[Epic] What do you think?

[hong]

Which part of that is unclear? I'm aware that undead can't be criticalled, but why would they have put this in if it wasn't intended to be an exception?

It means you do x3 against Negative Energy Plane creatures, who are not undead, on a critical hit. Here's one I made up:

Negative energy gremlin
Small outsider
HD 1d8 (4 hp)
Init +4
Spd 50 ft
AC 19
S/R 5 ft/5 ft
BAB/Grap +1/-3
Atk +6 melee touch (1d2 Con)
SA Lifedrain
SQ Negative energy protection
SV Fort +2, Ref +6, Will +3
Str 10, Dex 19, Con 11, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 13
CR 1

Feats: Weapon Finesse (touch)

SA -- Lifedrain (Su): A negative energy gremlin deals 1d2 points of Constitution damage when it hits with a touch attack. A DC 11 Fort save negates this.

SQ -- Negative Energy Protection (Ex): A negative energy gremlin is immune to death effects, energy drain, and all other attacks that use negative energy, as per the death ward spell.

I guess it could be more clear, since it is an "exception" to the general rule on undead not being critical hit.

There is no exception, save that mistakenly inferred from the wording.

Anyone else try their hand at epic? What do you think?

At epic levels, things go boom in entertaining ways. This can sometimes include the game itself.

 

[hong]

Negative energy gremlin
Small outsider
HD 1d8 (4 hp)
Init +4
Spd 50 ft
AC 19
S/R 5 ft/5 ft
BAB/Grap +1/-3
Atk +6 melee touch (1d2 Con)
SA Lifedrain
SQ Negative energy protection
SV Fort +2, Ref +6, Will +3
Str 10, Dex 19, Con 11, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 13
CR 1

Feats: Weapon Finesse (touch)

SA -- Lifedrain (Su): A negative energy gremlin deals 1d2 points of Constitution damage when it hits with a touch attack. A DC 11 Fort save negates this.

SQ -- Negative Energy Protection (Ex): A negative energy gremlin is immune to death effects, energy drain, and all other attacks that use negative energy, as per the death ward spell.

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System Reference Document Copyright 2000-2003, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich baker, Andy Collins, David noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R. Cordell, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
Copyright 2001-2003, Hong Ooi.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Maybe I'm just dense. Please excuse me if this comes across as unclear.

The sword deals x2 damage vs. undead or negative energy plane creatures.
The sword deals x3 damage vs. undead or negative energy plane creatures on a critical hit.

Which part of that is unclear? I'm aware that undead can't be criticalled, but why would they have put this in if it wasn't intended to be an exception? I guess it could be more clear, since it is an "exception" to the general rule on undead not being critical hit.

As Hong mentioned earlier, it really winds up being "does x3 on a crit to a negative energy creature", of which there's ONE, the xeg-yi, in MotP. I'm unaware of any other published negative energy creatures, not counting Hong's.

It's still quite useful; it does x2 damage on undead, which is always cool, and it can jack the effective enhancement bonus to epic levels against evil creatures, since the enhancement bonus rises by +2 against evil creatures (though, kids, get your DM's permission before you try that!). My epic-level monk's Necklace of Natural Weapons has that added on.

Brad

 

[Olive]

Not to hijack the thread, but will there be a 3.5 version of the ELH or do we have to use the 3.0 ELH with the Update Booklet?

Accordign to Andy Collins here

No plans for an expanded/revised ELH.

As well, from the same thread:

I did give the Epic SRD a nice version 3.5 polish. Mostly it was just the changes we listed in the revision conversion booklet though.

I imagine (though I haven't checked with Andy yet) that CW epic feats override the updated ELH feats I put in the SRD. If this is the case I'll fix them whenever I next update/errata the SRD.

 

[questionmark]

Another point about epic is tactics, especially nasty tactics. My players had a pretty long run of overwhelming victories were they felt in danger, but not that "oh crap were all so screwed" kind of danger, until this weekend...
long story short, Fighting an elite group of yuan ti. the yuan ti had corrupted some near epic purple dragon knights, these knights (two) and an epic abomination (with spiked chain) were to prevent the party from interrupting the corruption ceremony of an epic hero named glen. They looked at the knights and the yuan ti and for some reason went "easy fight" and charged in. Now the bread and butter of this group is the epic Ftr/Barb's dire charge. thanks to a 90 degree turn in a hallway this was not possible. so instead the Ftr/Barb got one hit off instead of his ussual five in the first round. next the epic monk tumbles past the knights and begins to subdual atk the yuan ti(hits three times). Astral deva of the party tries to full power atk the badguys (misses). Bad guys turn, they all atk the Deva and the f/barb. They hit the barb 5 times(one crit) for like 200+ dmg. The deva gets hit a bunch too (189) damage. on the next round the monk notices that some of the bruises he had put on the yuan ti are going away. He switches to lethal damage and does like 130 damage. barb kills one of the knights, the deva jumps back 5 feet and cast Heal on himself. Badguys turn... more damage to the barb and the monk (94, 100dmg). Next round the monk sees "all of the yuan ti's wounds close". Monk says "oh crap super regen" and goes into super defense mode missing his atk. barb hits the yuan ti for 200 dmg astral deva tries to pwr atk(misses). badguys kill the barb and hurt the deva. Monk sticks to full imp. combat exp. atral deva atks the p. knight drops him. the yuanti hits the deva for alot of damage. next couple of rounds the yuanti cant be hit by the monk, and the deva flat out rolls bad so it looks like the deva is about to die. the monk begins planning for a retreat. the astral deva crits and stuns the yuan ti. they finish it off from there. they go get the barb raised and return to the area to find the bad guys bodies gone and further inspection of the building finds the glen's signiture holy short swords lying on the ground(this indicates that the ritual was a success since the weapons are worthless to someone evil).
we stopped there for the day. Immediatly the players asked what kind of regen the yuan ti had. Thats when I explained the spell stowaway feat. When the deva used heal it healed the yuan ti as well. Realizing they had been duped ( and that their own metagaming resulted in the duping)there was some protest that the term "you see the yuan ti's wounds close" as misleading and suggestive of regen. I just smiled and said welcome to the big leagues. That session they learned that tactics still matter in epic play and metagaming what a monster has can backfire.

 

[James McMurray]

And besides, where else but Epic levels will the party monk challenge Death to a game of twenty questions?

 

[questionmark]

well put james.

I started reading your story hour.
Is the samurai stait out of OA?
How do you balance the pools?
I think that cool idea. Could you elaborate on what the characters recieve from each pool?

 

[James McMurray]

well put james.

I started reading your story hour.

Schweet!

Is the samurai stait out of OA?

Yup.

How do you balance the pools?

The vast majority of the party's foe are classed humanoids. Since nobody an be epic without having gone through a pool, the enemies have almost all also been through pools. Some the same as the party, some different.

I think that cool idea. Could you elaborate on what the characters recieve from each pool?

I can't take credit for the idea. There was a Dungeon mgazine adventure right when the ELH came out that introduced the conept. It only had one pool though. I split it into many different pools, each tied to a vice or virtue.

The cycle of gods thing is something I've always wanted to do, and D&Dg plus the Immortals rules for Old D&D made me want to either be part of aparty questing for godhood or run one.

The pools each grant the following abilities:

2,000xp
- +1 inherent bonus to all ability scores. The first pool bathed in grants +2. This bonus stacks with inherent bonuses from other pools, but not other inherent bonuses. Inherent bonuses from the pools can pass +5.
- Anyone having bathed in a Pool no longer dies at -10 hit points. Instead they die when their hit points reach -(their level). This basically mirrors the ELH's extended Death's Door rules, but gives an excuse for having it suddenly appear in the campaign world, and restricts it to Epic characters only (so first level guys don't die at -1)

In addition, different pools grant a special benefit each:

Pool of Glory: prove your valor to become immune to fear.

Pool of Love: prove your knowledge of love to gain its personification (a special cohort).

Pool of Vengeance: Smite your hated for to bring retribution on all who would harm you (1d6+ 1/pool bathed in is dealt to all who hit you in melee).

Pool of Time: Journey through time to gain control over it (a reroll once per session, that must be declared beforehand and the ation triggering it can then be changed).

Pool of Honesty: Bare your soul to enforce the truth around and within you. (you cannot lie and are the center of a pemanent Zone of Truth)

There are other Pools, but the party hasn't found them and I don't want to spoil it for them by posting it here.

 

[hong]

And besides, where else but Epic levels will the party monk challenge Death to a game of twenty questions?

At 9th level, of course. A 9th level cleric can raise the dead. That's a perfectly good time to start delving into the ineffable mysteries of death, reasons for existence, and so on.

And anyway, you can't seriously be suggesting these d00ds are epic:

 

[James McMurray]

Do you know a lot of non-Epic characters that have travelled through time, meet tons of really cool historical dudes, get killed by futuristic robot twins, travel through heaven and hell in 95 minutes, and totally ace their history exam?

Sounds pretty epic to me.