce offspring when you've mixed in so many other types of genetics there.
2. There is a 50% chance that the child will either be a Half Emerald Dragon Crystalline Troll or a Half Emerald Dragon Scrag.
And the Half Troll/Half Dragon template brings up another issue - Would the offspring of the dragons and the trolls be half dragon trolls or half troll dragons? There's no rule for how that works, because both templates apply equally (Which is an exception to the normal rule).
Hmmm.... I've managed to get a description of the voidmind template. According to Crystalkeep, it's a "Lvl +1" and "Cr +3."
It can breathe a 30-foot long cone of slime, 1/day, doing 1d6 acid damage per HD. Con-based save DC. If target is damaged--> save vs. stun effect...
And the +5 foot reach tentacle could be used for trip attacks... Um.... Would there be a tentacle for each head on the hydra-like troll? And do newly-made heads come with their own tentacle?
As for adding "Lernean" to the breeding process; the fluff says that it's essentially the result of mutation or a magical-biological experiment. So just have the breeders experiment with grafting extra heads onto trolls, which is... removing heads is not as ridiculous and fatal for trolls with their regeneration as it is for other species...
I have a question, though. Can the 3 Mindflayers ONLY use their psionic abilities when they.. possessify the minion? They can't cast spells or use other abilities? Can they utilize the feats of the minion they're controlling; combat reflexes, power attack, e.t.c.? What if the Mindflayer itself had something like Dodge--is that useable?
Can the Mindflayers "ride along" in the back of the minion's mind and use their mind powers WITHOUT having to take control of the troll? That is to say... the troll goes on its rampage, while a mindflayer is psionically blasting enemies left and right.
Is a Mindflayer immune to mind-affecting effects/spells when possessing it's minion?
Can more than one Mindflayer "inhabit" the Emerald Legionnaire's body at the same time?
Somehow I doubt that, but the thought of an unstopable melee-machine with three psionic casters...
Interesting. I will include that, but it doesn't seem to protect against non-spell Dispelling (e.g. Voracious Dispelling/Devour Magic SLA of warlocks). It also doesn't protect against Supernatural Graymantle.
Well, fancy some obscure rule from a rarely used book coming back to bite me.
The process is still viable however if we switch to War Trolls which have regeneration that can only be overcome by acid, as voidmind provides acid immunity without half-dragon. The type remains as giant and you can then apply half-clay-golem without issues. To protect against Earthquakes and drowning, we apply winged template. It loses the Breath Weapon, gains Dazing Blow, and the CR is pushed up to 12 War Troll + 1 Winged + 0 Gheden + 1 Voidmind + 3 half-clay-golem = 17
And now the question is: are there any acid-immunity-piercing acid attacks out there.
We are in a gray area, where the rules weren't designed to cover this kind of thing. Nothing in the rules (I think) say that this won't happen, so as long as the genetics sound reasonable, I'd say that it should work.
I accept that genetics being the probabilistic thing that it is, will likely throw out some offspring who do not fit our criteria. But in the grand scheme of well-funded breeding programs, that hardly matters. If you want half dragon scrags/trolls, and your process generates them, than you have obtained your objective. If a few half-troll/scrag dragons pop up along the way, then the process is less than 100% efficient, but still gets you what you want (you can just dispose of the half-troll/scrag dragons in your pain extractor).
Thats one of the few things Crytal Keep has listed wrongly. The actual text puts it at LA +3 and CR +1 (there are virtually no examples where CR exceeds LA if any).
This depends on whether you add Voidmind or Learnean template first. Logically, you should add Learnean first by breeding it into your farm stock, than add voidmind. If it were the other way around, the resulting gheden troll has regen + non-lethal immunity which would render him virtually impossible to decapitate without stopping regen (which indirectly entails killing it).
But if you add Learnean than Voidmind, the voidmind template does not specify how it handles multiheaded creatures. Do you replace the brains of all 3 head at once, or each one seperately? Does each head get a seperate tentacle attack? Or only one?
Regardless, Vorpal isn't going to do much with Clay golem slashing/piercing immunity. So Learnean isn't necessary to improve durability.
The original text:
So only one at a time, and only Psionic Powers.Quote:
Finally, any one of the three masters can take control of the voidmind creature, at will, as the dominate monster spell (no save). While controlling the voidmind in this fashion, a mind flayer can manifest its own innate psionic abilities through the voidmind creature, as though the creature were manifesting the ability itself.
No (unless the Mindflayer has some other power to that effect). However, the Mindflayer is not possessing the minion. He is dominating it. So things that target the minion will have no effect on the master.
It might not be the best of ideas to make your unstoppable legion invincible.
After all, I think we've all read enough fantasy to realize when oppressed slaves are suddenly freed then pointed in the direction of their former masters. Odds are, as an evil, world conquering overlord, you're bound to, eventually, irritate several epic-level creatures.
So, perhaps, it's a good idea that they have a few weakness you can exploit in the case that your minions turn on you. Or someone copies the process and turns a legion on you.
Going through the Templates list, I think I have figured out a way to grant the critter immunity to polymorph (but not petrification). Apply the Lycantrope template, probably for Dire Bat, gives it shapechanger subtype so it can revert if ever polymorphed. Were-Dire-Bat also lets it fly, so you can remove the Winged template. Were-Dire Bat is +3 CR, removing winged Template lowers it by -1 CR. Net CR increases by +2, so its now 19, pushing near Epic.
Thats probably not optimal. Anyone know of any medium sized flying or aquatic animal with just 2 HD (reduces CR increase to +2)?
If I can find someway to incorporate Woodling into the breeding procedure, it would grant immunity to petrification as well.
Maybe, but for the purposes of this thought experiment lets focus on trying to make them invincible first, and worry about losing control later.
Also, they are not necessarily oppressed slaves. Remember, the Illithids are ultimately still the ones that bring them up, feed them and cloth them. As long as their Illithid masters have treated them well (as any smart LE villain should treat its invincible super soldiers), they will still remain loyal to them.
If someone is smart enough to dissect/derive the process, chances are he will be smart enough to improve on it to overcome any intentional weakness. He will then send his flawless minions against your flawed army, which will likely result in your swift defeat.
Famous last words...
As for someone else sending a 'perfect' legion towards you, your flawed units should have the numerical advantage. Defensively (unless the new legion can fling around supernatural death effects), they'll be equal, so you can tie up the new guys with your old guys then smack the youngsters with the rest of your forces.
Also, does the illithiid void mind control scheme work across planes?
What defence do you have against a Pyroclastic Dragon's annihilation breath? Against a Solar's or Pit Fiend's infinite and probably supernatural (feats changed via Wish) Holy Words? Against a Beholder's supernatural disintegration ray? Against an Overseer's supernatural Temporal Stasis? Against any creature with extraordinary brain-eating attack? Against Corporeal Instability? Against a Marut's or Solar's Earthquake SLA?
Because a high-level caster can summon, call, dominate or shapechange into the above creaures and use those abilities, most of them at will.
Idea for gaining Construct traits without losing anything:
Give the trolls the feats: Endurance, Steadfast Determination, Leadership.
Their cohort is a Warforged, with a single flaw.
F) Endurance
1) Troll Blooded
Give them each immunity to fire and acid, and 5 levels in that class which gives them immunity to nonlethal damage. Metamorphic Transfer. Skin of the Protean for Metamorphosis. Changed them into a Raggamoffyn.
Couple them on when you need to give them the right traits. Otherwise, leave them alone. They're never specifically targetable, so...
The easiest would be half-black dragon trolls with a Mantle of the Fiery Spirit and diehard feat.
This is extremely badass. The fact that they can be "released" with antimagic shackles is an interesting aspect that makes me believe that this legion could actually be used in a post-apocalyptic horror campaign where the world has already been taken over and you use shackles to use your trolls to fight trolls, or infiltrate the mindflayers' lair, kill the mindflayers, and release their control over the entire legion.
Trolls and mindflayers are two of my favorite monsters so this really is just amazing to me... I have two questions though.
1. What the hell is a tippy-esque create food trap?
2. What would these trolls do against foes who were immune to physical damage? Or if put in a cage which was immune to physical damage? It could even just be damage reduction of at least as much as they can put out. Seems to me like they need other forms of attack. If you make it just fire and physical or something... well, those are easily resistable too.
Sending voidminded creatures with them who had [hellfire] warlock levels (for nigh-unresistable attacks and shatter), or supernatural death effects, would be almost required to actually take over the world. And the latter would serve to keep renegade trolls in line, as well.
1) You know how you can make auto-resetting spellcasting traps? You do that with the spell "create food". It makes infinite amounts of (bland) food. Named after Tippy, who put them forward first (here at least).
2) Give them weapons? A psionic caster can manifest powers through them.
The big problem with class levels is where they get XP from - not many things present enough of a challenge.