Epic spells are considered 10th level for concentration checks, spell resistance, and other determinations. They are an upcasted version of any spell of 1st level or higher that can be cast. In the game system used to manage epic tier play, characters reaching 21st, 25th, and 29th level gain the Ability Score Improvement feature. To create an epic spell, it requires it to be on your spell list and requires two other creatures with a feature that grants them access to 8th level spells to work together for one week, expending all of their resources.
Epic spells are developed from smaller pieces called seeds and connecting pieces called factors. Every epic seed has a base Spellcraft DC, and every factor has a Spell-craft DC adjustment. The power of an epic spell is only limited by the caster’s skill. To create an epic spell, pick seeds (building blocks for each spell) and apply factors to customize your spell as you see fit. This document lists the complete homebrew epic spell list I use for the campaigns I run in Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.
Epic spells do not take up normal spell slots but instead are gained and used under a completely separate progression. Combining seeds should effectively raise the spell’s level, with a suggested saving throw of DC = 20 + key ability modifier. Immediately after casting a 10th level or higher spell, all casters must make a DC (10+spell level) Constitution save or suffer from 1 level of exhaustion.
📹 How To Cast 10th Level Spells – D&D
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What are epic levels in D&D?
In the fifth edition, the term “epic levels” is used to refer to levels above 20 and the 21st.
Can you cast two leveled spells in one turn?
The second-level fighter ability, Action Surge, permits the casting of two non-cantrip spells on a given turn. This allows the character to take an additional action and cast the spells in a different manner.
How do you cast higher level spells?
In the event that a spellcaster casts a spell utilising a slot of a higher level than that of the spell itself, the spell will then assume the level of the slot for the duration of that casting. Such an occurrence may result from the disabling or blocking of JavaScript by an extension, or from a browser that does not support cookies.
Are epic spells cast?
Copies of spells are created directly on the stack, not cast. If you copy the original epic spell before it resolves, you get additional copies each turn, as your copy is complete with epic and its lasting effects. If you copy the epic spell at the beginning of your turn, you only get one additional copy that turn. The phrase “Everything’s better with pirates” is fitting for an old person.
What level is epic spells?
Epic spells are powerful magics that only become available at the 21st caster level and above. Full casters, including bards, clerics, druids, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards, have the ability to cast epic spells. At 21st, 25th, and 29th level, players gain the Ability Score Improvement feature. However, they can choose to gain one epic spell slot instead, provided they have at least 21 caster levels.
Despite learning multiple epic spells, only one epic spell slot is available per long rest. Starting at 29th level, players gain 10th, 11th, and 12th-level spell slots, which are not used to cast epic spells but are used for upcasting 1st to 9th-level spells only.
What grade level is epic?
Epic is a digital reading platform that offers a comprehensive selection of high-quality books from over 250 renowned publishers, encompassing more than 40, 000 titles. It assists children under the age of 12 in developing curiosity and reading confidence. Students are provided with a link to a teacher library and an access code, which enables teachers to select specific assignments, books, and activities for them or to afford students the opportunity to exercise choice in their interactions.
What is the highest level spell in D&D?
Players rarely have the opportunity to use 9th level spells, as they require a magic caster to reach 17th level. However, when reaching that level, they can access powerful magical spells that can alter reality. The 9th level divination spell, Foresight, is a minute-to-cast spell that lasts 8 hours and can be used on oneself or another ally. It rolls an advantage on everything and disadvantages attackers. This spell is useful for ensuring a specific character doesn’t die during climactic battles, as it provides an advantage across the board.
What is the highest level spell cast in D&D?
Prior to the advent of Karsus’ Folly, the 10th level spells were accessible. However, with the ascension of the new goddess of magic, the utilization of spells beyond the 9th level was forbidden.
How do you cast epic spells in 5e?
Epic spells may only be counterspelled or dispelled by magic of an equivalent level. Any attempt to cast an Epic spell is rendered futile and the spell is deemed to have been expended. In order to cast an Epic spell, a spellcaster must first invest a certain amount of time in the process of studying or crafting it.
What level do epics start at?
The Menace of the Underdark expansion allows characters to accumulate experience points even after reaching level 20, up to 30. Levels 21 and beyond are called Epic levels. Update 29 introduced a third tier, Legendary, for levels 31+, but this term only applied to game content. Epic levels are a generic class in itself, and players no longer gain Heroic levels in any class. Instead, they find a new class, “Epic”, in their character sheet. Epic levels do not accumulate heroic action points but instead give epic destiny points, which can be invested in Epic Destinies.
How do you cast 10th level spells?
A 10th-level spell requires multiple casters, with the number of casters varying by spell. To contribute, a caster must use a 9th-level spell slot. Casters perform the spell’s component simultaneously, and only true casters can cast a 10th-level spell. Warlocks with at least 17 levels can use their 9th-level mystic arcanum spell instead of a 9th-level slot. 10th-level spells require legendarily rare components, which can take an entire quest to find. Some 10th-level spells require multiple components.
📹 The Best Spell Of Every Level In D&D
There are a lot of spells in Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, here are the most powerful of each level for Warlocks, Wizards, …
Me: 10th level pls? Mystra: no you nearly screwed up my entire lineage Friend: pls Mystra: alr but you gotta try it at least twice, and your gonna be hella weak every time Me: thanks Mystra: but you gotta do the fusion dance, and I’m not gonna let you guys do stupid stuff neither Me: you could’ve just said no
I just wanna take a moment to appreciate your articles. I personally have never played D&D, but the way you bring your lore articles makes it so that doesn’t matter. You throw in a huge amount of knowledge with a lot of research, which you then elaborate in an interesting way which is easy to follow. Thanks for making your articles and I hope you keep enjoying and making them 😀
I had actually figured this out through various different wiki’s and ruled for my own campaign that because she was so fresh in activity, she was less savvy at repairing the weave after so much damage had been done to it through the spellplague and wild magic that transformed entire continents. Which allowed those old enough to remember, or have stolen such knowledge, to cast these spells nearly freely. Which was perfect for my Arch-lich BBEG.
Sounds to me like this could be the start of an interesting campaign: The Return Of Netheril, where the heroes help to create a NEW magic empire! But will Mystra stay silent? With the old evils that brought the Netherese low return? Will they even survive its success?! Side note: if the use of 10th level spells needs WISDOM, then what would the amount have to be? By level 20, any wizard worthy of the title should have an Intelligence of 20 NATURALLY to be able to even UNDERSTAND what the 10th level spell even IS, but I think to cast it the’ll need between 18 and 20 Wisdom. Only less – to a minimum of 16 – if the spell itself has “plot armor,” and is necessary for the campaign.
Do a article on the Shadow Weave. The Shadow Weave would avoid Mystra’s detection, in exchange for making a pact with Shar, or becoming a worshiper of Shar and permanently losing a part of your soul. So before the spell plague, you would be able to make a deal with Shar to cast a 10th level spell. But 10th level spells still wouldn’t be able to be strong enough to do anything that could avoid the gods and let you cast 10th level spells indefinitely.
I have home brewed most of my campaigns so that if the players put time gold they can create spells higher than 9th level but it will always end in a die roll of a d100. I still use Mistras ban on high magic but do to time she has gotten lax with her lock down on that magic do to her belief that mortals have just given up on 10th lv and higher spells. Witch has led to some epic spell that have dramatically change the face of my semi home brew faerun.
Meanwhile, in my local D&D group (We’re Brazilian and i am the only one in the group with a good understanding of english, so i can’t send them this article)… My friend is DMing a adventure about Elminster, apparently, going bat-shit crazy and working together with a multiplanar circus from Eberron(Where the player characters of the DM live) to find and collect all powerfull Magic items in Faerun, and beyond, so he can use their magic to create a rune so he can cast a 13th level spell for whatever reason. That might seem like a somewhat bad story by itself, but it’s united with the power of the weeb soul of the DM. So, with that combination, the players are the nominally weakest of a group of 100 parties helping in this task, under the lead of a Monk named Natsu, with a doll called Happy by his side, qnd together they do nothing but watch while our lvl 1 party fights against lvl 3 parties (the DM makes every humanoid npc have a player character sheet) and almost die every battle
I love it when you provide your in-game META critique. As a DM, it gives me wonderful ideas for my games, and occurrences that I could include for some nice flavor. As well as being basically by the book, so my rules lawyer player cannot even attribute a more than a slight argument against it. (3.5e)
I would opt to try to cast a 10th level spell with the Shadow Weave instead. Shar would LOVE to boast that the Shadow Weave was more powerful than the Spell Weave. The act alone would cause many arcane users to start using the Shadow Weave instead which would super power Shar. This would almost certainly cause her to grant you the powers of a Chosen, Exarch, or even be granted a portion of her increased power to become a Demigod.
I know I’m a bit late, but I was actually looking through the wiki for inspiration on a lawful neutral, slightly unhinged warlock I’m playing, as an endgame quest of some sorts. The netherese (not sure if they’re talking about the ones from the shadowfell, or remnants of the civilization) were actually able to repair their Mythallar, which would arguably mean that either the spellban has been lifted, the netherese are truly dedicated to rebuilding their empire, or the rules have changed to permit some spells to be cast. It references directly that this was something that happened right after the spellplague.
I had the thought of rolling up a wizard with multiple personalities, which covers the limitation of needing more than one “person”. I find it funny how everyone is trying to think of in game mechanics in order to try and prepare for the eventual casting of a 10th level spell but could achieve the same effect by being a little creative during character creation. With a chill DM a character with MPD bypasses a lot of the given rules, plus it makes for great fun when roleplaying.
Here’s a tip that might help some wizards cast 10th level spells for personal reasons without getting feebleminded by the gods in their attempts. Go to sigil. As long as you don’t do anything to the city or cast any teleportation or planescaping spells, the Lady of Pain won’t really stop you. And the gods can’t go to sigil either.
From another source from the very edition you are citing, it was still possible for elves to cast 10th level spells: “From the fall of Netheril in the fourth century before Dalereckoning, no human could cast magic greater than ninth level without the direct intervention and attention of Mystra, though the elves could still cast tenth-level spells.” – Cormanthyr: Empire of Elves, page 124
An idea for a campaign I had was for a wizard to find a gem of such high quality and value that it could theoretically be used to hold 12th level spells if someone could cast a spell that high and using a ring a three wishes not only did he make this stone indestructible, but he made it so any spell placed within the stone would l automatically be up cast to the highest level the stone could handle and then he would use up the final wish to put a wish spell in the stone, so the campaign would basically revolve around, trying to steal his very pretty stone because it has a usable 12th level wish spell inside of it, and mystra is shitting bricks because she can’t do a thing about it
My DM let me put in my backstory that I was able to cast such a spell (10th level) that was WIP by our archmage. Didn’t end well. The spell backfired, fried the mages helping me to cast it, burned my right arm to the point that it was unhealable. The arm also has nerve-lag, meaning that I will my arm to do something, and it moves about half a second later. Don’t worry tho, I got a prothesis.
A very useful article would be describing the events and lore leading up to Horde of The Dragon Queen so players have a good sense on what they’re walking into. It would actually be helpful to both DM and player alike as the DM needs one last handout and players can make more campaign appropriate characters.
There’s also the whole thing of gods, including even Mystra (and probably Ao too), having no power to enforce anything outside of Realmspace (unless worshiped in that other location too). Magic works fine in the planes (subject to local rules), it works fine in other crystal spheres (subject to local rules), it clearly works fine in the phlogiston otherwise Spelljammers wouldn’t work (my best guess is no divine influence there at all other than through followers, so Mystra can’t do shit). I’m not aware of how magic works outside the influence of Mystra, but we do have lots of evidence that wizards don’t have much of a problem using it without her oversight.
I wonder if Midnight is responsible for the weave being allowed to bend for GOO warlocks. If magic and the gods have failed her in every incarnation could it be possible she’s reached out to beings beyond the realms to ask for assistance? I always imagined the blood wars to be ended by Outer Gods, the only thing that could rival all factions, but wasn’t sure how they’d show up in a world that’s supposed to be largely ignored by the Great Old Ones.
Interesting I have some questions…… a) what if you were a shadow weave caster and as such did not use the weave itself? Also pretty sure the lich red wizard leader of they had cast a 10th level spell at some point (its included in his bio) alone mind you he aparently had a good (VERY GOOD) reputation with mystra.
Hey! your articles inspire me and are extremely well crafted and articulate. Quick question – if you need 2 20th level minds in synch as a requirement for casting 10th level spells, as well as good intentions and decent wisdom, what is stopping someone from using simulacrum to cast such a spell? are there rules against this? do simulacrums not count as people for the purposes of casting this spell?
Around 5:35 you state something to the effect that some people dislike it when you go meta in these articles. That’s crazy! All of my friends that watch this have actually played D&D since at least 2nd edition (others since BECMI). We LOVE it when you dive deep into what the game effects entail! Keep up the great work and ignore the haters!
I’ve had a few conversations with some of the people I play with about the fact that the feat “Ritual Caster”, if taken at face value, would technically allow any level 19 character regardless of class to cast 10th level ritual spells. “…the spell’s level can be no higher than half your level (rounded up), and it must have the ritual tag…”. Now I’ll be waiting for one of them to actually try that and be surprised when I shoot them down with a feeblemind.
This is quite interesting. Personally after seeing your First article so long ago about 10th Level Magic, I started to work on a system for the use of magic beyond 9th Level Spells. It’s a lot less restrictive than this, but by consequence, Magic beyond 9th level is weaker than before. It’s still stronger then 9th level, but not on the level of before. All Spells beyond 9th are considered “Mythic” Level. That basically means there beyond the highest level and often become subjects of Myth. There are restrictions as before and special rules: -Each Spell requires more then 1 Spell Slot. The total level of the Spell Slots needed depends on the spell (Ex: 12, 14, 16). -No Spell can grant one Apotheosis. -You can only Cast 1 Mythic Spell every so often. It can be as often as 1/Day to 1/Week. -Sometimes you won’t be able to cast a Spell of a level higher than any of the spells slots used. You can still use the spell slots, but cannot use spells of those levels. (Ex: If you used a 6th Level Spell Slot as part of it, You can’t cast any spells of 6th Level or Higher, but can cast a 1st-5th Level using the 6th Spell Slot). This lasts until you finish a Long Rest and can’t be cured by anything. Not even Wish. You have to recover naturally. -There’s no bypassing the Components at all. There incredibly expensive and difficult to obtain. -No magical items can recreate a Mythic Spell nor can any Creature innately cast them. They can help in casting it like other spells, they cannot grant the spells themselves.
In my game I had the wizard make a Legendary Arcane Focus in order to cast a level 10 spell. One of the required materials to make it was a physical piece of the weave. This piece could only be obtained by receiving it directly from Mystra as a reward or by performing a 9th level ritual to rip a piece from the Weave. The ritual would last a week of uninterrupted concentration and you had to succeed on a DC17 Arcana check each day. If you succeed you obtain a piece but a region around you of 1 miles becomes a Dead magic zone, if you fail your magic essence becomes part of the Weave and 1 mile area around you becomes a Wild magic zone.
I have always been interested in the magic of D&D. In my games I try to find lore and gather information about it, but have never played a wizard, outside of DMing. Inspired by your articles, I decided to take a wizard class for the first time, and will be starting up soon in a long journey to restore the age of magic, and 10th level spells =D I love your content, thank you for creating. I look forward to the article on space and spelljammers.
A year later, not my fault. You got me started with “What They Dont Tell You About Orcs” article brought me here. Also it sounds like the Mystra born after Mystryl was a caretaker of The Weave, not at the same level of Mystral. What I mean is, seems she couldnt actually block access to the full power of The Weave (10th-12th level spells) so instead she made using that power next to impossible? (Isnt that what The Weave is, literal unlimited potential?) Hmmm, makes me wonder why Mystryl was ok with mages accessing that much power/potential, and to what levels they could have achieved had Karsus not picked the wrong God and broken it? Man I really love Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Pathfinder, and Warhammer (fantasy) lore, because good lore makes you think. Not sure if you’ll see this- But it seems like they retconned the Avatar books series (Midnight, Cyric, Kelemvor)?
It’s a good thing I favor a high WIS stat on all my sorceress characters. ;3 gotta have that perception skill high lol. It would be great to have the ancient empire of magic again. With them, Leech worms gone now. Wisards can heal the lands and clean up the messes made from the events. It would be great to see the Sorcerers be the dominate with the weave with their Meta magic manipulation. Making them to precisely mid/max the weave with greater control and effect. Though limit in the spell list arsenal. They can expand their meta magic abilities to a greater level so if a sorcerer wanted to specialize in fire magic manipulation. It can take a Suspended fireball spell. Use their sorcery points to feed other spells to change the fireball spell into a Macro Sun/Star as a 9th or 10th level spell. Without having to have access to the 9th+ casting level traditionally as the wizards of old did.
As far as I’m concerned the whole “Shar and Cyric killing Mystra” never happened. It was such an obvious attempt by WoTC to hamfistedly shove 4th ED down everyone’s throats and get people to stop playing in Forgotten Realms. They retconned a way to get rid of 1~3rd edition magic system in favor of their World of Warcraft “powers” system that everyone hated. Now that 5th ED is back, suddenly we get “Mystra” and the original magic system restored as they distance themselves from the disaster that was 4th ED. And a note to Mr Rexx, arcane isn’t the only magic in the universe of D&D nor is it the most powerful, it merely has the most freedom for the player. The 9th level limit doesn’t’ exist for divine casters, never has and never will. Divine casters pray to their deities to receive spells and those spells are fueled by those deities. So while Mystra can place limits on mortals access to the wave, no such limits can be placed on Gods. Of course the cleric casting a 10th or 11th level spell could only do so with explicit permission from their God, so the potential for abuse is non-existent.
I’m sure our wonderful friend Pun Pun, the 1st level kobold wizard with infinite stats, spells, & hit dice due to the wonderfully broken mess that is 3.5E, would have NO problem whatsoever. Considering gods canonically have ONLY 60 hit dice or so, Pun Pun could mop the floor with the pantheon without even needing to heal.
Ok so I got some questions. You keep saying that ‘wizards’ have to follow these rules for 10th lvl spells, what about the other spellcasters? Can a sorcerer, druid, cleric, etc cast these spells? Also what if a god just gave you the power to cast 10th lvl spells or you cast a wish spell yourself that allows you too?
So what level would a spell that sacrifices all things besides the caster, living, dead, or otherwise, even the immaterial, in all planes that exist or ever existed, gods, the weave itself, even time and the memory of time and all events that came before and all that was to come after to convert their potential into the most delicious tasting (and habitable by the caster) planet-sized everlasting Gobstopper ever created be?
Ok so asking against, since nobody answered but what if you’re just not in that realm where those particular gods hold power? Ravenloft, for example, doesn’t allow any of the gods to actually answer prayers instead it is stated that ‘something else’ answers in their place, what that is, its never made actually clear but it is clear that the gods of magic or clerics are not responding. Or are those gods and goddesses one of the few examples of universal deities that exist across all realms? What if you went to Sigil where no body but the Lady of Pain (who, lets be honest, might not actually be cool with you casting that shit in her city), holds power?
Hmm. This is very interesting. Back in the day, we had 10th+ level spells. There was no “ban”. So, my world is cut off from all the cannon gods, no entry. There, multiple cultures have their own gods. Thus, there is more than one god of magic. This forces the gods to work together as a council for their spheres. They have no level ban, but certain spells just won’t work. Forbidden spells if you will. However, they have made rules for higher magic spells, some are “easy”, most are not. Many require circles and multiple mages. Some, the higher you go, require sacrifice of some sort, up to one or more of the mages. To recap, the council has forbidden some spells, and higher magic is so different in requirements that a mage must essentially apprentice all over again to learn the new rules set. I use them, but I don’t make it easy. Phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space is a mantra in my world.
There’s another way of casting a 13+ level spell: Machinery. No rule except the one of Mystral decision talks about machines casting it. You can actualy us magic up to L9 to create a hundred golems army using necromancy to make them able to cast L0-1 spells and that can cohoperate to cast higher level spells. 1 golem ==L0; 2 golems == L1; 1024 golems == 10th level spells; 2048 == 11th level spells; 4096… == 12th level disaster again.
Another great one article! Thanks a lot, especially for enumarate all Mystra incarnations /successors. But… It was stated, that NewNetheril’s arcanists from Shade was fixing their Mythalar, and the ones found from another enclaves. Doing so so I think they used the 10th lvl spells in the process. Also they use high lvl (some belive it is also 10th lvl kind) spells to melt Icefields north of Anauroch ang begun terraforming it. At the start of the 4th edition the terraforming process is already done, and the Anauroch is no more sandy desert. It is the moment before Mystra “was bring back to live”. So in the absence of Mystra, the ban itself was not maintained. We all waiting for FR campaign guide for 5th ed, or another adventure/campaign, lore book to give us a hint what is the state now. But… we are missing one thing: To become master in arts, one must spend a lot of training, a lot of. And as it was told in this article, during the Spellplague almost all powerfull spellcasters died/went mad. And a 105-115 years is a way to short time to populate any nation to be full of high level arcane casters. Those who survived the Spellplague and dont went mad had to learn “the new wave” again to be able to cast even single spells. An this take time… So healed Mystra have time to be ready to power the ban again, or to alter it with something else. One should mention also, that the forging of new Tablets of Fate by AIO and SecondSunderring could have also some effect on this matter.
Great article as always! I didn’t know how recent your other ones on magic were so I had no hope of this coming out any time soon. I’d be really interested in a article on the other methods to cast higher magic, like the elf sacrifice that you mentioned a while ago or epic magic and how that works or how you would justify it still existing.
A large part of what made the spell plague so interesting is that it didn’t just make magic messy, it fundamentally changed how a lot of spells were cast (more than just their level) so if 10th level spells are possible again they would likely need to be fabricated from scratch to achieve the same effects. But that also means the rules behind it could be different, or perhaps gone entirely. But I suppose we shall see eventually. Probably.
Magical fantasy histories like these make me feel really confident about the 10th level spell rules I created in the 80s as a teenager, more rock-solid than canon predecessors. “But what about 11th and higher?” Nope. In Loom of Magus (my campaign universe), every spell that is of greater ability than a 9th level spell is 10th level. 10th level has no upper limits, just power relative additional requirements. Some basic 10th level spells: Wish II (aka Gods’ Wish, Greater Wish, Divine Will, Wishmaster, etc), Atomic Blast, Magic Blast, Time Warp, Exile, Invincibility, Demiplane, Army of the Dead, Summon Alternate Reality Counterparts, Change Magic Zone, Tectonic Disaster, Stormfront, Chaos Storm, Zone Barrier, and Knowing.
Having just finished listening to the Avatar series on audible, which is about the ascension of Midnight/Kelemvor/Cyric, and the empyrean odyssey… I think Midnight would continue the ban but would allow the use of 10th levels for the good of existence. Midnight’s mind never confirmed to the limited way of thinking like the other gods of the pantheon had. Ogma himself admitted to not being able to envision the world as anything other than a collection of knowledge. This has led to her routinely acting outside her jurisdiction in the pursuit of her mortal morals. During the Spider Queen War series and its followup, High magic was performed to undo the curse placed on the original Dark elves (they were just brown elves) that turned them into Drow regardless of whether or not they had demon taint. The high magic spell was definitely 10th level to reverse an elven god’s decision, even though he backs up the play in the end.
I’d like a “What they don’t tell you about driders” article. I’ve always wanted to make a drider PC and wondered how I could make a plausible backstory for a neutral good one. Maybe she was a powerful sorceress / wizard, but failed her trial to become one of Lolth’s priestesses by refusing to kill her opponent and was cursed to wonder as a drider in the underdark until she helps out a group of adventurers. Perhaps she makes a silk rope to get them out of a pit or drops from the ceiling onto an enemy that was about to kill someone. She could polymorph herself to enter town without creating panic or serve as a mount for smaller party members while in the wilderness. I picture her making silk scarves for everyone or patching clothing with her spinnerets. Basically, a very sweet person who was raised in a harsh culture and forced into a monstrous form, but never lost her empathy. Kind of sounds like an interesting backup character after someone’s main dies while in the underdark.
No mortals can cast 10th level spells, you say? What about an immortal such as a Lich or Archlich, who has to be of peak wizardry to even attempt the magical process of becoming one, who has to physically survive the process without dying outright, and importantly, has to be batsh*t insane enough. I mean, if you’re mad enough to become an almighty Undead Archmage, you’d also be mad enough to attempt casting 10th-level spells capable of giving an entire continent a facial reconstruction. Most wizards become Liches solely to gain the extra time to study higher magics. Speaking of, why no What They Don’t Tell You About Liches article? Other iconic creatures of D&D have been done from Dragons to Beholders and Mindflayers, to even Titans who smash Gods to bits as a Friday night hobby, and Great Old Ones who exist outside the fabric of reality that even Titans dread.
bro.. the more you talk about mystra and the more you talk about these spells and whatnot .. the lesser i am excited to become a DND player for the first time i my life, and the lesser i am encouraged to find a group to play the game with them … YES i am currently looking for a group to play DND with them for the first time in my life! magic is my passion and i love it so much! so manipulative and so much potential in it .. and now you’re telling em about all these damned JUSTIFIED restrictions … although i understand the reason behind it, these rules are too much… it’s simply as if you are saying “playing DND as a magic user is not fun or worth it anymore!” why does it have to always be a “goddess” for magic? aren’t there any male candidates for the position?
Ok so im going to summarize this whole article in relation to the title. “I have no idea, heres 12 min to waste your time.” Now for those who actually want a viable answer, there is a way and its not ask the DM. You need to leave your galaxy (i recommend dimension door or teleport). The reason is that gods only have power and domain over their galaxy. Hell an 11th level spell was the ability to close off your galaxy from people from other galaxies. But if your dead set on using one in your current galaxy, there is the method of using a wish spell to travel back in time before mystra. Casting it there, then finding a way back.
For those curious, here is an official list of 10th level spells or “Epic Spells” that a single epic wizard or cleric could cast if succesfully researched (and that alone was hard enough): d20srd.org/indexes/epicSpells.htm. These are from 3.5 edition, and appeared way after Karsus’s Folly and the Time of Troubles took place. 5th edition could launch a supplement of epic levels or spells by now :S Anyways, check ‘Vengeful Gaze of God’ and tell me you’re not tempted to cast it 😀
if i fuddle/modify the clone spell i can make copy/clones of myself, same memory’s same personality with a piece of my soul taken off and forged into its own full soul over time with heavy telepathic links to ensure continued unity between the me,s and i can have enough unity, precision and power to cast 11, 12 or even higher spells.
I am not quite sure how powerful 10th level spells are supposed to be. But could you in theory cast a 10th level spell that frees you from the restrictions that Mistra set on casting higher than 9th level spells? Basically, cast a 10th level spell so that you don’t have to deal with all the bullshit of casting further 10th (and higher) level spells. Since it’s not the same Mistra who banned higher than 9th level spells, there is room to trick the new Mistra into letting you cast this 10th level spell.
I’m going for it! Level 19 arcane trickster Level 1 Wizard Multi class chart able to cast 9th level spells, got scrolls of EVERY spell in the game, copied them into my spell book, made my spell book able to be read and understand by anyone with ease. Made copy. Have a second character Level 19 Warrior Level 1 Wizard, dito spell books. Whole party Has copy’s of spell books. Party made multiple books x6 each of the following for each character, Manual of Gainful Exercise, Manual of Quickness of Action, Manual of Bodily Health, Tomb of Clear Thought, Tomb of Leadership and Influence and Tomb of Understanding. Everyone in party has a headband of Intellect. We also Reincarnate to bring us back to life after dying of old age. … Think we can pull it off? >;)
( drow wizardly follower of Vhearun grins slyly)” you dont say…..I recall some of my own people removing the taint of Wendonai,opening gate and sneaking into another deity’s realm, KILLING the GODDESS Kiaransalee with high magic spells that were higher than 9th level. Maybe you human wizards simply aren’t evolved enough to wield True magic. We Vhearunites solved the problem with spell craft draining our lifeforces many centuries ago. We made the soul theft spell and use…well…nevermind 😈
First off, your articles are AMAZING and I’ve been enjoying every single one! Thank you! Secondly, all this nonsense about Weave, Shadow Weave, Incarnations of Mystra, limits, Changes to Magic, and other random confusion is exactly why my gaming group hasn’t looked at Forgotten Realms nonsense in over a decade Effectively, Forgotten Realms is a whole pile of lore that none of us are even remotely interested in. Eberron sucks too 😂
Game: Wishful thinking that no longer works (Yeah.. i should have known by the game name) Era of play: The very early times Role: Human Wizard (of all the classes i had to pick..) Occupation: Runs a magical Beer Brewery (Ran..as in past tense.) (DM explained situation:) whatever has occured your mind begins to slip and you feel your magic quickly begin to fade. This does not change the facr your party has wandered into a nest of Giant spiders thanks to your orc rangers botch and your carelessly loud dwarven fighter. A thick sticky substance is shot at you all from multiple spiders preventing any movement in terms of running, walking, jumping or flying. For your ranger who is up to his waist in water he cannot swim away at the caves mouth. What is it you all do? Party: We are trapped! DO SOMETHING!!! multiple pc’s try to get free with the ranger shooting arrows at spiders My Wizard: Feeling his sanity slipping away and his magic thinning to nothingness he does the only thing Benjamin P. Apples knows how to do and that buy himself time for his villiage so save him. Better not look like a meal. So he says: “Ive been working on this for a long time now in the event of an emergency such as this! Hold fast!” First action he casts a petrification spell on himself finishing the last verbal components as he does as follows in the next action. I make a dexterity check *(rolls a nat 20 then an 18 on a dexterity check) and the Lord of the Brew in one swift motion puts his head completely through his own legs, up between his own @$$ cheaks and kisses his own @$$ goodbye as he no longer looks like a meal and looks more like a 2 legged bench.
Actually there is away to cast 10th level spells without penalties. See in the epic level hand book you can creat you spells threw spell seeds. The catch is in order to cast the spell tou have to roll your spellcraft DC. When you make your spell you have something Mitigating Factors. Which yes which makes it easier to cast the spell by dropping the Spellcraft DC these factors is what gives you your backlash damage, your experience points cost, casting time, and having to add more mages. You can get around this by taking the epic spell casting feat. And I would say wait about 2 lvl to creat your 10th lvl spell. Even then you should pay attention to your spellcraft skill and make spells you can cast without having to add Mitigating factors. Now it will be a little hard to do. Considering all the options you have to make your spell as cool AF. And then on tip of that you can combine spell seed to creat something even more crazy. Like one spell I made call Mass impalement. Which levitated all enemies with in 1 mile X 1/2 mile, 30ft as metal spears come up 20ft from the ground as they get impaired on that. Doing 6D6 points of damage. I know it doesn’t seem like much but remember they are impaled. Meaning if they survive they take 1D6 reach round as the die from an agonizing pain. I made this spell for my Goddess of War. 😊 And this was her lower level spell.
This is why you stick to the AD&D Edition that works for you and home-brew the sh^t out of it to make it work. My players shun using existing 10th level spells because of their costs. 10th level spells are spells with any and all ability above the 9th level. 10th level Spell Scrolls are coveted items because if read from the scroll, even though it is limited in power to the single caster and their level, the caster (reader) does not get the MP cost not the backlash. I just realized that I just have gone ST: Voyager in spell level in a way that they warped Warp Speed Level (scale) since ST: TNG’s level from ST: TOS to their level. No matter I have rules that are above the gods. The gods cannot block anything outside of their authority reach. The gods can be bypassed in certain ways. My players often have 10th level spells loaded when they can but never really use them because of the consequences. They learned that all gods and all powers notice each time a 10th level spell is used (none of them really use them save for Wish II (Gods’ Wish, Improved Wish, Miracle, Warp Reality, Divine/Fiendish (Outer-Planar( Contract Reward, some Priest Quest Spells etc). In my campaigns, level 10 spells cover all spells of any ability above level 9. The only differences are the costs. Level 10 spells is where gods and mortals meet in epic magical ability. Mortals max out in that. Gods work to get there when they are not there so they are not stuck in their divine role.
Our group plays second edition…so we tend to ignore the goofiness of the editions up to 5th. 5th seems to do a nice job, but since I own almost every single 1st and 2nd edition book, I cannot bring myself to buy all the new books and start over. On this subject, the handful of Arch-Mages out there can cast higher than 9th, but we restrict them the same way we restrict lower level spells. If you need an 18 int to cast 9th- its only logical to need a 19 or 20 int to cast a 10th level spell, and even higher for 12th level spells…and this assumes an ancient mage from Tyr (Darksun) world walks over to Faerun has Psionic Enchantments that are 10th level and work just fine. It is a yin yang thing…if a player gets out of hand the opposing force of equivalent power will try and balance them. I do like a wisdom requirement as well as intelligence requirement for 10th+ level spells…I will implement that this week!
Elves were still able to cast 10th level spells after the fall Netheril, as per canon stated in Cormanthyr: Empire of Elves. Elves did not have to follow the restriction or limitation found in Secrets of the Magister beyond what was normally required to cast 10th level magic. However, 11th level magic was still off limits to elves. “From the fall of Netheril in the fourth century before Dalereckoning, no human could cast magic greater than ninth level without the direct intervention and attentions of Mystra, though elves could still cast tenth-level spells.” – Cormanthyr: Empire of Elves, page 124.
Wouldn’t it be both simpler and a lot more restrictive at the same time for Mystra/l to just prohibit the manipulation of the Weave after certain limit/amount of it is reached/breached/used? For example, and just to show what I’m referring to, let’s use ‘mana’ as the numerical value: if a 10th (or higher) Lvl. Spell would cost/use 200 points of mana, wouldn’t it be way easier, restrictive and safe just to allow the usage of the Weave up to, let’s say, 150 points worth of mana? Anyone trying something more expensive than that and they just wouldn’t be able to succeed because it wouldn’t be feasible to harness the Weave in more than such maximum quantites. No need to enfeeble minds, cause de-leveling or shorten the lifespan of the individuals; it’d be way cleaner and absolute this way. Just asking btw, I’d love to be explained why this wouldn’t be the case or some such cases.
Hey MrRhexx, all this research you’ve done is amazing, and you’ve had to read through a lot different sources to compile it all, right? How would you feel about consolidating all this info? I think that’d be really cool to do if you had the time. You could probably work in collaboration with other D&D youtubers, like Matt Coleville, and get a kickstarter going to include timelines and a sort of A-Z encyclopedia of the histories of different races and such. I’d back a series of books like that in a heart beat. Something that includes the most relevant information, some obscure information, and references to exactly which books to search for more info if something couldn’t be fit into the books. For example Mystra’s history. Her OG Mystril, her death due to Karsis, revival, and everything else you said about the goddess put on a page or two with a timeline showing when in time those events occurred, both numerically (as a year), and using the various books as reference (like how you said the latest version of the goddess revived just before Hoard of the Dragon Queen). Just an idea, a big one, and a tough one to be sure, but definitely one I think a lot of people would be willing to back
I’ll say this at least, the new Mystra is absorbing all the information she can from the weave to make her whole as you said… there’s just something about that that touches my fancy. You see, it is written in Karsus’s Folly that Kardud was at least able to be a part of the weave, before everything went into crud… With the death of the first Midnight/Mystra that that someone by the name of Deneir put into the weave in an attempt to stabilize the weave something called the “Metatext”. Unfortunately they both failed, HOWEVER… he managed to write himself and the metatext into the weave and they were “presumably” destroyed. Now I do believe that every action has a consiquence, albeit I don’t know if Mystra/midnight trust her weave enough to put all the information in it into her. I’m just saying that if she becomes more obnoxious, allows 10th level spells, gains a hobby in making a library of spells and is then surrounded by calico cats making her the next cat lady goddess… we’ll we know something’s going wrong.
Well..don’t worship Azuth and Mystra as your deity of magic. Azuth doesn’t control the elf-wizards’ magic unless they acknowledge his authority over mages. Mystra controls magic but she doesn’t control Elven Highmagic. Correllon does, and so far he doesn’t stand in the way of his illegitimate children’s use of it. In his eyes, the side effects of making such attempts is enough of a deterrent. The seldarine usually take a hands off approach to this sort of thing. 😜
As it is a year later I shall offer my insight to this issue. While it would be significantly more difficult and risky you could potentially use the “magic” of the far realms to cast spells of 10th level or higher without the permission of the reigning god of magic as it doesn’t rely on the weave. You need only find your way to your nearest The Living Gate and draw on the power from within. It’s most certainly going to be more risky than using wild magic to cast but them’s the breaks. Side effects include but are not limited to: Insanity, addition of body parts in strange places not native to your race’s biology, catastrophic spell failure, head explosion syndrome… Who would have thought GOOlocks would have the highest power cap in the game?
I’ve created a homebrew artifact, than in normal conditions allows casting normal spell like if they were lvl 0 spells once per Day. In perfect condition, it allows you to bend the rules of magic to your will (Damaging the weeb for about a day), but these conditions are extremely hard to achieve. BBEG is a powerfull mage, who wants to stop the cataclysm that’s supposed to happen in the next 50 years, or could just not happen, and becoming a god is his plan Z. My plan is that he will send the group to find that artifact, and they will either stop him, or help him. I was greatly inspired by mr House from Fallout New Vegas when creating that character.
People seem to forget that characters can level past 20th. Even 5th edition is littered with creatures that have more than 20 levels. Every legendary humanoid, every god regardless of degree of ascension, all epic monsters have more than 20 HD and abilities beyond what you can achieve with 20 levels. Why is this important? A group of spellcasters gain more than 20 levels and then carefully pick and choose the order in which they cast their spells and Voila! Back to back 10th tier magic. For all of D&D’s depth they always assume that creatures can only be as smart as the content creators. Wrong. Millenials of study and effort will beat your silly loopholes easily.
I’d simply make a pact that I would only research anything above level 9, to learn how to avoid the problems such spells could cause, and possibly find ways to make them work at a lower level. I don’t want the responsibility of the 12th level spell anyways, and I would prefer to find a way to help people resolve things before they feel like they need to be a god/goddess to accomplish whatever it is they wish to accomplish. That would make me far more powerful than a god/goddess in my own right…. But also not one at the same time, since my goal is to accomplish things without requiring the ability of a god/goddess. In other words, my goal is simply to make adjustments where they’re needed, to cause the effects of less than godly powers to be the what is needed…instead of clairvoyance and premonitions, I would simply work on figuring out how to do things to help set in motion the circumstances necessary to amplify the effects of lower tier spells without incurring the costs and consequences of utilizing a higher tier spell. Essentially, utilizing knowledge to make it so that a spell like Revivify isn’t the only way to cause a true resurrection… Amongst other things that normally incur a cost, or cause damage to the weave… Basically figure out how to work with the weave to a degree that upper tier spells aren’t required to accomplish most things people wish to accomplish. Floating cities? Sure. Utilizing the properties of how D&D gravity works, I know precisely how to accomplish that feat, particularly since it largely wouldn’t require much magic aside from the magic that strengthens the materials required.
3:32-3:56 So you have to cast all other spells or just all levels of spells? Do you need a 20 in both int and wis or is 20 a different number? 4:05-4:54 So here you need 2 20th level wizards or 1 20th level wizard and one 20th level full caster? Which spells work as bonds? The third, fourth, and fifth requirement is straight forward enough.
First god of magic, gets usurped by her followers. Second god, no one can do that anymore, gets into a fight with god king dies. Third god of magic exists, dark gods: free real estate. Result, spell plague. Third god of magic after being revived, ok you can use 10 but not 11 cause you saved by dead ass
I’d say 10th level spells could be made into some kind of divine intervention thing, basically if goddess allows to cast it then you can. Could be made into this entire campaign that where you need to cast 10th level spells – imagine a scholar party of 3-4 wizards attempting cast it but being too low level having no knowledge or skills required, but needing to make it happen by any means necessary. Something very open ended.
Would 11th level spells be possible in the same way as well? (Under the old rules, since we don’t know how it is now) Also, for a future series, I’d love to hear more about the pantheon of gods, or perhaps some more about the specific classes from lore perspective. Keep up the nice work, I really enjoyed this miniseries on high level magic. 😀
I kinda hate how recently the Weave was just brought back. Like, how are there 18th level Archmages after only 2 years when magic would kill anyone who tried. I get that adventurers level up quickly in game time but some modules have characters that have spent their entire lives (one elf in particular is at the end of his natural life from old age and has allegedly spent his entire life training apprentices and working on a master plan against other magic users). He should have died, gone insane, or just been stripped from magic like the article describes and yet he was perfectly fine. TLDR: baby rage about the timeline of DnD not making any sense
So, here’s a question. Teleport Through Time is a mere 9th level spell that let’s you go back to when 10th level and higher spells could be cast with less restriction. Would you be bound by your time’s limitations and be unable to study 10th+ magic in the past or be able to bring the knowledge back from the past?
You know, this stuff about the Time of Troubles and the Spellplague seem to be something that literally everyone in Faerun would know about, especially since they happened so recently, but I know hardly anything about that, and I don’t think the other players at my table have even heard of them. I wonder if they’re canon in my DM’s version of Faerun. If they are, that seems important for the players to know.
Unrelated question and a quick google search couldn’t answer. If you were to lose levels (say from using epic magic) would you lose the hitpoints you gained from that level? If so can you get back the hitpoints from leveling again? If you don’t lose hitpoints but you gain hitpoints from leveling again, what’s to stop me from forcing myself to a lower level, leveling up, and gaining hitpoints over and over until I’m an unkillable tank from the sheer amount of hitpoints I have?
Would it be possible to create a legendary item that acts as an ultra-powerful magical focus that breaks through most of the restrictions, bearing the brunt of any curses or draining effects of the weave? Also, what about a separate legendary item that allows a wizard to comprehend such knowledge without going mad? My character wants to master all magic one day. If it is possible to craft such items, I don’t expect to be able to do it until level 17 at least. I’m very new to D&D so bear with me if I said something stupid.
Can’t you cast spells using the Shadowweave run by Shar? I’m sure she would work with you to do something, like kill a god. And it seems like this makes arcane magic too similar to divine magic. If Mystra gets to decide who casts spells, what spells get cast, etc., it sounds more like people get their magic through her rather than through study.
Oooo boy, I’ve started a whole campaign about this kind of thing (Homebrew of course) just before these articles started coming out. A long arching story about a cult trying to get items and powerful spellcasters together to cast a 12th level spell again… But instead of taking over as a god, they are summoning a god and putting it under their direct control, unless the party does something about it. The party doesn’t even know who they are yet, but have inadvertantly stopped several of their plots.
How to break the game? Be a cleric, and flavor them just right. IMO, they are the easiest to do so, as their power is directly granted to them by the gods, and if done correctly, in the correct circumstance, those spells can be cast. Lets say a cleric of Mistra, who’s main ability modifier is already wisdom… I have played in games where the BBG was a cleric trying to ascend, and others where I have managed to abuse the powers of a cleric. At least in 3.5, it took some work but was doable easily enough
Might I inquire if there are ways to upcast levels past once limitations (examples being: cast spell at a Spell Level you do not yet have a Spellslot for, cast a spell at a Spell Level of which you have depleeted all your Spellslots, cast a spell ypu don’t know) through some means? It does not matter what these are, just be as percise as possible i.e. what is required, how much of it, special conditions etc.
10th lvl spells are possible according to the rules. I refer you to the epic lvl handbook where in there are rules laid out for creating and casting epic(10th)lvl spells this is a 3.5 book taking place after midnight became mistra. So yes you can cast 10th lvl spells technically but since 5th edition ruined the magic system with concentration and stole all your good spell slots I doubt this poorly designed system would support it since it strives for medeocraty.
Reminder: This is what Caleb is trying to do in Critical Role this campaign. My theory is that future Caleb has already cast a 10th level spell, and the Caleb were currently seeing is being kept in the dark as to not effect his own future work. His parents are alive, he can’t kill Trent or he’ll never achieve the power he needs to eventually cast the spell. Its LOST baby, and whatever happened, happened.
I remember building a high level necro to the point of running him in multiple campaigns for multiple years, even today I still have his sheets. I have and know 10th level spells but cannot caste any lol. I wanted them just to have them but this was before 20 was the cap. Now hes just a trophy character and is just there.
My friends and I have a campaign setting that has 10th+ spell slots, but most mages only use them for metamagic. Per our campaign notes, they honestly just don’t know that spells of legends are even a thing, years of study tend not to help if all you are studying better ways of casting Apocalypse from the Sky. Those who discover the spells of legend also don’t tell others, as this power is incredible to actually hold, and people don’t want to spread information they have spent decades if not centuries discovering.
I always thought the ban on 10th level spells was a bit overboard. Eleventh level I get but not tenth level. Sure they are OP but they aren’t world ending cataclismic stuff, if anything Mystra was probably trying to get the mages to live more simple lives imo. On another note I haven’t played dnd in the context of the spell plague, this makes me wonder what the hell happened to spellcasters that weren’t so mortal, like liches, angels, devils, dragons and monsters, etc
I’ve got a character who just wants to widely distribute all known spells to anybody who wants to learn them. In essence, if you want to learn a 9th level spell and know how to cast it, you should be able to find it at your local library and several of your friends probably know it already. Mystra be damned, once that cat’s out of the bag it won’t go back.
Obviously the gods don’t know what each of them are doing, otherwise they wouldn’t get assassinated. So it would be fair to assume that midnight, seeing as her training seems incomplete to boot, would be way more incompetent at her job than her predecessor. And if I understood correctly from your previous articles, there are locations where one can teleport to another world where the gods of the world you left can’t get to… wouldn’t that mean to be able to cast 10th level spells all one needs to do is teleport away from midnight and do their thing there?
i am dm’ing an about to be epic campaign( 3,5e obv and the levels of the pc’s range from 19 to an effective 21 which is basically a 19th level cleric with the saint template) i have basically buffed my gods with greater stats more levels more special abilities (like the ability of any god that is able to provide divine spells to use them himself at will) more special abilities based on their portfolios and completely changed their feats to be actually effective, other than that i have made vecna a demilitch, tiamat and bahamut advanced dragons and then gods etc, its a very high power campaign and they actually have aqquired access to guns because right now there are happening dimension breaches with another alternate universe where magic is more or less a thing of the past, its a blast and i recommend anyone experienced to try out something like that
You have a better chance of getting a true wish to supersede the magic limitation to cast 10th, 11th or even Karsus’ Avatar as the 12th than actually doing this by yourself. Hell, You have a better chance to go on an anti-magic crusade to siphon mistra out of her magical godly ass seat and shutting off the weave temporarily and replacing her by soul or magical infusion to have her role than to cast any 10th level magic at this rate.
Wait, I have several questions. Is it only two wizards who can attempt these 10th level spells, or are sorcerers, warlocks, etc able to as well? Are Sorcerers, Paladins, Druids, etc affected by the spellplague? If a player had an artifact or from the Netheril empire that had the power to use a 10th level spell(similar to haw the luck blade can use wish), would it be possible to use that spell since its not technically being casted by a living creature.
The most recent errata actually changed Clone to remove the restriction on Small races, though it opens up other fun uses. It happened in the last month, and was overshadowed by the whole “Alignment” thing, but they did make a few changes to spells in the PHB. Which actually makes it an errata to fix the errata…
I’d probably go Modify Memory as the best spell at 5th level. Incapacitating an enemy is always good, and if you get it with a single saving throw you end a one on one encounter pretty quickly. Plus… while not exactly ‘ethical’ it is mind control out there that, unlike suggestion, they do not remember as magical. Yes, shopkeeper, we already paid you for your entire inventory of magical items and healing potions. So we are just carting it out now. Also, with the ability to upcast (all the way to an entire life) for longer memory modifications you can easily become an ally or trusted advisor of just about anyone. And yes, Immortality is cool and all, but so is never failing. Which is what glibness does for a charisma caster. Guaranteed 15 on any Charisma check then you add modifiers to it. Auto shut down any spell with this pre cast with a caster with counterspell. Win any deception or persuasion or intimidation check out of combat. Very nice option.
Re: Clone. You say only medium creatures… There actually changing all those to “the creature you wish to..”. It’s part of the new errata for the PHB. “In the components entry, ‘Hold a medium creature’ is now ‘Hold the creature being cloned” and in the discription’s First sentence ‘a living medium creature’ is now ‘a living creature'”
Here’s my list Lv0: Mage hand (think about it. It’s one of the most useful things there is, a literal hand) Lv1: Identify Lv2: Enhance ability Lv3: Aura of vitality Lv4: Banishment Lv5: Wall of force Lv6: Globe of invulnerability (antimagic field is overkill) Lv7: Conjure celestial (have you seen what a couatl can do?) Lv8: Dominate monster Lv9: Wish (Or “absolute counterspell”)