Talk:Greater Epic Access (3.5e Feat)

I'm kinda thinking that this and Epic Access are overpowered, but I'm not sure, seeing as I've never really played an Epic campaign in my life. I just did this after I made Epic Access, because I thought losing 2 feats for 1 [Epic] feat might be a little much at the higher levels (I originally made Epic Access to give my Totemist an extra Chakra bind.

Please tell me if I've screwed up terribly!--For Valor 02:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I think in general any access to epic feats before non-epic level is going to be, pretty overpowered, yes. Epic Access is bad, but this feat is worse.

Without any experience with a fighter could (given the right magic equipment or a high dex race) get Storm of Throws as early as 9th level. This allows them to have potentially 50+ attacks per round with no penalty (+9 + STR + misc), as long as they have enough weapons on hand. 50! Compare to the poor TWFer who gets no more than 5 attacks but at a penalty (+5/+5/+5/+0/+0 -- four melee hits and a thrown weapon using rapidshot).

Adding epic feats probably isn't always going to be so game breaking (Epic Will can be replicated with a magic item that only costs 16,000gp), but some definitely are. Epic feats, if allowed at non-epic levels, should only be allowed on a limited basis, and with a GM's strict discretion. JazzMan 03:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

So assuming this fighter takes 18 for starting Dexterity, and then puts both stat boosts into Dex, he'll have 20 Dex. Throw on an Ioun stone for 22, and then a race with +Dex for 24 (26 if you nabbed Lesser Chaond from MM2). Then you burn your 6th and 9th-level feats to get Storm of Throws, giving you the ability to hit everyone once with a 9+12=21 base attack (24 with bonuses off the top of my head). The damage you deal will be with a light weapon only, and you've got to have all of them on your person, which actually would look pretty cool (walking around with 50 daggers. Ooooh, think about carrying capacity too.). Then, in combat, you basically make an AoE attack and rape...

If you used full Power Attack for +18 damage, adding +2 from weapon specialization, you could go for 21-24 (1d4 dagger) or 21-26 (1d6 mace/sickle) damage, but take down your to-hit chances to around +15 (+2 from weapon focuses 1&2, then +1 from point blank shot if you're within 30 ft, +12 from Dex, and there might be some other stuff to do). That's certainly enough to wipe out any whelp, and could take down quite a few people pretty fast. Meanwhile, you've burned all but 1 feat (Iron Will, anyone?)

So I see the power that comes with this, but there certainly MUST be a way to trade off for them. That fighter was really specialized up the yin-yang, so maybe it could cost another feat (for losing 2 feats for an [Epic] feat will make Iron Will and its compatriots unappealing). Or maybe starting Epic Access at 9th or 12th level, and then just getting rid of Greater Epic Access? I really want this to work, and anything you can think of to adapt it would be much appreciated. --For Valor 06:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, power attack only works for melee attacks, so you can't use it for this. (Even if you could, you couldn't add more than 9 damage at 9th level.)

The problem is, the only way to truly balance epic level feats is to enforce the prerequisite of 20th level. Unfortunately, I don't know the epic feats well enough to come up with something that would work to balance them. For some feats (epic toughness, maybe), giving up one feat could balance, but for others it wouldn't be enough.

Hrm, here's a thought. What if you scaled any numeric values granted by the feat based on how far you are from 20th level? So if there's some feat that allows you to add 20 to something, you can only add 10 at 10th level, 15 at 15th level, and you don't gain the full benefit until you reach 20th? (Or maybe it should be 21st level). It would be wordy, and you'd have to think of every contingency, but I think it could work. JazzMan 18:13, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

That might be rough... sounds like a lot of paperwork. As it is, I'm just surfing the [Epic] feats, looking for ones that could be ridiculous. I haven't found any so far (I'm sticking with all other prereqs, so all Metamagic is gone, along with stuff like Dragon Wild Shape), and I'm thinking that [Epic] feats actually wouldn't be all that bad. Some of them aren't even worth the 2 feats. You'd have to burn 3 feats to give yourself a +2 to any stat, and most of the ones that are really great have Knowledge (arcane) 34 or something.

And if you can't power attack.... then isn't Storm of Throws pretty useless? I mean, that's 1-6 damage to your opponents, even with Exotic weapons. The "poor TWFer" is dealing a helluva lot more, and can hit the same guy multiple times, making him useful. Storm of Throws would bypass DR 5 only 17% of the time (with a 1d6 item), and weapons can't be enchanted because you'd have to enchant each and every one... so that's totally out of the picture. I guess Storm of Throws is an OK feat, then... --For Valor 22:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

EDIT: I reread the combat section, and I think I know why we differ here. I'm playing F&K's [Tome]-style combat, where Power Attack comes with a BAB of +1 or more and has no cap. At [Tome] level, feats are worth a lot more too, so our concepts of Feat balance are probably different on that end as well. --For Valor 22:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I don't know anything about Tome, so that might be the difference. You also are talking to someone who doesn't know much beyond core and doesn't know epic at all. Just because I can't break it doesn't mean it can't be broken. Those 50 attacks might not seem like a lot when they deal under 10 damage each, but it's probably not hard to blow it up if you know what you're doing. Maybe it's not overpowered, but it's not something I'd allow in my campaign as written; at a minimum I would need to approve every epic feat, and invoke the right to remove it if it's unfairly exploited after the fact. JazzMan 01:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It really depends on what feats you're taking, and with what kind of character. You could take some feat like "Swarm of Arrows", and if you have the right rogue build, at level 9 you're doing 1d8 Longbow (might as well enchant it +1 to bypass most of that pesky DR) + 5d6 sneak attack to every enemy within 30' at the start of combat (Have the wizard make you invisible, walk to the center of the room using Move Silently, and catch everything with a pulse flat-footed). Your attack roll ends up being at least 1d20+18(more for alternate bonuses; flanking, favored enemies, etc) against their flat-footed AC. You can argue that a rogue would burn all his feats to get this (including a human bonus feat), but any self-respecting ranged rogue already plans to have these feats(if you're using flaws from Unearthed Arcana, you can even still get Precise Shot). However, a ranger from the same party could take the same feat and do 1d8+1 longbow (and nothing else) to those same enemies. At this point you have a ranger standing in the middle of a very angry room. This is one of those "hard to tell" situations, where it will vary from player to player, and game to game. As a DM, I'd consider it on a per instance basis. Rogues and spell-casters would have a hard time trying to get me to ok it, but a ranger or monk would likely get instant approval. That's just the varying nature of the game. --Badger 05:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Duh, I forgot sneak attack. Now you see why I don't make optimized builds. But yeah, that's a much better example of the point I was trying to get across. JazzMan 05:14, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

At level nine, that's about as good as a well optimized Wizard. At higher levels, the Wizard, Druid, and Cleric still pull ahead; I don't see too much of a problem.

But I went out and changed up the idea. I'm trying to find a way to delete both feats, and then modify the Epic Feats so that they have level caps, instead of making you burn a feat of your own and ruining the progression of game balance. --For Valor 22:54, 16 May 2010 (UTC)