Aaron L
Hero
Upper_Krust said:Hello Aaron mate!
I have this site as one of my favourites!
http://members.tripod.com/~Darkbird/thanos.html
And it is now added to mine. You continue to rock, U_K
Why the ELH didn't do it for me...
- Thread starter Lizard
- Start date
And it is now added to mine. You continue to rock, U_K
tjasamcarl
First Post
Oh jeez
I've already stated my opinion on the thread that psion alluded. Briefly, i believe the fact that the authors maintained a conservative, disciplined line with these rules one of the books greatest strengths. It ensures as great a degree of balance as one can expect from something like this. 'Epic' comes through in the obvious increase in relative power, where one is capable of take two great red wyrms whereas his non-epic self could not. That, and creative description on the dms part.
In fact, Epic spellcasting to me seems the weakest section rules wise, as its application ingame is dubious. It seems to only be there to validate narrative descisions for dms. But hey, Dieties and Demigods was similar in the case of those who will only play non-epic games, so....And atleast they presented it in a balanced fashion by being aggressive with the DC reqs....
I've already stated my opinion on the thread that psion alluded. Briefly, i believe the fact that the authors maintained a conservative, disciplined line with these rules one of the books greatest strengths. It ensures as great a degree of balance as one can expect from something like this. 'Epic' comes through in the obvious increase in relative power, where one is capable of take two great red wyrms whereas his non-epic self could not. That, and creative description on the dms part.
In fact, Epic spellcasting to me seems the weakest section rules wise, as its application ingame is dubious. It seems to only be there to validate narrative descisions for dms. But hey, Dieties and Demigods was similar in the case of those who will only play non-epic games, so....And atleast they presented it in a balanced fashion by being aggressive with the DC reqs....
Nightfall said:
"If you already have an imagination, why do you need to read books?"
I want things to inspire me, to get me thinking in new directions. I want to see something and say "I would never have thought of this...but, now that I see this, I can think of this, and this, and this."
I think Mouseferatu's "More" vs "Different" is exactly the issue I'm facing. "More" isn't bad. Showing how to scale everything up, yet keep it balanced, is key. But what is needed is 'different', as well.
Celebrim
Legend
I expected this sort of trouble from the teasers published on the web site.
One section was meant to be advice on controlling divinitation and preventing it from ruining your game. That is all well and good, but one would suppose that divination had become an issue in campaigns long before we reached 21st level. Isn't controlling divination a non-epic problem? I mean, the more powerful sorts of spells are already available to 9th level casters. None of the discussion related to the problems of EPIC divination, and frankly, some of the advice given was bad. For example, if I always had the villain always intercept attempts to Contact Other Plane, I'd feel I was treating the players unfairly even before they became Epic Level.
The very next excerpt was from a Prestige class that effectively made you the Viceroy of a diety. I would think that the ability to cast divination spells would be the least of the problem in handling the flow of information to a character who is the dieties 'go-to-guy'. While deities aren't omnisceint, they still have vast amounts of knowledge and there are only so many times when I'd feel it fair for me to have the deity withhold information from a guy who clearly needs to know it. Besides that, at Epic Levels, I'd expect that if the game was to have an Epic feel at all, that the PC's would have access to Godlike knowledge and insight.
For example, how do you really handle a character with say, Knowledge (History) +80? As a DM, I'd be worried that the character literally knew more about the past of my creation than I'd yet created. Wouldn't such an 'Epic' character literally know the history of everything? How do you handle a character with a Wisdom score of say 40, who is I would assume several orders of magnitude wiser than either the player or the DM (or anyone you are ever likely to meet)? What about a spell caster that wants to create an Epic Spell that allowed him to know whenever someone had spoken his true name (or his name in anger, or plotted against him, etc.) or similar sorts of arcane abilities found in 'Epic' fantasy literature?
I haven't bought the book, so I haven't read the whole thing, but are these problems even addressed?
One section was meant to be advice on controlling divinitation and preventing it from ruining your game. That is all well and good, but one would suppose that divination had become an issue in campaigns long before we reached 21st level. Isn't controlling divination a non-epic problem? I mean, the more powerful sorts of spells are already available to 9th level casters. None of the discussion related to the problems of EPIC divination, and frankly, some of the advice given was bad. For example, if I always had the villain always intercept attempts to Contact Other Plane, I'd feel I was treating the players unfairly even before they became Epic Level.
The very next excerpt was from a Prestige class that effectively made you the Viceroy of a diety. I would think that the ability to cast divination spells would be the least of the problem in handling the flow of information to a character who is the dieties 'go-to-guy'. While deities aren't omnisceint, they still have vast amounts of knowledge and there are only so many times when I'd feel it fair for me to have the deity withhold information from a guy who clearly needs to know it. Besides that, at Epic Levels, I'd expect that if the game was to have an Epic feel at all, that the PC's would have access to Godlike knowledge and insight.
For example, how do you really handle a character with say, Knowledge (History) +80? As a DM, I'd be worried that the character literally knew more about the past of my creation than I'd yet created. Wouldn't such an 'Epic' character literally know the history of everything? How do you handle a character with a Wisdom score of say 40, who is I would assume several orders of magnitude wiser than either the player or the DM (or anyone you are ever likely to meet)? What about a spell caster that wants to create an Epic Spell that allowed him to know whenever someone had spoken his true name (or his name in anger, or plotted against him, etc.) or similar sorts of arcane abilities found in 'Epic' fantasy literature?
I haven't bought the book, so I haven't read the whole thing, but are these problems even addressed?
jollyninja
First Post
i liked the magic (casters and a few of the items) and the monsters. nice before nasty as my mother allways said. now for the ranting and the yelling and the hey hey.
if you are not a caster, this book screws you. fighters lose their major class feature. ask any gamer what defines a fighter and they will tell you he excells at combat above others. other then more and better (arguably) feats, the fighter is reduced to what he was in 2e, the paladin's useless counterpart. even an epic ranger is more worthwhile. really if you are going to level out the attack bonus playing feild and not throw the fighter some other bone, how can you not call it screwing him? the ranger gets almost as many bonus feats as the fighter. WTF. there is nothing in this book (other then the previously mentioned sections that i did actually like) i could not come up with on my way down from a 3 day meth party. the startling lack of original class abilities (other then some of the epic feats) really irritates me. i guess what i wanted was an increase in power for all not just most. terms like balance and rules integrity were thrown around as the reasons for 3e being created. why not just say "hasbro wants more money, that's why we keep shoving tripe in front of you. now shut up and eat."
if i taught my 13 year old neice how to play, ran a couple of sessions and asked her to come up rules for what happens after level 20, this is what i'd expect from her. except that she would not mess with the attack progresion. or if she did she would probably realise that the warrior types all need some sort of compensation (she is really intelligent for her age though she smokes and that worries me) not all warrior types except the fighter. does the dragon's attack bonus progression stop progressing normally after 20 hd? NO, why should my fighters? he worked much harder to get his 21st HD then the dragon. because you said so? not good enough.
i am sick of buying products from WotC and using 1/4 of the book. the splatbooks had weak attempts at fluff, trying to be more then they were: a nice package for some of the new features of 3e, feats and prestige classes. this meant that unless you were running greyhawk, 1/3 of the books contents had direct as is use for you. i use the names from the name section from the hero builder's guidebook to name unimportant residents of towns. other then that it sits collecting dust. song and silence has not left my shelf since i gave it a second read just to see if it was as bad as i remembered. by bad i mean that it did not give me what i wanted, it's balanced fine, i have little objection to the contents i just hate them for their unoriginality and uselessness. various persons within WotC had previously stated as advice to those creating prestige classes "if it could easily be done within the core classes, it does not need to be a prestige class" or similar sentiments. then they give us crap like the tempest and the dungeon delver. hypocracy is the one thing that i will not tolerate.
the most inspired stuff i've seen from them is when they have worked with existing stuff. Wheel of time was a great stand alone book that more or less captures Jordans concepts (i'm not saying that's good or bad unto itself) and ideas as well as is possible within a set of coherant balanced rules. star wars gave us wound and vitality, CoC apparently has an interesting magic system (have not read it yet), i loved the entire oriental adventures book as a campaign setting though i will probably never play rogukan. d20 modern will probably suck because it's not a liscense. if it was rainbow 6 d20 i might buy it. Silver Marches is possibly the last book i will ever buy from wizards. if there is even one prestige class that is even slightly generic, (some kind of knightly order that exists in the area would not be generic. swamp lord would be) i will be done with WotC forever and the bean counters can do without my beans for eternity. lords of darkness did not sell well because alot of the info within had been covered in 2e and in much more depth. hmm which will i use, my cult of the dragon 2e book or the 3e 1.5 page blurb they got on LoD? lack of new info killed that book's sales, not lack of prestige classes and feats.
at least dragonlance is going to a company that cares what it's customers want. at least i hope they don't try to win over the whole gaming crowd and in the process drive me completley out of the hobby. as a customer anyway.
if you are not a caster, this book screws you. fighters lose their major class feature. ask any gamer what defines a fighter and they will tell you he excells at combat above others. other then more and better (arguably) feats, the fighter is reduced to what he was in 2e, the paladin's useless counterpart. even an epic ranger is more worthwhile. really if you are going to level out the attack bonus playing feild and not throw the fighter some other bone, how can you not call it screwing him? the ranger gets almost as many bonus feats as the fighter. WTF. there is nothing in this book (other then the previously mentioned sections that i did actually like) i could not come up with on my way down from a 3 day meth party. the startling lack of original class abilities (other then some of the epic feats) really irritates me. i guess what i wanted was an increase in power for all not just most. terms like balance and rules integrity were thrown around as the reasons for 3e being created. why not just say "hasbro wants more money, that's why we keep shoving tripe in front of you. now shut up and eat."
if i taught my 13 year old neice how to play, ran a couple of sessions and asked her to come up rules for what happens after level 20, this is what i'd expect from her. except that she would not mess with the attack progresion. or if she did she would probably realise that the warrior types all need some sort of compensation (she is really intelligent for her age though she smokes and that worries me) not all warrior types except the fighter. does the dragon's attack bonus progression stop progressing normally after 20 hd? NO, why should my fighters? he worked much harder to get his 21st HD then the dragon. because you said so? not good enough.
i am sick of buying products from WotC and using 1/4 of the book. the splatbooks had weak attempts at fluff, trying to be more then they were: a nice package for some of the new features of 3e, feats and prestige classes. this meant that unless you were running greyhawk, 1/3 of the books contents had direct as is use for you. i use the names from the name section from the hero builder's guidebook to name unimportant residents of towns. other then that it sits collecting dust. song and silence has not left my shelf since i gave it a second read just to see if it was as bad as i remembered. by bad i mean that it did not give me what i wanted, it's balanced fine, i have little objection to the contents i just hate them for their unoriginality and uselessness. various persons within WotC had previously stated as advice to those creating prestige classes "if it could easily be done within the core classes, it does not need to be a prestige class" or similar sentiments. then they give us crap like the tempest and the dungeon delver. hypocracy is the one thing that i will not tolerate.
the most inspired stuff i've seen from them is when they have worked with existing stuff. Wheel of time was a great stand alone book that more or less captures Jordans concepts (i'm not saying that's good or bad unto itself) and ideas as well as is possible within a set of coherant balanced rules. star wars gave us wound and vitality, CoC apparently has an interesting magic system (have not read it yet), i loved the entire oriental adventures book as a campaign setting though i will probably never play rogukan. d20 modern will probably suck because it's not a liscense. if it was rainbow 6 d20 i might buy it. Silver Marches is possibly the last book i will ever buy from wizards. if there is even one prestige class that is even slightly generic, (some kind of knightly order that exists in the area would not be generic. swamp lord would be) i will be done with WotC forever and the bean counters can do without my beans for eternity. lords of darkness did not sell well because alot of the info within had been covered in 2e and in much more depth. hmm which will i use, my cult of the dragon 2e book or the 3e 1.5 page blurb they got on LoD? lack of new info killed that book's sales, not lack of prestige classes and feats.
at least dragonlance is going to a company that cares what it's customers want. at least i hope they don't try to win over the whole gaming crowd and in the process drive me completley out of the hobby. as a customer anyway.
Last edited:
jollyninja said:
I suggest restricting Epic Weapon Specialisation to characters with 21+ class levels in Fighter - this avoids the problem that the Fighter's only defining characteristic, weapon spec, is available to anyone with 4 levels in the class. +4 dmg may not seem much, but as a 'free' boost with circa 4-6 attacks/round, it adds up.
Numion
First Post
mouseferatu said:
Wow! A well thought out post. Hope I don't do it injustice by only quoting a part.
You say that more is essential, but shouldn't be the only thing. However, it was the only thing I expected from this book. D&D with volume turned to 11. And IMHO I feel that expecting this book (ELHB) to somehow show new directions for D&D is unrealistic.
The book just takes D&D leveling to it's logical (again, IMHO, of course) conclusion. It goes to eleven.
Other books should be made to really turn D&D experience into something different. For those who just like to keep playing the D&D they know with the characters they've played for so long, this is the book. (My players don't want to rule countries. They don't want to high-five Thor. They do want to find those damn Ability +5 books
) More is enough. Different.. well, let's put that in a different book, eh? 
Psion
Adventurer
Selvarin said:
Based on what?
I see two possible arguments:
1) Missing out on epic level benefits. Single class epic level characters will get epic bonus feats, where multi-class characters will only get the epic feats that they get every 3 levels. Fair call, but really, is that so different from what you already have to deal with as a multiclass characer? If you make a ftr 10 / wiz 10, you shouldn't be surprised that you don't have 9th level spells, you chose to add fighter abilities to your repritoire instead of additional spell levels.
2) Arrangement of levels. A fighter 20/wizard 20 will have better attack bonuses than a wizard 20/fighter 20. I see that as a problem. I think the fair thing to do would be to allow the character to "arrange" the levels to taste for the purposes of determining BAB and save bonuses -- but that both saves and babs apply for the given class levels.
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