Author Topic: Ways to increase spell DC  (Read 31779 times)

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LimaBeanMage

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Ways to increase spell DC
« on: April 14, 2009, 05:04:08 AM »
To my surprise, there doesn't seem to be any handy guides that illustrate all of the common ways to increase a spell's DC for casters. So, I figure a good list of items, feats, or a combination is in order.

I'll start it off with two:

1. Spell Focus [School of magic]: +1 to the DC of spells from that school

2. Energy Substitution [Cold] + Snowcasting: +1 effective spell level

sonofzeal

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2009, 05:36:52 AM »

rubberduck

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2009, 07:12:48 AM »
you can get yourself a +10 increase to your save dc with a couple of feats and an item:
  • dragon touched(needed for draconic aura) Dragon Magic
  • snowcasting Frostburn+[cold] descriptor to spells
  • draconic aura (cold) Dragon Magic scaling max +4 dc to [cold] spells
  • spellfocus (cold) Frostburn +1dc to all [cold] spells
  • greaterspell focus (cold) Frostburn +2dc to all [cold] spells
  • spellfocus(whatever necromancy or something) PHB +1dc to spells
  • greater spellfocus(whatever necromancy or something)PHB+2dc to spells
and
Icemail armor +2dc to all [cold] spells; also no arcane spell faliure for [cold] spells
found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20030323a

Quote
Icemail Armor: A suit of icemail armor appears to be a suit of transparent breastplate armor carved out of ice. Although it feels cold to the touch, icemail armor keeps the wearer warm and protected from cold, granting cold resistance 30. Icemail armor is much lighter than steel, and although it provides protection equal to that afforded by a suit of +3 breastplate armor, it is considered to be light armor. It has a maximum Dexterity bonus to Armor Class of +5, an armor check penalty of -1, and an arcane spell failure chance of 15%. The arcane spell failure chance for casting spells with the cold descriptor drops to 0%, and the save DCs to resist these spells increases by +2.

Druids can wear icemail armor without violating their druidic vows, as long as they hail from an arctic climate.

Caster Level: 9th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Spell Focus (evocation), chill metal, protection from elements; Market Price: 52,000 gp; Weight: 15 lb.

Fatespinner 5 Complete Arcane
can raise the dc of a spell by 5 points and lower one's save by 10!!
so -> +15dc

Beguiler 2 | 14 gets Cloaked Casting
 +1dc         | +2dc

Mothercysyt feat gets you a level 8 spell that givey +8int so +4dc

so
in theory if you play a Beguiler14/FateSpinner5/whatever1
with all the stuff...

you could get yourself :
+31dc
« Last Edit: April 14, 2009, 07:25:07 AM by rubberduck »
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rubberduck

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2009, 07:30:21 AM »

red wizard did increase the dc's in 3.0 now it only raises casterlevel !
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Salt_Crow

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #4 on: April 14, 2009, 10:51:26 AM »
Tainted Scholar PrC from Heroes of Horror. Use 10 + spell level + 1/2 corruption for your spell DCs (amongst other things). And you get 1 point of free corruption point every time you cast an arcane spell (with Will saving throw that you'll want to fail voluntarily). So... say you can cast 20 spells per day, that's +10 permanent bonus to your Spell DC. More the merrier. The PrC even uses 10 + corruption score instead of normal casting ability (Wiz-Int, Sor-Cha etc) to determine extra spells per day.

Of course the character'll be a depraved freak of nature but that's the theme of the class. If you're an undead though (say, Necropolitan) you can ignore all the disadvantages of taints (corruption and depravity) and get all the goodies all you want.

This is why being evil's so much better than being good :)

LimaBeanMage

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #5 on: April 14, 2009, 03:44:47 PM »
- Spell Focus [Law/Chaos/Evil/Good]: +1 DC (Does not stack with other Spell Focus bonuses)

- Vow of Nonviolence: +4 DC to humanoid and monstrous humanoid creatures (non-lethal)

- Cooperative Spell [Metamagic]: +2 DC for 1st cooperating spellcaster, +1 for each additional spellcaster

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #6 on: April 14, 2009, 03:48:47 PM »
Fatespinner 5 Complete Arcane
can raise the dc of a spell by 5 points and lower one's save by 10!!
so -> +15dc

The Fatespinner save decrease only works on things with fewer HD than you, and even then it isn't actually raising your DC.

BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2009, 03:49:04 PM »
Speaking of Spell Focus (Evil), is there anyway to give your spells the [Evil] descriptor asides from the Corrupt Spell and Violate Spell metamagic feats (BoVD)?

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LimaBeanMage

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #8 on: April 14, 2009, 03:56:57 PM »
Fatespinner 5 Complete Arcane
can raise the dc of a spell by 5 points and lower one's save by 10!!
so -> +15dc

The Fatespinner save decrease only works on things with fewer HD than you, and even then it isn't actually raising your DC.

Yeah, that small excerpt about the HD limit makes this ability relatively useless in terms of offense. The one time you would really want to use this ability to make a spell count would be against a BBEG, unfortunately they're always a higher level than you.

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2009, 04:30:40 PM »
Speaking of Spell Focus (Evil), is there anyway to give your spells the [Evil] descriptor asides from the Corrupt Spell and Violate Spell metamagic feats (BoVD)?



Like I answered before, tainted scholar 1.
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #10 on: April 14, 2009, 04:39:36 PM »
Speaking of Spell Focus (Evil), is there anyway to give your spells the [Evil] descriptor asides from the Corrupt Spell and Violate Spell metamagic feats (BoVD)?



Like I answered before, tainted scholar 1.

Aside from being a tainted freak with severely crippled vital organs or a justified fear of Clerics that is...

:P
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #11 on: April 14, 2009, 04:45:22 PM »
Speaking of Spell Focus (Evil), is there anyway to give your spells the [Evil] descriptor asides from the Corrupt Spell and Violate Spell metamagic feats (BoVD)?



Like I answered before, tainted scholar 1.

Aside from being a tainted freak with severely crippled vital organs or a justified fear of Clerics that is...

:P

It's not like turn resistance is that hard to get (or if you're really that worried, get a cohort cleric to bolster you).  Plus, if you're evil you already have a justified fear of good clerics CODzilling through your window, and they'll be too busy keeping up their buffs to worry about actually using turning.
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #12 on: April 14, 2009, 04:47:29 PM »
You do have a point. It's not just mechanics though, somehow I just don't like the flavor of playing an undead...

Might come of as silly, but somehow it just doens't work for me.

I do really appreciate your replies and tips though, don't get me wrong :)
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Archmage Joda

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #13 on: April 14, 2009, 04:55:31 PM »
There's the 10th lvl wizard sub level in planar handbook, if you're evil then it can give all of your spells the evil descriptor.
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Lycanthromancer

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #14 on: April 14, 2009, 05:10:38 PM »
Not (necessarily) for spells, but metaconcert increases saving throw DCs for powers.
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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #15 on: April 14, 2009, 06:16:22 PM »
Speaking of Spell Focus (Evil), is there anyway to give your spells the [Evil] descriptor asides from the Corrupt Spell and Violate Spell metamagic feats (BoVD)?



Like I answered before, tainted scholar 1.

Aside from being a tainted freak with severely crippled vital organs or a justified fear of Clerics that is...

:P

It's not like turn resistance is that hard to get (or if you're really that worried, get a cohort cleric to bolster you).  Plus, if you're evil you already have a justified fear of good clerics CODzilling through your window, and they'll be too busy keeping up their buffs to worry about actually using turning.

Or just immunity to turning in the form of a Hat of Disguise.

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #16 on: April 14, 2009, 06:58:45 PM »
Speaking of Spell Focus (Evil), is there anyway to give your spells the [Evil] descriptor asides from the Corrupt Spell and Violate Spell metamagic feats (BoVD)?
IIRC there are spells that do that for every alignment in Dragon Magic. They have a low duration but can be persisted. (Useful to get +1 CL everywhere with, say, the Good or Evil domain powers.)
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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #17 on: April 14, 2009, 07:48:30 PM »
On a side note, being undead is awesome. Gentle Repose/Hat of Disguise will take care of the ugliness and shit, and you're a freakin' eternal undead.

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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #18 on: April 14, 2009, 09:09:57 PM »
My positive energy evolved undead gestalt factotum/psion necropolitan kobold would tend to agree. Or, rather, he hates it, but his player thinks it's awesome.
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Re: Ways to increase spell DC
« Reply #19 on: April 14, 2009, 09:23:25 PM »
On a side note, being undead is awesome. Gentle Repose/Hat of Disguise will take care of the ugliness and shit, and you're a freakin' eternal undead.

The ghost savage progression is pretty awesome for being undead... not in the least because you can use progressive LA buyoff to get it essentially for free (one level of ghost savage before level 3, the next before level 6, et cetera), and telekinesis spam rocks your socks off as a melee equivalent, and at level 15 you become all but completely invincible.  There's the small issue of determining when you can "rest in peace", which ought to be something that won't come up accidentally, but can be brought up if/when you get bored with the character...

Ooops... this is kinda drifting.  Anyway, ghost savage gets you bonuses to cha, which increases DCs.



The unseelie fey template gives you the option of giving every living nonfey within 5' a penalty equal to your cha mod to saves.  It's almost as good as increasing spell DCs
« Last Edit: April 14, 2009, 09:30:16 PM by The_Mad_Linguist »
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