Sultans of Smack

[Archer]

Ritual epic spells require large groups of moderate to high level casters which must be really hard to gather but if you can do it you should be able to pull off some powerful effects. Each caster can only contribute 1 spell to the epic spell and if you do the day casting times if even one wizard leaves or is knocked out then that's the end of the ritual. If wizards could dump 200 spell levels each into a spell then yes it would be very easy to cast DC 1000 spells.

I said I liked the cleric smackdown but felt it was overly specific and expensive which no one disagrees with.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Archer, which smacks had errors in them?

One of the first smacks on this thread has an error using the 4CTF rules, because they took a limitation on the Gain Feat power-- which isn't allowed to be limited, as it's an alternate usage of Hero points, and not actually a superpower.

 

[Burne]

<Rant>
Archer:
Clearly you are relatively new to the Sultans of Smack thread as the whole Truestrike Potion issue has been repeatedly rehashed. Before you go on and on about errors, be so kind as to look up citations. Things like entry 48-50 on the minor potion chart and 87-89 on the minor potion chart, not to mention such verboten potions as ghoul touch (but it's an offensive spell!!!). Nor does statements like "some guy on Wizard's board said" hold any real value towards rule discussions, in fact, the FAQ, which many people do use, isn't official. Fortify can create insight and luck bonuses, no where does it say that insight or luck bonuses are magical, or that they must be duration limited.
</rant>
love ya
Burne

 

[Archer]

The FAQ is as official as something could possibly be. The FAQ is as if it were printed in the Player's Handbook or whatever.

The epic handbook is clear as crystal that to make the duration permanent it must be an inherent bonus. Everything that is not permanent is duration limited. Insight and luck bonuses aren't necessarily magical but if you get them from a spell they are.

 

[Impeesa]

The FAQ is as official as something could possibly be. The FAQ is as if it were printed in the Player's Handbook or whatever.

The epic handbook is clear as crystal that to make the duration permanent it must be an inherent bonus. Everything that is not permanent is duration limited. Insight and luck bonuses aren't necessarily magical but if you get them from a spell they are.

OK, now you're making me think. Meanies. This isn't nearly as impressive now, and requires bumping things up to level 27, but it's still far more insane than a level 27 character deserves to be. So, fortify will last 20 hours. We therefore need to lower casting time to something reasonable - 10 minutes will do, we can only cast 3 a day anyways. This increases all these DC 0 spells to DC 200. After removing the Foresee seed (not necessary any more) we're at 183. Now let's say we want it so the first one he casts lasts at least a month after he finishes the last one, enough for a good healthy dungeon crawl or war campaign. A liberal dosage of "Increase duration 100%" will increase the DC by +130, putting us at DC 313 per spell so far. Now, being possible the second most important stat for many cleric builds, let's assume he's managed to scrape together a 30 charisma before all this stuff is applied. So, for one of his non-epic feats, he takes leadership, then at 24th and 27th he takes epic leadership and legendary commander. His leadership score is 37, so thanks to legendary commander, he can have a total of 770 followers of 3rd level or higher. Let's say they're all adepts (who count as 2 levels higher than a normal follower, that's why we're only concerned with 3rd level and up). Each of them contributes a 1st level spell slot - they won't complain, all you're asking of them is half an hour of casting a day. DC is now.. -457. Looks like we can throw in some more fun. 457 points is good for an extra 190 days of duration (assuming 20 hours base for fortify, things like armor will last longer), or an extra +228 to all your enhancement bonuses from fortify, or increase the non-enhancement ones by 76. Since they're basically free (no one's really disputed that part yet, right? ) go ahead and research both the longer lasting and way-too-strong versions of each. I'm not even going to try and do the calculations this time... for the uber-powerful, month-long versions, I think his ability scores come up above 800.

Short version: Now he has to spend 25 days casting, to either become a veritable god for a little over 7 months, or go far beyond all estimation of godhood for the next 30 days. Oh, and if you insist on a minimum dc of 10, he can't afford to research it all until 34th level or so... but still, does any 34th level character deserve to have 800+ ability scores for a month at a time?

This has been another questionably legal and completely nonsensical post brought to you by way-too-much-time productions.

Edit: Thanks for the defense Burne, and thanks for making me think Archer - I think I like this version even better.

--Impeesa--

 

[reapersaurus]

One of the first smacks on this thread has an error using the 4CTF rules, because they took a limitation on the Gain Feat power-- which isn't allowed to be limited, as it's an alternate usage of Hero points, and not actually a superpower.

Which thread uses 4CTF rules? I'm interested.
Cause if 4CTF is allowed, than my current SMACKs are in the >2000 range. I haven't posted em (I don't think) to this thread, cause I think it's overpowering.

But RangerWickett was asked, and confirmed that you can use Restrictions on the Gain Feat superpower.

Has this been changed/clarified?

And if we're mentioning old smacks, Black Arrow's Fleet Runner smack is kind of messed up.
I really don't think it would work like that - too many attacks are listed, and I'm pretty sure that now its been clarified that you can't do a partial charge, then a charge, and he was using full Power Attack, in addition to it being a 18th level smack, and used Shield Charge from horseback while using Spirited Charge, and also gives up an AoO.

 

[Victim]

Scary stuff Impeesa. Also, consider that most Epic characters are going to qualify for leadership bonuses for prestige or special powers almost automatically.

 

[Impeesa]

Scary stuff Impeesa. Also, consider that most Epic characters are going to qualify for leadership bonuses for prestige or special powers almost automatically.

Yeah, my whole revision there was more or less off the top of my head - I didn't even begin to consider a character who was maxed out for the purposes of the leadership feat, so it could get even scarier than that. One wonders if 6 months is long enough to use the new charisma mod when calculating leadership scores.... and then researching higher-still bonuses. Mmm..

--Edit: Taking the appropriate leadership bonuses into account and assuming he focuses more on charisma, squeezing a 36 (this is entirely viable for any epic spellcaster, so it could be a sorceror), he can have about 1430 adepts available for casting. An ability score of 10 would become roughly 1700+. This is assuming, of course, that his 26th level cohort wasn't also a leader of some repute, with a thousand of his own adepts willing to spend half an hour a day casting. --

Question: I know the book doesn't specifically say you can, but is there any precedent for allowing multiple takings of Leadership? That would get crazy pretty fast....

Something interesting that occurred to me later: If he makes the half hour of casting every morning a regular habit, he can have 2-3 copies of the uber versions, or 7 or so copies of the 'lesser' versions running at all times. Great for some redundant protection against dispelling and whatnot.

--Impeesa--

 

[Jeremy]

Well done!

This is why I can't come up with a good set of guidelines for epic smacks. The arena is so wide open that there is no target for what's impressive and what's not. Who's to say what can and can't be done in what time frame at that level?

The guidelines of epic smacking may have to change to something like defeat x creature by y level in one round or less. Where X creature is the same for every smack and y level is as low as possible. Because if the goals are as intangible as they are for 16th level smacks, we could see everyting from all 4 digit stats to lowest level non falling or telekinesis related 10 digit damage figure to a single creature.

 

[Burne]

For a look, admittedly a silly look, at multiple (non-epic) Leadership you have only to look on Page 2 of this fine fine thread about 80% of the way down the page.