Epic Spells Guide. Yo Karond, where you at?! :D

[ohboy007]

I liked the guide put out by Karond on how useful spells are. Only problem is it stops at 9th level and doesn't go into how valuable Epic Spell choices are. Sooooo, I was thinking can some epic casters players weight in on the usefulness of these Epic Spells. The questions I wanted to hear discussed are the following:

Is it wiser taking every Epic spell or spending those valuable Epic Feats on raising caster ability scores/spell school focuses to raise the DC's of you spells? What’s better overall IYO? Are there Epic Spells you can do without?

*Two Epic spells that I will not give up taking are Vampiric Feast and Epic Gate. They are too cool of spells to pass up.

[fashionisdanger]

Well, depending on your toon you might wish to have the DCs of your spells as high as possible.
Given that I guess that a couple of Epic Spells may be enough.

For an evil toon Vampiric Feast and Gate are in my opinion super cool and great choices.
Another valuable spells is in my opinion Epic Ruin.

Consider that they have a boost to your usual DC of +5, quite good!

[ohboy007]

I agree, that's what I’m juggling with here. Better DCs, or taking every Epic blasting spell I can get. I won't take Epic Fowl that's one eliminated. Epic Call Lighting and Hellball any good?

[Carbondk]

Carbon can do the job just as well as Karond =D

At leat let me share the experience of the epic spells I have tried (thoroughly).

- Vampiric feats. Clearly the best of the epic bunch, a must have of all divine and arcane casters. Bear in mind that using it makes you pretty much KoS though, and most characters of neutral to good alignment who frown upon necromancy should avoid this baby like the plague. Some power players ignore that and take it just for the win. That is, however, considered bad taste. The shadow summon is useless as they come, and beware that vamp feasting will actually unsummon any current summon you have, to make room for the rediculous shade. That's the only drawback of this otherwise stellar spell.

- Greater ruin. Lots of dice, irresistable damage, usable 3xday with a cooldown of 2 mins in between. What's not to like? Well, it's a single target spell. Mostly usable against bosses or in PvP. I consider this a decent spell, and the visual and pure wow-factor shouldn't be passed up on. Most people's jaws drop low when you insta-kill that big monster in a bloody pulp and make the screen shake!

- Epic call lightning. Don't underestimate this baby. High dice (deals around 110-125 average damage) in an AoE in a colossal range centred around your character. Large boost to the DC as well, and usable 3xday. Sure, immunity: electricity and/or improved evasion might render the spell useless, but use it with finesse and cunning then. I consider the spell a good one.

- Damnation. This is a tricky one. Only usable 1xday, requires a touch attack (that can miss), low range, and a will save to actually succeed. Those are the drawbacks. However, it bypasses all wards (AS FAR AS I KNOW, no one has been willing to test this one with me on their player characters but I've tested it on undead and constructs, and it works fine), and it is awesome against low will save monsters and players. What beats teleporting your foe directly into the hells, anyway? I'd say it's a good spell for any DC based warlocks/clerics. It could use a little love though.

- Epic gate. Not a good spell. The evil/neutral summon (balor) is bad, easily killed and deals very little damage. It also lasts a very short time. The angel from the good summon I've heard is a decent summon, but again, it lasts so short a while, so you cannot even buff it up before sending it out there. I'd say avoid this spell.

- Epic mass healing. Currently the server's best healing spell. It's a decent pick for most clerics.

- Hellball. Haven't tried this one too much. Some people say it sucks, but it's usable 3xday and deals high amount of damage, hey that's good, no?

- Mass fowl. Haven't tried this one, but as far as I understand, instead of polymorphing now, it insta-kills all those in the AoE that miss the save. Seems decent enough to me.

- Entropic husk. I haven't tested this one, although it seems pretty unpopular.

Epic spells vs. greater intelligence/charisma/wisdom.
Well, this has always been the great debate. I suppose it all comes down to whether you're building a one-trick pony power build, and only care about raising your DC on 1 or 2 spells through the roof, or whether you'd be okay to forego 1-2 DCs in order to get more variety into your repertoire. Personally, I like the epic spells. Not as much for the power, but for the variety, and for their sheer awesomeness since most of them do look pretty epic.

[ohboy007]

I like it! Question is are the automatic quicken spell feats 0-3 4-6 7-9 or just for each level?

[fashionisdanger]

0-3, 4-6, 7-9.

But while quicken spells were awesome on NWN1 here many people dislike them. You should learn more about those metamagic feats.

On a RP perspective, I used to take STILL and SILENT. Combining them during DM events means that.... You can cast using just the power of your WILL even if you are tied and under water Now, that is super OP.


Going back In Topic. The guide is very interesting. I think that I would go for Damnation and Vampiric Feast, to have a super high DC on a Fortitude Save and on a Will Save. Greater Ruin would be my third choice, since I prefer wizards with save or die spells.
I totally dislike Epic Call of Lighting... You can already unleash a lot of AoE punishment with a wizard without wasting another epic feat. But another "I win!" button with a juicy +5 DC..... Slurp! Now you are speaking my language.

[ohboy007]

I know, Call Lighting seems kind of lame due to the fact I have a ton of AOE spells and even some instant death AOE spells without even touching Epic Feats. They are going to up the Gate summon I'm sure. I'll check how far along that thread has gone.

[Carbondk]

Epic call lightning may be more useful for DC clerics and possibly druids, more so than mages.

However, don't underestimate the fact that epic call lightning gets a massive +9 to the DC, making it THE epic spell that can reach the highest DC, and it covers a colossal target.

I would agree that this is not a must-have spell for most wizards, maybe we should up the spell from 35d6 to 40d6, like Hellball, and make it ignore evasion/improved evasion, also like Hellball. I'm not sure if Spell Reistance works against epic call lightning, but it shouldn't, as spell resistance doesn't work against any other epic spells.

[ohboy007]

0-3, 4-6, 7-9.

But while quicken spells were awesome on NWN1 here many people dislike them. You should learn more about those metamagic feats.

Which is weird because many mage killer builds use those feats. I think it would be a win! to Spell breach, dominate, or spell breach, avasculate, GMMS for any sorc build. I'll keep researching.

[Laenor]

Epic spells vs. greater intelligence/charisma/wisdom.
Well, this has always been the great debate. I suppose it all comes down to whether you're building a one-trick pony power build, and only care about raising your DC on 1 or 2 spells through the roof, or whether you'd be okay to forego 1-2 DCs in order to get more variety into your repertoire. Personally, I like the epic spells. Not as much for the power, but for the variety, and for their sheer awesomeness since most of them do look pretty epic.

Getting +2 int / cha / wis grants 2-3 additional spells as well as additional DC.
Also, don't understimate the effect of getting additional DC, that greatly improves lower level spells (IE : Flame Arrows, Web, Grease... and so on)

Epic spells deal the following damage :
Hellball is 40d6 AoE, an average of 140 damage (Reflex save for half). It knocks down the target, but can be partially resisted (doesn't bypass energy immunity)
Greater Ruin is 50d6 single target, an average of 175 damage (Fort save for half) and deals positive damage, bypassing energy immunity.
Call Lightning is 35d6 friendly AoE, an average of 122,5 damage (Reflex save for half)

Note that the biggest drawback about epic spells is that :
1 - They ignore the epic CL bonus
2 - They ignore spell focus bonus

The biggest advantage of epic spells is that they can be cast more than once a day, and get an OK DC even if your CL is pretty low (DC = 25 + ability modifier + spellcasting prodigy, so at least DC 30 since you need to be able to cast level 9 spells to pick epic spells)

[Laenor]

0-3, 4-6, 7-9.

But while quicken spells were awesome on NWN1 here many people dislike them. You should learn more about those metamagic feats.

Which is weird because many mage killer builds use those feats. I think it would be a win! to Spell breach, dominate, or spell breach, avasculate, GMMS for any sorc build. I'll keep researching.

Quicken is actually only 1 spell level per feat taken (IE : Auto-quicken I, Auto-quicken II, Auto-quicken III..) making it impossible to get better than auto quicken V, due to the spellcraft requirement (You can only take the feat from level 26 on. That means that without bonus feats, you can only take 2 auto-quicken.

The best amount of bonus feats that can be taken past level 26 is 3 (IE : Bonus Wizard feat, bonus RWoT feat, bonus Divine Champion feat).

Still, it can be pretty nice to have all level 1-5 spells be auto quickened.

[ohboy007]

Well that's why people hate auto quicken spells around here lol. That does suck. Best to go for upping CHR-DC's and pick up more Epic blast spells then. I'm not giving up on Epic Gate, I just know the DM's will up it to at least 1 min/level.

[Snarfy]

[quote="Laenor]Note that the biggest drawback about epic spells is that :
1 - They ignore the epic CL bonus
2 - They ignore spell focus bonus

[/quote]

Huh... totally wasn't aware of this. *grumbles and goes to adjust all the wizards he's made on the builder*

[ohboy007]

Note that the biggest drawback about epic spells is that :
1 - They ignore the epic CL bonus
2 - They ignore spell focus bonus

Which also means Epic Gate ignores the augment summons feat

Though on NWN2 Wiki I saw some scripts to fix for it and other spells, but I'm no scripter. I have no clue how hard that would be and if that would make the server crash or something.

[Carbondk]

Epic spells COULD be changed to take in account spell focus feats and epic caster levels.

Just sayin'