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shaggz076
2007-12-22, 05:17 AM
Well it has happened. My gaming group wishes to run an epic campaign. The ST is the kind of GM that pretty much will say yes to anything you want to play and he has a slightly skewed view of LA and HD. Mostly the fact that he takes LA into account but considers HD given by race as a bonus (Doesn't count towards ECL). As such I am left with a bit of a conundrum. Should I show him the inherent flaw to this thinking and make a low ECL/high HD character? Or should I go more simple?

My ideas so far are such (Barring the HD thing above):
Human Monk lv 25. I know it sounds boring but when combined with the right feats you get quite a scary character. Did you know that there is an epic level feat that makes your unarmed strike into a vorpal weapon? The other key point to this build would be the expanded Spring attack tree from PHBII combined with the epic boots that add +6 to dex and double your speed granting me a speed of 220 ft with a total of 3 attacks delivered somewhere in the middle.

The other concept I had was a human Sorc 2/Wiz 3/U.Magus 10/Abj Champ 5/Arc Mage 5. I haven't put too much into this yet except that once it is completed the total caster level for sorc/wiz would be 20/20 with spells of a 16th lv in each class. All abjuration spells would be double duration and spells like shield would add the abj champ class lv to the ac bonus granted by the spell making Shield equial to full plate armor w/o any drawbacks and a mere duration of 400 minutes or 6 hours 40 minutes.

Anyone have any input regarding the aforementioned builds?

Chronicled
2007-12-22, 05:36 AM
I've never been a fan of "teaching the DM a lesson." Things like that always seem to end poorly.

The first build sounds painful. As a horde of posters will point out, monks suck, and vorpal isn't as good a weapon quality as it seems.

The second build sounds okay. Not overpowered or anything, but decent enough at the level you'll be playing at. Missed the part about not getting 9th level spells. Yeah, you can do a lot better than that.

Bag_of_Holding
2007-12-22, 05:41 AM
Losing access to 9th level spell hurts; badly. Think of those endless things you can do with spells such as Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Wish, Ice Assassin etc etc!

Kaelik
2007-12-22, 05:42 AM
Wizard 25. Congratulations, you win Epic D&D.

Bag_of_Holding
2007-12-22, 05:43 AM
Cleric 25 is always a good choice too.

Nebo_
2007-12-22, 05:46 AM
The first build is awful.

The second build needs 9th level spells, so you're better off sacrificing one of the caster progressions a bit to make the other one better. Use that wizard practiced spellcaster trick.

To abuse the HD rules, take a look at giants - they have enormous stat bonuses and relatively low LA with heaps of racial HD to balance it out. Stone giant elders have a +6 LA and 14 racial HD normally, but they cast as 10th level sorcerers. So you're getting 4 free levels, +16 Str, +4 Dex, +8 Con, +2 Wis, +4 Cha (look at the side bar on elders), +11 natural armour, large size... the list goes on.

Bag_of_Holding
2007-12-22, 05:52 AM
You could, also, play a Sarrukh! It has 14 HD and LA of +8. Very, very cheesy.

Nebo_
2007-12-22, 05:53 AM
double post. Damned internet.

Talic
2007-12-22, 05:58 AM
Wiz 23/Archmage 2

Skill up the spellcraft, and get a couple of the tasty epic spells out there.

Alternately:

Wiz 5/Clr 5/Theurge15 (taken as: 3 wiz/3 Clr/10 Theurge/+2 Wiz/+2 Clr/+5 Theurge)

Use epic PrC progression, and use practiced spellcaster to get Caster level to 24 in each. You'll cast as a 20/20, but with caster level 21+ and 9th level spells in both, you'll get epic spellcasting from both sides of the fence.

Alternate builds could include Archivist or Cloistered Cleric. Now you have the best from both worlds. Advice: Get rods of quicken to increase spells per round, and see if you can get the DM to allow you to bypass the 1 quickened spell per round rule by expending a move action for the second. Most DM's won't have a problem with this. Also, Persist will be your friend here, with the amount of slots you have greatly exceeding your ability to cast.

Chronicled
2007-12-22, 06:02 AM
Advice: Get rods of quicken to increase spells per round, and see if you can get the DM to allow you to bypass the 1 quickened spell per round rule by expending a move action for the second. Most DM's won't have a problem with this.

There is also an Epic feat that allows multiple quickened spells per round (+1 per round each time you take the feat).

Kaelik
2007-12-22, 06:27 AM
If I recall correctly it becomes something like this in Epic.

Wizard 20 with lots of good feats.
Wizard 21 and up Epic Feats:
1) Auto Quickens (without level adjust) all 1-3 spells
2) Auto Quicken all 4-6
3) Auto Quicken all 7-9
4) More Quickens a round
5) More Quickens a round

After five epic feats you can cast 4 spell in a single round.

And that's not even getting into Epic Spellcasting.

That's why if you are going to go Epic (or start it) Wizard 20 is usually better then Wizard 5/PrC X/PrC Y. More epic feats which are better then any class abilities (for epic spellcasters only, Fighters are still screwed.)

The only exception is going for Theurge builds, since then you have more spells to churn out at 3-4 a round. But then you should go something like:

Wizard 3/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 2/Arcane Hierophant 10/Mystic Theurge 2/Epic Arcane Hierophant X.

Talic
2007-12-22, 06:36 AM
If I recall correctly it becomes something like this in Epic.

Wizard 20 with lots of good feats.
Wizard 21 and up Epic Feats:
1) Auto Quickens (without level adjust) all 1-3 spells
2) Auto Quicken all 4-6
3) Auto Quicken all 7-9
4) More Quickens a round
5) More Quickens a round

After five epic feats you can cast 4 spell in a single round.

And that's not even getting into Epic Spellcasting.

That's why if you are going to go Epic (or start it) Wizard 20 is usually better then Wizard 5/PrC X/PrC Y. More epic feats which are better then any class abilities (for epic spellcasters only, Fighters are still screwed.)

The only exception is going for Theurge builds, since then you have more spells to churn out at 3-4 a round. But then you should go something like:

Wizard 3/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 2/Arcane Hierophant 10/Mystic Theurge 2/Epic Arcane Hierophant X.

Epic feats are available at Character level 21, not class level 21. Thus, as soon as an epic character gets access to 9th level spells, he can go epic spellcasting. On my build, I got it at level 22, and level 21 can be used for Auto Quicken 1. In my opinion, there's rarely a need to go for 6th and 9th level spells with Auto Quicken. Use a rod for those, and spam the low level spells, perhaps metamagic'd into a higher slot (a maximized fireball is still a 3rd level spell. It's just not in a 3rd level SLOT). That way, you still get one power spell a round, a freebie lower spell, and with rods, the occasional 2nd power spell a round.

Chronicled
2007-12-22, 07:07 AM
Epic feats are available at Character level 21, not class level 21. Thus, as soon as an epic character gets access to 9th level spells, he can go epic spellcasting. On my build, I got it at level 22, and level 21 can be used for Auto Quicken 1. In my opinion, there's rarely a need to go for 6th and 9th level spells with Auto Quicken. Use a rod for those, and spam the low level spells, perhaps metamagic'd into a higher slot (a maximized fireball is still a 3rd level spell. It's just not in a 3rd level SLOT). That way, you still get one power spell a round, a freebie lower spell, and with rods, the occasional 2nd power spell a round.

He's referring to the bonus feats from the epic wizard progression, which IIRC you can only take levels in if you have 20 levels of wizard already. Epic feats are worth all the prestige class features you'd be giving up.

Talic
2007-12-22, 07:13 AM
He's referring to the bonus feats from the epic wizard progression, which IIRC you can only take levels in if you have 20 levels of wizard already. Epic feats are worth all the prestige class features you'd be giving up.

Hm. Possibly. Epic feats are great things to have. Still, It's tough to balance a couple epic feats (that you still need to qualify for, and some of those quicken feats have high prereqs) against 20 casting levels in another class.