Miscellania

[Anastasia]

For those times I want to babble.

1. Epic magic progression is going to need another tweak. I've used the Dark Six in part to playtest 10th+ level magic, and I think a standard progression rate is too fast. Maybe halve it, I dunno. I have a few more levels before you guys reach this so it's not a life or death hurry. Considering that the vast majority of the content here is going to be custom made, a slower progression makes sense there too.

2. To your question in PM before I left for work Seira, I keep various notes of boosts. My organization is always a bit slipshod(Yeah, yeah, I should know better). Why do you ask?

3. Splitting needs to go away. It wasn't broken at all at the start, but as Amaryl's build slotted in and she got bane/sacred and other ways to add extra damage dice, things have gotten out of control fast. I'm going to do this OOC once this arc ends and compensate Amaryl for the change.

4. I'll be tackling Wish/Miracle soon.  The only serious problem is stat boosters, I'm considering various remedies to this. No real point to this, just keep your eyes open for it.

5. What do you guys think of the various epic feats I've posted? They range the gamut in quality, have they interested or helped you guys at all?

6. Sometime after this arc ends and you guys have the requisite cooldown period, the ruins are still on the table. OOC, Deme wants to finish them to have closure on Demedais. Christmas break is ideal to do at least part of them, not sure how those times are going to work out.

[Corwin]

I dunno. I'm sure you got to see how it worked, but it's all a great mystery to me, I must admit. Maybe if one of the spells worked-- yeah, that would've been beyond bad. More to the point, my true CL without boosters/feats is 13. Unless I'm misreading the rules you've posted, I'd only ever be eligible for epic magic after gaining natural cl 20. That's, uhh, a lot of wait as is. I dunno if I'll ever see it as is, so making it slower seems to translate to making Seira casting 10th+ level spells even more theorethical than it is now.

I only have 3 lvl6 slots available and decided to free up the superior resistance for this venture into the Abyss with Xerona. Except I deleted the old values in a hurry and they clash with the ones I have. Stuff like not knowing where an extra +1 to ref came from, did I accidentally subtract only 5 from the ref save value or was there something that affected it that I'm forgetting to count. Wanted to double-check.

For Amaryl's weapon, I'd prefer it if Waukeen changed it similarly to how Kossuth did for Hell Striker (or some other more suitable deity, if one fits better here). There's no need to dwell on it too much, but it'd be kinda lame if one day it just stopped twinning arrows and she'll be forced to lament together with Marie on the universe's great conspiracies. Further on splitting, I don't think it needs to be banned overall if you only see it causing trouble in certain character+bow enchantment builds, but that's my opinion.

Wish-wise, why not just have a built-in delay in stat boosting via Wish? Such as 'only works once per X time', with you deciding the X. Seems to work, especially since you're the one who decides when to timeskip us and how far.

Epic feats... only a handful have been helpful to me, to be honest. You've been focusing a lot on prc-themed feats, and none of them either appeal to me or even have me as eligible. The automatic lines of metamagic feats interests me the most at present, however. I'd appreciate seeing some dragon-themed feats I can actually use and would want to, if you ever get inspired.

Arc ending... well, I'd like to go cave in Gurlan's face, but that can happen after ruins. I wouldn't want to start any other (side)quest before those, once we finish with Androlynne and deal with any immediate/short-term consequences thereof.

[Anastasia]

I dunno. I'm sure you got to see how it worked, but it's all a great mystery to me, I must admit. Maybe if one of the spells worked-- yeah, that would've been beyond bad. More to the point, my true CL without boosters/feats is 13. Unless I'm misreading the rules you've posted, I'd only ever be eligible for epic magic after gaining natural cl 20. That's, uhh, a lot of wait as is. I dunno if I'll ever see it as is, so making it slower seems to translate to making Seira casting 10th+ level spells even more theoretical than it is now.

I can go more into the nuts and bolts of what I've done on my end when this arc finishes. With all of this being custom, a new level of spells to explore every 2 levels strikes me as being a bit too much. A slower progression will give time for the higher level magics to shine and more time to flesh them out.

Admittedly, I'm arguing this as a general design issue and not one specific to Seira's build.

I only have 3 lvl6 slots available and decided to free up the superior resistance for this venture into the Abyss with Xerona. Except I deleted the old values in a hurry and they clash with the ones I have. Stuff like not knowing where an extra +1 to ref came from, did I accidentally subtract only 5 from the ref save value or was there something that affected it that I'm forgetting to count. Wanted to double-check.

Next down day we can go over these things together and see what values we come up with, say? It never hurts to double-check the math every few levels, too. Mistakes happen.

For Amaryl's weapon, I'd prefer it if Waukeen changed it similarly to how Kossuth did for Hell Striker (or some other more suitable deity, if one fits better here). There's no need to dwell on it too much, but it'd be kinda lame if one day it just stopped twinning arrows and she'll be forced to lament together with Marie on the universe's great conspiracies. Further on splitting, I don't think it needs to be banned overall if you only see it causing trouble in certain character+bow enchantment builds, but that's my opinion.

You can argue if splitting needs a hard ban, a soft ban or just a nerf, but it's not really material to the point in question. But if you want something plotty for the change I'll respect that and work something out. Talk to me in PM later.

Wish-wise, why not just have a built-in delay in stat boosting via Wish? Such as 'only works once per X time', with you deciding the X. Seems to work, especially since you're the one who decides when to timeskip us and how far.

Thanks for the suggestion!  I'll get into this later when I really work on Wish.

Epic feats... only a handful have been helpful to me, to be honest. You've been focusing a lot on prc-themed feats, and none of them either appeal to me or even have me as eligible. The automatic lines of metamagic feats interests me the most at present, however. I'd appreciate seeing some dragon-themed feats I can actually use and would want to, if you ever get inspired.

Automatic metamagic feats can be cranked out  at will. Automatic silent/still provides a template that works fine for them and can be imported with little difficulty.  Most of them need a quick sanity check to make sure that it's not broken, but most metamagic feats can be easily extended into these. What ones interest you in particular? Do note that you  need the basic metamagic before you get an automatic version, so I suppose that partially answers this question.

The majority of the epic feats I've made relate back to monster design - it's why I've made a few vile epic feats - or epic PrC extensions.  You work with what you need to, yeah? Dragons are a complete package, I rarely feel the need to buff up dragons with custom feats. Though on reflection I think this is missing the point - by dragon you mean you, not other dragons? What you're really asking is about feats that fit you. Let me see what shakes out next time I work on feats.

Arc ending... well, I'd like to go cave in Gurlan's face, but that can happen after ruins. I wouldn't want to start any other (side)quest before those, once we finish with Androlynne and deal with any immediate/short-term consequences thereof.

Right.

[Corwin]

Sure, I'd like to hear more about the stuff behind the scenes when you can talk about it, though irc is better than forum for it, if that's not a problem.

For automatic metamagic feats, yeah, it's pretty obvious. I'd consider quicken as well, if it were eligible, but twin is really what it's all about. I asked you about it specifically before, if you remember. Empower is... I don't know. I'll likely try to take that feat that lowers the metamagic cost by one across the board, so I doubt I'll need to have them automatic, when I could just boost them without too much an expense. Maximize is pretty good, but if I am able to afford the various metamagic rods of it, I find that preferable. No other metamagic feats really interest me, although I might get into chaining/splitting one day. Who knows?

And yes, I really meant dragon-flavored as opposed to hellreaver-flavored, say. Exciting feat trees that actually draw on your build and improve it.

[Anastasia]

1. Re: Moment of Prescience: Were either of you thinking about taking it and applying it's bonus to init or anything like that? RAW you probably could.

2. Ninth level magic is looking a bit thin. There's never been as many spells for it as other levels and a few of it's spells are going by the wayside(Power word kill, Wail of the Banshee, Shapechange) and a few others need revisions/nerfs(Gate, Wish). Just a heads up here that the SRD pool of spells is going to be a bit short.

3. I'm toying with adding a material component of some cost to Time Stop. Any thoughts? I also might add an old line from second edition that divinities are immune to time stop(Except from other Gods), but this is mostly flavor.

4. I've been toying with Turn Undead. I saw a revised version on Brilliant Gameologists, does this do anything for any of you? It might make turning a bit handier, though it would require a bit of work to integrate:

Turn Undead
You create a burst of positive energy centered on yourself with a thirty foot radius.  All undead creatures in the area take 1d6 points of damage per Cleric level. A successful Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 cleric level + Cha mod) halves the damage.  All living creatures in the area are healed the same amount (Will save for half, harmless).  You are not affected by your own turn attempts.

Undead creatures with Turn Resistance take less damage.  For each point of turn resistance, reduce the number of damage dice by one.  So if a ninth level Cleric (9d6 turn damage normally) would turn a vampire (turn resistance 4), he would roll 4d6 damage less, so he would only deal 5d6 damage to the vampire.

It's a departure from normal turning and the healing to all makes it really potent. It would make turning relevant again.

5. CC says:
It'd be nice if you either added a thread, or just edited the current npc one, and just wrote a few lines
Stuff like height, appearance, some general thoughts, either from you about the chars, or as the chars towards something they feel strongly about
I think it'd be nice


Any interest? It's work but I can do it if there's motivation.

[Corwin]

1. Taking it? Well yeah, I even have a scroll of it for backup. Using it on init? Didn't really consider it, probably wouldn't, unless it was like a key boss battle I couldn't measure up to otherwise.

2. PHB2 has the 'You are now an adult red dragon' spell, and it's totally getting taken home if I can't manage this any other way until I get it, like I would actually prefer. (I'm sure it'll be fine even with the low SRD selection)

3. Unfair beings immune to Time Stop? Say it ain't so! No real thoughts otherwise, hasn't used it so far, about four levels away from ever using it.

4. I lack Turning and even getting it as a dip would never make it even good for me, much less great of relevant. Just makes it hard to care under the circumstances, you know? I did always dislike how Turning worked normally, if that helps any.

[Ebiris]

1. Moment of Prescience is an ok spell, but I have too few to likely blow on it, so no issue for me.
3. I'd planned on taking a feat to make myself immune to time stop anyway. It would rarely come up but would be awesomely hilarious when it did. I loathe material components on principle.
4. I'd actually use that variant of Turn Undead. As it is, my turns are worthless - the only time we ever face undead who look like they'd be vulnerable to me, they turn out to be souped up versions who're way past my limit, so all it's really good for is fuelling divine might.
5. That's pretty neat - a description to refer to for NPCs would be handy, since there are a few I don't actually know what they look like, and it's always interesting to see your thoughts on them. Something to do when you're bored?

[Anastasia]

2. PHB2 has the 'You are now an adult red dragon' spell, and it's totally getting taken home if I can't manage this any other way until I get it, like I would actually prefer. (I'm sure it'll be fine even with the low SRD selection)

Technically this spell would be banned since it's a polymorph, though I'd allow it in your case because it's a perfect fit and relatively balanced.

4. I lack Turning and even getting it as a dip would never make it even good for me, much less great of relevant. Just makes it hard to care under the circumstances, you know? I did always dislike how Turning worked normally, if that helps any.

The main benefit to Seira would be a bit of extra cheap healing and devotion fuel, as well as opening up divine feats.

3. I'd planned on taking a feat to make myself immune to time stop anyway. It would rarely come up but would be awesomely hilarious when it did. I loathe material components on principle.

I'd considered a feat like that, too. This lead to me considering a component for it, which lead to here. What was the feat you were going to take?

4. I'd actually use that variant of Turn Undead. As it is, my turns are worthless - the only time we ever face undead who look like they'd be vulnerable to me, they turn out to be souped up versions who're way past my limit, so all it's really good for is fuelling divine might.

We'll try it then. What's your turning level?

5. That's pretty neat - a description to refer to for NPCs would be handy, since there are a few I don't actually know what they look like, and it's always interesting to see your thoughts on them. Something to do when you're bored?

Sure.

[Ebiris]

Alicia's effective level for turning is 8. As for getting immunity to time stop, it'd come via the Spell Stowaway epic feat - if someone casts Time Stop within 300 feet, you get affected as well. It could be interpreted as simply running a seperate time stop for the stowaway immediately after the original caster completes his, but it seems far cooler for the caster and the stowaway to be time stopped simultaneously.

[Anastasia]

Alicia's effective level for turning is 8. As for getting immunity to time stop, it'd come via the Spell Stowaway epic feat - if someone casts Time Stop within 300 feet, you get affected as well. It could be interpreted as simply running a seperate time stop for the stowaway immediately after the original caster completes his, but it seems far cooler for the caster and the stowaway to be time stopped simultaneously.

I'd considered both that feat and a custom feat to ignore time stop altogether.  Either works.

[Corwin]

The benefit of Turning being fuel wouldn't change for me, regardless of versions. Getting 1d6 of healing is something I use a wand of CLW for, so my lack of caring remains.  >_>

Did I happen to mention I'd be happy to get a dragon's form without the magic? Truly, my subtlety knows no bounds.

I'd also like to remind you that I asked you about the epic feat that lowers metamagic costs by one. Please take another look at it and tell me whether it's available, and if so, what are the changes to it. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#improvedMetamagic

And since we're on the subject of epic feats, there's something that's been bugging me for ages about D&D magic in general. Let's pretend we've had a lengthy argument about how wizards are gods and how they're awesome and overpowered, and came back to a point where we agree that while they shine awesomely in any single situation with smart spell selection and prep, they just can't really be cool and effective at prolongued engagements or multiple ones across the same day aganst level-appropriate enemies. I'd really like to see if there were ways to do something about it that wouldn't be game-breaking, be it per-encounter powers (Hellreaver-style, to avoid 4e hate?), a doubling of spell slots that doesn't suck like the rings of wizardry (really, ~43% of my slots come from the int bonus, and that ratio's only going to climb as stats increase while basic slots remain static, and I don't recall a change being proposed for those), or improved recasting options that don't rely on pearls of power hording and whoring. I have absolutely no idea if this is too awesome or what, but to give a general idea for the last one... like there's an Automatic Quicken Spell feat that lets you quicken your lvl1-3 spells automatically and then your lvl4-6 spells if you take it again, perhaps a feat could exist that does something that mixes some of this and some of that archmage feature that lets you dump a slot to cast a given spell a couple times as a SLA instead. You'd effectively be epic and have earned it, in a fashion, and your spells would still ultimately be limited, but you wouldn't need to keep track of each casting of shield or haste, you know? It'd actually be cool.

[Anastasia]

Cor: It really depends a lot on the execution of any ability here. Try and refine your idea a bit down to what you want and how you want it to do it, roughly? Keep it down to a minimum of detail, just focus on the important parts.

[Corwin]

Sure. I'll make three variants for epic feats, one for each approach, and then you'll correct me on where I'm going in the wrong direction, if that works.

[Anastasia]

Go ahead. Post 'em here when you're done.

[Corwin]

I have no sense of naming or balance, it's probably not a huge secret. Anyway, one of the alternatives I was talking about would go like this:

Increased Magic Capacity [Epic]
Prerequisites
Spellcraft 13 ranks, ability to cast 9th-level arcane or divine spells, your highest spell level is at least six levels higher than any spell levels that would be affected by this feat.

Benefit
You may recast all of your prepared 0-, 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells a second time. The normal limits to the spells in question apply.

Special
You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it now applis to the spells of your next three lowest spell levels. The second time you would be eligible is when you have 12th level spells, and so on.


It wouldn't give you stronger power than automatic twin spell, nor the immediate per-round power of automatic quicken spell, but what this does provide is more options. If I can recast any given spell without relying on item cheese, it means I don't need to memorize several unicorns or Haste twice. That frees me up to pursue more fun/wider-spread options, or even to actually get more of the combat spells and just last longer throughout the day. Twice as long, in fact. Not really sure about the prereqs. The progression, if any, would be more staggered than any comparable automatic feat, but I couldn't think of any feat that would apply well as a prereq. Something like 'must have x metamagic feats'? Maybe 'must have at least one epic metamagic feat'? Practiced spellcaster?


Vitalize Spellcasting [Epic]
Benefit: You gain double the spell slots you would normally gain from any ring of wizardry or similar benefit, not just the ones gained from a class.
Special: Bonus spells from high ability scores, school specialization, or any other source are also doubled while enjoying the benefit of a ring of wizardry or similar source.


Yeah, this one was shamelessly stolen from the Vitalize Potion writeup. I don't like how it reads, but the basic intent should be obvious. If some enterpreneuring mage is spending hundreds of thousands in gold on pimp-like golden rings, this epic feat ensures that he gets the most ouf of his money without haggling over slots. I'm not even sure I'd take it as is, at current prices and all (since it'd almost certainly mean I'd need slotless rings of wizardry for x2.5 price, yay), but who knows? I think it offers a decent option for those who wish to seize it and can afford to.



I don't actually have a per encounter mechanic so far to demonstrate even as a draft. Maybe this could be yet another area where turning is used as fuel, to substitite for the Hellreaver holy fury points? Like you said, Dune, I'm certainly thinking on and off about a one-level dip to get turning one day to power Travel Devotion, so it could be one more reason if that direction sounds right. I'm vaguely thinking of a framework that lets you refresh spells after encounter by spending X turning attempts (3-4?), perhaps increasingly more with each such refreshing. Thoughts?