ECL 70 dragon Worm that Walks in need of uberfying - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 wadledo Oct 10, 2008 16:08:52	So, on another forum I frequent, I'm planing on making some kind of Dragon Ascendant Worm that Walks(because I think it's cool, not because it's necessary) for an epic game, and I'd honestly like to see what y'all can do with this "experience". I already have a bit of a plan myself, mostly relying on necromancy PrC's and the like(though as a rule, no incantatrix, because I don't have the books for it), as well as a few things like Swiftblade, that allow me to cast certain spells without fail. Red or possibly Copper Dragon, because they have good HD/CL progression(I.e. at 40HD I can get either to be 20CL), though I am extremely open to suggestions of dragon type. As for books, I don't have most of the setting specific stuff, or Complete Champion, but I can look at mostly everything else. Here's the specific rules: Show Goal: Remove Ereshkigal from the material plane. Slaying her once accomplishes this goal as does banishment (unlike other deities, she isn't immune to banishment) Character Building Rules: 70 levels plus 50.000 XP. 32 point-buy, average HP 6 levels of LA for free Any race, including monsters with listed LA, from the SRD. If you take templates, you are limited to one inherited and one acquired template from the SRD You can get flaws 100.000.000 gp worth of treasure. Available sources are the SRD, the Complete Series, the theme series (e.g. Draconomicon, Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness), the elements series (Frostburn, Sandstorm etc), Spell Compedium, Tome of Magic, Book of 9 Swords, BoED, BoVD, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, PGTF, LEoF, Magic of Faerun. Additional sources are debatable but other campaign material or dragon magazine material is not available. Web enhancements of the above sources and online material from the wizards' site building upon those sources are usually acceptable but ask first. On Epic Progressions for classes; If you want to take epic levels in a prestige class or a base class from a book other than PHB and you don't have an epic progression, take a look at the core classes and their epic progressions and pick one that fits. For example, Eldritch Theurge advances warlock casting, mage casting, warlock eldritch blast dice, fiendish resilience and damage reduction. For an epic progression it initially looks like a mystic theurge equivalent would be good-until you notice mystic theurge advances nothing but dual spellcasting and not very well at that. A closer look at Arcane Trickster reveals it fits better; sneak attack progression equals EB progression, Impromptu Sneak Attack is the equivalent of Fiendish resilience in strength and Ranged Legerdemain is the equivalent of Damage Reduction. Spellcasting only advances once so you either advance invocations or you advance arcane spellcasting and you get a bonus feat every 4 levels. So now we have epic progression for Eldritch Theurge. In any case, ask-especially if you're unsure how a class measures up with other epic progressions. House rules: This is an excercise in optimisation that is still playable, not breaking the game. Rules limiting some of the more broken things are required. Greater deities don't maximise d20 rolls as per normal. They roll 1d10+10 instead. (otherwise they'd always save, never miss, always critical and so on) That is for the players' benefit. Up to 20 levels of continiously active spells via custom items are allowed. Persistent Spell cannot be automatically applied or its spell level increase reduced. Spells with duration lower than 1 round/level can't be persisted. Metamagic feats cannot be reduced lower than +1 spell level if they were higher than +1 initially or lower than 0 if they were +1. Spells cast from items (with the exception of scrolls, wands, staves and already existing items) are not allowed. Intelligent items are not allowed. Total ability bonuses through any magical means except inherent bonuses are capped at +20. This includes bonuses of any type, including abilities increasing from polymorphing. That is to make sure polymorphing isn't more powerful than Epic items. All items other than ability bonus ones and already existing items are capped at +20 and bonus types are limited to resistance for saves, deflection/natural armor/enhancement for armor and enhancement for weapons. Your caster level is capped at level+5. You can only mitigate half of an epic spell's DC. Bonuses to AC, saves and AB from epic spells are capped at the same limit and bonus types as items. Infinite loops, Pun-Pun, Timestop Cast within Timestop, avoiding the costs of abilities spells or powers, gaining resources/abilities without paying for them is not allowed. Friendly Advice: Make sure you got a lot of immunities. Make sure you got contingencies. Make sure you can reroll natural 1s at least some of the time. Do not rely too much on spells. Make sure you can heal. A lot. Make sure you got a lot of HP. Before you turn a character idea into a character do the following: 1) Check if it is an idea from the CharOp boards. If it is then there's a good chance either the limitation of allowed sourcebooks or the houserules prevent it from functioning. 2) Read the list of allowed sources and make sure the idea is from those sources. If it isn't, check on what to do before making a request. 3) Read the houserules and make sure your idea is compatible with those too. Before you make a request for something from a non-allowed source or from an allowed source that is not normally possible, here's what you need to do: 1) Read the original post houserules. Does your request break those houserules, especially the template/race limitations and the stat bonus rules? If yes, then it will probably not be alowed. 2) Think about the feasibility of your request. If there's a serious reason that what you want cannot be done, then it will probably be disallowed. E.g. a celestial half-dragon cannot be done because you can't have a celestial and a dragon for parents and still be of your base race. 3) Read the expected stats for this level. If your request gives you bonuses way beyond those then it will probably be disallowed. The following numbers are given as a basis for comparison. Not all characters can have all stats as high as that though certain classes coughbardcough may enable buffing for a good deal more. Numbers, however, are not the most important part of an epic fight. When one can epic-dispel you, when one can ignore bonuses to defences or when one has defences that completely negate an attack with no numbers taking part, tactics are a lot more important. HP: 1400 low, 2500 medium, 4000 high Damage Potential per round: 500 meele / 1000 spells low, 3000 meele / 10000 spells (high). Deities and some casters may go much higher than that. NOTE: this is potential damage. The damage actually taken each round may be 0 for the rounds you're testing defences, 100-500 for the rounds you find a weak point or remove a protection. You only do full damage if the enemy is unprepared or you manage to overwhelm his defences. Spells: up to 30th level, 5-10 per round. Deities may have higher level spells than that due to divine spellcasting. Ability Scores: 40 low, 55 medium, 70 high. Templates and ability-boosting classes (Barbarian, Red Dragon Disciple) may allow for higher scores. Attack bonus: 65 low, 130 medium, 200 high. Deities may have significantly higher bonuses. AC: 85 low, 110 medium, 150 high. Certain class/buff combinations allow for much higher bonuses. Deities may have significantly higher bonuses. Saves: 65 low, 100 medium, 130 high.
#2 Omen_of_Peace Oct 10, 2008 21:27:49	Read the posting guidelines and realize it's much better to have a build skeleton, especially at ECL 70. Of course, about 1 person in 100,000 plays at this level so even with more information you'll be hard-pressed to find advice. Why ? Because epic D&D breaks way before that. Have fun with Belial. :evillaugh
#3 roku Oct 10, 2008 23:51:33	Epic D&D breaks as soon as you take "Epic Spellcasting". I remember making a spell called Diamondskin. DC 60 or something, gave a Permanent DR 60/-. That was ONE spell.
#4 Senevri Oct 11, 2008 10:58:24	dr/60 won't do against, say, a character with 60s in most stats, 10 hits a round and who gains STR, DEX, CHA and INT to damage... (coughlumiwoodlingInitiatorForIronSiegecough) edit or against ToB characters, anyway. Fear the power of my low-level DR-ignoring strikes! That being said, OP... check out the builds for Iron Siege - another lv70 challenge. Also, if you don't need to make DC 80 grapple checks to move, and don't get hit by a disjunction every 1d4 rounds, you must make a COSMIC DESCRYER. You'll want to research different alignment Maws of Chaos for all styles, then gain those as SLAs. You'll also need to be able to cast Favor of the Marty and Delay Death. Preferrably persisted/at will. See where I'm going with this?
#5 tshern Oct 11, 2008 12:04:22	Iron Siege challengers are pretty much always deities though, which makes most of the tricks so much easier. Immunities aren't bad either, bud SDAs really make other 70 HD characters laugh. My signature unsurprisingly has a link to the challenge if you wish to check it out. Since you are going to make a dragon, I'd grab five levels of Abjurant Champion. CL=BAB is better than nothing.
#6 Senevri Oct 11, 2008 14:15:45	It should be noted, that dips to Initiator classes at level 40 or so, will give ridiculously disproportionate boosts, and as an arcane caster, you'll want Cosmic Descryer anyway. Abjurant Champion helps your everyday CL significantly, too. So much that I wouldn't care much about having more than 21 levels in a spellcaster class, since you will be gaining half HD as CL anyway. later on, and you can always get the CL you need from CD. Being a Wyrm Wizard should come naturally, and spells such as Improvisation and some cleric spells should be very beneficial
#7 tshern Oct 11, 2008 17:31:01	Abjurant Champion with Divine power works wonders at high epic like this...
#8 awaken_D_M_golem Oct 13, 2008 19:26:46	The very last Dragons of Eberron book, put cleric domains on to the Sorc Casting. Mix in Ardent 2 with Practised Manifester feat. Cerebrmancer 10+ ... double count class both the Sorc and the Ardent Get 9s in Arcane, Psionics, and Divine. Then get Epic Spells with Triple the capacity. that's uber

Show

Goal:
Remove Ereshkigal from the material plane. Slaying her once accomplishes this goal as does banishment (unlike other deities, she isn't immune to banishment)
Character Building Rules:
70 levels plus 50.000 XP.
32 point-buy, average HP
6 levels of LA for free
Any race, including monsters with listed LA, from the SRD.
If you take templates, you are limited to one inherited and one acquired template from the SRD
You can get flaws
100.000.000 gp worth of treasure.
Available sources are the SRD, the Complete Series, the theme series (e.g. Draconomicon, Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness), the elements series (Frostburn, Sandstorm etc), Spell Compedium, Tome of Magic, Book of 9 Swords, BoED, BoVD, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, PGTF, LEoF, Magic of Faerun.
Additional sources are debatable but other campaign material or dragon magazine material is not available.
Web enhancements of the above sources and online material from the wizards' site building upon those sources are usually acceptable but ask first.
On Epic Progressions for classes;
If you want to take epic levels in a prestige class or a base class from a book other than PHB and you don't have an epic progression, take a look at the core classes and their epic progressions and pick one that fits. For example, Eldritch Theurge advances warlock casting, mage casting, warlock eldritch blast dice, fiendish resilience and damage reduction. For an epic progression it initially looks like a mystic theurge equivalent would be good-until you notice mystic theurge advances nothing but dual spellcasting and not very well at that. A closer look at Arcane Trickster reveals it fits better; sneak attack progression equals EB progression, Impromptu Sneak Attack is the equivalent of Fiendish resilience in strength and Ranged Legerdemain is the equivalent of Damage Reduction. Spellcasting only advances once so you either advance invocations or you advance arcane spellcasting and you get a bonus feat every 4 levels. So now we have epic progression for Eldritch Theurge.
In any case, ask-especially if you're unsure how a class measures up with other epic progressions.
House rules:
This is an excercise in optimisation that is still playable, not breaking the game. Rules limiting some of the more broken things are required.
Greater deities don't maximise d20 rolls as per normal. They roll 1d10+10 instead. (otherwise they'd always save, never miss, always critical and so on)
That is for the players' benefit.
Up to 20 levels of continiously active spells via custom items are allowed.
Persistent Spell cannot be automatically applied or its spell level increase reduced. Spells with duration lower than 1 round/level can't be persisted.
Metamagic feats cannot be reduced lower than +1 spell level if they were higher than +1 initially or lower than 0 if they were +1.
Spells cast from items (with the exception of scrolls, wands, staves and already existing items) are not allowed.
Intelligent items are not allowed.
Total ability bonuses through any magical means except inherent bonuses are capped at +20. This includes bonuses of any type, including abilities increasing from polymorphing. That is to make sure polymorphing isn't more powerful than Epic items.
All items other than ability bonus ones and already existing items are capped at +20 and bonus types are limited to resistance for saves, deflection/natural armor/enhancement for armor and enhancement for weapons.
Your caster level is capped at level+5.
You can only mitigate half of an epic spell's DC.
Bonuses to AC, saves and AB from epic spells are capped at the same limit and bonus types as items.
Infinite loops, Pun-Pun, Timestop Cast within Timestop, avoiding the costs of abilities spells or powers, gaining resources/abilities without paying for them is not allowed.
Friendly Advice:
Make sure you got a lot of immunities.
Make sure you got contingencies.
Make sure you can reroll natural 1s at least some of the time.
Do not rely too much on spells.
Make sure you can heal. A lot.
Make sure you got a lot of HP.
Before you turn a character idea into a character do the following:
1) Check if it is an idea from the CharOp boards. If it is then there's a good chance either the limitation of allowed sourcebooks or the houserules prevent it from functioning.
2) Read the list of allowed sources and make sure the idea is from those sources. If it isn't, check on what to do before making a request.
3) Read the houserules and make sure your idea is compatible with those too.
Before you make a request for something from a non-allowed source or from an allowed source that is not normally possible, here's what you need to do:
1) Read the original post houserules. Does your request break those houserules, especially the template/race limitations and the stat bonus rules? If yes, then it will probably not be alowed.
2) Think about the feasibility of your request. If there's a serious reason that what you want cannot be done, then it will probably be disallowed. E.g. a celestial half-dragon cannot be done because you can't have a celestial and a dragon for parents and still be of your base race.
3) Read the expected stats for this level. If your request gives you bonuses way beyond those then it will probably be disallowed.
The following numbers are given as a basis for comparison. Not all characters can have all stats as high as that though certain classes coughbardcough may enable buffing for a good deal more.
Numbers, however, are not the most important part of an epic fight. When one can epic-dispel you, when one can ignore bonuses to defences or when one has defences that completely negate an attack with no numbers taking part, tactics are a lot more important.
HP: 1400 low, 2500 medium, 4000 high
Damage Potential per round: 500 meele / 1000 spells low, 3000 meele / 10000 spells (high). Deities and some casters may go much higher than that. NOTE: this is potential damage. The damage actually taken each round may be 0 for the rounds you're testing defences, 100-500 for the rounds you find a weak point or remove a protection. You only do full damage if the enemy is unprepared or you manage to overwhelm his defences.
Spells: up to 30th level, 5-10 per round. Deities may have higher level spells than that due to divine spellcasting.
Ability Scores: 40 low, 55 medium, 70 high. Templates and ability-boosting classes (Barbarian, Red Dragon Disciple) may allow for higher scores.
Attack bonus: 65 low, 130 medium, 200 high. Deities may have significantly higher bonuses.
AC: 85 low, 110 medium, 150 high. Certain class/buff combinations allow for much higher bonuses. Deities may have significantly higher bonuses.
Saves: 65 low, 100 medium, 130 high.