What is wrong with Epic Material?

[Razz]

Every now and then, I'll read about some poster on different RPG forums crab about Epic material being so very mismatched. That epic rules should be redone and more streamlined.

I've decided to simply ask the ENWorlders here to give me solid feedback on what is truly wrong with Epic rules and what would you suggest be done to "clean it up" per say.

Personally, I saw nothing wrong with most of the Epic rules as is. Some of it, I do agree, need to be cleaned up. But I can really only find three things people griped about epic content:

1) Epic Spells. They seriously need some solid proofreading and heavy editing. The concept is fine, it's just the errors are horrible. I do agree with most that this section of epic rules does need some cleaning.

2) Challenge Ratings. I hear these are causing problems in epic gaming. How to properly peg creatures of this magnitude with approximately managable challenge ratings. Yeah, it's difficult. Maybe at certain levels, CR shouldn't even be used for such creatures and they should be given a more static and extrapolated set of rules to govern how much XP a party receives. But, then again, WotC has had problems pegging CR on creatures that are non-epic level so this issue will always be debatable, no matter what level characters are at. CR, as stated by WotC, was never meant to be an "exact science" anyway.

3) The numbers are too large to work with. I can agree to this, but only to an extent. The numbers are hard to work with in D&D generally as is.

But that's it. I'm curious as to what other problems there are that I don't know about? Can someone give me some examples? Are the RAW stopping you from using epic material? If they were cleaned up, would you consider using them? Is the reason WotC hasn't given us more epic material because people are dissatisfied with them? Or is it because they do intend to clean it up? Or is it because they themselves don't even know what to do with it anymore?

Personally, I love "epic gaming". I love how flashy and cool and the "wow, he/she/it did what!?" factor involved. My players love, well, being legendary at what they can do. To be able to use death attack on undead, constructs, and plants; to be able to annihilate everything within 1 mile in flames; to be able to fight an army of 1000 orcs single-handedly; to "squeeze" through walls of force; to fight enemies while falling through the air and landing safely on the ground once it's over through sheer extraordinary skill and prowess; to take on a great wyrm red solo...and so on. But that's just me and my group. I'm sure everyone likes their own flavor of "epic" or their "non-epic only" flavor, too.

But, it's obvious, that even the folks at WotC enjoy their epic games as I've read that several of them do play epic characters themselves. It's just strange they never continued offering more of that experience to the gamers at large.

 

[Crothian]

It's boring. I'm really surprised we never got a third party epic book that brought some creativity to the rules.

 

[Anson Caralya]

4) Magic item pricing. The x10 factor for enhancement bonuses above +5 is awkward to say the least.

5) The BAB and save progression, and the very path-dependent nature of pre-epic versus post-epic advancement.

And the CR issue is significant -- there's a huge power difference between a phane and a 25th level human cleric.

 

[Razz]

4) Magic item pricing. The x10 factor for enhancement bonuses above +5 is awkward to say the least.

5) The BAB and save progression, and the very path-dependent nature of pre-epic versus post-epic advancement.

I agree on the Magic Item pricing for epic weapons, armor, and shields. It drives me nuts trying to figure those out of all the epic rules.

As for #5, how is the BAB and save progression screwy? It seems very simple to me. 21st-level and every odd-level after that your BAB increases by +1 and at 22nd-level and every even-level thereafter all your base saves increase by +1. I'm also confused by what you mean by "path-dependent", could you explain it?

 

[Teemu]

I'm also confused by what you mean by "path-dependent", could you explain it?

Take 20 levels in wizard, then a 1000 in fighter, yet you're never going to have more than 2 attacks per round thanks to your BAB?

 

[Imp]

Fundamentally, there's no real sense of what "epic" means.

Specifically? How about the skill rules. Which are all over the place in terms of power level, from the utterly mundane to the completely supernatural. (Wearing a fat suit is epic? Garden-variety spying? Running a flea circus? Tightrope walking?)

 

[Nyeshet]

Take a wizard 20 who decides to then take a further 20 levels in fighter.

Take a fighter 20 who decides to then take a further 20 levels in wizard.

At level 40, are they the same, presuming that all feats, skill points, spells learned, hit points rolled per level, etc are exactly the same?

Not in epic material as it currently exists. The fighter 20 / wizard 20 is notably different from the wizard 20 / fighter 20. Having better bab and more attacks is just part of the difference. The saves are also quite different, due to progression changes after 20th level.


This is only part of the problem. The creatures sometimes have really odd CR, power differences between the classes becomes significantly different (and odder) after 20th level, epic spell creation is strange (Many pre-epic spells, if re-created with this system, are in fact epic, and that does not even take into account some of odd balancing factors that can raise and lower the DC for casting.), and magic item price differences means that a weird artificial gulf exists between epic and non-epic items.

And then there is the fact that several of the feats in the epic handbook - all of which required a minimum of 21th level before they could be taken - were re-released in the PHB2 as non-epic feats (some reduced to requiring only about 10-15th level, as I recall). This suggests that some of the foundation upon which epic design was made was severely out of balance.

Don't even get me started on some of the odd skill usages, by DC. I can understand being able to do truly supernatural seeming things at epic levels of skill, but I would expect such usages to at least be considered Su instead of Ex. This isn't even taking into account the low cost for many magic items that enhance skills - even with the odd epic price enhancement. This doesn't even take into account the odd DCs for many skill usages. Super high DCs for epic uses (that should be Su but are Ex ?! ) might be understandable, but high DCs for things that occur in the RW, that should not be epic in the first place? It just seems so random, what they made epic and what DCs they gave some usages . . .

Lastly, classes become stagnant at epic levels unless you take an epic PrC, and most of them seem either underpowered (compared to what a few - sometimes very low (relatively speaking, for that level) magic items can produce). Most epic classes merely get "bonus feat" at this or that regular level, with any prior ever advancing trait usually continuing as normal or sometimes at a slightly reduced rate (examples: favored enemies every five levels for rangers, rages per day for barbarians, etc).


All in all, the epic material seems fundamentally flaws to many - with good reason. I would wish they would re-hash the entire thing, but I don't see that coming prior to the time they feel it is necessary to release the 4th ed version of the epic rules - likely a year or three after releasing 4th ed, so it won't be anytime soon.

 

[Alzrius]

It's boring. I'm really surprised we never got a third party epic book that brought some creativity to the rules.

We did; Upper_Krust over at Eternity Publishing.

 

[megamania]

It's boring. I'm really surprised we never got a third party epic book that brought some creativity to the rules.

You are right and hope someone reads this and creates a good Epic optional / additional rules book.


In truth, seeing at how all the classes are getting second class books I would like to see a revised Epic book released..... before 4th edition arrives.

 

[megamania]

We did; Upper_Krust over at Eternity Publishing.

I'll need to check that out. My current campaign is 16th level and aiming for low 20's before restarting.