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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 9866104" data-attributes="member: 6677017">While I still value my Epic Level Handbook, I actually think it's methodology wasn't ideal.The stated premise that if you are still playing the game after 20 levels what you want is just more of the same (apparently with bigger numbers) has a couple flaws. The first is that it assumes people played 20 levels to get there, rather than just starting there. The second, and more important one is that you actually don't want something new!What I like about Epic Boons (and the ability to take additional feats and ASIs) is that it provides a form of advancement for PC-like species that is fundamentally different than that of monsters like dragons, demon princes, or deities. It keeps built in limits. Even if your advancement is assumed to be drawing on overt supernatural power (not every boon needs to assume that, just like not every class), your mortal frame has certain limits. After you have a Con 30, Tough, Fortitude, and Recovery, you have all the HP a mortal can have. You can't have more HD. But you also have 20 full class features and can stack on more class features like abilities.Epic monsters, on the other hand, can and usually do have bigger raw numbers, but even if you assume their statblock neglects to include capabilities they have that aren't likely to be relevant in a fight vs PCs, they still likely have less class-derived types of abilities than PCs.I like what that does. It says that monsters that advance through innate power are fundamentally different than PC-like creatures that advance through skill. I like this difference much, much better than the idea that NPCs are different than PCs, and am actually making some house rules to codify this across the board by replacing NPC statblocks with statblocks that are basically built as simplified PCs (just going one step further than how it was in 2014), and therefore differ from monsters by having those class features and higher proficiency bonus (based on their level rather than CR), compared to monstrous species which don't have class levels, but have higher HP and lower proficiency bonus.But, I still think there are good ideas to mine from the 3e ELH. I handle epic spellcasting by saying that it is a way to use wish to more reliably to accomplish certain things. Basically, you cast wish but use components or other things to safely channel its power and reliably get results that exceed 9th-level spells. This relies on how I treat wish as having its power being as limited as other 9th-level spells, and only exceeding that power level by cosmically drawing power from elsewhere. The reason wishes can smack you is because the spell actually wants to give you what you ask for, but has to find a way to do so with its limited power, hence teleporting you to the owner of the powerful item you request, or sending you forward in time until the enemies you requested the death of have all died of old age, etc. It's not actually trying to mess with you in some trickstery way. It's just doing its creative best to actually function rather than failing due to being asked for something beyond its power.Epic spellcasting is anticipating this and providing more power so that the spell doesn't have to do that.I think there are other ideas from the ELH that could be brought into 5e while still fundamentally using the epic boon system rather than a more direct level 21+ system.</blockquote>

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