Epic Destinies and Earth Giants

[bert1000]

Hill giant:

Savage Haymaker (Standard Encounter Recharge )
Reach 2; +15 vs Fort, 1d10+12, opponent is weaked (save ends)

Hurling Swing (Standard At Will)
Reach 2; +15 vs AC, 1d10+5 and push 3.

For Earth Titans:

Stomp (Standard Encounter)
Reach 3; +20 vs. Reflex, 2d10+12, enemy is stunned, prone and weakened (save ends).

Rain of Stone (Standard Encounter)
Ranged 15 Area Burst 1; 18 vs. Reflex; 2d10+10, enemy is dazed, pushed 2

Pick Up (Standard, At Will)
Reach 3; +20 vs Reflex. Treat as regular grapple. Followup: Squeeze (+20 vs. Fort; 3d10+5) or Hurl (Push 8, 2d10+15)

Rending Bedrock Wave (Standard Encounter Recharge )
Close Blast 5; +20 vs. Reflex, 2d10+3, enemy is knocked prone, pushed 4.

Exactly!!

For Earth Titans:

Thunderdome (Standard Encounter Recharge 6)
Close Blast 1-3; a dome of stone 40' feet high is created in the blast area, trapping all in range. The dome lasts for 2 rounds, or if the dome takes 75hp of damage it crumbles.

Now that would be cinematic -- split the party in half, trapped in the dark with this giant thing, no one knowing how long the dome lasts, etc.

I really hope more flavor powers like these aren't discarded simply b/c of roles, etc.

 

[Rechan]

Not to say that I don't like these particular abilities, and they certainly seem like some more fun options than what was given in the article.

However, isn't it part of the 4e plan that monster attack profiles (to-hit, damage, and presumably add-ons like push or stun) are very strongly determined by the monster's level and role? In order to help stay in that magic "sweet spot"? Perhaps that is why the giants in the article don't have the damage output nor some of the special effects that people are expecting from giants.

Well, as I said, I compared the giants to the orc entry.

Aside from just a slight bump in the damage dice, the orcs are just more interesting. Compare the Orc Bloodrager to the Earth Titan; both are elites. While the OB is a 7 Elite Brute, he's got more stuff to do and he's just tougher than the ET 16 Elite Brute.

Also, the ET's earth shock is a close burst that knocks opponents prone, so I don't know so much about role.

I agree with an earlier poster how Giants ought to be, well, elite and the titans ought to be solo. This allows them to have more power, and (at least in the case of a solo titan) have a few other abilites (i.e. Controllerish powers in addition to putting on the Brutish hurt).

 

[Rechan]

However, three things occur to me.

1) There might be more than one Earth Titan (i.e. a controllerish Titan moving stone about like it has been discussed here). Although I find this unlikely. However, if I ever pit my PCs against the earth giant/titans, that will be the case (or the ET will be a solo monster with some controllerish abilities).

2) There are going to be other Earth-based giants. We have seen pictures of Mountain Giants in the "Worlds and Monsters" book. But so far, I'm not impressed with the stats.

3) Archons, being the new elementals, might have elemental-based controlling powers. Though I woudln't hold my breath, given how they're all depicted having weapons.

 

[Timeboxer]

Unless you argue that there is more to D&D than being an easy-to-run agreeable power-accruing beat-em-up.

I argue that there is more to D&D than being an easy-to-run agreeable power-accruing beat-em-up.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: I like epic destinies to be honest. As a GM, it gives me Plot to work with. I don't even mind the metanarrativity -- it gives me a mechanical construct around giving players limited narrative abilities, which implicitly tells me what style of epic game they want to play. In my opinion, this is very valuable, but your mileage may vary.

 

[drjones]

I think what you are highlighting as a flaw is, in fact a feature. One of the key rule considerations in the development of 43 was to extend that mathematical "sweet spot" at all levels of play. Perpetually open-ended advancement will probably stretch, if not outright break, the mathematical underpinings of this swee spot -- particularly if the only random variance in the rules is the ubiquitous d20 check. I stand to be corrected on this point by people with greater math mojo.

I think you are right about the math. By drawing a line in the sand they do not need to 'support' anything scaling off the defined levels. When designing a monster/power they know when the math stops.

But I think the intention of the whole epic/end at 30 thing was more to encourage DMs and players to not think of leveling up as the goal in and of itself. It provides a structure to hang your character arc upon and serves as a reminder that how many hit points you have is not a huge deal, who your character is and what story they are part of is.

BUT I CAN DO THAT ALLREADY!!! you say. Yes YOU can. Mr. dm who has never played before needs the help. As for it being too constricting I don't see anything here that requires a certain characterization, your epic destiny could be to settle down and farm turnips as far as I can tell, just that you do so after having done fabulous things and become amazingly powerful. The only thing it is pushing is that you should think about wrapping things up as you approach 30.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But I think the intention of the whole epic/end at 30 thing was more to encourage DMs and players to not think of leveling up as the goal in and of itself.

That's part of it. Balance is part of it. More cynically, part of it is also that it allows the multiple new settings and supplements to be useful.

All of my 3e campaigns had a defined "end point." This had the secondary effect of me buying a lot of things to use in "my next campaign," even if I wasn't actively using them at the moment, because I would be using them in a few months. A big part of that was campaign settings. I don't play in the same setting for more than a few months, so a plurality of settings is very useful to me. If you don't have an express "end point" it's a lot easier ot have your campaign peter out without a real difinitive "stopping point." I can always go back and revisit the favorite settings, but I didn't have to worry about DMing for 10 years in one world.

 

[Zil]

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.

Well, I guess that my interest ends at Paragon then. I would say Beowulf is Paragon in the D&D sense, not epic. While he could wrestle with Grendel, it was no walk in the park. And.. in the end, he was mortal. He did die.

I do think that epic characters can be impressive without having ridiculous ability scores. They are just deadlier and can survive more things. What I would have liked to have seen was a progression along the lines of what Gygax seemed to hint at in his old Dragon Magazine articles with his quasi-deities like Muryland. These characters have just a whiff of the divine in them, but they are not superheroes.

I guess we just have a different idea of what we would like to see for very high level play and that's fine. I'll just either avoid using the 4E (or 3E) rules for epic play and just come up with something else that works better for me.

The war between the primordials (plus their servants) and the gods (with their champions) is one of the most common mythic archetypes 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.

Are the gods in 4E the children of the Primordials who turned on their parents? If they are really going for the classic mythic archetypes, that's a must. On the other hand, if the gods are just mortals who have stepped into portfolios or who have advanced to level 30 or beyond, that's a different sort of animal that isn't quite so mythic in my mind. It's more like Steven Erikson which I suppose could be fine, but it's not really like the classic Greek or Norse myths. Maybe they have done this... I'm not sure how we went down this road. Oh, right. Giants!

 

[Spatula]

You got to be kidding me, right? Norse and Greek mythology != Great Wheel. A thousand curses on planescape for shoehorning the Greeks et al into the Great Wheel.

Planescape? Planescape didn't invent the great wheel. The great wheel appears in the back of the 1e AD&D PHB, is probably in the 1e DMG too, and includes Olympus, Asgard, Valhalla, Vanaheim, Nirvana, Dante's Nine Hells, and so on. The real-world pantheons appeared in the 1e Dieties & Demigods, and the 1e Manual of the Planes detailed these real-world analogs in more depth. I think 2e renamed most of those planes to try and get away from the grab-bag nature of it all, actually.

 

[Spatula]

The hill giants are hill giants. For all the talk about improving giants and making giants "different"... the hill giants are exactly the same as they've always been. Which is a good thing, IMO, although I like some of the alternate abilities that people have proposed to give them some decent combat options.

The earth titan is just a big earth elemental. Yawn. I'd prefer the greek titans of past D&D editions to this any day. If they had some cool earth powers it would be different, but these guys aren't impressive or interesting in any respect.

 

[Zil]

Planescape? Planescape didn't invent the great wheel. The great wheel appears in the back of the 1e AD&D PHB, is probably in the 1e DMG too, and includes Olympus, Asgard, Valhalla, Vanaheim, Nirvana, Dante's Nine Hells, and so on. The real-world pantheons appeared in the 1e Dieties & Demigods, and the 1e Manual of the Planes detailed these real-world analogs in more depth. I think 2e renamed most of those planes to try and get away from the grab-bag nature of it all, actually.

The oldest drawings of the outer planar wheel that I recall seeing is a very old Dragon magazine article that I believe predated the 1E AD&D players handbook. It was reprinted in the first 'Best of Dragon' I think. So the wheel goes back to at least 1978. There were also throw-away references to some of the Norse gods in some of the very early Gygax and company campaigns even though they were never gods of Oerth/Oerik.

And yes, with 2E, and especially in Planescape, they started renaming a lot of the planes and trying to make more sense of the wheel plus creating some mythologies and creation myths for the entire meta-plane structure. They did an especially good job with the lower plane myths for the Baatezu, Tanar'ri, 'leths and 'loths.

And so we digress....