Pun Pun, Sarrukhs and Manipulate Form

[Mistborn]

You can, but it is one of those things like the Vampire Template. More power now for shit later.

There are two horrifying abuses in being able to polymorph somthing and then awaken it. One is you can then do it again and again endless adding +2 HD and +3d6 Int. Second those blank HD are a limitles source of XP(allowing you to the cast Awaken as many time as you want. Plus if you have the Abjurant Champions Martial Arcanists feature those HD stop being blank and become +2 caster level each.

[Kaelik]

You can, but it is one of those things like the Vampire Template. More power now for shit later.

There are two horrifying abuses in being able to polymorph somthing and then awaken it. One is you can then do it again and again endless adding +2 HD and +3d6 Int. Second those blank HD are a limitles source of XP(allowing you to the cast Awaken as many time as you want. Plus if you have the Abjurant Champions Martial Arcanists feature those HD stop being blank and become +2 caster level each.

1) No you idiot, you don't get XP with those HD, you just get HD.

So hypothetically, you find a level 1 Sorcerer, and you polymorph him into an animal, and then awaken him.

He now has 3HD, but two of them don't advance casting. And he still only has 0XP. So he is ECL 3, so he gets less XP from fights, and he won't reach Sorcerer 2 until he has enough XP to reach level 4.

2) Read the actual spell, you don't add 3d6 Int. Your Int score becomes 3d6. So you just reset your Int over and over. You do get Cha, but again, it is absolutely not worth that shit to have a really high ECL, because it means you can never gain Caster Levels every again.

[wotmaniac]

The only thing common to all your problems is you.

If you think you are making brilliant insightful arguments for what should be blindingly obvious, and literally everyone else thinks you are making completely incoherent ramblings with no sense to them at all, that is some pretty probative evidence that you are bad at communicating and the problem is with you.

I'm under no delusions of "brilliant insight" -- all I've been trying to do for the last 2 pages is get you reactionary fucktards to engage in a simple 2-minute mental exercise, for the sake of simple discourse. That's it. But the best you can do with that is "fuck you, I'm right because you're stupid" -- which completely misses the point.

You know, I've actually considered your "point" here a bit; not just right now, but from time to time in the past as well. I've gone so far as to sift through old threads where similar situations have occurred; and the only real commonality that I see is that it's always the same motherfuckers and their same tired-ass rage-shitting. What's with this "literally everyone" bullshit? I haven't actually gone through and done a member count, but the thread seems fairly split -- so, that just means that you're saying that half the posters on this thread are non-existent .... but I'm the idiot?
Fuck -- right here in this very thread (and in almost every aforementioned thread I've sifted through), there are those that have been like "no, wotmaniac is actually saying ...."; at which point I quote that shit and emphasize that yes indeed they got the point. At which point all you rage-shitters completely ignore that and go back to vomiting your bullshit. But I'm the problem?

1) No you idiot, you don't get XP with those HD, you just get HD.

So hypothetically, you find a level 1 Sorcerer, and you polymorph him into an animal, and then awaken him.

He now has 3HD, but two of them don't advance casting. And he still only has 0XP. So he is ECL 3, so he gets less XP from fights, and he won't reach Sorcerer 2 until he has enough XP to reach level 4.

*<wotmaniac cleans computer screen of the blood that just shot out of his eyes>*
WHAT!?
I ..... wha ...... b-but .......
Fuck it, I'm done with this guy.

[Kaelik]

but the thread seems fairly split -- so, that just means that you're saying that half the posters on this thread are non-existent .... but I'm the idiot?

The thread is evenly split between people who think that Manipulate Form works as RAW and thought that before you ever posted.

It is not evenly split between people who think you are coherent, and people who think you aren't.

No one thinks your long rambles are coherent.

Fuck -- right here in this very thread (and in almost every aforementioned thread I've sifted through), there are those that have been like "no, wotmaniac is actually saying ...."; at which point I quote that shit and emphasize that yes indeed they got the point. At which point all you rage-shitters completely ignore that and go back to vomiting your bullshit. But I'm the problem?

No, right here in this thread there are two different posters who have said "no, wotmaniac is actually saying" two completely different things.

One of them said that you are talking about RAI because you think it doesn't work RAW, and the other one said you think it works RAW and that you are trying to limit it RAI.

Even the people who think they know what you are saying have contradictory interpretations of what the hell you are saying. The only commonality is that they both know you are talking about RAW and RAI, but frankly, so what, that is pretty much a given for anyone who is ever talking about D&D rules. Frank and I also have talked about what happens when you invoke actual games, we just did it really shortly, because the answer is obviously "Manipulate Form has never come up in a game ever being used by anyone other than the DM, who can already just make up anything he wants anyway."

The only reason you think that people totally know what you are saying is because people randomly guessing at your incoherent shit sometimes get it sort of close to right, and you allow confirmation bias to convince you that you really are a clear communicator and it is just those meanies with a grudge being mean to you.

But hey dumbshit, I said you were an incoherent shit, because you are, and you may think I hold a grudge against you, because everyone seems to think that about me, but let's look at who else in this thread thinks you are an incoherent fuck:

John Magnum thinks you are being so stupid he can't parse what you say, does John Magnum the guy who joined a year ago hold an abiding grudge against you? Has he even advocated for one side in this discussion?

Oh course you think only mean people who are mean think you are an incoherent wreck and the people understand you. There is literally no one else in the world more subject to confirmation bias on this subject than you, not even your hypothetical grudge holders.

I can remember every single time You Lost Me has praised me, but fuck if I can remember even a single time that K spent a post calling me a shithead. You are no different. You are incoherent, you are bad at communicating. Sometimes people can figure out what you are saying, and sometimes they just think they can and it is close enough.

But yes, keep blaming your problems on the evil vendetta that John Magnum has carried against you over the course of multiple threads.

[Username17]

The way to abuse Self Awakening is as follows:

• Transform into something that gives you the Animal type.
• Cast Awakening on yourself. Preferably empowered or maximized to get even better mental stats.
• Feel sad that you have gained several incredibly shitty levels and no XP, essentially shutting you out of further XP gains.
• Remember that level loss sets your XP to the midpoint of your current level even if that's more XP than you currently have. So lose a level. Either by getting bad touch from a Wight or just killing yourself and getting raised/reincarnated.
• Retrain your extra hit dice of magical beast into caster levels. Either by using the PHB2 retraining rules or with the expedient of negative energy levels and restoration. You've now gained a level and increased your mental stats without adventuring at all.
• Fucking repeat that shit, because it can be repeated for credit.

Self Reawakening is an old power loop. It has a name. And unlike the Sarruk bullshit, it actually is Rules As Written. There is no "and then I made up parameters for an undefined effect and got the DM to agree to them even though those parameters are by everyone's admission completely overpowered and retarded" step.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Remember that level loss sets your XP to the midpoint of your current level even if that's more XP than you currently have. So lose a level. Either by getting bad touch from a Wight or just killing yourself and getting raised/reincarnated.

Fair enough. As the exalted master of Level Drain trickery, you may not find remembering that very hard, but fuck all if I have ever even thought of allowing myself to be level drained as a power loop without specifically reading about it right beforehand.

Also, you still probably don't want to do it as a Wizard, because it is still just 3d6 Int, but it is still +1d3 Charisma, so yay something for Sorcerers.

[fectin]

Also, you still probably don't want to do it as a Wizard, because it is still just 3d6 Int, but it is still +1d3 Charisma, so yay something for Sorcerers.

You might, especially in a rolled stats game. This way you can repeat until you have an 18 base stat. You'll lose out on the bump every four levels, but if you're planning ahead you can dump that in CON (or whatever) anyway.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Fair enough. As the exalted master of Level Drain trickery, you may not find remembering that very hard, but fuck all if I have ever even thought of allowing myself to be level drained as a power loop without specifically reading about it right beforehand.

Frank is absolutely shameless about level drain trickery. So much so that back when 3E D&D was the Top Dog of TTRPGs we had a name for these shenanigans: the Difference Engine.

After having that 'trick' pointed out to me, I've been dismayed to discover just how many RPGs have Difference Engine bullshit in them. Final Fantasy Tactics and Wizardry comes to mind.

[Kaelik]

You might, especially in a rolled stats game. This way you can repeat until you have an 18 base stat. You'll lose out on the bump every four levels, but if you're planning ahead you can dump that in CON (or whatever) anyway.

Pretty much no. By level 8 you could have 18 Int with a high roll of 14. If you rolled a 15 you would have a higher Int by not awakening. The only reason a Wizard uses awaken is to gain levels, not to gain Int.

[John Magnum]

Just wanted to let people know that I did indeed join a year ago specifically to contribute to the global reptilian conspiracy to undermine wotmaniac.

[fectin]

Sorry, I don't follow. Why does 14 int become 18 by level 8?

[Korgan0]

Sorry, I don't follow. Why does 14 int become 18 by level 8?

The free attribute point per four levels.

[fectin]

Yes, but that makes 16, not 18.

[Kaelik]

Because the 18 you roll on 3d6 for awaken does not get modified by racial +2s.

So if you are making a character from scratch, and you rolled a 14, you have 18 Int by level 8.

Not that you ever roll 14 high, because if you have a 13 or lower as your high, you reroll, so 95 times out of 100 you end up with at least a 15, and you could have had higher int without awaken.

[wotmaniac]

Just wanted to let people know that I did indeed join a year ago specifically to contribute to the global reptilian conspiracy to undermine wotmaniac.

I thought something was awry.

---

@ Kaelik:
if you find me so abhorrent, then why do you even bother? just put me on ignore and move the fuck on.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Don't take it personally, that's just how Kaelik communicates with people he disagrees with. You get used to it after a while. He's not the worst this board has seen...

[fectin]

Because the 18 you roll on 3d6 for awaken does not get modified by racial +2s.

If that's true, you're right.
I don't follow though: why wouldn't the racial +2 apply? It's a typed bonus to attribute, just like any other. It can't be added directly to the roll total, because rolling for attributes is finalized before you select a race.

[Kaelik]

@ Kaelik:
if you find me so abhorrent, then why do you even bother? just put me on ignore and move the fuck on.

You are often incoherent and subject to confirmation bias. That hardly reaches the level of abhorrent.

Also, if I had had you on ignore, I never would have seen you accuse me of lack of reading comprehension and strawmanning, and then completely fail to comprehend what I said and argue against strawmen. That was the best thing ever.

Because the 18 you roll on 3d6 for awaken does not get modified by racial +2s.

If that's true, you're right.
I don't follow though: why wouldn't the racial +2 apply? It's a typed bonus to attribute, just like any other. It can't be added directly to the roll total, because rolling for attributes is finalized before you select a race.

It can be directly added to the roll after you choose your race.

Awaken does not set your rolled intelligence to the new number, it sets your intelligence to that number. When you later cast awaken, it sets your intelligence to a new number, regardless of what your previous intelligence was.

For the same reason it erases inherent bonuses from wish and inherent bonuses from level up it also erases racial bonuses.

Because your intelligence is now X, so things that added to your previous intelligence score do not effect it.

[fectin]

So, following that logic, what happens when you cast Awaken on something with a hat of intelligence?

For example, say you have a Myconid with a
Nevermind. The whole thing doesn't work. Plants just re-randomize, and animals can't have more than 3 intelligence anyway, so it's a one-time deal.

Edit:tags

[Kaelik]

So, following that logic, what happens when you cast Awaken on something with a hat of intelligence?

The hat stops affecting their intelligence, because it affected the old intelligence. Then it starts affecting their new intelligence.

Because it is a constant bonus, not an increase to their score, like racial/inherent.

[fectin]

I checked; you are correct, per SRD, PHB, and MM.

I was sure it was a racial bonus. Maybe it is in other places; maybe there's an exploit there. I'm not interested enough to go looking through.