Can I summon a horde of shamblers?

[Pielorinho]

Heh. Do temporary Con points from the same source stack?

I was looking at that, and I think it's poorly worded: really the shambling mounds (hidden beneath the sham bling mound) ought to get an enhancement bonus to their Con from electricity.

But yeah, just as temporary Con damage from the same source stacks, I'd think temporary con points from the same source would also stack. Neither is a bonus or a penalty, after all.

Daniel

 

[Hypersmurf]

But yeah, just as temporary Con damage from the same source stacks, I'd think temporary con points from the same source would also stack. Neither is a bonus or a penalty, after all.

I was drawing a comparison to temporary hit points, where this situation came up recently - an Iron Golem gains THP from magical fire attacks. The question was whether the Iron Golem's THP total continues to ramp up every round he spends in a Wall of Fire.

The Main FAQ introduced the concept of THP Pools, where your THP from Aid and your THP from False Life stack, but your THP from three castings of False Life all overlap (simply serving to replenish your 'False Life Pool').

Which makes me wonder if the FAQ would take a similar approach to temporary Con points - the Shambler might have a 'Lightning Bolt Pool'.

-Hyp.

 

[javcs]

If so, there's shocking grasp, and the energy substitution feat ..

 

[Jack Simth]

You'd need a Wizard's help, but with either Mastery of Elements or Energy Substitution(Electricity), you could have the Shambling Mounds continually refresh themselves in a Permanencied Wall of Electricity.....

 

[Pielorinho]

Well, let's knock that out: as I said, I think it'd be reasonable to have them be treated as an enhancement bonus, and I'm happy to accept Hyp's rationale for having them otherwise overlap.

My DM just raised an interesting question, though. In a campaign world with a handful of 17th-level druids, some of whom will be non-adventuring, wouldn't you expect a fair number of them to cast Shambler every day? Wouldn't that mean that the sedentary druids of at least 17th level would have, at any given time, about 210*(1d4+2) shambling mounds defending their base, or about 945 shambling mounds hanging around? Maybe they can only cast it every other day, using their slot for other purposes on the remaining day: that's still an army of hundreds of shambling mounds surrounding their base.

Is there any limit on this? I think the answer is "no." Assuming a DM wants to put a limit on this, what would be reasonable as a limit?

Daniel

 

[Infiniti2000]

Is there any limit on this? I think the answer is "no."

I agree. No, there isn't.

Assuming a DM wants to put a limit on this, what would be reasonable as a limit?

The most obvious solution is to use other spells as a baseline, such as spellstaff. That's a big change, though and I'm not sure if it nerfs it too much (beyond the ruling on the Con-stacking).

 

[Nareau]

As the DM here, I have a few thoughts:
1) The spell, IME, needs to be changed in a fundamental way. The aforementioned 17th level druid is nothing compared to the 20th level druid, who could easily have a few thousand of these guardians.

2) One possible change would be to add a Material Component to this spell--namely, a living plant that's at least 15' tall. So a druid could theoretically convert part of their grove into guardians, essentially awakening them into shambling mounds for a period of time. But doing thousands would be a pretty epic event, and would essentially disrupt an entire forest for a few months. It would also make the spell pretty sucky in the desert, or for indoors combat, etc.

3) The closest analogous power seems to be an evil cleric's ability to control undead. With enough Command undead attempts and Animate Dead spells, he can control up to 5 times his HD in undead minions. Would it be appropriate to put a similar limit on druids (meaning a 17th level druid could control 85 HD worth of shamblers, or 7 of them)?

4) The last, and perhaps most restrictive limit I'm considering, is that only one casting of Shambler can be in effect for a druid at any given time.

Ultimately, it's not a spell I see being abused a lot. So I'm not that worried. But I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Nareau

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Actually I have always thought there should be some kind of comback for casting huge numbers of high level spells, whether divine or arcane.

Divine is easy, jsut have the gods or forces of nature object to the characer using huge pools of power for no clear purpose.

Arcane is mroe difficult, but perhaps some kind of ability damage, or other penalty for over-using magic would be a good idea to blance this kind of continuous casting.

For example, in my epic game, a player who no longer plays had his druid casting over 50 levels of spells on himself per day. Apparently for the whole 500 years he had not been adventuring(according to his backstory)

Think of all the spell-starved 1st level characters!!!!!!!!!