The Slow Death of Epic Tier

[Upper_Krust]

Hello AbdulAlhazred!

Well, there is a LOT more to an epic story arc, potentially. It could go something like:

1. Appearance of the threat. In the course of tying up whatever portion of the story happens in paragon tier the characters become aware of a greater threat. This threat might already be implicit in the setting, but it now becomes a matter that has direct relevance for the PCs. This phase further involves the acquisition of knowledge and information. This is good for at least 1 and possibly 2-3 adventures.
2. Reconnaissance. Once some information has been gathered on the possible nature of the threat the party sets out to find answers to questions which require interacting with the threat in a fairly direct manner. This could be investigating remote locations, etc. The general theme being learning more directly and answering specific questions.
3. Marshalling of Forces. McGuffins may need to be gathered or made, specific allies recruited, etc. The characters acquire the tools needed to defeat the threat.
4. Direct Action. The characters take on the threat directly, ultimately leading to their victory or defeat.

Each one of these phases can be reordered, interjected into the others, repeated, etc in a wide variety of ways. Entire sub-arcs can be created which recapitulate various elements of each phase in a narrower context, etc. The key parts are a fairly overall thematic linkage, epic scale, and epic action.

My main point is that a DM won't have enough monster resources to fill 90 encounters over the course of the Epic tier.

So, the subsequent point is that you can't operate under a single (or even double) theme over the course of that many encounters.

So a DM has to either...
A. Design, Re-skin or Template potentially 90% of their monsters.
...or...
B. Have multiple themes and shorter adventures (even if they are linked under one larger 'umbrella').

If you look at E1-E3 (which runs two concurrent temes of Undead and Demons*), in every module, I estimate...

- 50% of the stat-blocks are new monsters created for that adventure.
- 30% are existing stat-blocks from soucres like the Monster Manuals
- 20% are modified stat-blocks or NPCs

*Arguably the two best supported themes in the Monster Manuals at the epic tier.

In fact lets just go over Death's Reach...

#1: New Monster
#2: Modified Monster, New Monster, Existing Monster
#3: Modified Monster, Existing Monster, NPC
#4: 2 Modified Monsters, New Monster
#5: Existing Monster, 2 New Monsters
#6: New Monster, NPC, Existing Monster, Modified Monster
#7: 3 New Monsters
#8: New Monster, New Hazard
#9: 4 New Monsters
#10: New Monster, NPC
#11: NPC, 2 New Monsters
#12: 2 New Monsters, 2 Existing Monsters
#13: 2 New Monsters, New Trap
#14: 2 New Monsters, Existing Monster
#15: 2 New Monsters, 2 Existing Monsters
#16: 2 Existing Monsters, 2 New Monsters
#17: 4 New Monsters
#18: 2 New Monsters, 1 Existing Monster
#19: New Monster, Existing Monster, Modified Monster
#20: 3 Existing Monsters (I think)
#21: New Monster, Modified Monster, Existing Monster
#22: 3 New Monsters, Existing Monster
#23: Modified Monster, 2 Existing Monsters
#24: 2 New Monsters, 2 New Traps
#25: New Monster, Existing Monster
#26: 4 New Traps
#27: 3 New Monsters, Existing Monster
#28: 3 New Traps
#29: NPC, 2 New Monsters, Existing Monster

93 Total Stat-blocks:
23 Existing Monsters (8 repeats)
13 Modified Monsters & NPCs
57 New Monsters/Traps/Hazards (14 repeats)

So about 15% Stat-blocks from existing sources, reused to make an extra 10% (Total 25%)
14% Modified Stat-blocks & NPCs
46% New Stat-blocks with an additional 15% gained from re-use (Total 61%).

So basically 15% of the content in Death's Reach already existed and 60% had to be created fresh. With the final 25% from reuse.

I can't imagine not being able to fill 10 levels with this kind of thing. It really shouldn't be that hard at all. I can also imagine condensing it all down to a single level if you were so inclined.

The question is where are you going to get your stat-blocks from.

Note too that while all elements will have some overall thematic linkage they don't require a narrow kind of tactical theme. The characters might need to engage the mighty Arch Fey in the course of seeking knowledge and information. This could involve various fetch quests, etc. Then they might need to seek a lost library in the Elemental Chaos (or some remote location in the world etc). Each of these can involve totally different kinds of opponents. The next phase might involve some travel and delving in order to learn more about the enemy (traveling into the far icy wastes of the north in an attempt to figure out where the legions of the Ice Lord come from). You get the idea. At each stage agents of the BBEG might show up now and then to harass the party.

Absolutely, but in essence then you are doing exactly what I am suggesting; having multiple themes and shorter (mini)adventures, simply linked into some overaching plot.

 

[Aulirophile]

The French notably did not have a strong militia tradition. The English did. Which one got raided by vikings for longer? As long as we are going to make assumptions about these fictional people, let us not insult them by making them French.

Bows were what now? English long bows were ubiquitous, and England had a lot of forest in which people hunted with short bows. Metal arrowheads were slightly rare, but your average peasant would have a bow and 10-20 arrows and 3-4 metal arrowheads, possibly supplemented with some stone arrow heads. Irrelevant, in 4e sharp wooden arrows do as much damage as metal ones.

Communications: Rituals, instantaneous.

Travel: Portals, high initial cost but once setup are permanent, easily within the resources of a place large enough to have cities to begin with. Each settlement of sufficient size can have a caster capable of casting Linked Portal.

Sexism: Men were required to be trained in the use of the bow in order to be called up as militia, women were not welcome except as camp followers/doxies/etc., In 4e a natural 20 is a natural 20, women can use bows! Barring old people and "children" , more then 50% your population could instantly be called upon to start shooting arrows.

A dragon in an open field versus readied action bows dies vs a calculable number of arrows. An Elder Dragon will die in two rounds against roughly 1,800 people. Lesser threats aren't even worth considering, considering the advantages the Dragon has, and the scenario is not at all unrealistic: many times, in many places throughout history people have been required to maintain a weapon. Bows are cheap to make, arrows are cheap to make.

Given all that, let us set up a scenario. A single epic level something that rules a small barony. He has a clever arrangement of portals in his barony for various uses (cheap from his perspective). He receives word that a Dragon is attacking part of his kingdom. He goes there personally, waits for the dragon, and using his PC-like powers he auto-prones/dazes/stun/dominate/whatevers it for one round using a Daily. It doesn't live to see another round because of the peasant archers. I feel comfortable in the assertion you don't get to be an Elder Dragon by putting yourself in a situation where being taken out by peasant archers is not only possible, but likely.

And it carries over to larger numbers. 100,000 level 1 minions led by a handful of epic characters can take out 2,000 epic level creatures. In a credible war the larger population of weaker units is a real threat against a smaller army of elite units (WW2 American tanks vs German tanks).

The only assumption necessary is that epic characters run into epic monsters because they go looking for them, not because they are incredibly common. So long as they are uncommon at a roughly 5,000:1 ratio with your average Halfing/Eladrin/Elf/Human/etc population, the mortals win.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hello AbdulAlhazred!



My main point is that a DM won't have enough monster resources to fill 90 encounters over the course of the Epic tier.

The question is where are you going to get your stat-blocks from.



Absolutely, but in essence then you are doing exactly what I am suggesting; having multiple themes and shorter (mini)adventures, simply linked into some overaching plot.

Well, I see 106 epic demons in Compendium. Approximately 20 of those come from E1-E3 (and only 2 are E1 and 1 E2, the others are ALL from E3). I agree that isn't enough demons to sustain a 10 level story arc by itself. There are 182 epic undead, likewise perhaps not enough to sustain an entire 10 levels without making ANY new monsters.

I think my point was really that we pretty much agree, nobody is going to feasibly run 10 levels of any single theme without break and use largely pregenerated monsters. You MIGHT almost get away with that in earlier tiers if you squint a bit, but truthfully I don't know why a group would want to slay demons for 10 levels at a time without a break. Certainly the DM would need to stretch the concept of demon a fair amount to make that exciting.

What I'm saying though is that if you include the newest source books in the equation like Demonomicon things are actually pretty well laid out for you. You're going to WANT to create some different monsters, but you generally don't absolutely have to. When you do go to make different varieties there are now pretty nice tools available. MB could still use support for themes and templates, but with 100+ epic monsters available for the major monster types plus these tools I don't think WotC desperately needs to shovel in more monsters.

I think what would better support Epic would be some more EDs and a book that discusses the kinds of issues and ideas that are in this thread. I know I find this discussion quite useful. I'm working on a setting now and it will be good to keep in mind the various ideas on theme and tone.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again AbdulAlhazred!

Well, I see 106 epic demons in Compendium.

The combined sum from every single official source I presume...? Does that include DDi Insider as well?

Approximately 20 of those come from E1-E3 (and only 2 are E1 and 1 E2, the others are ALL from E3). I agree that isn't enough demons to sustain a 10 level story arc by itself. There are 182 epic undead, likewise perhaps not enough to sustain an entire 10 levels without making ANY new monsters.

I am curious if beyond Undead, Demons and Dragons there are any other themes hitting 20+ monsters in the epic tier?

I think my point was really that we pretty much agree, nobody is going to feasibly run 10 levels of any single theme without break and use largely pregenerated monsters. You MIGHT almost get away with that in earlier tiers if you squint a bit, but truthfully I don't know why a group would want to slay demons for 10 levels at a time without a break. Certainly the DM would need to stretch the concept of demon a fair amount to make that exciting.

Which is why I think something akin to an Adventure Path is probably not the way to go (in the epic tier at least).

What I'm saying though is that if you include the newest source books in the equation like Demonomicon things are actually pretty well laid out for you.

Basically, if WotC make an entire book based around one single theme and we combine that with all the other books, we just might have enough monsters to make things interesting.

You're going to WANT to create some different monsters, but you generally don't absolutely have to. When you do go to make different varieties there are now pretty nice tools available. MB could still use support for themes and templates, but with 100+ epic monsters available for the major monster types plus these tools I don't think WotC desperately needs to shovel in more monsters.

Agreed. But I think what would be more useful, is if monster books DID concentrate on a limited number of themes.

For instance, having Imix is a bit of a waste, since none of his servants are relevant when the heroes knock on his door. So he really exists in isolation.

Whereas by contrast, Lolth is great, because we have loads of relevant options (Drow, Demons) near the latter half of the Epic tier.

I think what would better support Epic would be some more EDs and a book that discusses the kinds of issues and ideas that are in this thread. I know I find this discussion quite useful. I'm working on a setting now and it will be good to keep in mind the various ideas on theme and tone.

I'll keep that in mind when penning my future epic tier books.

 

[giant.robot]

I've always explained the lack of epic monsters overrunning the world in terms of threat radius. Even the most bad-ass dragon has a fly speed of 10 squares, this gives them a maximum of 100 mile range assuming they are performing full round movement. They're unlikely to want to stray too far from their lair so you divide that by 2 to get their threat radius of 50 miles. Everything in a 50 mile radius circle of the dragon's lair is under threat but as long as your village is outside of that range you're cool. When a dragon becomes a threat is when some noble decides to annex some region unknowingly (maybe knowingly) in the dragon's threat radius or when the dragon first moves into an area. The distributed nature of agrarian societies works against the dragon as well, the places with the best loot at the best defended and likely developed outside of the dragon's effective threat radius.

BBEGs need large armies to do their evil deeds on a large scale. Getting these large armies to the places they want to commit their evil is a limiting factor on their plans. The best case scenario for a BBEG is somewhere like Bael Turath where portals were opened for the devils and there was an existing population to recruit or feed on. BBEGs might also have over kingdoms of their own to send against their enemies Sauron style but it would take years to build their own forces and destabilize the opposition. Epic level evils are kept in check as long as they have credible opposition like epic level NPCs and PCs.

I like to level BBEGs with the PCs when they get up to a level to challenge it. My BBEG might start at level 20 when it starts it's evil campaign but due to the actions of it's minions is able to gain power as the campaign goes on. A level 20 BBEG is impressive at the paragon tier but once the PCs hit level 20 the BBEG bumps up a few levels to maintain the power curve. Back at level 20 the BBEG was a valid threat to the paragon tier NPCs that otherwise kept it in check but as it gained power it falls to the PCs of increasing power to deal with it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've always explained the lack of epic monsters overrunning the world in terms of threat radius. Even the most bad-ass dragon has a fly speed of 10 squares, this gives them a maximum of 100 mile range assuming they are performing full round movement. They're unlikely to want to stray too far from their lair so you divide that by 2 to get their threat radius of 50 miles. Everything in a 50 mile radius circle of the dragon's lair is under threat but as long as your village is outside of that range you're cool. When a dragon becomes a threat is when some noble decides to annex some region unknowingly (maybe knowingly) in the dragon's threat radius or when the dragon first moves into an area. The distributed nature of agrarian societies works against the dragon as well, the places with the best loot at the best defended and likely developed outside of the dragon's effective threat radius.

BBEGs need large armies to do their evil deeds on a large scale. Getting these large armies to the places they want to commit their evil is a limiting factor on their plans. The best case scenario for a BBEG is somewhere like Bael Turath where portals were opened for the devils and there was an existing population to recruit or feed on. BBEGs might also have over kingdoms of their own to send against their enemies Sauron style but it would take years to build their own forces and destabilize the opposition. Epic level evils are kept in check as long as they have credible opposition like epic level NPCs and PCs.

I like to level BBEGs with the PCs when they get up to a level to challenge it. My BBEG might start at level 20 when it starts it's evil campaign but due to the actions of it's minions is able to gain power as the campaign goes on. A level 20 BBEG is impressive at the paragon tier but once the PCs hit level 20 the BBEG bumps up a few levels to maintain the power curve. Back at level 20 the BBEG was a valid threat to the paragon tier NPCs that otherwise kept it in check but as it gained power it falls to the PCs of increasing power to deal with it.

Stunjelly?!? You get to be a Stunjelly at level 2? Jeeze, in the old days we only got to be an orc or something,

Yeah, mostly I find what you're saying to be logical. It is pretty much how my own world is laid out. There are regions which are fairly civilized and most overt threats like epic dragons don't exist. The Kingdom of Gilduin is well enough organized that it probably CAN put together an expedition of 1000 men to go whack a dragon that moves in. On the border lands and wilds of the world there are more and less safe areas. An epic dragon is also probably not motivated to make a total wasteland of its territory either.

For other more large scale epic threats there are the usual list of options, they evolve over time so they only appear now and then, there is a sort of balance of power where (mostly immortal) epic threats generally can't act overtly without endangering themselves, etc.

I think though some of what I was suggesting in my earlier post was a that a lot of epic tier ADVERSARIES of the PCs aren't necessarily threats. They may simply be locations and beings with which the PCs are forced to interact due to whatever story considerations. The PCs may well fight them, and they are epic dangers, but they might never blow up into threats themselves. The ancient libraries of the Arcanum hold mighty secrets that the PCs need, but they aren't getting them without some hazard since the Keepers are not eager to part with their lore, etc.

Let me give a bit of an example in the game I'm running now. There are demons and a demon summoning evil wizard. There are devils and a diabolic plan to overthrow a kingdom etc. There are undead, ancient beings of evil that hold ancient objects of power which the PCs might need later on. There are the Eldar (eledrin basically) who have great stockpiles of knowledge, but also ancient secrets and crimes they will fight to keep hidden. How exactly all these forces will interact with each other and the PCs as the game evolves (it is currently a low paragon tier campaign) isn't set in stone yet, but each of these factions (as well as some others I haven't mentioned) are potential epic level threats that could become manifest and need to be dealt with in the course of the campaign. Others the PCs will probably deal with during paragon tier and I'll keep them scaled down to work well at that level.

One of the great things I find with 4e is that my threats can be pretty nebulous. I don't need to follow some specific rules about what they can do like in 3.x or (less so) in AD&D. Monsters can have whatever powers I want them to and whatever ritual magic or whatever I want them to have. This was one of the things that always annoyed me about earlier editions, there was at least an unspoken rule that if a monster was going to be able to do something that it was supposed to fit in mostly with what PCs could do at a similar level.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

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'.

Yes, please. I'm worried we won't see your super-solo rules before 5E if you don't get the rules out

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).



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*

I realise you're not a full time writer and never has been. I'm just worried as I said. Please put my worries to shame

 

[pemerton]

In an epic scenario I'd say any militia would be at best a plot device.

I agree, and would go further: I don't find the notion of calculating the mechanical threat posed to an Epic Dragon by Heroic Minions to be very worthwhile either in campaign design or encounter planning. The numbers on 4e monsters are mechanical tools for building and resolving combat encounters involving the PCs. I don't think they're intended to be used to engage in this sort of task. Trying to do so gives rise to all the silly questions like How do minions avoid dying when they sneeze if they only have one hit point? or Why do minions not get to do 1d8 + stat damage with their arrows?

Metal arrowheads were slightly rare, but your average peasant would have a bow and 10-20 arrows and 3-4 metal arrowheads, possibly supplemented with some stone arrow heads. Irrelevant, in 4e sharp wooden arrows do as much damage as metal ones.

I find this to be the worst version of this mechanically-guided thinking - we use real world data to calculate the availablity of materiel and equipment, but then turn to the mechanics to get the conclusion that, in wacky D&D land, sharpened wooden arrows are just as dangerous as metal-tipped ones.

At least in my campaign world it goes without saying that unless the target has some special vulnerabilities, a metal-tipped arrow will pose more threat to a target than a sharpened wooden one. The fact that this is not reflected in the action resolution mechanics tells us something about those mechanics (eg they're not simply a model of propensities in the gameworld) but doesn't undermine the truism about metal vs wood.

If I wanted militia vs dragons to be part of an Epic adventure (or a Paragon one, for that matter) I would build it into a skill challenge. Raising the militia would be part of the challenge, and the outcome of the challenge would determine what (if any) damage the peasant levies did to the dragon, and vice versa.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think the major challenge would be getting the dragon to come within arrow range of your militia. If you're going to get into this kind of 'realistic' extrapolation scenario then I still don't see a viable way for the militia to come to grips with the dragon. It is going to fly overhead at 500', laugh at the peasants below and go burn their crops and fields, then go home and wait for them to get hungry and disband. With its huge mobility, the total infeasibility of ambushing a creature that flies, and its vast firepower superiority at any specific place and time any kind of 'realistic' military action of this kind against it is virtually doomed to failure.

Obviously the PCs have their work cut out for them. No doubt the players would come up with some interesting ploys. They might even work.

 

[Dausuul]

I agree, and would go further: I don't find the notion of calculating the mechanical threat posed to an Epic Dragon by Heroic Minions to be very worthwhile either in campaign design or encounter planning. The numbers on 4e monsters are mechanical tools for building and resolving combat encounters involving the PCs. I don't think they're intended to be used to engage in this sort of task. Trying to do so gives rise to all the silly questions like How do minions avoid dying when they sneeze if they only have one hit point? or Why do minions not get to do 1d8 + stat damage with their arrows?

Many of these "silly questions" are answerable with a little thought. A minion's single hit point simply brings into sharper focus something that's always been true in D&D, to wit: Anything that deals hit point damage, even just 1 point, can kill. It follows that anything which shouldn't be able to kill, shouldn't be dealing hit point damage. For any given threat, imagine it happening to a PC with one hit point left (and keep in mind that such a PC is in good enough shape to be up and fighting). Does it seem like that threat should be potentially deadly? If so, why can't it be equally deadly to a minion? If not, why is it dealing damage at all?

As for 1d8 + stat damage, minions belong to an NPC class* which gets "deal a flat X points of damage per attack" as an at-will.

To the more general point: Unless you're running something like "Order of the Stick," I don't think anyone would seriously claim the rules are an exact simulation of the game world. They gloss over things like the difference between metal and wooden arrowheads, or the possibility of crippling permanent injuries. As I mentioned earlier, there are two main schools of thought on what the rules actually are: An approximation of the game world, or a means of resolving the PCs' moment-to-moment interactions with the world, everything else being decided by DM fiat behind the scenes**.

If you take the second view (the rules are entirely subjective), then of course the interaction between NPC villagers and epic monsters is whatever the DM wants it to be. However, a lot of us favor the first view: The rules are an approximation of reality. Most NPC villagers are heroic-tier minions, more or less. The DM may apply some judicious fiat to deal with corner cases where the simulation fails, but in general NPCs play by the same rules whether PCs are around or not.

By this view, the question of what happens when you stack a lot of heroic-tier minions up against an epic-level monster is a question with some relevance. If the PCs rally the townsfolk to help them fight the dragon, the townsfolk will bring their heroic-tier minion stats to the battle. The DM may prefer to resolve their impact on the battle by way of a skill challenge--it beats rolling a few hundred d20s every round!--but the possible outcomes of the skill challenge should bear some resemblance to what might happen if the DM did actually roll all those d20s.

From there, moving on to the question of what happens if the villagers try to take on the dragon by themselves is a natural step.

I find this to be the worst version of this mechanically-guided thinking - we use real world data to calculate the availablity of materiel and equipment, but then turn to the mechanics to get the conclusion that, in wacky D&D land, sharpened wooden arrows are just as dangerous as metal-tipped ones.

Yeah, I agree with you here--this is pushing the simulation beyond its limits. The rules don't say what happens if you swap out your regular iron-tipped arrows for wooden ones. In general, I would assume that any given minion has appropriate gear; the militia archer will have wooden arrows and the professional soldier will have iron-tipped. Since the soldier is almost certainly higher level than the militia, this difference (plus better training, greater experience, and a superior bow) will be reflected in the soldier's higher damage output. If you swap the militia archer's wooden arrows for iron, or the soldier's iron-tipped arrows for wood, the DM will have to make something up to decide how that affects them.

[size=-2]*This class is an NPC class for the same reason "commoner" is an NPC class in 3E--to wit, it's the suckiest sucky class that ever sucked. It's so sucky WotC didn't bother to do a class writeup for it, on the assumption nobody would ever want to play one. You only get one hit point and your level is set by various semi-arbitrary factors rather than earned XP.

**In reply to your earlier post on this topic, I've run adventures where the PCs make decisions beyond the scope of regular combat encounters and skill challenges, and find they work just fine in 4E. In fact, they do a lot to breathe life into a game that can otherwise feel like a chess match between the party and the DM.[/size]