| Lord Nequam |
Several months ago, I released the Pathfinder Epic-Level Handbook, v1.4, complete with progressions beyond 20th level for all 11 core classes and 8 base classes. It provided epic spells, skill uses, house rules, and over 300 epic feats. It also included hundreds of magic items for epic level play.
The handbook is back now with version 1.5 (PDF warning), which includes a half-dozen new feats, a few more spells, and a number of corrections and edits based on comments from this and other forums. But most of all, it includes more than 150 new magic items, including specific weapons and armors as well as a plentitude of wondrous items for every slot on the body. Wield the tooth of the orm king or gird yourself in the obsidian tor; bind your warrior in dreadnought cords, trap your foes with walking caltrops, or maybe just don a pair of forever pants.
A new arsenal awaits your PCs, ready to add to any epic-level Pathfinder campaign.
| Lord Nequam |
@Dryad Knotwood - A good question; I have never had a player who selected that feat, so I hadn't thought about it in the context of spell power.
Just from thinking about it, I would probably say that they could spend 8 hours using their craft skill and then roll a check at the end. The result of the check would be the equivalent amount of spell power produced during that time.
You can't take Master Craftsman until at least 5th level, so that will be our baseline. A decent universalist wizard at that level (let's say with an Int of 16) would have a spell power of about 16.
A character with a maxed out Craft skill (and an Int of 16 with it being a class skill) would have an average skill check result of 21.
By the time they're 20th level (assuming each of them dumped their 4 skill points into Int and have at least a +4 mental item, giving them an Int of 24), that would result in the universalist having a spell power around 214, while the crafter's skill check would only average 46 even if they picked up Skill Focus at some point.
To combat this attrition, I'd put in a multiplier for the Craft skill. At 5th level, it's the result of the check x1. It increases to x2 at 10th level, x3 at 15th level, and x4 at 20th level. This would improve the simulated spell power to 184 for the 20th-level crafter.
This does create a real disparity between the spellcaster and the crafter; the spellcaster is just better at higher levels and the crafter takes longer--always 8 hours, while even the 20th-level caster only takes a little over 3 1/2 hours--while the nature of the multiplier means that crafting ability is very poor at the levels right before an increase in multiplier (i.e., 9th, 14th, and 19th). This solution is only a kludge. I'll see if I can't come up with something a little more elegant.
| Dryad Knotwood |
Thanks. I just really like the Master Craftsman feat since it replicates the abilities of amazing non-magic blacksmiths and artisans, such as possibly Masamune and Muramasa IRL would probably have it if magic were real due to all the special powers their swords were said to have.
The rest of the pdf looks quite interesting and I'd love to use it in a game. Now I just have to get the others to look at it...