The Slow Death of Epic Tier

[Barastrondo]

Even when I've played games where we fight an assortment of intelligent beings, they rarely demonstrate tactics or smarts of any sort. It's really on the DM here I suppose, and how much work they want to put in to the dozen bandits they just cooked up.

Sure. But it's a tier-agnostic thing. There is nothing that compels a DM to play epic-tier characters any more carefully than heroic-tier characters; they're equally capable of being thrown at the PCs in a suicidal wave. I'd actually be kind of worried if a DM wanted to play heroic tier as full of idiots and epic tier as full of supergeniuses -- that strikes me as favoritism more than as verisimilitude. There should be smart opponents at every level, and if there aren't, I'd suspect the DM is personally bored or jaded with the game at that point.

Personally, I think that's the point. Epic tier is "normalcy" taken to 11+. Instead of pirates and kidnapping, you have flying alien warships dropping genocidal plagues upon entire cities. Intead of a nutty mage who summoned up some elementals, you have a dozen nutty mages worshipping a titanic elemental who wants to merge with the world to become the most powerful elemental ever.

IMO, there's nothing wrong with "the basics" taken to 11.

Right. But that's why I say it can be a tough sell. It's a fun enough game model, but if you haven't set up for it from the beginning, the mere promise of going to 11 may not offset the complications caused.

IMO, if the players are REALLY that cunning, the villains may kick it up a notch on their next attack. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, for the smarter the PCs become, the cleverer the villains become. For the more traps they avoid, the harder the traps become to detect.

Villains are not, in my book, static bosses who wait in their alcove till the players arrive.(I'm looking at you MMOs!), they are cunning, crafty, constantly thinking foes who are constantly improving themselves and their plans.

Sure. But again, that's a tier-agnostic approach (or should be). There's really no reason that a 5th-level crime boss can't be terrifying to the players for the entirety of levels 1-5 until they finally manage to corner him and put him to the sword. The same holds true for a 10th-level warlord, or a 15th-level lich.

Yes, in a nutshell, Epic tier is "the basics" taken to 11. But Luthor and Galactus are still worlds apart from lesser villains.

In terms of power level, yes. But characters like Marlo Stanfield or the Gray King aren't their lessers when it comes to sheer cunning, motivation and amorality.

It's actually interesting that you use comic-book villains as examples, come to think of it: what I've done with epic play was in an entirely different system, with more of a superhero model. Part of that was to encourage the concept of recurring villains. One of the things that makes Luthor what he is is that, well, he has general plot immunity: Superman's never going to kill him, and he's too valuable to the franchise to remove and replace with someone else. When I was looking to model villains on the Luthor mold, Champions felt more natural, as D&D is a game where you measure your success by how many villains you've removed from the campaign permanently.

 

[Sunseeker]

Sure. But it's a tier-agnostic thing. There is nothing that compels a DM to play epic-tier characters any more carefully than heroic-tier characters; they're equally capable of being thrown at the PCs in a suicidal wave. I'd actually be kind of worried if a DM wanted to play heroic tier as full of idiots and epic tier as full of supergeniuses -- that strikes me as favoritism more than as verisimilitude. There should be smart opponents at every level, and if there aren't, I'd suspect the DM is personally bored or jaded with the game at that point.

Possibly, but the reason those Epic villains are Epic is because they're the ones who were smart during Heroic. Yes, in every group of bandits there's the cunning one or two. These are the ones who go on to Paragon to become bandit lords. Of those bandit lords, a few of them are more cunning than the rest, and they are the ones who make pacts with demons, devils, or gods for the kind of power that will carry them off into Epic.

Heroic "smart" bandits know getting behind you makes them dangerous. Epic "smart" villains know that getting behind you, immoblizing you, lowering your defenses, and mind-controlling you makes you AND your party dead.

Right. But that's why I say it can be a tough sell. It's a fun enough game model, but if you haven't set up for it from the beginning, the mere promise of going to 11 may not offset the complications caused.

No, it may not, but we'll never know unless we try, there's too much "lets just not do it at all 'cause we think it'll be dumb" going on in this thread.

Sure. But again, that's a tier-agnostic approach (or should be). There's really no reason that a 5th-level crime boss can't be terrifying to the players for the entirety of levels 1-5 until they finally manage to corner him and put him to the sword. The same holds true for a 10th-level warlord, or a 15th-level lich.

I agree. Every "boss" battle should be potent and challenging, at their level. But they are, as you say, a crime boss. Which is a different scale entirely from guys like The Kingpin. Crime boss? More like Crime Lord. I'm not arguing ALL the cool stuff has to happen in Epic tier. I'm just saying that applying the same theories "dialed up" is really all it takes.

It's actually interesting that you use comic-book villains as examples, come to think of it: what I've done with epic play was in an entirely different system, with more of a superhero model. Part of that was to encourage the concept of recurring villains. One of the things that makes Luthor what he is is that, well, he has general plot immunity: Superman's never going to kill him, and he's too valuable to the franchise to remove and replace with someone else. When I was looking to model villains on the Luthor mold, Champions felt more natural, as D&D is a game where you measure your success by how many villains you've removed from the campaign permanently.

Partially, I think that's because Champions sat down and said "look guys, we know how this works, lets roll with it." and did their best to mimic the flavor of a villain who challenges you every step of the way, grows as you grow.

Yes, D&D "achievements" center around how many "bosses" you've downed, just as almost every Fantasy RPG does. But that doesn't mean your game in particular has to revolve around that theme. Personally, this is just a matter of getting it into your player's head that "reputation" comes from more than just your kill count. Much like the Epic Destiny Quest, you are not widely known for how many heads you mount on your wall, but perhaps, how many lives you've saved. Only a handful of those lives were saved from the grasp of your foes, most of whom you saved from trees or burning buildings. Or maybe you're well known for how many homeless shelters you've built.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Much like the Epic Destiny Quest, you are not widely known for how many heads you mount on your wall, but perhaps, how many lives you've saved. Only a handful of those lives were saved from the grasp of your foes, most of whom you saved from trees or burning buildings. Or maybe you're well known for how many homeless shelters you've built.

I was nodding along with your whole post, until that last bit. That slant is exactly not epic fantasy to me. I make the distinction this way, from an old conversation of a similar nature:

1. A character has a significant ability to craft something. This ability was developed through characterization and play through the life of the character. The character probably started as an apprentice or journeyman, and got better as they went. Finally, there is the need to craft a critical piece of equipment to defeat the BBEG, and this character just so happens to have the necessary skill. The characters, with the help of some friends, assembles the materials, crafts the item, and off they go, versus ...

2. A character has a significant ability to craft something. Crafting this something is dangerous, and it gets worse the more you do it. There are times when maybe doing so was definitely not a no-brainer. Progress was in spits and spurts, and any formal training was more like Chiron with Hercules than a guild system. The BBEG confrontation draws near. Perhaps a crafted object will help, but it is risky ...

Both might be interesting characterization, at least to some people. But whatever else it is, I see 1. as certainly neither epic nor fantastical (besides being a bit contrived, which could be due to my portayal of it). Yet 1. is how systems want to push this kind of thing (which is why I think 4E left it out). I want 2., which is roughly what you'd get with a Norse master crafting dwarf as a player character. If it is turned up to 11, I want "11" on the volume knob from the very beginning.

Rescuing kittens from trees is not done on a knob that goes to 11, at least not non-ironically.

 

[Barastrondo]

No, it may not, but we'll never know unless we try, there's too much "lets just not do it at all 'cause we think it'll be dumb" going on in this thread.

I don't think it'd be dumb. Basically, I'm unsold. I'm interested in being sold, but as we've talked about earlier, the sell is difficult if you haven't prepared for epic from the beginning. And "heroic tier villains aren't as noteworthy" is an anti-sell in any stripe, hence why I objected.

I agree. Every "boss" battle should be potent and challenging, at their level. But they are, as you say, a crime boss. Which is a different scale entirely from guys like The Kingpin. Crime boss? More like Crime Lord. I'm not arguing ALL the cool stuff has to happen in Epic tier. I'm just saying that applying the same theories "dialed up" is really all it takes.

Sure, but it's also possible to "dial down." There's no reason that fantasy analogues of the whole Daredevil mythos couldn't play out in heroic tier other than personal preference. So that's why I'm interested in finding out not just what epic tier has to offer other than "the same, but bigger," but novel ways to apply it to an existing world.

To go back to D&D, one of my favorite modules from my youth (at least conceptually; it had a few hiccups in execution from a modern eye) was Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. You were up against a council of crimelords there. And it was recommended for levels 4-9. That was immensely appealing: it sold the idea that you could go up against potent villains and make a difference, even at single digit levels. Cutting the head off an immense slaving ring? That's fantastic.

Partially, I think that's because Champions sat down and said "look guys, we know how this works, lets roll with it." and did their best to mimic the flavor of a villain who challenges you every step of the way, grows as you grow.

And also it's rooted in the four-color tradition. Recurring villains are easier to justify if they don't actually get away with all that many atrocities. But use the Joker in his modern "every time he shows up another couple of civilians will die horribly" incarnation, and players may well feel personally responsible for every person he kills because they didn't put him down forever. And since part of the appeal of RPGs is to have your guy do the smart thing instead of the "play to the audience and keep the franchise going" thing, they may much rather kill the Joker first chance they get than have a series of recurring conflicts with him. A passive reader and an active player's needs are different.

Yes, D&D "achievements" center around how many "bosses" you've downed, just as almost every Fantasy RPG does. But that doesn't mean your game in particular has to revolve around that theme. Personally, this is just a matter of getting it into your player's head that "reputation" comes from more than just your kill count.

It's not about reputation or "achievements." It's about the fact that D&D is flat-out a game about lethal solutions: slay the dragon instead of driving it off, kill the vampire lord instead of putting him in prison. It's based on works where the villain of the piece ends up with a sword in his gut rather than showing up once a year for several decades to keep the franchise going.

Certainly my players are pretty damned good about wanting to build institutions and forge relationships. But if I were to have a hobgoblin warlord sack a city, with hundreds or thousands of innocents slain in the process, my players wouldn't want to kill him to earn cred. They'd want to kill him to make sure not one more person dies thanks to his actions. As a recurring villain, if they cross swords with him multiple times and he keeps escaping, and the NPCs they care about keep dying, my players at least would be frustrated and feeling disempowered. That's why I use a fairly comic-book recurring villain model for Champions, but with D&D handle my villains differently.

 

[pemerton]

I believe I see what you're getting at here, and it's certainly a legitimate approach; if I understand you correctly, it's the idea that the stats in D&D do not reflect any fixed underlying reality.

<snip>

it's one I flirted with to some extent when 4E was released. However, I've pulled back from it since, because it's massively counterintuitive and it sacrifices much of the usefulness of having rules in the first place.

Agreed. My response is that I don't think 4e is as well-suited to the sort of adventure you describe (where the players choose between threats to the world and leave others to the guards, based on a mechanical/probabilistic assessment) as other versions of D&D.

And in the case of monster power levels, it seems like a bit of a Red Queen's Race. If monsters level up to keep pace with the PCs, then why are the PCs leveling up at all? Why not just stay the same level from start to finish and cut out all the number-crunching? If the problem is PCs getting bored with their abilities, just hand out new abilities without increasing the overall power level, E6-style.

Because the changing numbers also drive the game in a certain direction, of an unfolding storyline with more and more wahoo effects (stun, flying, etc) which would be lost if the numbers stayed the same.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The "why haven't the epic level threats long since overtaken the world" sort of question is just one of those many observations about a D&D style world that is never going to really be answered. Trying to rationalize how such a world works never leads anywhere terribly profitable. The other thing is it isn't a question that is somehow unique to epic tier.

You could imagine that a high heroic tier threat MIGHT be restrained by the existence in the ordinary course of things of other figures in the world that are capable of standing up to them, but you're already FAR beyond the level of what 95% of the ordinary (non-PC) population of the world has ANY hope of dealing with mechanically. The town guard is going to handle a couple ogres? Really? I doubt it. Certainly not by fighting them!

Any kind of paragon tier threat is already at the kind of power level where it is hardly credible that they have much to fear except each other, a very rare one in a million kind of NPC, or the player characters when they reach those levels. This would be especially true in a world where paragon is effectively the top of the heap and epic level play isn't contemplated.

In other words any real attempt to rationalize such a world, regardless of which tiers you use, is pretty much doomed to failure. The only options are the same kinds of options you have in epic tier. The threat is growing, the threat is located far away, the PCs awaken the threat, the threat is restrained by some kind of plot device, etc. If you really look at it all tiers of play beyond low levels pretty much organize around these kinds of plot devices.

Look at the venerable B2 module, Keep on the Borderlands. The monsters are located off in a 'dungeon' some ways away from civilization. They have a balance of power there which serves to help explain why none of them presents a direct threat to the keep. Being a first level module the threats can also be minor enough that the PCs aren't needed to keep it in check, the keep is well enough defended to repel an attack by the orcs or goblins. In a campaign this kind of scenario will be repeated over and over. Beyond this low level however there is just not likely to be much logic for why it works except repeated use of these same types of plot devices. Very quickly the monsters far outstrip the keep analog (a town, city, kingdom, world, what have you). This is really close to the totality of the real difference between lower and higher level play in this sense. At no point beyond low heroic tier does this world make much sense except as a setting in which the PCs can do their thing. Logic simply has to be set aside.

Note that nothing in all of this is peculiar to 4e. This is why I say there is really no huge material difference between 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e in this respect. We could have had this exact discussion (heck I HAVE had this exact discussion) in the era of each of these editions. It goes the same way. You have a limited set of viable plot devices you can use to make it believable enough to work as a story but you will ALWAYS need them.

Certainly you can come up with systems like GURPS, or to take it the the extreme CoC, where PC power curves are quite flat and you won't generally run into this sort of issue, but you also have real problems creating a truly epic feeling story. CoC characters NEVER EVER directly face a Great Old One. If they do it is the disastrous finale of a campaign or else the DM is going to introduce a deus ex machina to resolve the situation because the PCs are utterly out of their league. It is in other words a totally different type of game, certainly not heroic fantasy in the vein that D&D is designed for. GURPS is somewhat more in the middle but still not nearly as suitable to an epic feel as 4e is.

I think the upshot of what I'm saying is that 4e has the tools to do epic. Epic is just a highly constrained kind of mode of play that really admits of only a limited possible group of overall story devices to make it work. Even then these are not really unique to this tier, they are just exemplified in a more extreme way. If a group really isn't interested in those kinds of stories and devices then playing epic 4e is likely to disappoint them. I don't think any twiddling around with the rules is going to substantially change that. This is why I brought up earlier editions in the first place. Even with some substantially different mechanics the issues are still the same. Once you have designed a game like this to have a big jump in power levels over character lifetime the same basic issues will always arise. Note the difference with the super hero genre in general. Super heroes rarely change radically in power level. Superman was ALWAYS Superman and always will be. Lex Luthor will always be a worthy opponent, they are on similar power levels. It isn't a setup where there is a progression. Thus it has a whole different set of plot and story dynamics.

In terms of the need to flesh out various themes in 4e epic monster lineups, yes you will need to do that. The thing is I'm not really sure 4e left that to the DM accidentally. I'm not at all sure it is really again unique to 4e either. The 1e MM had around 300 monsters in it. VERY few of them are really going to be challenging to 12+ level PCs. There certainly wasn't enough material to supply all the material for a whole high level campaign arc. Look at the GDQ module series. It contained a vast number of new monsters. In fact practically everything in it was new beyond the G series.

I think 4e supplies a core for each of a number of themes and simple resource constraints on what WotC can supply dictates that you WILL have to fill that out with reskinning, new monsters, etc. Using one of the themed books like Open Grave or Demonomicon you have what you need pretty much. There are a bunch of main opponents and their core henchmen available in each book, plus a modest variety of base types and variations for mooks, plus a number of templates and such that can be used to round out the mix. Notice how DMG2 introduced monster themes to go along with templates. This is exactly WHY (well it goes even further than that, but filling out epic is a big part of it).

 

[Brent1]

Well nice post to helping out me the gaming zone or try to understand how to play a perfect game ...

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Matrix Sorcica!

Krusty, you really need to release those rules. Before 5E, please

I know, I know amigo. I'm working on it.

Knowing you and release schedules, I'm a bit worried. How about some previews or other tidbits? Or a rules release and then the adventures.

I have previews of the Vampire Bestiary on both my websites. That book will have the new rules for converting solo's into bosses. That book is a few weeks away from being released.

After that is the Serpent Riders. An adventure + mini-bestiary book. It has the new rules for armies. It is going to take about 3 months after the Vampire Bestiary release.

I'm not totally sure at this juncture which book to release after that. Probably the Immortals Handbook: Immortal Tier (31-40) rules.

The next bunch of books were meant to be:

Angels & Devils (Epic Tier monster book for 4E)
Immortals Index: Canaanite Mythology (4E)
Vampire Bestiary: Part Two (Levels 16-30) (4E)
No Chance In Hell, follow-up to the Serpent Riders Adventure (Levels 29-32) (4E)
Vampire Bestiary: Part Three (Levels 31-45) (4E)

Each is meant to be about 64 pages.

I'm not sure which book will have the Super-solo Monster rules. I was sort of thinking the Vampire Bestiary: Part Three (since it has lots of relevant examples), but I suppose whatever monster book follows the Immortal Tier rules.

Alternatively I suppose I could just sell the...
- Boss-Monster Rules
- Army Rules
- Super-solo Rules
...as tiny stand alone pdfs for maybe a dollar or somesuch. Just to get them 'out there'.

Man, you're the reason I registered to ENWorld back in March 2002 - to comment on your Immortals Handbook.

I appreciate the commitment.

I started my first website and released the Epic Bestiary: Volume 1 in 2005. From then I was working on the Immortals Handbook: Ascension; which was finished* in March 2008.

*Admittedly only one third of the proposed interior art was ever completed, but the text was finished.

From 2007 I have been working another job to pay the bills, initially full time (about 38 hours a week), subsequently it became part-time (31 hours). However it slowly sank in that I was unable to make any serious headway on my RPG writing and as of this August I dialled it back to 18 hours. Since then progress has been very good (I can get about 10 pages done per fortnight).

4E was released in June 2008, with the IH still far from complete

I have only really been able to work on my RPG writing in any serious capacity since August this year, and I had a 2-week holiday at the end of August, so really I have only been working since about September...added to which during September I spent far too much of my time updating my new website.

But I think I have a good grip on things now. *fingers crossed*

 

[JoeGKushner]

In an ice age setting, there could be all sorts of things to hold up the PCs.

While I'm not a big fan of the Fey, the Fey of the Winter Court include some high level individuals.

Then of course there are frost giants, white dragons, rhemoraz and other 'big fish'.

Tribes of the north could be united under various warlords of equal or greater power than the players for example. the frost and ice age itself could be caused by planar energies from the plane of water or ice and the players can actual stop the ice age!

If your only reason for not continuing on is a lack of enemies, one of the nice things about 4e is it's realtively easy to bang some out quickly unlike 3e.

My campaign ran from level 1 up to level 14, then went on break for a while and recently resumed. When we came back, I was fired up to go all the way to 30th--and then I started planning out encounters, and realized I was already struggling to find reasonable threats.

When we started this campaign, I created a campaign setting that was, IMO, ideally designed for heroic-tier adventures: A world in the grip of an ice age, where the PCs would go on long treks through tundra and snowy pine forests and icelocked mountains, battling white wolves and orc marauders and lurking trolls, and dealing with the dangers of the wintry environment. And in Heroic tier, it went smashingly.

But now the PCs have outleveled the wolves and orcs, and trolls won't last much longer. I'm sending them on a jaunt to the Abyss for a bit, but it kind of defeats the point of having an interesting setting if they never get to adventure in it. By sending the party into the most dangerous parts of the game world (the white wastes of the north where the lord of winter reigns), I think I can squeeze out enough challenges to take them to level 20. After that, I'm done. The plans I had for epic tier will have to be shelved.

(I have an idea to address the issue: PCs no longer get a 1/2 level bonus to attacks, defenses, and skills. Monster stats remain unchanged*. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to wait till next campaign to implement it, and even then I expect a lot of whining... my players have gotten totally hooked on the Character Builder. Hey, Wizards, I don't suppose we could get a "no half level bonus" option in the CB?)

[size=-2]*I crunched some numbers on how this would affect monster threat level and came up with this: Treat the party as being 2/3 of their actual level when calculating XP budget, and 1/2 their actual level when choosing monsters to fight. So an 18th-level party would have a 12th-level XP budget, which I would fill out with monsters around 9th level or so. Hence, as the PCs level up, they tend to face larger numbers of foes.[/size]

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello Dausuul!

And that's a grand total of maybe four encounters. What do we do for the rest of epic tier?

Exactly, which is why (as I have been saying) you should have multiple themes (and thus multiple) BBEG's in the epic tier. Not one BBEG over the course of 10 levels...thats just crazy talk.

And to the best of my knowledge, none of them commands armies of epic-level creatures, or even high-paragon-level creatures that could be minionized. I'm not real familiar with what Lex Luthor's got on hand, but Galactus by all accounts is a single solo, and the only servants Sauron has that seem potentially epic-level are the Nazgul. (And that's being pretty generous to the Nazgul; they look more like mid-paragon to me.)

Remember, we're not talking about one epic foe. That's easy enough to work into a campaign. And it's not too hard to stretch that out into 3, 4, maybe 5 combats by giving the epic foe some epic henchmen and elite guards. All this I readily concede.

But we're talking about an entire tier's worth of combat. 10 levels--25 sessions or so. Even if you have only one combat a session, that's 25 battles, and if you follow a more typical pattern for D&D, it'll be more like 50. Just how many elite guards and epic henchmen do these guys have?

Totally agree.

Assuming 4-5 combats per BBEG/threat, or two per level of play. That means you would need about 20 Major Villains/Threats (etc.) to keep the Epic Tier interesting. Of course some of those may be themselves henchmen to greater villains to be faced later in the tier.

But this is exactly the approach I advocate in the epic tier. Shorter, sharper shocks.

Now consider that if the heroes battle those 25-50 gangs of epic foes, there are presumably a lot more of them that the PCs never fight. It's ludicrous to suppose that the heroes would fight their way through all of the villain's elite forces in a series of small groups. If the villain's forces are sufficiently spread out that the PCs have to engage in 25-50 separate combats, then it logically follows that there must be hundreds of groups out there that the PCs bypass on the way to their objective.

Indeed. We generally used to bypass the villains army/servants (when possible) and go straight for the jugular (Command Tent, Throne Room, Divine Realm). A typical ultra-high level 'adventure' was probably 3-4 encounters. The whole idea of having 90 epic tier encounters building up to a confrontation with Orcus just seems a bit pedantic. Cut the head off the snake and the body dies.

Plan A: Get in - Kill The Guards - Kill Him - Get Out. End of.
Plan B: We need Macguffin 'x' to have a chance. Travel to the Place - Kill the Guards - Get It - Get Out - See Plan A.
Plan C: Infiltration, we need some piece of information (location of Macguffin 'x' maybe). Sneak In - Kill The Guards (and take their uniforms) - Find the Information - Get Out - See Plan B.
Plan D: We can't kill the BBEG directly (political reasons maybe, or just he is that powerful), so we have to weaken him indirectly. Find his weakness(es) - Exploit Them - Kill Some Guards anyway - Get Out - See Plan C.
Plan E: We need to Defend Something or Someone from the forces of the BBEG, who have invaded. We Are The Guards (so don't get killed) - Hold the Line - Attack Retreating Enemy - See Plan D for seeking revenge.

So most of the time, the goal will be simple (defeat the BBEG). In and of itself thats a very short adventure. You can expand it by putting more and more obstacles in the way and shifting the goalposts to different objectives.

However, you have to imagine that there is a limit to how far you can credibly stretch out a threat/theme before it gets a bit stale.