Tobias Chapman 24's page

I agree with many of the things I've been hearing here and in reading this topic something occurred to me.

Epic Level play SHOULD be a different beast. Why are players striving to reach those levels if there weren't some kind of payoff?
When you get to high levels the fact is that it DOES become a numbers game. There needs to be something to break the game out of that. So I believe short of multi-classing, normal progression should stop at 20th level. It should be the pinnacle of a character's chosen class and/or profession. So what happens after?

In virtually every campaign setting, the various deities operate under certain rules, the most important being that they must NEVER enter the Prime Material in their full god-like state. The reason for this varies, but I think a being with that much power would destabilize the world politically, religiously, AND environmentally.
So my thought is that the gods (or whatever divine force exists within the world) decreed a limit to the amount of power any one being may have on the Prime.

So a character at 20th would be faced with forced retirement, leave the Prime behind, or refocus your training.
I imagine at least 4 routes for further advancement.
If you leave the Prime behind, or limit your power while on it, you can advance in level as normal along with epic feats, etc.

The second through fourth routes makes a character choose the path that he embarks on for the rest of his life. In essence these are epic prestige classes.

The second would be of course the Divine route. Such as seeking godhood or becoming a deity's servant. They would gain divine powers as they advance.

The third would be the nation builder. This can take the form of founding or controlling empires, nations, organizations, etc. They would gain abilities to aid them in this.

The fourth would be what I call the skill route or the "Grandmaster". A character would focus on their training, mastering or creating new styles of combat or magic and maybe founding their own training school. The PC would be able to do truly fantastic things with their trained abilities. A swordsman could slice through any barrier; a wizard could move mountains, a rogue could seem to disappear and could kill with a single well place strike.

I compare the epic character to a real world person getting promoted into upper management. Your skills and experience will be helpful, but now you need to master new skills.
These ideas would need further fleshing out of course.

I took a look at the old Immortals set for the first time. It's amazingly similar to a system I had thought out myself. In my "system", XP = # of worshippers, which is reset to 0 after ascending to godhood. The "levels" of godhood would be worked into the already established ranking system (Demi, lesser, Greater, etc.). At each level, you have a certain amount of godly power you can use at one time. Gods technically wield infinite power, so this power system is more like, "how many tasks can a god do in a round?” He would have to devote so much of his attention/power to empower his worshippers (divine magic), form and power an avatar/aspect, to the # of actions that he can take in a round, etc. In addition, as written in the Deities and Demigods, their divine rank gives them certain bonuses.

These are some ideas, let me know what you think.

If I understand the 3.5 rules correctly, if you multi-class or take on a prestige class, you simply add the to the base attack bonus. This causes the iterative attack rule at every +5 to break down. This has always bothered me. I've always believed that once you achieve the coveted +6,+11,+16 BAB, you should gain another swing, period. And I think that it should follow into epic level capping at 4 attacks. If I can get agreement on this, do you think it could make it to Pathfinder's finished print?

There's a feat for this - Practiced Spellcaster in Complete Arcane. It adds 4 to your caster level (up to your HD). It doesn't stack, but you could make additional versions of it (a +8 and a +12 version, perhaps, with each previous one as the prerequisite) - or just let it stack. :)

I'm not sure I like the "free advancement" even if it's only at half. The feat could be more powerful, if the levels are close (or you're a creature with monster HD), but at least you've had to spend a feat for it.

I took your advice and worked these feats up. The first is the one listed in Complete Arcane. The other 2 are made up based on the "official" one. There are probably improvements/refinements to be made. Any suggestions? I'm trying to create a method that approximates what I wrote at the top of the post.

PRACTICED SPELLCASTER
Choose a spell casting class that you possess. Your spells cast from that class are more powerful.
Prerequisite: Spellcraft 4 ranks.
Benefit: Your caster level for the chosen spell casting class increases by 4. This benefit can’t increase your caster level to higher than your Hit Dice. However, even if you can’t benefit from the full bonus immediately, if you later gain Hit Dice in levels of non-spell casting classes, you might be able to apply the rest of the bonus.
For example, a human 5th-level sorcerer/3rd-level fighter who selects this feat would increase his sorcerer caster level from 5th to 8th (since he has 8 Hit Dice). If he later gained a fighter level, he would gain the remainder of the bonus and his sorcerer caster level would become 9th (since he now has 9 Hit Dice). A character with two or more spell casting classes (such as a bard/sorcerer or a ranger/druid) must choose which class gains the feat’s effect.
This feat does not affect your spells per day or spells known. It increases your caster level only, which would help you penetrate spell resistance and increase the duration and other effects of your spells.
Special: You may select this feat multiple times. Each time you choose it, you must apply it to a different spell casting class. For instance, a 4th-level cleric/5th-level wizard who had selected this feat twice would cast cleric spells as an 8th-level caster and wizard spells as a 9th-level caster.

EXPERT SPELLCASTER
Choose a spell casting class that you possess. Your spells cast from that class are much more powerful.
Prerequisite: Spellcraft 8 ranks, Knowledge – Arcana (Arcane) or Religion (Divine) 4 Ranks, PRACTICED SPELLCASTER
Benefit: Your caster level for the chosen spell casting class increases by an additional 4 (to a total of +8). This benefit can’t increase your caster level to higher than your Hit Dice. However, even if you can’t benefit from the full bonus immediately, if you later gain Hit Dice in levels of non-spell casting classes, you might be able to apply the rest of the bonus.
For example, a human 5th-level sorcerer/7th-level fighter who selects this feat would increase his sorcerer caster level from 5th to 12th (since he has 12 Hit Dice). If he later gained a fighter level, he would gain the remainder of the bonus and his sorcerer caster level would become 13th (since he now has 13 Hit Dice). A character with two or more spell casting classes (such as a bard/sorcerer or a ranger/druid) must choose which class gains the feat’s effect.
This feat does not affect your spells per day or spells known. It increases your caster level only, which would help you penetrate spell resistance and increase the duration and other effects of your spells.
Special: You may select this feat multiple times. Each time you choose it, you must apply it to a different spell casting class. For instance, a 8th-level cleric/9th-level wizard who had selected this feat twice would cast cleric spells as a 16th-level caster and wizard spells as a 17th-level caster.

EPIC SPELLCASTER (not to be confused with Epic Spell casting)
Choose a spell casting class that you possess. Your spells cast from that class are extremely powerful.
Prerequisite: Spellcraft 12 ranks, Knowledge - Arcana (Arcane) or Religion (Divine) 8 Ranks, PRACTICED SPELLCASTER, EXPERT SPELLCASTER
Benefit: Your caster level for the chosen spell casting class increases by an additional 4 (to a total of +12). This benefit can’t increase your caster level to higher than your Hit Dice. However, even if you can’t benefit from the full bonus immediately, if you later gain Hit Dice in levels of non-spell casting classes, you might be able to apply the rest of the bonus.
For example, a human 5th-level sorcerer/11th-level fighter who selects this feat would increase his sorcerer caster level from 5th to 16th (since he has 16 Hit Dice). If he later gained a fighter level, he would gain the remainder of the bonus and his sorcerer caster level would become 17th (since he now has 17 Hit Dice). A character with two or more spell casting classes (such as a bard/sorcerer or a ranger/druid) must choose which class gains the feat’s effect.
This feat does not affect your spells per day or spells known. It increases your caster level only, which would help you penetrate spell resistance and increase the duration and other effects of your spells.
Special: You may select this feat multiple times. Each time you choose it, you must apply it to a different spell casting class. For instance, a 12th-level cleric/13th-level wizard who had selected this feat twice would cast cleric spells as a 24th-level caster and wizard spells as a 25th-level caster.

I think there's a problem with multi-class spellcasters. The power of their spells are too weak, especially in high level play. The game effect is virtually insignificant as high level opponents can easily resist such spells, and buff/heals aren't really worth it. A solution I've been toying with is to treat spellcasting like a cross-class skill. As you advance in the non-casting class, the effective caster level and things tied to it (damage, duration, etc) would continue to increase but at half the level (rounded down). For example, a 20th level character made up of 19 Fighter levels and 1 Wizard level would be able to cast the few spells he knows as a 10th level caster. The character isn't learning anything new as a caster, but is still practicing and improving the few things that he does know.
I'm thinking this could also be expanded to all level-based abilities. Again, not gaining any new abilities (or new spell levels), but to increase the effectiveness of the abilities he has.

I know the Alpha 3 release dealt with an optional limit on character buffs. But as a person who runs Eberron and has to deal with Artificers infusing weapons with spectacular results. I had to start capping these weapon "buffs". This helps to draw more of a distinction between temporary and permanent. I set the limit to 1/2 of its permanent counterpart. Some of the time, their buffing normal items, when it normally requires masterwork items for the permanent. Plus the permanent versions require preparation and time. Casters are creating temporary items on the fly and thus the magic is not as strong or stable. Plus if the item is already enchanted and they add a couple of nasty buffs to it, then it becomes unbalancing. Just thought I'd share that with you all.