Sword & Sorcery's Advanced Players Guide

[Nightfall]

Crothy,

I scanned the book. Didn't see anything that was helpful in making more "legendary" or "mythical" PCs. But you can read that for yourself on the thread that I and Biggie responded to.

 

[Crothian]

The merits and flaws do. Most mythical figures are really good at sometrhng, but have a deep flaw of something else.

 

[Nightfall]

Okay well what ever floats your boat Crothy.

 

[Crothian]

not a merit and flaws fan; or don't see many laegendary figures as having flaws; or don't think that merits and flaws have anything to do with legendary charcters?

 

[Nightfall]

The former. I don't like using such things as I feel it's kind of something you should roleplay rather than just have like feats or skills.

 

[Acid_crash]

Merits and flaws, like anything else in the game, is good if used properly and bad if used poorly. I like them because they help me see things easier in my mind and help me roleplay my characters better, and to me the characters are more fully fleshed out.

My LGS hasn't even heard of this book though, and probably won't get it for another week or two after everyone else has theirs. They are painfully slow in getting new books.

 

[JoeGKushner]

One of my friends picked up the book.

One interesting option is the elite PrC. It reminds me a little of the Legendary PrC from the various "Path of..." books by Fantasy Flight Games. I'm glad that someone is trying to do something a little different with the whole PrC thing. I'd like to see someone do something like d20 modern thought and go the easy or maybe Archetype PrC where at 4th level you could get into it.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

First of all, high level D&D is not mythic, it is superheroic. The designers of the ELH and D&D in general have put themselves in the awkward position of trying to foster a mythic play style with rules that workd best for a more superheroic play style.

The designers and most DMs who were unhappy with the ELH rules assumed two things that are wrong.

1) That D&D can be used for mythic play.
2) That the ELH can be dropped into an existing campaign with no problem.

First of all, you cannot use D&D rules for mythic play over an extended period of time. The game breaks down without any balances on the PCs power. Mythic play is basically simulating stories like the Odyssey where the PCs are these great heroes doing these great things. Mythic play can work fine for more abstract systems like in Exalted, but not in a tactical system such as D&D which is predicated on the PCs having external checks to their power. Mythic play assumes that the PCs are the only epic level characters in the world. The D&D (d20) system is predicated on checks and balances. But if every NPC is 1st level and your PCs are 30th, how long do you think your campaign can last? Or how well can verisimilitude be maintained when the PCs are veritable gods compared to the vast majority of NPCs in the game world?

Not very, hence some of the dissatisfaction with the ELH. Part of this problems stems from the flawed NPC level demographics in the DMG. D&D epic level gaming fails if you follow those demographics.

To run a long term successful campaign into the epic levels requires a world built for it from the beginning.

This brings me to point 2. The designers and many DMs who bought the book assumed they could just tack it on to existing campaigns when the PCs reached those levels. Well, it doesn't work that way.

A campaign world can only function without breaking down in the presence of epic PCs if they are not the only epic PCs in the world. For an epic campaign to successfully work, most major NPCs should be epic from the very beginning of the campaign. The average town guard should be from 10 to 20th level. The BBEG should be something like a level 80 lich archmage or something. Only by completely rescaling the NPC level demographics can a campaign progress into epic levels and use the ELH without a problem.

This problem is especially exagerated by many DMs who prefer a 'low-power' game. By its very nature, D&D is high powered and high magic. Those low power DMs who don't feel comfortable with the way the game changes beyond level 15, certainly aren't going to be comfortable going into epic levels. Especially since doing so and not causing the game to break down requires them to completely rescale the NPC level demographics of their campaign world. Not an easy task for DMs who are used to a much smaller scale such as level 1-15, where the most powerful NPCs in the world do not exceed levels 15-20.

There is nothing wrong with campaigns that use an abbreviated level scale, but those campaigns cannot progress into epic levels without breaking down.

Many DMs and the designers did not consider the ramifications that epic level scaling has. It certainly cannot be tacked on to an existing campaign without some serious consideration from the DM.

Hmm. Glad no one told me I couldn't run a mythic-style of play with the ELH in my 23 year-old D&D campaign before I started running it 3 years ago....would have been very akward, trying to explain how all the great game sessions didn't really happen!

All I've really gotten out of your statement is that a DM who wants to run a mythic, high-level campaign with the ELH will need to do a little work, and that the focus of opposition for the PCs should not come from beating up the conventional, lower level NPCs of the campaign who (by definition) should not be the challenge or principle opposition of the mythic characters. In fact, I think Epic Level Gaming only works when you run it as a mythic style, and that the reason it doesn't seem to work for you is because you're trying to do it as a superhero game.....which really would cause it to break down. A world of superheroes, actually, is not that different from a mythic game, but it does assume that the PCs are just normal Joes (i.e. not trying to become avatars or saviors of man or somesuch) with great powers, battling continuously greater evils. A mythic game gives the PCs a purpose: to right a great wrong in the mythology or the campaign, to petition the planar realms for godhood, or find out what the secret truth of reality is, or somesuch. In my mythic campaign, the characters have been questing with characters who've been going on for 12+ years of gaming now, and after hitting 20th level, began a pilgrimage to the site of a god which sarificed himself to stop an ancient apocalypse. Along the way, one PC became an avatar and discovered that, with a century or two of work, he could become a demiurge and replace the dead god. The other PCs discovered epic quests, like saving the fae realms from a damnable evil, stopping the fould dmeon-god which plagues a nearby nation, and so forth.....all scaled just fine, and required no change to the existing campaign structure or NPCs.....rather, the challenges were drawn from things which regular PCs would never have a change of dealing with except by DM fiat.

I could have introduced the demon god to a bunch of low-level PCs, but they would have had to find a relic, ceremony, or some other device to stop the god's summoning or banish it; the deity would not be the source of challenge, but it's summoning minions. In an Epic level scenario, the demon-god becomes the nemesis, it's minions can be epic-level, and the PCs can have a serious row without a "deus ex machina" in the works to save them (unless the villains are truly overpowering...and in the ELH, some definitely are).

In the end, I have to say that, in all honesty, I would have retired my players' characters at 20th level if the Epic level book hadn't come out, and even then I was suspicious that it was going to be too difficult to design challenging scenarios. The ELH changed that, and helped define the newer, more epic focus of the campaign. If you have players who seem to miss the point of EL gaming, by, for example, constantly persecuting the low-level NPCs of your campaign, then I would suggest that they have missed the point of the new campaign focus. As DM, I would say it's your job to steer the PCs away from the more petty world concerns and get them focused on the more Herculean focus of their new careers. It's all a matter of misconceptions: the ELH works great, but you need to understand the kind of game you need to run with it. Dead gods, ghoul paragons, epic quests for the gods, and the search for the truth of the universe are all good epic level ideas. Local king Evilman, run of the mill liches, and your local dimestore evil priest should quake in their boots when the PCs come knocking, and quickly look for that new summoning scroll they were given by their dark god, who told them only to use it in the presence of the Chosen Ones.....

And I guess, in the end, that that's the real secret to Epic level gaming: understanding that it's all about the PCs now, they are the motivating force and reason for the campaign. If you've been playing with these guys long enough to get them to 20th level, then it shouldn't be to much of a stretch to start thinking really big and give them a taste of greatness.