What Level 27 Characters Are Capable Of

[Manbearcat]

Thanks for the replies and anecdotes [MENTION=98008]Unwise[/MENTION] and [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION].

I enjoyed @Manbearcat 's thread but of course can't XP him. So I thought I'd link to my Calasytrx stories instead!

I remember that play post. It was particularly visceral and awesome.

Now that you're well into Epic Tier (24th I believe), do you have any surprising anecdotes that foretell scaling of power of any individual PC or of the group in the aggregate? I read your last play post (another good one) but it didn't reveal any specific jumps in power that surprised you. I think the one before that might have.

As to this thread, I'm curious as to what is going to unfold in the coming weeks of my home game. The PC in question doesn't possess the Plane Shift Ritual (nor any analogous means). I'm going to push ridiculously hard against my PCs for these last few levels and see what shakes out. Skill Challenges are going to be extremely difficult and failure results will be very punitive (mechanically and within the fiction). If I have anything interesting that is topical to this thread, I will report it.

 

[keterys]

There's a couple stand out powers and epic destiny features that can warp the game, but it's pretty easy for those to not come up.

For example, at 23rd level your PCs might begin starting combats with a burst 6 stun attack. So, that warps the metagame a bit. Or might start hitting every foe in the encounter, however spread out they are.

At 27th level, Hurricane of Blades makes the already ridiculous Storm of Blades look wimpy. Also, expect to lose a monster at the start of their turn to A Plan Comes Together. Actually, monsters often die on their turns to immediates and the like, so monster immediates become less useful (between daze + being bloodied and dying on turn) so look to free actions and no actions, as appropriate. That said, it's good to let dazed still do something

Radiant optimization gets a bit stupid, with stacking vulnerability and bursts of radiance that can mean that on a single turn a PC does over 1000 damage and gives vulnerable 50+ radiant to the entire encounter.

Mobility improves - flight, bigger teleports, shifts of speed (or more). What might have meant a PC losing a round to positioning at lower level tends to just require an encounter trick to avoid.

In general, you want combats to either get bigger with foes that can operate at range, or get closer to make unfriendly close bursts harder. You also have to expect that several monsters will never get a chance to act, and plan accordingly. A battle against a solo and 5 standards is generally a better encounter than one against a single higher level solo... personally I tend to like ~2 elites and 4 standards.

That said, the game still does play _mostly_ like it used. It really just is a few outliers, and you could easily have a PC who hasn't taken any of them.

 

[pemerton]

Now that you're well into Epic Tier (24th I believe), do you have any surprising anecdotes that foretell scaling of power of any individual PC or of the group in the aggregate?

Not at the moment. I haven't encountered the sort of power-ups that [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION] describes, for instance. My group is still not particularly focus-firing, for instance, and there is no group-wide damage or initiative optimisatin. We don't use Expertise feats, and that means the "to hit" chances aren't as statopheric as some report.

In the last session they made it out of the Shrine of the Kuo-toa - in the end, the paladin turned up (having made friends with the kuo-toa priests offstage) - and via some amusing connivance managed to help the other PCs get through via talking rather than fighting. They made their sacrifices to Blibdoopoolp at the various altars (from memory, that's Area 3 of the module) and then appeared before her at the heart of the Dark Lake Ziggurat, which I had written up drawing on stuff in Underdark plus a couple of encounter ideas from E1 plus writing up Blibdoolpoolp herself as a 24th Elite Controller along the lines of her old Deities and Demigods description.

Rather than fighting they negotiated, and persuaded her to help them fight Torog, so she teleported them to the entrance to the Shadowdark at the Worm Bridge over the River Lathan. There the PCs commandeered a soul-fishing Planar Dromond carrying a group of Levistus-serving devils, and got them to sail the group down the river and across the Soul Slough to the icy caverns of the Shadowdark that lead to the Soul Abattoir. Next session is going to commence with a combat encounter vs a 22nd level solo Beholder Death Emperor, 23rd level solo Worm of Ages, plus another Solo and its elite support whose identity has not yet been revealed - a total of level 30. I expect them to find it challenging but not impossible.

Overall, I haven't found the dynamic to be radically different from Paragon except for the come-back-from-death options. The single biggest change is with the Invoker/Wizard/Sage of Ages, who basically can't roll less than 40 on any knowledge check. There are no secrets anymore!

 

[Manbearcat]

Overall, I haven't found the dynamic to be radically different from Paragon except for the come-back-from-death options. The single biggest change is with the Invoker/Wizard/Sage of Ages, who basically can't roll less than 40 on any knowledge check. There are no secrets anymore!

Good stuff. Any thoughts on how your Fighter/Warpriest (I believe that is what he is) is holding up in noncombat conflict resolution? Given his makeup (class + polearm), I assume he has a high Wisdom and likely some investment in Wisdom-related skills, yes? Outside of Athletics and Endurance, I presume Heal and Dungeoneering are his primary areas of contribution?

 

[keterys]

Oh, how could I forget the thing I hate most about epic: too many defense boosts. Superior $Def + Epic $Def shifts defenses to painful levels, and the conditional bonuses can get annoying.

Tack on Valorous Charge type powers for +stat to defense for an entire group, and Mantle of Unity, and I've missed on 19s before.

Thankfully, there are auras and miss damage and effects and what not

 

[pemerton]

Any thoughts on how your Fighter/Warpriest (I believe that is what he is) is holding up in noncombat conflict resolution? Given his makeup (class + polearm), I assume he has a high Wisdom and likely some investment in Wisdom-related skills, yes? Outside of Athletics and Endurance, I presume Heal and Dungeoneering are his primary areas of contribution?

He isn't trained in Dungeoneering, but is a Dwarf, so that comes up from time to time. He is trained in Heal (the only on in the party) but in our game that only seems to come up infrequently too.

Athletics and Endurance are his big numbers. He is trained in Religion but his starting 8 INT (now up to 10) leaves that still at a modest +17. But when forced to he will roll a Bluff or Diplomacy check with the best of them - sometimes it works, often it doesn't! (See eg the Shrine of the Kuo-toa play report.)

 

[pemerton]

Oh, how could I forget the thing I hate most about epic: too many defense boosts. Superior $Def + Epic $Def shifts defenses to painful levels

I have one PC who is going down this route. He is a drow CHA/DEX sorcerer with the best defences in the party across the board.

Conversely, the deva wizard/invoker has the lowest defences everywhere except Will. And has a habit of ending up in vulnerable positions. He is very noticeably the party's weakest link as far as surges are concerned.

 

[sabrinathecat]

OH, Mantle of Unity is Fun. The bard in our party saves it for when my dwarf has Forge-Fire Heart up. And every other fight, he has the boost to AC and Ref from spending an action point. With his new lvl30 Defender's Plate armor, that puts the party's AC at 54 and Fort at 48. Yeah, the DM is bitching about missing on 19s. Sure, that effect is only 1 round, but 1 round is usually 1/4 or even 1/3 of the fight.

And Minions are a joke with Hellfire Chain Lightning. That character pretty much kills them all in the first round. Sometimes he misses a couple.
But combine an encounter with 20 minions with the Bard daily power that adds +2 (power bonus) to damage with each creature dropped to 0, and the fight ends very quickly.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

OH, Mantle of Unity is Fun. The bard in our party saves it for when my dwarf has Forge-Fire Heart up. And every other fight, he has the boost to AC and Ref from spending an action point. With his new lvl30 Defender's Plate armor, that puts the party's AC at 54 and Fort at 48. Yeah, the DM is bitching about missing on 19s. Sure, that effect is only 1 round, but 1 round is usually 1/4 or even 1/3 of the fight.

My players (currently only 5th-level) took the opposite but equal approach. Inflict penalties to hit. Unfortunately most penalties aren't named. Bane (a cleric prayer) inflicts a penalty to attacks equal to 1 + Cha mod, so if you're a devoted cleric... Generally this one is used right at the start, which pretty much means elite and solo monsters can't use their action points until round 2. In my last campaign, a psion abused a similar power (but useable several times per encounter and AoE!) until I hit it with the nerf stick.

To compensate, I sometimes give monsters an ability like Heroic Effort, to give an attack bonus right when they need it. Or simply make them unable to take attack penalties except from the following sources: cover, concealment, prone...

Minions are a joke if you have the Devil's Pawn theme. One of the PCs in my game is an invoker, and took the theme because it's very, um, thematic for the game. (I've converted Way of the Wicked to 4e.)

Hellfire and Brimstone
Minor Action Close burst 2

Effect: Creatures in the burst take 5 fire damage. The burst creates a zone that lasts until the end of your next turn. While in the zone, enemies take a -2 penalty to attack rolls and all defenses.

Not utterly terrifying, but the first time he used it he was on a boat surrounded by minions the PCs were supposed to kill anyway. They got the bad guys by surprise (it was social surprise, and I can't say more due to spoilers), and the last remaining guy now had a bunch of useless leader bonuses, along with -2 to hit and defenses, of course.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One house rule I've been considering to use for at least high level minions - if the damage they take from an auto-hit effect/attack/aura is less than a certain threshold (maybe damage < level?) they get a save to ignore the damage.

I don't want to limit this save ability per minion, because then I would have to start tracking conditions for each minion, which I want to avoid because I am lazy. I might consider applying a cumulative -2 penalty for every succesful save of a minion that applies to all minions. The penalty resets once a minion fails the save.