[OSSR]Epic Level Handbook

[Mistborn]

So two people were dumb enough to request that I do one of these OSSR dealies and people have been asking for someone to riff whats known around these parts as the d20 jokebook. Both of those things are now happening at once, prepare for maximum stupidity (this is a LM thread after all)

Whelp lets make this shit transpire

Chapter one Characters, Skills, and Feats
So this chapter starts off by listing names of people the authors considered models for epic characters, Conan is mentioned alongside Baba Yaga Cu Chulainn and Elminster. I wish I was making that up. The next paragraph spells out what's in the book with suprising honesty, casters get new ways to rewrite reality while swordguys get better at swinging their sword.

So on going beyond level 20. First everyone's saves and bab stop advancing by class and start advancing by a special table. Saves are +1 every odd level bab is as wizard. The wizard does not care, the fighter tries not to cry, the cleric is now laughing at the fighter because their bab comes from Divine Power which still 1/1, the fighter cries a lot.

The monsters completely ignore this section of course because fuck you (or maybe they're all secretly clerics)

Also you stop getting iterative attacks and noone cares

If you took all 20 levels in a PC class congrats you get some epic bonus feats for your trouble, if you multiclassed at any point in your travels their is still hope for you yet as long as you at least finished one 10 pestige class the DM is obligated to write an epic progression for it. Epic feat progression is are unintentionally hilarious with cleric, sorcerer, and wizard are all second only to the fighter in feat accumulation while monks get the fewest feats of any epic progression (probably to compensate for all the awesome powers they get -__-)

There are also epic prestige class they mostly give you spells that the casters all already have once or twice a day and are mostly forgettable. Union Sentinel however needs special mention. You get to be an beat cop in a planar metropolis and gain SLAs that were relevant 10 levels ago. Soooooooo. Epic.

Skills get their own subsection. The only reason anyone cares is it's easy to cheese into geting "epic" skill bonuses at shockingly low levels. This is mostly a garb bag of trivial and cool but replicatable with a low level spell( or they just literally fake a low level spell). I believe the infamous diplomancer chat makes it's first appearance here. Note that the spot rules here are one of the few ways to pierce superior invis.+mindblank

Now on what we've all been waiting for Epic Feats

There's basically now way I'm going to read all of these fuckers so what I'm gonna do is alternate between showing you a epic feat non-caster feat and epic caster feat

Lingering Damage creatures that you sneak attack take sneak attack damage again next round this basically doubles you damage output if you're a Rogue good luck finding epic adversaries still vulnerable to SA though.

Automatic {Still/Silent/Quicken} Spell: these feats let you chose to cast your 3rd level or lower spells with that metamagic feat for free. Take the same feat multiple times and it increases the max level the feats apply to by three, Auto-quicken at least seems worth taking though you have to wait until level 27 to get it

Epic Dodge: once per round you can avoid all damage from an attack by the person you declared your dodge on. This was almost remotely worth taking.

Multispell: you can cast an additional quickened spell every round the action economy is weeping softly in the corner and god only knows how this interacts with the 3e swift and immediate action rules.

Perfect Two-Weapon fighting: finally after so much blood, sweat, tears, and three other feats you no long take any penalties for fighting with two weapons. You thought this day would never come, it's all you can do not to cry

Improved Metamagic: this is the Incantix's 10 level class feature, it reduces the metamagic cost of all your spells by one (to a minimum of +1). You can take this feat more than once and it stacks with itself if you're taking this you probably already have Arcane thesis and Incantrix 10 have fun with your +1 adjusted quicken and twin metamagics.

Epic Weapon Focus: you get +2 to hit this will help you commit Sudoku to alleviate the dishonor of having taken such shitty feat.

Epic Spellcasting: this feat grants access to the Epic Spellcasting system. It's completely insane and well be covering it...
next time

[Lokathor]

Mistborn, your punctuation needs work.

But keep going.

[Red_Rob]

The thing about the ELH was it just displayed a fundamental lack of understanding about high level play in D&D. It was like they hadn't even looked at their own product before churning this shit out. We joke that level 20 is "Win D&D" and unplayable, and this is even worse.

A level 23 Barbarian gets DR 5/- as their class feature. CR23 monsters are doing 15D6+25 damage. At level 21 they didn't even get a class feature. All they got was +1 to hit (that doesn't count as BaB, Fuck you) and some hit points.

The feats are hilarious. It's like the land that balance forgot - Epic Toughness (+20hp) and Bane of Enemies (+2D6 damage against favoured enemies) rubs up against Colossal Wild Shape (Guess) and Epic Spell Focus (+6 to save DC's). Epic prowess gives you +1 to hit. Plus fucking one to hit. Can you feel the Epicness! That'll compete with the Time Stops and Wishes that casters have been throwing around for the last 4 levels. You couldn't make this shit up.

Really, that was the problem that the ELH could never overcome. Casters had been throwing around Wish for 4 levels now. Where do you go from there? I don't really know, and neither did Andy Collins. The difference is I didn't release a $20 book proving it.

[MisterDee]

A request: when you do the monsters, I'd appreciate a special analysis of the Hecatonsheire or whatever that ridiculously stupid CR 53 thingy is called.

It always seemed trivial to murder the thing (even for a 15th-level martial or whatever) but I never actually bothered to stat a fighter that could do it.

[wotmaniac]

A request: when you do the monsters, I'd appreciate a special analysis of the Hecatonsheire or whatever that ridiculously stupid CR 53 thingy is called.

It always seemed trivial to murder the thing (even for a 15th-level martial or whatever) but I never actually bothered to stat a fighter that could do it.

The crux of the issue with this creature is all of the immunities that abominations get in general (stats that are not in the actual creature entry), in addition to its creature-specific abilities.
though, it's still not tough enough to warrant a goddamned CR 53.

[Red_Rob]

At least the Hecatoncheires can fly. The poor Devastation Beetle is a CR50 monster that can't fly and has no ranged attack beyond a 60' gas cloud. Sure, it'll mess you up if it gets close, but how is it supposed to do that against a level 15 party, let alone a level 50 one?

[wotmaniac]

At least the Hecatoncheires can fly. The poor Devastation Beetle is a CR50 monster that can't fly and has no ranged attack beyond a 60' gas cloud. Sure, it'll mess you up if it gets close, but how is it supposed to do that against a level 15 party, let alone a level 50 one?

As far as CR goes .... I think that whether or not the creature can actually defeat the party is largely irrelevant -- the only thing that really matters is whether or not the party can defeat the creature.


btw -- I had a similar discussion with a player of mine .... he brought up a scenario wherein he could just dig a giant hole and bait the creature in to falling in, eventually the creature would die of wtf-ever ..... at which point a declared to him that "no - you simply created a scenario in which you guaranteed avoidance of the creature ... you avoiding a challenge is not the same as defeating the challenge.
now, giving a story XP reward for "saving the town from the WTF-monster" would still be applicable.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I give full exp for cleverly avoiding a challenge as if they killed it. Doesn't stop my players from killing everything they come across even when cleverness or non-violent confrontation would be easier though...

[Surgo]

btw -- I had a similar discussion with a player of mine .... he brought up a scenario wherein he could just dig a giant hole and bait the creature in to falling in, eventually the creature would die of wtf-ever ..... at which point a declared to him that "no - you simply created a scenario in which you guaranteed avoidance of the creature ... you avoiding a challenge is not the same as defeating the challenge.
now, giving a story XP reward for "saving the town from the WTF-monster" would still be applicable.

That's retarded, and would guarantee that any character I made would go around punching out each and every guard, servant, and dog in the castle before finally rescuing the princess in the dungeon.

[ishy]

"no - you simply created a scenario in which you guaranteed avoidance of the creature ... you avoiding a challenge is not the same as defeating the challenge.

Actually, it might be.

You must decide when a challenge has been overcome. Usually, this is simple to do. Did the PCs defeat the enemy in battle? Then they met the challenge and earned experience points. Other times, it can be trickier. Suppose the PCs sneak past the sleeping minotaur to get into the magical vault—did they overcome the minotaur encounter? If their goal was to get into the vault and the minotaur was just a guardian, then the answer is probably yes. It’s up to you to make such judgments.

So if you play 3.x, avoiding the encounter can be considered as defeating the challenge in certain cases.

[nockermensch]

FROM 10 YEARS AGO...

Okay, yesterday was a school holyday here, and since neither me
neither my friends had college to attend, I DM'd yet another chapter
of my cataclysmic campaign. (It also means that I'm with 4 hours of
sleep in my system. BE warned that I don't spellcheck when sleepy.)
Ahem, the adventure was basically talk, talk, talk, with the heroes
conferencing with their allies, dividing treasure and planning what to
do next. Then there was the "rescue": A friend of them came via astral
plane, being closely followed by something *nasty*. They already knew
that it was *nasty* but had no idea of what it was. Neither I.

In the last instant, since the ELH was nearby, I decided that the
beings there pretty much matched the *nasty* definition, so I went
thru the monsters, looking for something who wouldn't instakill a
party of 5 PCs (average level 15) and 2 npcs (average level 16). I set
for that three headed gargantuan black panther, whose name I forgot
(did I mention that I'm sleepy?). CR 24.

For giving my players a chance (or so I thought) I removed his DR
(actually it lowered it to 15/+4, something that all heroes could
hit), reduced its SR by 10, to 24) and removed its insight bonus to
AC. The players reached the point where their friend would arrive, and
after some interesting conversation with a dwarven master artificer
living in a nearby asteroid (astral plane = space) the monster
arrived.

What happened next, it was terrible:

The two bladesingers went imp. invis
The sorcerer ghostformed
The geomancer went imp. invis
The rogue (11th level!) blinked via his ring
The two wizards (one was the rescuee), guess what? imp. invis too.
The cleric gulped really, really hard.

I looked the monster statblock again. No scent, no blindsight, no see
invisibility, no dispelling powers, no epic spot, no nothing. The
weakened monster I created was a sitting target. A target with 595hps,
but alas... Oh, it instantly murdered the cleric. Soon after it was
killed. It took the heroes two rounds.

It was so outrageous that I said that that weakened monster was but a
small slight of power of the *actual monster*, and that the "real
thing" was arriving. The players groaned. I reapplied the insight
bonus to AC, the SR and the full strength of its poison (did I
mentioned that I had weakened its poison to 1d6Con/1d6Con?) and
relaunched the epic monster over the group, a CR 24 being on its full
glory.

Or so I thought.

It happens that that monster AC is almost all from DEX, that sadly
disappears when you can see the blow. +15 Insight +4 natural(!!!!) -4
size meant AC 25, something the bladesingers had good hopes to hit
with their tertiary attacks.

The epic monster endured 3 rounds, actually applying some decent
damage to the guys who full attacked it (50% miss chance because invis
still means you hit a lot) but dying in a really messy way (the
bladesingers got brave and power attacked it, using true strike to hit
their last iterative attack). Most of their attacks easily bypassing
the DR 15/+6. A wizard got lucky with an enervation but it was the
only spell who penetrated its SR. The 11th level rogue was rolling
well and sneak attacked it for Great Justice, charging in and out with
Spring Attack.

The result? everybody went up at least a level. The 11th level rogue
and the 13th cleric (who will be risen on the next game) are now on
pair with the others.

The conclusion? Here's an easy exploit for easily killing a CR24 epic
beast. And next time I'll use an Atropal. If the players don't get the
hint, it's not my problem, but theirs.

TL;DR: The nickname Joke Book is masterfully applied.

[fectin]

this will help you commit Sudoku to alleviate the dishonor

:rofl:

I'm going to assume that was on purpose. Nice.

[Guyr Adamantine]

At least the Hecatoncheires can fly. The poor Devastation Beetle is a CR50 monster that can't fly and has no ranged attack beyond a 60' gas cloud. Sure, it'll mess you up if it gets close, but how is it supposed to do that against a level 15 party, let alone a level 50 one?

As far as CR goes .... I think that whether or not the creature can actually defeat the party is largely irrelevant -- the only thing that really matters is whether or not the party can defeat the creature.


btw -- I had a similar discussion with a player of mine .... he brought up a scenario wherein he could just dig a giant hole and bait the creature in to falling in, eventually the creature would die of wtf-ever ..... at which point a declared to him that "no - you simply created a scenario in which you guaranteed avoidance of the creature ... you avoiding a challenge is not the same as defeating the challenge.
now, giving a story XP reward for "saving the town from the WTF-monster" would still be applicable.

Why wouldn't you want to give him XP? Thinking outside of the box and finding unique solutions to challenges is the whole god damn point of playing roleplaying game instead of, well, anything else!

Personally, I want my players to outsmart me. Much more fun (and rewarding!) that way.

[Wiseman]

If anyone cares, Eiji-Kun is trying to fix epic levels. A slow work in progress but at least it's a start...

http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Complete_E ... ourcebook)

Edit: Fuck Dnd-wiki's addresses, the stupid paretheses makes it nigh impossible to link anything!

[Seerow]

this will help you commit Sudoku to alleviate the dishonor

I'm going to assume that was on purpose. Nice.

I was hoping nobody else was going to beat me to that

[Chamomile]

I'm interested to see where Complete Epic goes, but I confess I don't have high hopes for a plan to fix Epic when level 12+ is so borked already.

[Username17]

If anyone cares, Eiji-Kun is trying to fix epic levels. A slow work in progress but at least it's a start...

Complete Epic

Edit: Fuck Dnd-wiki's addresses, the stupid paretheses makes it nigh impossible to link anything!

Fixed that for you. if you need to link to something with parentheses, use the percent codes: 28 and 29 are the open and close parenthesis. Basically, I don't see how Eiji-Kun's methodology can possibly work. The number one or even number seventeen problem of Epic Levels was never that Epic Wizards were too limited by being unable to poison Iron Golems.

The problem is that shit is fucking crazy, and getting +1/level to your attack bonuses and skills is simply no where near enough to make up the kinds of ground you're supposed to against even high level non-epic foes. The Fighter paradigm went mostly obsolete 12 levels ago and completely obsolete 8 levels ago when you hit Epic. Fixing Epic is not something you can do until you fix 15th level play.

-Username17

[Schleiermacher]

Speaking as someone who's run a campaign from level 4 to ~26 (ECLs at the end got pretty hairy) I don't think an unbounded Epic progression is a good idea. It just makes everything on the high end of power completely inconsistent. In fact, considering that characters are supposed to double in power every 2 levels, I don't think you need any "Epic progression" at all; 20 levels is enough. Or it would be if the game was designed with that progression in mind.

Then you would have tiers that looked something like this:

1-5: Adventurer
6-10: Heroic
11-15: Epic
16-20: Immortal

And someone like Lolth would be a CR 18 Outsider with a bunch of divine powers that are suitably wide-ranging and impressive but don't actually do her much good in a fight.

Because seriously? In a world where most people are 5th level or lower, a 20th level Cleric is pretty much a god already. He can control weather, raise the dead, lay geasa and curses, and effortlessly stomp the people who can effortlessly stomp those guys.

[Mistborn]

So yeah, I sort of abandoned this project for a while, which was a travesty because I had yet to review Epic Spellcasting. Let's make this take place.

Chapter Two: Epic Spells


Faced with the task of giving more advancement to the Classes that already cast Shapechange, Gate, Timestop, Wish and/or Miracle, Epic Spellcasting simply throws up it's hands as says "fuck this you can make your own spells". Unlike a lot of the stuff in the previous chapter this chapter contains shit that actually seems pretty fucking epic. Doing shit rasing islands, creating a new species, or blocking out the sun.

Epic Casting is skill based using the skeleton of a system that would be later reused for the truenamer. Unlike the Trunamer however unlike truenaming epic casting has real abilities in it's corner. Like the Truenamer however it will never grant actually level appropriate abilities, either tearing the game assunder or wasting gold, xp, and actions on effects worse that what a 21st level spellcaster has access too from normal casting with basically nothing in between depending on how much you're cheesing it.


So how this actually works is you get a number of "epic slots" which are essentially 10th level equal to your ranks in Knowledge (Arcana){or nature/religion if your a Druid/Cleric} divided by 10, so basically two slots. If you cast normal spells spontaneously that your epic spells are also spontaneous. To cast an epic spell you need to make a spellcraft check with stronger spell having higher DCs. Now from the start this is bananas since there's basically no relationship between your level and you spellcraft bonus this is a crap shoot.

The pregenerated epic spells are pretty much all jank, some of them are cool or flavorful jank but jank they assureably are. However epic spells are all derived from "seeds" and their are some hidden gems in there that let you do things you give a shit about. So either you casting Hellballs at people for laughable amounts of damage or you're walking around with +20 to your casting stat. Then there are rituals you see one of the "mitigating factors" you can use to bring those DCs down is to have other chumps cast the spell with you and burn their spell slots. There's not limit to the number of casters who can participate so if your death cult is large enough you might actually be able to destroy the planet (the DC is about 20 million so your going to need a pretty big death cult). Or if you just want to make the game explode instead the Summon seed can permanently bind something that it self can cast spells and thus can participate in rituals.

[Prak]

You only worry about the Spellcraft check when you research the spell, as I understand it. It really doesn't matter, however, because you can write spells that permanently give you special abilities with long casting times, large rituals, and Spellcraft DC 0.

[name_here]

I had thought that too, but I just checked the SRD and it is to cast.

I definitely like having rules for incredibly powerful mass rituals, but blowing 2000 XP and a full-round action to deal 20d6 damage is kinda lame.

[Prak]

Then I would say that rule falls into the same category as Favoured Class--no one knows it, and if they do, they don't use it.

[Seerow]

I had thought that too, but I just checked the SRD and it is to cast.

I definitely like having rules for incredibly powerful mass rituals, but blowing 2000 XP and a full-round action to deal 20d6 damage is kinda lame.

Does it at least deal 20d6 damage to everything on a small continent?

[name_here]

It is, I shit you not, single-target At least if you have the slot at all you have a maximum 5% chance of failing to cast it.

[Aharon]

Well, it does have a pretty good range, so the xp cost is definitely worth it