# best uses of awaken spell?



## balmz (Oct 21, 2015)

what would you say are some of the best and funniest uses of the awaken spell? One player i know used it on a platypus and then the platypus took levels in rogue as an undercover agent, it didn't end up doing much




so what uses have you seen done?


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Oct 23, 2015)

We had a PC in our Kingmaker campaign, a cavalier/bard. As a cavalier, he got a special horse (more HD, better stats, etc). We joked that the horse was more badass than he was and gave it the nickname "the Bloody". At a certain point, the player retooled his PC as a magus, though the concept remained the same (eg high Charisma, schemer, only evil PC in the group, etc).

My PC was a druid. At level 9 he cast Awaken on that horse. By this point we'd decided to nerf the horse into a normal horse. But not anymore. The horse rolled high Int but took levels in barbarian.

Most of the party was terrified if I were to cast Awaken again. Awaken basically charms the target, but if you cast it again the "charm" effect on the first target ends. They were right to be worried. At a higher level I cast it again, and "The Bloody" went on to take control of a horde of horses and would randomly wander our kingdom, killing at random. The PC best suited to stopping it, mine, didn't want to intervene. So long as it didn't break any trees, he couldn't care less.

In a related case, back in 2e, we misread the Giant Insect spell. My PC cast it on an earwig. It got as many HD as I had and did 1d4 damage per Hit Die. I was 15th-level. It never actually seemed to hit anything, though. The earwig was named "Itchy", of course.


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## Richards (Oct 24, 2015)

In my Wing Three campaign we had a PC, Delphyne, whose parents were killed when she was 8 years old and she was raised from that point on by her maternal grandmother, who was a "witch," or wise-woman.  (We just reskinned the wizard class.)  They lived in a ramshackle hut they called "the Stick Palace," which was built like a tree fort in a big oak tree.

Years later, as an adventuring "witch" (wizard) herself, Delphyne returned to the Stick Palace of her youth upon the death of her grandmother, and another PC, a druid, awakened the oak tree.  So Delphyne from that point on had an awakened, mobile tree holding up the Stick Palace as a home base capable of traveling.

Incidentally, I had the awakened tree announce that its name was "Coventry," since it had been the home of a gathering of two witches (and thus was a "coven tree").

Johnathan


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 24, 2015)

Quoting myself from elsewhen...


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Here's an interesting fact: Aspen Trees are a clonal species- they can spread by runners.  One of the largest organisms on Earth is an Aspen grove in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains that has 41,000+ trunks.
> 
> That inspired this:
> 
> ...


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## nijineko (Nov 8, 2015)

best use? maximized and empowered. 

just don't use it on the constructs, or you'll have a fantasy "rise of the machines". ^^



i recall one player who made the mistake of spitting into a magical pool (the cheapskate didn't want to toss in copper) only to have it crawl back out and come after him... (over and over and over for the rest of the campaign ^^).


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## Random Bystander (Nov 9, 2015)

nijineko said:


> best use? maximized and empowered.



Hmm...

Step 1: Be a housecat statue.
Step 2: Have a maximized, empowered awaken cast on you.
Step 3: Gain an average Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma of 23.25.
Step 4: Be an Awakened Housecat Statue Druid.
Step 5: Gain levels.
Step 6: Army of Awakened Housecat Statue Druids.
Step 7: Ok, fine, some of you can be wizards and clerics. And, ok, rogues, fighters, rangers...Paladins? Wait, what about our army?
Step 8: Realize you're trying to herd cats.
Step 9: Find sunbeam.

Someone make this happen in a campaign.


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## nijineko (Nov 9, 2015)

i would think with an int and wis in the range postulated, said individual would skip steps 6 through 8 in advance, possibly step 5 or 4 as well depending on personal perspective. 

after all, aren't most cats you've seen already at step 9.... hmmmm, that might be a little scary, actually.


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## Random Bystander (Nov 9, 2015)

nijineko said:


> i would think with an int and wis in the range postulated, said individual would skip steps 6 through 8 in advance, possibly step 5 or 4 as well depending on personal perspective.
> 
> after all, aren't most cats you've seen already at step 9.... hmmmm, that might be a little scary, actually.



I was probably at least partially inspired by Krosp.


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## MarkB (Nov 10, 2015)

I was runner-up in a competiion on the WotC forums to write up a Dread Pirate character. There was a druid pirate captain who was essentially an eco-terrorist, preying primarily upon bound-elemental ships for their unnatural taming of elemental forces, and he had a general hatred for arcane magic.

He also had a pet parrot, Polyfex, who he eventually Awakened to serve his cause. However, Polyfex didn't share his master's attitude to either magic or the natural world, and secretly studied the arcane arts using tomes taken in raids upon other ships.

Eventually the parrot, now a full-fledged Necromancer, turned the crew against the druid and led a mutiny. Druid and parrot battled in a terrible duel of magic, and though Polyfex lost a leg, he slew his former master and took the ship.

Now the Dread Parrot Polyfex is one of the most feared pirates on the ocean. Wearing a hook in place of his lost leg, he raids ships at whim and zombifies their officers to supplement his crew, riding their dead captain as his personal perch.


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