Paragon Paths & Epic Destinies
Logan Bonner
The prestige class is dead. Long live the paragon path!
We have new ways to expand on your character at higher levels. You’ll pick up a paragon path at 11th level and it will carry you to 20th. At 21st your epic destiny kicks in and you’ll become a legend. In some ways they’re similar to prestige classes (and a few prestige classes have made the jump to paragon paths), buy they’re much cooler because you give up anything. As you leveling up in your main class, you’re also gaining abilities from your paragon path or epic destiny. At the same time the requirements are much simpler; they’re easier to understand and won’t make you jump through hoops.
The first Player’s Handbook design team consisted of Rich Baker, David Noonan and myself. The concepts of paragon paths and epic destinies were out there, but it was up to us to determine the way they were to work. We came up with a set progression for each with the idea that everybody would be getting, say, a per-encounter power at the same time. That way, they’d be easier to design and DM’s could mix, match, and tweak to get paragon paths that fit their campaigns. We also determined to loosen up the restriction prestige classes had. If we want you to be a wizard for a certain path, we’re going to tell you so.
The next step was to come up with a list of ones we wanted in the Player’s Handbook. We planned to include 12 paragon paths, so we saw that if we had each path based on 2 classes, each class would lead to 3 paths. (This was really just the basis. Most paths are quite broad, but we made sure each appealed strongly to at least 2 classes.) Quite a few old favorites came along (though they might look pretty different) but new ones like the weapon master, prince of knaves, and cavalier look really good and will let you play the character you’ve really wanted to be all this time. You want to be Robin Hood? No problem.
We divided the paths up to get 4 each. I picked up the cleric/paladin, paladin/fighter, fighter/ranger, and wizard/ranger paths. Dave grabbed all the, as he would say, “evil-curious” paragon paths. I’m not saying Dave is evil…but he does cackle maniacally on a regular basis.
Epic destinies are a smaller group, but each one gives you some huge benefits. Only a few are planned for the Player’s Handbook, but when you have the option to serve as the right-hand man to a god, become an undying warrior, or call dragons with a wave of your hand, more than a few choices will make your head explode in a burst of awesome. By the time you finish your epic destiny, you’ll be stomping down all challengers, breaking rules of science and odds are you’ll be immortal.
