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Myou
2009-02-05, 12:49 PM
My DM is very keen on the campaign we just started (and the next one, which we're already planning) going epic. I'm not sure if I want to go epic with this one, but I definitely want to go beyond 20 with the next one.

With that in mind, I'm hoping to be able to come up with simple changes that will balance whatever issues the epic rules suffer from.

I've seen a lot of talk about how broken the epic rules are, and I've seen some very broken epic spells and the like, but even just using the PHB some classes are broken, so really I'm hoping you guys can point our the real problems with the epic rules, not just "epic spells are broken" or pun-pun style abuses.

Neither of us want to just ban epic spells or anything like that, we'd just like help making the rules work better.

Thanks in advance!

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-05, 12:56 PM
Epic spellcasting is worthless. It essentially is either broken or Samurai-level useless. I've seen spells that do less damage than meteor storm but cost XP, and I've seen ones that create a Divine Rank 2,000 race and cost nothing in terms of research time. The mitigating factors are simultaneously too weak and too strong. They aren't enough to make spells reasonable, unless you chain-gate or something, which makes mitigation rediculously easy.

FinalJustice
2009-02-05, 01:11 PM
Yep, the brokeness of epic spells can be mitigated by a sane DM. The problem is the old discrepancy between casters and noncasters which, IMHO, gets multiplied by a factor of 10, as casters are uber buffed gods who can become efficient meleers with the right spells.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-05, 01:22 PM
Yep, the brokeness of epic spells can be mitigated by a sane DM. The problem is the old discrepancy between casters and noncasters which, IMHO, gets multiplied by a factor of 10, as casters are uber buffed gods who can become efficient meleers with the right spells.It takes more than a sane DM, it takes a complete rewrite of the system. The mitigating factors are far too weak to make decent spells without massive cheese.

tyckspoon
2009-02-05, 01:34 PM
Spellcasting's been gone over- personally I would ditch the Epic Spellcasting idea altogether and just give a natural progression of level 10th+ spell slots (otherwise gained by taking Improved Spell Capacity), to be used for metamagicing stuff or possibly researching new spells. The other big change when characters go Epic is access to Epic Feats- and these need a *lot* of work. Most of 'em suck. The ones that don't suck are mostly good for classes that don't need a lot of help- compare the Wildshaping Epic feats to the ones apparently made for melee classes (Rogues can get some fairly nice Sneak Attack stuff, tho.)

Eldariel
2009-02-05, 01:55 PM
I made a bunch of martial epic feats. Generally, epic feat needs to be takeable multiple times so stuff like getting cumulative increases to reach, damage die size, DR, actions, etc. is really what you'll want. And the big "No" in Epic is indeed Epic Spellcasting.

It's a great idea, but the system itself both, fails at what it tries to accomplish and manages to be broken at the same time. Really, basically every worthwhile epic spell is some kind of Ward, Contingency, permanent buff or just something sick acquired through broken use of mitigation rules. Over 50% mitigation should be banned right off the bat. Also, it should be derived off something slightly more difficult to buff than Spellcraft; either the skill system needs a fix or it needs to be derived off Spellcraft ranks or some other variable, such as Caster Level. Also, one of the big issues is that offensive Epic Magic tends to be worthless, as pointed previously; you get weaker meteor swarms that cost XP, HP or some such. You tend to need epic Dispels, but they're really expensive to create too (and there's always a set CL limit for them so you need to periodically make a new one). Also, the fact that just maxing certain Knowledges gives you access to more epic spells (divine casters with both, Nature and Religion maxed get twice the Epic Spells of an arcanist, and a Theurge with all of 'em maxed gets the most).

All in all, rewrite epic spellcasting, add martial epic feats worth taking and we're talking.

Myou
2009-02-05, 02:19 PM
Thanks to everyone who's posted so far!

Sadly this confirms my worst fears about epic spellcasting. It seems to me that it was an incredibly stupid idea to base it on Spellcraft to begin with, so I think making it based on caster level is a far, far better choice. Perhaps just making spell slots progress beyond ninth and letting spells be researched in the old way would also work, as was suggested. I'll think about that, suggestions are more than welcome.

It also concerns me that, as has been noted, some epic feats are too good, while others are really bad.

Eladriel, where can I find the martial feats you created?

The Mormegil
2009-02-05, 02:21 PM
Epic level gaming is just as bad as everything in 3.5 combined multiplied by 10.
As somebody else said (here, I believe) and as I definitely came to know, there are three ways to act in Epic.
Classic melee with FF damage. Without the 9999 cap.
This is of course as bad as it seems, because you cannot predict every number that will be flying around, and people will have characters with different power levels. Casters/non casters are equally good at this, not because casters are now less powerful but because of three things: the first is that mostly every broken spell is taken into account by everyone and people are going around wearing Epic Globe of Invulerability Bracers and such. So buffs are the only spells worth taking, along with some gems that work everytime (see below for True Casting, anyway). The second is that spells are now easy to get through magic items. Get a permanencied version of Divine Power to get your Bab at full for start, then go on like that. So meleers actually have something casters DO NOT have access to: class features. ToB is that much good in Epic games (although no more than one level dips in ToB classes are required, thanks to IL being 1/2 level at least...). Casters of course get buffs easier, more, and cheaper, and get other class features if they are built correctly. So meleers are actually viable, and maybe even powerful in Epic games. At least one of them anyway, since the others will be always far below him.
Epic Magic (ab)Use: this is the most horrible one. As has been said, Epic Magic is horrible.
One problem is time: if you don't have it, you cannot do anything. If you have you can do EVERYTHING. One problem is reducing the DC through Ritual Casting. That's horrendously broken thanks to Gate, Summons, Leadership, Chained Mass Charm Person and such. But there is another problem. If you have time to create a spell that is...
Try to do something creative, and you'll find out it sucks. Try to do something versatile and it sucks. So you must specialize. And if you do, you break the game. At level 21 you can get easily as high on Spellcraft as +60. So DC 70 spells are just cakewalks. Try to see what you can summon with that DC... or the amount of damage you could deflect, or the bonuses to AC/damage and so on you can get out of it...
True Casting. And this is just like MTG: a game of interrupts. And time-disrupting techniques. Celerity, Prevision, Time Stop, all the line... then use the time you gain to dispel everything you can reach, create zones of personalized crowd control hell, then wait for the enemies to emerge from there or send your meleer to finish them off easily once you cast Spell Immunity (spells I casted now) on him. If he doesn't has it already.
Rarely works fine, anyway, as DMs seem to hate this and prepare countermeasures against it... just like PCs do...


So Epic Game is sad. Because you either have Mr Epic Caster that WINS (by pressing a big red button), or one character that has found a way to have better values than the rest of the party and is overpowered (inevitable, unless you all play same race/class/feats/identical characters) and the rest hate him. And when he goes away, there's Mr 2 that takes his place...
:smallannoyed:

Tequila Sunrise
2009-02-05, 03:29 PM
Not to toot my own horn, well okay maybe just a little, but I wrote a revamp of the ELH after experiencing first hand just how bad the RAW epic rules are. If you're interested, you can find it here. (http://lukebuchanan.com/TS_Epic_Level_Handbook_3e.pdf)

Other than epic spells, a big problem with epic play is that PC power is all about the feats. Because PC power is so tied up in these elective options, PC power levels vary even more wildly than in pre-epic, even when comparing two PCs of the same class and level. This also means that CR is nigh useless at epic levels. And yeah, Improved Metamagic and Multispell are the reason that nobody should play anything except prep casters in epic.

Now, my ELH revamp only covers core classes and doesn't have an exhaustive list of epic feats, but it does create a solid baseline from which other classes and feats can be converted. It also has the Path to Divinity option, which gives PCs suitably epic flavor and goals and closes a bit of the gap between magic and non-magic PCs.



Sadly this confirms my worst fears about epic spellcasting. It seems to me that it was an incredibly stupid idea to base it on Spellcraft to begin with, so I think making it based on caster level is a far, far better choice. Perhaps just making spell slots progress beyond ninth and letting spells be researched in the old way would also work, as was suggested. I'll think about that, suggestions are more than welcome.
The problem with epic spells, other than being stupidly broken of course, is that they're completely redundant. Epic spells are advertised as "YOU CAN CRAFT WHATEVER EFFECTS YOU WANT!", but you can already do that with regular spells. For example, epic spells can increase your life span. But just because there's no published non-epic spell that does that, or that makes you truly ageless, doesn't mean there can't or shouldn't be. It just requires the DM to set a spell level for the effect.

TS

Myou
2009-02-06, 06:18 PM
We've decided to make our own epic rules. It's more work than we wanted to do, but for the most part we're going to use Tequila Sunrise's handbook. Many thanks to you, Tequila Sunrise!