Epic Destinies and Earth Giants

[AllisterH]

Skill, yes. Comic book strength and dex no. Your fighter should be a formidable swordsmen able to strike critical blows, hamstring the giants or whatnot. He should not dance on his nose or arm wrestle him. And if a giant lands a blow, it should hurt, throw him around, etc. The fighter just has the staying power and _skill_ to overcome. but without it turning into a comic book feel. Magic is optional. I actually prefer lower magic games as well, but I can go either way depending in what the players are expecting.

But tha's not Heracles or Beowulf though...Odysseus is paragon, Heracles is Epic and it does to me at any rate refer to over-the-top feats of strength and athletics. Basically, epic heros should be physically impressive that even paragon creatures don't want to mess with them if they come out of the shower.

re: Giants

The war between the primordials (plus their servants) and the gods (with their champions) is one of the most common mythic archtypes around. Really, 4E seems definitely aimed at capturing that type of history whereas with say Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, I've never gotten a mythic vibe from the world.

 

[Storminator]

Skill, yes. Comic book strength and dex no. Your fighter should be a formidable swordsmen able to strike critical blows, hamstring the giants or whatnot. He should not dance on his nose or arm wrestle him. And if a giant lands a blow, it should hurt, throw him around, etc. The fighter just has the staying power and _skill_ to overcome. but without it turning into a comic book feel. Magic is optional. I actually prefer lower magic games as well, but I can go either way depending in what the players are expecting.

Um... huh?

Hercules holding up the world while Atlas takes a breather doesn't count as comic book strength?

PS

 

[Andor]

Ahh! So now we see the Earth Shock, the special power of the 16th level elite Earth Titan! And it's... the classic comic book foot stomp. Wheee. Nothing screams "Ancient elemental titan of creation" like a once per encounter abilty to replicate the 3.5 edition 1st level psionic power. -_-

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Skill, yes. Comic book strength and dex no. Your fighter should be a formidable swordsmen able to strike critical blows, hamstring the giants or whatnot. He should not dance on his nose or arm wrestle him. And if a giant lands a blow, it should hurt, throw him around, etc. The fighter just has the staying power and _skill_ to overcome. but without it turning into a comic book feel. Magic is optional. I actually prefer lower magic games as well, but I can go either way depending in what the players are expecting.

It sound like you are looking for paragon not epic. Paragon has the giant fight going the way you want. At Epic, Earth Titans are mooks and the Godlike Earth Primordial the characters are fighting just had his fist stopped by one hand of the fighter.

Just a question for all of those posters who are complaining about Earth Shock and that the Earth Giants throw rocks: What sort of abilities do you expect Earth Giants to have?

 

[Sojorn]

Where my disconnect came in was that they didn't say Epic PCs could break the rules of the game, but rather the rules of the universe.

Just double checked the Tiers article. It just says "rules". Nothing about if they meant universe or game. So I guess everyone just reads that however they want

There might have been other mentions of it I missed, but the tiers article was where I remember picking up the "break the rules" idea of epic destinies.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

One thing is we haven't seen much about what the Epic tier powers and feats and items are. We don't have a complete picture of what an Epic Wizard can do. We haven't seen the 4e versions of spells like Meteor Swarm or Hellball yet. There's no idea what it completely means with a 30th level wizard-battlemage-archmage wielding a +8 Staff of the Archmagi (speculation) and the ability to use a daily as an encounter power.

All we know about Epic Powers, is the Paladin's Binding Smite.

 

[Knight Otu]

Just double checked the Tiers article. It just says "rules". Nothing about if they meant universe or game. So I guess everyone just reads that however they want

There might have been other mentions of it I missed, but the tiers article was where I remember picking up the "break the rules" idea of epic destinies.

This very article:

While it’s true that your epic destiny allows you to bend, break, or ignore some of the laws of the universe, an epic destiny isn’t merely about acquiring even more power.

Granted, it's from the intro rather than the excerpt, but it's there.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I mean, really, Demispell and hyperplanar? Sigh.

Demispell - surely that is half as good as a real spell, yes? I've never got the idea that the demi prefix is used to mean 'really bad-ass' in D&Dland (demilich, demispell) rather than the 'half as good' as the normal usage would suggest

They just drag the fight out into grindfests.

I wondered how long a hill giant would take to kill another hill giant, taking club average damage, hit probability and so on.

27-28 melee rounds.

Earth Titans can finish each other off slightly more quickly, at 22-23 melee rounds.

I have to say I find the giants damage uninspiring (and their strength seems paltry for their size - I wonder what is going on there?). Shouldn't bigger creatures have bigger weapons or something?

Cheers

 

[Dausuul]

I'm still miffed that they're holding back Frost Giants for MM2. First of all, they were the stars of G2, one of the first modules published, and second (and more importantly), they go along with Fire Giants as important figures in Norse Myth. And if D&D is about any one thing, that thing is Vikings.

This "Death Giant" sounds like a poser. I want my Viking giants.

Agreed. I'm going to be running a campaign set in an ice age world. How the heck am I supposed to make an ice age world without frost giants? They just better have stats for woolly mammoths, or I'm going to be really upset.

(Okay, I'll probably just use elephant stats for mammoths. And I'm sure I can whip something up for frost giants, maybe just change the elemental abilities on fire giants. But it's the principle of the thing, dangit! )

 

[AllisterH]

Ahh! So now we see the Earth Shock, the special power of the 16th level elite Earth Titan! And it's... the classic comic book foot stomp. Wheee. Nothing screams "Ancient elemental titan of creation" like a once per encounter abilty to replicate the 3.5 edition 1st level psionic power. -_-

Actually I think this is a good point.

4E has dialled back the numbers that mid to high (level 10+) characters/monsters could generate in 3E.

You aren't going to see massibe 20d6 powers or anything like that even at the EPIC range is my guess. Remember, they've always said that in terms of sheer raw power, 4E characters start off stronger but they don't reach the game-warping effects of the highlevel wizard.

A 4E character without magic at late paragon and epic is probably going to be stronger/more varied than the equivalent high level core only fighter in 3.x without magic items but their class abilities will be nowhere near what an Wizard/Archmage/Initiate of Seven Veils will be.

From seeing the blinding smite long ago and the high level monsters/powers, a 4E character at high levels without magic items is probably going to resemble closer a high level rogue in capability (without the high sneak attack multiple damage dice)