Author Topic: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement  (Read 8241 times)

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Endarire

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Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« on: June 24, 2010, 11:38:57 PM »
The old ttrick is listed below.  Here's my version.

Manifest forced dream and psionic contingency: forced dream, both on yourself.  Set your contingency to activate, "When I want it to."  More specifically, have it activate, "When I dislike the result of my turn on the round which I expended forced dream."

What's this mean?

If you expend forced dream to restart the round and dislike the result, your contingency activates and your original forced dream returns, allowing you to go Groundhog Day on a round, assuming you can get enough swift actions each round.

The Save State Psion 1.0
By Tleilaxu_Ghola

The Simple Summary
This trick works by abusing time hop to send your psicrystal days forward in time, and forced dream (Magic of Eberron 104), which will return him back in time to the moment you manifested time hop. Doing so will undo whatever caused your party to wipe, because the psicrystal's Dream began before you time hopped it. (Presumably while you were all alive and kicking.)

There's a couple of other things you'll need to make it work, below:

Abstract
With this trick one is able to create "save" game points, with a minimal cost of 15 XP for psionic contingency. The trick allows one to adventure for a day and then reload the save game point if something went awry.

Ingredients:
Forced Dream (Magic of Eberron 104)
Anticipatory Strike (Complete Psionic 78)
Time Hop
Psionic Contingency
A Psicrystal
Status
Imbue with Spell Ability
Metamorphosis - needed if your DM ignores Player's Handbook 177 that states a creature can suppress racial resistances/immunities to magic.
Sending Stones [Magic Item] (Complete Arcane 150, 15K per linked pair)

Forced Dream: Psion/Wilder 3
[Paraphrased]
Any time during the 1 round/level duration (or minutes per level with 4 pp augment), you can spend a swift action to restart your turn.  As forced dream says, "When this effect is used, everyone and everything is reset to the state they were at when the subject's turn began. Any spells or abilities used are available again, any damage dealt is healed , any effects incurred are negated, any objects or creatures moved are reset to their original position, and so on. The only exception to this is that any power points spent to manifest forced dream are not recovered..." Forced dream ends when the swift action to do this is expended or when the duration expired.

The Trick
Manifest psionic contingency on your psicrystal placing a contingent ancipatory strike on him contingent on the event: returns to the normal time stream from a time hop.

If desired, share metamorphosis with your psicrystal to transform him into something that isn't immune to mind-affecting compulsions. Heck you could transform him into an object of any size if you wish.  (Player's Handbook 177 states a creature can suppress racial resistances and immunities to magical/psionic effects, meaning metamorphosis is just for show.)  Have the party Cleric use imbue with spell ability on the psicrsytal so that it can use the spell status.  (A Spell to Power Erudite or someone with an item can cast status himself.)  Mix with affinity field if you wish the psicrystal to have knowledge of all party members' condition, though this requires a level 9 (!) power.

The psicrystal casts status on you or whatever party member you choose. This person's condition will determine whether or not the save state will be reloaded, so choose carefully.  NOTE:  Status will NOT work across planes!  Be careful!

Manifest forced dream on your psicrystal at some time before you fear harm will befall you. Ready a standard action to manifest a contingent time hop on your party (+2PP per target) when the psicrystal moves.  Tell the psicrystal to do so, advancing him hours / level ahead in time. With enough ML you can advance your psicrystal nearly a day. Adventure on your merry way, whilst your psicrystal is outside the time stream.

If your party succumbs to a TOTAL PARTY KILL, your psicrystal will still be alive and kicking the next day. No time will pass for him and when he comes out of the time hop and the contingency will grant him sufficient actions to check the status of the party, provided they are on the same plane as the psicrystal.  (If on another plane, there's a 5% chance of failure.)  The psicrystal may also use a Sending Stone to ask whether his master would like to reload or not.  If the party member is under a certain condition or if the master tells the crystal to, the save state is reloaded as the psicrystal spends a swift action to return to the beginning of his turn, which began with you manifesting time hop on him right before he started moving. You may now retry whatever you failed to accomplish.
Hood - My first answer to all your build questions; past, present, and future.

Speaking of which:
Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
Does it bug anyone else that we've reached the point where characters who can obliterate a greater deity in one round are considered "decent?"

dark_samuari

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Re: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2010, 12:15:18 AM »
You created the Omega 13 from Galaxy Quest.




Bastian

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Re: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2010, 12:46:08 AM »
I'm failing to see how this has much to do with Tleilaxu_Ghola's trick. One is using forced dream to restart a day through brilliant use of time stop, the other is using two forced dreams to do what forced dream was intended to do without losing it. Also, can you activate contingency off such vague mental commands?

Endarire

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Re: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2010, 04:52:53 AM »
By RAW, contingency is omniscient.  By providing the condition, "When I want X to happen," I offer a detectable condition.  Some time later, I state, "I want X to happen," and my contingency makes it so.
Hood - My first answer to all your build questions; past, present, and future.

Speaking of which:
Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
Does it bug anyone else that we've reached the point where characters who can obliterate a greater deity in one round are considered "decent?"

Brainpiercing

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Re: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2010, 07:05:21 AM »
I'm seeing Time Hop as being rounds/level. What am I mising?

Phaenix

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Re: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2010, 10:43:01 AM »
In order to do a full-adventuring-day save point, you need to use Time Hop, Mass, which has an hour/level duration.

Brainpiercing

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Re: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2010, 10:52:21 AM »
In order to do a full-adventuring-day save point, you need to use Time Hop, Mass, which has an hour/level duration.
Ah, makes a lot more sense now. And it also means it's a level 15+ tactic, unless you do some ML shenanigans and power switch on an ardent...

awaken DM golem

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Re: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« Reply #7 on: June 25, 2010, 07:08:21 PM »
Dirty Trick #5 ... lives again !!

something musta' kicked that contigency ... :joystick


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Ardent with Time mantle "should" be able to have both of these powers on the list.
The rest can be had via Dragon #349.
Ardent + Cleric for the early access trickery ... by level 6 or so ?!

Endarire

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Re: Save State Psion - Possible Improvement
« Reply #8 on: June 25, 2010, 08:14:06 PM »
How could we combine the dual forced dream with the original trick?
Hood - My first answer to all your build questions; past, present, and future.

Speaking of which:
Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
Does it bug anyone else that we've reached the point where characters who can obliterate a greater deity in one round are considered "decent?"