Epic Skills

[Piggy Knowles]

So, every time I'm bored and trolling through the SRD for ideas on a character or concept, I always find myself coming back to the fun of crazy-optimized skills, especially the epic uses. A lot of otherwise useless skills are actually a lot of fun if you can pull it off. Some of my favorites include...

Favorite Epic Skills
APPRAISE: DC 50, sense any magical properties as per Detect Magic. Sure, you can easily get Detect Magic at will with a dip. I still find this one cool.

BALANCE: Probably both the coolest and the hardest to do. Walk on water with a DC 90 check. Walk on a cloud with a DC 120 check. Combine with super-crazy jump checks to jump hundreds of feet in the air and then land on a cloud!

BLUFF: Add +50 to the DC to instill a suggestion in the target. Suggestion at will is pretty cool - especially when it's completely non-magical in nature! The ability to mask your alignment or surface thoughts from magical detection (DC 70 & 100, respectively) is also neat, but really, I'm mainly interested in the Suggestion bit.

DIPLOMACY: The most well-known epic skill. Go from Hostile to Fanatic (described as "will give life to serve you") with a DC 150 check.

ESCAPE ARTIST: Pass through ridiculously tiny spaces! Honestly, I really like Escape Artist anyhow, because the standard tight space, defined as "your head fits but your body doesn't", is both useful and pretty easy to hit (DC 30). But for a medium creature to pass through a space 2 inches is a mere DC 80 check, and it's only DC 120 to pass through a wall of force. Now that's more like it!

HANDLE ANIMAL: Up there with Bluff's nonmagical suggestion as one of my favorites. Rearing magical beasts and vermin is cool. Doing it in only a minute by adding 100 to the DC is REALLY cool.

RIDE: Not super crazy, but being able to hit DC 60 and always attack from cover is pretty cool.

SENSE MOTIVE: Well, if a DC 100 Bluff check lets you fake your surface thoughts, it makes sense that a DC 100 Sense Motive check lets you discover them, right?

SPOT / LISTEN: DC 80 to beat an illusion. Not as fun as some of the others, but pretty useful, especially since if you can hit DC 80 spot checks, you can also notice things like inanimate invisible objects and basically anything that hides.

AUTOHYPNOSIS: Because autohypnosis wasn't ALREADY the coolest skill around. With DC 60 checks, you can gain damage reduction or temporary HP, and even second saving throws against mind-affecting effects.


Splitting this into bonuses based on stats, so as to not make a super-MAD character...

Spot/Listen/Sense Motive/Autohypnosis: All wisdom based. See the invisible, see through illusions, read thoughts, and hypnotize yourself into ignoring damage. Actually sounds pretty awesome, although probably the hardest to build.

Bluff/Diplomacy/Handle Animal: Probably the easiest, thanks to Motivate Charisma auras via Marshal letting you really heavily invest in one stat. Also, tons of things give bonuses to Bluff and Diplomacy. Handle Animal is just tacked on there because, come on, don't you want to train your own 12-headed Cryohydra in one minute with a DC 152 Handle Animal check?

Balance/Jump/Escape Artist: I added in Jump because the tricks you can do with Balance and Escape Artist become a lot cooler if you can jump ridiculously well. Jump a hundred feet in the air, land on a cloud. Squeeze through a mousehole. Laugh at walls of force. Honestly, I'd probably go with a Factotum for this, so that I could focus on Intelligence instead of trying to split Strength/Dex via Brains over Brawn. Jump checks are easy to optimize, since you get a scaling bonus based on your speed, but I have no idea how I would hit the really juicy DC 120 checks for Balance and Escape Artist (walk on clouds/pass through walls of force).

Anyhow, just for fun, I thought I'd toss together a character that focuses on the epic uses of Charisma (mostly because it is well-trodden territory thanks to the popularity of diplomancers, so I can make something with outrageous bonuses just from memory).

Venerable Human, Human Paragon 1/Marshal 1/Warlock 1/Incarnate 1/Human Paragon +2

Required items: Circlet of Persuasion, Cloak of Charisma. Let's go ahead and make the Circlet my Item Familiar as well.

Feats:
1- Nymph's Kiss, Skill Focus (Bluff)
2- Skill Focus (Diplomacy)
3- Item Familiar
5- Persuasive
6- Wanderer's Diplomacy

So at level 6, that gives me...

9 ranks +2 Nymph's Kiss +3 Skill Focus +8 Charisma +8 Motivate Charisma aura +9 Item Familiar +4 Silvertongue Mask +6 Beguiling Influence +2 Persuasive +3 Circlet of Persuasion

...for a total of +54 on my check. So I can disguise my alignment with a roll of 16 or higher, and if I'm pretty sure someone has a terrible Sense Motive check, I might be willing to grant them the +50 to their check to try to instill a suggestion. That's not too bad for level 6. Not really epic, but not bad.

Of course, if I'm really interested in getting silly, I break out a wand of glibness for an additional +30, giving me a whopping +84. Now I can instill suggestions in most enemies, and if I roll well, even disguise my surface thoughts. Word.

Diplomacy will also be pretty good right off the bat - a little higher thanks to synergy bonuses, but no glibness hurts. Still, a +58 bonus is nothing to sneeze at (turn Friendly to Fanatic on a 2, or Hostile to Friendly as a full round action). And Wanderer's Diplomacy will let me sub in my bluff score, so that's actually not so bad.

Handle Animal is the one that suffers the most. Without switching up the feats or anything, the most I come up with is a sad +39. I guess that's OK for level 6 - I could rear a Tyranossaurus without failure and then train it to guard me in a month - but I'm not looking for pretty good, I'm looking for epic. So that one needs work.

But yeah. Like I said, making a bluffomancer is easy. So many gigantic bonuses abound. How low level could I hit, say, a DC 120 Balance check? Or a DC 100 Sense Motive check?

[Piggy Knowles]

Also, before anyone says anything - yes, I'm well aware that most of this could be replicated with low-level spells. Yes, walking on a cloud is much less useful than actually being able to fly. Yes, it's a bit silly to spend a 3rd level bard spell (Glibness) just so I can use a skill to duplicate a 2nd level bard spell (Suggestion). That's not the point, though... I want to climb Mount Everest, not ride over it in a jet plane!

[hex0]

Can you use escape artist to squeeze into someone's mouth after a successful grapple?

[sonofzeal]

My favorite is Perform, after an old build of mine involving the CW Samurai and the Perform: Weapon Drill skill from the same book. He does a kata and an entire army gain +2 Str and Con!

[Madcrafter]

Naturally, a build that does epic Craft(basketweaving) is a must; what wonders they would be able to create!

[Piggy Knowles]

Naturally, a build that does epic Craft(basketweaving) is a must; what wonders they would be able to create!

OK, so we can arbitrarily increase the DC in increments of 10, which will shorten the time it takes to craft an item.

An empty basket costs 4sp, per the SRD, or 40cp. We of course want to make a really superior basket, so the base DC is 20. Doing the math in my head, that means that if we increase the DC to.... 120, and roll a 121 on the check itself, we can create a superior basket in under 6 seconds. Hot dang!

[Calanon]

OK, so we can arbitrarily increase the DC in increments of 10, which will shorten the time it takes to craft an item.

An empty basket costs 4sp, per the SRD, or 40cp. We of course want to make a really superior basket, so the base DC is 20. Doing the math in my head, that means that if we increase the DC to.... 120, and roll a 121 on the check itself, we can create a superior basket in under 6 seconds. Hot dang!

Wonder how much damage you take for having a superior basket thrown at you?:smallconfused:

[Magic Myrmidon]

I'm a big fan of the epic use of tumble that lets you ignore falling damage. Primarily because of the fact that you can fall from outer space, make the tumble check, and be just fine. Fire damage from reentry notwithstanding.

[Yuki Akuma]

I'm a big fan of the epic use of tumble that lets you ignore falling damage. Primarily because of the fact that you can fall from outer space, make the tumble check, and be just fine. Fire damage from reentry notwithstanding.

As has been pointed out numerous times on these forums over the years, surviving a fall at terminal velocity is absolutely possible for a human. Especially if they're a trained acrobat who knows how to take a fall and has the time to twist into the right position.

Getting off with no damage is a bit... odd, but.

The main problem with falling from orbit is heat from re-entry and the whole 'lack of breathable air' thing you have to contend with for most of the fall.

[Killer Angel]

I'm a big fan of the epic use of tumble that lets you ignore falling damage. Primarily because of the fact that you can fall from outer space, make the tumble check, and be just fine.

...and then you can look at the monk, saying "So sorry you need a wall near you".

[Zeta Kai]

...and then you can look at the monk, saying "So sorry you need a wall near you".

You could be looking in a mirror. Monks get Tumble as a class skill, too.

[Killer Angel]

You could be looking in a mirror. Monks get Tumble as a class skill, too.

The authors were really ironic...
The monk looks at the camera: "even my mundane skills are better than my class features!"

[Piggy Knowles]

Trying my best to come up with a low-level Spot/Listen/Sense Motive monkey, but this one is proving to be much tougher.

Thus far, the best I've come up with is a Binder 3/Incarnate 1/Ranger 1/Marshal 1, which gets +37 to Sense Motive and +38 to Spot, but that's not nearly good enough. Sure, I can discern partial alignments on a 13 and spot invisible, unmoving creatures on a 2, but I'm nowhere near the ability to read thoughts or pierce illusions.

Back to the drawing board!

[noparlpf]

What book are the epic uses of Autohypnosis from?

[Piggy Knowles]

I believe they're actually in the XPH, but I couldn't swear to it. I pulled them from the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#autohypnosis).

[noparlpf]

Hmm. I don't remember those from the main skills section of the XPH, but maybe the epic uses are further in. Let me check.
...
Nope, nothing above DC 20 in the XPH that I can find. I wish the SRD noted book sources.

Either way, I wish I had known this yesterday. I beat a 30 to stabilize when I went to negatives, and if I had known this worked, I would have been conscious and able to heal myself too. (I'm the party "healer", as in I have a few healing spells per day.)

[Cieyrin]

I believe they're actually in the XPH, but I couldn't swear to it. I pulled them from the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#autohypnosis).

It's in the Epic Level Handbook, actually.

[noparlpf]

Oh. What is Autohypnosis, which starts with a 'A', doing at the very end of the skills section?

Either way, it ended up not mattering last night. My animal companion messed up some bad guys (she is so much more effective than I am) and there was an NPC with a wand of CLW back on the ship.

[Cieyrin]

Oh. What is Autohypnosis, which starts with a 'A', doing at the very end of the skills section?

Either way, it ended up not mattering last night. My animal companion messed up some bad guys (she is so much more effective than I am) and there was an NPC with a wand of CLW back on the ship.

WotC wanted to isolate the psionic skills from the rest, I guess. Why they bothered is beyond me.

[noparlpf]

WotC wanted to isolate the psionic skills from the rest, I guess. Why they bothered is beyond me.

Psionic skill, you mean. There's only the one listed there. Oh, WotC.

[JaronK]

By the way, there was a real life Russian Pilot who fell over 18000 feet (definitely terminal velocity) and landed without any injury. Evidently he hit a snowbank on the side of a mountain and just landed it.

The world record for a survived fall is IIRC around twice that distance, though the guy was heavily injured.

Anyway, I think skills SHOULD do super magical things at high levels. But the DCs probably shouldn't be so high. If a level 17 Wizard has no trouble throwing around Force Cages, a level 17 Rogue should have a decent shot of escaping them (since escaping stuff is what Rogues do).

But the skill system needs reworking, because there's no way to say what a reasonable check DC for a level 17 Rogue is.

JaronK

[Gavinfoxx]

So we should all play Legend. They put all that epic skill stuff as part of core gameplay.

[noparlpf]

The entire skill system needs reworking because a lot of it doesn't even make sense.

[Slipperychicken]

Perform(Harmonica) DC 50, used like Diplomacy, get all listeners to helpful. Use Harmonica Bardic Music (Song and Silence pg45-ish) to raise their attitute one step to Fanatic. One bardic music and a DC50 perform check gets you an uncapped number of fanatics for CHA days.


EDIT: For even more fun, do this with royalty. You now have access to the whole treasury. Play for every leader, crush the ones who won't listen, and rule the world. I think there's a spell that gets you get bardic music uses.

[Dr.Epic]

Swim up a waterfall.:smallwink:

[Cieyrin]

Psionic skill, you mean. There's only the one listed there. Oh, WotC.

Actually no, the ELH used the original Psionics Handbook, which had a second psionic skill, Stabilize Self. The Epic uses of it got rolled into Autohypnosis, at least on the SRD. In the books, it's implied that they merged but I don't know if it's ever outright stated that it's so, as I don't have a copy of the original Psionics Handbook to compare the differences.

[noparlpf]

Huh. Weird. Well, it still doesn't make much sense, but okay.

[Venusaur]

What really needs to be brought up is the arseplomancer. Be a halfling with massive escape artist to crawl through the small spaces. Take the exemplar prc for the ability to make diplomacy with skill checks. Crawl up someone's butt, UMD a wand of enlarge person and burst out, making crowds of fanatics.

[noparlpf]

Doesn't work unless you succeed on a. a Str check and b. getting this past the DM who probably has a look of horror and disgust on his face.

[Venusaur]

Leather has 5 hitpoints per inch and hardness 2. Flesh is much softer, and would be easier to do. Just buy some strength enhancing items or use a scroll of rightous might for an easier time.

[hex0]

Swim up a waterfall.:smallwink:

Haven't had to do that since I played Pokemon Silver. :smallwink:

I like the balance epics as well though. Walk on clouds!

[Piggy Knowles]

What really needs to be brought up is the arseplomancer. Be a halfling with massive escape artist to crawl through the small spaces. Take the exemplar prc for the ability to make diplomacy with skill checks. Crawl up someone's butt, UMD a wand of enlarge person and burst out, making crowds of fanatics.

Unfortunately, even with the epic uses of Escape Artist, a halfling would still need a hole of at least one square inch to squeeze through, so you'd... um...

Never mind, I think I've officially spent a little too much time thinking about this. When we were using this to crawl down someone's mouth, that was one thing, but...

[hex0]

Never mind, I think I've officially spent a little too much time thinking about this. When we were using this to crawl down someone's mouth, that was one thing, but...

I'm not sure how you would rule crawling into either end, but if you figured it out I'm sure you could do some ridiculous damage with this.

Or with a willing ally this would be the best infiltration method in the game. Screw improved invisibility, imma hide in a butt! :smallcool:Yeah, epic is messed up.


If the space is long, such as in a chimney, multiple checks may be called for.

Looks like Santa is epic level!

[Killer Angel]

Looks like Santa is epic level!

He's certainly a ninja (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk0LCpQ2EBo)! :smallbiggrin:

(edit: if you're in a hurry, go directly to 5:10)

[Harkness]

So, every time I'm bored and trolling through the SRD for ideas on a character or concept, I always find myself coming back to the fun of crazy-optimized skills, especially the epic uses. A lot of otherwise useless skills are actually a lot of fun if you can pull it off. Some of my favorites include...

Favorite Epic Skills
APPRAISE: DC 50, sense any magical properties as per Detect Magic. Sure, you can easily get Detect Magic at will with a dip. I still find this one cool.

BALANCE: Probably both the coolest and the hardest to do. Walk on water with a DC 90 check. Walk on a cloud with a DC 120 check. Combine with super-crazy jump checks to jump hundreds of feet in the air and then land on a cloud!

BLUFF: Add +50 to the DC to instill a suggestion in the target. Suggestion at will is pretty cool - especially when it's completely non-magical in nature! The ability to mask your alignment or surface thoughts from magical detection (DC 70 & 100, respectively) is also neat, but really, I'm mainly interested in the Suggestion bit.

DIPLOMACY: The most well-known epic skill. Go from Hostile to Fanatic (described as "will give life to serve you") with a DC 150 check.

ESCAPE ARTIST: Pass through ridiculously tiny spaces! Honestly, I really like Escape Artist anyhow, because the standard tight space, defined as "your head fits but your body doesn't", is both useful and pretty easy to hit (DC 30). But for a medium creature to pass through a space 2 inches is a mere DC 80 check, and it's only DC 120 to pass through a wall of force. Now that's more like it!

HANDLE ANIMAL: Up there with Bluff's nonmagical suggestion as one of my favorites. Rearing magical beasts and vermin is cool. Doing it in only a minute by adding 100 to the DC is REALLY cool.

RIDE: Not super crazy, but being able to hit DC 60 and always attack from cover is pretty cool.

SENSE MOTIVE: Well, if a DC 100 Bluff check lets you fake your surface thoughts, it makes sense that a DC 100 Sense Motive check lets you discover them, right?

SPOT / LISTEN: DC 80 to beat an illusion. Not as fun as some of the others, but pretty useful, especially since if you can hit DC 80 spot checks, you can also notice things like inanimate invisible objects and basically anything that hides.


This is awesome! I'm new to 3.5e, (played a couple of 5e campaigns) but I recently found the incredibly broken Pun-Pun build, which basically offers all spell-like abilities and potentially unlimited ability scores. (Only the DM can really break it).

I was thinking about the examples of what ability scores mean in this page here. (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/81cras/dd_ability_score_ranges_described/)

That led to me starting with some math, which normally I'm not into, and I wanted to get your opinions on the "equivalent" examples of completely broken levels of stats.
(TD;LR: I'm trying to assign stat modifier examples leading up to the broken example of +10,000.)

For intelligence, based on the description I've found that if you multiply the score by 10, it matches up somewhat with IQ. (i.e. a 10 is 100IQ or an average person, whereas a 20 is 200; Stephen Hawking level.)

This led to me thinking of the highest real world equivalent, and if we assume a "level 20" human in our world is the absolute best, and they get the 5 ability score points with leveling up that far, that gives us a 25 as the highest human intelligence possible.

Let's say, for example, that Da Vinci had a total Intelligence score of 25. (Since he effectively invented a crude working helicopter prototype 400 years before the proper version, benefiting from technological advances at the time (http://www.da-vinci-inventions.com/aerial-screw.aspx))

To accomplish this feat, let's assume he had 23 skill ranks in both Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) and the Craft skill. This leads us to a simple equation to find the DC he had to meet;
Da Vinci Int modifier+Knowledge (Engineering)+Craft skill+D20 (Natural 20) = Helicopter, functional model 400 years ahead of it's time.
The numbers for this; 7 +23+23+roll 20= 73DC check.

Now, that's not exactly Epic, but considering the broken levels Epic has bear with me, we'll get there and beyond.

For every +73 we have in our modifier, let's say we add 400 more years to the level of technology we can create ahead of time. Let's assume anything less than half our years score is perfectly functional, and everything at the top is a crude, limited version based on what we have at the time. So a teleporter wouldn't be as effective as an actual teleporter from 12,019, because we're limited in the crude environmental level of technology.

This means that at roughly Epic level, with a modifier of +146, we can create technology 800 years more advanced than current technology. In a medieval setting like DnD (mid 1300's) this would be equivalent to creating crude versions of technology from 2100, or effective technology from the 1700's like steam engines, more advanced rifles, smallpox vaccinations and even the first batteries.

Not too impressive to a high (or mid tier) wizard, but for mere peasants who could all use this technology it would quickly create a super-state of steampunk proportions. Cool idea for a town in a campaign, wizards angry at under-priced inventions or the other way around.

Now let's go higher.

The following summaries depend on your opinion of how fast technology would advance. Assuming we maintain our current rate of technology building, going from the first airplane to landing on the moon in 57 years, I think this is fairly realistic.

Int score of 1,510 (+730)= Inventing working machines 4,000 years ahead of their time. (i.e. cold fusion reactors, FTL space travel, Ultra-realistic, extremely customisable VR, etc) Rick and Morty-verse Aliens.
Int score of 15,010 (+7,300)= Inventing working machines 40,000 years ahead of their time. The IQ needed to properly appreciate the subtleties of Rick and Morty. The humor is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head.
Int score of 20,010 (+10,000)= Inventing working machines 64,794 years ahead of their time. Rick Level Intelligence.

Okay, I know I probably ticked off anyone tired of that old meme, but you get my point. Hard to quantify technology that far advanced.

The method to calculate the Intelligence score into how many hundreds of years advanced your technology would be is:
Int modifier/73 x400=years ahead of it's time.

That's all I've got for now, but I'd love to hear your thoughts, if I got anything wrong, or if you have a different opinion on what that level of intelligence looks like.

I'm willing to try and look into other stats, since Strength is fairly easy to calculate, and Charisma is interesting to look at (imagine bluffing Reality; the only enemy at Epic levels of Diplomacy is your DM.)

Thanks for reading!

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Thread Necromancy.