Epic Magic Big Thread

[Cheiromancer]

To calculate the final caster level DC of an epic spell correctly, it’s important to determine the mitigating factors last, after all the factors that increase the DC have been accounted for.

I don't understand this reference. Is there a caster level check to cast an epic spell?

This is actually how the +40 factor for the greater magic weapon formula is derived.

I overlooked this when I read through the fortify seed the first time. I don't think the x10 cost multiplier for epic magic items is a good precedent. (I'm not even sure it is good design!) At 21st level a group of PCs are like a first level party encountering a grick. They don't have any magic weapons, but perhaps one of the spellcasters can magic a weapon for a brief period. A +1 weapon costs 2000 gp, way more than a 1st level party can afford, but the spell is in their reach. Magic weapons won't become expected equipment until probably 4th or 5th level or so. Similarly. the 720,000 gp that a +6 weapon is worth will start to be available at around 23rd level (when it is less than half the PC'ss expected wealth) or 26th level (when it is less than one quarter the PC's wealth: see ELH 23).

Just by parallelism I think that an epic spell that grants a +6 enhancement bonus should be accessible to 21st level characters; it fulfills the same role that magic weapon does to 1st level characters. Which to me means that the spellcraft prerequisite shoudl be less than 24. So if a +5 bonus is available for a spellcraft prerequisite of 16, that additional +1 should be +8 SP or less. I don't see the harm in making it +4 SP. It mimics the jump between magic weapon and greater magic weapon, and would be a fine spell to research first. (Maybe add extra duration to make it last an hour?)

If you make it +40, then.... well, at what level will the characters be casting spells with a Spellcraft Prerequisite of 56? Surely the party will have a surfeit of epic magic items long since.

Also, look at the CL prerequisites for crafting magic weapons. The enhancement bonus can't be greater than 3 times the caster level. This rule is unchanged at epic levels. It isn't multiplied by 10 (requiring a CL of 180 to make a +6 sword!). I think the same should hold for greater magic weapon. Don't multiply by 10.

 

[Cheiromancer]

The catch, of course, is that if you let the Summon seed, by itself, grant the summoned critter abilities not in the base critter's statistics, then the Summon seed becomes hands down the most powerful, and True Spontaneity(Summon) breaks the game; you can just "summon" any critter that happens to have the ability you want - "Why yes, I'd like a standard action Lantern Archon summon with a 1/day ability to deal 100d6 Light damage in a 50 foot radius spread as a swift action. What's the CR on that?"

It has a CR of 1000. And so does any other creature the DM thinks is unbalancing or poorly thought out. Summoners should prepare a list of potential critters (and their stats) ahead of time, and they need to have the DM's permission to get anything too out of the ordinary. Each new monster is essentially a new rule, and DM's have to consider any new rule (especially one introduced by a player) very carefully.

I think I remember Mostin speculating that anything you can imagine exists *somewhere* in the multiverse. But it need not be somewhere easily accessible to mere mortals- assigning a weird critter like the "nova archon" a very high CR to reflect this makes perfect sense. To me, at least.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I'm curious, Sep, are you eyeballing these numbers and using your best judgment, or have you playtested epic games?

Played, yes. Playtested, no. But I've come to realize where a lot of the break points are wrt. epic spellcasting. Fortunately, my players aren't generally prone to abuse the.

But this system needs a lot of work - I'm not pretending otherwise. I'm just tired of it languishing on my desktop and my being nervous about it being shot down if I make it public. I desperately need input regarding a number of things, aa I've been at a creative impasse for too long. I thought that this might get a fire under my ass, so to speak.

 

[SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS]

Great Work!

Only 2 things:

I agree with Cheiromancer, +4 per +1 enhancement bonus past +5 is ok, At 21th level it would be very usefull!

And the energy seed must have a base damage of 20d6 to be usefull, 18d6 of energy damage at 21th level is useless, 28d6 starts to look like a epic spell.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

So 18 SP for a +6 Int, and 58 SP for a +8? I'm not sure it should be that much easier to summon a lava wight than it is to give yourself a temporary +8 enhancement modifier to intelligence. Granted, owl’s insight (Druid 5; at 20th level gives +10 Wis for one hour) might be an anomaly (I don't see anything similar for Intelligence or Charisma in the SC), but would it really be overpowered for a greater fox's cunning (+8 Int) to be a 6th level spell (SP 22)? Or for supreme fox's cunning (+10 Int) to be an 8th level spell (SP 26)?

I'm inclined to agree, which is why I simply omitted the Int/Wis/Cha buffs. Although I've tried to avoid noncore spells as a basis for seeds, I agree they shouldn't be entirely ignored when gauging relative power levels.

A simple geometric progression is another alternative (+1 SP for an additional +1; +4 SP for +2; +9 SP for +3; +16SP for +4 etc.): this would mean that increasing a mental stat by +14 would require a base SP of 114 (14 for the seed, +100 for the additional +10. Also discarded, although reluctantly). Alas, long have I pondered the fortify seed.

An Int/Wis/Cha buff cannot involve a linear factor, that much is clear.

A unifying mechanic for animate dead, summon and fortify would be spiffy.

I don't understand this reference. Is there a caster level check to cast an epic spell?

Prior draft holdover. I had (at one point) based the whole system off of caster level when trying to move away from a Spellcraft skill check, but because even this is massively abusable (ioun stones, beads of karma etc), I dropped this too. I'm really happy with the Spellcraft Prerequisite, though.

(I'm not even sure it is good design!)

It's not good design, I agree there. But short of overhauling the entire epic system (no thanks!) it has to stick.

Just by parallelism I think that an epic spell that grants a +6 enhancement bonus should be accessible to 21st level characters; it fulfills the same role that magic weapon does to 1st level characters. Which to me means that the spellcraft prerequisite shoudl be less than 24. So if a +5 bonus is available for a spellcraft prerequisite of 16, that additional +1 should be +8 SP or less. I don't see the harm in making it +4 SP. It mimics the jump between magic weapon and greater magic weapon, and would be a fine spell to research first.

Maybe; but bear in mind that DR 10/magic is a serious obstacle to 1st level characters and DR 15/epic is a minor inconvenience for a pumped up F25 Power Attacking with a +5 greatsword.

I just talked myself out of that, didn't I? OK, I'm sold.

Edit: mostly sold. I'm sure I've been here before. The problem is when the spell is changed from a targeted spell to an area one: your army is now equipped with +10 swords.

Edit: I'm sold. An army equipped with +10 swords is delicious.

 

[Cheiromancer]

You make me laugh, Jim.

I'm glad you're doing this. Now hurry up and post those mitigating factors!


[edit] And explain yourself here:

An Int/Wis/Cha buff cannot involve a linear factor, that much is clear.

I was trying to construct an argument for this based around spell DCs, epic buffs and comparisons with the syneresis feat, but it fell apart in my hands.

 

[Jack Simth]

You make me laugh, Jim.

I'm glad you're doing this. Now hurry up and post those mitigating factors!


[edit] And explain yourself here:



I was trying to construct an argument for this based around spell DCs, epic buffs and comparisons with the syneresis feat, but it fell apart in my hands.

I'll take a stab at it.

Suppose you've got a +4 to the Spellcraft DC for each additional +1 to a mental stat, and a "base Epic Spel" that lasts for two days or more.

Well, if you dig up eight different bonus types you can use, you can pump them all into Int with eight different Epic spells.

And the next day, why, you can up each of those one more, because you've raised your spellcraft modifier by +1......

This is especially true if you have True Spontanaity(Fortify).

Also does mean things to spell save DC's.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Suppose you've got a +4 to the Spellcraft DC for each additional +1 to a mental stat, and a "base Epic Spel" that lasts for two days or more.

Well, if you dig up eight different bonus types you can use, you can pump them all into Int with eight different Epic spells.

Note that the duration of the fortify seed has been reduced to 20 mins to reflect the updating of the anibuffs from 3.0 to 3.5.

Note that all references to other bonuses (other than inherent bonuses) have also been removed.

+4/+1 is still a problem, though.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Great Work!

Only 2 things:

I agree with Cheiromancer, +4 per +1 enhancement bonus past +5 is ok, At 21th level it would be very usefull!

And the energy seed must have a base damage of 20d6 to be usefull, 18d6 of energy damage at 21th level is useless, 28d6 starts to look like a epic spell.

Basing energy off of delayed blast fireball or even polar ray is certainly a possibility; the jury is still out on that one. Some seeds have obviously received more attention than others

I have also considered abandoning energy altogether and replacing it with five separate seeds (fire, lightning, cold, acid and sound - which would actually be my preference, I think. There is no reference to sonics in the energy seed.

Other missing seeds are

Illuminate - based off of daylight and deeper darkness

Transmute - incorporating a variety of transmutation effects not addressed by polymorph: transmute mud to rock, flesh to stone etc. I'd also like to lump awaken with this seed - it would allow for origin of species effects without stepping on the toes of life and the divine prerogative. A sor/wiz can duplicate awaken with a limited wish so I'm OK with it being detatched from the life seed. Its also a transmutation effect, so in many ways it fits better.

 

[Cheiromancer]

A few points:

• Cabal Leader and Ritual Adept are inconsistent as to how many particpants there may be in a ritual spell. Ritual Adept implies the normal number is 1 per 10 ranks of spellcraft, and Cabal Leader says the normal number 1 per 5 ranks.
  
• The mitigating factor for increased casting time says the base casting time is 1 minute. That should be 1 standard action, right?
  
• I'm wondering if the 5000 xp cost for non-divine use of the Heal seed is too high. Heal is 5th level on the adept spell list, and so limited wish can access it. The 5000 xp seems an allusion to the use of wish, but that amount of experience corresponds to a -20 mitigating factor. That seems too high. Ditto for the harm based application of the Harrow seed.
  
• A few of the base spells used in seeds have long casting times and/or expensive material components. Have you thought about modifying the spellcraft prerequisite in compensation?
  
  For example, true resurrection takes 10 minutes and costs 25,000 gp. Those correspond to 15 points of mitigating factors. So instead of a Spellcraft Prerequisite of 28, they might be 43 instead. Resurrection has the same casting time, costs only 10,000 gp, and is two levels lower. So it would make the Life seed have a Spellcraft Prerequisite of 36. These considerations would also affect greater restoration aspect of the Heal seed, raising its Spellcraft Prerequisite to 36. There are probably other examples.
• Since wish doesn't have the long casting time and expensive material components, it might be that arcane access to these seeds is worth a difference of about 5 points of Spellcraft. Just a thought.
• Oh, and could you give an example where the +2/+1 rate for an intelligence buff would be broken? How about if boosts over +10 are at +4/+1? My thought is that it might break the saving throw mechanic by increasing spell save DCs too much- but I'm not sure if that's what you were thinking of.

Regarding the "blaster" type spells- I think that this could represent another route for epic spellcasters. One involving taking lots of Improved Metamagic feats and then throwing around Maximized Empowered Quickened meteor swarms and such. Having a somewhat underpowered Energy seed might not be such a bad idea. It would indicate that the seed system is a more flexible system, but not always the best tool for a situation.