Epic Spell Seeds

mmadsen

Adventurer
This came up in the very long How Would You Defend A Mountain Fortress? thread, and I thought it might apply more generally:

I think the epic spell system is flawed in including the DC-10 base for each seed combined in a spell.

According to the Epic Level Handbook:
The actual DC for each seed is figured by looking at the lowest-level spell that's truly representative for a given seed among the spells in the Player's Handbook. Using that spell as a basis, the maximum ranks in Spellcraft that a sorcerer powerful enough to cast the spell would have determines the base Spellcraft DC of the seed. That number is added to the base DC of 10.
This makes the combination of two 1st-level spells as complex as a 12th-level spell, not a 2nd-level spell, and the combination of three 1st-level spells as complex as a 23rd-level spell, not a 3rd-level spell.
 
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I think it would make more sense to just utilize the DC-10 base for the first seed then not use it for any additional ones. I agree that it doesn't make sense that two 1st level spells combined are that difficult to cast (not to mention it is not that powerful).
 

What further complicates this is D&D's tradition of having some spells advance with caster level, while others don't. Thus, our epic energy seed, based on Lightning Bolt, has the DC of a 3rd-level spell -- a spell that does 5d6 damage when introduced, but 10d6 once the caster reaches epic level.

It turns out, quite by accident, that the base DC of 10 is the same as the cost of boosting the damage by 5d6, so a multi-energy spell costs about the same as one 20d6 blast or two 10d6 blasts of different types.
 

Greetings!

Mmadsen, I must admit that the Seed-Rules take a bit of reading to get right away. There seems to be a good deal of "guessing" though--which I think is fine, but I hope it doesn't open the doors to all kinds of disagreements over what kind of Seed spell could be made, and what can't. I actually like some of the vagueness--it provides a great deal of flexibility.

By the way mmadsen--check your E-mail.:)

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
 

There seems to be a good deal of "guessing" though--which I think is fine, but I hope it doesn't open the doors to all kinds of disagreements over what kind of Seed spell could be made, and what can't. I actually like some of the vagueness--it provides a great deal of flexibility.
Fortunately, if your group has played all the way up to epic levels together, you probably know what you like as a group, and everyone trusts the DM. On the other hand, I sure would hate to see a whole campaign fall apart because the rules stopped working and the DM make a bad call about a spell or two.
 


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