Epic Balance...?

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Epic Balance...?

Post by Maj »

Yeah, I know. It's laughable. I am having some issues when it comes to epic classes, though, and I'm wondering if anyone has some thoughts that might help...

When I write up classes (both prestige and non) for characters under 20th level, it's pretty easy to figure out what the approximate power level ought to be by comparing the class to one of the base classes and/or other prestige classes dealing with the same theme. I do this passably well.

The problem I'm having with epic classes is that more often than not, they suck more than base classes do, and so I'm having issues with the ability to write more epic classes.

Two of the potential balancing points in a normal class are BAB and saves, but both are made irrelevant with an epic class.

A wizard no longer gets spells per level and instead gets [epic] bonus feats every three levels. In theory, their familiar improves, but I know of no wizard who actually keeps theirs visible at epic levels, so I don't know that I particularly value this ability.

It seems to me that the wizard's main schtick, spellcasting, suddenly ceases being a class feature, in trade for the ability to get a bonus feat every three levels instead of every five.

Great, so I'll look at the fighter. What was once part of the fighter schtick is now no longer an issue: BAB, and the fighter continues getting bonus feats as normal.

Um... Rogue? They still get sneak attack dice every other level, but rather than gain a special ability every three levels, it's essentially every four levels.

In what way do these things they call classes not suck? Do they figure that epic characters are so uber that they've become complacent and thus don't work as hard to be what they were? Am I looking at this wrong? How am I supposed to come up with an epic class and have it not suck if these are the models by which I can compare it to? Should I just go and add three class features/special abilities to each line of a class I make up because it's OK to be broken? Anyone have a good example of what an epic class ought to be like?

As far as I can figure, the only thing that these classes do for you is give you extra access to epic feats - and Frank already proposed a solution that I've kidnapped and used (at the bottom of this post) because I think it's that good.


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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Username17 »

The Epic Save Bonus is a good idea, because it is undesirable for character saves to differ by more than the breadth of a d20.

The Epic Attack Bonus is a terrible idea. There's no reason why a Wizard should be able to hit things with his second attack just because a Fighter can! The Wizard has spells. That's the whole point. Fighters are supposed to keep getting power - the Epic Attack Bonus is just a way to kick them in the crotch for no good reason.

The only thing I've seen out of an Epic Familiar is popping them out to cast Familiar Spells. Having a Familiar who can cast high profile spells with long casting times as a standard action is cool. Major Creation, Greater Planar Binding, and Discern Location are popular choices for the Epic Familiar.

The only thing they really get out of taking more levels of Wizard is an increased Caster Level. And that's of primary use because without it you can't penetrate SR. As such, mostly you see Wizards multiclass after 20th level. Either into a caster PrC (such as the Eldritch Master), or just plain into Rogue. If you normally cast spells which do not allow SR, you don't even want epic levels of wizard. They don't really do anything. Also, don't forget that at Epic Levels you get extra kudos out of the classes like Hierophant which give caster levels without spells anyway. Finally, recall that you can get unlimited caster levels from Ioun Stones in 3.5 - and those are cheaper than gaining levels. So you might as well take Rogue Levels and make Ioun Stones.

The basic Epic Classes are all just like normal classes except with less stuff. I don't actually understand the concept here. Basically it just reinforces the concept that if you aren't multiclassing you suck.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by User3 »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081457657[/unixtime]]The Epic Save Bonus is a good idea, because it is undesirable for character saves to differ by more than the breadth of a d20.

The Epic Attack Bonus is a terrible idea. There's no reason why a Wizard should be able to hit things with his second attack just because a Fighter can! The Wizard has spells. That's the whole point. Fighters are supposed to keep getting power - the Epic Attack Bonus is just a way to kick them in the crotch for no good reason.

.

The basic Epic Classes are all just like normal classes except with less stuff. I don't actually understand the concept here. Basically it just reinforces the concept that if you aren't multiclassing you suck.

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1) It seems to me that Epic BAB *preserves* the position of the Fighter, rather then destroying it. After 4 base attacks per round, it starts getting pretty hard to hit with your tail-end attacks, and the useless attacks you would gain would just waste other player's time (with the exception of the occasional natural 20).

On the other hand, if even a wizard can be looking at 4+ attacks per round, why play a Fighter? Limiting the low BAB classes to 2 attacks/round, mid to 3, and high to 4 preserves the class distinction without wasting time.

2) Epic feats are what make epic base classes worth taking. I'm also not sure why they did it, but someone in WotC decided to shift all of the power normally contained in class abilities to feats. It actually generally works, so whatever. Just don't try playing a monk with more then 20 levels ;)

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Username17 »

It seems to me that Epic BAB *preserves* the position of the Fighter, rather then destroying it.


What?

There's two components to the Epic BAB:

1> You don't get any new attacks after hitting level 20.

This is a bad idea, because it means that a Wizard 20/Fighter 20 has 2 attacks and a Fighter 20/Wizard 20 has 4 attacks.

2> You don't gain better bonuses to attack rolls after 20th level.

This is a bad idea, because the maximum attack bonus difference available to characters of different levels is +10. This means that because the other bonuses are not so capped - that characters invested in sundry magical bonuses (like wizards) will eventually out fight the Fighters because bonuses to Strength and Enhancement and such will exceed +10 by some margain.

The role of the Fighter is not preserved, it just makes sure that the Fighter can't get any better at fighting after level 20. It's a terrible, stupid rule.

Epic feats are what make epic base classes worth taking.


Because in only 2 levels you could get the ability to fire ranged weapons without provoking an opportunity attack? That's nice and all, but the Order of the Bow Inititiate can do the same thing and gets bonus damage under some obscure situations.

The Epic Feats are, without exception, just abilities that some class could simply give you at some level. The fact that the classes give actually blank levels in the mean time is a slap in the pants.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

The point of Epic BAB and such I'm guessing is that at one point, you hit a wall, beyond which it's very hard to make serious improvements. I can see where they're coming from there, but the idea is friggin stupid in reference to Epic, where being over-the-top, crazy-go-nuts powerful is the point!

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Also, I am really not buying the 'Too Many Dice Rolling' argument.

If you're dealing with that much dice at all, either you're rolling on the computer or using the averages. The primary spellcasters make out like mad bandits while the fighter-types get left out in the cold.
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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by User3 »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081477119[/unixtime]]
There's two components to the Epic BAB:

1> You don't get any new attacks after hitting level 20.

This is a bad idea, because it means that a Wizard 20/Fighter 20 has 2 attacks and a Fighter 20/Wizard 20 has 4 attacks.


I'm not going to say that it fully balances here. It is fairly obvious that having a good Will saving throw does not balance out poor BAB and Fortitude compared to the character that starts as a Fighter. However, if you are at all concerned about a character's power (which your post indicates), you would not soddenly multiclass from Wizard to Fighter upon hitting level 20 anyway.

As long as you have Epic savingthrow bonuses (which I don't see anyone complaining about), you need epic BAB bonses. Otherwise, a Monk 20/Fighter 20 would be *signifigantly* better then a Fighter 20/Monk 20 (but see my point below)

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081477119[/unixtime]]
2> You don't gain better bonuses to attack rolls after 20th level.

This is a bad idea, because the maximum attack bonus difference available to characters of different levels is +10. This means that because the other bonuses are not so capped - that characters invested in sundry magical bonuses (like wizards) will eventually out fight the Fighters because bonuses to Strength and Enhancement and such will exceed +10 by some margain.


You are probably right about the "maximum attack bonus difference." Although Fighters gain the signifigant benefit of the fastest epic feat progression (Ignoring some of the terribly broken PrCs out there - Hathran and Hospitaler, I mean you!), the lack of an *increasing* edge is rather harsh.

However, if you allow BAB to progress normally, every character ends up with the same number of effective attacks , ignoring feats and special abilities, of course. If a pure wizard ends up with attacks at 16/11/6/1, plus whatever they get with their Shapechanged strength at level 32, a Fighter with attacks 32/27/22/17/12/7/2 will seem weak. This may sound counter-intuitive at first, but remember that is is far easier for a Wizard to boost their attack roll with spells that for a fighter, and that WotC is right-on in saying that only 4-5 of that Fighter's attacks will actually count, the others just doubling the time it takes to resolve combat.

You could solve the attacks at too low a BAB problem by capping the number of iterative attacks at 4 (as they are), and keeping BAB progression as it is. Of course, then you still end up with the four attacks per round Wizards (And I don't care abouut Eldritch knights..).

So, I suppose the answer is to keep Epic BAB, but have it progress at the normal good, moderate, and bad rates. This is clunky and brings up a whole new host of problems :disgusted:

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081477119[/unixtime]]
Because in only 2 levels you could get the ability to fire ranged weapons without provoking an opportunity attack? That's nice and all, but the Order of the Bow Inititiate can do the same thing and gets bonus damage under some obscure situations.

The Epic Feats are, without exception, just abilities that some class could simply give you at some level. The fact that the classes give actually blank levels in the mean time is a slap in the pants.

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The point of epic feats, as I have said, is that they give class abilities! This means "abilities that some class could simply give you at some level." Quoting one of the weakest Epic feats (though there are a few) and the OotBI's best ability proves nothing.

There are 'dead levels' in epic class advancements. However, not many. Remember that every epic level in a spellcasting class does about the same thing that it did pre-epic, and most fighter class levels have very few dead levels. Rogues are even better then before. Monk is the main exception, being the worst epic progression this side of Mystic theurge.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Username17 »

As long as you have Epic savingthrow bonuses (which I don't see anyone complaining about), you need epic BAB bonses.


The hell you do.

What you need is either:

* Only allow Epic Prestige Classes after 20th level, and have all classes worked around the fact that they provide only the minimal Epic Save Bonuses.

or

* Allow access to any class after 20th, but provide classes which have Good Saves a solid bonus instead - such as bonus skill points or points towards secondary abilities or something.

Simply jacking over classes who give good BAB is not an answer to anything.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by RandomCasualty »

One rule that I think is mandatory for epic rules is the ability to let characters take the best 20 levels for determining their BaB, and each of their three saves. If you start as a fighter 20 and gain 20 monk levels, you should have the saves of a 20th level monk and the BaB of a 20th level fighter, + epic stuff. The fact that it matters what order you take classes is just stupid.

As for epic BaB, I'm not quite sure if removing it is necessarily the way to go. The only thing that tends to break attack bonuses at high levels is polymorph effects. You get the wizard or druid shapechanged into something absurd and that extra strength puts them over the top. Polymorph effects need to be balanced badly.

As for cleric versus fighter, allowing fighter BaB to progress normally doesn't really help the fighter ironically enough. Because as far as the cleric is concerned, it's just one quickened divine power to get that bonus. If we ever want to differentiate the epic fighter from the epic cleric, the fighter's power has to be in his feats, and the cleric has to be put to a decision to either spend feats learning how to fight or spending feats to improve his casting.

If we still keep the fighter's power in his BaB, then the cleric easily replaces the fighter, because a quickened divine power/favor at epic levels is dirt cheap.

The real problem with epic levels though, is the abysmal epic spellcasting system. If any epic concept needs to be tossed, it's the way epic spells are handled. Instead of using the spellcraft score, you should use a formula to calculate the minimum caster level needed to cast a given spell and treat it like a normal spell, or just make it a caster level check.

Basing casting off of a skill is probably the dumbest idea in the world, because skills are by far the most min/maxable thing in the game. Magic has always been about caster level, not about skill points, and for good reason. We all know that if we made spellcasting a skill that every wizard would be running around with a +30 skill item to boost it.
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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Username17 »

Caster Level is even more min maxable still.

It only costs 800 XP to make an Orange Ioun Stone, and that adds a +1 unnamed bonus to your caster level. There is no limit to how many of these you can layer on.

Karma Beads in the 3.5 DMG are apparently free, and stack with themselves to gve dozens of extra caster levels.

Why take epic cleric levels when you can just take levels of Hierophant, and get 2 caster levels per level?

Etc. Etc.

The designers, in their infinite wisdom, long ago decided to allow Clerics access to Caster Levels which were completely un tied to their character level - so using caster level as the basis for anything is a lost cause.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Essence »

There's a feat called Multispell. It lets wizards cast another spell each round (quickened). Should there be a feat for Fighters that allows them another iterative attack each round?

In theory, a wizard will run out of spells. A fighter doesn't run out of sword. Is this supposed to be some sort of balance point? Should we care?


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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Username17 »

Note also that there's no particular reason why additional iterative attacks should have to come at additional -5 penalties forever.

The fifth attack could be at -15 again, or even start over at -0.

There's no reason it has to be:

+21/+16/+11/+6/+1

it could be:

+21/+16/+11/+6/+21

or

+21/+16/+11/+6/+6

or anything in between. If the best argument for not getting more attacks past 20th level is that an attack at -20 is a joke, couldn't we work around that problem by not making the extra attack a -20 attack?

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by User3 »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081489893[/unixtime]]
What you need is either:

* Only allow Epic Prestige Classes after 20th level, and have all classes worked around the fact that they provide only the minimal Epic Save Bonuses.

or

* Allow access to any class after 20th, but provide classes which have Good Saves a solid bonus instead - such as bonus skill points or points towards secondary abilities or something.

Simply jacking over classes who give good BAB is not an answer to anything.

-Username17


Giving characters abilities completely unrelated to those lost in compensation is not an answer to anything. While the epic PrCs idea is interesting, it forces characters to qualify if they wish to advance at epic levels, which (while present in Dragon kings) is even more unfair then some slight imbalance.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081541220[/unixtime]]Note also that there's no particular reason why additional iterative attacks should have to come at additional -5 penalties forever.

The fifth attack could be at -15 again, or even start over at -0.

There's no reason it has to be:

+21/+16/+11/+6/+1

it could be:

+21/+16/+11/+6/+21

or

+21/+16/+11/+6/+6

or anything in between. If the best argument for not getting more attacks past 20th level is that an attack at -20 is a joke, couldn't we work around that problem by not making the extra attack a -20 attack?

-Username17


This is also an interesting idea, but it creates even more of a break with the normal pattern of attacks then simply ending the progression. It seems much simpler to provide epic fighter-types with other ways to gain more attacks, or make the attacks that they have more powerful... Oh wait, we already have those in the form of epic feats! Which the epic Fighter gets more of then any other character!

I'm not saying that the syetem is perfect or even balanced. However, I have yet to see anyone come up with anything better.

Although RandomCasualty's point about epic spellcasting is definately valid. I think they should have tried a bit more playtesting with that one. Or at least had the ELHB spells follow their own rules :rolleyes:
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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Lago_AM3P »

This is also an interesting idea, but it creates even more of a break with the normal pattern of attacks then simply ending the progression. It seems much simpler to provide epic fighter-types with other ways to gain more attacks, or make the attacks that they have more powerful... Oh wait, we already have those in the form of epic feats! Which the epic Fighter gets more of then any other character!


It's SIMPLER? The current progression right now is that everyone but monsters STOP gaining attack bonuses relative to each other. You are going to have to come up with some huge bennies to make up for the fact that BAB have been not only been getting the equivalent of a universal +1 to hit at the very least, but also stuff on top of that.

In the regular levels, even the piece of crap fighter got stuff on top of BAB. That was the whole point of BAB, to make him fight much better than monks and sorcerers. But he also got class features in the form of bonus feats.

Right now, the epic feats suggest that fighters should gain a 1/2 bonus to strength or a +1 bonus to attack. Fighters only get a bonus feat every other level. That means that doing this means the first ten levels of epic fighter are worse in attack progression than the first ten levels of regular fighter in terms of attack bonuses and extra attacks. And this is also counting the fact that the epic fighter is using ALL OF HIS CLASS ABILITIES trying to do this. The first ten levels of fighter grant 6 extra feats that the epic fighter will never see, which makes him exponentially better.

And these levels by all accounts blow intensely in the regular levels.

The bonuses are going to have to be huge, and in the end, it's not going to be less complicated and is almost certainly not going to be less fair than continuing BAB and giving extra attacks.
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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by RandomCasualty »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081520932[/unixtime]]Caster Level is even more min maxable still.

It only costs 800 XP to make an Orange Ioun Stone, and that adds a +1 unnamed bonus to your caster level. There is no limit to how many of these you can layer on.

Karma Beads in the 3.5 DMG are apparently free, and stack with themselves to gve dozens of extra caster levels.

Why take epic cleric levels when you can just take levels of Hierophant, and get 2 caster levels per level?


Well it's really not that difficult to patch up these holes, and really, you have to patch them up anyway if you want holy word to work right... so who really cares.

the solutions are simple. Any bonus to caster levels from items is an enhancement bonus and thus nonstackable. Heirophant can take spell power only once.

I mean if you're going to bother to redo the epic spell system, it's no problem to throw in those two changes as well... not sure why you'd immediately say it's a lost cause when a simple fix like that patches it up nicely.
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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Username17 »

Giving characters abilities completely unrelated to those lost in compensation is not an answer to anything. While the epic PrCs idea is interesting, it forces characters to qualify if they wish to advance at epic levels, which (while present in Dragon kings) is even more unfair then some slight imbalance.


Only if the prerequisites are not "Be a 20th level character". You can take levels of normal Druid without meeting any prereqs except being less than 20th level over all already.

I see no reason why you couldn't take levels of "Grand General" without meeting any prerequisite other than being at least 20th level already. The whole thing of spending feats and skill points and crap to get access to classes has to go out the window if you are requiring characters to take the classes. And since classes post Epic don't look anything like normal classes, that's exactly what you are doing anyway.

Well it's really not that difficult to patch up these holes, and really, you have to patch them up anyway if you want holy word to work right... so who really cares.

the solutions are simple. Any bonus to caster levels from items is an enhancement bonus and thus nonstackable. Heirophant can take spell power only once.


That really doesn't help. The difference in caster level between a 21st level character and a 26th level character is only five. A character with spell power only once and a karma bead can get 5 caster levels.

A 26th level character is supposedly six times as powerful as a 21st level character. If easily achievable gimics can boost the primary quantity by which you compare these two characters by five, then obviously the six fold power increase is simply not happening - and the game balance falls apart.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by RandomCasualty »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081628399[/unixtime]]
That really doesn't help. The difference in caster level between a 21st level character and a 26th level character is only five. A character with spell power only once and a karma bead can get 5 caster levels.


Right, but it's better than using skills as a basis where a +60 skill item can totally blow away the other guy.

This way, we just simply assume every epic caster is going to be walking around with a set of prayer beads. That way it balances out.

When we work with skill items, I don't have the slightest clue what skill boosting items people are likely to have. Quite simply at that level, skills are no longer really related to level, so much as they are on the build. So skills are completely useless.

Caster levels can get slight enhancements to caster level, but the majority of your caster level actually comes from your class levels. With skills pretty much everything comes from your items, feats, with your actual skill ranks being negligible.

Basically the point is that almost anything is better than using skills.
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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Username17 »

This way, we just simply assume every epic caster is going to be walking around with a set of prayer beads. That way it balances out.


Only Divine Casters can walk around with prayer beads. They also have exclusive rights to Alignment Domains, Deathknell, and the Hierophant class.

Basing anything on the current Caster Level System:

1. Screws multiclassed spellcasters. In the ass.

2. Calls up Arcane Spellcasters at 3 in the morning to remind them how not as good as Clerics and Druids they are.

What good does it do? If we were going to set it to some value, we'd be better off just sticking it to character level. At least that's static.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by RandomCasualty »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081669030[/unixtime]]
Only Divine Casters can walk around with prayer beads. They also have exclusive rights to Alignment Domains, Deathknell, and the Hierophant class.


Hmm... you've got a point... maybe we'd be better off just giving each new spell a higher spell slot and just going through with the new system. I mean nothing says that 10th level and higher spell slots have to be reserved for metamagiced spells.
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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by User3 »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081669030[/unixtime]]
Only Divine Casters can walk around with prayer beads. They also have exclusive rights to Alignment Domains, Deathknell, and the Hierophant class.

-Username17


Just to be completely precise, any arcane caster with access to any divine spells can use a bead of Karma for their arcane spells. This includes Imbue with spell, etc.
Red wizards, Archmages, and Shadow adepts all have easy access to caster level increases as well. Of course, withough Blasphemy it is questionable if it even really matters =P

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by MrWaeseL »

I thought thee same source doesn't stack with itself, so you can only have one iount stone?
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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Username17 »

I thought thee same source doesn't stack with itself, so you can only have one iount stone?


It's an unnamed bonus, so no.

Similarly, you can heal as many points of damage with Cure Light Wounds as you want just by casting it over and over again.

The rules are that the same spell can't stack with itself, with the exception of unnamed bonuses. Now, there is no actual rule that magic items can't stack with themselves - but in any case the fact that it provides an unnamed bonus would provide an exception from that rule if it existed, which it doesn't.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by User3 »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1081726276[/unixtime]]Now, there is no actual rule that magic items can't stack with themselves - but in any case the fact that it provides an unnamed bonus would provide an exception from that rule if it existed, which it doesn't.

-Username17


Of course, if the effects of those magical items are bonuses of the same (non-stacking) type, they don't stack with each other or any other bonuses of the same type, regardless of the source. And magical items occupying the same slot will also not stack. :nonono:

:roundnround:

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

Irrelevant here, since there are potentally infinite Ioun Stone slots.

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Re: Epic Balance...?

Post by Maj »

Fix proposed for what happens when an epic level character takes a non-epic [custom] prestige class:

1) Balance the class as normal, including saves and BAB.

2) Take away saves and BAB.

3) As evenly as possible, distribute epic bonus feats (+1 feat for each high save granted by the class, +1 feat for each step of better than wizard BAB - in theory the most you can get is +5 feats) across the levels of the prestige class.

4) In the case of caster PrCs, each level where you gain +1 caster level continues to give you a caster level, but also gives the epic feat Improved Spell Capacity.

It's kind of been avoided, but what about Ess' question? If there's a feat that lets a wizard cast an additional quickened spell each round, it is acceptable to have a fighter take a feat that gives him an extra attack each round (yes, Frank, I have noted your point about -20 attacks ;) )?
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