An 'Epic Levels' (or close to them) rant

[Storyteller01]

A 90 year old women with 5 levels would logically be outwitted by an immortal fiend with sorcerous powers, barring extenuating circumstances of course.

Dunno... Those 90 year old pain in the arses always seem to have that high wis score.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Because of skill points there's the assumption that nobody can be an effective ruler/diplomat/horse pooper scooper without umpteen ranks in profession (king), diplomacy, and profession (pooper scooper). Therefore, all those important people must be [booming voice]EPIC[/booming voice] level if they have any high skill or social standing because by a strict use of numbers they'd have to be.

I generally feel that's a lack of creativity on their part.

While it's non-trivial, you can build characters with a select set of surprisingly high skills at fairly low levels by stacking synergy bonuses. Most rulers can get by on decent sense motive, bluff, and diplomacy skills, with the rest being the "liberal arts" education required to understand their advisors at mediocre skill levels. So at 2nd level you have 5s in SM, bluff, Diplomacy, intimidate and a couple of knowledges relevant to your function. I'm assuming a human with 5+ total skill points/level (class+race+int) and +2 stat mods. Feats are Negotiator and Persuasive for +2 to bluff, diplomacy, SM, & intimidate.

skill..........rank+stat+feat+synergies = total
Bluff.........5 + 2 + 2 = 9
diplomacy: 5 + 2 + 2 + 4 (or 6) = 13 (or 15 if appropriate Knowledge skill)
Sense Motive: 5 + 2 + 2 = 9
Intimidate : 5 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 11

Poof, an instant 2nd level leader who can fast talk someone when the sewage is about to hit the fan, convert Hostile people to merely indifferent ones or bring Unfriendlies over to seeing things your way, and when faced with bullies they can generally intimidate hardened killers (~8HD) by sheer force of personality. Depending on what class or int is involved, they may have additional useful skills as well.

Those will go up +1 each level, not counting magic gear that a leader might acquire (luckstones, stat buffs, competence items, etc), and stat increases due to level and age.

 

[Pants]

Dunno... Those 90 year old pain in the arses always seem to have that high wis score.

Higher than an immortal fiend though? That's the question isn't it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You don't need high skill ranks to rule the world if all you're ruling over are first level commoners.

If you're ruling over adventurers, dragons, secret cabals of spellcasters, ninjas, robots, monkeys, pirates, and zombies, you're going to need to have some higher skill ranks.

The levels that leaders make sense at go up the more common the supernatural creatures there are in your world. If it's mostly mundane with every dragon beign a legend, low-level lemmings are fine. Heck, in something like Eberron, low-levels are generally OK as leaders.

But if you're in an interplanar metropolis where godlings come to sip coffee, keeping them in line is going to require significantly more levels.

 

[Storyteller01]

Higher than an immortal fiend though? That's the question isn't it.

One never knows (sometimes the old ladies ARE the fiends!).

 

[Pants]

One never knows (sometimes the old ladies ARE the fiends!).

Like I said, extenuating circumstances.

 

[Jdvn1]

Nope,

Spoiler

Anakin, running out of vitality points, tried to use the Tumble skill to not draw an AoO's from Obiwan while Jumping over Obiwan to gain a +1 to hit from high ground advantage and possibly allowing for a charge next round [+2 more to hit]. Obiwan blurts out in game not to do something so risky. Anakin Rolls good on his jump but fails his tumble roll by a point or two. Obi takes the AoO with his light sabre since he knows even a small hit bonus will give anakin a larger chance of defeating him by getting a hit through his Expertice. The slice hits, does high damage, dropping anakin to helpess condition

Sigh.

Spoiler

First of all, I don't use vitality points and I'm assuming normal D&D rules (I realize there's a vitality variant, and I'm specifying D&D not SW d20 -- the conversation is regarding D&D, and the anecdote is merely representative of two supposedly unevenly matched people. The anecdote would work with any student/master combination, especially if the student is supposedly more powerful.). Secondly, you're missing the point. I'm not talking about that exchange specifically, but the battle in relation to the power levels of the combatants. If Anakin were really the more powerful one (as is said repeatedly), then he'd more than likely have more hit points left at that point in the battle (the same may be true with vitality points, I don't know, but that doesn't matter, I think). If Anakin really was more powerful, in D&D terms at least, he'd be able to take the hit and then take down Obiwan in the next round. So, I redefine the term 'powerful' to include the character's primary stat.

 

[Shemeska]

You don't need high skill ranks to rule the world if all you're ruling over are first level commoners.

Very good point there actually.


And for that 90 year old woman... by giving a person all those levels to get all those skill ranks you've technically got a 90 year old woman who could singlehandedly clean the floor of a tavern filled with bloodthirsty and drunken 1st level warrior goblins. The game mechanics involved in giving her skill points to be all wise and knowledgeable also make her into a killing machine in the eyes of those poor goblins.

It's a point where the rules do in a way seem to break down in my view, and that's where I'd just ad hoc stuff.

I'll play by rules right up to where they don't seem to make sense in a situation and then I'll deviate from them to my hearts content till things do seem to make sense.

 

[Shemeska]

Very much IC

One never knows (sometimes the old ladies ARE the fiends!).

"That Night Hag down the block from me used to get tons of kids visiting her gingerbread house. Eventually folks caught on, what with the ovens out back and all, and kids vanishing and what not."

"And don't call me old. You're not 'old' if you're immortal. And never look at me and scream 'it has rabies!' because that gets me in a mood to use necromancy or something that causes lots of burning to lots of people. Although if you look at me and scream 'Oh SH*T! My creditors are after me!' and then run that's ok. Actually that happens alot, but I digress."

 

[S'mon]

Try this: If a diplomat averts a war that would have killed 50,000 peasents and soldiers, what is the EL of a 50,000 peasent encounter? If you give the party xp for circumventing a CR 10 trap, why not give the diplomat xp for circumventing an entire war.

It depends on how challenging the encounter was - frankly, for PCs there are usually baseline awards I give in line with a desired level-up rate, eg the 18th level PCs IMC get around 3000 XP for diplomatic achievements at their level (forging alliances between mighty empires kind of thing). NPC awards are pretty arbitrary but 100-300xlevel for a major achievement commensurate with their position is typical. The 3rd level PCs in my other campaign would get around 600 XP for a session that involved major diplomatic achievements at their level - forging alliances between two guilds in their home city, say.