Rule of Three finally addresses an important epic tier question!

[Aegeri]

So of the DMs on this board, I think I have the most obsession and interest with running games at high paragon/epic tier. A while back I saw an excellently written post by @ArcaneSpringboard on how epic tier was "dying". Naturally I joined in on the topic and I recommend it as a read. For the "too long, didn't read" bunch the summary is:

1) Wizards haven't published an epic tier adventure in months.

2) A DMG3, that presumably would have covered epic tier is non-existent due to their change in direction. Even though it is arguable a lot of DMs would like such a book (as the thread shows, a lot of people have a bit of difficulty getting their head around just what epic is supposed to be).

3) Monsters in epic tier are very limited. Yeah it has lots of fantastic antagonists for an end game beatdown, but it lacks the rank and file creatures of heroic/paragon. Unless you love every encounter being elites and solos, or are running a campaign involving a *lot* of demons you can be in a lot of trouble finding monsters for your encounters.

4) Some DMs flat out don't see the point of epic tier and don't see what kind of stories fit there. Personally, this is just a flat out lack of explanation from Wizards and assistance.

Particularly disappointing in regards to point 3 was that Monster Vault contained very few epic monsters. In fact it contained thirteen such monsters. Given the lack of adventures and the absolute lack of monsters - ancient dragons were a very obvious omission - it seemed to me that Wizards haven't really the best idea how to support epic tier (or worse, were abandoning it). As the next book to come out - threats to the Nentir vale - doesn't seem like the sort of thing to make up the lack of epic creatures there is a worry Wizards is just flat out going to give up on it.

This was bought up in today's Rule of Three.

Have you abandoned support for epic tier play? The Monster Vault had few epic monsters, and Dungeon has had almost no epic content since the end of Scales of War.

Epic tier support is tricky because we consistently see a preference for lower levels. Of course, that’s no comfort if you want higher level material. I believe (editor’s note: this question was answered by Mike Mearls) one of the biggest hurdles we have is figuring out precisely what material will be most useful for high level play. If we could maximize the utility of the epic content we produce, that will certainly make everyone happy. We’ll have a poll at the end of this article about this topic, and also send your ideas to dndinsider @Wizard s.com or discuss them in the forums.

The preference for lower levels is because most games start there, it's easier to make characters for (ever tried making a level 25 character from scratch? It isn't fun let me tell you) and I have a third explanation: It simply hasn't been explained. For one thing, epic tier was genuinely broken pre-MM3 because monsters were so off mathematically that it was terrible. Monsters were bags of HP with defenses too high for the PCs to hit, but who couldn't actually do anything except ensure PCs got few turns (as they liked spamming daze/stun/dominate). Further a lot of DMs are just flat out intimidated by the complexity of epic - such as how many powers and abilities their party will have at this point.

The answer to this from Wizards has been to utterly ignore the entire tier like it doesn't exist. MM3 was a great start - originally - because it added something immensely important. Lots of standard everyday guys to epic tier. Still badass, but it removed the whole "This tier is full of elites/solos and nothing else" feel. Demons also have a wide selection - but frankly if you don't like demons you should have options and that's what we're lacking. So what I think Wizard needs to do:

1) More epic monsters and try to actually include them. It would be nice to get a "threats to the planes" book that covered all THREE tiers. Honestly there is enough room there for 40-50 monster blocks in the 20-30 range and it goes a long way. 13 and much of them being solos is just kicking a dood when he's down.

2) Publish a DMG3 full of advice on running epic tier campaigns, epic tier adventuring and hazards. The most important thing though is an entire chapter not on the planes: But adventuring on the mortal world. How do the PCs fit in? How do you make a plot that works with the normal kingdoms and other things of the land (remembering that after level 20, by 4Es default assumptions your PCs are among the most powerful creatures that have lived). While they're at it with the whole DMG3 thing, publishing the new monster creation rules in it so it's all in one place would be fantastic.

3) Better epic adventures that aren't really poor collections of linear dungeon "Killathons". The E series is not only hilariously easy because it's just poorly thought out, it's also very linear and basically glorified dungeon crawls. Really show what can be done at this tier - how whacky, zany and pure fun it can be. PCs are at the height of their power and facing their most powerful opponents - it should be the most important time of their career. DMs have the most leeway with designing truly out there encounters, because your PCs can take much more abuse than at any other tier and death isn't a big issue anymore.

I really don't see why Wizards is confused on the issue. You completely ignore the tier entirely and you're amazed that nobody wants to take an interest in it.

Edit: Funny, when this came up last year I wrote just about the same things then as I did now!

 

[Tony Vargas]

WotC leans heavily on the 'what our customers want' crutch - especially when explaining why they're not giving customers what they want. :sigh:

Yes, the reason people aren't clamoring to play Epic tier is probably because it hasn't really been polished to the same lovely sheen as Heroic and Paragon.

Maybe there is a feedback loop, here, where players play the game at low level, provide real-experience-based feedback, which can then be reflected in errata and new products, which improves that thier of play, which leads more players to play in that tier... ?

Or maybe list-based systems like D&D simply can't handle the accumulated weight of powers, abilities, items, feats, and other options that very high levels lead to?


Maybe what we need is some Epic adventures that have real problems, like H1 did, that way people will bitch about them.

 

[Nymrohd]

What is an epic tier rank and file monster? This is one thing I never understood myself. The few epic adventures that I have run focused heavily on skill challenged, role-playing, and occasional but challenging setpiece battles. I find the idea of a commonly encounter yet epic difficulty monster peculiar; if small armies of these exist, why don't they just take over everything? I remember this was probably my biggest complaint on the baldur's gate series (which is a videogame were I can make excuses for this kind of thing quite easily), the numerous level 21+ drow mooks with +5 weapon and armor.
My own solution to epic tier mooks has been small armies of them or downgrading paragon elites to normals. But in general I really wonder what else you can do on Epic.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The only book I've got with real epic tier monster support is Dark Sun - with sorceror kings and bodyguards (although the MM3 isn't too bad). And speaking as a DM and player, Epic looks as if it would take a lot of getting used to.

 

[S'mon]

I think Epic tier should probably be mostly planar, Wars of the Gods sort of stuff. One thing I'd like to see is a lot of Epic tier minions with abilities that allow them to last long enough to get an action off and, en masse, threaten Epic tier PCs. Interesting varieties of Angel and maybe Archon should work there, as well as demons & devils. I remember running a deity-level 1e adventure with the PC (Thrin) plowing through hordes of MM2 derghodaemon and yagnodaemon minions as he raced to enter the Time Portal and recover the Sceptre of Eternity before Hel, Lolth & Graz'zt changed the timeline irrevocably. That sort of thing should work excellently in 4e.

Another thing I would really like to see is a LOT more human and near-human NPC/monster stats for a wide variety of levels. I should be able to take some useable 20th level human soldier or 28th level minion soldier stats out of a handy book if I want them for my Malgedan Sunguard.

 

[Riastlin]

As for what Epic Tier should look like, I have thought of it like this:

In heroic tier, the PCs are fighting to save their region or country.
In paragon tier, the PCs are fighting to save the world.
In epic tier, the PCs are fighting to save all of creation.

That's obviously an over simplification, but I think it gets the general idea across.

Now as for the feedback issue and the preference for lower level play, I think there are a couple of issues at work here.

1. Most groups in my experience start out at level 1 or 2. If a tpk occurs and the campaign "ends" then the next campaign often starts back at 1.

2. For most groups, getting to epic tier likely takes a long time. My current homebrew game has been running for around a year and a half now (started at 1) and due to conflicts, etc., my players are just now level 11. We try to play every other week for about 4 hours, and my guess is that while there are certainly once a week groups out there, I don't think that this schedule is all that uncommon. The point here is that it may well take most groups about 3 years to reach epic tier assuming that there are no restarts. 4ed came out in 2008 IIRC, which means that even groups that started a campaign right then may only just now be getting to epic tier.

So yeah, WotC perhaps looks at the numbers (in CB) or in the feedback, and it seems as though the players prefer lower levels. Of course, part of that is that many groups are still working their way up to epic and would fully love to participate in epic tier play.

Now the DMs will run into a problem though with the general lack of epic tier support. Few monsters, fewer adventures, even less general advice about running an epic tier campaign. Pretty soon (and I know its already happened to some) the situation will hit a breaking point. As a DM, I owe it to my players to give them a quality experience. I also have no delusions of being Chris Perkins, etc. What that means is that if I start looking at Epic Tier as we approach it, and I can't formulate quality adventures/stories for the group, I'm much more likely to simply retire the campaign than to run a shoddy epilogue for the final year and a half or so.

The worst part of this is that then when I retire the campaign, the next campaign the group starts up will likely be back at level 1, thereby reinforcing the belief that there's less desire to play at epic levels. I think the real issue is that there's less desire to play at epic in its current state.

 

[Balesir]

I'll put my hand up as one more vote - our home game, at present rate, will take a while yet to reach Epic levels but, when it does, we want to dive in there and see what it's got!

 

[renau1g]

Really it boils down to the chicken and the egg with them.

Well...nobody's playing Epic (or Runepriests or Seekers, etc) so we can't waste our design resources on such a niche part of the game, especially when we know it'll be so hard to do. But not many groups play epic because there's so little official support for it from WotC, and it's very hard conceptually to come up with adventures, challenges, fluff, etc for an Epic adventure...and the cycle continues.

If they don't produce it, people won't play it, it's pretty simple.

 

[Nymrohd]

Here is the thing.

If in epic tier you are fighting to save creation, either the entire epic tier is a single mega-adventure or the characters have to save all creation every couple of levels which really s up immersion. It becomes like a bad saturday cartoon where the same 5 people save the world again and again.

My solution to this is usually timeskips; the few very high level campaigns I have run in my life as a GM so far have featured timeskips were the players got to narrate how their power affects the total narrative of the campaign setting; sessions where they discussed building kingdoms and colleges of wizardry where the campaigns were interludes of crisis, perhaps as short as half a dozen encounters.

 

[webrunner]

Here is the thing.

If in epic tier you are fighting to save creation, either the entire epic tier is a single mega-adventure or the characters have to save all creation every couple of levels which really s up immersion. It becomes like a bad saturday cartoon where the same 5 people save the world again and again.

My solution to this is usually timeskips; the few very high level campaigns I have run in my life as a GM so far have featured timeskips were the players got to narrate how their power affects the total narrative of the campaign setting; sessions where they discussed building kingdoms and colleges of wizardry where the campaigns were interludes of crisis, perhaps as short as half a dozen encounters.

Assuming you're going the whole ten levels, then the theme of an epic campaign can include

1- preparing to save creation - getting the ancient divine artifacts, blessings of gods, etc, nessisary to defeat an evil divine creature or break the seals protecting the demon lord
2- getting noticed by said evil, having him send his best, most trusted liutenants and generals after you
3- breaking through various astral and devil/demon dominions