Best epic rules

[Varianor Abroad]

Other than the "killing the gods" bit, I'm fine with this sentiment

Oh, I'm not personally in favor of it, but my players love the idea. If that darn 3.5 Deities and Demigods hadn't given gods lower statistics than some Epic PCs, I think it wouldn't be so obvious. It would still be a thought in folks heads though.

 

[Dragonhelm]

I'm not a big fan of the epic level rules by WotC. It seems like a cap to me, though it isn't completely.

Sword and Sorcery had an Advanced Player's Guide that had rules I liked better. I'm also a fan of how AE handles it by going up to level 25. While it's doubtful many games would go that high, it could happen.

I guess what I want to see is a continuation of abilities, not something saying, "You're so high level now that you have to follow new rules."

How did AD&D/High Level Campaigns tackle things? It's been so long that I forget.

 

[Shemeska]

I said none, because honestly once I hit somewhere beyond level 18 or so, I find that I have increasingly lower and lower adherence to the 'rules' as it is anyways. Plus, for truly 'epic' creatures, be they gods or archfiends, I've never seen a system that could accurately quantify them, and indeed I'm not certain that such beings can be, or even should be, quantified, pinned down, reduced to numbers, and defined down to their last skill points. A full stat block puts limits on such beings, and honestly such primordial beings should be antithetical to any idea of 'they cannot do that because their stats don't say they can'.

But also, in my opinion and in my experience, a lot of 'epic' games that desire strict adherence to 'the rules', and try to judiciously define gods, archfiends, etc with massive stat blocks also tend to rather quickly devolve into hideous avalanches of numbers, A-Z god killing frenzies that'd put Waldorf to shame, and other such things that really do a disservice to the flavor of it all.

In dealing with such topics I have a much looser take, giving more fiat and leeway in what truly epic creatures can do. I don't like to limit and define them, it just makes them big monsters for big PCs to kill and loot, stripping the wonder and mystery from it all. Now this may be right up some folks' ally, but it's something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[Gold Roger]

For the sake of baseline design he prefer there to be no epic advancement. There has to be a point of maximum power every other power level can be designed against (lack thereof creates things like the archfiend-dragon-balor power level confusion). The final point of advancement should be the peak of mortal power.

If people want to play behind that level I'm okey with that, but I don't think a large amount of support and asumption is to detrimental to the health of the game for the sake of a minority.

 

[Treebore]

Having played two epic level games, one to 56th and one to 49th, all I can say is the Epic rules suck. Mostly because the power curve at lower levels is too high. So to play a good game ot Epic levels, the whole power curve would need to be altered and immunities totally gotten rid of. Plus it would help if Epic monsters followed the same progression as Epic Fighters.

It was actually easier to do in 1E and 2E.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I said "other" and "other" I mean Dawnforge.

 

[Treebore]

Link, TB?

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I picked the classic DnD immortal set, although I think every one of the versions for epic rules had its flaws. The immortal set was the most interesting for me, however, and the closest that I felt simulated the power of a god. TSR had a change of direction shortly after it came out, however, and these old rules could have used some more fleshing out. The 3.5 epic rules seems to get too cumbersome for my tastes. I think the DnD immortal set recognized this, and therefore created a whole different system once your character ascended.

 

[Tessarael]

The Epic Level Handbook is terrible when it comes to epic spells and epic feats (some far too weak), and not so good when it comes to multi-classing.

They are right that BAB progression and saving throw progression needs to flatten out between classes at epic levels, otherwise the disparity is too large. However, the alternative of completely ignoring BAB and save progression means that classes without good BAB and save progression are substantially better at epic levels. One fix would be for classes with BAB 1/1 to get +1 melee/missile damage/level, with BAB 3/4 to get +1 melee/missile damage/2 levels, and with BAB 1/2 to get no extra damage. I'm not sure how to compensate the classes with better save progression. As has been noted by others, a Wizard 20/Fighter 20 should also come out the same in BAB et al. as a Fighter 20/Wizard 20.

Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved and Sword and Sorcery's Advanced Player's Guide do have some nice high level abilities for classes, but failing to flatten out BAB and saving throws is a problem.

Adding in some high level feats from Players Handbook II and Iron Heroes would improve the feat choices at epic levels.

 

[Dyir]

I voted "other" since the Epic Level Handbook is connected to 3.X. For me, I simply play 21+ the same way I've run levels 1 through 20: BAB, saves, skills, feats and such all continue normally. For spellcasters, I've simply extended the spell slots into 10th and higher level spells; for 10th+ level spells, i just use the 1st through 9th with permanent meta-magic feats applied to them. And magic items can continue to gain even more bonuses and such, with corresponding increases to the minimum caster level.

Despite the statements in the Epic Level Handbook to the contrary, I've never had a problem with the rules described above.