Spells' DC at epic levels

[Xeolan]

At epic levels, every characters' saves increase by 1 for every even-numbered levels beyond 20. With items and buffs, monsters and PC can achieve really high saves.

How are spell's DC supposed to follow the curve? It's already hard hitting an epic monster with a 9th level spell, and they must roll a 1 to fail their saving throw on a lower level spell.

On both the cast side and defender's side, they can buff to increase their ability score and get better stats, but the defender has access to items and innate epic bonus to their saves.

To follow a similar fashion, me and my friends house-ruled that spellcasters can use items to increase their spell DC (similar to a sword with a +1 enhancement bonus, we have stave that increase their spell DC ) and base spell DC is now 10 + ability modifier + 1/2 caster level (instead of spell level) That way even lower level spells can be somewhat useful.

Although we house-ruled it, i'd rather do it in a legit way. So am i missing something?

Personally, i know that using spells that ignore SR and/or doesn't allow a save would be a better choice, same with spells that indirectly damage a foe. But certainly there is a way for our fireballs and meteor swarm to be useful again?

[Elana]

Assuming Epic casting is out of the question, you have to resort to feats:

Improved Spell capacity to get some extra levels of casting
intensify spell to improve the damage of your meteor storm spell to more useful numbers
Enhance spell to get the dice limit up to something more fitting your level
Improved heighten spell so your dc is appropriate to the spell slots you can actually use
Epicspell focus as a trap option to improve the DC by 1 ;)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Epic levels are Rocket Tag (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocketTagGameplay), even more so than pre-epic levels. Whoever goes first is going to win, unless their opponent is outright immune to whatever they do.

Your spells are used to find out what you'll be fighting and what it's capable of, then to make yourself immune to whatever it can do before/during your turn, to win initiative via Nerveskitter/Sign + Moment of Prescience, and finally to automatically kill/destroy/defeat it in a single round. Plus giving yourself an escape mechanism in case you don't manage to annihilate it before it has a chance of annihilating you.

If you try to play the epic levels like it's the early/mid levels, you're doomed to fail. Epic level fights don't last beyond one or two rounds, so crowd controls are often a waste of effort. It's the epic level spellcaster's job to do everything the nonspellcasters can't. They need you to find out how to solve the current dilemma, or help the party reach the extraplanar stronghold, or solve the current dilemma if it doesn't involve dealing hp damage. You're there to bring the nonspellcasters back to life, or any number of other tasks that doesn't involve direct combat. It's also up to you to disjoin the opponent's buffs so the nonspellcasters are capable of damaging it. Plus you should be able to outright destroy one or more opponents with a single spell such as a metamagic-heavy Orb of Energy/Force or Wings of Flurry or similar.

If you really want to throw around status effects, use the Irresistible Spell metamagic feat. It's from the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide, which has the official D&D logo on the cover, so it's just as legit as Forgotten Realms or Eberron content. Note that a non-D&D book 'updated' it to make it simply increase the DC instead of removing the saving throw entirely, but the official D&D version still stands as printed. It's a +4 metamagic that requires a caster level of 7th+, Maximize Spell, and another metamagic feat that's identical to Fortify Spell in CA. An Irresistible Spell doesn't allow any saving throw, if it did then they don't get one any more. Use it with Destruction and a (Greater Metamagic Rod of) Chain Spell for hilarious shenanigans.

[atemu1234]

Epic levels are Rocket Tag (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocketTagGameplay), even more so than pre-epic levels. Whoever goes first is going to win, unless their opponent is outright immune to whatever they do.

Your spells are used to find out what you'll be fighting and what it's capable of, then to make yourself immune to whatever it can do before/during your turn, to win initiative via Nerveskitter/Sign + Moment of Prescience, and finally to automatically kill/destroy/defeat it in a single round. Plus giving yourself an escape mechanism in case you don't manage to annihilate it before it has a chance of annihilating you.

If you try to play the epic levels like it's the early/mid levels, you're doomed to fail. Epic level fights don't last beyond one or two rounds, so crowd controls are often a waste of effort. It's the epic level spellcaster's job to do everything the nonspellcasters can't. They need you to find out how to solve the current dilemma, or help the party reach the extraplanar stronghold, or solve the current dilemma if it doesn't involve dealing hp damage. You're there to bring the nonspellcasters back to life, or any number of other tasks that doesn't involve direct combat. It's also up to you to disjoin the opponent's buffs so the nonspellcasters are capable of damaging it. Plus you should be able to outright destroy one or more opponents with a single spell such as a metamagic-heavy Orb of Energy/Force or Wings of Flurry or similar.

If you really want to throw around status effects, use the Irresistible Spell metamagic feat. It's from the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide, which has the official D&D logo on the cover, so it's just as legit as Forgotten Realms or Eberron content. Note that a non-D&D book 'updated' it to make it simply increase the DC instead of removing the saving throw entirely, but the official D&D version still stands as printed. It's a +4 metamagic that requires a caster level of 7th+, Maximize Spell, and another metamagic feat that's identical to Fortify Spell in CA. An Irresistible Spell doesn't allow any saving throw, if it did then they don't get one any more. Use it with Destruction and a (Greater Metamagic Rod of) Chain Spell for hilarious shenanigans.

You are beautifully evil, my friend.

I am going to do this, and my players will hate me for it.

Also, the DC might seem to fail at scaling, but in reality between your increases to key ability score at that point, in addition to the five castings of WIsh I'm assuming you used at each ability score, with heighten spell and Improved Spell Capacity, you'll scale just fine, trust me. It won't be until ungodly high levels you won't have spells that'll affect things.