Epic Spells & Backlash

[shmeck]

The epic spell development mitigating factors table says backlash damage happens each round for spells with a long duration. Several epic spells in the ELH appear to defy this & the particularly egregious ones have a big backlash and permanent durations. I know the ELH is riddled with problems and I'm sure this dead horse was beaten years ago, but I haven't been able to find a discussion that directly takes it on..

How many of you trash the "per round" rule and make backlash once per casting, and how many stick with RAW and say Epic Spell Reflection (permanent, 20d6 backlash) is a death sentence ?

[Anxe]

People actually use the Epic rules often enough to ban stuff? O_O

[Divide by Zero]

There are people who don't use planetar armies for all their spell mitigation?

[shmeck]

i was actually asking a real question. if you don't use epic rules it'd be awesome if you could refrain from snarky replies..

[tyckspoon]

I'd change how backlash works entirely, really. Thing about it is.. you're Epic. Recovering HP stopped being a problem at least 10 levels ago. A one-time backlash cost is thus just free mitigation, because you can easily plan to get a big temp HP pool to eat the cost or have somebody on hand to inject a Heal into you after you cast. On the other hand a recurring backlash cost is basically stupid, and makes the mechanic an almost completely unusable mitigation technique for anything other than an instant spell.

So.. what I'd do is first make backlash a fixed amount of damage/mitigation point, instead of the variance of d6s. 3 or 4, because they're the average result of a d6; the one you go with should be based on how hard/easy you want it to be to use backlash as mitigation. Next, backlash damage cannot be redirected or mitigated in any way. It comes straight out of your true HP- if you have temp HP, you can cover the damage that way, but it is not 'lost first' the way it usually is. Finally, backlash damage cannot be healed for the duration of the spell. If you use it to cast an Instantaneous spell, you can begin healing it right away. If you use it to cast a Permanent spell, it's a Permanent commitment of HP to power that spell.

(The basic idea is 'backlash is inescapable damage that lasts as long as the spell.' The fixed damage is to avoid gaming the system by recasting the spell until you get an acceptably low backlash roll.)

[NoldorForce]

i was actually asking a real question. if you don't use epic rules it'd be awesome if you could refrain from snarky replies..Their point was that most if not all of the epic spell examples were poorly thought out in various ways:
-Poor planning (as you've found)
-Random ad-hoc modifiers (more than half!)
-Outright rules-breaking (see Eidolon and Ioulaum's Longevity - the seeds simply don't do what the epic spells implicitly claim they can)

[AmberVael]

Honestly... epic spells just don't work. If you want a decent epic spell system, you'll need to find/make a new one.

I have played many epic games, and I have never once been in one that allowed the epic spellcasting system. And for good reason.

That said... obviously one time backlash damage on a permanent spell is barely a mitigating factor at all.

[shmeck]

Vael, we're just getting into epic spells for the first time in a 10-year campaign. i'm starting to see why so many people think it's hopelessly broken.

at the same time i've been able to make some spells that work well and aren't game-breakers. it seems like vigilant and strict arbitration by the DM could rein in the silliness.

tyckspoon, i like your notion of backlash as a one-time affair that can't be healed for the duration of the spell. that sounds like a fair consequence.