Can someone explain the chain gate solar method for epic spells?

[Shinizak]

I think I've seen it once, but I've never studied or understood the mechanics.

[Grynning]

I don't know if there's a particular method, but Solars cast as 20th level clerics, meaning they can cast gate. While it's not on their typical "spells prepared" list, I guess there may be a way to get them to prepare it once you've called them and then have them gate in more solars, etc.

[Yuki Akuma]

You can use other spellcasters to 'fuel' your own epic spells using ritual casting.

Solars can cast gate. On day one, cast gate and call a Solar. Ask the Solar to prepare gate and call another Solar. The next day, ask both Solars to each call another. Repeat the process an arbitrary number of times.

Now make a ridiculously arbitrarily powerful epic spell for absolutely no cost by using your aleph-null number of Solars to fuel it.

[olentu]

I basically takes advantage of the mitigating factor "Additional participants (ritual)". This factor allows other casters to participate in a ritual where they use slots and for each slot that is to be used the DC of the epic spell is reduced.

Now then solars have spellcasting as a level 20 cleric and thus have slots that they can use in a ritual and one can chain gate solars.

Alternativley one creates an epic spell that summons a solar or other spellcasting creature with a DC of zero so that it takes no resources or time to create such as

Thar be Couatl
Conjuration (Summoning)
Spellcraft DC: 0
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 65 days, 10 minutes
Range: 75 ft.
Effect: A Couatl
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 0 gp; 0 days; 00 XP. Seed: summon (DC 14). Factors: summon CR 10 creature (+16 DC), Permanent duration (x5 DC). Mitigating factors: Increase casting time by 10 minutes (-20 DC), Increase casting time by 65 days (-130 DC)

This spell summons a Couatl. It appears where the character designates and can act immediately. It attacks the character’s opponents to the best of its abilities. The character can direct the Couatl not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.

Now just summon a bunch of these and once one has enough to make a better spell with the slots that they can use in a ritual one makes a spell that either summons monsters with higher level slots or summons more of the same monsters.

[Grynning]

Originally Posted by Yuki_Akuma

You can use other spellcasters to 'fuel' your own epic spells using ritual casting.

Solars can cast gate. On day one, cast gate and call a Solar. Ask the Solar to prepare gate and call another Solar. The next day, ask both Solars to each call another. Repeat the process an arbitrary number of times.

Now make a ridiculously arbitrarily powerful epic spell for absolutely no cost by using your aleph-null number of Solars to fuel it.

The only thing about Gate is that if you want to keep the critter around for more than your CL in rounds, you have to bargain with it and offer it a reward for one specific task, and each solar that gates in another Solar would have to offer their called Solars a reward to keep them around. Yes you could pull off some shenanigans with the specific task part (as in, help me summon enough of you guys to lay waste to this quadrant of the galaxy) but the reward part could be harder unless your DM plays them as Lawful Stupid and has them accept the destruction of your evil enemies as the "reward".

The epic spell method for getting the first one would work, but after that you still run into the same issue.

[sonofzeal]

This is indeed what the term means. The problem is that it assumes non-interference by a wide array of interplanar forces who likely would notice (especially if the Solars/Coatls are channeling their divine energy to cast the iterative effects), and would almost certainly not take too kindly to it.

It also often forgets that Magic Circle Against XYZ breaks any control you have over these things, and that many of these creatures that people like to use for this come with Magic Circles or equivalent effects, rendering the process rather suicidal. And even if they don't, all those interplanar forces need to do is port in one Unicorn or Astral Deva, and all your "allies" are now out for your blood.

[Dixieboy]

Originally Posted by olentu

I basically takes advantage of the mitigating factor "Additional participants (ritual)". This factor allows other casters to participate in a ritual where they use slots and for each slot that is to be used the DC of the epic spell is reduced.

Now then solars have spellcasting as a level 20 cleric and thus have slots that they can use in a ritual and one can chain gate solars.

Alternativley one creates an epic spell that summons a solar or other spellcasting creature with a DC of zero so that it takes no resources or time to create such as

Thar be Couatl
Conjuration (Summoning)
Spellcraft DC: 0
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 65 days, 10 minutes
Range: 75 ft.
Effect: A Couatl
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 0 gp; 0 days; 00 XP. Seed: summon (DC 14). Factors: summon CR 10 creature (+16 DC), Permanent duration (x5 DC). Mitigating factors: Increase casting time by 10 minutes (-20 DC), Increase casting time by 65 days (-130 DC)

This spell summons a Couatl. It appears where the character designates and can act immediately. It attacks the character’s opponents to the best of its abilities. The character can direct the Couatl not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.

Now just summon a bunch of these and once one has enough to make a better spell with the slots that they can use in a ritual one makes a spell that either summons monsters with higher level slots or summons more of the same monsters.

Then realize that you have to stand around and cast it for 65 DAYS.

[Yuki Akuma]

Originally Posted by Dixieboy

Then realize that you have to stand around and cast it for 65 DAYS.

Genesis; time trait 65:1.

Then devise a way to compartmentalise your mind (easily done with magic) so you don't go mad from boredom.

[olentu]

Originally Posted by sonofzeal

This is indeed what the term means. The problem is that it assumes non-interference by a wide array of interplanar forces who likely would notice (especially if the Solars/Coatls are channeling their divine energy to cast the iterative effects), and would almost certainly not take too kindly to it.

It also often forgets that Magic Circle Against XYZ breaks any control you have over these things, and that many of these creatures that people like to use for this come with Magic Circles or equivalent effects, rendering the process rather suicidal. And even if they don't, all those interplanar forces need to do is port in one Unicorn or Astral Deva, and all your "allies" are now out for your blood.

The control is arguably not mental control since a caster could summon something mindless.

[ZeroNumerous]

Originally Posted by Yuki_Akuma

Genesis; time trait 65:1.

Then devise a way to compartmentalise your mind (easily done with magic) so you don't go mad from boredom.

Meh. Mindrape it away.

EDIT: Plus, which epic wizard isn't mad?

[Dixieboy]

Originally Posted by ZeroNumerous

Meh. Mindrape it away.

EDIT: Plus, which epic wizard isn't mad?

The line between genius and madness is paperthin indeed.

Sidenote:
Can you target yourself with mindrape, or are you going to create/something to rape your mind?

[sonofzeal]

Originally Posted by olentu

The control is arguably not mental control since a caster could summon something mindless.

It sure looks like mental control to me. I mean, you could certainly Gate in something mindless. Whether or not it'd follow your orders, now, that's a different question.

[olentu]

Originally Posted by sonofzeal

It sure looks like mental control to me. I mean, you could certainly Gate in something mindless. Whether or not it'd follow your orders, now, that's a different question.

The question would be different then can one gate in such a creature. The answer would be depends on its HD and how long the service requested is.

[sonofzeal]

Originally Posted by olentu

The question would be different then can one gate in such a creature. The answer would be depends on its HD and how long the service requested is.

I'm not sure the effect of Gate control on mindless creatures is adequately specified in RAW. Has FAQ ever addressed it?

[Grynning]

People seem to have forgotten that Gate does not give you a free minion to use as you please.

Spoiler

Originally Posted by Gate

If you choose to call a kind of creature instead of a known individual you may call either a single creature (of any HD) or several creatures. You can call and control several creatures as long as their HD total does not exceed your caster level. In the case of a single creature, you can control it if its HD do not exceed twice your caster level. A single creature with more HD than twice your caster level can’t be controlled. Deities and unique beings cannot be controlled in any event. An uncontrolled being acts as it pleases, making the calling of such creatures rather dangerous. An uncontrolled being may return to its home plane at any time.

A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell.

If you choose to exact a longer or more involved form of service from a called creature, you must offer some fair trade in return for that service. The service exacted must be reasonable with respect to the promised favor or reward; see the lesser planar ally spell for appropriate rewards. (Some creatures may want their payment in “livestock” rather than in coin, which could involve complications.) Immediately upon completion of the service, the being is transported to your vicinity, and you must then and there turn over the promised reward. After this is done, the creature is instantly freed to return to its own plane.

Failure to fulfill the promise to the letter results in your being subjected to service by the creature or by its liege and master, at the very least. At worst, the creature or its kin may attack you.

To have a creature do anything that takes more than a couple minutes, you HAVE to bargain with it, i.e. pay it a substantial amount. Otherwise you have no control over it at all. Also, after it's done the one thing you paid it for, it's done, it goes away.

[olentu]

Originally Posted by sonofzeal

I'm not sure the effect of Gate control on mindless creatures is adequately specified in RAW. Has FAQ ever addressed it?

I recall no qualifiers pertaining to mindless creatures in the spell should one request that the gated creature follow your orders for one round per caster level assuming that the creature is under the HD limit.

[Yuki Akuma]

Originally Posted by Grynning

People seem to have forgotten that Gate does not give you a free minion to use as you please.


To have a creature do anything that takes more than a couple minutes, you HAVE to bargain with it, i.e. pay it a substantial amount. Otherwise you have no control over it at all. Also, after it's done the one thing you paid it for, it's done, it goes away.

Yeah, but that one thing can be "serve me for ten days". And as an epic wizard, you have access to an arbitrary amount of resources due to, you know, magic.

[Grynning]

The spell would work on a mindless creature, for 1 round per caster level. But that doesn't pertain to this discussion, since you can't use a mindless creature to help your spellcasting or summon more creatures.

[Shinizak]

Can't you just gate a solar in then Mind Rape it into agreeing to a one sided service?

[sonofzeal]

Originally Posted by olentu

I recall no qualifiers pertaining to mindless creatures in the spell should one request that the gated creature follow your orders for one round per caster level assuming that the creature is under the HD limit.

How are you communicating your wishes to the creature? What makes the creature respond to your wishes?

In any case, here's the wording from Protection From Evil, which is the relevant component of Magic Circle...

Second, the barrier blocks any attempt to possess the warded creature (by a magic jar attack, for example) or to exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster ongoing control over the subject, such as dominate person).

Emphasis mine. Note the word "including"; that implies the list is not exclusive, meaning the effect doesn't need to fall into one of those categories as long as it's a form of mental control. Gate, very clearly, is a form of mental control. Whether or not it overcomes mindlessness immunity, by my reading it's almost certainly interrupted by Magic Circle.

[olentu]

Originally Posted by Grynning

The spell would work on a mindless creature, for 1 round per caster level. But that doesn't pertain to this discussion, since you can't use a mindless creature to help your spellcasting or summon more creatures.

It may however pertain to the discussion of if such summoning involves mental control.

Edit: Mental control of a mindless creature seems quite nonsensical to me.

I did note the including and so desired to create a reasonable argument that gate does not involve mental control as it can control mindless creatures.

[Grynning]

Originally Posted by Yuki_Akuma

Yeah, but that one thing can be "serve me for ten days". And as an epic wizard, you have access to an arbitrary amount of resources due to, you know, magic.

Not exactly - the rules under lesser planar ally (that gate references) break it down as a GP cost. And wizards cannot create money out of thin air...i.e. they're still limited to WBL and what DM hands out. A task requiring up to an hour per caster level costs 500 gp per HD of the creature. Minimum HD for a solar is 23, so to get them to rest, prep gate, and cast it costs you 11,500 g.p. Each Solar after that would cost the same...The solar could reasonably refuse to spend it's own reward on the next one, so you'd have to shell out for each one. You'd run out of gold eventually.

*Edit - it would cost you more for the true "chain-gate" effect, since you'd have to pay each solar on the "days" worth of service rate to keep them around long enough to get exponentially more, so 23,000 per solar gated in.

Also, "Serve me" is not a single task, IMO. The spell description of lesser planar ally strongly indicates that you have to be more specific than that.

[tyckspoon]

Originally Posted by Grynning

Not exactly - the rules under lesser planar ally (that gate references) break it down as a GP cost. And wizards cannot create money out of thin air...i.e. they're still limited to WBL and what DM hands out. A task requiring up to an hour per caster level costs 500 gp per HD of the creature. Minimum HD for a solar is 23, so to get them to rest, prep gate, and cast it costs you 11,500 g.p. Each Solar after that would cost the same...The solar could reasonably refuse to spend it's own reward on the next one, so you'd have to shell out for each one. You'd run out of gold eventually.

*Edit - it would cost you more for the true "chain-gate" effect, since you'd have to pay each solar on the "days" worth of service rate to keep them around long enough to get exponentially more, so 23,000 per solar gated in.

Also, "Serve me" is not a single task, IMO. The spell description of lesser planar ally strongly indicates that you have to be more specific than that.

Except Wizards totally can make money out of thin air. There's at least half a dozen ways to do it; the quickest is probably to Planar Bind something that can do a spell-like Wish and have it Wish up 25,000 gp worth of goods per use. Planar Binding notably does not require you to pay whatever you call, you just have to beat it in a Cha check which is pretty easy to rig (Planar Binding can also be used to just call Couatls straight up.) If you want them permanently, the 'official' technique is to use your Gate-provided control of them to request/require that they not resist the next spell you cast on them. Then you Mindrape them and they're yours forever; just tell them to Plane Shift and Teleport back to you after the Gate service expires and sends them home.

Other ways to acquire ritual participants include:
Summoning them- Summon Monster 9 can provide 1 Couatl (4th level slot) or up to 3 Lillends (1 2nd level Bard slot apiece.) This lets you turn your own spell slots into mitigation. 5 Couatls gets -35 mitigation, which is enough to increase the duration of most epic buffs by about two weeks. Add that to what you could already do, and you'll only need to use your 9th level slots for this once every month. Use your 8th level slots for Lillends and get another -15.

Epic Leadership provides a minimum of several hundred mitigation, assuming your followers are Adepts or some other stripe of spellcaster. This has the fairly major downside that your support base is incredibly fragile- any kind of Epic threat and most non-Epic ones can clean up your followers pretty easily, so you have to invest in keeping them safe (providing them a home within your personal unreachable demiplane would be a good start, as well as a good place for you to rest on those days when you've used all your high-level slots to boost your Epic spells.)

Build your own. Use your available mitigation to make an Origin of the Species: Spellcasting Tribble. Make some otherwise harmless things whose only purpose in life is to cast an Nth level spell when you ask them to. Make them breed fast. This is even more broken than gate-chaining, but at least requires you to go outside the 'official' seeds to ad-hoc in a value for spellcasting. Which means your DM will probably say no.

[Kelpstrand]

Originally Posted by olentu

I basically takes advantage of the mitigating factor "Additional participants (ritual)". This factor allows other casters to participate in a ritual where they use slots and for each slot that is to be used the DC of the epic spell is reduced.

Now then solars have spellcasting as a level 20 cleric and thus have slots that they can use in a ritual and one can chain gate solars.

Alternativley one creates an epic spell that summons a solar or other spellcasting creature with a DC of zero so that it takes no resources or time to create such as

Thar be Couatl
Conjuration (Summoning)
Spellcraft DC: 0
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 65 days, 10 minutes
Range: 75 ft.
Effect: A Couatl
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
To Develop: 0 gp; 0 days; 00 XP. Seed: summon (DC 14). Factors: summon CR 10 creature (+16 DC), Permanent duration (x5 DC). Mitigating factors: Increase casting time by 10 minutes (-20 DC), Increase casting time by 65 days (-130 DC)

This spell summons a Couatl. It appears where the character designates and can act immediately. It attacks the character’s opponents to the best of its abilities. The character can direct the Couatl not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.

Now just summon a bunch of these and once one has enough to make a better spell with the slots that they can use in a ritual one makes a spell that either summons monsters with higher level slots or summons more of the same monsters.

Slight Correction. Casting time is 65 days and 11 minutes.

Alternatively, if you are a Conjurer Specialist, it is only 53 days and 11 minutes. Also, after you make your First Couatl, you design a new epic spell that does the same thing but in a mere 48 days and 11 minutes.

[olentu]

Originally Posted by Kelpstrand

Slight Correction. Casting time is 65 days and 11 minutes.

Alternatively, if you are a Conjurer Specialist, it is only 53 days and 11 minutes. Also, after you make your First Couatl, you design a new epic spell that does the same thing but in a mere 48 days and 11 minutes.

Ah yes I forgot about the base time from the seed.

[quick_comment]

You can start your summoning chain with fissioned duplicates of yourself. Get a universal psionic item of level 20 extended fission at will. Research the coutal summon spell, but with std action casting and 19 9th level spells donated. Activate fission 19 times, cast your spell. Since you have a mitigation of -323 for the first spell, you can summon two coutals, and in rounds rather than weeks. This gives you better exponential growth, because your doubling time is much much shorter.

[Kizara]

Ok, as others have said you Gate in a solar, use it to Gate in other solars and then use all their CL 20 goodness to fuel your epic spell of win.

However, this does not take time.

A summoned creature acts immediately, thus when you Gate in the first one, it can Gate in another on its action. Then, you get that one to Gate in another, etc, repeated until you have as many as you need.

So it only takes 1 round to get N+1 of the things, and then as long as you cast your spell within 20 rounds or so (IE before your 1 round/CL free control runs out) you're home free. Now, whether the cosmos are now pissed at you and you get something like Hieronious doing scry-and-die on you, that's not my concern. :P

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Kizara

However, this does not take time.

A summoned creature acts immediately, thus when you Gate in the first one, it can Gate in another on its action.

Now, this may work for one or two summoned creatures, but there's absolutely no guarantee that any individual Solar will have Gate available at whatever inconvenient moment you summoned them. After all, they've got lives and they use their spells to further their own interests. As others have pointed out, you have to plan to wait a full day for them to be able to prepare and cast the spell you want.

[Gan The Grey]

But Gate is not on a Solar's list of spells memorized, which means a typical gated Solar will not be able to cast that spell immediately.

And doesn't Mind Rape have a casting time of like, an hour? Much longer than the number of rounds your gated creature will remain under your power.

[MickJay]

Originally Posted by Yuki_Akuma

Yeah, but that one thing can be "serve me for ten days". And as an epic wizard, you have access to an arbitrary amount of resources due to, you know, magic.

...and it will serve you for ten days (until those few minutes during which your commands have any power over it pass). Then it will go away. Any magical means of controlling the solar for a longer period of time would have to be used very quickly. Mind Rape trap or something, I don't know