Getting into epic, melee vs casters

[randomhero00]

Happening atm in my game. Best way to balance it? Melee really seem to get screwed. They can get like a +4 to initiative (8 if they haven't taken improved already) or a +2 to stats or a +4 to saves. Whereas casters get EPIC freakin spells. Seems so unbalanced to me. But I haven't played epic much. Any ideas? What do you do?

[Vizzerdrix]

Umm... Don't play in Epic?

[Tael]

If in normal D&D, casters are 10 and melee is 3, in Epic, Casters are over 9000 and melee is 4. Seriously. Don't play Epic.

[randomhero00]

Umm... Don't play in Epic?

lol, unfortunately that isn't an option at the moment. So I'm trying to convince my DM to homebrew better epic feats. Any ideas, or has anyone done homebrew epic feats for melee types?

I mean, come frikkin on, improved toughness, +20 hps?! wtf was WoTC thinking.

[Glimbur]

Become a caster. Ur Priest from Complete Divine or Sublime Chord from Complete Arcane get you to 9th level spells faster than a base class could, but the Sublime Chord is probably unfeasible unless you're already a bard. See if you can retrain feats to qualify for Ur Priest next level. Then you'll... still suck compared to the full casters, sorry.

Take levels in ToB classes? It's still not much compared to Epic Spellcasting, but it's something.

Use your pile of WBL and superior system mastery. This assumes WBL and superior system mastery, so your mileage may vary.

[Psyren]

You could give them ToB class levels, and then homebrew some Epic Maneuvers. They still wouldn't stand a chance, but they'd at least be able to do ccol things.

Otherwise, you could "melee" with classes like Epic Binders, Warlocks, Totemists etc.

[Eloel]

Make melee swear loyalty to casters, and be their personal guards.

Not that the casters need them, but still...

[DarkEternal]

You could give them ToB class levels, and then homebrew some Epic Maneuvers. They still wouldn't stand a chance, but they'd at least be able to do ccol things.

Otherwise, you could "melee" with classes like Epic Binders, Warlocks, Totemists etc.

This is a pretty good suggestion, which I will probably adapt since my party is getting close to epic as well(level 16, quite on their way to 17 at the moment).

Now the next, grand question is, any good homebrewed epic schools-feats that the fine gents on this and other forums made that would make melee better(not necessarily wizard level, but still fun to play)?

[AstralFire]

It's not going to happen without outright banning epic spellcasting as presented.

[Corwin_of_Amber]

Perhaps giving the melee characters access to high-level ToB maneuvers. You could allow them to choose X number of disciplines upon becoming epic and allow them to take any maneuvers from one of those schools whenever a spellcaster would normally gain an epic spell. There might have to be some rules in place for bypassing prerequisites/determining initiator level.

EDIT: Wow, so many people ninja'd me with ToB.

[Lans]

Let Melee spontaneously gestalt? Restrict the gestalting to T3 and lower for perceived balance issues?

[Eldariel]

This thread may offer you some assistance. Still, it's of course a whole different ballpark.

[randomhero00]

Wow that's funny how many mentioned ToB. I actually already asked this of my DM, that I could use an epic feat to bypass all the prereqs for high level ToB maneuvers. He turned me down

[Psyren]

Wow that's funny how many mentioned ToB. I actually already asked this of my DM, that I could use an epic feat to bypass all the prereqs for high level ToB maneuvers. He turned me down

Let him know that you'll be over there playing Xbox until he can think of a way for you to meaningfully contribute.

[Eldariel]

Wow that's funny how many mentioned ToB. I actually already asked this of my DM, that I could use an epic feat to bypass all the prereqs for high level ToB maneuvers. He turned me down

Retrain into full maneuver progression, homebrew epic maneuver system, go to town.

[Toliudar]

Absolutely ban epic spellcasting.

There was a homebrew Epic Hero prestige class, 3 levels long posted here a while ago. Each level gave one of a grab bag of really big powers. This might be useful, if made open only to non-casters.

Or, as was suggested on a similar thread, just skip epic levels altogether, and start giving players levels in a second class, as if they were slowly becoming gestalted.

[randomhero00]

Retrain into full maneuver progression, homebrew epic maneuver system, go to town.

Sorry, what? I don't get that. You mean rewrite my current class to a ToB class? I already said that my DM ain't letting anything like that happening. He hates ToB unfortunetally. Even though its probably the most balanced book out there

[AstralFire]

No ToB, epic spellcasting is allowed? If you really like your group, at that point I'd just resign myself to not being effective and focus on RP alone.

[Eldariel]

Sorry, what? I don't get that. You mean rewrite my current class to a ToB class? I already said that my DM ain't letting anything like that happening. He hates ToB unfortunetally. Even though its probably the most balanced book out there

Retraining = taking class levels and replacing them with other class levels. Retraining into full warrior caster type like Cleric or Wizard-base Gish would be the best bet then; you'd be better warrior than you're currently while also getting to play Epic.

[randomhero00]

No ToB, epic spellcasting is allowed? If you really like your group, at that point I'd just resign myself to not being effective and focus on RP alone.

Indeed :( I'm about to.

Luckily I'm good at convincing (high cha IRL lol) and I think maybe I can bring her around. Definitely not ToB level, but I might be able to get some SLA type deals.

[TeqSun]

1. Switch characters to be a caster.

2. Play 4e. Though your DM seems to hate balance, so this is mostly a rhetorical suggestion. Still, 4e is the only edition where epic levels are remotely balanced.

[Zeful]

Let him know that you'll be over there playing Xbox until he can think of a way for you to meaningfully contribute.

Epic in a nut-shell. If you don't posess Epic Spellcasting you are worthless.

[SurlySeraph]

You basically need a way to emulate spells that become really hard to do without, like flight, protections against magic, a way to dispel enemy protections, teleportation, and True Seeing. You can do this with a good UMD check, a well-designed intelligent item, and/or tons of magic items.

Intelligent items and even more so their epic equivalents can be very handy, since they let you use a lot of spells and you can set up their dedicated ability to be pretty much always in effect. Free feats, not needing to breathe, free skill ranks to cover what you're bad at, True Seeing at will, free Astral Projection, Gate, long-term Haste, Greater Invisibility, Dimension Door at will, and free True Resurrection 1/month are some of the better abilities.

Melee gets some things at epic that would be really nice with less prereqs and if they still worked on epic-level enemies.
Death of Enemies and Devastating Critical (used with Keen Kukris and lots of attacks) would be great, if it wasn't trivial to be immune to critical hits at epic levels. But a Swift Hunter ranger might be able to get around that, and weapons crystals of Truedeath and whatever the construct-killing ability is might be able to get around that.
Exceptional Deflection + Infinite Deflection = immune to ranged attacks, including ranged touch attacks. And you can buy an (animated) shield that does this for you. Adding Reflect Arrows is nice as well; you basically have permanent Spell Turning vs RTAs.
Self-Concealment is good, especially stacked with other miss chances.

If your DM is giving you the ridiculous amount of wealth they require, epic items can be pretty useful.
Armor of Great Reflection is excellent. Spell Turning against everything, no questions asked.
The Mantle of Great Stealth is pretty good
The Mantle of Epic Spell Resistance would be good if enemy casters didn't have Assay Resistance and such to easily ignore it. (But if your DM doesn't have them easily overcoming SR 40, then it's a pretty cheap way to give yourself a fair bit of protection).
Weapons of Unerring Accuracy, added to the epic feat that negates total concealment, come in handy.
You can carry around a bunch of +1 Everdancing Weapons for 162,000 gp each to flank with and get more attacks in.

Also, no ToB + epic casting allowed means that silly, highly specialized builds are probably going to be the best way to contribute. An AoO build with the Mage Slayer line can do alright if you can get huge amounts of reach, a charger build can vaporize anything vulnerable to swords, etc. You won't be on the level of the casters, but if the DM's monsters are fairly dumb you can contribute.

[molten_dragon]

Honestly, by the time you hit epic, you're already well into the part of the game where casters are heavily overshadowing non-casters. As long as your group is handling it okay, I see no reason that they should not continue to do so.

[Crow]

The casters are getting 2 epic spells by the time they hit 21. They are also having to burn xp and a good amount of gold to get them.

If you've been managing fine up to this point, those two epic spells aren't going to change a whole helluva lot unless your DM is allowing serious epic cheese. I mean let's be honest here, your melee became irrelevant levels ago. Come back in a few levels when it's *really* a problem. ;)

But all joking aside, is there a reason you guys can't retire these characters? If half the group isn't having fun anymore, that should be a big indication that it's time for a change.

[Otodetu]

Just, just, don't play epic please.
Playing epic is like trying to hurt the world.


The best games have after my experience been up to the level 10 mark with low wealth and no tier 1 classes.

[faceroll]

Unless you're DM is allowing players to gaterape solars and make up whatever silly epic spells they want, it won't be too bad. At this level, finding and selling a +8 item, while keeping your non-epic version will give you so much wealth, you'll be able to pick up those really sweet items, like 200,000 gp grafts and a whole stack of items that mimic necessary spells.

[Psyren]

Epic in a nut-shell. If you don't posess Epic Spellcasting you are worthless.

Hell, even the lowly Improved Spell Capacity lets you pull off some amazing shenanigans. (One I've always wanted to try is Empowered Gate.)

[faceroll]

Hell, even the lowly Improved Spell Capacity lets you pull off some amazing shenanigans. (One I've always wanted to try is Empowered Gate.)

You can already do that stuff with sudden metamagic and metamagic rods, though. But I agree, improved spell capacity is better than whatever melee gets.

[tyckspoon]

Hell, even the lowly Improved Spell Capacity lets you pull off some amazing shenanigans. (One I've always wanted to try is Empowered Gate.)

No actual variables in the spell, so Empowering it does nothing. Might get some mileage from Extending it if you really need something to stick around and fight for you for more than 20 rounds already.. mm.. if you're really feeling like dropping a ton of rectangular building materials on somebody, you could go Quickened Gate + Twinned Gate.. needs rather a lot of levels to get to, tho.