[EPIC LEVEL HANDBOOK] I'm scared

[Psion]

Re: Re: Re: Psion...

Once you hit 15th and above, you're one of the movers and shakers of the world,

Unless you are a hanger on to some god-blooded celebrity.

and since you had to play through five whole levels of that before you became epic, do you really think its necessary for a book to hold your hand and spell out how to modify your campaigns in ways that you've already been doing for at least four to five levels anyway?

Heh... you think one game is a substantial experience? When it comes to running 1st-15th level games, I have YEARS of experience backing me up regarding how to create an interesting campaign appropriate for the characters. One campaign for 5 levels isn't going to get me to the point that I am equivalently experienced in those higher level games, even if I did assume that the 21st+ level experience was going to be the same as the 15th-20th. Which I don't, at least not entirely.

The reason the authors included that is because it does get progressively harder to keep the challenges varied as characters get more powerful, and therefore the need for hand-holding increases. I don't need that, and am glad that too much space wasn't wasted on it.

Bully for you. Don't presume you speak for a majority of the potential audience for the ELH. Various polls I have seen regarding "campaign levels" that I have seen indicate that <5% of D&Ders run games in the 20+ range... quite likely because most consider prior editions of the rules rather shaky at those levels. The arrival of ELH will likely change those figures, but at this point, the GM experience just isn't out there.

Save the "Baby Steps into Epic Campaigns" for articles of Dragon and pack good hard numbers, tables, and stats into the rulebooks.

Not once did I suggest that it be the rules material to go in lieu of what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting is that much of the dubious "epic campaign setting" stuff could have been spared and replaced with more useful insights. I have been running my campaign for years and years, and one thing I am sure I don't need is dubious setting material that is unlikely to fit my campaign anyway. THAT is what could have been saved for the Dragon.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Hmm. Interesting...

I never advocated DM hand-holding or baby steps, and I never denied that the book would have to focus largely on the numbers. Let's see if I can make my problems clearer--and I'll admit straight up that I may not be able to.

And epic level game is more than just higher numbers with the same style. You're dealing with characters who can do things that are simply impossible (barring magic, of course) at lower levels. Walking on clouds? Swimming up waterfalls? Shooting arrows to the horizon? We've gone from Tolkien, Dragonlance, the Belgariad, and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser to Princess Mononoke, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, Gilgamesh, and Final Fantasy. This isn't a bad thing, unless you don't like that sort of fantasy, in which case epic gaming probably isn't for you. But denying the difference exists is, I feel, short-sighted.

The D&D core rules are designed around adventure in a "standard" fantasy game. The rules and the feel reflect that. The rules of Epic Level reflect a more "mythic" game, but the feel doesn't. The feel hasn't changed.

I don't believe the DMG is as "soulless" as the ELH. When I read through it, I get a feel for what the authors are talking about, I get an image of what their vision of a D&D campaign is. I may not agree with it, but I get it. Reading through the ELH, I didn't get that. All I got were numbers.

Primarily, my objections have to do with chapter six (I think). Surely they could have done better than given us dozens of pages of organizations and a planar city. This is where the toolbox approach would have worked best, and where it was completely abandoned in favor of examples that I can't imagine most people ever using.

(I may be wrong about "most people," of course, but that's how I see it.)

I'm not asking for setting info. I'm not asking for them to decide how my (or your) campaign should operate. I'm asking for tips and advice and suggestions on creating an environment and plots for a specific type of game that most of us have rarely, if ever, run.

Bottom line, the book didn't feel complete to me. It seemed lacking, and "soulless," while perhaps not particularly illuminating, is still the best word I can come up with. It's not by any means a bad book. What it does, it does well. But at the end of the day, I have less interest in running an epic game having read the book than I did before I bought it. And that, to me, means that something went wrong.

 

[Psion]

Primarily, my objections have to do with chapter six (I think). Surely they could have done better than given us dozens of pages of organizations and a planar city. This is where the toolbox approach would have worked best, and where it was completely abandoned in favor of examples that I can't imagine most people ever using.

(I may be wrong about "most people," of course, but that's how I see it.)

Well, I think we are on the same page on that note. Epic level guards and 15th level groupies were NOT what I was looking for in an epic setting, and I think the space could be better used.

That said, unlike you, my reservations aren't as deep now as they were before I got it. It seems fun and it seems doable. I just have this over-awing sense of "what am I going to do with this?"

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I have read through several posts here and I think I understand where Psion is coming from on this.

Part of the problem with ELH is that is simplifies the game at a deeper level while only adding numbers, BIG NUMBERS.

Think of it this way. An epic character can do damage that makes meteor swarm look like a magic missle. They can divine knowledge so well that Commune looks like a detect magic. Finally they can travel so well that teleport Without Error looks like a peasants cart.

Now think about it. Sure I can offset the first with just bigger and badder monster hitpoints. The second and third though make it very hard. Either you continually come up with out of rules explanations why they dont work or you simplify your campaign into a grade schoolers idea of DnD. Which is basically kill big monster take treasure, kill bigger monster take treasure, rinse and repeat.

ELH kills the soul of DnD by reducing the options a DM has by giving so much to the player.

 

[Kai Lord]

Hmm. Interesting...

I never advocated DM hand-holding or baby steps, and I never denied that the book would have to focus largely on the numbers. Let's see if I can make my problems clearer--and I'll admit straight up that I may not be able to.

And epic level game is more than just higher numbers with the same style.

For you, apparently. I think it just comes down to your overall approach to the game right from the beginning. It sounds like some people on this thread have first level kobolds coming up with weak little plans to foil first level characters, 5th level clerics trying to oppress communities inhabited by 5th level heroes, and so on. I've never done that. Low level characters in my campaigns are often caught up in grand schemes perpetuated by insanely powerful entities. Like Tolkien or Dragonlance, they work their way up the challenge ladder as they approach their nemesis, but the "epic" situations and characters are there from the beginning. No glass ceiling has ever existed in my campaigns.

To avoid the cheesiness of always having characters fighting challenges or monsters that are catered to their exact levels, my worlds tend to have less of a linear nature. Sometimes that means low, mid, or high level characters crossing paths with villains they *can't* fight, even if one of them is carrying a ridiculous artifact.

Since I have always liked my campaigns to be cinematic, that has often meant describing wizards doing things far beyond what simple spell slots and material components allow, and up to now I've had to just make up their powers on the fly as I saw fit. Rarely a problem, except that my impromptu abilities never benefited from actual playtesting before being plopped into the middle of an adventure.

You're dealing with characters who can do things that are simply impossible (barring magic, of course) at lower levels. Walking on clouds? Swimming up waterfalls? Shooting arrows to the horizon? We've gone from Tolkien, Dragonlance, the Belgariad, and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser to Princess Mononoke, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, Gilgamesh, and Final Fantasy.

Tolkien isn't epic? Sauron isn't a god, so tell me how to create him in the Core Rules. Dragonlance? Lets say I read the Legends trilogy and want to tell a story that features a wizard who advances so far in power he can summarily destroy all gods in the pantheon. How do I do that with non-epic rules? If I let on that the massive dragon terrorizing the town has one missing scale over his heart that would take a critical shot to hit, what non-epic character is going to take him out? Epic Rules now finally make it possible to have stories that emulate what the game was supposed to be emulating all along.

Epic Rules take a lot of the coolness out of magic items and puts it where it should be--the characters. Bard didn't say, "Arrow of Dragon Slaying, you've been specially enchanted to kill dragons in one shot, fly now, and do the work for me!" Nope, he pulled out his favorite black feathered arrow and bam, shot it right through Smaug's heart. That's cool, and no fundamentally different than a level one ranger rolling a natural twenty and nailing a stirge.

As for the swimming up waterfalls and walking on clouds, those are 100 DC skills, sure that might be getting into anime, but you're talking level 60 characters who can do hardly any other skill other than swimming up waterfalls. Just because you can do something goofy within the context of the rules doesn't mean there need to be special chapters on it. Personally I think those DC's were just thrown in to illustrate there really is no ceiling. Nevertheless, the suggestions on what to do in your really are just a waste after a point.

Technically you can have 1,000,000,000th leveled characters under the new rules. I guarantee those campaigns will be very different than level 25 campaigns which are both "epic". Where do you draw the line? To me, suggestions on how to apply the rules to a 30th level campaign are as silly as those for a 500th level campaign. If you don't know what epic campaigns are like, why would you want the ELH in the first place? I think you'll see that what it does is provide rules for a lot of campaigns and story ideas that were already there in the first place.

This isn't a bad thing, unless you don't like that sort of fantasy, in which case epic gaming probably isn't for you. But denying the difference exists is, I feel, short-sighted.

For your campaigns, there might very well be a difference. But my campaigns are more akin to Tolkien and Dragonlance where killing enormous beasts with one shot from a nonmagical bow [Death of Enemies feat] and challenging the gods [Epic Spellcasting] are actual possibilities for those few who rise in sufficient skill and power.

Primarily, my objections have to do with chapter six (I think). Surely they could have done better than given us dozens of pages of organizations and a planar city. This is where the toolbox approach would have worked best, and where it was completely abandoned in favor of examples that I can't imagine most people ever using.

On this I wholeheartedly agree. Totally useless information for me.

I'm not asking for setting info. I'm not asking for them to decide how my (or your) campaign should operate. I'm asking for tips and advice and suggestions on creating an environment and plots for a specific type of game that most of us have rarely, if ever, run.

I don't believe that "most" people would agree that doing things that heroes in books and movies have always done is such an alien concept to grasp.

 

[Fictionaut]

Thumbs Up

I picked up the ELH on Friday, and have finally had a chance to read completely through it. I have to concur with much of what has been said here about the lack of campaign-building material, but it still seems like a very solid book.

I was pleased overall with the mechanical aspects of the book. Some of the feats could perhaps have been more general, as opposed to tailoring almost all of them to one or two classes (Epic Dodge and Spectral Strike are the two that come to mind immediately), but overall, nothing set off my house rule alarm. I was actually taken aback by how linear the progression of powers is, at least in the 20s-30s.

The monsters presented a nice variety of challenges, and I have to give serious props for the inclusion of ECLs, which, to me at least, seem much closer to the mark than those in Dragon a few months back. Hopefully this trend will continue with MM2 and future monster books.

As far as campaign-building goes, Deities and Demigods spoiled me with the volume of advice and number of hooks, and so it was a bit of a letdown not to find the same level of campaign support.
Instead, we have Union, which seems to be geared towards dispelling the attitude that PCs are the biggest kids on the playground. While the sentiment is admirable, I don't think a city with thirtieth level guards (!) is suitable for everyone's style of play, and a more general chapter on high level campaign ideas and logistics would probably have been better received.

But overall, I think removing the "cap" mentality from campaigns is a long-overdue idea, and in that sense the book succeeds. It is relatively unexplored territory, but I suspect many groups will build up to it slowly anyway.

 

[Phaedyme]

That said, unlike you, my reservations aren't as deep now as they were before I got it. It seems fun and it seems doable. I just have this over-awing sense of "what am I going to do with this?"

I can see where you're coming from in your criticisms (as well as Mouseferatu and others), and can't entirely disagree. I was hoping for a bit more in the book. Still, I have to say what's there is enough for me to mess around with. I've planned a 25th level mini-campaign (probably two or three adventures, max) that should prove suitably epic, if not mythic in the style many think of.

I will probably post about it after it's run. I'd say more, but one of my players reads these forums.

 

[rounser]

Soulless? Hardly! No more so than the DMG or the PH.

Which touches on one of my big complaints about the core books. I'd also say that when people say "soulless" that they don't really mean "lack of advice on how to use it", or, "not enough fluff included", but rather, "uninspiring". D&D has an X factor which, ideally, all of it's products should tap into. Easier said than done, and I can understand how hard it is to keep one's eye on all balls at once.

I'm not having a dig by saying this, because they excel in other areas, but little in the 3E core books gave me the bug of enthusiasm for the game present in, say, the Rules Cyclopedia. YMMV. When it comes to a game book, this sort of thing does matter, IMO - and it doesn't imply fluff, nor hand-holding advice. It's related to richness of ideas and presentation, atmosphere and "cool factor" in everything from the writing style and artwork to the content itself. This is the sort of thing brand managers are supposedly looking after, no?

Perhaps it was inevitable that certain features of the ELH would be uninspiring because they represent a pure escalation of something we have seen before, yet I do not believe that a book of crunch as a whole must be uninspiring and soulless in order to do it's job. As a result, I side with both sides of the argument here - everyone has a point, IMO...

 

[Psion]

Well spoken, Rounser.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I just wish Amazon would get the dadburn book already...