Problems with the Dragon Knight Epic Spell

[Otterscrubber]

It seems that spell automatically summons a red dragon to fight for you. Per the description in the summon seed the monster should get a saving throw to resist this summoning, but it appears from the spells description this is not the case and yet I saw nothing in the spells formula to explain this. Can someone clue me in?

 

[gfunk]

There are many, many mistakes in the Epic levels spell section. Best not to think about them too much, lest your head explode.

 

[James McMurray]

Check the erratta. There are a lot of fixes for the epic spells. That may be one of them.

 

[Nightfall]

This is why I like true rituals better.

 

[Otterscrubber]

What is a true ritual? Is this a false one or something? Hehe, this is starting to sound like Jack Chick cartoon.....

Also, no further explanations in the errata. I'm just trying to figure out one of 3 things: 1) Is the spell written poorly or incorrectly by not allowing a saving throw to the creature summoned 2) do I not undertand the summoning seed description when it says summoned creatures get a will save to avoid being summoned or 3) some other explanation?

The reason I ask as I want to write a summoning epic spell and that will save makes it hard to summon anything, well, epic enough to justify making the spell in the first place. If there is a way to mitigate the factor of the summoned creature making its save and wasting your spell then I would like to figure that out. Obviously you can increase the DC of the spell by increaseing the spellcraft, but that is gonna make the spell much harder to craft. Not to mention you would also have to increase effective caster level most likely as well to get through epic Spell Resistance. The Dragon Knight spell does not do any of this. Looks like whoever wrote the spell just got lazy and didn't take this into account when writing it up, but if I'm missing something then I'd like to know.

 

[James McMurray]

I'm guessing that the spell mechanic got changed at some point during the writing of the eample epic spells.

If I were you I'd ask the DM to let you drop the save and SR from the Summoning seed. Even when summoning primal elementls and dragons, you'll till be susceptible to protection from evil/good/etc.

 

[Geoff Watson]

What is a true ritual? Is this a false one or something? Hehe, this is starting to sound like Jack Chick cartoon.....

It's something from the Scarred Lands setting.

Nightfall mentions Scarred Land stuff as often as possible. If someone mentions a dragon, he'll say that slarecian(sp?) dragons are better; if someone mentions paladins, he'll say that mithril knights are better, etc.

Just ignore him.

Geoff.

 

[James McMurray]

Just ignore him.

Unless you happen to play in the Scarred Lands or in a campaign that allows material from all over.

 

[Darkness]

Just ignore [Nightfall].

You must absolutely love diaglo.

 

[Nightfall]

Geoff,

Thanks a lot. And I do mention Orcus and Malhavoc products too!

True Rituals are powerful ritually cast spells that can do almost the exact thing as Epic spells. However they have a heafy XP, material cost and do require at least 3 other casters. But I think it's fair exchange for being able to do epic spells without all this rigormoral required for epic spells. Especially since most are just powerful blasting spells. True rituals are more flavorful and also evoke what should be epic in my view.