What's the X-factor [Archive] - Wizards Community

What's the X-factor [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Jarsallen
01-04-08, 03:24 PM I'm missing something here with regards to my understanding of Epic Spells.

Say I'm an epic Wizard, with a base 22 intelligence (I left my fancy performance enhancing equipment at home). I'm new to this epic thing, just recently having hit Level 21, and my spellcraft ranks are maxed out to 24, so I've got me a base 30 Spellcraft.

Now I want to create an EPIC FIREBALL!, which is like a normal fireball with a higher save.

So I use the Energy Seed (DC 19), add to it the 1 action cast time (+20), and I want a 20 foot radius spread (+2) and a range increase (+2). Seems simple enough- Now I have a fireball that does 10d6 damage, effects the same area as a fireball, and has a base reflex save of 20. Neat.

Except that the spellcraft check is 41. I fail half the time I try to cast it!

At the same time, Ted the tenth level wizard is running around laughing as magic fizzles at my finger tips- He, with a drop of bat poop and sulfur can reliably fire off 10d6 fireballs at will!

What am I missing here? It seems like the DCs of epic spells are goofily high.
TheDarkestOfAngels
01-04-08, 03:34 PM What am I missing here? It seems like the DCs of epic spells are goofily high.

it's true, but the thing about epic spells is that it's easy to raise your spellcraft DC and you can fiddle with epic spells in such a manner as that you can have fairly powerful effects with even a relatively small DC (due to mitigating factors or just pure creativity) but if the DCs were significantly lower, it means that the other rules would interact in such a way as to produce far more powerful epic spells than the game could handle.
Even as it is, some people around here seem to have a problem with it being too easy to make ultra-powerful epic spells with the way the rules are. I don't necessarily agree - mostly because the book literally states that DM-approval is necessary (which can eliminate the ridiculous stuff fairly easily by putting the human factor in it, which a lot of people like to leave out, it seems).
sin_vraal
01-04-08, 07:12 PM think waaaay bigger when you make epic spells. you can make some heinous sh!t that does more than blow stuff up. if its makable with a spell level 1-9, then dont make it with epic, cuz you will always be disapointed :)
Paladin's Pride
01-04-08, 08:02 PM when you realize how much it costs in gold and XP to make that fireball, it starts to look even more ridiculous. There's no point in even trying to defend the seed system in the epic level handbook, the majority of the time it just doesn't work. Look up any of a number of alternate epic magic systems around, such as Fearnmerc's. The core problem with basing epic spells on a spellcraft DC is that the potential difference between a casual player and an optimized character is too great.

Epic play as it stands is completely inaccessible to the casual player and epic spellcasting is one of the best examples of it. Seeds create the illusion that you can think of an effect, look up the appropriate seed, and actually come up with a viable epic spell. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, you don't start with the question "what spell would I like to design?" but "what spells are viable under these rules?" which requires a higher degree of familiarity with the rules.

If that doesn't sound like what you want, either find an alternate epic magic system, or just drop the seeds altogether and have the DM ad hoc what the final DC of the spell is. You've got a far better chance of getting a DC that is reasonable for your group's style of play doing that than using the rules as written.
Avatar of Kokusho
01-04-08, 10:56 PM I shall give you the same advice echoes by many a person on these boards: abandon your epic fireball, take Heighten Spell, Improved Spell Capacity, Improved Heighten, and raise your DC from there. Save your epic spells for, oh, Infinite Spell Turning or something.
Tequila_Sunrise
01-04-08, 11:38 PM I'm missing something here with regards to my understanding of Epic Spells.
That would be that Epic spells are only good for creating long term buffs and new spell effects that new/stingy DMs don't feel comfortable assigning as high level non-epic spells. Basically, Paladin's Pride is right--epic spellcasting is pretty lame. I myself prefer to continue with spell levels at epic (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=966322). (post #3)
rob_douglas
01-05-08, 02:09 AM A couple of things:

What people said is right - that your epic fireball really isn't epic, and should be abandoned. A better use for such a spell would be to add in the dispel seed to dispel fire immunity before it goes off.

Second, your assumptions are bad when it comes to an Epic caster using epic spellcasting. Because of the cost, others have shown that it is not really a viable choice until closer to 30th level, at least 27th. This increases your potential Spellcraft, and your resources.

Your character with only 22 INT, and no other way to increase Spellcraft is abnormally crippled when it comes to casting epic spells. This is like wondering why your 14 INT wizard is not very effective at 10th level - because he can't use 5th level spells. At 21st level, 22 INT is not very effective. While having SC 30, and a DC 41 spell does fail 50% of the time, note that bumping SC to 31 makes the spell succeed 100% of the time, as would finding any 1-point mitigating factor, since you can take-10.

Buffs are better because of the casting time issue in the ELH. If you want to include Epic attack spells, I suggest taking the casting time for certain seeds down to 1 action or 1 full round at most to start with. This includes Energy, Afflict, Slay. Buffing seeds should stay at 1 minute, or increase to 10 minutes. Spells that combine seeds should use the longest casting time. This is a house-rule designed to downplay epic buffs and increase epic attacks.

Epic spells can be cast in an Anti-Magic Field! If this isn't valuable to you, your DM is too nice.... ;)

ROB
Gemstone
01-05-08, 08:44 AM I second what Rob just said...

For example, my lich archmage recently crafted a simple epic spells that returns the next 5 melee or ranged attacks that targets him... pretty effective while fighting epic titans.
Avatar of Kokusho
01-05-08, 09:30 AM My DM will not allow me to create epic spells that reflect melee or ranged attacks, he says it's "too unbalancing" for casters to be able to do that.

He for some reason had no issues with the one that would effectively turn me into a great wyrm gold dragon, complete with all pertinent abilities, while keeping my own. >.<
Echodork
01-08-08, 02:24 PM One of the things about the epic spell system is that it's goofily difficult to create spells that deliver loads of d6s. The epic spell system isn't designed to let you create epic fireballs that drop hundreds of dice over large areas.

But hey, take Mage Armor. Make it a ritual spell that requires a couple low-level spell slots, make it take 10 minutes to cast, increase the duration to 24 hours, and increase the armor bonus to something nice... say +30. Maybe give yourself a couple d6s of feedback damage. That kind of spell is trivially easy for even a "novice" epic spellcaster to create and cast. So no, you can't drop piles of damage on the battlefield, but there are a ton of breakable effects you can work with.
rob_douglas
01-09-08, 12:32 AM Just don't include the backlash damage. That occurs every round - for 24 hours! Unless you have fast healing to cover it.

ROB
AlienFromBeyond
01-09-08, 02:56 AM One of the things about the epic spell system is that it's goofily difficult to create spells that deliver loads of d6s. The epic spell system isn't designed to let you create epic fireballs that drop hundreds of dice over large areas.
The thing is that it's far more efficient to increase the size of the dice than add more dice if you want more damage. Hurling 10s of d20s is a snap, and in fact quite devastating. But as said before, this isn't the best way to use Epic Spellcasting.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jarsallen 01-04-08, 03:24 PM	I'm missing something here with regards to my understanding of Epic Spells. Say I'm an epic Wizard, with a base 22 intelligence (I left my fancy performance enhancing equipment at home). I'm new to this epic thing, just recently having hit Level 21, and my spellcraft ranks are maxed out to 24, so I've got me a base 30 Spellcraft. Now I want to create an EPIC FIREBALL!, which is like a normal fireball with a higher save. So I use the Energy Seed (DC 19), add to it the 1 action cast time (+20), and I want a 20 foot radius spread (+2) and a range increase (+2). Seems simple enough- Now I have a fireball that does 10d6 damage, effects the same area as a fireball, and has a base reflex save of 20. Neat. Except that the spellcraft check is 41. I fail half the time I try to cast it! At the same time, Ted the tenth level wizard is running around laughing as magic fizzles at my finger tips- He, with a drop of bat poop and sulfur can reliably fire off 10d6 fireballs at will! What am I missing here? It seems like the DCs of epic spells are goofily high.
TheDarkestOfAngels 01-04-08, 03:34 PM	What am I missing here? It seems like the DCs of epic spells are goofily high. it's true, but the thing about epic spells is that it's easy to raise your spellcraft DC and you can fiddle with epic spells in such a manner as that you can have fairly powerful effects with even a relatively small DC (due to mitigating factors or just pure creativity) but if the DCs were significantly lower, it means that the other rules would interact in such a way as to produce far more powerful epic spells than the game could handle. Even as it is, some people around here seem to have a problem with it being too easy to make ultra-powerful epic spells with the way the rules are. I don't necessarily agree - mostly because the book literally states that DM-approval is necessary (which can eliminate the ridiculous stuff fairly easily by putting the human factor in it, which a lot of people like to leave out, it seems).
sin_vraal 01-04-08, 07:12 PM	think waaaay bigger when you make epic spells. you can make some heinous sh!t that does more than blow stuff up. if its makable with a spell level 1-9, then dont make it with epic, cuz you will always be disapointed :)
Paladin's Pride 01-04-08, 08:02 PM	when you realize how much it costs in gold and XP to make that fireball, it starts to look even more ridiculous. There's no point in even trying to defend the seed system in the epic level handbook, the majority of the time it just doesn't work. Look up any of a number of alternate epic magic systems around, such as Fearnmerc's. The core problem with basing epic spells on a spellcraft DC is that the potential difference between a casual player and an optimized character is too great. Epic play as it stands is completely inaccessible to the casual player and epic spellcasting is one of the best examples of it. Seeds create the illusion that you can think of an effect, look up the appropriate seed, and actually come up with a viable epic spell. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, you don't start with the question "what spell would I like to design?" but "what spells are viable under these rules?" which requires a higher degree of familiarity with the rules. If that doesn't sound like what you want, either find an alternate epic magic system, or just drop the seeds altogether and have the DM ad hoc what the final DC of the spell is. You've got a far better chance of getting a DC that is reasonable for your group's style of play doing that than using the rules as written.
Avatar of Kokusho 01-04-08, 10:56 PM	I shall give you the same advice echoes by many a person on these boards: abandon your epic fireball, take Heighten Spell, Improved Spell Capacity, Improved Heighten, and raise your DC from there. Save your epic spells for, oh, Infinite Spell Turning or something.
Tequila_Sunrise 01-04-08, 11:38 PM	I'm missing something here with regards to my understanding of Epic Spells. That would be that Epic spells are only good for creating long term buffs and new spell effects that new/stingy DMs don't feel comfortable assigning as high level non-epic spells. Basically, Paladin's Pride is right--epic spellcasting is pretty lame. I myself prefer to continue with spell levels at epic (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=966322). (post #3)
rob_douglas 01-05-08, 02:09 AM	A couple of things: What people said is right - that your epic fireball really isn't epic, and should be abandoned. A better use for such a spell would be to add in the dispel seed to dispel fire immunity before it goes off. Second, your assumptions are bad when it comes to an Epic caster using epic spellcasting. Because of the cost, others have shown that it is not really a viable choice until closer to 30th level, at least 27th. This increases your potential Spellcraft, and your resources. Your character with only 22 INT, and no other way to increase Spellcraft is abnormally crippled when it comes to casting epic spells. This is like wondering why your 14 INT wizard is not very effective at 10th level - because he can't use 5th level spells. At 21st level, 22 INT is not very effective. While having SC 30, and a DC 41 spell does fail 50% of the time, note that bumping SC to 31 makes the spell succeed 100% of the time, as would finding any 1-point mitigating factor, since you can take-10. Buffs are better because of the casting time issue in the ELH. If you want to include Epic attack spells, I suggest taking the casting time for certain seeds down to 1 action or 1 full round at most to start with. This includes Energy, Afflict, Slay. Buffing seeds should stay at 1 minute, or increase to 10 minutes. Spells that combine seeds should use the longest casting time. This is a house-rule designed to downplay epic buffs and increase epic attacks. Epic spells can be cast in an Anti-Magic Field! If this isn't valuable to you, your DM is too nice.... ;) ROB
Gemstone 01-05-08, 08:44 AM	I second what Rob just said... For example, my lich archmage recently crafted a simple epic spells that returns the next 5 melee or ranged attacks that targets him... pretty effective while fighting epic titans.
Avatar of Kokusho 01-05-08, 09:30 AM	My DM will not allow me to create epic spells that reflect melee or ranged attacks, he says it's "too unbalancing" for casters to be able to do that. He for some reason had no issues with the one that would effectively turn me into a great wyrm gold dragon, complete with all pertinent abilities, while keeping my own. >.<
Echodork 01-08-08, 02:24 PM	One of the things about the epic spell system is that it's goofily difficult to create spells that deliver loads of d6s. The epic spell system isn't designed to let you create epic fireballs that drop hundreds of dice over large areas. But hey, take Mage Armor. Make it a ritual spell that requires a couple low-level spell slots, make it take 10 minutes to cast, increase the duration to 24 hours, and increase the armor bonus to something nice... say +30. Maybe give yourself a couple d6s of feedback damage. That kind of spell is trivially easy for even a "novice" epic spellcaster to create and cast. So no, you can't drop piles of damage on the battlefield, but there are a ton of breakable effects you can work with.
rob_douglas 01-09-08, 12:32 AM	Just don't include the backlash damage. That occurs every round - for 24 hours! Unless you have fast healing to cover it. ROB
AlienFromBeyond 01-09-08, 02:56 AM	One of the things about the epic spell system is that it's goofily difficult to create spells that deliver loads of d6s. The epic spell system isn't designed to let you create epic fireballs that drop hundreds of dice over large areas. The thing is that it's far more efficient to increase the size of the dice than add more dice if you want more damage. Hurling 10s of d20s is a snap, and in fact quite devastating. But as said before, this isn't the best way to use Epic Spellcasting.