Epic Magic Big Thread

[Sepulchrave II]

Where did you get the WotC progression from? Part of it is on page 23 of the ELH, but it only goes up to level 40.

I thought I had it - it looked weird. But I checked and I'd missed a term - after level 40 it's really anybody's guess. Maybe +700, +700, +900, +900, +1100, +1100 etc. is better; at least it would be consistent from level 32 onwards.

I'll plug it in.

I've been fiddling with regression analysis on the Pd scores vs hp and the saving throws. It looks like hp is approximately 0.25 * Pd2 + 7 * Pd. So damage should increase quadratically to keep pace. Fort and Will are about 0.9 * Pd, and Ref is about 0.75 * Pd.

Using UK's wealth formula you can count on ability scores increasing at a rate of +3/4 levels (+1 through level up bonuses, +2 through stat buffs). Which means opponents' saves are increasing faster than the save DCs; the gap is about 0.5 per level (assuming opponents' Pd = level). That means 3 AMC every 6 levels has to be spent on Heightening an effect in order to keep pace. Save or die spells can be used as long as a caster is disciplined with his feats, or restricts their use to lower Pd opponents.

A seed generalist will have to devote all additional SP to heightening spells, or the save DCs won't keep up. That or cast the spells on lower Pd opponents. The use of Humfs is the brightest hope for a Jacobean caster who wishes to use such spells on equal-Pd opponents.

This looks pretty tight, but I think I like it. [Blast] and dbf are viable if Ref saves lag across the board; for Humfs purposes, are you figuring the Heighten factor +2SP/+1DC or +4SP/+1DC? There isn't much one can do with a save-or-die effect except heighten it, so I think that's OK.

I'm kinda worried about [destroy] and disintegrate getting sidelined in all of this. We can tailor additional feats in the Metannihilator suite if necessary, and there's always Horny and Bad-Tempered. The disintegrate caster sounds like he's going to have a harder time, though - Matt needs those empowers, or his disintegrate is going to be a damp squib.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I was figuring Heighten as +2SP/+1DC. I think Matt might have to use polar ray rather than disintegrate. (Which means he should probably have an energy substitution feat in his build somewhere. Maybe in place of one of those SF feats. If he's truly generic he wouldn't have picked a particular school.)

I don't know how we can make disintegrate effective for him. If he can make an equal CR monster fail its Fort saves reliably against a multiply empowered disintegrate, then he's assured of making it fail its Fort save against a save or die, because he could replace the Empowers with Heightens. And you don't want him to take out an equal CR creature with a single spell. You would need specialized feats (HotE style), not generic ones.

There's an alternative for the seed specialist: we could make the heighten factor for [destroy] a +1SP/+1DC. That's if you want a seed specialist to use [destroy]; if you want to restrict it to [destroy] specialists, you could leave the heighten factor, and make the HotE suite especially juicy.

It's awfully inelegant to have the heighten factor vary in cost across seeds, but that possibility should be considered, I suppose.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Re: disintegrate

Ideally there should be monsters that call forth different capacities.

Whoah! I totally agreed with this when I read it, and then subsequently forgot its wisdom. This is key.

Most viable targets for disintegrate:

1. Enemy mages.
2. Undead.
3. Constructs.
4. Rogues (before they get Dextrous Fortitude)

It's hard not to expect too much from this spell - being so flashy. But against a mind blank and a death ward it might be your best bet - many NPC opponents will have these defenses available. What else are you going to use against an undead? If 50th-level Matt goes up against his evil alter ego, this spell is likely to be top of his list. Especially when his GDM is worth squat.

It's OK. Just needed to get some perspective, there.

Related question: I have tactfully avoided the issue of disjunction for obvious reasons. Can we just pretend it doesn't exist?

 

[Cheiromancer]

If 50th-level Matt goes up against his evil alter ego, this spell is likely to be top of his list. Especially when his GDM is worth squat.

...I have tactfully avoided the issue of disjunction for obvious reasons. Can we just pretend it doesn't exist?

Its non-existence would create a lacuna in Matt's repetoire. What does he do to upgrade his greater dispel magic? Disintegrating the offending object or creature is not always a satisfactory alternative.

Were you thinking of maybe allowing (greater) dispel magic to be Empowered and/or Maximized?

[edit] Oh, and are there items that provide death ward protection? Matt can get mind blank himself, but death ward isn't an arcane spell, and it only lasts 1 minute/level.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Oh, and are there items that provide death ward protection? Matt can get mind blank himself, but death ward isn't an arcane spell, and it only lasts 1 minute/level.

Good point. Although, ideally, a spell shouldn't be balanced on the basis of predicted preemptive countermeasures, it's hard not to feel this way about mind blank and the Enchantment school.

Regarding save or die spells, there are a number of unsatisfactory possibilities:

1) Spell turning is available. It doesn't work on effects, so disintegrate ignores it. It can be extended, and I guess empowered (description contains a variable numeric effect). With 18 levels of metamagic to pile on to it, evil Matt can extend it 8 times (all day effect) and empower it 5 times - 30 spell levels reflected back is kind of nice. It'll probably be a must-have combination, and will make casters shy away from targeted effects against other casters.

2) Limited wish can duplicate death ward.

3) There's a cleric handy.

3) Rod of absorption, although that sucks up rays as well.

4) Scarab of protection absorbs [death] effects.

5) Matt's DM sees a hole in the rules and generously allows him to develop an all-day death ward as an 8th-level arcane spell.

I guess information is key - as always at these levels. If evil Matt knows that he's going to be attacked, he can put one of the above contingencies in place. If he has foresight up and running he might anticipate an attack and do the same.

If he's caught with his pants down, then finger of death, destruction or implosion is going to finish him pretty quickly.

Re: disjunction

Its non-existence would create a lacuna in Matt's repetoire. What does he do to upgrade his greater dispel magic? Disintegrating the offending object or creature is not always a satisfactory alternative.

Were you thinking of maybe allowing (greater) dispel magic to be Empowered and/or Maximized?

I dunno. We need to think about it. Disjunction is so extreme, though.


Edit: I think if we're going to allow the empowerment of non-variable effects it should be via an epic feat w/ pretty strict prerequisites. Wording such a feat might be tricky. The idea makes me pretty uncomfortable.

 

[Cheiromancer]

It's probably a cure worse than the disease to extend the remit of Empower. And whatever remedy is proposed shouldn't involve a feat; with a feat Matt could just get Epic Spellcasting and research superb dispelling.

Actually, Epic Spell Insight would be perfect for a wizard who wants to dip into epic spellcasting; too bad it's restricted to spontaneous casters. There should be an option for arcane casters who only want to get access to one school. They could get a free feat spell and be able to upgrade it for free when they go up a level (have a certain number of free factors they could change).

It's funny how MD breaks the dispel magic paradigm so thoroughly. Effectively infinite caster level, since spells are dispelled without a caster level check. You can demagic magic items and have a decent chance to destroy anti-magic fields and even artifacts. No somatic component, and it's widened to boot. It's crazy to think that even if you could indefinitely Empower dispel magic you'd never be able to match this spell. I wonder if it could be an esoteric seed?

Maybe we should change the effect of mage's disjunction to have it be like dispel magic, but without a cap. The chance to destroy anti-magic field could be retained, I suppose. No destroying of magic items or artifacts, though. Rewriting it is a good alternative to just banning the spell, though I don't really like the idea of using up a 9th level spell-slot in this way.

As long as we are rewriting spells, maybe we could add a codicil to greater dispel magic that says that the spell can be Empowered, but the effect is to raise the cap by +10? We don't open a can of worms that way, but we enable Matt to dispel stuff.

4) Scarab of protection absorbs [death] effects.

Too bad scarabs and amulets take up the same slot. Matt should really have something to protect him from death magic and negative energy attacks. A greatly extended foresight with the provision of casting an appropriately quickened spell is probably his best protection against unexpected casts. I suspect limited wish could get a lot of use.

BTW, a house rule I've seen is that if you want to emulate a metamagicked spell via a limited wish or wish, you have to apply the metamagic to the spell doing the emulation. So if you want an extended death ward you have to cast an extended limited wish. I think it's an elegant rule, and I would support its adoption.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Maybe we should change the effect of mage's disjunction to have it be like dispel magic, but without a cap. The chance to destroy anti-magic field could be retained, I suppose. No destroying of magic items or artifacts, though. Rewriting it is a good alternative to just banning the spell, though I don't really like the idea of using up a 9th level spell-slot in this way.

As long as we are rewriting spells, maybe we could add a codicil to greater dispel magic that says that the spell can be Empowered, but the effect is to raise the cap by +10? We don't open a can of worms that way, but we enable Matt to dispel stuff.

I'd rather not rewrite anything core unless we absolutely have to - I'm not counting epic stuff in that definition, obviously. Hence my suggestion for a feat - it becomes a plug-in rule, rather than a revision of an existing nonepic spell.

Presenting an alternative to Mordenkainen's disjunction, reaving dispel and chain dispel at the caster's option - single target, no caster level cap, 9th level - does not require that disjunction be removed from the game. I think we should keep it, if only for purposes of the esoteric seed: it's just too tempting. It's whacked out, for sure. DMs know this. They can ban it by themselves.

But what kind of mages would we have if disjunction were a common weapon? It's an interesting thought. If every epic mage were throwing out quickened disjunctions, the 'naked' wizard would need to be viable. The [ward] seed can be keyed to a [disjunction] - jacobeans would get to keep their toys. And if [reflect] can be factored to turn area effects, it could get pretty messy.

And whatever remedy is proposed shouldn't involve a feat; with a feat Matt could just get Epic Spellcasting and research superb dispelling.

I think an epic feat which removed the caster level cap on GDM and gave a +4 (or higher) bonus to dispel checks would be viable. I agree the problem is more fundamental, though.

**

Wrote the above last night and subsequently changed my mind - I've swung back and forth a lot on this issue. Too many high-end spells need to be modified or removed for a smooth transition into epic play - blasphemy, disjunction, shapechange, poly any object, gate (1 target) are the big ones. I suspect that they might only be notionally balanced as esoteric seeds, in fact. Maybe true resurrection should be esoteric, also.

If we limit the caster level to 20 except for spells which otherwise specify a cap (like polar ray at 25d6) then it solves the blasphemy/holy word problem; maybe gate should have a similar caveat regarding its single-target application - the proviso for deities (reluctant or not) might be better moved to miracle - that way it's unambiguously the DM's responsibility. I would suggest a 25HD cap for gate - it brings a solar and some low-epic monsters into the range of sub-epic characters, but nothing too crazy. If we add a template +1CR = +2 effective HD line, it also prevents pseudonatural madness.

Which means I have to for true res as well.

How do you feel about 25HD and 1000 XP for gate, shapechange and true resurrection - or should we just ban shapechange altogether and adopt the new [polymorph] subschool only?

BTW, a house rule I've seen is that if you want to emulate a metamagicked spell via a limited wish or wish, you have to apply the metamagic to the spell doing the emulation. So if you want an extended death ward you have to cast an extended limited wish.

I like that. We should snag it.

 

[Cheiromancer]

BTW, a house rule I've seen is that if you want to emulate a metamagicked spell via a limited wish or wish, you have to apply the metamagic to the spell doing the emulation. So if you want an extended death ward you have to cast an extended limited wish.

I like that. We should snag it.

Consider it snagged!

I'd rather not rewrite anything core unless we absolutely have to - I'm not counting epic stuff in that definition, obviously. Hence my suggestion for a feat - it becomes a plug-in rule, rather than a revision of an existing nonepic spell.

It's not unknown for a product to have a section of "new uses for old skills". We might have a similar section of "new uses for old feats". It would be especially appropriate if the change were invisible to non-epic characters.

Good change:

• Empower raises the level cap of greater dispel magic by 10. Only those above level 20 will notice the change.

Bad change:

• Empower raises the level cap of dispel magic by 10. A non-epic caster would have noticed by now.

Capping spells not previously capped would be mostly good. A caster with the Evil domain, an Orange Ioun stone, a bead of karma and an active death knell effect would certainly notice a loss of effectiveness in his blasphemy. But it's probably best to eliminate such cheese. I wonder if we might be eliminating it too early, though.

If we limit the caster level to 20 except for spells which otherwise specify a cap (like polar ray at 25d6) then it solves the blasphemy/holy word problem

This would cap range, duration and such at the 20th level maximum, right? It'd simplify calculations. I'm almost tempted to suggest a higher limit. It would be far less obtrusive, and would make the numbers turn out nicer. Short range at 30th level would be an even 100 ft., and durations would be 3 minutes, half an hour, five hours or 30 hours, for spells whose duration is measured in rounds, minutes, 10s of minutes and hours. Epic seeds could enjoy those values a little prematurely, but it shouldn't break anything.

Blasphemy/holy word would still be irritating up through the mid-twenties, but would become less of a problem when the cap starts having an effect. I don't know- what do you think?

If we add a template +1CR = +2 effective HD line, it also prevents pseudonatural madness.

I agree absolutely. While its desirable not to mess with anything core, I think there needs to be an exception made here.

How do you feel about 25HD and 1000 XP for gate, shapechange and true resurrection - or should we just ban shapechange altogether and adopt the new [polymorph] subschool only?

I've argued that true resurrection should have a cap of 25HD, although there is no cap if the recipient loses a level. And the "no xp-loss raising" spells should be based on +1CR = +2SP. So I'd agree with you there. The limitation on gate I'm not so sure about - you should be able to gate in a demon prince, shouldn't you? Maybe the xp cost goes up; +250XP for each +1CR over CR 25?

Shapechange... I dunno. According to our draft seed, it is way overpowered even for a 10th level spell. The fact that you can't use class abilities (including spellcasting) while polymorphed is a big factor, though, and perhaps we aren't weighing it sufficiently in our analysis. The best combat form appears to be that of a white slaad; the chaos spittle, the resistances, the fast healing. Pity it didn't have epic DR, though. It could be curbed by a CR cap in addition to a level cap. I think it needs more study.

But what kind of mages would we have if disjunction were a common weapon? It's an interesting thought. If every epic mage were throwing out quickened disjunctions, the 'naked' wizard would need to be viable.

It would play merry hell with the wealth guidelines, that's for sure. Unless/until folks started carrying artifacts around on a routine basis. But that opens up a whole new can of worms.

Maybe the idea of Intrinsic Goods that I floated back in post 160 could be dusted off. Perhaps epic characters who have their items disjoined soak up the magical energy and gain an array of intrinsic goods after their next rest period. Some kind of default array of fairly bland items would be assigned to a PC. Equipment could only be temporarily destroyed by a mordenkainen's disjunction. But until their intrinsic goods recover they'd be at a great disadvantage; equipment is worth almost 1/3 of a character's CR. For a 30th level character to lose his equipment is like gaining 10 negative levels. I don't know what to say about that.

 

[Fieari]

Maybe the idea of Intrinsic Goods that I floated back in post 160 could be dusted off. Perhaps epic characters who have their items disjoined soak up the magical energy and gain an array of intrinsic goods after their next rest period. Some kind of default array of fairly bland items would be assigned to a PC. Equipment could only be temporarily destroyed by a mordenkainen's disjunction. But until their intrinsic goods recover they'd be at a great disadvantage; equipment is worth almost 1/3 of a character's CR. For a 30th level character to lose his equipment is like gaining 10 negative levels. I don't know what to say about that.

I think this is exactly why U_K replaced wealth with the 4 artifact rule in Ascention.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Another possibility for blasphemy et al. would be to always allow creatures above 20HD a saving throw. Although the 30th-level cleric could still snuff out a balor - which is kind of unsatisfactory. Alternatively, we could change its saving throw entry to 'Will negates' in all cases, but impose a penalty to the save equal to the difference between the caster's level and the target's HD. Or maybe it should be a Will partial.

How about this:

Blasphemy
Evocation [Evil, Sonic]

Level: Clr 7, Evil 7
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 40 ft.
Area: Nonevil creatures in a 40-ft.-radius spread centered on you
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None or Will partial or Will negates; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes

Any nonevil creature within the area of a blasphemy spell suffers the following ill effects.

• Creatures whose HD do not exceed your caster level are automatically dazed; if they fail their saving throw, they are weakened as well.
• Creatures whose HD do not exceed (you caster level -5) are automatically dazed and weakened; if they fail their saving throw, they are paralyzed as well.
• Creatures of 8HD or less are automatically killed, with no saving throw.

Dazed
The creature can take no actions for 1 round, though it defends itself normally.

Weakened
The creature’s Strength score decreases by 2d6 points for 2d4 rounds.

Paralyzed
The creature is paralyzed and helpless for 1d10 minutes.

Killed
Living creatures die. Undead creatures are destroyed.

Furthermore, if you are on your home plane when you cast this spell, nonevil extraplanar creatures within the area are instantly banished back to their home planes if they fail their saves. Creatures so banished cannot return for at least 24 hours. This effect takes place regardless of whether the creatures hear the blasphemy.

Creatures whose Hit Dice exceed your caster level are unaffected by blasphemy.

Edit: tidied up.

*


Re: greater dispel magic

It's not unknown for a product to have a section of "new uses for old skills". We might have a similar section of "new uses for old feats". It would be especially appropriate if the change were invisible to non-epic characters.

I wonder what other spells we could extend the remit of Empower to? Perhaps it could be married with metamagic techniques as well. Minimum Spellcraft Prerequisites might open up an extended range of options for Matt. Access to metamagic techniques should be a function of Metamagic Freedom.