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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8392895" data-attributes="member: 42582">[USER=82504]@Garthanos[/USER]In my experience of 4e D&D, the key to Epic is that the mechanics (mostly) stay the same, and mathematically robust, while the fiction scales up.So (and picking some examples from my own play experience) the mechanical framework for resolving a trek across the Abyss to Mal Arundak, and then for breaking through the besieging demon hordes to enter that fortress, is no different from the framework for travelling through a forest and passing through goblin attackers to enter a homestead - in both cases its a skill challenge that interfaces with a combat encounter.In the Heroic tier event, the combat is with single goblins, some on wolves; in the Epic tier event, its with Gargantuan swarms of demons.At Epic, the framework for an ad-hoc action declaration in combat is no different from Heroic tier - it's just that instead of the action being a paladin of the Raven Queen speaking a prayer to gain combat advantage against a wight, it's a sorcerer calling on his ability to manipulate chaos to seal the Abyss.And whereas at Paragon tier the social skill challenge is to expose a wicked advisor in front of the Baron, at Epic tier it's to persuade Yan-C-Bin to leave the PCs alone as they set about holding off the Dusk War.[USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] has pointed to some of the mechanical elements that support this: solving the daily resources issue, skill challenges, keywords. Others include intra-party mechanical balance of effectiveness; the (closely related) relative uniformity of PC builds, which allows powers, healing surges, action points and the like to serve as a common currency in non-combat resolution that interfaces directly with combat resource expenditure; the fact that magic items are part of all this and don't break the game; and - in combat - the use of PC depth of resources to counter numerical growth in NPC/creature hit points and damage output, which gives a feeling of Epic PCs "pulling out all the stops" against these (seemingly) impossible odds.I think it's a pretty remarkable design achievement.</blockquote>

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