Epic Level more popular than Psionics?

I've never run Epic-level stuff in the new editions, but did run high-level stuff in OD&D and 1e.

As for psionics, I always hated them until 3/3.5. Now I'm thinking of running a campaign that only has psionics, and no divine or arcane magic.
 

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CRGreathouse said:
The Epic Level Handbook has a sample adventure or two.

Dungeon has published two epic adventures, I think -- The Storm Lord's Keep (#93) and The Razing of Redshore (#92).

That's kind of my point. I imagine epic is more popular since there is basically no support of adventures for it.
 

What I find interesting (and I'm sure Al and Shemmy will too) is if there IS path into the Blood War, it should be WAY more fun than some other adventures using the Blood War. Especially if they revist Sigil...
 

Two thoughts spring to mind

1. Demand and Supply.
Epic is -very- hard to do properly. THere are no published Epic adventures that I am aware of. I am very unlikely to ever wind up doing Epic but that doesn't mean that I don't love the Epic adventures in Dungeon. They're facinating and creative.
There are no published Epic adventures anywhere there is only one epic book (and its a 3.0 version). Dungeon is filling a real need and I would not be surprised if the responce they were seeing has something to do with the absolute lack of Epic material.

2. Psionics is not exclusive/Epic is
You're either playing an epic game, or you aren't. You can't have a game with a little bit of Epic in it; artifiacts in a low level game are a plot device not really a part of the ruleset.
If I wanted to run an all psionic game in a homebrew I could, but for the vast majority of people who use psionics its part of the game world, not the whole entireity of it.
Right now we have a Kalashar game starting. Its all psionic PCs. I expect there will be lots of psionic foes, but we don't really need a bunch of psionics only adventures or else we're in trouble.

Epic stuff is so hard to do and takes so much time that even a bunch of epic stated foes in an otherwise unusable adventure is a big savings in the DMs time.
 


*TRying to resist but can't*

Graf said:
1. Demand and Supply.
Epic is -very- hard to do properly. THere are no published Epic adventures that I am aware of. I am very unlikely to ever wind up doing Epic but that doesn't mean that I don't love the Epic adventures in Dungeon. They're facinating and creative.
There are no published Epic adventures anywhere there is only one epic book (and its a 3.0 version). Dungeon is filling a real need and I would not be surprised if the responce they were seeing has something to do with the absolute lack of Epic material.

2. Psionics is not exclusive/Epic is
You're either playing an epic game, or you aren't. You can't have a game with a little bit of Epic in it; artifiacts in a low level game are a plot device not really a part of the ruleset.
If I wanted to run an all psionic game in a homebrew I could, but for the vast majority of people who use psionics its part of the game world, not the whole entireity of it.
Right now we have a Kalashar game starting. Its all psionic PCs. I expect there will be lots of psionic foes, but we don't really need a bunch of psionics only adventures or else we're in trouble.

Epic stuff is so hard to do and takes so much time that even a bunch of epic stated foes in an otherwise unusable adventure is a big savings in the DMs time.

1. You are so correct on that, it isn't funny.
2. Again, on the nail, it is hit. Why? Cause...all Epic is, is just about power, power, and more power...nothing more. I don't play with power, if I do...it is done, in small gainful steps...with a very well done structure story behind it. And it will feel Epic...but without the mehanics involved, that exist in current material.

When I saw the book, I exclaimed in horror...'this has to be a joke'.

*yes...I have no taste for the Epic book, or any other refer material connected to it.*

*Restrained caps, locked back into place*
 

Crothian said:
That's kind of my point. I imagine epic is more popular since there is basically no support of adventures for it.
Although this might be profitable. Just imagine, you can publish the NPCs' statblocks alone in several volumes :).
 



I personally doubt that more people are playing epic games than than are those using psionic material.

I also think that when you see 'epic' material, it suffers a stigma (not an always wrongly presumptive stigma) of treating high level games as not epic but [booming voice]EPIC!!![/booming voice] that ends up being more munchkin and 'PCs go on a godkilling spree without any plot beyond starting at A and going to Z with their +395 godkilling swords of epic killing power.

It's rare that I've seen high level games encompass depth of plot and some realism beyong 'the PCs are the heros and thus anything can be killed, and those beings will wait around as big targets till the PCs can take them on in their epic level extraplanar dungeons'. Obviously that treatment is a bit of hyperbole to some extent, but it, and its ilk drives me up a wall.

That said, the level of writing in Dungeon of late (which got me to subscribe) alleviates any risk of an epic level adventure path falling into those frequent pitfalls of 'epic' adventures.


With regards to doing a Blood War adventure path. Don't treat it as something that you can stop, or that you even want to stop. The Blood War predates the Gods, it prevents the Lower Planes from uniting, it is both a blessing and a curse for the upper planes, a sinkhole of morality and the foremost expression of evil falling in upon itself.

However the seeds are set if they wanted some plot(s) to have epic level PCs have a hand in, and have a realistic chance of actually having any effect upon the Blood War:

1) Grazzt wants to end the Blood War, temporarily, in order to have a united lower planes devour the upper planes, and after that in his mind the Tanar'ri would then once more turn upon the Baatezu. If he managed to have any sort of chance to pull this off, that might make an interesting plot arc. Obviously other groups would oppose him (the upper planes, the Yugoloths since they started it and they damn well want to be the ones to end it, the Rilmani, etc and would make for some bizarre bedfellows).

2) The Yugoloths at some point, or their makers the Baern, will want to end the Blood War if they feel that it has served its ultimate purpose. At that point they'd intend to obliterate the Upper Planes with a subjugated Abyss and Baator serving as cannon fodder under their rule. This won't happen likely at any point in the immediate future, but perhaps a splinter group within the yugoloth heirarchy, or perhaps a renegade Baernaloth (in the same tradition of Apomps the Triple Aspected) felt differently, and felt the need to accelerate/end their racial handling of the Blood War as a massive experiment and turn it into a conquest of the Upper Planes.

3) Perhaps a group of Celestials decide to take an active roll in the Blood War and they risk turning the lower planes against the upper (which happened once before, ended terribly for the celestials, and is largely why they no longer take a part in it). Perhaps the PCs would be the ones to stop them from doing this, perhaps finding that they were colluding with other splinter groups in the Lower Planes, etc.

FWIW, I ran a campaign up to about level 30(see storyhour #1), ultimately involving the PCs in a conflict* versus the Oinoloth and a cabal of Baernaloths. Took about three years from start to finish, and didn't fall into the trap of PCs gone wild killing abyssal lords in one on one combat, but also not making them insignificant mortals without a hope of changing anything in the War Eternal, which is normally the case for anyone really involved.

* this was not a direct 'roll initiative versus the Oinoloth' conflict because they'd have gotten crushed like bugs. Archfiends aren't just freaking bigger monsters to encounter in Abyssal dungeons to kill, they deserve more intelligent and in depth treatment.
 
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