Ending at level 21...

[SmilingPiePlate]

I wanna go through all three. I've never had the chance to be in a game where the party legitimately started from scratch and earned their status as great heroes; all the high level games I've played in started at at least 6th.

Epic sounds weird. Probably not, say, Rifts weird, but I have a feeling I'll like Heroic or Paragon better. The book might pleasantly surprise me, though.

As an aside, the excerpted rules for creating higher level characters are awesome. No more "spend X gold on magic items", just a very simple, and much less tedious, way to do it.

 

[kennew142]

I may allow my campaign to all the way up to level 20. It's more likely that my group will decide to retire their characters between levels 11 and 20. I prefer heroic level play, Paragon level may be of interest, but I've seen nothing on epic level that makes me want to play it.

We use much slower advancement (and play multiple campaigns at once), so it should take us a few years to get to level 11, let alone level 20.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

One thing I find interesting is with 4e, it seems in-general there is less abject horror to the idea of a Epic-game. While some may not wish to play Epic since it isn't their style, there isn't that feeling of... No one wishing to play Epic because it is Epic-rules/levels... If you get what I mean.

 

[Spatula]

As an aside, the excerpted rules for creating higher level characters are awesome. No more "spend X gold on magic items", just a very simple, and much less tedious, way to do it.

Hm? It tells you to do just that. "You can spend this money on rituals, potions, or other magic items, or save it for later."

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'd have to see it first.

I don't mind the mythic/epic style of play in the general sense. I loved the Gloranthan HeroWars game (now renamed Heroquest, I believe?). Thats justa given thing with RQ/glorantha-Anyone fam with the setting knows what I'm talking about.


D&D however has always been more "grounded" (for lack of a better term) to me. Its always been more about the plight of the above average "realistic" hero. Its Conan. Frodo. Aragorn. John Carter. Oh sure you may fight the minions of an evil god, legendary dragons, etc even change the course of history.

That's ironic, because my friends and I first got into RQ2 specifically BECAUSE it was more grounded in the average realistic hero than D&D

(Yep, I know that Hero~ moved on to support mythic stuff, and left my beloved RQ2 behind...)

 

[Cirex]

I don't like the concept of travelling through planes defending the galaxy from crashing satellites and demons with the size of a medium star but...I guess we could give it a try.
My mindset for DMing makes it a bit hard to design games with the epic concepts in mind.

(I was exaggerating a bit).

 

[The Eternal GM]

I prefer my fantasy more medieval than epic too. But if there's one area of 4th Edition that looks strong it's the tiers.

You can just 'not go there' with the higher tiers if you don't want to, and as long as the players understand that the ceiling is lower, no harm done. Nice and simple, easy to implement and with rules built around it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't like the concept of travelling through planes defending the galaxy from crashing satellites and demons with the size of a medium star but...I guess we could give it a try.
My mindset for DMing makes it a bit hard to design games with the epic concepts in mind.

(I was exaggerating a bit).

I agree. It is hard to make a compelling epic story here, especially if you have to do it several times. I hope that the epic tier rules in 4E will provide a few more pointers what you could do, story-wise, at that level. But they are certainly not your average adventuring stories you'll tell at epic level.

 

[neceros]

Id' like to take everyone away from thinking of Epic is some form of Anime or extremity that has no grounds in reality.

Yes, Epic games will be fantastic in rules and mechanics, and in thematics if desired. However, not all epic games are going to be so fantastic that it's unbelievable. They provide the rules to battle the End of Baddies, but he could be a normal Joe just like the rest of us. He just happens to be made of win.

The White Wizard, Merlin, Gannondorf of Zelda, etc. There are many stories where epic battles are fought without raging demons, gods, spells of doom and whatnot.

The story is what you make of it. Don't let mechanics use you; use them as a basis for your story telling.

 

[Bluenose]

I'm loving what I'm hearing about the heroic/paragon/epic divisions so far. Every time I read about it, I can't help but think:

Heroic: Basic/Expert Set (1-14)
Paragon: Companion Set (15-25)
Epic: Master Set (26-36)

The focus and power level of each of the 4e tiers is strikingly similar to these BECMI counterparts.

It does look very similar to me as well. The interesting thing is that when I played BECM it felt like a system that worked all the way through. The higher levels didn't seem as if they were "tacked on" as an afterthought, but could have been part of the system from the start. If they can do that with 4e, then I think my group will give it much more of a try than we've done with the ELH. In fact we've agreed that if the rules work well enough at higher levels then we can restart a few of the characters we've retired and play a few higher level adventures with them. It might be hard to convert directly, but we should be able to make workable approximations of them.