Burning Sky adventure#12- Epic Fake!!!

[scifan888]

I am always eager for new epic material so when the blurb announced for the War of the Burning Sky series that there would be new epic spells and artifacts this seemed like something I should get.

Imagine my disappointment when I got a look at the final adventure #12 - The Beating of the Aquiline Heart and turned to the new magic section.
The "epic spells" were just a bunch of fluff. Four of them gave a decription of what the spell should do but when it came down to the crunch you got "Spellcraft DC: n/a".
The last 2 spells were just one line descriptions. For example one of them Fate of War - all we're told is that this spell was used to force the whole world to war. That's it.

I checked for any errata that might provide the missing stats. None found.

I was so irritated by this deception that I am ignoring the rest of the series.
All future products from this publisher and author will be looked upon with suspicion or just ignored.

Do not promise something useful and pull a bait and switch for something useless.

Redeem yourselves by giving the proper stats for those spell (ALL of them) here on the forums.

Until then I recommend AGAINST the War of the Burning Sky. !!!

[Morrus]

Where did you hear there would be epic spells? I don't recall we've ever said that. It's certainly not in the blurb for the adventure or the subscription.

The saga is, as was always advertised, for character levels 1-20. Not for epic characters. Any nods to epic content found in that adventure are merely additional things.

[Primitive Screwhead]

scifan888,

I am not sure what your objection is to the epic spells in teh 12th module. There are 6 epic spells detailed. The two you identified as lacking are both campaign specific epic spells used by the major NPC... I don't see any player ever having the opportunity or reason to cast these two spells.
If I find a player who objects, I would require the PC to research and develop the spells in question, just like Leska did.
I believe the authors placed that one line description to avoid people asking "but wasn't Leska casting some epic spell?"

I would highly recommend taking a step back and re-evaluating the entire campaign. This is one of the best, most complete, campaigns I have ever had the privilage to run.
Its also, relatively speaking, very inexpensive.... show me any other 1 - 20 {or 1 to 30 in 4e} campaign set for anywhere near this price.

On the epic spells given, personally I love Desertion of the Blade...

You turn the possessions of your enemies against
them, awakening a spark of malevolent sentience in
even the most mundane magic items.

[Rugult]

I agree with Primitive; there's still quite a bit of decent 'epic' magic in the book. Lest we forget some of new 9th level spells that certain NPCs have prepared (ie Aurana). Sure 9th level may not be classed as epic, but it's basically the same. On top of the spells there are several artifacts that function on par with Epic items, like the Living Blade or the actual Torch of the Burning Sky.

If you're looking for epic encounters, I would suggest re-reading Leska's stat block and try to tell me she is not kitted for punishing epic characters. Then if you're really crazy and are looking for a suitable epic villain, take the stat block of Annihilation from Adventure 10 and tell me how your party fares against him. Now that is an EPIC threat.

Sure, Adventure 12 is not a fully kitted out 'Epic' adventure. And by 'Epic', I mean use of the rules term, not the actual rollout of the adventure which is 'Aucking Fwesome'. I don't claim to know what was promised in the past, there's a lot of posts on this board and the site has undergone quite a few changes since the WotBS started, but I can say that that adventure is well in keeping with what's presented in the original campaign documents.

If you're looking for something to poke holes into, ask why Pilus isn't a lich anymore

[Marius Delphus]

I have to concur with Morrus; I don't recall the series ever being promoted as suited for epic-level characters. As being suited for "near-epic-level" characters, maybe (that description would cover 19th and 20th level); as containing epic threats, maybe (sounds vaguely familiar). The adventure itself includes a note saying that defeating Leska might be the PCs' gateway to epic levels, but AFAICT epic-level PCs are not even contemplated as participants in the adventure.

So I don't think there's been any kind of false advertising or bait-and-switch. As I see it, the epic content in adventure 12 (and the hardback) is presented so the DM can adjudicate what Leska does, not as stuff for player characters.

[scifan888]

Originally Posted by Primitive Screwhead

scifan888,

I am not sure what your objection is to the epic spells in teh 12th module. There are 6 epic spells detailed. The two you identified as lacking are both campaign specific epic spells used by the major NPC... I don't see any player ever having the opportunity or reason to cast these two spells.
If I find a player who objects, I would require the PC to research and develop the spells in question, just like Leska did.
I believe the authors placed that one line description to avoid people asking "but wasn't Leska casting some epic spell?"

Of course a PC would have to research an epic spell. However the lack of game info means that the player and DM have to actually do all the design work themselves rather than having a set goal for the character. Also there is no guarantee you are actually coming up with the same spell.

By leaving out all game details the designer just gives a hand-wave to what the NPC is able to do and not do under the rules, especially when for example Leska casts a spell that causes war to break out over an ENTIRE WORLD. How could someone of her level cast a spell that affects the entire world? No PC with the same abilities could do this, so how did she?
This seems to be one of the bad design situations where the writer gives the NPC abilities they could not have by ignoring the game rules. That may be fine in a novel but not in a game.
By just having "fluff" without any "crunch" with the epic spells you perpetuate the - NPC's can do this but PC's cannot because the rules say so, and the a PC must have more power, effort and sacrifice than the PC to even get a similar but lesser effect. These stereotypes have shown up many times over the years in modules and campaign settings.
As a player I always found that very annoying and as a DM when players ask the questions I asked the only answer we get is-- just because the writer/designer wanted to ignore the rules for a "cool event".

[Morrus]

Edit: Eh, never mind.

[RangerWickett]

In my opinion, the epic level rules for 3rd edition were pretty uninteresting, but if you want rules, here's a quick idea for how to handle that spell.

Spell Seed - Compel. Base DC 19.
Target - Change to area, 20 ft. radius. +10.
Increase area by 100% n times.

. . . thinking cap on. I don't have the map handy, but let's say the region is as big as Europe, so that's about 2000 miles or 1,000,000 feet across, so we need a 500,000 ft. radius. So 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560, 5120, 10240, 20k, 40k, 80k, 160k, 320k, 640k. Okay, so that's 15 steps, each giving a +4 DC, so +60. We're currently up to DC 89.

Oops, wait, I just checked the lovely epic spellcasting rules, and it's apparently every +100% of the base radius, not every doubling, so . . . from 20 to 500,000 is a 25,000 times increase, so that's +100,000 to the DC. Okay, so the DC is now 100,029.

Duration - Permanent. x5
Spellcraft DC 500,145.

Now, on to mitigating factors:

Casting Time is 3 days (-26).
Backlash of 52d6, since she's immortal and doesn't care (-52).
Pay 20,000 XP (-200)
Material Components:
-One "ancient source of immortality tied to the blood of the world" (ad hoc, -250,000)
-One "multinational war with hundreds of thousands of participants" (ad hoc, -250,000)

Final Spellcraft DC is actually less than 0, so really, she just came up with the whole idea on the fly.

Or maybe used the Koren Obelisk (I notice you didn't bitch about that not following standard magic item creation rules) to charm every spellcaster in the world to contribute one spell slot for her ritual, and the casting time was actually a month, and it was just a contingent spell with the trigger "when most dramatically appropriate."

[FormerlyDickensC]

[Edited by Morrus - personal insults are not appropriate on EN World.]

[amethal]

Originally Posted by scifan888

By just having "fluff" without any "crunch" with the epic spells you perpetuate the - NPC's can do this but PC's cannot because the rules say so, and the a PC must have more power, effort and sacrifice than the PC to even get a similar but lesser effect. These stereotypes have shown up many times over the years in modules and campaign settings.

As a player I always found that very annoying and as a DM when players ask the questions I asked the only answer we get is-- just because the writer/designer wanted to ignore the rules for a "cool event".

I appreciate you care about this, but I have the opposite opinion.

I'd hate for a cool event to get removed from a module because the designer couldn't spare the time and/or space to create an epic spell for it.

The fact that an NPC, after decades of research, can destroy the world is hardly a case of screwing over the PCs.

Players asking the DM is pure metagaming, and I don't care if the module prefers to concentrate on the actual scenario instead of worrying about metagaming players.

[Nareth]

Aside from everything else, isn't magic supposed to be strange and mysterious anyway? There are always "Powers greater than man" in the game, and magic can be whatever you want it to be. In the case of an epic spell, that could mean a character...PC or NPC...could spend their lifetime (and using other magics, perhaps several) researching a spell. Or, they could get it from a divine/demonic/abyssal/other patron. A glimpse into the Far Realm gives a flash of insight perhaps?

D&D has always said that the rules are just guidelines which is generally the only thing the rules lawyers miss when they read the books. Something like this is a great example of a writer being creative and finding a way to make an important event in the story happen.

If your players really are that worried about whether the spell is "official" or not, all you need to say is that it's a unique spell/effect. After all, most epic magic comes about through great effort on the part of a spellcaster. Not all of them are willing to just turn around and share that work with the rest of the world.

[Zinovia]

While I am not running WoBS in 3.5 and so don't care about the mechanics of epic spellcasting, I was very impressed with the resolution mechanic developed to handle the complexities of the war in the final module. I would far rather people spend printed space explaining epic *events* in whatever terms they need than making up mechanics that I will never use outside this module. So in this case, just handwave what amounts to special effects and spend time and page count covering more interesting events.

WoBS is a series of modules telling an interesting story, not a crunch book. Yes there are plenty of new crunchy rules in it, but that isn't what it's intended for. Surely the purpose of it was made clear in all the descriptions. My players have enjoyed our 4E conversion of WoBS thus far, and I would definitely recommend the series.