Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Burne" data-source="post: 264474" data-attributes="member: 3450"><rant>I totally agree with the statement "Epic Casters got the shaft!"  I believe that anyone who doesn't agree with that hasn't truely considered all the implications of the epic spellcasting rules and the epic caster progressions in general.Point 1: It is not possible to make a Epic spell without a Saving throw without resorting to adhoc adjustment. (Yes I have read the caption to the factor tables, but that only applies to damage spells, a spell like Ice Storm or Sleet storm is not creatable)Point 2: Spell casters will always lose in the long run as their is no way for spell casters Save DC's to grow along with there opponents Save bonuses.Consider the Big Spell included in the ELH. Spellcraft DC:419 does 305d6 to 1 target(Fort Half) and 200d6 backlash damage.  Given the most generous of magic items this spell might be castable around level 100.  Our hypothetical caster could have a INT of 18base + 25 advancement + 5 book = 48 INT lets add spellcasting prodigy and Epic Spell Focus as well before considering magic items.  That gives us a Save DC of 20base+20stat+6focus = DC:46Our "victim's" saves however are +6base (he is a rogue maybe) +40 epic saves, that gives us a +46 to save.  But wait our rogue victim hasn't yet added his Con or any of his feats in yet. Hmm.But surely with magic items the Wizard can pull ahead? The answer is no, Never.  The Math of item creation will defeat the epic caster everytime.  Resistence bonuses to saves cost less than adding points of INT.  The rogue can buy +10 to all saves for  an even 1 million gold, the wizard must spend 4 million gold to add 20 Intelligence to add 10 to her save DC's.End result: The biggest and assumedly best damage spell the nice folks over at wizards could come up with, will almost always do more damage to the caster than to the target.Point 3: Spell Seeds suck.  Exculding Epic Mage Armor, there are no "low level" Epic Spells worth spending Xp on.  The _Most_ basic damage spell is inferior to a Heightened Disinterate/Finger of Death/Destruction in every important way (Ruin has a longer range than any of the above, those who wish to defend the awesomeness of the range entry should refer to the DMG section on limits of sight and line of effect for spells)I can't emphisize this enough, Spell seeds suck.  Lets say you foolishly want to create an epic invisiblity spell.  You use the Conceal seed. Lets see that DC 17 X 9000gp = 153,000gp, takes 3 days to research, and costs you 6120 xp.  Now you bing a foolish Epic caster, you buy the above spell.  Congratulations you have a spell that is inferious in everyway to the 2nd level spell invisibilty.  How can that be you ask, Simple.Epic ConcealDC 17Casting Time: 1 minuteRange: Creature TouchedDuration: 200 minutes;Effect: 1 creatureCreation: 153,000;3 days;6120xp;Seed:ConcealEffect: You and you stuff are invisible till you make an attack.Compared to Invisibilty this spell takes 9 more rounds to cast and lasts a shorter time (10 minutes per level remember, and you must be at least 21st level to have epic spells)</rant>While there is more evidence that "casters got the shaft"  (Monk Stun Dc vs Caster Spell DC, what the heck!) I won't go into here.  I spent roughly 8 hours today trying to come up with a reasonible alternative.  Right now the best I've got is a T-Shirt that says "Epic Spellcasting is for losers"  I believe that the basic idea of ranking epic spells by there Spellcraft DC is a good one, but I don't see anyway of salvaging the Spell seeds as they are now.  Any epic spell system where the basic spell units are less powerful than 9th level spells just can't be viable in my eyes. WANTED: Epic Casting System, must allow unlimited advancement, great flexibility, and power in line with the word Epic.  Apply in person.burne</blockquote>

Verification