Tequila Sunrise's Epic Level Handbook 3.75

[Tequila Sunrise]

I don't know about standardized builds: by the time most of our characters get to epic levels they tend to be pretty weird. The epic squirrel who took some specialized classes to be a familiar was kind of strange, and his pyromaniac mage friend who accidently merged with a star was worse. Still, if you want a bunch of level 10+ spells, as well as a straight build option for epic level characters (and a playable system for deities: we've had deity and non-deity characters in the same party and still had a balanced game), try the Eclipse link below. You can't lose anything looking at a shareware .PDF, and you might find something useful.

Thanks, I'll take a look at it.

 

[the Jester]

The first thing that I noticed is that you went from the epic attack/save bonus system back to the standard good/medium/poor BAB and good/poor save model. This exacerbates the problem that a combat challenge to an epic fighter can't be touched by other epic classes, and an attack that is a challenge to an epic character's good save pretty much overwhelms an epic poor save.

Why did you decide to do this? Is there something that I'm missing that plays into these bonuses? IMHO the "if it's not broken don't fix it" approach breaks down badly when it comes to BAB and saves (and I've been running an epic game for quite a while now). However, I didn't read all your posts that thoroughly- so I might well be missing something.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

The first thing that I noticed is that you went from the epic attack/save bonus system back to the standard good/medium/poor BAB and good/poor save model. This exacerbates the problem that a combat challenge to an epic fighter can't be touched by other epic classes, and an attack that is a challenge to an epic character's good save pretty much overwhelms an epic poor save.

Yes, there is a ryhme and a reason that I continued normal BAB progressions. My monster design guidelines ensure that no monster has a higher AC than any combat character can expect to miss more than 50% of the time. To be specific, my assumption is that any character who plans to mix it up with physical weapons will have at least an average BAB, a full strength weapon (appropriate for their level) and a full strength stat booster (ditto). This means that their AB will advance at least +1.25 per level. So given that assumption, no monster should have their AC advance more than 1.25 per CR--if you take a gander at my dragon progression, you'll note that their AC advances by exactly that much. Most monster ACs advance at 1 per CR but you get the idea.

As to epic saves, my system is effectively the same as the ELH's. Beyond 20th casters still have to really work for decent save DCs and even a character's poor save will pull through at least a few numbers before that natural 20. I should note that I use fractional saves, which evens things out a bit. But even assuming that others don't use fractional saves in their epic game, it just means that multiclass character saves become more like monster saves--they either only pass on a nat 20 or only fail on a nat 1. Not the way I like to run my games but for those who do, it would be simple enough to go back to the ELH's epic saves.

 

[Winding Road]

I like the ideas behind this, and the spell, feats, and monster progressions look great. I'm not sure all of the class progressions are balanced, though. Why does, say, the barbarian's rage keep increasing, but not the paladin's smite?

More confusingly, what's going on with the casters? Paladins and rangers max out at 4th-level spells pre-epic, and bards at 6th. Why are they suddenly jumping to 11th? Even the full caster seem to be jumping from 9th to 11th, but I assume that 10th level spells are coming in at 19th-20th character levels in this system.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I like the ideas behind this, and the spell, feats, and monster progressions look great. I'm not sure all of the class progressions are balanced, though. Why does, say, the barbarian's rage keep increasing, but not the paladin's smite?

Check out my Behind the Curtain note at the class post's bottom--in general I favor increasing potency beyond 20th level, but not uses per day.

More confusingly, what's going on with the casters? Paladins and rangers max out at 4th-level spells pre-epic, and bards at 6th. Why are they suddenly jumping to 11th? Even the full caster seem to be jumping from 9th to 11th, but I assume that 10th level spells are coming in at 19th-20th character levels in this system.

Those big jumps in spell levels have been a stopgap solution while I organize epic spell levels in my mind. I just did a few edits and made a note recommending that bards get spell level 7 at 19th level and full casters get spell level 10 at 19th level (or 20th for sorcs).

PS -- Suddenly I see, this is what I want to be

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Partial spell progressions fixed, Epic Campaigns begun, including Epic Powers, Epic Feats clarified, Wealth Guidelines clarified and extended! Comments welcome!