Level 25 madness

[Keltzon]

My new DM friend is moving closer to me, and has decided to have a crazy Battle Royale on the day he moves. The battle will be June 14, 2014.

Here are the rules:

3.5 books, third-party and 3.5e are EXTREMELY LIMITED. I would just not touch those books if you are not 100% sure they are legal.
You have 25 levels to make a character. All races allowed, please remember level adjustments.
No gestalts, psions, crafting points, or leadership-type feats.
1 million gold to use to buy items. Yes, this was decreased on purpose.
No artifacts. Wonderous items are allowed.
Use max hit die at every level, ability scores are 18-13, placed where you want.

From what I understand, all the characters will be fighting at the same time in the same arena, so don't expect to be able to teleport away. There may be some prep time. No idea how many characters so far, maybe around 7 total.

Build what you believe would be the best character for this fight. I'm not good at building characters--nor have I ever done an epic campaign--so I'll be looking at yours to base something around it. If you don't want to build a char for fun, any suggestions would be great. If I had a preference it would probably be a wizard of some kind.

Go for it!

-K-

[Angelalex242]

Pick your favorite Tier 1 class and go crazy. With Epic Spellcasting in the game, only Tier 1s and Tier 2s matter.

Wizard is probably the ideal choice...epic spells are based on spellcraft and knowledge arcana (arcane), religion (cleric) or nature (druid). But they're all still KNOWLEDGE skills, and spellcraft is int based too, so the wizard, who's pumping his int as high as it'll go, has the advantage on the wis and cha based casters.

As for feats...max your spells, nothing else matters.

Also recommended are skill focus:spellcraft, and skill focus:Knowledge (A/R/N) depending on class, with Epic Skill Focus in those same things at level 21+. Epic spells are based on checks, after all...and the higher your check is, the more powerful the epic spells you can cast.

[Kamin_Majere]

Also since you are just a flat 25th level remember to be a Wizard that is interacting with the whole battle through its astral projection of a similacrum plus thought bottle wish yourself insane everything you want with gate+solar goodness.

After that its just a matter of crafting an epic spell or two that will destroy the competition before their epic spells destroy you.

(also remember your competence bonus item for Spell Craft and Knowledge Arcana to get other boosts there)

The big questions are: will the other people going to build insane optimized characters (or even can they even), and are you wanting to just dominate or make it fun?

[Urpriest]

My new DM friend is moving closer to me, and has decided to have a crazy Battle Royale on the day he moves. The battle will be June 14, 2014.

Here are the rules:

3.5 books, third-party and 3.5e are EXTREMELY LIMITED. I would just not touch those books if you are not 100% sure they are legal.
You have 25 levels to make a character. All races allowed, please remember level adjustments.
No gestalts, psions, crafting points, or leadership-type feats.
1 million gold to use to buy items. Yes, this was decreased on purpose.
No artifacts. Wonderous items are allowed.
Use max hit die at every level, ability scores are 18-13, placed where you want.

From what I understand, all the characters will be fighting at the same time in the same arena, so don't expect to be able to teleport away. There may be some prep time. No idea how many characters so far, maybe around 7 total.

Build what you believe would be the best character for this fight. I'm not good at building characters--nor have I ever done an epic campaign--so I'll be looking at yours to base something around it. If you don't want to build a char for fun, any suggestions would be great. If I had a preference it would probably be a wizard of some kind.

Go for it!

-K-

Do you mean that some 3.5 third-party content is allowed, but on a limited basis? Or are you one of those people who somehow has the impression that 3.5 and 3.5e mean different things? (I've run into such people, they really do exist)?

By no psions, does that mean no psionics in general, or just no psions specifically?

[Keltzon]

We are going for the kill on this. A few people are newer to the game, like myself, but others are like gurus. Full crazy optimization is necessary to survive.

No psionics at all. Throw the whole book out.

I meant Homebrew was limited, not 3.5e. All 3.5 books are allowed, except psionics.

I've been reading the epic spell stuff, it's pretty neat. Is there a wizard from dungeon magazine or dragon magazine that summons monsters and spells in mass if he's defending a castle or something? I thought I read something like that a while back...

I had also contemplated making a Diplomacy character for this. Run around going "PLEASE DON'T ATTACK ME, HIT THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE!" then stabbing them when they are weak. Does Diplomacy work against PC enemies?

[Gavinfoxx]

You are aware that Epic Spellcasting can be mitigated to 0 gp / 0 time necessary to come up with the spell, in a way that scales up fantastically well, thereby letting you have literally infinite power and capabilities? Seriously, if Epic Spellcasting is in play, the game is less a game with rules, and more a game of 'let's pretend'.

[GutterFace]

Super Epic Initiative. if you go first you have a distinct advantage. also Walker in the waste + Dry Lich. hide your phylactery well.


Edit: will you be allowed Magic items based on WBL?

[Keltzon]

You are aware that Epic Spellcasting can be mitigated to 0 gp / 0 time necessary to come up with the spell, in a way that scales up fantastically well, thereby letting you have literally infinite power and capabilities? Seriously, if Epic Spellcasting is in play, the game is less a game with rules, and more a game of 'let's pretend'.

How do we do this? Like I said I'm not good at character creation, and never done an epic battle. This won't even be a campaign, just a one time, kill each other fight.

I'm gonna look at Dry Lich and Walker in the Waste now.

[GutterFace]

Also please me Wish, Limited Wish, Miracle, etc, are out?

[Werephilosopher]

Does Diplomacy work against PC enemies?

Think of it this way. If an NPC was incredibly polite, smooth and had a way with words, would the average PC decide on those reasons alone not to go murder-hobo on his ass for his epic lootz?

Short answer: no :smallbiggrin:

[Captnq]

Okay. Start off by downloading the EVD in my sig file.

Ask if custom magic items are allowed. If so, everything is made for your alignment and your class only. -30% to cost.

Grafts. Lots and lots of grafts.

Consider using a spell to shapeshift into something with immunity to magic. Will-o-the-whisp is a good choice.

Spell continganicies. get scrolls of obscure spells that increase your size to collosal or shrink you to microscopic so you can't be hit.

Find a way to become immune to the following:
All non lethal damage, critical hits (including sneak attacks), death from massive damage, death spells, level drain, damage from negative energy attacks, including the cause wounds spells, the conditions of blindness, confusion, cowering, dazed, dazzled, deafness, exhaustion, fascination, fatigue, fear, feeblemind, frightened, insanity, nausea, panic, paralyzation, petrifaction, shaken, sickened, staggered, and stunning.

Get a touch attack AC somewhere around 100 and a base AC higher then that.

Figure out how to do a 1000 hit points of damage a blow and get about 50 attacks a round and a speed of say 400' so you can run down and kill everyone in the first round. Nobody will have immunity to hit point damage.

Oh, your saves need to be around 60 each as well. Get a luck blade, something that lets you reroll 1's multiple times.

It's doable. One of my players did it with a monk by level 18. It was rather disgusting. You have about three times as much cash as she had and 7 extra levels. Should be a piece of cake.

Points of interest: Grow to colossal size, increase your reach to about 60', figure out how to get unlimited AoO and use robliar's gambit ALL THE TIME.

Also, Get a Necklace of natural weapons with I forget the WSA, lets you use any feat with a weapon, roundabout kick, lightning maces and max out your Critical range to about 14-20. Then if someone looks like they are going to hit you, you get an AoO. If you crit, you get two attacks. If either of those attacks crit, you get one more critical. (A Roundabout Kick cannot provoke a second roundabout kick on a crit, but it can provoke a lightning mace, and vice versa.)

Everyone else is going to recommend massive save-or-suck. It's entirely possible to become immune to most conditions and then simple perform a blizzard of AoOs, Great Cleaves, and Lightning Mace/Roundabout extra attacks on a critical. Just make sure you have some unusual methods of movement incase people fly out of reach and you'll do fine.

Here's the problem with all these high level builds. No playtesting. I can rattle off a few dozen power gaming ideas but without actually playing from 1st to 25th, you won't really know what works or where your weak spots are.

For example, when I played this same type of situation, I did a rod of security, round one. Technically speaking I won because the other PCs never planned on having to eat. I waited 199 days, popped out ready to fight, and the one lone survivor had eaten everyone else in the arena and finally starved to death.

[Gavinfoxx]

You're going to need some good dispelling for the people who can take infinite hit point damage without being inconvenienced...

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If this were just level 20 characters, you could make some kind of arcane gish with Incantatrix or Spelldancer for 30+ persistent buffs, including Selective Spell Antimagic Field, along with Hide Life (http://dndtools.eu/spells/tome-and-blood-a-guidebook-to-wizards-and-sorcerers--51/hide-life--3408/) to guarantee you'll never be able to die. As epic characters, you can make epic spells at DC 0 so they take zero time and money to research which do everything from instantaneously make you immune to damage of a particular type (do one for every possible damage type) and automatically reflect back anything the opponents try to do to you.

Or you could just make a Psion with Persistent Power (3.0 psionics handbook but it's still valid, also found here (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf)) plus Timeless Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timelessBody.htm), which can be done at 20th level with Overchannel and Metapower, to be completely immune to everything that could possibly exist within the game world except for the Annulus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/psionicArtifacts.htm#annulus). This includes abilities of deities and even overdeities, the Neutronium Golem, you name it, you're immune to it.

[Captnq]

You're going to need some good dispelling for the people who can take infinite hit point damage without being inconvenienced...

You know, I never found a true infinite HP build. What's yours?

[Captnq]

Or you could just make a Psion with Persistent Power (3.0 psionics handbook but it's still valid, also found here (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf)) plus Timeless Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timelessBody.htm), which can be done at 20th level with Overchannel and Metapower, to be completely immune to everything that could possibly exist within the game world except for the Annulus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/psionicArtifacts.htm#annulus). This includes abilities of deities and even overdeities, the Neutronium Golem, you name it, you're immune to it.

One, psionics not allowed.
Two, Timeless body also includes HELPFUL effects, and if I am playing in an arena combat with someone who pulls that, I would state that anything the psion does could be considered "helpful", and therefore cannot do anything that would change them. Like move. So you feel free to stand there for the next 24 hours while I collect everyone else's equipment by killing them. Oh, by the way, that power isn't dismissable, so enjoy standing still, immune to doing anything useful.

See? That's what this sort of situation devolves into Rules lawyering. I'll claim that if you attack anyone and fail you are harmed by not gaining XP and if you succeed you gain XPs which are helpful, ergo, you can do nothing. Now it comes down to who can BS the DM better.

[Keltzon]

Wish, Limited Wish, Miracle, and the Symbols are all banned. I figured I would ask the DM about that xD

[Tulya]

How do we do this? Like I said I'm not good at character creation, and never done an epic battle. This won't even be a campaign, just a one time, kill each other fight.

I'm gonna look at Dry Lich and Walker in the Waste now.

The guidelines for developing new epic spells have options, mitigating factors, that theoretically reduce the power or usability of a spell significantly, but cheapen its cost. All of the mitigating factors are capped on how much they can reduce except for the Ritual Casting option, but careful selection of options can enable fairly strong spells without ritual casting. With Ritual Casting and a source of cheap or free spellcasters to donate spell slots, you can develop an arbitrarily powerful spell at no cost.

It's worth noting that, much like custom magic items, the guidelines are merely guidelines. The section on developing epic spells explicitly calls for GM review, adjudication and approval before a new spell can be developed.

[Dorian Gray]

Because it's my favorite anything, I'm going to lay out the basic delivery-guy schtick. It's slightly less effective if epic spellcasting is in play, but this is a nice contingency.
Step one is to play a sorcerer. Get levels in Dwomerkeeper and Incantatrix as fast as you can- there are ways to get Sorcerer 5/Dwomerkeeper 10/Incantatrix 10, I'm sure of it. Prioritize Incantatrix, though.
Trade your familiar for the ability to cast metamagic without extending the casting time.
The spell you need is Greater Arcane Fusion (http://dndtools.eu/spells/complete-mage--58/arcane-fusion-greater--891/). On Round 1, use celerity to win initiative, and activate time stop so that you aren't stunned.
In your first free round, cast twin repeating greater arcane fusion and quickened twin repeating greater arcane fusion. If you have the epic feat that lets you cast more than one quickened spell a turn, cast as many GAFs as you can.
Use those GAFs to cast twin repeating arcane fusion (http://dndtools.eu/spells/complete-mage--58/arcane-fusion--890/) and split twin repeating fell drain (chain maximized empowered whatever blah blah blah) scorching ray.
Your arcane fusions will be used to cast split twin repeating fell drain (every metamagic feat ever) scorching ray and (every metamagic feat ever) ray of frost (nothing like getting killed by a cantrip).
Use energy substitution (force) on all your spells.
Repeat in round 2. Get a ring of epic wizardry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/rings.htm#epicWizardry), so you can keep doing this all day. The key to this is to lower the metamagic cost until metamagic doesn't have a cost- dwomerkeeper and incantatrix lower metamagic costs by 2, and practiced metamagic (quicken, twin) lower those as well- there's a feat for spells, too. The funny detail is that you can lower the adjustment below +0: if you have a fell drain spell and -2 metamagic cost, the spell is a level lower.
The end result is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-5000+ rays per cast (I'm too lazy to do the math right now). The kicker is that they each drain a level- so you can shoot them, hope for natural twenties, and still drain 100+levels from one casting of a level 8 spell. Energy drain, eat your heart out.

[Gavinfoxx]

You know, I never found a true infinite HP build. What's yours?

It's not 'have infinite hitpoints', it's 'never worry about massive damage, and not be bothered by being at -whatever'.

[Keltzon]

Because it's my favorite anything, I'm going to lay out the basic delivery-guy schtick. It's slightly less effective if epic spellcasting is in play, but this is a nice contingency.
Step one is to play a sorcerer. Get levels in Dwomerkeeper and Incantatrix as fast as you can- there are ways to get Sorcerer 5/Dwomerkeeper 10/Incantatrix 10, I'm sure of it. Prioritize Incantatrix, though.
Trade your familiar for the ability to cast metamagic without extending the casting time.
The spell you need is Greater Arcane Fusion (http://dndtools.eu/spells/complete-mage--58/arcane-fusion-greater--891/). On Round 1, use celerity to win initiative, and activate time stop so that you aren't stunned.
In your first free round, cast twin repeating greater arcane fusion and quickened twin repeating greater arcane fusion. If you have the epic feat that lets you cast more than one quickened spell a turn, cast as many GAFs as you can.
Use those GAFs to cast twin repeating arcane fusion (http://dndtools.eu/spells/complete-mage--58/arcane-fusion--890/) and split twin repeating fell drain (chain maximized empowered whatever blah blah blah) scorching ray.
Your arcane fusions will be used to cast split twin repeating fell drain (every metamagic feat ever) scorching ray and (every metamagic feat ever) ray of frost (nothing like getting killed by a cantrip).
Use energy substitution (force) on all your spells.
Repeat in round 2. Get a ring of epic wizardry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/rings.htm#epicWizardry), so you can keep doing this all day. The key to this is to lower the metamagic cost until metamagic doesn't have a cost- dwomerkeeper and incantatrix lower metamagic costs by 2, and practiced metamagic (quicken, twin) lower those as well- there's a feat for spells, too. The funny detail is that you can lower the adjustment below +0: if you have a fell drain spell and -2 metamagic cost, the spell is a level lower.
The end result is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-5000+ rays per cast (I'm too lazy to do the math right now). The kicker is that they each drain a level- so you can shoot them, hope for natural twenties, and still drain 100+levels from one casting of a level 8 spell. Energy drain, eat your heart out.

I had actually considered this build with the Force Missile Mage, to convert the rays to magic missiles. This way they always hit, and can occasionally bypass Anti-Magic and shields.

Would it be possible to do something like this with a Wizard? Or is there no way around the pre-req Arcane Fusion has?

[Graypairofsocks]

Some tips for pumping Spellcraft for epic spells:

Choose wizard, as int is his casting score and it also is the stat which Spellcraft is based off of.

Make 18 your int stat, and choose Gray Elf as your race as it gets +2 to int(or another race with +int).

Max out Both Spellcraft and Knowledge(arcana) (which you need for epic spellcaster feat), note that 5 ranks in Knowledge(arcana) grants a +2 synergy bonus to Spellcraft and this bonus increases by +2 for every additional 20 ranks you have in Knowledge(arcana), so you should have a +4 synergy bonus to spellcraft.

The Skill Focus(Spellcraft) (Grants +3 untyped bonus) and Epic Skill Focus(Spellcraft)(grants untyped +10 bonus) feats are useful.

There is also the Magical Aptitude feat which grants a untyped +2 bonus to Spellcraft(and Use Magic Device).

You may want to put all your ability score increases(6 total) in to int.

There is a Rod called "Epic Spellcaster" which grants +10 to Spellcraft checks for the purpose of casting epic spells, it costs 245,400.

Getting a Headband of intellect is useful.

You should probably get a wand of Guidance of the Avatar (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20010504a) which grants a +20 bonus on 1 skill check per casting, note that it is a cleric only spell so you might have to find a way to get around that.