Epic Adventures- How Often?

[the Jester]

How often can truly epic adventure hooks (i.e. for adventures suitable for epic-level pcs) drop in your campaign without the sense of 'realism' being spoiled?

Please discuss.

 

[Shade]

Endlessly. I mostly take 'em to other planes, where the relative power level can be much higher.

 

[Crothian]

If done right, as much as can be fit

 

[Philip]

Not often enough. Before one (partial) plot has been properly developed, let alone gone to its conclusion, the PCs are usually many levels higher.

I have a problem with PC power escalating before the plot can escalate properly without every other session being an no-XP all role-playing event.

 

[Psion]

A single epic plot hook could be goog for a whole multi-level story arc.

In fact if it didn't, I wouldn't call it epic.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Epic plots can be suitable for PCs of most any level. I like epic plots. I have little interest or affection for the epic-level rules. While I may like my amplifier to go to 11, I'm perfectly content for my D&D to stop at 20, if not sooner.

With 3e, it's probably a little harder to cram multiple sweeping epics into a single character's career unless you scale down the rate of XP acquisition significantly. Maybe 2, 1st through 10th, then to 20th or wherever.

 

[Glyfair]

Not often enough. Before one (partial) plot has been properly developed, let alone gone to its conclusion, the PCs are usually many levels higher.

I have a problem with PC power escalating before the plot can escalate properly without every other session being an no-XP all role-playing event.

Than adjust the XP. I think XP are the easiest thing to adjust in D&D to arrive at the right speed.

WotC set the XP up based on the "average" campaign (according to their research). If your campaign isn't average, adjust the XP awarded appropriately.

 

[S'mon]

How often can truly epic adventure hooks (i.e. for adventures suitable for epic-level pcs) drop in your campaign without the sense of 'realism' being spoiled?

Please discuss.

If your campaign is set in a single campaign world, I think a new Epic threat shouldn't be surfacing more than 1/decade or so. However you can build in plenty of Epic areas and potential threats from the start - IMC I have maybe a dozen 'Epic' sorts of areas like the Chaos Wastes, Nightmare Realm, Kopru Empire and such, which potentially could be used for years of adventuring. One thing I do is fast-forward through the decades or centuries of peaceful happy times, to the next major era of strife, eg for the past 8 years real-time I've been running campaigns set in the "Time of Chaos" following the end of a century-long golden age, the peaceful Pax Albina era, "when ancient terrors arise to plunge the world into bloody conflict once more"...

 

[S'mon]

XP - I've recently come to the conclusion that baseline half XP is the way to go. Then you can give bonus XP to taste without ridiculously fast advancement. Average 6-7 sessions to level is about as slow as I would want to run it, even at high level.

 

[NimrodvanHall]

XP lessening is also what we use in most of our non political campeigns. If we were to use the WotC XP bassline, my party would level about once per session in a dungeon.