Is the ELH a complete train wreck?

[Pants]

Like many others, I have mixed reactions:
- The monsters are awesome (aside from the uber-elves) and are almost ALL built in plot-hooks for entire campaigns. This is how monsters should be made.
- I dislike the spell-system for several reasons: 1) It relies much too much on ad-hoc effects and constant DM adjucation 2) It is either severely underpowered or severly overpowered.
- Also, at the same time, I LIKE the spell-system because it's such a nice departure from the vancian system. Unfortunately, it doesn't mesh very well the already established system and ends up feeling like a red-headed stepchild. IMO, if this were to succeed, the D&D magic system would need to be rebuilt with this newer system in mind, which is not really a bad thing. Plus, the rules need to be properly playtested and the holes need to be blocked up.
- The idea of feats as a character's progression of power is interesting, but I think that different routes would have had better results.
- Union, whether or not it is an attempt to replace Sigil (I think it is only an attempt to shoehorn an XTREME EPIC place into the established setting), sucks. I hate and loathe it with near every fiber of my body.
- The Epic 'Adventure' is useful only as a way of showing people how NOT to design adventures.
- The magic items were bland and boring, but really... nothing that bad.

So, while I may not classify it as a trainwreck, it is far (very faaaar) from being a good book. The monsters are excellent, but the rest of the book is subpar.

However, while I will probably never run an Epic game, I wouldn't mind actually playing in a good one. I will try almost anything at least once (except LARPing and Spelljammer).

 

[MDSnowman]

I think my opinion of the ELH was a tad clouded. To begin with I was wild about it... I felt "cool D&D over 20th level!!" I got the book, I read it, and I was still really jazzed about the whole thing. I kept on thinking about what I could do with the book.

so as an exercise I decided to make myself an Epic Level Villain, 10th Level Fighter/ 20th Level Cleric. Basiclly a powerhouse any way you sliced it. I made him (took me all friggin' day too, a LOT of effort goes into making a character that powerful from scratch).

Then in the afterglow I realized something... I have never run an epic level D&D game, I've never even planned a game to go that far. Therefore I'd probablly never use all of this stuff, meaning I had a great resource for something that would never come up.

That sums up my experience with the book. I don't think it's horriblly broken, especially if you ignore most of the epic spellcasting (most of that stuff is best used as a plot device anyway). I'm disappointed because I'll likely never use it that's all (though the prospect of a Phane as the BBEG in a Time Traveling campaign is just too good an idea to ignore.)

I am looking forward to SSS's Shadow and Light for the Warcraft d20 RPG. Chocked full of stats for legendary Warcraft characters from all time periods, and if I understand correctly rules for Epic Level warcraft (perhaps something for me to integrate with the idea of the Phane... anyway). Again I have high hopes, and even if the epic rules crash and burn I'll still have LOTS of NPCs to use.

 

[Kerrick]

Among those are

* no base class can exceed 20 levels
* no prestige class can exceed 10 levels (or whatever its normal is)
* BAB and saves just add together like normal. If you decide to be a ftr8/barb8/rgr8 you just have to accept that your will save is hosed and take some magical precautions!
* spell slots above 9 as per Forgotten Realms, to be filled with metamagiced versions of high level existing spells.
* a small range of feats which I consider to be EPIC, mostly of my own devising.

That's pretty much what we've done, and it works very well. I did up an actual spell progression above 10th, where you gain a new spell every 3 levels (first one at 21st level). Course, I also have a level-based epic spell system...

 

[dreaded_beast]

For people who think the monsters are cool but didn't like the Epic Level rules, would you use them as is or would you make them easier to deal with for non-epic games?