Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Pros and Cons of Epic Level Play?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6284075" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Ok.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, while the LotR story is an epic in the literary sense, it is not epic in the D&D sense. In D&D terms, LotR is the story of a quest by heroic tier characters to overcome an epic tier foe, with the occasionally aid and advice of a paragon tier guide. That's one of the reasons why at the end of the story, the heroic tier protagonists are given a heroic tier foe (bandits) in order to shine. But, I think it's very very important to note that the methodology that they use to overcome the bandits is low paragon tier. They don't spend much time actually fighting the bad guys - the Scouring of the Shire is primarily a social/ethical challenge. In fact, Frodo - the highest level character of the bunch - doesn't even bother to enter melee combat, and passes on combat with the BBEG - preferring to beat him in what is essentially a social challenge. Frodo has gotten so powerful he can kill the heroic tier opponents with diplomacy alone, and his primary interest in play at that point is in the ethics of war because by this point in the campaign, getting out the battle mat for another skirmish is just passe.</p><p></p><p>But ultimately, the LoTR is NOT about freeing the world from the influence evil. The Scouring of the Shire shows that despite the death of the Dark Lord, that hasn't happened. The LoTR 'campaign' was actually on the theme of mercy, and its important to note that the climaxes don't involve personal combat. The paragon tier Balrog is killed by an NPC off stage. The near paragon tier Witch King's death is mostly a climatic encounter with an NPC and only one PC in a supporting role. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>While I agree, you are the one who introduced the generic schema here, and I think it's probably pretty applicable. The scale and approach of the 'Killing the Ogre that threatens the Town' and 'Killing the Orcus that threatens the world' are basically the same. Orcus and the Ogre are both in rooms, and the party wins by defeating them in mortal combat. The story of both is the story of the PC's superior might of arms.</p><p></p><p>So far as I'm concerned, neither has left the heroic tier. You've just gotten bigger numbers, bigger rooms, and bigger foes. But the story hasn't hit a new plateau in scope, particularly not in the sense that BECMI tried to show the growth and change in focus as the players levelled up so that campaigns within each had a very definate and distinctive feel to them.</p><p></p><p>I've only played one campaign into what I'd consider paragon tier territory. It was 1e, and the party was pretty much twinked out to the max, had a bit of monte haul treasure (DM's first campaign), and we hit a point shortly after name level where we weren't really threatened by anything in the monster manual. We did this one session where the DM basically threw the monster manual at us in wandering encounters - rocs, turtle dragons, etc. - and everyone was a little bored and uncomfortable. The next session, the campaign completely changed. The DM realized that the old tactical battle problems weren't going to sustain the campaign, and so we changed from a campaign were the main stakes were personal survival and acquisition of treasure to the main stakes where growth in our political influence and survival of our retainers, hirelings, and other NPCs that had given their allegiance and trust to us. The campaign moved from a tactical to a strategic level, became much more about diplomacy and ethics, and when we did have tactics, it wasnt' an issue of us against a few monsters, but clashes of whole nations with 1000's of combatants on a side.</p><p></p><p>And even that isn't yet to epic tier IMO. Until the quest involves nothing less than changing the actual rules of the game system, you aren't yet epic tier.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6284075, member: 4937"] Ok. Well, while the LotR story is an epic in the literary sense, it is not epic in the D&D sense. In D&D terms, LotR is the story of a quest by heroic tier characters to overcome an epic tier foe, with the occasionally aid and advice of a paragon tier guide. That's one of the reasons why at the end of the story, the heroic tier protagonists are given a heroic tier foe (bandits) in order to shine. But, I think it's very very important to note that the methodology that they use to overcome the bandits is low paragon tier. They don't spend much time actually fighting the bad guys - the Scouring of the Shire is primarily a social/ethical challenge. In fact, Frodo - the highest level character of the bunch - doesn't even bother to enter melee combat, and passes on combat with the BBEG - preferring to beat him in what is essentially a social challenge. Frodo has gotten so powerful he can kill the heroic tier opponents with diplomacy alone, and his primary interest in play at that point is in the ethics of war because by this point in the campaign, getting out the battle mat for another skirmish is just passe. But ultimately, the LoTR is NOT about freeing the world from the influence evil. The Scouring of the Shire shows that despite the death of the Dark Lord, that hasn't happened. The LoTR 'campaign' was actually on the theme of mercy, and its important to note that the climaxes don't involve personal combat. The paragon tier Balrog is killed by an NPC off stage. The near paragon tier Witch King's death is mostly a climatic encounter with an NPC and only one PC in a supporting role. While I agree, you are the one who introduced the generic schema here, and I think it's probably pretty applicable. The scale and approach of the 'Killing the Ogre that threatens the Town' and 'Killing the Orcus that threatens the world' are basically the same. Orcus and the Ogre are both in rooms, and the party wins by defeating them in mortal combat. The story of both is the story of the PC's superior might of arms. So far as I'm concerned, neither has left the heroic tier. You've just gotten bigger numbers, bigger rooms, and bigger foes. But the story hasn't hit a new plateau in scope, particularly not in the sense that BECMI tried to show the growth and change in focus as the players levelled up so that campaigns within each had a very definate and distinctive feel to them. I've only played one campaign into what I'd consider paragon tier territory. It was 1e, and the party was pretty much twinked out to the max, had a bit of monte haul treasure (DM's first campaign), and we hit a point shortly after name level where we weren't really threatened by anything in the monster manual. We did this one session where the DM basically threw the monster manual at us in wandering encounters - rocs, turtle dragons, etc. - and everyone was a little bored and uncomfortable. The next session, the campaign completely changed. The DM realized that the old tactical battle problems weren't going to sustain the campaign, and so we changed from a campaign were the main stakes were personal survival and acquisition of treasure to the main stakes where growth in our political influence and survival of our retainers, hirelings, and other NPCs that had given their allegiance and trust to us. The campaign moved from a tactical to a strategic level, became much more about diplomacy and ethics, and when we did have tactics, it wasnt' an issue of us against a few monsters, but clashes of whole nations with 1000's of combatants on a side. And even that isn't yet to epic tier IMO. Until the quest involves nothing less than changing the actual rules of the game system, you aren't yet epic tier. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Pros and Cons of Epic Level Play?
Top