Aside from GM decisions, I never level up in such large amounts, and have never had an epic character before.
I'm going to be facing level 23-ish clerics (got a ring of positive energy for them), parties of adventurers of all kind and quite possibly other high level NPCs, but not many creatures. It's most likely gonna be in the Epic/Minor Deity levels with this guy.
I've been looking around everywhere for useful things on levelling, making all the possibly permenant'd spells permanent, flesh grafting, prestige classes from all over (Fatespinner could turn out useful), but I'm just having trouble finding useful things I actually qualify for.
I'm a level 16 Lich Human Wizard (Illusionist) (Blocking Abj. and Conj.) Chaotic Evil. Levelling up, as I just said, but I do know that Epic Wizard levels are perhaps less worth it than many PrCs. I don't really know what enemies I'm going to face, so I need to be pretty well prepared. I come to you, experienced members of Dnd and its systems, for advice on what would be appropriate or recommended expenditure on levels in classes, feats, or any other advice for this levelling, even?
I've got all the splatbooks and the DM will most likely approve of anything in them, unless it's TOO broken, like, amazingly.
Basically once you're a wizard with the Epic Spellcasting feat, you're God. As far as classes go... really, I'd just take whatever you see that looks interesting and doesn't lose you caster levels. Red Wizard is always nice for circle magic casting with Homunculi in your fortress every morning... and yes, even though you banned the school with Teleport, you will find a way to reach your fortress every night and leave it every morning. I'd recommend paying for a 2/day item of greater teleport.
Wizard 10 with a Chaos ACF something thingy at level 10
... I don't remember which book (sorry).
Mage of the Arcane Order 11 and read the back of CArc
where it describes what happens at epic levels.
Also need Fiendish Codex 1 for all the chaos feats.
Result:
Your feats end up sucky but this doesn't matter.
You have the spellpool.
You have +7 spells per day that are choas based.
You shot lots of chaos spells into the spellpool ... including the epic spells !! !!
9 epic spells
Nine
You probably want some bonus feats to build back in with the other 4 levels.
Lich = yawn yer a lich, great, next.
Take 5 levels of Red Wizard. It's too bad you banned Abjuration or you could have taken Incantatrix.
The epic spellcasting rules are too easy to abuse, so I'm not going to mention them.
But aside from that, here's how you're going to kill stuff. You'll cast Shapechange into a Beholder. You'll keep Foresight up, so you can't be surprised. You'll use cheesy stuff to win initiative all the time- the methods are well known, look them up elsewhere. (You'll still have to watch out for Dire Tortoise druids, but something tells me your DM doesn't know about that one).
Anyway, now that it's your initiative, cast Time Stop. Cast Mordenkainen's Sword, maybe a 9th level Bigby's hand, and a Forcecage. Open your antimagic eye, and viola! Target is trapped in the cage, antimagic doesn't affect the force spells, and your caster level is ruthlessly high.
All it cost was a Shapechange you would have cast anyway, two 7th and two 9th level spells. Most enemies will be defeated by this.
Take 5 levels of Red Wizard. It's too bad you banned Abjuration or you could have taken Incantatrix.
The epic spellcasting rules are too easy to abuse, so I'm not going to mention them.
But aside from that, here's how you're going to kill stuff. You'll cast Shapechange into a Beholder. You'll keep Foresight up, so you can't be surprised. You'll use cheesy stuff to win initiative all the time- the methods are well known, look them up elsewhere. (You'll still have to watch out for Dire Tortoise druids, but something tells me your DM doesn't know about that one).
Anyway, now that it's your initiative, cast Time Stop. Cast Mordenkainen's Sword, maybe a 9th level Bigby's hand, and a Forcecage. Open your antimagic eye, and viola! Target is trapped in the cage, antimagic doesn't affect the force spells, and your caster level is ruthlessly high.
All it cost was a Shapechange you would have cast anyway, two 7th and two 9th level spells. Most enemies will be defeated by this.
You could instead share the Shapechange with your familiar to turn it into a beholder, and you can turn into something even more useful, like a Chronotryn for dual actions.
As for PrCs, you've managed to specialize out of the two best PrCs at epic: Incantatrix and Cosmic Descryer. I'd probably recommend climbing up Red Wizard like folks are suggesting, as Circle Magic is powerful even at epic (once you hit CL 40 naturally, it's less useful, but it still helps). If you can retrain your banned schools, do so. Ban Evocation and Enchantment, or at least unban one of the two you have and take the PrC that opens up. Also, if you can, take Leadership/Epic Leadership and Undead Leadership (see if Epic Leadership will count for both of 'em). That way you can actually play with circle magic.
Seriously though, become a demilich. It will far and away do more than any PrC for you (again, outside of Incantatrix and Cosmic Descryer, which you can't take).
But yes, demilich is good... forgot about that one.Note, you can't take Epic Feats with your level 1-20 Wizard bonus feats. You have to have Epic levels of Wizard to take Epic feats...and Epic feats are where it is at. Advancing in any other class then wizard is going to cost you an Epic feat.
Epic spellcasting adn money are going to be healthily abused if allowed...I'd ask your DM before you start going wild on spell design.
==Aelryinth