Epic Gate: Worth Taking?

[Considerate_]

You don't need to max attributes for Vampiric Feast to be a killer - though it helps.

If you fail your save against Vampiric Feast, you die.

If you make your save against Vampiric Feast, you lose half your HPs. (NPC bosses 'only' lose 25%)

The latter makes it extremely useful in PvE, where some monsters have an insane amount of Hit Points to start with - which means you can eat through 2500 HP with a single spell.



That being said, Vampiric Feast marks your character as a necromancer at worst, and an evildoer at best. The spell is, in and by its nature, evil - and if it kills anyone, it will summon an undead shadow... Which is a big no no by most civilized standards

[Kasmir]

//Useful, thanks - I just read that feats don't make any difference to DC for epic spells anyway, only attributes. Epic Gate just seems like more fun!

Though for a single strong PvE foe which could save relatively easily against vamp feast (is there such a thing??) I guess avasculate does the same job as a 'normal spell' and you can keep recasting that...? Granted you have to get over SR.

At the end of the day my chap is a sneaky wizard - he is L15 right now so the major choice coming up is whether to keep pumping AT/wiz levels (most fun IMO) or start to add in more rogue levels.

Going wiz/AT first means the possibility of epic spells. Going rogue first means he could get epic precision. My inclination is for the former. I don't know how many sneak-immune targets there are here at higher levels but epic precision seems marginal to me for this kind of build when, with a decent number of wiz levels, you can use other means to defeat sneak-immune foes? I guess epic precision is really for out-and-out maximized sneak builds with no other way to deal damage?

Having said that I wish epic greater ruin was a range touch attack spell with no save as it would then be the obvious choice for this build

Epic invisible needle anyone? //