Instantaneous Epic Spells

[Creamsteak]

In some campaigns, Mage armor with instantaneous duration is impractical. This is reasonable for most situations, as instantaneous affect are not even remotely dispellable by the standard rules, and the spells are somewhat permanent.

That is my information on the rules as they are, however, my players (In the Rokugan Industrial Revolution), need the ability to cast such huge spells.

My solution to the problem:

Any spell that can be made permanent, can be made permanent.

Any spell that has been made permanent, can be made instantaneous.

The cost is the Base DC x5 (Permanent) x5 (Instantaneous). This puts the DC's at an incredible height, but promises that some individuals can eventually have the ability to cast a spell that will grant powers that are not available by any other means.

I post this as a... topic for discussion. Is my idea a bit munchkinny? Is it a bit harsh? Is it insane? Is it a bad interpretation of the rules? I'm curious, as I simply ad-hocked a solution to a problem the simplest possible way.

 

[Knight Otu]

All I know is that it is less harsh than the penalty I used in my spells I sent you.

For those interested, I used a *25 on top of the permanency, but the spells I sent creamsteak were already permanent.

Mh, if we use this rule, it becomes more likely for me to successfully research and use these spells.

 

[Cheiromancer]

If you are clever with mitigating factors, you can reduce a spell's DC down to practically nothing. Then multiplication by 5 (or 25, even) is still very reasonable.

As Sepulchrave pointed out elsewhere, if the DC is reduced to 0, the spell is free to develop, and takes no time or xp to research.

And of course you can multiply 0 by any number you like- it will still be 0.

 

[Knight Otu]

The spells in the ELH may not reflect this, but the rule is that the mitigating factors of epic spells are included after the Permanency (and thus also Instantaneous) factor.

The two spells I mentioned have a casting time of 100 days and a XP cost of 10,000, the maximum possible, and still rank at over 1,000 for the Spellcraft DC.

Edit:
To quote from the ELH, page 89:

3. Those [factors] that reduce the Spellcraft DC rather than increasing it. ... To calculate the final Spellcraft DC of an epic level spell correctly, it's important to determine the mitigating factors last, after all the factors that increase the DC have been accounted for.

The spells in the ELH possibly used an earlier draft of the rules and weren't updated accordingly.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I think we all eagerly await the errata for the ELH.

What were they on?

It's a shame, because aside from the shoddy mechanics, I really like the book.

 

[SimonMoon5]

Well, the precedent set by Demise Unseen suggests that an Instantaneous duration is shorter than a 20 minute duration, so to get an instantaneous armor spell, use both the armor seed and any other seed with an instantaneous duration.

 

[Creamsteak]

If you are clever with mitigating factors, you can reduce a spell's DC down to practically nothing. Then multiplication by 5 (or 25, even) is still very reasonable.

As Sepulchrave pointed out elsewhere, if the DC is reduced to 0, the spell is free to develop, and takes no time or xp to research.

And of course you can multiply 0 by any number you like- it will still be 0.

Mitigating Factors are always applied last, even after permanency. Mitigating the spell does not affect the Base spell DC, it affects the Final Spell DC...

 

[Cheiromancer]

Mitigating Factors are always applied last, even after permanency. Mitigating the spell does not affect the Base spell DC, it affects the Final Spell DC...

The example spells don't do this. (Check the arithmatic for Verdigris Tsunami). And it says to apply the mitigating factors last, too.

But the example spells are bad examples, and the rules for epic spells could certainly be improved. I would never, ever claim that a "free" epic spell is possible or should be possible under the rules.

 

[Creamsteak]

The example spells don't do this. (Check the arithmatic for Verdigris Tsunami). And it says to apply the mitigating factors last, too.

But the example spells are bad examples, and the rules for epic spells could certainly be improved. I would never, ever claim that a "free" epic spell is possible or should be possible under the rules.

Agreed. I think The Epic spell rules are an excellent start, but need to be handled with a lot of Rule 0 power.