Epic Experiences and Thoughts

[WizarDru]

Following on this thread here, I thought it would be an interesting discussion to exchange experiences and advice about Epic-Level play. A few ground rules, though, if you please.

First, if you don't like high-level or Epic-level play, please start a separate thread to discuss the merits or the lack thereof. I understand many folks don't enjoy high-level D&D and even those who do may not enjoy Epic Level play. That's fine, but I'd rather not derail this conversation.

Second, if you have some interesting mechanics, feel free to mention them, but if they're a house rule (such as Trainz most-excellent alternate Epic Spellcasting rules), it's probably better to start a thread there and post a link here, again, so as not to derail the conversation.

Thanks.

What I'm looking at discussing here is approaches to epic-level play, the ELH, epic rules experiences with what works and doesn't and advice from DMs who have played at Epic Levels with the core and ELH rules, and their advice to other DMs who may be approaching it.

To start, here's my comments from the other thread to start us off:

My experiences with Epic-Level have been mostly non-evident. The party is now comprised of 23rd and 24th level characters. One of the characters is now caught in a web involving one of the bad guys trying to make him a deity, and his decision as to whether to pursue it or not. (long story)

Generally, I've followed the main epic progression, with a few changes. First, I generally ignore any Epic restrictions on some feats. They become on a purely 'does it suit the character, is it balanced, is it fun?' basis. These people frighten countries, for pity's sake. I'm glad BAB and saves don't progress as before, or they'd lose all meaning. The 23rd level paladin is dropping ancient dragons in two to three hits, sometimes. They took out the Lich Queen of the Githyanki (Dungeon #100) and her pet red dragon before they were all Epic, so I just learned to let things play out as they will.

Epic Spellcasting is, as mentioned, a COLOSSAL FAILURE. No sane PC would ever spend the skill points, time, gold and experience to acquire or research them. It's just not efficient, especially given how difficult they can be to cast. The only epic spells in the game are ones that were claimed as treasure, and these are cast only rarely. Most of the PCs were given a chance to retool their characters when the ELH came out (after we agreed to try epic progression), since some choices were penalized harshly (such as the cleric not buying up his Spellcraft, for example).

The Epic Monsters vary in efficacy, some being cool and some being overrated. White Slaad, for example, have lots of kewl powers, but they still end up as cannon fodder, for the most part. Creatures like the one who jumps back and forth in time are just annoying. Last adventure, my players downed a Shadow of the Void advanced to CR 29, with only half the party available.

Implement any of the suggestions concerning massive damage saves. Doing 50 points in a round is no longer hard, and character death will be much more frequent (and irritating, not necessarily dangerous) at these levels. Some epic monsters deal the hurt so fast that even buffed barbarians go down in the first round. I generally only allow the 'massive damage doesn't tick at 50' rule for epic characters or creatures.

And here's a separate comment I wanted to talk about:

The weird thing is that it seems to come up in Sepulchrave's game all the time. I wonder if he's altered the rules...

As far as I know, Sepulchrave uses several rules variants of his own with respect to Epic Spellcasting, which you can see in the Rogues Gallery thread. Let's look at some of the examples in his story: Nwm casts a spontaneous epic spell and pays for it by sacrificing a powerful magic item to fuel it; Mosting gets his first epic spell ("Grazzt") as a gift (of sorts) and at one point has access to a magic item that increases his Int to 100+ (the web of motes); Grazzt and Soniellion both have effectively unlimited XP to spend on epic spells, removing an otherwise extremely prohibitive cost.

I mean, here, look at the spell "Grazzt":

To Develop: 729,000 gp; 16 days; 29160 XP. Seeds: Compel (DC19), Summon (DC 14); Ward (DC14). Factors: increase spell save DC by +10 (+20 DC), gain +10 bonus on caster level to defeat SR (+20 DC), ward effective against mind blank (+14 DC), summon specific individual (+60 DC), permanent duration (x5 DC). Mitigating factors: increase casting time by 10 minutes (-20 DC), increase casting time by 1 day (-2 DC), 6 additional participants contributing 9th level slots (-102 DC), primary caster burns 10,000 XP (-100 DC), secondary casters each burn 8000 XP (-480 DC), inlaid thaumaturgic diagram of diamond dust (ad hoc –20 DC).

In this one-day long ritual requiring six additional participants, the spellcaster conjures and confines the demon prince Graz’zt into a readied thaumaturgic diagram which costs not less than 100,000 gp and requires at least one week to prepare.

The development cost is 729,000 g.p.! That's equivalent of the money a character should have acquired in his first 20 levels. And each casting requires 100,000 g.p. and 10,000 xp for the primary caster, 8000 for the secondaries. Ouch. So how does Sep address this? Like so:

I don't actually charge gold for the development of Epic Spells at all - there simply isn't that quantity of cash around in the campaign, and I want to keep it that way. I use an abstracted system: i.e. a 25th level character has a total resource value of x. This may be in material holdings, magic items, epic spells etc. When one figures in the xp cost to develop spells, it starts to become more complex - for purposes of determining resources, Nwm is currently 25th level, but x thousand xp have been sunk into epic spell development, therefore he is only a 22nd level character. The benefits of the ascetic class - certain perks which assume no magic items for stat boosts etc. - also have to be costed in this light, and subtracted from the whole.

This preserves the numinous bunkum which is game balance.

In short, IMHO if you choose to use Epic Spellcasting as it is, you should either look to waiving requirements (as Sep and I have done, in varying degrees) or look to finding some way to allow more ease of ingress.

Essentially, I view Epic as being played in one of two ways: fast-burning fuse or candle-at-both-ends. Fast burning fuse is the 'it's all going to be over soon, so let's take all the toys out of the box' method. I think Piratecat is heading this direction with the Defenders of Daybreak. This approach is the 'verisimilitude is collapsing like a house of cards, so let's just wrap it up' theory of gaming. When the PCs can LITERALLY take out whole armies, single-handedly, it becomes increasingly more difficult to challenge them. This is compounded by some campaign types and styles, as well. If the PCs have just defeated the BBEG, and you don't want them hopping off the prime, what do you have them do? Plenty, but some games can't accomadate that, necessarily.

The 'candle-at-both-ends' style is the 'you're really powerful, but really busy' style, which highlights the fact that post 21st, level progression is MUCH flatter than before. A 25th level character and a 40th level character is not as widely divergent in power as a 5th and 20th level character is. The way to approach this game is to give the players lots to do with all those resources they've acquired, and keep everything turned up to 11, so to speak. For this style of game (which probably bears a resemblance to Exalted or Feng Shui in some ways), the DM needs to 'let go'. Accept that things will play out differently, and accept that the players are like tiny gods, able to shape the world in a massive (though in some ways limited) capacity.

I'll offer more thoughts and comments later. I think that's a good starting point.

 

[the Jester]

The biggest misgiving I have about the epic rules is the developement cost of epic spells. In the limited experience I've had with epic stuff so far- my high-level group is almost all epic now, with the 'bottom' of the group at 18th-19th level- even though the Epic Spellcasting feat is in the party, no one has actually developed or cast an epic spell yet.

I'm not sure how I want to fix this exactly just yet, but it is something that's clearly in need of fixin'.

The basic problem (imo) is the assumption that epic characters have enough money to destabilize the world economy... in cash! No one has that much scrill in my game world- the money's tied up in investments (hurray for the SBGB!) One of the fixes I've mulled over is giving out items with 'virtual' xp good only for spellcasting and spell development- I actually had a book like that that the pcs could have taken as loot, but they each chose a different book instead.

Anyway, this discussion looks to be an interesting one. I'm very curious to see what folks have to say. Also, I'm curious as to how many of the epic games people are playing have been built up from low levels vs. made at 21st or even higher.

(My epic gaming experience involves the campaign I run, where most of the pcs started at 1st, and the game I play in, where we started at 21st.)

 

[Crothian]

My group is closing in on higher then 20th level but I won't have to worry about Epic Spellcasting since, oddly enough, I don't have any serious casters that will qualify for it.

I have gone epic with PCs before and we did not alter the rules anyone. But agian I never had anyone interested in the Epic Spellcasting. It's been interesting.

 

[WizarDru]

Anyway, this discussion looks to be an interesting one. I'm very curious to see what folks have to say. Also, I'm curious as to how many of the epic games people are playing have been built up from low levels vs. made at 21st or even higher.

(My epic gaming experience involves the campaign I run, where most of the pcs started at 1st, and the game I play in, where we started at 21st.)

That's an excellent point, and one that deserves highlighting. There is a significant difference between a game that starts at 1st level and progresses to Epic versus a 'conceived as Epic' game. Characters will have sub-optimal wealth, equipment and skill/feat choices for Epic progression unless they envisioned it from the beginning.

Case in point: in my (now Epic) game, when the ELH came out, and we all agreed to proceed to Epic levels, I advised the PCs that there would be an 'Epic Amnesty', where they would be allowed, per DM approval, to modify their characters within reason to better anticipate epic requirements. For example, the cleric didn't have many skill points in Spellcraft. It wasn't needed for his character...but epic spellcasting would require it later, as well as some other options.

Of course, we later realized Epic spellcasting wasn't going to work for us, and we're still working out a better solution, as mentioned above.

 

[BlackMoria]

I have the ELH and I have used it. That said, I don't like the way Epic level play is handled.

IMO, the transition from 20th to 21st level should be a slope like the transition from 19th to 20th. With the ELH, it isn't. It is a plateau. At 20th level, a character can swim across a river or lake adequately. Above 20th, with the right feat, the epic character can swim up Angel Falls. The problem is one of going from a adequate swimmer at 20th to a doing the impossible swimming stunt at level 21. There is little or no incremental increase.

The approach I like is that the transition from 20th to 21st is not much different than the transition for 19 to 20th level. This approach is the one that is being incorporated in Arcana Evolved. There is no 'epic' feats, no strange 21+ level power ups. Instead, characters above 20th get incrementally better class abilities for the classes.

Instead of Epic Spell casting rules as per ELH (which is cumbersome and difficult), Arcana Evolved introduces 10th level spells. And spell casting classes have a logical progression to 10th level spells - not the 'at 20th level, I cast meteor swarm and at 21st level, I cast a spell to level a city' leap that occurs with the ELH.

Having played both (ELH and Arcana Evolved), I find the AE approach to levels above 20th to be more intuitive (it uses the same progression concept that one experiences from 1st to 20th level), less disruptive (you don't have to learn 'another' rule system that the ELH represents), and seamless (there is not a jump in power level from normal to epic play that the ELH represents).

 

[hyulf]

My group finished an epic level campaign last May. I was the DM. We had:

1/2 Orc Cleric/Demigod4 (per Deities and Demigods); 42 levels total
Human Fighter 44
Giant (per Arcana Unearthed) Rgr/Dragonslayer; 42 levels total
Human Monk; 43 levels total
Gnome Wizard; 43 levels total

It was quite the game. It tooks us about 3 years of game play.

Some observations:

It takes a lot of work to prepare for things as the GM. The ELH has few monsters ready to go at those levels (it seems to top out at CR 30 or so). I spent about 4 hours preparing for one encounter. Each encounter took 2-4 hours to finish. Similar to non epic but more draining on time and GM energy.

Some of the epic feats and class abilities aren't that epic. As someone stated before having blinding speed isn't as great as Boots of Swiftness.

Having metamagic feats stack makes for some disgusting damage for spellcasters. The non spellcasters were having a hard time keeping up.

You HAVE to be optimized for epic levels. There isn't a lot of room to be non-optimized. The party would complain that they couldn't handle things (really they could have, sometimes they aren't so creative or don't know the value of teamwork).

CR and granting xp based on CR isn't a good idea. Epic level characters can handle things way past their level. They were taking on things 5-10 levels higher on average and that was playing the monster is a mean way.

Epic spellcasting was cumbersome as people have stated before.

Getting the proper level of equipment/level is very difficult. It is hard to explain that much gold in the world.

Just some quick thoughts. I am glad someone started a thread like this.

hyulf

ps. I can post my epic level foes and monsters (most are 3.0) if people want.

 

[Dragon Mage]

My party has advanced from 1st level to 23rd. I have had no real problems with Epic rules as of yet. One thing I did as a DM was consider Epic play early on in the campaign. Taking this into account eased the transition. Things like limiting powerful magic items the pre/epic party had access to, so that the epic party still have some goals in regards to items.

No party members have considered Epic Spellcasting even though they have found a few Epic Spells. I agree the GP cost seems unreasonable, and needs some modifying. However, as written Epic Spellcasting seems better suited for levels 30 and above.

My biggest issue with Epic play is the power creep of the recent "Complete" books. Many of the feats in these books are superior to Epic versions of the similar feat. Mage Slayer / Spellcaster Harrier comes to mind.

I do not however see any sizable jump in power from 20th to 21st. If anything an Epic character gains less when advancing past 20th level. For example: the limited spell progression virtually stops any caster from gaining new spells (unless they use a feat). The number of attacks per round stops, class abilities are far fewer. This allows the game to continue to advance without becoming overpowered.

 

[WizarDru]

Preparation is a major problem for high-level play in general, and Epic-level play in particular. My experience however, has been that it's better to hit players with a single very powerful individual monster or several nearly identical powerful creatures (i.e. using a single template monster and varying a few stats/effects) than bothering with getting all the details exact.

By Epic levels, I find that combatants fall into two major categories: Ultra-dangerous and Beneath Contempt. PCs are extremely well-armed, protected (unless taken by suprise, a rarity itself) and have lots of fall-backs and 'get out of dodge' options. Recent readers of my story hour will note that the party recently fought a collection of bad guys including an epic minotaur death knight, a super advanced fiendish gigantic dire spider, 25 CR17 shadow rogues, 5 CR 19 drow spellcasters, two CR 25 drow spellcasters, one CR 18 human spellcaster and one CR 22 shadow assassin....and the PCs (who were 22/23rd level) SCHOOLED THEM.

CR ratings are much more variable in epic levels, as it becomes highly personalized to each party. Meet them with their strengths, and they will previal with what appears (but isn't necessarily) like little challenge.

Experience awards, therefore, need to also be highly customized. My personal feeling is that this applies at any level, but at Epic levels, it becomes critical.

In the case of my game, players were not allowed to progress to epic levels, regardless of experience, until they found a personal 'place of power' and found a way to get in touch with it. A mini vision-quest of sorts, it made the transition more meaningful to each of them (at least, I think it did) and signalled the sea change in a real and concrete way.

 

[Zad]

CR ratings are much more variable in epic levels, as it becomes highly personalized to each party. Meet them with their strengths, and they will previal with what appears (but isn't necessarily) like little challenge.

And there's another key element of epic play. By the time you get to 20th level, most DM's have realized that the CR system starts breaking down and becomes more of a general indicator than a finely honed tool for making encounters. But if you jump right into epic play, you'll be shocked at the apparent fickleness of the CR system.

It's no different than the problems with CR pre-epic, but it gets greatly amplified, as do all minor flaws post epic.

We took on a Shadow of the Void. Scary? You bet. Dangerous? Absolutely. Were were prepared? Heck no. But one of the high-damage PC's could overcome the ghost touch ability innately and did fire damage as well (and the creature takes double damage from fire.) So it didn't stand up nearly as long as it might have.

It's the same old story - it depends on what your party can do. But they can do so much more that it becomes difficult to keep track of.

(But I still like epic level play and I think it can work very well. It just takes more discretionary calls by the DM than Sunless Citadel DMs may be used to )

 

[TheBadElf]

The one thing that I learned from my brief attempt at running an epic level game is that it's not like standard D&D with powerful characters - it's closer to running a superhero game with the Justice League or the Authority. Standard "fantasy stuff" just doesn't cut it anymore; you need fantasy supervillians. That's my call on it, anyway - and that campaign sucked so badly that it'll be a long time before I leave my comfortable low to medium level stuff...