Epic spells and spellcraft.

[Korivan]

Ok, I've read up on the section in the epic level handbook a few times and still coming up short. How do you boost your spellcraft high enough to cast most of these spells. I figure at level 30 you should have 33 ranks. Theres +2 on an item from the MIC I think, +2 for skill focus, 18? for INT(human with starting 18 INT can have like 30-40 INT by level 30. I think it would be 18+7(inherent)+6(item for INT)+5(those cool books)+20(natural 20 roll). So thats...2+2+33+20+18=75.

Is there anything im missing on trying to speed up spellcraft or does everyone have to wait till 40+levels to cast anything near 100DC, and is anything higher then that in the ELH right out?

[Starbuck_II]

Ok, I've read up on the section in the epic level handbook a few times and still coming up short. How do you boost your spellcraft high enough to cast most of these spells. I figure at level 30 you should have 33 ranks. Theres +2 on an item from the MIC I think, +2 for skill focus, 18? for INT(human with starting 18 INT can have like 30-40 INT by level 30. I think it would be 18+7(inherent)+6(item for INT)+5(those cool books)+20(natural 20 roll). So thats...2+2+33+20+18=75.

Is there anything im missing on trying to speed up spellcraft or does everyone have to wait till 40+levels to cast anything near 100DC, and is anything higher then that in the ELH right out?

Don't forget you can use multiple minions/gates/summons to offer spells to lower DC for spells created.

The best idea might be creating a boosting epic spell that boost Spellcraft checks. Even one that lasts all day helps.

[BobVosh]

Skill bonus (competence) Bonus squared × 100 gp

90000 for a +30 item to spellcraft.

Mitigate through the various epic spell rules.

Ritual cast with groups.

Make an epic spell for + to spellcraft. Remember glibness is +30 to diplocheese for a 2nd (?) level spell.

[bosssmiley]

Take a porcelain vase.
Throw it at a hard surface.
Look at the hundreds upon hundreds of tiny fragments carefully, and try to make sense of them.
The Epic Casting system in the Epic Joke Book is more broken than that.

Trying to make Epic Casting work as written will break your game. For the sake of your sanity use any other 'epic' casting system offered for D&D (2E's quest spells, Birthright's realm magic, FR's Netheril: Empire of Magic system, even Dark Sun's 10th level psionic enchantments). All of these are superior to epic spreadsheet abuse.

[Gaiyamato]

Skill focus Feat
Epic Skill Focus Feat
Precocious Aprentice Feat
Magical Aptitude Feat
Knowledge Arcana 5+ Synergy

Those alone give you +46 With an INT of only 18 and 20 Ranks in spellcraft.
That gives you a shot at anything up to DC 66.

At level 30 with A Deep Imaskari starting with Int 18 base (before racial mod) adding all stat bonuses to INT and not counting any magic items you can get +60 giving you a shot at anything up to DC 80.

Aid Another gives +2 per person.

For items just craft something with an Int bonus.

[Cyclocone]

Don't forget, you can apply Moment of Presience to Spellcraft checks as well.

But as bosssmiley pointed out, the ELH is a bad joke. It's got less balance than Humpty Dumpty, and it doesn't help that it's also pretty much a separate game that got stitched on top of the 3e rules. It's like playing an Investigator and then randomly dualclassing to Jedi Master.

If you want the 'epic' feel, go get Netherill: Empire of Magic instead.

[JeenLeen]

In a party of four, I wanted to create an epic mage armor. With each party member contributing a level 5 or so spell, using the +10 spellcraft rod and 2000 xp-contributing rod from the Epic Handbook, I could easily make a spell of +40 AC to all members (well, 2 members lasting 2 days, so I cast it every other day to cover the party).

Rituals, if dependable, seem to break epic spellcraft checks. If you are serious heros with reputation, it's even reasonable in-character that you could get a hundred level 1 casters to contribute level 1 spells, giving you a mitigating factor of 100 spellcraft.

DM ended up banning Armor and Fortify seeds, the above rods, and limiting rituals to one contributor.

[mregecko]

Don't forget, you can apply Moment of Presience to Spellcraft checks as well.

Pet peeve of mine...

You cannot use Moment of Presience in this occasion. The exact wording of MoP:

This spell grants you an insight bonus equal to your caster level (maximum +25) on any single attack roll, opposed ability or skill check, or saving throw.

Spellcraft checks are not opposed skill checks. And as a side note, another pet peeve of mine, neither is Initiative an opposed ability check:

At the start of a battle, each combatant makes an initiative check. An initiative check is a Dexterity check.

So, yeah... MoP can't be used there. Tada!

-- Gecko

[Gaiyamato]

Pet peeve of mine...

You cannot use Moment of Presience in this occasion. The exact wording of MoP:



Spellcraft checks are not opposed skill checks. And as a side note, another pet peeve of mine, neither is Initiative an opposed ability check:



So, yeah... MoP can't be used there. Tada!

-- Gecko

You .. read that completely wrong.
There is an "or" there for a reason.

It is an opposed ability check or a skill of check of any sort.
Not an opposed skill check. lol.

So it does in fact work.

[Bracket]

You .. read that completely wrong.
There is an "or" there for a reason.

It is an opposed ability check or a skill of check of any sort.
Not an opposed skill check. lol.

So it does in fact work.

Actually, since those two aren't separated by commas, I'm guessing that it meant opposed ability check or opposed skill check.

[Gaiyamato]

Well using the normal rules of the english langauge it would mean:

This spell grants you an insight bonus equal to your caster level
(maximum +25) on any single attack roll, opposed ability check, skill check,
or saving throw.

It is a way of saving repeating yourself more than you are already. Writers use it all the time.

[Kaiyanwang]

Me and my players managed to mitigate it in two ways:

- Ritual Casting.

- XP burning + XP substituting reagents (DMG). I created an epic quest involving the retrieving of epic forges and magic stones able to periodically create such reagents.

The system does not work as it is, anyway. Or you take it like a true gentleman and as a way to create pieces of art (but swearing at the edge of the houserule, see above) or drop it.

In that way, we had fun anyway. "Meteora", "FFForza" e "Più in là c'è il Muro", "Ressare proprio Tutti", "Res in combat così la Druida si rende utile", "Abbraccio del Maestro", "Drago di Fulmini" and "La cura quilla Cottoia" were great spells, and some pieces of Art, too.

[mcl01]

This spell grants you an insight bonus equal to your caster level (maximum +25) on any single attack roll, opposed ability or skill check, or saving throw.

Note, there is not a comma there, but there is a comma after. In conventional english grammar, only the last comma in a list may be omitted, and even in this quote, it was not. Since there is no comma there, we should treat the entire bolded portion as a single phrase, not two separate items.

Also, notice there are two "or"s. Meaning there are two lists. The "opposed ability or skill check" is a sublist of the greater list, meaning the opposed adjective applies to both ability and skill checks.

[kamikasei]

It's somewhat ambiguous, but I'd definitely read it as "opposed (ability OR skill) check". Since the "check" is applying backwards to both ability and skill, the "opposed" should apply forwards to both, too. (Otherwise I'd put it as "opposed ability or any skill check".)

[Douglas]

There is no valid parsing of that phrase that reads "'opposed ability check' or 'skill check'". The two options are "'opposed ability check' or 'opposed skill check'" and "'opposed ability' or 'skill check'". The latter makes no sense (what's an 'opposed ability' in D&D rules?), so it must be the former.

"Opposed" modifies "check", and therefore applies to everything that that occurrence of "check" does.

[Bracket]

Well using the normal rules of the english langauge it would mean:

This spell grants you an insight bonus equal to your caster level
(maximum +25) on any single attack roll, opposed ability check, skill check,
or saving throw.

It is a way of saving repeating yourself more than you are already. Writers use it all the time.

No, it's not a time-saver if it changes the meaning of the sentence. I'm sure the lack of a comma was use to indicate that opposed applied to both ability and skill check.

[JeenLeen]

There is no valid parsing of that phrase that reads "'opposed ability check' or 'skill check'". The two options are "'opposed ability check' or 'opposed skill check'" and "'opposed ability' or 'skill check'". The latter makes no sense (what's an 'opposed ability' in D&D rules?), so it must be the former.

"Opposed" modifies "check", and therefore applies to everything that that occurrence of "check" does.

This would be poor English, but it could mean that "opposed ability" and "skill" are both applying to "check". The lack of parallelism makes this a very iffy read, but it could be the intended meaning.

[Milskidasith]

Still, to go back, isn't initiative an opposed ability check? I mean, it's your dex mod (and a roll) against theirs; it doesn't get more opposed than that.

[Melamoto]

The initiative issue could go either way, but it definitely does not work for non-opposed skill checks. They worded it in the most obvious way possible to avoid confusion apart from using the word "opposing" twice in a row in the same set of commas.

Without breaking apart the rules of grammar, which they have followed perfectly well in the rest of the book and phrase, it applies to opposed ability or skill checks only.

[SirKazum]

Regarding the grammatical issue, I find it funny how nobody commented on the fact that, in

opposed ability or skill check

the "or" sits between "opposed ability" and "skill check". So, according to bosssmiley's interpretation, the bonus should apply either to a "skill check" or to an "opposed ability" (WITHOUT the word "check" anywhere in there), whatever the heck that means

[mregecko]

Still, to go back, isn't initiative an opposed ability check? I mean, it's your dex mod (and a roll) against theirs; it doesn't get more opposed than that.

I've had this debate before, regarding initiative... Here is my philosophy...

Nowhere in the Initiative description in the SRD (linky) does it state that it is an opposed check. Whereas other ability checks -- like Bull Rush, Trip, Overrun, vying for control of a Sphere of Annihalation -- all specify that they are "opposed <ability>" checks.

Initiative, however, can happen without even knowing that your opponents are there... It is just a way of measuring individual perception and relative quickness.

You can't actually "Win" initiative, because it isn't a contest (except in a metagamy way).

Those are my views, which I think are fairly well supported by RAW. I'm not going to argue the grammar as it applies to "opposed skill checks", because I think it's pretty obvious -- grammatically speaking -- that the phrasing applies the modifier to both halves of the phrase.

-- G

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Just have your epic wizard research a version of moment of prescience that doesn't say "opposed." There, problem solved! Can we move on to other epic spellcasting shenanigans now?

[Indon]

You can craft Epic spells that provide any bonus you wish, so craft three or four stacking +Spellcraft spells with large durations. Pick exotic bonus types that add flavor to your character, like Luck, Profane, Morale, or Dodge bonus (Dunno if you can actually do the last one, but it'd be hilarious - you dodge the standard laws of the universe in order to use your magic! Mind you'd lose your Dodge bonus to spellcraft if you were flat-footed).

Edit: Disregard, spells can not provide dodge bonuses. :(

[RTGoodman]

Edit: Disregard, spells can not provide dodge bonuses. :(

Er... someone should probably tell the designers, then...

Haste
[...]
A hasted creature gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls and a +1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves. Any condition that makes you lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (if any) also makes you lose dodge bonuses.

[Indon]

How amusing.

A dodge bonus improves Armor Class (and sometimes Reflex saves) resulting from physical skill at avoiding blows and other ill effects. Dodge bonuses are never granted by spells or magic items. Any situation or effect (except wearing armor) that negates a character's Dexterity bonus also negates any dodge bonuses the character may have. Dodge bonuses stack with all other bonuses to AC, even other dodge bonuses. Dodge bonuses apply against touch attacks.

Edit: I guess we have a candidate for the "rules that don't make sense" thread, one way or the other.