Resurrected Lore

[Lorehead]

No it doesn't - a swift action is the same thing as a free action, except that you can only take one of them per turn. According to the description, "casting a quickened spell is a sqift action" which means you still can't cast more than two spells/round.

My point exactly. A swift-action spell preserves the limit. A free-action spell breaks it.

Yeah... those get boring after awhil. We've got several damage-dealing spells, but they're rather... unique in how they do it: a lava cauldron (usually used to destroy a small town or city), a huge fire-breathing skull, or a burst of disintegration. Those are all relatively low-level, though - 14 and under. The high-end stuff is the really cool spells - making a floating castle, creating a demiplane, manipulating the forces of nature.

I would rather make those interesting spells available as soon as possible. For example, Monte Cook has an excellent version of the floating castle as a complex 10th-level Arcana Evolved spell, so I see no reason to delay it to level 15 (and also no reason to reinvent it).

Yeah, making it so you could take it multiple times with no cap is just absurd, even for an epic feat. I would have limited it to maybe 3. Or maybe just once - that's a huge boost right there.

I'm not certain it's a problem, really. Yes, you can keep taking different feats that essentially double your damage output at +3 or +4 spell level. You'd then have to take Improved Metamagic another two or three times to bring the result down to one slot. Those are feats you don't have available for Improved Spell Capacity.

 

[Lorehead]

I've made several changes to the spells, some of which follow Kerrick's suggestions. These include:

• Controlled disjunction now works differently when cast on a single magic item.
• You can now cast duplicate spell as a swift action to prepare any nonepic spell you know. Preparing a spell from your spell list is a standard action. Preparing a spell from another class' spell list takes ten minutes.
• I've rewritten epiphany.
• I've reduced the number of negative levels infantilize grants, and clarified one or two aspects.
• Vaticinal taunt now always allows a saving throw, but still blocks scrying attempts whose caster level is 20 or less.

What do you think?

 

[Kerrick]

My point exactly. A swift-action spell preserves the limit. A free-action spell breaks it.

I'm not sure if this is RAW or a commonly-accepted house rule, but you can't cast more than two spells (one quickened and one standard) per round without additional feats. I couldn't find it in the book anywhere - it might have been 3.0 RAW. Maybe it's one of those urban legends of gaming.

I would rather make those interesting spells available as soon as possible.

This amply illustrates our differing design philsophies, I think. Not to say that yours is wrong, or mine's better - I think they're equally valid. You want to keep the spells lower level because they're more spread out, while I have them slightly higher, because my progression's slightly faster.

For example, Monte Cook has an excellent version of the floating castle as a complex 10th-level Arcana Evolved spell, so I see no reason to delay it to level 15 (and also no reason to reinvent it).

Heh. I think that spell was around in 2E - they had floating castles in Krynn. I'm not really sure how AE works, so I can't offer an opinion on that except to say that his version probably doesn't work the same way mine does.

I'm not certain it's a problem, really. Yes, you can keep taking different feats that essentially double your damage output at +3 or +4 spell level.

Twin Spell... yeah.

You'd then have to take Improved Metamagic another two or three times to bring the result down to one slot. Those are feats you don't have available for Improved Spell Capacity.

But you're gaining your normal feats AND your bonus feats... with a little work, you could make a decent spell-slinger with high-level spells and good feats - you only have to take it 2-3 times, so you alternate it with ISC (to get those higher-level slots) and add in a couple other feats (pick something) and by L30 or so, you're set. Course, by L30 you kind of need that extra damage output...

Did they ever errata that thing to rule that the reduction applies to each feat, or to the whole spell after applying all feats? If it's the latter, then I don't see any real problem with it as written.

Controlled disjunction now works differently when cast on a single magic item.

I kind of liked being able to render non-epic items nonmagical with an epic spell. Also, I think this spell should have a +40 cap to caster level checks - it's higher than greater dispel, after all.

You can now cast duplicate spell as a swift action to prepare any nonepic spell you know. Preparing a spell from your spell list is a standard action. Preparing a spell from another class' spell list takes ten minutes.

I like that.

I've rewritten epiphany.

I was reading through the description, thinking, "Wow, that's a bit powerful," then I saw the XP cost. And then I looked up and saw the AoE - it's fine.

Vaticinal taunt now always allows a saving throw, but still blocks scrying attempts whose caster level is 20 or less.

Nice.

 

[Lorehead]

I've gone back and made a few more tweaks:

• Controlled disjunction can now affect some instantaneous spells, like break enchantment does.
• I've cleaned up the wording of epiphany and infantilize somewhat.

I'm not sure if this is RAW or a commonly-accepted house rule, but you can't cast more than two spells (one quickened and one standard) per round without additional feats. I couldn't find it in the book anywhere - it might have been 3.0 RAW. Maybe it's one of those urban legends of gaming.

In 3.75 , it's a corollary of how the combat system works. You get only one standard action and only one swift action per round.

In the core rules, the Quicken Spell feat description says, "You may cast only one quickened spell per round." (PH 98) Feather fall, which still officially has a casting time of "1 free action," specifies in the feat description that it is "like casting a quickened spell, and it counts toward the normal limit of one quickened spell per round." (229) Multispell, written before swift actions existed and never reprinted, only allows additional quickened spells, not other spells with a casting time of one swift action.

I would rather make those interesting spells available as soon as possible.

This amply illustrates our differing design philsophies, I think. Not to say that yours is wrong, or mine's better - I think they're equally valid. You want to keep the spells lower level because they're more spread out, while I have them slightly higher, because my progression's slightly faster.

For whatever reason, you don't seem to be closing your quote blocks. It'd be nice if you fixed that, since someone looking at your posts might get confused about who said what.

I don't think it's just that, although that's part of it. (I've already stated why I believe your progression to be too fast.) If you have only boring spells to choose from at any given level, and you have to wait for a higher level to get to use any of the interesting ones, won't you have less fun?

But you're gaining your normal feats AND your bonus feats... with a little work, you could make a decent spell-slinger with high-level spells and good feats - you only have to take it 2-3 times, so you alternate it with ISC (to get those higher-level slots) and add in a couple other feats (pick something) and by L30 or so, you're set. Course, by L30 you kind of need that extra damage output...

I'm not sure which of the three systems you're discussing at the moment. If it's the one in the SRD, a wizard, sorcerer or cleric gets seven epic feats by level 30. If we assume he's already taken Maximize Spell by level 20, this lets him take Improved Spell Capacity once, Improved Metamagic twice, and Great Charisma/Intelligence/Wisdom four times. He can now double the damage of most of his spells with a +1 increase in the cost of a slot, and probably has two 10th-level slots. He's passed up several attractive alternatives, which include: more Improved Spell Capacity, Epic Spell Focus, more metamagic feats, automatic metamagic, sudden metamagic, Epic Spell Penetration and defense. I don't think this is overpowered, given the high opportunity cost.

Did they ever errata that thing to rule that the reduction applies to each feat, or to the whole spell after applying all feats? If it's the latter, then I don't see any real problem with it as written.

The new DMG changes the wording significantly. The 3.0 version said, "The spell slot modifier of all your metamagic feats is reduced by one level, to a minimum of +1." (ELH 59) The 3.5 version says, "The spell slot you must use to cast a metamagic spell is one level lower than normal (to a minimum of one level higher than normal)." (DMG 210)

That leaves no ambiguity that I can see: in 3.5, you apply Improved Spell Capacity after applying all feats, and also can't apply the same metamagic feat repeatedly. You can, however, cast a spell with two metamagic feats in a spell slot one level higher, provided that you've taken Improved Metamagic enough times.

I kind of liked being able to render non-epic items nonmagical with an epic spell. Also, I think this spell should have a +40 cap to caster level checks - it's higher than greater dispel, after all.

The original version could even suppress epic items with no check. That was too good. Now, it's even more effective against nonepic items, but more balanced against epic ones.

Greater dispel magic comes on the scene at CL 11, and caps at CL 20. Controlled disjunction comes on the scene at CL 21, and caps at CL 30. That looks about right to me.

Nice.

Thank you.

I'm reaching the point where I can still correct oversights and errors, but can't usefully evaluate game balance without more playtesting. Is anyone interested in actually using these rules? If so, I can add more spells to the list to facilitate play. If not, I can work on something else.

 

[Kerrick]

In 3.75 , it's a corollary of how the combat system works. You get only one standard action and only one swift action per round.

Don't forget the move action... >.< Seems like the system is quickly becoming more complicated again (harkening back to 2E's rules bloat).

In the core rules, the Quicken Spell feat description says, "You may cast only one quickened spell per round." (PH 98) Feather fall, which still officially has a casting time of "1 free action," specifies in the feat description that it is "like casting a quickened spell, and it counts toward the normal limit of one quickened spell per round." (229) Multispell, written before swift actions existed and never reprinted, only allows additional quickened spells, not other spells with a casting time of one swift action.

The description for swift action says that "Casting a quickened spell is a swift action." If you can only take one swift action per round, that means only one quickened spell per round.

For whatever reason, you don't seem to be closing your quote blocks. It'd be nice if you fixed that, since someone looking at your posts might get confused about who said what.

That's cause I miss the / in the end quote. I fixed it.

I don't think it's just that, although that's part of it. (I've already stated why I believe your progression to be too fast.) If you have only boring spells to choose from at any given level, and you have to wait for a higher level to get to use any of the interesting ones, won't you have less fun?

Maybe... but the key here is not to design boring spells. And really, you're doing epic - no spell at any level of epic should be boring, if you know what you're doing.

I'm not sure which of the three systems you're discussing at the moment. If it's the one in the SRD, a wizard, sorcerer or cleric gets seven epic feats by level 30.

Yes, the SRD one. Sorry.

If we assume he's already taken Maximize Spell by level 20, this lets him take Improved Spell Capacity once, Improved Metamagic twice, and Great Charisma/Intelligence/Wisdom four times.

Why would he take Great <whatever> four times, if he's only gaining one slot? Once or twice I could see, but there are much better feats to choose from - Epic Spell Focus jacks up the DC by +2 (or is it +1 now?)for the cost of one feat, as opposed to Great whatever, which takes 4. Granted, ESF works for one school and Great Whatever works for all of them, but for a specialist (or even a non-specialist who's focused) ESF wins every time.

He can now double the damage of most of his spells with a +1 increase in the cost of a slot...

Maximize maxes out the damage - where are you getting double damage? Are you thinking of Twin Spell?

...and probably has two 10th-level slots. He's passed up several attractive alternatives, which include: more Improved Spell Capacity, Epic Spell Focus, more metamagic feats, automatic metamagic, sudden metamagic, Epic Spell Penetration and defense. I don't think this is overpowered, given the high opportunity cost.

I think Automatic and Sudden are non-epic now, as of Complete Arcane. I could be wrong - I don't have the book - but I do know they were nerfed heavily... I think they apply to only one spell level per feat now. Epic Spell Focus and Penetration are weak feats, but yeah, more metamagic would come in handy, as would more ISC. Let's say ISC once, IM twice, ESF once to start, then two more ISC, and a random metamagic feat. That gives you 13th level slots, +1 increase for max power, and +3 (or +2, whichever) to the DC for your favorite school of magic.

That leaves no ambiguity that I can see: in 3.5, you apply Improved Spell Capacity after applying all feats, and also can't apply the same metamagic feat repeatedly. You can, however, cast a spell with two metamagic feats in a spell slot one level higher, provided that you've taken Improved Metamagic enough times.

Your interpretation sounds right, but it looks a little wonky to me - in effect, if you take it enough times and you apply multiple feats to a spell, you can mitigate the level increase for all but one feat to +0. That directly contradicts the wording of the 3.0 version and (I believe) the intent of the 3.5 version.

Greater dispel magic comes on the scene at CL 11, and caps at CL 20. Controlled disjunction comes on the scene at CL 21, and caps at CL 30. That looks about right to me.

For some reason I thought greater dispel was +30. +30 for disjunction is fine.