Doctor Despair
2015-12-12, 04:56 PM
The Music of the Gods epic feat states that:
Benefit
Your bardic music can affect even those normally immune to mind-affecting effects. However, such creatures gain a +10 bonus on their Will saves to resist such effects.
Greater deities automatically maximize their rolls:
Always Maximize Roll
Greater deities (rank 16-20) automatically get the best result possible on any check, saving throw, attack roll, or damage roll. Calculate success, failure, or other effects accordingly. When a greater deity makes a check, attack, or save assume a 20 was rolled and calculate success or failure from there. A d20 should still be rolled and used to check for a threat of a critical hit. This quality means that greater deities never need the Maximize Spell feat, because their spells have maximum effect already.
The phrase "and calculate success or failure from there" makes me wonder if greater deities automatically pass their saves. Attack rolls state that a d20 should be rolled to see if a critical hit occurs; should deities roll a d20 to see if a critical save occurs? This would mean that a deity with a save of, say, 50, would not automatically pass a save of 100 against a bardic performance, but would instead need to roll to see if the save was a critical success.
If a deity would be subject to bardic music this way, what interesting things could you do if you managed to fascinate a deity? You'd have about 20 or fewer rounds to make an action that wasn't obviously threatening and, of course, after that it's a toss up whether the deity would just smite you for taking ranks in Perform: Shenanigans. Does the bardic Suggestion count as bardic music? If so, The Music of the Gods should allow it to bypass the typical deity's immunity to mind-affecting abilities. Would there be any way to buff the DC high enough to be of any use though?
If not... perhaps some sort of diplomacy or bluff would be of use here? Could a bard bluff or ply diplomacy on a deity who was listening raptly to the bard's performance? Or perhaps some usage of the Virtuoso's Persuasive Song could make more sense thematically. What could an epic bard reasonably convince a deity to do under these circumstances?
_________________________________________
Here's my shot at pumping Suggestion...
Races, Classes, and Templates
Unseeley Fey Domovi // Primordial Half-Giant (assuming DM has allowed level buy-off) gives a +12 to charisma
Minor Fey Bloodline (taken immediately to offset the XP loss as much as possible, making a very brutal start to this adventure -- but with Inspire Greatness +5, we can reach 30 ranks of Perform for the epic feat at 21.) gives +1
We'll keep a flat 20 levels in Bard for simplicity, but take our 21st level in Marshal for the Motivate Charisma bonus.
Base Stat
Off the cuff, I rolled a 17
Charisma Bonus
+5 inherent from Wishes/Tomes
+5 from Levels by 20
+1 from Aging (I'd imagine this character ages well as a half-fey)
+4 competency from Command shield
+12 from Leadership (gaining an artificer cohort to use an infusion to shift your +6 charisma items (which he made you) to give a luck and insight bonuses instead of an enhancement bonuses)
+8 enhancement from Nixie's Grace
+4 morale from Snowsong
+2 alchemic from chewing mertoran leaf
+4 profane bonus from Wand of Devil's Ego
+4 sacred bonus from Wand of Righteous Aura
+4 from Staff of Greater Visage of the Deity (either emulating the good alignment, or shifting to good over the course of 20 levels, to receive the benefits of the good half of the spell -- simplest just to be chaotic good, however)
+5 from Staff of Transfusion (maximized by creator, and with a willing target), putting us at 88, or a bonus of 39.
Ability Enhancer, with these spells along, puts us up to +6 for 94, or a bonus of 42
DC Bonus
The Unseeley Fey template lets us debuff a target within 5 feet by 42 again, setting a Mass Suggestion DC at 99.
Primordial template gives us a +1 to the DC of all SAs.
Song of the Heart gives a clean +1 as well.
Then, with Ability Focus, we can pump it to a cool 103. Corellon Larethain is the only deity who could shrug this one off, and even then, if we know we'll be performing for this fellow, we could have the artificer use the infusion-item trick to give a further +2 bonus with any one infusion, lofting us just out of his reach.
Spell Resistance
Bard ~21, plus 10 from Arcane mastery...
...plus 10 from Assay Spell Resistance...
...plus 10 from Melodic Casting and Truecasting...
... leaves us with 51 spell penetration for those pesky magic earplugs -- enough to make most deities to sit up and pay attention, and more if once this bard gets his hands on any sort of divine ranks.
_______________________________________
Pelor, as an example of a greater deity, has a will save of 86 to beat as standard; of course, he would receive a +10 to his saving throw by merit of the feat, but we surpass that 97 here.
Of course this is permitting the deities are unoptimized, but against optimized deities there isn't much chance of anyone doing anything to them. If we wanted to strike at that style of thinking, we'd want to either have the artificer make items of wish or take sublime chord to cast wish a few times to create a 9th level spell in this character's repertoire that allows you to make multiple suggestions within a certain time frame, consuming bardic music as per normal, but as a supernatural/extraordinary ability (bypassing spell resistance) with a save based on a perform check much like fascinate. However, that is a game of rocket-tag that no one wants to play.
Benefit
Your bardic music can affect even those normally immune to mind-affecting effects. However, such creatures gain a +10 bonus on their Will saves to resist such effects.
Greater deities automatically maximize their rolls:
Always Maximize Roll
Greater deities (rank 16-20) automatically get the best result possible on any check, saving throw, attack roll, or damage roll. Calculate success, failure, or other effects accordingly. When a greater deity makes a check, attack, or save assume a 20 was rolled and calculate success or failure from there. A d20 should still be rolled and used to check for a threat of a critical hit. This quality means that greater deities never need the Maximize Spell feat, because their spells have maximum effect already.
The phrase "and calculate success or failure from there" makes me wonder if greater deities automatically pass their saves. Attack rolls state that a d20 should be rolled to see if a critical hit occurs; should deities roll a d20 to see if a critical save occurs? This would mean that a deity with a save of, say, 50, would not automatically pass a save of 100 against a bardic performance, but would instead need to roll to see if the save was a critical success.
If a deity would be subject to bardic music this way, what interesting things could you do if you managed to fascinate a deity? You'd have about 20 or fewer rounds to make an action that wasn't obviously threatening and, of course, after that it's a toss up whether the deity would just smite you for taking ranks in Perform: Shenanigans. Does the bardic Suggestion count as bardic music? If so, The Music of the Gods should allow it to bypass the typical deity's immunity to mind-affecting abilities. Would there be any way to buff the DC high enough to be of any use though?
If not... perhaps some sort of diplomacy or bluff would be of use here? Could a bard bluff or ply diplomacy on a deity who was listening raptly to the bard's performance? Or perhaps some usage of the Virtuoso's Persuasive Song could make more sense thematically. What could an epic bard reasonably convince a deity to do under these circumstances?
_________________________________________
Here's my shot at pumping Suggestion...
Races, Classes, and Templates
Unseeley Fey Domovi // Primordial Half-Giant (assuming DM has allowed level buy-off) gives a +12 to charisma
Minor Fey Bloodline (taken immediately to offset the XP loss as much as possible, making a very brutal start to this adventure -- but with Inspire Greatness +5, we can reach 30 ranks of Perform for the epic feat at 21.) gives +1
We'll keep a flat 20 levels in Bard for simplicity, but take our 21st level in Marshal for the Motivate Charisma bonus.
Base Stat
Off the cuff, I rolled a 17
Charisma Bonus
+5 inherent from Wishes/Tomes
+5 from Levels by 20
+1 from Aging (I'd imagine this character ages well as a half-fey)
+4 competency from Command shield
+12 from Leadership (gaining an artificer cohort to use an infusion to shift your +6 charisma items (which he made you) to give a luck and insight bonuses instead of an enhancement bonuses)
+8 enhancement from Nixie's Grace
+4 morale from Snowsong
+2 alchemic from chewing mertoran leaf
+4 profane bonus from Wand of Devil's Ego
+4 sacred bonus from Wand of Righteous Aura
+4 from Staff of Greater Visage of the Deity (either emulating the good alignment, or shifting to good over the course of 20 levels, to receive the benefits of the good half of the spell -- simplest just to be chaotic good, however)
+5 from Staff of Transfusion (maximized by creator, and with a willing target), putting us at 88, or a bonus of 39.
Ability Enhancer, with these spells along, puts us up to +6 for 94, or a bonus of 42
DC Bonus
The Unseeley Fey template lets us debuff a target within 5 feet by 42 again, setting a Mass Suggestion DC at 99.
Primordial template gives us a +1 to the DC of all SAs.
Song of the Heart gives a clean +1 as well.
Then, with Ability Focus, we can pump it to a cool 103. Corellon Larethain is the only deity who could shrug this one off, and even then, if we know we'll be performing for this fellow, we could have the artificer use the infusion-item trick to give a further +2 bonus with any one infusion, lofting us just out of his reach.
Spell Resistance
Bard ~21, plus 10 from Arcane mastery...
...plus 10 from Assay Spell Resistance...
...plus 10 from Melodic Casting and Truecasting...
... leaves us with 51 spell penetration for those pesky magic earplugs -- enough to make most deities to sit up and pay attention, and more if once this bard gets his hands on any sort of divine ranks.
_______________________________________
Pelor, as an example of a greater deity, has a will save of 86 to beat as standard; of course, he would receive a +10 to his saving throw by merit of the feat, but we surpass that 97 here.
Of course this is permitting the deities are unoptimized, but against optimized deities there isn't much chance of anyone doing anything to them. If we wanted to strike at that style of thinking, we'd want to either have the artificer make items of wish or take sublime chord to cast wish a few times to create a 9th level spell in this character's repertoire that allows you to make multiple suggestions within a certain time frame, consuming bardic music as per normal, but as a supernatural/extraordinary ability (bypassing spell resistance) with a save based on a perform check much like fascinate. However, that is a game of rocket-tag that no one wants to play.