epic major artefact needing advise

[drakeae]

This artifact is for a level 30 campaign focused on arena battles, i just wanted to know if this coincided as a good epic level major artifact or not I'd really appreciate any feed back I can get. Thank you all.

Heart of a Vampire Lord
Major artifact - Graft
This is a still beating heart from the chest of an ancient vampire lord and ruler of a family. It is passed down to those descended from him in the royal bloodline and are deemed worthy of it.

Once grafted into the chest and the dark ritual has taken place over a day and night, the chosen vampire is left another day and night and over this time he transforms into the next and new vampire lord if he survives. It grants the vampire template (MM pg252) and the vampire lord template (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a) without taking any level adjustment modifiers for it.

[DoctorGlock]

All of the abilities offered are rather sub epic, but it also depends on the optimization level of your group. A +8 LA for free seems a bit much.

Also note that grafts are never magic items and artifacts always are. I personally do not think that it deserves major artifact status. Major artifacts should be things you can shape the world or destiny with. A withered heart that just creates another undead abomination does not fit my idea for artifact.

If you do not mind me asking, why are level 30s participating in arena combat? At this level players have the ability to birth worlds and forge stars. Is this part of something larger?

[drakeae]

It's basically an excercise in the ridiculous. One of the guys in the group suggested that we make level 30 characters one day, so we decided to go with it. Only two out of the 6 people in the group are effecient at DMing; so at the same time we decided that this game could be used for everyone to get practice at DMing so the same person wouldn't have to do it all the time. So it was decided that everyone would make characters, and each session one of us would be dm (and that persons character would sit out) and we would sit the others through arena battles just to give everyone a feel for DMing and having fun with high level characters. It's only a rough draft at this point in time as there is always new ideas etc that's being thrown around but it's developing into something that's looking at being loads of fun.
If there's was anything else you were wondering about, let me know.

So far only 4/6 of the players have characters worked out, a LN gentleman monk, a CN awaken wolf forestmaster, a cleric warlock, and a Vampire lord cleric/sorcerer

[DoctorGlock]

So far only 4/6 of the players have characters worked out, a LN gentleman monk, a CN awaken wolf forestmaster, a cleric warlock, and a Vampire lord cleric/sorcerer

Are they gestalt? If not, then they are some fairly bad multiclasses (unless they are rocking out with prestige classes and even then theurges are considered fairly poor choices). It currently looks like your group has very little notion of optimization, which in turn means they likely do not understand balance... which means that the first one to take epic spellcasting might accidentally break your world in half. Is this your first epic level game?

I am not trying to come off as high and mighty, but from what limited information I have, there is a degree of inexperience and at these levels inexperience is a synonym for disaster.

Since you directly said that most of you do not have experience DMing or with high levels, I recommend toning it down to levels 13-15 so everyone can get a feel for high level abilities without words like "planet cracker" and "genesis" coming into play

[JoeYounger]

Are they gestalt? If not, then they are some fairly bad multiclasses (unless they are rocking out with prestige classes and even then theurges are considered fairly poor choices). It currently looks like your group has very little notion of optimization, which in turn means they likely do not understand balance... which means that the first one to take epic spellcasting might accidentally break your world in half. Is this your first epic level game?

I am not trying to come off as high and mighty, but from what limited information I have, there is a degree of inexperience and at these levels inexperience is a synonym for disaster.

Since you directly said that most of you do not have experience DMing or with high levels, I recommend toning it down to levels 13-15 so everyone can get a feel for high level abilities without words like "planet cracker" and "genesis" coming into play

I wouldn't say 13-15 is the right number. I agree with EVERYTHING you said other than the level range though. I've been in several campaigns where we started at 20, and worked our way to 30, and in all of my epic campaigns we had a couple of people who'd never played before. and some of em even started off as epic casters.

I think the important part would be starting off somewhere that everyone is capable of creating and enjoying. If you're all smart people and wanna go for 30, go for it, but like DoctorGlock said, you can destroy a world at that level. I'd recomment starting at base 20, let everyone have a chance to pick a toon they enjoy without having to multiclass if they don't want to. I know my first campaign, I remember looking at all of the rules for multiclassing and getting a bit overwhelmed. Granted, I was like 13 :P but still. I'd suggest 20 before 30.

[Analytica]

Also note that grafts are never magic items and artifacts always are. I personally do not think that it deserves major artifact status. Major artifacts should be things you can shape the world or destiny with. A withered heart that just creates another undead abomination does not fit my idea for artifact.

What of the Parts of Vecna, then? Hand, Eye, Head...

http://www.kraid.se/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/MortePNG.png

[DoctorGlock]

What of the Parts of Vecna, then? Hand, Eye, Head...

http://www.kraid.se/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/MortePNG.png

Technically those were created before grafting rules

But yes, I strongly advise adding the head to any campaign

[drakeae]

I've had experience with high level builds and optimizing my build is the monk. I'm just posting everyone's artifacts to see if they are considered broken or under powered for a high lvl campaign. Over half our players have been playing dnd for over 10 years, most of us don't really care about optimizing as we just play what we want too, you know for the fun of it. There is players in our group that have played with and dm'd level 27 characters before, level 40 and level 60. inexperience isn't an issue. Sorry if i sound rude but the point of me posting this item was to gauge if it was considered a epic level major artifact, not to be belittled and told how to play. Sorry again if this seems to forward.

so far we put 3 rules for these level 30 builds.
Rule 1 - No gestal
Rule 2 - Number of dice one can roll damage is capped at 30d8
Rule 3 - only wizards published books unless at least 3/5 other players agree to allow other book.

[herrhauptmann]

Try reading "Tome of Artifacts"
It's got a lot of different artifacts you might want to play with.
Among them, the 206 bones of some epic necromancer. You can replace your bones with those, and gain additional abilities. Should you replace all of your bones however...

Edit:
ANyway, just granting two templates doesn't really make it seem like much of an artifact.

[Reluctance]

Minor artifacts, maybe. Even then, I'd be tempted to just price the thing stratospherically and call it a "mere" epic item.

Major artifacts are less powerful magic items, and more plot devices. The heart has no goals, no purpose, and no means to further its agenda if it did have one. Compare even the graftlike bits o' Vecna, which are less about owning the cool swag and more about a god letting you play with his toys for a bit.