The Immortals Handbook

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Paragon mate!

I know it’s not much consolation but if there is any perceived impatience I’m sure it is merely from gamers wanting to get their grubby little hands on what I’m convinced will be a game-world alter book.
At least that’s the excuse I’m going with

I know it will be great, and I'm looking forward to it.

The only thing I can guarantee at the moment is to confirm your suspicions that it is indeed great.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey S'mon!

Epic/Immortals thoughts - reposted from General.

I'll go and take a look but I have sort of lost my confidence of throwing my opinions around outside the safety of the few threads herein the House Rules forums, because of my current procrastination.

I didn't buy the Handbook due to negative publicity, but do have the SRD.

Well you were able to have a look before you had to make the decision since I already showed you the book and gave you my thoughts on it.

What I'd really like is Epic/Deity-level rules that really simplified play at this level, rather than making it ever-more-complex. AFAIK the old Immortals set for BXCMI D&D did this by mechanics that made regular spellcasting largely redundant.

Well I don't like removing choice from the players, but I think if you make the basics really simple then give people dozens of options you can cover both bases.

So thats why I have things like the Divinity Templates and Portfolio templates really simple; but then you have literally hundreds of possible divine abilities.

Things I'd like to see:

1. A greatly simplified Feats system for (N)PC creation - Skills can be kept simple by having NPCs maxed out in their preferred skills, but Feats are a real pain, and dominate Epic 'builds'.

Well lets just say I have skill sorted.

Regarding feats; I agree they can be unwieldy even before epic levels; the way I have handled this is twofold. One is that you can choose Divine Abilities by expending five feat slots. So that eats them up. The second is by creating Ability 'Packages' that are groupings of feats with a specific theme.

So you might have a Fighter package; a Monk package and so forth.

2. Simplified spells system; maybe Epic spontaneous spellcasters could use a Power Points 'energy battery' system, rather than slots? The current Epic system seems to rather nerf spellcasters, so it might be ok if this let them be a bit more powerful. Particularly suitable for divine beings IMO.

I actually have a system for epic magic that is super simple; you'll love it Simon. Trust the Krust.

3. Discouraging one-upmanship battle-of-spells conflict resolution.

Can you expand on that a bit?

Spell Resistance should probably be standard for beings at this level; they should be largely resistant to beings of a similar power-level, ie ca SR 20+Character Level.

Spell Resistance does seem to have become a bit less useful in 3rd Ed - probably due to Spell Penetration. I mean if you give them 50% SR vs. their own level for practical purposes you are probably only giving them effectively 25%.

Maybe they have to actively maintain a 'Spell Shield', and drop it to cast spells (or Spell-like abilities) themselves - I think Immortals set used this? That would solve a lot of problems in the way D&D favours offense over defense so hugely.

I don't know if I favour the idea as generic, but I'll give the idea some thought as perhaps an optional rule.

4. Reduced reliance on items, other than one or two signature items,

I think limiting the item slots was certainly a step in the right direction. Personally I can see deities having a few signature items (depending on how powerful they are - eg. Odin has about half a dozen) with maybe a few items that would represent the best stuff in the DMG filling out the other slots.

& on temporary buff spells.

This is a tricky one, but I think it has to be dealt with. Most of the horror stories of epic games I have read about involved ridiculous buffing.

Naturally I have handled this problem with the magic system.

At this level I tend to feel all available enhancements should be 'built in' to the characters; relying on scads of +10 items just isn't Epic to me. Eg if the (N)PC has Natural Armour, let it be permanently Enhanced so they don't need to keep buffing with Barkskin spells & such before every fight. Let stat Enhancements be permanent so there's no need for Bull's Strength or Belts of Giant Strength (unless really Epic ones), etc.

Of course players are going to say well what if I want to add buffs to the enhancements.

But I agree with you it should be toned down (its easily handled) - if you remember our 1st Ed. games it got to the point where I would just say 'All defensive spells cast'.

5. Guidelines/Tables for typical NPCs at 21st-40th level like those in 3.0 DMG would be good, too (if Epic handbook doesn't have this, it should).

The Epic book has this from 21st-30th level.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey CRGreathouse mate!

(1) would sadden me. I love the epic feat system as it works now (though I've modified some feats).

I have it intact, but simplified.

So instead of taking 30 feats you might want to take 20 feats and two divine abilities.

Or instead of taking 130 feats you might want to take 3 Cosmic Abilities; 6 Divine Abilities and 25 feats.

Or instead of taking 1030 feats...etc.

 

[S'mon]

Hey S'mon!

Hey U_K, thanks for feedback - lots of interesting stuff! I like the idea of the multi-feat abilities, & the packages sound a boon for the poor GM. The ELH seems to work ok for continuing on PCs who started from low level, but seems terrible for creating Epic (N)PCs from scratch. I'd like a system that let me create Thor-level characters in a few minutes, rather than hours.

Oh, and you can't stack Enhancements with Enhancements, of course.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I have it intact, but simplified.

So instead of taking 30 feats you might want to take 20 feats and two divine abilities.

Or instead of taking 130 feats you might want to take 3 Cosmic Abilities; 6 Divine Abilities and 25 feats.

Or instead of taking 1030 feats...etc.

This isn't bad at all. It helps avoid the problem of combination abilities (SDAs that work as several epic feats, for example).

I wouldn't like a system that essentially changes the nature of 3E feats -- discrete abilities that don't (directly) scale with level and have a system of prerequisites.

I'm sure you've done a good job, from what you've shown us. If there was anything I was worried about it would be the prerequisites (since you mentioned that you simplified them/reduced their number), but I have faith that you won't go overboard here.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I'll go and take a look but I have sort of lost my confidence of throwing my opinions around outside the safety of the few threads herein the House Rules forums, because of my current procrastination.

I had better post this here, then


I had another insight about the fixed XP awards- and I think this is the last; XP is a multiple of the square of the CR.

Here's how I got it:

From the Challenge Challenge Ratings and Encountering Encounter Levels rules, the rule relating CR and EL can be obtained: doubling CR increases EL by +4. We also get a rule for assigning xp: Increasing the EL by +4 quadruples XP. Therefore doubling the CR of a creature quadruples the XP award for defeating it.

I had wondered what kind of function satisfied the relationship f(2x)=2f(x), but it suddenly occurred to me that the function had to be a quadratic function.

Oops! I meant to say that f(2x)=4f(x).

i.e.

XP = 75 x (CR x CR)

To avoid a proliferation of 5's, you might want to the nearest 100, at least after level 1.

Levels by xp is just the integral of 13.333 encounters per level, and so it has to be a cubic formula:

XP = 100 x (level x level x level)

Again, to simplify things you might want to round up to the nearest 1000.

This formula also holds for expected PC wealth.

---

I think this is the simplest and most accurate implementation of the CR system in relation to XP.

I earnestly commend it to you for your consideration!

[edit]Error typing an equation. See correction in redabove[/edit]

 

[CRGreathouse]

I had wondered what kind of function satisfied the relationship f(2x)=2f(x), but it suddenly occurred to me that the function had to be a quadratic function.

That won't hold, in general, for *any* quadratic function:

(4ax^2+2bx+c) / (ax^2+bx+c) := 2

implies a=c=0, a linear function.


For UK's system, take the difference D between the monster EL and the party EL and calculate:

1200*2^(D/2)

If you're a real stickler for making the formula match the rounding of the chart (Wulf...), instead use:

1200*2^int(D/2)*(1+D/2-int(D/2))

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey U_K,

Hey S'mon!

thanks for feedback

Thats a given - I reply to every post directed my way.

- lots of interesting stuff!

Thanks.

I like the idea of the multi-feat abilities, & the packages sound a boon for the poor GM.

He he!

The ELH seems to work ok for continuing on PCs who started from low level, but seems terrible for creating Epic (N)PCs from scratch. I'd like a system that let me create Thor-level characters in a few minutes, rather than hours.

10 minutes tops.

I am working on a list of feats and divine abilities by class type. So it'll just be:

1. Thor - determine Divine Status (ie. Intermediate God)
2. Roll Levels (I have a table for this; ie. Demigod = 30 + 1d10); I also have a table for split class levels.
3. Roll Ability scores
4. Apply Divinity Template
5. Apply Portfolio Templates
6. Determine Feats & Divine Abilities

Oh, and you can't stack Enhancements with Enhancements, of course.

You can stack Divine Bonuses with Enchancements though.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi CRGreathouse mate!

This isn't bad at all. It helps avoid the problem of combination abilities (SDAs that work as several epic feats, for example).

I wouldn't like a system that essentially changes the nature of 3E feats -- discrete abilities that don't (directly) scale with level and have a system of prerequisites.

I'm sure you've done a good job, from what you've shown us. If there was anything I was worried about it would be the prerequisites (since you mentioned that you simplified them/reduced their number), but I have faith that you won't go overboard here.

Well the thing is, I don't like prerequisites for their own sake - I like prereqs to make sense. So I don't go overboard on them. There are a lot of abstract abilities in the IH which don't really require prereqs.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

I had better post this here, then

Actually I was refering to Immortal/Epic stuff, not CR/EL stuff...everybody knows I'm already the boss of that.

...and soon they'll know whos the boss of the other.

So in future keep the CR/EL stuff in the other threads, thanks...though no harm done naturally.

I had another insight about the fixed XP awards- and I think this is the last; XP is a multiple of the square of the CR.

Here's how I got it:

From the Challenge Challenge Ratings and Encountering Encounter Levels rules, the rule relating CR and EL can be obtained: doubling CR increases EL by +4. We also get a rule for assigning xp: Increasing the EL by +4 quadruples XP. Therefore doubling the CR of a creature quadruples the XP award for defeating it.

I had wondered what kind of function satisfied the relationship f(2x)=2f(x), but it suddenly occurred to me that the function had to be a quadratic function.

i.e.

XP = 75 x (CR x CR)

To avoid a proliferation of 5's, you might want to the nearest 100, at least after level 1.

Levels by xp is just the integral of 13.333 encounters per level, and so it has to be a cubic formula:

XP = 100 x (level x level x level)

Again, to simplify things you might want to round up to the nearest 1000.

This formula also holds for expected PC wealth.

---

I think this is the simplest and most accurate implementation of the CR system in relation to XP.

I earnestly commend it to you for your consideration!

As you know I am all in favour of simplifying (especially epic/immortal) gaming.

However, I am out of the loop too long to make snap judgements on such things.

I mean would the XP for monsters not be CR^3 x7.5 rather than CR^2 x75?