A Level 7 Cleric for a Day

[JaronK]

So, due to a VERY lucky gambit by my Dread Necromancer, my party finds itself with total control of a level 7 Lawful Good Cleric for 24 hours (enough for one meditation and spell regeneration cycle).  Since this is a super low magic game (at level 11, my DN has three magic items, a +2 Mithral Breastplate, a stone of -2 turn resistance, and an alter of desecration.  That's it), and since we have no other Tier 1s in the party (we have a Sorcerer who never takes useful spells, so that won't help much), I'd love to take advantage of this situation. 

So what are some things that are useful in the long term that we can get out of this Cleric?  Divine Insight would help us fix up our damaged battle cart, and we've got a shell shocked kobold slave that I'd like to cheer up, perhaps with some BoED stuff, but does anyone have any particularly good ideas?  The party right now is the Sorcerer and Dread Necromancer, plus a charger Barbarian, a shield based Crusader, a Paladin of Tyranny/Hexblade/Ur Priest/Bone Knight, and that's about it right now.  Also, the Cleric has Good and Dwarven domains.  And of course there's Chip, our Expert 5 Kobold slave that needs cheering up.

JaronK

[ninjarabbit]

Without knowing the cleric's feats and domains the best I can think of is imbue with spell ability to get 1st and 2nd level spells, maybe give them to the kobold.

[Akalsaris]

That's a pretty cool situation that the DM gave you to play with

I'm going to assume that costs for material components come out of the cleric's pocket - I hope that's the case anyhow!  

Here's my ideas...

0-level: have him make copies of some nonmagical texts with amaunausis (SP?) from Spell comp.
1st level: Use these slots with imbue with spell ability, and make some holy/unholy/anarchic/lawful water.
2nd level: Gentle repose on some corpses your DN has lying around.  You can do this too, but it saves spell slots.  Divine insight to help Chip out with some crafting I guess.  Make Whole on the broken cart.
3rd level: Make the cleric cast Glyph of Warding (Dwarf domain slot as well) on some boxes, with Cause Serious Wounds.  Keep the boxes around for whenever you need healing (if you're tomb-touched soul), or for your undead when they need healing.  Skull Watch (spell comp) can be handy if you stuff the skulls into a bag of holding and then take them out at night when you rest.
4th level: Get him to cast Imbue with Spell Ability on some party members, granting them some 1st and second level spells.  Have him cast Sending to anyone who you really need to contact in the game (maybe the kobold slave's family?)  Have him cast Planar Ally and have him give some 8HD outsider the task to help your party for the next week.  Panacea (spell comp) might also heal the kobold.

[ninjarabbit]

Or better yet use the planar binding spell to get something interesting, kill it, and have the dread necro animate it.

[JaronK]

Without knowing the cleric's feats and domains the best I can think of is imbue with spell ability to get 1st and 2nd level spells, maybe give them to the kobold.

Good and Dwarven Domains, and his only useful feat is Extend Spell.  Right now my plan is to have the Cleric cast Dimensional Anchor and Magic Circle Against Evil so my Dread Necromancer can cast Planar Binding into a good trap, and get an Efreeti.  My DM has okayed this as long as I use the free wishes for something awesome and yet not powerful (my plan is to use a bunch of wishes to pimp out our cart into a regal looking carriage with a haunt shifted critter controlling it and a permanent Shrink Item on it so it can be shrunk when we need to go into dungeons, and also to make our Kobold feel better.  I like our Kobold.  He's our mascot.).

@Akalsaris:  My DM didn't mean for this to happen!  But some VERY unlucky rolling for the Cleric (he needed a DC 13 will save, as a level 7 Cleric, and he botched it!) meant my ghostly visage familiar gained dominance for 24 hours.  It would be a heck of a stretch to assume this might happen again.  Thanks for the ideas though.  Glyph of Warding could be pretty amusing and I had forgotten about the joys of Skull Watch.

But no, we're not contacting the Kobold slaves family.  We probably killed them anyway.  We're an evil group, and there's good reason the Kobold is so shell shocked (but we like him anyway!  He's our only slave who didn't try to escape, so he's one of only a few survivors).  We want magical ways to make him happy, much like magic prozak.

@Ninjarabbit:  I can do that without a Cleric anyway, simply by Planar Binding into a ring of Ghoul Glyphs.  But right now I have no onyxs, so I can't animate anything good anyway.

JaronK

[Aliment]

I'm guessing the Coup de Grace at hour 23 has already been established then?  Let/Force the Kobold to do it.  Coup de Gracing someone always cheers me up. 

[JaronK]

I'm guessing the Coup de Grace at hour 23 has already been established then?  Let/Force the Kobold to do it.  Coup de Gracing someone always cheers me up. 

That's not a bad idea.  That said, I'm not sure we want Chip to actually know how to kill helpless people.  We let him out when we're sleeping...

JaronK

[Grim Sage]

Well, if you want magical prozac, trying to get a Nipple Clamp of Exquisite Pain for Chip and offloading every now and then by playing Whack the Kobold (he'll be begging you for it!) could help make both sides feel better.
That said, it might be difficult to get one in your low-magic setting, though you might squeeze it in on one of your wishes.

By the way, if you're Binding for wishes anyway, you might look into getting a Noble Djinni instead and grabbing some of the permanent vegetable matter they can create with Major Creation - an evil party loves their poisons, if my group is anything to go by.

On the subject of spells, Profane Item (CC 126) is permanent, so you can keep it around to poke people with, if you suspect them of being shapechangers - generally nice as paranoia often seems to be inherent to evil alignment.
Also, see if he can access some domains with other, more interesting domain spell lists through Substitute Domain (CC 128)

[JaronK]

Well, if you want magical prozac, trying to get a Nipple Clamp of Exquisite Pain for Chip and offloading every now and then by playing Whack the Kobold (he'll be begging you for it!) could help make both sides feel better.
That said, it might be difficult to get one in your low-magic setting, though you might squeeze it in on one of your wishes.

I don't think that's quite what's needed to get the Kobold out of his funk!  And the DM has made it clear that attempting to use wishes for permanent magical items won't work (I'm being allowed to do this precisely because I'm not using it to gain magic items... he's intentionally making them extremely rare).

By the way, if you're Binding for wishes anyway, you might look into getting a Noble Djinni instead and grabbing some of the permanent vegetable matter they can create with Major Creation - an evil party loves their poisons, if my group is anything to go by.

I might pull that off.  I wanted a nice Bronzewood and Soarwood carriage anyway.

On the subject of spells, Profane Item (CC 126) is permanent, so you can keep it around to poke people with, if you suspect them of being shapechangers - generally nice as paranoia often seems to be inherent to evil alignment.
Also, see if he can access some domains with other, more interesting domain spell lists through Substitute Domain (CC 128)

An interesting idea, though paranoia has never been a serious issue for us.

JaronK

[JaronK]

Another thing... are there any spells that fill the target with fun emotions (like Elation)?  Our party is a bunch of evil guys that would find nothing funnier than to make the Cleric cast spells that make us feel good... basically, using a dominated Cleric to sit around and get high for a day.

Oh, it's worth mentioning that due to Baleful Polymorph we now have a Lawful Good Paladin baby sheep in the party.  He doesn't like us very much since we killed his friends (well, except the Cleric we stole, but that guy will be dead soon too), and he doesn't exactly help us (he's just tied on a rope to the Sorcerer, and doesn't have much choice).  If you had a Lawful Good Paladin baby sheep in your party and you were in an evil party, what would you do?  Could you use the Cleric to do anything funny?  I'm hoping to use Permanent Shrink Item on our battle cart via wish tricks, and make our baby sheep tow around a tiny cart when I'm bored.

JaronK

[Grim Sage]

If you had a Lawful Good Paladin baby sheep in your party and you were in an evil party, what would you do?

Honestly? Mint sauce.

Though I have to say, the cart and such certainly work, and I like their style aswell.

As for spells, several describe feelings of bliss - sadly, the best ones are much higher level (Empyreal Ecstasy, Sublime Revelry), but Heart's Ease, Ray of Hope and Good Hope (the latter of which might be available through switching domains as I mentioned earlier) should work, and a special mention for Lastai's Caress and Vision of Heaven, which specifically target evil creatures with pleasurable feelings in order to debilitate them - but then, don't drugs usually have that effect?

[Emy]

Do you already have some Black Sand around? Would it be permissible to make some in this low-magic game?

Argh. I was going to suggest create undead, but that's level 6. While a cleric of your level would be able to cast it, you can't.

I'm hoping to use Permanent Shrink Item on our battle cart via wish tricks, and make our baby sheep tow around a tiny cart when I'm bored.

JaronK

Oh hey, it looks like you can use create undead.

1) Coup de grace the cleric.
2) Cast desecrate.
3) Use tricky stuff to cast create undead. Turn the cleric into a Bone Creature [BoVD].
4) Rebuke the newly created Bone cleric.

Cleric's HD for turning: 5 (7 HD - 2 from that magical stone you have).
Dread necromancer's turning level: 11.

Automatic success (even if you get the lowest possible roll on the Cha check).

[skydragonknight]

See if you can bargain with a fiend over the paladin's fate. Torturing him in Hell until he agrees to become their Blackguard has got to be worth something.

[Anklebite]

See if you can bargain with a fiend over the paladin's fate. Torturing him in Hell until he agrees to become their Blackguard has got to be worth something.

yeah, but then kill him with a casting of black sand. always handy to have that stuff around for a necromancer.... fast healing 1d6 for your undead. heh, and its a good way to torture the pally to death..... tie him down, poor black sand in ears, watch him suffer til 1d6/round kills him. and while he dying, inform him that his corpse will turn to black sand, so that for all eternity, he will be healing undead and hurting the living.

[JaronK]

Honestly? Mint sauce.

I thought of that, but the Sorcerer REALLY wants a miniature sheep paladin on a rope as a pet, so she'd get mad at me.  And of course, she won't even go for minature undead sheep paladin on a rope.  I asked.

As for spells, several describe feelings of bliss - sadly, the best ones are much higher level (Empyreal Ecstasy, Sublime Revelry), but Heart's Ease, Ray of Hope and Good Hope (the latter of which might be available through switching domains as I mentioned earlier) should work, and a special mention for Lastai's Caress and Vision of Heaven, which specifically target evil creatures with pleasurable feelings in order to debilitate them - but then, don't drugs usually have that effect?

Ooh, that's good.  We're planning on sitting around doing Cleric whippits anyway, not actually using these spells for good things.

I do have Black Sand (my Advanced Learnings went to Ghoul Glyph and Black Sand) and I've been making good use of the stuff.  And shipping him off to a fiend for loot would be awesome.  But I'd need to find another paladin sheep somewhere first, or the Sorcerer will get mad at me.

I can cast Create Undead since I have Versitile spellcaster, which does work that way on Dread Necromancers (that's how I've got Planar Binding).  Bone Creature is only out because I'm down to 50gp in onyxes (like I said, loot is HARD to come by in this game)... and again the DM won't let me do wish looping if I use it for anything actually useful.  Otherwise I totally would do that.  I've already got the Beguiler who died in a previous adventure as a Bone Creature.  He's great... Beguiler 5/Mindbender 1 with Mightsight who just spams Glitterdust in every fight.  Extremely handy utility undead.  My only other undead right now is my Skeletal Wyvern and a single Dragonwings Kobold Zombie.

I've also got a bunch of Paladin and Cleric corpses sitting on the ground right now (our party just got into a fight with a good dwarven adventuring party made up entirely of Paladins and Clerics).  I fully intend to use Gentile Repose on them and keep them for Bone Creature tricks later on.  Also, I've been negociating with my DM how to make Zombies and Skeletons with the templates in Libris Mortis (there are no rules for how to get those templates).  One option bandied about was using paladin body parts as material components when casting Animate Dead, so I might use up a few bodies that way.  I'll make sure the sheep is watching.

JaronK

[Anklebite]

if the sorc is dead set on having such a pet, you need to teach her how to take care of it. once you are done explaining the sheer amount of effort having it will cause, she might decide to drop it(literally).

she might also want to feeblemind it, to make sure a single lucky dispell or remove curse doesn't give you trouble....

[JaronK]

if the sorc is dead set on having such a pet, you need to teach her how to take care of it. once you are done explaining the sheer amount of effort having it will cause, she might decide to drop it(literally).

she might also want to feeblemind it, to make sure a single lucky dispell or remove curse doesn't give you trouble....

No, we're pretty good at having pets actually.  We're team evil, and we've had many slaves before.  Also, that Beguiler I reanimated has Mother Cyst, so that's the other insurance against possible doom.

But yeah, she really wants her pet minisheep, and I can't blame her.  Minisheep Paladins make great pets for evil parties.

JaronK

[Anklebite]

oooh, then you definitively want to give the pally a tumor.  just make it an internal one, and the sorcerer never has to know.... in-game.

[PhaedrusXY]

You can use Wish to reproduce lower level spells, and since it is from a SLA it will not require the material components. You could easily have your summoned efreet/djinn make whatever Bone Creature you want via replicating Create Undead, for example, but I'm sure you can do something better with that... Permanency comes to mind...


Also, don't you have to do the "bootstrapping" method to actually get something that can use Wish via Lesser Planar Binding? Both Efreet and Noble Djinni have too many HD to summon using that.

Also... Polymorph Any Object is reproducible via Wish.... Just sayin'...

[Emy]

You can use Wish to reproduce lower level spells, and since it is from a SLA it will not require the material components. You could easily have your summoned efreet/djinn make whatever Bone Creature you want via replicating Create Undead, for example, but I'm sure you can do something better with that... Permanency comes to mind...

Even if you interpret create undead to require a corpse as a material component^{[see below]}, it also has a target of "one corpse" -- which you would still need for the spell.

Presumably due to poor editing, the phrase "The spell must be cast on a dead body." appears in the Material Component section of the spell. However, this doesn't mean that "a dead body" is a material component. The target is selected when you finish casting the spell, and the component is consumed during the casting, therefore if the dead body were a material component, you'd need two corpses to cast create undead. (One component and one target.)