Quote:
	
	
		| 
					Originally Posted by thejeff  Which wouldn't actually be bad for expensive research/ritual mages.Going from ~300/15 to 25/15 may be worth it.
 
 Pan, anyone?
 | 
	
 If you don't mind losing their combat survivability in the meantime.  And burning 5/3 N gems for the amulet.
Also, for a Pan (which has decent MR) it will take ages to finally fail the check.
If you're using CBM and the caster has any N paths (like your hypothetical Pan), it's better to just use Transformation (which *will* eliminate the upkeep.)  Or, you can use the Life After Death/Ankh technique, if it's not considered an exploit in your games.
These all work on the same basic principle of substituting the base unit for a different unit type.