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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5388470" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think rather than focus on the exact nature of the enemies you face the key to epic tier is just the sheer craziness of it. Heroic tier: You explore a dark forest, wipe out a local demon cult, save the village. The things you run into are mundane obstacles for the most part. Nasty mechanical traps, cliffs, rivers, collapsing caves, etc. Events generally don't focus on the characters except when they stick themselves into the middle of them. They are bit players in the world, doing their parts and doing them well but not that different from those around them.Paragon tier: This is where the players get to start ordering things their way. They get to start being in charge. The obstacles they face and environments they encounter transition from nearly the sorts of things they faced in heroic tier through more fantastical versions of those things. Traps aren't just nasty mechanisms anymore, they are arcane devices. You don't just take some damage if you fail anymore, you get cursed or dumped into a dark forest in the Shadowfell. Towards the end of the tier things evolve towards the epic. The characters discover that their little goals and ambitions are just a tiny part of a bigger picture and they need to take up the epic mantle if they want to get what they want.When you get to epic tier the things you run into are unique and over the top. You're fighting enemies that can and will take over the entire world if you don't defeat them. At the very least you're climbing the highest mountain in the world, fighting the biggest monster, uncovering the most ancient secret, etc. It doesn't have to be gods and battles in other planes of existence, that is really FLUFF. What it needs to be is no-holds-barred extreme. Think of it as if you're playing Exalted. What you do is crazy stuff, the stuff of legends. The items you wield are legendary and unique, your allies and enemies are WAY larger than life, etc. They COULD be gods, you COULD be sailing a planar galleon into the heart of the Abyss to destroy Demogorgon, but it doesn't have to be. You could be instead fighting the Serpent People and their evil mad emperor. It just has to be suitably larger than life.Personally I've never been a fan of PCs that are at the level of the gods. It just turns the gods into more monsters to fight or NPCs to interact with on an equal footing. Myth and legend generally treat gods as something above that. Yes, Norse myths are full of the adventures of the gods, but those are things that happened far back in the days of legend or whatever. What happens if the gods ARE 25th to 30th level? What then is a 30th level PC doing? Fighting the "super gods?". I think fighting a godling is great and carrying out a quest that shapes the fate of the world is great. It just doesn't interest me to run the campaign into a scenario where the PCs are the most powerful thing in the universe.</blockquote>

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