It's No Longer A Joke

[jmucchiello]

I dunno about single-handed, but a party could theoretically manage it by level 4 or 5 or so. Couple of fighters, decked out with Druidic Protection from Fire spells in 1e (the druid gets those at level 3, and he himself gets a freaking damage buffer!), and a rogue with a x3 backstab can take an 88 hit point dragon from healthy to zero in just two or three rounds. They'd lose a couple of people, but in the end there'd be a dead dragon and a horde to pick through. It's where the first inklings of B.A.D.D. (Bothered about Disposable Dragons) started to take shape in the AD&D community.

I played 1e with characters in the teen levels. No one ever took an ancient red by themselves. Why? Because my ancient reds had more than 88 hit points (and other rmonsters). Adding HD and character classes to monsters is not new in 3e. It's just codified better in the rules. Nothing stops you from saying a 1e ancient red dragon also has 17 levels of thief (Sorry, Bob. That bite was a backstab for 3d10 x5). Or maybe it is LE and the Grand Master of Flowers (No! Breath first, then kick).

 

[AtomicPope]

Nothing new here, just better mechanics.

 

[Kaffis]

I want to see what the DMG has to say on the subject of players failing to achieve their epic destinies. Very little, I suspect... since in 4E, everything that's not "fun" is being removed.

Actually, I suspect there will be a decent chunk devoted to it. It's called death and dying. If you don't achieve the things you're destined for, it's because you died along the way...

What I do hope we get to see, is advice and tips for smoothly changing destinies, or the tack taken to achieve them, along the way. If your character is destined to save the world from the BBEG, and your group just happens to not defeat him, but rather, beat a retreat that keeps them alive; perhaps your destiny was misinterpreted, and rather than preventing him from ravaging the world wholesale, you instead defeat him and heal the wounds he caused.

In other words, I agree, I doubt there will be a "game over, you lose." mechanic. I don't want epic destinies to become some kind of unfun "well, that 27 levels was a waste, and now I've failed my epic destiny and can't go on without one" deal. No matter how fast levelling is, 30 levels is a huge time commitment, and if you tell a player that they don't get to win the last 2 years' worth of game, but it's okay, we can start over and try again, better luck next time and all that... you're going to have one less player when you start over. I'd much rather see "failure" turn into "victory in an unexpected way" or "achieving a different win condition."

It's not that most D&D games I played in actually had a serious threat of failure - everyone knew that the heroes (as a group) are very likely to achieve their goals. For me, however, the fun was in seeing those goals develop organically (and hopefully, unexpectedly) and in finding out who survived long enough to see things through. Sitting down with the DM and choosing how my character's adventuring life will end? Sorry, not really interested.

I don't think anybody's going to force you to sit down with your DM and choose if you don't want to. It seems to me that there are two simple, but equally fun approaches to epic destinies. You can do much as you've always done, and let the DM surprise you with your eventual destiny -- just go along for the ride in the paragon tier, and let the story take you as it may, setting you up for an epic destiny as the story unfolds. Or you can make conscious choices in the paragon tier, as the character, and your choices and character's goals will set you on the path for a particular destiny, or at least a particular type of destiny. They're as organic and unexpected as you and the DM choose to allow them to be.

I'm also very curious to see how quickly characters level under this new system, because that will have a great deal of impact on what having a level cap like this actually means. I have a sneaking suspicion their intent is to have characters go 1-30 quickly enough for players to have the motivation to buy those new PHBs that will be coming out every year. (to make better shinier characters for the new campaign)

I'd be shocked if we saw less than a session per level. That's never good design.

I'd be surprised if we saw more than an average of 3 or 4 sessions per level.

So for a weekly game, that's 2/3s to 2 or 2.5 years 1-30. I figure shooting for 1.5 years or so will probably be the marketability sweet spot.

 

[Gizmoduck5000]

So you've never had a gamer "tell you about their character" before? You know, the Half Demon Paladin Priest of Bane who is 42nd level & has Tiamat as a lap dragon, rules over Dmjimsworld & summer's in the Demon Web Pits, cause you know Lloth is hawt! You didn't know that some people had already "beaten D&D"?

Then your lucky. Very lucky indeed.

ARGH!!!! I hate that guy!

 

[jmucchiello]

This has been possible since the days of BECMI, whereupomn obtaining Level 30, a character could become an Immortal (assuming some tests were passed). Basically, though, BECMI codified Level 30 as the defined exit point from the mortal realm for PCs. It was the original "win" in D&D. 4e has nothing on that from what I've seen

I thought that was level 36. I never owned the BECMI series. I had the earlier BE series and that series was supposed to end at 36.