spells that you would never want.

[Wildstag]

200 miles reaches from Boston to New York. A 200 mile *radius*. Casting that in New York City would wipe out everything from Boston to Washington DC.
If your DM lets you get away with the Locat City bomb shenanigans, you can hit the same area using just a 4th level spell slot. And you can use Widen Spell on top of that to bump it up to a 400 mile radius at cl 20, which you could cast in Nashville and wipe out everything from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico.

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

On a 400 mile radius, you could still use the spell in certain places to cause minimum casualties. Like just blow it up over the Southern Pacific or Antarctica. The North Atlantic is probably wide and barren enough to cast it without also committing genocide.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

On a 400 mile radius, you could still use the spell in certain places to cause minimum casualties. Like just blow it up over the Southern Pacific or Antarctica. The North Atlantic is probably wide and barren enough to cast it without also committing genocide.

Vaern was saying you could Widen a locate city bomb for a 400 mile radius.

[Vaern]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

I was referring to Locate City, but... you actually can get spell slots high enough to widen Aapocalypse from the Sky if you wanted to. It would be well into epic levels, though.
A true Epic Spell has no actual level but is considered to be 10th level for effects that care about spell level regardless of how powerful it actually is. However, with the Improved Spell Capacity epic feat you can get spell slots of 10th level and higher for the purpose of casting your regular class spells from higher level slots (presumably modified with unreasonable amounts of metamagic feats). The table that goes along with the feat goes up to 25th level spell slots.
A spell of 10th level or higher isn't considered an "epic spell," depsite basically requiring an epic character with epic feats to cast them. A magic item replicating a spell with an effective level above 9th, however, is considered an "epic item" for the purpose of pricing.

[Kalkra]

I was referring to Locate City, but... you actually can get spell slots high enough to widen Aapocalypse from the Sky if you wanted to. It would be well into epic levels, though.
A true Epic Spell has no actual level but is considered to be 10th level for effects that care about spell level regardless of how powerful it actually is. However, with the Improved Spell Capacity epic feat you can get spell slots of 10th level and higher for the purpose of casting your regular class spells from higher level slots (presumably modified with unreasonable amounts of metamagic feats). The table that goes along with the feat goes up to 25th level spell slots.
A spell of 10th level or higher isn't considered an "epic spell," depsite basically requiring an epic character with epic feats to cast them. A magic item replicating a spell with an effective level above 9th, however, is considered an "epic item" for the purpose of pricing.

If you're at the point where you can cast 9th-level spells and you're still paying for your metamagic, you're doing something wrong.

[NigelWalmsley]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

Metamagic reducers like Arcane Thesis, the Incantatrix capstone ability, or Easy Metamagic.

[Wildstag]

I know there's probably more ways to lower spell level from metamagic, but that would be a terrifying spell for Arcane Thesis, since you would probably not take the feat to just use a spell once. If you're trying to Widen the effect of Apocalypse From The Sky, you are probably also dangerous enough to warrant multiple gods trying to take you out.

[Telok]

I know there's probably more ways to lower spell level from metamagic, but that would be a terrifying spell for Arcane Thesis, since you would probably not take the feat to just use a spell once. If you're trying to Widen the effect of Apocalypse From The Sky, you are probably also dangerous enough to warrant multiple gods trying to take you out.

Pfft. Cast Wish "next spell I cast involving artifact X is widened". Thought bottle the xp back or something.

Also, can't limited wish copy psychic reformation? Swap out your feats (almost) at will.

Flare. Virtue. Do not want. Greater shout. 8th level? For 10d6, or level d6s against almost zero monsters, and a fort save 1/2? Trash.

[nedz]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

Sudden Widen

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Sudden Widen

Sudden Widen: When a feat photobombs the fight.

[Troacctid]

Greater shout. 8th level? For 10d6, or level d6s against almost zero monsters, and a fort save 1/2? Trash.

It's not just shout with 6d6 extra damage. It stuns them on a failed save and deafens them even if they pass. Not a lot of core blasting spells apply debuffs like that. Against casters, you effectively just did a bunch of hard-to-resist damage and gave them a 20% failure chance for all their spells, no save—and if they happen to lose their next turn too, that's just gravy. Meanwhile, any other mooks in the area are getting slammed with the same attack. If you hit five dorks and they all pass their saves, you're still doing an average of like 80 damage in a standard action.

[NigelWalmsley]

Yes, that seems like a much better thing to do with my 8th level spell slots than Greater Planar Binding, Polymorph Any Object, or Mass Charm Monster.

[Troacctid]

Yes, that seems like a much better thing to do with my 8th level spell slots than Greater Planar Binding, Polymorph Any Object, or Mass Charm Monster.

It's a 6th-level spell for a bard (or sublime chord). And warmages know it automatically.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Look at y'all wasting feats and class levels on a basic metamagic. You want a widened apocalypse from the sky? Just use a greater metamagic rod of widen.

You actually take feats and classes if you want to stack up metamagics and do so frequently.

[Wildstag]

Well, first you'd have to determine the price of a Greater Metamagic Rod of Widen, and there aren't provided rules in the SRD for doing so. You'd have to work with the GM to completely create a new subsystem.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well, first you'd have to determine the price of a Greater Metamagic Rod of Widen, and there aren't provided rules in the SRD for doing so. You'd have to work with the GM to completely create a new subsystem.

Could've sworn that was one of the printed ones.

I've actually cracked the price formula for metamagic rods before but this is an easy one; it's a +3 metamagic, same as maximize, so it's 121,500 for a greater rod.

[Vaern]

Could've sworn that was one of the printed ones.

I've actually cracked the price formula for metamagic rods before but this is an easy one; it's a +3 metamagic, same as maximize, so it's 121,500 for a greater rod.

I'd like to see the formula myself. The DMG pricing on metamagic rods doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Complete Arcane prices rods differently from the DMG, which makes them much more expensive but also makes it considerably easier to reverse engineer the formula.

[Wildstag]

Looking through the metamagic rods and seeing the lack of metamagic in the "build your own magic item" table, I kinda feel like the intent was to not have custom metamagic rods as an option.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'd like to see the formula myself. The DMG pricing on metamagic rods doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Complete Arcane prices rods differently from the DMG, which makes them much more expensive but also makes it considerably easier to reverse engineer the formula.

Dug up where I posted it in the past.

I think, by looking at the old Tome and Blood prices, that I've sucessflly reverse engineered the metamagic rod formula.

The old formula seemed to be (1000 gp X the square of the highest spell effected X the difference in caster level to have a slot that many levels higher) X 0.6 for the 3/day limit. Then, when the 3.5 changeover happened, those prices were cut in half and rounded to the nearest 500gp.

That being the case, a rod of lesser persistence should cost (1000 X 11 X 3²) X 0.6 = 59,400 by the old formula. Adjusted for the 3.5 change that's 29,500.

Same process gives me 119,000 for a regular rod and 267,500 for a greater rod of persistence.

FWIW, tome and blood didn't have persistent spell rods and the cost of the greater rod puts it in epic item territory.

Looking through the metamagic rods and seeing the lack of metamagic in the "build your own magic item" table, I kinda feel like the intent was to not have custom metamagic rods as an option.

It was a royal PITA to cypher so you may be right but with the ones that are printed, they won't do any damage that's not already done.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Funny enough I actually hate any spell with a save. Saves are really annoying to me. At low levels, your save dc is so low that just about anything can make it, unless they get a bad roll. At high levels they're entirely pointless, cause everything has a higher save than you have a save dc. They really only seem useful between levels 9-12. Yes, I know with effort your can push your save dc into that stratosphere, but to be honest, I just feel like the effort isn't worth the reward, especially when things still have a chance of saving. I'd much rather blast them to hell with straight damage spells, or hit them with "no save, just suck" spells, like enfeebling ray.

[Unavenger]

Funny enough I actually hate any spell with a save. Saves are really annoying to me. At low levels, your save dc is so low that just about anything can make it, unless they get a bad roll. At high levels they're entirely pointless, cause everything has a higher save than you have a save dc. They really only seem useful between levels 9-12. Yes, I know with effort your can push your save dc into that stratosphere, but to be honest, I just feel like the effort isn't worth the reward, especially when things still have a chance of saving. I'd much rather blast them to hell with straight damage spells, or hit them with "no save, just suck" spells, like enfeebling ray.

At "low levels" - level 1 - your save DC is "So low" - 15 or 16 - that anything "Can make it" - is literally capable of rolling high enough on a d20 to make it - but a quick look at CR 1 monsters reveals only one with a better than 50/50 chance of making a DC 16 save of any kind (ghoul's +5 will is getting there, but the light warhorse's +6 fortitude is the real winner). Unless you aren't a real spellcaster, and you're targeting the monster's strongest save, and you're targeting monsters which have high saves anyway, you shouldn't have a problem.

By 17th level, you should have at least increased your casting ability by another 10 - 4 just for making it to 16th and 6 for a funny hat - putting your first-level spells at DC 21, which can still be useful for burning aboleth mages (reflex 10) or frost giant jarls (reflex 13) or even CR 21 titans (also reflex 13), but are probably best reserved to clean up low-level mobs because they're first-level spells and you have DC 29 9th-level spells, which can give even the true dragons with low saves around 15 and high saves around 21, or outsiders with more balanced save sets around 17, a decent chance of failure.

This is all if you haven't put any real effort into making your save DC good at all ("I put an 18 in my casting stat and picked a race that buffed it, go me!"), mind you.

There are other reasons for not liking spells that allow saves (namely "Why would you give the enemy a chance to save when there are good spells that don't"?) but I don't buy that it's impossible to make enemies fail them reasonably often.

(9-12 does come up a bit better, because your ability score items are just front-loaded enough for you to have them, you just got your first stat boost to matter, and the enemies you're facing aren't quite there on the "Let's all but outsiders or dragons" plan so their saves aren't great, but I think that's less a case of "Oh they might fail now" and more "Oh, they'll probably fail now.")

[Vaern]

Dug up where I posted it in the past.


It was a royal PITA to cypher so you may be right but with the ones that are printed, they won't do any damage that's not already done.

Oh my. I guess my formula was wrong. It just happens to line up for +1 and +3 metamagic feats, which is the entire sample that I had to work with looking at Complete Arcane. Yours is definitely more consistent with everything in Tome of Blood. My formula would have put lesser persist at 99,900.

[Wildstag]

At "low levels" - level 1 - your save DC is "So low" - 15 or 16 - that anything "Can make it" - is literally capable of rolling high enough on a d20 to make it - but a quick look at CR 1 monsters reveals only one with a better than 50/50 chance of making a DC 16 save of any kind (ghoul's +5 will is getting there, but the light warhorse's +6 fortitude is the real winner). Unless you aren't a real spellcaster, and you're targeting the monster's strongest save, and you're targeting monsters which have high saves anyway, you shouldn't have a problem.

To correct a bit of math here, since tying the DC results in a successful saving throw, the ghoul's +5 will actually does hit 50/50 chance of success on a DC 16, since 11-20 is 10 results on a d20 (or, a 50% chance). The Light Warhorse would have a 55% chance of success, because it would only fail on a 1-9.

[Unavenger]

To correct a bit of math here, since tying the DC results in a successful saving throw, the ghoul's +5 will actually does hit 50/50 chance of success on a DC 16, since 11-20 is 10 results on a d20 (or, a 50% chance). The Light Warhorse would have a 55% chance of success, because it would only fail on a 1-9.

There is a tenth circle of Baator reserved only for those who "Correct" people who were already correct.

At "low levels" - level 1 - your save DC is "So low" - 15 or 16 - that anything "Can make it" - is literally capable of rolling high enough on a d20 to make it - but a quick look at CR 1 monsters reveals only one with a better than 50/50 chance of making a DC 16 save of any kind (ghoul's +5 will is getting there, but the light warhorse's +6 fortitude is the real winner). Unless you aren't a real spellcaster, and you're targeting the monster's strongest save, and you're targeting monsters which have high saves anyway, you shouldn't have a problem.

To clarify, I'm looking to try to find this scourge of monsters who are making their saves all the time, and choosing to be charitable and assume that this means more than half the time if you're targeting their strong save.

(Another clarification, before someone says it, this was just a quick look, as I mentioned. There may be some non-horse-based monsters with a +6 or better at CR 1, but there's a limited amount of time I'm willing to devote to "sometimes monsters fail saves")

[Asmotherion]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

On a 400 mile radius, you could still use the spell in certain places to cause minimum casualties. Like just blow it up over the Southern Pacific or Antarctica. The North Atlantic is probably wide and barren enough to cast it without also committing genocide.

Incantatrix or Cleric with Divine Metamagic and a bunsh of metamagic reducers.

Circle magic can also do it.

Metanode Spell feat reduces the adjusted spell level of the spell by the level of the node.

There's a bunsh of other ways to use metamagic on level 9 spells actually. You just need to do some research.

[Jack_McSnatch]

At "low levels" - level 1 - your save DC is "So low" - 15 or 16 - that anything "Can make it" - is literally capable of rolling high enough on a d20 to make it - but a quick look at CR 1 monsters reveals only one with a better than 50/50 chance of making a DC 16 save of any kind (ghoul's +5 will is getting there, but the light warhorse's +6 fortitude is the real winner). Unless you aren't a real spellcaster, and you're targeting the monster's strongest save, and you're targeting monsters which have high saves anyway, you shouldn't have a problem.

By 17th level, you should have at least increased your casting ability by another 10 - 4 just for making it to 16th and 6 for a funny hat - putting your first-level spells at DC 21, which can still be useful for burning aboleth mages (reflex 10) or frost giant jarls (reflex 13) or even CR 21 titans (also reflex 13), but are probably best reserved to clean up low-level mobs because they're first-level spells and you have DC 29 9th-level spells, which can give even the true dragons with low saves around 15 and high saves around 21, or outsiders with more balanced save sets around 17, a decent chance of failure.

This is all if you haven't put any real effort into making your save DC good at all ("I put an 18 in my casting stat and picked a race that buffed it, go me!"), mind you.

There are other reasons for not liking spells that allow saves (namely "Why would you give the enemy a chance to save when there are good spells that don't"?) but I don't buy that it's impossible to make enemies fail them reasonably often.

(9-12 does come up a bit better, because your ability score items are just front-loaded enough for you to have them, you just got your first stat boost to matter, and the enemies you're facing aren't quite there on the "Let's all but outsiders or dragons" plan so their saves aren't great, but I think that's less a case of "Oh they might fail now" and more "Oh, they'll probably fail now.")

Hey man, I was just giving my opinion. If I wanted a snarky wall of text, I would have asked.

Furthermore, Level 1 wizard casts a level one save or suck. Lets say we were lucky enough to roll an 18 for int, we picked a race that buffs it by two, cool. Save dc 16.

The ghoul makes that on an 11. The horse on a 10. Personally, I don't feel very much like an all powerful spellcaster when a HORSE can overcome my ability to bend the fabric of reality at LEAST half of the time.

Going up in levels, at high levels. I play at NORMAL tables. Not gitp tier 1 full optimization tables. Nobody ever finds a manual of intelect, and no reasonable dm just leaves them for sale at the magic item mart. I've usually seen those restricted to special reward items, and with good reason. So, we'll say we picked up a headband of intellect +6, and dumped all our ability increases in intelligence like a good little wizard. That means we get a base save of 20+spell level.

That ain't ****. At levels 12-20, that is NOTHING. Seriously, that dragon's "low save" of 15... he only has to roll above a 5-14, depending on spell level, to completely ignore that useless save or suck spell. That's not even bringing up spell resistance, which might just render your spell pointless, and your spell slot wasted. So there you are, mr save or suck wizard, sitting in the corner twiddling your thumbs, while the basic bitch fighter is having a blast smacking the dragon around with his greatsword.

And after you have gone through all this, the hardship of reaching high level play without being turned into wizard paste, you choose to use your mighty, nigh godlike ability to warp the fabric of space and time... to mildly inconvenience your foe. Woooooooo, is it my ****in birthday?

In conclusion, save or suck spells didn't make their save. They just suck.

[Quertus]

Hey man, I was just giving my opinion.

At low levels, your save dc is so low that just about anything can make it, unless they get a bad roll. At high levels they're entirely pointless, cause everything has a higher save than you have a save dc

That part isn't opinion. And is the part being addressed. Granted, it appears to have been misread.

[Zanos]

Even at most normal tables I've played out 'magic mart' stuff was on the table to some degree. Most published settings(Eberron, Faerun, Greyhawk) and the DMG explicitly allow purchasing basically any magic items based on the size of the settlement, so you can reasonably expect to be able to find or buy a headband of int and even stat manuals at very high levels.

A horse is weirdly tough, easily capable of killing a trained fighter in melee combat. While there are some caveats most save or suck spells at level 1 can target multiple creatures and they probably won't have more than +1 or +2 to their weak save. A level 1 wizard has a very good shot of taking out multiple bandits(+0 will) with a single casting of sleep, which can easily have a DC of 15 at level 1.

That said, I agree that spells that make people just suck without any save at all are better. But at level 1 I'd rather have a 10ft radius aoe that forces the bandits in it to have a 70% chance to die then I would have a 40% chance to moderatley debuff their strength.

But yes, you can't reliably one shot a dragon with finger of death without substantial investment.

[Telok]

To be fair, I can quite see both sides. In all the actual games played since 3e came out I don't think I've seen a caster with better than 24 to 26 at 16th level. The TO "34 casting stat at level 17" simply never happened over those decades.

Now 18+spell level isn't anything to snub, but it's not exactly reliable enough to dedicate your top slots to single target SoS/SoD spells. If you're facing an npc caster and you can spend a round or two setting up a true strike, +15 spell pen, +4 dc rod/sudden empowered disintegrate... that's great and it works a treat. But throwing that at a high end cleric, outsider, or dragon (or in one case a level 14 dwarven psion) with a 20+ fort bonus is terrible, less than 50/50 (often possibly around 1 in 4) to have any appreciable effect.

Really you just have to always know and target the weak saves at high levels in actual play. But that requires either optimized scrying & info gathering to know what to prep, or dedicating most/all your high level slots to a variety of SoD/SoS spells and still won't stopbthe occasional high roll on a save. Often it is easier and much more reliable to use the no-saves even when they have less of an effect.

Tldr: In TO high end save spells are great. In real play you have to prep, build for it, have the right spell, and target low saves. It can be done but lots of people don't put in the work at real tables, so save spells work much much much less than TO says they ought to.

[Quertus]

I'm confused. Is "I'm a SoD caster" and "I bother preparing spells that target all the saves" really *that* high of a bar to reach?

Is "I'm a Wizard, and I actually have ranks in Knowledge skills to know creature types (and therefore general good/weak saves)" anything but common?

Not being able to hit such metrics is like having an Evoker who *knows* all the evocations, but then has a brain fart and only memorized fire spells. It sounds like a facepalm moment rather than an expected situation.

[HalfQuart]

My experience with save-or-die and save-or-suck spells that are essentially encounter-ending is that they fail more often than their save DC would indicate likely. I.e. they almost never work, even when the DC is rather high.

In short, I think my DM dislikes encounters ending "too easily" and fudges save rolls. I have no way to prove this; maybe I'm just inordinately unlucky with the dice, but I've changed my caster characters to either do direct damage, utility casting, or buffing. I too hate allowing a save.