Your favorite epic builds

[Hawkings]

My groups having our first epic game and because my DM and I are the only ones with books they've left me up to making their characters.

The thing is I don't know anything about epic builds so I was wondering what everyone's favorite builds were and any of your awesome stories about them.

My ulterior motive is it'll help me drum up some ideas.

Our games level is 30 with all books okay but any level epic shenanigans is good.

[Azernak0]

Epic Spell Casting. That is it. I guess if you wanted to, you could go like Wizard / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil / Incantrix. There is a reason why no one ever does epic without it resorting to silly things.

[mattie_p]

Some nifty material can be found here among the pre-built characters for this session (No, I did not get to play in it). http://home.comcast.net/~ftm3/ASMoNM/characters.html

Read the full webpage for some interesting material.

[LadyLexi]

I really like the lv 20 Knight ability. Makes me really hard to kill with the right equipment.

[Toliudar]

Epic Spell Casting. That is it. I guess if you wanted to, you could go like Wizard / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil / Incantrix. There is a reason why no one ever does epic without it resorting to silly things.

To counterpoint this suggestion, I'd suggest that the key to the success of an epic campaign is establishing parameters, and perhaps a ban list, so that players can actually interact with an environment instead of simply steamrolling everything. Epic Spellcasting, Multispell, etc, and a dozen other things that break the game over their knees can all be disposed of quickly. Alternately, restricting class and PrC choices to Tier 3 and below will also avoid some of the worst of the silliness.

While this seems initially like it's restricting the group's fun, I'd argue that it's simply allowing the game to survive its first session.

[AmberVael]

To counterpoint this suggestion, I'd suggest that the key to the success of an epic campaign is establishing parameters, and perhaps a ban list, so that players can actually interact with an environment instead of simply steamrolling everything. Epic Spellcasting, Multispell, etc, and a dozen other things that break the game over their knees can all be disposed of quickly. Alternately, restricting class and PrC choices to Tier 3 and below will also avoid some of the worst of the silliness.

While this seems initially like it's restricting the group's fun, I'd argue that it's simply allowing the game to survive its first session.

This.

When you get to epic level of play, diversity in power can be extreme, even between builds that, while standing alone, may seem fine. One of the key elements of an epic level game is to achieve consistency in numbers and power level, which usually works best when it is accomplished by the DM.

However, as you are building all characters, the burden pretty much falls on you.

A few things to highlight-

I highly recommend playing Tier 3 classes and above. Preferably choose one tier and stick with it. Due to the high variance I mentioned earlier, the distinction between tiers at this level is huge. There will be much more balance between party members if you narrow down your choice of classes in this way. You can probably afford to use Tier 3 and Tier 2 classes, but I'd steer away from Tier 1 and anything Tier 4 or below. I do recommend the slightly higher tiers though, because you simply do feel a lot more epic that way. (Having a huge to hit bonus and damage is a lot less interesting than having hordes of undead, using epic level maneuvers, or casting 9th level spells).

Check numbers against one another. Having a difference of 20 points in any of the notable stats (AC, Saves, Attack) is entirely and easily possible. You don't want this to happen, as it basically means balancing from the DM's perspective is a nightmare (with AC and Saves, one character will constantly fail, the other will constantly succeed...). For things like skills this is more forgivable, and for AC, if they have alternate defenses or buffs to put up, it can be okay too. Try and keep differences sane though.

Immunities. Lots of enemies have lots of immunities by now. Do not rely heavily on energy damage, mind affecting powers, or death effects. Chances are, most won't work when you really need them too. Also, get these immunities for yourselves too. At epic, it becomes increasingly not fun to have your all-powerful dude get taken out by one unlucky save, especially as that's going to happen a lot more often.


This in mind though... I heartily disagree with Azernak0. In my experience, it takes system knowledge and a good group of players, but you can have a really awesome epic game without things going too crazy (or crazier than both DM and players can handle, rather). One of my favorite games on these boards was an epic gestalt game, in which I played an Incarnate//Psion, who I had fluffed as an immortal being whose understanding of the world spanned multiple realities. Her powers were focused around manipulating time and possibility, as might be expected.

Her most awesome moment was probably facing down a fiend and his lieutenants, in which she utilized her time manipulation to its fullest extent (lots of stuff with Schism and and Synchronicity). Each turn was basically a temporal maze, with each action resulting in a barrage of results before and after it occurred. It was somewhat of a mechanical nightmare, but it was an awesome scene.

[Randomguy]

At least find out what character concepts your friends want before you start making the characters. Knowing about the setting would be nice, too.

Try and look up epic campaign logs. I recommend "the tales of Wyre". One thing about that particular campaign is that all of the characters have at least some form of spellcasting. I suggest that, if not spellcasting, everyone has some kind of system to fall back on, like incarnum, psionics or maneuvers.


I love epic warlock feats (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20061027a). While the warlock Pre Epic isn't so great, but some of these feats are really awesome. My personal favourite is the one that lets you use Shades at will. You might want to rule it that summoned creatures can't participate in rituals, though, since otherwise an army of shadow lillends will make some very, very powerful epic spells available.
A glaivelock, with or without these feats, would also be pretty awesome. A hellfire warlock would also be fun, especially with 20 levels of legacy champion progressing hellfire blast, using the rules on extending a prestige class past level 10.

Another awesome thing that is much more awesome than normal is Master Transmografist. Normally, it's not that great, since it's basically a gish class but you lose 9's and get poor BAB and bad hit dice, but if you take all ten levels of it in epic BAB doesn't matter and you still get 9's eventually! You even get better in melee than a fighter does, since as long as you get +16 BAB you get another +6 from being in your favoured form, which is +22 to hit without any other mods, compared to his +20 (And you both gain epic BAB at the same rate).
I particularly like gish builds in epic because they don't have the problems that full casters have (everything is immune to so many things and has such high SR) or the problems that nonmagical melee has (Not being immune to anything).

[Slipperychicken]

Epic Spell Casting. That is it. I guess if you wanted to, you could go like Wizard / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil / Incantrix. There is a reason why no one ever does epic without it resorting to silly things.

Yup. Get some (summoned) spellcaster buddies to give your Epic spells rituals, and snap the game in two with those. Get the Spellcraft DC to zero so research can be free. Use permanent Epic summoning to fuel DC mitigation and summon increasingly powerful entities, be constantly surrounded by extremely powerful critters, and have every Epic Spell you could possibly want.

Tippy has done some really interesting cheese work with Aleaxs and Ice Assassins, so you can look that up on your own time (He did one on killing Gods, and the first step was becoming completely immune to harm). I know you said "any... shenanigans is good", but this stuff is just so overpowered that it's not even funny. For a small taste of how Tippy rolls, check out my sig.

[killianh]

Half Ogre Barbarian 5/Warhulk 10/Hulking Hurler 1/Fighter 2/Frenzy 10/Bear Warrior 1 as a level 30 Melee Incarnation of death

[Randomguy]

Half Ogre Barbarian 5/Warhulk 10/Hulking Hurler 1/Fighter 2/Frenzy 10/Bear Warrior 1 as a level 30 Melee Incarnation of death

The warhulk levels should probably come last, to avoid BAB loss.

[Hirax]

Since lost caster levels don't matter as much past 20, I love master transmogrofist in epic games. The capstone is too awesome.

[Arcanist]

I'd like to state that after reaching Epic level in a game from 1-40 where we just ignored level adjustment. Nobody in our group exploited anything and we didn't end up with a Tipsyverse in the first 5 rounds of the campaign...

I figured this went without saying but not everyone in D&D exploits rules into oblivion.

Now then, My personal favorite Epic build is any Epic Dual Progression classes due to the amount of flexibility. With Epic Psionics you can have Epic Spellcasting/Manifesting. Personally I'd like to use a Cerebremancer (Wizard/Erudite Focused (Telepathy)) take Epic Manifesting and actually try and go for the Netherese Arcanist Prestige class, Many would say "Oh thats sub-optimal and unnecessary" but its an Epic game, optimization means jack. hi-OP Epic games are pretty much contingency Vs Contingency fights, or races to see who can conquer the world the fastest, or who can make the most broken Epic spell or stuff like that. I believe somewhere in the text people just forgot that D&D was all about sitting around a table and telling a story :smallannoyed: But to summarize: I like Epic Duel Progressions

[rel]

I like to include ruby knight vindicator in any epic build.
try cleric 17, crusader 3, ruby knight vindicator 10.
At epic levels the biggest limit to your power is the actions you can take.