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[xechnao]

The problem with epic level play as it stands, as far as I see it, is that there's no end point. The open-endedness is attractive on one level (No limits! Play the same character forever! No hard-wired end point to your advancement!), but it's also a huge disadvantage, since without an upper limit, there's no way to set a good scale. There's always SOMETHING BIGGER. I hit this problem more often than I wanted as regards feedback to the Demonomicon articles and Fiendish Codex I; no matter what CR one sets a demon lord at, it's too high for some folk and two low for others. Since you only have a starting point and not an ending point, it's VERY difficult to design anything for epic level. What's the difference between a CR 23 and 29 and 33 and 59 and 3492 creature? How do deities fit onto that scale? And if deitys DON'T fit onto that scale, then how tough does a character have to be to fight a deity? What CR is the most powerful creature in the Multiverse?

There is a solution to this I think. Introduce "uniqueness". After a certain level let it be that there is no quantitative scale any more (you may still have quality levels such as god, demigod, higher god, lower god, etch). So this "uniqueness" is the realm of true championing of some quality (that perhaps can be minor, major, etch) or combination of qualities -in any case something that only the hero posses.
Narrative systems generally deal well with things like that. Perhaps you should do something along this path to solve this problem you are talking about.

 

[Alzrius]

The problem with epic level play as it stands, as far as I see it, is that there's no end point. The open-endedness is attractive on one level (No limits! Play the same character forever! No hard-wired end point to your advancement!), but it's also a huge disadvantage, since without an upper limit, there's no way to set a good scale. There's always SOMETHING BIGGER. I hit this problem more often than I wanted as regards feedback to the Demonomicon articles and Fiendish Codex I; no matter what CR one sets a demon lord at, it's too high for some folk and two low for others. Since you only have a starting point and not an ending point, it's VERY difficult to design anything for epic level. What's the difference between a CR 23 and 29 and 33 and 59 and 3492 creature? How do deities fit onto that scale? And if deitys DON'T fit onto that scale, then how tough does a character have to be to fight a deity? What CR is the most powerful creature in the Multiverse?

I agree with you in that this creates a problem of verisimilitude in regards to the power levels of various creatures in the campaign universe. If a scale is infinite, it's difficult (at best) to use it to measure anything.

That said, the problems of an infinitely-leveling system aren't only in measuring the power of higher-tier monsters. It also makes it harder to design classes. If all classes can gain levels endlessly, then you quickly have them losing any sort of unique or special class abilities - no one says that they can't wait to get to 117th level, because only then do you unlock Class Ability X that you've wanted for a while now. It's the main reason why, at epic levels, single-classing no longer makes sense. Admittedly, epic feats try to fill this void, but even they don't really stack up well when spread across infinite advancement. It's the same reason why WotC tried to design the epic spell system, letting you can create epic spells piecemeal at whatever DC you want, rather than having spells of ever-increasing set spell levels.

At the same time, having a closed scale of leveling also puts some fairly tight design constraints on things. For example, I'd recommend that if you make the game that way, you make damn sure that everything in your game universe falls within this scale. Having levels be limited to just mortal characters, for example, with gods being outside of this scale, makes having a character that ascends to godhood feel almost like a punishment if you want to keep playing with that character - having to retire it "because the rules don't let you advance any further" is a bitter pill to have to swallow.

At the same time, that means that gaining levels - particularly at the upper end of the spectrum - shouldn't just be about gaining enough experience points. If you do put all creatures into your scale of levels, then creatures at the very top will be the most powerful creatures in the game universe; you shouldn't just be able to linearly progress to that point. There needs to also be a reason for scarcity of creatures at the upper levels of power. If every 25th-level character is a demigod (or equivalent thereof) then that quickly begins to feel not only boring, but also makes holes in the logic of the campaign world.

It's a difficult balancing act, particularly for Pathfinder, not only because everyone has their own set of ideas for what constitutes the limit of advancement (if any) in an infinite system, but also because you're also burdened with designing Pathfinder to be compatible with 3.5. My personal suggestion is that you basically eschew changing the existing epic rules, but rather institute a set of epic-level "guidelines" in regards to characters. That is, you have something like "no mortal race can ever gain more than 30 character levels, unless an individual is given patronage by an immortal power (e.g. a god, demon lord, fey ruler, etc). A character with immortal patronage may continue to gain levels, but if patronage is revoked, cannot continue to advance." This allows for epic level creatures, characters, and challenges, but keeps a tight leash on them - it also lets you design for a closed system of levels (e.g. you treat level 30 as the last level, so you can design new and unique class abilities for levels 21-30 for each class) while keeping options for potentially infinite leveling, probably as no more than a brief addendum.

That's what I think, at any rate.

 

[Roman]

Agreed. In fact, I'd almost like to say that levels 15–20 are "EPIC" and leave it at that, but since the concept of higher than 20th level play's already pretty much built-in to the game, that's not really a good option. WotC's choice to extend the range to 30th and call 21st to 30th is an elegant solution.

Yes, certainly levels 15-20 would fit the epic moniker by almost any definition based on what the characters can do, but when one says 'epic' in a D&D/d20/OGL/Pathfinder context, these days it is inherently associated with levels beyond 20.

The problem with epic level play as it stands, as far as I see it, is that there's no end point. The open-endedness is attractive on one level (No limits! Play the same character forever! No hard-wired end point to your advancement!), but it's also a huge disadvantage, since without an upper limit, there's no way to set a good scale. There's always SOMETHING BIGGER. I hit this problem more often than I wanted as regards feedback to the Demonomicon articles and Fiendish Codex I; no matter what CR one sets a demon lord at, it's too high for some folk and two low for others. Since you only have a starting point and not an ending point, it's VERY difficult to design anything for epic level. What's the difference between a CR 23 and 29 and 33 and 59 and 3492 creature? How do deities fit onto that scale? And if deitys DON'T fit onto that scale, then how tough does a character have to be to fight a deity? What CR is the most powerful creature in the Multiverse?

I completely agree with everything you said in this paragraph. Indeed, I believe the desire for open-ended advancement is the reason why the 3E Epic rules are as horrid as they are. This applies not only to monsters, but also to provision of interesting and differentiated features for classes at the appropriate levels, which becomes impossible in open ended systems. As such, open-ended systems, such as the one in 3E, are forced to rely on generic infinite progressions. Although that might be a nice few paragraph suggestion of how to continue advancament even beyond what is supported by the rules, it does not make a good system.

When Paizo does an Epic Level supplement for the PF RPG, my preference would be to basically present epic level play as its own game, similar to how the Immortals set worked. Once you go beyond 20th level, you start a new game in a lot of ways. You might still be "21st level" but the game assumes that's the baseline and goes from there (which argues pretty strongly to reset the "level" to 1). Of course, if we do a new game for Epic Level, I'd want to keep things transferrable between that game and the PF RPG, so that one could use a low level epic monster as a high level PF RPG monster after a hopefully simple conversion process.

I am of two minds about this. I can see the benefit of starting anew, but I would be interested in seeing how you would pull-off the conversion of epic-rule characters into non-epic rules, if the DM (such as myself) wants to use an epic level character in a non-epic campaign... or conversely a non-epic level non-player character or eve a player character in an epic campaign. If you manage to pull that off in a satisfactory manner - hats off to you. I would venture a guess, however, that it would be very difficult to do well (or at least 'well' by my standards ).

Also, the question arises what happens to the 'non-epic' abilities the characters have already acquired when they rise to epic levels. Do the characters retain them, but simply not gain any more of them? Are these abilities, if retained, usable vis-a-vis epic level creatures? Do the characters have to undergo some form of transformation (perhaps acquiring a divine spark) to attain epic levels and use the reset-ruleset? To what extend do the abilities/statistics/etc of characters from the core system influence what abilities/statistics/etc characters have in the new system? The questions abound if this approach is taken.

If you decide to go this way, I think it would be best if you combined the book with information about divinity (which may actually be a good idea whatever route you take with epic levels) and 'epic gaming' would actually be akin to 'divine gaming', which would also account for the fact why the characters are different enough that they use a different ruleset.

At the very least, I'll be pushing to have our answer for epic rules to be a closed scale with a level cap. Open ended level caps don't work.

Well, you definitely have my vote on that one!

 

[DaveMage]

At the very least, I'll be pushing to have our answer for epic rules to be a closed scale with a level cap. Open ended level caps don't work.

I disagree. To me, a level cap makes the game feel finite - like a board game.

I think AD&D had it right to a high degree - once you passed a certain point, the power didn't increase in a linear way. That method lets you have your cake and eat it too: no limits to players, but fewer design issues as a 20th level fighter wasn't too different from a 30th level fighter.

IIRC, the highest official (non-ELH) 3.5 or Paizo published CR is in the 30s. Maybe the key is to have a linear progression to level 30, but after level 30, reduce the power gain:

All classes/characters gain 5 hit points/level, feat evey two levels, 2 skill points/level. No increase in BAB, saves, special abilities (such as sneak attack), or spells unless those increases are provided by a feat.

That way you haven't limited my character's ability to gain levels, but at the same time, a 50th level character isn't so vastly different from a 30th level character.

Once past level 30, call the "class" an "Epic Class Character", so you could have (for example) a Wizard 30/Epic 10 if you have a 40th level spellcaster that spent its first 30 levels as a Wizard.

But, whatever you do, please don't ever have a level point where the game simply "ends". That would be lame.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I disagree. To me, a level cap makes the game feel finite - like a board game.

I think AD&D had it right to a high degree - once you passed a certain point, the power didn't increase in a linear way. That method lets you have your cake and eat it too: no limits to players, but fewer design issues as a 20th level fighter wasn't too different from a 30th level fighter.

IIRC, the highest official (non-ELH) 3.5 or Paizo published CR is in the 30s. Maybe the key is to have a linear progression to level 30, but after level 30, reduce the power gain:

All classes/characters gain 5 hit points/level, feat evey two levels, 2 skill points/level. No increase in BAB, saves, special abilities (such as sneak attack), or spells unless those increases are provided by a feat.

That way you haven't limited my character's ability to gain levels, but at the same time, a 50th level character isn't so vastly different from a 30th level character.

Once past level 30, call the "class" an "Epic Class Character", so you could have (for example) a Wizard 30/Epic 10 if you have a 40th level spellcaster that spent its first 30 levels as a Wizard.

But, whatever you do, please don't ever have a level point where the game simply "ends". That would be lame.

Yes, I think that's the direction to go. Stop just "adding" bonuses. Go "sideways". People effectively multiclass beyond level 20 or 30, without increasind BAB, Saves, Ability Scores or stuff (at least not beyond the typical maximum of level 20).

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay seems to have a similar way of progression. You start with basic careers, and then you will typically have two advanaced careers to get better at what you already do (for example, a Road warden turns into a Highwaymen turns into a Duelist or something). At that point, your "Road Warden Two Weapon Fighter/Pistolero" stops his progression as that, and instead you'll look for a new basic or advanced career that leads you in a different direction - maybe you become a Priest or Wizard, maybe you become someone focusing on two-handed melee weapons and heavy armor.

One think to ensure beyond level 20+ in D&D would be that you can sensibly multiclass every character and with every class. Maybe allow faster increases to ability scores (so that even a Fighter not originally designed to be a Fighter/Wizard can reasonably become one.) - but don't allow this to stack on things you already have high.

So, at 21st level, a character can pick one ability score that is not his highest, and add a +2 bonus to it. The same applies to 31st, 41st and so on.
He still gets his advances at every level divisible by 4, but he can no longer increase his highest ability score. (Maybe you need to set a character independent score for that - Maybe a natural score of 25?) Likewise, the maximum BAB is set to 20, and the maximum Save Bonus as +12, and the maximum caster level at +20. (I assume that Pathfinder will fix the multiclassing saves in the first place, otherwise +12 might seem to low.)

Only thing that keeps increasing are hit points.

Ideally, a level 40 character that is Fighter20/Bard20 should have the same maximum BAB, Save and Caster Level as a Bard20/Fighter20.

This also has the neat benefit that "suitable" challenges for characters beyond level 20 might just contain more monsters instead of tougher monsters. If a 20th level party can deal with one EL 20 encounter, a 40th level party can deal with 2 EL 20 encounters.

If you want to keep playing the same character beyond level 20, you multiclass your Fighter with Ranger, Rogue or Barbarian. You're still basically a melee guy. If you want to change and test out new waters, you multiclass Fighter with Sorcerer.

 

[James Jacobs]

I disagree. To me, a level cap makes the game feel finite - like a board game...

Note that you can have a level cap and not make the game finite. If we do an epic level expansion to Pathfinder RPG that expands the level range from 21st to 40th, and design that expansion so that at 21st level you're fighting dragons and at 40th level you're becoming a deity (or something like that), we can THEN do an expansion even later that goes from level 41st to 60th, for example, where your characters play deities ascending in power. And so on.

I know folks hate bringing videogames into the scene, but that's the way MMORPGs and CRPGs usually work. For World of Warcraft, the level caps at 60th, then every few years it's raised in increments of 10 with expansions. Fallout 3 caps levels at 20th, but there's an expansion coming in a few months that raises that cap to 30th. The Baldur's Gate videogames did the same.

There are certainly examples of videogames without level caps; Oblivion comes to mind. But having played Oblivion a lot... there IS a point where you become so powerful that the game starts to stagnate.

And to bring it back to tabletop RPGs, you'll recall that this is the same model the BECMI version of D&D went. Basic took you from 1st to 3rd; Expert 4th to 14th, Companion 15th to 24th(?), Master 25th to 36th, and Immortal to divinity. I think this type of system works the best, and it's the one I'll be trying to coax PF RPG to follow (although with larger steps, to be sure!).

In order to be a healthy game, it has to expand the world along with the level; there needs to be content for characters to experience as they gain levels, otherwise things quickly get dull. That's, honestly, the main problem facing epic level games now—lack of support and content. The majority of the epic content for a campaign has to be created by the GM, and not all of us GMs have the time to do that.

In any case... it's all far to big a problem to tackle in the PF RPG. We'll hint at what's to come, similar to how the 3.5 DMG did a hint of epic level rules, but we won't be able to do much more than that. Yet, at least...

 

[James Jacobs]

But, whatever you do, please don't ever have a level point where the game simply "ends". That would be lame.

One more quick note... PF RPG will focus on 1st-20th level, but it won't say "Once you hit 20th, the game ends." It'll say something like, "Once you hit 21st, the game changes."

If we do a 20th-40th level game, it'll say, "Once you hit 41st, the game changes again."

Details on HOW the game changes will need to wait until the next level of power supplement whatever-it-is comes along, of course.

 

[Mark]

Note that you can have a level cap and not make the game finite. If we do an epic level expansion to Pathfinder RPG that expands the level range from 21st to 40th, and design that expansion so that at 21st level you're fighting dragons and at 40th level you're becoming a deity (or something like that), we can THEN do an expansion even later that goes from level 41st to 60th, for example, where your characters play deities ascending in power. And so on.

"And so on?" Oh, I think you're done, Mister.

 

[Roman]

An interesting idea - a series of books that support progressively higher levels: Epic Level Handbook, Divine Level Handbook...

Yes, this would have the benefit of not pre-defining a limit to advancement, yet every 'tier' could be given proper treatment.

Of course, you would have to decide ahead of time what iconic creatures (demon lords and perhaps even deities) will fall into which 'tier'.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

It'll be so much more convenient when it's printed in a book, since it beats having to run to a computer, or work from the PHB (which may be different) every time.