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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 2708503" data-attributes="member: 554">I'd actually have an epic system in the general mold of OD&D (where there was an absolute cap at 36th level, at which point the only thing to do was try to become a god), in the sense that I'd pay a lot of attention to the kinds of stories you can tell about very, very powerful characters, and then build rules around those stories, allowing characters to smoothly, organically develop into heights of cosmic power. In other words, it pays to remember that when characters hit 20th level, they're already pretty darn "epic" -- they're more like comic-book superheroes than traditional fantasy characters (they can fly; they have super-strength; they can unleash devastating bolts of energy on a whim), and they can perform amazing deeds that can change the course of history. There's not a whole lot you can really go from there if you're still interested in telling an interesting story rather than re-enacting Dragon Ball Z: epic rules should be a way to conclude a campaign with a bang. (To put it another way: for one epic-level story done right, think of the Baldur's Gate  2 expansion, "Throne of Baal" -- in a relatively concise narrative, your character confronted his ultimate destiny, stood among the mightiest beings in the Forgotten Realms as an equal, and things basically ended there.)IMO, the current rules take the opposite direction: they bend over backwards to make the system open-ended, at the price of a genuinely ad-hoc, fugly system and an increasingly nonsensical conception of just who the characters are. So I'd expand each class's progression by 10 levels (to a maximum of around 30) without changing the basic structure of the rules all that much. Class abilities would just be a logical progression of existing class features: you'd have 11th level, traditional, spells, not "epic spells"; you'd get the best magic items in the DMG and a few genuine artifacts, not wildly-priced epic items, and you'd spend a few levels fighting truly epic adversaries like great wyrms, the barbarian-emperor of all fire giants, Tiamat, demon princes, and, eventually, maybe deities (all with CRs capping out around the mid 30's) before everyone retires in the glorious planar city they've come to rule. Then, you'd roll up new characters.</blockquote>

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