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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2009428" data-attributes="member: 2205">Edited for clarity.Although since I rarely play at high levels, I wasn't initially going to pick up the Epic Level Handbook.  However, the book was much prettier than I thought and I decided that, since folks like Ryan Dancey had mentioned some of my problems with the system, Wizards of the Coast was aware of them, so there was a good chance the book would solve my problems and make high level play fun.  In addition, it was on sale through some kind of distribution error at buy.com for less than $14, so I figured I really couldn't really lose with that, right?  Well, yes and no.  It's still $14 that don't know how much use I'll get out of, since it didn't grab me in the least and say "play some epic characters, %&@#!!!" the way Manual of the Planes did.  But it did have a few inspired moments.  Here and there.First of all, this book is without a doubt the biggest and heaviest book on my RPG bookshelf.  Coming in at about 320 pages (when you count a few pages of ads in the back), the book just looks meaty.  And as you'd expect, it is mostly full of "meat" -- little in the way of setting or anything like that, tons in the way of mechanics.The book starts off with an introduction saying that as far as D&D is concerned, epic just means above 20th level (you probably already knew that.)  It starts the first chapter off listing "epic" characters.  "Baba Yaga.  Conan the Barbarian.  Cu Chulainn.  Elminster of Shadowdale.  Elric of Melnibone.  Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.  Gandalf.  Gilgamesh.  Hiawatha.  Odysseus.  These are names of power.  Names of glory.  Epic names."However, unfortunately, with the exception of Elminster of Shadowdale (who doesn't really belong on that list anyway) the book then completely ignores that list and doesn't give you anything you could use to actually recreate any of those characters.  One of my complaints about D&D overall, and it really shows here, is that it is increasingly self-referential, forgetting the "source material" that inspired it in the first place.  Chapter 1: Characters, Skills & Feats, for instance, after giving you very bland expansions of each of the classes presented in the PHB and the DMG, gives equally bland feats and skill DCs.  Very little of this is original, inspiring or even neat, in my opinion, and none of it harks back to the list of epic characters listed as the chapter starts.  The fact that most skill DCs, to give one example, are about 75-80% or more dependent on bonus and only 20-25% (if that) dependent on your d20 roll makes epic level play fairly boring, in my opinion.  In a quick playtest, it was initially kinda fun to just see the amazing things we could do, but as the novelty value wore off after less than a single evening I really wonder how useful any of the material in this chapter is to someone who really wants to run a long-term campaign with these rules.  Oh, and the chapter also attempts to "fix" the system at higher level, by coming up with an all new bonus system as you advance to apply to your attack and such.  This sort of works -- at least the system isn't obviously "broken" but the problems I mentiond above about how much your d20 roll matters anymore can't be completely eliminated.  Of course, this becomes an issue even before you roll past 20 on the level-o-meter, so it's not surprising.Then again, I'm a miserly old codger with my own stick-in-the-mud views on how the game should be played.  How does the rest of the book stack up?Chapter 2: Epic Spells suffers from the same problem, in my opinion.  The "epic" spells are just larger than life novelty items -- epic whoopy cushions that are fun(ny) once or twice, then boring forever after that.  However, the chapter includes a very good idea, although I find it to be a bare skeleton of a system when ideally this should have been rolled out to all spells, epic or otherwise.  I'm talking about the idea of using spell seeds and factors to create your own spells.  Spell seeds are the basic thrust of the spell, and depending on what variables you want to add to it (factors) like changing the DC or casting time you can get spells that feel very different.  By combining different seeds and layering factors over them, you can really create a very flexible spell system.  Alas, it really only works at epic level though, when with a "standard" methodology that we could use at level 1, I'd have found this section to be worth the price of admission by itself.  Chalk it up to a missed opportunity.  Chapter 3: Running an Epic Game is more bland, somewhat useful yet certainly uninspiring work, including how to run epic dungeons (!) and other things that suggest that becoming "epic" really doesn't mean anything has changed, as there are few ideas on how to make the game really different in feel.  There is some good advice on how to manage runaway wealth and power.  However, the nature of the system is that most encounters will either be a landslide victory for the characters or a landslide loss for them, and a few variant rules help to dull the edge of this factor a little bit.You, if you are astute, can probably already guess what I'll say about Chapter 4: Epic Magic Items.  In general, I find magic items uninspiring anyway -- I can barely read through that section of the DMG.  This chapter is about the same calibre as the DMG, with items that will knock your socks off, as you expect.  Nothing is really different than you'd expect, I think, except that the writers have to engage in some kinda loopy logic to explain how artifacts are now junior league magic items compared to "epic" magic items.  The book really begins to show its truest potential in Chapter 5: Monsters.  Of course, if you've read my reviews in the past, you probably know that I really enjoy monsters (which is ironic, because as a DM, I prefer to use NPCs as adversaries and really keep the monsters at a minimum.)  However, for the first time in the entire book (starting on page 155, I'm afraid to say) I'm inspired by something in the book.  Some of these monsters are truly magnificent in execution and concept, like the atropal -- undead, aborted god-foetus creatures, the Xixecal -- the Godzilla of ice-creatures, special dragons and golems, white and black slaadi and more.  Templates are even inspiring -- the paragon creature that adds up to +18 to the CR (!) and represents the ultimate expression of that creature, or the "epic" pseudonatural template for some real Lovecraftian nightmares.  Or how about the Worm that Walks -- a new kind of lich in which the body completely decays and the only thing that is left is an anthropomorphic mass of writhing worms and maggots!Some attempt at setting is made in Chapter 6: An Epic Setting in which a number or very cliched organizations are detailed, and a demi-plane where the bouncers only let epic folks in, apparently, called Union is described.  Other than Arnie Swekel's artwork of the floating city and dragon-riders approaching it, I found the treatment felt rushed and thrown-together in most regards.Next come the probably obligatory Appendix I: Epic NPCs of Faerun and the much shorter Appendix II: Epic NPCs of Greyhawk  Blah, I guess it had to be done, but I, not-surprisingly, didn't find it any more interesting than anything else in the book.  Finally, Appendix III: Epic NPCs gives tables for DMs to quickly put together "standard" epic level characters (!?), although the concept is a bit of a misnomer to begin with.So, to recap, with the exception of the marvellous artwork (most of the best of it done by Wayne Reynolds, as usual -- Sam Wood and Todd Lockwood were noticably scarce in this book) and a fascinating monster section, the book struck me as servicable, but no more than that.  I didn't feel inspired to roll up an epic level character to try one out (although I did anyway, probably just so I could use the book once and not feel bad about having bought it) and certainly not to run an epic level campaign.  I was hoping that this book and Deities & Demigods would create a synergy of some kind; that the two of them would somehow be greater than the sum of the two.  Unfortunately, they do not -- surprisingly they don't even work well together, in my opinion, so we're left with -- again -- a book that tantallizes with snazzy pictures, but then disappoints with burgois execution.</blockquote>

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