SDF-1 Main Gun as Epic Spell?

[Skysaber]

Ok, so I've been hearing since forever that epic level spells are overpowered. Well, it just so happens that one of my campaigns has need of that. We've got a wizard who got transported to a D20 modern setting, and seeing anime gave him some ideas.

So, how would you stat up an epic level spell to duplicate the effects of the SDF-1 Macross, from the Macross/Robotech series? And could you get an exact match?

[AvatarVecna]

Ok, so I've been hearing since forever that epic level spells are overpowered. Well, it just so happens that one of my campaigns has need of that. We've got a wizard who got transported to a D20 modern setting, and seeing anime gave him some ideas.

So, how would you stat up an epic level spell to duplicate the effects of the SDF-1 Macross, from the Macross/Robotech series? And could you get an exact match?

Describe its effect as you understand it, and we'll see what we can do. :smallsmile:

[Skysaber]

Describe its effect as you understand it, and we'll see what we can do. :smallsmile:

In the episode in which it first appears, the SDF-1 fires its main gun through the side of a mountain, utterly disintegrating that section. The beam then proceeds to pass through roughly a thousand miles of ocean, boiling/disintegrating that, before emerging to strike two alien warships, described as a quarter million miles out in space, destroying both utterly. In the last shot of the two warships, the beam was still continuing on past them.

So my first thought was a line-based Disintegrate effect a few thousand feet wide and with utterly ridiculous range. When similar weapons are used by the alien armada against Earth, they leave craters that are dozens of miles across, but only about a mile deep. My best attempt to cover that apparent inconsistency is that Earth makes it saves vs Disintegrate very well, but there was still possibly a million D6 of secondary damage.

That is only a guess, of course.

[grarrrg]

Describe its effect as you understand it, and we'll see what we can do. :smallsmile:

You know the Deathstar superlaser that can explode a planet?
One step less than that.
(See Also: TV Tropes: Wave Motion Gun)

[Kalkra]

Seems like you want the Destroy and Energy seeds. (Destroy for effect, energy for making it a line instead of single-target). Note that all epic spells have a lot of conferring with your DM.

[Bronk]

So, how would you stat up an epic level spell to duplicate the effects of the SDF-1 Macross, from the Macross/Robotech series? And could you get an exact match?

I think the game with the best match would be... wait, I think it was either Robotech or Rifts. They just define being hit by the main gun of the SDF-1 as being instant death and destruction that you aren't allowed to resist (or was that the Yamamoto's Wave Motion Gun? Or both?). Whatever.

As an epic level spell in DnD though? I'd go with a Mythal base. That way, you can have it tied to a capstone, which would be the physical part of the weapon, and tie a disintegrate spell to it. That's a good start. After that, you'd need to ad hoc add some modifiers - factors and mitigating factors - to it to make the spell match the anime.

First, to power up the spell, I'd add ad hoc factors to apply feats to the spell, and larger modifiers for feats that the spell, though a weapon-like ray spell, might not qualify for. I'd go for 'Distant Shot' to increase the range indefinitely, 'Penetrating Shot' to turn the one target ray into a line effect that doesn't stop when it hits a target, 'Intensify Spell' for double max damage, the four 'Energy Admixture' feats plus an ad hoc fifth sonic version for even more damage, 'Irresistible Spell' to eliminate saving throws, and maybe even 'Transdimensional Spell' so that you get everything, even things trying to hide on the ethereal, etc.

However, now the spell is too good - it can fire itself every round at the least! I would now add mitigating factors to pare it back down.

First, a mitigating factor to make it necessary to manipulate the capstone/weapon to aim and fire the spell.

Another to decrease the mythal's area to just a bit bigger than the capstone.

Another to make it a war spell (Dragon 309). This would increase the width of the line effect, plus increase the casting time to at least a minute, which would line up with the anime much better. It would also force it to have a very expensive mandatory material component which I'd treat like magical ammunition that the mythal would need to function each time. The cost of the material component would be "Spell level X minimum caster level X 100 gold". For the metamagic feats I listed above, the spell would have a minimum caster level of 38. The minimum caster level would be at least 11 (so, best case scenario, 27500 gold per shot), but maybe more, since it's ultimately up to the DM, and you'd want to maximize damage at level 20... plus under normal circumstances you'd need to take 'Improved Spell Capacity' quite a few times to cast it yourself. So, at least this would also match up with the anime, since they needed protoculture to power their weapon.

Another to make the capstone/weapon glow increasingly brighter during the one minute casting/firing phase.

To finish it up, I'd add factors to increase the width of the line even further to whatever the final width is, then try to add other mitigating factors so that it's cast-able. I'd start by making the capstone/weapon arbitrarily large, and even need some kind of colossal piloted golem to actually move it around (just like a transformed SDF-1). Maybe leverage the War Spell angle some more so that you're allowed help to load, aim, and fire the weapon (like the crew of the SDF-1) and have that apply to the spellcraft check instead of concentration.

Edit: It would be simpler to go with the destruction spell, but you'd need to change the single target to a ray, then another one to alter the target from 'creature' to a 'creature or object'.

[Silvercrys]

Let's try this.

The Seeds:
We'll use Energy [Fire] as the base seed for the area, with Destruction as an additional seed for damage + disintegrate, as suggested. You can flip them to use Destruction's Fortitude save instead of Energy's Reflex, but it costs you a lot to change Destruction's area to a "bolt"/line... which ends up being a drop in the bucket, so hey, just recalculate if you prefer it that way.

This gives us a base Spellcraft DC of 19 (Energy seed) plus 29 (Destruction seed) = DC 48, and an effect of "5'x300' line, targets in the area take 10d6 Fire damage and 20d6 untyped damage, Reflex save for half. Targets reduced to 0 HP are dusted as the disintegrate spell."

For reference, changing the Destroy seed to a 5'x300' line is +12 DC alone, then adding the 10d6 damage on top is another +20, soooo yeah. And using pure fire damage for the same damage dice gives you +40, so this is basically the most efficient base we can use.

The target(s):
It's not a perfect conversion but a PL 7 Dreadnought has around 5,000 HP (http://www.d20resources.com/future.d20.srd/starships/starship.types/mediumweight.starship.subtypes/strike.cruiser.php). To get 5000 average damage out of d6's you need... around 1430d6. That's uh. A lot. This is going to be a very expensive spell to develop and it's going to need a truly ridiculous Spellcraft check to cast.

The damage:
So we need 1430d6 damage, and we have 30d6 to start. Gives us a nice, round 1400d6 to make up. Each d6 of damage added increases the DC by 2 for both the Destroy and Energy seeds, so let's go with a final of +2800 to the DC in additional damage. Our current DC is 2848, and we have a 300' line that deals 1430d6 damage, half of which is Fire and half of which is Untyped (though all of it except 10d6 could technically be untyped, arguably that would make Destruction the base seed here).

The range:
You said the ships were around 250,000 miles out, yes? Let's double it for kicks, since the beam seems to go through them some distance. 500,000 miles is 2.64 billion feet. For every 300 feet we add 4 to the DC, so +35,200,000 to the DC total, or currently DC 35,202,848.

But wait, our line is only 5' wide. Heh.

We have to add another 4 to the DC for every 5' wide we want to make it; I suppose a mile wide ought to suffice, adding an additional 21,100 to the DC and giving us our actual final total of needing to succeed at a DC 35,223,948 Spellcraft check to cast our Wave Motion Gun spell.

Mitigating Factors:
Succeeding at a Spellcraft DC of over 35 million may seem like a daunting task, but we mustn't give up. We're very, very close to owning our very own solar system-ranged wave motion gun. All we need is a few warm bodies -- for each warm body that can cast a 9th level spell, we can reduce the Spellcraft check by 17. So we actually need 2,071,997 warm bodies who can cast 9th level spells, to be exact. If you make the wave motion gun a ritual like this, that involves that many spellcasters expending 9th level slots, you can reduce the cost to develop and Spellcraft DC of the spell to 0.

Of course, where are you going to get 2.072 million some-odd 9th level spellcasters for your ritual? Well, I have two solutions.

The Wu Jen spell Body Outside Body can (under some interpretations) create an indefinite loop of copies of yourself if you can acquire it as a spell-like ability (like, say, through the Archmage prestige class). It specifically forbids your copies from casting spells, but assisting you in casting a spell is a bit of a grey area. Your other option is ye olde chain-gating Solars.

In either case, you spend 1 round creating your 2.072 million ritual participants, then on the next round they all ready an action to help you cast the Wave Motion Gun and you cast it at the bottom of the initiative count using an epic spell slot, annihilating whatever it is unless it's a space ship or something (and even then it needs a boatload of HP to survive the average damage of that hit).

The last bit where you use Leadership or some kind of loop to make a billion spellcasters that help you cast your epic spells as rituals is what makes them broken. Of course, usually if you don't allow rituals that way using the Epic Spellcasting System is almost impossible; until you're over level 50 or something you're better off just leaning on your 9th level spells.