Epic Handbook just a little bit unreasonable?

[Piratecat]

Well, my game's almost ten years old, the highest level PC hit 19th level yesterday, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm having skill checks in the mid-30's to mid-40's nowadays, and I'd like to be able to define what these mean!

So I'm thrilled about it. I probably won't use most of it, but that's okay; I have no doubts that it will inspire enough adventures to make it well worth the price.

 

[RangerWickett]

Okay, so people swimming up waterfalls is silly, or walking along clouds, or hanging barehanded from ceilings? Well, you'd better not allow spells like Wind Walk, Spider Climb, or . . . well, some sort of swimming spell.

And level 20th+ doesn't necessarily mean Norse or Greek or Hindu heroes. Have any of you seen any anime series like Slayers? How do you handle someone like Lina Inverse who can shoot off a nuclear explosion pretty much at whim? It's not that the characters in Slayers are god-like. Not at all. Rather, it's just loose, high-powered entertainment where the characters are nearly the best at what they do, so their villains are equally powerful if not moreso.

A lot of anime characters would be epic-level, but I bet that if you're watching the anime you wouldn't say, "That's so munchkin." Rather, you'd be enjoying the fun, and liking the fact that though they're really powerful, they can still have foes, can still have emotional development and conflict.

I myself do kinda think that spell level increases should slow down, so that you only get 4th level spells at 20th level, but you can cast a lot more of them. That would let levels scale more easily.

Still, just think of it as cinema or animation, and you'll be ready to enjoy the game. Your PCs aren't all powerful, just more powerful, which lets them show off their stuff more readily. It should be fun.

(Mind you, I've never run a game past 18th level; the cleric of time casting time stop while hasted and shooting off 15 spells from a wand [and quicken spell] kinda soured me to the fun of high-level games, but I'm coming to like the idea again. I'll just be banning time stop and haste and all other time spells. )

 

[jasamcarl]

Yeah...

Most of these complaints are irrational....i especially love those who brandy about the term muchkin at every oppurtunity as an ad hoc, poor-man's argument. Correct me if i'm wrong, but roleplaying is about playing A role; now limiting the roles one can play based upon some arbitrary preference would seem to defeat the purpose of the playing part. In fact, it would probably be to a player's credit to successfully deal with the plausible role that a dm would demark for such a powerful character. To summarize, you can play a 300 year old elf but now a 30th level mage? yeah right


Oh, and Flexor, if you had any appreciation of the mechanics at all you would note that the EL/CR system breaks outright once character's begin to surmount 20th level. That is because the marginal power increase after that point from multiclassing or even standard progression decreases for some (Fighters/Rogues) and increases for others (Mages/Clerics). The ability to make a balanced encounter would thus be nixed unless one was to remain within a VERY standard party make up.

Now as to the diffculty in keeping track of the mechanics themselves; well, i sympathize, as even now, as a 10th level wizard, my ability to synthesize my relevant abilities is pretty weak. But i chalk that up to inexperience.. Different players have different levels of tolerance conscerning this, and its a tradeoff (power vs. ease) which exists in most rules-heavy systems. It wouldn't be TOO difficult for most fighters and a bit of organizational prowess would alleviate this for mages...

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Re: Yeah...

Oh, and Flexor, if you had any appreciation of the mechanics at all you would note that the EL/CR system breaks outright once character's begin to surmount 20th level. That is because the marginal power increase after that point from multiclassing or even standard progression decreases for some (Fighters/Rogues) and increases for others (Mages/Clerics). The ability to make a balanced encounter would thus be nixed unless one was to remain within a VERY standard party make up.

Or had a good DM.

 

[Illrein]

All of my campaigns take place in the same cosmology that I've created. Each game takes place on a different (material) plane, but the culture, traditions, religions, and languages spread throughout all of them. Legendary NPCs and their tales roam around throughout planes, sometimes lasting over a series of campaigns. The Epic Level Handbook will allow me to create actual statistics for these NPCs. I don't know if I'm the only one who does this, but I think it would benefit DMs whose ideas spread beyond the normal adventure. In every world, there probably should be some character so high in level the players could not comprehend his/her power, even if they never meet him/her. Power has no limit, but it often leads to destruction ("Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"). Also, extremely high-level NPCs can be easily used to 'silence' that particular annoying player.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, how about this one? One of the NPCs the characters in my last game ran into was a prophet who saw her visions of the future each time she died. Yes, died. About 3000 years earlier, she had come into an odd contact with an artifact that caused her soul to reincarnate whenever she died. Her body would develop the same, as if she were literally born again, and she would begin regaining her memories whenever she reached puberty, so by the time she was an adult, she would recall everything that had happened in all her past lives.

Needless to say, over the course of 3000 years, she did a lot, usually trying to stop hideous visions she foresaw that dealt with the artifact that gave her the eternal life.

I think by the time the PCs met her, they were already 14th level, and the best I could do to describe her was 20th level. Some epic levels might have come in handy.

Let's see. Just off the top of my head, let me stat her:

Quillathe Nailo:
Fighter 5: Originally a warrior, focusing in an exotic dueling style.
Lasher 10/Duelist 10: She eventually mastered this style after a few lifetimes, wieilding rapier and whip-dagger.
Assassin 4: Working briefly as an assassin (I let them be good, if they have good intentions) for an order devoted to freeing her people from oppression.
15 more levels of Fighter: Hey, why not? She had the time to spare.
Cleric 9: A passing interest in religion, hoping that learning magic might give her a way out of the cycle. It didn't, though she still keeps up her faith.
Divine Oracle 10: Can see into the future.

So, a Fighter 20/Lasher 10/Duelist 10/Assassin 4/Cleric 9/Divine Oracle 10. What's that? Level 63? That sounds about right. She's seen it all, especially as far as combat goes, so it's really hard to outfight her.

 

[Oni]

I've always wondered how people can pass judgement so quickly on product which they haven't even seen. You'd think at least waiting until the book was released and looking through it before shouting about how pointless, useless, stupid, or munchkin it is would be good form.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

If I recall correctly (always a chancy thing...), the ELH is mainly supposed to be for levels 21 through 40. I'm assuming there will be rules for how to scale up the classes, which is kind of difficult for monks and paladins, to use two examples.

If I had to guess (emphasis on guess; all of this is conjecture), I'd say that there's going to be two different power levels. There is going to be stuff in the book that is just a natural progression of the core rules. And then there's going to be the stuff that's over-the-top munchkinism. It just so happens that the previews have listed stuff that is over the top. Swimming up waterfalls, spider-climbing walls, jumps that cover the length of a football field. (Just look at those DCs, however. Those are going to be some MIGHTY specialized characters, given the amount of skill points they have. And how high will their ability scores be?)

So I pretty much expect there will be the 21-plus stuff, as well as the Crouching Tiger stuff.

At least, I hope so.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I just wish that you could have the option to just advance a class past 20th in its standard abilities or take the wierd epic level benefits that I've seen. And not either be forced to multi-class and only gain some of the class benefits or the wierd abilities.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Or what heretic apostate said, that will learn me to read the entire thread before I post.