Epic Spell Development - any suggestions?

[Balord]

I'm playing my first epic level character and am considering taking the Epic Spellcasting feat in the near future. My character is now a Sorcerer 4/Druid 3/Arcane Heirophant 10/Mystic Theurge 5 (a little slow to develop in the early levels, but his versatility has really payed off thus far in the high levels!) and I'd like some advice on what sort of epic spells I should look into developing.

Considering that epic spells are rather costly in XP to develop, I will probably only develop one of them in the foreseeable future. Any advice on which seeds to focus my attention on? Pitfalls to avoid? I'm new to the Epic levels, so any suggestions would be welcom.

 

[Jack Simth]

There's lots of things you can do. As a Sorceror, it's one of the easiest ways to pick up new spells (aside from Master Staff, which, while it doesn't really give you more spells, it comes close). You can start out by duplicating the more useful of the higher-level spells that you bypassed (shouldn't have too much trouble getting DM approval for those).

One thought would be transformation - the Transform seed is permanent by default, so if you don't mind a long-running ritual that requires you to hire a few casters, you can transform yourself into, say, an Adult Bronze Dragon for a surprisingly low amount of EXP (by RAW, the final Spellcarft DC controls the cost in GP and EXP of the epic spell - if you have a base DC 220 check, but it takes 100 days, it has a final Spellcraft DC of 0 (-20 for 10 extra minutes, -200 for 100 extra days by the Mitigating Factors table)). Likewise, if it takes 12 additional participants adding a level-9 spell slot, then you are pulling 17*12=204 off the DC; make it take an extra 8 minutes as well (another -16 DC) and you can get the 220 for a spellcraft check of 0 in a single day - but you need to hire near-epic casters ... or have a REALLY high Leadership score and lots of spellcasting followers.

 

[Geoff Watson]

I suggest taking some other feat.

The rules for Epic spells are really bad; too much work for the DM to fix.

Geoff.

 

[Jack Simth]

Oh, it's not all that difficult for the DM to fix, as it is SPECIFICALLY stated that spells must be approved by the DM on a case-by-case basis:

Approval: This is the final step, and it’s critically important. The epic spell development work and reasoning must be shown to the GM and receive his or her approval. If the GM doesn’t approve, then the epic spell cannot be developed. However, the GM should explain why the epic spell wasn’t approved and possibly offer suggestions on how to create an epic spell that will be acceptable.

If the DM doesn't like you making an Epic spell that is too flexible, you can't make it. If the DM doesn't like you making an Epic spell that has a Spellcraft DC of 0, you can't make it. If the DM doesn't like you making an Epic spell that does whatever, you can't make it. Period.

 

[the Jester]

One thing I've found imc regarding Epic Spellcasting is that it's nearly useless unless you have tons and tons of money and xp and time to burn. Really low-DC epic spells are one thing; anything without significant mitigating factors is another. I have a character in omrob's game with the feat who has never gotten to use it, and I'm in a little bit of a quandry on how to handle it for the pc who has it imc (since none of the pcs have the liquid capital to use it).

My solution amounts to 'power components' sorta; basically some mystic material that substitutes for tons of gp for purposes of epic research only. The pcs have already missed one opportunity to gain them though! (Two, actually, if you include an opportunity to choose magical books where they made different choices.) I think I prolly under-treasure high-level pcs in my campaign (though I try to offer lots of opportunities for pcs to gain rewards in other forms- many of the high level pcs imc have built up serious castles, stores, temples, etc.)

 

[gabrion]

My advice for epic spells-make them permenant. Now I know you think this will make the DC too high, but that isn't true. Use the Epic Rod (forget the name right now) that covers 2000 XP when you cast a spell each day, and use it to cast simulacrum a bunch of times. Now get together all of those "clones" of yourself, and have them contribute spell slots to decrease the DC of the epic spell. Using this tactic you can make any epic spell you want. Use seeds that will protect you (fortification) and as I said earlier, make them permenant. You should also have another one of those rods, since it can pay the XP cost for epic spell development.

On the other hand, you could take the sound advice of not using epic spells since they get really messy and they have problems like the one I have outlined. If you are going to use one though, I suggest this tactic.

Edit: Leadership also does this kind of damage to the system, if you want to spend a feat.

 

[The Souljourner]

The epic spellcasting rules suck. You pretty much can't make a combat spell from them, unless you have boatloads of xp and money to burn (and PCs *never* have boatloads of XP to burn). The best you can do is preparatory spells that take like an hour to cast and require help from other casters etc etc. In other words, you really need to rack up the mitigating factors.

The best thing to do is to not bother with the feat. Take improved spellcasting (I think that's the one that gives higher level slots), or the improved metamagic feats... or really anything except epic spellcasting. Sorry, but it just sucks.

Oh, and the problem with permanent epic spells is that they're not any more difficult to dispel than any other spell you cast... and by the rules, mordenkainen's disjunction dispells them automatically. That is, as we say in the business "teh suck".

-The Souljourner

 

[Jack Simth]

Actually, you can make an epic spell that makes you immune to Disjunction, Dispel Magic, and Greater Dispel Magic using the Ward seed: Base Ward DC 14, nulls a specific set of spells (+2 per spell per spell level; Disjunction 9: +18; Dispel Magic 3: +6; Greater Dispel Magic 6: +12) for 24 hour immunity on a base Spellcraft DC of 50. Permanent makes 250, self-only (-2) makes 248; take a 100 days makes 28 (-20 for 10 extra minutes, -200 for 100 extra days); burn 2,800 EXP in the casting makes it DC 0 (note that as you likely only need to pay the XP cost once, it's actually an XP savings; a DC 28 epic spell costs 10,080 XP to develop). You still need to worry about counterspells based on the Destroy and Dispel epic seeds, however, as well as Antimagic Fields (which only surpress the ward vs. dispelling).

 

[The Souljourner]

So.... you just spent 10,080 XP and 100 days to make a spell that makes the rest of your epic spells not suck so much. Awesome.

Not that I don't think it's a good idea... it's just indicative of the problem with epic spellcasting. Yes, being immune to those spells is damn handy at a level where you easily have a ton of buff spells up practically all the time, but man... don't you just wish there were something better? Really makes me wonder if the designers ever actually tried to use the epic spellcasting rules in a real campaign.

-The Souljourner

 

[Jack Simth]

*shrug* there are variations - if you happen to have Epic Leadership (or even just regular leadership, but qualify for Epic Leadership), and lots of wizard followers, then you can get them all together and make it a ritual spell, and bring the final DC down all the way to 0 (at Epic Leadership Entry score 25, you have 135 level-1 followers and 13 second level followers - if all are good wizards, you have 148 level-1 spell slots for -148 spellcraft DC; 7 3rd and 4 4th, for 11 2nd level spell slots and another -33 DC, 2 5th and 2 6th for 4 3rd slots for another -20 DC, 1 7th level follower for a 4th level spell slot and another -7 DC for -208 from ritual alone; 10 extra minutes makes another -20 for -228; if your cohort is a wizard as well, a 9th slot from him or her makes an additional -17 for -245; clear a DC 3 (one day, 27,000 gp, 1,080 XP to develop, 11 minutes (well, after the headache of bringing all your followers together on the same day) and you can get that Self-Only permanent immunity to standard forms of dispelling)(thus, spending NO XP at all, in 11 minutes) for a spell that is otherwise identical to the one above. If you can convince another party spellcaster (or even a hired hand, or maybe you have a leadership score over 25) to help you out with a 2nd level spell slot, you can reduce that further to DC 0, 0 xp, 0 gp. It all depends on how much trouble you want to go to. Then consider that the same technique that brought that 248 DC down to manageable levels works for any epic spell with a permanent duration - you can transform yourself into, say, a Young Adult Gold Dragon (for minimally epic level 21; you can still revert to a human form with it's supernatural ability to do so). You can also use the same technique to get +5 inherent bonuses to all base stats, or whatever. Granted, Epic Leadership to reduce the DC is rather munchkiny, but careful use can make Epic Spellcasting far from useless ... if pretty much limited to permanent buffs for a long time.