Hashmalum
Explorer
(Note: I haven't gotten a look at 3.5E yet, so I have no idea how it will affect this.)
Recently, I got to thinking how odd it is that sorcerers can know as many epic spells as they're willing to spend gold, XP, and time to develop, yet they're still strictly limited in the number of lower level spells they can learn. It seemed reasonable to me that they should be able to pay XP to exceed those limits, so I sat down to figure what might be a reasonable amount. I decided to start with the epic spell creation rules, so I figured the Spellcraft DC that a spell of each level is equivalent to (treating each spell level as if it were a new seed and applying p.91 of the Epic Level Handbook). I ended up with the following equivalencies:
1 14
2 17
3 19
4 21
5 23
6 25
7 27
8 29
9 31
To develop an epic spell with these DCs would cost 9000 gp x the Spellcraft DC. However, epic magic is in general 10 times the price of non-epic magic, so the base gp cost should only be 900 gp x DC. Of course, I wanted an XP cost, not a gp cost; since a sorcerer's magic is part of him, I really couldn't see any material expenditure being necessary to develop it, only personal effort. With 1 XP being "worth" 5 gp, we end up with an XP cost of 180 XP x DC, leaving us with the following table:
0 1,260
1 2,520
2 3,060
3 3,420
4 3,780
5 4,140
6 4,500
7 4,860
8 5,220
9 5,580
(For pricing purposes, 0-level spells are generally treated as being half the cost of 1st level spells, so that's what I did here.)
You'll notice that the costs are pretty high; a 1st level sorcerer can't even afford a new 0-level spell. Most likely, this option will not be affordable until after the character has already learned all the spells of that level that PHB table 3-17 allows, thus extending their spell learning progression rather than accelerating it. This seems reasonable to me--but what do you think? Please provide feedback.
Recently, I got to thinking how odd it is that sorcerers can know as many epic spells as they're willing to spend gold, XP, and time to develop, yet they're still strictly limited in the number of lower level spells they can learn. It seemed reasonable to me that they should be able to pay XP to exceed those limits, so I sat down to figure what might be a reasonable amount. I decided to start with the epic spell creation rules, so I figured the Spellcraft DC that a spell of each level is equivalent to (treating each spell level as if it were a new seed and applying p.91 of the Epic Level Handbook). I ended up with the following equivalencies:
1 14
2 17
3 19
4 21
5 23
6 25
7 27
8 29
9 31
To develop an epic spell with these DCs would cost 9000 gp x the Spellcraft DC. However, epic magic is in general 10 times the price of non-epic magic, so the base gp cost should only be 900 gp x DC. Of course, I wanted an XP cost, not a gp cost; since a sorcerer's magic is part of him, I really couldn't see any material expenditure being necessary to develop it, only personal effort. With 1 XP being "worth" 5 gp, we end up with an XP cost of 180 XP x DC, leaving us with the following table:
0 1,260
1 2,520
2 3,060
3 3,420
4 3,780
5 4,140
6 4,500
7 4,860
8 5,220
9 5,580
(For pricing purposes, 0-level spells are generally treated as being half the cost of 1st level spells, so that's what I did here.)
You'll notice that the costs are pretty high; a 1st level sorcerer can't even afford a new 0-level spell. Most likely, this option will not be affordable until after the character has already learned all the spells of that level that PHB table 3-17 allows, thus extending their spell learning progression rather than accelerating it. This seems reasonable to me--but what do you think? Please provide feedback.
