Serious inquiries only please - 100th level adventure hook and module in development

[Ozmar]

...but even a fraction of this is truly frightening and unbalanced.

Ah, but here's my point. I agree it is "frightening", but how can we be sure it is "unbalanced"? "Unbalanced" tells me that it is so overwhelming that it beats out a majority of other tactics, and makes most other character options subpar in comparison. And I don't see that here. I see that it has the potential to be awesome, but what is it compared to his companions and foes? As you said, one little True Res, and his foe bounces right back. We have to consider quite a bit before we can be sure something is "balanced" or "unbalanced" at these levels.

Ozmar the Uncertain

 

[Darmanicus]

Just for a laugh, I wouldn't mind posting a character Rocco? I have problems with my own @18th, (just last session), however I'd love to give it a go.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Actually, I'll be leaving on Sunday for two weeks on a conference. I'll keep on working on my rouge a bit, but comes sunday I'll be offline for two weeks.

Regarding the wizard: timestop is broken. Utterly, completely, broken. Of course, lots of stuff is, but still.
What I'm more interested in is how the wizard fares without using timestop. He should still be able to whip out several spells in a single round, but I'm curious as to the save DCs and spellcaster level for SR that he can pull. (In other words: I'm curious how effective he is at affecting others without timestop.)

I think we may need a disclaimer at the begining of the adventure: NOTE to the DM, no time stops. We could limit the time stop to a non persistant effect and you can't use meta magic feats on it, but that would be still 2-5 rounds of mayhem.

If you don't take an intensified twined time stop, you could still cast 5+ spells a round, I think they can still hold their own

 

[DM-Rocco]

Here is my analysis of this.

Executive Summary: The Epic Wizard is not broken, because what you suggest is a very poor tactic that requires the wizard to put ALL of his eggs in one vulnerable tactic. No wizard worth his high intelligence score would do that. It would leave him too vulnerable to survive.

{SNIP}

Conclusion: Even so, this is a sub-optimal character, b/c he devotes nearly all his resources (and practically all his spell-casting resources) into a one-shot whammy, which, by the way, is not always guaranteed to deliver its damage potential. Energy immunities, improved evasion, or even more prosaic defenses such as incorporeality or simply deceiving the arch-fool-wizard with an illusion or a decoy combine to make this a very poor tactic, IMNSHO...

Ozmar the Epic Number Cruncher

Well, nice math. You know what they say, there are three kinds of people in the world, those that get math and those that don't

Anyway, you forgot a few things, four come to mind that make it a logical combo that you dismissed.

1) Human with a spell prodigy feat (basically starting with a 20 INT for spells) then ad in +25 for level enhancement, +5 inherit and a +30 item enhancement (the max we decided you can go for ability item boosters), that gives him a 80 INT without any Great INT feats. You have plenty of bonus spells

2) By use of the multi spells and the twin spells you are able to do a great manys to get around energy immunity. Before you cast your intensified twined timestop, you twin a Mords on him or twin a dispel magic on his ring of energy immunity. You twin these spells because they might be able to cast counter spells and since you can cast 5+ spells a day, you should be able to push at least one through. Also, if you have Arch Mage levels you can substitue energy types of spells so if they are immune to fire you can do acid. That is also why you need the delay feat so you can use Horrid Wilting, it is a FORT save so you can't evade it and it doesn't have a damage type, so you can't prevent it.

3) At the end of the time stop you cast a wish. There are feats you can take to make it a permenant spell-like ability usable at will once a round, but even without that, you have a few slots dedicated to wishes and you use your wish to wish that you have the effects that you had just rested for 24 hours. This gives you back all your spells and heals you, minus the one wish.

4) 3,250,000 will buy you an improved rod of Excellent Magic that gives you 10,000XP towards a spell. You can use this to pay for twined wishes. You will need two of them at least, so one recharges when you cast the wish, as if you had rested for 24 hours.

So, even though I didn't do the break down completely like you did, I am certain my math is correct so I have to desagree, time stop is very broken. I figiured out a way to do 400,000 points of damage and that was not all of my feats that I could have taken.

It is not a bad tactic either if you get your spells back every round. Yes, wish is broken too, but a little less abused.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Ah, but here's my point. I agree it is "frightening", but how can we be sure it is "unbalanced"? "Unbalanced" tells me that it is so overwhelming that it beats out a majority of other tactics, and makes most other character options subpar in comparison. And I don't see that here. I see that it has the potential to be awesome, but what is it compared to his companions and foes? As you said, one little True Res, and his foe bounces right back. We have to consider quite a bit before we can be sure something is "balanced" or "unbalanced" at these levels.

Ozmar the Uncertain

Nice that you are thinking about it, but it is unbalanced and I don't need the Epic Number Crunching Feat to figure that one out

Look at the other character, the Dwarven defender does about a 100 or so a hit, non crit. Sure he can do 500-1000 around and yes, he can attack every foe once with 15' feet of himself, but he can't shake the earth with anywhere near the amount of damage a mage can do. The same can be said about the rogue Yair built. I'll tell you what, you number crunch the other classes like you did this one and then tell me what you think

 

[DM-Rocco]

Just for a laugh, I wouldn't mind posting a character Rocco? I have problems with my own @18th, (just last session), however I'd love to give it a go.

Sure, everyone is welcome to make a character and help in anyway they can.

Just please read the ground rules and ask us if you want to stray a bit.

I have made a Dwarven Defender and Yair made a rogue and CRGreathouse had said he was going to make a Paladin and I am struggling with a balanced Wizard and my friend is in the process of making a Cleric, I know that covers a lot of ground, but try not to duplicate characters.

If you are looking for a suggestion, I think a Ranger would kick ass. At level 100 everyone would be a favored enemy. You could call him Hatred, or Death or whatever. The Bane of Enemies feat would give you a +2d6 to all damage and the Improved favored enemey feat normally gives you +1 to all normal abilities for favored enemies (including damage) but with 3.5, I think it would be more inclined with a +2 instead as that adheres tot he spirit of the 3.5 version, which you could take, if you were nuts, 50+ times for an additional 100 points of damage each hit.

Anyway, it does more damage than a fighter. But feel free to make whatever you would like.





Okay, that's it for me for a while. I have a D&D PnP game tomorrow and on Sunday I need to spend time with my wife and child and then I have some serious make up time for my players that I DM. I may not be able to check back here until mid next week, so behave

 

[Yair]

Ah, but here's my point. I agree it is "frightening", but how can we be sure it is "unbalanced"? "Unbalanced" tells me that it is so overwhelming that it beats out a majority of other tactics, and makes most other character options subpar in comparison. And I don't see that here. I see that it has the potential to be awesome, but what is it compared to his companions and foes? As you said, one little True Res, and his foe bounces right back. We have to consider quite a bit before we can be sure something is "balanced" or "unbalanced" at these levels.

Ozmar the Uncertain

I tend to agree with DM_Rocco that "brokeness" needs to be considered in relation to other party members. My rouge's main attack is a full round action that does about 2000 hp in total (over two rounds). I suspect that a full attack by the fighter, when fully equipped, will be in the same order or maybe less (but applicable to creatures immune to critical hits). It is these totals that set the scale.
The wizard should be able to do better, as he's expending expensive high-level slots, but not by orders of magnitude.

One thing I disagree with DM_Rocco over is the use of Wish to restore lost spell-slots. Not in my game. A wish, being a level 9 spell, could - at best - restore a level 9 slot in my game. Perhaps level 8. I'll allow a doubling of the number of regained slots per lower spell level, so you'll have, say, two level 8 slots, or 4 level 7 slots, or so on. But that's as powerful as it gets.
Even wish has its limits.

 

[Sage]

Hi

Are you accepting characters?
I'd love to make a 100th level rogue-type character.
What sources do you use? Custom magic item?
What are my limitations?

oh, and i would love playing in an epic FR or planescape campaign, also if it started at 1st level (maybe 10th?) with rapid progression.

 

[Yair]

Hi

Are you accepting characters?
I'd love to make a 100th level rogue-type character.
What sources do you use? Custom magic item?
What are my limitations?

oh, and i would love playing in an epic FR or planescape campaign, also if it started at 1st level (maybe 10th?) with rapid progression.

We're always glad to get more contributions. That said, as DM_Rocco said,

I have made a Dwarven Defender and Yair made a rogue and CRGreathouse had said he was going to make a Paladin and I am struggling with a balanced Wizard and my friend is in the process of making a Cleric, I know that covers a lot of ground, but try not to duplicate characters.

The fighter and rouge are posted in this thread.
My rouge is the sneaky-type, you can make some other rouge type if you want, or some other character, but generally I think repeating the same archetype won't be a good idea.

These are the agreed-upon character generation guidelines:
PC GENERATION GUIDELINES
- Magic items worth up to 277,000,000 gp. No artifacts.
- Sources allowed for character generation are PH, DMG, Monster Manual, Epic Level Handbook, Deities and Demigods but no divine ranks [all avaialable free online, in the SRD]. DMGII, MMII, MMIII, Faiths and Pantheons, Legends of Avandu, and Immortal's Handbook may also be used for adventure design but assume the reader is unfamiliar with the source.
- Any magic item in the ELH is allowed. Otherwise, follow the guidelines below.
-- No single item should exceed 50 million gp in price.
-- Ability increases capped at +50 enhancement [roughly doubles ability at most]. No non-enhancement/inherent bonuses to Abilities.
-- Skill increases capped at +100 competence [roughly doubles skill at most]. No non-competence bonuses to Skills.
-- No limit on weapon enhancement bonus, but a +50 weapon is boring. Be more creative.
-- Epic SR costs Epic costs (x10), capped at 112 [12+level].
- Use the Elite Array or 30 point buy to purchase initial Abilities. Character may be of any age.
- Try to keep in mind changes to Intelligence, as they affect Skill points. [It's a bitch.]
- One base class and up to one prestige and one epic prestige class.
- No "dipping" into classes to get cool abiltiies (a few Paladin or Monk levels, etc.)
- No Leadership feats.
You can deviate from the guidelines, but try to not do so by too much.

As for a fast-paced campaign meant to reach epic levels, I'd like that too but I'm not sure how to arrange one. My latest campaign was pretty fast-paced, but only lasted some 5 levels in half a year... (a PnP campaign, PbP are even slower...)

 

[Sage]

wow, thanks for summarising the rules, though the thread is only 3 pages, is kinda hard to sort through

Hmm, my original idea was a sneaky rouge because I wanted the Void Incarnate prestige class, however, I thought of a character that doesn't really like himself, thus getting the PrC, and therefore tries to change, thus being less-sneaky, maybe even valiant.