Question about DCs on this server

[Synde]

Hey everyone,

I have been kind of curious as to what kind of DCs are needed at epic levels for spells and abilities to land. I've seen some posts about people getting up into the 30s and I was wondering if this is necessary or just to ensure they land at a very high consistency. How high do the saves get for monsters at those levels?

I'm asking because I recently started a Warlock which focuses primarily on using buffs and Hideous Blow, so I had distributed stats to go heavy on DEX but now I'm thinking I might like to use an essence. Unfortunately, I only have my CHA at 10. I was thinking of dumping the rest of my attribute bonuses into CHA but if DCs in the 30s are a must to land at epic levels I'm going to give up on the idea.

Thank you!

[Blackman D]

lot of epic mobs have saves in the mid to upper 20s

so most normal casual builds that only hit high 20s to 30/31 DC will hardly ever have one hit

a normal build that focuses DCs may get 33-35 ish and might hit half the time

a RW that can get 35-37 ish will hit half the time usually

[DM Golem]

Moved to tips and tricks

[Synde]

Thanks for the fast reply Blackman D.

Wow, I guess the Epic is more for the monsters than the players then. I'm a little surprised. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how DCs work, but I thought it was 10 + Ability Mod + Spell Focus Feats + Spell Level. Warlock aside, my wizard who would be caster level 29 and put almost all of his attribute bonuses into INT will end up not being able to land any spells without the target rolling a 1 on the save. And you're saying even the most powery power-builds are still only going to succeed 50% of the time?

That kind of makes me feel like I'm going to invest all this time into a character only to end up completely useless in battle; unless I do a pure power build in which case I'm only useless half the time. Wouldn't this give the feeling of being weaker at level 30 than at level 1?

I guess the thought of that is a little discouraging to me. I know there has been a debate about people's opinions on power builds in the past. I think it's fine if people want to play that way and be really powerful, but I was under the impression that content wasn't focused on them (and that they'd be really powerful), and that casual builds would still be viable (And I don't even think a level 29 caster with INT investment should be considered that casual.)

Am I looking too much into this? Is there something I'm missing? Do you not spend much time fighting these types of monsters at Epic levels?

(I hope this didn't come off sounding like an attack. It's not my world. My blood sweat and tears didn't go into building it. I'm just a new guy trying to figure out the mindset and reasoning.)

[Synde]

And sorry about posting in the wrong forum. I'm still trying to figure out what goes where.

[DM Golem]

No problem!

[Deathgrowl]

You shouldn't compare DCs on wizards and warlocks. Warlocks never run out of spells, wizards do.

It's easy to get a DC of ~25 + spell level on a wizard, for instance. Say on a human, this is 10 + 1 (prodigy) + 3 (epic caster) + 11 (28 int + fox's cunning). How do you get 28 int on a human wizard, you ask? Well, you start with 18 int and pick int on every level up. That lands you on 25. Then you also pick 3 of your epic feats as greater int!

Now, personally, I think this is low and unsatisfying. Your finger of death spell would have a DC of 32. Which would work about half the time (a bit more, maybe 60-70% of the time) on epic mobs.


For a warlock, however: If you can get a warlock to have about 30-35 DC on his invocations, that is going to be devastating because you can just keep casting and casting and eventually they'll fail. A wizard has maybe two or three tries of his finger of death spell. A warlock's effects aren't quite as final, but you do not run out of them. And it should be easy enough to get those kind of DCs.

[Blackman D]

also since you are new and you dont realize this, the saves are high on mobs because back in the day RWs would roll over all epic content with their godly high DCs back when mobs had normal saves

they could literally gather all the mobs in a large area and nuke them all with one spell

[Thorsson]

Baby. Bathwater.

[Synde]

Not sure what that's supposed to mean, Thorsson. I would hate to think it some sort of slight towards someone merely seeking information and sharing an opinion that might be different from your own. I'm sure you're better person than that.

[mrieder79]

I think he meant that increasing the saves of epic mobs was like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It was his commentary on the solution to RW super high DCs, not any remark toward your original question.

When I played a wizard, I found that using DC spells was difficult because they failed about half the time and it made more sense to have a summons and then blast stuff. As deathgrowl said, a warlock can keep shooting so it's not as much of a problem.

From what I've seen, if you build a warlock right, you won't have any problem with epic content.

[stevebarracuda]

I had a sorcerer with 38 DC for Dominate Monster casting. Fun! Few problems dominating. And...it wasn't a "powerbuild" type build, i.e. no gross dump stats and cheesy cheese ness.

[Synde]

Ah, if that's the case then I apologize Thorsson. It seems the internet has taught me to expect the worst from people. m(_ _)m

I guess, I'll just have to play and see how it goes. My warlock has been taking rogue levels and I thought if I took beshadowing blast, the blind would allow me to sneak attack with the remaining attacks in the round. I know it's only equivalent to a level 4 spell though, and was hoping I might be able to get some use from it without having to rerolling with more CHA.

And I'm sorry if it seemed as though I meant to compare wizards in warlocks. I just meant that the information made me a little nervous for my own wizard who won't have a super high DC. I really don't like the idea of having to spend all my epic feats on attribute increases, but I might just have to bite the bullet. My wizard only started with 15INT.

Thanks for all of the advice!

[Thorsson]

's OK. Others have grown used to me.

[mrieder79]

Ah, if that's the case then I apologize Thorsson. It seems the internet has taught me to expect the worst from people. m(_ _)m

I guess, I'll just have to play and see how it goes. My warlock has been taking rogue levels and I thought if I took beshadowing blast, the blind would allow me to sneak attack with the remaining attacks in the round. I know it's only equivalent to a level 4 spell though, and was hoping I might be able to get some use from it without having to rerolling with more CHA.

And I'm sorry if it seemed as though I meant to compare wizards in warlocks. I just meant that the information made me a little nervous for my own wizard who won't have a super high DC. I really don't like the idea of having to spend all my epic feats on attribute increases, but I might just have to bite the bullet. My wizard only started with 15INT.

Thanks for all of the advice!

Just stick with non-DC spells for your wizard. You'll do okay. You'll want to party up for most epic content, but that's okay. It's more fun that way anyway.