theonetruenerd
2018-04-18, 05:15 AM
Alright so I haven't seen any posts about Unfettered Heroism Abuse yet, and I was unsure why not as to me it seems incredibly abusable, though I probably am missing something. If anyone spots something I've missed please let me know what it is and why.
So Unfettered Heroism is a spell from Races of Eberron which is a 5th level arcane spell available to Bards, Sorcerers and Wizards which is castable as an immediate action to gain 1 free temporary action point every round for the duration of the spell, which vanish at the end of each round.
For anyone who doesn't know what action points are, they are detailed in the ECS as well as UA as an alternative rule system to allow heroes to have an edge (like a hero pool) above other characters. They can be used for a variety of things, and there are also feats to improve their usage.
So while there are obviously many ways to abuse action points, the following seems to me to be very excessive and much more powerful than the Staff of Wishes abuse that I have seen previously.
First round, a Wizard can cast Unfettered Heroism, gaining a temporary action point and immediately spending it to gain back the spell slot they expended to cast Unfettered Heroism, using the standard "Spell Recall" ability action points have that prepared spellcasters can use. Next round, the wizard can cast Unfettered Heroism again, thus gaining 2 action points that round, one from the first casting and one from the casting they have just done, as nothing in the rules states that the action points do not stack with one another. The wizard then uses one of those to regain Unfettered Heroism once more, and loses the other one as they haven't spent it this turn. The wizard can obviously repeat this as many times as they have caster levels before the action points cap out (due to the spell having a duration of 1 round/level).
However, this is where the abuse gets interesting; as a "personal" range spell, Unfettered Heroism is open to Persisting (the origin of so much spell abuse, yes). However, it isnt a divine spell (without using Divine Bard anyway), and therefore cannot be persisted with Divine Metamagic, and is too high a level to Persist normally without Epic spellcasting, which is broken anyway.
However, action points can also be used to grant a character a feat for a round, and also to apply a metamagic feat to a spell you are casting without increasing spell level or casting time. Because Unfettered Heroism also allows you to spend more than 1 action point in a round, that bypasses the limit which normally would stop this. This means that when the wizard has 4 Unfettered Heroisms going, and are gaining 4 AP in a round, they can then persist an Unfettered Heroism for free:
1 action point to regain the spell slot by casting the spell
1 action point to gain extend spell for a round
1 action point to gain persist spell for a round
1 action point to apply persist spell to Unfettered Heroism for free
This means you now have a persistent Unfettered Heroism, and are gaining 5 Action points every round. Of course, because you have 5 Action points every round, you can now repeat this every round until your persisted Unfettered Heroism runs out, without worrying about spell slots as you can spend an action point every round to regain the spell slot you just extended. Assuming you have some way of not needing sleep (of which there are numerous), you can repeat this for 24 hours, until your first persistent Unfettered Heroism runs out. As there are 14,400 rounds in 24 hours, this means that by repeating this process, you can cap your action points at 14,400 action points gained (and lost) every round, as a constant value. Because casting Unfettered Heroism is an immediate action and regaining the spell slot is a free action, you are also free to do whatever you want to do. So at the cost of a 5th level spell slot, you can walk around with 14,400 action points every round without it ever stopping. (Assuming you have some way of ignoring the fatigue that comes with the end of the spell).
However, it doesn't cap there. Another “standard” usage of action points from Unearthed Arcana lets you spend action points to raise your caster level by 2 per point spent for a spell. This means you can now spend 14,399 action points every round on raising your caster level, to cast unfettered heroism again. Given enough time, this can continue ad infinitum, doubling your action points every cycle, and you can even do this in a time stop if you have access to that spell.
So with this spell you have now gained infinite action points every round, so with the action surge feat, you can now cast infinite spells per round (spending action points to gain each spell back to not run out of spell slots), and using action points all spells have all metamagic feats applied to them and with an infinite caster level and all feats in the game on your character.
The only thing I can see this wouldn't work is if it didn't stack with itself but surely because its not a bonus it would still stack?
So Unfettered Heroism is a spell from Races of Eberron which is a 5th level arcane spell available to Bards, Sorcerers and Wizards which is castable as an immediate action to gain 1 free temporary action point every round for the duration of the spell, which vanish at the end of each round.
For anyone who doesn't know what action points are, they are detailed in the ECS as well as UA as an alternative rule system to allow heroes to have an edge (like a hero pool) above other characters. They can be used for a variety of things, and there are also feats to improve their usage.
So while there are obviously many ways to abuse action points, the following seems to me to be very excessive and much more powerful than the Staff of Wishes abuse that I have seen previously.
First round, a Wizard can cast Unfettered Heroism, gaining a temporary action point and immediately spending it to gain back the spell slot they expended to cast Unfettered Heroism, using the standard "Spell Recall" ability action points have that prepared spellcasters can use. Next round, the wizard can cast Unfettered Heroism again, thus gaining 2 action points that round, one from the first casting and one from the casting they have just done, as nothing in the rules states that the action points do not stack with one another. The wizard then uses one of those to regain Unfettered Heroism once more, and loses the other one as they haven't spent it this turn. The wizard can obviously repeat this as many times as they have caster levels before the action points cap out (due to the spell having a duration of 1 round/level).
However, this is where the abuse gets interesting; as a "personal" range spell, Unfettered Heroism is open to Persisting (the origin of so much spell abuse, yes). However, it isnt a divine spell (without using Divine Bard anyway), and therefore cannot be persisted with Divine Metamagic, and is too high a level to Persist normally without Epic spellcasting, which is broken anyway.
However, action points can also be used to grant a character a feat for a round, and also to apply a metamagic feat to a spell you are casting without increasing spell level or casting time. Because Unfettered Heroism also allows you to spend more than 1 action point in a round, that bypasses the limit which normally would stop this. This means that when the wizard has 4 Unfettered Heroisms going, and are gaining 4 AP in a round, they can then persist an Unfettered Heroism for free:
1 action point to regain the spell slot by casting the spell
1 action point to gain extend spell for a round
1 action point to gain persist spell for a round
1 action point to apply persist spell to Unfettered Heroism for free
This means you now have a persistent Unfettered Heroism, and are gaining 5 Action points every round. Of course, because you have 5 Action points every round, you can now repeat this every round until your persisted Unfettered Heroism runs out, without worrying about spell slots as you can spend an action point every round to regain the spell slot you just extended. Assuming you have some way of not needing sleep (of which there are numerous), you can repeat this for 24 hours, until your first persistent Unfettered Heroism runs out. As there are 14,400 rounds in 24 hours, this means that by repeating this process, you can cap your action points at 14,400 action points gained (and lost) every round, as a constant value. Because casting Unfettered Heroism is an immediate action and regaining the spell slot is a free action, you are also free to do whatever you want to do. So at the cost of a 5th level spell slot, you can walk around with 14,400 action points every round without it ever stopping. (Assuming you have some way of ignoring the fatigue that comes with the end of the spell).
However, it doesn't cap there. Another “standard” usage of action points from Unearthed Arcana lets you spend action points to raise your caster level by 2 per point spent for a spell. This means you can now spend 14,399 action points every round on raising your caster level, to cast unfettered heroism again. Given enough time, this can continue ad infinitum, doubling your action points every cycle, and you can even do this in a time stop if you have access to that spell.
So with this spell you have now gained infinite action points every round, so with the action surge feat, you can now cast infinite spells per round (spending action points to gain each spell back to not run out of spell slots), and using action points all spells have all metamagic feats applied to them and with an infinite caster level and all feats in the game on your character.
The only thing I can see this wouldn't work is if it didn't stack with itself but surely because its not a bonus it would still stack?