"Epic" progression after 6th level

[Ry]

I have no idea of how I'd convince my players to go along with it though. Then again, sometimes they do surprise me.

Emphasize that the rest of the world is playing by the same rules; i.e., the enemy general might be a renowned fighter but he still has only BAB +6, for example. Once players realize that the world they live in isn't massively stratified, they start really busting out.

 

[igavskoga]

So if I'm reading you correctly, you allow limited expansion in other areas typically reserved for levelling growth through expanded feats? I'd love to get a look at the details, I don't have time these days to create major rules from scratch on my own. =/

The 6-10 sweet spot seems to be what fits myself and my group's tastes the best. My current homebrew amalgamation (gritty, rare magic - finally codifying alternate and variant rules instead of shifting things around in standard D&D as I've been doing for the past 10 years) is mostly an attempt to scale back the superhero-ish nature of teen-level play (getting rid of iterative attacks for example), but I've been wondering if capping things somewhere around 6-12 with some form of ad hoc advancement afterwards might be a better way to go.

I really like the potential flavor this could add to my games, but the few times I've hinted about going in this direction did not result in favorable musings from some of my regulars.

 

[Ry]

I used Phil Reed (Ronin Arts) expansion feats, I think the book's name is the Book of Unusual Feats (101 Unusual Feats, Another 101 Unusual Feats, etc), the rest are just allowing splatbook feats.

 

[phindar]

What about class abilities? I'm the sort that plays a lot of multiclasses, but with only 6 levels to play with I could see this being more difficult. (Not a knock against, merely a factor to be considered.) On the one hand, splitting classes might mean you lose access to a higher level class ability; if you go Fighter 4/Ranger 2, you'll never get an Animal Companion (for a really poor example). Rogues will never get Improved Uncanny Dodge, however a Rogue 4/Barbarian 2 would. (Also, just glancing at the progression it would seem like Rogue 6 would be pretty rare, all they get is Trap Sense +2; it seems like they'd be better off with almost any other class-- fighter for the feat, BAB and Fort, Sorcerer for the spells and Will, Barbarian for the Fort, BAB, HP, Rage and Fast Move, Monk for the Flurry, Saves, Imp Unarmed Strike and so on.) If you use feats from AE, which my group does, Uncanny Dodge exists as Intuitive Sense, so anybody would be able to pick it up. Wpn Specialization is in there too with just a +4 BAB, which would make it accessible to other classes.

I also notice that capping it at 6th means some characters might be eligible for one level of a PrC. It seems like an assassin's Death Attack would be a lot scarier in a world with capped Fort Saves. Horizon Walkers would be limited to one Terrain Mastery, but that actually makes a lot of sense.

 

[Ry]

As a rule of thumb, I say: If you could have gotten a class / prestige class feature by 6th level, then there should be some kind of feat chain to that ability. The discussions really haven't come up because (at least in my game) players had plenty of good feats for their character concepts, but I wouldn't mind accomodating. In the case of very powerful abilities, though, in addition to stringent requirements I'd make at least one "filler" feat that was "this feat lets you take that feat. Thanks for the 5000 xp!"

 

[phindar]

How arbitrary was the 6th level cap? How much do you think your system would be affected by an 8th or 10th level cap, or a 4th?

 

[Ry]

I put a lot of thought into it and discussed a lot with my players before choosing 6th. I/we think the system could probably work at other caps, but our experience in D&D is that at around 6th level the classes are really nicely balanced regardless of magic items. Each class is strong enough that they're well defined, but not so strong that lower-level characters don't matter to them any more.

 

[Land Outcast]

Rogues will never get Improved Uncanny Dodge, however a Rogue 4/Barbarian 2 would.

Wanted to point out that this is not so, he would get Uncanny Dodge twice, just that.

 

[Aegir]

Wanted to point out that this is not so, he would get Uncanny Dodge twice, just that.

"If a barbarian already has uncanny dodge from a different class, he automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead."

"If a rogue already has uncanny dodge from a different class she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead."

...as listed in the SRD, for both classes.

 

[phindar]

Uncanny Dodge was the only class ab that stacks that I could think of, so that's the example I used. There might be others. Although in my game I let just about anything stack. (If a character already has TWF and they pick it for their combat style as a Ranger, they get Imp TWF.) I'm very sympathetic to the plight of the mulitclass.