Published Epic level adventures

[Mystery Man]

Mongoose is releasing "The Drow War" this year as 3 256 page modules. The complete campaign is supposed to move characters from 1 - 30 level over the span of 3 books. I think the first book is set for March or April.

256? Two? Hundred? Fifty? Six?

I had to google that cuz I thought you mistyped. You didn't! Amazing!

 

[Man-thing]

I think it will be amazing. The author Adrian Bott is the author who wrote Strongholds and Dynasties and the Book of Hell last year.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Mongoose is releasing "The Drow War" this year as 3 256 page modules. The complete campaign is supposed to move characters from 1 - 30 level over the span of 3 books. I think the first book is set for March or April.

30 levels, 13.33 encounters per level ... roughly 400 encounters.

768 pages, nearly 2 pages per encounter. That's enough space to really flesh them out.

 

[Ghostwind]

I'm in the process of re-working Where Dark Elves Rule for epic levels. When I'm finished, you'll find it quite the challenge.

 

[Eremite]

I believe you have all of the published stuff. I too am surprised by the relative lack of support at this level but a lot of folks seem to shun these

I think that there are two rather large problems:

1. The ELH is, like too many non-core WotC products, a pretty poor piece of design work and it's fairly difficult to get excited about it.
2. The sheer complexity of stat blocks and the lack of a decent chargen program means that there is so much work for so little reward.

 

[pogre]

I think that there are two rather large problems:

1. The ELH is, like too many non-core WotC products, a pretty poor piece of design work and it's fairly difficult to get excited about it.
2. The sheer complexity of stat blocks and the lack of a decent chargen program means that there is so much work for so little reward.

True - you have summarised a couple of the points Mr. Jacobs makes above. Although as per the company line he probably would hesitate to paint the ELH in such broad strokes. However, reflecting on point two - there would seem to be more call for published stuff at these levels given the difficult prep work.

Too much work --> least played levels --> little published support --> too much work

The cycle as I see it.

Have to agree on the ELH. However, it does give a base to work with and the spell system although mechanically problematic, has the seed of some very good ideas. I don't think many folks who play D&D at 20+ use the ELH without quite a few home rules or adaptations.

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) Have to agree on the ELH. However, it does give a base to work with and the spell system although mechanically problematic, has the seed of some very good ideas. I don't think many folks who play D&D at 20+ use the ELH without quite a few home rules or adaptations.

In other words, perhaps the biggest problem is that there is no set of core Epic rules that (professional and non-professional) designers work with because the ELH was such a shoddy piece of work.

Until there is a decent expanded and revised (and- shock, horror- playtested and edited) ELH there is perhaps very little likelihood of anyone publishing Epic adventures because even those adventures that are first used in a home campaign utilise what is effectively an entirely different ruleset.

C'mon, WotC; the Expanded Psionics Handbook proved that you can fix your stuff-ups. How about a revised and expanded ELH... and without wasting space on the turgid dreck that was the city of Union and that crappy adventure in the City of Brass.

 

[Cold0]

I've been hounding authors for super high-level adventures as well, and starting with May's issue (#122) we've got a menace from Mike Mearls for 18th-level characters. And a few issues after that we've got a high-level one that should prove quite popular.

And to top it off, we've got an acutal epic-level adventure scheduled for early summer! It's called "Quicksilver Hourglass," it's for 30th-level characters, and it's gonna make a lot of PCs cry. We'll include some notes and tips on how to adjust it down to 20th-level (and all the levels in between), but it's definately going to be the highest-level adventure we've ever published. Just the thought of editing those stat blocks makes me giddy!

Wow, thnx a lots. I hope to see them soon in italian Dragon & Dungeon magazine.

Best regards,

 

[Gokijin]

I hope this is the right thread to ask, but isn't there a module that takes characters from level 1 to 100 for 3.5? I understand the difficulty it takes to create high level campaigns and we have done a few, but the amount of preparations needed take up all the free time for whoever is DMing. But at the same time, we play a character from first level to near epic or epic and then have to start over because we run out of material and after months of playing the same character, its hard to set them aside sometimes.

 

[Crothian]

The only module I've seen that goes to 100 is back in 1e; good old H4 Throne of Bloodstone.