Level 20 Warblade going into Epic... where to start?

[Jarmen4u]

Well, I dont know if I would be willing to play an Epic Game with someone ignoring just about half the rules that make noncaster Characters strong (Wealth!), but thats your decision.

No matter if he knew Gygax in the Army or whatever, playing by the rules should be obvious. If he does not, do you guys get any advantages to bypass you7r horrible poorness at least? ^^

You do fulfill all the encessary SKill prerequit´sites for 4 Discipline Class skills, so all you would need wpould be to either retrain a level or 2 and/or spend more to get the feats you need.

Just ask him,a fter all, if his arguments are a smuch "realism based (TM" as it seems, finding an isntructor and spendign some time finding enlightenment ((ergo retraining 2 or 3 levels to Swordsage and then entering Master of the 9) should fit. :)

Yeah, if I lose this character I'm probably going to do some combination of War Weaver+Incantatrix to buff the **** out of everyone.

Like I said before though, so far the casters in our game haven't been terribly optimized anyway, and with the exception of maybe the two PCs that the part time DMs play(because they've played for longer so are much higher level) I'm at least even with everyone else. Everyone else is similarly restricted by wealth, and though we often find "unidentified items," they use old fashioned identifiy rules, which require you to use the item as part of the process. So if it's cursed, you get cursed, if it's deadly, you die, etc. We actually have a decent amount of unidentified items in a cache, but nobody's dumb enough to try them out. But I digress.

I'll try to talk to him about retraining, or maybe just taking a level in Swordsage to get into Mo9. Though, I'm still on the fence about Bloodstorm Blade, the fluff of that class is really cool.

[Drelua]

Like I said before though, so far the casters in our game haven't been terribly optimized anyway, and with the exception of maybe the two PCs that the part time DMs play(because they've played for longer so are much higher level) I'm at least even with everyone else. Everyone else is similarly restricted by wealth, and though we often find "unidentified items," they use old fashioned identifiy rules, which require you to use the item as part of the process. So if it's cursed, you get cursed, if it's deadly, you die, etc.

Okay, this doesn't sound like a great time to me, but if you want to identify this stuff, here's what I'd do; pay a commoner more money than he's ever seen to try it. Just a few hundred gold should do. If you're trying to be good people, make sure they fully understand the risks and promise to do your best to undo anything bad that happens to them, including a raise dead if necessary. You should have access to enough spells to undo almost anything a cursed item would do, unless your DM's being unreasonably mean.

[Jarmen4u]

Okay, this doesn't sound like a great time to me, but if you want to identify this stuff, here's what I'd do; pay a commoner more money than he's ever seen to try it. Just a few hundred gold should do. If you're trying to be good people, make sure they fully understand the risks and promise to do your best to undo anything bad that happens to them, including a raise dead if necessary. You should have access to enough spells to undo almost anything a cursed item would do, unless your DM's being unreasonably mean.

That's not actually a terrible idea! The only thing I could see go wrong would be if we couldn't tell that anything was wrong with the NPC, or if the curse/magic was more subtle. I'll definitely keep this in mind, though.

[Troacctid]

Oh, I guess there is actually a feat that makes you immune to mind-affecting, if you don't mind going evil. Deformity (Madness) from Elder Evils is a Vile feat that gives you a permanent -4 penalty to Wisdom in exchange for immunity to mind-affecting. You can also use an immediate action once per minute to gain a bonus equal to half your level on a single Will save. Requires Willing Deformity as a prerequisite. Alternately, Insane Defiance is another Vile feat from the same book that allows you to use an immediate action and take 1 point of Wisdom damage when you're targeted by a mind-affecting effect and change the target to another creature of your choice within range, giving them a -4 penalty on their save against it.

If you're evil and you know of the existence of any Elder Evil, you could theoretically swear your service to it to get bonus vile feats (Elder Evils, page 10), although that sort of thing has a tendency to throw the plot for a curveball.

[Jarmen4u]

Oh, I guess there is actually a feat that makes you immune to mind-affecting, if you don't mind going evil. Deformity (Madness) from Elder Evils is a Vile feat that gives you a permanent -4 penalty to Wisdom in exchange for immunity to mind-affecting. You can also use an immediate action once per minute to gain a bonus equal to half your level on a single Will save. Requires Willing Deformity as a prerequisite. Alternately, Insane Defiance is another Vile feat from the same book that allows you to use an immediate action and take 1 point of Wisdom damage when you're targeted by a mind-affecting effect and change the target to another creature of your choice within range, giving them a -4 penalty on their save against it.

If you're evil and you know of the existence of any Elder Evil, you could theoretically swear your service to it to get bonus vile feats (Elder Evils, page 10), although that sort of thing has a tendency to throw the plot for a curveball.

Damn, that's really interesting. I'm Lawful Neutral so that wouldn't work, and evil is punished with extreme prejudice in this campaign (again due to influence from older systems), so I'll keep it in mind, but I don't think I could use it realistically, unless I could forever have a false alignment on me. I know there's Undetectable Alignment, but is there a way to actually spoof a Good alignment?

[Troacctid]

Damn, that's really interesting. I'm Lawful Neutral so that wouldn't work, and evil is punished with extreme prejudice in this campaign (again due to influence from older systems), so I'll keep it in mind, but I don't think I could use it realistically, unless I could forever have a false alignment on me. I know there's Undetectable Alignment, but is there a way to actually spoof a Good alignment?

A misdirection spell can do it, but you need a good-aligned partner in crime.

Edit: Mask of Gentility from Exemplars of Evil will also cause you to register as neutral.