Epic ... or Not?

[Shin Okada]

Sorry for posting rather a long story.

Now our play group is playing Bastion of Broken Soul, a 3.0e adventure for 18th-level party. I replaced a lot of critters to suite 3.5e rules and the power level of the PCs who are using later 3.5e supplements (naturally, a little bit stronger and tougher than PCs created only by core rules). But anyway, the basic structure of the adventure is the same, and the encounter levels of each encounter relative to the party strength is kept as close to the original adventure. This will meant be a kind of our farewell campaign for 3.Xe D&D.

Depends on how they will play the adventure, some of the character may hit Epic Level, maybe a 21th-22th level at best and no more, though.

Now I am wondering if I should introduce Epic rules or not. And basically, I hesitate to do it because of several reasons.

1) I do not like the 3.Xe epic rule much. It seems not so well-balanced. And there be some issues like, say, if you multiclass, taking lower BAB classes after hitting epic will make you stronger in many way. For example, if you achieve Duskblade 10/Dragon Disciple 10 before hitting Epic, you start from +17 BAB and then gains Epic level BAB bonuses. On the other hand, if you fill the first 20 levels only with full-BAB classes, you can start from +20 BAB and then gain Epic level BAB bonuses, regardless of the original BAB progression of the classes. I saw the latter builds (such as Paladin 20/Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 10/then something) in power gaming Neverwinter Nights builds and being sick of it.

2) Some of the classes the current PCs playing are not supported by official materials (including SRD). Namely, Duskblade, Scout & Warmage in our current party.

3) Some of the Epic feats, such as Devastating Critical, changes the theory of character building. Most warriors don't take Great Cleave and Improved Critical during their career. But if I introduce epic rules, that feat tree suddenly becomes a must-have for weapon wielders, for taking Devastating Critical. Also, it will suddenly make weapons with wider threat range (scimitars and a like) much obvious choice.

4) I must suddenly introduce and describe all the epic feats and such.

On the other hand, if I do not introduce epic progression, the majority of characters have no use for their "overflowed" XPs. Mages and Clerics can use XPs for casting spells with XP components (Alter Fortune, Gate, Limited Wish, Miracle, Wish, and so on). But other characters can't. So if they once hit 190,000XP, any more XPs gaind are .... useless.

PHB 2 web enhancement introduced the way to use non-caster's XP for creating magic items. But that is not useful in this case, as PCs have no down time to create magic items during that adventure (especially those stronger enough for their needs). Magic items of this level take months to create.

Preferably, I don't want to use Epic rules, Creating my own home-brewed rules for non-core classes are a burden to me. Also, it seems unfair to suddenly introduce Epic level rules at this stage (we were not truly expending this when started this campaign).

Are there any good suggestions to continue this campaign without much effort (for a DM) and still satisfy all the players?

FYI, the PC members of my current campaign are,

Human Cleric 17
Human Duskblade 18
Deep Halfling Warmage 15/Luckstealer 3
Warforged Duskblade 2/Paladin 3/Dragon Disciple 10/Pious Templar of Bahamut 3 (or maybe Templar 2/Fighter 1)
Half-Elf Sorcerer 10/Abjurant Champion 5/Ruathar 3
Human Cleric 11/Combat Medic 5 (Duskblade's Cohort)

 

[Jaysyn]

Preferably, I don't want to use Epic rules,

You kinda answered your own question there, didn't you?

 

[Alzrius]

I'll be honest; I can't really think of a good answer for you here. It sounds like you're basically saying you don't care for the epic-level rules (an attitude which I'm not unsympathetic to) and want an alternative. But really, there's no much else you can do.

1) I do not like the 3.Xe epic rule much. It seems not so well-balanced. And there be some issues like, say, if you multiclass, taking lower BAB classes after hitting epic will make you stronger in many way. For example, if you achieve Duskblade 10/Dragon Disciple 10 before hitting Epic, you start from +17 BAB and then gains Epic level BAB bonuses. On the other hand, if you fill the first 20 levels only with full-BAB classes, you can start from +20 BAB and then gain Epic level BAB bonuses, regardless of the original BAB progression of the classes. I saw the latter builds (such as Paladin 20/Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 10/then something) in power gaming Neverwinter Nights builds and being sick of it.

The epic progression for BAB and saves was done to try and preserve balance. Using a flat series of increases for everyone preserves their BAB/saves relative to each other from when they're 20th level. That is, if your duskblade was +17 BAB, and you have a fighter that's +20 BAB, then in another ten levels the duskblade will be +22 BAB and the fighter will be +25 BAB.

The idea here is that, if the progressions weren't reset, then characters with a better BAB would rapidly outstrip characters with a lower BAB by staggering amounts - to the point where such characters would easily hit monsters that other characters would never be able to touch. This way, the gaps between characters don't widen.

2) Some of the classes the current PCs playing are not supported by official materials (including SRD). Namely, Duskblade, Scout & Warmage in our current party.

There is an official epic progression for the Warmage. Unfortunately, the Duskblade and Scout have no such progression. That said, the basic progression design philosophy is that anything which grants an increasing bonus over the course of several levels (e.g. something that grants a +1 bonus every three levels, etc.) continues to increase at that rate. Likewise, all classes get an epic bonus feat every couple of levels.

3) Some of the Epic feats, such as Devastating Critical, changes the theory of character building. Most warriors don't take Great Cleave and Improved Critical during their career. But if I introduce epic rules, that feat tree suddenly becomes a must-have for weapon wielders, for taking Devastating Critical. Also, it will suddenly make weapons with wider threat range (scimitars and a like) much obvious choice.

I don't think that's at all unfair. They can start taking the prerequisite feats if they like, but it's not like you suddenly disenfranchised the players because they would have built their characters differently had they known epic level feats would one day be available.

4) I must suddenly introduce and describe all the epic feats and such.

Do they not have computers? Can't you just point them to The Hypertext d20 SRD (v3.5 d20 System Reference Document) :: d20srd.org for those?

On the other hand, if I do not introduce epic progression, the majority of characters have no use for their "overflowed" XPs. Mages and Clerics can use XPs for casting spells with XP components (Alter Fortune, Gate, Limited Wish, Miracle, Wish, and so on). But other characters can't. So if they once hit 190,000XP, any more XPs gaind are .... useless.

Leaving aside epic progressions - and the idea of multiclassing - why can't they start buying templates, using the XPs to pay for the level adjustments? That works even better if you use things like the Savage Progressions series of articles. Slowly become a weretiger!

I hesitate to mention this also, but you may want to look at The Immortal's Handbook: Ascension from Eternity Publishing. This book bases itself on the existing epic-level rules, but tweaks them in several places, and also merges them with (new) divinity rules.

The end result here is that PCs can slowly start gaining divinity templates over time. All of these templates have level adjustments, so the PCs can slowly pay those off, earning successively stronger and stronger divinity templates.

That said, these templates all have a minimum Hit Dice requirement to gain, so eventually they'll hit a cap on how strong they can become if you limit them to 20th level. However, that'll still let them work their way up through the divine ranks, becoming Disciples, Prophets, Hero-Deities, and finally Quasi-Deities before that problem needs to be faced (note that all of these templates are still below Demigod in power).

 

[Jhaelen]

I decided early on I'd never use the epic rules. What I'd do if we continued to play 3E into the 'epic levels' is to simply allow them to continue to gain levels unless it would put them over level 20 in a single class. The maximum number of attacks per round would stay at four but everything else would continue to increase normally.

Since most of my players' pcs aren't really optimized that should allow continuing to play for a couple of levels beyond 20.

 

[Shin Okada]

Do they not have computers? Can't you just point them to The Hypertext d20 SRD (v3.5 d20 System Reference Document) :: d20srd.org for those?

The problem is, we are Japanese and there is no Japanese edition of SRD. And some of the members in the play group are not that good at reading English rule books. Many of the good 3.5e materials have Japanese edition published. And it is not a big effort for me to translate or explain un-translated rules (say, a few new spells or feats), when my players look for something suit to their need. But translating all the Epic feats (and maybe epic spell rules) is another thing.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

If you or one of your group by any chance has the 3.0 version of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, there were some 'pre-epic' rules in there which may suffice to give your epic characters enough options to get them through the end of the campaign.

 

[frankthedm]

Yeah, Official 3.5 epic is not the greatest.

Advanced Player's Guide (Sword and Sorcery Studios) Has some alternate epic rules. i've never taken the time to read through them though.

 

[Alzrius]

Yeah, Official 3.5 epic is not the greatest.

Advanced Player's Guide (Sword and Sorcery Studios) Has some alternate epic rules. i've never taken the time to read through them though.

I'm shocked that I've never heard of this book before. Was it ever released in PDF?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

How about instead of E6 (Epic 6th), you turn your game into E20 and just give bonus feats every x thousand xp?

 

[Aus_Snow]

How about instead of E6 (Epic 6th), you turn your game into E20 and just give bonus feats every x thousand xp?

++

Except, for bonus points, go E25 instead, stretching all the classes out for another 5 levels, etc. Just my preference, yes, but it's awesome! Trust me.

The book FtheDM mentioned has some really interesting stuff in it. Its version of 'epic' (not one of my favourite bits) basically means that every class (that they covered) goes to 30, progressing pretty much as you'd expect, plus Paladins get 5th and 6th level spells, and a few other 'abnormalities' here and there. BAB goes to 30 as well, saves keep going up normally, extra attacks for full-BAB types, etc., etc.