Ok, I've messed with an epic spell

[Aaron]

Hi there.

My more-than-10-years-old campaign entered the epic realms a year ago, and since then I am having "issues" with the party wizard.
I know, wizard and epic spells are not a good combination, but I'm talking about a not so optimized wizard, in a not so optimized party.

The thing is, I agreed to a very basic epic spell, a simple epic mage armor.

Straight to the point, thanks to an Excellent Magic Rod (Once per day when casting a nonepic or epic spell that has an experience point component, the rod supplies up to 2,000 XP), he can cast an Epic Mage Armor with an area effect, thus granting the entire party a 41 armor or natural armor bonus.

The result is the the rogue and the psionic monk (Fist of Zuoken) have ACs that are 24/7 beyond 70.


Looking at epic monsters, I can see they have a pretty sky-high attack bonus, but even the best of them have a hard time hitting my players.


I resolved myself to touch attacks, tripping, disarming, grappling, dispelling, and so on.
But this has become an all or nothing situation: if the opponents don't rely to alternative way of attack, they can't hit my players.
And I can't simply overuse alternative ways to circumvent the epic spell, dming all around it.

It's like an entire playing mechanic has been cut off.


Not to mention I'm having a very hard time creating npc encounters: if I optimize the npcs to hit 70+ AC, my players will have no hope to win an opposing attack roll of any kind, since they couldn't hit their own AC, screwing their front line combatants.

To sum it up: I'm feeling I messed up big time, but again, it's only a "basic" epic spell. Nerfing it seems like making pointless take the Epic spellcasting feat it in the first place.

What should I do?

 

[ccs]

If you're into Epic levels of play the characters should be facing Epic lv foes/challenges/plots.

So when the unstoppable party steamrolls through part of an Epic foes plan? That foe should use all their options to discern why. And then deal with it.
When an Epic foe launches an Epic plot? They should do their recon & make plans on how to thwart those most likely to oppose them. In short, they should be ready for those 70+ACs.

 

[Maxperson]

There should also be a fair number of epic tasks involved in an epic adventure. AC won't help much with those. Also, Epic Mage armor only gives +20 AC. How is he getting it to +41?

 

[Celebrim]

"But this has become an all or nothing situation...."

Fundamentally, you've just described why nothing in D20 works right after 20th level. As the size of the random factor gets smaller and smaller relative to the unconstrained DC's and bonuses, every roll becomes an all or nothing situation. What you are noticing about AC, also applies to making saving throws or making skill checks. You'll frequently going to find you are in situations where either things (PCs or NPCs) only fail on a 1, or else they only succeed on a 20.

I consider you pretty lucky to have run into this extreme as early as you did. You really only have two options. Metagame like crazy, breaking normal design rules left and right to produce encounters that still have challenge, or else admit that the rules system is breaking down and start a new campaign.

 

[Aaron]

In short, they should be ready for those 70+ACs.

Ok, but...how?

There should also be a fair number of epic tasks involved in an epic adventure. AC won't help much with those. Also, Epic Mage armor only gives +20 AC. How is he getting it to +41?

I checked the math, and I was mistaken, the epic spell grants an armor bonus of +37.

The math is:

Epic Seed: Armor: DC 14 (+4 bonus to AC)
Change from touch or ranged touch attack to target: +4
Change from target to area (pick area option below): +10
Change area to 20-ft. radius: +2

We have a DC of 30 so far.

Now, to obtain more AC, the Armor Seed states that "For each additional point of Armor Class bonus, increase the Spellcraft DC by +2."

So, to get 33 more points, the DC increases by 66, and we obtain a DC of 96.

Now, the mitigating factors:

Increase casting time to 10 minutes: -20
Burn 2000 XP during casting: -20

Total DC: 56.

The 24 lv wizard has a Spellcraft modifier of +47 (27 ranks, Int 30, +10 Spellcraft item).

As you can see, he can take 10 on his Spellcraft check and cast the 37 AC granting Epic spell.

I consider you pretty lucky to have run into this extreme as early as you did. You really only have two options. Metagame like crazy, breaking normal design rules left and right to produce encounters that still have challenge, or else admit that the rules system is breaking down and start a new campaign.

So, the answer is ... I'm screwed?

 

[Celebrim]

So, the answer is ... I'm screwed?

All RPGs that depend on a fortune system are limited to a range defined by the limits of that system. For example, GURPS starts breaking down when the active defenses start getting so high that only failures are critical, and the only hits are critical. That's defined by GURPS fortune range of 3-18, so that once you get 'bonuses' in the 13 to 15 range rolling for fortune is no longer fun. It is both too predictable and fails too unpredictably and catastrophically on the rare occasions that it does fail.

The same thing happens in D20 when people start getting bonuses up around +19, and most specifically and throughly, when the gap between any two players bonuses gets up around +19. For example, you get into situations where the Rogue can only fail a reflex save on a 2, but at the same level of DC, the cleric might only make a reflex save on a 20. Or, the monsters AC may be such that the fighter can only fail to hit on a 1, but the wizard needs a 20 to hit. And as more and more things have to be overwhelming to be threatening, more and more the game starts being about achieving absolute and complete immunity to any conceivable threat, and the more and more logical response to any threat is, "If you can't beat it down by the end of the first round, pull out with a mass teleport and regroup."

In D&D in particular, the higher the level that you go, the more unpredictable and the more diverse any groups bonuses might become. Some character might have 40 AC, and another 70 AC - a gap of 30. With gaps like that, it becomes impossible to plan interesting group encounters, since any monster that can hit the 70 AC even 50% of the time, can Power Attack to squash flat the character with 40 AC. If one party member has a +35 will save, and another has a +17 will save, then anything that threatens the mind of the more powerful character even 15% of the time, reliably dominates the other. This reaches the point where PC's responding functionally to the system have to say, "We can't ever have a situation where our will save matters if we hope to survive. We have ensure everyone goes around with Mindblank up and other complete immunities at all times."

What your players have done with the Epic armor spell is a functional response to an inherent system problem with the gap between player capabilities. Essentially, they've forced you into a situation where AC doesn't matter, because they have complete immunity to normal attacks. And anything you'd try to do to make AC matter again, would crush the players on the low end of the gap. Sooner or later, they are going to take away not just circumvent a central playing mechanic, but all play mechanics. And frankly, that is the only way that they can survive. So, what you'll find is that either your players face roll encounters without real opposition or effort, or the encounters face roll them without real tension - and there is nothing that exists in the in between. And yes, you are screwed, because fundamentally this is lodged in the math.

Both 4e and 5e in their own way in the essential elements of their design can be thought of as attempts to address that gap problem.

 

[Maxperson]

I checked the math, and I was mistaken, the epic spell grants an armor bonus of +37.

The math is:

Epic Seed: Armor: DC 14 (+4 bonus to AC)
Change from touch or ranged touch attack to target: +4
Change from target to area (pick area option below): +10
Change area to 20-ft. radius: +2

We have a DC of 30 so far.

Now, to obtain more AC, the Armor Seed states that "For each additional point of Armor Class bonus, increase the Spellcraft DC by +2."

So, to get 33 more points, the DC increases by 66, and we obtain a DC of 96.

Now, the mitigating factors:

Increase casting time to 10 minutes: -20
Burn 2000 XP during casting: -20

Total DC: 56.

The 24 lv wizard has a Spellcraft modifier of +47 (27 ranks, Int 30, +10 Spellcraft item).

As you can see, he can take 10 on his Spellcraft check and cast the 37 AC granting Epic spell.

So this isn't a case of casting the Epic Mage Armor spell, but rather that he spent the time and resources to create a brand new epic armor spell. In that case, talk to the player. Explain that it was a mistake to allow a spell like that at his level and it is disrupting things. Then work to a compromise that will allow a workable level of armor for the spell, and compensate him for the loss some other way that isn't going to upset your game.

 

[Aaron]

In D&D in particular, the higher the level that you go, the more unpredictable and the more diverse any groups bonuses might become. Some character might have 40 AC, and another 70 AC - a gap of 30. With gaps like that, it becomes impossible to plan interesting group encounters, since any monster that can hit the 70 AC even 50% of the time, can Power Attack to squash flat the character with 40 AC. If one party member has a +35 will save, and another has a +17 will save, then anything that threatens the mind of the more powerful character even 15% of the time, reliably dominates the other. This reaches the point where PC's responding functionally to the system have to say, "We can't ever have a situation where our will save matters if we hope to survive. We have ensure everyone goes around with Mindblank up and other complete immunities at all times."

A very interesting analysis Celebrim.
Thank you.

Building upon it, let's assume I check my PC's saving throws, ACs, etc., and try to balance them, in order to avoid the gap you have egregiously highlighted.

I could do this via magic items, and other ways.

In this way I could mitigate the discrepancies between their valors, making some throws and rolls different between them, but not so wide to be either near-impossible or near-certain for any PC.

What do you think?

So this isn't a case of casting the Epic Mage Armor spell, but rather that he spent the time and resources to create a brand new epic armor spell. In that case, talk to the player. Explain that it was a mistake to allow a spell like that at his level and it is disrupting things. Then work to a compromise that will allow a workable level of armor for the spell, and compensate him for the loss some other way that isn't going to upset your game.

That would be my extrema ratio.

 

[Celebrim]

Building upon it, let's assume I check my PC's saving throws, ACs, etc., and try to balance them, in order to avoid the gap you have egregiously highlighted.

I could do this via magic items, and other ways.

In this way I could mitigate the discrepancies between their valors, making some throws and rolls different between them, but not so wide to be either near-impossible or near-certain for any PC.

What do you think?

This is what 4e tried to do. One of the goals of 4e, only partially realized, was to ensure that the gap between classes stayed more or less constant with level. If the gap between the Fighters attack bonus and the Wizards at 1st level was 5, then they wanted it to be about 5 at 30th level. That working depends on a whole variety of things that 3e doesn't have, but that was the idea.

To make something like that work in 3e is going to require you as a DM metagaming like crazy, both in how you manage PC access to resources and how you design foes because the 3e system never had that as a goal. How 3e would play above 10th level (much less 20th) wasn't nearly as much of a priority as making 3e feel familiar to someone coming to from 1e/2e, while also feeling like it had the features of a modern universal system.

You might be able to make it work, but you'll have absolutely no guidelines and I think ultimately you are going to be overwhelmed by player ingenuity. You just won't be able to create novel content faster than players collectively will be able to break your game. Very few DMs manage a 3e based epic game well, and the ones that seem to (see Tales of Weyr) are putting a massive amount of work into it.

You are free to try, and I'll help how I can, but I wouldn't try it.