Palemaster and Epic spells

[tyranlthixis]

Tonight I immortalized my palemaster, with a 10 wizard/30 palemaster build. This build represents my own learning from building 4 mages, one to level 60 and maging every area in the game (aside from the pyramid...where i would never bring a mage to). I was able to squeeze 4 epic focuses into his build. At sixty he will have 10 great intelligence feats, max illithid intelligence, all the spell penetration feats, and the four most common metamagic feat (silent, max, etc.)

Choosing which epics for this guy was difficult. I eliminated the divine and abjuration epics immediately because imo those epic spells are not that useful. I also eliminated evocation for this guy because in my experience missile barrage has spell penetration issues even with a level 60 pure wizard. Throw in palemasters weak evocation spells and I predicted I would be wasting my feats. Transmutation wasn't as useful to this guy since I mainly use the barrier to set up damage spells not instant death spells. So I settled on Necromancy, Illusion, Conjuration, and Enchantment.

Talking with others I knew the damage from the Illusion epic would be weak, but I wanted the "knockdown" feature of the spell to set up my uber wails. So, far this spell works as I expected it to though its not as impressive as the wizard version.

Necromancy works just as it should

Enchantment gives me the balor, but my GMW is terrible at level 40. I thought I'd be up to +13...but it looks like I'm going to be waiting to 60 to see how that turns out.

Conjuration just plain doesn't work in level 40 areas. I took the spell because it, more than the illusion spell, would normally be the better spell for setting up mass spawns for wailing. I have seen other wizards and sorcerers do this. I've looked at the combat log and there are no "checks" that would give me a clue why my spell is not landing. I can understand why my normal grabby hands wouldn't be that effective. But, an epic spell should work differently and land on its own merit. PM's already have little choice in spells outside of necromancy and the spell cost me 3 feats. Is there any way of fixing this epic for PM's?

Tyran

[FunkySwerve]

There's nothing to fix. Bigby's relies on grapple checks, which rely on casterlevels.
Funky

[tyranlthixis]

Then how about making that spell level equal to pm level + wizard level rather than the usual non necro formula. Its bad enough my regular spells don't land....why limit PM's on epic spells too when they have to sacrifice 3 feats to get the focus for them

Tyran

[FunkySwerve]

They don't, you should take spells that don't rely on casterlevel, or not take extra focuses - limited spell selection is part and parcel of being a PM. You are not a wizard.
Funky

[tyranlthixis]

Well the documentation doesn't make that clear. It just says you need 25 PM, wizard, or sorcerer levels. Besides most epics aren't taken to improve general spells but for the bonus ability. I never expected conjuration to make my grasping and crushing hands useable or uber which maybe the motivation of a wizard. Rather I took it because mass bigsby is the perfect set up spell for wails...so maybe there should be some clairification in the arcane spell tome. I could have used those 3 feats differently if I knew how the hands grappling ability would be calculated.

Tyran

[Balduvard]

From the documentation:

Effect:
Casts the level 9 variant of Bigby's Hand on every enemy within a Large radius. The hands do 6d10 bludgeoning per round and persist for 1 round per casterlevel.

Now when your PM casts a L9 Bigby's, does it have the same effect? If so, is your confusion arising from the fact that the documentation does not specify which caster level is used to calculate the grapple check? Though to me, it wouldn't make much sense for you to be casting an epic spell with a casterlevel of anything other than your own unless it's specifically stated in the documentation that you, "cast this spell with the casterlevel of a sorcerer of equivalent level".

Then again, I'm no spellcaster so I can't provide much informed input on this topic.

[maudlin27]

Check out nwnwiki to see how bigbie grapple checks are worked out. It's based on caster level, not just on a standard 'DC' affected by spell level+Int mod+10+spell focuses.
If you want to know what epics to go for, my own experience of a PM would be to go for the transmutation epic, as it's invaluable in some areas like the desert. If you want more epic spells than just this, then you could consider ones that aren't affected by spell level such as Enchantment (the Balor is just as strong as if a pure wiz casts it I think), and divination (useful just to reduce the chance of you fugueing on some runs).
The conjuration epic is completely useless for a pm, while the illusion and evocation ones are very weak.

The main advantages of a pm compared with a pure wizard are that they're much harder to kill (good hp bonus, large ac bonus, for only a moderate penalty to concealment if you keep displacement up), and they have more powerful death magic. They're also better against enemies with high spell res (providing their spells work against them). They do suffer from a very limited spell selection though, and can often be completely useless in some areas, and they also have poor epic spells.

[FunkySwerve]

tyranlthixis said:

Well the documentation doesn't make that clear. It just says you need 25 PM, wizard, or sorcerer levels. Besides most epics aren't taken to improve general spells but for the bonus ability. I never expected conjuration to make my grasping and crushing hands useable or uber which maybe the motivation of a wizard. Rather I took it because mass bigsby is the perfect set up spell for wails...so maybe there should be some clairification in the arcane spell tome. I could have used those 3 feats differently if I knew how the hands grappling ability would be calculated.

Tyran

I'm sorry, but if you expected PMs to be magiically better at non-necro epics just because they were epics that was not a realistic expectation. Pays to ask first, or check in the builds forum.
Funky

[tyranlthixis]

There are no decent palemaster builds on the forum that are geared to casters. Off the top of my head I can think of one person who actively plays and has a decent PM thats leveled above level 45. Also, the documentation only states that the grapples "persistance" is based on caster level and that its the "level 9 version" which only means it uses crushing hands rather than one of the other bigsby spells. If palemasters do not have access to working versions of their epics, why not give them a set of different ones then? I also disagree with the writer who thought the transmutation circle was useful for PM's. I have it on my wizard and can say I would rarely use it on my PM based on the kind of spells he can use. Probably better spent on the divine epic. That way you could at least add GS to your autocaster and get a free wail or position change out of the deal if you were overwhelmed. I'm was half tempted to just go with 3 epics but when I worked that out you end up taking way too many useless palemaster bonus feats. I'm going to rebuild him I guess, and if satisfied I'll post the build, because other than the wasted epic I think he's great.

Tyran

[FunkySwerve]

The epics work exactly as intended, using PM casterlevels. You can certainly use them, they just won't be as effective as those of a pure wizard - as it should be. Pure wizzies cant get PM AC either. If you want to grapple as a PM, you'll have to choose easier-to-grapple targets. Again, there's just no bug here.

The predominance or not of a given build isn't a real indicator of it's power. A couple months ago, people were complaining about how underpowered druids were. Then someone made a good one, and people followed in their foorsteps, and NOW people are complaining that they are overpowered. Nothing else changed.

Anyway, moral of the story is again, ask, don't assume.
Funky