Do you Expect to hit Epic tier?

[Rechan]

So there's discussion of how the game breaks down at Epic, and how there are very little epic tier support.

This lead to me being curious: when you start a game, do you really anticipate that the campaign will actually make it to epic level? Do you actually expect to play at that tier?

I never make it to Paragon, let alone Epic, so I don't think I'll ever get to play it. But do you?

 

[NewJeffCT]

My 3.5E campaign ended just shy of epic level - the party was 18 for the final encounter, and would have been 19 if we continued from there.

I plan on my current 4E group getting well into the 20s when they finish up the campaign - maybe not all the way to 30, but hopefully fairly close.

 

[keterys]

Depends on the group - I don't aim for it with most groups or campaigns - 3rd through 16th are fair goals generally), but I'm in one epic home game, and in LFR I do quite a lot of epic - played the first, wrote and edited much of the second - DMing it three times and playing it once, and I've written some and edited all of the third (DMing that twice this month), and am a co-writing director for all of the future LFR mods...

So, yeah, epic happens, even if in much smaller chunks than non-epic

 

[babinro]

We play expecting to hit epic. At this stage of the game the mentality becomes that it's okay if the PC's die. Not all games will make it to level 30 and we're fine with that. But we do hope to at least have a taste of what epic play feels like with any given campaign.

 

[Grydan]

When I'm designing a character to play, I generally assume (despite all experience to the contrary) that the character will be surviving to Epic tier. It informs my ability score choices, and other aspects of how I put my character together.

However, I've never played a character for more than 5 levels before having the character or the campaign die. I have only one character who has ever survived into Paragon tier. I've never actually played Epic tier.

Maybe I should change my approach...

The campaign I'm DMing, I plan on running all the way to the end... but it's going to take us a while to get there. We've been going for two and a half years and haven't finished Heroic yet (though we might get to Paragon by the end of the year, if all goes well).

I have another campaign I want to run at some point. I've already told the potential players to expect it to end at level 10. I cautioned them that building their character in anticipation of Epic or Paragon feat, destiny, or path requirements would be unwise.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Wow. That almost sounds depressing gang. I guess our group is an exception to what seems to be a general trend.

We've been playing over 2 years, and we are at level 23, almost 24 now. We'll hit 24 during this weekend's session, I'm fairly sure. We are at the end of the Tomb of Horrors and are facing Acererak.

We had some idle table chatter that we might end this campaign after we face Acererak (one way or the other!), and go into the next campaign, which the DM has tied directly into the results of this one, but several of our group would like to see lev30, just because we've came this far already.

We'll see what happens.

 

[OnlineDM]

I said "No, not really" because I doubt if I'll ever get to epic tier as a player.

However, when I stop and think about it, I realize that the Friday night game that I DM online using MapTool and Skype probably will hit epic tier. We're running War of the Burning Sky, which goes all the way to level 30, and over a year in we still have all five of the original players plus two more we've picked up along the way. The PCs are at level 13 right now. So, it will probably take until the end of 2012 or maybe longer, but it sure looks like we'll make it all the way through epic tier.

 

[Evilhalfling]

No.

I expect them to hit paragon. I think it takes a special kind of story and strongly driven/motivated characters to reach epic. The current campaign is winding down, at mid-paragon. 3 of 5 characters have no motivation to move beyond the current story arc. One character wants to destroy a city run by a dracolich, a motivation which could lead to the end of paragon, but doesn't have the drive to power that would allow him to cross into epic tier.

Two earlier characters motives that also would have brought them to paragon: Ruling a large city, and becoming a dignitary in a feywild court. Both were killed. New characters were introduced with a strong stake in the current mission, but they haven't developed further than that.

I am retiring an LFR character I am playing, because he really has no motivation to even achieve 11th level. But then again he has played many of his games on the lethal weapon motivation - "im to old for this sh**...and "just one last job before I retire..." maybe he will get dragged along by these same motivations.

 

[KidSnide]

I started my current game in 2000. We've converted to 4e and the PCs are now 9th level. There is some epic context to be had in the universe, but I figure there's a good chance we'll convert to 5e well before the PCs reach it.

-KS

 

[Pentius]

Much like Grydan, I design my characters with the Epic and Paragon tiers in mind, but rarely actually arrive at such a destination.