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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mkletch" data-source="post: 332042" data-attributes="member: 3396">Up the ante...This would be a beautiful addition to the game, either in future products, future errata and/or as an addition to the SRD.My problem with high-level encounters is with the ELH.  Whether throwing a low-level epic monster against a high level non-epic party, or playing in an epic campaign, the monster attacks and defenses are just outrageous.There are so many creatures with multi-die and multi-ability ability drain, who cares if your character has 300 hit points?  You have 25 Dex, and are taking 2d4 Dex damage per (touch usually) attack, twice a round.  It's simply like you have 4th level, 25 hit points and bad armor all over again and are facing a creature with a falchion.  Except now, your combat ability decreases as you take damage.  You almost need a ring that casts restoration on you every round or something.The thing that really ruined the ELH for me was DR.  There are only like 15 creatures with damage reduction that you can bypass with a non-epic weapon out of more than 60 monsters.  Considering that a simple +6 weapon is worth half of the total wealth of a 22nd level character (per the table), it is safe to assume that this commodity is fairly rare until 30th level; and well beyond the resources of NPCs under 35th-40th level, per their table.   Epic items, especially weapons, have been reduced to a 'must have' commodity, just as +4 and +5 weapons are simple commodities in non-epic high level play.  How disappointing.  The Penetrate Damage Reduction feat mitigates this, but is reduced to a 'must have' feat for anybody that ever considers using a weapon - so much for lots of feat choices.A single epic monster of any sort is just too much for most parties to handle, up to even low level epic play.  And considering that these things are wandering all over the place, and epic level characters and epic weapons are rare at best, how did they not wipe out all life ages ago.  And don't tell me the gods could do a thing, since they only can hit +4 or +5 DR creatures and hardly do 5-20 points of damage per attack after the DR, except for Thor or on critical hits.  Good thing deities are immune to ability loss....Hey, don't get me wrong.  I love the 'feel' of the epic book, but the implementation requires just silly-stupid power levels, both in magic items and character abilities.  How one makes the transition from non-epic to epic level play is a mystery to me.  It would be like skipping seven grades in school, and going right from 3rd grade to 11th grade - completely blown away unless your party is dripping with artifacts.  I bought it as a DM resource, to make custom high-level opponents, but the utility is limited even for that.  And you thought the CR system broke down at 10th-15th level.  Try 25th.Fletch!</blockquote>

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