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rockdeworld
2008-06-13, 02:30 AM
So I was thinking...

I don't play epic level campaigns much (read: ever), but I was thinking about creating spells and how simple it could be to disable enemies/forces/armies.

I've heard DnD breaks down after 20th level, I don't need more of that. I'm just interested in seeing what some non-horribly-complex (i.e. world-destruction/creation) spells can do when cast in epic campaigns.

For example, a spell I just made up that can be cast by any level 21 wizard, repeatedly:

Sense Prison
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Spellcraft DC: 0
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 300 ft.
Target: One living creature
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
To Develop: 0 gp; 0 days; 0 XP. Seed: Afflict (DC 14). Factors: Affect sight (+2 DC), hearing (+2 DC), and blindsight (+2 DC), Permanent (x5 DC). Mitigating Factors: Burn 10,000 XP (-100 DC).

Target creature permanently receives a -2 morale penalty on attack rolls, checks, and saving throws. In addition, that creature permanently loses all sense of sight (in any form), and hearing.

XP Cost: 10,000 XP


Seems simple and like it might work. If not feel free to correct me. Nevetheless, what are some other examples of simple, powerful epic spells?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-13, 06:39 AM
Giving an epic spell such a low DC is counter-productive. You literally never want to give them a DC less than 34 (since everyone who can cast epic spells has 24 ranks in Spellcraft, and you can take 10).

Well, I suppose if you were playing a cleric or druid with Int less than 10... but even then DC 30 would be the lowest.

3,000 XP is a big difference.

nargbop
2008-06-13, 07:07 AM
Heh, it's early in the morning. I started reading the spell and thought you cast it on Bob and he said "Hey, there's a prison!"

Some critiques :
Good basic idea for a spell. This sort of thing is appropriate to use against enemy commanders or front-liners.
You spell allows Will saves, and all of your enemies at epic level will have significant Will saves or be immune to mind effects. Thus, heighten the save DC significantly (I believe it's +2 Spellcraft for +1 save DC) and don't cast it on monsters immune to it. Since immunity to mind effects is cheap for epic characters, you probably want to make an ad-hoc DC increase +10 to make it penetrate immunity to mind effects.
Burn 10 000 XP ? Way too much. Burn XP only because you need to bring the Spellcraft DC down to reasonable levels (30s or 40s for new epic casters). Use Backlash instead in this case.

Douglas
2008-06-13, 10:36 AM
Use Backlash instead in this case.
Not unless you've houseruled backlash for non-instantaneous spells in your game. By RAW, you take backlash damage once per round for the spell's entire duration. With this being a permanent spell, that means until it gets dispelled. And this is backlash damage - not preventable or redirectable by any means, and if you die from it you lose an extra level when resurrected. Even True Resurrection costs you a level if you died from backlash. So, you die, probably within a few minutes, and any resurrection costs you at least one level and must be repeated a few minutes later. You're on the fast track to level 1, con 0, and permanent death.

Chronos
2008-06-13, 02:19 PM
Why would I want to burn a ton of XP and an epic slot to give someone a save or be inconvenienced by something that leaves them still active and can be mostly fixed by a 2nd-level spell or completely fixed by a 4th, when I can instead burn an ordininary spell slot with no extra cost at all, to make them save or be killed?

Fizban
2008-06-13, 05:04 PM
Well, if you want to replace epic spellcasting, I suggest the following thread: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37410 . I haven't used them myself, but they look pretty good. As for epic spell crafting, I hear it's not that bad if the players exercise restraint, and if you know what you want before you start.

Jack_Simth
2008-06-13, 06:17 PM
Giving an epic spell such a low DC is counter-productive. You literally never want to give them a DC less than 34 (since everyone who can cast epic spells has 24 ranks in Spellcraft, and you can take 10).

Well, I suppose if you were playing a cleric or druid with Int less than 10... but even then DC 30 would be the lowest.

3,000 XP is a big difference.The GP, XP, and time cost of an Epic spell is based on the spellcraft DC. The way things are laid out, a spellcraft DC 0 spell costs no XP, GP, or time to research.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-13, 06:35 PM
The GP, XP, and time cost of an Epic spell is based on the spellcraft DC. The way things are laid out, a spellcraft DC 0 spell costs no XP, GP, or time to research.

Drat, I missed that.

Okay, if you're a cheapskate in a hurry, that's handy.

Jack_Simth
2008-06-13, 07:35 PM
Drat, I missed that.

Okay, if you're a cheapskate in a hurry, that's handy.
It's also handy if you need to do Something Absurdly Difficult (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=791074#post791074).

rockdeworld
2008-06-14, 06:26 AM
Drat, I missed that.

Okay, if you're a cheapskate in a hurry, that's handy.
I like to think of it as an "Epic Cantrip."

I checked the other thread, but it didn't really have any interesting spells. Anyone have examples of epic spells they've used in campaigns?

Jack_Simth
2008-06-14, 09:06 AM
I like to think of it as an "Epic Cantrip."

I checked the other thread, but it didn't really have any interesting spells. Anyone have examples of epic spells they've used in campaigns?
Of course there aren't any interesting spells in there - it was a challenge to demonstrate that Epic Spellcasting as written is very, very broken.

What you take from that is that you can do absurd things - Fortify and Armor for Permanent buffs, Conjure to break economies, and so on. And you can arrange to bring arbitrarily high DC's down to 0.

rockdeworld
2008-06-14, 02:11 PM
Oh, I didn't mean the thread you posted in - I was talking about the one with epic feats as a substitution for epic magic by Belial the Leveler.

Thanks to you and Tippy, I think I understand the basis of epic spellcasting:
1) At level 21, get Epic Spellcasting
2) Leave your party for a year.
3) Go to a mage academy/guild/place, get some buddies to donate spell slots, and start summoning Couatls.
4) Eventually just use Couatls to summon more Couatls.
5) Start using Couatls to summon Solars.
6) Start using Solars to summon Solars.
7) After a year or so, do whatever you want. Animate Planet, Origin of Species, etc.

That sounds mostly theoretical though. I can't imagine a DM allowing that kind of cheese in an actual game. Do people playing epic campaigns normally just use the spells provided in the ELH?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-14, 02:57 PM
I think Epic Spellcasting works well for pretty much one thing, and one thing only: Faerūnian Elven High magic used to create mythals (rules in Lost Empires of Faerūn). You're supposed to gather a big bunch of spellcasters to work together on those, even according to the old fluff.

hamishspence
2008-06-14, 03:22 PM
Yes. There really should have been a lower limit, a rule that no matter what, you have to spend SOME XP and money and time.

Some of the sample spells in other books do not apply mitigating factors correctly, or interpret seeds too liberally (Ice Age, from Frostburn, really should not use the Transform seed, and Proctiv's Move Mountain, from Players Guide to Faerun, doesn't add up)

nargbop
2008-06-15, 11:03 PM
Not unless you've houseruled backlash for non-instantaneous spells in your game. By RAW, you take backlash damage once per round for the spell's entire duration... Oops. I mistakenly thought it was a one-time dealio. OK, I guess it makes sense the way it's written, so that backlash is only a good idea in non-emergency situations.

The GP, XP, and time cost of an Epic spell is based on the spellcraft DC. The way things are laid out, a spellcraft DC 0 spell costs no XP, GP, or time to research. Oh. OH. That's what this thread is for! An "easy" spell for an epic spellcaster to make and cast. Problem : you're still very very limited in the number of epic spells you can cast per day. 1/10 of Knowledge(arcana) = number of wizard's epic spell slots per day. So what I'm saying now is, it's a waste of time to do something less than awesome with this spell. I agree with hamishspence that there should be a lower limit to the difficulty of an epic spell.

Castable spell with similar effects (24th level wizard can reliably hit this Spellcraft):
Sensual Ravage
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Spellcraft DC: 45
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 300 ft.
Target: One living creature
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
To Develop: 405,000 gp; 9 days; 16,200 XP. Seed: Afflict (DC 14). Factors: Affect sight (+2 DC), affect hearing (+2 DC), and affect blindsight (+2 DC), Permanent (x5 DC). Mitigating Factors: Burn 5,500 XP (-55 DC).

Target creature permanently receives a -2 morale penalty on attack rolls, checks, and saving throws. In addition, that creature permanently loses all sense of sight (in any form), and hearing.

XP Cost: 5,500 XP

nargbop
2008-06-15, 11:07 PM
Grr! That x5 for Permanent really bites for applying the suggestions I made earlier! I was going to make more, like +10 for "only wish can undo one of blindness, deafness, and lost sense of touch". An alternative is to NOT make this a battle-cast spell, but rather increase the range DRAMATICALLY and have some helper wizards to defray the DC.

monty
2008-06-15, 11:10 PM
Summon an arbitrary number of Solars to make it give -10^80 to everything forever. And make it completely irreversible.

rockdeworld
2008-06-16, 01:56 AM
"Simple" just died.

Jack_Simth
2008-06-16, 06:09 AM
Oops. I mistakenly thought it was a one-time dealio. OK, I guess it makes sense the way it's written, so that backlash is only a good idea in non-emergency situations.

Mostly, it means backlash isn't a good idea for anything other than Instant spells.

Oh. OH. That's what this thread is for! An "easy" spell for an epic spellcaster to make and cast. Problem : you're still very very limited in the number of epic spells you can cast per day. 1/10 of Knowledge(arcana) = number of wizard's epic spell slots per day. So what I'm saying now is, it's a waste of time to do something less than awesome with this spell.
Permanent Personal Buffs. You cast them on a day when you're not worried about needing your Epic spell slots. And you mitigate them down to nothing with time and extra spellcasters, so you can do a LOT.

I agree with hamishspence that there should be a lower limit to the difficulty of an epic spell.

Oh, definitely. Final Spellcraft DC's of 0 is where most Epic cheese comes from. For the most part, any one of the following house-rules unbreaks epic casting:
1) Gold costs of Epic spells are based on the pre-mitigation Spellcraft DC, not the post-mitigation spellcraft DC.
2) XP costs of Epic spells are based on the pre-mitigation Spellcraft DC, not the post-mitigation spellcraft DC.
3) The spellcraft DC of an Epic spell cannot be reduced below X% of the pre-mitigation spellcraft DC (where X is some number between about 20 and 50).



Castable spell with similar effects (24th level wizard can reliably hit this Spellcraft):
Sensual Ravage
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Spellcraft DC: 45
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 300 ft.
Target: One living creature
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
To Develop: 405,000 gp; 9 days; 16,200 XP. Seed: Afflict (DC 14). Factors: Affect sight (+2 DC), affect hearing (+2 DC), and affect blindsight (+2 DC), Permanent (x5 DC). Mitigating Factors: Burn 5,500 XP (-55 DC).

Target creature permanently receives a -2 morale penalty on attack rolls, checks, and saving throws. In addition, that creature permanently loses all sense of sight (in any form), and hearing.

XP Cost: 5,500 XP
Eh, at that amount of DC done away with, you could just kill them, or Transform them into something harmless.

namo
2008-06-16, 06:35 AM
I think Epic Spellcasting works well for pretty much one thing, and one thing only: Faerūnian Elven High magic used to create mythals (rules in Lost Empires of Faerūn). You're supposed to gather a big bunch of spellcasters to work together on those, even according to the old fluff.

Unfortunately the mythal seed is probably the most broken one...

Another alternate epic spellcasting system is the feanmerc one : it originated on Dicefreaks and I think it's been playtested more than Belial's (not that Belial's system looks bad). See the pdfs in this thread (http://dicefreaks.forumz.cc/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=266).

Emperor Tippy
2008-06-16, 07:02 AM
Simple Epic spells?

Those are easy. Just pick whatever you want, then decide what DC you want it at. Anything with a DC up to 218 can be mitigated to 0 with nothing but time. Thats a DC of 43 before increasing the duration to permanent.

A permanent ward against a single 9th level spell has a DC of 30 before permanency. That leaves another 13 points of DC to mess around with. Make it suppressible and its 11 points left. That let's you either add in another spell of 5th level or lower or get 8 points of protection against piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage.

With the armor seed you can get a permanent armor bonus of +14. And a natural armor bonus of +14 as well. That is better armor than +5 full plate.

With the Conceal seed you can get suppressible, permanent, greater invisible plus protection from all divinations that can't beat you on a caster level check (that you get a +7 bonus to). I still recommend Mindblank but extra protection is always nice.

The Fortify seed can give you permanent SR 29, not great but better than nothing.

The Reveal seed can give you permanent True Seeing with a range of 1,080 feet.

Those are all Simple Epic Spells and they take nothing but time. Which you can give yourself with the Fortify seed if you don't just use a custom plane.

rockdeworld
2008-06-16, 09:10 PM
Wow. Awesome Tippy. What do you mean by "custom plane" though? Is it possible to create a plane like the Planar Sheperd's Dal Quor?

Edit: Or Dollurh, which is timeless?

@nargbop: You may want to check the definition of "sensual" before you name your spells >.<

Collin152
2008-06-16, 09:32 PM
Sensual Ravage


You mean Sensory Ravaging.
Yes, yes you do.

Chronos
2008-06-17, 01:05 AM
Wow. Awesome Tippy. What do you mean by "custom plane" though? Is it possible to create a plane like the Planar Sheperd's Dal Quor?Genesis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/genesis.htm). 9th-level spell, found in the epic handbook. It lets you create your own demiplane, and it's presumed that you can set all of the planar traits any way you want. It's got a steep XP cost, but that's OK, since you only need to cast it once or twice.

rockdeworld
2008-06-17, 02:22 AM
Wow again. Cheese.

Spend 1 week casting Genesis, make it timeless, go in, spend as much time as needed preparing epic spells, and come out again instantaneously.

Emperor Tippy
2008-06-17, 02:38 AM
Yep

Oh, if you want some more fun.

Step 1: Buy 20 scrolls of gate (176,500 GP)
Step 2: Shapechange into a Choker
Step 3: Use all 20 scrolls of gate (takes 10 rounds)
Step 4: Have each Solar contribute 1 9th level spell slot to Ritual casting an epic spell.
Step 5: Have each Solar Wish you up a Scroll of Gate.

You have to make the spell a 1 action casting time but that still leaves you with 240 points of mitigation. So if you ever get in trouble you can run off an epic buff for the situation in under 90 seconds.

hamishspence
2008-06-17, 05:59 AM
Might recommend backdating Expanded Psionics Handbook Genesis rules to the arcane spell: fixes the limits on what the spell can do quite well. Or the planewalker from Manual of the planes. Or make reference to Deities and Demigods: the limits on a deities divine realm. Timeless planes are not something even the gods can normally do.

as written, the spell says: atmosphere, water, temp, general shape. Says nothing about time. I think epic players need to think in the: "If it doesn't say I can do it, I can't" paradigm rather than vice versa.