Epic Experiences and Thoughts

[the Jester]

One of the best ways to challenge epic characters ime is to turn up the speed of the pacing. Sure, you can greater teleport anywhere you need to go, but you need to be in three places at once!

F'rinstance, the pcs imc are busy dodging an epic spell Asmodeus keeps casting at them that lets him inflict 30d6 through scrying them out. Simultaneously there's a contract out on them that's bringing in glooms to kill them- and several times they've nearly all died from the attempts. There are also 29 gates open to a plane of chaos, summoning various types of extremely powerful worms to face our heroes. And the pcs each have their own interests to guard and further as well.

It's very cool, but it requires me as the dm to be ready to go in unexpected directions and wing it at a moment's notice. I do huge amounts of prep but still never get to use any of it some sessions.

 

[Dragonblade]

I have done several things in epic play.

First, I don't use the standard NPC level demographics. I have rescaled the game to accomodate epic levels. A game where the PCs are level 20+ and everyone else is a 1st level warrior just doesn't work, unless you are willing to embrace a superheroic or mythic play style. In other words, the character are literally superheroes saving the world from supervillains.

I wanted epic level play but also wanted a certain grittiness as well. In the epic games I have run before, I scaled all NPC levels up. Level 1 represents a young adolescent. Your average city guard will be around level 8. A veteran soldier will be around level 16 or more. The king's elite bodyguard would be level 30+ and so on.

This resulted in a world with all the grittiness of a low-level game, yet could incorporate all the uber-fantastic elements that I love so much, such as flying citadels, entire squadrons of dragon riding warriors, legions of death knights marching across a battlefield, etc. without having to tone everything down.

In my game, PCs can do crazy epic stuff like dueling a 30th level vampire knight from dragonback, but still aren't so godlike that they can walk into a town and own the place. 10 15th level veteran guardsmen can give even a 30th level fighter pause. And that was exactly the feel I wanted.

I also found that as levels increase, save or die effects become much more common. The problem is I hate the videogame feel of raise dead magic. So I replaced all such spells with a system of fate points that character can use to avoid insta-kill effects when they fail a crucial save.

In my experience, the ELH rules worked great for me once I rescaled the world. However, I did not like the epic spell rules so never incorporated those.

I also took out some other gamebreaking spells or mitigated others with commensense. I don't allow scry or clairvoyance, for instance. But that doesn't really have anything to do with epic level. Those are spells that I feel shouldn't even exist in low-level or low-magic games.

 

[Trainz]

Please allow me to rain on your parade a bit Dragonblade. Of course, no offense is intended, and I hope you'll view my words in the most positive light possible:

I have done several things in epic play. [...]
I wanted epic level play but also wanted a certain grittiness as well. In the epic games I have run before, I scaled all NPC levels up. Level 1 represents a young adolescent. Your average city guard will be around level 8. A veteran soldier will be around level 16 or more. The king's elite bodyguard would be level 30+ and so on.

That's something I am not for, at least in my campaign. Your players tough it up for years of game time to finally become fantastic and powerful individuals. Raising the demographic's stats like you do robs them of a part of that achievement and steps on the verisimilitude of the campaign world.

What I did is create a different material plane from the one they are based from with different power levels. On that plane, powerful critters dominated the cities, and they had to adventure a few times there, but when they came back home, it was the same nice and cosy place they spent time to learn, love, and care about, not some weird place where teenagers became level 1 fighters because the players became epic (again, absolutely no offense meant).

[...] However, I did not like the epic spell rules so never incorporated those.

On this I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I also took out some other gamebreaking spells or mitigated others with commensense. I don't allow scry or clairvoyance, for instance. But that doesn't really have anything to do with epic level. Those are spells that I feel shouldn't even exist in low-level or low-magic games.

Strangely enough, these spells see very little to no use at all in our games. Somewhat I guess we kinda feel the pandora's box using them could mean, so we all instinctively avoid them like the plague. There has been the odd situation where they did see some use, but the few times this was done is that their use was warranted by the plot itself.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

My group's done several epic games.

Our Birthright game started out at 5th level and ended around 22/23. It worked pretty smoothly, all things considered, though we were massively over-equipped for our level; my character (fighter-rogue) obtained his ancestral sword, a +5 Holy Keen Evil Outsider Dread Cold Iron Bastard Sword (incidentally, this was Fedifensor in our game). The DM let me treat it as a daisho and just throw XP into it to fix it, which HURT (I spent the better part of two levels' worth of XP on it!). Meanwhile, the priest-paladin wound up with a colossus bound to him, and the rogue/psion wound up with a +6 rapier that Nyarlathotep or Hastur (whichever is the Prince in Yellow) dropped. However, the epic fights were very difficult; we came within inches of losing to the Prince of Yellow, as we had to get assistance from Hruggek to breach his DR. Another Epic dragon had us on the ropes until the priest-paladin called in his colossus.

The other game(s) that I was in that were epic started at 30, with double money. It was quite fun, but the DM didn't last very long...three or four sessions in the first game, and 1.5 sessions in the second (DM got food poisoning at dinner and we had to stop).

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the items yet. They're entirely too expensive for what they do. There's no reason that an extra +1 to hit and damage should cost 670k gp more than a +5 sword. In the second game, we wound up using alternate bonuses (Luck, Insight, etc.) to get our saves and attacks up to survivable levels.

I'd like to play in an epic game again; I really enjoyed the character concepts I'd come up with and would like to be able to toss coruscating waves of death at NPCs. Sigh.

Brad

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi WizarDru!

Well, that's not much of a help to me, personally.

Well that was an abbreviated version. Its a bit like D&D, once you know how it works its very simple.

If I have to add an extra step of calculations (and I'll admit, I still don't follow your system, even on my third time through), you've just made Epic even more work for me.

The crux of what you have to remember is that a character (or ECL/CR) of x = x4 characters of level 1/2 x.

eg. A 20th-level character = 4 10th-level characters. A 30th-level character = x4 15th-level characters etc.

Same for monsters.

Plus, I have to translate everything into that system, which I'm not inclined to do, honestly.

Well the only translation is that you use ECL for CR, which means that monsters and characters are balanced, which they are not in the official rules.

My personal experience has been that CR is not an effective determiner after a certain point.

Thats probably because you are still using the flawed official system with a boundary limit of +8. So your party are defeating CR 30 monsters when they are only in their low 20s, clearly contradicting the official rules.

Two CR24 creatures were cannon fodder, but another CR 24 creature nearly caused a TPK.

Well first I would ask who determined the CRs? WotC?

Secondly I would ask were there any situational modifiers in play? I deal with those in the document I released the crux of which was printed in Grim Tales, Chapters 13 and 14.

My reservations about your system are still that if I have to do that much work, it's not much more use to me than winging it based on my experience with the group.

All I would ask is that instead of equating CR with Encounter Level on a straight one for one basis (like the core rules). That you try the following.

x1.5 CR = EL +2
x2 CR = EL +4
x3 CR = EL +6
x4 CR = EL +8

eg. The party (of 4-5 characters) are 20th-level, then a +2 EL encounter will be CR/ECL 30.

And at Epic levels, knowledge of the players styles is as important as any of their stats.

Absolutely, although I have found that the greater range allowed under my rules will tend to compensate for much of this.

eg. A Party of 20th-level characters have an official range of CR 12-28, but under my auspices its more accurately CR 5-80.

 

[Dragonblade]

Nice comments, Trainz! All feedback is welcome!

I would just like to clarify that I don't suddenly rescale everything when the PCs get high level. I agree with you that that would not be fair to the players. Actually, I start the campaign with that level of power from the beginning so the PCs always know what to expect.

I also don't usually start players at level 1 unless I really want to begin the campaign with every PC as a wet behind the ears farm boy. I usually start PCs at level 5 or 6. Sometimes level 10, depending on the feel I'm going for.

I have found that under standard DnD level demographics, there is an increasing lack of checks and balances on PC power and challenges as they grow tougher. Not only do the PCs themselves become walking gods if they are 20th and everyone else 1st level, but their challenges increasingly threaten to unravel the internal consistency of the world. For example, if the BBEG has some army of nasties that have a CR comparable to epic PC levels, its just not realistic that a town of 1st level NPCs could survive on their own without the PCs to save them.

I don't like that. I like to have large dynamic worlds where PC heroism isn't simply determined by DM fiat or because the PCs are the only ones capable of facing the threat. I prefer PC heroism to be acts that the PCs undertake that go above and beyond what the NPCs are willing to do, not because the NPCs can't do it. In other words, I prefer the heroism of PCs to be driven by their own words and deeds, not simply a foregone conclusion because they are the only ones capable of defeating the threat.

In my world, the king's army is powerful enough to repel attacks from the undead legions of the lich king. But only the PCs are daring enough to lead a commando raid into the lich king's citadel to destroy his phylactery.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Hello,

My FR campaign has just taken its first tentative steps into Epic Level play. We started back in 2000 just after the release of 3rd Edition, with the players all at 1st level.

Although I don't have comparable experience, I get the feeling that campaigns who start at 21st level by their nature have a much different feel than those that have gone two or more years in real life in order to get a group of characters to Epic Level.

I think the former is much more likely to exhibit the superhero-amongst-ants feel previously mentioned in this thread, while the later can draw on multiple layers of already established plot and PC/NPC interaction to provide more game play hours spent on mystery, suspense, planning and feeling than on super powered uber-brawls.

Note that I don't write these words to criticize those who start play at 21st (or higher) level, nor do I dislike uber-brawls --they’re fun! Rather, to say that IMX Epic Play seems to work best when 15-20 levels worth of campaign experience has already gone by.

I would recommend to any aspiring Epic DM that if he or she is interested in more than just a campaign whose encounters are little more than thinly veiled contests of game-math wits between himself and his players that he or she should establish as much of the game world as possible in writing and get his players to absorb this knowledge, as well as have them help their DM by building deep back stories before play ever begins.

This advice parallels my approach to Epic Level play, which centers around establishing as much of the campaign setting in the character’s/player’s minds as possible. Whereas a maxed out, made in three hours 21st level PC (and that character’s equally inexperienced to the campaign world player) may be eager to slay all foes and rule all peoples, a player whose just turned 21st level PC has already been to the end of the world and back will spend much, much more game time pondering his actions and his plans, as well as interacting with NPCs, as that player knows not all the Kings, Merchant Lords, Tharchions, High Priests, Zulkiirs and Guild Masters (in addition to their attendants, their associates and even the common folk that look to these leaders for guidance) that the Epic PC has met during his journeys will agree with or even tolerate his actions.

Anyway, sorry so long winded.

J. Grenemyer

 

[Piratecat]

I'm finding that instead of ratcheting up the lethality rate, I'm making the consequences for failure much more severe. In an upcoming game the PCs may or may not get killed by a bunch of devils holding a temple of Yondalla hostage, but those poor halflings in there are largely going to fold like tenpins if the PCs aren't precise and effective.

 

[Nifft]

In my world, the king's army is powerful enough to repel attacks from the undead legions of the lich king. But only the PCs are daring enough to lead a commando raid into the lich king's citadel to destroy his phylactery.

Yes! This is my world, too. Thanks for phrasing it so well.

IMC, most NPCs are 8-12th level, with about half of those levels in Expert or Aristocrat.

PCs are different because they are suicidal -- er, brave. Yeah. Brave.

-- N

 

[dravot]

Sounds like a good approach, Piratecat.

I'll pretty much echo what WizarDru said about our now-Epic campaign. The only real disappointment about Epic to me is the epic spellcasting. Playing a cleric, I was highly dissatisfied with most of the epic spells as presented in the book (much better for Arcane casting, IMO). Trying to create some appropriate epic cleric spells using their system led me to quickly decide that I just didn't care for the system, although I liked the concept.

The proposed re-write sounds promising, though. I like it.

As a cleric, I find that many of the presented feats just don't appeal to me, or my vision of Dravot. Take out epic spell casting and that's that many fewer feats of interest. I'm going to take the feat that negates the need for material components whatsoever, and the one that allows for casting without provoking AoOs, and I have the planar turning feat, which I like overall. Beyond that, not so interesting. I may start scouring for other sources and/or pitch some potential epic feats to WizarDru when the time comes. The one that projects an undead-turning aura...it's a small radius, and only destroys undead something like 20 levels below the character's level. If 4HD undead are that close to my character, there are other problems to contend with, trust me.

I do recall one combat where WizarDru included some outsier, figuring that Dravot would use planar turning on it, occupying him and his resources for a round or two, only to learn that the creature was too tough for Dravot to turn (since 1/2 of the creature's SR is added to it's HD for calculating turn results). No matter...it just took a bit of creativity to finish out the combat, and WizarDru has learned to just let us figure it out, all to the good.

I guess that's a minor downpoint to epic...more options for the DM and the players to keep an eye on, and remember.