As a DM I notice a number of changes going from heroic to paragon. Note, my players went from level 1 to level 17 and are on their way to the epic tier before the end of the year. Here's what I've seen:
- It's a lot harder for me to really threaten the party at paragon. They have so many ways to avoid, mitigate, resist, gain temp hitpoints, or heal themselves that pushing them down is much more of a challenge for me.
- I'm not noticing the big difference in monsters between heroic and paragon but I'm noticing huge differences in the PCs. Paragon paths add a lot of power to the PCs. In particular, Hospitaler's Blessing (if not nerfed) lets a paladin heal a ton of PCs for free when fighting solos or area blasters. The rogue's daggermaster PP gives him or her a crit on 18, 19, or 20 which greatly increases the rogue's damage. Clerics can get a burst 8 radiant attack that stuns demons and undead on top of turn undead which lets them control a room full of undead for two rounds including wiping out all of the minions that might be in the way. Rangers get a free action point when they kill something (which is nearly always) so once per encounter they can have one to two action points to use which means even more damage. Fighters can get glaive master which gives them tons of ways to hit people coming into them.
Overall, I'm seeing a huge power jump with paragon paths and I'm worried about how these mix with epic destinies.
- Minions are hardly ever worth the experience budget. Frankly, I've given up counting them. If I add minions to a fight, I throw eight or twelve in and count them as four for the exp budget. With all of the huge area blasts and all of the free damage done by our fighter, they totally destroy minions unless I'm really crafty. I have to bring them out in waves or they all die within a round.
- PCs aren't enjoying paragon monster abilities as much. There's a lot of weakens, dazes, stuns, and surge losses. They preferred the heroic-tier stuff like shifting as a minor or shifting when missed. It seemed heroic monster abilities were more interesting than paragon ones.
- Solos are even more easily controlled with stacked dazes and stuns. Undead solos, for example, can be chain stunned by a single cleric for usually two to three rounds with the right abilities. Solos NEED to have extra monsters with them to challenge a paragon party and the environment better do something exciting too. A paragon party will very easily carve through an equally leveled solo creature without breaking a sweat. This wasn't really true at the heroic tier.
- PCs always have tricks up their sleeves with items. Unlike heroic, paragon PCs have a huge variety of magic items to use and use often. This can complicate the game a bit since each of these items is a new option for a player and it means, as a DM, that it is a lot harder to know what a player is going to do.
So that's generally what I've been seeing in the paragon tier. One caveat, my group are very strategy / powergamer types so they've optimized a lot and are very smart when they fight (generally, our fighter likes to rush to the other side of any room they enter). We also have usually six PCs and sometimes seven which makes it very hard to challenge them.
Overall, I'm really enjoying paragon, but I find it very hard to keep the threat high for what should be very challenging fights.
- It's a lot harder for me to really threaten the party at paragon. They have so many ways to avoid, mitigate, resist, gain temp hitpoints, or heal themselves that pushing them down is much more of a challenge for me.
- I'm not noticing the big difference in monsters between heroic and paragon but I'm noticing huge differences in the PCs. Paragon paths add a lot of power to the PCs. In particular, Hospitaler's Blessing (if not nerfed) lets a paladin heal a ton of PCs for free when fighting solos or area blasters. The rogue's daggermaster PP gives him or her a crit on 18, 19, or 20 which greatly increases the rogue's damage. Clerics can get a burst 8 radiant attack that stuns demons and undead on top of turn undead which lets them control a room full of undead for two rounds including wiping out all of the minions that might be in the way. Rangers get a free action point when they kill something (which is nearly always) so once per encounter they can have one to two action points to use which means even more damage. Fighters can get glaive master which gives them tons of ways to hit people coming into them.
Overall, I'm seeing a huge power jump with paragon paths and I'm worried about how these mix with epic destinies.
- Minions are hardly ever worth the experience budget. Frankly, I've given up counting them. If I add minions to a fight, I throw eight or twelve in and count them as four for the exp budget. With all of the huge area blasts and all of the free damage done by our fighter, they totally destroy minions unless I'm really crafty. I have to bring them out in waves or they all die within a round.
- PCs aren't enjoying paragon monster abilities as much. There's a lot of weakens, dazes, stuns, and surge losses. They preferred the heroic-tier stuff like shifting as a minor or shifting when missed. It seemed heroic monster abilities were more interesting than paragon ones.
- Solos are even more easily controlled with stacked dazes and stuns. Undead solos, for example, can be chain stunned by a single cleric for usually two to three rounds with the right abilities. Solos NEED to have extra monsters with them to challenge a paragon party and the environment better do something exciting too. A paragon party will very easily carve through an equally leveled solo creature without breaking a sweat. This wasn't really true at the heroic tier.
- PCs always have tricks up their sleeves with items. Unlike heroic, paragon PCs have a huge variety of magic items to use and use often. This can complicate the game a bit since each of these items is a new option for a player and it means, as a DM, that it is a lot harder to know what a player is going to do.
So that's generally what I've been seeing in the paragon tier. One caveat, my group are very strategy / powergamer types so they've optimized a lot and are very smart when they fight (generally, our fighter likes to rush to the other side of any room they enter). We also have usually six PCs and sometimes seven which makes it very hard to challenge them.
Overall, I'm really enjoying paragon, but I find it very hard to keep the threat high for what should be very challenging fights.
