Please Help Design - Level 30 Epic End Campaign Encounter

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I certainly learned a lot with this dip into 4E, my previous campaigns hadn't gotten past level 10 and I was determined to see the players get to 30 so that I could use it as a test as well as giving the players (old and new to 4E) a feel for all tiers.

I thank everyone again for their great advice in making this an epic capstone to the campaign. I now have a much greater feel for all the mechanics of 4E, its pros, its cons, and how to develop suitable encounters for groups that contain a few players who min/max and new players who just pick "what sounds cool". I greatly look forward to my next campaign whether it be me DM'ing it or someone else, and whether it be 2E or 4E.

I love this game.

 

[Nullzone]

Encounter details

"Must spread xp..."

Sounds like a fun fight and a great way to send the group off with a bang, thanks for sharing it with us!

 

[Raunalyn]

I've thought about this a lot for my Dark Sun game. How would you define an epic encounter? How could you make it FEEL epic?

By the time the characters reach epic level, they are practically demigods, armies unto themselves.

Wait a second...why not send an army up against them?

Now, this takes a little suspension of disbelief on this one, but why not have them fight a "swarm" of (insert minions here). So, let's say they are fighting an army of zombies. Each zombie is a minion of the appropriate level, but you count the entire GROUP as a single monster. So, they are fighting 1000 zombies. This would be a zombie swarm with 1000 hitpoints, etc. Of course, you would need to add several abilities to reflect the danger they pose. Not only that, but you would need to basically use the monster token and abstractly make it the monster horde.

You want epic. The 5 of them stand, the only defense against a horde of undead monstrosities, defending their homelands against impossible odds....

Your ending was fantastic, btw...I just wanted to interject my idea for those who are approaching their finale.

 

[Riastlin]

I've thought about this a lot for my Dark Sun game. How would you define an epic encounter? How could you make it FEEL epic?

By the time the characters reach epic level, they are practically demigods, armies unto themselves.

Wait a second...why not send an army up against them?

Now, this takes a little suspension of disbelief on this one, but why not have them fight a "swarm" of (insert minions here). So, let's say they are fighting an army of zombies. Each zombie is a minion of the appropriate level, but you count the entire GROUP as a single monster. So, they are fighting 1000 zombies. This would be a zombie swarm with 1000 hitpoints, etc. Of course, you would need to add several abilities to reflect the danger they pose. Not only that, but you would need to basically use the monster token and abstractly make it the monster horde.

You want epic. The 5 of them stand, the only defense against a horde of undead monstrosities, defending their homelands against impossible odds....

Your ending was fantastic, btw...I just wanted to interject my idea for those who are approaching their finale.

Actually, I think this is a great idea to conceptualize the party as Epic characters. One of the thoughts that comes to mind is to turn that zombie horde into a Solo and make it gargantuan. Then you simply tell the PCs that their "Move 6" actually takes them halfway across the battlefield allowing them to flank the horde, etc. Sure, it requires some imagination on the part of the players, but then, that was the case before we had battlemaps too. In fact, you might not even need a map in this case.

As a general rule though, I do think that this is a problem with the epic tier in general. Just what should the PCs be doing in the epic tier? Saving the world or the Cosmos certainly comes to mind, but how? Keep in mind, that using standard level challenges, the PCs will engage in 100 encounters in Epic tier (minus a few for quest rewards). That's a lot of fights against demons (which are the primary source of epic monsters atm). Not to bring up an old topic, but this is why I really think that something like a DMG 3 could be really useful if it provided advice on how to design epic tier adventures and encounters.