Epic 4th Edition: We Fought The Gods

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Hey all!

I enjoyed reading through this thread again, the reports were part of the reason for my Orcus Revisited article.

Article: Orcus Revisited Eternity Publishing

I'd be very curious to hear what you all think.

Plus the companion article is about Solo Monster Design.

Article: Solo Monster Design Eternity Publishing

Hi. Thanks for that link. Very interesting stuff on Orcus.

I'm curious - what results have you seen or heard from groups
that have actually taken him on, in this incarnation?

I'd love to see comments from groups/teams that have tackled
him, and their results.

Thanks!

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy DarkLord Of DForce!

Hi. Thanks for that link. Very interesting stuff on Orcus.

Thanks. I sould point out this was a hastily put together first draft. I will be correcting mistakes and changing a few things this weekend.

I'm curious - what results have you seen or heard from groups
that have actually taken him on, in this incarnation?

I'd love to see comments from groups/teams that have tackled
him, and their results.

Thanks!

At the moment I am just taking general feedback on the build. It hasn't been playtested yet. I do have about a dozen changes I am planning to make this weekend. After that I think the design should be much, much tighter.

 

[MortalPlague]

Immortal Resilience would make it so that she could get a save to end any effect, even effects that don't normally allow saves. (Including the marked condition.) Whenever she would be dazed, instead she loses a minor action and grants combat advantage. Whenever she would be stunned, instead she is dazed.

I did this immediately following my first level 30 trial. I told my players that the gods would get their immediate save on "till end of next turn" effects, and it seemed to make things run smoother. I didn't extend it to marks, however... that's an interesting thought.

 

[corwyn77]

Of course, another party might have done wildly differently, but if both I and the original poster had such horrid blow-outs when we ran her, I think I have to decree that she's just badly designed. Or maybe 30th level characters break the game's math too severely.

It was a fun exercise, but I'm really glad I'm not running an epic game.

I think it's more likely the latter. IMO, the game seriously breaks down in Epic. The only one I played in, from level 21 to 27, our 3 man party of Barbarian, Warden, and Bard routinely handled level + 7 encounters and we didn't have the ridiculous capstone level 30 powers. Besides that, we banned the more powerful PP and EDs as well as nerfing stun.

I'm running Burning Sky right now (hi, Ranger) and I'm honestly not sure what I'll do when they reach Epic. The house rules I'm using do limit PCs to two Dailies per encounter, one attack, one not, so that may help.

 

[Riastlin]

I confess that I too am a bit concerned about epic tier as I've seen the power increase just with paragon tier in my players. The tricks up their sleeves now are pretty impressive and even their healing ability (while lacking a true healer) is amazing.

That being said, Calaystrx did just wipe the floor with them (though they were missing one player). So, maybe there is hope for the future.

I do think that things like increased damage (perhaps even above the MM3 math), terrain-based damage, and action recovery abilities will go a long way toward helping with this issue but I think it will still be difficult to keep the encounters entertaining throughout the entire tier.

Certainly for gods, primordials and even certain demon princes, I think it is more than fair to "break the rules" so to speak in designing them. After all, Lloth, Tiamat, and Orcus are likely not all that interested in a "fair fight".

For those of you who have run extensively in the epic tier, have you found ways to keep the "regular" encounters entertaining? Its one thing to break the rules, or add things like action recovery, to solos, but I think its another issue entirely to do so with standards. Are MM3 damage figures enough to keep standard encounters entertaining? Obviously the idea of ten levels worth of solos isn't exactly appealing.