Immortals Handbook - Grimoire (Artifacts, Epic Magic discussion)

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

I'll just link to this post on a thread on RPG.net related to supernatural weaponry to let you know my hopes and dreams.

http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=6217645&postcount=4

Virtually everything in that post is handled within Portfolios (which make aesthetic as well as mechanical changes to characters/weapons etc.).

Although I have wondered between this and what I have heard about the Tome of Battle, whether I should go the 'flowery adjective' route with the abilities. It does tend to make them more exotic, but the downside is when you come to type them all out, especially in epic character sheets and monster stat blocks.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello there!

Perhaps a liquid nitrogen weapon magically held in shape?

Just a more powerful cold weapon.

A sword with a perfectly two-dimensional blade?

Covered, mono-blade.

A weapon with a condensed tornado as its head?

The weapons of those gods with the Wind/Sky/Air portfolio could potentially change to whirlwinds/tornadoes etc.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya dude!

U_K!
After trying to design an artifact for my namesake (Robes that grant various protective effects, and by various, it ended up being almost all of them)
I think I found a point that may be a good thing to hit on in the items section - A good range of power + equivallents. The vast ranges from +36 to +216 mean a deity will be more apt to take lots of cosmic powers that just clutter up the item. (I would just take Total [Attribute] 6 or so times myself) Plus any fractions that don't divide evenly get dumped into the next lower catagory. I think a good solid list of powers that have pluses between 6 and 36, and between 36 and 216 would make it less likely that extra magic item plus doesn't get dumped into free divine abilities or feats.

I'm tempted to make the enchantment bonus for items a necessity for special abilities. In that an item must have at least as many enchantment bonuses as special ability market mod values.

Also remember that stacking multiple powers in the same item, multiplies those second powers by 150% or by 200% if they are non standard.

So six total [ability score] cosmic abilities would be +36 (12.96 million) for the initial ability then 19.44 M ( = +44) for any that fit within the vessel, then 25.92 ( = +50) for any nonstandard items.

 

[thundershot]

Hey Servitor matey!



Its stupid that D&D doesn't already have an Endless Quiver in some book or other. In fact the more I think about it the more I think one must be detailed somewhere.

Off the top of my head I am not sure, but maybe 50 times the cost of 50 arrows.

It's not OGC, but there's one in Dragon Compendium. It even lets you pluck out the type of arrow you need (silver, cold iron, adamantine). All for 20k.



Chris

 

[paradox42]

Virtually everything in that post is handled within Portfolios (which make aesthetic as well as mechanical changes to characters/weapons etc.).

Although I have wondered between this and what I have heard about the Tome of Battle, whether I should go the 'flowery adjective' route with the abilities. It does tend to make them more exotic, but the downside is when you come to type them all out, especially in epic character sheets and monster stat blocks.

To be fair, Tome of Battle is really only drawing from inspiration like wuxia and anime, and to me looks suspiciously like WotC trying to capitalize on the success of Exalted (which, BTW, you might find worth checking out someday if you suddenly find yourself with extra time- that game redefines the term 'epic'). Really, if you have a solid mechanical base, names should flow naturally from that; so far you seem to be doing a good job of it so I say continue.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Here are a few things I posted many months ago about balancing the (epic) spells above 9th-level.

20th-level spell ~ Teleport City
30th-level spell ~ Stasise Country
40th-level Spell ~ Anti-Magic Entire Planets Surface
50th-level spell ~ Destroy Planet
60th-level spell ~ Create Sun
70th-level spell ~ Summon Black Hole

90th-level spell ~ Move Galaxy

120th-level spell ~ Create Big Bang (So the base Prereqs for this spell would be Int 130 and 111 Automatic Metamagic Capacity feats). I wonder what the minimum level to cast this is...?

I'm participating in Sepulchrave II's EPIC MAGIC thread, where he uses Spellcraft ranks instead of spell levels. Something a little closer to the Epic Level Handbook.

[sblock=Here are some details] Each epic spell slot costs a feat. The spell seeds are expressed in terms of ranks of the Spellcraft Prerequisite (SPs) according to the formula [(2 x spell level) + 4)]. A seed based on a 9th level spell thus has a SP value of 22. A 21st level wizard can have 24 ranks in spellcraft, and this is also the minimum SP value that an epic spell can be at. Many of the factors are based on metamagic feats, so casting a still spell (+1 spell level) costs +2 SP.[/sblock]

I'm curious how a skill rank based system scales against a spell level based system like the one you are describing. In a skill rank system like Sep's you have to spend a skill point every level, while in a spell level based system like yours you need to spend a lot of feats- both for Automatic Metamagic Capacity (does this give you higher spell slots?) and for the increases to your Intelligence. Your suggestion about capping spells at half their caster's hit dice reminds me of the way that hit dice caps skill ranks.

Clearly you can't just double the spell level and add 4 to convert from spell level to skill rank, since this ignores the cost of all those feats and Intelligence upgrades. But I'm not too clear on how those should be translated.

One feat that Sepulchrave has is Syneresis. It allows an epic spell slot (which costs a feat) to be used as a -10 mitigating factor for a spell. Assuming you wouldn't want to cast create big bang more than once a day, I suppose those 160 (or so) feats that in one system is spent on AMC and Intelligence could be used to power a really big Syneresis. That would make a level 120 spell = 1844 spellcraft ranks.

Any thoughts? Did you consider using spellcraft ranks instead of spell levels? If you did, why did you reject the idea?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Sounds reasonable thundershot, but orichalcum is a tad better than adamantite.

Hiya mate!

To be fair, Tome of Battle is really only drawing from inspiration like wuxia and anime, and to me looks suspiciously like WotC trying to capitalize on the success of Exalted (which, BTW, you might find worth checking out someday if you suddenly find yourself with extra time- that game redefines the term 'epic'). Really, if you have a solid mechanical base, names should flow naturally from that; so far you seem to be doing a good job of it so I say continue.

I suppose you always think the grass is greener on the other side of the street.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Cheiromancer mate!

I'm participating in Sepulchrave II's EPIC MAGIC thread, where he uses Spellcraft ranks instead of spell levels. Something a little closer to the Epic Level Handbook.

I glanced in a few times but haven't had the time for a more detailed read through as yet.

Each epic spell slot costs a feat. The spell seeds are expressed in terms of ranks of the Spellcraft Prerequisite (SPs) according to the formula [(2 x spell level) + 4)]. A seed based on a 9th level spell thus has a SP value of 22. A 21st level wizard can have 24 ranks in spellcraft, and this is also the minimum SP value that an epic spell can be at. Many of the factors are based on metamagic feats, so casting a still spell (+1 spell level) costs +2 SP.

By that reckoning is Vengeful Gaze of God a 208th-level spell? Is Hellball a 43rd-level spell?

I'm curious how a skill rank based system scales against a spell level based system like the one you are describing. In a skill rank system like Sep's you have to spend a skill point every level, while in a spell level based system like yours you need to spend a lot of feats- both for Automatic Metamagic Capacity (does this give you higher spell slots?) and for the increases to your Intelligence. Your suggestion about capping spells at half their caster's hit dice reminds me of the way that hit dice caps skill ranks.

I don't really think 'the system' itself matters as much as how you balance it. Obviously the Epic Spell System has some balance issues and the idea of mitigating factors is, to me integrated @ss-backwards.

Clearly you can't just double the spell level and add 4 to convert from spell level to skill rank, since this ignores the cost of all those feats and Intelligence upgrades. But I'm not too clear on how those should be translated.

At first glance this new spell system seems quite weak...but I could be wrong. It certainly deserves further study.

One feat that Sepulchrave has is Syneresis. It allows an epic spell slot (which costs a feat) to be used as a -10 mitigating factor for a spell. Assuming you wouldn't want to cast create big bang more than once a day, I suppose those 160 (or so) feats that in one system is spent on AMC and Intelligence could be used to power a really big Syneresis. That would make a level 120 spell = 1844 spellcraft ranks.

That sounds more like it. Now he's rating Epic Spells the same as myself.

Spell Level = 7 + (Epic Spell DC divided by 10...and rounded down).

Sounds a lot more promising now.

The two could probably garner similar results if I wasn't exploring a more EPIC role with regards the mathmatics.

Any thoughts? Did you consider using spellcraft ranks instead of spell levels? If you did, why did you reject the idea?

Simply because I think the current matamagic rules in place are, with a few tweaks, capable of being extended and extrapolated indefinately. Why create a wholly new system when you can simply extrapolate on an existing one which already works.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Spell Level = 7 + (Epic Spell DC divided by 10...and rounded down).

Sounds a lot more promising now.

The two could probably garner similar results if I wasn't exploring a more EPIC role with regards the mathmatics.

Hey Krusty!

Yeah, Sepulchrave is mostly concerned with the 20 to 40 range. Which on your scale of thinking is almost as limiting as having campaigns run from 2nd level to 4th. Most of his numbers are coming out a fair bit smaller than the ELH. I suspect "Spell Level = 6 + (Spellcraft Prerequisite divided by 6...and rounded down)" will end up being the correct formula. He's being a bit restrictive as to what he's willing to allow, but I'm trying to get him to cut loose.

...I think the current metamagic rules in place are, with a few tweaks, capable of being extended and extrapolated indefinately. Why create a wholly new system when you can simply extrapolate on an existing one which already works.

Ain't that the truth; the ELH is a shambles. I think that, insofar as Sep and I are making progress, it is because we are implementing those rules according to the equivalence of +2 skill ranks with +1 spell level.

One thing I'm having difficulty with is enlarging effects greatly- how do you turn a duration of rounds into a duration of hours, or a 20 foot radius effect into a 2000 foot radius effect? Surely not by piling on 600 iterations of the extend feat, or 99 iterations of the enlarge feat.

Anyway, thanks for posting. I know you are a very busy man!

 

[paradox42]

One thing I'm having difficulty with is enlarging effects greatly- how do you turn a duration of rounds into a duration of hours, or a 20 foot radius effect into a 2000 foot radius effect? Surely not by piling on 600 iterations of the extend feat, or 99 iterations of the enlarge feat.

It might be worth discarding the "two doubles equals a triple" d20 convention and go back to the mathematical way of doing it- that would mean 3 or 4 times requires two applications of the double effect, 5-8 times requires three, and so on. I haven't really explored this much myself, but that "two doublings equals a tripling" rule has never sat very well with my sensibilities anyway.