Epic-Tier, or High-Level Gaming and You

[Starfox]

I've played 4E to level 28 (just about to finish up the campaign) and didn't like it. I must say tat past level 22 or something, combat gets fairly unchallenging - I can easily bunch up 2-4 level-appropriate encounters into one. The players don't even have to use their showstopper powers in normal fights.

High level monsters do very little damage and have a lot of hp. Hit points simply do not mean the same thing to players and monsters, like in some computer games.

One opponent my plavers faced was an ancient blue dragon (lvl 28 artillery solo). IIR they were level 25 at the time. The bard in the team is a Demigod and did a bit of math; if she activated her regeneration power, the dragon simply could not do more damage to her than she regenerated. It would have taken her 50 rounds to take the dragon down (assuming it didn't simply flee), but it could have been done by her alone. As it is, none of my two demigod players ever activated their regeneration.

My players are all strategic thinkers and we've been playing since level 1. The main problem are the AC-increasing feats and accuracy debuff powers - these combined makes most critters ineffective.

 

[renau1g]

I think even more than teh AC feats and debuff powers is the fact that the monsters do minimal damage (this is 4e BTW) and the fact that most monster lack any sort of range effect. With flight available at such levels and the ability to immobilize, it becomes, "quick lock them down and "kite them"" (gods I hate that word). I actually felt bad when my cleric hit a Black Blood Hydra in E2 with Astral Condemnation Daily power. It took a -13 penalty to damage rolls. It's attacks were 3d8+9, or 22 average. After the hit it was 9 per hit.

With all of us having well over 100 hp's (even the low con controller) it was definitely a *meh* encounter. The big bag of hp had somewhere around 1k of hp so it took a long time to whittle him down, but we were never threatened.

Yeah Epic PC's have many ways of making allegedly epic monsters as threatening as a standard kobold...

Also, as the splat books and such have come out current PC's are far, far more powerful than PHB only ones.

 

[Markn]

Our group has a slighlty different strategy. As a group we have a lot of powers that effectively remove monsters for a round or two. This whittles down the monsters and lets us focus on one or two without too much reprisal. By the time they come back, the monsters have lost 1 or 2 of their side. This effectively hoses the DM who works hard to get monster synergy going because the monster who creates that synergy is removed.

In this regard, the Wizard spell Maze is simply amazing because we have seen it keep a creature out of combat for up to 5 rounds.

I think WotC seriously underestimated the ability to throw out conditions at will at this level. In fact, its like D&D is two seperate games - one is the hp damage game and the other is condition placement.

Again, having said all that, the equalizing factor that the DM must use to make encounters challenging is traps, hazards and in particular terrain. Terrain that messes with the players takes an easy fight into the hard category. The drawback from a design standpoint is that its difficult for a DM to ALWAYS have to engineer a terrain screw for the players.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

Wow. This raises some major concerns for me. I'm glad I asked well before I start running anything near this level.

Has anyone analyzed the epic-tier 4E monsters to figure out what the designers were thinking versus how they actually play out? From these anecdotes, it sounds like a heaping helping of "Rules Updates" could be applied to stat blocks.

And I'm very wary of E1-3 now. The outline is pretty awesome, but a lot of it looks like scaled-up heroic-tier encounters, with the PCs killing demons and angels (instead of goblins and kobolds) room-by-room.

Has there ever been any official comment from WotC regarding epic-tier play. This is something DMG3 should cover; too bad that's been delayed by the Essentials line.

 

[Markn]

I suspect they have delayed DMG3 simply so they can gather more data on Epic Tier play. It's just speculation of course, but Epic Tier needs a bit more work and exposes more flaws/concerns with 4e design than the earlier tiers.

I really think the stories behind E1-3 are fantastic. Some of the encounters are great too. Keep in mind that, as others have mentioned, the sheer increase in options increases the overall power of characters as better synergies are found. These modules were made long before a vast majority of these options were better. Plus WotC modules tend to cater to more newbie groups than experience group - but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be used. I suspect if you ran them they would work just fine until your group got their synergies all worked out. It would take several levels of power replacements and tactics to reach their peak. During that time the module should be a challenge - and if not, a few extra minions here and there would help. By then, you as the DM should feel comfortable to edit the adventure to suit your style.

I do agree, however, that it is a shame that the epic adventures are just reskinned dungeon crawls - but to do more locations requires more fluff and I suspect that why WotC modules avoid this.

 

[Tuft]

One opponent my plavers faced was an ancient blue dragon (lvl 28 artillery solo). IIR they were level 25 at the time. The bard in the team is a Demigod and did a bit of math; if she activated her regeneration power, the dragon simply could not do more damage to her than she regenerated. It would have taken her 50 rounds to take the dragon down (assuming it didn't simply flee), but it could have been done by her alone. As it is, none of my two demigod players ever activated their regeneration.

And that was just from eyeballing damages and to-hit numbers vs my defenses, and not counting the -6 to-hit penalty my at-will would have given it a good portion of the time... (Vicious Mockery power + Psychic Lock feat + Beguiling Enchantment feat). And we were actually lvl 26, since its when you get Regeneration...

And yes, neither of us two who have the Demigod ED have used either Divine Recovery or Divine Regeneration. I usually save my Majestic Word for when someone gets bloodied, or at least close to it. That usually means that they remain unspent. Perhaps I get to use one or two if I'm lucky...

 

[Stalker0]

My game has gone from 8th to 19th level at this point, so my party is getting up there.


I can say they are definitely getting stronger overall, normal encounters aren't as challenging as they once were.

But on the other hand I can say that 4e has kept is promise of making high level combat about as difficult to run as lower level combat. The way I have to make a combat has not changed drastically as the levels go up.

I will agree with the majority about starting at epic tier however. Especially if your group doesn't have a ton of 4e experience at this point I don't think its worth it.


While I wouldn't mind an epic one shot just to kick a little butt, I think for a campaign better to start at lower level.

 

[renau1g]

And yes, neither of us two who have the Demigod ED have used either Divine Recovery or Divine Regeneration. I usually save my Majestic Word for when someone gets bloodied, or at least close to it. That usually means that they remain unspent. Perhaps I get to use one or two if I'm lucky...

My 21st level warden (Wis-based) has two return from negative hp powers and has not really been near using them. He's been bloodied a couple times, but having the save effects at the start of your turn is a big boon.

 

[firesnakearies]

PCs are stupendously powerful at epic levels, and the monsters really . . . aren't. At all. If you had a group of newish players who hadn't much experience with D&D, weren't very tactically-minded, and had built pretty darn weak characters, then maybe standard official 4E encounter design at epic levels would be fairly challenging. But good players are going to walk all over any published stuff at epic.

At least, that's been my experience.

 

[Jhaelen]

High level monsters do very little damage and have a lot of hp. Hit points simply do not mean the same thing to players and monsters, like in some computer games.

Having recently seen the damage expressions in the Dark Sun preview stat blocks, I must say, apparently the damage expression table in the DMG is waaaay too conservative.

Assuming the level 1-3 damage is about right, damage would have to scale a lot faster if you were striving for a similar threat level:

Minimum hp for a pc at level 1 is about 20hp (for a wizard), at level 30 it's about 140 hp. So monsters would need to do about seven times as much damage on average to be similarly threatening. Normal average damage starts at 8.5 (d10+3) and increases by 1 per two monster levels, resulting in 23.5 damage at level 30. That's not even three times as much damage!

So far I've been assuming the lower than expected damage in the epic tier was because of the relatively better to hit chance of monsters, but even taking that into account, the damage is too low.

The only question is: How lethal is combat supposed to be in the epic tier? Is it fine that it isn't as lethal as it is on level 1?

I think WotC should provide an alternative damage progression table for groups that prefer a higher than average threat level.