Epic Magic Beta Refunds - And some suggestions for updates

While the epic magic system waits in beta.... could we get a VC erase/refund command?

It's actually quite frustrating to spend hundreds of thousands of XP and millions of gold on epic spells and many of the seeds are either too buggy to be useful (epic warding preset wears off after just a few rounds and takes the epic AC seed effects along with it when it goes) or just flat out do not work (succeed the spellcraft check... no effect, can vary character to character.... some of mine can get the AC+20 armor seed to work, cant).  My gnome Aga for example has spent over two million in XP and I don't even know how much GP on his epic spells, and only 8 out of the 40 spells he currently has work even partially.

It would be fair I think that while it's beta, the ;;em erase command refunds the research costs.

I second that!

I've actually been very hesitant to try much more of the EMS until others have verified its workings.  The potential loss of huge amounts of celestial gold and XP is not something that I'd like to chance.

(And BTW, it seems that if you're unsatisfied with what you named a spell, you'd have to suffer the loss of your entire investment to completely redo it.)

At the very least, please refund our brave researcher Manny's investments so that he can check it out for the rest of us!

I'm gonna third that one ... just seems to make sense for a service in beta-stage ...

Some general suggestions for when epic magic gets worked on again

More pre-set spells.... It's nice that hellball's a preset, as it does what other researched epics can't do... multiple effects (several damage types in one spell.)

A divine-damager seed.... Arcane casters have the market cornered with access to two of the three damage/killer seeds... and the slay seed is pretty narrow focused.  A divine only damage seed would be nice, one that offers damage with positive and/or divine damage.

The necromatic summoning seed.... this one needs some umph!  20 skellies is a decent one... good for a quick bit of chaos and distraction, but epic necromancers should be able to do some real scary stuff with their epic castings.  I think stuff like summoning a dracolich would rock (kinda like summoning a dragonknight, but like... necromancers like their dragons dead  )  Other undead's would be great... something a little above and beyond what can be done with the various undead creating regular spells... 2 or more liches, warrior zombies toughened up like the mummydust zombie... I would say no to a demilich though only since it's the jewel of level 30 palemasters, and would be a bit of a slight to give that to any epic caster when PM's need to invest 30 levels to get it.

And the kill-raise enemy spell... I know this one would be a real PITA to rework, but the resulting raised enemy summon is just useless with it's current low HD, none of the slain target's traits... 

I'm not sure there's a script command to change a target's racial type, but I do know changing racial types IS possible in a round-about way... When my shifter changes into say, a drow... his racial type is changed to elf for the duration of the shift (Vs elf properties work against him, he takes a multiclass XP penalty to XP while in drow form, as none of this two base classes are wizard).... Perhaps if the kill-raise seed could kill the baddie, rez them and polymorph them into a base undead creature, with it's various traits merged into the base creature's form.... that would work.  Have say, a base undead creature polymorph for level 1 to 5 enemies, one for 5 to 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20, 20 to 30, and 30 to 40.... Slay a goblin, the seed's script triggers the resulting raised goblin to polymorph into the level 1-5 undead base creature, apply the visual appearance shift to goblin, merge the goblin's traits (none really... ), tada, a slay-raise spell far more closer to what it's name implies.  Slay a dragon... it's HD determines which polymorph base undead it gets... apply the visual to the resulting base creature, merge it's dragon traits on it's hide to the base's hide... boom, zombie dragon!  

A new "Burn" DC reduction.... double slot casting.  Give a decent sized DC reduction for burning TWO epic spell castings on one spell use.

Multiple Seeds in one spell:  Would rock to make our own hellball like spells.... instead of just a single damage type, tack on two or three or all damage types.... at increased DCs of course, but nothing overwhelming that requires ascension, a full +50 spellcraft bonus from items, great wis/cha/int X feats, a +5 tome, and every possible burn at it's nastiest.

DC's in general:  Could use some adjustment.... a level 21 wiz/sorc shouldn't be tossing out top level destroy seeds in colossal AoE's with with +5 caster level checks, +20 DCs and whatnot, but modified seeds shoudl be slightly more attainable without such massive straight caster commitment to the epic casting process... 

In general, I think the seeds should be worked within the reasonably attainable spellcraft checks scaled from lowest to highest, with highest being a maxed spellcraft skill, +50 spellcraft from item bonuses (easy enough to work for), +4 tome (the highest I found in game on an automated, non-DM quest award basis), Great Wis/cha/int VI, +15 stat purchase from shae... (leaving that last +5 from shae as a "gravy" +2 on their spellcraft checks, and the last four greatX feats likewise as gravy, and leaving a few bonus epic feats that could be devoted to NON epic spellcasting use, such as an epic spell focus feat, epic penetration, and 2 of the three auto-meta magic feats...   Casters who decide to devote 10 feats to all 10 great wis/cha/int feats, bust butt for +20 shae buys.... they really should get some "gravy" for that investment..... greatX feats 1-6 and +15 shae buys is STILL a VERY heavy investment.

Researching....

The current research panel.... makes my eyes hurt   The text is VERY tiny, the options are grouped very close together, which makes selection a bit of a pixel-hunt with my cursor, and it's yeah... makes my eyes literally hurt.


I think that a VC based research process would be FAR better

Have it work sorta like tradeskills... gotta be in the library, and close to a designated placable (those monster sized books like in the library's main area would be perfect for this, very apropo)... Use the command ;;em new X, get a feedback menu listing the seeds.... use a VC command to select your seed... ;;em seed # # (first number being the seed category, second number being the specific effect within that seed)..... new VC feedback menu asks for the next seed (if multiple seed function gets added) or if you want to add modifiers.... ;;em modifer would list the various modifiers, select like the seeds.... ;;em modifier # #, and same with burns.... ;;em burn # #.  Then the last steps, add the name, add the description, boom! ;;em finalize... 

A VC based system would be FAR easier on the eyes, and I would guess bypass the whole business of spawning in the panel and it's buttons, each button's onlclick business, ect.

And a final suggestion....

VFX selection, or even squelching.... I RARELY use the deflection armor seed cuz the VFX is very.... flashy, and is actually a bit rough on my poor low end computer... especially when I got a gabillion other magical confetti's going on, a horde of monsters, a horde of summons.... it's all VERY busy looking

For seeds that currently apply a VFX to the PC, I would gladly pay a +2 or even a +5 DC price to select from a list of VFX's (like... I LOVED the old natural armor seed VFX.... it was a diamond-plate texture... it now seems to have the same "ice" texture as that level 1 arcane ice armor spell)

Or to just outright squelch the VFX (or at least, have it default to a very easy on the eyes and graphics card VFX, such as the tiny colord orbs vfx such as with the "armor AC" seed's current VFX).

It would be fitting for low-key casters too.... An arrogant drow sorceress who shall remain nameless certainly has no problems with grand displays of power.... but another caster may rather a "low key" approach.

And, the PC *is* paying a price tag for their customized spells anyway  a custom VFX (even if drawn from a limited list) would be VERY gravy.


*Edit addition:

Fortify seed:  The +5/+10 saves is a great function.  The +X to Y stat/+2 or +4 to all stats likewise, a very decent seed.  The spell resistance seed however....   Epic divine casters are already receiving 33 spell resistance from their 5th level spell.  SR does not stack, and the duration for a 21st level divine caster is just a tad short of the 24 hour duration of the epic seed's base duration.... I cannot see any reason for researching this one.

For the spell resistance seed, the only real "epic" improvement I could see for it is make it function by default as an AoE, party only version of the 5th level spell.... 12+1 per caster level SR for 1 turn per caster level.

Vitatlity Seed:  This one also is rather meh as it currently is.... Of the 6 effects, one is basically a heal spell as if cast by an asis cleric (kinda robs asis clerics of their primary benefit at that), the regeneration effect IS useful, but it's duration/number of HP regenerated is the only real draw.  An epic cleric could probably get more oomph out of several extended castings of regenerate.

The deferred sell rez, very nice, a keeper.

The regular rez effect.... it a casting of "resurrection' that requires epic investment.... The only benefit of this is being able to toss out a resurrection sorcerer spontaneous casting style.  I can't think of any way to reasonably improve this one.... so maybe it should just be flat out dropped.  Not really sense putting in coding for something that will not really be used at all.

Bonus temp HP..... the keeper, the best of the lot.  Now THAT is an epic divine seed  


Reveal seed:  The sanctuary buster's great.  But the dispel invis?  Invisibility purge is a VERY low level spell, is an AoE by default (and the dispel invis seed is target:one creature... how do you target a creature you can't see?  And if you can see them.... you already got 'see invis' or 'true seeing going and their invisibility isn't really helping them at all anyway...)

Conceal Seed: Invisibility.  This is a 100% duplication of the 3rd level invisibility spell, but with a shorter duration.  The only benefit of this one is it gives clerics and druids invisibility (as an epic cleric or druid, I'd stll much rather go with a greater sanctuary spell slotted up).

Improved invisibility effect.... the only epic thing about this is the ability to VERY easily apply the "permenant" modifier to it.  The duration is lower than what a 21'st wizard is getting with the regular spell of the same name, much lower than a 30th level or 40th level wizard....

50% concealment effect... duration is the only thing this has going for it. A flat, easy 200 displacement for a practically free spellcraft check... easy as could be to made "permenant".... and IMO a total slap in the face of dex based PCs who make a MAJOR epic investment into the 'self concealment" line of feats.  This one, I have to say should just go.  It gives casters way too much for way to little.

Self concealment V (50% concealment) requires Improved Evasion, 30 base dexterity, 30 tumble, 30 hide, and the 5 feat slots for self concealments I thorugh V.  The EARLIEST one can take self concealment 1 is level 27, and it requires EVERY general feat thereafter, or a combination of bonus feat and general epic feats to get the full line (PLUS a +2 tome, a +2 dex subrace bonus on a maxed dex PC, OR 1,000,000 excess XP and reincarnation/ascension or a relevel on a maxed dex PC)....

And casters can get it for spell craft check so low it can be accomplished without a single feat investment, and a not even 20 skill points invested into spell craft.....   

The entire line of "conceal seed" effects I personally would get rid of, for either directly duplicating non-epic spells with no tangiable upgrade, or giving away something that otherwise requires a massive and dedicated investment investment to get by non-casters.

Very relevant suggestions!  I concur with all.

I agree that a VC system process would get rid of the tichy hard-to-read hard-to-select seed board.

I might add a request for Rename in the VC system, so that one can correct spell names at any time without redoing one's investment in gold and xp.  (I wish I'd put my epic spell exclamations in Elven.)

I had a suspicion that the Kill and Raise wouldn't give the creature properties of the one that died.  So for it to actually do so should be its final goal, as to me this ability seems like the entire reason for such a spell to exist.  If it's too much to script fifty different creature possibilities, at least a representative spectrum at first.

And you'll always get my vote for more useful (i.e. more durable and more capable) summons.  For necromancers, dracolich sounds perfect.... and my shadow wizard would love a more durable L40 Wrathful Spirit of Darkness.

My wizard would like the low-key effects also, she's rather that type.  And I'm also still playing NWN1 on an XP with only 1 gig of RAM.

Positive energy, divine energy, and even negative energy epic spells would rock.  My wizard seems to be going the path of Prizimal, and nothing says Prizimal like positive energy in one hand and negative energy in the other!  Something like Harm (negative energy) and Heal (positive damage) for epic mages who are not clerics but still specialize in positive and negative energies.

Well, I was kinda thinking the pos/diving being reserved for the divine casters  The energy (ice/acid/ect) and destroy (magical) are arcane caster only seeds, so they already have plenty of damage options.

The fortify seed is the only divine-only seed... and it's not bad, but incredibly limited (+X to stats, +10 or +20 spell resistance, +5 or +10 universal saves.... the spell resistance is completely useless, as Epic divine casters get 33+ spell resistance from their a 5th level druid/cleric spell... the stat boosts are useful, but not as epic level wow as zapping baddis for 35d6 magical damage... the +10 saves is the best of the bunch really.

*and adding suggestion on fortify tweaking to above post