30th Level Adventure in the next DUNGEON mag!

[Rystil Arden]

In my experience, I've found that epic level play tends to take one of two paths. The first path is the one my group uses, going for well-rounded and balanced characters that stay true to the original character concept. The second path is the one a lot of gamers tend think of when epic is mentioned. Characters here have one or two super stats that are extremely high and have one or two focused abilities that do massive damage in an attempt to be the ideal min/max machine. Of the two, I prefer the first. Makes for more interesting roleplay.

I don't know...one of the PCs (the Archmage) gained level 21 at one point during my campaign, and selected the feat Epic Skill Focus [Decipher Script] so that she can really be one of the best at reading ancient runes in the campaign (now she isn't level 21 anymore though). So to that extent, I don't think my players are trying to make the best epic build ever. The same character plans on taking her next level in Rogue to get more skill points, for instance. The Frenzied Berserker stopped in the middle of the class to take levels in Paladin of Freedom when his character concept took him towards Freedom from an evil Empire. The Azer cleric is an Azer, with all the attendant LA. He knows that he paid for it with the hit he took to caster level; he just wanted to be an Azer because he thought it would be a neat concept. So I wouldn't say that my PCs have taken the second path, and heck, they aren't even epic...

 

[Jdvn1]

I'm just thinking, even without min-maxing, at 45th level I would hope my character has the equipment to get his AC at least well into the 40s.

My 18th level Druid has an AC just short of 40. I shouldn't imagine it's tough.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I'm just thinking, even without min-maxing, at 45th level I would hope my character has the equipment to get his AC at least well into the 40s.

For Kosh, I would recommend getting rid of the Periapt of Proof Against Poison and getting an Amulet of Natural Armor +5 (Or higher if the DM allows it). With his 36 Fort save, I wouldn't be blowing an item slot on something that guards against poison.

I agree with Lasher. I mean, the Frenzied Berserker in my campaign has 24 AC, and the rest of the characters are IC constantly telling him to get better armour (his is non-magical) because he keeps getting killed because of this.

 

[Rystil Arden]

My 18th level Druid has an AC just short of 40. I shouldn't imagine it's tough.

Its not very hard at all. Everyone except the FB in my campaign has AC at least in the 30s. But the FB is stubborn and refuses to use any armour except his old chain shirt, which was once enchanted to have special purpose: Destroy all clerics of Shar but was disjoined by a friendly cleric of Shar while the FB was sleeping (She asked the other PCs, "Could you ever rest easily if someone in your group had an intelligent magic item whose only goal was to destroy you and could force him to act on its whims, especially if it was the FB?" and they agreed).

 

[DaveMage]

Come on, that Rogue's not the way to go : A level 40 Paladin who takes every single feat in the Epic Smite can deal 14x her level damage on successful smites, which is 560 damage. Remove one of those for the Lion's Charge feat, and she can charge in for a full attack that does an extra 520 damage each on the first round (and adds her Charisma bonus to hit).

I bow to your superior munchkin fu!

 

[Rystil Arden]

I bow to your superior munchkin fu!

Thanks! I did play the Mayor of Munchkinland once in Elementary School...

 

[DaveMage]

Well, you can always try this character. He was created by a player who has just joined my epic level group.

With a +21 initiative and attacks like he has, he could probably get by with 1 hit point, much less 660+!

Thanks for posting those!

 

[Halcyon]

I think what stalker0 is thinking of is one of my characters in an epic game he ran. I was a mystic theurge, and the way the epic spell rules are written I get double the normal slots/day since I qualify for them as both a divine and arcane caster when I take the feat. Not hard to develop epic spells that make doing almost anything to you pointless if you use the right abjuration-based spell seeds. I think he was a bit annoyed that I could cast disjunction 6 times and was immune to it (not to mention my epic dispel) I guess that is a case of items not mattering as much, but I know that most of the other characters in the party would have been fairly gimped (aside from the sorc) by magic item loss. Its not in question that a high level rogue can deal huge damage whether they have items or not. The real issue is all the abilities items confer that make dealing that damage possible. The loss of some kind of magic mobility aid alone is enough to really hurt most melee classes at this level. Maybe its just the games Ive been in, but it seems very few noncaster epic classes are without those epic speedy boots, or boots of teleportation or some other type of magical movement aide. I know a lot depends on the environment combat occurs in but if your target d-doors away from you to the edge of his long range, at that level it can be quite a jog to get back to melee range with a base move of 30ft.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I think what stalker0 is thinking of is one of my characters in an epic game he ran. I was a mystic theurge, and the way the epic spell rules are written I get double the normal slots/day since I qualify for them as both a divine and arcane caster when I take the feat. Not hard to develop epic spells that make doing almost anything to you pointless if you use the right abjuration-based spell seeds. I think he was a bit annoyed that I could cast disjunction 6 times and was immune to it (not to mention my epic dispel) I guess that is a case of items not mattering as much, but I know that most of the other characters in the party would have been fairly gimped (aside from the sorc) by magic item loss. Its not in question that a high level rogue can deal huge damage whether they have items or not. The real issue is all the abilities items confer that make dealing that damage possible. The loss of some kind of magic mobility aid alone is enough to really hurt most melee classes at this level. Maybe its just the games Ive been in, but it seems very few noncaster epic classes are without those epic speedy boots, or boots of teleportation or some other type of magical movement aide. I know a lot depends on the environment combat occurs in but if your target d-doors away from you to the edge of his long range, at that level it can be quite a jog to get back to melee range with a base move of 30ft.

Actually that double-slot thing is a misconception, as far I can tell. What it does mean is that you can use all of the seeds, even life and heal with the divine slots. I'm curious as to how you became immune to Disjunction, since one of the annoying things about the darn spell is that it instantly defeats even epic spells. I've had to have characters with contingencies against it.

 

[Halcyon]

From ELH, using the ward seed

A ward against magic creates an immobile, fainly shimmering magical sphere (with radius 10ft) that surrounds you and excludes all spell effects of up to 1st level. Alternatively you can ward just the target and not create the radius effect. For each additional level of spells to be excluded, increase the Spellcraft DC by +20. The area or effect of any such spells does not include the area of the ward and such spells fail to affect any target within the ward.

It is possible to take down the epic ward spell with a disjunction, but if you wanted to hit the caster warded with it also you would have to cast it a second time. So not total immunity, but enough to be able to not fear it very much. This is also not even entirely clear, as the ward seed description says that only targeted dispels or dispel seed/destroy seed epic spells can bring it down. Im going to assume though that disjuction can also. As for the number of epic spell slots, this is from the ELH from the epic spell casting feat (remember slots/day are based on skill ranks)

Special: If you meet more than one set of prerequisites, the limit on the number of spells you may cast per day is cumulative.

Yes some are going to be arcane and some are going to be divine, but its still basically double the slots assuming you have equal ranks.