Best epic fixes/houserules

[Biggus]

I was just made aware of this (https://www.enworld.org/threads/epic-magic-big-thread.172905/), which is one of the best attempts at rewriting epic spells I've seen. It's apparently been around since 2006, but I've somehow never seen it before despite reading up on epic stuff for nearly 20 years. It made me wonder what else is out there which I've somehow missed. So please direct me to your favourite non-standard epic material, whether houserules and fixes, third party material, homebrew or whatever, including your own if you have any :)

I'm especially interested in stuff you've actually seen used in a game and your experience of how well it worked, but also in stuff which you haven't used but looks like a good idea.

[Crake]

E6

10chars

[redking]

Ban: multispell (multipower), improved metamagic (metapsionics).

Change: Automatic Quicken Spell and it’s Silent and Stilled brothers update to Complete Arcane version (often overlooked) and additionally add a limitation of uses per day = relevant ability modifier.

Additional Participants in a Ritual
With the rules as they are written in ELH, adding participants to the ritual component of epic casting or manifesting could result in massive (and overpowered) mitigating factor reductions to epic spells and powers. With the availability of followers there could potentially have no practical limit to the way they could abuse this. Therefore, additional participants in a ritual can only mitigate the DC of the epic spell or power a maximum of twice the caster’s ranks in the Spellcraft (or Psicraft). This represents the fact that this extra energy is difficult to control and only so much can be beneficially used by the epic caster or manifester. Any participant in an epic ritual must contribute an epic spell slot which provides a mitigating factor -19 DC. Non-epic spell or power slots cannot be used as mitigating factors. A creature contributing to the ritual in this manner may also contribute XP burn, but not exceeding the limitations detailed above.

Special I: Set all minimum epic spell DCs to the minimum allowable by the epic spell seeds used. All the example epic spells in the ELH are not mitigated below the spell DCs of the seeds themselves. For example, if you use the banish seed, then the minimum Spellcraft DC will be 27 DC, no matter how much you attempt to mitigate it. If there are two seeds, then your minimum Spellcraft DC will be the sum of both seeds.

Special II: Do not allow epic spells to duplicate high level effects that normally have an XP cost. For example, wish allows for increasing of ability scores for 5000 XP, but the fortify seed allows you to do that for free. Instead, ensure that the fortify seed also costs 5000 XP when used in this specific manner.

Special III: Focus on the final DC instead of the construction. You can always add an ad hoc factor that does what you want it to. Just ensure that the final DC is fair.

[Dante & Vergil]

There's the Librim Eternia: Tome of Epic Prestige (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?247756-Librim-Eternia-Tome-of-Epic-Prestige-(Completed)) which gives 50+ Epic Level Prestige Classes that fit different Class Builds. It does give Epic Magic to everyone, so I you don't like that, it's really easy to ignore, or to update it to your heart's content.

[Biggus]

Ban: multispell (multipower), improved metamagic (metapsionics).

Change: Automatic Quicken Spell and it’s Silent and Stilled brothers update to Complete Arcane version (often overlooked) and additionally add a limitation of uses per day = relevant ability modifier.

Additional Participants in a Ritual
With the rules as they are written in ELH, adding participants to the ritual component of epic casting or manifesting could result in massive (and overpowered) mitigating factor reductions to epic spells and powers. With the availability of followers there could potentially have no practical limit to the way they could abuse this. Therefore, additional participants in a ritual can only mitigate the DC of the epic spell or power a maximum of twice the caster’s ranks in the Spellcraft (or Psicraft). This represents the fact that this extra energy is difficult to control and only so much can be beneficially used by the epic caster or manifester. Any participant in an epic ritual must contribute an epic spell slot which provides a mitigating factor -19 DC. Non-epic spell or power slots cannot be used as mitigating factors. A creature contributing to the ritual in this manner may also contribute XP burn, but not exceeding the limitations detailed above.

Special I: Set all minimum epic spell DCs to the minimum allowable by the epic spell seeds used. All the example epic spells in the ELH are not mitigated below the spell DCs of the seeds themselves. For example, if you use the banish seed, then the minimum Spellcraft DC will be 27 DC, no matter how much you attempt to mitigate it. If there are two seeds, then your minimum Spellcraft DC will be the sum of both seeds.

Special II: Do not allow epic spells to duplicate high level effects that normally have an XP cost. For example, wish allows for increasing of ability scores for 5000 XP, but the fortify seed allows you to do that for free. Instead, ensure that the fortify seed also costs 5000 XP when used in this specific manner.

Special III: Focus on the final DC instead of the construction. You can always add an ad hoc factor that does what you want it to. Just ensure that the final DC is fair.

Thank you for your response and sorry it's taken me so long to reply; I wasn't well this week, and when I finally did get round to writing a reply I accidentally deleted it. Anyway:

Agreed on Multispell and Improved Metamagic. I use heavily houseruled versions rather than banning them entirely, but they're clearly broken as written.

I still don't understand why you think Automatic Still and Silent Spell are brokenly good, could you explain?

Agreed that limits need placing on ritual casting and minimum Spellcraft DCs.

I'd not really thought about the Fortify seed, but if you set a minimum Spellcraft DC (as I do) you've already spent at least 8,000XP and 200,000GP to develop the spell, you're not really getting inherent bonuses for free.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Focus on the final DC instead of the construction"?


There's the Librim Eternia: Tome of Epic Prestige (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?247756-Librim-Eternia-Tome-of-Epic-Prestige-(Completed)) which gives 50+ Epic Level Prestige Classes that fit different Class Builds. It does give Epic Magic to everyone, so I you don't like that, it's really easy to ignore, or to update it to your heart's content.

Ooh, I'll have a look at those, thank you.

[AvatarVecna]

If you use Librim Eternia, recommend banning Grand Creator or maybe just dialing it back. Most of the stuff in LE is big numbers or interesting abilities that, frankly, don't have enough digits to be broken. Most of them can "break the game" if you put effort into doing so, but short of not using it, Wondercraft is difficult to have without threatening the game balance.

[Morphic tide]

If you use Librim Eternia, recommend banning Grand Creator or maybe just dialing it back. Most of the stuff in LE is big numbers or interesting abilities that, frankly, don't have enough digits to be broken. Most of them can "break the game" if you put effort into doing so, but short of not using it, Wondercraft is difficult to have without threatening the game balance.
Just refactor Wondercraft to a WBL fraction, Epic WBL is explicitly formulaic for unbounded scaling purposes so you CAN fairly straightforwardly peg things to it.