Epic! Yes. Fail? Maybe.

[Upper_Krust]

One of the problems I think is the assumption fostered that there will always be NPCs more powerful than the PCs no matter how powerful they become. Why shouldn't the PCs be the most powerful? If they become the biggest and the baddest in the world then let them be the most powerful in the world. No single entity in the world should be a match for them. Any such would have to come from outside, another world or dimension. This would be a sign of the expanding scope of the campaign to other worlds or dimensions.

To challenge them otherwise simply send evil adventuring parties after them. They get to see things from the other side where a group of less powerful individuals attacks a single powerful being. Of course the PCs of this level would probably have their own kingdoms which gives new and different challenges. Campaigns beyond a single world could have them ruling multidimensional empires.

As happened in a 3E campaign gods can come to them begging for help.

What I recall happening from experience was that even when you got to be the legendary heroes of that generation, someone like Orcus (or Graz'zt) who had conquered multiple prime material worlds (or certainly multiple countries/empires) would of course have their own bands of 'heroes' to call upon.

So Orcus would likely have several teams of epic level adventurers working for him. Same thing with deities.

But I think one of the flaws with the 4E (Epic) Adventure Path series is that the designers are sort of metagaming rather than coming up with story based conceits as to how the PCs were not powerful enough to deal with the BBEG a few days ago...but miraculously they are now. Orcus would have been better served not throwing any underlings at the PCs and just had a set of runway lights to his final desination.

Whereas Savage Tide acknowledges the PCs probably cannot defeat Demogorgon directly so they need allies, artifacts and to undertake quests to weaken Demogorgon first. That to me makes more sense.

 

[Windjammer]

Pedestrian uninspired hum-ho article of the sort I've come to expect from the author over the years.

Here's everything except better.

 

[Pinotage]

Interesting article with which I mostly agree. However, while expressing that epic play requires a reason, I've yet to actually see any reasons. Maybe there aren't any for epic play that don't already get covered by higher level play. Any suggestions?

Pinotage