Epic spells and the Epic Caster (unfair balence of power?)

[Ristamar]

***while a lone fighter without his 'toys' is pretty screwed.***

I don't agree. A lone fighter who is able to at least pick up some kind of weapon, be it a rusty old sword or a wooden chair leg, is still able to use his feats, his bonuses (by then, that +5 to hit from a magic sword isn't much compared to the min +20 you get from just being lvl 20+).

Two major points:

- A magic weapon is usually needed to bypass even the most piddly Damage Reduction. Casters have an entire arsenal of spells at their disposal which bypass DR and have spells capable of temporarily enchanting weapons. The only thing hindering them is SR, and even then, a caster simply summon or Gate monsters to do most of the melee work for him, or at least provide a distraction.

- While the 'naked' fighter is still a decent offensive machine against opponents lacking DR or having very poor DR, he lacks adequate means of protecting himself. Again, the casters have plenty of means to protect themselves, such as endure elements, mage armor, shield, stoneskin, etc. On top of that, you have utility spells (summon spells, teleportation, invisibility, haste, wall of force, etc.) and even if the caster is caught mostly unprepared, he can generally conjure some sort of temporary defense (or flee and/or hide magically), buff himself with spells, and then go to town on the enemy.

High level fighers need their magical equipment to survive. Casters are far more capable of making due without it in a pinch.

 

[Burne]

<rant>
I totally agree with the statement "Epic Casters got the shaft!" I believe that anyone who doesn't agree with that hasn't truely considered all the implications of the epic spellcasting rules and the epic caster progressions in general.

Point 1: It is not possible to make a Epic spell without a Saving throw without resorting to adhoc adjustment. (Yes I have read the caption to the factor tables, but that only applies to damage spells, a spell like Ice Storm or Sleet storm is not creatable)

Point 2: Spell casters will always lose in the long run as their is no way for spell casters Save DC's to grow along with there opponents Save bonuses.

Consider the Big Spell included in the ELH. Spellcraft DC:419 does 305d6 to 1 target(Fort Half) and 200d6 backlash damage. Given the most generous of magic items this spell might be castable around level 100. Our hypothetical caster could have a INT of 18base + 25 advancement + 5 book = 48 INT lets add spellcasting prodigy and Epic Spell Focus as well before considering magic items. That gives us a Save DC of 20base+20stat+6focus = DC:46

Our "victim's" saves however are +6base (he is a rogue maybe) +40 epic saves, that gives us a +46 to save. But wait our rogue victim hasn't yet added his Con or any of his feats in yet. Hmm.

But surely with magic items the Wizard can pull ahead? The answer is no, Never. The Math of item creation will defeat the epic caster everytime. Resistence bonuses to saves cost less than adding points of INT. The rogue can buy +10 to all saves for an even 1 million gold, the wizard must spend 4 million gold to add 20 Intelligence to add 10 to her save DC's.

End result: The biggest and assumedly best damage spell the nice folks over at wizards could come up with, will almost always do more damage to the caster than to the target.

Point 3: Spell Seeds suck. Exculding Epic Mage Armor, there are no "low level" Epic Spells worth spending Xp on. The _Most_ basic damage spell is inferior to a Heightened Disinterate/Finger of Death/Destruction in every important way (Ruin has a longer range than any of the above, those who wish to defend the awesomeness of the range entry should refer to the DMG section on limits of sight and line of effect for spells)

I can't emphisize this enough, Spell seeds suck. Lets say you foolishly want to create an epic invisiblity spell. You use the Conceal seed. Lets see that DC 17 X 9000gp = 153,000gp, takes 3 days to research, and costs you 6120 xp. Now you bing a foolish Epic caster, you buy the above spell. Congratulations you have a spell that is inferious in everyway to the 2nd level spell invisibilty. How can that be you ask, Simple.
Epic Conceal
DC 17
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Creature Touched
Duration: 200 minutes;
Effect: 1 creature
Creation: 153,000;3 days;6120xp;Seed:Conceal
Effect: You and you stuff are invisible till you make an attack.

Compared to Invisibilty this spell takes 9 more rounds to cast and lasts a shorter time (10 minutes per level remember, and you must be at least 21st level to have epic spells)

</rant>

While there is more evidence that "casters got the shaft" (Monk Stun Dc vs Caster Spell DC, what the heck!) I won't go into here. I spent roughly 8 hours today trying to come up with a reasonible alternative. Right now the best I've got is a T-Shirt that says "Epic Spellcasting is for losers" I believe that the basic idea of ranking epic spells by there Spellcraft DC is a good one, but I don't see anyway of salvaging the Spell seeds as they are now. Any epic spell system where the basic spell units are less powerful than 9th level spells just can't be viable in my eyes.

WANTED: Epic Casting System, must allow unlimited advancement, great flexibility, and power in line with the word Epic. Apply in person.

burne

 

[drnuncheon]

I can't emphisize this enough, Spell seeds suck. Lets say you foolishly want to create an epic invisiblity spell. You use the Conceal seed. Lets see that DC 17 X 9000gp = 153,000gp, takes 3 days to research, and costs you 6120 xp. Now you bing a foolish Epic caster, you buy the above spell. Congratulations you have a spell that is inferious in everyway to the 2nd level spell invisibilty. How can that be you ask, Simple.
Epic Conceal
DC 17
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Creature Touched
Duration: 200 minutes;
Effect: 1 creature
Creation: 153,000;3 days;6120xp;Seed:Conceal
Effect: You and you stuff are invisible till you make an attack.

Well, of course you're foolish - you're buying just a spell seed, and one that's far below your ability. As a 21st level caster you've got K:A at 25, with probably a +10 from Int, items, and various feats. So looking at a spell with a DC of 45 (assuming you Take 10). So where to start?

First off, lets make it equal Improved Invisibility - DC 21. Next, let's look at the Conceal seed again. Hey, you can use it to block Divination effects. So add Conceal a second time, with the +6, for a total of 44. Now your epic invisibility extends to divination spells. Like, oh, say, see invisible and true seeing.

That's not bad. Not bad at all. A couple of levels down the road and you can increase the duration. You could bring it down to 1 action if you wanted it to hurt to cast.

Epic spellcasting really comes into its own when you're a few levels past 21 though. As a caster, I'd probably wait to take the feat until I had 11th or 12th level slots.

J

 

[Blacksad]

WANTED: Epic Casting System, must allow unlimited advancement, great flexibility, and power in line with the word Epic. Apply in person.

burne

Take the improved spellcasting feat: as the wiz/sor get 1 feat every 3 levels, and every character get 1 feat every three levels. You could, have a better spell slot every 2 levels while taking others feats.

The increase in slot will follow the increase in save.

Fill those slot with epic spell. To build them use this formula with the seed system maxDC=(spell level*10 - 40), with the normal cost rules for creating new spell (1000gp per level IIRC, perhaps you could multiply by 10 the gp price to research new spell because they are Epic).

Spend the money you would have spend on spellcraft increase item on an item that boost your relevant spellcasting ability.

If you want alter the improved spellcasting feat: one more spell know for sorcerer when they take the improved spellcasting feat, an additionnal spell slot up to one level lower than the new spell slot for wizards.

This sytem has also the advantage that with time you could have level 10 paladin spell, though you'd better choose among the normal cleric spell for those if they are under level 10.

I'm repeating myself, I know

I you want to further discuss this system, or come with alternate of your own, see this thread:
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17632

PS: never use your screen name in a french forum

 

[LordAO]

It just seems to me that magic has always been more paowerful thean mere swordplay. Mages can get spells that will do alot more damgage than a fighter swinging a sword can do, and to a whole lot more people. Magic is the most powerful of arts, but also the most difficult. That said, I definately see where you are coming from, especially with the save DC issue. So here are a couple of ideas which may help:
1) create items, such as a "Power Focus" which adds to the save DCs of all of your spells, and costs the same as the equivalent resistance items.
2) Give magic users an epic bonus to their save DCs for every two levels, just like attack bonus and saving throws.
3) Create an epic feat that will allow you to add the attribute bonus of another attribute to your save DCs (on top of the normal attribute).

 

[Arravis]

Burne, you hit the nail on the head. Can anyone refute what he's saying? Any possible, solid, solutions?

 

[Blacksad]

Burne, you hit the nail on the head. Can anyone refute what he's saying? Any possible, solid, solutions?

Somehow, I think that the epic spellcasting system consider that you use specific magic items: headband of intelect and spellcraft boosting item.

The headband allow a direct increase in save DC that compensate part of the save bonus adversaries could get through magic item.

The spellcraft boosting give you the bonus to create the spell and the other part to fight aganst save boosting magic item.

Your rank give the save DC, your rank increase by one every level, saves increase by one every 2 levels, and you can increase the save DC of Epic spell by augmenting the spell DC by 2 for every point of increase for the save DC.

Though, it seems they did not used that when figuring exemple for epic spell.

As I've already said, I do not like this system for the same reason that I don't like the psi-combat: for its reliance on magic item.

 

[Arravis]

Saves can be just as augmented by stat-increasing items, save's increasing items and such. that keeps up with the increase on the caster's side, which means they fall behind, very quickly. DC's should be level dependent, or have some other way to be modified.

Perhaps a system that you can lower the caster level for a given spell, and for every 2 caster levels you sacrifice, the DC goes up by 1.

 

[Blacksad]

Saves can be just as augmented by stat-increasing items, save's increasing items and such. that keeps up with the increase on the caster's side, which means they fall behind, very quickly. DC's should be level dependent, or have some other way to be modified.

Perhaps a system that you can lower the caster level for a given spell, and for every 2 caster levels you sacrifice, the DC goes up by 1.

Well, it's quite unlikely that a character has wis, con and dex boosting item all at once, and the spellcraft increase through magic item is quicker than the saves increase through magic item (i.e. cost less).

And the +2 DC to cast the spell to get a +1 DC to the spell save DC do just what is needed. I actually think that they put some thought in this epic magic system, but it is meant to be used in a way and in no others.

 

[Arravis]

I just hate that they expect Epic Casters to fall back levels behind the group, while everyone else gets their abilities without such sacrifices and at a reasonable rate (ie, you don't have to be lvl 50 to get "good" powers/abilities). the payoff doesn't justify the sacrifice.