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[EPIC LEVEL HANDBOOK] I'm scared
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Crothian
First Post
It's not bad. I'd have hoped for more new abilities for high level character instead of lumping them all into epic feats. I think the saves go up to fast as well. I would have perfered +1 every 3. For the most part I like the epic feats. However, like many things in this game it's way to combat oriented. They needed more like Epic Reputation and Trap Sense. They aren't really powerful, but useful. The High DCs for the skills I liked, I would have liked to see more of this though.
Perhaps some of the other d20 companies who created new uses for old skills can come up with some epic DCs. I'd like that.
The epic spells are pretty cool. THis is what they should have done with the whole spell system though. They need complete rules like this to just create spells. The Magic Items have a few gems, but for the most part I was very dissappointed with them. Most of them are just more powerful versions of something old. Very boring and not creative at all. I do like the monsters. I think many of them have a very mythological feel to them. The orginizations where okay. There are some interesting adventure ideas in there.
Overall I'm happy with the product. I have converted two PCs into epic levels and both have turned out great. I've still got some Epic NPCs to do, but that should be more fun then stating normal NPCs.
Perhaps some of the other d20 companies who created new uses for old skills can come up with some epic DCs. I'd like that.
The epic spells are pretty cool. THis is what they should have done with the whole spell system though. They need complete rules like this to just create spells. The Magic Items have a few gems, but for the most part I was very dissappointed with them. Most of them are just more powerful versions of something old. Very boring and not creative at all. I do like the monsters. I think many of them have a very mythological feel to them. The orginizations where okay. There are some interesting adventure ideas in there.
Overall I'm happy with the product. I have converted two PCs into epic levels and both have turned out great. I've still got some Epic NPCs to do, but that should be more fun then stating normal NPCs.
Mouseferatu
Hero
Warning: Vaguely Lengthy
First, let me say that I'm coming from a different direction than a lot of people. To me, and epic-level game is more than just "You've reached 21st level, now you have new abilities." The feel of an epic-level game is so different that you will never see me using it in the same world that I've just run a year-long regular campaign. The feel of the setting has to be different, more mythic. Most of the campaign worlds I create wouldn't feel right with epic-level characters running around in 'em. So even if I plan to start a campaign at 1st level and work up to epic levels, the world's going to be very different than if I plan to run a campaign that doesn't eventually get epic.
Okay, enough of that. What did I think of the book?
The answer is--mixed.
I liked parts of it. Some of the new abilities are nifty. I like the concepts behind new epic level spells--in fact, I might even be inclined to try to base a custom-made non-epic spell system on it. And a few of the monsters look to be a lot of fun, even if they are blatantly borrowed--in feel if not in detail--from Lovecraft.
But overall, I found the book disappointing in the extreme. Not because it was bad--it wasn't--but because it could have been so much more. It was at best adequate, mediocre, when it could have been good.
In the end, just about everything in the book boils down to numbers. Everything is about raising your attributes and scores to obscene levels. I mean, a +15 sword?! The last time I talked seriously about a character having a +15 weapon, I was in middle school, and we weren't playing with dice. Many of the monsters and magic items seem to have no purpose but to bring together a huge clump of really high numbers, without any worthwhile idea behind them.
Don't misunderstand me, I fully understand the need for higher scores. But that should have been an incidental, not the focus. The book spends way too much time on the numbers, and not enough on how an epic campaign should look, feel, and behave differently than a regular one. Sure, they devote a few chapters to that, but they're insufficient. One basically talks about epic character motivations--and how they're not all that different from regular character motivations. And the other, the one that's supposed to be on epic settings, is crammed full of sample organizations and an entire epic-level city. That, basically, is useless. Don't give me silly organizations and a city. Give me techniques. Tell me how best to modify a campaign setting to make it feel epic. Tell me how epic level characters interact with kings and lesser heroes. Give me tools to build my own epic setting, don't try to shove yours down my throat.
And really, how many epic organizations did we need? Surely not as many as we got.
As much as I hate to say anything good about 2nd edition as compared to 3rd, I think this is one place where they did it better. The DM's Option: High Level Campaigns book for 2nd wasn't flawless, but I think overall it was a better book than this was (monsters and spells aside).
Bottom line? Epic Level Campaigns has some good qualities. I'll probably use it--for occasional mini-campaigns. But I'll never use it for a long campaign, and I won't use it often. It's got nifty abilities, some cool monsters, and other goodies--but it absolutely lacks anything approaching a soul. It doesn't grab, and that's the greatest sin a major RPG book can commit.
First, let me say that I'm coming from a different direction than a lot of people. To me, and epic-level game is more than just "You've reached 21st level, now you have new abilities." The feel of an epic-level game is so different that you will never see me using it in the same world that I've just run a year-long regular campaign. The feel of the setting has to be different, more mythic. Most of the campaign worlds I create wouldn't feel right with epic-level characters running around in 'em. So even if I plan to start a campaign at 1st level and work up to epic levels, the world's going to be very different than if I plan to run a campaign that doesn't eventually get epic.
Okay, enough of that. What did I think of the book?
The answer is--mixed.
I liked parts of it. Some of the new abilities are nifty. I like the concepts behind new epic level spells--in fact, I might even be inclined to try to base a custom-made non-epic spell system on it. And a few of the monsters look to be a lot of fun, even if they are blatantly borrowed--in feel if not in detail--from Lovecraft.
But overall, I found the book disappointing in the extreme. Not because it was bad--it wasn't--but because it could have been so much more. It was at best adequate, mediocre, when it could have been good.
In the end, just about everything in the book boils down to numbers. Everything is about raising your attributes and scores to obscene levels. I mean, a +15 sword?! The last time I talked seriously about a character having a +15 weapon, I was in middle school, and we weren't playing with dice. Many of the monsters and magic items seem to have no purpose but to bring together a huge clump of really high numbers, without any worthwhile idea behind them.
Don't misunderstand me, I fully understand the need for higher scores. But that should have been an incidental, not the focus. The book spends way too much time on the numbers, and not enough on how an epic campaign should look, feel, and behave differently than a regular one. Sure, they devote a few chapters to that, but they're insufficient. One basically talks about epic character motivations--and how they're not all that different from regular character motivations. And the other, the one that's supposed to be on epic settings, is crammed full of sample organizations and an entire epic-level city. That, basically, is useless. Don't give me silly organizations and a city. Give me techniques. Tell me how best to modify a campaign setting to make it feel epic. Tell me how epic level characters interact with kings and lesser heroes. Give me tools to build my own epic setting, don't try to shove yours down my throat.
And really, how many epic organizations did we need? Surely not as many as we got.
As much as I hate to say anything good about 2nd edition as compared to 3rd, I think this is one place where they did it better. The DM's Option: High Level Campaigns book for 2nd wasn't flawless, but I think overall it was a better book than this was (monsters and spells aside).
Bottom line? Epic Level Campaigns has some good qualities. I'll probably use it--for occasional mini-campaigns. But I'll never use it for a long campaign, and I won't use it often. It's got nifty abilities, some cool monsters, and other goodies--but it absolutely lacks anything approaching a soul. It doesn't grab, and that's the greatest sin a major RPG book can commit.
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mattcolville
Adventurer
I think the epic level handbook is fantastic. It's a helluva lota product crammed between 2 covers being essentially a Epic Level PHB, MM, DMG, and Psionicists Handbook.
It's strength is it's vision. If your GM doesn't have a couple of super-powerful NPCs running around that you know someday you're either going to have to A: kill or B: supplant, then maybe Epic level just means 'more cheese' to you. Fair enough. But my GM has a ton of crap going on in the stratosphere of the higher levels and there have never been rules to support it.
Now there are, and the rules are amazing. Once the weirdness of "The Numbers Are Much Higher!" wears off and you start using your imagination to think of what's possible, it's amazing.
But the failing of the book is it's lack of vision. Some of my players thought the idea of Epic Level versions of their dudes was pretty exciting. Others simply couldn't see it. And the failing wasn't theirs. The idea of an epic rogue didn't make sense to my rogue-playing friend, and it didn't make a lot of sense to me either. 'He can *really* disarm a trap!' 'Wow, he gets 80d6 sneak attack.' It's just a normal rogue writ large and that's not what the epic level stuff is about. They invoke the names Gandalf, Conan, and the Gray Mouser. But to my ear, one of these guys doesn't fit. The Grey Mouser is maybe 17th level. A very good thief.
The Epic book needs to invent the idea of the Epic Rogue, maybe also the Epic Ranger, and then sell it to us. Maybe Drizzt is an Epic Ranger, but not Aragorn. Instead of inventing these ideas, it tries to sell us on the idea that somehow the Grey Mouser is in the same league as Elminster, which I don't see.
I read the Epic Characters section and the description of the rogue, for instance, sounds like A Good Rogue, not a Titan Rogue.
Also, the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords looks goofy.
Apart from that, like the spells, the feats, love the monsters, and the items. Can't wait to use the book.
It's strength is it's vision. If your GM doesn't have a couple of super-powerful NPCs running around that you know someday you're either going to have to A: kill or B: supplant, then maybe Epic level just means 'more cheese' to you. Fair enough. But my GM has a ton of crap going on in the stratosphere of the higher levels and there have never been rules to support it.
Now there are, and the rules are amazing. Once the weirdness of "The Numbers Are Much Higher!" wears off and you start using your imagination to think of what's possible, it's amazing.
But the failing of the book is it's lack of vision. Some of my players thought the idea of Epic Level versions of their dudes was pretty exciting. Others simply couldn't see it. And the failing wasn't theirs. The idea of an epic rogue didn't make sense to my rogue-playing friend, and it didn't make a lot of sense to me either. 'He can *really* disarm a trap!' 'Wow, he gets 80d6 sneak attack.' It's just a normal rogue writ large and that's not what the epic level stuff is about. They invoke the names Gandalf, Conan, and the Gray Mouser. But to my ear, one of these guys doesn't fit. The Grey Mouser is maybe 17th level. A very good thief.
The Epic book needs to invent the idea of the Epic Rogue, maybe also the Epic Ranger, and then sell it to us. Maybe Drizzt is an Epic Ranger, but not Aragorn. Instead of inventing these ideas, it tries to sell us on the idea that somehow the Grey Mouser is in the same league as Elminster, which I don't see.
I read the Epic Characters section and the description of the rogue, for instance, sounds like A Good Rogue, not a Titan Rogue.
Also, the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords looks goofy.
Apart from that, like the spells, the feats, love the monsters, and the items. Can't wait to use the book.
Arcane Runes Press
First Post
Yep,
I'm right in line with Mouseferatu's thinking on the ELH.
The big numbers are cool and fun.
The powerful feats and skill DCs are nifty and shiny.
The new beasties sure are tough.
But for the most part, the ELH is a big fat bag of So What?
In other words, the brain is there but the soul is not.
For me, it suffers from the same problems that Deities & Demigods does. Namely, there isn't anything in either book that grabs me by the throat and screams "USE ME!!!!! ADORE ME!!!! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!!!!"
By contrast, WotC's Oriental Adventures and AEG's Swashbuckling Adventures both have that elusive something in spades. Both of those books make me want to use their rules and sensibilities, and that feeling has nothing to do with the basic campaign settings that accompany either one (though both Rokugan and Theah, respectively, are compelling, emminantly playable settings).
Instead, they have real spice and snap. Both books are full of numbers and other crunchy bits, but the spaces inbetween those rules are stuffed to the gills with sparkle and jazz. ELH (and Deities too) by contrast, have wet streamers and polka.
At the most basic level, both OA and SA include not just what you need, but why you need as well. ELH just has the what, and that's not enough to make me care.
Patrick Y.
I'm right in line with Mouseferatu's thinking on the ELH.
The big numbers are cool and fun.
The powerful feats and skill DCs are nifty and shiny.
The new beasties sure are tough.
But for the most part, the ELH is a big fat bag of So What?
In other words, the brain is there but the soul is not.
For me, it suffers from the same problems that Deities & Demigods does. Namely, there isn't anything in either book that grabs me by the throat and screams "USE ME!!!!! ADORE ME!!!! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!!!!"
By contrast, WotC's Oriental Adventures and AEG's Swashbuckling Adventures both have that elusive something in spades. Both of those books make me want to use their rules and sensibilities, and that feeling has nothing to do with the basic campaign settings that accompany either one (though both Rokugan and Theah, respectively, are compelling, emminantly playable settings).
Instead, they have real spice and snap. Both books are full of numbers and other crunchy bits, but the spaces inbetween those rules are stuffed to the gills with sparkle and jazz. ELH (and Deities too) by contrast, have wet streamers and polka.
At the most basic level, both OA and SA include not just what you need, but why you need as well. ELH just has the what, and that's not enough to make me care.
Patrick Y.
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mattcolville
Adventurer
Wow, well first I have to say that Dieties and Demigods is one of the best d20 supplements yet. It grabbed *me* by the throat and made me want to make pantheons.
And I'll say it again; if your campaign already has a lot of high level stuff happening and no real rules for it, you'll love the ELH. It's perfect for that.
And I'll say it again; if your campaign already has a lot of high level stuff happening and no real rules for it, you'll love the ELH. It's perfect for that.
Psion
Adventurer
I just got it today. I too have mixed feelings.
As many of you may know from my past rants, I tend to think 15th-20th level is plenty "epic", and that epic adventuring spings from the sheer mythic proportion of the opposition and the stakes... but many "high fantasy" books that are pretty epic have some pretty meagar heroes.
To me, the ELH could be that. Or it could be more bigger kewl powers.
So which is it?
A little of both, I think.
The character generation chapter didn't strike me as especially thoughtful. It just seemed like an addition of more power with little in the way of new ideas. Some feats are interesting, but many of them just seem to be reaching for more abilities for the characters. Further, it seems like heaping scoops of big numbers all over the place. The magic item chapter seems like more of the same... bigger badder magic items. To be frank, it is an embodiment of the power up mentality about games like RIFTS that make many players loathe it.
But there is good stuff... and it has Bruce Cordell's touch quite visibly upon it. I don't know Andy's style well enough to spot what is here, but lots of the stuff just seems to have that Cordell style.
The good stuff that supports the kind of epic campaign I would want to run is the Epic Spells chapters and the Monsters chapters.
The Epic Spells chapter is a DM license to create. The flexibility of the system and the doors that it can open pave the way to make truly epic villains. You want wizards that can level armies, necromancers that raise them... this is the part of the book you will want to see.
The monsters chapter has dozens of creatures that have pretty good justifications on WHY they should have this level of power... godspawns and abominations from before time. All very creative, and Wayne Reynolds returns and once again helps bring the concepts to life.
I have yet to read the more expositional chapter if they support this feel as well. I am not as negative as I was on this book initially, but I still have some of the same reservations.
As many of you may know from my past rants, I tend to think 15th-20th level is plenty "epic", and that epic adventuring spings from the sheer mythic proportion of the opposition and the stakes... but many "high fantasy" books that are pretty epic have some pretty meagar heroes.
To me, the ELH could be that. Or it could be more bigger kewl powers.
So which is it?
A little of both, I think.
The character generation chapter didn't strike me as especially thoughtful. It just seemed like an addition of more power with little in the way of new ideas. Some feats are interesting, but many of them just seem to be reaching for more abilities for the characters. Further, it seems like heaping scoops of big numbers all over the place. The magic item chapter seems like more of the same... bigger badder magic items. To be frank, it is an embodiment of the power up mentality about games like RIFTS that make many players loathe it.
But there is good stuff... and it has Bruce Cordell's touch quite visibly upon it. I don't know Andy's style well enough to spot what is here, but lots of the stuff just seems to have that Cordell style.
The good stuff that supports the kind of epic campaign I would want to run is the Epic Spells chapters and the Monsters chapters.
The Epic Spells chapter is a DM license to create. The flexibility of the system and the doors that it can open pave the way to make truly epic villains. You want wizards that can level armies, necromancers that raise them... this is the part of the book you will want to see.
The monsters chapter has dozens of creatures that have pretty good justifications on WHY they should have this level of power... godspawns and abominations from before time. All very creative, and Wayne Reynolds returns and once again helps bring the concepts to life.
I have yet to read the more expositional chapter if they support this feel as well. I am not as negative as I was on this book initially, but I still have some of the same reservations.
RE: ELH
From what I've read so far of the book, I'm a little underwhelmed. It's certainly functional, and the authors seem to have taken game balance into account, but so far, I've been waiting for that one bit of inspiration that would want me to take characters well into the upper stratosphere of epic levels. The monsters are very good, with many of them being nightmares of Lovecraftian proportions. I had a few laughs reading some of the spell names and descriptions (example: Let Go of Me, Mass Frog). However, the epic classes, feats, and items are just logical progressions from older ones, with little creativity. We have a slew of new prefixes (Great, Epic, Perfect, etc.) to tack onto this existing material. All in all, once 20th level is reached, I find it difficult to favor advancing characters into the Epic levels versus starting a new campaign. If nothing else, the book provides a frameset of rules to advance characters past 20th level, but the true inspiration to use these rules creatively and effectively in a campaign lies with the DM. It's one thing to describe the spell "Vengeful Gaze of God", but it's another thing entirely to describe the circumstances in which such a spell would be invoked....certainly an epic quest in and of itself.
From what I've read so far of the book, I'm a little underwhelmed. It's certainly functional, and the authors seem to have taken game balance into account, but so far, I've been waiting for that one bit of inspiration that would want me to take characters well into the upper stratosphere of epic levels. The monsters are very good, with many of them being nightmares of Lovecraftian proportions. I had a few laughs reading some of the spell names and descriptions (example: Let Go of Me, Mass Frog). However, the epic classes, feats, and items are just logical progressions from older ones, with little creativity. We have a slew of new prefixes (Great, Epic, Perfect, etc.) to tack onto this existing material. All in all, once 20th level is reached, I find it difficult to favor advancing characters into the Epic levels versus starting a new campaign. If nothing else, the book provides a frameset of rules to advance characters past 20th level, but the true inspiration to use these rules creatively and effectively in a campaign lies with the DM. It's one thing to describe the spell "Vengeful Gaze of God", but it's another thing entirely to describe the circumstances in which such a spell would be invoked....certainly an epic quest in and of itself.
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