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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Advilaar" data-source="post: 5997629" data-attributes="member: 6698911">Oh, one more thing to add. I have actually run epic level stuff under both 3e and 4e. please do not take this as me telling you what to do with your group. It is more things that can help. I did so for years. 1. Epic encounters call for epic players. Even a low magic world like Greyhawk, there is no way someone like Mordenkainen is going to take your PCs seriously when even his apprentices could probably one shot them. I assume you are using 3e or some house ruled version thereof, so I will talk 3e adding some 4e concepts. If this is a special event, why limit your characters to 5th level then talk about all these great and big bad asses? Let them roll some characters with teeth for this. Roll 21st level. Or if your campaign is already rolling, just say time has passed and they eventually get 21st level. Hell,, roll 30th! Even under 3e ELH, at 30th the numbers are not too bad as ELH tends to break down at around the high 40s. Of course, your spellcasters are going to hate you with epic spell stuff and playing metamagic feat tetris. I think one Wizard player had like a 20 page character sheet! 2. Which brings me to another problem you will have (and I had to deal with)... Master's Thesis character sheets. Particularly for 3e, these character sheets were huge complex to where if you were not a VERY experienced player, you would be lost. Even then, as a DM, you will be cranking out a 40 hour work week just drawing up bad guys under ELH epic rules. Sometimes towards the release of 4e, I had literally 50 pages to shuffle through for one simple combat. There are things you can do about it even with 3e, though. You can house rule only feats that grant abilities you use for the lower tier feats and only keep track of the epic tier feats which scale and are more of a point buy system for increasing stuff. I personally prefer a 4e type system but house ruled 3e things like permanence, contingency, walls of force, etc since it is (somewhat) less book keeping. 3. You call yourself a "strict DM". I have found that weak PC advocates have a tough time dealing with epic. It is the reason they stay never above 15 or so when PCs get a bunch of teeth. A 15th level PC can come in and totally destroy the market district of an average city. They have scrying tools that can foil even some of the most common ways of keeping information away. They are tougher and harder to "control". I had to let go and let Gygax. If they were not before, the PCs are the main players in the world and should be able to make huge changes in the world. Some, which may totally ruin anything you have drawn up. A huge notebook of ideas and pre drawn NPCs helps. You are going to have to be extremely flexible and operate like a sandbox because for high level characters, obstacles mean less and restrictions are lifted. Hope this helps.</blockquote>

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