[epic, dragon] Arcane Lord EPrC

[Bill Muench]

I'm experimenting with the Epic rules and Epic spells and such by statting up a few Epic NPCs in the homebrew I've been working on for a while. I decided that one of the NPCs will have the Arcane Lord EPrC. Two of their abilities, New Spell and Recall Spell have raised some questions. The abilities are as follows:

New Spell (Ex): At 2nd level and every other level thereafter, the arcane lord may learn one new arcane spell of any level she can cast. If she uses a spellbook, she may scribe this spell into her spellbook at no cost. Otherwise, the spell is simply added to the arcane lord's list of spells known. This spell knowledge is in addition to any she might gain from other sources.

Recall Spell (Su): At 3rd level, the arcane lord can use a standard action to recall any spell she has already cast within the past hour. Essentially, the character regains the prepared spell (in the case of characters who prepare spells) or the spell slot (in the case of characters who don't prepare spells).

Here's the question: do these abilities include Epic Spells? By a strict reading, I'd say yes. What do the rest of you think?

For balance reasons, I think that I'll allow the Recall Spell ability to function with Epic Spells, but not the New Spell ability. The reason being that allowing a PC (or NPC) to learn an Epic Spell for free would be a gigantic bonus, considering how much they cost and the fact that they take XP to develop.

I'm just curious what the rest of you think about this. Thanks!

 

[Caliber]

My gut tells me that Epic Spells shouldn't be used with either of those abilities, although I will admit to being stumped for a reason why.

Note that you can't scribe an Epic Spell, so obviously it doesn't apply for Wizards in that case ... I am unsure of how to disallow that for Sorcerors.

As for Recall Spell, you could make the agrument that Epic Spells don't use slots (and they defintely aren't prepared)

You simply can cast a certain number per day, like a 3x per day ability.

 

[Crothian]

I also don't think epic spells should be used with either ability. The number perday one can cast is a product of ranks, so under normal circumstances you can cast one additional per 10 levels. This class would allow one to cast a whole lot more epic spells.

 

[Bill Muench]

As for Recall Spell, you could make the agrument that Epic Spells don't use slots (and they defintely aren't prepared)

You simply can cast a certain number per day, like a 3x per day ability.

Not true. Check page 72 of the ELH:

page 72 of the ELH
A developed Epic Spell become an indelible part of the caster and may be prepared without a spellbook... Druids, clerics, and similar spellcasters can likewise prepare epic spells using epic spell slots. An epic spellcaster can prepare or cast any epic spell she knows as many times per day as she has available epic spell slots.

A spellcaster who can cast epic spells has a number of epic spell slots per day equal to...

Although upon further reading I did notice that metamagic feats and the like can't be used on Epic spells (page 73) (which I knew but didn't really think about in this context). I think that I'll be using that as justification that epic spells are too different to use the Recall Spell ability, since, as Crothian mentions, epic spell slots are governed by level and it could get unbalancing if I allowed otherwise...

 

[Darkness]

I agree that these abilities probably shouldn't be used with epic-level spells.

In any case, you could ask Andy Collins himself.