Epic Level Spellcraft DCs
Well, for one, an 80th level Wizard would have up to 83 ranks of spellcraft. Add in their ludicrously-over-buffed intelligence, and you can at that point easily have a +130 or more for your Spellcraft checks! (One character I was building, at only 35thlevel, had an intelligence of around 96, after casting a few lower-DC spells - and he didn't have any cohorts of followers to milk for donated spell slots, either).
Let's see, let's assume 50th level - that's 53 ranks. Figure the guy gets his intelligence jacked up to around 130 (see above for why I think this is reasonable to assume), that's +60. Add in a magic item to give him a +30 competence bonus, and then the Rod of the Epic Spellcaster for an insight bonus of +20 (IIRC), and we're talking a Spellcraft modifier of 163.
Which means always being able to pull off Epic spells with a DC of 173 or lower.
Let's see, let's assume 50th level - that's 53 ranks. Figure the guy gets his intelligence jacked up to around 130 (see above for why I think this is reasonable to assume), that's +60. Add in a magic item to give him a +30 competence bonus, and then the Rod of the Epic Spellcaster for an insight bonus of +20 (IIRC), and we're talking a Spellcraft modifier of 163.
Which means always being able to pull off Epic spells with a DC of 173 or lower.
Pax said:
Or he could simply use Wish to get the 5th lvl Bard Spell Improvisation from Song and Silence. At lvl 50, it would provide a +100 pool of bonus points, all of which could be added on a skill check. Yikes.
Yet another reason why Clerics often dominate epic level play; they can use Miracle to get Improvisation without spending 5000xp.
Viktyr Gehrig
First Post
frugal said:
Magic items and less powerful (lower DC) Epic spells. Stat boosts are sickly easy with Epic spellcasting.
frugal
First Post
Korimyr the Rat said:
I am presuming that the Epic level handbook has some stuff in it that the Epic SRD does not.
Using the Fortify seed with the SRD it does not detail the increase in DC for each increase in ability score beyond +1. So by the letter of the SRD you can have a +1 ability bonus as an epic spell with DC 17, but you can not have an ability bonus above +1
CRGreathouse
Community Supporter
frugal said:Using the Fortify seed with the SRD it does not detail the increase in DC for each increase in ability score beyond +1. So by the letter of the SRD you can have a +1 ability bonus as an epic spell with DC 17, but you can not have an ability bonus above +1
Quoting the Epic SRD:
"The fortify seed has a base Spellcraft DC of 27 if it grants a creature a +1 bonus to an ability score or other statistic it does not possess. For each additional +1 bonus, increase the Spellcraft DC by +4."
Here are the three epic spells the character used to boost his intelligence. I used three seperate spells, mainly to keep the DC's manageable; at higher levels, you could probably just merge them into a single spell. Note, the XP cost to cast each of these is covered by using a Rod of Excellent Magic; it ups the GP cost to be able to use these spells by a considerable amount, but, really saves on the XP hit in return ...
Note, the above were built for an arena with a +30 cap on the benefits to any single attribute from any single epic spell. Positign the same character at ECL50, with his then-pre-enhanced Intelligence score of 35, a +30 enhancement-to-spellcraft item, and the Rod of the Epic Spellcaster, along with 53 ranks of spellcraft, I'd be able to easily make a DC of 125 (spellcraft total of +115).
So, I could simply have done:
Then, after casting that, I'd have an intelligence of 102(+46), raising my Spellcraft check to +153 (make DC 163 with ease), so I could add:
That'd result in an intelligence of 132, which is an ungodly number of bonus spells per day (note the duration ... from this, you WOULD get bonus spells, if you remembered to cast it every day to ensure it was in continuous effect on your person ...); you'd get 15 bonus spells each for levels 1 through 4, 14 bonus spells each for levels 5 through 8, 13 bonus spells or levels 9 through 12, 12 bonus spells for levels 13 through 16, and so on. Your base spell DC, for a 0-level spell without any feats, would be 71 (!!). At epic levels, pushing that to an 80 would be no problem at all - giving you a save DC of 90 for your Epic spells (!!).
Scary, isn't it?
Note, the above were built for an arena with a +30 cap on the benefits to any single attribute from any single epic spell. Positign the same character at ECL50, with his then-pre-enhanced Intelligence score of 35, a +30 enhancement-to-spellcraft item, and the Rod of the Epic Spellcaster, along with 53 ranks of spellcraft, I'd be able to easily make a DC of 125 (spellcraft total of +115).
So, I could simply have done:
Then, after casting that, I'd have an intelligence of 102(+46), raising my Spellcraft check to +153 (make DC 163 with ease), so I could add:
That'd result in an intelligence of 132, which is an ungodly number of bonus spells per day (note the duration ... from this, you WOULD get bonus spells, if you remembered to cast it every day to ensure it was in continuous effect on your person ...); you'd get 15 bonus spells each for levels 1 through 4, 14 bonus spells each for levels 5 through 8, 13 bonus spells or levels 9 through 12, 12 bonus spells for levels 13 through 16, and so on. Your base spell DC, for a 0-level spell without any feats, would be 71 (!!). At epic levels, pushing that to an 80 would be no problem at all - giving you a save DC of 90 for your Epic spells (!!).
Scary, isn't it?
Just to clarify:
+1 Enhancement, to an attribute you possess: base DC 17, +2 DC per additional +1 (i.e. +1 is 17, +2 is 19, etc).
+1 bonus of any other type, to an attribute you possess: base DC 23, +6 DC per additional +1 (i.e. +1 is 23, +2 is 29, etc).
...
+1 enhancement bonus to an attribute you do not possess (an enhancement to constitution, for a lich, for example): base DC 27, +4 DC for each additional +1 (i.e. +1 is 27, +2 is 31, etc)
And by inference, a +1 bonus of any otehr type, to an attribute you do not possess, would be base DC 33, and +12 DC for each additional +1 (i.e. +1 is 33, +2 is 45, etc).
+1 Enhancement, to an attribute you possess: base DC 17, +2 DC per additional +1 (i.e. +1 is 17, +2 is 19, etc).
+1 bonus of any other type, to an attribute you possess: base DC 23, +6 DC per additional +1 (i.e. +1 is 23, +2 is 29, etc).
...
+1 enhancement bonus to an attribute you do not possess (an enhancement to constitution, for a lich, for example): base DC 27, +4 DC for each additional +1 (i.e. +1 is 27, +2 is 31, etc)
And by inference, a +1 bonus of any otehr type, to an attribute you do not possess, would be base DC 33, and +12 DC for each additional +1 (i.e. +1 is 33, +2 is 45, etc).
Chris Nagle
First Post
Make a ring of skill enhancement
+30 to spellcraft
30x30x20x10 = 180000
+60 to Spellcraft
60x60x20x10 = 720000
+30 to spellcraft
30x30x20x10 = 180000
+60 to Spellcraft
60x60x20x10 = 720000
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