Where do you put all these epic and higher monsters? (And other epic+ gaming questions)

[Chess435]

I've always wondered how to properly set the sense of "scale" as it were in escalating from mid->high level threats to truly "epic" adventures and beyond. Even just constraining oneself to the ELH and not even getting into the Divine Bestiary, there are many threats that are nigh-unassailable from most things on the Prime Material. How do you handle the narrative "jump" from going to sub-epic to epic to divine to cosmic? And how do you handle the concept that everything the players worked to build, defend, and create within the context of their first 20 levels could be obliterated at the mere whims of creatures orders of magnitude above that scale? (Who kept things safe before the players came along?) And what kind of places do you put these immensely powerful encounters? I know the Outer Planes are generally the go-to, but even the lords and lieges of those planes are generally in the mid 20's in CR.

Second, I've always wondered a bit on how environments and exploration is handled at epic and higher levels. For the most part, the concept of traditional dungeons seems pretty meaningless at those levels. Within the context of interacting with the environment, the players have essentially free reign to interact with it however they choose, or bypass traditional obstacles altogether. How does a DM build compelling non-combat encounters at this point?

 

[Akira Whitlock]

A couple common methods of "hiding" away powerful enemies is by either having them sleeping, trapped, or inactive in any form or by having them in a far away place or plane. This could also include both potential allies and villains and by having them distracted by something bigger or have it so they are in a place that benefits them personally for their interactions with their environment it will remove the common question plaguing many high power fantasy or even superpower settings "If strong being X exists, and the setting is in danger why did they not help our heroes?" basic reasoning is they are occupied with something more important or in the villains case, they do not care about conquering a petty setting like yours. A primordial demon would not waste his time conquering a backwoods planet with only goblins on it.

For "narrative jump" for 20 to 20+ i would go with the idea of a title bestowed by some higher being due to some monumental achievement of the party that benefits the being. This can an excellent excuse to introduce them to divinity as a concept and to start growing in power. Traditional dungeons can still have a meaning at higher levels, depending on the abilities of the party members you can still create functional environments that challenges the party in an entertaining fashion. Wooden doors being smashed through by a barbarian? start using iron doors. Wizard disintegrating walls and tunneling? start magically treating your stone. As you go up in tiers you need to create new barriers to bar the players from just "winning" for that gets boring after a while.

Creating compelling non-combat encounters for players could be as simple as "cranking the dial" with regular environmental effects. Some examples of this include Wind, Cold, Heat, Precipitation, Aridity, Ash, Fog and Fallout. Traps become magical in nature and environmental effects become increasingly dangerous as the scale of the party increases. The players travel to a planet that rains molten iron or another one that is so cold and the wind is so strong the falling ice is like blades.

While many of these methods work after a certain point the beings simply become so powerful they can destroy stars, planets and rework the universe as they please. At this point cosmic beings and the dungeons become more abstract/sci-fi and the traps and environment does so as well. Black holes, pocket realm dungeons, metaphysical beings, cosmic horrors, space/time eating diseases and more. For me this is a very fun and imaginative tier of gameplay but unfortunately bit more difficult to run things at this tier because of the lack of references and understand in all mediums.

I hope this helps.

 

[Akira Whitlock]

Edited*

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Chess435 amigo!

apologies for the slow response,

I've always wondered how to properly set the sense of "scale" as it were in escalating from mid->high level threats to truly "epic" adventures and beyond. Even just constraining oneself to the ELH and not even getting into the Divine Bestiary, there are many threats that are nigh-unassailable from most things on the Prime Material. How do you handle the narrative "jump" from going to sub-epic to epic to divine to cosmic?

Its like layers of an onion.

20th-level PCs are the big fish in the small pond of 'their' planet, but are barely pawns on the immortal chessboard. Immortals are super-ceded by Dimensional Guardians (albeit the two often work together...for instance 'weaker' angels may serve good-aligned deities).

Immortals protect mortals from the things they can't handle
Dimensional Guardians keep the Universe intact (typically from Umbrals and Pseudonaturals)
Servants of Time Lords (such as Neutronium Golems) patrol the borders of each individual universe.
Time Lords police the 8th dimension
The Mazzaroth guard the 9th dimension
The Lipika (retired supreme beings) will silence threats to the 10th dimension

And how do you handle the concept that everything the players worked to build, defend, and create within the context of their first 20 levels could be obliterated at the mere whims of creatures orders of magnitude above that scale? (Who kept things safe before the players came along?)

Whats to say your home planet hasn't already been destroyed several times and been restored via unlimited wishes?

That said, forces are operating in your universe to keep the status quo.

• Sidereals/Elder Gods (and above) are typically confined and imprisoned.
• Dimensional Guardians (angels, elementals, intelligibles and inevitables defend the outer, inner, prime space and time). Umbrals and Pseudonaturals are a threat of course but that's still 4 vs. 2 in terms of protect and destroy.
• Think of each Pantheon as operating like a (real world) Country, protecting its own interests (in many cases worshippers on certain planets).
• Multiple Pantheons can act in unison (operating like the United Nations) in dire circumstances.

If the universe wasn't operating in some kind of balance it would all just unravel.

Imagine a meteor were heading to Earth. NASA find it and a secret team is sent to plant explosives at the core and blow it up.
Now imagine a living (Lovecraftian) meteor is heading to Toril, the gods send an appropriately levelled team to respond to the threat.

In both cases those living on the planet may never be aware of anything going on.

And what kind of places do you put these immensely powerful encounters? I know the Outer Planes are generally the go-to, but even the lords and lieges of those planes are generally in the mid 20's in CR.

Sort of depends how high up you go. Once you hit Demi-god you can operate in Outer Space (for instance).

Bad things are going to happen as soon as you set foot in the Far Realm or the Plane* of Entropy. So you'll have a limited time window when operating in truly epic environments.

*The borders of that plane, Entropy itself is just Annihilation, but it has 3 layers (as in the layers of an onion)...you could argue the 3rd layer is analogous to the Shadowfell.

Second, I've always wondered a bit on how environments and exploration is handled at epic and higher levels. For the most part, the concept of traditional dungeons seems pretty meaningless at those levels. Within the context of interacting with the environment, the players have essentially free reign to interact with it however they choose, or bypass traditional obstacles altogether. How does a DM build compelling non-combat encounters at this point?

I have this covered in the new book (Epic Environments) and its a very simple concept - I don't want to spoil it at the moment though.

 

[Beefermatic]

I find watching Dragonball Z or Super, marvel movies and science fiction shows helps a lot. You can gain a lot of storyline ideas from watching Star Wars for example and using similar ideas in your game. For example the party is flying through an asteroid belt that happens to have antimagic properties. Turns out it's a natural dead zone and the party finds themselves unable to access any of their supernatural abilities. Turns out there are magic parasites there that drain magic energy and hunt the survivors. Easy, difficult storyline for a group of greater deities or lower to tackle that yes has a combat aspect to it but who's main issue is the dead zone and how that horribly fucks over any magical or supernatural ability.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I find watching Dragonball Z or Super, marvel movies and science fiction shows helps a lot. You can gain a lot of storyline ideas from watching Star Wars for example and using similar ideas in your game. For example the party is flying through an asteroid belt that happens to have antimagic properties. Turns out it's a natural dead zone and the party finds themselves unable to access any of their supernatural abilities. Turns out there are magic parasites there that drain magic energy and hunt the survivors. Easy, difficult storyline for a group of greater deities or lower to tackle that yes has a combat aspect to it but who's main issue is the dead zone and how that horribly fucks over any magical or supernatural ability.

Certainly high-level D&D will always segue into science fiction and superheroics to some degree, even if the flavour will have an old world feel (knights, wizards, rogues and clerics).

 

[Beefermatic]

Certainly high-level D&D will always segue into science fiction and superheroics to some degree, even if the flavour will have an old world feel (knights, wizards, rogues and clerics).

Definitely. I think IH is so fun too because you get to do so many unique and incredible things like flying across the cosmos and exploring black holes and fighting quasar dragons and such and get to do so using a sword and armor and spells and beams of pure energy from your fingertips. It's freaking badass and unique as besides a few standouts here and there, it's entirely an unexplored genre of fiction.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Beefermatic buddy!

Definitely. I think IH is so fun too because you get to do so many unique and incredible things like flying across the cosmos and exploring black holes and fighting quasar dragons and such and get to do so using a sword and armor and spells and beams of pure energy from your fingertips. It's freaking badass and unique as besides a few standouts here and there, it's entirely an unexplored genre of fiction.

Thanks for the kind words, I'll try and have as much in this new book that is not specific to any D&D edition or RPG system, as well as quick conversion notes for the monsters to 1st, 3rd & 4th Edition. Its uplifting to know people are being inspired by the stuff I write.

 

[Alzrius]

A bit off-topic, but I was looking at the rules for orichalcum items again recently, and realized that they had the potential for those scenes in various media (typically anime) where a character jettisons their ultra-heavy armor and becomes more powerful without it holding them back.

Specifically, I'd recommend adjusting the rules around orichalcum armor so that, if a character didn't meet the minimum strength score required for a given percentage, they could still use it, but with a set of penalties (which would escalate if their Strength was insufficient by several listings). The major question, at that point, would be what level of penalties to apply.

My initial thinking is that, if wearing orichalcum armor with a necessary Strength higher than what they have, they'd be treated as if non-proficient with it (regardless of normal proficiency), increasing the armor check penalties (which apply to all attack rolls, as well as Strength- and Dex-based skills) by the listed multiplier under the "Damage modifier" column on Table G-5 in the Epic Bestiary. Speed should be cut in half (if their Strength is insufficient by one rank on the table), cut down to two-thirds (if their Strength is insufficient by two ranks), or three-fourths (if their Strength is insufficient by three ranks), with anything higher than that rendering them unable to move.

If that sounds a bit hard to follow, here's an example:

Surtur's avatar possesses a Strength score of 90, allowing him to wear armor that's up to 1.5% orichalcum without penalty. Should he don full plate that's made out of 12.5% orichalcum, however (which requires a minimum Strength of 100), his movement rate will be cut in half (down to 180 ft. instead of 360 ft.), and he'll take a -48 penalty to all attack rolls and Strength- and Dexterity-based skills (since full plate has a -6 armor check penalty normally, multiplied by the x8 modifier granted by 12.5% orichalcum).

If he were to try and don full plate that was 100% orichalcum (minimum Strength 115), these penalties would become even worse. His movement would fall to 120 ft., and he'd take a -72 penalty to attack rolls and Str- and Dex-based skills.

So naturally, when a group of lower-tier immortals are fighting Surtur and find that, despite his impressive defense, his attacks aren't as bad as they'd anticipated, they start to gradually wear him down. At least until Surtur decides that the best defense is a good offense, and throws off his too-heavy armor, getting rid of those pesky penalties...

Thoughts on this?

 

[dave2008]

A bit off-topic, but I was looking at the rules for orichalcum items again recently, and realized that they had the potential for those scenes in various media (typically anime) where a character jettisons their ultra-heavy armor and becomes more powerful without it holding them back.

Specifically, I'd recommend adjusting the rules around orichalcum armor so that, if a character didn't meet the minimum strength score required for a given percentage, they could still use it, but with a set of penalties (which would escalate if their Strength was insufficient by several listings). The major question, at that point, would be what level of penalties to apply.

My initial thinking is that, if wearing orichalcum armor with a necessary Strength higher than what they have, they'd be treated as if non-proficient with it (regardless of normal proficiency), increasing the armor check penalties (which apply to all attack rolls, as well as Strength- and Dex-based skills) by the listed multiplier under the "Damage modifier" column on Table G-5 in the Epic Bestiary. Speed should be cut in half (if their Strength is insufficient by one rank on the table), cut down to two-thirds (if their Strength is insufficient by two ranks), or three-fourths (if their Strength is insufficient by three ranks), with anything higher than that rendering them unable to move.

If that sounds a bit hard to follow, here's an example:

Surtur's avatar possesses a Strength score of 90, allowing him to wear armor that's up to 1.5% orichalcum without penalty. Should he don full plate that's made out of 12.5% orichalcum, however (which requires a minimum Strength of 100), his movement rate will be cut in half (down to 180 ft. instead of 360 ft.), and he'll take a -48 penalty to all attack rolls and Strength- and Dexterity-based skills (since full plate has a -6 armor check penalty normally, multiplied by the x8 modifier granted by 12.5% orichalcum).

If he were to try and don full plate that was 100% orichalcum (minimum Strength 115), these penalties would become even worse. His movement would fall to 120 ft., and he'd take a -72 penalty to attack rolls and Str- and Dex-based skills.

So naturally, when a group of lower-tier immortals are fighting Surtur and find that, despite his impressive defense, his attacks aren't as bad as they'd anticipated, they start to gradually wear him down. At least until Surtur decides that the best defense is a good offense, and throws off his too-heavy armor, getting rid of those pesky penalties...

Thoughts on this?

I'm not sure about the mechanics, but I love the concept.