The Slow Death of Epic Tier

[Upper_Krust]

Hey U_K --

Hello again...time snuck up on me earlier like a ninja.

I'd love to hear more extensive comments from you in Epic support in 4e vs 3.x.

As regards 3E Epic....

I posted a review of the 3E Epic Level Handbook back in the day that covers my initial thoughts on that particular book.

Immortality

Looking back though, there are several failures of 3E Epic.

1. Openendedness: When I first read about this approach I thought it was the Holy Grail of design. But years later I have come to realise it was more of a poison chalice. There was a blandness to it all. The levels themselves began to mean nothing, what did 40th-level mean in terms of the campaign world? What about 70th-level, or 100th-level? No one at WotC knew the answer. I clearly recall the official rules stating that if your players are Level x, you should increase the power of the Demon Princes to compensate. How does that give a sense of progression? Do you infinitely battle Demon Princes who keep upscaling to match the PCs?

2. Unbalanced: 3E has a massive disparity between the classes (even to this day in Pathfinder); notably between spellcasters and non-spellcasters. This disparity grows the higher in level you ascend. I tried to redress the balance with a slight skew towards the martial classes in my Ascension book. I also posted a Revised Fighter, Barbarian and Monk on my website:

Immortality

Additionally, the monsters were badly Challenge Rated, which meant too many fights were either walkovers or save or die-fests. I corrected these problems with my Challenging Challenge Ratings document (I give it away free, although Version 5 is also in the Grim Tales book).

Lastly, die rolls really become obsolete in 3E beyond about Level 30-40 (depending on how min/maxed a character is). The math just got out of control. Personally I was expecting this, because as an ultra high-level 1E/2E gamer I knew eventually die rolls ultimately came down to rolling '1's or '20's. But the difference back then was that the base scores and bonuses were capped, so the DM could plan accordingly. With 3E there was no capping to anything, and you could have different characters with massively different attack bonuses and armour classes. So much so that one character might only hit on a '20' while another might only miss on a '1'. You basically couldn't adjudicate any sort of balance to it.

3. Complexity: Epic 3E is a complete nightmare for a DM (or game designer). I remember when I was designing my Epic Bestiary and the amount of times I nearly failed a Will save every time I had to sort out a monster's skills, feats, spells or spell-like abilities. Most of which are ultimately pointless and irrelevant when running a monster.

Character design was equally galling, I remember seeing Epic characters posted with upwards of a dozen classes/prestige classes for garnering this or that bonus. I mean its Merlin the Magician, Conan the Barbarian right? Crashbang the Fighter-Ranger-Paladin-Ninja-Samurai-Gladiator-Dreadnought-Ravager-Wizard...just doesn't have the same ring to it. I'm all for a bit of diversity, but there was just a terrible meta-gamey feel to many Epic PCs; that was really due to the core classes simply not being good or interesting enough.

Magic Items. I think everyone is familiar with the Christmas Tree problem inherent to high level 3E.

4. Support: WotC had the potential to make Deities & Demigods in some way relevant to Epic Gaming but they totally and utterly mucked that book up.

Immortality

Basically I was the only Publisher seriously supporting Epic gaming. Personally I got the impression I was also the only one who cared enough to actually come up with solutions to the major problems:

The blandness I tried to solve by allowing PCs to become gods. I gave some explanation to the Universe so the various tiers of power actually meant something. I created lots of monsters and hinted at many others so that there was something else out there to fight other than the usual foes.

The unbalanced nature of the game I tried to fix as best I could. The Challenging Challenge Ratings document let you fix CR, EL and ECL. I gave the martial classes a big boost with Meta-Martial powers.

The complexity I cut down wherever I could. I put a limit on Artifact possession (so players had to make some hard choices) and made epic items all but irrelevant because they could just be disjoined. For skills I let PCs become Omnicompetant. Feats could be traded up for Divine Powers at a ratio of 6:1, cutting down on feat numbers.

I tried my best, and in fairness I think, with the changes I made, its just about playable up to about ECL 200. But gaming beyond Level 40, even with my books, was a massive undertaking for any DM because you really had to either design or redesign (with templates) all the monsters and NPCs yourself, because they simply didn't exist out there for you to borrow...added to which you still had all the added complexities of Epic 3E to deal with. I take my hat off to the DMs who really embraced Epic gaming and in fairness boldly went where no games had gone before.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello there Aegeri!

What I really need are encounter maps that reflect what epic needs: Zany terrain, scenarios and similar. A dungeon delve with various rooms and corridors isn't cutting it.

I think you might have misunderstood what I meant by Delve format and conjured up visions of WotC 'Dungeon' Delves (which in and of themselves are well done but not how I'm modelling my encounters).

By Delve format I mean a series of (in my case) four-linked encounters = one Delve.

Things like the floating islands of flesh over a sea of blood from the Abyssal dragon scenario in Draconomicon, or invading the corpse of a dead god in the astral from Open Grave are perfect examples of what I think of (about).

- The first encounter in my adventure involves an army of 100,000 Yuan-ti (yes I've renamed them) like a great sea of snakes that the heroes will be drowning under.
- A later encounter involves a demigod's (Escher-style) throne room where he controls the gravity...and he's a Skirmisher. Better hope you end the round on the same face he's upon.

I really don't want to spoil too many surprises at this juncture. But suffice to say this ain't no by-the-numbers Dungeon Delve.

Each of the 4 Delves has 4 Encounters and each of those is a major encounter with lots going on. I will also include some suggested (random?) encounters for fleshing out each Delve into a full adventure (or more specifically one that will take the PCs up one level).

And then basically filling out epic monsters in angels (perfect candidates for epic tier antagonists OR allies - depending on various gods), devils, new creatures of any stripe (Aberrations would be perfect as well) and such forth.

I'll have this side of things sorted, no worries. With this new angelic hierarchy alone I might have Gustav Davidson contacting me for advice.

Also epic 4E is in a unique position in that Wizards could add so much new and novel to DnD if they felt like it.

If they don't see it as a big enough market they probably won't bother though...so it will be left to me again...although hopefully this time I get a few more books released.

 

[GreyLord]

I'm curious if anyone has played or run a Dark Sun campaign in the epic tier. Dark Sun has an entirely different "feel" than your run of the mill game world, so I wonder how it plays out with the different rules and such that are in effect on Athas.

Late post and still on page 2 reading, but we did. We did a super marathon intending on going from level 1 to level 30, one level per session. Only one bad mark, we had one player who was evil and played a Templar. We went in to kill a dragon-Queen, killed her only to have the Lady Templar with us reveal she was taking over in the name of the Dragon King she served, and turned on us, killed one of the PC's (we had just won the battle with the original Dragon Queen after going through an entire guantlet of pain to get there and basically had nothing left with to fight her) and we had to flee, effectively ending our campaign at 25th level (though we may have had enough XP to get to lvl 26).

It was fun, interesting, but we had characters that could basically still lock down an enemy in epic levels and do the killing. Of course, exhausting our resources seemed to be key to the DM's mindset, and having us constantly doing running battles so we didn't have much time for rests was another.

 

[GreyLord]

Additionally, the monsters were badly Challenge Rated, which meant too many fights were either walkovers or save or die-fests. I corrected these problems with my Challenging Challenge Ratings document (I give it away free, although Version 5 is also in the Grim Tales book).

WOW, I couldn't agree more. CR's were one of the first things I started houseruling on a regular basis in 3e. With some monsters it could be a TPK, while with another of the SAME CR...the players could wonder if that was even supposed to be a speed bump with how quickly they dealt with it. Completely unbalanced in relation to each other.

With epic rules I took some of the ideas, while completely disgarding others and using options included in other books (such as the APG, which had players always getting more and more attacks...something that MARTIAL CLASSES really needed...a Fighter with 8 attacks may not be wizard or spellcaster material, but at least its a bigger advantage then simply not having them).

I'll have to look up your Epic material if I can find it, sounds interesting. Maybe it fixes some of the problems I had with the epic rules they listed for 3.x

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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]

Rather than mess with the rules why not re-skin other monsters as trolls and orcs and such and as another poster pointes out also introduce other elements behind the Fimbulwinter.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Hello again...time snuck up on me earlier like a ninja.

Thanks for the extended answer about 3.x. I was hoping that you might comment with some specifics about the things that you believe 4e made better or worse relative to 3.x. Some of it is implicit, obviously -- 4e Epic is no longer open ended, for example. But if you get a chance to come back and elaborate, I would love to see it.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there GreyLord!

WOW, I couldn't agree more. CR's were one of the first things I started houseruling on a regular basis in 3e. With some monsters it could be a TPK, while with another of the SAME CR...the players could wonder if that was even supposed to be a speed bump with how quickly they dealt with it. Completely unbalanced in relation to each other.

With epic rules I took some of the ideas, while completely disgarding others and using options included in other books (such as the APG, which had players always getting more and more attacks...something that MARTIAL CLASSES really needed...a Fighter with 8 attacks may not be wizard or spellcaster material, but at least its a bigger advantage then simply not having them).

I think I opened up the BAB so that Fighters kept getting +1 per Level, and could make a number of attacks equal to their BAB/5 (rounded up).

So a Level 36 Fighter could make 8 attacks.

I'll have to look up your Epic material if I can find it, sounds interesting. Maybe it fixes some of the problems I had with the epic rules they listed for 3.x

I posted a few links to the material earlier in this thread.

You can drop me an email...

agooddesigner[MENTION=89935]hotmail[/MENTION].com

...and I'll send you v5.1 of the Challenge Ratings Document for nothing. I have made several improvements since 5.1 but I never finished Version 6, I sort of moved on to 4E by then.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again Prestidigitalis!

Thanks for the extended answer about 3.x.

Always happy to chime in on the subject.

I was hoping that you might comment with some specifics about the things that you believe 4e made better or worse relative to 3.x. Some of it is implicit, obviously -- 4e Epic is no longer open ended, for example. But if you get a chance to come back and elaborate, I would love to see it.

In a nutshell, I think 4E is better in virtually every way (with the notable exception of the GSL vs. OGL).

1. Monster Design: Its far better for monster design, because it really cuts down on all the irrelevant stuff like feats, spell-like abilities, skills (for the most part). The different Ranks and Roles are fantastic play aides. Monsters also no longer need magic items to 'keep up' since the math is all integrated. You really can just boil them down to their own unique abilities.

If I had one minor quibble, I'd say I regret Templates are no longer as relevant in 4E. But I think that if you swop out Rank for Level* in some occasions they could come back in vogue.

*ie. Instead of making a standard monster elite, just make it 4 levels higher.

2. Character Design: Multi-classing is now far better. Integrating Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies into the core levelling structure was great - forcing players to make choices, rather than just take as many different classes and Prestige Classes tas hey wanted.

The minor quibble from the beginning of 4E has been that all the classes are too mechanically similar, I think thats a valid point but something that has really been addressed with more recent books like PHB3 and so forth.

3. Artifacts: The new rules distinguishing Artifacts and other Magic Items are really very good.

4. Balance: Overall its much better balanced. Far easier to set-up encounters. You get the occasional loophole that can be abused but nothing that intrinsic to the game.

The minor quibble here is with powers that give a bonus equal to an ability score modifier - those need to be clamped down upon at epic levels.

5. Support: Even though support for Epic 4E is about as likely as Epic 3E, its actually much easier to cater to Epic 4E for a number of reasons:

5a: In 4E, Epic is core.
5b: In 4E, Epic is much simpler.
5c: In 4E, Epic is capped...for instance if I have about 100 monsters in an Epic 3E book (which I basically did) they could be anywhere from Challenge Rating 21 to Challenge Rating 9721*. Whereas in 4E, we know to keep the monsters between 21-36 (or thereabouts). It means much less effort going to waste.

*

 

[SKyOdin]

I am not sure I agree. There are definitely more than the evil gods you can fight at epic level. Demons, devils, dragons, primordials, aberrations, etc. Plenty to go around. Or did I misunderstand you?

Sorry for not replying to this earlier. Anyways, I was actually referring to what qualified for BBEG material at Epic level. At low levels, you can fight political masterminds, the leaders of invading barbarian hordes, ancient undead schemers, and plenty more as main villains. However, epic level main villains are mostly limited to dark gods, demon princes, and Primordials, all of which are mostly indistinguishable. This can be pretty limiting.

I don't think this is an inherent problem with Epic Tier. Rather, I think it is mostly due to the fact that D&D and contemporary fantasy haven't really explored other plot-lines. For example, giants could potentially be portrayed as a powerful threat that challenges the rule of the gods as in Norse mythology if they hadn't been relegated to being servants of the indistinct Primordials. The creation of more setting material and DM advice for Epic levels would probably help this situation significantly.

Thinking about it, a big problem with the Epic Tier as it current exists is that gods have been traditionally held as being above the level PCs can reach. There is quite a bit of mythology involving battles between gods and their enemies, such as much of Norse and Hindu mythology. However, even in 4E that level of power is considered to be above Epic level, even though it is the only source of inspiration for what Epic level can be. Unless D&D players can become comfortable with PCs fighting on par with the gods for most of Epic Tier, the Epic Tier may remain choked of content.

 

[catastrophic]

I don't think this is an inherent problem with Epic Tier. Rather, I think it is mostly due to the fact that D&D and contemporary fantasy haven't really explored other plot-lines. For example, giants could potentially be portrayed as a powerful threat that challenges the rule of the gods as in Norse mythology if they hadn't been relegated to being servants of the indistinct Primordials.

I'm not exactly sure how you missed this, but the primordials are based on mythology's old gods (titans, giants, ect), and serve exactly that role in 4e's planar mythos.

Giants, Titans, and Primordials collectivly form that threat, very clearly, and are specifically laid out as such. Far from being indistinct, there are several primordials who's nature and cults and followers are laid out in detail and each are quite distinct.

As for various epic threats being inditinguisable, well there's some validity to that considering that most of them are positioned as gods with cults, ect, ect, ect, but the primordials are by far the best and most well realised villains in that broad category, and they serve exactly the role you claimed was lacking.