How does one make an epic level skill check?

[gallagher]

i guess the title says it all. how does one make the skill check of, say, 120 to balance on a cloud. at 20th level one can have 23 ranks in balance in this situation, plus their dex (and that would be what, +15 if they have 40 in dex?)

that plus rolling a 20 would give you 58... and i dont know of any magic item that can give you an extra 62 to this check... it seems impossible to me that this is even possible.

and what about the dc 100 tumble check to ignore falling damage? dc 80 to swim up a waterfall? and all others?

[Radiun]

Epic Level Skill Checks presume epic levels, 21+

[gallagher]

Epic Level Skill Checks presume epic levels, 21+

fine, so at 21st level, one can have 24 points in a skill? that doesnt get me too much closer to a 80 swim check...

[Yrcrazypa]

When you get above 21 presumably you can also have magic items or spells that give phenomenal bonuses to your skill checks as well. Not to mention when you go above 30, which is entirely possible, that opens up even more things.

[Hadessniper]

There are items and spells that give bonuses to skills.

Damn ninjas...

[taltamir]

start with 20 in dex. add 5 to it from levels, add 5 to it from wishes, add 10 from a +10 item. you have dex 40. so thats a +15.

your ranks are 24 naturally... this puts you at 39. +3 skill focus, +10 epic skill focus.

you are not at 52. Roll a nat 20, you are at 72. Have a +10 to skill item, you are now at 82.

And then there are a bunch of odd bonuses like "luck bonus" and "morale bonus" etc from various buffs and spells.

[sofawall]

What exactly is "epic" for a skill?

Pre-epic, you can:

Have 25 actual ability score (18+2 racial+5 level increases)
Have a +5 inherent bonus to the ability score (Tome/Wish)
Have a +6 enhancement bonus to the ability score (Item, per Epic rules)
Have an enhancement bonus of +30 to the skill (Item, per Epic rules)
Have a competence bonus of +20 to the skill (highest bonus from SRD Wondrous Items)
Skill focus for +3
Have 23 actual ranks in a skill

That's +13 ability bonus, plus 23 ranks, +30 +20, +3, roll a natural 20 for DC109.

Depending on the skill, you can probably squeeze another handful out of synergy bonuses and feats with +2 untyped bonuses.

Epic Skills in the SRD (well, ESRD. Whatever you call the ELH open content on d20srd) seem to start at 40 for flat DCs, 20 for modifiers.

And a +10 dex item costs 1 million gold. I hope you know that.

[Volkov]

Carefully. :) I'm just kidding. Really epic skill checks are ludicrously hard to make until you are pretty far into the epic levels. But they let you spit in the face of the laws of physics and biology and call them retarded.

[Gametime]

fine, so at 21st level, one can have 24 points in a skill? that doesnt get me too much closer to a 80 swim check...

At 100th level, you can have 103 ranks in a skill. 21 PLUS.

[Kylarra]

epic skill focus is another +10 :p

[Volkov]

Even with the level 110 on average party I DM'd. Balancing on clouds was hard.

[Milskidasith]

How do you challenge a party of level 110 characters? Fighters are still mechanically suckish but have massive wealth, and wizards are absurdly powerful.

[Volkov]

How do you challenge a party of level 110 characters? Fighters are still mechanically suckish but have massive wealth, and wizards are absurdly powerful.

Monsters that would make epic level wizards wet themselves in sheer terror. Their final foe was a 12,800 HD merging of eight eight hundred hit dice worms that walked, and eight eight hundred hit dice demi-liches. All were wizards, one for each school, and one being a generalist. They beat it, but the triumph was a phyric one and the wizard bled to death soon after, while the cleric was crushed by the monster's falling body.

[lsfreak]

A +30 skill item costs 90,000gp if it takes up a slot, double that if slotless.

Really, by the time you hit level 20, it's fairly trivial to hit at least 100 on a skill check. +30 item, there's a fairly low-level spell that adds a +20 to a single check (UMD or a friend). Throw in a +10 modifier in the related ability and max ranks and you have 63+your level before you even roll, and it's all available by noticeably before level 20 (you can get everything but the +10 in the ability mod by level 15 or 16).

Then throw on other things like aid another, masterwork items of a skill, bards with Inspire Competence, other spells, other magic items, and so on.

[Eldariel]

Epic level skill checks can be quite easily achieved with momentary buffs. Just simple Divine Insight + Guidance of the Avatar is +35 to a single skill check. Then just ability score stack, generic bonuses to checks, synergies, base ranks and you're pretty well off. Stuff like Item Familiar helps too.

[Dusk Eclipse]

There is a prestige class in Oriental adventures that at level 10 gives you a +30 competence bonus on balance, jump and tumble, also you can take 10 on such checks regardless the situation AND he eventually gets base speed 60 ft (assuming inital 30 ft speed) which IIRC gives you a bonus on jump and posibly tumble.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

It's possible to get a modifier into the multiple hundreds pre-epic if you focus everything on that skill, and into the high 80s-90s if you just want to be good with skills; take a look at the skills section here

[taltamir]

How do you challenge a party of level 110 characters? Fighters are still mechanically suckish but have massive wealth, and wizards are absurdly powerful.

technically, comparing the power of a level 101 wizard to a level 21 is like comparing infinity+80 to infinity. Due to how the epic casting system is broken, all epic casters are like pun pun, they have arbitrarily high everything.

[Volkov]

technically, comparing the power of a level 101 wizard to a level 21 is like comparing infinity+80 to infinity. Due to how the epic casting system is broken, all epic casters are like pun pun, they have arbitrarily high everything.

I nerfed the epic spell system to a more reasonable degree.

My old DM would simply make monsters and feats that would make epic spell casting unusable, one monster had a feat that any spell caster who tried to cast an epic spell would be instantly killed if they were in his 500' foot reach. Regardless of what dimension they were in, or what epic spell they casted before hand to get out of this.

Needless to say, I didn't agree with many of his approaches.

[Skaven]

i guess the title says it all. how does one make the skill check of, say, 120 to balance on a cloud. at 20th level one can have 23 ranks in balance in this situation, plus their dex (and that would be what, +15 if they have 40 in dex?)

that plus rolling a 20 would give you 58... and i dont know of any magic item that can give you an extra 62 to this check... it seems impossible to me that this is even possible.

and what about the dc 100 tumble check to ignore falling damage? dc 80 to swim up a waterfall? and all others?

I would just sigh, and do all these things with a 6th level sorcerer, a couple ranks in perform:act(Drama) and the fly spell.

"Oh no, i'm falling down the cliff!" *dramatic gestures as he floats down*

"Look at me, i'm balancing on the cloud! *arms to either side*


.... Ok, definitely time for the morning coffee.

[bosssmiley]

+30 skill items bring my p*ss to a rolling boil. Once again the magic item system hammers home that Muggles don't matter. You can either carefully husband skill points for 27 levels, or you can blow chickenfeed money and thaumocheat your way up 1-1/2 RNGs.

My houserule: multiply skill item costs by x5, limit then to +10 pre-epic (+20 epic), and institute a houserule that "max usable item skill bonus = your skill ranks" (actually it goes "max bonus = skill ranks + item bonuses (up to ranks) + ability mod + untyped bonuses").

This, along with a culling of extraneous bonus types, and a bucketload of skill extension tinkering (invisibility = Stealth DC ~60, raise dead effect = Heal DC 75+, Balance on a cloud = Acrobatics DC ~70, etc.) provides a semi-hard cap on DCs by level, allows the DM to scale back DC: [#wacky] skill checks, let's the Muggles play above 10th level, and knocks tasteless "+220 skill bonus at level 12" CO shenanigans out of the park.

(notes available on request)

The Epic Level Jokebook: OK, once you discard it and re-write from scratch.

[Foryn Gilnith]

You don't need custom items to buff skill checks. Makes it a lot easier, true, but given that they don't have any rules for creation, I find builds which rely on them distasteful. If you're going to powergame do it within the rules; if DM wants to allow you to make a +30 skill item DM might as well just allow you free perfect flight as a racial ability...

If you're culling "extraneous" bonus types, that might do it, but the casual optimizers might not take too kindly to that. What's all this about "Muggles"?

[Frog Dragon]

Muggle is a term from Harry Potter referring to a non-maigc person.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Muggles don't matter. They don't matter in Harry Potter and they don't matter in any universe where extensive magic exists. The most important force IRL is technology/science; the most important force in a magical world is magic. Playing as a muggle is like playing d20 modern as a technophobe, namely difficult - and it ought to be. Unless you're VoP, which is supernatural IIRC, shunning magic items will get you what you deserve. The lazy mage gets an item, the muggle saves his skill ranks, the expert with half a brain does both.

What does nerfing skill bonuses, of all things, have to do with allowing non-mages to play past 10th? Mages never derived power from skill checks. What's wrong with getting DC: wacky skill results? What's so distasteful about a hard-earned +220 skill modifier that a full caster can casually compete with?

[AstralFire]

+60 to Jump at level 11:
Now That's What I Call... Mer-aculous Hangtime!

And that's not half as crazy as an actual level 10 Jumplomancer, which is not trying to maximize Jump while minimizing speed (like I had to.)

In short: It's actually pretty easy to reach, though the game designers themselves never intended nor realized this.

[ericgrau]

No fair, jump is way too easy to optimize. As for other skills, here's a solution without any custom item cheese:

feats, +15
skill synergy, +2 for 5 ranks, +2 for each additional 20 ranks
gloves of epic dexterity +12 (+6)
boots of swiftness +20
great dexterity epic feat
ranks 3 + level
32+ base dex +11
luckstone +1
heroism +2
total: ~58 + ~1.1 * level

DC 90 checks are cake. Others just require you to be a higher level. The fortify seed for an epic spell can boost stats further.