If it has stats... (Challenge to the playground)

[Norin]

This thread is insane... in a good way.
The playground keeps amazing me.

Just wanted to drop in, say that, and keep reading.

[Anthrowhale]

Like I said, IHS doesn't fail because it's not applicable, IHS fails against this ability in particular because of something in the ability [negates the effect of IHS].

Ok. Here's spawn 4 then

An illithid/illithid savant 5 eats the brain of 20th level sorcerer for spell casting as a 20th level sorcerer and the brain of protean for 'alter form'. It has 9 feats (5 from 13 HD, plus 2 from illithid savant). It finds and/or creates a earth node of level 6 which it lives in by default.

1. Selective Spell
3. Node Spell [Earth node]
6. Metanode Spell
9. Twin Spell
12. ??
IS2: Extend Spell
IS4: Persistent Spell

Every day it casts Metanode Persistent Foresight from a 9th level slot. This grants it forewarning of all attacks.

Every day It also casts Metanode Selective Persistent Ghost Trap from a 7th level slot. This is an SR:No Save:No spell which causes all incorporeal creatures within a 100' radius to become corporeal. Selective spell makes it not apply on us. Note that it does nothing else, so incorporeal creatures with str - automatically do a 'jellyfish on the beach' impression.

It always has Keeper Immunities (from Fiend Folio) , Tarrasque Regeneration, and incorporeality up as 3 of 4 Ex abilities allowed by Alter Form. This provides immunity to all forms of damage _and_ all nonmagical attack forms.

Upon learning of impending doom from foresight, it immediately casts Metanode Twin Arcane Fusion[Celerity] from a 5th level slot as full-round action which grants 2 standard actions.
The first standard action casts Limited Wish[Favor of the Martyr] for immunity to the drawback of celerity.
The other standard action casts Arcane Spellsurge to reduce the casting time of metamagic spells to a standard action.
With an immediate action, cast Celerity to gain a standard action.
With a standard action cast Metanode Twin Arcane Fusion[Celerity] to gain 2 standard actions.
The first standard action is a Wish to transport to the thing as a standard action.
As a nonaction, the thing becomes corporeal.
As a free action, the Illithid savant mimics the thing's form, acquiring it's impending doom ability,
The second standard action then uses the acquired ability on the creature.
As a free action, drop incorporeality granted by alter form.
As a free action, use alter form to acquire a Colossus Antimagic Field (which is an Ex ability). This first suppresses the Ghost Trap, then as per the rules compendium, all incorporeal creatures (not just undead) disappear yet have a local time proceed within an antimagic field.
Wait 5 rounds, proceed with life.

The desired effect: Evade doom effect via incorporeality, Creature is hit with it's own doom ability. Creature has no actions remaining,

Let spawns 5-14 try the above experiment several times so there is a near certainty that the 1d4+1 round clock on our triggered ability goes off before any 1d4+1 round clock on us.
Let spawns 15-24 do the same, except without the last two free actions (-incorporeal+AMF) invoked.

[rweird]

rweird: Yes, you can definitely craft magic items with metamagic (and reducers, using the rules you cited), but Craft Contingent Spell doesn't craft a magic item and doesn't reference magic item creation rules, so that rule doesn't apply.
Your character wouldn't know why it fails. Foresight wouldn't warn of that, since it's not "impending danger or harm". You can certainly try other spells (Timeless Body would've worked, for instance, except that AFAIK you can't use Wish to duplicate 9th-level powers).

Contingent spells (Complete Arcane, Page 139) are listed under "New types of items" The first line identifies these new things as magic items. In addition, when describing how they function it says "If the bearer of a contingent spell is the target of dispel magic, the contingent spell might be permanently dispelled (but not triggered), as if it were an active spell in effect on the target creature. In an antimagic field, contingent spells are temporarily suppressed as all other magic items are." Because they are magic items, the general magic item creation rules would apply unless stated not to, and I see no mention of not being able to make contingent metamagic spells, so as general rules say I can, and general trumps nonexistent, I figure I can.

For Timeless Body, I wish-craft the contingency for it, not duplicate it in and of itself (using full transparency).

When do I learn the Ice Assassin fails? At the start, at the completion, in the 5th round?

Three variations:
1) Ice assassin is of myself instead.
2) Timeless Body is not persisted
3) Both 1 & 2.

[kardar233]

Kardar233's Illithid:
*strokes chin*
Hmmm, I like the way you think.
If the second paragraph (starting with "there exists") happens, he takes (ability loss)/(damage) 5 rounds after creation (presumably before he can eat anything).
So let's ignore that and assuming the Illithid has always gained power from the bottle, and was always created by the first illithid. This is a powerful wish and results in a sickly illithid with Con 0 - dead, as if it were an object created by a true creation spell.

Can I add that to my sig?

Yeah, I thought that would be the sticking point. In order for the trick to work properly and have Tyr be completely invulnerable at all possible times he needs to cause himself, with nothing other than himself required. This is a bit tricky.

Instead of Wishing an Illithid into existence, Tyr Wishes for a Flesh Golem and then Wishes for a Contingent Awaken Construct on it with some kind of trigger that will happen immediately. Then, he True Mind Switches with the newly-awakened construct (putting it in his Illithid body) and it drinks the Thought Bottle.

The issue here is that True Mind Switch is Range: Close so it'll run into Teleport Through Time's "if you meet yourself you go crazy and try to kill them" clause. Have any thoughts on how to solve that?

[Sith_Happens]

Fairly sure people have used Empowered Time Stops or something similar, and been killed in the middle of the time stop anyway.

That just means the countdown is relative to the caster. Possible solution: Astral Project from your fast-time demiplane to your even-faster-time demiplane after being warned of your impending death by Foresight.

[Heliomance]

We really need to work out what's triggering the start of the countdown. So far, these have all survived:

A random commoner says aloud, "I wonder what's been killing all those high level people?"

A random commoner thinks to himself, "I wonder what's been killing all those high level people?"

A random king says aloud, "I should really get my spymaster to look into anything that could be a threat to me."

A random king thinks to himself, "I should really get my spymaster to look into anything that could be a threat to me."

A random king asks his spymaster to look into anything that could be a threat to him.

A Psion 20 with hostile intent towards the creature uses the Save Game Trick.

A Diplomancer travels to the biggest Planar Metropolis he can, gets together a crowd, makes as many people as he possibly can Fanatic with a single check, and tells them to kill the creature.

So it's not just entering the contest that starts it. The Psion and the Diplomancer did have their survival based on the fact that they'd only guessed at the creature's existence - what happens if they have solid knowledge of it?

And yet, knowledge of the creature's existence clearly isn't a necessary condition - the random sorcerer infinitely spamming Arcane Fusion/Prestidigitation died, and the Stuffy Doll died immediately upon creation - not even the standard 1d4+1 rounds. I can't see a consistent pattern here. Starting an infinite loop does appear to be a sufficient condition - is knowledge?

New challenger: A random Sigilian citizen happens to see the creature as he goes about his daily business. He ignores it, and carries on with whatever he was doing.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

That's sortof the point

Personally, I prefer to use more classic challenges. For example, none of the builds presented so far would have survived against an Epic Dragon. That's not because the dragon has custom abilities but because it is also a spellcaster (and thus equally optimizable) that simply has higher stats and CR and treasure than the challengers.

[kardar233]

Personally, I prefer to use more classic challenges. For example, none of the builds presented so far would have survived against an Epic Dragon. That's not because the dragon has custom abilities but because it is also a spellcaster (and thus equally optimizable) that simply has higher stats and CR and treasure than the challengers.

I disagree. Absent Epic Spellcasting, Epic dragons are on a similar power scale to 20th-level casters as their casting is really what matters, and so they're on a pretty equal footing to regular casters.

And furthermore there have been entries that could eat Epic Dragons without too much trouble; see Anthrowhale's entries which use the Protean's Alter Shape ability, which is one of the most powerful abilities in the entire game.

[Gabrosin]

That sounds fair. This ability doesn't cause a condition (Ability Damaged/Ability Drained/etc) but does cause something defined in the rules, which leads to (ability loss)/(damage)/(death).

How did this post go unremarked-upon? Do any of our RAW experts out there know of something defined in the D&D 3.5 rules that leads to "(ability loss)/(damage)/(death)"? Victory should be as simple as determining that thing, and then how to become immune to that thing.

[Gemini476]

How did this post go unremarked-upon? Do any of our RAW experts out there know of something defined in the D&D 3.5 rules that leads to "(ability loss)/(damage)/(death)"? Victory should be as simple as determining that thing, and then how to become immune to that thing.

Well, there's a number of things that just outright give you the Dead condition. Save-or-dies are the big ones, obviously, but you also get it if you have Con 0 or -10 HP or three turns after you start drowning and such. Oh, and aging past your maximum age. That's pretty good at killing you.

There's a bunch of things that lead to other things in the rules. Aging might actually be a good example, here - aging a category will cause you to lose Constitution, probably also Hit Points, and eventually leads to Death.

So I suppose you could try to get around that by being an Elan and not having a maximum age, but then it'll probably just use some other ability to screw you over. (Assuming that it ages you to death, that is. It probably doesn't, but I figured that having a single thing that lead to ability loss, damage, and death was just too perfect to not comment on.)

I don't remember, did anyone ever try entering the Twice Betrayer of Shar?

[kardar233]

How did this post go unremarked-upon? Do any of our RAW experts out there know of something defined in the D&D 3.5 rules that leads to "(ability loss)/(damage)/(death)"? Victory should be as simple as determining that thing, and then how to become immune to that thing.

I'd been thinking about that. Ability loss is an extremely rare thing, but I think it's been mentioned that you only lose abilities from class levels which indicates to me that it's a source of unresistable level loss or energy drain.

[rweird]

I'd been thinking about that. Ability loss is an extremely rare thing, but I think it's been mentioned that you only lose abilities from class levels which indicates to me that it's a source of unresistable level loss or energy drain.

It specifies class abilities, and NI damage. If it is level loss, we should also lose skill points and so on. I don't recall that ever being mentioned. Still, if it is unresistible, I don't think that we could be immune to it in specific.

[Sith_Happens]

I don't remember, did anyone ever try entering the Twice Betrayer of Shar?

Nope, I'll do so now. Build link.

EDIT: With the update linked in the next post.

[kardar233]

Nope, I'll do so now. Build link.

The build gets updated here to use Dweomer of Transference.

[1pwny]

We really need to work out what's triggering the start of the countdown.

Good idea! Mind if I help?

• A random Sigilian PC sees the thing, feels an ominous premonition because he's a PC and they just know this stuff, and immediately writes his will and tries to run back to his house.

• A Sigilian flash mob starts dancing "Gangnam Style" right next to the thing.

• Two Sigilians get into a drunken brawl. One of them is thrown, and hits the thing.

• A wise old monk in Sigil goes up to the thing and asks "What troubles you, my friend?"

• A wizard says to himself, "Hey, I'm gonna kill that clockwork thing in Sigil that's killing everyone!" The Aleax of himself that was sitting next to him quickly takes notes on its sudden desire to maim who it was a copy of.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

I disagree. Absent Epic Spellcasting, Epic dragons are on a similar power scale to 20th-level casters as their casting is really what matters, and so they're on a pretty equal footing to regular casters.

Nope. Epic Dragons have enough spellcasting to get at-will supernatural Twin Celerity, Miracle and Time Stop without shenanigans. Infinite actions per round, all of which can be Miracles/Timestops at effective CL equal to their HD and undispellable. Annoy an optimized Epic Dragon and you're toast. You literally can't hide from it as it can search all of Creation instantly, find you, kill you, trap your soul in a thinaun prison then use you as a spell component. Perma-death, no ressurection bringing you back.

And furthermore there have been entries that could eat Epic Dragons without too much trouble; see Anthrowhale's entries which use the Protean's Alter Shape ability, which is one of the most powerful abilities in the entire game.

That build has a big flaw: it assumes that an Illithid Savant 5 can defeat and eat the brain of a 20th level sorcerer and a CR 29 Protean. The DM is within his rights to require the encounters to be run since the ability requires eating a brain. So, how does the IS win against the sorcerer, let alone the Protean?

[kardar233]

Nope. Epic Dragons have enough spellcasting to get at-will supernatural Twin Celerity, Miracle and Time Stop without shenanigans. Infinite actions per round, all of which can be Miracles/Timestops at effective CL equal to their HD and undispellable. Annoy an optimized Epic Dragon and you're toast. You literally can't hide from it as it can search all of Creation instantly, find you, kill you, trap your soul in a thinaun prison then use you as a spell component. Perma-death, no ressurection bringing you back.

How would they do this? Innate Spell is the only non-class level way I can think of to get a spell as an at-will SLA but that's restricted to once a round.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

1) Celerity
2) Use the action for Time Stop. 1d4+1 rounds pass.
3) Cast Celerity again, preferably readied from within Time Stop.
4) Repeat indefinitely.
5) Use Exceptional Deflection against hurled DMG.

[OldTrees1]

1) Celerity
2) Use the action for Time Stop. 1d4+1 rounds pass.
3) Cast Celerity again, preferably readied from within Time Stop.
4) Repeat indefinitely.
5) Use Exceptional Deflection against hurled DMG.

Without Foresight or similar, die without warning.
With Foresight or similar, die after 5 rounds of apparent time.

We learned about Time Stop's problem in the first couple of pages. Foresight took about 1 more page.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Without Foresight or similar, die without warning.
With Foresight or similar, die after 5 rounds of apparent time.

We learned about Time Stop's problem in the first couple of pages. Foresight took about 1 more page.

I think Belial is referring to the proposed builds' ability to take down an optimized Epic Dragon, not the optimized Epic Dragon's ability to take down our mystery construct.

Speaking of which, what does something "made of steampunk" look like? What form does material from the (quasi)(para)elemental plane of steampunk take? I'm assuming gears, gears, brass, gears, copper pipe, valves, steam gauges, gears, monocles, and gears, but like, are we talking at the atomic scale? Does it just look like a normal construct, until you look at it under a microscope (at which point you see the tiny 2μ homonculus engineers who operate the system in their tiny top hats)?

[rg9000]

Has anyone tried the Emerald Legion controlled by an Illthid on Sigil? Who didn't know about or care about the creature until the very moment when it sends the legion

[rg9000]

Maybe the countdown is part of the thing's portfolio of itself, so it can know when someone thinks about it ahead of time.

[Heliomance]

A thought occurs - for this thing to have the abilities it's displayed, I'm fairly sure it must have Divine Rank. But it's been established that it's in Sigil. And it's well known that the Lady of Pain does not allow gods into Sigil. So how is it managing that?

[georgie_leech]

A thought occurs - for this thing to have the abilities it's displayed, I'm fairly sure it must have Divine Rank. But it's been established that it's in Sigil. And it's well known that the Lady of Pain does not allow gods into Sigil. So how is it managing that?

It's already admitted to having custom abilities; a simple ability that somewhere says "This creature and the Lady of Pain utterly ignore each other, neither interfering with nor helping the other" or similar is hardly out of the question.

Note to the OP: If in fact there is no such ability, no adding it now.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Appropriate CR [Cs]
Benefit: this creature cannot be defeated by PCs expending less than 20% of their daily resources. If the PCs would, roll d20. On an even result, the creature's CR is deemed too low and defeating it gives negligible XP and treasure. On an odd result, the creature is assumed to have prepared against the PCs' plan and the plan simply fails.
Special: all creatures run by the DM have this ability. If a creature is not run by the DM, this ability does not function.

[Melcar]

Here my quick thoughts...

I would probably use my Supernatural spell of the dweomerkeeper, to get a magic item that rendered me immune to all and gave my +1.000.000 to all stats, saves, AC, chechs, rolls, skills, Spell penetration, CL, DR. Then make sure to have an item that gave me true seeing. Then an item that renderend me immune to all types of element, disintegration, level drain, ability drain (and damage), mind-effecting, necromancy, illusion, force effects, maze effects, divination, the divine saliant abilities, all aging effects, time-altering effects, poison and disease.

And lastly an item that gave 1.000.000 to regeneration and fast healing, which also provides uncanny dodge, and improved evation.

Now I think it at least would have trouble killing me.

EDIT: One of the items would also give my char Foresight continuesly and continues celerity, thus meaning that its always my turn. In what seems at no time at all, but in reality could take dacades I would find a way. It would still never get its turn since all my life would happen in an instant thus meaning that even if it did 1.000.000.000 d 100 damage per round it would not ever deal any damage to me since all my live would pass by in the pocket of time in between seconds, thus meaning that it would simple just not act ever.

[Vhaidara]

Has anyone tried the Emerald Legion controlled by an Illthid on Sigil? Who didn't know about or care about the creature until the very moment when it sends the legion

Dies when you start working on the Legion.

[Segev]

Since we're now throwing canon creatures at it, what happens if the Lady of Pain decides it needs to be dealt with...personally?

Or is that not fair since the Lady has #defined "I win" abilities rather than actual stats?

[Melcar]

When can we see this beast?

[Alihandros]

For a non-serious attempt, I throw in a Kender Rogue......and wait