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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matthias" data-source="post: 5713326" data-attributes="member: 3625">Eventually I will have to decide how to take my Pathfinder campaigns to epic levels. Players get attached to their characters...so far I have no PCs in a game higher than 5th level so there is time to figure these things out.The "Beyond 20th Level" section of <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/gamemastering.html" target="_blank">Gamemastering</a> mentions several methods of handling epic-level adventuring in Pathfinder. I will likely not use the extended spell slot system of 10th level and above spell slots, nor the Scaling Powers beyond 20th for BAB, saves, etc.I figure I'll simply stick with 20th level as a hard limit for any given core/base class. To my players I will describe the limit as "you know all there is to know, or what is possible, with this profession/discipline/etc." or "your training is complete. No more can I teach you".With these things in mind, I would also place a given character's hard limit at 60th level, including core/base class levels, NPC class levels, and prestige class levels. (This would not include Hit Dice gained by other means such as racial levels in a monster type.) The reasoning here is once you have mastered three classes that are probably fairly diverse (a 'warrior' class, a 'spellcasting/psionic' class, and a 'specialist' class--e.g. the archetypal fighter/mage/thief), earning additional experience points (learning even more new stuff) has become more or less pointless and futile for you.Essentially, I am thinking about drawing from 4th Edition's tiers concept but making the tiers 20 levels long instead of 10.Additionally I would recharacterize multiclassing to be more than simply an optional path for a character to take, but as a natural progression or extension of of a character's breadth of knowledge, leaving multiclassing more or less mandatory if the player wants his PC to advance beyond 20th level at all.It's only natural for a PC to progress from a dirty-gritty-fantasy style of adventuring (I gotta get rich as soon as possible while trying not to get killed) to a high fantasy lifestyle (I can afford to retire on this big pile of gold, but I still go adventuring for the fun of it) and progress further onward to potential immortality (the only thing I still fear is dying of old age, and even the gods have heard of me, and maybe even I can become one myself). These are natural "tiers" of gameplay that 4E can't claim to have cornered the market on... there is also the well-worn plot of going on "one last big adventure for old time's sake" to either finally make or break a PC, leading to that character's heroic demise saving the world, or their crossing the threshold of god-like greatness a.k.a. immortality as a fledgeling demigod, or both.Ideally, I would like to see a PC pick up a secondary class level by 5th-10th character level. It seems rather awkward to me personally for a PC to max out in fighter, and only then begin to learn how to be a wizard from scratch, and expect to be rather useless in that role because the potent threats the party faces at epic levels could simply laugh at a 1st or 2nd level spell.I want to think of some way to improve the incentive for picking up a secondary class class levels early enough so that a PC's primary and secondary levels are not too diverse, thereby making it easier for their different skill sets to synergize, without sacrificing too much high-end power. Gestalt-classing is one option...How about allowing a character to give up a character feat at certain levels to gain a free level in a secondary class instead? Essentially you are converting a feat slot into whatever amount of XP you need to achieve the next character level. This would only be allowed if you have never taken levels in the class except by this method (so multiclassing normally into a given class makes one ineligble to burn a feat slot for it at a later time).A feat slot sacrifice would be allowed at the following character levels: 5th, 9th, 15th, 23rd, 33rd, 45th, and 59th.</blockquote>

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