Inherent bonuses: Save 500,000 gp

[Cruiser1]

Many higher level characters get inherent bonuses to important stats. The fundamental way to get an inherent bonus is with a casting of Wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm), which costs 5000 XP and hence has an effective value of XP x 5 = 25000 gp. In other words, the minimum price when paying a spellcaster to cast Wish or purchasing a magic item that can give you an +1 inherent bonus is 25000 gp. However, different items containing Wish have different overheads beyond 25K:

Tomes and Manuals: The most common way to get inherent bonuses when designing a character is with Tome and Manual magic items. A +1 Tome (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#tomeofClearThought) costs 27500 gp, and higher bonuses are proportionally more expensive. That's 2500 gp overhead per wish beyond the 25K, which isn't too bad but there are better options. Tomes are annoying in that they take a week to read, and hence require backstory time to use which in some cases may not be allowed.
Staff of Wish: A CL 17 staff of Wish costs 1307375 gp with a full 50 charges, or 26148 gp per charge. 1148 gp overhead is better than a Tome, so it's a better deal to spend WBL on a Staff of Wish with 5 charges than a +5 Tome. When creating higher level characters you are allowed to purchase partially charged items (DMG page 199) although specific DM's may houserule against it. This of course requires being a caster with Wish on your spell list, or have good UMD. A Staff of Wish is not an epic magic item (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/basics.htm), since disregarding experience related costs it only costs 57375 gold, which is under 200K.
Ring of Three Wishes: For contrast, this ring (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#threeWishes) costs 97950 gp, or 32650 per wish. That's 7650 gp overhead per wish beyond the 25K, which is very expensive. The advantage is any character can use it right away, and the wishes if saved can be used for other than stat bonuses.
Hired spellcaster: It costs 1530 gp to hire a spellcaster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spell) to cast a 9th level spell for you, or 26530 for them to cast Wish. Since the total cost is over 3K, "that spell is not generally available", so many DM's won't allow spending WBL in this way, and the staff is still a better deal.

Note the optimized character can do much better than spending 25K+ per Wish, through metamagic. A staff of Twin Repeat Wish casts 16th level spells, and therefore costs 27040 per charge. One charge gives you 4 Wishes, so that's only 6760 gp per Wish! Of course, the nature of Twin Spell is that all decisions have to be the same, so they have to go the same inherent bonus. If you want +5 inherent bonuses to all 6 stats (30 wishes total), you want a staff of Twin Repeat Wish with 6 charges (to get +4 inherent bonus to all stats), and a staff of Repeat Wish with 3 charges (to get the remaining +1 inherent bonus to all stats).

A staff of anything using a 10th level spell slot or beyond is an epic magic item (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/basics.htm), however since it doesn't break a bonus limit, its price is not multiplied by 10. There's also nothing that says a character can't purchase an epic item pre-epic, where the only restriction is you can't create an epic magic item until you have epic crafting feats which require epic levels.

Anyway, the 6 charge staff of Twin Repeat Wish costs 162240 gp, and the 3 charge staff of Repeat Wish costs 79590, or only 241830 gp to get +5 inherent to all 6 stats. That's much cheaper than 784425 gp for a 30 charge Staff of Wish (too expensive for even the 760K WBL of a level 20 character), and much cheaper than 825000 gp for 6 +5 Tomes. In summary, intelligent item purchasing can allow a high level character to save up to half a million gold. :smallbiggrin:

[Elderand]

With suffecient optimisation, you don't even need to use 10 th level spell slot or higher

Halruaan elder, incantatrix, arcane thesis : wish and you can do it with your normal 9th level spell slot

Or even easier, if dragonlance is an option : undead battery

[_flint_]

Aaaand, bookmarked

[Rubik]

Or you can just cast (or hire someone to cast) Planar Binding to get three efreet. Even with all the Magic Circle Against Evils and buffs/debuffs to rig the Charisma contest (or the offer of giving the efreet one Wish of their own in exchange for granting two of yours), you can get a +5 to all the stats for the entire party, and it's WAAAAAY cheaper than even a single +1 tome.

[ericgrau]

Ya but at that point you can take over the multiverse with unlimited wishes. It depends how much cheese you're willing to tolerate, I suppose.

By the time you can cast 16th level spells or at least meet someone who can, saving a few hundred thousand gp isn't as big of a deal. Especially to wait so many levels for your inherent bonuses. It may be a net negative except on your lesser stats.

[Elderand]

It is also ever so slightly easier for a DM to justify twisting a wish around if it's cast by a monster.

[Deca4531]

Aaaand, bookmarked

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Flickerdart]

Why would the XP-related costs not count when determining whether it's an Epic item? They're still part of the item's GP cost.

[Immabozo]

How much would it cost to hire a Planar Sheppard to turn into a djinn and grant your wishes just by asking him?

[Jeraa]

Why would the XP-related costs not count when determining whether it's an Epic item? They're still part of the item's GP cost.

Because the Epic Level Handbook very clearly says they don't count.


Has a market price above 200,000 gp, not including material costs for armor or weapons, material component- or experience point-based costs, or additional value for intelligent items.

[Flickerdart]

Because the Epic Level Handbook very clearly says they don't count.
Interesting. Thanks for the clarification.

[Cruiser1]

By the time you can cast 16th level spells or at least meet someone who can, saving a few hundred thousand gp isn't as big of a deal. Especially to wait so many levels for your inherent bonuses.
This thread is focused on optimizing character design, i.e. magic item purchase. Assuming you build a level 20 character, and start playing at that higher level, you don't have to wait for your inherent bonuses, as you have them from start of game. Certainly if you start playing from level 1 your purchase decisions and gameplay will be different.

Or you can just cast (or hire someone to cast) Planar Binding to get three efreet.
Casting Wish or finding a way to get Wish cast for you is more about optimizing character play than character design. Either way, Planar Binding an Efreeti (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/genie.htm#efreeti) doesn't always work, as it may have used its SLA's for the day already. Efreet hate servitude, and love enslaving others, so Planar Binding one is sure to enrage it. Efreet are notorious for twisting wishes even when not wanting to give you a slow and painful death. The Grand Sultan is near deific power, so I imagine Planar Binding one would get half the City of Brass and a bunch of epic casters on your tail quickly.

Many DM's houserule that SLA's for spells with XP costs still cost XP. That prevents Efreet from giving out free wishes every day (and some of the more abusive PrC's that can get you Wish as a SLA). Otherwise each Efreeti would have a human slave that they would give 3 wishes to every day. With millions of Efreeti casting millions of free wishes, they would quickly take over the multiverse. In the epic adventure Kerelth's Tower from ELH, you can save an Efreeti's life, and in return he'll offer you a single Wish. That suggests the NPC only has 5000-9999 XP available to spend on his Wish SLA.

[Immabozo]

Many DM's houserule that SLA's for spells with XP costs still cost XP. That prevents Efreet from giving out free wishes every day (and some of the more abusive PrC's that can get you Wish as a SLA). Otherwise each Efreeti would have a human slave that they would give 3 wishes to every day. With millions of Efreeti casting millions of free wishes, they would quickly take over the multiverse. In the epic adventure Kerelth's Tower from ELH, you can save an Efreeti's life, and in return he'll offer you a single Wish. That suggests the NPC only has 5000-9999 XP available to spend on his Wish SLA.

No, I disagree. Just because a creature (or a human IRL) CAN do something, doesn't mean he will. Maybe they dont LIKE granting wishes. Maybe they can do it at will, but deems it an unworthy pursuit and look down upon it. Maybe it is save as a last ditch effort to get out of enslavement.

Just because the police CAN get a confession from you by pulling your fingernails off, doesn't mean they do. Why? Social and political reasons. People look down on it, laws are passed against it, if you do it, people don't generally trust you, it makes it tough to do your job.

So perhaps they CAN do that, but they don,t for reasons known only to the inhabitants of their planes, or their city and of their race.

So perhaps in your example, he only grants one wish because, due to the social/political pressures on the Efreeti, he only deems it worthy of one wish and not 2 or 3

[Hirax]

Not that anyone is ever realistically going to use arcane thesis on wish, but if you did, you could cast a twinned and repeated wish as a level 9 spell as a wiz5/incantatrix10/elder5. Is there a way you could managed to get a fifth effective casting in there, so you could get the whole +5 in one cast?

[Cruiser1]

Not that anyone is ever realistically going to use arcane thesis on wish
Actually, why not? :smallbiggrin: Dark Chaos Shuffle one of your feats to Arcane Thesis (Wish), and then Chaos Shuffle it back afterward. That costs 1000 XP total, however it's well worth it since casting Twin Repeat Wish saves you 15000 XP. (This is a fair and definitely allowed use of feat shuffling, since you're temporarily replacing one of your actual feats, instead of the cheese of replacing a temporary feat in order to get extra feats beyond your limit.)

[ericgrau]

This thread is focused on optimizing character design, i.e. magic item purchase. Assuming you build a level 20 character, and start playing at that higher level, you don't have to wait for your inherent bonuses, as you have them from start of game. Certainly if you start playing from level 1 your purchase decisions and gameplay will be different.
Even your starting gear had to come from somewhere. Having the power to shatter a world and meeting someone who can shatter multiple worlds to such a degree that he laughs at your lesser world-shattering ability at least deserves a note in your backstory, if not a whole lot more. It is no trivial matter.

To make such a staff you need epic staff crafting, 11th level spells plus 3x easy metamagic meaning 6 epic feats. At minimum that person is level 29, assuming he has that specific build. More likely he is a much higher level. Or he uses pre-epic metamagic reducing cheese, in which case it depends on your level of lactose tolerance and whether this is a TO or PO thread. And exactly how TO this thread is because, well, infinite efreeti wishes.

[Cruiser1]

Even your starting gear had to come from somewhere.
Yes, once you consider gameplay elements of a particular campaign setting, all bets are off. That's why getting infinite wishes from Efrett is dubious, because it raises many questions that only the DM can answer, such as why haven't other casters or the Efreet themselves taken over the Multiverse already? By RAW, you're able to purchase whatever items you want with your WBL for a new character, including partially charged items (DMG 199), although certain DM's may impose limits. It may not make sense, but it's allowed. :smallconfused:

To make such a staff you need epic staff crafting, at minimum that person is level 29
Not necessarily. :smallsmile: Even a Wizard 17 can make a Twin Repeat Staff of Wish with exactly 6 charges. Don't craft it, but Wish for it! The XP costs will be huge, so don't use real XP but rather crafting XP provided by Distilled Joy (if good) or Liquid Pain (if evil). Those spells normally have a 1 day casting time, so to speed the process simulate them with Miracle (get it on your spell list) so it only takes 1 standard action to cast. You'll need many doses, so use one of the infinte spell tricks, or just be a Lich who doesn't care about years of prep time.

Anyway, scribe a Scroll of Wish, which only costs 1913 gold in material costs, however with a huge amount of (effectively free) extra XP embedded in it. Read it and wish to create your staff of Wishes. (There's nothing that says Wish can't create epic magic items.) Use the staff for your inherent bonuses. Make more such staffs to sell to other adventurers, which shows how there can be such staffs lying around even if there are no casters over level 17 in the multiverse. :smallbiggrin:

[Phelix-Mu]

Even your starting gear had to come from somewhere. Having the power to shatter a world and meeting someone who can shatter multiple worlds to such a degree that he laughs at your lesser world-shattering ability at least deserves a note in your backstory, if not a whole lot more. It is no trivial matter.

To make such a staff you need epic staff crafting, 11th level spells plus 3x easy metamagic meaning 6 epic feats. At minimum that person is level 29, assuming he has that specific build. More likely he is a much higher level. Or he uses pre-epic metamagic reducing cheese, in which case it depends on your level of lactose tolerance and whether this is a TO or PO thread. And exactly how TO this thread is because, well, infinite efreeti wishes.

I'd like to second the mention about likelihood of finding said staff of epic wishful thinking. At high epic levels, recovering lost experience can be A METRIC TON of work. Where do the monsters that are challenging to a level 35 party hang out? What short of massive plot events in the game world can deliver a standard encounter's worth of experience for such a party?

That's not to say that epic level wizards don't burn experience on stuff. I'm sure they do. But they probably don't spend experience on staff of uber wishing that then somehow ends up in the hands of someone else, especially since the main reason to craft stuff you aren't going to use yourself is money, and no one at such high level should need to resort to such means to make money.

And pls, distilled joy/liquid pain abuse should be relegated to only the cheesiest of cheese.

[Flickerdart]

I'd like to second the mention about likelihood of finding said staff of epic wishful thinking. At high epic levels, recovering lost experience can be A METRIC TON of work. Where do the monsters that are challenging to a level 35 party hang out? What short of massive plot events in the game world can deliver a standard encounter's worth of experience for such a party?

There's loads of gods with their own godly realms published in various books. I'm sure that not all of them are that vital to the survival of the world. :smalltongue:

[Mithril Leaf]

Nice little trick for a cabal of artificers or mage's guild, where you can all use the item communally and offset the price of a full one.

[Arcanist]

I'd like to second the mention about likelihood of finding said staff of epic wishful thinking. At high epic levels, recovering lost experience can be A METRIC TON of work. Where do the monsters that are challenging to a level 35 party hang out? What short of massive plot events in the game world can deliver a standard encounter's worth of experience for such a party?

Most problems encountered by an Epic Level Character (ELC) are problems that affect the entire world, if not universe. For more creatures that can challenge a Party of ELC see the Far Realm, Gods, Demon Lords and Dukes of Hell (I recommend going with Dicefreaks content here), adventuring in Sigil, or just living it up in the Prime doing whatever UNTIL!!!! Sudden massive gates to the Abyss all across the Plane are being opened up by a mysterious entity! Divination yields no results! The Gods are baffled! Wishes come back with an indication that a Mayer in the local city is the cause of this! It's a clone of the Mayer trained for Evil. Muwahahahahaha!

OR sometimes it just takes turning the world against the players. No place to rest, no place to hide, just constantly being hunted until they can find the suspects who framed them (or they find a way to change there Truename or something).

[Curmudgeon]

Or you can just cast (or hire someone to cast) Planar Binding to get three efreet. Even with all the Magic Circle Against Evils and buffs/debuffs to rig the Charisma contest (or the offer of giving the efreet one Wish of their own in exchange for granting two of yours), you can try to get a +5 to all the stats for the entire party
I fixed that for you. Just because some creature has a spell available 3x/day doesn't mean they'll have any of them, still unused, at the time you call them. In fact, precisely because spells to call these creatures are well known, it ought to be sensible practice for them to strike deals in advance to exchange these abilities for something of value. So during the first minute of the creature's personal day they'll use up their Wish x3, and a big "up yours" to random spellcasters who intend to force them into involuntary servitude.

[Mithril Leaf]

I fixed that for you. Just because some creature has a spell available 3x/day doesn't mean they'll have any of them, still unused, at the time you call them. In fact, precisely because spells to call these creatures are well known, it ought to be sensible practice for them to strike deals in advance to exchange these abilities for something of value. So during the first minute of the creature's personal day they'll use up their Wish x3, and a big "up yours" to random spellcasters who intend to force them into involuntary servitude.

Unless of course you compel them to serve you for a few days precisely as the spell permits.

[icefractal]

Or go the simple way - Planar Binding -> Dominate Monster -> As much wishes as you want, with no tiresome bargains or attitude.

But I think it is worthwhile to consider non-Efreet ways of getting wishes, simply because the infinite nature makes GMs more likely to outright ban it. Personally, for example, I change the Efreet "wish granting" to be simply the Efreet using it's own powers and it's access to treasure hordes in the City of Brass.

On topic - another method would be two Metamagic Rods (greater twin, greater repeat), and having the caster you hire use them. Since the rods aren't expended, you can sell them afterward or keep them for future use. This does requiring hiring someone to cast Wish (admittedly not guaranteed available), but is a lot more bang for your buck.

[Rubik]

It's a clone of the Mayer trained for Evil. Muwahahahahaha!Sorry, but Stephenie Meyer is already The Ultimate Evil.


I fixed that for you. Just because some creature has a spell available 3x/day doesn't mean they'll have any of them, still unused, at the time you call them. In fact, precisely because spells to call these creatures are well known, it ought to be sensible practice for them to strike deals in advance to exchange these abilities for something of value. So during the first minute of the creature's personal day they'll use up their Wish x3, and a big "up yours" to random spellcasters who intend to force them into involuntary servitude.Planar Binding is permanent, you know. Wait a day and then get your Wishes. There are lots of ways to force it to give them to you if you don't feel like giving a Wish away or otherwise bargaining with it.

[Deophaun]

OOn topic - another method would be two Metamagic Rods (greater twin, greater repeat), and having the caster you hire use them.
You can only use a single metamagic rod per spell casting.

[Flickerdart]

You can only use a single metamagic rod per spell casting.
3.5 really needs a roll of magic duct tape.

[Rubik]

You can only use a single metamagic rod per spell casting.This is true. However, for an extra 50% markup you can have multiple metamagic feats on that single rod.

[DarkWhisper]

Hired spellcaster: It costs 1530 gp to hire a spellcaster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spell) to cast a 9th level spell for you, or 26530 for them to cast Wish. Since the total cost is over 3K, "that spell is not generally available", so many DM's won't allow spending WBL in this way, and the staff is still a better deal.

If you're hiring NPC casters, go the full distance and hire a Dweomerkeeper (Comp.Divine Web Enhancement) to cast Supernatural Wish for 1530gp.
Offer to pay 3k per supernatural wish and its still about 20k cheaper than a staff charge.

You can only get up to +4 inherent bonus, though, unless you manage to find two appropriate-leveled Dweomerkeepers.

[Psyren]

Binding Efreeti is the best way - it's cheap, you can imprison your charge until his wishes return if he's already used them, and boosting stats is within the listed limits of Wish so it's much harder for them to twist it around. Though, of course, some DMs may demand you make your stat wishes in-character, so the wording used there may screw you over if you're not careful.

[Cruiser1]

At high epic levels, recovering lost experience can be A METRIC TON of work. Where do the monsters that are challenging to a level 35 party hang out?
Level 35 isn't that high. There are lots of epic monsters (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicMonstersAndObstacles.htm) for a level 35 character or party. For example, Prismatic Dragons have CR 66, meaning you won't even qualify to get XP for them until you're level 59+. And those are just the weak base creatures, where advancing HD, applying templates, and adding character levels can make monsters that challenge any level. The only limitation is how many such creatures the DM chooses to have in the gameworld.

Note that it's actually easier to gain XP and levels at very high levels than low levels. At all levels, defeating a monster of CR (your_level - 7) gives you a mere 1/128th the XP of an encounter of CR (your_level + 7). That's usually appropriate, as a level 8 PC is certain to find a CR 1 monster trivial, while a level 1 PC should find a CR 8 monster vastly overpowering. That makes sense as there's an 8x difference in ECL vs CR. However, a level 35 PC will only get 875 XP for defeating a CR 28 monster (like a Prismasaurus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/prismasaurus.htm)), however they'll get 128 times that or 112,000 XP for defeating a CR 42 monster (like a Devastation Scorpion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/devastationVermin.htm#devastationScorpion)), which is easily enough to reach the XP gain cap (i.e. gain a level and be 1 XP short of the next level). At level 35, there's little difference in difficulty between a CR 28 monster and a CR 42 monster (since there's only a 1.25X factor instead of an 8X factor), however the XP tables don't take that into account. In other words, with proper opponent selection an epic character can easily gain 2 levels per encounter (if they roleplay a bit after each to gain at least 1 XP to level up again), which even if limited to the standard four encounters per day means gaining 8 levels each day! Your level 35 character should be level 275 by the end of the month. :smallwink:

distilled joy/liquid pain abuse should be relegated to only the cheesiest of cheese.
Using Distilled Joy or Liquid Pain to offset XP costs is a simple practice directly described in the books (admittedly they're the Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness books that aren't known for their balance). Usually "abuse" or "cheese" means practices the book authors apparently didn't think of that optimizers realized later, such as early entry tricks for PrC's, monsters with powerful (Su) abilities that make good Shapechange forms, gaining spells as SLA's which is great for free Wishes, Dark Chaos feat shuffling, and so on. We may not like offsetting XP costs (although it can't be that bad since Pathfinder did away with XP costs altogether) but it is an offically allowed practice, and so technically falls under PO instead of TO.

[Psyren]

Don't Joy/Pain only offset exp costs from crafting items?

[Cruiser1]

Don't Joy/Pain only offset exp costs from crafting items?
Yes, that's right. The concept was raised for a crafting scenario (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14524378&postcount=17), to help create a Scroll of Wish with a large amount of XP added to it.

Of course, using Miracle to simulate Joy/Pain so the casting time is only 1 standard action instead of 1 day, combined with infinite spell tricks, probably wasn't anticipated by the book authors, but here the abusive cheese is getting infinite Miracles (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=212739), and not the availability of the Joy/Pain spells themselves. :smallwink:

[Mato]

Outside WBL breaking with summon tricks, or salt cows, or crafting gold out of gold (srsly, it works) which really falls into the 1,001 categories of what you can do with free money while the DM isn't looking.

Some Inherent bonuses can be obtained by other means than Wish. For example, the Strong Leg Graft for the Evil aligned can spend 8,000gp to pick up a -6 penalty to Charisma-related Skills and a +2 inherent bonus to Constitution. If you consider the Tomes the de facto standard price, this is an 85% discounted price. The various Undead Arms printed in Libras Mortis each bestow a +4 Inherent bonus to Strength for 40,000gp or there again only 64% of the cost of a Manual.

There are probably several others, I've never really sat down and perused for them.

[Phelix-Mu]

Level 35 isn't that high. There are lots of epic monsters (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicMonstersAndObstacles.htm) for a level 35 character or party. For example, Prismatic Dragons have CR 66, meaning you won't even qualify to get XP for them until you're level 59+. And those are just the weak base creatures, where advancing HD, applying templates, and adding character levels can make monsters that challenge any level. The only limitation is how many such creatures the DM chooses to have in the gameworld.

Note that it's actually easier to gain XP and levels at very high levels than low levels. At all levels, defeating a monster of CR (your_level - 7) gives you a mere 1/128th the XP of an encounter of CR (your_level + 7). That's usually appropriate, as a level 8 PC is certain to find a CR 1 monster trivial, while a level 1 PC should find a CR 8 monster vastly overpowering. That makes sense as there's an 8x difference in ECL vs CR. However, a level 35 PC will only get 875 XP for defeating a CR 28 monster (like a Prismasaurus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/prismasaurus.htm)), however they'll get 128 times that or 112,000 XP for defeating a CR 42 monster (like a Devastation Scorpion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/devastationVermin.htm#devastationScorpion)), which is easily enough to reach the XP gain cap (i.e. gain a level and be 1 XP short of the next level). At level 35, there's little difference in difficulty between a CR 28 monster and a CR 42 monster (since there's only a 1.25X factor instead of an 8X factor), however the XP tables don't take that into account. In other words, with proper opponent selection an epic character can easily gain 2 levels per encounter (if they roleplay a bit after each to gain at least 1 XP to level up again), which even if limited to the standard four encounters per day means gaining 8 levels each day! Your level 35 character should be level 275 by the end of the month. :smallwink:


I'll admit I used the wrong word for milking pain/happiness out of thousands in order to fund the wish staff.

However, I think, at higher levels, it should be agreed that you are more reliant on the DM to find level-appropriate challenges. If you are a dedicated enemy of the undead, for instance, sub-epic there are lots of places where you can go in pretty much any campaign world to find undead to hunt. But, at epic levels, there is no default location to go to to find an atropal to slay, or even flames of the void and such. These creatures are strong enough to lay waste to entire portions of planes, and thus hunting them is harder than hunting, say, vampires (non-epic vamps, to clarify).

Same goes for prismasaurus and devastation scorpion. If you want to find one wandering around without impacting prime events dramatically, you basically need to go off-plane, and this puts you even more at the DM's whim in terms of what you find, as most DMs like to use planar travel for plot stuff and not for epic-level shooting gallery. The more powerful you get, the heavier the DM fiat looms in the actions your character can take, as the plot events necessary to drive uber-level campaigns (outside of a world with a massively inflated power scale) are "epic" and usually will accordingly profoundly affect the balance of power in the world. Off-plane stuff can modify this to some extent, but unless the DM builds a world where you can professionally hunt infernals or mob prismatic dragons, eventually leveling gets harder, not easier.

[tonberrian]

Anybody got the math on the cost of the scroll necessary to wish up the partially charged staff of wish?

[Rubik]

Anybody got the math on the cost of the scroll necessary to wish up the partially charged staff of wish?It's the same as a normal scroll, since there's no cap on the expense of a magic item you can wish for, so just wish for a fully charged staff.

[TuggyNE]

It's the same as a normal scroll, since there's no cap on the expense of a magic item you can wish for, so just wish for a fully charged staff.

No; there's only 5000xp in a normal scroll, and while there's no cap on the value of a magic item, that doesn't mean it's costless:
When a wish creates or improves a magic item, you must pay twice the normal XP cost for crafting or improving the item, plus an additional 5,000 XP.

So the scroll won't have enough XP to create anything.

['Able' Xanthis]

Not necessarily. :smallsmile: Even a Wizard 17 can make a Twin Repeat Staff of Wish with exactly 6 charges. Don't craft it, but Wish for it! The XP costs will be huge, so don't use real XP but rather crafting XP provided by Distilled Joy (if good) or Liquid Pain (if evil). Those spells normally have a 1 day casting time, so to speed the process simulate them with Miracle (get it on your spell list) so it only takes 1 standard action to cast. You'll need many doses, so use one of the infinte spell tricks, or just be a Lich who doesn't care about years of prep time.

I would have a masochistic Binder follower in the Pain Machine using Naberius and laugh as s/he got their jollies off while I got magic item juice and sold it on the black market for a mark up, the stuff is expensive. After that I'd just buy a Ring of Three Wishes.

1) Wish for Complete Nondetection (A spell that never existed before this point) from outsiders and natives.
2) Retroactively change all of my stats to 18 before inherit bonuses. Born the Best kind of thing.
3) Wish for Fate to favor me.

[Cirrylius]

(or the offer of giving the efreet one Wish of their own in exchange for granting two of yours)

Efreet are notorious for twisting wishes even when not wanting to give you a slow and painful death.
A subtle reminder that the third Wish can be saved to inflict the same fate on the Efreet in question can work wonders. ^Carrot and stick :smallamused:

[OldTrees1]

Thread Necromancy is to be avoided (it is against the rules IIRC)

[Lord Vukodlak]

http://i.imgur.com/4Zeah.jpg

[(Un)Inspired]

Turn Unthread!

You monster! I loved this thread when it was alive. Seeing it now; a cruel mocking of living thread makes me weep down to my core. You've taking my dearest memories of this beloved thread and tarnished them with its unholy corpse!

Call the Paladins!