Expanding on Haunt Shift - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ChristopherGroves Nov 05, 2008 18:03:23	Discussion here about the potential use of Haunt Shift, an interesting spell in Libris Mortis that essentially turns and undead creature into a Haunting Presence (also described in Libris Mortis). Features of a Haunting Presence Awareness - doesn't grant blindsight but you do get a limited 60' awareness of what is going on Decreased Vulnerabilities - can't be turned, rebuked or destroyed while immaterial Impermanent Location - can materialize and can be destroyed unless the undead has some other capability to thwart death (lich, ghost, etc.) Poltergeist - Animation (Object) - If it haunts an object with moving parts it can animate the object as an animated object (like the adamantine baby doll) Poltergeist - Animation (Object - advanced) - Undead with 10 HD and 17 CHA can animate an object they inhabit with no moving parts (like that adanamtine statue of a hydra in the corner there) Poltergeist - Animation (Location) - If it instead haunts a location, it can animate a number of objects equal to hits HD (NO LIMITATION HERE GIVEN ON SIZE ... but the assumption is they are contained within the location) Features of Haunt Shift Spell 1d4 HD per CL (cap at 20d4 HD) Max 9 HD on single creature ... so you have to get shifted at 9HD or lower (though that could be a significant ECL what with undead hooplah)
#2 ChristopherGroves Nov 05, 2008 18:03:55	Some general notes and observations Poorly described mechanic No surprise here, par for the course. Beyond animating objects can a haunting presence take mental actions like psionics? What is a place? Seriously. What counts? Can you carry it with you? Like a portable pet cemetery?
#3 jaronk Nov 05, 2008 21:32:36	Somewhere, if you can find it, I did a huge post on exactly how it works. It's certainly a lot of fun. JaronK
#4 innabinder Nov 05, 2008 21:39:33	Show The Haunt Shift trick for near immortality. Okay, this one is complex, so you'll need to read the Libris Mortis entry on hauntings and cross reference to Animated Objects in the Monster Manual. Note that this trick requires a charisma of 17 and either good or evil alignment. Hokay, so here's the basics. Haunt Shift is a spell, 6th level IIRC (it might be 5th, but whatever), that lets you haunt any object from Huge to Tiny size using undead. The important bit here is that the undead must have 8HD or less for the spell to activate, but all the really good abilities only work for 10HD or more undead with a charisma of 17. That's okay, we won't let that get in your way. First of all, you need to create a new body for yourself. Pick whatever you like, but make sure to look over the Animated Object rules in the Monster Manual... various forms get various bonuses. My favorite is to look like a claw footed centaur with giant wings and chains running down the body (the wings won't let you fly, but they should count as sheet like in grapples, letting you blind enemies). Or maybe just make a statue of yourself. Whatever, your call. Now, you'll want a good material for this, and there are many options. Obdurium has a hardness of 30, so that's awfully useful, but watch out for Rust Monsters. Note that Stronghold Builder's Guide says that a 10'X20'X6" wall of the stuff (IIRC) is 4kgp in materials, so it's not even all that expensive. Ceramic is another great choice... the hardness is basically nothing, but then again nothing specifically attacks it, unlike virtually everything else. Glass too. Okay, so you know what form you want, and you have your material... what now? Okay, cast Magecraft and Fabricate to build the thing with Dwarvencraft Quality. Isn't it fun being a Wizard or Archivist and being able to craft with the best of them, never having done it before? But with the +5 from Magecraft and your Int score, you should have little trouble when you take 10 and build this thing. As an Archivist, you could also use Divine Insight. Dwarvencraft Quality increases the hitpoints by 10 and the hardness by 2 (more on the hitpoints later). Great, the object is crafted. Next step. Cast permanent invisibility (hey, it's an object, so this works). Cast see invisibility while you work for a bit... losing your body is REALLY embarassing. Now, get your caster level as high as you can (Consumptive Field is best for this, but not available to Wizards) and launch a Hardness spell, which increases the hardness of the body (as an instantaneous effect, woot!) by half your caster level. Awesome. Now cast Augment Object, which doubles the hardness for 1 day per caster level. If you can find a Psion, have them cast Matter Manipulation, which costs a trivial amount of Exp (so it shouldn't cost TOO much) and increases both the hitpoints and hardness of the object significantly. Okay, now at this point you may be wondering how you're going to get in there if you're not undead. No worries, you're a caster, such trivial issues do not concern you. And more to the point, two spells in Spell Compendium make you count as undead for purposes of all spells, so just use those. Sure, you're only a legal target for a short time, but that's fine, spells only check when cast, and it's instant so it's not like it could come off later. Also, the HD issue. For this, you're going to need to craft a scroll of Haunt Shift and get some holy or unholy arrows, depending on your alignment. Just equip (hold) enough of them to drop your HD to 8 for purposes of all effects (that's what negative levels do) and use the scroll to haunt shift yourself into your nifty new invisible super hard body. Woot! Okay, so what have you got? Well, first of all you can move your body any way you want. Nifty. And since you're now part of the object, you can still cast spells... note that the only rule for casting spells is that you can make the gestures. There's no rule about it being your normal hands that do it (though there is the rule that you have to actually have hands... you DID build your statue with those, right?). Hauntings explicitly can speak no matter what, so verbal components are fine too. Your vision is limited to only 60 feet, which is kind of annoying, so you might want to permanently Rory's Telepathic Bond with your familiar or use Chain of Eyes to deal with this issue. But more importantly, you now use the object rules for taking damage, which means such goodies as "can't take damage from piercing" and the fact that you now take half damage from darn near everything. Combine that with the hardness thing and you should have little to no trouble. Note that your hitpoints aren't well defined, but the best reference is that you have the hitpoints of an animated object of the appropriate side (since Haunt Shift says you control the body like an animated object). The other option is to use the rules on hitpoints per thickness from various sources, but that gets a little funky as it's unclear which thickness to use. Also, if your body is ever destroyed, it's a little unclear as to what happens, but most likely the lack of a haunted body ends the spell effect, so you'd pop out next to it as though excercised. Probably naked though, so you might want a contingency for when that happens. Also, watch out for martial adepts (though they can't use those darn mountain hammer things unless they're on the ground) and the Shatter spell (make sure you're big enough to avoid that!). Anyway, there's more details, but you get the idea. As for how to use this in a balanced manner, hauntings are fine if you don't build custom bodies or pump their hardness through the roof. Just use undead minions instead of yourself. They do make wonderful tanks. As for house rules: just don't allow players to possess hauntings themselves, and keep those hardness spells away, and you should be fine.
#5 jaronk Nov 05, 2008 22:06:36	Heh, that's one of them. I actually meant a different one, having forgotten about that one. But that will do nicely, thank you. JaronK
#6 ChristopherGroves Nov 05, 2008 23:04:27	It only covers the animate-an-object side of things. I'm still looking for ways to make a mobile ... area ...
#7 jaronk Nov 05, 2008 23:04:57	Tomb Warden! JaronK
#8 ChristopherGroves Nov 06, 2008 6:28:13	Yep, that's exactly why.
#9 amadithegreat Nov 06, 2008 7:29:51	It only covers the animate-an-object side of things. I'm still looking for ways to make a mobile ... area ... Would the effective area of an aura of individual count? Or emanation spell, probably from epic feat permanent emanation? :P
#10 ChristopherGroves Nov 06, 2008 7:42:24	Hmmm ... or a living spell? It's incredibly vague.
#11 zavule Nov 06, 2008 14:47:08	Instant Fortress This metal cube is small, but when activated by speaking a command word it grows to form a tower 20 feet square and 30 feet high, with arrow slits on all sides and a crenellated battlement atop it. The metal walls extend 10 feet into the ground, rooting it to the spot and preventing it from being tipped over. The fortress has a small door that opens only at the command of the owner of the fortress—even knock spells can’t open the door. The adamantine walls of instant fortress have 100 hit points and hardness 20. The fortress cannot be repaired except by a wish or a miracle, which restores 50 points of damage taken. The fortress springs up in just 1 round, with the door facing the device’s owner. The door opens and closes instantly at his command. People and creatures nearby (except the owner) must be careful not to be caught by the fortress’s sudden growth. Anyone so caught takes 10d10 points of damage (Reflex DC 19 half). The fortress is deactivated by speaking a command word (different from the one used to activate it). It cannot be deactivated unless it is empty. Strong conjuration; CL 13th; Craft Wondrous Item, mage’s magnificent mansion; Price 55,000 gp. Kinda really expensive... but this might qualify as both an area and an item depending on how the DM wants to rule it. And its portable.
#12 jaronk Nov 06, 2008 15:55:01	Yeah, and it's adamantium, which is good. But that bit about how you can't repair it without wish or miracle is a bad thing! You'd need to SERIOUSLY pump your hardness. Augment Object, Hardness, and Matter Manipulation would be your best friends. JaronK
#13 ChristopherGroves Nov 06, 2008 19:37:26	And really you don't get the tomb warden benefits unless you're kinda inside the area of the tomb ... so you'd have to lure folks inside, etc.
#14 tsuyoshikentsu Nov 07, 2008 2:51:34	Aurorum.

Show

The Haunt Shift trick for near immortality. Okay, this one is complex, so you'll need to read the Libris Mortis entry on hauntings and cross reference to Animated Objects in the Monster Manual. Note that this trick requires a charisma of 17 and either good or evil alignment.

Hokay, so here's the basics. Haunt Shift is a spell, 6th level IIRC (it might be 5th, but whatever), that lets you haunt any object from Huge to Tiny size using undead. The important bit here is that the undead must have 8HD or less for the spell to activate, but all the really good abilities only work for 10HD or more undead with a charisma of 17. That's okay, we won't let that get in your way.

First of all, you need to create a new body for yourself. Pick whatever you like, but make sure to look over the Animated Object rules in the Monster Manual... various forms get various bonuses. My favorite is to look like a claw footed centaur with giant wings and chains running down the body (the wings won't let you fly, but they should count as sheet like in grapples, letting you blind enemies). Or maybe just make a statue of yourself. Whatever, your call. Now, you'll want a good material for this, and there are many options. Obdurium has a hardness of 30, so that's awfully useful, but watch out for Rust Monsters. Note that Stronghold Builder's Guide says that a 10'X20'X6" wall of the stuff (IIRC) is 4kgp in materials, so it's not even all that expensive. Ceramic is another great choice... the hardness is basically nothing, but then again nothing specifically attacks it, unlike virtually everything else. Glass too.

Okay, so you know what form you want, and you have your material... what now? Okay, cast Magecraft and Fabricate to build the thing with Dwarvencraft Quality. Isn't it fun being a Wizard or Archivist and being able to craft with the best of them, never having done it before? But with the +5 from Magecraft and your Int score, you should have little trouble when you take 10 and build this thing. As an Archivist, you could also use Divine Insight. Dwarvencraft Quality increases the hitpoints by 10 and the hardness by 2 (more on the hitpoints later).

Great, the object is crafted. Next step. Cast permanent invisibility (hey, it's an object, so this works). Cast see invisibility while you work for a bit... losing your body is REALLY embarassing. Now, get your caster level as high as you can (Consumptive Field is best for this, but not available to Wizards) and launch a Hardness spell, which increases the hardness of the body (as an instantaneous effect, woot!) by half your caster level. Awesome. Now cast Augment Object, which doubles the hardness for 1 day per caster level. If you can find a Psion, have them cast Matter Manipulation, which costs a trivial amount of Exp (so it shouldn't cost TOO much) and increases both the hitpoints and hardness of the object significantly.

Okay, now at this point you may be wondering how you're going to get in there if you're not undead. No worries, you're a caster, such trivial issues do not concern you. And more to the point, two spells in Spell Compendium make you count as undead for purposes of all spells, so just use those. Sure, you're only a legal target for a short time, but that's fine, spells only check when cast, and it's instant so it's not like it could come off later. Also, the HD issue. For this, you're going to need to craft a scroll of Haunt Shift and get some holy or unholy arrows, depending on your alignment. Just equip (hold) enough of them to drop your HD to 8 for purposes of all effects (that's what negative levels do) and use the scroll to haunt shift yourself into your nifty new invisible super hard body. Woot!

Okay, so what have you got? Well, first of all you can move your body any way you want. Nifty. And since you're now part of the object, you can still cast spells... note that the only rule for casting spells is that you can make the gestures. There's no rule about it being your normal hands that do it (though there is the rule that you have to actually have hands... you DID build your statue with those, right?). Hauntings explicitly can speak no matter what, so verbal components are fine too. Your vision is limited to only 60 feet, which is kind of annoying, so you might want to permanently Rory's Telepathic Bond with your familiar or use Chain of Eyes to deal with this issue. But more importantly, you now use the object rules for taking damage, which means such goodies as "can't take damage from piercing" and the fact that you now take half damage from darn near everything. Combine that with the hardness thing and you should have little to no trouble.

Note that your hitpoints aren't well defined, but the best reference is that you have the hitpoints of an animated object of the appropriate side (since Haunt Shift says you control the body like an animated object). The other option is to use the rules on hitpoints per thickness from various sources, but that gets a little funky as it's unclear which thickness to use.

Also, if your body is ever destroyed, it's a little unclear as to what happens, but most likely the lack of a haunted body ends the spell effect, so you'd pop out next to it as though excercised. Probably naked though, so you might want a contingency for when that happens. Also, watch out for martial adepts (though they can't use those darn mountain hammer things unless they're on the ground) and the Shatter spell (make sure you're big enough to avoid that!).

Anyway, there's more details, but you get the idea. As for how to use this in a balanced manner, hauntings are fine if you don't build custom bodies or pump their hardness through the roof. Just use undead minions instead of yourself. They do make wonderful tanks. As for house rules: just don't allow players to possess hauntings themselves, and keep those hardness spells away, and you should be fine.