Sims are people too?

[kalos72]

wow, I never saw that spell before. That makes the "improved sim" idea even easier I think. Thanks!

[unseenmage]

There are also spells that make free-willed Intelligent creatures. To my mind there would be no issue with those acting as actual members of a society.

The Minor Servitor spell from the 3.0 Savage Species book is just like Animate Objects but grants Intelligence and free will. Can be dispelled though so is subject to Antimagic Fields. Animating statues made with Fabricate definitely seems like a valid option to me.

The Awaken Sand spell from Sandstorm makes huge size piles of free-willed Intelligent sand. See my sig for sand-substitutes and uses for sand/powders. Can even kind of make a Simulacrum/shapechanger by casting it on a volume of Shapesand. Just have the Awakened Sand Shapesand thing transform itself into a mundane statue of the citizen in question.

Lastly, hitting these Construct creatures, which might not want to partake in society-centric activities such as food production/consumption obviously, with the Incarnate Construct spell from Savage Species will make them into living Humanoids/Giants who take about a year to mature mentally.

If Simulacrums are ruled to be Constructs in your game, which sometimes happens I'm not sure exactly why, then hitting them with incarnate Construct can make them into real-boys too and bam. Population handled.



There's also the idea of farming Mirror Duplicates created when a person visits the Plane of Mirrors from the 3.0 Manual of the Planes. The Mirror Travel spell or even a Planar Shepherd should be able to let you create plenty of Mirror Duplicates, and Helms of Opposite Alignment/Programmed Amnesia allow you to make them useful citizens.

However, as soon as they leave the plane of Mirrors they die if their counterpart hasn't been slain. Either abuse ressurection magic to get around this or buy lots of a costly magic item (don't remember the name off the top of my head) that makes it so they're always considered to be on their home plane so long as they wear it.

[noob]

"Lastly, hitting these Construct creatures, which might not want to partake in society-centric activities such as food production/consumption obviously, with the Incarnate Construct spell from Savage Species will make them into living Humanoids/Giants who take about a year to mature mentally. "

Why would you possibly want to make them alive?
They might hate you because you made them aging and frail and made them loose powers and made them need to loose plenty of time everyday to eat.
I am pretty sure you can include them in society with other things like for example wanting to have beautiful paintings and new books and so on and make them constantly buy and produce works of art and other superfluous things.
It is not like if the entire society was centered on food since wizard/priest simulacrum can just cast some spells to create plenty of food for all the humans here and basically with your vision of society destroy the society.
No I consider it is not necessary for a society with all the public services and the comfort and the safety and the various interesting or beautiful things to buy(in dnd everyone can read except barbarians and some other variant classes) you can make one fully working society.

"However, as soon as they leave the plane of Mirrors they die if their counterpart hasn't been slain. Either abuse ressurection magic to get around this or buy lots of a costly magic item (don't remember the name off the top of my head) that makes it so they're always considered to be on their home plane so long as they wear it. "
It is easy to use Resurrection you can do that with for example the apprentice luck + staff of true Resurrection trick(you just need level 11 people and they can do that a number of times equal to their number of luck feats so if you find a level 22 commoner and use psionic reformation and simulacrum you can then churn out people able to resurrect allies for free)

[kalos72]

There are also spells that make free-willed Intelligent creatures. To my mind there would be no issue with those acting as actual members of a society.

The Minor Servitor spell from the 3.0 Savage Species book is just like Animate Objects but grants Intelligence and free will. Can be dispelled though so is subject to Antimagic Fields. Animating statues made with Fabricate definitely seems like a valid option to me.

The Awaken Sand spell from Sandstorm makes huge size piles of free-willed Intelligent sand. See my sig for sand-substitutes and uses for sand/powders. Can even kind of make a Simulacrum/shapechanger by casting it on a volume of Shapesand. Just have the Awakened Sand Shapesand thing transform itself into a mundane statue of the citizen in question.

Lastly, hitting these Construct creatures, which might not want to partake in society-centric activities such as food production/consumption obviously, with the Incarnate Construct spell from Savage Species will make them into living Humanoids/Giants who take about a year to mature mentally.

If Simulacrums are ruled to be Constructs in your game, which sometimes happens I'm not sure exactly why, then hitting them with incarnate Construct can make them into real-boys too and bam. Population handled.

I like the Minor Servator idea, add Permanency and your gtg. Then you have commoner type npc's that can be taught / learn / advance as the race in question?

I like the Construct option but wouldn't use it on the Sims I do think but it could make some cool options. Just make Stone Gaurdians dwarf size and you now have a dwarf with 29 STR! :)

[unseenmage]

I like the Minor Servator idea, add Permanency and your gtg. Then you have commoner type npc's that can be taught / learn / advance as the race in question?

I like the Construct option but wouldn't use it on the Sims I do think but it could make some cool options. Just make Stone Gaurdians dwarf size and you now have a dwarf with 29 STR! :)

Oh yeah! I forgot one of the most important parts of Minor Servitor. Its duration is Permanent (until dispelled) already.
Though again, they are affected by Dispel Magic and Antimagic Fields, In fact, as long as they're within range, the spellcaster who made them can Dispel them as a Standard Action.
Yeah, spell that makes sentient free willed creatures that can be effectively slain with the wave of a hand. Scary stuff.
Part of why I included the Incarnate Construct info. (Although by RAW there's nothing that removes the Dispellable quality from them when they're Incarnate Construct-ed. Weird to watch humanoids vanish in Antimagic Fields but RAW is silly sometimes.)

And Awaken Sand's duration is Instantaneous, so like Wall of Stone, the thing it creates is true and real and lasting and not ended by Antimagic Fields/Dispel Magic.

[kalos72]

So the idea behind the Sand is... make sand sculpture, animate it and then awaken it?

[noob]

animate sand make the sand sentient so you need only one spell.
He spoke of incarnating the sand because he thinks it helps social interaction to loose 8 hours to sleep then to eat.

[Sagetim]

animate sand make the sand sentient so you need only one spell.
He spoke of incarnating the sand because he thinks it helps social interaction to loose 8 hours to sleep then to eat.

It does, because those are the kinds of things people do.

[noob]

Maybe but the sand you incarnate is really going to Hate you for making them die of old age and loose 8 hours per day in an state where they can not even know if they are truly sentient and need to eat and become tired and have two times more existential crisis about the continuity of their existance they are not going to be good citizen they are going only to hate you intensely and at least go to other places than your city and potentially make a plan for killing you.
I think that it is intensely cruel and evil to do that to animated sand.(a normal gm will rule that incarnating a sentient construct which was not willing-full is extremely evil and might shift your alignment to lawful evil for the idea of doing this)
Also you have never met humans who did not needed to eat or sleep and was immortal but maybe if they were present in actual human society they would be well integrated since such kind of thing never happened in real life there is no proof of the opposite.

[Sagetim]

Maybe but the sand you incarnate is really going to Hate you for making them die of old age and loose 8 hours per day in an state where they can not even know if they are truly sentient and need to eat and become tired and have two times more existential crisis about the continuity of their existance they are not going to be good citizen they are going only to hate you intensely and at least go to other places than your city and potentially make a plan for killing you.
I think that it is intensely cruel and EVIL to do that to animated sand.

And there's bound to be people (and npcs in the setting) who would argue that it's the bestest thing ever because living is better than not, sentience aside.

In any case, I would treat the simulacrums much like factory robot arms. They might be particularly personable factory robot arms, but I don't think they're ever going to change their opinion on anything or grow as a person. And given that part of living is to grow and be capable of changing your mind, learning new things and appreciating new opinions? I think simulacrums would just wind up being too uncanny valley to fit in a society for an extended period of time if they were counted as normal citizens.

[unseenmage]

So the idea behind the Sand is... make sand sculpture, animate it and then awaken it?

Shapesand from the Sandstorm book isa n alchemical item that can become any other mundane object according to its controllers will.

Animating the Shapesand as an Awakened Sand would allow it to (albeit slowly) reshape itself into whatever it wanted, including a statue of a person. Except that it would be Large Huge Size and it takes a LOT of Shapesand to get enough to animate. Incarnate Construct requires the subject construct to be humanoid shaped.

Simply animating statues of people via these two spells would give you Simulacrum-like effects except that the resultant creations are free-willed. No need for complex commands.
Making them living people would (DM willing) imbue them with souls and actual life. Would also help maintain an economy of needs if the populus needs to sleep and eat and house itself.

A nation of unliving soul-less Constructs on the other hand wouldn't need much in the way of upkeep. Which is not good for a flowing economy.

[noob]

"A nation of unliving soul-less Constructs on the other hand wouldn't need much in the way of upkeep. Which is not good for a flowing economy. "
look in real life how economy works most of the money is not spent in food and the fact you spend many in your house is only linked to how economy works and to the fact people wants to be at the main city so much that the ones renting or selling can make the prices a lot higher than it needs but then there is a lot of money that is spent on bonus things like your newest computer and so on and if they were the only things you got from money I am sure a lot of people would work also since it is dnd there is all the threats outside and so building new weapons and buying them becomes normal and so there will be an huge pressure for trading do not forget that in dnd food is incredibly super ultra uber cheap compared to all the other transactions and that one masterwork item have the value of ten years of food and that finally the food must be one of the smallest transactions.
Then there is all the spells for creating food you get from your simulacrum and in the end food is not at all even sightly a motivation since it is already granted and houses are cheap with all the spells you got.
So what I think is that in a dnd society food is the last preoccupation for the trade flow(according to the prices and the fact there is a lot more money gain than needed for eating a competent commoner wins 2 gp per week which is enough for feeding a whole family and having a more than half in surplus) and so that having creature which does not eats is not a problem.
Also even if you do not sleep having an house is something important for storing your masterwork painting and books and for being in a private place to speak with some people while not being in a public place also I do not think that a being made of sand like rain.
Those who does not wants to produce and buy simply go away from themselves since they probably are not so much social.

[kalos72]

My campaign has many magical food production lines already...so food production is an option not a requirement.

Incarnate Constructs are real races or still Constructs? No eat/sleep and such...

[noob]

Incarnated constructs are humanoids and so needs to sleep and eat(and die of old age) they are made by casting incarnate construct on a construct and it makes non sentient constructs sentient and only make sentient constructs humanoids making them angry after your society(unless they asked themselves to be incarnated) and also make them need to sleep and eat and die of old age.
Animated sand is sentient and have 3d6 in each mental score and is made with the spell animate sand.
Awakened constructs are independent of the two previous ones and is constructs that are sentient thanks to awaken construct and who are constructs.

[unseenmage]

My campaign has many magical food production lines already...so food production is an option not a requirement.

Incarnate Constructs are real races or still Constructs? No eat/sleep and such...

Incarnate Constructs are real people. No longer Constructs they become Humanoids (or Giants if they're big). They lose all their previous traits and Construct abilities.


It could even be argued that the sentient mind that was in the Construct before (if it had one) is replaced and supplanted by a new infant consciousness that takes 1 year to mature.

Edit: Fun fact, judging by the illustration in Savage Species and the fact that the RAW says nothing on the issue the skin color of the new humanoids created by Incarnate Construct remains the same as it was when they were a Construct.
So stone golems still have stone colored/textured skin, brass golems have brass, etc.

When I used these spells I'd Minor Servitor-ed a lot of Obdurium statues. Obdurium being the hardest metal I could find. Obdurium, as it turns out, is a purplish metal. So in my DM's Forgotten realms, the nation of Aglarond now had a race of giant sand-skinned people and another race of metallic-purple skinned people.
To the DM's credit, he ran with it. And now those new races of humanoid and giant wander his world.

[noob]

Poor race vulnerable to dispel magic(they simply have to not become adventurers and it is going to be fine)

[kalos72]

Nice.

So you have commoner with STR 29 and 100ish HP! NICE!

Given the stone golem example in Savage Species.

[unseenmage]

Poor race vulnerable to dispel magic(they simply have to not become adventurers and it is going to be fine)

Yeah the Dispel Magic vulnerability retention is a fluke of RAW and the DM and I agreed not to leave that in. There is also language in Incarnate Construct that would exclude that feature if read the right way.
The only really taxing thing is that a vulnerability to Dispel Magic and Antimagic Fields isn't an (Ex), (Su), nor a (Sp) ability. It's never called out as any of these and those are the only traits that Incarnate Construct cares about.

It also only affects the Minor Servitor and Permanency-ed Animate Object based Incarnate Constructs.


The real question is, if you retain that vulnerability as the RAW would imply, do the offspring of these new races retain it as well? Who's to say?

[noob]

"Given the stone golem example in Savage Species. "
stone golems costs a lot and nothing ever says that incarnated creatures have a sex nor can breed and also they make mention of orphan incarnated creatures but they say that is corresponds to creatures which had their creator die so nothing hints about the possibility to create another incarnate creature without making another base construct that you incarnate.
Also in society most of the time having high strength does not helps since it is all about skill-checks who does not change with the strength.

[kalos72]

Yeah, the dispel part seems wonky if your making a real living creature. Not sure I agree with that one.

Can you help walk me through the process Unseenmage?

I want a elven/dwarven/human sized/shaped construct that we will turn into a normal living creature of the appropriate race.

[noob]

"I want a elven/dwarven/human sized/shaped construct that we will turn into a normal living creature of the appropriate race. "
It have absolutely no reason to end up of the race to which they are similar but if you want to create humans you know there is other ways than spending loads of money or spells like for example iron heart surge(with some weird interpretations).
On one other side I can suggest to use grisgol simulacrum to create the animated sand and other spells without XP cost.

[unseenmage]

"Given the stone golem example in Savage Species. "
stone golems costs a lot and nothing ever says that incarnated creatures have a sex nor can breed and also they make mention of orphan incarnated creatures but they say that is corresponds to creatures which had their creator die so nothing hints about the possibility to create another incarnate creature without making another base construct that you incarnate.
Also in society most of the time having high strength does not helps since it is all about skill-checks who does not change with the strength.

The game treats Ability checks and Skill checks as the same thing. You can take 10 and Take 20 with both when appropriate.

Yeah, the dispel part seems wonky if your making a real living creature. Not sure I agree with that one.

Can you help walk me through the process Unseenmage?

I want a elven/dwarven/human sized/shaped construct that we will turn into a normal living creature of the appropriate race.

Well, when I did it I was using Magic Traps and Spellclocks. However, I also had infinite wealth (with DM's blessing) and we were playing in a high powered, Gestalt, Faerun game. Not for the faint of heart to be sure. The character wound up causing such a ruckus with his process that eh got a visit from his deity, who informed him that though said deity was proud of the character, that the character should still knock off the world-shaking inventions. Was fun times.


Each of the following spells was either in a Magic Trap, a Spellclock, or an Energy Transformation Field (SpC 80).
- True Creation to make the substances one wishes to animate.

- Fabricate for forming the body into a humanoid form.

- Then either Animate Objects + Permanency or Minor Servitor (SS 68) or Awaken Sand (Sa 111) to animate the subnstance.

- In the case of Awaken Sand and Minor Servitor Guidance of the Avatar (think True Strike but for skills) boosted Diplomacy allowed my character to convert the creatures to his religion (PoF 51) and to command them.

- The spell Greater Humanoid Essence (RoE 186) will make a Construct into a Humanoid for a time. This makes them living, and makes them subject to mind-affecting effects. Also, spells like Telepathic Bond won't cease when the creature's type changes and the creature becomes immune to mind-affecting again. As it was explained to me this is because if changing type made spells stop affecting the target then Greater Humanoid Essence itself couldn't work as it would cease as soon as it took effect.
The Fanatic attitude (ELH 42) can be attained with a high enough Diplomacy roll and can explicitly be achieved by non-epic characters. This is how I 'commanded' the normally free-willed Constructs. It is also why I needed the spell Greater Humanoid Essence because achieving the Fanatic attitude is a mind-affecting effect.


- A more brute force method is to use Wish to simply create Constructs from nothing, if in your game Constructs count as Magic Items. The RAW implies that they both do and do not. (For the purposes of the GITP RAW Q&A thread they do not.) Barring that you can use Gate to simply call forth the creatures you are trying to create or the creatures you wish to modify.

In my aforementioned high powered Gestalt Faerun game I'd disallowed myself the spells Wish, Miracle, Gate, and Genesis (ELH 117). These spells were later banned in the setting as well for some very good reasons.


Simulacrum will also net you more and more minions if used at various points in the above process. And Simulacrums of Constructs will also be Constructs and can probably be Incarnate Construct-ed as Incarnate Construct (SS 67) only makes the subject weaker and not stronger as evidenced by its negative level adjustment.


And that's basically it. You're on your own for prices and caster levels etc. But I do advise that, if possible, you buy casting of the spells you need from spellcasters rather than buying scrolls or staffs as individual casting are far cheaper.

[Tvtyrant]

Why would you assume that the original is higher level? The vast majority of the world is ultra low level.

I think this one varies from person to person. I certainly never truck with low level NPCs. Wasn't giving them NPC classes enoug

[kalos72]

Sorry dude, not sure I follow you here.

-You make a statue of a humanoid - say with white skin/blue eyes and blonde hair
-You animate it with Animate Object or Minor Servitor turning it into a construct
EDIT - Use Greater Humanoid Presence to open the Construct to modifications Like your Fanatic Diplomacy aptitude and the Telepathic Bond - once the duration is over, those spells become something like "special abilities"?
-You then Incarnate Construct to make it humanoid permanently?
-Humanoid "real boy" with something resembling white skin/blue eyes and blonde hair

[noob]

He wants to enslave the construct with diplomacy.

[kalos72]

He wants to enslave the construct with diplomacy.

Oh now, thats such a negative way to explain it. Enlighten is a better choice I think. :)

All I need to do is find the rules about making a +30 Diplomacy magic item.

[Sagetim]

Oh now, thats such a negative way to explain it. Enlighten is a better choice I think. :)

All I need to do is find the rules about making a +30 Diplomacy magic item.

As I recall, if you're using the normal magic item rules to craft things you need to have at least as many ranks as the bonus you are trying to impart with a magic item (like how you need 3x caster level per point of enhancement bonus for weapons and armor). The limiter being a +30 skill bonus on a non epic magic item (or a +5 enhancement bonus for non epic weapons and armor).

Ancestral Relics, being...sparsely written, don't suffer this limitation. Just gp value. Do bear in mind that if you went over a +30 competence bonus for an item, you would have to do the cost as the epic rules require.

[kalos72]

So for the Construct side I think I understand the process, unless someone tells me my post 3-4 up is wrong.

But for a Sim, how could it work?

Maybe:
1-Greater Construct Essence to make the Sim a Construct - modify as desired with Telepathic Bond and the like.
2- Incarnate Construct?

Wouldn't that give me race/sex/features I want with the free will/sentience I desire?

Also, any suggestions on what to make the status/constructs out of to make them more "lifelike" once they turn "real boy"? Having a bunch of stone textured purple people walking around isn't the best scenario I guess.

[noob]

incarnate construct(the spell) does says that the construct is independent but it is never defined by RAW so an annoying DM could say that your simulacrum is still a slave.

[Vaz]

Why not tax people with a pay as you earn scheme taking out a small part of their wage whih goes towards the payment of the ritual of crucimigation for Necropolitan. Theu are non evil undead who live forever.

Bonuses accrued include better station and ever living job with better stats as a result of those Corpsecrafter feats, or even higher level spells, such as Animate Dread Warrior amd use of Psilychic Reformations to optimize them at their relevant role. Criminals etc can either be dealt with by premature turning undead, removal of rights of them and their family to become everliving, or putting them in the terrible jobs reserved for the lowest of the low, like mucl cleaning, or forced into the army under cintrol of minor sergeant level clerics who order them into massed battle as fodder, perhaos 'blessed' with the exploding corpsecrafter feat, so that their eternal life is cut decidedly short.

It isn't evil, but it is the combined stick and carrot. Obviously, those who volunteer the required payment before their time can opt to pay for the ritual, putting them into the relevant bracket.

Failing that, why not battery up with Planar Binding for mirror mephits, using their SLA for simulacrum, but with 16-18HD available (dependent on whether you donate orange ioun stones to the cause) from that SLA(hence, componentless) Simulacrum, why are you simming Human Commoners, when you can use it for genies under the control of the Mephit (bound to your will) and begin a wish economy, completely obviating the need for a working population when you can then order in arbitrary high CL Gate scrolls to do whatever you need?