Rule of Three finally addresses an important epic tier question!

[MerricB]

Just as a note: I'm currently running E1: Death's Reach, which I consider to be one of the best adventures I've run. The plot line is suitably epic, and (once I upgraded the monster damage to the new maths) the monsters are interesting, if the players still do well in most of the battles, well that's how I want D&D to be.

My basic belief with epic adventures is that they can't have foes from the "real world". You're looking at outerplanar threats. E1 is really good about this: the "grunt" monsters are shards of an ancient primordial... which then features massively in the plot of the E1-3 adventures.

Malcolm Hulke remarked upon hearing that the third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) stories would all be set on Earth that it left the production team with only two types of story: Alien Invasion or Mad Scientist. You've sort of got that dilemma for Epic adventures. Does Sauron count as a Mad Scientist?

Cheers!

 

[Klaus]

Just as a note: I'm currently running E1: Death's Reach, which I consider to be one of the best adventures I've run. The plot line is suitably epic, and (once I upgraded the monster damage to the new maths) the monsters are interesting, if the players still do well in most of the battles, well that's how I want D&D to be.

My basic belief with epic adventures is that they can't have foes from the "real world". You're looking at outerplanar threats. E1 is really good about this: the "grunt" monsters are shards of an ancient primordial... which then features massively in the plot of the E1-3 adventures.

Malcolm Hulke remarked upon hearing that the third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) stories would all be set on Earth that it left the production team with only two types of story: Alien Invasion or Mad Scientist. You've sort of got that dilemma for Epic adventures. Does Sauron count as a Mad Scientist?

Cheers!

There's some truth. By 21st level, the PCs are demigods akin to Herakles. They should be:

- holding up the world;
- fighting alongside the gods against the Titans;
- releasing the creator of mankind from his eternal punishment;
- subduing the monster that guards the Underworld;
- etc...

 

[MerricB]

- holding up the world;

It's worth noting that Heracles (and Atlas) never did that. Atlas has to hold up the sky! (Heracles gets to do it whilst Atlas dashes off to retrieve some Golden Apples).

Interestingly, although Roman (and Greek) art show Atlas holding up a world-like object (a sphere!), it's actually the celestial spheres he's holding up.

Cheers!

 

[Barastrondo]

To me, I think the bigger issue is that a lot of people do not want to run epic as it currently exists, but would love to run epic (at least running a campaign to conclusion at epic) if there were sufficient resources. For the people I talk to, its about finishing the characters' stories. In this sense Epic is kinda like the last season or so of Lost. Sure, the series is good without the last season, but if you'd been watching from day 1 then you likely also wanted to see how it ended.

To complicate things with more anecdotals, for other people finishing a character's story often happens somewhere in paragon. This is most true, to my observation, when you're talking about characters who are tied to people and places in the mortal world. If you see a character's ambition as something like "take over the thieves' guild and make it a force for good," epic tier goals can seem kind of added on for the sake of having an epic tier.

It really depends on the range of character motivations. Some characters simply fit better into heroic and/or paragon tier, I think; they have all sorts of attachments to local strongholds and low-level NPCs, and no real emotional attachment to storming the gates of heaven or fighting to shape the fate of a continent. While you can encourage the players to Think Really Big, they're not going to care really big unless they're already inclined to do so: and if most of their favorite memories of a character are tied to small-scale, personal victories they might not be as interested in going to battlefields where their old allies can't follow.

That said, I'd certainly be interested in seeing some more material thrown towards epic tier, particularly, as Aegeri noted, talk about how to tie epic tier games to the mortal plane in meaningful, personal ways rather than just washing your hands of all those heroic-level NPCs that the players like and taking a 10-level sabbatical Somewhere Else. Right now, I tend to look to superhero game systems for my more "epic" gameplay, building the world where PCs are epic from round one but not as mechanically complex. A little more attention to keeping heroic-level relationships actively meaningful in epic tier might cause me to reconsider. (And by "actively meaningful" I do not mean "You have to save the world, because that's where your 2nd-level girlfriend that you haven't seen in eight levels lives!")

 

[kaomera]

Other than the desire to start at level 1 and play through, I can see no a priori reason for that at all. What makes you think it is so?

I'm currently running a Dark Sun game, and we started at level 11, in large part because I haven't been able to keep a game together past 5th level previously and I wanted to try out higher-level play. I'm liking that the characters have more options, but I'm also finding things far too fiddly for my tastes. Too many conditions, etc. to track, too many ways for the players to stack their way into very narrowly-focused builds that, IMO, just aren't much fun. Specifically: in order to actually challenge the players I have to very deliberately stomp on their cool stuff, and I don't like that at all.

Personally, I have no real interest in trying epic level play in 4e. This game was always intended on running from level 11 to around level 20. Mechanically it's going to be more complex, and thematically / story-wise I've found (from epic play in 3.x) that it just tends to emphasize aspects of D&D that I'm less interested in. It's possible that more epic-level support (which I'm all for in any case) could help with the second issue, but I'm finding that the first one is kind of a killer, even in early paragon.

 

[MerricB]

As a question, which fantasy novel series would you say hit Epic tier?

Raymond E. Feist has had Pug pretty much at Epic tier for his past few series, and the level of stuff which is going on in the Midkemia books is very definitely epic (and alien invasion).

Cheers!

 

[kaomera]

As a question, which fantasy novel series would you say hit Epic tier?

None? I mean there's epic stuff in a lot of novels, but not "epic-tier" or "epic level" for the most part. I'm sure someone else will be able to come up with some examples, but I don't think you need to be epic level to save the universe, mostly you just need to be at the right place at the right time and make the right (or wrong, sometimes) decisions. Epic tier just means that the wandering monsters end up threatening all of creation...

 

[JoeGKushner]

Parts of the Elric series and Eternal Champion series.

Stormbringer in particular, as well as Sailor on the Seas of Fate with the Four Who Are One.

Maybe WoTC could do an Expedition to Firestorm Gates/Peaks Mountain/etc... where the characters have to save the universe from the far Realm?

Make it a boxed set that hits Epic level in exploration mode with several epic level encounters, some new Epic Level Classes, Epic Level Magic Items, Monsters, etc... but mainly focused on stopping the Far Realm Incusion at a much higher level than is generally done.

Something like the old AD&D Adventure A Heroe's Tale where there were several linked adventurers which cumulated in the party going to another plane to fight a dire menace.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Moorcock's 'Eternal Champion' Cycle

 

[Nymrohd]

Malazan books of the fallen seems epic to me. It even has epic rank and file monsters. And plenty of characters there have hit the epic tier.