Rule of Three finally addresses an important epic tier question!

[S'mon]

Well Thrin was a min-maxed uber badass warrior with every twink in the game, I vaguely recall killing Druaga's 20 summoned Pit Fiends (which he hoped would soften me up) in a about 2 rounds and then killing Druaga in the following round.

But that did involve a plan by Odin (AIR) to lure Druaga into fighting outside his home plane, by attacking his Great Fane, and then trap & destroy him - using Odin's Throne to locate his soul object before he could regenerate. You may recall that earlier when the god-PCs Thrin & Mirv Sheelon attempted to assault Druaga's lair in the Nine Hells, things had gone very differently.

Talking of which, that's a common theme in 'epic' plots, like Moorcock's second Chronicles of Corum where he battles the Fhoi Myore, or even Heinlein's Starship Troopers vs the Bugs -initial hubris leads to nemesis, but the protagonist has a chance to recover and eventually come back stronger than before. Equivalent in 4e would probably be something like twinked out 25th level PCs thinking they can take out Orcus in the Abyss, only when they get to him it's not Monster Manual Orcus, it's Upper_Krust Orcus... but the DM gives them a chance to survive (maybe with losses), regroup, and eventually come back with a way to finally defeat Old Goat Face.

 

[S'mon]

For instance a standard SWAT dude with a shotgun might be worth the XP of a (same level) standard creature but the hit points of a Minion. Dealing triple damage.

If I were statting out the Russian merc 'Solos' who took out Thrin in the Cyberpunk-2020 adventure subway massacre, they'd need to have a high to-hit bonus with their cyberlinked assault shotguns, & probably attack vs Reflex? I guess Minion rules would make most sense for them (except Gadinsky the leader), especially using my Minion Damage Threshold rule (Level+5 dmg to kill, 1/2 that to bloody) to avoid death-from-stubbed-toe effect. That still feels mechanically less satisfying than using 1e where they were simply 5th level Fighters with good equipment - another way that 1e simply scaled much better than 3e or 4e for very high level play. I think Oleg Gadinsky was 12th level, but he might have been as low as 10th, and it barely mattered.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey! =]

Ahoy there kaomera!

All good ideas (ok, Orcus turning Demogorgon's severed head into a demi-lich is straight-up better than good...),

but if I'm going to meet the players' expectations (and the expectations that the game has suggested to them, IMO) then it just amounts to "punch Demogorgon in the face, adventures fall out". And that's cool, players like adventures - they may expect a magic item or three to also fall out, but regardless they'll be happy to have the adventures. If you try and make any of this stuff an actual problem without an easy solution (which in 4e basically means punching more stuff in the face), you run into problems. I feel like 4e leads players to believe that things should get easier and more convenient for their characters as they gain levels (after all, that's what being more powerful is about, right? Oh, that's a fantasy? Well, D&D is fantasy...)

Okay, a good part of the reason S'mon's campaign worked at high levels was because of the Worship Points System we used (and I adapted for 3E in the Immortals Handbook: Ascension).

In a nutshell, via deeds and events a character would gain worshippers. Enough worship became divinity. The beauty of that simple system is manifold:

1. Politics mattered and the repercussions of events are easy for the DM to integrate.
2. No matter how powerful the PCs, the DM can still hurt them...by hurting their worshippers.
3. It makes PCs think proactively (which is key at epic levels) and drive the game on.
4. Cold War syndrome. Playing a god is like having nukes. But you then realise that every side has its own nukes. Plus if you use your 'nukes' first, the international community (ie. in this case all the Pantheons) will not help you.
5. Failure is not game over. With this system, you can lose without dying.
6. Play as the mortals. We would often have various interludes whereby the god would 'take over' playing one of their mortal worshippers to stop something the god could not directly interfere in. This was always a great change of pace and gave the player more empathy for the 'little people'.

See, what I'd think of as good epic play (and what, for me, would match up a lot more with the "source material") would be a small number of really big, cataclysmic fights; and not only dealing with the fallout afterward but also needing to do stuff beforehand to set up for the fight. I'm talking about fights that the PCs absolutely have no hope of winning without raising an army, discovering the secret name, uncovering the lost relic, performing the ritual, etc. So, ideally (for me) several mini-adventures before they can even get to the real fight.

This is exactly how our game played out. Before you could do 'C' you needed to do 'A' and 'B'. Each was probably no more than 2-3 encounters.

And I absolutely agree that the way 4e scales, and everything that comes out of that and other issues as far as player expectations, is the big monkeywrench in that plan.

One possible solution is (what I call) rank scaling.

Balor = L27 Elite

but also...Level 22 Solo, Level 31 Standard, Level 39 Minion.

- A single Balor might rule one of Orcus' smaller outposts (solo version)
- Whereas in his important cities, a Balor might be the henchman to the real ruler; as with Doresain in the Kingdom of the Ghouls (typical elite version)
- Yet in Orcus' Palace numbers of Balor's might act as guards (standard version)

Of course that means having multiple stat-blocks for the same monsters.

I'll have to take a look at that, thanx for the link.

You're welcome.

 

[Upper_Krust]

But that did involve a plan by Odin (AIR) to lure Druaga into fighting outside his home plane, by attacking his Great Fane, and then trap & destroy him - using Odin's Throne to locate his soul object before he could regenerate.

I thought that was my plan?

You may recall that earlier when the god-PCs Thrin & Mirv Sheelon attempted to assault Druaga's lair in the Nine Hells, things had gone very differently.

I honestly don't remember that at all, what happened?

I remember once Mirv and Thrin fighting Tiamat and her consorts and stupidly I left the tactics up to Mirv on that one which meant our forces got hit by every breath weapon.

Talking of which, that's a common theme in 'epic' plots, like Moorcock's second Chronicles of Corum where he battles the Fhoi Myore, or even Heinlein's Starship Troopers vs the Bugs -initial hubris leads to nemesis, but the protagonist has a chance to recover and eventually come back stronger than before. Equivalent in 4e would probably be something like twinked out 25th level PCs thinking they can take out Orcus in the Abyss,

One of the weaknesses of 4E compared to 1E is that there is a much narrower window of threat level in 4E.

Whereas in 1E basically once you got to about Level 15 you could probably fight anything from Orcs to Orcus. In 4E you need to keep the enemies between 5 levels up or down (give or take). The different ranks in 4E alleviate this problem to a degree and of course combat in 4E is FAR more satisfying than 1E, so I suppose its apples and oranges.

However, its interesting reading over the WotC Epic Tier Adventures because it clearly exposes the flaws in the longer adventure format at epic levels.

only when they get to him it's not Monster Manual Orcus, it's Upper_Krust Orcus... but the DM gives them a chance to survive (maybe with losses), regroup, and eventually come back with a way to finally defeat Old Goat Face.

...I really should remove all the bonus damage on a crit, he's far too powerful with it.

 

[S'mon]

I thought that was my plan?

I honestly don't remember that at all, what happened?

It may well have been Thrin's plan, although it did require Odin's throne to work.

Mirv & Thrin attacked Druaga's caves in Hell. It was going ok until Mirv stopped fighting & started harvesting Pit Fiend parts, leaving Thrin to get pulped by Druaga!

 

[Upper_Krust]

It may well have been Thrin's plan, although it did require Odin's throne to work.

Thats my throne...Odin's just keeping it warm*.

*Only joking Odin if you are listening.

Mirv & Thrin attacked Druaga's caves in Hell. It was going ok until Mirv stopped fighting & started harvesting Pit Fiend parts, leaving Thrin to get pulped by Druaga!

I must have blanked that out of my memory. Mirv the master tactician strikes again.

 

[kaomera]

Ahoy there kaomera!

What you're describing is really awesome, and I'd be down with running a game like that at some point, but it's not really 4e. And the players I play 4e with mostly want to play 4e, including everything that comes along with it. I'm pretty sure at least some of the people I play 4e with play 4e as opposed to or to get away from games that involve a lot more responsibility (such as a god's responsibility, even if only selfishly, for it's worshipers...). I don't expect that the idea that there are these NPCs who can be targeted to get at the PCs would go over especially well.

My issue is simply that epic play in 4e doesn't really seem to me to have an actual "epic feel", as such. It's just bigger numbers and flashier special effects and now you get a third thing to write down next to your character's class and path. And I think I'd see more epic play if it did produce that epic feel, but it's just easier for the players to put the campaign aside and start over at level 1 than it is to take on the kind of play that would be more likely to actually produce that...

 

[S'mon]

What you're describing is really awesome, and I'd be down with running a game like that at some point, but it's not really 4e. And the players I play 4e with mostly want to play 4e, including everything that comes along with it. I'm pretty sure at least some of the people I play 4e with play 4e as opposed to or to get away from games that involve a lot more responsibility (such as a god's responsibility, even if only selfishly, for it's worshipers...). I don't expect that the idea that there are these NPCs who can be targeted to get at the PCs would go over especially well.

My issue is simply that epic play in 4e doesn't really seem to me to have an actual "epic feel", as such. It's just bigger numbers and flashier special effects and now you get a third thing to write down next to your character's class and path. And I think I'd see more epic play if it did produce that epic feel, but it's just easier for the players to put the campaign aside and start over at level 1 than it is to take on the kind of play that would be more likely to actually produce that...

Your paragraph #1 - "We don't want any responsibility" - explains your paragraph #2 - "There's no epic feel". With great power comes great responsibility. Otherwise you're still fighting kobolds, just with bigger numbers and more book-keeping.

FWIW I don't see anything in the 4e books to support this "4e is about power without responsibility" meme.

Re targetting NPCs. This isn't something the DM does to be a vindictive SOB. In our Epic AD&D campaign Thrin acquired a consort, the barbarian princess Reesha of Werskara, and followers at his fortress in Ysgard, and his holdings there were almost always safe from attack - I think Arasaka sent a Solo team in power armour after him there one time, they didn't get too far. But he didn't draw WPs from Ysgard, his worship points come from the Prime, where the nation of Thrinia faced various threats for him to deal with. Often 'dealing with' meant a 4e style quest, but nothing too long & tedious. Other times he'd be called into action, as with Reesha & her allies calling him, the 'Star Warrior', through the Star Gate (pre the movie!) to save her world Werskara from the Wolfen who were being led by an avatar of Fenrir. That involved an epic quest across Werskara to recover the various arms, armour & sceptre of (AIR) King Varran the Mighty, so that Reesha could unite Humanity to defeat the Wolfen. That adventure emphasised cool locales & foes like the Hag of the Twisted Tower, on the literal Edge of the World (a tower hanging above a void where the hag's swamps plunged into the infinite abyss); or the volcanic dungeons of Sunderhold, City of the Priest Kings of Surt. It culminated in a huge battle against the Wolfen, using BECMI War Machine plus personal combat between Thrin and the Avatar of Fenrir. It would have worked perfectly in 4e.

 

[kaomera]

Your paragraph #1 - "We don't want any responsibility" - explains your paragraph #2 - "There's no epic feel". With great power comes great responsibility. Otherwise you're still fighting kobolds, just with bigger numbers and more book-keeping.

I agree completely, and that's been my (limited) experience with epic D&D.

FWIW I don't see anything in the 4e books to support this "4e is about power without responsibility" meme.

It seems (to me) to come from things like the "extra life" powers that most EDs have, as well as some of the design slant of 4e. It's also influenced by the way that 4e scales... Specifically, the reward mechanic in 4e is XP, which is generally seen as power gain. The issue is that, because of constant scaling (necessitated by the narrow band of "acceptable challenge") there's no actual power gain. The PCs don't really get to butt heads with things they can beat... yet..., nor do they get to mow through what was once a serious threat.

So the result is that the players are looking for that "power". They want the game to get easier, not harder. And IME "easier" gets combined with "more convenient". And there's a lot of work in the 4e design aimed at removing the possibility that the DM might act like a jerk, which IMO leads to the assumption that if the DM is doing anything that "isn't in the book", then that's exactly what he's trying to do.

And that last bit isn't even anything new. But 4e seems in a way to be the culmination of the idea that players need the system to protect them from "bad touch DMing". And I think that has had the unfortunate side-effect of seriously eroding the idea that players should actually trust the DM. The way I see it, the DM has really virtually unstoppable power, even in 4e. If the DM wants to TPK the party, or otherwise just make them miserable, the rules aren't really going to stop it. And the illusion that the rules provide an actual balance between the players and DM might be comforting, but that just means that anything that threatens to dispel that illusion is scary.

So, just to conclude my mini-rant, there are bad, abusive DMs out there, but I think we've gone a bit too far in trying to pull their fangs. Particularly since IMO you don't want to be playing with those people in any case. And this is in part a problem with the people I play 4e with, but I've had a hard time (well, OK, I'm actually lazy and maybe I haven't tried as hard as I could) finding people who both want to play 4e and are interested in real challenge / responsibility.

I'll add two side issues to this: One, I don't personally like the kind of "powerup" that exists in 1-30 D&D. It doesn't match up with the "source material" that I prefer to call upon, and I'd like things a bit more gritty. On top of this, I would really prefer to slow down advancement. Way down. I think the published 4e adventures (H/P/E series) are about the right length that 3 or 4 of them would make good pacing for a single level, maybe slightly less at levels 1-3. And secondly, most of my D&D players don't want to think about / discuss the game nearly as much as I do (in some cases that doesn't apply to other RPGs). So I could totally see fixing a lot of my complaints with a few houserules, but no-one really is all that interested.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Ironically enoguh, if you do go with the kobolds with bigger numbers, that eliminates a number of potential problems as long as youre comfortable with the sliding scale on the monster builder. It becomes like any other computer game where the red kobolds are stronger than the blue kobolds are stronger than the green kobolds. Slide that scale away baby!