My players need a crash course on survivng epic combat
- Thread starter clockworkjoe
- Start date
Dragonblade
Adventurer
Great advice from Piratecat! I'd just like to put in that you haven't necessarily done anything wrong in throwing all those beholders. Epic level shouldn't be about players walking all over everything in sight. It should be about overcoming epic challenges. And an army of beholders definitely qualifies.
At Epic levels the party should have ready access to True Resurrection, Heal, Mass Heal, Restoration, and other spells that should help them recover from Save or Die effects. Even if no one is playing a cleric, they should be able to hobnob with NPC clerics of sufficient level.
Or if you play a more mythic game where you don't have lots of epic level characters running around, then come up with creative solutions. For example, deities may show up and strike bargains with characters on the verge of death in exchange for future favors. Or have lost mystic fountains that have the power to heal any wound or ailment.
At Epic levels the party should have ready access to True Resurrection, Heal, Mass Heal, Restoration, and other spells that should help them recover from Save or Die effects. Even if no one is playing a cleric, they should be able to hobnob with NPC clerics of sufficient level.
Or if you play a more mythic game where you don't have lots of epic level characters running around, then come up with creative solutions. For example, deities may show up and strike bargains with characters on the verge of death in exchange for future favors. Or have lost mystic fountains that have the power to heal any wound or ailment.
kigmatzomat
Legend
skeptic said:
My campaign (DL 4.5th age) has only a handful of epic casters to make items and no real backlog of epic items. Since my campaign master plot is based upon a new pantheon of gods, I use them as the source of magic "items." The party at one point received stat points as "loot" from the god of life, which I treat as double-price books for wealth. For now I figure the party will be fine with ultra-expensive non-epic items.
I'm hoping the introduction of the Fey in Underhill will give me a reasonable way to introduce the real epic ones. After all, a fey crafter will think its nothing to spend a decade making a single item. They may not make another one for a millenia but the fey will still have a stockpile of items that to them are nothing more than an interesting bauble. And yes, I'm using the Le Shay as the basis for my fey nobles.
I avoid using too many "big piles of coins" by noble NPCs rewarding the party with properties and titles. It started small (they were given a big house in an elven village and the rank of Captain of the Militia at 7th level) then were each given 300 acre farms and the rank of Captain in the Army, and most recently they were given a cargo ship, declared Imperial Champions in one nation and made Colonels in the King's Guard in another. Each provides a relatively small (for the level) income but they add up to a couple thousand GP/year when combined and have a number of small perks that say "I'm a VIP." (e.g. can stay at military bases and requisition basic supplies for free, ability to legally give orders to the masses, don't pay city entrance fees or road tolls, etc).
Most importantly, from a wealth aspect, is I rewarded them once with shares in a caravan which turned a tidy profit. A few took the money and ran but the canny cleric immediately reinvested it. Sure, he was down some cash for a level or so but when the caravan returned he was up a fairly large amount of cash. Right now my party has around a half-million gold invested in a variety of merchant houses as well as a loan made to a small town.
The party's adventures tend to create revenue. How? If they tell their merchant allies about a plague it results in a caravan NOT being trapped in a quarantine. A red dragon that burns fields means a massive demand for grain in the region. A mine invaded by monsters can result in rapid fluctuations in the metal market. The use of a Sending spell results in sizeable profits.
Thus the party profits from their adventures without my having a huge pile of gold or gems handy in BFE.
Last edited:
Animus
Explorer
This is a great thread.
I have to reiterate what someone said about team combat effectiveness. A party of 21st level characters that have been together for a while should be an efficient combat machine. I played in a campaign where we went from 15 to 35 and things were clumsy for us for quite a while because we started the campaign at so high a level. The flashback mock battle idea sounds like a good way to get them started, but they still won't be as effective as a party actually starting at low or even mid levels in the beginning. Just remember that. You're going to have a lot of fun the first time Mordy's Disjunction is cast on them![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
. Good luck.
I have to reiterate what someone said about team combat effectiveness. A party of 21st level characters that have been together for a while should be an efficient combat machine. I played in a campaign where we went from 15 to 35 and things were clumsy for us for quite a while because we started the campaign at so high a level. The flashback mock battle idea sounds like a good way to get them started, but they still won't be as effective as a party actually starting at low or even mid levels in the beginning. Just remember that. You're going to have a lot of fun the first time Mordy's Disjunction is cast on them
. Good luck.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
This is very true. Teamwork, and knowing what one another is capable of, has a huge role in a group's effectiveness.
I want to elaborate on something I touched on earlier. It's easy to fall into a "use combat to challenge the characters" trap in epic play. That's sort of a shame, because (a) combat can be complicated, and (b) their powers are such that you can give them all sorts of other challenges that keep the players on their toes. The largest of these, of course, is politics and mysteries.
Epic level PCs are just magnets for cool plot hooks. Think of them a little bit as the media stars, sports heroes or famous politicians of their world. If you get to be epic level, thousands or millions of people have heard of you. Mothers tell stories about you to their children as they fall asleep, and bards tell (probably fake) tales about you in inns to earn coppers. You build your own mythology. Low level adventurers idolize you, maybe hate you or are jealous of you, or want your stuff. Civic leaders realize that you may be able to singlehandedly change the course of a war, or destroy a city.
And a clever villain uses this to their advantage.
Give some thought to how; I'll post some examples after I go have dinner.
I want to elaborate on something I touched on earlier. It's easy to fall into a "use combat to challenge the characters" trap in epic play. That's sort of a shame, because (a) combat can be complicated, and (b) their powers are such that you can give them all sorts of other challenges that keep the players on their toes. The largest of these, of course, is politics and mysteries.
Epic level PCs are just magnets for cool plot hooks. Think of them a little bit as the media stars, sports heroes or famous politicians of their world. If you get to be epic level, thousands or millions of people have heard of you. Mothers tell stories about you to their children as they fall asleep, and bards tell (probably fake) tales about you in inns to earn coppers. You build your own mythology. Low level adventurers idolize you, maybe hate you or are jealous of you, or want your stuff. Civic leaders realize that you may be able to singlehandedly change the course of a war, or destroy a city.
And a clever villain uses this to their advantage.
Give some thought to how; I'll post some examples after I go have dinner.
