Epic Spell: Creating Warforged [3.5, PEACH]

[dropdadgbe]

Hey everyone! I mostly just lurk and read what other people have to say here, so if this isn't my first post it's damn near it. I'm currently DMing a game that started at 5th level but is well on its way to becoming epic, but I've never played in an epic game before so I'm still getting a feel for how the spells work. This seemed like as good an exercise to start with as any: I'm trying to replicate the forges that House Cannith uses to create Warforged in Eberron.

It's based pretty heavily on the "Origin Of Species: Achaierai" spell from the SRD, but I tried to follow the rules where it deviated. Let me know what you think!

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Origin of Species: Warforged
Conjuration (Creation, Healing)
Spellcraft DC: 46
Components: V, S, DF, XP
Casting Time: 100 days, 11 minutes.
Range: 0 ft.
Effect: One constructed creature
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

Seeds: Conjure (DC 21), Life (DC 27), and Fortify (DC 17). These are what the Conjure Seed describes as the overall basis for creating new life.

Factors:
- Change type to Living Construct (Ex) (Transform Seed, DC 21; double for Ex)
- Stat rearranges (free)
- Medium (free)
- Composite Plating: +2 armor bonus, takes up armor slot, can be replaced by racial feats (Armor Seed, DC 14, ad hoc -4 because I'm not using the full bonus)
- Light Fortification (Ex) (Either Fortify or Armor; I've already got both. Ad hoc +4, double for Ex)
- Natural slam attack (Increase damage die by one step, DC +10)

Permanent Duration: Normally it'd be all of the above x5, but I'm ad-hocing it to x4 because the Conjure Seed says that the race should breed true, and Warforged can't breed outside of forges.

On that note, since a double of a double is a triple, does that mean that multiplying the x4 for permanent onto the x2 for extraordinary traits makes it x5, or should this be the full x8? I'm assuming the former for now.

SUBTOTAL: DC 465

Mitigation:
- Burn 10,000 XP (-100 DC)
- Increase casting time to 10 minutes (-20 DC)
- Increase casting time to 100 days (-200 DC)
- Ritual: A team of nine additional artificers each burning a level 6 infusion (-99 DC)

Special: The ritual must take place in a creation forge.

END TOTAL: DC 46
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Anything I should fix?

[Knaight]

You want Instantaneous duration, not permanent. Otherwise one can dispel warforged, and turn them back into other constructs. Plus as it only creates one warforged, not a whole species, you might want to dial it back a bit in power. Really, this isn't as impressive as the 9th level spell Genesis.

[dropdadgbe]

You want Instantaneous duration, not permanent. Otherwise one can dispel warforged, and turn them back into other constructs.

Are you sure about that? I'd thought so too, but the Conjure seed just says permanent in it, and so does their Achaierai example spell.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Are you sure about that? I'd thought so too, but the Conjure seed just says permanent in it, and so does their Achaierai example spell.

I think the devs weren't quite thinking clearly on that one; I've seen quite a few suggestions to make any Conjure spells Instantaneous instead of Permanent, or you run into issues like these.

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Also, epic spells don't have special requirements, they have mitigating factors. Ad-hoc the permanent x5 down to x3 for the non-breeding thing (having to cast this over and over is a major drawback), for a sub-DC of 354. To make it a more efficient process, require 10 minutes to cast (334) and make it a team of 15 artificers (169). Add "Ad-hoc: requires creation forge as a focus component (-10)" and "Ad-hoc: caster must possess the Syberis Mark of Making (-15)" and "Ad-hoc: ritual participants must all possess a Mark of Making (-15)"--some ridiculously stringent requirements--making the final DC 129.

That's much more in line with the way warforged creation should work given that they're made for war--churning them out in 10 minutes with a "factory" of 15 artificers assisting the epic wizard to replace an assembly line and robots--and given that creating warforged is no longer possible (because having 1 level 21 wizard [Spellcraft 128 = 24 ranks + 30 competence + 30 insight + 30 enhancement + 14 Int] with the Syberis Mark of Making, 15 high-level artificers with Least Marks of Making, and a creation forge all in your possession is unlikely to be possible after the War.

[dropdadgbe]

Ooh, I like how you worked in the dragonmarks--that actually makes a lot of sense given the setting.

How did you come up with all those +30's in your spellcraft equation? Again, I know I haven't actually played in an epic game yet, but being able to make DC 129 all the way down at level 21 seems pretty high.

[DracoDei]

I am not very familiar with Epic spellcasting, but if you require the materials the warforged will be made of to be fed into the Forge, or even shaped into their final forms, would that let you drop the Conjure seed to squeeze down the DC a noticeable bit?