@DragonParadox we can make
fungoid sorcerer-creature snakes(the Tiny Viper is the snake I'm using here) for just the cost of a 1HD creature right? I'm planning to sell them to the Githzerai next month, they should be great for unleashing on the constant siege battles around the Fortresses, with Hoard Gullet and detect magic, they can slither across the battlefield, and bring any magic items they find on the fallen to their handler, I'm sure the defenders are sick and tired, of the people sieging them looting their fallen(both the defenders and their own) having small creatures designed for stealth looting, should mean the siegers can recover a good deal less of their dead troops magic items, while the defenders get extra loot.
I choose Fungoid for the fact that Fungoid creatures are telepathic, but I just noticed telepathy specify they have to have a language, so I will probably have to swap that template for another.
If they can't use the telepathy I think I will swap to
Template-Wood-Element, the bonus defense, should make stray shots a little less likely to kill them, and they get the plant type, and so all the immunities plants have.
@tarrangar, if you want something of little value that can gather shinies for you, I would suggest making Kobolds instead. They have the added benefit of breeding more of themselves without further investment.
Kobolds aren't stealthy, if you send a kobold into an ongoing battle to gather shinies, you are going to have a dead goblin, a Tiny Viper has a +15 hide check, and they aren't going to be something the combatants are on the lookout for, kobolds are fine after battle looters, but they aren't very good at surviving the battlefield to bring the loot to you.
Just bring humans then, they provide the same benefits without moral dilemmas regarding creating beings to serve.
That's another point against using kobolds, we would care about kobolds dying to bring us shinies, beyond wanting to turn a profit on them, we aren't going to care much at all if our 1 Int snakes die.
Yeah they would be great for looting items. Nut you have to get them Mental Effect Immunity if you dont want to risk one being corrupted by some item and biting its user in the ass (if they are lucky).
Plant creatures have mental effect immunity by default, which is another thing that make them good looters.
There's a pretty long list of sentient beings that have been created by Viserys, Lya and Vee. Likewise, there were a lot of recruitment pitches where the power balance was just as skewed.
This is a line well and truly crossed already.
Yeah but battle looting is a high risk low reward job, not something we want to create sapient beings for, it's okay if 50% of all snakes die every battle, if the surviving half bring in over 100IM worth of magic items each, even if we can produce kobolds for less than 100IM, that's still not a trade we would want to make with intelligent beings.
With the Snakes the cost is 3HD worth of corpses to make a snake, and since they're 1INT creatures, there's not much moral problem, with them dying in droves for our profit, with Kobolds we would have to make sure the risk reward ratio, came out in favor of reward for the Kobold, with the snakes, only our risk reward ratio have to be considered.
Yeah but we don't give them any other real choice as well.
We offer to let them go out in a world they have never seen and have no experience with. Knowing that there is no one else like them. With no contacts.
They don't have a real choice. We are very much making them take the lesser of two evil choices.
That's why we don't insist that their choice is final, we don't let them choose between working for us forever, or go out into a world they know nothing about, we let them choose between working for us for as long as they want to, or not working for us and going out into the world, if they decide they don't want to work for us anymore a few months down the line, then they can quit their job at that time.
