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Fawsto
2010-05-17, 07:29 PM
Sup Guys,

A friend of mine (also a regular forum crawler) will run an one shot level 35 campaign with 5 encounters and he said we could go loose. So I decided to run a Cleric, but since I have no Epic Level Xperience, I don't know if it will be strong enough to handle himself.

I decided to go RKV and Ord. Champ. With permission to use RKV as a Cleric of Heironeus or Hextor. But no Shadow Hand for this RKV.

My intention is to specialize into action economy.

The only restrictions are: no time stop (no, not even for monsters and NPCs), no polymorph (again, not even for monsters and NPCs), no Craft Contingent spell.

I am stuck to Heironeus or Hextor if I want to run Ord Champ. So I need some fair ideas here. Anyhting you guys can add, even new ideas for PrC, please feel free to add them.

Also, no specific stuff from forgotten, ravenloft, eberron, etc. D&D core deities.

Thank You all!

Also, RIP Dio.

Ernir
2010-05-17, 07:49 PM
Oh dear.


Class abilities are not likely to be very relevant at this point (although the RKV's extra swift action thing remains really useful). So the biggest part of this is just going through the Epic Level Handbook feat section and taking as many caster feats as you can. Make sure Epic Spellcasting is one of them. Multispell too, if you want to emphasize your ability to not care about the action economy. Have fun.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-17, 07:57 PM
Has he made rulings on Epic Spellcasting? If not....win D&D.

Glimbur
2010-05-17, 08:53 PM
Hierophant is much much better in Epic because the problem with it is it doesn't advance casting, just caster level. You can't advance casting past 20 anyway, so that ceases to be a problem. Divine Reach is nice, especially so you can then start Chaining normally touch buffs like Deathward, Magic Vestment, and many others(Lesser Vigor). I'm not sure more than one or two levels are worth it though, Gift of the Divine could be useful if you have a scout with Travel Devotion or something like that, Spell Like Ability can let you effectively get more spell slots for Mass Heal or similar, Spell Power can cover for missed caster levels, and metamagic feats are nice... but other class features might be better.

tl;dr Check out Hierophant, it's not bad in epic.

Akal Saris
2010-05-17, 09:17 PM
Just a note, but you could take the multispell feat multiple times, gaining an extra quickened spell per round each time you took it. Improved metamagic (quicken) would let you DMM it for cheaper as well.

And I'd drop ordained champion - hitting things with a stick is the last thing you should be doing at lvl 35.

Heliomance
2010-05-17, 09:22 PM
1) Take Planning and Undeath domains
2) Take Persist Spell
3) Take DMM: Persist
4) Drop EVERY OTHER FEAT into Extra Turning, apart from one for Epic Spellcasting
5) Laugh heartily

TheOOB
2010-05-17, 09:32 PM
1) Take Planning and Undeath domains
2) Take Persist Spell
3) Take DMM: Persist
4) Drop EVERY OTHER FEAT into Extra Turning, apart from one for Epic Spellcasting
5) Laugh heartily

And what? Be screwed when someone casts mages disjunction? DMM/persistant is a powerful combo to be sure(and one that should be banned), but power it with night sticks, not feats.

Eldariel
2010-05-18, 02:30 AM
And what? Be screwed when someone casts mages disjunction? DMM/persistant is a powerful combo to be sure(and one that should be banned), but power it with night sticks, not feats.

Bleh, it's epic. Disjunction is eminently stoppable with Ring of Spell-Battle, among other things.

Hendel
2010-05-18, 03:49 AM
Oh dear.


Class abilities are not likely to be very relevant at this point (although the RKV's extra swift action thing remains really useful). So the biggest part of this is just going through the Epic Level Handbook feat section and taking as many caster feats as you can. Make sure Epic Spellcasting is one of them. Multispell too, if you want to emphasize your ability to not care about the action economy. Have fun.

I agree and it is my opinion that multi-classing and prestige classes do well at lower levels to optimize your class abilities, but at epic levels, the straight classes rule. The amount of bonus epic feats that you can get outweigh some of the nifty class features that used to be nice. The one exception is if you can find a PrC that has enough benefits to make it worth it, plus you can run it past tenth level to start picking up epic feats from it quickly.

I really do not have much to offer in the way of a cleric build other than generalities. Now I could offer some great arcane builds at high levels.

One note is to look to Divine Spellcasting. Your turning might not be good to much, but at that level you should be able to cast almost all of your spells at about five or so levels higher (Divine Spellcasting, Karma Bead from Prayer Beads, Ioun Stone, etc). Heck you could cast a SR spell for everyone in the neighborhood of SR 57. Not bad, of course, I do not know how much of a power gamer your DM and other players are.

BobVosh
2010-05-18, 04:04 AM
1) Take Planning and Undeath domains
2) Take Persist Spell
3) Take DMM: Persist
4) Drop EVERY OTHER FEAT into Extra Turning, apart from one for Epic Spellcasting
5) Laugh heartily

And miss out on taking automatic quicken three times? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#automaticQuickenSpell)
In fact Auto-quicken makes persistent almost entirely pointless.

I recommend Epic spell casting, autoquicken x3, I recommend two improved spell capacities as your other epic feats. Although epic skill focus for K.Religion could allow for other epic castings. 30 from an item, 10 for ESF, 38 ranks, +4 from int (I assume you can afford a +6 item and a 12 int) is a base 52. Plus anything else to could tack on.

Also at this level you could have like 8 domains with the proper PrCs.

If you feel like DMMing you can afford your own handy haversack full of the dang things by now. 7.9 million gold.

hamishspence
2010-05-18, 04:15 AM
Complete Arcane has a nerf to Automatic Quicken Spell- making it necessary to take the feat nine times to be able to automatically quicken all spells from 0th to 9th level.

This may be a bit excessive though.

Hendel
2010-05-18, 04:21 AM
Complete Arcane has a nerf to Automatic Quicken Spell- making it necessary to take the feat nine times to be able to automatically quicken all spells from 0th to 9th level.

This may be a bit excessive though.

True, but the SRD stills shows it as zero through third for the first time, etc., so it looks like according to that you can still do it in three.

Eldariel
2010-05-18, 04:37 AM
And miss out on taking automatic quicken three times? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#automaticQuickenSpell)
In fact Auto-quicken makes persistent almost entirely pointless.

I recommend Epic spell casting, autoquicken x3, I recommend two improved spell capacities as your other epic feats. Although epic skill focus for K.Religion could allow for other epic castings. 30 from an item, 10 for ESF, 38 ranks, +4 from int (I assume you can afford a +6 item and a 12 int) is a base 52. Plus anything else to could tack on.

Also at this level you could have like 8 domains with the proper PrCs.

If you feel like DMMing you can afford your own handy haversack full of the dang things by now. 7.9 million gold.

Uhm, multispell?! Honestly, DMM isn't wasted even on epic simply because of this little thing called "action economy". Having persisted spells gives you a couple of extra actions each encounter (Eyes of the Oracle [DM], Battlemagic Perception, etc.) which makes all the difference, along with different immortality wards making you ever slightly more difficult to kill.

But yeah, Multispell and Improved Spell Capacities should be the primary use of epic feats; generally ISCx4 + Multispell for the rest is good, though feel free to take more ISC if desired. Over one ISC, Improved Metamagic once or twice is also alright, but overall, the idea is that basically every spell slot is Quickened. This removes the need for Automatic Quicken and gives you more versatility in other metamagic.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-05-18, 04:40 AM
The official 3.5 SRD (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) still has Automatic Quicken affecting three spell levels at a time, which is primary source over pretty much everything, especially one of the Completes. The version in Complete Arcane was never valid nor relevant. You can always just Miracle up an Arcane Spellsurge with DMM: Persist.

Definitely get Extraordinary Spell Aim, for DMM: Persist ESA AMF fun, which should also protect you from at least one MDJ.

Boots of Temporal Acceleration, make them function five times per day for five times the cost, one for each encounter. If that's not possible, make them socks that cost double to not take an item spot, and just wear five of them. No time stop? No problem! Also remember that they're activated as a Swift Action, you gain two rounds of apparent time, at the end of which you resume your current round where you've so far spent only a swift action to activate them.

Expect to see a lot of dead magic areas, antimagic fields, etc. Luckily, with an RKV you'll probably have 9th level maneuvers and stances, so you should be fine as long as your unbuffed stats and BAB don't suck.

hamishspence
2010-05-18, 04:46 AM
The SRD didn't use any of the Completes content as far as I know- only the 3.0 sourcebooks (Manual of the Planes, Epic Handbook) and the 3.5 sourcebooks (Unearthed Arcana, Expanded Psionics Handbook)- maybe Complete Arcane was attempting to bring an overpowered feat back into line?

Without the nerf, Automatic Quicken Spell seems like a bit too much of a "must have" feat.

That said, books published subsequent to Complete Arcane, that make use of material from Complete Arcane as well as epic material, tend to use the older version of the feat (Waterdeep City of Splendors, Power of Faerun)

So its possible, that the updated feat was later retconned as not a valid version of it.

megabyter5
2010-05-18, 07:08 AM
You get six epic feats, right? Obviously take Epic Spellcasting, since that's how you win D&D, then take three automatic quicken spells and two multispells. Casting three high level spells AND an epic spell every round? Yes please.

OldFart
2010-05-18, 10:27 AM
You may want to reconsider RKV. As Hendel mentioned, staying with one class pays dividends in epic, in the form of bonus epic feats - in the case of cleric, one every three levels. The 7 levels in RKV to get the extra swift action effectively costs you 3 epic feats on a 35-level build - that could be up to 3 multi-spell feats. So I'd ask myself "how likely am I to need maneuvers? How much do I have to anticipate zero-magic zones?" before I considered RKV.

If I were going to deviate from Cleric at all, I'd look at 3 levels of Heirophant between levels 21-26, and then only to pick up two levels of divine reach to make touch spells ranged (and thus potentially Chain-able), with the third level to pick up an (epic?) metamagic feat I was planning to get anyway with my cleric bonus feat (Enhance Spell is not useless if combined with IMM)

While Automatic Quicken Spell is a great option, I prefer three levels of Improved Metamagic - Quicken thus becomes a +1 level adjustment, and ISC allows you to cast 9th-level quickened spells. At level 35, you're looking at up to 10 epic feats. Just as importantly, 6 at level 27+ when you're eligible for IMM and Automatic Quicken. When Quickened, Maximized, Enhanced, Twinned is only a +4 adjustment, the mailman option suddenly no longer looks like a wasted action.

Even for 5 encounters, do not skip over Ignore Material Components. So what if the dragon killed the entire village? They'll be all better in the morning! For free!

Finally, remember that Quickened Chained Revivify + Quickened Twinned Mass Heal changes TPK to TNH (That Never Happened).

WoodenSword
2010-05-18, 02:07 PM
I actually suggest going with a Domain-Monkey build (as many useful domains as possible)

here's how it goes:

Race: Hellbred (Soul) [So you can cast both Good and Evil spells]
Class: Cloistered Cleric 10/Sovereign Speaker 8/Contemplative 10/Divine Oracle 1/Church Inquisitor 1/Divine Crusader 5

Divide by Zero
2010-05-18, 02:41 PM
I actually suggest going with a Domain-Monkey build (as many useful domains as possible)

here's how it goes:

Race: Hellbred (Soul) [So you can cast both Good and Evil spells]
Class: Cloistered Cleric 10/Sovereign Speaker 8/Contemplative 10/Divine Oracle 1/Church Inquisitor 1/Divine Crusader 5

Why Contemplative 10? None of the features past 6 are really useful in an epic game, and you could probably do much better with those extra 4 levels.

BobVosh
2010-05-18, 03:30 PM
Uhm, multispell?! Honestly, DMM isn't wasted even on epic simply because of this little thing called "action economy". Having persisted spells gives you a couple of extra actions each encounter (Eyes of the Oracle [DM], Battlemagic Perception, etc.) which makes all the difference, along with different immortality wards making you ever slightly more difficult to kill.

But yeah, Multispell and Improved Spell Capacities should be the primary use of epic feats; generally ISCx4 + Multispell for the rest is good, though feel free to take more ISC if desired. Over one ISC, Improved Metamagic once or twice is also alright, but overall, the idea is that basically every spell slot is Quickened. This removes the need for Automatic Quicken and gives you more versatility in other metamagic.

I have never noticed multispell. Wow is that good.

Also I wasn't clear when I was talking about DMM:Persist. I meant any extra turning is pointless when you have that much gold and the ability to buy nightsticks.

Wow is multispell good.

Fawsto
2010-05-19, 02:41 PM
First... No internet for the past days, sorry for not replying.

Now. I cannot use sovereign speaker or anything from a campaign scenario like forgotten, eberron or greyhawk (although the Gods are from Greyhawk).

This also means no NightSticks. So if it is time to bail out from DMM, please, tell me.

Hmm... I am liking the option to go straight cleric and use those feats to really "break" action economy. Now, how can I cast 3 quickened spells in the same round again?

Thx guys. You are being helpful.

okpokalypse
2010-05-19, 03:11 PM
Why a Cleric?

Favored Soul 33 / Sacred Exorcist 2

You'll get the DMM Persist Chain since Sacred Exorcist gets you Turning. You'll have Epic FS Feats at (character) levels 25, 28, 31, 34. These should go to Multi-Spell (25), Automatic Quicken x3 (28, 31, 34). Now you can cast Two Quickened Miracles a turn if you need to. :)

In addition, the Epic FS gets much better bonuses in addition to just the Feats the Cleric gets. More Innate Energy Resistance, and 2 Divine Gifts which can do a variety of things including Improving Stats, Increasing Fly Speed, Increasing DR, etc..

And all your casting is wonderfully spontaneous and you've got a HECK of a lot more slots to play with.

With High CHA and Night-Sticks you're easily persisting 6+ Spells at a CL (likely) of 43+. Oh, and you get 3 Good Saves.

I'm a big fan of persisting Greater Aspect of the Deity, Holy Aura, Blessing of the Righteous, Righteous Wrath and Vigorous Circle.

If you wanted to be a one-man wrecking crew you could go a very different persist route, but I prefer to be a party buffer when I play (it keeps my friends from feeling impotent).

Il_Vec
2010-05-19, 09:02 PM
Hmm... I am liking the option to go straight cleric and use those feats to really "break" action economy. Now, how can I cast 3 quickened spells in the same round again?


Multispell, Faws. And one of the NPCs has taken it 9 times. And 3 Auto-quickens. It's the oldest trick.

Eldariel
2010-05-19, 09:11 PM
Multispell, Faws. And one of the NPCs has taken it 9 times. And 3 Auto-quickens. It's the oldest trick.

It's optimal to pick 3 Improved Metamagics and 1 Improved Spell Capacity instead (more as desired). This costs one more feat than Automatic Quicken, but means you can use all metamagic with incredible efficiency and have more Persist-slots and such.

Douglas
2010-05-19, 10:16 PM
Now. I cannot use sovereign speaker or anything from a campaign scenario like forgotten, eberron or greyhawk (although the Gods are from Greyhawk).

This also means no NightSticks. So if it is time to bail out from DMM, please, tell me.
Nightsticks are not campaign setting specific. They're from Libris Mortis, which is a generic book about undead in any setting.

OldFart
2010-05-20, 08:07 AM
Multispell, Faws. And one of the NPCs has taken it 9 times. And 3 Auto-quickens. It's the oldest trick.Il_Vec, when the slaughter campaign is over, could you post this guy? I appreciate a good horrifically powerful epic build.


So if it is time to bail out from DMM, please, tell me.
With three levels of IMM, persist is a +3 adjustment. While this doesn't mean one shouldn't take DMM, it lessens the need for tons o' turning, and is helpful if the DM limits use of/bans Nightsticks. Even with DMM, it may be useful to persist 1st/2nd level spells with rarely-used 4th/5th level spell slots* and save turns for persisting higher-level spells.

*I'm not saying you never use 4th/5th level spells at epic, just that when you do, you will typically metamagic the heck out of them, so you never use 4th/5th spell slots.

Lysander
2010-05-20, 09:11 AM
Question: Is there any reason not to take mystic theurge and be cleric/wiz or cleric/sor? The MT downside of not reaching high level spells isn't an issue at level 35.

Hendel
2010-05-20, 09:23 AM
Question: Is there any reason not to take mystic theurge and be cleric/wiz or cleric/sor? The MT downside of not reaching high level spells isn't an issue at level 35.

The problem with Mystic Theurge is that at epic levels you do not get the one level of divine/one level of arcane per level progression. It goes down to one level of divine this level and then a level of arcnae next level, etc. So at character level 35 you end up with a 22nd level caster in one and a 23rd level caster in the other. Sure you get 9th level spells, but you are way behind the power curve for your spells being able to get through things like spell resistance and other caster level dependent checks.

A couple of Practiced Spellcaster feats could up that to 26th and 27th, but still too far behind the curve for my taste at epic level. Albeit, you have practically every spell at your hands with that mix.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-20, 09:48 AM
The problem with Mystic Theurge is that at epic levels you do not get the one level of divine/one level of arcane per level progression. It goes down to one level of divine this level and then a level of arcnae next level, etc. So at character level 35 you end up with a 22nd level caster in one and a 23rd level caster in the other. Sure you get 9th level spells, but you are way behind the power curve for your spells being able to get through things like spell resistance and other caster level dependent checks.

A couple of Practiced Spellcaster feats could up that to 26th and 27th, but still too far behind the curve for my taste at epic level. Albeit, you have practically every spell at your hands with that mix.

Only after the first 10 levels. Before that, it still uses the pre-epic progression.

Fawsto
2010-05-20, 02:51 PM
Il_Vec said all I needed to know... One of the NPCs has gone spell machinegun. I fear the group will not go too far without some optimization.

Thinking that one of the 5 encounters will be a battle-royale againts 4 tarrasques, and hell, this will be by a far amount our easiest encounter, fighting NPCs with grater levels tehm us (damn, to get 12 epic feats you have to be at level 38), if the party has only one person who can push the "i win" button, we will be screwed.

Let's see how far we are going.

Until then, more ideas are welcome. I think I am going spell machinegun too.

Il_Vec
2010-05-20, 10:42 PM
The higher level is because we have more than 4 PCs, you should know.

Hendel
2010-05-20, 10:51 PM
Only after the first 10 levels. Before that, it still uses the pre-epic progression.

I know, that is why I mentioned at epic levels, but maybe I should have said after level 10 of the Mystic Theurge.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-20, 11:01 PM
I know, that is why I mentioned at epic levels, but maybe I should have said after level 10 of the Mystic Theurge.

Right. And even if you only take it that far, you get at least 6th level divine spells (7th if you didn't use early entry tricks), which, while not game-breaking, certainly can't hurt.

Occasional Sage
2010-05-20, 11:05 PM
Um... is it possible to create a level 35 NON-Epic character? :smallconfused:

AstralFire
2010-05-20, 11:08 PM
Um... is it possible to create a level 35 NON-Epic character? :smallconfused:

Level 35 will get you steamrolled at Indigo Plateau.