Craft Effigy Abuse

[virgil]

I just discovered the effigy template, something that can be applied to any aberration, animal, dragon, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, or vermin. It loses all of its type and subtype, as well as all special qualities. My maximum HD is equal to my caster level, and it has a market price of 2000gp/HD.

However...
Special Attacks:An effigy loses all supernatural special
attacks, spell-like abilities, and extraordinary special attacks
for which a target’s saving throw is based on the effigy’s
Constitution (since the creature no longer has a Con score).
It retains any extraordinary special attacks that do not allow
a saving throw (such as rake, rend, or constrict) or any for
which the target’s saving throw is based on the creature’s
Strength (such as trample) or Dexterity (such as a howler’s
quills).

The way this is worded, I can friggin' make a water naga effigy and have a 7th level sorcerer (stocked up on non-save effects since its Charisma is 1) for a fairly low price. And that's just off the top of my head.

[CalibronXXX]

Wouldn't it need a Charisma of ten to be able to cast anything at all(cantrips)?

[virgil]

Crap.

[shau]

I thought the idea of craft effigy abuse came from the fact that it only charges you based on HD and that there are templates that increase CR but not HD. So you can layer on all the half golem templates onto your hydra effigy and it just costs you the same as a hydra.

[virgil]

Yeah, that was a mistake on my part, as was the wording. From what I can tell, you could make the case that the "for which the target's saving throw is based on the effigy's Constitution" only applies to the last part of the list of removed special attacks. Thus, I could only get (Ex) from anything I make (sans poison and one or two other parts).

Guess the abuse is going to have to come from the kind of stuff you could do with polymorph, barring the part where I could stack templates. Now the question is, is Craft Construct worth it with this template, even if my DM bans the application of templates?

[Username17]

The Effigy Template only comes from the Effigy Master class from Complete Arcane I. It's broken in that it's an entire class based on simulacrum but it's also pointless because you lose caster levels. Josh's review gave it 0 good levels, and I agree.

-Username17

[virgil]

The section "Constructing an Effigy" specifically states that you can make an effigy even if you're not of the prestige class, all you need is the Craft Construct feat.

[CalibronXXX]

Why wouldn't you just be able to make effigies by virtue of having the Craft Construct feat?