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Brainpiercing

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Neep help with Epic tactics
« on: November 25, 2009, 07:38:35 AM »
I've just had a revelation in my ongoing epic group: I'm in WAY over my head. We play VERY rarely, and it's bloody impossible to even remember what my characters can do, let alone devise useful tactics. I've also made some really questionable build and/or equipment choices, which makes things harder.

So I want this thread as a resource of what to do when you're fighting Demiliches with DR 100/?, and Iron Colossi with Extraordinary AMFs. AND just BE epic at all, which I feel I'm clearly not.

The setup:
We have a resource of exactly 57 books which were available at the start of the game, when we made the cut-off. The only new books that have been allowed so far are Monsters of Faerun and the ToB. We have a lot of 3.0 books allowed as long as their content wasn't republished as 3.5 material. Notable exclusions, because I don't have a positive list at this moment:
No:
Sandstorm
Races of the Wild/Dragon
Dragon Compendium
Rules Compendium
Serpent Kindoms
Complete Champion
Oriental Adventures
Planar Handbook
Dragon Mag except TWO issues at this point, and I don't remember which they were

As a firm rule, we have banned ALL Erratas.


The Group
The DMPC: Human DMM Cleric 40 with a few levels of something else. Generally runs around with a ton of Buffs as a Great Wyrm Collossal+ Force Dragon
The BSF: Goliath Barb/FB/Fighter, 40 total, comparatively crappy Barbarian build. We sucked when we started this, and this guy sucks the most. He has to make up with items...
The Gish: Tiefling Wizard/Ur-Priest/Mystic Theurge/AbCha/whatever, also 40 total. This guy is a newcomer and probably has the best-rounded character. Of course he's no cheater of Mystra, which means AMFs royally fuck him. AND he isn't even done, so he lacks equipment. The good point: He has a (small) demi-plane, which is probably the only safe place in this campaign right now, and a ton of Simulacra for ritual epic spellcasting, although this was nerfed a wee bit.
The other gish (but he can hardly ever manage to play right now): Sorc/Wilder/Cerebromancer/Yuirwood/something else; Has ginormous saves, usually runs around as a Nymph, Shane, or Chronotyrin. Uses Crystal shards to fire into AMFs. Has some epic spells, which I am sorely missing now.
The Necromancer (Me): Human Lich DN20/Marshall1/Bard1/Sub.Chord3/Corpsecrafter(homebrew)12 (37 total, YES, I had to take that LA, and I just finished buying it back). He's posing as an old elf sorceror, who is an agent of Wee Jas in the Realms.
My Cohort: DMM Cleric 36, dubbed the Emmissary of the church of Wee Jas.
My meatball: 97HD of intelligent Undead Flesh, granted by the Corpsecrafter prestige class I could make myself. Arguably this thing is a wee bit overpowered, or would be if I had made intelligent equipment choices. (Like Transmuting weapons. As it is, I have Shattermantle, but I can't overcome DR at all.)

The setting
It's the FR. Or rather, the EX-FR, because we just fricken CAUSED a trans-planar apocalypse. (No, we're not actually evil, but we did pull the switch on the Doomsday machine. It's a longer story, it sort of seemed like a good idea at the time. Oh, we didn't KNOW it was the doomsday machine.)

Right now we're fighting what seems to be Lolth in league with Halastar, who is a Demi-lich of approximately level 60 or so. We've stopped the last session in the middle of the Fight against Halastar and two Iron Colossi. Our barb is being chewed up by the Colossi, luckily the rest of us is out of range of their AMFs, and we're trying to pummel Halastar to death. Oh yeah, he had that DR100 or more, and touch AC100. This would not be a problem if I had been smart enough to know about Transmuting weapons. Halastar is hitting at least two of us with 500-900 Force damage every round. My necro himself can't do anything except pump Greater Harms into my other guys to keep them alive.

The REQUEST
I would like some help on the following topics:

Keeping my shit safe
I used to have a keep which I thought was a reasonably safe place for my stuff, including my phylactery and the bodies of my guys when they Astral Projected. The keep was not like a necromancer keep, rather it was a pretty little thing above Pleasantville(tm) :). Of course there were dungeons, but... whatever. Now that keep is a pile of rubble because the frickin earth opened beneath it and meteor showers pummelled it from above. So I'm carrying everything around with me in a 50ftx50ft portable hole, stored within my 97HD meatball. Oh, is it safe there? NO!
Obviously I want to have a safe place again.

Being epic
My abilities at pulling strings are seriously lacking. We don't generally roll diplomacy, or else I would do it, but it gets annoying having to even talk to underlings. How do I convince my DM to let me get straight to the top, and bypass the underlings? Somehow he didn't get all that Legendary Figure stuff.

Recon
I have about 50 greater shadows doing recon, an army of Griffon riders, spell effects like Greater Prying eyes and Scrying, but it still seems like I'm largely blind. I need a quick and convincing way to tell my DM that I SHOULD be in the know about events going on at the other end of the world.

Getting Information
Right now Hindsight is basically our No.1 source of information. But there's got to be more. How do I make my DM give up his plot notes to me? Oh yeah, talking to Gods apparently isn't enough. The last time I used Commune the line was cut. Go figure.

Please advise.

DerWille

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2009, 08:23:36 AM »
Dude, reading this made me laugh so damn hard. Blowing FR to shreds is totally worth it if it gets Eleminster too. The sacrifices of how many billions is worth the death of that one idiot.

Anyways, your request.

My familiarity with epic stuff is a bit lacking, but you said the Tiefling has his own demiplane that is possibly the only safe spot in the entire universe, why not store it there? But that isn't safe enough for you is there any way you can go about creating your own impregnable super secure ultra tight in a portable hole containing a bag of holding sanctum that has been created by you or your cleric cohort by wish farming? If that Cleric is level 36, he's got to be able to bind Efreetis or emulate other stuff just using miracle. Why not create your own demiplane? If you can't do that, why not miracle/wish yourself to get what you need? Or finally, farm those Efreetis until one of them can go back in time and stop you guys from activating the dooms day machine.

 It's not very nice to wish farm like that, but you know man, it's the end of the world as we know it and you're fighting demliches with DR 100/-, iron Colossi with Extraordinary AMFs with Lolth deciding that now was going to be when its her divine time of the month. Bring out the big guns.

Tenebrous Apostate

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2009, 10:53:43 AM »
I'd say that first of all you gotta take example from the pros Like Sazz-Tam Mansoon and others. Retreat and go create a new fortress in the negative energy plane. You must certenly have enough Zombie workers to pull this of even without money and your Cleric friend has Miracle does he not? Then start creating some more minions. probably you got your own cap filled so try creating some minions with animating capabilities of their own. My new favorite strategy includes a maurezhi and a juvenile nabassu and a Kokrachon all in Corpse template and spellstiched (with awaken undead extract gift and any corrupt spell that can kill hardly like Lahms finger darts and since this is FR take the dread warrior spell as well in one of them) buff your guys get money get minions and advance the undead fiends (both the Maurezhi and Nabassu have a feed ability so this is not so hard). When all is said and done you should have a new solid Lair, triple undead hord (at least), a few new characters (since the feeding demons are characters themselves and maybe comparable to your team members) all of wich can help your army and chances multiply. If this army won't help make pacts with fiends and wake an Elder evil or 2! (since yout world is dead it does not matter now does it?). And if all else fails summon a thousand rats (or 2000 or what have you) cast consumptive field and go punch the spider bitch in the face. AMF? no problem. take brutal through and toss a spear at the titans. Too many HP? toss 2 spears
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Brainpiercing

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2009, 11:38:00 AM »
Hmm, I have a 6000HD undead army (and also had about 10000HD of uncontrolled undead in a pen for keep defense), but part of the deal with the DM was that I don't field it. It's also a LOT of fodder, I pretty much didn't make it actually good, so that I could use it just for flavour. I can use it to destroy low-level armies, but not epic characters. However, now having an actually useful army for keep defense would be nice.

In exchange for not fielding the army I got that one-critter prestige class, which actually does make up for a lot of the loss, because it's really as strong or stronger than a "normal" melee character at that level, even without a lot of items.
That being said I'll look at your suggestions of feeder critters. What book are they from?

Making a keep on the negative energy plane is a nice idea, I had forgotten about that.

For the fight we are in right now... Well, I'm not too concerned with the colossi, because they can't fly. I can easily shoot them to death once the demi-lich is down. My meatball can wield 14 Huge Mighty +70 Greatbows and shoot them all once per round. They are only masterwork, but they should still get the job done pretty nicely. Getting that damned flying skull to fall is a biggie, however.

Tenebrous Apostate

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2009, 11:52:46 AM »
The Maurezhi is in Fiend Folio and the Nabassu is In Findish Codex 1. The Corpse template is in BoVD. You Rebuke the critters first and then you advance them. Surelly 2 more pares of claws will be lots of help. Btw direct your horde in Mobs. You'll have a better chance to do damage to those pesky titans. and the level drain or paralize or whatever your critters might do won't be half bad. And for Orcus' sake put a dragon or 2 (or more) in the fight!
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Brainpiercing

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #5 on: November 25, 2009, 12:08:27 PM »
The Maurezhi is in Fiend Folio and the Nabassu is In Findish Codex 1. The Corpse template is in BoVD. You Rebuke the critters first and then you advance them. Surelly 2 more pares of claws will be lots of help. Btw direct your horde in Mobs. You'll have a better chance to do damage to those pesky titans. and the level drain or paralize or whatever your critters might do won't be half bad. And for Orcus' sake put a dragon or 2 (or more) in the fight!
I can't use normal undead to fight the colossi, because the DM ruled that the AMF kills my control of them. Again, the colossi are not a big problem, they were only put there so that the stupid barb player can do something, too, because he can't even hit touch AC 100, not even with Wraithstrike.

Tenebrous Apostate

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2009, 12:36:39 PM »
You can try Binding and controling an Atropal Scion. Maybe you can let it muster an army to bring down what you cannot... and give them all the Entropic template to all your undead so they can heal each other. Also If you can slip it to your DM bind psudonaturals or paragons.
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NeverGetDrunkButStaySober

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2009, 01:34:44 PM »
For dealing with DR, there's always Mantle of Pure Spite (Heroes of Horror). It's a domain-only spell (Spite 8, naturally), but one of the effects is that it allows you to ignore DR against anything that attacks you. Yes, ignore it - make it Persistent and go to town. And if you'd like a way to block force damage, you could either go with Forceward (Spell Compendium) to simply negate all force effects in range, or Divine Retribution (Dragonlance Campaign Setting) to block all force damage and mirror it back as unblockable sacred/profane damage. (Complete Champion "updated" the latter, but it's explicitly disallowed, so...)

Are powerful epic spells in play here?* Because if so, you could always do crazy things with mythals. Or the Foresee and Reveal seeds. (On the former...apply Metafaculty as a Vanguard effect. Get the Wilder to help.) Find out what spells your opponents typically use - then block them with the Ward seed. (Various effects will offer you a backdoor if so you desire.)

Find your party a way to get the Alter Form ability of the Hagunemnon. (Mythal-boosted) Persistent Fusion or whatever. Alter Form is, in general, a frighteningly powerful ability if you know how to use it properly. 50% unblockable miss chance against all melee/ranged attacks (Prismasaurus), your choice of Spell Immunities (many, many golems), tarrasque regeneration (obvious), insta-Disintegration (Umbral Blot), Ex teleportation (Umbral Blot again), Charisma to AC and saves (Gloura), and more can all be ganked with Alter Form.

As for keeping your stuff safe...well, check that Mythal seed again. Tag Planar Bubble (Far Realms) as a Prevalent Power. And set the whole business up in the nigh-impregnable demiplane. This also allows you a lot of downtime for things like item crafting and divinations.

Want more spiffy magic items? Have your cohort pick up an artificer cohort. With several feats reducing the required resources** along with Retain Essence (devour Permanency scrolls), said artificer should be able to make whatever the party wants on the cheap at much less than they'd be bought for. (For instance, you can pull off a x.405 multiplier on items - not bad when you aren't paying XP!) Plus, said artificer can make a number of attribute-boosting slotless items for the party, then tag them with Persistent Enhancement Alteration.

Oh, and in general, setting up a mythal in the Planar Bubble demiplane with Persistent Miracle as a Vanguard Spell is a good thing.

*Essentially, how much was that whole ritual business nerfed?

**Alliteration was unintentional.

Lycanthromancer

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2009, 03:12:35 PM »
Well, the wish spell can get you literally any kind of item you would like as a standard action. Seriously; go read it. Get some force bows, transmuting weaponry, suppression weapons, and anything else you like; go wild. Use your efreet (see below) and you won't have to worry about XP costs.

As for the golems with AMFs? Go find some granite boulders that are as large as you can actually affect with shrink item (all with the same command-word), collect a bunch of them, and fabricate them together into one lump (note that this is after they're shrunk). Store them in a bag of holding, dump them out overhead; the AMFs should disable the shrink item effect. If you have 10,000,000 lbs of granite, you should be able to deal about 400,000d6 points of damage to anything you hit from a reasonable distance up. Against critters without an AMF? Have someone ready an action to call out the command word. And demiliches tend to hate antimagic fields; they suppress their Su abilities. If you find an epic version that suppresses epic magic and can be affixed to an item, use that, too. Once you have the demilich in your grasp, wrap it in the epic antimagic ribbon (make it pink and frilly) toss it in a potato sack and send it to your slow-time plane (see below).

Also wish should be able to give you any answers you want. Write the questions down on a sheet of paper, then wish for the answer to the question you have written down. Simple and unambiguous.

Screw epic magic. Use your levels 0-9 spells, which are more than powerful enough. Use planar binding to get an efreeti, then wish for three simulacrums of efreet. Use those simulacrums to wish for more simulacrums. Then wish for a scroll of genesis, and cast it to get a plane where time runs 10,000x as fast as it does on the Material Plane, with landscape made of black sand. Keep your undead minions there, and use it to rest up and regain spells in under a round. In a similar vein, make another demiplane with time that runs approximately 400 billion trillion times as slow as it does on the Prime Material. Even a swift action spell will take several hundred thousand years to pull off; by then, anything you imprison there is not your problem anymore.

Also, I'd see if you can't find a way to give your uber-zombie feats. Awaken it if it doesn't have any Int score, and make friends with it (ie, you won't lose control of it in an antimagic field and it can't be dominated). Then give it turning immunity and ubercharger feats and the Pounce ability. Even mid-level characters (around 12 or so) can deal hundreds of thousands of points of damage each round, and have very little trouble hitting whatever they're aiming for. I do believe there's a cleric and/or ranger spell that turns all attack rolls into auto-20s (though I don't remember what it is, though I think it's in the Spell Compendium); use it when your critter pounces, and you should be fine.

Really, you should be okay; just use the resources at your disposal and epic is a cakewalk.
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NeverGetDrunkButStaySober

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #9 on: November 25, 2009, 03:41:33 PM »
Well, the wish spell can get you literally any kind of item you would like as a standard action. Seriously; go read it. Get some force bows, transmuting weaponry, suppression weapons, and anything else you like; go wild. Use your efreet (see below) and you won't have to worry about XP costs.
But if the DM has nerfed epic casting to some degree, I'd bet that Wish is also off-limits in some way or another.

Quote
As for the golems with AMFs? Go find some granite boulders that are as large as you can actually affect with shrink item (all with the same command-word), collect a bunch of them, and fabricate them together into one lump (note that this is after they're shrunk). Store them in a bag of holding, dump them out overhead; the AMFs should disable the shrink item effect. If you have 10,000,000 lbs of granite, you should be able to deal about 400,000d6 points of damage to anything you hit from a reasonable distance up. Against critters without an AMF? Have someone ready an action to call out the command word. And demiliches tend to hate antimagic fields; they suppress their Su abilities. If you find an epic version that suppresses epic magic and can be affixed to an item, use that, too. Once you have the demilich in your grasp, wrap it in the epic antimagic ribbon (make it pink and frilly) toss it in a potato sack and send it to your slow-time plane (see below).
Good stuff, though did you have any plans for the party to ignore the AMF? (Demiliches have a sizable Ex insight bonus to AC, so its touch AC wouldn't drop terribly much...)

Quote
Also wish should be able to give you any answers you want. Write the questions down on a sheet of paper, then wish for the answer to the question you have written down. Simple and unambiguous.
Er, that's not one of the "base" effects of the spell. Unless it falls under the ability to mimic lower-level spells while paying some XP, in which case:
  • Commune has been nerfed.
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If there's something else that could be mimiced, I'm open to suggestions.

Quote
Screw epic magic. Use your levels 0-9 spells, which are more than powerful enough. Use planar binding to get an efreeti, then wish for three simulacrums of efreet. Use those simulacrums to wish for more simulacrums. Then wish for a scroll of genesis, and cast it to get a plane where time runs 10,000x as fast as it does on the Material Plane, with landscape made of black sand. Keep your undead minions there, and use it to rest up and regain spells in under a round. In a similar vein, make another demiplane with time that runs approximately 400 billion trillion times as slow as it does on the Prime Material. Even a swift action spell will take several hundred thousand years to pull off; by then, anything you imprison there is not your problem anymore.
Eh, I wouldn't cut out epic magic quite yet. As I've noted above, some of the seeds (Mythal, Shadow, Ward) are staggeringly powerful if you use them properly. For instance, guess what Shadow can do? (Same thing as Ice Assassin, but with no components...)

Quote
Also, I'd see if you can't find a way to give your uber-zombie feats. Awaken it if it doesn't have any Int score, and make friends with it (ie, you won't lose control of it in an antimagic field and it can't be dominated). Then give it turning immunity and ubercharger feats and the Pounce ability. Even mid-level characters (around 12 or so) can deal hundreds of thousands of points of damage each round, and have very little trouble hitting whatever they're aiming for. I do believe there's a cleric and/or ranger spell that turns all attack rolls into auto-20s (though I don't remember what it is, though I think it's in the Spell Compendium); use it when your critter pounces, and you should be fine.

Really, you should be okay; just use the resources at your disposal and epic is a cakewalk.
I'm not sure what spell you're referring to, except perhaps Hunter's Mercy (which doesn't do that) or Surge of Fortune (found in a disallowed source).

Oh, come to think of it...why of all things is errata banned?

Brainpiercing

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2009, 05:56:28 PM »
Quote
Oh, come to think of it...why of all things is errata banned?
Well, we agreed on that, because we didn't want WotC's sloppy repairs of even sloppier rules writing.

I'll adress the other posts soon, got no time, now.

Brainpiercing

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #11 on: November 26, 2009, 07:33:30 AM »
Oh, that Demilich is so fuckin dead. THANKS for pointing out the Hagumemnon. These things are demilich-killers par excellence :).

Now imagine this:
AMF 100ft  from Colossus as Ex, so it works on the Demilich, but not on me.
Magic Immunity of the Demilich, or of the Flesh Colossus
Auto-Disintegrate of the Blackball, also works on a Demilich. It'll take a while, because the DC likely as not won't be too high, but it'll work, eventually.
Any other Ex effect to stop the demilich from flying away. Hell, improved grab should work. This will likely require time stop to get close to him in the first place, but by strict RAW I can't cast that while in the AMF, since only supernatural abilities of the Colossus keep working.

Now I'll fuck up all allies around me, too, in this manner, but that doesn't matter, I can always use my meatball to catch them as they fall to the ground. The demilich also has one chance to cast celerity and mess it all up by dispelling or counter-spelling my shapechange, and since we ruled that celerities go in order of initiative there is really nothing I can do about this, EXCEPT delay to next round to go after my critter, who is the only one who beat the demliches init. And that concludes it, because I can do all that within a celerity he won't be able to interrupt. Movement will be a problem, he can still fly too fast for the AMF, so I'll have to catch him in my standard action after Celerity. I can't imagine the DM pumped his grapple check, after all, he's a tiny flying skull and hardly has a use for Str. Once I catch him he's just plain dead in the water, and I wait until he rolls a few natural 1s to fail his fort saves (my DC will only be 42, I don't have spells to boost my CON any higher, and naturally as an undead I don't carry any items for CON). I'll need a few tries, because the damage from Disintegrate won't be that high (72d6), but it should work, eventually. His saves might not even be that high without his phylactery transfer ability, or active spells.

Of course, HE might be a cheater of mystra, or the DM might cheat him out of it in any number of ways, but I can't even plan for that, so...

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #12 on: November 26, 2009, 10:18:05 AM »
A Cheater of Mystra still requires a check against the CL of the AMF effect, right? You might want to abuse that somehow. Too bad Antimagic ray won't work on a demilich.

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Brainpiercing

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2009, 10:30:38 AM »
A Cheater of Mystra still requires a check against the CL of the AMF effect, right? You might want to abuse that somehow. Too bad Antimagic ray won't work on a demilich.
The AMF has the rather low CL of the Colossus, which means that Halastar/the demilich will easily beat it, with his at least 60 or so. Also, while I can boost my CL on spells (and not even to 60 without use of expendables, which I am just plain too lazy to do), I'm not sure how to boost the CL on an Ex ability.
I still have the hope that the DM did not take/reflavour an Initiate feat from a good god. I'm quite certain this is just an intermediate bad guy, he must have some weaknesses left. His strengths up to this point haven't been overpowering (he killed my temporary HP, so what?), it's my inability to overcome his defenses that has made this fight hard so far. I think he planned for my current offensive capabilities, but he didn't read up on or imagine the power of the Hagunemnon :).

Brainpiercing

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2009, 10:59:38 AM »
For dealing with DR, there's always Mantle of Pure Spite (Heroes of Horror). It's a domain-only spell (Spite 8, naturally), but one of the effects is that it allows you to ignore DR against anything that attacks you. Yes, ignore it - make it Persistent and go to town.
This would be nice, but how do I get it without the Spite domain? Miracle can't emulate it.
Quote
And if you'd like a way to block force damage, you could either go with Forceward (Spell Compendium) to simply negate all force effects in range, or Divine Retribution (Dragonlance Campaign Setting) to block all force damage and mirror it back as unblockable sacred/profane damage. (Complete Champion "updated" the latter, but it's explicitly disallowed, so...)
Dragonlance is out as well, unfortunately. Forceward is an option, although as it is, I won't even be able to save against his Disintegrates (around 90 DC or so, I imagine), so not taking Force damage won't solve my problem.
Quote
Are powerful epic spells in play here?* Because if so, you could always do crazy things with mythals. Or the Foresee and Reveal seeds. (On the former...apply Metafaculty as a Vanguard effect. Get the Wilder to help.) Find out what spells your opponents typically use - then block them with the Ward seed. (Various effects will offer you a backdoor if so you desire.)
Hmm.... we don't have any of those YET. As it is, I'm also the one lagging behind in XP, since I needed to buy back my LA, AND pay tons of XP for my meatball as well as being spellstitched. As of now we've just been using Fortify to gain mad amounts of whatever primary abilities we need. Where is the Mythal seed from?

Quote
As for keeping your stuff safe...well, check that Mythal seed again. Tag Planar Bubble (Far Realms) as a Prevalent Power. And set the whole business up in the nigh-impregnable demiplane. This also allows you a lot of downtime for things like item crafting and divinations.

Want more spiffy magic items? Have your cohort pick up an artificer cohort. With several feats reducing the required resources** along with Retain Essence (devour Permanency scrolls), said artificer should be able to make whatever the party wants on the cheap at much less than they'd be bought for. (For instance, you can pull off a x.405 multiplier on items - not bad when you aren't paying XP!) Plus, said artificer can make a number of attribute-boosting slotless items for the party, then tag them with Persistent Enhancement Alteration.
No Artificers, sorry I forgot to say Eberron CS is out. We do get free XP for crafting, though, except it takes TIME, something we don't have right now.
Quote
Oh, and in general, setting up a mythal in the Planar Bubble demiplane with Persistent Miracle as a Vanguard Spell is a good thing.

*Essentially, how much was that whole ritual business nerfed?

**Alliteration was unintentional.
Any kind of DC mitigation can only reduce the DC to half of it's original value. So if I'm at DC150, I can only lower it to 75, I have to pay the rest. That was done because I would have brought free epic spells to the party, otherwise.

Well, the wish spell can get you literally any kind of item you would like as a standard action. Seriously; go read it. Get some force bows, transmuting weaponry, suppression weapons, and anything else you like; go wild. Use your efreet (see below) and you won't have to worry about XP costs.
Well, the deal is that we don't use infinite loops. I DO have efreet at my disposal and have used them before. However, we're in Halastar's lab, with no way to quickly get some and come back. Later though, count on me to get better weapons. I'll ask about using Wishes to change weapon enhancements already in place to save some money.
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As for the golems with AMFs? Go find some granite boulders that are as large as you can actually affect with shrink item (all with the same command-word), collect a bunch of them, and fabricate them together into one lump (note that this is after they're shrunk). Store them in a bag of holding, dump them out overhead; the AMFs should disable the shrink item effect. If you have 10,000,000 lbs of granite, you should be able to deal about 400,000d6 points of damage to anything you hit from a reasonable distance up. Against critters without an AMF? Have someone ready an action to call out the command word. And demiliches tend to hate antimagic fields; they suppress their Su abilities. If you find an epic version that suppresses epic magic and can be affixed to an item, use that, too. Once you have the demilich in your grasp, wrap it in the epic antimagic ribbon (make it pink and frilly) toss it in a potato sack and send it to your slow-time plane (see below).
Hmm... shrink item stuff is sort of nasty. It could be thrown the other way. Also, where do I get the trillion tons of rock right now?
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Also wish should be able to give you any answers you want. Write the questions down on a sheet of paper, then wish for the answer to the question you have written down. Simple and unambiguous.
That's an idea, even though the DM won't like it, since it seems like a cop-out. I'll think about it.
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Screw epic magic. Use your levels 0-9 spells, which are more than powerful enough. Use planar binding to get an efreeti, then wish for three simulacrums of efreet. Use those simulacrums to wish for more simulacrums. Then wish for a scroll of genesis, and cast it to get a plane where time runs 10,000x as fast as it does on the Material Plane, with landscape made of black sand. Keep your undead minions there, and use it to rest up and regain spells in under a round. In a similar vein, make another demiplane with time that runs approximately 400 billion trillion times as slow as it does on the Prime Material. Even a swift action spell will take several hundred thousand years to pull off; by then, anything you imprison there is not your problem anymore.
The demi-plane is definitely on the wish list. I won't start creating simulacra, since that is the shtick of the other PC, but I have my minions to aid me, anyway.
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Also, I'd see if you can't find a way to give your uber-zombie feats. Awaken it if it doesn't have any Int score, and make friends with it (ie, you won't lose control of it in an antimagic field and it can't be dominated). Then give it turning immunity and ubercharger feats and the Pounce ability. Even mid-level characters (around 12 or so) can deal hundreds of thousands of points of damage each round, and have very little trouble hitting whatever they're aiming for. I do believe there's a cleric and/or ranger spell that turns all attack rolls into auto-20s (though I don't remember what it is, though I think it's in the Spell Compendium); use it when your critter pounces, and you should be fine.

Really, you should be okay; just use the resources at your disposal and epic is a cakewalk.
My critter has feats and skills, in fact rather cheesy amounts. It has about 30-odd feats plus a few bonus feats, as well as about 970 skill points :). I didn't give it valorous weapons, or I fear my DM will call for a nerf of my homebrew class. As it is, it deals a couple of thousands of points of damage on a charge, which is fine in my book. I just need to get over DR better.

NeverGetDrunkButStaySober

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #15 on: November 26, 2009, 11:22:45 AM »
Hmm...

  • Would it be possible for the group's cleric to get access to the Spite domain? (Extra Domain works, for instance.) Because if so, you could Shapechange into a symbiont and glomp him. At which point any Persistent buffs cast on himself are also Persistent on you. (Symbionts can be awesome that way.)
  • How do you plan on Shapechanging into a creature with more HD than the spell allows? Was this houseruled in or so forth? Forgot about not using errata, which is the only thing that would block this. Enjoy!
  • Blocking disintegration? There's always the Proof Against Transmutation armor property. Sure, it's +5, but worth it if you're dealing with a lot of them. (Check Complete Arcane.)
  • The Mythal seed is from Lost Empires of Faerun - definitely an FR book. If you're concerned about paying XP...use a Rod of Excellent Magic (expensive, still) instead.
  • Your Hagunemnon choices (should Shapechange work for that) seem fine, though I'd suggest swapping between the Dragonbone Golem and Adamantine Golem variants of Magic Immunity. Both have no weaknesses. (If you want to heal, swap temporarily to Stone Golem immunity and have someone cast Mud to Rock on you.)*
  • You won't need a way to block the demilich's flight beyond the AMF; demiliches only have it as a supernatural ability. (See why Lycanthromancer was suggesting it?)
*At one point I made a list of all the "Magic Immunity" effects I could find, roughly for this sort of thing.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2009, 11:42:25 AM by NeverGetDrunkButStaySober »

Brainpiercing

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #16 on: November 26, 2009, 12:08:54 PM »
Shapechange originally allows 2xCL as HD for the monster :). Since we're not using the Errata, this is fair game. It even gives HP for added CON, isn't that nice?

I DO have access to LEoF. I'll look at it right away.

Unfortunately the Demiliches flight ability isn't listed as a Su, it's just a movement mode. It could be Ex in some weird way, or even "natural". So I don't think I can stop him from moving just with the AMF. In any case, since we're flying at around 400ft above the colossi, and their AMFs, I don't really want it to fall, anyway :).


Lycanthromancer

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #17 on: November 26, 2009, 12:26:00 PM »
As far as throwing the 10,000,000 lb rock back at you? Remember that antimagic field only suppresses magic; once it leaves the field, it'll only weigh 2,500 lbs, which should deal about 100d6 damage when thrown.

That's assuming the creature survives the 400,000d6+ damage in the first place.

Also, you could cast gate to pull in some massive boulders from the Elemental Plane of Earth or elsewhere; gate has no xp cost when you're not using the calling effect.

A Chained shrink item can make this go a lot faster.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2009, 12:28:54 PM by Lycanthromancer »
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Operation Shoestring

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #18 on: November 26, 2009, 06:10:26 PM »
Don't epic tactics basically boil down to Automatic Quickenx3 and then Multispellx(as many times as i can take it)?

NeverGetDrunkButStaySober

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Re: Neep help with Epic tactics
« Reply #19 on: November 26, 2009, 06:55:04 PM »
@Operation Shoestring: Not necessarily.
  • Where would you get all those spell slots to power your casting frenzies, anyway?
  • Sometimes you may need to do other things with the actions at hand; I've played in a high-epic (50 gestalt) arena in which the competent opponents were immune to a lot of stuff, including whole classes of spells.
  • Indeed, much of epic tactics centers around grabbing piles of immunities.
  • What happens if/when you run into a counterspelling maniac with a lot of slots? I've geared up one character to pull off that trick with more spells per school than most casters would have in total.
  • How would you penetrate the immunities of your opponents - the sorts that can block classes A-Z of effects, with high saves, Evasion, and Mettle? Sometimes you may need to pull out a dispel. Either MDJ (which has its own wonky consequences, and which is kinda likely to be countered by a savvy opponent) or an epic Dispel (hint: convert it to an area).
  • Many immunities are powered by spells of various sorts. So what happens if you use the Ward seed to shut down the likely candidates? Or you block your opponent's likely offensive spells?
Got to a bit of rambling there...

@Brainpiercing: Odd. I'd always thought that demilich flight was supernatural, but upon rereading it seems that you retain supernatural flight in addition to gaining the best movement mode ever printed.

Another method I just thought of to counter disintegration. Is Halaster blasting you with ranged touch attacks? If so, try Persistent Ray Deflection - it'll block them all.