Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Epic

[dave2008]

I'm definitely interested in what your doing, but I didn't play 3/3.5e or PF1. So my input would probably be less than helpful. That beings said, I love epic and I am working on my own rules for 5e, so I will take a deeper dive when I have some more time.

 

[glass]

Epic Votary will have to wait for next time....

Right, Epic Votary. As well as being part of the three-part set of feats which are targetted at divine characters, it is also one of two feats (apart from the Epic X Caster feats already discussed) that gives access to extra spell lists. In this case, it gives divine casters access to another divine class's list.

Conversely Epic Theurge, as the name implies, gives nondivine casters access to a divine class's list (or vice versa).

These come (almost) unaltered from the original version of this document, and the reason from that was pretty simple - despite having six gestalt* characters for the finale of Age of Worms (and so at least twelve classes), none of them were cleric. Given how important the cleric list can be in PF1, I wanted to give them a chance to rectify that. Of course, nobody took either of these feats either.

_
glass.

* We went with gestalt because we thought we might only end up with 2 or 3 players. Although there was a fair bit of turnover during the campaign, we never dropped below four at any one time. A couple of players who had left for various reasons came back for the finale hence the six. IIRC, that characters were a Ranger//Wizard, a Paladin//Monk, a Fighter//Rogue, a Wizard//Swordsage, and a Barbarian//Druid.

 

[glass]

I'm definitely interested in what your doing, but I didn't play 3/3.5e or PF1. So my input would probably be less than helpful. That beings said, I love epic and I am working on my own rules for 5e, so I will take a deeper dive when I have some more time.

Bien venue and wilkommen! Don't worry about not knowing the PF1 rules, it will probably be helpful to me to have to explain things a little.

---

Next feat in the list would be Epic Class Training, but I already talked about that one. After that is Epic Companion. This is for characters with animal companions and mounts (but not Phantoms or Eidolons - I need to create a feat for them).

The basic benefits are some numerical boosts to help the companion keep up (and reduce the secondary christmas tree), and some quality of life improvements (darkvision, Share Spells doing what it says on the tin, mount does not count against teleport limits).

But the real meat is the in the Synergy section. If you activate Smite or Judgment, your mount gets the beenfit too. You can also share wildshape with your mount, with a table of benefits based on your level in your wildshape class.

This was also targetted at a specific character (the Barbarian//Druid I mentioned in my previous post). I think he took it, but I do not recall him using any of the cool stuff - although the numerical boosts allowed his companion to fight returning evil demigod Kyuss and not immediately die.

_
glass.

 

[glass]

Next up is Epic Crafter; I already mentioned that it takes the same approach as Automatic Metamagic: It has one or more of the normal Item Creation feats as a prereq, and allows you to make Epic items of the types matching the normal ones you can make. It also makes item creation quicker (20000 gp per day to start with; more as your EB goes up). As such, this is a merger of all the Craft Epic X feats but also Efficient Item Creation (kinda - Efficient Item Creation still exists as a legendary feat, and they stack).

Epic Criticals is for people who like to crit. It has Improved Critical as a prereq, and makes that feat apply to everything rather than just a specific weapon. It also makes keen increase the multiplier from the rather than the threat range (since otherwise keen is redundant if you have Improved Critical - and if you have this feat then you do). The big thing though is that it maximises the "first" lot of damage on a crit; you only roll the extra damage.

It also lets you add your sneak attack on a crit. Mostly because I think you should be able to anyway (but not enough to houserule it that way...). And halves the percentages for Fortification.

Neither of these is super exciting (at least until you land a crit), but they do what they set out to do IMNSHO. The next couple of feats (Epic Divine Spellcaster and Epic Divinate) I have already talked about. So next up with be Epic Fortitude.

_
glass.

 

[glass]

So next up with be Epic Fortitude.

Epic Fortitude is a feat that bears very little resemblance to its ELH counterpart (from which it is not directly descended - I am pretty sure I had forgotten the ELH version existed). Anyway, gives the benefit of Great Fortitude, with an extra bonus if you actually take that feat. You become immune to all mundane diseases, and any disease or poison with a DC of 25 or less. And you tripple your lifespan (rather than doubling it for being Epic).

Since that felt a bit light, you also get +1 to Strength or Constitution. This stacks with the usual Epic bonuses but not with other such feats, so it is a one and done. In my mind (apart from adding a little something extra to otherwise underwhelming feats), this serves two related purposes: They allow some customisation of ability scores at Epic levels, which otherwise go up in lockstep, so you are stuck with whatever the difference was pre-Epic. It also lets you break up the pattern if they end up all even or all odd (which might be annoying).

Epic Reflexes and Epic Will work the same with respect to Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will, and also give a choice of stat boosts (Dex/Int/Wis and Wis/Cha respectively), although obviously the other boosts are somewhat different:

Epic Reflexes also gives you Combat Reflexes (this was mostly inspired by one of my players, who always mixes up the two), and lets you use you Int or Wis bonus if it is higher than your Dex bonus for numbers of attacks. If you actually have Combat Reflexes you add your EB to AoO (again).

Epic Will gives you an extra save against any compulsion effect at the end of your turn. Given how good a Will saves a character with this feat will be, you should not stay compelled for long!

These are not super exciting, being about shoring up weaknesses rather than adding strengths. But they do a couple of important things IMNSHO.

Next time, Epic Galant.

_
glass.

 

[glass]

Next time, Epic Galant.

This one is for swashbucklers, gunslingers, rogues, and other lighter martial types. It gives an initiator level to those who do not already have it, and a panache pool to those who do not already have that.

To use that initiator level, gives you two stances of your choice from suitable disciplines - from both Bo9S and Path of War (stances are probably my favourite part of the initiator mechanics).

To use the panache pool, it gives you four deeds: Focused Strike lets you add an extra d10 to attack rolls, and your initiator level to damage if you hit. Impossible Dodge retroactively lets you add an insight bonus to AC against a particular hit equal to your ranks in acrobatics (so probably 20). These both cost 2 panache/grit and require a light or one-handed piercing weapon. Martial Flexibility lets you switch your stance as a free action for one panache/grit. Martial Recovery lets you spend a grit/panache when you crit with a martial manouvre to not expend it.

The synergy entry lets feats like Slashing Grace work for the above feats too.

There is a slight error in that it says that you add you EB to your initiator level as usual, but EB is not the same as the initiator level bonus. It was at one point, but I am pretty sure it had changed by the time I created this feat, so I do not know where that came from. One more for the "to be fixed" list!

Next up, Epic Healer.

_
glass.

 

[glass]

Next up, Epic Healer.

Another one which does pretty-much what it says in the tin. If you can already channel positive energy, it gives you extra uses equal to your EB, and lets you use it in new ways: To cast heal, breath of life, mass heal, or greater restoration (the latter two taking two uses). If not, it gives you a pool equal to your EB that you can only use only for those purposes - although to be fair if you've got mass heal on tap you probably would not want to use the original burst often anyway....

I did think about doing something about non-magical hp restoration, but is still on my to do list.

Anyway, next feat is Epic Manifester. This is the psionic equivalent of Epic Spellcaster, and does broadly the same thing with a couple of caveats: Because DSP classes do not get 0-level powers by default, I needed to import some (from the Occult Adventures psychic classes). Aside from that, it basically just gives extra PP.

I must admit, I am not entirely appy with this one. But I am also not entirely sure how to fix it - I must admit I am not as familiar with these rules as I might be (despite owning three iterations of them). Although I just started playing a Psion, so hopefully I can fix that!

Anyway, Epic Martial Arts is next.

_
glass.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I am enjoying the feats and stuff, I will be stealing many of them - any Epic ability like that I can use.

When I was doing epic years ago I make a "gain two non epic levels class abilities" as an Epic Feat too.

 

[glass]

personally never liked the way the Epic Level Handbook approached the material.

Neither did I, hence my extensive rewrites.

After 20th level there is one class "Epic Hero" - it gains 1 HP+con, and a class feature - and those were basically epic feats (in Pathfinder I am going to include mythic feats, and path abilities).

Due to an oversight in the original document, hit points is something I have not actually addressed yet. I am probably going to be more generous than 1 hp per level, though.

I wanted to really really slow down advancement, so that high level published modules could be used. Sort of the opposite direction you went.

Advancement speed is something that caused me some headaches. The extant PF1 monsters go to about CR 30, so I needed to make sure that the numbers remained vaguely in line with those. Beyond that, my aim was just to keep things relatively simple.

When I was doing epic years ago I make a "gain two non epic levels class abilities" as an Epic Feat too.

And I thought I was so original!

_
glass.

 

[glass]

Anyway, Epic Martial Arts is next.

This, like quite a lot of the feats I created for this document, is aimed at character types who are thematically similar but mechanically somewhat distinct. Partly this ties into what I was saying upthread about pre-Epic decisions mattering, but not too much. Another part is more prosaic: that I was in a bit of a hurry when I created the original version - I had a lot of characters to support and I wanted all of them to have at least a couple of reasonable/interesting choices each.

In this case, the feat is of potential interest to both the Wizard//Swordsage and the Paladin//Monk. For the former, it would have given them a ki pool and for the latter and initiator level. Then it would have given both new ways to use both of those. A martial stance of choice to go with the initiator level, and a couple of extra ki powers to go with the pool - I am not going to talk about the ki powers because they are basically the same as the Epic Galant's extra deeds (since they were copy-pasted from here to there - this feat came first). Unlike that one, this feat only gives two of the options - but you get more with the Extra Ki Power feat (which does not appear to actually exist - either I imagined it or intended to homebrew it). EDIT: Actually, Ring the Bell and Walk on Air are ki powers but not deeds. The former lets you make melee attacks against distant targets, like Nasir in Robin of Sherwood. The latter lets you do wuxia movement, more or less.

It also defines certain weapons as your Martial Arts Weapons. The main effect of this is to allow you to Flurry of Blows with ninja weapons or the like. I feel like it was probably supposed to do slighly more, but I am not sure how.

Next up, Epic Multi-Attack.

_
glass.