The Slow Death of Epic Tier

[Aegeri]

I'm curious if anyone has played or run a Dark Sun campaign in the epic tier. Dark Sun has an entirely different "feel" than your run of the mill game world, so I wonder how it plays out with the different rules and such that are in effect on Athas.

Dark Sun is filled with epic tier antagonists who are native to the world. Additionally, Athas is probably as bad or just as bad as some places in the Abyss are naturally. It's unique in that it fully justifies every tier of play internally: High level aberrant monsters, sorcerers, templars and such can coexist perfectly with everything else. The epic tier creatures don't overrun everyone else because there are plenty of horrible monsters everywhere that can deal with them anyway (they balance one another out).

You have the most trouble with the default PoL, Eberron and even FR. As they aren't crawling with epic creatures (Though FR has this problem the least and also the best planar support).

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Plans have changed again, after having read something from a WotC person to the effect of "maybe heroic tier takes too long, paragon tier goes by too quick, and epic tier probably only needed to be 5 levels long). .

This is something I was just thinking about this afternoon. Epic to me would be more digestible if it wasn't so long.

 

[TerraDave]

Its a good blog post...

As someone who has decided to forgo epic tier, the reason is that I basically don't need it. Trying to keep a campaign going for 20 levels is tough enough, and I can make paragon epic enough, including world wide threats and planar travel and so on.

On a technical note, its also relatively easy to "de-level" monsters, even epic ones (though I guess something like area beheading would need to be carefully approached), so this makes it even less needed.

 

[Neverfate]

Or, you know, Epic by it's own nature is just boring.

And your party kills another god *yawn*. Let's go out drinking.

It's not that Epic tier doesn't contain challenge. It just doesn't contain an easily usable plot devices. It pushes the DM into the hole of "fight the god of the week" territory because that is Epic tiers crutch. Heroic and Paragon have their crutches to, but mixed with an ease of use.

The average group of players and DMs aren't the ones on forums talking about this. They're hanging out on a Friday night after work if their spouses let them. Epic tier is just needlessly, overly complex for the average needs of gamers. Therefor; no support.

 

[Aegeri]

Regardless of how you do it, the minimum "adventuring day" in epic should be 4-5 encounters long. That could also be one level, because honestly 10 encounters a level at epic is probably excessive and not really fitting with the pace that epic seems to want to run at.

 

[Jack99]

I want to ask, for folks playing paragon and epic tier, how many encounters did you have per level? I feel like the main thing keeping the game I'm in fresh is that the GM kills us all every few levels and we all make new characters. I imagine I would've gotten pretty bored with 4e's powers system if I'd kept my first half-elf paladin (Bernie, who died to ongoing fire damage) for 11 levels.

Combat ends up getting repetitive, even with all the cool stuff you and monsters can do. Even if you've got a lot of quest XP, if the average group is playing 5 combats per level, that's 50 different iterations of the same general attacks.

I've run mid-paragon one-shots, where the party had a total of 7 combat encounters. Each was distinctive because the characters and their powers were new. But for a long-term game, I just can't see having that many combats. Give the party two chances to use their powers, then level them up so they get a new toy. Spread those 50 or 60 combat encounters over 30 levels, and things should stay fresher.

Played a decent amount of time in paragon and epic, and we have felt no problem with having 8-10 fights per level. As long as the fight advances the story, at least to some degree, its not an issue.

 

[RangerWickett]

I see epic tier as working three different ways:

Land of Gods - The PCs are phenomenally powerful, and hang in circles with other equally powerful beings, influencing world and planar events. Things have a vast scope.

Produced by Michael Bay - The plots and settings are just as personal as ever, but you turn the dial to 11. Maybe occasionally you save the world, but you could just as easily perform a bank heist inside the mind of a dead god who is being sucked into a black hole, or rescuing a friend held by an island dictator who has demon robot minions. You still go into dungeons, but they're actually the heart of a colossal clockwork kraken that's about to destroy your favorite beach house, and you've got to find the control room and kill the real estate developer who's in charge of the thing before your barbecue cook-out is ruined.

This is the End - The world is ending or is about to be reborn. You aren't worried about a sequel, so you can blow up established cities, slaughter whole nations, and drop entire continents into the Abyss. The PCs and bad guys are fighting to see whose vision shapes the world that follows.

 

[Eldragon]

I just got into DMing 4e (heck this is my first enworld post in 2+ years), but I'm actually more excited about running paragon and epic than heroic. 3e always became nearly impossible to DM after about level 13, yet now in 4e it can feel "epic" without nearly as many game breakers.

Usually when I DM high level players (in any game system), the PCs are spending more time running away from the bad guys than dungeon delving and otherwise looking for trouble. I generally operate on the idea of The PCs are now famous enough where the really major evil powers of the world take notice, and want to snuff out the PCs before they even get close. e.g. They are now facing an enemy that is as smart, well prepared, and resourceful as they are, and is actively hunting them.

But that's still no cure from players simply getting tired of their characters, I don't know if there is a cure for that.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

I haven't run anything remotely near epic tier. Most of my games happen in and begin and end with the adventure, not the campaign. Additionally, my play group tends to vary adventure to adventure with lots of new players.

That said, I think people approach epic the wrong way.

You can't "win" D&D. But many players try to win by getting their character to level 30. Many DMs think they aren't doing their job if the current adventure doesn't have a path to getting PCs to 30.

IMHO, there's nothing wrong with the system or with players if epic is rarely touched. It is supposed to be rarefied and, well, EPIC.

The failure of Epic Tier is only one of imagination of WotC and players. You have to have epic plots, epic challenges, epic-ly mind-bending settings and cast. There's not much example of this in the literature or in popular media, which makes it difficult for the DMs at home trying to write epic adventures on their own. Maybe Transformers: the Movie where a living planet is trying to eat other planets? The end of 2001: a Space Odyssey where the astronaut is being mind-ed? (pardon the language)

Another problem: encounter locations get so weird and sprawling it becomes very difficult to adequately represent them in such a way that they work with the tactical combat system of 4E with any verisimilitude.

I've said this before, too, and been criticized with it: because the PCs are near gods and because combat starts breaking down or becoming meaningless, epic should feature lots and lots of roleplaying and skill challenges. An epic adventure should be about (and reward) putting pieces of complex plots into play, directly interacting with the gods as equals rather than trying to kill them, manipulating heroic-tier and paragon-tier adventurers, and traveling the cosmos.

A wacky idea I've had that would take a super-human DM to pull off would be having one party at heroic tier being called into action by a party at paragon tier being manipulated by an epic tier party.

I think the ideal use for epic tier will prove to be for experienced 4E players who created level 20-something PCs for an epic-tier-specific one-and-done adventure. This kind of play simply couldn't work in the first couple years because players and DMs were just too new to the system and needed to gain experience at heroic and paragon. Maybe I'm projecting.

Woof. This has turned into a too-long; didn't read brain dump. I'll stop now.

 

[Aegeri]

because combat starts breaking down or becoming meaningless

This is no longer true. Epic tier combat is now as challenging and in fact can be just as lethal as any other tier. I use demons as an example commonly, but that's because demons are truly the most amazing epic tier antagonists available and are extremely well developed. A MV Balor swapping variable resistance for soul stealer is one of the most fierce creatures in all of 4E. The amount of synergy they get really reinforces them as immensely lethal epic tier antagonists, who are almost certainly not the sort to care much for diplomacy (they are demons after all).

It isn't hard to make fighting off hordes of demons both challenging and something that feels essential to the plot (and indeed, the entire multiverse as in many settings daemons have consistently been able to slay Gods when they get the chance). The problem really is variety: What is there is excellent but there is a very limited amount of it. Your options at epic are demons and then everything else supporting them. A book on devils would at least give us another option, but it doesn't fix the problem there aren't enough epic antagonists that aren't strictly planar related or based. While Eberron can have a daemonic invasion, as Khyber is linked to the Abyss far enough down your players are going to get really bored when every campaign is featuring daemons.