Epic Spellcasting

[Thresher]

Only 24? Its a sunday and Ive been at work since saturday about 32hrs, cept for that hour or 2 I passed out... anyhow

Step 1.
Youre an epic level caster, youre an idiot, tear up the character sheet and roll up a fighter, theyre much easier to live with.

Step 2.
Like me, you may be suffering for an emotional attachment to a character and as much as youre a gimp, youve played it for 11 years.

Step 3.
Got the Epic Spellcasting feat instead of something far more useful like Epic Skill focus: Rope use?
Good.

Step 4.
Turn to page 88 of the ELH down the bottom theres a table:
2-1: Epic Seeds
About 2 dozen or so of them there with a DC next to them.

Step 5.
Right under that table there, in the finest queens american engrish is descriptions of -
Resource Cost
And on the Next page (89)...
Development Time
Xp cost
Thats all you need to know for now.
As an Epic level caster with the epic casting feat, pick one of them there Seeds, you get it for free.

Step 6.
Go up to page 92
Theres your Seed Descriptions which lets you know what you can do with that base core seed.

Step 7.
Go back to page 91, theres all sorts of things you can do to that base seed using tables 2-2 and 2-3, this is for your ad-hoc casting of that seed, which is essentially the nature of Epic Casting as being a spontaneous and free-form way of doing it.

Step 8.
You can throw as many as your Know Religion or Know Arcana allows and its still standard to get it off under combat conditions with a spellcraft roll.
That we havent changed.

Step 9.
Bit bored with that one seed arent you?
Research another seed (or several) using its DC as the research cost is stated underneath.
Want to combine Seeds?
Sure, come up with a resonable effect (yes, this may require you to THINK rather than just read) that those 2 seeds could do and throw them together, working out your DC's on page 91.



I think thats about as simple as I can explain it, its a spontaneous spellcasting system for the Epic Casters that scales as you go up levels. That way you dont end up with a spell you researched at level 22 being utterly useless at level 32 because it bounces off the bad guys.
It still costs a lot of xp
It still costs a lot of money and time
But it is far less crippling to a character or NPC to spend it ONCE and then still have the use of that seed. I would at this point also like to point out that the removal of Arcanes from being able to use the Heal Seed is utterly rediculous considering the clerics dont loose anything, and if you want to be fair you'll let them have access to it or dock clerics of something they dont normally do well like Illusion.

Yeah, sure Im quite aware someone could abuse this, but if youre and honest player with a sensible GM its never a problem. If it is a problem then bring them over to my house and I'll smash their testicles with a hammer so they dont breed.
If I missed anything, my apologies. Post something and I'll get back to you.
regards

 

[ichabod]

These are terrific ideas. I'm flirting with a similar project, and would really enjoy developing what you've got. In general, I think that you only really need epic progression up to 30th level or so; by that point, characters can challenge most of the truly fearsome traditional fantasy monsters (and I tend to like the idea of weaker deities than the ones in Deities and Demigods -- Odin might be CR 33 or so). Any chance you could send me (at bbagley1 [at] swarthmore [dot] edu) what you've got thus far?

Done. Let me know if you make any progress with it.

 

[the Jester]

ichabod, that's fantastic! I've been thinking of working on a similar project as well but haven't gotten anywhere beyond the concept stage.

 

[ichabod]

ichabod, that's fantastic! I've been thinking of working on a similar project as well but haven't gotten anywhere beyond the concept stage.

Well, I'm expecting my campaign to go epic soon, and I can't stand the ELH's epic spell casting, so I had to do something. I've got a month or two of free time coming up, and I'll put some more work into it then. It also fits with a potentially big project I've been fiddling with, but I'll have a post about that next week.

 

[Chosen01]

Check out this netbooks of 10th+ level spells:

Tome of Mighty Magic 1

Tome of Mighty Magic 2

There is a similar discussion going on Here.

You might want to post your epic material Here.

 

[ciaran00]

I use a spell-point system with the costs being 10 + 2 per spell level. I use the same distribution as PHB 3.5e except that instead of giving 10 + 2 per level for each spell I give:
12/14/16/18/20/21/22/23/24/25 (so they get slightly screwed at high level... the penalty for choice). Anyway my spell progression continues past 20th. Epic spells cost 10 + their DC in the ELH. As simple as I can get it...

ciaran

 

[Hygric]

Well, I'm the DM for Thresher's game and the one that bashed our epic spell system. Let's see if I can clarify what the poor, overworked, under-slept guy is trying to say.

First, if you have any experience with Mage from white wolf, think in terms of the spheres of magic.

Under my system, all epic spells are spontaneous. You come up with them on the fly to do what you want. The DC system, number per day etc etc have not changed.

What has changed big time is the way you learn spells. Instead of learning a new single spell at a time (costing you a small kingdom and a level or two worth of xp each time), you learn a single seed, basing the costs to learn it on the base DC for that seed.

As thresher said, it makes the system scale with level, as at 21st level I could aim for a DC 40 spellcraft no probs, but by 31st level those spells that I spent all that money and gold on are a bit.. lagging.

In my epic campaign, I have a 30-ish level cleric, wizard and sorcerer PC's, and so far this system is working out well. It helps give epic spells a nice flavour that is quite different from normal magic, something that I think that the base system lacks.

 

[timer]

I'm not all to sure what you all find difficult about the epic spell system listed in the ELH. It does take some math to function but I've been able to use it on several occasions and unless I'm trying to make some disgusting thing that bends the rules backwards it normally doesn't take more than 10 minutes to complete a spell.

Per example using the conceal seed to hide yourself as per greater invisibility and to hide your self from magic permenantly with a casting time of 10 minutes (hey it's permenant why do I care if it takes 10 minutes?) would have a DC of around 60.

Sounds bad but when you think about it it's not all that tough to do. Epic Skill focus (why wouldn't you take this for spellcraft?) gives you a +10, you can take 10 on the attempt so now we're at +20 you've got say 27 ranks in spell craft (since you'd have to be 24th level to have two epic feats) so that puts you at a +47 and you've an equal number of ranks in Knowledge (arcana) which by epic rules gives you another +10 to your spellcraft checks now we're up to a +57 add in your intelligence (cause no dolt is making an epic spell) which has to be at least a 19 (since you need to cast 9th level spells to get Epic Spellcasting) gives you a minimum of a 61 on your check. Thus poof you're invisible, you can do what ever you want and stay invisible, you can't be scrying on by less than an Epic level spell (and even that has a chance of failing) and it never ends. All at 24th level. Taunt that fighter who is so simple, cause you can hit him with polar rays till he's an ice cube and he'll never find you...unless he sees invis. But you're a crafty person by then, disjunciton him first.

Spellcasters devestate once they start moving through epic levels. Fighters are no doubt powerful, immensely so, but anyone with an epic mage and half a brain can turn that fighter into a drooling moron before he gets his sword out. Hell be a little devil use the reflect seed to make a base epic spell and you can reflect his first rounds worth of attacks on himself and then unleash a meteor swarm on him. If he's at the center no save and boom 32d6 of damage to the poor shmuck. He won't die instantly but he'll be more worried about staying alive than attacking, and if you're that high a level a quickened teleport to a safe distance gives you time to make the field your field. A fighter isn't going to travel a quarter mile in a round, you can use that. You're bound to be a genuis at this point so think like one. If you're physically weak but hold a vast amount of power you'd hit and run, and you'd run far and fast. Start out with something simple like wind wall, now you're immune to arrow and bullets. Add in spell turning and any 1 spell that fighter might have access to will be pointless. Use rays, at this point if you've got a third epic feat take something like intensify spell. Seams pointless I know but it'll come in handy. Like when you use that intensified ray of enfeeblement. Yeah it takes up a 9th level slot but then again it will such away 22 points of strength in a single shot with no save. That's enough to make even the mightest fighter scream "Crap" you've dropped 11 points off their attack and at least as much off their damage and you're still a ways away from them. Use a quickened spell such as another teleport to keep the fighter off balance and you're doing good.
If you get up to 30th level take Increased Spell Capacity for that 10th level slot. Hmm now you can intensify a 2nd level spell, scorching ray if you will. normally capable of a mere 12d6 in ranged attacks now it will do 144 points of burning damage to that fighter who so challenged you. A quickened true strike before hand and you're sure to nail him.
As it can be seen a spellcaster can beat the crap out of an equal epic fighter without ever being touched. They just have to think it out. A way to make it a little easier or more representive of intelligence is to allow 1 minute per round for players to think then each individual player gets an extra 30 seconds per point of intelligence modifier thus the fighter might have an 16 or 18 intelligence giving him 2 1/2 to 3 minutes to figure out their attack. An epic wizard with something probably close to a 24 or 26 intelligence would have 4 1/2 to 5 minutes to figure out what to do. That gives them time to look up options and figure out clever traps. It's the same 6 seconds in the game but now the more intelligent character can think of more by comparison. Just make the fighter hand in their action on a piece of paper or note card when their time runs out.

 

[ichabod]

I'm not all to sure what you all find difficult about the epic spell system listed in the ELH. It does take some math to function but I've been able to use it on several occasions and unless I'm trying to make some disgusting thing that bends the rules backwards it normally doesn't take more than 10 minutes to complete a spell.

It's not that it's complicated that bothers me. It's that it's poorly written.

As it can be seen a spellcaster can beat the crap out of an equal epic fighter without ever being touched.

And apparently completely unballanced as well.

 

[Mordane76]

Having played White Wolf now for several years (about 7), I'm very familiar with the idea of Mage Spheres and the combinatory system for crafting effects on the fly from that system.


I will say I grasp the core of your system, Thresher and Hygric, I'm just curious about the timing and research. You're using the DCs for the individual Seeds as a basis for the time, money, and XP involved in researching the seed; is it just using the material set out in the Epic book for researching the spells -- like X days and X XP per every X GP (I'd use the real numbers, but I'm at work right now and the ELH is at home)?


Any other alterations to the base system for casting times, epic spell slots, or whatnot, or do you just use the rules as set out for created spells?