Retooled epic spells (revived)

[Lorehead]

Oh hell. I'm still stuck in 2E, where they got 9th level spells at L18. I'm not totally convinced that 1/4 is right... non-epic spells lose a lot of their potency at epic levels because of high SR and less damage output, relatively speaking - a maximized delayed blast fireball or meteor swarm will do a lot more damage to something with a couple hundred hit points than it will to something with over a thousand. Casters need those extra higher-level spells to stay viable at that level of play.

They'll take Improved Metamagic a few times, making the gap between spell levels more significant. A 10th-level slot will hold a maximized, empowered delayed blast fireball. An 11th-level slot will hold a maximized, energy admixed, twinned delayed blast fireball or a maximized, energy admixed meteor swarm.

I don't follow your point about high SR. SR generally stays within what a spellcaster can roll.

They're gaining a free ISC - how is that better than a feat?

They're gaining more spells than ISC gives them, and the ability to use those slots for higher-level spells instead of metamagic versions of lower-level ones.

*shrug* I'd say get rid of bonus feats entirely, but that's just me. You still get 1/3 levels normally, and scaling class abilities; but, by the time you hit L21, you should have at least a few levels in a PrC or another class too, simply because characters change over time - they're not going to be locked into one concept their entire lives, except in rare cases - a monk, say, or a paladin. Even then, though, chances are they'd go PrC to focus or gain some special abilities.

If you're designing the game around the assumption that every character will and should enter an advanced class at some point, you don't need to worry about keeping the epic base classes viable. That's how D20 Modern works, but it's not how D&D works.

But, this might also be a different design philosophy - our group multi-classes a lot, and we make liberal use of PrCs, and I've noticed that a lot of others (perhaps a majority) do too - that's why WotC keeps churning them out.

Epic PrCs will need to lose their bonus feats as well, and perhaps even some caster levels if the class abilities plus this spellcasting progression turns out to be too good.

 

[Kerrick]

I don't follow your point about high SR. SR generally stays within what a spellcaster can roll.

I was basing my statement on what I've heard from others, but I looked over the epic mosnters, and all the ones I saw with SR have it no more than 15 points over their CR. I wonder what these people are doing to have such a problem...

They're gaining more spells than ISC gives them, and the ability to use those slots for higher-level spells instead of metamagic versions of lower-level ones.

They're gaining more only because we're using a spell progression. If you had higher-level spells, but required ISC to get the slots like normal, you'd have to keep the bonus feats so they could spend one every three levels to get that new level of spells. Either way, they're getting the new spells every three levels, PLUS the bonus spells from high stats. The only inherent benefit the spell progression has is that they continue to gain 1 extra spell (cumulative) every 3 levels. Okay, so maybe it's a bit much. I don't know.

If you're designing the game around the assumption that every character will and should enter an advanced class at some point, you don't need to worry about keeping the epic base classes viable. That's how D20 Modern works, but it's not how D&D works.

I'm actually curious as to how far people go (or have gone) in a base class, so I'll post a poll in GD.

Epic PrCs will need to lose their bonus feats as well, and perhaps even some caster levels if the class abilities plus this spellcasting progression turns out to be too good.

I assume you mean epic progressions for non-epic PrCs, not epic PrCs. I honestly hadn't thought about the continuing spellcasting progression some PrCs give, but it doesn't seem like a big deal - PrCs that give 1/2 would be giving a new spell level every 6 levels; 1/1 would be every 3. I think PrCs should be capped at their max level - no "epic progressions" (this is a house rule we use), but that's just me.

And really, the entire epic system needs to be rewritten from the ground up. You're trying to fit this into a system that's already halfway broken.