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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cheiromancer" data-source="post: 3047091" data-attributes="member: 141">I was thinking about this earlier today.  Ten applications of widen (at +3 levels each) and the ddq rule will increase all dimensions of an effect by 1000.  Disintegrate will make a 10 foot cube of matter disappear.  Times by 1000 is about 2 miles on a side.  Another 1000 and you are talking a 2000 mile cube.  A sphere 2500 miles in diameter has about the same volume. Mercury's diameter is about 3000 miles; Mars's is a little over 4000 miles. So 20 doublings would be enough for a small planet, and 22 would disintegrate the earth.  Assuming it failed its save.  I forget what the saving throw bonus is for a planet.Anyway, an antimagic shell doesn't have a saving throw.  It covers about the same volume as a disintegrate and is also a sixth level spell.  22 doublings would make an antimagic shell that would encompass the earth.  (Add a factor to make it touch delivered of course).So I'm thinking that the difference between "Anti-Magic Entire Planets Surface" and "Destroy Planet" is mostly to ensure that the planet fails its saving throw vs disintegrate.  Suppose adding a +20 heighten would be enough.  Then 2 levels of metamagic = 1 level of epic spell.  Then the +60 levels of heighten = 30 levels of epic spell.  According to this chain of reasoning, anti-magic entire planet's surface should be 30 something levels higher than antimagic shell.  So about 40.  And destroy planet should be 40 something levels higher than disintegrate.  So about 50.In fact, scaling up a PHB spell to affect a planet will basically be a 40-something level spell if there is no save, and 50-something level spell if there is.  Why don't we say 40 and 50, with the understanding that we might be talking about fairly small planets.Making an item is a bit more difficult.  The minor creation line of spells tops out at 20 cubic feet at 20th level.  So we need almost 10 doublings just to get it to around the 1000 cubic feet.  Using permanency as our model, we'd have to pay 500 xp per spell level to make it permanent.  And hope no one dispels it!  Anyway.  To make a planet will be about +15 levels higher than destroying one, so level 70 for an earth-like planet, and require about 35 000 xp.   The Sun, though, is about a million miles across, so we'd need about 8 or 9 more doublings to make a Sun in the sky.  If I'm right, then creating a Sun is about a 80th level spell.  A black hole is about the mass of 3 to 5 suns, so you don't need too many more doublings than that.  In fact, if you use your major creation base spell to create something dense (like lead), then it might be easier to create a black hole than a Sun.  So a black hole would be about 80th level too.Of course, it might be that a Sun is just a really big wall of fire, shaped into a ball. A wall of fire at 20th level has an area of 8000 square feet.  Call it 1000 square metres. The sun has a surface area of 6 million million million meters, so that would be about 60 doublings.  You don't have to increase the thickness of the wall very much (if at all), so this is only about +60 spell levels over the base cost of a wall of fire.  That's about right; a 70th level spell.There are over 1 billion suns in a small galaxy.  I think you'd need about 60 epic spell levels above a planet-affecting spell to move a galaxy.  1000-fold increase from a planet to a sun, and three 1000-fold increases thereafter.  Plus some factors to cover the distances involved; both to include all those suns in the range of the spell, and then to teleport it another distance.Hmmm.  A 20th level teleport moves you 2000 miles.  A light year is 6 trillion miles.  I think five thousand-fold increases in range would be needed to move a galaxy about 300 million ly.  So about +30 epic spell levels.I'm thinking about 140th level to move a galaxy.  My numbers are drifting further and further away from UK's benchmarks, so I'll stop here.  A more accurate estimate of metamagic spell levels to Epic Spell levels would help.  If the ratio is 3:1 instead of 2:1 then my numbers will shrink accordingly. It would also be helpful to discuss how much of a boost to spell DCs is necessary to ensure a planet fails its saving throw; around +20 or +30 would fit well with this model.</blockquote>

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