Empowered Awaken

[RigaMortus]

I really do not care about whether it is balanced or not powerwise. I find the idea that a powerful Druid could so easily generate entire races of superplants and superanimals that have the right stuff to rule the world to be an unmitigated disaster flavorwise. It is flat out bizarre even by the standards of D&D.

I would further note that trite old stereotypical Druid as the champion of the Green would be well motivated to do exactly that.

And the Wish and Miracle spells are not equally absurd? Heck, even Limited Wish can be wonky and weird. This is magic we are talking about.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

And the Wish and Miracle spells are not equally absurd? Heck, even Limited Wish can be wonky and weird. This is magic we are talking about.

Are they? I had not noticed. They are a little open-ended but they do have some pretty good rough guidelines.

 

[satori01]

Awaken also does not breed true. Yogi might be smarter than the average bear, but his children still have the 2 intelligence.

I hear what you are saying RC, it is one of those spells that you can imagine a cabal of Druids using to create some intresting land features,"dont go into the living forrest, ever since the fire 40 years ago, the trees have been quite angry".

I think it fair to say that NPC Druids have the same limiting factors as PC, which means they dont want to enchant or cast spells with XP components too often, else they suffer the risks of falling to far behind in their studies.

 

[DM_Matt]

Awaken also does not breed true. Yogi might be smarter than the average bear, but his children still have the 2 intelligence.

I hear what you are saying RC, it is one of those spells that you can imagine a cabal of Druids using to create some intresting land features,"dont go into the living forrest, ever since the fire 40 years ago, the trees have been quite angry".

Very true. The use I see for this is a crazy hermit druid who decides to turn the local plants into his own druidic circle. Without metamagicing it, he's not going to reliably create plants with high enough wisdom to make decent druids.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Awaken also does not breed true. Yogi might be smarter than the average bear, but his children still have the 2 intelligence.

And how do you explain his nephew Boo Boo?

This is really plenty of precedent to rule either way. The lines of kings tended to breed true in Middle Earth, frex.

 

[KarinsDad]

And how do you explain his nephew Boo Boo?

This is really plenty of precedent to rule either way. The lines of kings tended to breed true in Middle Earth, frex.

I wouldn't look there.

I would look at the game system.

If you have two magical beasts with high Int and extra HD, their offspring should be a magical beast with high Int and extra HD.

If you only have one magical beast and you allow it to reproduce with a normal animal, then I would modfiy the result similar to a Half-Elf. It gets some of the mental/physical traits of the magical beast parent, but not all of them. IMO.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you have two magical beasts with high Int and extra HD, their offspring should be a magical beast with high Int and extra HD.

If you have two magical beasts who've have their left front paw chopped off, their offspring should be a magical beast with its left front paw chopped off?

-Hyp.

 

[ThirdWizard]

If you have two magical beasts who've have their left front paw chopped off, their offspring should be a magical beast with its left front paw chopped off?

If you make them into a type of creature that has only three paws instead of four, then it might be debatable.

 

[blargney the second]

Three-pawed creatures are munchkin.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

As to the original question, wouldn't the Int, Wis, and Cha rolls be made by the awaken plant/animal and therefore (according to the 3.0 FAQ) not be affected by empowering/maximizing?

An awakened tree has characteristics as if it were an animated object, except that it gains the plant type and its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores are each 3d6.

IMC, I would rule that you could empower and maximize Awaken, but it would have no tangible effect. The spell creates a sentient creature and describes how its stats are generated. The "creature" (DM) makes the rolls though, not the caster, so empowering/maximizing doesn't help.

I can see other interpretations, but this seems the easiest. YMMV.