What is wrong with Epic Material?

[ashockney]

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.

A good set of rules would need to deal with the following issues:
1) Managing the versimilitude of most D&D campaigns
2) Providing new things to work for that would be desired
3) Building a balanced character development system

They do a fair job of issue 1, and a fair job with issue 2, and poor job with issue 3.

1) Epic Spells.
2) Challenge Ratings.
3) The numbers.

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?

The spell system is not very well balanced, too easily broken, and there's far too much work involved. I like it as an "alternate" possibility, but not as the main spellcasting system.

Challenge Ratings worked really well for me up until about 30th level. However, they are tough to balance with classed PC's.

The numbers are nearly unbearable, without question.

Other problems: the game breaks down into "unbeatable/unkillable, except..." a little too often. No player wants to be useless in an encounter, and this happens way too often in Epic. No player wants their PC killed like a toon in PvP on WoW, essentially living in the graveyard and getting whacked the minute you set foot outside of it. The numbers don't scale effectively to run challenging and interesting encounters, instead they scale, and then you ignore what players can do, for the most part. The time required to facilitate play is extremely cumbersome at times. On the plus side, when you find the "hole" in your opponents defense, it's typically all over but the crying. However, generally in order to survive, a DM must often layer three, four, five, and six layers of defenses upon an epic NPC. That is a tremendous amount of stuff to remember, and can be embarrasingly long to adjudicate through one round.

Missing elements: dealing with the versimilitude issues, developing a system to represent wealth creation on a regional basis, developing an effective leadership system, developing an effective system for managing and improving your land holdings and title, developing an effective system for defending your territory, developing an effective system for national and international diplomacy, and finally developing a system for war campaign management.

What do you mean by RAW?

I have no idea about their intent with epic material. It seems like they are trying to provide it with a tiny bit of support throughout their products released since the ELH was published, and that's about it.

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.

My players loved this as well. There are definitely some great opportunities to flex "epic" muscles built into the ELH. You can't argue with that logic, or any of the examples you sighted.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

The game completely comes off the rails at "epic" levels, which is why I will not use the ELH.

 

[Kerrick]

Nobody said anything about assuming everyone likes that style of play. But the guiding principle behind 3E was going into the dungeon, killing monsters, and taking their stuff. There is no reason to abandon that principle just because you want to write a book that takes PCs beyond 20th level. If you didn't like that style of play before 20th level, you still won't like that style after 20th level; if you liked it before 20th level, you'll still like it after 20th. Either way, it makes no difference to the ELH.

It's just the way you worded your post... you were implying that the designers assumed that (and maybe they did, since, like you said, "...the guiding principle behind 3E was going into the dungeon, killing monsters, and taking their stuff."). Sadly, it doesn't make any difference to the ELH, because there's nothing in there about running a kingdom, or interplanar travel, or whatever - but there just happens to be a section on dungeon hazards.

 

[hong]

It's just the way you worded your post... you were implying that the designers assumed that (and maybe they did, since, like you said, "...the guiding principle behind 3E was going into the dungeon, killing monsters, and taking their stuff.").

The guiding principle behind 3E is exactly that. It is entirely possible (if unlikely) that 99% of the gaming universe does not, in fact, care about killing monsters and taking their stuff. It would not change the fact that it was still the guiding principle behind 3E, and thus would have influenced the ELH's design.

 

[Psion]

Too much work, not enough wild-eyed flavor.

There was also the included "Epic setting", a planar city called "Union".

Which was... less than inspiring.

To put it mildly. It's notion of epic was 180 degrees out of what I think of when I think epic.

 

[Razz]

As much as I have heard bad news on ELH and how so many don't bother with it, has any of the naysayers here actually TRIED to play a few epic games before making such judgements?

The only problems I've ever had running epic games was I never did it before and the ELH never offered me much on exactly how to run epic games smoothly. That was the only disappointment I have had with it.

 

[kigmatzomat]

ELH is a bit balky. We've ran several one-shots with it and my 7-year campaign has finally breeched epic.

There are some logic snafus (wizard 20/fighter 20 has different attack options than fighter20/wizard 20) that could have been corrected by allowing "reordering" levels (my house rule). The Epic Spells are .... convoluted and really don't kick in until 35th level or so, based on the DCs of casting. The immense leap in item cost and decrease in treasure acquired can become an issue of player/DM frustration as they either cannot acquire "epic loot" or they trash the setting's economic foundation. I avoid both by granting innate powers (blessings from gods, gifts from fey lords, the bribe of a demon lord, etc) rather than items.

I also wish that ELH and D&Dg were tied together better. I know why they aren't but it might have been better to have one combined ELD&Dg book rather than the two disparate books. It would have also let you differentiate between "Heroes of Legend" like Arthur and Demigods like Hercules.

 

[Psion]

As much as I have heard bad news on ELH and how so many don't bother with it, has any of the naysayers here actually TRIED to play a few epic games before making such judgements?

Well, to be fair, part of that wild eyed flavor thing I spoke of is about making me WANT to play it in the first place.

But to answer your question, yeah, I have.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

As much as I have heard bad news on ELH and how so many don't bother with it, has any of the naysayers here actually TRIED to play a few epic games before making such judgements?

Our group is in the middle of an epic campaign right now.

 

[jmucchiello]

I find the biggest problem to be the scaling of saving throws for spells versus monster spell-like abilities. A 30th level wizard might have an effective Int of 36. His 5th level spells have a save DC in the 28-30 range. A CR30 monster with 45 HD has spell-like abilities with saves with minimum value of 32 (10 + 1/2HD + Cha or Con) and how many CR30 critters are going to have 10 in any stat?

Hit Dice are broken at low levels and totally whacked after 20th level. Personally, I think to rebalance the system would require that Hit Dice have specific effects regardless of monster type, for example 1/2 BAB across the board. But that's not something you can accomplish in an Epic Handbook.