# The Slow Death of Epic Tier



## ArcaneSpringboard (Nov 23, 2010)

My first blog post at This is My Game:  

This is My Game » The Slow Death of Epic Tier


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## Nahat Anoj (Nov 23, 2010)

Honestly, I've been thinking lately that the only tier I ever have fun playing is Heroic tier. This is because the mechanical options are easy to juggle, and I like the theme of the tier. It also feels like the math works best here.

I'd love to have a good experience with Paragon or Epic games, but the thing that ruins them every time for me is the sheer number of options, triggered abilities, and so on. It's just too much (for me).


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## Ryujin (Nov 23, 2010)

It's sad. Our group's usual DM doesn't want to run into Epic, largely based on the (lack of) quality support for Epic Tier. I was looking forward to it, but he cut us off upon reaching level 20. In our our new campaign, he has already stated that it's likely to top out between 16th and 18th.


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## BobTheNob (Nov 23, 2010)

As DM I resolved to go into epic, but I am also re-considering this. We have played this party since lvl 1, we are now level 15 going on 16, and Im tempted to bring it all to a halt soon.

It is mainly the difficulty of the complexity of the characters, both for me and for the players. The other thing is...Im just tired. I enjoy DM'ing, but have been doing it for our group since 4e came out. I wanna pass the mantle damn it, not keep going through epic!


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## invokethehojo (Nov 23, 2010)

Ya, a year or so ago we decided to speed up level progression and play from 1st to 30th level with the same characters (a huge feat for my group).  Alas, it didn't happen, the local gaming store shut down and several players dropped out.  But as we played we came to the same conclusion as most of you, the higher the level you get, the less fun play seems to be because no one wants to give up the things that make their character cool, but everyone's cool things drag down the game so much.  We decided to play through 11th level then stop, so the last several sessions we had paragon tier coolness.  It felt like a great way to end a campaign and we enjoyed it.  We also all decided that heroic tier was all we were interested in.


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## MrMyth (Nov 23, 2010)

I ran a campaign through Epic, and it held together pretty well up until 27-28 or so, and then the combos and sheer power of the party started to be really hard to balance against. 

I think Epic remains perfectly viable, for the most part. Requires a bit more care with what items players can get, which the new rarity system can help with. I'm not too concerned about it being too 'generic' - for my group, the chance to explore some of the mythos of the core setting was an excellent opportunity. 

It's true that essentials doesn't focus on it much, but I think that is intentional, and I don't think that is indicative of the Epic tier being abandoned entirely. Monster Vault is aimed at new players and what will be useful for them - reading too much else into that might be a mistake.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 23, 2010)

Right now E.N. Publishing is working on our next campaign saga, which we intend to go through epic level. I just hope people are still playing the game in 2 years when the last adventure comes out. (4e was announced mid-way through the 3.5 version of War of the Burning Sky, and it really killed our sales.)

We're planning far in advance so we can set up legitimate epic challenges for the PCs on the same plane. I'd like to be able to playtest some of the encounters with my local group to see how complicated epic is, and to avoid pitfalls. I did once run a 20th level one-shot, and I foolishly put a pair of mindflayers in a single encounter, which turned everything into a horrid stun-fest.

Right now I'm playing in an 11th level game, though, using MM3 and Essentials monsters, and it is legitimately fun. It's a beer-and-pretzels game, so pretty much all we do is combats to play with our toys; other people run roleplaying-heavy games in other systems. My main take-away with 4e combat, though, is that the game assumes too damned much of it. I'd be content with two or three combats per level, and certainly not 10.


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## ggroy (Nov 23, 2010)

(Similar sentiments as previous posts).

I completely burned out on DM'ing 4E sometime in the middle of paragon tier.  The players in my previous 4E game also burned out too, and our game eventually collapsed due to less and less interest with everybody just "going through the motions".

In general, we found 4E paragon tier somewhat easier to play in comparison to level 10+ in 3E/3.5E D&D.  But overall, 4E paragon tier still didn't do it for us and still felt tedious.

At this point, I don't know what can be done to make 4E paragon and epic tiers enjoyable.  I don't know if it is even possible to do so.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 23, 2010)

I want to ask, for folks playing paragon and epic tier, how many encounters did you have per level? I feel like the main thing keeping the game I'm in fresh is that the GM kills us all every few levels and we all make new characters. I imagine I would've gotten pretty bored with 4e's powers system if I'd kept my first half-elf paladin (Bernie, who died to ongoing fire damage) for 11 levels. 

Combat ends up getting repetitive, even with all the cool stuff you and monsters can do. Even if you've got a lot of quest XP, if the average group is playing 5 combats per level, that's 50 different iterations of the same general attacks.

I've run mid-paragon one-shots, where the party had a total of 7 combat encounters. Each was distinctive because the characters and their powers were new. But for a long-term game, I just can't see having that many combats. Give the party two chances to use their powers, then level them up so they get a new toy. Spread those 50 or 60 combat encounters over 30 levels, and things should stay fresher.


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## renau1g (Nov 23, 2010)

If you have too few encounters then as you level up you can be dropping multiple daily powers in a fight and that skews things. If a PC at level 25 can bring 3 or so daily powers each fight it will be difficult to challenge them.


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## Herschel (Nov 23, 2010)

I think the key is variety of combats and limited bad guy status effects. Weakened and stunned really sucks even when you get to higher heroic because there's a lot of cool combos to try out that are edge cases and when you finally get the chance...."half damage on using two dailies" or "stunned, too bad for you!"

I've played a charcter from level 1 who is now in P2 at level 15. He ran in to an adventure where basically he went forward and was repeatedly stunlocked for teh first half of the battle. Makes defending teh party a bit tough. Luckily there were two defenders. It was one of those combo annoyances where the first one hits then the second one gets to stun if you're imonbilized/dazed/weakened/whatever automatically. So getting hit by the initial attack basically screws you. That's not fun, and stuff like that is easy enough to fall back on in Paragon and higher. I ran a game in to paragon but the players wanted to play Dark Sun when it came out, so we re-set to level 1, but that was more because of teh new shiny than disliking the tier play.


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## Badwe (Nov 23, 2010)

I started a campaign back in august of 2009 at level 1 with 3 players.  We have since gained 5 players and lost 2, leaving us at 6, over the course of just over a year.  The players have just hit level 10. my original plan was to just run all the modules: H1-H3, P1-P3, E1-E3.  This changed almost immediately as one of the players was in my original campaign where I ran H1 (then at player request discarded premade adventures), so I improved 1-3 then tied it into H2. Plans changed around partway through H2, when Revenge of the Giants hit and it sounded too interesting to pass up, as well as creating little holes of levels, from 11-12 and 18-20, for me to dip my toe into making up my own stories and encounters without having to full-bore commit.

Plans have changed again, after having read something from a WotC person to the effect of "maybe heroic tier takes too long, paragon tier goes by too quick, and epic tier probably only needed to be 5 levels long).  At this point, I have ponied up the money for the big orcus figure and i'll be damned if i'm going to let that thing be eternally window dressing.  We're on the verge of losing another player, but we have a replacement lined up.  I knew going into this i'd have to be prepared to bring in new players as people moved away.  Now plans have changed again, and to ensure we get to 30 in a timely fashion, the campaign is just going to flat out skip levels 19 through 25, and based on the reviews of E1-E3 i will likely be rolling my own encounters instead of relying on them to get my players to orcus.

of course, it's taken a year to get to level 10, so we'll see how long it takes to get to 18.


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## Ryujin (Nov 23, 2010)

renau1g said:


> If you have too few encounters then as you level up you can be dropping multiple daily powers in a fight and that skews things. If a PC at level 25 can bring 3 or so daily powers each fight it will be difficult to challenge them.




Never really much of a problem, in our group, because the DM is good at keeping things going. For example we had one string of 4 or 5 abbreviated encounters, without so much as a short rest, because one of the party dropped, was captured, and the enemy ran off with her.

He also tends to drop us into extra-dimensional spaces, in which our powers and items that would let us rest in an extra-dimensional space won't work. That part is rather annoying, when I specifically picked up an Exodus Knife, so that we could catch a rest in dangerous areas.


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## renau1g (Nov 23, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> Never really much of a problem, in our group, because the DM is good at keeping things going. For example we had one string of 4 or 5 abbreviated encounters, without so much as a short rest, because one of the party dropped, was captured, and the enemy ran off with her.
> 
> He also tends to drop us into extra-dimensional spaces, in which our powers and items that would let us rest in an extra-dimensional space won't work. That part is rather annoying, when I specifically picked up an Exodus Knife, so that we could catch a rest in dangerous areas.




Then you've certainly passed more than 2 fights per level. I was responding to Wickett's comment about maybe 2 encounters/level. TBH if the DM puts interesting encounters together you don't mind that there's a bit of repetition, but I would never want 10/level. My DM usually has around 4-5 or so per level. We don't use XP, we level up as the story demands it and that's about 1 every 2-3 sessions. We only play once every 3-4 weeks though so we need to move things along at a decent enough pace.

Oh, and avoid stunning monsters, unless it's a 1/encounter that lasts 1 turn. There's nothing worse as a player than having absolutely nothing to do on your turn. Dazed is fine if not overused because you can still do things. At least with weakened you can still contribute, just need to delay on your big powers for a round. Just for the love of Orcus, do not any monsters that can stun at-will...or dominate at-will. That also sucks.


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## Aegeri (Nov 23, 2010)

Having wrote about epic tier before on this forum, this thread naturally caught my eye. I had to bring this quote out of the blog post:



> However, when asked about it at last year’s Gen Con, the designers  stated that the reason there was no DMG3 was that very few campaigns  were running an Epic Tier campaign.



The point of the matter is that there is a distinct lack of support for epic tier. I think on this forum I've probably run more epic tier campaigns than most (2 in fact). Epic tier before MM3 was incredibly intimidating and very difficult to run for numerous reasons. Now that epic monsters have suitable teeth, this barrier has all but disappeared but there are now other more irritating barriers. For one, there is no ready description on how to run an epic tier game without going to the planes.

A key example made in the blog about the likes of Eberron is that it can be very difficult to figure out what the epic tier looks like without going to the planes. Eberron specifically limits high level NPCs - such as the Dragonmarked houses - so high level players are practically invulnerable to many of the core organizations of the world. Even Forgotten Realms though has an issue with the epic tier looking like you're going to the planes and dealing with the gods directly.

This is compounded by the lack of epic tier antagonists that aren't planar. For example you have devils, demons and such forth occupying a good chunk of rank and file epic tier monsters. When the MV - as an example - adds a paltry 13 epic monsters into the game that is truly sad. Not to mention the MV doesn't even bother adding in ancient dragons to the game either - equally as disappointing. Our one main worldly epic tier antagonist isn't even in the latest core book!

Going back to the original quote, Wizards are creating for themselves a self fulfilling cycle. 

1) Many DMs have a lot of difficulty getting to grips with epic tier. 
2) Rather than run epic tier, it's easier to cut off a campaign at paragon.
3) So many DMs do not run epic tier campaigns.
4) Wizards sees that DMs aren't running epic tier, so publishes nothing on epic tier campaigns that would help the DM from 1 in the first place.

Therefore, this becomes a self fulling cycle for Wizards where their lack of support ensures that most DMs won't touch epic tier. Those that do have a severe uphill struggle (like I did) until they get the concepts behind making encounters. This *has* been changed a lot due to the new damage that monsters do. Pre-MM3, a fighter could lock down 5 monsters and suffer no threat because of their pathetic damage. Now post-MM3, the same fighter is usually out for the rest of the encounter because he's been dropped dead by the huge damage output he then suffers.

This doesn't change that epic tier is basically where a DM should feel most free in designing whacky terrain, encounters and similar though. Yet there are no guidelines on this and a battle against 5 mooks just doesn't feel suitably "epic" whatsoever. Now put those mooks on a ship, which is falling through the elemental chaos to crash into a massive daemonic fortress in a last ditch suicide assault and now you have a genuinely "epic" scenario. But again, this doesn't help a DM who says "Why should my epic campaign go to the planes?".

Let me make it clear that Monster Vault is an excellent book: It is worth your money and you should absolutely buy it. But the complete lack of epic creatures is a real insult and doesn't help this situation at all. Given the next monster book is in the Nentir Vale and the way MV is set up, I would not be optimistic about further epic monsters remotely appearing within that book. In a sad way, MM3 is the book that finally fixed the major problem with epic tier: Making challenging encounters without massive system mastery from a DM in designing optimal groups of monsters. It appears that work will simply be undone by the complete lack of further epic tier monsters.

Even in player options I couldn't help but notice the large number of heroic tier feats, elimination of feats limited by tier (EG epic defense feats are now heroic feats that scale into epic) and the lack of new PPs and EDs in both Heroes of the Forgotten Lands/Kingdoms. Compare this with the PHB, which had a few options for PPs for each class and 4 or so EDs initially. 

Personally, aside from the fact DMs are not wishing to go into a tier that isn't that well supported I also feel that Wizards doesn't truly "get" epic tier either. Although the monster design finally reflects what epic tier is like, it's taken a long time to get this far and I don't think Wizards have a full grasp on problems in epic. For example, solos like Lolth are still incredibly impressive but they don't have enough ways of dealing with daze/stun/dominate. A good stat block doesn't matter when you spend every round dazed or stunned - as PCs can cycle these powers (particularly non-save ends powers) consistently. MV dragons have got this right though, just ending these effects automatically and getting a partial turn elsewhere (that can also end these effects before their proper turn - making chain dazing much harder).



			
				RangerWickett said:
			
		

> I want to ask, for folks playing paragon and epic tier, how many  encounters did you have per level? I feel like the main thing keeping  the game I'm in fresh is that the GM kills us all every few levels and  we all make new characters.




The key with epic is that you should be pressing players for time. Epic should not be a tier where retreat and going "Let's just rest for eight hours" is viable. World ending threats or major antagonists plots are not building now: They are fully in motion. Time should be the greatest enemy of the PCs. I recommend - at minimum - four to five encounters per extended rest. With Probably eight or so encounters per level. Given you no longer need ridiculous ELs to challenge PCs with MM3 maths, this is not the issue it used to be.

The problem with very limited encounters, say 1-2 is that epic PCs are going to tear these to pieces so easily it won't even be funny. They'll dump every daily they can into them and you'll never be able to budge them. Even with MM3 and beyond monsters really having substantial teeth, nothing really helps having a huge number of large area burst dailies dumped on them immediately every fight. Additionally you need to introduce terrain mechanics in a slow fashion: For example the plunging ship as an example. That needs a few encounters where the PCs are threatened - but not direly - so they can get an idea how things work so the really hard encounters are actually hard.

When it comes to finally designing things, you shouldn't be afraid to throw the entire kitchen sink at your players in epic. In my last epic tier campaign, I was too conservative and didn't really go as far as I could have with the final antagonists. Even so, the final encounters were still challenging and no walk overs whatsoever (even with a silly rules mistake on punisher of the gods - whoops). Do not just try to have one encounter at the end and think that will be enough: No solo however well designed will survive 5-6 PCs dumping every daily they have into them rounds 1-2 plus action points and extra leader attacks. Instead make them fight through the antagonists armies first and then have to deal with him: This is more challenging, more "epic" and produces a far better balanced decision making process.

It's important to realize too that "Attrition" no longer works anywhere near as effectively at epic. Five encounters at epic is *not* in any way equivalent to five encounters in heroic. Five encounters in heroic without a rest is practically getting to TPK territory. Five encounters in epic is putting a strain on encounter and daily resources to get *back* those powers. In epic this is really important: You want to put pressure on those resources because if they have them in those 1-2 encounters, then it means a daily "dump and retrieve" is simple to do. This will ensure all those encounters are really trivial, unless you go massively out of your way to make exotic terrain or similar (which is often just confusing or unfair feeling to players, as I learned from my own experiments).

Additionally killing PCs at epic is neither bad or something you should worry about. A tough encounter is more than welcome to squish a PC into horrible goo. Death at epic is almost completely irrelevant by the games rules, due to the number of EDs that don't let you die anyway and how cheap/easy ressurection is. So you can feel free to make encounters on average harder than you would at other tiers: In fact I believe this should be firmly encouraged. 

Take the new MV Balor, it's beheading blade is amazing by standards set by previous epic monsters. It's a close burst 3 power with a 15-20 critical range that deals 74 + 3d12 damage on a critical. That's a substantial amount of pain and really gives the PCs an immediate idea that this guy *really* means business. Imagine two of them in a level 28 or so encounter and you can see just how sadistic this can get. Yet this is perfectly fine for epic tier and you should constantly bear in mind that PCs are ridiculous by this point. Additionally huge damage powers are far better for monsters at this point than status effects. 

A stun delays the inevitable by a round, doing huge amounts of damage actually changes the tactics and dynamics. Players feel angry and annoyed when their turn - which can take a bit of time at epic - comes up and they can't do anything. On the other hand, when you're bleeding to death and the monsters are bearing down on you, tactical options and choices become paramount: And the game is more fun. Making decisions is fun. Missing your turn because you can't do anything is not. The odd status effect is fine of course, but don't overdo it and instead _really_ focus team monster on damage. 

Having played an epic campaign that was pre and then post-MM3 the difference was amazing. Damage is really what epic lacked and when you can genuinely beat the snot out of PCs for 3 encounters, that fourth encounter is no longer anywhere near as trivial. Status effects like daze/stun that were essential to encounters being challenging - merely in a delaying act for the pittance of damage to add up - were now almost lethal. A stunned character with two MM3 level brutes was in an incredibly precarious position.

So I would say, at minimum 4-5 encounters per level (with all those encounters being one after the other, to avoid the drop and retrieve effect at epic). Don't be afraid about genuinely upping the difficulty, zany terrain and other effects. Press PCs for time so that resting simply snowballs the enemies forces into ever increasing unstoppable masses (or costs some important objective, has the King killed brutally or his army utterly routed and similar).


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## Bold or Stupid (Nov 23, 2010)

I think Aegeri's points all hold true. I've run a single campaign up through epic tier (finishing with defeating Orcus and then curing the party member who killed him of Abyssal corruption). I found that the best bits were short adventures (5-8 encounters) that encompassed a level. Most were even set in the World. The major factor I added was "price of failure" basically if they messed up they would lose some world aspect they held dear, usually the people they rescued from their destroyed homeland. I used two of the pre written adventures, Death's Reach was too long (and I skipped the first section totally), Kingdom of Ghouls worked mostly because I added some personal interest in the form of a old friend held prisoner. I also tried to make sure that they got victories with every adventure, killing one of Orcus' exarchs, destroying a major force of his, or taking steps to rescue their homeland and begin to rebuild it. 

It helps that I had a central theme running through the campaign right from the start. I think the thing that helped Epic tier (and the whole campaign) really zing was that they had a focus all the time on building power to defeat Orcus, this drove the characters on and kept the players interested. I think future DM guides need to focus on how helpful having a story planned out is in running D&D.


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## ArcaneSpringboard (Nov 23, 2010)

BobTheNob said:


> As DM I resolved to go into epic, but I am also re-considering this. We have played this party since lvl 1, we are now level 15 going on 16, and Im tempted to bring it all to a halt soon.
> 
> It is mainly the difficulty of the complexity of the characters, both for me and for the players. The other thing is...Im just tired. I enjoy DM'ing, but have been doing it for our group since 4e came out. I wanna pass the mantle damn it, not keep going through epic!




I sometimes wonder if it's not the complexity of the characters, but the magic items that are causing the problem.  However, I think the changes to the magic items will speed things up.

First, the DM can control what types of items go out (and more of them will be common, which are more 'property' type items anyways).  Second, you don't have to decide whether or not to use your precious Daily Item uses anymore.


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## ArcaneSpringboard (Nov 23, 2010)

invokethehojo said:


> Ya, a year or so ago we decided to speed up level progression and play from 1st to 30th level with the same characters (a huge feat for my group).  Alas, it didn't happen, the local gaming store shut down and several players dropped out.  But as we played we came to the same conclusion as most of you, the higher the level you get, the less fun play seems to be because no one wants to give up the things that make their character cool, but everyone's cool things drag down the game so much.  We decided to play through 11th level then stop, so the last several sessions we had paragon tier coolness.  It felt like a great way to end a campaign and we enjoyed it.  We also all decided that heroic tier was all we were interested in.




In my first campaign I was actually doubling XP to speed up levelling but we found that it wasn't very good.  First, it didn't give the players much time to get used to their powers.  Second, the magic items were given out twice as fast as well, which was a pain.


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## Aegeri (Nov 23, 2010)

Actually now you mention it Ranger, I would. I would love to go back to Tides of Dust, draw back out the Sunken Tomb of Xy'loteph and repair that with the knowledge I have now. Especially with the incredibly good Astral Kraken from MM3.


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## Raunalyn (Nov 23, 2010)

I'm curious if anyone has played or run a Dark Sun campaign in the epic tier. Dark Sun has an entirely different "feel" than your run of the mill game world, so I wonder how it plays out with the different rules and such that are in effect on Athas.


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## Aegeri (Nov 23, 2010)

Raunalyn said:


> I'm curious if anyone has played or run a Dark Sun campaign in the epic tier. Dark Sun has an entirely different "feel" than your run of the mill game world, so I wonder how it plays out with the different rules and such that are in effect on Athas.




Dark Sun is filled with epic tier antagonists who are native to the world. Additionally, Athas is probably as bad or just as bad as some places in the Abyss are naturally. It's unique in that it fully justifies every tier of play internally: High level aberrant monsters, sorcerers, templars and such can coexist perfectly with everything else. The epic tier creatures don't overrun everyone else because there are plenty of horrible monsters everywhere that can deal with them anyway (they balance one another out).

You have the most trouble with the default PoL, Eberron and even FR. As they aren't crawling with epic creatures (Though FR has this problem the least and also the best planar support).


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## ArcaneSpringboard (Nov 23, 2010)

Badwe said:


> Plans have changed again, after having read something from a WotC person to the effect of "maybe heroic tier takes too long, paragon tier goes by too quick, and epic tier probably only needed to be 5 levels long). .




This is something I was just thinking about this afternoon.  Epic to me would be more digestible if it wasn't so long.


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## TerraDave (Nov 23, 2010)

Its a good blog post...

As someone who has decided to forgo epic tier, the reason is that I basically don't need it. Trying to keep a campaign going for 20 levels is tough enough, and I can make paragon epic enough, including world wide threats and planar travel and so on. 

On a technical note, its also relatively easy to "de-level" monsters, even epic ones (though I guess something like area beheading would need to be carefully approached), so this makes it even less needed.


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## Neverfate (Nov 23, 2010)

Or, you know, Epic by it's own nature is just boring. 

And your party kills another god *yawn*. Let's go out drinking. 

It's not that Epic tier doesn't contain challenge. It just doesn't contain an easily usable plot devices. It pushes the DM into the hole of "fight the god of the week" territory because that is Epic tiers crutch. Heroic and Paragon have their crutches to, but mixed with an ease of use. 

The average group of players and DMs aren't the ones on forums talking about this. They're hanging out on a Friday night after work if their spouses let them. Epic tier is just needlessly, overly complex for the average needs of gamers. Therefor; no support.


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## Aegeri (Nov 23, 2010)

Regardless of how you do it, the minimum "adventuring day" in epic should be 4-5 encounters long. That could also be one level, because honestly 10 encounters a level at epic is probably excessive and not really fitting with the pace that epic seems to want to run at.


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## Jack99 (Nov 23, 2010)

RangerWickett said:


> I want to ask, for folks playing paragon and epic tier, how many encounters did you have per level? I feel like the main thing keeping the game I'm in fresh is that the GM kills us all every few levels and we all make new characters. I imagine I would've gotten pretty bored with 4e's powers system if I'd kept my first half-elf paladin (Bernie, who died to ongoing fire damage) for 11 levels.
> 
> Combat ends up getting repetitive, even with all the cool stuff you and monsters can do. Even if you've got a lot of quest XP, if the average group is playing 5 combats per level, that's 50 different iterations of the same general attacks.
> 
> I've run mid-paragon one-shots, where the party had a total of 7 combat encounters. Each was distinctive because the characters and their powers were new. But for a long-term game, I just can't see having that many combats. Give the party two chances to use their powers, then level them up so they get a new toy. Spread those 50 or 60 combat encounters over 30 levels, and things should stay fresher.




Played a decent amount of time in paragon and epic, and we have felt no problem with having 8-10 fights per level. As long as the fight advances the story, at least to some degree, its not an issue.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 23, 2010)

I see epic tier as working three different ways:

*Land of Gods* - The PCs are phenomenally powerful, and hang in circles with other equally powerful beings, influencing world and planar events. Things have a vast scope.

*Produced by Michael Bay* - The plots and settings are just as personal as ever, but you turn the dial to 11. Maybe occasionally you save the world, but you could just as easily perform a bank heist inside the mind of a dead god who is being sucked into a black hole, or rescuing a friend held by an island dictator who has demon robot minions. You still go into dungeons, but they're actually the heart of a colossal clockwork kraken that's about to destroy your favorite beach house, and you've got to find the control room and kill the real estate developer who's in charge of the thing before your barbecue cook-out is ruined.

*This is the End* - The world is ending or is about to be reborn. You aren't worried about a sequel, so you can blow up established cities, slaughter whole nations, and drop entire continents into the Abyss. The PCs and bad guys are fighting to see whose vision shapes the world that follows.


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## Eldragon (Nov 23, 2010)

I just got into DMing 4e (heck this is my first enworld post in 2+ years), but I'm actually more excited about running paragon and epic than heroic. 3e always became nearly impossible to DM after about level 13, yet now in 4e it can feel "epic" without nearly as many game breakers.

Usually when I DM high level players (in any game system), the PCs are spending more time running away from the bad guys than dungeon delving and otherwise looking for trouble. I generally operate on the idea of _The PCs are now famous enough where the really major evil powers of the world take notice, and want to snuff out the PCs before they even get close._  e.g. They are now facing an enemy that is as smart, well prepared, and resourceful as they are, and is actively hunting them.

But that's still no cure from players simply getting tired of their characters, I don't know if there is a cure for that.


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## TikkchikFenTikktikk (Nov 23, 2010)

I haven't run anything remotely near epic tier. Most of my games happen in and begin and end with the adventure, not the campaign. Additionally, my play group tends to vary adventure to adventure with lots of new players.

That said, I think people approach epic the wrong way.

You can't "win" D&D. But many players try to win by getting their character to level 30. Many DMs think they aren't doing their job if the current adventure doesn't have a path to getting PCs to 30.

IMHO, there's nothing wrong with the system or with players if epic is rarely touched. It is supposed to be rarefied and, well, EPIC. 

The failure of Epic Tier is only one of imagination of WotC and players. You have to have epic plots, epic challenges, epic-ly mind-bending settings and cast. There's not much example of this in the literature or in popular media, which makes it difficult for the DMs at home trying to write epic adventures on their own. Maybe Transformers: the Movie where a living planet is trying to eat other planets? The end of 2001: a Space Odyssey where the astronaut is being mind-ed? (pardon the language)

Another problem: encounter locations get so weird and sprawling it becomes very difficult to adequately represent them in such a way that they work with the tactical combat system of 4E with any verisimilitude.

I've said this before, too, and been criticized with it: because the PCs are near gods and because combat starts breaking down or becoming meaningless, epic should feature lots and lots of roleplaying and skill challenges. An epic adventure should be about (and reward) putting pieces of complex plots into play, directly interacting with the gods as equals rather than trying to kill them, manipulating heroic-tier and paragon-tier adventurers, and traveling the cosmos.

A wacky idea I've had that would take a super-human DM to pull off would be having one party at heroic tier being called into action by a party at paragon tier being manipulated by an epic tier party.

I think the ideal use for epic tier will prove to be for experienced 4E players who created level 20-something PCs for an epic-tier-specific one-and-done adventure. This kind of play simply couldn't work in the first couple years because players and DMs were just too new to the system and needed to gain experience at heroic and paragon. Maybe I'm projecting.

Woof. This has turned into a too-long; didn't read brain dump. I'll stop now.


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## Aegeri (Nov 23, 2010)

> because combat starts breaking down or becoming meaningless



This is no longer true. Epic tier combat is now as challenging and in fact can be just as lethal as any other tier. I use demons as an example commonly, but that's because demons are truly the most amazing epic tier antagonists available and are extremely well developed. A MV Balor swapping variable resistance for soul stealer is one of the most fierce creatures in all of 4E. The amount of synergy they get really reinforces them as immensely lethal epic tier antagonists, who are almost certainly not the sort to care much for diplomacy (they are demons after all). 

It isn't hard to make fighting off hordes of demons both challenging and something that feels essential to the plot (and indeed, the entire multiverse as in many settings daemons have consistently been able to slay Gods when they get the chance). The problem really is variety: What is there is excellent but there is a very limited amount of it. Your options at epic are demons and then everything else supporting them. A book on devils would at least give us another option, but it doesn't fix the problem there aren't enough epic antagonists that aren't strictly planar related or based. While Eberron can have a daemonic invasion, as Khyber is linked to the Abyss far enough down your players are going to get really bored when every campaign is featuring daemons.


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## the Jester (Nov 23, 2010)

Neverfate said:


> Or, you know, Epic by it's own nature is just boring.
> 
> And your party kills another god *yawn*. Let's go out drinking.
> 
> It's not that Epic tier doesn't contain challenge. It just doesn't contain an easily usable plot devices. It pushes the DM into the hole of "fight the god of the week" territory because that is Epic tiers crutch.




This is exactly why we need some good epic support.

I have run up to high paragon and can't wait to get to epic. I have a good idea of what the end bad guy will be, and all that; but-

Epic tier gaming doesn't have to focus on adversaries at all. The pcs could become the motivators instead. An epic campaign could include


The founding of an empire and a dynasty by one pc
The founding of a religion by another
The creation and population of a plane
The extermination of a species of monster

There are lots of possibilities other than "fight gods, rinse, repeat"- but a good examination of those possibilities would be really nice to see. Maybe the planet's orbit is wobbling and the pcs must figure out how to stop it (maybe they have to talk to the turtles). Who knows? But a good book akin to the 2e DM's Option: High-Level Campaigns would be excellent.


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## ArcaneSpringboard (Nov 23, 2010)

Aegeri said:


> This is no longer true. Epic tier combat is now as challenging and in fact can be just as lethal as any other tier. I use demons as an example commonly, but that's because demons are truly the most amazing epic tier antagonists available and are extremely well developed. A MV Balor swapping variable resistance for soul stealer is one of the most fierce creatures in all of 4E. The amount of synergy they get really reinforces them as immensely lethal epic tier antagonists, who are almost certainly not the sort to care much for diplomacy (they are demons after all).
> 
> It isn't hard to make fighting off hordes of demons both challenging and something that feels essential to the plot (and indeed, the entire multiverse as in many settings daemons have consistently been able to slay Gods when they get the chance). The problem really is variety: What is there is excellent but there is a very limited amount of it. Your options at epic are demons and then everything else supporting them. A book on devils would at least give us another option, but it doesn't fix the problem there aren't enough epic antagonists that aren't strictly planar related or based. While Eberron can have a daemonic invasion, as Khyber is linked to the Abyss far enough down your players are going to get really bored when every campaign is featuring daemons.




For Eberron, theoretically there are the Lords of Dust, the Dragons of Argonnessen and the Daelkyr.  But with the Daelkyr, the main abberations all end around Level 20.


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## Aegeri (Nov 23, 2010)

I think people get very obsessed with killing Gods in epic because it seems like a novel and interesting thing to do. There are other things one can do in epic though, like being more involved in the overall world politics (because honestly, how many level 20+ characters are there anyway?) or undergoing quests that others couldn't ever imagine achieving: Like getting deep into Xen'drik in Eberron or into the heart of the Frostfell for example. An "extreme explorer" epic tier would be exciting and interesting as well.


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## Dungeoneer (Nov 24, 2010)

I don't know if it would be a good idea with people complaining that paragon goes by too fast, but maybe something that would make Epic feel more _Epic_ would be to have an 'ascension', where something happens to imbue the players with power and they actually skip a couple levels.  Or maybe picking up your ED already feels like that.  Never having made it to Epic I just don't know!


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Nov 24, 2010)

What is Soul Stealer? Sounds interesting.


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## Mercurius (Nov 24, 2010)

If there is one thing that 4E did right it is that it kept the different tiers interesting and distinct. I speak more from anecdote and imaginative extrapolation as my group has yet to even dip into Paragon tier (we're at 10th level), but I'm exciting about the two tiers going forward and everything I've read points to a positive experience.

The lack of support _is _problematic and something WotC should probably address with a DMG 3. But I disagree with the notion that Epic adventure ideas are rare and rather monolithic; in addition to what some have said, an Epic campaign could be focused on creating other worlds, uncovering deep truths, guiding the rise and fall of civilization, etc.

I've designed my own campaign world somewhat unconsciously to have different regions more or less appropriate to different tiers. For example, there is a region behind a high mountain range called the Storm Lands that is wracked by terrible magical storms and filled with roaming gargantuan monsters ala the Tarrasque and dragons. The Storm Lands hold the key to many of the secrets of the world; if the PCs get to Epic tier, I will likely provide opportunities and incentive for them to go into it. It isn't a different plane in that it is set in the main world, but its laws are very different.

I also like the idea of a single 30-level campaign bringing a given world to resolution, some kind of finality--some degree of apocalyptic, so that the next campaign would either be set many years in the future after the fall-out of the last campaign, or in an entirely different world. In that sense, Epic tier can be about climaxing the entire campaign setting - a great war, cataclysm, world-saving (or ending) battle or quest. The PCs become new gods for the next campaign, or mythic saviors (or destroyers) of the Old World.

On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with ending a campaign at 20th level. Paragon characters are the true heroes of a world; Epic characters are extremely rare, living myths. Paragon characters are the celebrities of a given city or nation; Epic characters have transcended to the level of rulers or legendary heroes. A campaign could end when the characters get to Epic, because they are "off stage" now, no longer adventuring. Lots of different ways to configure this.


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## Aegeri (Nov 24, 2010)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> What is Soul Stealer? Sounds interesting.




It replaces variable resistance. It gives a daemon a free action attack with +5 bonus to the attack and damage roll whenever an enemy within the aura (aura 1) spends a healing surge.


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## FireLance (Nov 24, 2010)

Let me throw in what may be a fairly controversial idea: many DMs don't like Epic-level play because Epic-level PCs should have a great deal of ability to change the world, and this is something that they either do not want, or do not feel equipped to handle.

Take a look at the list of motivations for high-levels PCs that *the Jester* came up with in his post:
The founding of an empire and a dynasty by one pc 
The founding of a religion by another 
The creation and population of a plane 
The extermination of a species of monster​A DM who is invested in "his" homebrew might not want the PCs' actions interfering with "his" creation. Conversely, a DM who has gone through the Heroic and Paragon tiers by basically running dungeon crawls may find it difficult to switch gears when the PCs' ambitions expand beyond killing monsters and taking their stuff.

I think WotC has tried to address this by tying the flavor of their Epic destinies to the achievement of such goals. If you want to establish an empire and found a dynasty, take the "Dynast Emperor" epic destiny, and after you complete your 30th level quest ("You enter the final 10-square by 10-square room in the Epic planar dungeon. An Epic planar god is guarding an Epic planar artifact.") you automatically succeed at your goal with no additional rolls or effort required on the part of either you or the DM. After that, the campaign reboots and the DM doesn't have to worry about how what you have done will change the campaign setting thereafter. IMO, it's a way of handling PC ambition, but it's not a very satisfying way to do so. 

IMO, Epic-level play should be about the PCs trying to make fundamental changes to the world, and seeing the effects of those changes. I guess there's not much that can be done about DMs who don't want the PCs messing with "their" creations, but for the rest, I think a sourcebook on how to handle the types of things that Epic-level PCs might want to do, how to craft problems related to those ambitions that would be challenging but not impossible to overcome, and how the PCs can actually experience (directly or indirectly) the effects (beneficial or otherwise) of their efforts to change the world before the campaign ends would be invaluable. However, given the scope and variety of possible Epic-tier goals, I'm not sure if it is possible.


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## SKyOdin (Nov 24, 2010)

Part of the problem is that the Epic Tier lies beyond the scope of a lot of the fiction that D&D traditionally draws from. A lot of traditional fantasy tends to resemble the heroic tier and sometimes the paragon tier, but very rarely the epic tier. In order to create material for the Epic Tier, D&D may need to expand its general style and source of inspiration.

As it is, D&D cosmology limits it to evil gods being the primary opponent at Epic Tier. This is a bit limiting, and is one of the reasons the monster manuals are a bit anemic at Epic Tier.

I also definitely agree that making the Epic Tier about planar travel is a bad idea. Of course, I never really liked the planes in the first place. If powerful world-shaking monsters and gods dwelled closer to home, Epic Tier D&D would feel a lot more natural.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 24, 2010)

I think the same problem is the root cause of WotC not being able to do Epic Tier right and not being able to make a really good adventure.

Big Numbers Aren't Enough.


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## mattcolville (Nov 24, 2010)

During my time as an AD&D player and GM, 7th level was the notional--though not explicit--beginning of the Second Phase of your character. 

You'd survived the early levels, when you could die from a single hit, and you were now expected to build a stronghold and attract followers. People showed up out of nowhere because they'd heard of you and wanted to serve and aid you. You were famous!

By the time you were about 13th level, you were now legitimately "high level" and could do some astonishing stuff.

I think 18th level was about as high as anyone expected to get, and in almost 30 years of play I've never seen a character who naturally reached 18th level.

I think WotC seriously miscalculated when they expected people to reach even 20th level. I know their reasoning, and it was sound. 

It's not a question of continuous play, it's a question of continually playing the same characters without something happen that causes people to say "let's start a new game!"

So I think compressing the tiers down so you go through all three in 18 levels is probably better. Also, I question the absence of real temporal influence. I think the End Game of AD&D is a good one, and it's time for the developers to give us something else to do besides kill monsters for 18 levels.


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## Jack99 (Nov 24, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> I don't know if it would be a good idea with people complaining that paragon goes by too fast, but maybe something that would make Epic feel more _Epic_ would be to have an 'ascension', where something happens to imbue the players with power and they actually skip a couple levels.  Or maybe picking up your ED already feels like that.  Never having made it to Epic I just don't know!



Its very important to make the acquisition of Epic Destinies a part of the story, not just another power they gain. Just as one should with the paragon path, if possible. 



Aegeri said:


> It replaces variable resistance. It gives a daemon a free action attack with +5 bonus to the attack and damage roll whenever an enemy within the aura (aura 1) spends a healing surge.



I see we share similar tastes... Do you enjoy killing your players' characters as well? 



SKyOdin said:


> As it is, D&D cosmology limits it to evil gods being the primary opponent at Epic Tier. This is a bit limiting, and is one of the reasons the monster manuals are a bit anemic at Epic Tier.



I am not sure I agree. There are definitely more than the evil gods you can fight at epic level. Demons, devils, dragons, primordials, aberrations, etc. Plenty to go around. Or did I misunderstand you?


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## Katana_Geldar (Nov 24, 2010)

You can also fight Acererak. I can't wait until my players get to the epic-tier end of Tomb of Horrors, as I basically have to move my players through five levels to get to the final dungeon. 

And yes, there will be planular activity. I had no idea this was rather cliche, as I rather looked forward to taking my players to Hestavar and having them looking for where they are meant to go. On the way sailing the Astral Sea and fighting Githyank pirates.

Actually, that gives me an idea, need to talk to my Co-DM about something.


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## Dice4Hire (Nov 24, 2010)

I see epic play as very doable, but its gotta be far from home where the heroic and paragon adventuring was taking place. If it is remotely near, you gotta wonder where all these epic guys suddenly came from.  But if it is far far away, that need not break game realism. 

Still, there i the question of why those guys don't go to the low level area in the first place, but that is always a question with D&D.


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## Mesh Hong (Nov 24, 2010)

I have run a game from level 1 to level 30 and personally I loved Epic tier.

Epic tier is all about the PCs pushing themselves (or being pushed) to the very limits of their enormous power (physical, mental and social) which finally propels them beyond their wildest dreams into the unknown. The fulfilment of their individual epic destinies should be tantalising and compelling and yet mysterious and uncertain.

To me the main thing with Epic tier is that it should be Epic in scope, it should be driven or ridden like a runaway train. There should be no time for pontification or bumbling around, the PCs should either know what they want to achieve and race towards it before they are stopped or it should be coming at them like a juggernaught.

In Epic the bad guys aren’t trying to kill them, they are trying to DESTROY them and as a DM you no longer need to concern yourself with the petty concerns of finely balanced encounters or situations. Epic PCs are massive powerhouses capable of withstanding encounters many times larger than you dare dread and they should have the social power to call upon vast resources to help them achieve their goals.

Personally another thing that defines Epic tier to me is the struggle or realisation that each PC must go through as they redefine their self image in relation to the world. Lets face it an Epic level characters power is incomprehensible to that of a normal mortal man. As each PC progresses towards their destiny they should start to lose their connection to the mortal world, or fight a desperate mental battle to try and stay connected to it. Everywhere they go they will be recognised and at some level either loved or hated because of who or what they are, this is something that the individual PC can consciously use to achieve their goals, but there are also inherent dangers to a society that occur by the Epic PCs mere presence.

Any stray comment or action performed by a PC can send ripples or even waves through a community, their opinion can carry the weight of a Godly decree. Epic PCs are reluctant shepherds (or wolves) amongst sheep. Comments between themselves that they consider usual banter might be overheard with horror or taken as a call to arms or prophetic warning of impending doom. Cults of personality might spring up around a PC whether they encourage them or not, with eager heroes desperate to prove themselves worthy of their idols by interpreting their actions and questing in the name of the Epic.

Once the PCs reach the Epic tier the Gods also have to start paying attention to them, they have to try and persuade them to join their own fights and causes because if they don’t another god (or worse) will. If a PC is strong willed enough to avoid the political or emotional web of the God tier then the Gods have to decide what to do about the matter. On completion of their Epic destiny is the PC going to pose a threat to them or their powerbase? Is the PC altering or unbalancing the middle world in such a way that it will effect them?

Gods, Primordials, Devil and Demon Lords should all be encountered in Epic tier whether they are directly part of the plot or not. They are simply part of the world that the PCs are growing into and will be their piers come level 30, of course these encounters need not be military.

As a DM savour the polite conversation your group has with Dispater, or Asmodeous…… Even battle hardened killing machines who look on the middle world like an ants nest will stop, gulp and mind their manners when a lord of hell drops by in person for a polite chat. Now that’s Epic.

Anyway I should stop now to wipe the froth from my face, like I said I loved Epic tier, but your opinions, style and experience may vary.


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## Ryujin (Nov 24, 2010)

FireLance said:


> Let me throw in what may be a fairly controversial idea: many DMs don't like Epic-level play because Epic-level PCs should have a great deal of ability to change the world, and this is something that they either do not want, or do not feel equipped to handle.
> 
> Take a look at the list of motivations for high-levels PCs that *the Jester* came up with in his post:
> The founding of an empire and a dynasty by one pc
> ...




Back in the old 1e days, my players loved it when I made them a part of the political landscape. One of the canned modules involved clearing a castle, down around Hold of the Sea Princes in Greyhawk, and they rebuilt it after taking it. From that point on I had them adventuring for various factions and nations, building their political credibility, and ultimately founding a nation as a ruling council.

I wish that someone would do that for me too, but I haven't found another DM who enjoys running that sort of thing.

When I run a campaign, I like giving the players a concrete, though ambitious, final goal. That's what Epic Tier is for.


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## renau1g (Nov 24, 2010)

Jack99 said:


> I see we share similar tastes... Do you enjoy killing your players' characters as well?




I killed 4/6 of my party the other day. Next time they won't all spread out and try to kill a different monster, while those same enemies maneuvered to focus fire on one PC at a time. 



Dice4Hire said:


> I see epic play as very doable, but its gotta be far from home where the heroic and paragon adventuring was taking place. If it is remotely near, you gotta wonder where all these epic guys suddenly came from.  But if it is far far away, that need not break game realism.




Well, you could have it be in "their home". Perhaps the Githyanki launch an invasion of the material realm. (I believe Paizo did some adventures based on this before). Any "planar" threat could decide that they _do_ want to take this piece of the Material realm for their own. The PC's (being amongst the most powerful creatures on the planet) can absolutely stop these threats while still having familiar faces around to help. (oh, joe the blacksmith that we saved from kobolds way back when were just starting out is still making our weapons, he's now moved into our keep to help full time...etc, etc.). There's tons of ways to have the big threats come here. Even those big bad guys could've heard of the PC's and want to snuff them out before they can ascend to godhood or whatever other epic destiny they're in.


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 24, 2010)

Neverfate said:


> And your party kills another god *yawn*. Let's go out drinking.




I think a lot of players have a problem with that.  Any god that can be killed by players isn't much of a god.  Maybe -- MAYBE -- at level 30, and with a couple of artifacts or relics in hand -- a weaker god could be killed.  But I'd be more inclined to think the best case would be to lock the god into a non-dimensional prison or the like.

One of my biggest problems with Epic material is the truly awful fluff.  To give an example, the Essentials Thief Epic level blurb includes the line "Gods, demon lords, and archdevils alike fear the threat you pose."   I'm sorry, but they don't -- not in any campaign that I can imagine.

True, many campaigns feature gods who have ascended from mortal form, and some of those might be more like what AD&D would have called Demigods.  In that case, maybe.


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 24, 2010)

With regard to the issue of all Epic activity become extra-planar, I find myself thinking of Raymond Feist's numerous Midkemia novels.  A number of them feature what could only be considered Epic-level characters (Pug, Macro, etc.), and they only rarely leave their native plane.  But I'm not sure, offhand, what makes it work.


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 24, 2010)

Mesh Hong said:


> Any stray comment or action performed by a PC can send ripples or even waves through a community, their opinion can carry the weight of a Godly decree. Epic PCs are reluctant shepherds (or wolves) amongst sheep. Comments between themselves that they consider usual banter might be overheard with horror or taken as a call to arms or prophetic warning of impending doom. Cults of personality might spring up around a PC whether they encourage them or not, with eager heroes desperate to prove themselves worthy of their idols by interpreting their actions and questing in the name of the Epic.




For a fictional example of this, look at the Ta'veren in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and the "ripples" of improbability that accompany Rand in his travels.


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 24, 2010)

mattcolville said:


> Also, I question the absence of real temporal influence. I think the End Game of AD&D is a good one, and it's time for the developers to give us something else to do besides kill monsters for 18 levels.




I agree. It was my biggest beef from 3.0e onwards.


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## defendi (Nov 24, 2010)

I just finished a campaign and we ended with all the characters level 30.  They left the world for the first time (not counting little demi-planes in the world) in the last adventure.  They were all pretty satisfied.  I essentially put them in a situation where they were the only ones who could save the world, pretty standard stuff, but also brought up a lot of epic events in their past through newly-remembered memories.

Essentially, it was epic tier because they were fighting an epic goal (the fall of everything) and they were uncovering an epic past (did they allow everything to fall once before).  I also had all of their personal stories climax at the same time, as X character found out how Y prophecy applied to them and Z character had to choose between getting his wish and fighting his greatest enemy or sacrifice his life (and his dream) holding off a hoard and save the party.  Meanwhile another character was trying to redeem the soul of a 10,000-year-old Demon.  Epic is about making it feel epic, I think, not about pigeon-holed locations.  (Scenary and visuals help, though)

Things were getting easier at the end, but I didn't mind, especially in that last adventure.  I've challenged them enough and (at least at the end) there SHOULD be periods where they feel awesome and unstoppable.  Ironically, the hardest battle they fought was 30 minions from a poorly defensible position, in that last adventure.  It is more difficult to challenge them at the highest levels.  I didn't stop trying, but I stopped worrying if I failed at level 30.


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## Dausuul (Nov 24, 2010)

My campaign ran from level 1 up to level 14, then went on break for a while and recently resumed. When we came back, I was fired up to go all the way to 30th--and then I started planning out encounters, and realized I was already struggling to find reasonable threats.

When we started this campaign, I created a campaign setting that was, IMO, ideally designed for heroic-tier adventures: A world in the grip of an ice age, where the PCs would go on long treks through tundra and snowy pine forests and icelocked mountains, battling white wolves and orc marauders and lurking trolls, and dealing with the dangers of the wintry environment. And in Heroic tier, it went smashingly.

But now the PCs have outleveled the wolves and orcs, and trolls won't last much longer. I'm sending them on a jaunt to the Abyss for a bit, but it kind of defeats the point of having an interesting setting if they never get to adventure in it. By sending the party into the most dangerous parts of the game world (the white wastes of the north where the lord of winter reigns), I think I can squeeze out enough challenges to take them to level 20. After that, I'm done. The plans I had for epic tier will have to be shelved.

(I have an idea to address the issue: PCs no longer get a 1/2 level bonus to attacks, defenses, and skills. Monster stats remain unchanged*. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to wait till next campaign to implement it, and even then I expect a lot of whining... my players have gotten totally hooked on the Character Builder. Hey, Wizards, I don't suppose we could get a "no half level bonus" option in the CB?)

[size=-2]*I crunched some numbers on how this would affect monster threat level and came up with this: Treat the party as being 2/3 of their actual level when calculating XP budget, and 1/2 their actual level when choosing monsters to fight. So an 18th-level party would have a 12th-level XP budget, which I would fill out with monsters around 9th level or so. Hence, as the PCs level up, they tend to face larger numbers of foes.[/size]


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 24, 2010)

mattcolville said:


> During my time as an AD&D player and GM, 7th level was the notional--though not explicit--beginning of the Second Phase of your character.
> 
> You'd survived the early levels, when you could die from a single hit, and you were now expected to build a stronghold and attract followers. People showed up out of nowhere because they'd heard of you and wanted to serve and aid you. You were famous!
> 
> ...




I would say you can't equate AD&D and 4e levels with each other though. AD&D level advancement was generally pretty slow. The first 3-5 levels could go moderately fast if the DM chose but they could also last a LONG time (in the last 2e campaign I ran we played something like 48 sessions over more than a year and the PCs had reached 8th level). I'd consider levels 1-5 to be roughly equivalent to heroic, and 6th-12th roughly equivalent to paragon myself. Once you went past 12th level things pretty much broke down with AD&D. A good smart party at that point could defeat all but the most stacked combat situations and had enough magic to bypass or trivialize most anything else.

So what you basically had was maybe a good 100-150 sessions of play for a 1e/2e campaign. Then maybe if you were into playing the highest levels you might do another 50 sessions getting to 18th level, but the DM will be very hard pressed to make them really challenging.

With 4e you have a good solid 30 levels that should probably run you 50-100 sessions to play through at standard advancement rates, maybe less. Groups that liked to restart at 12th in the old days may well want to restart at 20th now. The main difference is advancement is a bit faster through the whole campaign and there are more levels, so they come quicker. In the old days you might only level every 6-10 sessions, while in 4e it seems to be designed for a 2-3 session per level rate.

If by 'end game' of AD&D you mean getting to Name Level, getting followers, and building a stronghold (or whatever). It was a decent goal, but personally I don't recall too many games I have run where people took advantage of it. Some did, but it isn't that interesting for a lot of players. Beyond that the high level game in AD&D was for me at least not that interesting. Once the Magic User has 7th level spells things tend to get pretty wonky and unplayable. You can have fun with it, but it is pretty hard to put together a story line that will hold together well. There were also VERY few monsters that were any kind of challenge in AD&D past 12th level. 

Honestly though, 18 levels vs 30? I think it is sort of 6 of one and half-dozen of the other.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 24, 2010)

Interesting discussion, some very good points raised by Aegeri.

To respond to the main points raised in the initial article:

1. The damages were all wrong for Epic until MM3/MV...*SOLVED* (by WotC).

2. DMing Epic requires a bit more forethought...*UNDERSTOOD*; but a DMG3 (with a focus on epic play) still would have been nice.

3. Lack of Epic Fluff...*UNDERSTOOD*. One possible problem with an epic tier campaign is the propensity for changes to the campaign world are something DM's might not want to address. The DM might have put a lot of effort into creating a given city and its NPC's. But in an epic campaign, cities; countries and even worlds can, and probably will, get destroyed. DMs need to embrace this possibility. My suggestion would be to have multiple campaign worlds running concurrently (or at least visited), so you probably want a fast and loose approach. This seems why most epic campaigns take to the planes...basically for fear of breaking the world. 

4. Solo Monster design still a problem...*SOLVED* (by me in my new book the *Vampire Bestiary* - which is about 5 weeks away from release...yes shameless plug). But monster design overall has been getting better from WotC.

Preview: Vampire Bestiary « Eternity Publishing

5. Epic Material very sparse...*UNDERSTOOD* (I'm working on several epic projects; the first of which, following the Vampire Bestiary release, is an adventure trilogy under the umbrella title of Against the Reptile God...Part 1 is called *The Serpent Riders*. A Delve style adventure for Levels 25-28. It has 4 delves and all new, all epic monsters.

Preview: Against the Reptile God « Eternity Publishing

5b. Genericism of Epic Campaigns...*UNDERSTOOD*. The main constraint to epic campaigns are the lack of epic foes. If you want to have a big campaign threat its almost certainly got to be demonic in nature, because no other faction or race has enough variety of epic opponents to actually sustain anything more than a Delve, let alone a full adventure or lengthy campaign. I am working on an epic tier (and immortal tier) monster book that vastly expands *Angels & Devils* (also incorporating fallen angels, lots of new abominations and so forth). It should have enough options to build a feasible alternative to demons at the epic tier.

6. More of the same simply with bigger numbers...*SOLVED*. I have long pondered what does, or what would, make Epic gaming unique. I have a few solutions I'll be incorporating into future books.

- Armies: Epic campaigns should involve great battles, either between armies; or between powerful characters and armies. I have developed some very simple rules for this.

- Super-bosses: We all know that the Tarrasque is the poor man's Godzilla. But how can the rules cover monsters that are as big as a castle, big as a city, big as a planet, big as a universe even...!?!? Well, now you can, because I've got some simple rules for them that will blow your cotton socks off!

- Legendary Abilities: Having the strength of Hercules; the speed of Hermes or the wisdom of Athena should mean something other than a better to hit bonus...right? Soon you'll be able to impress your friends with reality bending Legendary Ability Scores...and yeah, monsters can get them too. 

*I'd be very curious to hear what epic gamers are looking for specifically: Adventures? Monsters? New Rules? All of the Above?*


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## Ryujin (Nov 25, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> My campaign ran from level 1 up to level 14, then went on break for a while and recently resumed. When we came back, I was fired up to go all the way to 30th--and then I started planning out encounters, and realized I was already struggling to find reasonable threats.
> 
> When we started this campaign, I created a campaign setting that was, IMO, ideally designed for heroic-tier adventures: A world in the grip of an ice age, where the PCs would go on long treks through tundra and snowy pine forests and icelocked mountains, battling white wolves and orc marauders and lurking trolls, and dealing with the dangers of the wintry environment. And in Heroic tier, it went smashingly.
> 
> ...




I've always liked the idea of an Ice Age world. Thing is, you don't have to stop there. Heroic and through mid-Paragon tiers you can be dealing with the world, as it is. Upper Paragon can be dealing with the magical powers that keep it in eternal Winter. Epic can be bringing the world out of cold storage, and back to Summer.

Ever read "The Ice Schooner" by Michael Moorcock?


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 25, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Interesting discussion, some very good points raised by Aegeri.




Hey U_K -- you posted a lot of stuff about Epic level play back in the old days of 3.x, didn't you?  2000-2001-ish?  I'd love to hear more extensive comments from you in Epic support in 4e vs 3.x.


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## Aegeri (Nov 25, 2010)

What I really need are encounter maps that reflect what epic needs: Zany terrain, scenarios and similar. A dungeon delve with various rooms and corridors isn't cutting it. Things like the floating islands of flesh over a sea of blood from the Abyssal dragon scenario in Draconomicon, or invading the corpse of a dead god in the astral from Open Grave are perfect examples of what I think of (about).

And then basically filling out epic monsters in angels (perfect candidates for epic tier antagonists OR allies - depending on various gods), devils, new creatures of any stripe (Aberrations would be perfect as well) and such forth. Also epic 4E is in a unique position in that Wizards could add so much new and novel to DnD if they felt like it.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 25, 2010)

Prestidigitalis said:
			
		

> Hey U_K




Howdy Prestadigitalis! 

*-- you posted a lot of stuff about Epic level play back in the old days of 3.x, didn't you?  2000-2001-ish?* 

Yes. Since then I have released two 3.5 Epic Books under the OGL:

Immortals Handbook: Epic Bestiary ~ Volume One

Immortals Handbook - EPIC BESTIARY: Volume One - Eternity Publishing | RPGNow.com

Forgive the cover on the above, I really should have changed that to the print cover:

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Immortals-Handbook-Epic-Bestiary-One/dp/1905471610]Amazon.com: Immortals Handbook: Epic Bestiary - Volume One (D20) (9781905471614): Craig Cochrane: Books[/ame]


*Immortals Handbook: Ascension*

Immortals Handbook: ASCENSION - Eternity Publishing | RPGNow.com

I also have my 3E website...

Immortality

...and my shiny new 4E website...

Eternity Publishing



> I'd love to hear more extensive comments from you in Epic support in 4e vs 3.x.




I will come back here and post a bit later (and reply to Aegeri too). I have just realised I am late for an appointment.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 25, 2010)

Aegeri said:


> What I really need are encounter maps that reflect what epic needs: Zany terrain, scenarios and similar. A dungeon delve with various rooms and corridors isn't cutting it. Things like the floating islands of flesh over a sea of blood from the Abyssal dragon scenario in Draconomicon, or invading the corpse of a dead god in the astral from Open Grave are perfect examples of what I think of (about).
> 
> And then basically filling out epic monsters in angels (perfect candidates for epic tier antagonists OR allies - depending on various gods), devils, new creatures of any stripe (Aberrations would be perfect as well) and such forth. Also epic 4E is in a unique position in that Wizards could add so much new and novel to DnD if they felt like it.




I think there are a lot of POTENTIAL epic level opponents. A Dragon War would work for instance (already been done with SoW). Any of the epic level races introduced in MM3 could be fleshed out or some of them could be welded together into a single threat. The Elemental Princes could supply a good epic foe. Certainly anything beyond demons or dragons is likely going to involve some monster design, but I don't think 'canned' epic monsters are generally the best idea anyway.

Wizards could add a lot of unique stuff, but there is SO MUCH stuff out there already. I think the best approach would be to create a setting designed specifically for epic play. Epic necessarily involves at least world shaking events, so you need a really solid and more detailed cosmology to pull it off. FR/Eberron/DS are too vague about the relationship of the world to the greater powers generally. There is an outline, but nothing much in the way of plot. I know meta-plot has a bad rep, but that's a fan issue really, not anything wrong with it conceptually. A setting with a STRONG meta-plot can hook your epic characters in and make them the center of the show. It just has to be done carefully.

I do overall think epic is too long. 10 levels, probably 30 sessions, is going to take at least 6 months for most any group to play through. That seems like a long time in general to sustain that kind of story line.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 25, 2010)

Prestidigitalis said:
			
		

> Hey U_K --




Hello again...time snuck up on me earlier like a ninja.



> I'd love to hear more extensive comments from you in Epic support in 4e vs 3.x.




As regards 3E Epic....

I posted a review of the 3E Epic Level Handbook back in the day that covers my initial thoughts on that particular book.

Immortality

Looking back though, there are several failures of 3E Epic.

1. *Openendedness*: When I first read about this approach I thought it was the Holy Grail of design. But years later I have come to realise it was more of a poison chalice. There was a blandness to it all. The levels themselves began to mean nothing, what did 40th-level mean in terms of the campaign world? What about 70th-level, or 100th-level? No one at WotC knew the answer. I clearly recall the official rules stating that if your players are Level x, you should increase the power of the Demon Princes to compensate. How does that give a sense of progression? Do you infinitely battle Demon Princes who keep upscaling to match the PCs?

2. *Unbalanced*: 3E has a massive disparity between the classes (even to this day in Pathfinder); notably between spellcasters and non-spellcasters. This disparity grows the higher in level you ascend. I tried to redress the balance with a slight skew towards the martial classes in my Ascension book. I also posted a Revised Fighter, Barbarian and Monk on my website:

Immortality

Additionally, the monsters were badly Challenge Rated, which meant too many fights were either walkovers or save or die-fests. I corrected these problems with my Challenging Challenge Ratings document (I give it away free, although Version 5 is also in the Grim Tales book).

Lastly, die rolls really become obsolete in 3E beyond about Level 30-40 (depending on how min/maxed a character is). The math just got out of control. Personally I was expecting this, because as an ultra high-level 1E/2E gamer I knew eventually die rolls ultimately came down to rolling '1's or '20's. But the difference back then was that the base scores and bonuses were capped, so the DM could plan accordingly. With 3E there was no capping to anything, and you could have different characters with massively different attack bonuses and armour classes. So much so that one character might only hit on a '20' while another might only miss on a '1'. You basically couldn't adjudicate any sort of balance to it.

3. *Complexity*: Epic 3E is a complete nightmare for a DM (or game designer). I remember when I was designing my Epic Bestiary and the amount of times I nearly failed a Will save every time I had to sort out a monster's skills, feats, spells or spell-like abilities. Most of which are ultimately pointless and irrelevant when running a monster.

Character design was equally galling, I remember seeing Epic characters posted with upwards of a dozen classes/prestige classes for garnering this or that bonus. I mean its Merlin the Magician, Conan the Barbarian right? Crashbang the Fighter-Ranger-Paladin-Ninja-Samurai-Gladiator-Dreadnought-Ravager-Wizard...just doesn't have the same ring to it. I'm all for a bit of diversity, but there was just a terrible meta-gamey feel to many Epic PCs; that was really due to the core classes simply not being good or interesting enough.

Magic Items. I think everyone is familiar with the Christmas Tree problem inherent to high level 3E. 

4. *Support*: WotC had the potential to make Deities & Demigods in some way relevant to Epic Gaming but they totally and utterly mucked that book up.

Immortality

Basically I was the only Publisher seriously supporting Epic gaming. Personally I got the impression I was also the only one who cared enough to actually come up with solutions to the major problems:

The blandness I tried to solve by allowing PCs to become gods. I gave some explanation to the Universe so the various tiers of power actually meant something. I created lots of monsters and hinted at many others so that there was something else out there to fight other than the usual foes.

The unbalanced nature of the game I tried to fix as best I could. The Challenging Challenge Ratings document let you fix CR, EL and ECL. I gave the martial classes a big boost with Meta-Martial powers.

The complexity I cut down wherever I could. I put a limit on Artifact possession (so players had to make some hard choices) and made epic items all but irrelevant because they could just be disjoined. For skills I let PCs become Omnicompetant. Feats could be traded up for Divine Powers at a ratio of 6:1, cutting down on feat numbers.

I tried my best, and in fairness I think, with the changes I made, its just about playable up to about ECL 200. But gaming beyond Level 40, even with my books, was a massive undertaking for any DM because you really had to either design or redesign (with templates) all the monsters and NPCs yourself, because they simply didn't exist out there for you to borrow...added to which you still had all the added complexities of Epic 3E to deal with. I take my hat off to the DMs who really embraced Epic gaming and in fairness boldly went where no games had gone before.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 25, 2010)

Hello there Aegeri! 



			
				Aegeri said:
			
		

> What I really need are encounter maps that reflect what epic needs: Zany terrain, scenarios and similar. A dungeon delve with various rooms and corridors isn't cutting it.




I think you might have misunderstood what I meant by Delve format and conjured up visions of WotC 'Dungeon' Delves (which in and of themselves are well done but not how I'm modelling my encounters).

By Delve format I mean a series of (in my case) four-linked encounters = one Delve. 



> Things like the floating islands of flesh over a sea of blood from the Abyssal dragon scenario in Draconomicon, or invading the corpse of a dead god in the astral from Open Grave are perfect examples of what I think of (about).




- The first encounter in my adventure involves an army of 100,000 Yuan-ti (yes I've renamed them) like a great sea of snakes that the heroes will be drowning under.
- A later encounter involves a demigod's (Escher-style) throne room where he controls the gravity...and he's a Skirmisher. Better hope you end the round on the same face he's upon.

I really don't want to spoil too many surprises at this juncture. But suffice to say this ain't no by-the-numbers Dungeon Delve. 

Each of the 4 Delves has 4 Encounters and each of those is a major encounter with lots going on. I will also include some suggested (random?) encounters for fleshing out each Delve into a full adventure (or more specifically one that will take the PCs up one level).



> And then basically filling out epic monsters in angels (perfect candidates for epic tier antagonists OR allies - depending on various gods), devils, new creatures of any stripe (Aberrations would be perfect as well) and such forth.




I'll have this side of things sorted, no worries. With this new angelic hierarchy alone I might have Gustav Davidson contacting me for advice. 



> Also epic 4E is in a unique position in that Wizards could add so much new and novel to DnD if they felt like it.




If they don't see it as a big enough market they probably won't bother though...so it will be left to me again...although hopefully this time I get a few more books released.


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## GreyLord (Nov 26, 2010)

Raunalyn said:


> I'm curious if anyone has played or run a Dark Sun campaign in the epic tier. Dark Sun has an entirely different "feel" than your run of the mill game world, so I wonder how it plays out with the different rules and such that are in effect on Athas.




Late post and still on page 2 reading, but we did.  We did a super marathon intending on going from level 1 to level 30, one level per session.  Only one bad mark, we had one player who was evil and played a Templar.  We went in to kill a dragon-Queen, killed her only to have the Lady Templar with us reveal she was taking over in the name of the Dragon King she served, and turned on us, killed one of the PC's (we had just won the battle with the original Dragon Queen after going through an entire guantlet of pain to get there and basically had nothing left with to fight her) and we had to flee, effectively ending our campaign at 25th level (though we may have had enough XP to get to lvl 26).

It was fun, interesting, but we had characters that could basically still lock down an enemy in epic levels and do the killing.  Of course, exhausting our resources seemed to be key to the DM's mindset, and having us constantly doing running battles so we didn't have much time for rests was another.


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## GreyLord (Nov 26, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Additionally, the monsters were badly Challenge Rated, which meant too many fights were either walkovers or save or die-fests. I corrected these problems with my Challenging Challenge Ratings document (I give it away free, although Version 5 is also in the Grim Tales book).




WOW, I couldn't agree more.  CR's were one of the first things I started houseruling on a regular basis in 3e.  With some monsters it could be a TPK, while with another of the SAME CR...the players could wonder if that was even supposed to be a speed bump with how quickly they dealt with it.  Completely unbalanced in relation to each other.

With epic rules I took some of the ideas, while completely disgarding others and using options included in other books (such as the APG, which had players always getting more and more attacks...something that MARTIAL CLASSES really needed...a Fighter with 8 attacks may not be wizard or spellcaster material, but at least its a bigger advantage then simply not having them).

I'll have to look up your Epic material if I can find it, sounds interesting.  Maybe it fixes some of the problems I had with the epic rules they listed for 3.x


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## UngainlyTitan (Nov 26, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> My campaign ran from level 1 up to level 14, then went on break for a while and recently resumed. When we came back, I was fired up to go all the way to 30th--and then I started planning out encounters, and realized I was already struggling to find reasonable threats.
> 
> When we started this campaign, I created a campaign setting that was, IMO, ideally designed for heroic-tier adventures: A world in the grip of an ice age, where the PCs would go on long treks through tundra and snowy pine forests and icelocked mountains, battling white wolves and orc marauders and lurking trolls, and dealing with the dangers of the wintry environment. And in Heroic tier, it went smashingly.
> 
> ...



 Rather than mess with the rules why not re-skin other monsters as trolls and orcs and such and as another poster pointes out also introduce other elements behind the Fimbulwinter.


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 26, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Hello again...time snuck up on me earlier like a ninja.




Thanks for the extended answer about 3.x.  I was hoping that you might comment with some specifics about the things that you believe 4e made better or worse relative to 3.x.  Some of it is implicit, obviously -- 4e Epic is no longer open ended, for example.  But if you get a chance to come back and elaborate, I would love to see it.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 26, 2010)

Hey there GreyLord! 



			
				GreyLord said:
			
		

> WOW, I couldn't agree more.  CR's were one of the first things I started houseruling on a regular basis in 3e.  With some monsters it could be a TPK, while with another of the SAME CR...the players could wonder if that was even supposed to be a speed bump with how quickly they dealt with it.  Completely unbalanced in relation to each other.
> 
> With epic rules I took some of the ideas, while completely disgarding others and using options included in other books (such as the APG, which had players always getting more and more attacks...something that MARTIAL CLASSES really needed...a Fighter with 8 attacks may not be wizard or spellcaster material, but at least its a bigger advantage then simply not having them).




I think I opened up the BAB so that Fighters kept getting +1 per Level, and could make a number of attacks equal to their BAB/5 (rounded up).

So a Level 36 Fighter could make 8 attacks.



> I'll have to look up your Epic material if I can find it, sounds interesting.  Maybe it fixes some of the problems I had with the epic rules they listed for 3.x




I posted a few links to the material earlier in this thread.

You can drop me an email...

agooddesigner[MENTION=89935]hotmail[/MENTION].com

...and I'll send you v5.1 of the Challenge Ratings Document for nothing. I have made several improvements since 5.1 but I never finished Version 6, I sort of moved on to 4E by then.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 26, 2010)

Hello again Prestidigitalis! 



			
				Prestidigitalis said:
			
		

> Thanks for the extended answer about 3.x.




Always happy to chime in on the subject. 



> I was hoping that you might comment with some specifics about the things that you believe 4e made better or worse relative to 3.x.  Some of it is implicit, obviously -- 4e Epic is no longer open ended, for example.  But if you get a chance to come back and elaborate, I would love to see it.




In a nutshell, I think 4E is better in virtually every way (with the notable exception of the GSL vs. OGL).

1. *Monster Design*: Its far better for monster design, because it really cuts down on all the irrelevant stuff like feats, spell-like abilities, skills (for the most part). The different Ranks and Roles are fantastic play aides. Monsters also no longer need magic items to 'keep up' since the math is all integrated. You really can just boil them down to their own unique abilities.

_If I had one minor quibble_, I'd say I regret Templates are no longer as relevant in 4E. But I think that if you swop out Rank for Level* in some occasions they could come back in vogue.

*ie. Instead of making a standard monster elite, just make it 4 levels higher.

2. *Character Design*: Multi-classing is now far better. Integrating Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies into the core levelling structure was great - forcing players to make choices, rather than just take as many different classes and Prestige Classes tas hey wanted. 

_The minor quibble_ from the beginning of 4E has been that all the classes are too mechanically similar, I think thats a valid point but something that has really been addressed with more recent books like PHB3 and so forth.

3. *Artifacts*: The new rules distinguishing Artifacts and other Magic Items are really very good.

4. *Balance*: Overall its much better balanced. Far easier to set-up encounters. You get the occasional loophole that can be abused but nothing that intrinsic to the game.

_The minor quibble here_ is with powers that give a bonus equal to an ability score modifier - those need to be clamped down upon at epic levels.

5. *Support*: Even though support for Epic 4E is about as likely as Epic 3E, its actually much easier to cater to Epic 4E for a number of reasons:

5a: In 4E, Epic is core.
5b: In 4E, Epic is much simpler.
5c: In 4E, Epic is capped...for instance if I have about 100 monsters in an Epic 3E book (which I basically did) they could be anywhere from Challenge Rating 21 to Challenge Rating 9721*. Whereas in 4E, we know to keep the monsters between 21-36 (or thereabouts). It means much less effort going to waste.

*


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## SKyOdin (Nov 27, 2010)

Jack99 said:


> I am not sure I agree. There are definitely more than the evil gods you can fight at epic level. Demons, devils, dragons, primordials, aberrations, etc. Plenty to go around. Or did I misunderstand you?




Sorry for not replying to this earlier. Anyways, I was actually referring to what qualified for BBEG material at Epic level. At low levels, you can fight political masterminds, the leaders of invading barbarian hordes, ancient undead schemers, and plenty more as main villains. However, epic level main villains are mostly limited to dark gods, demon princes, and Primordials, all of which are mostly indistinguishable. This can be pretty limiting.

I don't think this is an inherent problem with Epic Tier. Rather, I think it is mostly due to the fact that D&D and contemporary fantasy haven't really explored other plot-lines. For example, giants could potentially be portrayed as a powerful threat that challenges the rule of the gods as in Norse mythology if they hadn't been relegated to being servants of the indistinct Primordials. The creation of more setting material and DM advice for Epic levels would probably help this situation significantly.

Thinking about it, a big problem with the Epic Tier as it current exists is that gods have been traditionally held as being above the level PCs can reach. There is quite a bit of mythology involving battles between gods and their enemies, such as much of Norse and Hindu mythology. However, even in 4E that level of power is considered to be above Epic level, even though it is the only source of inspiration for what Epic level can be. Unless D&D players can become comfortable with PCs fighting on par with the gods for most of Epic Tier, the Epic Tier may remain choked of content.


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## catastrophic (Nov 27, 2010)

SKyOdin said:


> I don't think this is an inherent problem with Epic Tier. Rather, I think it is mostly due to the fact that D&D and contemporary fantasy haven't really explored other plot-lines. For example, giants could potentially be portrayed as a powerful threat that challenges the rule of the gods as in Norse mythology if they hadn't been relegated to being servants of the indistinct Primordials.



I'm not exactly sure how you missed this, but the primordials are based on mythology's old gods (titans, giants, ect), and serve exactly that role in 4e's planar mythos.

Giants, Titans, and Primordials collectivly form that threat, very clearly, and are specifically laid out as such. Far from being indistinct, there are several primordials who's nature and cults and followers are laid out in detail and each are quite distinct.

As for various epic threats being inditinguisable, well there's some validity to that considering that most of them are positioned as gods with cults, ect, ect, ect, but the primordials are by far the best and most well realised villains in that broad category, and they serve exactly the role you claimed was lacking.


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## SKyOdin (Nov 27, 2010)

catastrophic said:


> I'm not exactly sure how you missed this, but the primordials are based on mythology's old gods (titans, giants, ect), and serve exactly that role in 4e's planar mythos.
> 
> Giants, Titans, and Primordials collectivly form that threat, very clearly, and are specifically laid out as such. Far from being indistinct, there are several primordials who's nature and cults and followers are laid out in detail and each are quite distinct.
> 
> As for various epic threats being inditinguisable, well there's some validity to that considering that most of them are positioned as gods with cults, ect, ect, ect, but the primordials are by far the best and most well realised villains in that broad category, and they serve exactly the role you claimed was lacking.




I am aware that the Primordials serve the mythological role analogous to that of the ancient Titans, but there are enough differences that prevent them from presenting the same flavor of threat. The most notable difference is that the Primordials have all already been defeated and sealed away. The giants of Norse myth were a current and looming threat, not a long defeated one. Likewise, the Asura and Rakshasa of Hindu myth were beings the gods were warring against in the present of their stories, not in the ancient past. By making the war between the Gods and the Primordials a thing of ancient history, it limited the role of the Primordials to merely being "ancient evil gods that have been sealed for a long time", which in itself is not a very novel or original plot. The giants and titans in 4E are not presented as being a significant threat the world in of themselves either. Of course, this could just be a matter of presentation.

There is also somewhat of a lack of world-devouring monsters such as Fenrir or Jormungandr. Even the Tarrasque is described as a tool of the primordials and gods, rather than as a monster that threatens to devour them.

Again, I am forced to wonder if the biggest weakness of the Epic Tier is the way that D&D gods (particularly in 4e) are placed as distant and untouchable. If the gods existed closer to the world and could be killed by monsters the PCs could ultimately fight, then there would be more room to tell cool stories in the Epic Tier. It is definitely a flaw that all of the major Epic threats live out in the planes, away from the world.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 27, 2010)

Howdy SKyOdin! 



			
				SKyOdin said:
			
		

> Sorry for not replying to this earlier. Anyways, I was actually referring to what qualified for BBEG material at Epic level. At low levels, you can fight political masterminds, the leaders of invading barbarian hordes, ancient undead schemers, and plenty more as main villains. However, epic level main villains are mostly limited to dark gods, demon princes, and Primordials, all of which are mostly indistinguishable. This can be pretty limiting.
> 
> I don't think this is an inherent problem with Epic Tier. Rather, I think it is mostly due to the fact that D&D and contemporary fantasy haven't really explored other plot-lines. For example, giants could potentially be portrayed as a powerful threat that challenges the rule of the gods as in Norse mythology if they hadn't been relegated to being servants of the indistinct Primordials. The creation of more setting material and DM advice for Epic levels would probably help this situation significantly.




To refer back to my Epic Bestiary for 3.5E, therein I had outlined all the planar types (Outer, Inner, Temporal etc.) and assigned Dimensional Races to them all. These dimensional races were both equal to and greater than the Pantheons.

For instance:

Outer Planes: Angels (Emanations of the Supreme Being)...some corrupted into Sinistrals.
Inner Planes: Elementars (Primordials if you will)
Material Plane: Intelligibles (Anti-bodies of the universal sentience)
Temporal Plane: Inevitables (Machines constructed to police temporal tampering)
Entropy: Umbrals (Umbrals are created, or rather, allowed into our universe, when immortals perish)
Far Realm: Pseudonaturals (the Lovecraftian madness)

There were also Interdimensional Beings and Higher Dimensional Beings (of the 8th, 9th and 10th Dimensions).

So although I wasn't able to detail all of the above with the confines of a single book, they were put into the consciousness of the DM.

I'm in the process of refining those ideas for 4E.



> Thinking about it, a big problem with the Epic Tier as it current exists is that gods have been traditionally held as being above the level PCs can reach. There is quite a bit of mythology involving battles between gods and their enemies, such as much of Norse and Hindu mythology. However, even in 4E that level of power is considered to be above Epic level, even though it is the only source of inspiration for what Epic level can be. Unless D&D players can become comfortable with PCs fighting on par with the gods for most of Epic Tier, the Epic Tier may remain choked of content.




That is true, but in 4E the gods are a LOT closer to epic characters. I'd estimate a Demigod would be between Levels 27-31 as a Solo encounter.

Its easy to develop Epic Monsters as derivatives or subordinates of the above listed dimensional races.

Demons or Giants (Elemental)
Devils or Fallen Angels (Astral)
Daemons or Undead (Shadowfell)
Slaad or Mind Flayers (Far Realm)
Modrons or Maruts (Temporal)
etc.

I have some new epic races in the pipeline but I'll keep them under wraps for now.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 27, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Howdy SKyOdin!
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Well, the currently in favor term seems to be exarch. Yes, 27-31 solo. Some are a bit higher, a few are Elites. They can all be assumed to be commanding the forces of the god they serve. If we're talking evil enemy gods/primordials/whatever then one of these guys serves as a good penultimate foe. 

Really, if you want to adjust things for an 'against the gods' kind of scenario then just level them all down some. Or else make the whole thing about finding the mystical artifact that does the nasty deed, etc. You can always use plot twists of various kinds, etc. 

Really though, you can tell the same sorts of stories in a situation where the actual gods are distant and only act through a few intermediaries or leave their business to their followers and just inspire. Then your angels and demon lords and whatnot are the big foes with Demogorgon or something at the end. They can fix the cosmic hooseyjigger, foil the evil primordial's plans, etc. I don't think those plotlines are bad just because the backdrop isn't the whole cosmos. That is a great advantage of 'lesser' end bosses, the fight can be mostly set in the world where the stakes are high for the characters.


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## SKyOdin (Nov 28, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> That is true, but in 4E the gods are a LOT closer to epic characters. I'd estimate a Demigod would be between Levels 27-31 as a Solo encounter.
> 
> Its easy to develop Epic Monsters as derivatives or subordinates of the above listed dimensional races.
> 
> ...




I hate to say it, but your ideas exemplify what I think is currently wrong with 4E Epic tier and how people approach it. A demigod being a level 27-31 Solo is the very thing I was complaining about: the gods are considered to be on a level simply beyond the PCs.

The other problem is exemplified by your ideas is that the only enemies to be fought at Epic Tier are servants of various extremely powerful extra-planer entities (be they gods, demon princes, or what have you).

What I was considering as a possible alternative to this paradigm is if you consider Thor and Loki of Norse mythology to be level 21-25 PCs going around on adventures. Thor and Loki are without a doubt full gods, and major ones at that. However, their various adventure stories are the very kind of thing D&D drew inspiration from.


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## catastrophic (Nov 28, 2010)

Again, the dawn war literally pits adventuring parties of deities against single primordials on many occasions. In rare cases, super-badass gods like bane and io take on a primordial alone, but most of the time, they're actually cooperating in groups to defeat them.

The fact that since then deities have been built as end-game epic tier threats doesn't really seem to be the problem- what alterative are you after? That deities are lower tier threats? That a party of mid-epic heroes should take on an entire pantheon, possily while it's guarding a chest full of astral diamonds in a 100 by 100 mile square room? 

If anything what you seem to be proposing makes epic tier less epic, not more. I'm not saying fighting a pantheon would not make a cool finale, but I don't see the appeal of what you're proposing. How does it make the epic tier better?

If you want your epic tier pcs to be demigods and go around haveing thorlike adventures, they can do that. If you want your giants at war with the gods, they are literally a plotline away- and just fyi, the primordials are not all bound, many of them just retreated into the elemental chaos. The setting presents the resurgence of the dawn war as a clear potential plotline- it's just not the only plotline they offer support for.

There's a lot of interpretation going on here, but that's not going to lead to solid, functional changes that can be made to make epic tier better. You might read 4e's cosmos a certain way, but building on that intrerpretation is not going to get to the kind of concrete changes that are needed. 

I think fixing epic tier is a lot more about the kinds of plotlines, and themes that are dealt with, the stakes of the battles that are fought, and the sheer epic euppedness of battles. 

A lot of the time, that's all lacking, I agree. But that said, if there's only place they have made progress, it's in monster design- and they're headed in the right direction there. Arguing that gods should be tones down or something is not going to get a better sort of epic tier play.

Again, the real problem is the stakes, and the themes, and the feel of the adventures. At epic tier, pcs are still being led around by the nose- and frankly that's something they should have left behind them by mid paragon at the latest. The result is the 'same old same old' feel that is a big part of why epic tier falls flat. 

, here's the worst example I can think of- IIRC the first 4e dungeon mag adventure path, the one about orcus vs the raven queen. IIRC in the first epic tier adventure, you travel to the damn shadowfell, to the palace of the raven queen, during this huge cosmic struggle, and what does she do?

She sends you on a ing fetch quest. 'Go fetch the magical black sphere or some ' she says, 'only then can i trust you or uh, something'. And off you go to featch the damn doodad for what is probably literally the 20th time if you've been playing from level one. 

That's the kind of garbage that ruins epic tier. Each tier should be dramatically different, in a real sense. The problem isn't that the otehr tiers are not like the fun of heroic tier- the problem is that they're not different enough. 

Generally, i'd lay out the tiers like this. I don't even suceed at this myself a lot of the time, but this is what i try to aim for:

Heroic: Be a hero, kick in doors, enter a big bad world where a lot of stuff is pretty scary still, and there's a lot of  you don't understand. Triumph despite this, by the skin of your teeth, _bruce willis in diehard_ style. Spend a lot of time going 'oh ' and running after or away from various objectives. But with setbacks and plot twists and jerk npcs stabbing you in the back, you're still gaining ground.

Paragon: Now you are starting to run . People don't tell you what to do, well, not if they don't want your +3 boot in their ass. All those problems you faced, back in the day? It's time to solve them, for real, by changing the world and gaining real power. Not jsut physical power, but political power, land, title, influence, favours, all of it. And it can be a pain in the ass, and it can be dangerous, and it can corrupt you, but it's worth it to actually change things for the better- or just for yourself. Nations, armies, churches, peoples, ideas- these are the weapons you learn to wield.

Epic: Epic tier is when worldly matters begin to fall away, but not the way you think. It's not like they aren't important anymore, but the higher your vantage point becomes, the more differently you view everything. When you start to understand how thigns really work, everything changes. 

You might realise that your efforts to bring peace to the land are corrupting the gods of war, because these days the people who pray to him aren't fighting for their families of homes- but for money, plunder, and glory. Or maybe the gods just don't like you stepping on their turf- apart from one rather dark fellow who insists that this is your time, that he's here to start the apocalypse that is nesecary for you and your allies to replace the stagnant old celestial order. Or maybe the gods are just automatons, celestial mechanisms that mindlessly channel the concepts and porfolios they represent- and their keepers are looking to add a few shiny new cogs to the machine. Or maybe you just decide to wage a cosmos-wide war on the dark god you swore vengance on- only to find that doing so much threaten the very nature of reality, or set the great spirits of the world against you.


The epic tier is about the laws of the cosmos, how things work, and how the heroes choose to abide by them, or rebel and seek to change them.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 28, 2010)

I think rather than focus on the exact nature of the enemies you face the key to epic tier is just the sheer craziness of it. 

Heroic tier: You explore a dark forest, wipe out a local demon cult, save the village. The things you run into are mundane obstacles for the most part. Nasty mechanical traps, cliffs, rivers, collapsing caves, etc. Events generally don't focus on the characters except when they stick themselves into the middle of them. They are bit players in the world, doing their parts and doing them well but not that different from those around them.

Paragon tier: This is where the players get to start ordering things their way. They get to start being in charge. The obstacles they face and environments they encounter transition from nearly the sorts of things they faced in heroic tier through more fantastical versions of those things. Traps aren't just nasty mechanisms anymore, they are arcane devices. You don't just take some damage if you fail anymore, you get cursed or dumped into a dark forest in the Shadowfell. Towards the end of the tier things evolve towards the epic. The characters discover that their little goals and ambitions are just a tiny part of a bigger picture and they need to take up the epic mantle if they want to get what they want.

When you get to epic tier the things you run into are unique and over the top. You're fighting enemies that can and will take over the entire world if you don't defeat them. At the very least you're climbing the highest mountain in the world, fighting the biggest monster, uncovering the most ancient secret, etc. It doesn't have to be gods and battles in other planes of existence, that is really FLUFF. What it needs to be is no-holds-barred extreme. Think of it as if you're playing Exalted. What you do is crazy stuff, the stuff of legends. The items you wield are legendary and unique, your allies and enemies are WAY larger than life, etc. They COULD be gods, you COULD be sailing a planar galleon into the heart of the Abyss to destroy Demogorgon, but it doesn't have to be. You could be instead fighting the Serpent People and their evil mad emperor. It just has to be suitably larger than life.

Personally I've never been a fan of PCs that are at the level of the gods. It just turns the gods into more monsters to fight or NPCs to interact with on an equal footing. Myth and legend generally treat gods as something above that. Yes, Norse myths are full of the adventures of the gods, but those are things that happened far back in the days of legend or whatever. What happens if the gods ARE 25th to 30th level? What then is a 30th level PC doing? Fighting the "super gods?". I think fighting a godling is great and carrying out a quest that shapes the fate of the world is great. It just doesn't interest me to run the campaign into a scenario where the PCs are the most powerful thing in the universe.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 28, 2010)

Howdy AbdulAlhazred! 



			
				AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> Well, the currently in favor term seems to be exarch. Yes, 27-31 solo. Some are a bit higher, a few are Elites. They can all be assumed to be commanding the forces of the god they serve. If we're talking evil enemy gods/primordials/whatever then one of these guys serves as a good penultimate foe.




Exarch denotes servant, whereas a given Demigod may just be self-serving.



> Really, if you want to adjust things for an 'against the gods' kind of scenario then just level them all down some. Or else make the whole thing about finding the mystical artifact that does the nasty deed, etc. You can always use plot twists of various kinds, etc.
> 
> Really though, you can tell the same sorts of stories in a situation where the actual gods are distant and only act through a few intermediaries or leave their business to their followers and just inspire. Then your angels and demon lords and whatnot are the big foes with Demogorgon or something at the end. They can fix the cosmic hooseyjigger, foil the evil primordial's plans, etc. I don't think those plotlines are bad just because the backdrop isn't the whole cosmos. That is a great advantage of 'lesser' end bosses, the fight can be mostly set in the world where the stakes are high for the characters.




I think different foes are good for mixing up themes. Which is why you want maybe ten or so stat-blocks of something other than demons for epic games comprising one theme.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 28, 2010)

SKyOdin said:
			
		

> I hate to say it, but your ideas exemplify what I think is currently wrong with 4E Epic tier and how people approach it. A demigod being a level 27-31 Solo is the very thing I was complaining about: the gods are considered to be on a level simply beyond the PCs.




Theres always something better than yourself though.

...would it help if I made an Immortal Tier for Levels 31-40...? 



> The other problem is exemplified by your ideas is that the only enemies to be fought at Epic Tier are servants of various extremely powerful extra-planer entities (be they gods, demon princes, or what have you).




Well I was only trying to show how you could quickly expand things beyond Demons and Dark Gods, I wasn't trying to give an Encyclopedia of Epic Monsters...not yet anyway. 



> What I was considering as a possible alternative to this paradigm is if you consider Thor and Loki of Norse mythology to be level 21-25 PCs going around on adventures. Thor and Loki are without a doubt full gods, and major ones at that. However, their various adventure stories are the very kind of thing D&D drew inspiration from.




Personally I see Epic heroes as Achilles, Arjuna, Beowulf, Conan, Cu Chulainn, Elric, Gilgamesh, King Arthur, Rama, Vainamoinen etc.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 28, 2010)

Howdy catastrophic! 



			
				catastrophic said:
			
		

> That's the kind of garbage that ruins epic tier. *Each tier should be dramatically different, in a real sense*. The problem isn't that the other tiers are not like the fun of heroic tier - the problem is that they're not different enough.




Some great points. I totally agree. Epic doesn't feel epic enough because you just do the same things.

Which is why I proposed the idea of taking on armies, monsters vastly bigger than gargantuan, introducing 'game changer' Legendary Abilities and so forth.

I also think introducing wholly new races (no spoilers yet  ) or completely new types of monsters (Interdimensional, Temporal for instance) only found at the Epic tier is another way of making things more interesting.


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## Ryujin (Nov 28, 2010)

I have to agree, Upper Krust, that there's no need for dimension-hopping in Epic Tier. Some people point to things like Norse Mythology, as a guide to how Epic Tier should be handled; godlings fighting world-spanning serpents and defeating evil gods, and demons.

I see it differently.

I think of the epic tales of The Trials of Heracles and how Cuchulainn defended Ulster, against an army. Are they any less epic, in nature, because they involved the cleaning of a stable? The defeating of a human army? I don't think so.


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## SKyOdin (Nov 28, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Theres always something better than yourself though.
> 
> ...would it help if I made an Immortal Tier for Levels 31-40...?



Actually, no. I am strongly opposed to the idea of an Immortial Tier above Epic Tier. If you make a new Tier for that level of play, it would completely steal the role that Epic was intended to fulfill and further confuse and dilute the flavor of the various tiers. I don't think an Immortial Tier is needed because it would be fulfilling the exact role that Epic _should_ be filling right now.




> Personally I see Epic heroes as Achilles, Arjuna, Beowulf, Conan, Cu Chulainn, Elric, Gilgamesh, King Arthur, Rama, Vainamoinen etc.




That is just a list of famous or legendary heroes. I don't at all agree that many of them qualify as being Epic heroes. I would peg Achilles, Arthur, Beowulf, and Cu Chulainn as excellent examples of Paragon Tier heroes, actually. Those four are all heroes whose abilities are such that they can affect the fate of nations. Conan might just be a Heroic Tier hero, depending on author.

Rama on the other hand, is an example of an Epic Tier hero, and you can clearly see a big difference between the Ramayana and some of the stories the others are from. Rama's opponents are the Rakshasas, lead by Ravana and his family, who by the start of Rama's journey, had already laid siege to the home of the gods and defeated them in battle. At the same time, Rama's companions include Hanuman, a demigod monkey who rips a mountain off of its foundation at one point.

I think that there is a risk in making Epic levels heroes too weak and small in scale, because the Epic tier would then be leeching away the awesomeness of Paragon Tier heroes, who still deserve their credit.


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## KidSnide (Nov 29, 2010)

I think the biggest failure of the epic tier in 4e is the assumption by WotC that the epic-level play should feel like heroic and paragon level play.  To my mind, dungeon crawling is a distinctly heroic mode of play, but the 4e design assumption is that dungeon crawling _is_ the game -- at all tiers.  To have a good epic level game, you need epic-style game constructs.  For example, I'd like to see:

* Mass Combat - not the sort of mass combat where the players have dozens of units to control, but the sort of mass combat in which the armies are the terrain and the PCs can cause their front line to advance by destroying key enemies (leaders or swarms of soldiers).

* Super-Solos - I want to see enemies that are adventures, not just encounters.  There should be creatures big enough to be the terrain.  There should be creatures you have to fight in multi aspects (Lolth and some of the Sorcerer-Kings are good steps in this direction), but defeating a deity should be more than a single stat block.  Fighting a deity should take multiple encounters as the PCs have to destroy different aspects of the deity's power.  I find it a little appalling that Voltemort is so much harder to kill than the demon prince of undead.

* Changes in Mobility and Terrain - The 4e designers correctly noted that flying seriously changes the nature of combat, but their solution (to minimize it) undercut the nature of epic level play.  Epic level characters should all be able to move around in epic ways -- flying boots, super jump, teleportation or the like.  Epic level maps shouldn't be continuous walls and passages.  An epic encounter should have some areas distances of special terrain that impassible or deadly to mere mortals (chasms, lava, razor-bamboo, take your pick).  The limit to "dungeon-appropriate distances" in epic-level powers and equipment is yet another failure of imagination.

Ultimately, I think the idea that "epic is core" in 4e is mostly illusory.  There are rules for creating characters of levels 21-30, but there isn't actually all that much support in the rules for playing characters (or writing adventures) that actually feel "epic."

-KS


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## the Jester (Nov 29, 2010)

SKyOdin said:


> Actually, no. I am strongly opposed to the idea of an Immortial Tier above Epic Tier. If you make a new Tier for that level of play, it would completely steal the role that Epic was intended to fulfill and further confuse and dilute the flavor of the various tiers. I don't think an Immortial Tier is needed because it would be fulfilling the exact role that Epic _should_ be filling right now.




I absolutely agree with this.


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## TwinBahamut (Nov 29, 2010)

You make a lot of good points, KidSnide, but I wanted to address this one in particular...



KidSnide said:


> * Mass Combat - not the sort of mass combat where the players have dozens of units to control, but the sort of mass combat in which the armies are the terrain and the PCs can cause their front line to advance by destroying key enemies (leaders or swarms of soldiers).




Honestly, I think that mass combat should be something that is embraced by D&D for all of the tiers, just in different ways.

In the heroic tier, a PC would be a normal soldier. An elite, awesome soldier, but still just one among many. Small squad actions in support of a bigger force, os simply engaging in battle against even numbers to take out a single entrenched enemy or commanding officer would be an adventure in of itself.

In the paragon tier, a PC would be the lynchpin of an entire battle. A group of PCs could have a significant effect on the outcome of a major fight by taking down enemy forces and leading the assault on major strongholds, much like you are suggesting.

In the epic tier, a PC doesn't need an army. The enemy musters its armies just to take down lone PCs, and the PCs can wipe out armies of hundreds or thousands without any support or backup. An actual full-scale military battle between forces of epic level would be apocalyptic in scale.


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## KidSnide (Nov 29, 2010)

TwinBahamut said:


> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> > * Mass Combat - not the sort of mass combat where the players have dozens of units to control, but the sort of mass combat in which the armies are the terrain and the PCs can cause their front line to advance by destroying key enemies (leaders or swarms of soldiers).
> ...




I mostly agree.  At heroic tier, I don't think you need any special mass combat rules.  You just need "mob/swarm" style monsters that represent a unit of enemies.  It would be nice these monsters dissolved into some minions when they died, and it would also be nice to get rules for creating "companion" units for allies.

But I agree that the "epic" rules I described -- where the soldier units are relevant to victory, but not necessarily a direct threat to the PCs -- are also suitable to a number of paragon games.  That said, I tend to think of paragon characters as leading units, but not necessarily powerful enough to just stand in the middle of an enemy unit and hack away.

The epic game that you describe -- where the PCs are slaughtering an entire army themselves -- is definitely a useful type of scenario, although it seems like a special case to me.  (It's more of a chance to let the players revel in the unadulturated awesomeness of their characters than the climax of an epic adventure.)  But, yes, I agree that a full-scale military engagement with epic level characters is apocalyptic in scale.  Isn't that the point of epic level play?

Stepping back for a bit, I tend to think that mass combat suffers from the Battlesystem legacy.  I think a lot folks figure that mass combat has to focus on the units on the battlefield with the PCs just acting as special "hero units."  That's one valid approach, but it's not necessarily the best one.  GMs should be able to create a battlefield encounter where there are tons of soldiers (often from both sides) on the map _and_ past its edge, that matter to the fight without being the focus of the fight.  I think that sort of encounter is really missing from epic (and paragon) play in 4e.

-KS


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## catastrophic (Nov 29, 2010)

One of the great things about 4e is that it's combat can be rekinned. It's actually quite viable to reskin monters, as entire military units. In such a battle, each batalion would be a monster or a hero, with a pc controlling an enture batallion of troops, like a colum of knights, or a bunch of archers. The one bad egg product 'hard boiled armies' covered an idea like this.

Now this might seem 'same old same old', but even on the most basic level, it gives a player the ability to play a different role and build to the one they normally have. 

And byeond that, you can do all sort sof ool stuff. A rough list would be to half movement rates, make every 'creature' size large with reach 1, and use a lot more units than normal, pssibly making them retreat when they get bloodied. 

This would work at any tier, and at epic, you could mix pcs right in there by themself, taking on entire armored colums.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 29, 2010)

Howdy Ryujin! 



			
				Ryujin said:
			
		

> I have to agree, Upper Krust, that there's no need for dimension-hopping in Epic Tier. Some people point to things like Norse Mythology, as a guide to how Epic Tier should be handled; godlings fighting world-spanning serpents and defeating evil gods, and demons.
> 
> I see it differently.
> 
> I think of the epic tales of The Trials of Heracles and how Cuchulainn defended Ulster, against an army. Are they any less epic, in nature, because they involved the cleaning of a stable? The defeating of a human army? I don't think so.




Different people are going to have different opinions on what epic is or is not.

But for me there is a clear distinction between epic heroes and gods...

Achilles is an epic hero, Ares is a god.
Elric is an epic hero, Arioch is a god.
Conan is an epic hero, Dagoth is a god.

...but that doesn't mean the two cannot interact at a physical level.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 29, 2010)

Howdy SkyOdin! 



			
				SKyOdin said:
			
		

> Actually, no. I am strongly opposed to the idea of an Immortial Tier above Epic Tier.




One of my books next year won't be your cup of tea then.



> If you make a new Tier for that level of play, it would completely steal the role that Epic was intended to fulfill and further confuse and dilute the flavor of the various tiers. I don't think an Immortial Tier is needed because it would be fulfilling the exact role that Epic _should_ be filling right now.




I disagree. The epic tier is for roleplaying epic *mortal* heroes, the immortal tier would be for roleplaying as gods.

I don't see any dilution, but rather a clear distinction.



> That is just a list of famous or legendary heroes. I don't at all agree that many of them qualify as being Epic heroes. I would peg Achilles, Arthur, Beowulf, and Cu Chulainn as excellent examples of Paragon Tier heroes, actually.




I suppose a few of my examples could be argued either way.



> Those four are all heroes whose abilities are such that they can affect the fate of nations. Conan might just be a Heroic Tier hero, depending on author.




Conan I'll grant you, but only because his full life is basically documented, so we get to see his rise to power/prowess.



> Rama on the other hand, is an example of an Epic Tier hero, and you can clearly see a big difference between the Ramayana and some of the stories the others are from. Rama's opponents are the Rakshasas, lead by Ravana and his family, who by the start of Rama's journey, had already laid siege to the home of the gods and defeated them in battle. At the same time, Rama's companions include Hanuman, a demigod monkey who rips a mountain off of its foundation at one point.




I'd say any hero who has battled gods (or Anti-gods) in some capacity is an Epic Hero.



> I think that there is a risk in making Epic levels heroes too weak and small in scale, because the Epic tier would then be leeching away the awesomeness of Paragon Tier heroes, who still deserve their credit.




I think you could define it as...

Paragon Heroes...among the best in the land/country.
Epic Tier Heroes...among the best in the world.

In which case King Arthur is probably Paragon Tier, while Sir Lancelot is Epic Tier, as is probably Achilles.


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 29, 2010)

Howdy KidSnide! 



			
				KidSnide said:
			
		

> I think the biggest failure of the epic tier in 4e is the assumption by WotC that the epic-level play should feel like heroic and paragon level play.  To my mind, dungeon crawling is a distinctly heroic mode of play, but the 4e design assumption is that dungeon crawling _is_ the game -- at all tiers.  To have a good epic level game, you need epic-style game constructs.  For example, I'd like to see:




Totally agree.



> * Mass Combat - not the sort of mass combat where the players have dozens of units to control, but the sort of mass combat in which the armies are the terrain and the PCs can cause their front line to advance by destroying key enemies (leaders or swarms of soldiers).




Have these rules ready...they'll be in, not my next book but the one after that.



> * Super-Solos - I want to see enemies that are adventures, not just encounters.  There should be creatures big enough to be the terrain.  There should be creatures you have to fight in multi aspects (Lolth and some of the Sorcerer-Kings are good steps in this direction), but defeating a deity should be more than a single stat block.  Fighting a deity should take multiple encounters as the PCs have to destroy different aspects of the deity's power.  I find it a little appalling that Voltemort is so much harder to kill than the demon prince of undead.




Have these rules ready...just waiting for the appropriate book to put them in.



> * Changes in Mobility and Terrain - The 4e designers correctly noted that flying seriously changes the nature of combat, but their solution (to minimize it) undercut the nature of epic level play.  Epic level characters should all be able to move around in epic ways -- flying boots, super jump, teleportation or the like.  Epic level maps shouldn't be continuous walls and passages.  An epic encounter should have some areas distances of special terrain that impassible or deadly to mere mortals (chasms, lava, razor-bamboo, take your pick).  The limit to "dungeon-appropriate distances" in epic-level powers and equipment is yet another failure of imagination.




I have changes for this in the pipeline too, allowing characters make massive leaps, run helluva fast and so forth. Envision characters speeding like cannonballs through armies, knocking over those in their path as they wade through million strong hordes, then leaping hundreds of feet into the air to land on Godzilla's head, where the giant monster becomes the new terrain...



> Ultimately, I think the idea that "epic is core" in 4e is mostly illusory.  There are rules for creating characters of levels 21-30, but there isn't actually all that much support in the rules for playing characters (or writing adventures) that actually feel "epic."




I'll try and hurry up. 

*Pressed for time tonight. More replies tomorrow.*


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## Sunseeker (Nov 29, 2010)

The best solution to the "death of Epic Tier" is to play some Epic Tier, so I heartily challenge everyone to attempt it.  I admit I've never done it myself, so I think this week, i'll sit down and make some.  Maybe I'll come back here in a bit and post up what i've got.  

We can all make a thread about it, come up with unique, challenging, fun, interesting ideas for an "Epic tier event".  And then we can go back to our groups and run it, see how it goes.


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## Ryujin (Nov 29, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Howdy Ryujin!
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Agreed, though I would think that "physical interaction" between an epic hero and a god should generally come out very badly for the hero. Now INTELLECTUAL interaction, on the other hand.....


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## SKyOdin (Nov 29, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> I disagree. The epic tier is for roleplaying epic *mortal* heroes, the immortal tier would be for roleplaying as gods.
> 
> I don't see any dilution, but rather a clear distinction.



The truth is that the distinction between truly powerful mortals and gods can be somewhat vague in non-monotheistic religions. Confusing the issue is that there are many grey areas between mortal human and god, such as demi-gods and mortal incarnations of gods.

More than anything else though, epic heroes are supposed to be the strongest heroes who are capable of fighting off enemies that threaten the world as a whole. It isn't really possible to create a tier above that without weakening the basic premise of Epic Tier.



> I'd say any hero who has battled gods (or Anti-gods) in some capacity is an Epic Hero.



I will generally agree with that, though it depends somewhat on the god. The term god is pretty broadly defined in polytheistic religions. I wouldn't put the god of a minor river on par with Zeus, for example. The protective god of a single house would likewise not really count as being very epic.



> I think you could define it as...
> 
> Paragon Heroes...among the best in the land/country.
> Epic Tier Heroes...among the best in the world.
> ...



This I definitely have to disagree with. There is no way I would put Arthur and Lancelot in separate tiers, to start with. The kind of adventures the Knights of the Round go on tend to be generally similar, and all of them are roughly the same overall strength. Saying that Lancelot gets to be Epic tier is rather arbitrary. I would peg them both as being Paragon tier.

Moreover, being Epic isn't about being the strongest in the world. It is about being powerful enough to significantly change the world. By my reckoning, Epic level heroes should only show up once every few centuries within a D&D world, and leave a lasting impact whenever they do. Merely being the strongest in the world isn't enough to be Epic.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 30, 2010)

SKyOdin said:


> The truth is that the distinction between truly powerful mortals and gods can be somewhat vague in non-monotheistic religions. Confusing the issue is that there are many grey areas between mortal human and god, such as demi-gods and mortal incarnations of gods.
> 
> More than anything else though, epic heroes are supposed to be the strongest heroes who are capable of fighting off enemies that threaten the world as a whole. It isn't really possible to create a tier above that without weakening the basic premise of Epic Tier.
> 
> ...




There are other epic level beings in the world. Like PCs they probably have access to other planes or similar kinds of resources. Many are immortal and thus old and patient. It is also quite possible and probably desirable if some of these beings are human or of other demi-human races and perhaps not too different from the PCs. They are PROBABLY not capstone foes, but then again there are examples of those kinds of beings, mortals that become channels for the gods etc. PCs can do that too. I think all of this is fully envisaged in Epic. You should have an ED that is a STRONG story element. Nobody should be picking their ED for mechanical reasons. When you go against whatever it is you fight against at 30th level it should be like an inevitable destiny or central goal of the character to get there. There's no reason that goal has to have the label god, or demi-god, or whatever. It could be a Sorcerer King or it could be an Evil Wizard or undead Emperor or whatever.


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## Ultimatecalibur (Nov 30, 2010)

> This is the realm of Rama, Thor, Heracles, Susa-no-O and even Cthulhu.




I have heard Heracles mentioned several times as an "epic level hero". Not being too familiar with all the details of the hercules legend, what made him so epic?

From what I gather he was really really strong and beat a lot of big monsters. Sounds upper paragon perhaps, but Dnd epic level?


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## Sunseeker (Nov 30, 2010)

Ultimatecalibur said:


> *Warning: This post references Anime, Manga, Movies, Modern Fantasy Fiction and Video Games.*
> *snip*[/QUOTE]
> 
> I like this, it helps illustrate that "high levels" depend on the scope. If your adventurer's are only ever saving towns, then lvl10 is pretty darn awesome. Cities? Maybe now you need to be lvl20 to be as comparativly impressive. Galaxies/planes/dimensions? Even lvl30 is not so fantastic when the scope is so large.
> ...


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 30, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Personally, I think part of the issue people are having above is misunderstanding the concept of "god" in the D&D multiverse. A god, however mighty and powerful, is not THE God, nor is it even Zeus, who was incredibly powerful and near The-God-like. Though they have power beyond what most can imagine, that power has limits, many of them have been killed, beaten down, or contained. These gods, even the great ones, are much like the lower pantheons of classical mythologies. They have amazing powers...with limits...immortal life, but can be killed.




Perhaps I've missed something, but has anything actually labelled "god" been assigned statistical data in 4e?  I'm not talking about "some beings worship Orcus as a god" or the like -- I mean something like "Erathis is a god, and has the following statistics which can be used in combat against her."

Because although I will grant your point with regard to pre-4e D&D, I have seen no evidence that it still applies in 4e.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Nov 30, 2010)

Prestidigitalis said:


> Perhaps I've missed something, but has anything actually labelled "god" been assigned statistical data in 4e?  I'm not talking about "some beings worship Orcus as a god" or the like -- I mean something like "Erathis is a god, and has the following statistics which can be used in combat against her."
> 
> Because although I will grant your point with regard to pre-4e D&D, I have seen no evidence that it still applies in 4e.




Bahamut, Tiamat, and Lolth all have combat stat blocks. I think there was a general statement that the designers weren't interested in providing stat blocks generally for the "greater" gods (though there is no such precise term in 4e). There are also stat blocks for a significant number of Primordials, which are effectively at the god level of power even if they are not technically considered 'gods'. The stated desire IIRC is to avoid exactly this "we can kill Erathis" kind of thing. These kinds of beings probably CAN be defeated in some sense, perhaps even 'killed' under very specific circumstances but the intent seems to be only as a story element and not something players will just decide to do when they are bored on a Saturday afternoon.

The whole scope thing I think is generally what we've been talking about, but I think I would construct a rather different set of categories.


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## Stalker0 (Nov 30, 2010)

I have heard Heracles mentioned several times as an "epic level hero". Not being too familiar with all the details of the hercules legend, what made him so epic?

From what I gather he was really really strong and beat a lot of big monsters. Sounds upper paragon perhaps, but Dnd epic level?


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## Upper_Krust (Nov 30, 2010)

Hey Ryujin! 



			
				Ryujin said:
			
		

> Agreed, though *I would think that "physical interaction" between an epic hero and a god should generally come out very badly for the hero. *Now INTELLECTUAL interaction, on the other hand.....




Which is why the heroes...

A. Usually bring along a bunch of 3-4 friends to even the odds.
B. Usually have some sort of uber-macguffin, like Stormbringer to even the odds.
C. Undertake some quest that will weaken the god or thin out the ranks of the gods servants.

*Annoyingly pressed for time again tonight but should be back on track tomorrow...I hope.*


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## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Hey Ryujin!
> 
> 
> 
> ...




... or engage in a tricksterish test of intellect which the godling either grudgingly admits defeat in, or is pressed to admit it by his fellow godlings


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## SKyOdin (Nov 30, 2010)

Stalker0 said:


> I have heard Heracles mentioned several times as an "epic level hero". Not being too familiar with all the details of the hercules legend, what made him so epic?
> 
> From what I gather he was really really strong and beat a lot of big monsters. Sounds upper paragon perhaps, but Dnd epic level?




Heracles is a bit of a tricky case to figure out. On one hand, many of the monsters he is famous for defeating are used as common D&D monsters. On the other hand, he performed some truly incredible feats of strength. In order to get the golden apples, he made a bargain with the Titan Atlas, in which Heracles agreed to hold the heavens on his shoulders for a few hours in Atlas' place. Similarly, Heracles supposedly created the 'Pillars of Hercules', the massive rocks on either side of the Straight of Gibraltar (in another version, Heracles pulverized a mountainside to create the Straight).

Of course, the monsters Heracles fought were in a very different league than their D&D equivalents. Most of them were the direct offspring of Typhon, the most powerful of all monsters whom even the gods feared. Among them was Cerberus, the guardian of the gates of the underworld, whom Heracles had to subdue and capture alive without weapons as his final labor.

What also serves to elevate Heracles to Epic Tier was that he did become a god after his death as a mortal being. There were numerous temples dedicated to him in the ancient world.


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## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2010)

He was also the son of Zeus and Alcmene, a human woman. Demigods get a leg-up on the Epic thing.


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## Sunseeker (Nov 30, 2010)

Prestidigitalis said:


> Perhaps I've missed something, but has anything actually labelled "god" been assigned statistical data in 4e? I'm not talking about "some beings worship Orcus as a god" or the like -- I mean something like "Erathis is a god, and has the following statistics which can be used in combat against her."
> 
> Because although I will grant your point with regard to pre-4e D&D, I have seen no evidence that it still applies in 4e.




As was pointed out, some gods and Primordials have stat blocks, which set a precedent that gods DO have stats, and that if you follow these designs, you could, theoretically, stat any god.  

Likewise, some gods are more story elements, they don't have stats, but based on the precedents for other gods, the particular story surrounding said god, you could stat them and therefore, kill them.


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## Ultimatecalibur (Nov 30, 2010)

Where to start on Heracles? Birth is most likely best.

Strangled two divinely sent serpents as a newborn baby, one in each hand.

Strangled the Nemean Lion whose hide could not be peirce by arrow or blade and turned its hide into his famous armor after skinning it with its own claws.

Slew 8 of the 9 heads of the Lernean Hydra and buried the final immortal one under a rock. Also note the Hydra had not just regenerating heads, but a deadly poison aura that had killed everything else for miles.

Captured the Ceryneian Hind (also know as the Golden Hind), a creature so fast it could out run an arrow in flight.

Captured the Erymanthian Boar. A Giant Boar that depending on the version of the story may have been the God Ares himself.

Cleaned out a stable of 1000 cattle that hadn't been cleaned in 30 years by redirecting 2 major rivers.

Killed a flock of maneating birds with metal beaks and metallic feathers that they could launch like darts.

Captured the Cretan Bull, possible father of the Minotaur.

Stole 4 man-eating mares from the demigod giant Diomedes, son of Ares.

Seduced the Amazon Queen Hippolyta, daughter of Ares, for her magic girdle, a present from her father.

Stole a herd of divine cattle from Geryon, a 6-armed 3-headed giant, and Orthrus, the 2-headed brother of Cerberus. 

Caught the Old Man of the Sea, a shapeshifting sea god.

Killed the giant Antaeus, son of Gaia and Poseiden, who was unbeatable as long as he touched the ground.

Held up the heavens while Titan Atlas went to get the famous golden apples from his daughters.

Journied to the underworld and then captured and carried Cerberus back to the surface.

Free the Titan Prometheus from his divine bondage.

Beat Death in a wrestling match inorder to save the lives of his host and hostess.

Challenged the Dionysus, God of Wine, to a drinking contest which he barely lost.

Killed the hundred headed serpent Ladon.

Beat the river god Achelous.

Of note is that the Lernean Hydra, Nemian Lion, Orthrus, Ladon and Cerberus were all the spawn of Thypon, a monster Zeus and his brothers could not kill and had to trap under a mountain, and Echidna, the Mother of All Monsters.


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## the Jester (Nov 30, 2010)

Prestidigitalis said:


> Perhaps I've missed something, but has anything actually labelled "god" been assigned statistical data in 4e?




Tons of them. Vecna, Bahamut, Tiamat, Bane (? IIRC he's in one of the early 4e Dragons issues, but maybe it's just his aspect or something)... prolly one or two more.


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## chaochou (Nov 30, 2010)

I think one of the problems here is that to be a 'god' means to be more than HP and AC and a bunch of powers and actions.

It means to be the physical representation of something which mortals experience - summer or winter or death or agriculture. You kill the god of music, music no longer exists, either physically or conceptually.

Playing that level of game is one thing, but creating the environment where players are ready to take on that responsibility and have something they believe in so strongly that they want and need to be 'god' of it is more difficult.

I don't like the way PCs hit level 21 and suddenly its 'WHAM! You are now godlike!' Especially if at earlier levels you could essentially bumble through by killing everything and picking up the treasure.

To make it work you need to be sowing the seeds of plot and drama and character way before then. Like a PCs first love has been turned undead (when he was, say, level 8). He's tried all kinds of quests and rituals and whatnot to get her back, and failed and failed and failed. And finally (at level 21) he goes 'Screw you Orcus, things just got personal.'

And the party quests and battles and plots and eventually kills Orcus, and undeath no longer exists for a while (until some author with a vivid imagination goes and writes Frankenstein and he seeps slowly back into the world). But what really happened is the hero got the girl - killing Orcus wasn't IT. It's just how the story to get the girl played out.

This is the way I see Epic level. PCs can get stuff done by rearranging the concepts that create the world. But the responsibility lies with the GM to provide meaning to that world such that they have personal stuff they need to get done.

These ideas don't come from running or playing D&D, btw. These are Herowars ideas, but I think they fit the discussion.


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## Jack99 (Nov 30, 2010)

the Jester said:


> Tons of them. Vecna, Bahamut, Tiamat, Bane (? IIRC he's in one of the early 4e Dragons issues, but maybe it's just his aspect or something)... prolly one or two more.




Just Bane's aspects...


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 30, 2010)

the Jester said:


> Tons of them. Vecna, Bahamut, Tiamat, Bane (? IIRC he's in one of the early 4e Dragons issues, but maybe it's just his aspect or something)... prolly one or two more.




Okay, you guys win.  I stay away from the MM's in order to stay in the dark where my DMs prefer to keep me, so I hadn't known about it.  The only one I've read is MM1, and the closest it got was Orcus.


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## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2010)

chaochou said:


> It means to be the physical representation of something which mortals experience - summer or winter or death or agriculture. You kill the god of music, music no longer exists, either physically or conceptually.




Or, if you've read Piers Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" series, you BECOME 'Music.'


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## Aegeri (Dec 1, 2010)

the Jester said:


> Tons of them. Vecna, Bahamut, Tiamat, Bane (? IIRC he's in one of the early 4e Dragons issues, but maybe it's just his aspect or something)... prolly one or two more.




Primordials, Gods, Archfiends and Daemon Princes (some of whom were Gods/Primordials)

Vecna (level 35 solo, Open Grave)
Kyuss (Level 31 solo, Open Grave)
Orcus (Level 33 solo, MM1; Level 34 solo, E3)
Dagon (Level 32 solo, MM2)
Demogorgon (Level 34 solo, MM2)
Lolth (Level 35 solo, MM3)
Allabar, Opener of the Way (Level 30 solo, MM3)
Imix (Level 32 solo, MM3)
Ogremoch (Level 32? solo, MM3)
Blazing Rorn the Fury (Level 33 solo, Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide*)
Graz'zt (Level 32 solo, Manual of the Planes)
Oublivae (Level 30 solo, Demonomicon)
Pazuzu** (Level 33 solo, Demonomicon)
Torog (Level 34 solo, Underdark)
Tiamat (Level 35 solo, Draconomicon I)
Bahamut (Level 36 solo, Draconomicon II)

Of these, Vecna, Torog, Tiamat, Bahamut and Lolth are Gods. Everything else is a primordial, daemon prince or archfiend. With upgrading damage values, I still think that Tiamat is the strongest solo of the list. Also Bane was never statted because he's arguably beyond level 36. Designers at the time during the drama of "Why no stats?!" pointed out he'd be likely to be around level *38*. So is in fact well out of the general reach of all but the absolutely best optimized PCs.

*I do wonder how many people even realize this guy exists.
**He is either immensely ridiculous or just ridiculous, depending on how you read a certain power.

Edit2: After a bit of dinner, I remembered there are actually some others I forgot to list.

Phraxas the Decayed (Level 31 solo, Demonomicon)
Kostchtchie (Level 31 solo, Demonomicon)
Turaglas (Level 30 solo, Dragon Magazine 376)
Bel-Shalor (Level 34 solo, Eberron Campaign Guide)***
Geryon, the Broken Beast (Level 30 controller, Dungeon Magazine 176)
Solkara (Level 34 controller, The Plane Below)****

You can tell from these lists that if you like Daemons, you have So. Many. Options. I mean look how many level 30+ epic demons there are! Primordials and Gods make up the rest of it. Personally, I would like to see a _lot_ more variety here, even if that means going and filling out some Devils. I actually think that Geryon may be the _only_ level 30+ devil in all of 4E! There are lots of great archfiends that we could have as well, especially if wizards makes a book for devils ala Demonomicon (hint hint).

***Strictly put, he doesn't really fit the criteria, but in terms of being an epic level solo that is a demon who dooms the entire world if he wakes up he is relevant. Also note that despite the time he was published, he's arguably one of the most effective solos in the game.

****I concede I only remembered her at literally the last moment now. She does have one of the most literally hilarious powers ever though, which makes it even odder that I forgot about her. No offense intended Solkara, <3


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## pemerton (Dec 1, 2010)

chaochou said:


> Playing that level of game is one thing, but creating the environment where players are ready to take on that responsibility and have something they believe in so strongly that they want and need to be 'god' of it is more difficult.
> 
> I don't like the way PCs hit level 21 and suddenly its 'WHAM! You are now godlike!' Especially if at earlier levels you could essentially bumble through by killing everything and picking up the treasure.
> 
> ...



I agree that HeroWars gives a good handle on how to approach Epic play. I think there is also some good stuff in The Plane Above - I posted on this when that book came out.

The only part of your post I'd quibble with is where you say "the responsibility lies with the GM to provide meaning". I think the GM bears the responsibility to make this sort of meaning possible - by doing things like killing off the girlfriend at level 8 - but the players also have to be prepared to invest in the game and in their PCs. Luckily 4e has (in my view) a lot of easy ins for the players - the Raven Queen, the split between the branches of elvenkind, a good variety of demons and devils, an interesting god of civilization combined with a post-civilization/points of light gameworld, etc. These are also features that integrate the planar bias of Epic (which I agree is very obvious) with a concern for the PC's own world (which I agree is an important part of emotionally engaging the players).

In a game that focuses on gods and themes that (at least to my eye) don't provide the same easy ins - eg Pelor as a prominent god (where's the drama?), exploring dungeons on the Outer Isles of the Astral Plane, hanging out in Sigil, mapping the Elemental Chaos - then I can see that Epic Destinies and the Epic Tier might be harder to motivate and extract engaging play from.


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## Peraion Graufalke (Dec 1, 2010)

Aegeri said:


> Primordials, Gods, Archfiends and Daemon Princes (some of whom were Gods/Primordials)




Adding to the list (now with Archfey):

Yeenoghu, Demon Prince of Gnolls (Level 28 solo, Dragon #364)
Mual-Tar, the Thunder Serpent (Level 35 solo, Dragon #370)
Alloces, the Butcher of Nessus (Level 28 elite, Dragon #373)
The Prince of Frost (Level 31 solo, Dragon #374)
Koliada, the Winter Witch (Level 26 solo, Dungeon #162)
Codricuhn, the Blood Storm (Level 27 solo, Dungeon #172)
Balcoth, the Groaning King (Level 33 solo, Dungeon #178)
Baphomet (Level 28 solo, Manual of the Planes)
Dispater (Level 28 solo, Manual of the Planes)
Zuggtmoy, the Lady of Decay (Level 22 solo, Demonomicon)
Belashyrra, the Lord of Eyes (Level 28 solo, Eberron Campaign Guide)

Ogrémoch is Level 34, btw.


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## chaochou (Dec 1, 2010)

pemerton said:


> The only part of your post I'd quibble with is where you say "the responsibility lies with the GM to provide meaning". I think the GM bears the responsibility to make this sort of meaning possible - by doing things like killing off the girlfriend at level 8 - but the players also have to be prepared to invest in the game and in their PCs.




Agree, totally. The players have to take the opportunities to connect with the in-game world. In my experience most players will, but they tend  to follow the GM's lead in terms of style. If I run 20 levels  of dungeon crawl variants it'll be hard to suddenly get them to switch to  developing narrative hooks and emotional ties for their characters.

Also agree that there are lots of interesting themes for Epic tier to pursue - I'm slowly prepping a campaign and thinking about how to get some of those into play to see what grabs the PCs attention.


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## KidSnide (Dec 1, 2010)

chaochou said:


> Agree, totally. The players have to take the opportunities to connect with the in-game world. In my experience most players will, but they tend  to follow the GM's lead in terms of style. If I run 20 levels  of dungeon crawl variants it'll be hard to suddenly get them to switch to  developing narrative hooks and emotional ties for their characters.
> 
> Also agree that there are lots of interesting themes for Epic tier to pursue - I'm slowly prepping a campaign and thinking about how to get some of those into play to see what grabs the PCs attention.




This is actually one of the other problems with epic-level play.  The vast majority of epic foes are extra-planar is nature.  Although the outer planes can always be a threat to the PCs' homeland, epic-level play tends to involve the PCs leaving the locations and NPCs to which they have developed attachments.  That's a major barrier for the games I tend to play/run.

Related, I find the 21-30 nature of the epic tier to also be a little problematic.  To my mind, a standard use of the epic tier should be as the last adventure to a campaign, not the last third.  In a campaign arc that isn't supposed to end with fighting a demon prince / god, there's only so much epic gameplay to be had.  However, it seems to me that epic destinies and the character generation rules would make a level 1-23 game a bit of a bummer for the players.  Thoughts?

-KS


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## Barastrondo (Dec 1, 2010)

Epic tier is a somewhat contested subject among my group. At least one player would like to keep playing until he runs out of levels (and accordingly isn't a fan of the mandated retirement at 31st); another is very uninterested in epic tier, and would rather see closure at the top of paragon.

I also see the ghettoization of epic content as kind of a problem. KidSnide, your observation's spot on. I run a pretty social game, so many of my players are interested in relationships with NPCs they've been hanging around since the early levels. Not just romantic relationships, mind: mentorships, rivalries, friendships, even things like playing matchmaker between NPCs. Stuff that goes on in between adventures. As designed, epic tier is meant either to take place somewhere outside that world or to draw the players' attention to the world-shaking threats it represents, discouraging them from spending casual time in a peaceful setting. 

Personally, I'd like to see epic tier addressed more from the perspective of people who are running multiple games simultaneously at different levels in the same world. I come from a long tradition of jumping around: having one group at 11th level, another at 5th, and a brand-new group starting at 1st, in different regions. It would be interesting to see some more attention placed on ways for one group to have epic adventures actually _in_ the world, without necessarily changing the world such that now the other two groups' games are about the world-changing stuff that the epic-tier party brought with them. It's a difficult approach to take, and if the answer is "you shouldn't do it: either break off epic tier into other planes, or make the whole world about what the epic tier is doing," then that's not a good sell.


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## Prestidigitalis (Dec 1, 2010)

Call me old fashioned, but I don't consider arch demons and the like to be gods unless WotC spells out "god" in their description, and not merely as "is worshipped as a god".  So "Zbggglmnnn is a demon god" -- check.  "Zbggglmnnn is an arch demon, worshipped as a god by cockroaches and sentient navel lint" -- nope.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 1, 2010)

Prestidigitalis said:


> Call me old fashioned, but I don't consider arch demons and the like to be gods unless WotC spells out "god" in their description, and not merely as "is worshipped as a god".  So "Zbggglmnnn is a demon god" -- check.  "Zbggglmnnn is an arch demon, worshipped as a god by cockroaches and sentient navel lint" -- nope.




Meh. God, Primordial, Demon Prince, Arch Fey. The lines are pretty blurry if you ask me. They are all "super powerful mystical entities" of whatever sort. At least in my campaign the inhabitants of the world are pretty unclear on these kinds of distinctions. Knowledge of other planes of existence etc is a pretty rare commodity. Different types of entities go by all sorts of names and there is plenty of confusing misinformation and partial knowledge. One source might call Rorn an "Elder God" and another might call him a "Demon". Neither may be precisely correct but they aren't exactly WRONG from the perspective of mere mortals either. A high level wizard or religious expert might well understand the different to whatever degree it matters but to the vast majority of inhabitants of the world they are all just powerful beings, bad, good, or indifferent.

I don't see where it makes any real difference in play in other words if Demogorgon is a demon or an evil god. He's a bad guy. He does bad things. You want to stop him and maybe lop his head off if you can. It might come into the plot that you need some specific potency against demons to defeat him and that same magic isn't going to affect an Arch Fey but the characters can learn and research that stuff. It is all just labels and shouldn't be the focus of things in general except as much as it adds interest to the background.


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## KidSnide (Dec 1, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> I also see the ghettoization of epic content as kind of a problem. KidSnide, your observation's spot on. I run a pretty social game, so many of my players are interested in relationships with NPCs they've been hanging around since the early levels. Not just romantic relationships, mind: mentorships, rivalries, friendships, even things like playing matchmaker between NPCs. Stuff that goes on in between adventures. As designed, epic tier is meant either to take place somewhere outside that world or to draw the players' attention to the world-shaking threats it represents, discouraging them from spending casual time in a peaceful setting.
> 
> Personally, I'd like to see epic tier addressed more from the perspective of people who are running multiple games simultaneously at different levels in the same world. I come from a long tradition of jumping around: having one group at 11th level, another at 5th, and a brand-new group starting at 1st, in different regions. It would be interesting to see some more attention placed on ways for one group to have epic adventures actually _in_ the world, without necessarily changing the world such that now the other two groups' games are about the world-changing stuff that the epic-tier party brought with them. It's a difficult approach to take, and if the answer is "you shouldn't do it: either break off epic tier into other planes, or make the whole world about what the epic tier is doing," then that's not a good sell.




I think there are three choices:

1) You can run a game in an epic world, not unlike the Illiad (at least under certain interpretations), where gods and demi-gods are sometimes physically presents and impossible epic tasks are expected.  That isn't to say that every kingdom has an epic ruler - an epic level king would be the exception.  It's just that there is a meaningful population of unique epic heroes and monsters that common folk avoid tangling with.  (Forgotten Realms games are probably best run with this perspective, although the tone of that world can be very inconsistent with it's power level.)

2) You can run a game in which epic threats are the rare exception.  In this world, epic heroes are vanishingly rare and an epic threat is a major concern for everyone.  A story line in this could end with a epic threat, but that would be the exception, not the rule and a failure in confronting the epic threat could have massive reverberations in the world.  That isn't to say that non-epic stories can't take place at the same time, but a well-known epic threat could dominate the world's attention in the same way that, say, World War II dominated the world's attention in the early 1940s.

3) You can run a game in which there are many epic threats, but they are ghettoized to the outer planes (or some other arena).  This is the D&D default, and it has the advantage of allowing writers to work on epic story for the default D&D world without having that story interfere with the generic heroic/paragon world.  So, from WotC's perspective, this makes a lot of sense, but -- if you actually want to run a game with epic content -- this non-integrated structure seems worse to me than either of the other alternatives.

-KS


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## Sunseeker (Dec 1, 2010)

chaochou said:


> I think one of the problems here is that to be a 'god' means to be more than HP and AC and a bunch of powers and actions.
> 
> It means to be the physical representation of something which mortals experience - summer or winter or death or agriculture. You kill the god of music, music no longer exists, either physically or conceptually.



I disagree, but that's mostly because I'm more of an objectivist in this case.  Music will continue to exist, as will the seasons, storms, ect...  The gods are representations of those things, if those things cease to exist, so do their gods, but I do not believe the reverse it true.



> Playing that level of game is one thing, but creating the environment where players are ready to take on that responsibility and have something they believe in so strongly that they want and need to be 'god' of it is more difficult.
> 
> I don't like the way PCs hit level 21 and suddenly its 'WHAM! You are now godlike!' Especially if at earlier levels you could essentially bumble through by killing everything and picking up the treasure.
> 
> ...




This however, is a wonderful way to forfill those "epic destinies".


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## chaochou (Dec 1, 2010)

KidSnide said:


> Related, I find the 21-30 nature of the epic tier to also be a little problematic.  To my mind, a standard use of the epic tier should be as the last adventure to a campaign, not the last third.  In a campaign arc that isn't supposed to end with fighting a demon prince / god, there's only so much epic gameplay to be had.  However, it seems to me that epic destinies and the character generation rules would make a level 1-23 game a bit of a bummer for the players.  Thoughts?
> 
> -KS




Yes, I'd personally want to use Epic tier as the culmination of a story-line. I couldn't just keep throwing new 'epic' stuff at PCs (in any game) without it being founded in some sort of pre-epic story or intrigue.

With limited credible opposition, taking out the story's central villain would be the end. I think there are plotlines to make it more than upping stat blocks for a few fights - splitting the party and forcing them to fight in pairs to mount crystals in temples thousands of miles apart simultaneously to take down a magical ward, cutting deals with my enemy's enemy and subsequent betrayal, etc.

I don't know whether I could sustain that for 10 levels. I guess I'd keep going until we were all ready for the story outcome to be decided.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 1, 2010)

Hello again SkyOdin! 



			
				SKyOdin said:
			
		

> The truth is that the distinction between truly powerful mortals and gods can be somewhat vague in non-monotheistic religions.




Thats because all power is relative.



> Confusing the issue is that there are many grey areas between mortal human and god, such as demi-gods and mortal incarnations of gods.




Absolutely.



> More than anything else though, epic heroes are supposed to be the strongest heroes who are capable of fighting off enemies that threaten the world as a whole. It isn't really possible to create a tier above that without weakening the basic premise of Epic Tier.




I disagree. How about an Immortal Tier where immortal heroes battle foes who threaten the universe/reality itself...?



> I will generally agree with that, though it depends somewhat on the god. The term god is pretty broadly defined in polytheistic religions. I wouldn't put the god of a minor river on par with Zeus, for example. The protective god of a single house would likewise not really count as being very epic.




As you note, the lines are blurred.



> This I definitely have to disagree with. There is no way I would put Arthur and Lancelot in separate tiers, to start with. The kind of adventures the Knights of the Round go on tend to be generally similar, and all of them are roughly the same overall strength. Saying that Lancelot gets to be Epic tier is rather arbitrary. I would peg them both as being Paragon tier.




The whole point of Lancelot (introduced later by the French) was that he's better than Arthur and that Arthur had to cheat (using Excalibur) to beat him.



> Moreover, being Epic isn't about being the strongest in the world. It is about being powerful enough to significantly change the world. By my reckoning, Epic level heroes should only show up once every few centuries within a D&D world, and leave a lasting impact whenever they do. Merely being the strongest in the world isn't enough to be Epic.




Depends upon the narrative. You have to ask yourself how did those purporting to be the strongest in the world actually get to that position, what were their deeds?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 1, 2010)

KidSnide said:


> I think there are three choices:
> 
> 1) You can run a game in an epic world, not unlike the Illiad (at least under certain interpretations), where gods and demi-gods are sometimes physically presents and impossible epic tasks are expected.  That isn't to say that every kingdom has an epic ruler - an epic level king would be the exception.  It's just that there is a meaningful population of unique epic heroes and monsters that common folk avoid tangling with.  (Forgotten Realms games are probably best run with this perspective, although the tone of that world can be very inconsistent with it's power level.)
> 
> ...




I think there are a lot of permutations of theme, tone, and relationship of epic play to the rest of the game and setting. Some combinations are likely to work better than others of course. 

All of them IMHO generally involve epic play being tied to a fairly deep story is what I'm getting out of the whole discussion. You can run an epic tier dungeon crawl if you WANT, but it is a square peg for a round hole. Whatever the other elements present things need to regularly go 'over the top' in epic, that's where it likes to live. 

Now, this may well mean that some settings aren't really ideally suited to at least some styles of epic play. Eberron has always struck me as a setting that is more attuned to low/mid level intrigue with maybe a topping of paragon level PCs going around reordering things they way they like them and/or running up against major powers of the world. It doesn't seem like a setting that readily admits of characters messing with the gears of creation much as those gears are pretty abstract at best. It doesn't have much of a good vs evil kind of dichotomy either, so exactly what ARE you fighting for at epic? One solution there would be having the evil come to you. The characters could do a decent epic run of "our little land against the big evil" or something. That could end with a touch of the big stuff, driving back an invasion from the evil dream land or whatever, with maybe a journey to one or another of the planes at the top of it, but instead of defeating some singular opponent it would be more like sealing a gate for 10,000 years or something.


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## Ryujin (Dec 1, 2010)

IMHO an Epic dungeon crawl should play like a MC Escher painting or a tesseract. On that level, it's doable and reasonable.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 1, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> IMHO an Epic dungeon crawl should play like a MC Escher painting or a tesseract. On that level, it's doable and reasonable.




Thank you for such an amazing suggestion!

I think I'll work this in to a one-shot epic-tier battle.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 1, 2010)

Hello KidSnide! 



			
				KidSnide said:
			
		

> This is actually one of the other problems with epic-level play.  The vast majority of epic foes are extra-planar is nature.  Although the outer planes can always be a threat to the PCs' homeland, epic-level play tends to involve the PCs leaving the locations and NPCs to which they have developed attachments.  That's a major barrier for the games I tend to play/run.




I am curious as to why is it a barrier in your games? 

While I agree with you that epic foes are perhaps too planar-centric, I don't see the big problem in that.

For instance, in the Star Wars Universe, it didn't hurt that there was no defacto 'home world', because the galaxy was a big place.

Maybe it was because in our own epic campaign we roleplayed across multiple different planets, that I don't have the same intrinsic attachment to any single world.



> Related, I find the 21-30 nature of the epic tier to also be a little problematic.  To my mind, a standard use of the epic tier should be as the last adventure to a campaign, not the last third.  In a campaign arc that isn't supposed to end with fighting a demon prince / god, *there's only so much epic gameplay to be had. * However, it seems to me that epic destinies and the character generation rules would make a level 1-23 game a bit of a bummer for the players.  Thoughts?




Why is the Epic Tier only the campaign-ender? I would have thought its where you unleash the 'super-powers' and crank the dials up to 11.

I did a lot of roleplaying in an epic campaign and it never grew stale, nor required continuous one-upmanship (of the scale) to sustain interest.

We had massive wars, demonic invasions, time travelling, duels between deities*, giant aliens trying to eat the planet (and the mad cult aiding them), cross-genre adventures (modern, sci-fi), undead empires, planar politics, alien wizards from the past, reawakening overgods, invading humans from another world, mega-dragons and loads of other escapades. 

*and demigods. 

So, in a nutshell, I disagree there is only so much epic gaming to be had.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 1, 2010)

Howdy Ryujin! 



			
				Ryujin said:
			
		

> IMHO an Epic dungeon crawl should play like a MC Escher painting or a tesseract. On that level, it's doable and reasonable.




...if only I'd thought of that...



			
				Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> - A later encounter involves a demigod's (*Escher-style*) throne room where he controls the gravity...and he's a Skirmisher. Better hope you end the round on the same face he's upon.


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## KidSnide (Dec 1, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> > This is actually one of the other problems with epic-level play.  The vast majority of epic foes are extra-planar is nature.  Although the outer planes can always be a threat to the PCs' homeland, epic-level play tends to involve the PCs leaving the locations and NPCs to which they have developed attachments.  That's a major barrier for the games I tend to play/run.
> ...




In my game, the extra-planar nature of epic foes is problematic because my game is about the PCs and their interaction with their world and its institutions.  Their objectives are to change the world in ways they want and prevent it from being changed in ways they hate.  Because success and failure is all about the repercussions, the game wouldn't have much meaning if it took place in a place where they weren't invested.

I don't think the Star Wars example applies here.  In a Star Wars game, the galaxy *is* the game world.  It's not about the planet -- it's about the scope of where the PCs have interests and connections.  If you want to play a Planescape style game, the planar nature of epic foes isn't a problem at all.  In fact epic foes are very nicely integrated into the Planescape gameworld (notwithstanding issues of edition conversion).



Upper_Krust said:


> Why is the Epic Tier only the campaign-ender? I would have thought its where you unleash the 'super-powers' and crank the dials up to 11.
> 
> I did a lot of roleplaying in an epic campaign and it never grew stale, nor required continuous one-upmanship (of the scale) to sustain interest.
> 
> ...




I don't think the epic tier is limited to the campaign ender for _every_ game.  I just think it's properly limited to the campaign ender for _many_ games, and that's just because it's in the nature of the game.  Your list of epic adventure themes is great, but it's a great list of a particular genre.  If my game revolves around Court intrigue and the politics of a set list of  nations, it's a major genre-busting curveball to introduce a giant alien trying to eat the planet.  

To take a more specific example, I think it was a mistake (game design wise) for War of the Burning Sky to stretch from levels 1 to 30.  I tend to think the foes at the end of that game are more appropriate for low-epic tier play, which makes sense if you consider that it was originally design to stretch from levels 1 to 20 in 3e.  (Quick aside: WoBS isn't flawless, but it is fantastic.)  Similarly, my 13-year campaign ended with a glorious time-travelling, demigod-fighting conclusion in which the PCs concluded the campaign by deciding to destroy their own planet.  That's clearly epic play in my book, but it was only the last adventure.  The existence of a single time-traveling, demi-god-making epic device had been the central focus of the campaign for almost a decade.  It would have been totally bizarre to add a second or third epic threat on top of it.

So, yes, I agree that there's no limit to the amount of epic gaming you _*can*_ do.  But there is often a limit to how much epic gaming makes sense for a given campaign, and I don't think the current epic rules do a very good job of supporting those scenarios.

-KS


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## Barastrondo (Dec 1, 2010)

KidSnide said:


> In my game, the extra-planar nature of epic foes is problematic because my game is about the PCs and their interaction with their world and its institutions.  Their objectives are to change the world in ways they want and prevent it from being changed in ways they hate.  Because success and failure is all about the repercussions, the game wouldn't have much meaning if it took place in a place where they weren't invested.




Yeah, exactly. The obstacles I have with adopting epic gaming have nothing to do with world-spanning or multiplanar campaigns that are designed with epic-level play in mind from the beginning. I've pretty much run epic fantasy and it worked great: did a fantasy Champions game for several years, in a world designed to provide them with lots of antics.

The hiccups I have with 4e epic gaming in particular are entirely personal: they have to do with a world that the players are attached to, that was not built with epic-level gaming in mind from the very beginning. It was built back in 2e, and I have never been allowed to stop running it. (Not that I mind!) The places that the PCs call home don't jive well with epic-level play, and their character concepts are usually quite grounded. I know how to build a world designed for epic play; there's rather less support for integrating epic play with a more heroic/paragon-themed setting without changing the mood entirely, if that's even desirable.


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## Crazy Jerome (Dec 1, 2010)

I've sometimes wondered if a bit of mechanical support for "increasing power brings increasing difficulties," wouldn't help here? Not that it would solve every issue, but might make some of the issues easier to manage. And I actually see this emerging in late heroic to early paragon. I've had no experience with 4E epic tier yet, but from what I read in this topic and elsewhere, I have no reason to expect that it wouldn't apply.

Anyway, a mechanic that would work should probably involve some kind of negative feedback from increasing power. Consider the older versions of Runequest, with increasing Size and Power making the character much more capable, but having more difficulties hiding, sneaking, etc--only on a more widespread basis. Think of that as something tied to character level, only with a more metaphysical scope.

For example, assume that character (and monster and magic item and spell) level directly correlates with how easy it is for other beings of similar power to know where you are, what you did, what you touched, etc. By the time you hit 30th level, every other being of 30th level or greater, can nearly always determine what you've done, if they care to spend some modest effort looking. 

This has an effect, not unlike the "polite society" portrayed in the American Western. Everyone is armed, and everyone is prepared to use it, if you get snotty enough. So "killing Orcus" is terribly rude--and rude is the last thing you want to be. No, it's not enough to sneak in and kill him. You've got to make him "draw" first. You've got to make him give you cause, and in a way that everyone else knows about (and will bother to look). 

Now, in the mythology (and similar stories) that I've enjoyed, this is seldom explicit. About the closest I can think to making it explicit is some of the Roger Zelazny stories. ("Lord of Light" is a particuarly good example.) But the above is often the tone. It's rather assumed that beings don't want to make a move because it leaves them open to threats from a dozen other beings that are watching. 

So then what happens is that beings spend a lot of time trying to find ways to circumvent this fact of "relative power omniscience". They hire agents of significantly lesser power, often indirectly. They try to come up with ways to block discovery. They arrange for "threats" to present themselves to get their opponents to make a move first. And all the while, they meet in appropriately epic locations for social gatherings, where they all make catty comments to each other and watch for reactions. 

The gods, of course, are distinct from merely powerful beings because they have developed effective ways to get around "relative power omniscience."


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## Sunseeker (Dec 1, 2010)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Anyway, a mechanic that would work should probably involve some kind of negative feedback from increasing power. Consider the older versions of Runequest, with increasing Size and Power making the character much more capable, but having more difficulties hiding, sneaking, etc--only on a more widespread basis. Think of that as something tied to character level, only with a more metaphysical scope.
> 
> For example, assume that character (and monster and magic item and spell) level directly correlates with how easy it is for other beings of similar power to know where you are, what you did, what you touched, etc. By the time you hit 30th level, every other being of 30th level or greater, can nearly always determine what you've done, if they care to spend some modest effort looking.



That is, what I've always felt actually happens. At low levels, YOU run into the problems. Bandits, undead, wolves, and the usual assortment of critters that exist in the world.

As you level, foes become more of "I was wandering around and found them." to "I was wandering around...and they found me."



> This has an effect, not unlike the "polite society" portrayed in the American Western. Everyone is armed, and everyone is prepared to use it, if you get snotty enough. So "killing Orcus" is terribly rude--and rude is the last thing you want to be. No, it's not enough to sneak in and kill him. You've got to make him "draw" first. You've got to make him give you cause, and in a way that everyone else knows about (and will bother to look).



As someone mentioned earlier, this is a great basis for getting characters involved in the story. Young Fred did all he could to save his love, but death(Orcus) still claimed her. Now Fred vows to destroy Orcus to save his love. Cheesy? Sure, but Orcus has "fired the first shot"(at least to fred's mind), and thus he now seeks to destroy him.



> So then what happens is that beings spend a lot of time trying to find ways to circumvent this fact of "relative power omniscience". They hire agents of significantly lesser power, often indirectly. They try to come up with ways to block discovery. They arrange for "threats" to present themselves to get their opponents to make a move first. And all the while, they meet in appropriately epic locations for social gatherings, where they all make catty comments to each other and watch for reactions.
> 
> The gods, of course, are distinct from merely powerful beings because they have developed effective ways to get around "relative power omniscience."



I would disagree that the gods have gotten around this. Where adenturers are the "wild west", gods are pre-WWI europe. They have their Balkans, always tettering on the brink, threatening to bring down the whole. They have their "entangling alliances" that would cause the whole to come to war over the few.

They haven't really gotten over it, they've just gotten into a rut.

In fact, the very reasoning behind the limited number of Gods in early 4E, is as I recall, that they had a "World War of the Gods".


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## Crazy Jerome (Dec 1, 2010)

shidaku said:


> I would disagree that the gods have gotten around this. Where adenturers are the "wild west", gods are pre-WWI europe. They have their Balkans, always tettering on the brink, threatening to bring down the whole. They have their "entangling alliances" that would cause the whole to come to war over the few.
> 
> They haven't really gotten over it, they've just gotten into a rut.
> 
> In fact, the very reasoning behind the limited number of Gods in early 4E, is as I recall, that they had a "World War of the Gods".




Yes.  I should have said that they have found, "effective but imperfect ways" to get around the problem.  This is to distinguish them from, say, some realtively stupid primordial who wears his feelings on his face all the time, and never fools anyone.  It may be the tottering end of Metternich's treaties, but some beings are more like England, France, or Germany, and others are more like Albania.  

Also, I would think that they would know each other very well.  Nevermind using magic to read minds.  They already know what the rest are thinking.  I've just passed my 20th wedding anniversary, mere mortal with no D&D levels whatsoever.  My wife can say, "You know that guy in the movie ..." and I know who she means from some subtle clue in the previous conversation. I would think after the first 1000 years or so of putting up with Bane, that Moradin knows what he thinks about pretty much everything. 

This is another way in which epic level PCs can be interesting.  They are just getting the power, but no one really knows them yet.  That's both a potential advantage and a potential threat.


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## Ryujin (Dec 1, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Howdy Ryujin!
> 
> ...if only I'd thought of that...




You know what they say; "Great minds........ steal ideas from others and don't bother wasting the time to think them up" 

I always wanted to play in an adventure where a door on the other side of a room opened up to the door that I just entered through.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 1, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> I always wanted to play in an adventure where a door on the other side of a room opened up to the door that I just entered through.




I had one of those....it's less fun that it looks when your group can't figure out how to get out.


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## Ryujin (Dec 1, 2010)

shidaku said:


> I had one of those....it's less fun that it looks when your group can't figure out how to get out.




It simply requires a different kind of mapping. Worst case; a skill challenge once they've completed their 'mission', in order to find the way out. Successes reduce the time that it takes them to get out, on a time sensitive quest.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 1, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> It simply requires a different kind of mapping. Worst case; a skill challenge once they've completed their 'mission', in order to find the way out. Successes reduce the time that it takes them to get out, on a time sensitive quest.




It was basically a classic puzzle challenge.  But it was still annoying as heck.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 2, 2010)

shidaku said:


> It was basically a classic puzzle challenge.  But it was still annoying as heck.




I'm puzzle challenged myself, lol.


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## pemerton (Dec 2, 2010)

KidSnide said:


> This is actually one of the other problems with epic-level play.  The vast majority of epic foes are extra-planar is nature.  Although the outer planes can always be a threat to the PCs' homeland, epic-level play tends to involve the PCs leaving the locations and NPCs to which they have developed attachments.  That's a major barrier for the games I tend to play/run.





Barastrondo said:


> I also see the ghettoization of epic content as kind of a problem. KidSnide, your observation's spot on. I run a pretty social game, so many of my players are interested in relationships with NPCs they've been hanging around since the early levels. Not just romantic relationships, mind: mentorships, rivalries, friendships, even things like playing matchmaker between NPCs. Stuff that goes on in between adventures. As designed, epic tier is meant either to take place somewhere outside that world or to draw the players' attention to the world-shaking threats it represents, discouraging them from spending casual time in a peaceful setting.



I can see where these comments are coming from, but I don't entirely agree. I fully agree that a game which simply switches location, from the world where play has taken place up until now, to the outer planes, won't work for engaging the players. (In my view, the city of Union in the 3E Epic handbook is a classic example of this sort of failure.) But Epic needn't be like that.

I know from my own experience running high-level Rolemaster that it is possible to run an epic-style game - with wahoo magic, with ancient dragons, angels, gods and demons as the principal adversaries, with other planes as the site of many of these encounters, etc - in a way that is tightly integrated with a mundane homeland that the players (and therefore their PCs) care about. But what this requires is seeding that homeland with these connections to deeper mythical forces, and the other planes where they live and play out, from early in the game.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think there are a lot of permutations of theme, tone, and relationship of epic play to the rest of the game and setting. Some combinations are likely to work better than others of course.
> 
> All of them IMHO generally involve epic play being tied to a fairly deep story is what I'm getting out of the whole discussion.



Not only a deep story, but one which is linked to the mythic/other-planar features that (given what WotC is actually publishing) are going to be the core game elements of epic tier play.

This means that you are right when you say that some lower-level adventures will work better than others for seeding Epic play. Not every god, every artefact and every campaign backstory is equally well-suited to the task. I think the lack of a discussion of these matters is one of the weaknesses of the existing GM advice for epic play.

It's also interesting that (as I read it) the Plane Above appears to cater to multiple approaches to Epic tier - the discussion of the gods, the compact of heaven, venturing into deep myth and so on all seems aimed at the sort of epic play we're discussing in this thread, whereas the Outer Isles and the Githyanki pirates seem to me to be more relevant for an Epic tier which is just more dungeon crawling or adventure without a strong story integration into what has gone on at lower levels. Again, that book could probably be improved by talking a bit more frankly about the different sorts of play its contents are suited to supporting.


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## pemerton (Dec 2, 2010)

KidSnide said:


> I think there are three choices:
> 
> 1) You can run a game in an epic world, not unlike the Illiad (at least under certain interpretations), where gods and demi-gods are sometimes physically presents and impossible epic tasks are expected.
> 
> ...



I think there are actually two D&D defaults. One is the one which you describe, and it's supported by elements of 4e, like the Outer Isles described in the Plane Above.

The other is one which combines your 3 options, by locating epic threats primarily on the outer planes (as per 3) but some climacitc historical/metaphysical event (as per 2, or as per chaochou's example upthread of Orcus stopping a loved one coming back to life) brings those threats into some sort of connection with the most powerful heroes of the world (as per 1). A lot of features of 4e support this alternative default, like the idea that the Abyss is sucking in all of creation, or that civilisation could be remade by reparing the Lattice of Heaven, or that the PCs could travel back into deep myth to undo the sundering of the elves.

But this sort of thing obviously won't suit all games. In particular, because of 1 and 2, it is not well-suited to the idea of a campaign world that can be ported from game to game - or, at least, once a campaign world has seen this sort of epic play, it's unlikely to be well-suited for further epic play.


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## Aegeri (Dec 2, 2010)

If I have to name my greatest challenge with my game Dark Prophecy (Eberron) it was making a 20-30 plot that didn't go galavanting around the planes logically. I really like epic play - anyone can tell by how much I bring it up on these forums in any thread - but I found it quite hard conceptually how to get around that. I eventually went with a plot that exploited some of the old aberrant mark lore and such - who were certainly powerful (EG: Epic) enough to challenge level 20+ heroes. So that made a really good plot and I think it will turn out to be well justified (but we'll see over time, I have a year or more before I need to worry!).

But for another game, like say my Xen'drik "Blood war" between an emerging cult of native drow that worship an abomination called "Lolth" vs. the traditional Vulkoori worshipping tribes - I can't see that going to epic tier that easily.


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## Stalker0 (Dec 2, 2010)

Several people have mentioned concerns with the planar centric nature of epic level, as far as the monsters and the like. That it pulls away from the core  campaign setting created over the last 20 levels.

I think there is a way around that if you wish...bring the extra planar home.

Instead of having the PCs journey to the planes, have extra planar creatures start coming into their yard and messing things up.

The only real question you have to answer is...why now? Why are these epic bad guys suddenly showing up just as the party hits 21st? There are a few ways to answer that.


1) The villian did it. Whatever your paragon villains machinations, it has drawn the attention of even worse evil. You may defeat the villain, but his legacy lives on.

2) The players did it. Either them stopping something caused something worse to happen, or the fact that they are gaining epic power is causing extra planar forces to take notice. If your campaign has never seen an epic level person....the fact that the PCs have hit that level may indicate something special is going on in that world that the extraplanar forces want a part of.


What makes this idea a good backdrop for an epic game is you get to utilize the superman plotline. Superman is nigh invincible....but his loved ones are not. The players can laugh death in the face...but their friends can't.

That puts a lot of the pressure right on the PCs. They will survive what's coming if they choose to leave...but their home may very well be wiped out.


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## KidSnide (Dec 2, 2010)

Stalker0 said:


> Several people have mentioned concerns with the planar centric nature of epic level, as far as the monsters and the like. That it pulls away from the core  campaign setting created over the last 20 levels.
> 
> I think there is a way around that if you wish...bring the extra planar home.
> 
> Instead of having the PCs journey to the planes, have extra planar creatures start coming into their yard and messing things up.




Oh, absolutely!  For a long time, D&D has this strong "go into the abyss and kill Lolth/Orcus" mentality, and I suspect that is because that type of mission fits more easily into the dungeon delve design framework.  But - to my mind - the demonic invasion of your homeland *is* the canonical epic level threat, at least for homebrew campaigns that have the advantage of really being built around the PCs.  

But that's an example of the "final adventure" version of epic level play in which most of the campaign is about heroic and paragon style gaming and the last big hurrah is an an epic-style "up to 11"-fest.  My issue is that, as epic destinies are designed in 4e, that can be a mechanically arc.  And, if you have a host of epic level threats, it becomes a strange (and possibly undesirable) alteration to your gameworld.

-KS


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## Barastrondo (Dec 2, 2010)

pemerton said:


> But what this requires is seeding that homeland with these connections to deeper mythical forces, and the other planes where they live and play out, from early in the game.




Right. Again, it's a matter of preparing for epic play from the moment you start a campaign, rather than having epic play appear as an option well into a world or a campaign's life. In my case, the latter happened with the advent of 3e: up until then, everything was designed with the idea that there would be more of a "name level" style of play as you got into the double-digit levels. And that's also what many characters were designed to take advantage of: it's why I see players who are interested in having their character arcs hit closure and move on to a new campaign somewhere around mid-to-late paragon instead of rolling on into epic.



KidSnide said:


> Oh, absolutely!  For a long time, D&D has this strong "go into the abyss and kill Lolth/Orcus" mentality, and I suspect that is because that type of mission fits more easily into the dungeon delve design framework.  But - to my mind - the demonic invasion of your homeland *is* the canonical epic level threat, at least for homebrew campaigns that have the advantage of really being built around the PCs.
> 
> But that's an example of the "final adventure" version of epic level play in which most of the campaign is about heroic and paragon style gaming and the last big hurrah is an an epic-style "up to 11"-fest.  My issue is that, as epic destinies are designed in 4e, that can be a mechanically arc.  And, if you have a host of epic level threats, it becomes a strange (and possibly undesirable) alteration to your gameworld.




Right. And in the case of multiple gaming groups in the same world, you can easily run into the uncomfortable issue that the lower-level group must logically be dealing with fallout from the epic-level group's challenges, at least if the incursion is sufficiently epic. But if they're not interested in those goings-on -- if they're more interested in the lower-level things designed for _their_ group -- then having to deal with the mess created to challenge the higher-level group isn't particularly entertaining or fun.

One solution is to make sure that the two groups never really cross paths or visit the same locales. Put them on different continents, maybe. But that undercuts part of the fun of the shared world in the first place: the ability to hear about the other group's exploits without necessarily being stuck with their problems.


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## pemerton (Dec 2, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> And in the case of multiple gaming groups in the same world, you can easily run into the uncomfortable issue that the lower-level group must logically be dealing with fallout from the epic-level group's challenges, at least if the incursion is sufficiently epic. But if they're not interested in those goings-on -- if they're more interested in the lower-level things designed for _their_ group -- then having to deal with the mess created to challenge the higher-level group isn't particularly entertaining or fun.
> 
> One solution is to make sure that the two groups never really cross paths or visit the same locales. Put them on different continents, maybe. But that undercuts part of the fun of the shared world in the first place: the ability to hear about the other group's exploits without necessarily being stuck with their problems.



I agree that 4e - or at least the Epic part of it - is not very well suited to the sort of shared world you're describing here - although for me that's theory rather than experience talking. 

For me, this is another part of 4e's departure from previous D&D assumptions that I like, because it removes any pressure to "leave the world intact". I also think its part of the inner logic of "points of light" that the world outside the immediate needs of the campaign is just a theme-heavy-but-details-light handwave. But if you're actually playing in a shared world, or hoping to, then I can see how this sort of approach wouldn't work for you!

(This discussion reminds me of some of the problems that emerge in superhero "crossover" special issues, when each series suddenly has to take account of the "reality" that has been worked out in relation to some other plotline for some other series.)


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## Barastrondo (Dec 2, 2010)

pemerton said:


> I agree that 4e - or at least the Epic part of it - is not very well suited to the sort of shared world you're describing here - although for me that's theory rather than experience talking.
> 
> For me, this is another part of 4e's departure from previous D&D assumptions that I like, because it removes any pressure to "leave the world intact". I also think its part of the inner logic of "points of light" that the world outside the immediate needs of the campaign is just a theme-heavy-but-details-light handwave. But if you're actually playing in a shared world, or hoping to, then I can see how this sort of approach wouldn't work for you!




Yeah. See, I actually appreciate the design theory of building a world specifically for the needs of a single campaign, because that's very freeing: there is no obligation to multiple groups, just to the single group. That one group can do _anything_ without having to take other players into account.

The obstacles that epic tier poses for me, I freely admit, are brought upon myself because it's not a good fit for the games I'm already running. But in a discussion of why epic tier seems to be neglected, and why fewer games seem to embrace it, I think the "existing multi-campaign world" reason should definitely be examined as something to address.



> (This discussion reminds me of some of the problems that emerge in superhero "crossover" special issues, when each series suddenly has to take account of the "reality" that has been worked out in relation to some other plotline for some other series.)




It's not unlike that, yes.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 2, 2010)

pemerton said:


> I agree that 4e - or at least the Epic part of it - is not very well suited to the sort of shared world you're describing here - although for me that's theory rather than experience talking.
> 
> For me, this is another part of 4e's departure from previous D&D assumptions that I like, because it removes any pressure to "leave the world intact". I also think its part of the inner logic of "points of light" that the world outside the immediate needs of the campaign is just a theme-heavy-but-details-light handwave. But if you're actually playing in a shared world, or hoping to, then I can see how this sort of approach wouldn't work for you!
> 
> (This discussion reminds me of some of the problems that emerge in superhero "crossover" special issues, when each series suddenly has to take account of the "reality" that has been worked out in relation to some other plotline for some other series.)




I don't really see how 4e is designed any differently in terms of the relationship of the PCs to the rest of the world than any other edition. PCs start out a bit stronger, but that has little to do with how epic level play goes. Really any issue being discussed here WRT 4e is pretty much true of all earlier editions as well, with the exception of 4e having a level 30 cap.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 2, 2010)

Hey KidSnide! 



			
				KidSnide said:
			
		

> In my game, the extra-planar nature of epic foes is problematic because my game is about the PCs and their interaction with their world and its institutions.  Their objectives are to change the world in ways they want and prevent it from being changed in ways they hate.  Because success and failure is all about the repercussions, the game wouldn't have much meaning if it took place in a place where they weren't invested.




The simple solution then (as others have mentioned) would be to bring the planes to your world. Perhaps some planar BBEG is behind the rise to power of a neighbouring kingdom. This 'outside threat' doesn't have to be the power behind the throne. It may only be allied to NPCs.

Just because some antagonist NPC can command a Balor, Angel or Starspawn doesn't mean all your world's NPCs become obsolete.



> I don't think the Star Wars example applies here.  In a Star Wars game, the galaxy *is* the game world.  It's not about the planet -- it's about the scope of where the PCs have interests and connections.




But thats my point. The scale of the thing is epic. Swop multiple planets for multiple planes and you have the same sort of scope. 



> If you want to play a Planescape style game, the planar nature of epic foes isn't a problem at all.  In fact epic foes are very nicely integrated into the Planescape gameworld (notwithstanding issues of edition conversion).




I never saw our campaign as planar in that sense. We had worldly kingdoms and empires operate in tandem with planar kingdoms and empires.



> I don't think the epic tier is limited to the campaign ender for _every_ game.  I just think it's properly limited to the campaign ender for _many_ games, and that's just because it's in the nature of the game.  Your list of epic adventure themes is great, but it's a great list of a particular genre.  If my game revolves around Court intrigue and the politics of a set list of  nations, it's a major genre-busting curveball to introduce a giant alien trying to eat the planet.




If your campaign is primarily focused on court intrigue, then I fail to see how the lack of worldly epic monsters is a problem. Sounds more like NPCs play a much bigger role in your game than monsters.



> To take a more specific example, I think it was a mistake (game design wise) for War of the Burning Sky to stretch from levels 1 to 30.  I tend to think the foes at the end of that game are more appropriate for low-epic tier play, which makes sense if you consider that it was originally design to stretch from levels 1 to 20 in 3e.  (Quick aside: WoBS isn't flawless, but it is fantastic.)




I don't have anything but peripheral knowledge of that specific adventure path, but I have often thought the idea of an adventure path or campaign adventure is a slightly flawed one in that there is a single overarching theme. That may be its greatest strength, but its also its greatest weakness.



> Similarly, my 13-year campaign ended with a glorious time-travelling, demigod-fighting conclusion in which the PCs concluded the campaign by deciding to destroy their own planet.  That's clearly epic play in my book, but it was only the last adventure.  The existence of a single time-traveling, demi-god-making epic device had been the central focus of the campaign for almost a decade.  It would have been totally bizarre to add a second or third epic threat on top of it.




It seems you are having the campaign world revolve around the PCs rather than say for instance, setting up a campaign world (or universe) and then letting events play out along a planned timeline with the PCs as the 'Butterfly Effect' within said timeline.

For example if you know the campaign world left unchecked is going to have half a dozen major events shape its history over the next year/decade/generation and only the PCs have the ability to affect the outcome of those events. 



> So, yes, I agree that there's no limit to the amount of epic gaming you _*can*_ do.  But there is often a limit to how much epic gaming makes sense for a given campaign, and I don't think the current epic rules do a very good job of supporting those scenarios.




Probably because you are running with a single theme over a long amount of time. Rather than planning several smaller themes...and I am not saying one approach is better than another (although the latter is easier to cater for).

For instance if a given campaign is primarily involving an Undead Empire for the whole of the epic tier, or a Demonic Invasion for the whole of the Epic Tier then you are limited as to various creatures you can draw upon. Its impossible for WotC to deliver a full campaign worth of same-theme creatures and please everyone (because different people might want to run different themed campaigns). Whats more likely, and what we actually have, is a scattering of different themes, no one of which is able to sustain a full campaign across an entire tier of play.

Whereas if you plan say, maybe half a dozen major events unfolding over the course of the epic tier, then you can almost certainly find enough monsters to make things interesting (with the proviso that you pick Demons, Devils, Dragons, Elementals and Undead as your themes...since there basically are no other themes explored in any depth whatsoever. Perhaps arguably Drow and Yuan-ti as of MM3.

Although I admit, the epic tier is still very light on monsters. By my own calculations you need at least 10 monsters per level to make things interesting enough. So over a 10 level stretch that is the epic tier, you would need about 100 monsters. A quick browse shows:

MM1 = 74
MM2 = 50
MM3 = 74

Over the course of these three books you have at best, about 20 Epic level Undead and less than that Demons, Dragons and so on. So it would be impossible to sustain an undead themed Adventure Path without creating a lot of new monsters (as shown by E1-3, which introduced lots of new monsters and variants of existing monsters).

Personally I am convinced that the way forward for 4E 'monster books' is to have more monsters of a given theme, but less themes. 

So for instance in MM4 (if such a book were to come out) we have 30 themes, maybe averaging 10 monsters per theme (with a given theme spanning about 5-7 levels). So lets say we have 12 Heroic Tier Themes, 10 Paragon Tier themes and 8 Epic Tier Themes.

Each individual theme might not simply have monsters, but traps/hazards, NPCs, magic items and so forth.

What specific epic tier themes would people want I wonder?

- Asmodeus Realm and servants (Astral)
- A new primordial and its followers (Elemental)
- Something from the Far Realm and various Star-spawn (Far Realm)
- The Fomorian King or one of the Arch-Fey and its servants (Feywild) 
- An undead theme (Shadowfell)
- Some new 'Earthly' threat (Earthly)
- An epic humanoid race...maybe time travellers (Temporal)
- A 'catch all' epic monsters theme (Various)

I'm sure everyone has various ideas and themes they'd like to see explored and flesh out.


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## Dausuul (Dec 2, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't really see how 4e is designed any differently in terms of the relationship of the PCs to the rest of the world than any other edition. PCs start out a bit stronger, but that has little to do with how epic level play goes. Really any issue being discussed here WRT 4e is pretty much true of all earlier editions as well, with the exception of 4e having a level 30 cap.




Agreed. If you think 4E epic tier is bad, try running or playing in a 3E game past 15th level with at least one single-classed* arcane caster in the party. It's absolute insanity.

[size=-2]*Or using only PRCs that grant full caster level.[/size]


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## Prestidigitalis (Dec 2, 2010)

Stalker0 said:


> I think there is a way around that if you wish...bring the extra planar home.
> 
> Instead of having the PCs journey to the planes, have extra planar creatures start coming into their yard and messing things up.




As I wrote somewhere upthread, read most any of the books by Raymond Feist.  He uses this technique repeatedly.


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## ArcaneSpringboard (Dec 2, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Although I admit, the epic tier is still very light on monsters. By my own calculations you need at least 10 monsters per level to make things interesting enough. So over a 10 level stretch that is the epic tier, you would need about 100 monsters. A quick browse shows:
> 
> MM1 = 74
> MM2 = 50
> ...




I think that's actually what the MV: Threats of Nentir Vale book is going to be about.  It's not an encyclopedia of monsters, but of groups of monsters (eg a Dragon and his minions).

However, they're probably still going to be focusing more on Heroic/Paragon tier stuff.


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## Ryujin (Dec 2, 2010)

Upper Krust, two 'classic' themes can be used in order to make up for the dearth of Epic creatures, of a single theme. They are:

"Stuck in the Middle": The heroes have to save the world from being laid waste as the battleground for a war between "heaven" and "hell", neither of which really care about collateral damage.

"Evil Unites": Two normally warring factions of evil join forces, then caste their gaze toward the idea of subjugating the world. "Demons" and "Devils" put aside their past rivalries, in order to expand their empires. Of course they'll eventually fall to squabbling over the world's corpse, but until then....


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## Barastrondo (Dec 2, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't really see how 4e is designed any differently in terms of the relationship of the PCs to the rest of the world than any other edition. PCs start out a bit stronger, but that has little to do with how epic level play goes. Really any issue being discussed here WRT 4e is pretty much true of all earlier editions as well, with the exception of 4e having a level 30 cap.




It's a question of scaling. For example, the earlier editions, once you got past name level, each new level that a PC gained added very little overall, with the exception of every other level for casters. You no longer got full hit dice every level, and the personal combat benefits tended to slow while the social benefits like stronghold founding were enabled. The difference between a 11th-level fighter and a 14th-level fighter was much slimmer than it was in 3e or 4e.

With one of the design goals of 3e being to make each level a more distinct power-up, the differences between levels became more pronounced. A 20th-level fighter has a lot more hit points and attack power in 3e than he did in 2e. In 4e, it becomes even more pronounced because ten more levels are added, with the same intent of making each one a notable power-up, plus the additional tier-wide powerups. 

Definitely 3e increased the scaling, no argument there. But I think 4e has the most pronounced scaling of any version, with the potential exception of BECMI.


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## Dausuul (Dec 2, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> With one of the design goals of 3e being to make each level a more distinct power-up, the differences between levels became more pronounced. A 20th-level fighter has a lot more hit points and attack power in 3e than he did in 2e. In 4e, it becomes even more pronounced because ten more levels are added, with the same intent of making each one a notable power-up, plus the additional tier-wide powerups.
> 
> Definitely 3e increased the scaling, no argument there. But I think 4e has the most pronounced scaling of any version, with the potential exception of BECMI.




3E characters are designed to roughly double in power every 2 levels (emphasis on "roughly"). 4E characters double in power every 4 levels.

If you assume that a 1st-level character in 4E is the rough equivalent, power-wise, of a 5th-level character in 3E, then 30th level in 4E is slightly behind 20th level in 3E. And that's just in terms of raw combat munchkinry. The utility magic available to 3E characters (which is really what makes high-level play unmanageable) even at mid-levels dwarfs anything in 4E.

Of course, a large part of 3E's rapid scaling comes from magic items. The "Christmas tree effect" multiplies a high-level 3E character's power many times over. Constitution boosters provide a hit point boost that increases at a quadratic rate. Strength boosters are layered on top of weapon enhancement bonuses, and both get doubled or tripled by Improved Critical or the _keen_ property. Weapons with elemental mods then stack on even more damage.

Also, this assumes reasonably optimized characters and a mix of classes. Fighters fall behind the power curve at the high levels, but the spellslingers more than make up for it.


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## Aegeri (Dec 2, 2010)

4E can always fall back on the claim that at least it doesn't have Batman wizards or anything else silly in it. I remember my high level 3.5 games, they were basically dice rolls to see who won or lost instantly. If the PCs Wizard/Spellcaster went first the monsters were doomed. If the monsters went first and somehow got the Wizard/Cleric, then those two characters were utterly doomed.


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## Neonchameleon (Dec 2, 2010)

The base numbers might be wider in 4th ed.  But seriously.  Look at the list of 9th level spells.  Wish.  Timestop.  Shapechange.  Polymorph Any Object at 8th.  There is no way that 30th level 4e characters even approach that level of power.  Remember: the key to strategy isn't defeating your opponent.  It's making your opponent _irrelevant_.


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## Aegeri (Dec 2, 2010)

It's also worth noting how under interpretation of both the DM and the PCs many of those powers are. They can range from backfiring horribly (if your DM disagrees with your interpretation) to basically instantly winning the game. The sheer number of "I win" spells in 3.5 is really impressive, especially when combined with any optimization at all.

4E Epic is Hard to play I concede, but it's nowhere near what 3.5 used to be.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 2, 2010)

Neonchameleon said:


> The base numbers might be wider in 4th ed.  But seriously.  Look at the list of 9th level spells.  Wish.  Timestop.  Shapechange.  Polymorph Any Object at 8th.  There is no way that 30th level 4e characters even approach that level of power.  Remember: the key to strategy isn't defeating your opponent.  It's making your opponent _irrelevant_.




Yeah, but that becomes a caster vs. non-caster argument, which takes the whole thing sideways. Take a setting which assumes there are a number of epic-level people and threats that oppose them in the world. If the people with access to things like Wish and Shapechange on a regular basis are 5% of the epic population, that's an entirely different game dynamic than if they're 50% of the epic population.


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## Dausuul (Dec 2, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> Yeah, but that becomes a caster vs. non-caster argument, which takes the whole thing sideways. Take a setting which assumes there are a number of epic-level people and threats that oppose them in the world. If the people with access to things like Wish and Shapechange on a regular basis are 5% of the epic population, that's an entirely different game dynamic than if they're 50% of the epic population.




Even if you get rid of the epic spellslingers, I think you'll find that top-tier 3E characters are significantly stronger (relative to lowbies) than top-tier 4E characters.

Take a bog-standard, core-only 3.5E fighter at 20th level, using just what's in the SRD. I'll use the elite array for stats, not that any DM I ever met actually made players use such crappy stats, but they are the expected values. I'll put 15 Str, 14 Con, 13 Dex, 10 Int, 12 Wis, and 8 Cha. Standard wealth by level.

This character wields a _+5 shocking frost falchion of speed_ (with Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical) and wears _+5 mithral full plate of invulnerability_. Other magic items include a _+5 animated shield, +6 belt of giant strength, +5 amulet of natural armor, pink rhomboid ioun stone, dusty rose ioun stone, +4 gloves of dexterity, +5 ring of protection, +5 cloak of resistance, +4 manual of bodily health, +4 manual of gainful exercise, winged boots,_ and a partridge in a pear tree.

*Hit Points:* 214
*AC:* 44
*Attack:* +37/+37/+32/+27/+22
*Average Damage per Attack (including crits):* 44.7.
*Saving Throws:* Fort +24, Ref +16, Will +14

Now, compare that to a 30th-level 4E Essentials slayer fighter using only "Heroes of the Fallen Lands," whipped up using the Character Builder. This character is using +6 greatsword, scale armor, and amulet, along with epic-tier _bracers of mighty striking_ and _gauntlets of blood_. Feats include Heavy Blade Expertise, Weapon Focus (Heavy Blade), and the defense-boosting feats.

*Hit Points:* 237
*AC:* 44
*Attack:* +38
*Average Damage per Attack (including crits):* 60.64*
*Defenses:* Fort 49, Ref 44, Will 38

[size=-2]*Using Battle Wrath. The character gets +3 to damage rolls when bloodied and +6 to damage rolls versus bloodied foes. I'm assuming each of these will apply about half the time. In addition, I am assuming the character will Power Strike 40% of the time for 3d10 bonus damage, and that the character will crit on 10% of hits.[/size]

As you can see, they have nearly identical attack bonus, AC, and hit points--the 4E fighter has a slight advantage in two out of three, but nothing major. The 4E fighter has much better non-AC defenses, but will face correspondingly more difficult non-AC attacks. The 4E fighter hits about 33% harder... but the 3E fighter's "Cuisinart Strike" power, also known as a full attack, more than makes up for that.

Now consider that a 1st-level character in 3E has far fewer hit points, lower AC, and lower damage than a 1st-level character in 4E. You can see that 3E scales faster, even after you adjust for 4E's higher level cap.


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## Aegeri (Dec 2, 2010)

Dausuul: It's also important to realize that a 3.5E fighter was usually autohitting AC by the late point of the game and epic tier (as attack bonuses rapidly outscaled defenses by a long way). So you can throw in things like power attack on this first few attacks without any worry. Whereas in 4E, while a Slayer is pretty accurate when charging around literally everywhere he's not quite as "lolwut" accurate.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 2, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> So... comparable hit points, attack bonus, and armor class. The 4E fighter has much better non-AC defenses, but will face correspondingly more difficult non-AC attacks. The 4E fighter hits about 33% harder... but the 3E fighter's "Cuisinart Strike" power, also known as a full attack, more than makes up for that.




There's also something of a gulf in magic items. The 3e fighter has weapons that add bonus damage and a small pile of attribute-boosting items. But yes, point taken.


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## Dausuul (Dec 2, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> There's also something of a gulf in magic items. The 3e fighter has weapons that add bonus damage and a small pile of attribute-boosting items.




Well, yes, but that's an expected part of a 3E character. 3E fighters are extremely item-dependent; you can't take away their Christmas trees and expect them to perform to standard.


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## Dausuul (Dec 2, 2010)

Aegeri said:


> Dausuul: It's also important to realize that a 3.5E fighter was usually autohitting AC by the late point of the game and epic tier (as attack bonuses rapidly outscaled defenses by a long way). So you can throw in things like power attack on this first few attacks without any worry. Whereas in 4E, while a Slayer is pretty accurate when charging around literally everywhere he's not quite as "lolwut" accurate.




I decided not to wade into that thicket. Once you get into that, you have to consider the 4E fighter's various tactical options, and whether the 3E fighter's ability to fly three times a day outweighs the inability to use Cuisinart Strike and move on the same turn, and all sorts of stuff. It was simpler just to stack up the raw numbers and observe that they were approximately the same.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 2, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Well, yes, but that's an expected part of a 3E character. 3E fighters are extremely item-dependent; you can't take away their Christmas trees and expect them to perform to standard.




Yeah, which was as big or bigger a departure from the same perspective of "existing world, new edition." Suddenly the world needs a lot more magic items in it, and easy ability to create more. It sparked a different breed of epicness. If you didn't have the Christmas tree, 3e actually was considerably closer to previous AD&Ds in some ways, but at the expense of the math working as well.


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## Dausuul (Dec 2, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> Yeah, which was as big or bigger a departure from the same perspective of "existing world, new edition." Suddenly the world needs a lot more magic items in it, and easy ability to create more. It sparked a different breed of epicness. If you didn't have the Christmas tree, 3e actually was considerably closer to previous AD&Ds in some ways, but at the expense of the math working as well.




No argument there. Unfortunately, while taking away the Christmas tree brings the fighter-types back to sanity, it also has the effect of increasing the already-huge power gap between fighters and casters at high levels. Wizards are the Scrooges of Third Edition.

Pre-3E, I agree with you that the power scale beyond Name level was much compressed... but the high-level world back then was so different it's hard even to make a comparison. I mean, how do you weigh 3E or 4E against a system where a pit fiend averages 58 hit points and Lolth herself has only 66, where AC caps out at the equivalent of 30 and direct damage is a high-level wizard's most fearsome weapon?

Every time I have occasion to step out of Wizards-era D&D and back into the landscape of TSR, it's like entering a totally different universe. The mechanical changes between 3E and 4E were huge, but the philosophical changes between 2E and 3E were far greater IMO.


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## Aegeri (Dec 2, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> I decided not to wade into that thicket. Once you get into that, you have to consider the 4E fighter's various tactical options, and whether the 3E fighter's ability to fly three times a day outweighs the inability to use Cuisinart Strike and move on the same turn, and all sorts of stuff. It was simpler just to stack up the raw numbers and observe that they were approximately the same.




Yeah, I know what you were trying to achieve but it is a bit of an important difference. The main reason the fighter becomes useless though in 3.5 is because most creatures have ridiculous spells, auras and outright physical damage canceling. This makes him really hard to play, while the Slayer is pretty happy to just run around stabbing people for 30 levels.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 2, 2010)

Hey there ArcaneSpringboard! 



			
				ArcaneSpringboard said:
			
		

> I think that's actually what the MV: Threats of Nentir Vale book is going to be about.  It's not an encyclopedia of monsters, but of groups of monsters (eg a Dragon and his minions).




Great minds think alike after all. I really like the sound of this and I do believe its the way forward for D&D.



> However, they're probably still going to be focusing more on Heroic/Paragon tier stuff.




I guess some enterprising 3rd party publisher will have to do something like that for the epic tier then.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 2, 2010)

Howdy Ryujin amigo! 



			
				Ryujin said:
			
		

> Upper Krust, two 'classic' themes can be used in order to make up for the dearth of Epic creatures, of a single theme. They are:
> 
> "Stuck in the Middle": The heroes have to save the world from being laid waste as the battleground for a war between "heaven" and "hell", neither of which really care about collateral damage.
> 
> "Evil Unites": Two normally warring factions of evil join forces, then caste their gaze toward the idea of subjugating the world. "Demons" and "Devils" put aside their past rivalries, in order to expand their empires. Of course they'll eventually fall to squabbling over the world's corpse, but until then....




I agree, but the point I was specifically making was that even with the three 4E monster manuals its virtually impossible to design an adventure (lets say of 8-10 encounters) based on any one theme.

Think about it, if you have a Demonic theme, you are virtually banjaxed beyond Marilith, Nalfeshnee Tyrant, Balor in the epic tier). 

So even if you have two themes operating in tandem, you probably still don't have enough epic monsters to flesh out those themes for 8-10 encounters without massively repeating the same monsters.

Which is why my other point is that monster design would be better served in more tightly knit theme-based 'chunks'.


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## Ryujin (Dec 2, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Howdy Ryujin amigo!
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Yup, you're right about the single theme being dead in the water. I figure that two though, carefully chosen for certain similarities in theme, might just do the trick. As you say though, it would be a near thing. 

Perhaps this would be a good direction of expansion for Dungeon Magazine to go in? It's nice to have the odd adventure, for those times when you're stuck for ideas, but having material to flesh out your own adventures is useful too.


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## pemerton (Dec 3, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't really see how 4e is designed any differently in terms of the relationship of the PCs to the rest of the world than any other edition. PCs start out a bit stronger, but that has little to do with how epic level play goes. Really any issue being discussed here WRT 4e is pretty much true of all earlier editions as well, with the exception of 4e having a level 30 cap.



I don't entirely agree with this - see below.



Barastrondo said:


> It's a question of scaling.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> With one of the design goals of 3e being to make each level a more distinct power-up, the differences between levels became more pronounced. A 20th-level fighter has a lot more hit points and attack power in 3e than he did in 2e. In 4e, it becomes even more pronounced because ten more levels are added, with the same intent of making each one a notable power-up, plus the additional tier-wide powerups.



I don't disagree with this, but I'd probably put it slightly differently.

To my mind, the way that 4e differs from earlier editions is by having a mechanically built-in endgame. This is manifested in the mechanical scaling, which requires distinctive high-level threats if the game is to play in a mechanically sensible fashion. This is a marked difference from AD&D, for example, where (as has often been noted) AC and damage don't tend to vary so dramatically across the range of levels, either for PCs or their opponents.

But the endgame is also manifested in the thematic aspects of the mechanics - epic destinies, the nature, origin and backstory of epic tier monsters, and so on. And this is a signficant difference not only from AD&D but from 3E as well.

1st ed AD&D has a mechanically built-in end game, namely, name level. But as Barastrondo has pointed out, this is an endgame which plays out in the world, without necessarily having the other-planar/mythic dimensions that are almost an essential feature of 4e Epic tier. In 3E, which has no endgame, it is possible to add build NPCs and/or add classes/templates onto monsters like giants in order to locate even a high level game more-or-less in the world. But the way 4e is built forces things in a different direction (unless a group does the work to come up with all non-mythic epic destinies, all non-mythic epci monsters, etc - but I think that would be a lot of work).


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## Crazy Jerome (Dec 3, 2010)

pemerton said:


> But the way 4e is built forces things in a different direction (unless a group does the work to come up with all non-mythic epic destinies, all non-mythic epic monsters, etc - but I think that would be a lot of work).




Granted, but what kind of work is it? Let's say for sake of argument that you have a 4E changed like this: 

There are 15 character levels. The existing levels are condensed, exactly 2 for 1 (i.e. current 1st and 2nd level become the new 1st level, etc.) Tiers are removed. The experience cost per level are doubled. Otherwise, the mechanics are kept identical. This work is done for you.

Now, just how much fluff do you now need to change to keep from forcing things in a different direction? (If it helps, pretend that you don't know anything about 4E design, tiers, etc., and just want to have 15 good "levels" available for D&D play.) 

I bet you can change the wording on a few epic destinies, and then refluff a few monsters, and that is about it. Might be a few other things. Whatever effort this is, this is what is necessary to make it work. That work that was done for you squashing the levels? That's eliminating the effect of big numbers and other such factors that are clouding the issue.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 3, 2010)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I bet you can change the wording on a few epic destinies, and then refluff a few monsters, and that is about it. Might be a few other things. Whatever effort this is, this is what is necessary to make it work. That work that was done for you squashing the levels? That's eliminating the effect of big numbers and other such factors that are clouding the issue.




It doesn't quite eliminate the effect of big numbers. Under this system, a 1st-level skirmisher will have a 16+Con HP, 15 AC and an attack at +6 vs. AC; a 5th-level skirmisher has 48+Con HP, a 25 AC and an attack at +15 vs. AC; and a 15th-level skirmisher will have 248+Con HP, a 44 AC and an attack at +35 vs. AC. The scaling is still very dramatic from one end of the scale to another, it's just that there are half as many jumps that are individually twice as steep.

1e Lolth had 66 hp and an AC that topped out at -10. Her 4e equivalent has 1268 hp total and an AC that tops out at the equivalent of -41. Making her 4e equivalent "17th level" but not changing any of the mechanics makes it semantically different, but still poses the same basic dynamics of scale.


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## Dausuul (Dec 3, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> It doesn't quite eliminate the effect of big numbers. Under this system, a 1st-level skirmisher will have a 16+Con HP, 15 AC and an attack at +6 vs. AC; a 5th-level skirmisher has 48+Con HP, a 25 AC and an attack at +15 vs. AC; and a 15th-level skirmisher will have 248+Con HP, a 44 AC and an attack at +35 vs. AC. The scaling is still very dramatic from one end of the scale to another, it's just that there are half as many jumps that are individually twice as steep.
> 
> 1e Lolth had 66 hp and an AC that topped out at -10. Her 4e equivalent has 1268 hp total and an AC that tops out at the equivalent of -41. Making her 4e equivalent "17th level" but not changing any of the mechanics makes it semantically different, but still poses the same basic dynamics of scale.




Barastrondo hits the nail on the head here. It's not about how many steps it takes to get to the top; it's about how high up the top is. I would be perfectly fine with 4E's 30-level span if the power differential weren't so immense.

My main issue with epic is that it requires me to conjure up a legion of insanely powerful foes who were previously not in evidence. Now, I usually have a few epic-level critters lurking about my campaign worlds; an ancient dragon here, a lich there, a pit fiend buried and sleeping under the earth. But epic tier demands that I supply enough of those creatures to populate an entire tier's worth of combats!

A glance at their stats (regardless of what number is written in the "level" space, or whether the monster is called "pit fiend" or "orc warchief") makes it obvious that such a confluence of mighty monsters would be enough to bring the campaign world to its knees if not for the PCs. So why didn't they do it before the PCs showed up? Why has it taken them this long to put in an appearance?

I can come up with answers to those questions, but it requires taking the campaign in a whole new direction. In any campaign world that is not already stocked with a zillion epic monsters (in which case the PCs likely spent most of heroic tier hiding under rocks), epic tier is more or less restricted to a) an army of super-powerful monsters has emerged from centuries-long slumber or confinement, or b) the PCs are required to adventure in another plane where there is an army of super-powerful monsters, or c) the PCs are suddenly doing far less fighting than previously.


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## pemerton (Dec 3, 2010)

Crazy Jerome, what you describe is what counts (for me at least) as doing a lot of work.

Also: are PCs getting 2x hp per level, and +1 hit/check/defence per level? Or are these being given out at the normal rate, so top level PCs have only half (or so) of the hp and level-based bonsues that 30th level PCs have by the official rules?

I'm assuming the latter, because otherwise nothing has changed. But in this case, PCs will be pretty overpowered relative to their opponents, won't they? PCs will have epic-tier efects (stuns, bigger encounter and daily powers, ED resurrection abilities, etc) while they're fighting only 15th to 20th level monsters, which aren't designed to operate in a world of such epic effects. So more work will be required to redesign monsters.

Or have I misunderstood you?

Anyway, I agree that you could always try for refluffing - but unless you choose your monsters and your EDs/powers carefully, I don't know how far that will get you. The "return from death" epic features, in particular, seem to me to really force a very mythic feel onto the game. That said, I haven't actually tried this . . .


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## pemerton (Dec 3, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> My main issue with epic is that it requires me to conjure up a legion of insanely powerful foes who were previously not in evidence.



I see the situation somewhat differently, but the upshot is much the same.

I don't think we have to take the numbers if 4e literally. That is, something with 1000 hp isn't necessarily 10 times as tough/lucky as something with 100 hp. Mechanically, a PC with a +10 to hit will hit a monster with AC 26 only half as often as a monster with AC 21, but it doesn't follow that in the gameworld the first monster has armour/skin twice as resilient as the second. In the gameworld _as it is actually revealed in the course of play_ it will be comparatively rarely that a single PC interacts simultaneously with these two monsters (lets say the PC is a 4th level fighter, the first monster an 8th level elite soldier built pre-MM2 and the second a 5th level soldier - this is a conceivable but infrequent encounter), and the statistical relation between the two ACs will be fairly unlikely to emerge at a much more fine-grained level than "Gee, that first guy was pretty tough".

So the numbers don't have to be taken to indicate the reality of the gameworld. But what they do do (unless a fair bit of work is done by the GM) is force a certain sequence of long-term play, as some monsters and other challenges (rough walls, shallow pits) become less and less mechanically suitable as challenges for the PCs, and others become more suitable.

And at this point, those new challenges have to be made to fit into the story of the campaign. Which might be difficult if they were not previously in evidence. Which is why I think that, if you want the game to go to Epic, you have to start building in the key themes - the gods, the mythically-grounded significance of the other planes, etc - from the start.


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## Matrix Sorcica (Dec 3, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> My main issue with epic is that it requires me to conjure up a legion of insanely powerful foes who were previously not in evidence. Now, I usually have a few epic-level critters lurking about my campaign worlds; an ancient dragon here, a lich there, a pit fiend buried and sleeping under the earth. But epic tier demands that I supply enough of those creatures to populate an entire tier's worth of combats*!



Let's see if my English allow me to express what I want to say here....

Couldn't a solution be that the monsters scale with the PCs, in a sandbox like way? You have the terrible lich living in the tomb warrens. If the party engage him at paragon, he's x level. If they engage him at epic level, he's y level. And instead of thinking about why the lich didn't conquer the world while the pcs were rising to power, think about his power relative to the party and take the story from there..
The Orc king is a level 28 elite and his warriors are level 27 - because the adventure is about stopping the mother of all Orc invasions that will change the very past so that Orcs have always been the masters, etc. Who cares that the Orc King could have conquered the world before? So you don't need a supernatural army from the Planes - the Orcs are just as badass because the story needs it.

IMO, 4E already does this in that many monsters have heroic, paragon and epic versions. But it's still the same monster.

The dreaded Necromancer of the North with terrible plans that will lay the lands to waste is in reality a 8 level elite. Unless of course the party never engaged him until epic.

Of course, you make certain exceptions from time to time, where the mighty dragon of the Skeleton Caves really _is_ a mighty dragon that will TPK any non-epic party trying to mess with it 


Did any of this make any sense?


Edit: D'oh! Rereading pemerton's post, he's saying pretty much the same thing....


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## Dausuul (Dec 3, 2010)

Matrix Sorcica said:


> IMO, 4E already does this in that many monsters have heroic, paragon and epic versions. But it's still the same monster.
> 
> The dreaded Necromancer of the North with terrible plans that will lay the lands to waste is in reality a 8 level elite. Unless of course the party never engaged him until epic.




I believe I see what you're getting at here, and it's certainly a legitimate approach; if I understand you correctly, it's the idea that the stats in D&D do not reflect any fixed underlying reality. They are simply a way to handle the interaction of these PCs, with these monsters, at this moment in time.

From this point of view, it might be more accurate to say that the Necromancer of the North is neither a level 8 elite nor a level 29 solo; he is what he is within the game world, a purely narrative entity. His stats will be determined at the moment the party faces him, like a quantum waveform collapsing. (Or, more realistically, they will be determined the night before the party faces him, when the DM sits down to stat him out.)

Like I said, this is a legitimate approach, and it's one I flirted with to some extent when 4E was released. However, I've pulled back from it since, because it's massively counterintuitive and it sacrifices much of the usefulness of having rules in the first place.

Suppose the party hears that mind flayers have taken up residence under their home city. The PCs have fought mind flayers before. Now they need to decide what to do. Do they just shrug and say, "Let the city watch handle it?" Do they go after the flayers on their own? Or do they organize a militia and lead them into the tunnels?

If the rules are consistent--if they are at least a fair approximation of the underlying reality of the game world--then the players can answer these questions based on their own experience. They know that mind flayers gave them a tough fight in mid-Paragon and they were trouncing city watchmen at low Heroic, so asking the watch to handle it is tantamount to murder*. They also know that mind flayers have blast attacks and illusion powers that would make a low-level militia force more hindrance than help.

If, however, the rules are merely a transitory illusion, the players have no such capability. They are entirely dependent on the DM to frame the situation for them and evaluate their options. That puts an extra burden on the DM, reduces player agency, and slows down the game (since the players have to constantly ask "How does X stack up against Y?"). It also creates a lot of potential for immersion-breaking moments, when the players' instinctive expectation that AC 30 is AC 30 runs up against the reality that AC 30 is whatever the DM says it is at this moment in time.

And in the case of monster power levels, it seems like a bit of a Red Queen's Race. If monsters level up to keep pace with the PCs, then why are the PCs leveling up at all? Why not just stay the same level from start to finish and cut out all the number-crunching? If the problem is PCs getting bored with their abilities, just hand out new abilities without increasing the overall power level, E6-style.

[size=-2]*One could argue this is metagame thinking, but I disagree. It's players using the rules as a convenient shorthand for what their characters know about mind flayer combat capabilities. Metagaming happens when the players use their knowledge of the rulebooks in ways their characters could not possibly do, e.g., a player who's read the Monster Manual knowing the vulnerabilities of a monster her character has never heard of.[/size]


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## Neonchameleon (Dec 3, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> It's a question of scaling. For example, the earlier editions, once you got past name level, each new level that a PC gained added very little overall, with the exception of every other level for casters. You no longer got full hit dice every level, and the personal combat benefits tended to slow while the social benefits like stronghold founding were enabled. The difference between a 11th-level fighter and a 14th-level fighter was much slimmer than it was in 3e or 4e.
> 
> With one of the design goals of 3e being to make each level a more distinct power-up, the differences between levels became more pronounced. A 20th-level fighter has a lot more hit points and attack power in 3e than he did in 2e. In 4e, it becomes even more pronounced because ten more levels are added, with the same intent of making each one a notable power-up, plus the additional tier-wide powerups.
> 
> Definitely 3e increased the scaling, no argument there. But I think 4e has the most pronounced scaling of any version, with the potential exception of BECMI.




Care to justify how 4e has more pronounced scaling than 3e?  My check of the numbers really doesn't justify this.

Hit points: A 4th edition character gains between 4 and 7 hp per level I think.  (I can't remember if Wardens are 7 or 8).  A 3rd edition character gains between d4+con and d12+con.  Given that a high level wizard will have a +6 enhancement bonus to con - and is likely to have a con of 12 or higher (including tomes) on point buy, that's a low average of 6.5 hp per level.  Despite a far lower starting hp, the wizard is actually gaining _more_ hit points every level than almost every 4e class.  (If anything I'd say 4e scaling is closer to AD&D name level scaling).  Fighters meanwhile are gaining even more hit points every level.

For further wizard comparison, if a 4e wizard is bumping wisdom as his secondary stat with stat bumps (or just not con) then a 4e wizard gains 118 hit points over 29 levels, giving him a final hp total of 140 at level 30 if he had 22 hit points at level 1.  A 3e wizard with a starting con of 12 has 5hp.  At 20th level he has 51.5 hp from the dice.  And assuming a +6 enhancement bonus and a +2 tome he gains 100hp from statics so just over 150 hit points.  In 20 levels our 3e wizard overtook the level 30 wizard in terms of hit points despite having started with fewer than a quarter of his total.

To hit.  On average a 4e PC gains +1 to hit every level.  In 20 levels, a 3e Fighter gains +20 to hit.  +5 (Magic sword +5) +3 (Belt of giant strength +6) + 2 (at least extra points in Str from level increases).  And we're already at +30 in 20 levels before we've even thought about buffs or feats.  Rogues are up to +25 in 20 levels by the same token.  (More normally - they can't take Weapon Finesse until level 3).

In fact, just about every measure of offence and utility scales significantly faster in 3e than 4e.  And spellcasters fastest of all.  What doesn't scale so well are defences other than hit points.  Which is why high level 3e combat is over in a couple of very involved rounds.

And this is confirmed by the xp math.  2 levels to double xp for 3e, 4 for 4e.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 3, 2010)

Neonchameleon said:


> Care to justify how 4e has more pronounced scaling than 3e?  My check of the numbers really doesn't justify this.




Dausuul already beat ya to it upthread. I have recanted my heresy; I still think 4e has very pronounced scaling, but I'm quite willing to concede that 3e is a worthy rival at the very least, if not the outright winner in differences between 1st and max level mechanics.


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## Crazy Jerome (Dec 3, 2010)

Yeah, my example changes didn't really do what I was trying to do there.  (I got some other ideas mixed in, which really don't have anything to do with this topic, and that threw the whole thing off.  Suffice it to say that I think there would be some positive benefits to the "presentation" of condensing the existing mechanics down into 15 levels.) 

However, I do think there are (at least) three distinct things affecting the feel of epic play, in 4E:


The sheer size of the numbers.  This is purely psychological, and mainly what I was getting at with the example.
The scaling of actual power, which is mainly what you guys were talking about.
The fluff itself, which is also psychological, albeit in a different way that the size of the numbers.
I do think the scaling matters, especially since it is the only thing with a true mechanical effect.  But compared to other versions of D&D, I don't see it as all that different.  It still boils down to, "Is this encounter so much tougher than us that we are hosed, unless the DM pulls punches or otherwise bails us out?"


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 3, 2010)

Hello again Ryujin! 



			
				Ryujin said:
			
		

> Yup, you're right about the single theme being dead in the water. I figure that two though, carefully chosen for certain similarities in theme, might just do the trick. As you say though, it would be a near thing.




If you cherry pick two themes...and by cherry pick I mean take Undead and Demons as your themes, then you might just have enough monsters to make a single 9 encounter adventure without (too many) repeated monsters.

No other two themes have enough monsters for EVEN a single (one level spanning) adventure.

Which means that the idea of an Epic Tier-spanning Campaign Adventure Path is pure folly unless you fancy creating/re-skinning 90% of the monsters yourself.



> Perhaps this would be a good direction of expansion for Dungeon Magazine to go in? It's nice to have the odd adventure, for those times when you're stuck for ideas, but having material to flesh out your own adventures is useful too.




In a way its the flip side to the Delve structure (itself a very useful format). With drop-in groups of monsters rather than drop-in areas.

Self-contained groups of maybe 8-12 stat-blocks.

...in fact this is exactly the way I have structured my *Vampire Bestiary*, with several major themes (occasionally with sub-themes*) and several minor themes.

*For instance Vampire Familiars would be a sub-theme of the major (classic) Vampire entry. While the Wight entry would represent a minor theme.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 3, 2010)

Hello there, interesting discussion.



			
				Dausuul said:
			
		

> Barastrondo hits the nail on the head here. It's not about how many steps it takes to get to the top; it's about how high up the top is. I would be perfectly fine with 4E's 30-level span if the power differential weren't so immense.
> 
> My main issue with epic is that it requires me to conjure up a legion of insanely powerful foes who were previously not in evidence. Now, I usually have a few epic-level critters lurking about my campaign worlds; an ancient dragon here, a lich there, a pit fiend buried and sleeping under the earth. But epic tier demands that I supply enough of those creatures to populate an entire tier's worth of combats!




Totally agree with this. But the solution lies as much in going 'sideways' as with the creation of more and more epic opponents.

Firstly, the built in Rank mechanic (Minion, Standard, Elite, Solo) means that something which may have been an Elite threat in the Paragon Tier may only be a Standard or Minion rank threat in the Epic Tier.

Secondly, beyond even minions, the game has the capacity for introducing Armies as opponents. So theoretically even hordes of goblins and legions of orcs could be a threat to epic characters.

Thirdly, the potential is there for Super-solo's to also take up more of the burden of challenges (I don't want to go into the subject myself at this juncture because it would mean explaining my rules for them, but I think they are definately part of the solution).



> A glance at their stats (regardless of what number is written in the "level" space, or whether the monster is called "pit fiend" or "orc warchief") makes it obvious that such a confluence of mighty monsters would be enough to bring the campaign world to its knees if not for the PCs. So why didn't they do it before the PCs showed up? Why has it taken them this long to put in an appearance?




When you think about it, epic encounters only involve a handful of monsters. So its not like you have to say well suddenly there are 10,000 Pit Fiends and they all live next door, you just never noticed before.

So really you need:
A. Some epic tier monsters
B. Some re-ranked paragon tier monsters 
C. Some NPCs
D. Some armies of heroic tier (or maybe paragon tier?) monsters
E. Throw in the odd super-solo monster 

...of course the problem is you still need A, B, C, D and E created.

As regards demographics. If the assumption is that Level 20 is one in a million, then there should be about 1000 Epic Tier NPCs on a given world with a population of a billion.

21st = 512
22nd = 256
23rd = 128
24th = 64
25th = 32
26th = 16
27th = 8
28th = 4
29th = 2
30th = 1

The above assumes those with normal lifespans of course, and not monsters or monstrous NPCs.



> I can come up with answers to those questions, but it requires taking the campaign in a whole new direction. In any campaign world that is not already stocked with a zillion epic monsters (in which case the PCs likely spent most of heroic tier hiding under rocks), epic tier is more or less restricted to a) an army of super-powerful monsters has emerged from centuries-long slumber or confinement, or b) the PCs are required to adventure in another plane where there is an army of super-powerful monsters, or c) the PCs are suddenly doing far less fighting than previously.




See above on why that may not necessarily be the case.


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## Ryujin (Dec 3, 2010)

Templating would likely also help, as long as it was carefully implemented.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 3, 2010)

Hello there Matrix Sorcica! 



			
				Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> Let's see if my English allow me to express what I want to say here....
> 
> Couldn't a solution be that the monsters scale with the PCs, in a sandbox like way? You have the terrible lich living in the tomb warrens. If the party engage him at paragon, he's x level. If they engage him at epic level, he's y level. And instead of thinking about why the lich didn't conquer the world while the pcs were rising to power, think about his power relative to the party and take the story from there.
> 
> The Orc king is a level 28 elite and his warriors are level 27 - because the adventure is about stopping the mother of all Orc invasions that will change the very past so that Orcs have always been the masters, etc. Who cares that the Orc King could have conquered the world before? So you don't need a supernatural army from the Planes - the Orcs are just as badass because the story needs it.




There's no reason why you can't assume the enemy leaders are levelling up, just be wary of levelling up monsters _en masse_.

For example about 20 years ago in our campaign I recall the lands of the main setting were beseiged by a massive army of humanoids. 

The humanoids were led by an Ogre King called Harcoth, who was a Level 20 fighter, his bodyguard were Hill Giants, he had a few other Ogre 'heroes' including General Hulsk, Level 15 Fighter. They had allied with a force called the Darksword Knights, I think its leader was a Level 18 Fighter. The Darksword Knights were dragon riders, and worshippers of the Devil God Druaga, so they also had a bunch of Devils with them.

I seem to recall that we actually 'rescued' Harcoth's fortress (called the Black Citadel) which was actually an imprisoned elder deity from the Elemental Plane of Earth. Once we had freed it (I can't recall the details of that specific endeavour) the deity owed us a favour and we asked it to aid us against the army...the army actually defeated this several hundred foot tall earth elemental god, dispelling it back to its home plane...though not before much damage was done.

I think if you were to replicate something like that for 4E, then you'd need to make it for about Levels 15-20, depending on the party make-up.

*Super-solo* - Earth-Elemental God - Super-solo
*Elites* - King Harcoth; General Hulsk; Head of Darksword Knights
*Standard Monsters* - Hill Giants, (Tamed) Dragons, various Greater Devils, Darksword Knight Captains
*Minions* - Ogres, Darksword Knights, various Lesser Devils
*Armies* - Orcs, Goblins

So my point being that levelling up the enemy 'heroes' is fine, just be wary of saying, well all the orcs are now Level 27 because when exposed to a yellow sun they become super-orcs.



> IMO, 4E already does this in that many monsters have heroic, paragon and epic versions. But it's still the same monster.
> 
> The dreaded Necromancer of the North with terrible plans that will lay the lands to waste is in reality a 8 level elite. Unless of course the party never engaged him until epic.




There is no reason why you would even have to detail the dreaded Necromancer until the party involve themselves in his (or her) business. As for how powerful they are. Perhaps his power is waxing and his influence is growing until checked by either the party or some other force. So he'll continue to amass power and gain levels while left to his own devices.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 3, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Barastrondo hits the nail on the head here. It's not about how many steps it takes to get to the top; it's about how high up the top is. I would be perfectly fine with 4E's 30-level span if the power differential weren't so immense.



but it wouldn't be necessary if it wasn't. Power creep begets power creep and the necessity for level 30 to be so incredibly powerful compared to level 20 is exactly necessary for the reasoning that if it wasn't it wouldn't be necessary to have at all.

Repeat this line of thought ad-infinitum all the way back down to level 1. Why reach lvl2 if there's really no difference? 



> My main issue with epic is that it requires me to conjure up a legion of insanely powerful foes who were previously not in evidence. Now, I usually have a few epic-level critters lurking about my campaign worlds; an ancient dragon here, a lich there, a pit fiend buried and sleeping under the earth. But epic tier demands that I supply enough of those creatures to populate an entire tier's worth of combats!



By the book, you are certainly correct. But that's why we're playing D&D and not WoW isn't it? So we don't have to go by the book. That ancient dragon, that lich, that pit fiend, they are alive and untouched for a reason, and that reason is usually explained by they are A: incredibly powerful, and B: they have supplicants to do their bidding for them.

There's no need for an elemental invasion or demonic hordes, as one, single foe of that magnitude can generally provide enough subordinates of high enough power as to make for a very tough fight.

Think of it in Star Wars terms. The Emperor summons his Vader, and both have their Imperial Guards, while Vader also gets his Boba Fett and there's still a a legion of Storm Troopers to deal with. You've now gone from one foe, to(sans the troopers) nearly a dozen, all of which are powerful, well trained compatants.

Why aren't they invading the world with that kind of power? Maybe they don't want to, they're satisfied with their power, maybe they just started, and you're nipping the threat in the bud. 



> A glance at their stats (regardless of what number is written in the "level" space, or whether the monster is called "pit fiend" or "orc warchief") makes it obvious that such a confluence of mighty monsters would be enough to bring the campaign world to its knees if not for the PCs. So why didn't they do it before the PCs showed up? Why has it taken them this long to put in an appearance?



Because that's what villains do. Cheesy as it sounds, that's what villains do. Lex Luthor existed for as long as Superman, but it took him time to build his empire. Galactus traveled the universe, but the universe is big and it took him a while to find Earth. Sauron and his lord tried several times, and it took him nearly 3000 years to regain enough power to invade the world again.



> I can come up with answers to those questions, but it requires taking the campaign in a whole new direction. In any campaign world that is not already stocked with a zillion epic monsters (in which case the PCs likely spent most of heroic tier hiding under rocks), epic tier is more or less restricted to a) an army of super-powerful monsters has emerged from centuries-long slumber or confinement, or b) the PCs are required to adventure in another plane where there is an army of super-powerful monsters, or c) the PCs are suddenly doing far less fighting than previously.



I disagree, your PCs have gained immense power, perhaps they are now some of the most powerful people on your world. maybe before there were only 5 scattered, now there are 10, and 5 of them(your party) are all next to each other, this can attract a lot of attention. 

And yes, they should be doing less fighting, but the fights should be more important. Maybe per level you only have one, or two fights. Perhaps each one is a new attempt to seige the Arch-Fiend's stronghold, or it another assault by the Fiend's minions upon your player's stronghold. These aren't bandits your heroes are fighting anymore, these are the Boba Fetts, the Rook's and Bishops, Knights and Queen of your powerful foe's chess set.

There is nothing wrong with "pausing" a battle and saying that the next "phase" is a new encounter.  "One fight" becomes more like "one battle", comprised of several smaller battles.  Overall, it's "less fighting", it's singular huge fights instead of multiple small ones.

Why hasn't your foe conquered the world? Because your heroes weren't there to stop him. Too cliche? Hey, I've never seen a pc complain that they were there at the right time and the right place to stop the dark lord from destroying all they know and love.


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## Dausuul (Dec 3, 2010)

shidaku said:


> but it wouldn't be necessary if it wasn't. Power creep begets power creep and the necessity for level 30 to be so incredibly powerful compared to level 20 is exactly necessary for the reasoning that if it wasn't it wouldn't be necessary to have at all.




PCs gain levels to give a sense of progress to the players and avert boredom. Simple numeric inflation (attacks, defenses, hit points, damage) is only one component of that progress, and not a very big one. You could get rid of the numeric inflation entirely, and the power curve would become close to flat, but players would still have a sense of progress as they gained new feats and powers.



shidaku said:


> That ancient dragon, that lich, that pit fiend, they are alive and untouched for a reason, and that reason is usually explained by they are A: incredibly powerful, and B: they have supplicants to do their bidding for them.




Sure. Heroic-level supplicants. Maybe paragon. But epic?



shidaku said:


> Think of it in Star Wars terms. The Emperor summons his Vader, and both have their Imperial Guards, while Vader also gets his Boba Fett and there's still a a legion of Storm Troopers to deal with. You've now gone from one foe, to(sans the troopers) nearly a dozen, all of which are powerful, well trained compatants.




And that's a grand total of maybe four encounters. What do we do for the rest of epic tier?



shidaku said:


> Because that's what villains do. Cheesy as it sounds, that's what villains do. Lex Luthor existed for as long as Superman, but it took him time to build his empire. Galactus traveled the universe, but the universe is big and it took him a while to find Earth. Sauron and his lord tried several times, and it took him nearly 3000 years to regain enough power to invade the world again.




And to the best of my knowledge, none of them commands armies of epic-level creatures, or even high-paragon-level creatures that could be minionized. I'm not real familiar with what Lex Luthor's got on hand, but Galactus by all accounts is a single solo, and the only servants Sauron has that seem potentially epic-level are the Nazgul. (And that's being pretty generous to the Nazgul; they look more like mid-paragon to me.)

Remember, we're not talking about _one_ epic foe. That's easy enough to work into a campaign. And it's not too hard to stretch that out into 3, 4, maybe 5 combats by giving the epic foe some epic henchmen and elite guards. All this I readily concede.

But we're talking about an _entire tier's worth of combat_. 10 levels--25 sessions or so. Even if you have only one combat a session, that's 25 battles, and if you follow a more typical pattern for D&D, it'll be more like 50. Just how many elite guards and epic henchmen do these guys have?

Now consider that if the heroes battle those 25-50 gangs of epic foes, there are presumably a lot more of them that the PCs never fight. It's ludicrous to suppose that the heroes would fight their way through _all_ of the villain's elite forces in a series of small groups. If the villain's forces are sufficiently spread out that the PCs have to engage in 25-50 separate combats, then it logically follows that there must be hundreds of groups out there that the PCs bypass on the way to their objective.


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## Matrix Sorcica (Dec 3, 2010)

Krusty, you really need to release those rules. Before 5E, please 

Knowing you and release schedules, I'm a bit worried. How about some previews or other tidbits? Or a rules release and _then_ the adventures.

Man, you're the reason I registered to ENWorld back in March 2002  - to comment on your Immortals Handbook. 4E was released in June 2008, with the IH still far from complete


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## Sunseeker (Dec 3, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> PCs gain levels to give a sense of progress to the players and avert boredom. Simple numeric inflation (attacks, defenses, hit points, damage) is only one component of that progress, and not a very big one. You could get rid of the numeric inflation entirely, and the power curve would become close to flat, but players would still have a sense of progress as they gained new feats and powers.



No, the power curve would not be flat.  It would just be a power curve based on powers, instead of a power curve based on inherent stats or gear.

If a 10th level Wizard has 30 spells, and a first level wizard has 3, then that 10th level wizard is going to have exponentially more powerful spells.  Why?  Because basic game design says he must, otherwise there is no point in going that far.  From an RP perspective, why should a wizard spend years studying new spells....if he's only going to be a tiny bit more powerful than a wizard who has studied 3 spells.

Even if we remove the number of spells, SOMETHING has to show that your character is progressing in terms of personal power improvment.  Either they learn new tricks, or improve the ones they have.  If you don't do this, the very basics of levels are destroyed.  There's no point to levels if there isn't enough of a power curve to so that a higher-level character is worth the investment. 



> Sure. Heroic-level supplicants. Maybe paragon. But epic?



Again, reference the Darth Vader/Emperor duo.  Both the Emperor and Vader are certainly Epic, and Boba Fett probably is too, if only slightly lesser.  in level terms, the Emperor would be 30+, vader would be the high 20's, and Fett would be mid 20's.   



> And that's a grand total of maybe four encounters. What do we do for the rest of epic tier?



How many times did Luke and co run into Vader before defeating him?  Once or twice a movie?  Who says fighting the villain has to end with defeating them?  They are epic because they have survived all the would-be adventurers before you.

This is a problem IMO, that Heroic tier generated.  Heroic teir pits your adventurers against idiots, against mindless animals.  Creatures that fight first, and think later.  Epic tier is the reverse, it pits your heros against vastly intelligent creatures that think first and fight second.  Creatures that will ignore marks in favor of killing weakened foes.  Creatures that will ignore "favored enemies" over whoever looks the most tasty.  Creatures that are immune to the taunts and catcalls of your heroes.  And finally Villains who push the big red button first, before telling you their plan, and don't build their doomsday device with an "off" switch. 

Heroic and early Paragon get your players, and DMs into the mindset that foes are foolhardy and careless.  Epic tier should catch everyone by surprise because not a single foe in Epic should be even slightly foolish.



> And to the best of my knowledge, none of them commands armies of epic-level creatures, or even high-paragon-level creatures that could be minionized. I'm not real familiar with what Lex Luthor's got on hand, but Galactus by all accounts is a single solo, and the only servants Sauron has that seem potentially epic-level are the Nazgul. (And that's being pretty generous to the Nazgul; they look more like mid-paragon to me.)



Luthor had a variety of hero cloning programs, he was well invested with CADMUS and Star Labs.  He often hired other heroes or villians to protect him.  
It's a game, they exist ONLY to challenge your heroes.  Yes, I get that a lot of people want to go for this thing known as "realism", but lets face it, you need some hardy suspension of disbelief to get these things to function.



> Remember, we're not talking about _one_ epic foe. That's easy enough to work into a campaign. And it's not too hard to stretch that out into 3, 4, maybe 5 combats by giving the epic foe some epic henchmen and elite guards. All this I readily concede.
> 
> But we're talking about an _entire tier's worth of combat_. 10 levels--25 sessions or so. Even if you have only one combat a session, that's 25 battles, and if you follow a more typical pattern for D&D, it'll be more like 50. Just how many elite guards and epic henchmen do these guys have?



So you do other things that get the players to level up, I get that 4E is combat heavy, but the leveling experience need not revolve around combat alone.  Heck, there were 9 Nazgul, most of whom only died because Sauron was destroyed, only one of which was actually killed, and it took two heroes(with combat advantage! and a prophecy!(the Witch King had that whole Macbeth "no man can kill me" thing)).  And he probably would have won if he hadn't gone to play with Theoden.



> Now consider that if the heroes battle those 25-50 gangs of epic foes, there are presumably a lot more of them that the PCs never fight. It's ludicrous to suppose that the heroes would fight their way through _all_ of the villain's elite forces in a series of small groups. If the villain's forces are sufficiently spread out that the PCs have to engage in 25-50 separate combats, then it logically follows that there must be hundreds of groups out there that the PCs bypass on the way to their objective.




Assuming 50 sessions, each "battle" taking 2 sessions we end up with 25 unique combats.  Breaking that down by 5 unique "epic henchmen" means we're looking at 5 battles per foe.  Four if you include the top-guy as one of them, then we're looking at 4 seperate epic villain-henchmen, each with their own little entourage of a half a dozen high-paragon minions, whom each have their own little personal collection of high-heroic minions.  

in the words of some rap star: Break it down
1 Villain, high Epic+(lvl30 elite solo and with a cheery on top)
4-5 Subordinate villains, low-to-high epic.(lvl 25-30 elites)
4-5 per above, Sub-villain hencies, high paragon
5-10 per above sub-hencies minions, low paragon, high heroic.

Each epic combat would take place over 4-5 sessions.
First you would encounter one, or two of the sub-villain hencies, with 5-10 of their lackies, this combat is a two-nighter.
Next time, you would encounter the sub-villain, all his remaining 2-3 hencies, and all their 5-10 high heroic, low-paragon minions.

First battle would be something along the lines of 15-30 foes, two or 3 of which could easily hold their own against your party.

Second battle would be similar, with the addition of the subordinate villain, who would hold back until most of the lackie minions are downed.

Repeat this for as many subordinate villains as you want, each sub-villain more powerful than the last.

Personally, I think that would easily last me 25-50 sessions.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 3, 2010)

shidaku said:


> This is a problem IMO, that Heroic tier generated.  Heroic teir pits your adventurers against idiots, against mindless animals.  Creatures that fight first, and think later. Heroic and early Paragon get your players, and DMs into the mindset that foes are foolhardy and careless.  Epic tier should catch everyone by surprise because not a single foe in Epic should be even slightly foolish.




I should note that in cases where this is not true -- where you're also fighting against clever and dangerous individuals from the get-go -- heroic tier has a very different feel than what you describe. If I were to tally most of the games I've run since 4e came out, my top five most-used antagonists are humans, elves, goblins, undead, and maybe wererats as number five. Some undead are mindless, but for the most part the idiots and mindless animals are the exception rather than the rule. 

One of the reasons that I haven't effectively been sold on "why I should want to do the work to do epic tier" is that there aren't that many distinct things you can do in epic that you can't do in heroic or paragon: it's mostly the same things with the dial turned up to 11. There are a few things about epic play that transcend what you were doing at 1st level, only with the stakes increased, but opposing intelligent opponents is absolutely not one of those things.

(Also, assuming that opponents will survive more clashes with the PCs because they're smart doesn't mean much. The PCs are smart, too. The DM can always ensure that NPCs will somehow escape or survive and chalk it up to their NPCs' intelligence and resources, but the line blurs between NPC intelligence and DM fiat, particularly from the players' perspective. As smart as an NPC may be, a foolproof escape plan relies on the resources they have available, and the resources they have available are determined by DM fiat.)


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## Sunseeker (Dec 3, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> I should note that in cases where this is not true -- where you're also fighting against clever and dangerous individuals from the get-go -- heroic tier has a very different feel than what you describe. If I were to tally most of the games I've run since 4e came out, my top five most-used antagonists are humans, elves, goblins, undead, and maybe wererats as number five. Some undead are mindless, but for the most part the idiots and mindless animals are the exception rather than the rule.



Even when I've played games where we fight an assortment of intelligent beings, they rarely demonstrate tactics or smarts of any sort.  It's really on the DM here I suppose, and how much work they want to put in to the dozen bandits they just cooked up.



> One of the reasons that I haven't effectively been sold on "why I should want to do the work to do epic tier" is that there aren't that many distinct things you can do in epic that you can't do in heroic or paragon: it's mostly the same things with the dial turned up to 11. There are a few things about epic play that transcend what you were doing at 1st level, only with the stakes increased, but opposing intelligent opponents is absolutely not one of those things.



Personally, I think that's the point.  Epic tier is "normalcy" taken to 11+.  Instead of pirates and kidnapping, you have flying alien warships dropping genocidal plagues upon entire cities.  Intead of a nutty mage who summoned up some elementals, you have a dozen nutty mages worshipping a titanic elemental who wants to merge with the world to become the most powerful elemental ever.

IMO, there's nothing wrong with "the basics" taken to 11.



> (Also, assuming that opponents will survive more clashes with the PCs because they're smart doesn't mean much. The PCs are smart, too. The DM can always ensure that NPCs will somehow escape or survive and chalk it up to their NPCs' intelligence and resources, but the line blurs between NPC intelligence and DM fiat, particularly from the players' perspective. As smart as an NPC may be, a foolproof escape plan relies on the resources they have available, and the resources they have available are determined by DM fiat.)



Of course, which is why, as above, I detailed the fact that the truly epic foes aren't going to present themselves right away.  And they aren't going to charge into battle because they've learned that lackies exist for a reason.  Certainly some incredibly strategic thinking on the part of the players could be utilized to stop even the most foolproof escape.  

IMO, if the players are REALLY that cunning, the villains may kick it up a notch on their next attack.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, for the smarter the PCs become, the cleverer the villains become.  For the more traps they avoid, the harder the traps become to detect.

Villains are not, in my book, static bosses who wait in their alcove till the players arrive.(I'm looking at you MMOs!), they are cunning, crafty, constantly thinking foes who are constantly improving themselves and their plans.  

All the best villains in (fictional)history are the best not because they are powerful, that's expected.  They're not great because they wait around to get beat up.  They're great because they're smart, and it's only when you outsmart them that you win.  Even Superman's might cannot always overwhelm Luthor's smarts, and he often seeks help from other heroes/heroines when this is the case.  And the best heroes are the best for the same reason, because they are cunning and wise up to this stuff.

Yes, in a nutshell, Epic tier is "the basics" taken to 11.  But Luthor and Galactus are still worlds apart from lesser villains.


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## Dausuul (Dec 3, 2010)

shidaku said:


> No, the power curve would not be flat.  It would just be a power curve based on powers, instead of a power curve based on inherent stats or gear.
> 
> If a 10th level Wizard has 30 spells, and a first level wizard has 3, then that 10th level wizard is going to have exponentially more powerful spells.  Why?  Because basic game design says he must, otherwise there is no point in going that far.  From an RP perspective, why should a wizard spend years studying new spells....if he's only going to be a tiny bit more powerful than a wizard who has studied 3 spells.




Because he has more versatility. He can do cool new things that he couldn't do before. Playing a wizard in AD&D, my ears perked up every time I heard the slightest hint that there might be another wizard's spellbook to be copied from or stolen--not because I'd get access to spells more powerful than those I already had (that wouldn't happen until I went up a level, which was a slow, slow process in the games I played in), but because I'd expand my repertoire.

Like I said, plenty of RPGs have very shallow power curves, in which PCs advance mainly through expanding their array of options rather than increasing raw power level. Most point-buy systems follow this logic. A GURPS character can, and often does, start out with skill ratings as high as they can profitably go in a narrow range of skills. Character points acquired during play are then spent to expand that range rather than trying to push the existing skill ratings higher.

(Now, that said, it's true that the power curve will never be totally flat. _Lightning bolt_ is not more powerful than _fireball,_ but a wizard with both spells is stronger than a wizard with only one, simply because she's got more options--when faced with an enemy resistant to one, she can use the other. But the power gains from increased versatility are quite small compared to the gains from sheer number inflation.)



shidaku said:


> How many times did Luke and co run into Vader before defeating him?  Once or twice a movie?  Who says fighting the villain has to end with defeating them?  They are epic because they have survived all the would-be adventurers before you.




The point of battle is to defeat the enemy. Once in a while, you can get away with having a recurring villain escape or spare the PCs' lives, but it becomes an obvious cheat if you do it over and over.



shidaku said:


> Epic tier is the reverse, it pits your heros against vastly intelligent creatures that think first and fight second.




And this lends itself to a lengthy adventure cycle how, exactly? If these villains are so smart, they won't fight the PCs at all until they have an overwhelming advantage--and then they will curbstomp them, shoot them all in the head, and burn the bodies.



shidaku said:


> It's a game, they exist ONLY to challenge your heroes.  Yes, I get that a lot of people want to go for this thing known as "realism", but lets face it, you need some hardy suspension of disbelief to get these things to function.




Yeah. You do. You need a freakin' forklift. That's my whole problem.

Part of the reason I don't know much about Lex Luthor is that most comic series put my suspension of disbelief through more of a pounding than I have patience for. And even if I personally didn't care about verisimilitude, my players won't let me get away with nearly as much crap as comic book writers do.



shidaku said:


> in the words of some rap star: Break it down
> 1 Villain, high Epic+(lvl30 elite solo and with a cheery on top)
> 4-5 Subordinate villains, low-to-high epic.(lvl 25-30 elites)
> 4-5 per above, Sub-villain hencies, high paragon
> 5-10 per above sub-hencies minions, low paragon, high heroic.




High-heroic monsters are strictly nothing at epic tier. They're not even worth bothering to include in the fight; they won't do any damage and will fall over dead if anyone so much as breathes their way. They're window dressing. Same goes for low paragon, and in the latter half of epic tier even high paragon foes will be largely irrelevant.

So what you've got here is 5-6 epic monsters that provide real opposition, and maybe 20 high paragon monsters that serve as cannon fodder and will fall off the radar completely about halfway through the tier.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 3, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Because he has more versatility. He can do cool new things that he couldn't do before. Playing a wizard in AD&D, my ears perked up every time I heard the slightest hint that there might be another wizard's spellbook to be copied from or stolen--not because I'd get access to spells more powerful than those I already had (that wouldn't happen until I went up a level, which was a slow, slow process in the games I played in), but because I'd expand my repertoire.



So the curve is about versaility as opposed to sheer power. The curve hasn't changed, you've just put it on some other aspect of the game.



> Like I said, plenty of RPGs have very shallow power curves, in which PCs advance mainly through expanding their array of options rather than increasing raw power level. Most point-buy systems follow this logic. A GURPS character can, and often does, start out with skill ratings as high as they can profitably go in a narrow range of skills. Character points acquired during play are then spent to expand that range rather than trying to push the existing skill ratings higher.



Which as I said, makes the curve placed on a different part of the game, it doesn't flatten it.
A mage who can stun you can teleport you off a cliff is significantly more powerful than one who can only stun you or one who can only shoot a fireball.



> (Now, that said, it's true that the power curve will never be totally flat. _Lightning bolt_ is not more powerful than _fireball,_ but a wizard with both spells is stronger than a wizard with only one, simply because she's got more options--when faced with an enemy resistant to one, she can use the other. But the power gains from increased versatility are quite small compared to the gains from sheer number inflation.)



Exactly. A flat power-curve is a game with no improvment. 



> The point of battle is to defeat the enemy. Once in a while, you can get away with having a recurring villain escape or spare the PCs' lives, but it becomes an obvious cheat if you do it over and over.



No, the point of a battle is to TRY to defeat the enemy. Simply getting involved in the battle does not ensure you'll defeat them. Even if you get them really low, they've still got that little portable teleport amulet. 



> And this lends itself to a lengthy adventure cycle how, exactly? If these villains are so smart, they won't fight the PCs at all until they have an overwhelming advantage--and then they will curbstomp them, shoot them all in the head, and burn the bodies.



Which is when you have to play up the fact that they are villains. What do villains generally do?
They get overconfident, they rely on minions, they monologue. In truth, you're right, the best villains, they WILL win, the ones who do none of the stupid stuff villains do, they win. But the point is, at the same time your villains are attacking you, you are likewise counterattacking them. You attack before they have that overwhelming advantage. 



> Part of the reason I don't know much about Lex Luthor is that most comic series put my suspension of disbelief through more of a pounding than I have patience for. And even if I personally didn't care about verisimilitude, my players won't let me get away with nearly as much crap as comic book writers do.



You don't have to go quite THAT far, but say for example, the villain has a shield, and only one of those other 5 Epic tier people in the world can break it. You NEED them, but the villain is already after them, thus you encounter the villains "Nazgul". 



> High-heroic monsters are strictly nothing at epic tier. They're not even worth bothering to include in the fight; they won't do any damage and will fall over dead if anyone so much as breathes their way. They're window dressing. Same goes for low paragon, and in the latter half of epic tier even high paragon foes will be largely irrelevant.



They're supposed to, at best, be equivilent to minions who will slow your party down, waste their resources, and generally make you easier for the BBEGs to take out.  If they can't hit, give them auto-damage, give them aura's of slow.  Force your party to deal with them.



> So what you've got here is 5-6 epic monsters that provide real opposition, and maybe 20 high paragon monsters that serve as cannon fodder and will fall off the radar completely about halfway through the tier.



Yeah pretty much. The 20-30 lackies on the field are only there to slow you down, that's it. They give sub-villain #5 the chance to blast you all with his death-ray, that's their only job.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 3, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Even when I've played games where we fight an assortment of intelligent beings, they rarely demonstrate tactics or smarts of any sort.  It's really on the DM here I suppose, and how much work they want to put in to the dozen bandits they just cooked up.




Sure. But it's a tier-agnostic thing. There is nothing that compels a DM to play epic-tier characters any more carefully than heroic-tier characters; they're equally capable of being thrown at the PCs in a suicidal wave. I'd actually be kind of worried if a DM wanted to play heroic tier as full of idiots and epic tier as full of supergeniuses -- that strikes me as favoritism more than as verisimilitude. There should be smart opponents at every level, and if there aren't, I'd suspect the DM is personally bored or jaded with the game at that point.



> Personally, I think that's the point.  Epic tier is "normalcy" taken to 11+.  Instead of pirates and kidnapping, you have flying alien warships dropping genocidal plagues upon entire cities.  Intead of a nutty mage who summoned up some elementals, you have a dozen nutty mages worshipping a titanic elemental who wants to merge with the world to become the most powerful elemental ever.
> 
> IMO, there's nothing wrong with "the basics" taken to 11.




Right. But that's why I say it can be a tough sell. It's a fun enough game model, but if you haven't set up for it from the beginning, the mere promise of going to 11 may not offset the complications caused.



> IMO, if the players are REALLY that cunning, the villains may kick it up a notch on their next attack.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, for the smarter the PCs become, the cleverer the villains become.  For the more traps they avoid, the harder the traps become to detect.
> 
> Villains are not, in my book, static bosses who wait in their alcove till the players arrive.(I'm looking at you MMOs!), they are cunning, crafty, constantly thinking foes who are constantly improving themselves and their plans.




Sure. But again, that's a tier-agnostic approach (or should be). There's really no reason that a 5th-level crime boss can't be terrifying to the players for the entirety of levels 1-5 until they finally manage to corner him and put him to the sword. The same holds true for a 10th-level warlord, or a 15th-level lich.



> Yes, in a nutshell, Epic tier is "the basics" taken to 11.  But Luthor and Galactus are still worlds apart from lesser villains.




In terms of power level, yes. But characters like Marlo Stanfield or the Gray King aren't their lessers when it comes to sheer cunning, motivation and amorality. 

It's actually interesting that you use comic-book villains as examples, come to think of it: what I've done with epic play was in an entirely different system, with more of a superhero model. Part of that was to encourage the concept of recurring villains. One of the things that makes Luthor what he is is that, well, he has general plot immunity: Superman's never going to kill him, and he's too valuable to the franchise to remove and replace with someone else. When I was looking to model villains on the Luthor mold, Champions felt more natural, as D&D is a game where you measure your success by how many villains you've removed from the campaign permanently.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 3, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> Sure. But it's a tier-agnostic thing. There is nothing that compels a DM to play epic-tier characters any more carefully than heroic-tier characters; they're equally capable of being thrown at the PCs in a suicidal wave. I'd actually be kind of worried if a DM wanted to play heroic tier as full of idiots and epic tier as full of supergeniuses -- that strikes me as favoritism more than as verisimilitude. There should be smart opponents at every level, and if there aren't, I'd suspect the DM is personally bored or jaded with the game at that point.



Possibly, but the reason those Epic villains are Epic is because they're the ones who were smart during Heroic. Yes, in every group of bandits there's the cunning one or two. These are the ones who go on to Paragon to become bandit lords. Of those bandit lords, a few of them are more cunning than the rest, and they are the ones who make pacts with demons, devils, or gods for the kind of power that will carry them off into Epic.

Heroic "smart" bandits know getting behind you makes them dangerous. Epic "smart" villains know that getting behind you, immoblizing you, lowering your defenses, and mind-controlling you makes you AND your party dead. 



> Right. But that's why I say it can be a tough sell. It's a fun enough game model, but if you haven't set up for it from the beginning, the mere promise of going to 11 may not offset the complications caused.



No, it may not, but we'll never know unless we try, there's too much "lets just not do it at all 'cause we think it'll be dumb" going on in this thread. 



> Sure. But again, that's a tier-agnostic approach (or should be). There's really no reason that a 5th-level crime boss can't be terrifying to the players for the entirety of levels 1-5 until they finally manage to corner him and put him to the sword. The same holds true for a 10th-level warlord, or a 15th-level lich.



I agree. Every "boss" battle should be potent and challenging, at their level. But they are, as you say, a crime boss. Which is a different scale entirely from guys like The Kingpin. Crime boss? More like Crime Lord. I'm not arguing ALL the cool stuff has to happen in Epic tier. I'm just saying that applying the same theories "dialed up" is really all it takes. 




> It's actually interesting that you use comic-book villains as examples, come to think of it: what I've done with epic play was in an entirely different system, with more of a superhero model. Part of that was to encourage the concept of recurring villains. One of the things that makes Luthor what he is is that, well, he has general plot immunity: Superman's never going to kill him, and he's too valuable to the franchise to remove and replace with someone else. When I was looking to model villains on the Luthor mold, Champions felt more natural, as D&D is a game where you measure your success by how many villains you've removed from the campaign permanently.



Partially, I think that's because Champions sat down and said "look guys, we know how this works, lets roll with it." and did their best to mimic the flavor of a villain who challenges you every step of the way, grows as you grow.

Yes, D&D "achievements" center around how many "bosses" you've downed, just as almost every Fantasy RPG does. But that doesn't mean your game in particular has to revolve around that theme. Personally, this is just a matter of getting it into your player's head that "reputation" comes from more than just your kill count. Much like the Epic Destiny Quest, you are not widely known for how many heads you mount on your wall, but perhaps, how many lives you've saved. Only a handful of those lives were saved from the grasp of your foes, most of whom you saved from trees or burning buildings.  Or maybe you're well known for how many homeless shelters you've built.


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## Crazy Jerome (Dec 3, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Much like the Epic Destiny Quest, you are not widely known for how many heads you mount on your wall, but perhaps, how many lives you've saved. Only a handful of those lives were saved from the grasp of your foes, most of whom you saved from trees or burning buildings. Or maybe you're well known for how many homeless shelters you've built.




I was nodding along with your whole post, until that last bit. That slant is exactly not epic fantasy to me. I make the distinction this way, from an old conversation of a similar nature:

1. A character has a significant ability to craft something. This ability was developed through characterization and play through the life of the character. The character probably started as an apprentice or journeyman, and got better as they went. Finally, there is the need to craft a critical piece of equipment to defeat the BBEG, and this character just so happens to have the necessary skill. The characters, with the help of some friends, assembles the materials, crafts the item, and off they go, versus ...

2. A character has a significant ability to craft something. Crafting this something is dangerous, and it gets worse the more you do it. There are times when maybe doing so was definitely not a no-brainer. Progress was in spits and spurts, and any formal training was more like Chiron with Hercules than a guild system. The BBEG confrontation draws near. Perhaps a crafted object will help, but it is risky ... 

Both might be interesting characterization, at least to some people. But whatever else it is, I see 1. as certainly neither epic nor fantastical (besides being a bit contrived, which could be due to my portayal of it). Yet 1. is how systems want to push this kind of thing (which is why I think 4E left it out). I want 2., which is roughly what you'd get with a Norse master crafting dwarf as a player character. If it is turned up to 11, I want "11" on the volume knob from the very beginning. 

Rescuing kittens from trees is not done on a knob that goes to 11, at least not non-ironically.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 4, 2010)

shidaku said:


> No, it may not, but we'll never know unless we try, there's too much "lets just not do it at all 'cause we think it'll be dumb" going on in this thread.




I don't think it'd be dumb. Basically, I'm unsold. I'm interested in being sold, but as we've talked about earlier, the sell is difficult if you haven't prepared for epic from the beginning. And "heroic tier villains aren't as noteworthy" is an anti-sell in any stripe, hence why I objected.



> I agree. Every "boss" battle should be potent and challenging, at their level. But they are, as you say, a crime boss. Which is a different scale entirely from guys like The Kingpin. Crime boss? More like Crime Lord. I'm not arguing ALL the cool stuff has to happen in Epic tier. I'm just saying that applying the same theories "dialed up" is really all it takes.




Sure, but it's also possible to "dial down." There's no reason that fantasy analogues of the whole Daredevil mythos couldn't play out in heroic tier other than personal preference. So that's why I'm interested in finding out not just what epic tier has to offer other than "the same, but bigger," but novel ways to apply it to an existing world.

To go back to D&D, one of my favorite modules from my youth (at least conceptually; it had a few hiccups in execution from a modern eye) was Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. You were up against a council of crimelords there. And it was recommended for levels 4-9. That was immensely appealing: it sold the idea that you could go up against potent villains and make a difference, even at single digit levels. Cutting the head off an immense slaving ring? That's _fantastic_. 



> Partially, I think that's because Champions sat down and said "look guys, we know how this works, lets roll with it." and did their best to mimic the flavor of a villain who challenges you every step of the way, grows as you grow.




And also it's rooted in the four-color tradition. Recurring villains are easier to justify if they don't actually get away with all that many atrocities. But use the Joker in his modern "every time he shows up another couple of civilians will die horribly" incarnation, and players may well feel personally responsible for every person he kills because they didn't put him down forever. And since part of the appeal of RPGs is to have your guy do the _smart_ thing instead of the "play to the audience and keep the franchise going" thing, they may much rather kill the Joker first chance they get than have a series of recurring conflicts with him. A passive reader and an active player's needs are different.



> Yes, D&D "achievements" center around how many "bosses" you've downed, just as almost every Fantasy RPG does. But that doesn't mean your game in particular has to revolve around that theme. Personally, this is just a matter of getting it into your player's head that "reputation" comes from more than just your kill count.




It's not about reputation or "achievements." It's about the fact that D&D is flat-out a game about lethal solutions: slay the dragon instead of driving it off, kill the vampire lord instead of putting him in prison. It's based on works where the villain of the piece ends up with a sword in his gut rather than showing up once a year for several decades to keep the franchise going.

Certainly my players are pretty damned good about wanting to build institutions and forge relationships. But if I were to have a hobgoblin warlord sack a city, with hundreds or thousands of innocents slain in the process, my players wouldn't want to kill him to earn cred. They'd want to kill him to make sure not one more person dies thanks to his actions. As a recurring villain, if they cross swords with him multiple times and he keeps escaping, and the NPCs they care about keep dying, my players at least would be frustrated and feeling disempowered. That's why I use a fairly comic-book recurring villain model for Champions, but with D&D handle my villains differently.


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## pemerton (Dec 4, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> I believe I see what you're getting at here, and it's certainly a legitimate approach; if I understand you correctly, it's the idea that the stats in D&D do not reflect any fixed underlying reality.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> it's one I flirted with to some extent when 4E was released. However, I've pulled back from it since, because it's massively counterintuitive and it sacrifices much of the usefulness of having rules in the first place.



Agreed. My response is that I don't think 4e is as well-suited to the sort of adventure you describe (where the players choose between threats to the world and leave others to the guards, based on a mechanical/probabilistic assessment) as other versions of D&D.



Dausuul said:


> And in the case of monster power levels, it seems like a bit of a Red Queen's Race. If monsters level up to keep pace with the PCs, then why are the PCs leveling up at all? Why not just stay the same level from start to finish and cut out all the number-crunching? If the problem is PCs getting bored with their abilities, just hand out new abilities without increasing the overall power level, E6-style.



Because the changing numbers also drive the game in a certain direction, of an unfolding storyline with more and more wahoo effects (stun, flying, etc) which would be lost if the numbers stayed the same.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 4, 2010)

The "why haven't the epic level threats long since overtaken the world" sort of question is just one of those many observations about a D&D style world that is never going to really be answered. Trying to rationalize how such a world works never leads anywhere terribly profitable. The other thing is it isn't a question that is somehow unique to epic tier. 

You could imagine that a high heroic tier threat MIGHT be restrained by the existence in the ordinary course of things of other figures in the world that are capable of standing up to them, but you're already FAR beyond the level of what 95% of the ordinary (non-PC) population of the world has ANY hope of dealing with mechanically. The town guard is going to handle a couple ogres? Really? I doubt it. Certainly not by fighting them!

Any kind of paragon tier threat is already at the kind of power level where it is hardly credible that they have much to fear except each other, a very rare one in a million kind of NPC, or the player characters when they reach those levels. This would be especially true in a world where paragon is effectively the top of the heap and epic level play isn't contemplated. 

In other words any real attempt to rationalize such a world, regardless of which tiers you use, is pretty much doomed to failure. The only options are the same kinds of options you have in epic tier. The threat is growing, the threat is located far away, the PCs awaken the threat, the threat is restrained by some kind of plot device, etc. If you really look at it all tiers of play beyond low levels pretty much organize around these kinds of plot devices. 

Look at the venerable B2 module, Keep on the Borderlands. The monsters are located off in a 'dungeon' some ways away from civilization. They have a balance of power there which serves to help explain why none of them presents a direct threat to the keep. Being a first level module the threats can also be minor enough that the PCs aren't needed to keep it in check, the keep is well enough defended to repel an attack by the orcs or goblins. In a campaign this kind of scenario will be repeated over and over. Beyond this low level however there is just not likely to be much logic for why it works except repeated use of these same types of plot devices. Very quickly the monsters far outstrip the keep analog (a town, city, kingdom, world, what have you). This is really close to the totality of the real difference between lower and higher level play in this sense. At no point beyond low heroic tier does this world make much sense except as a setting in which the PCs can do their thing. Logic simply has to be set aside.

Note that nothing in all of this is peculiar to 4e. This is why I say there is really no huge material difference between 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e in this respect. We could have had this exact discussion (heck I HAVE had this exact discussion) in the era of each of these editions. It goes the same way. You have a limited set of viable plot devices you can use to make it believable enough to work as a story but you will ALWAYS need them.

Certainly you can come up with systems like GURPS, or to take it the the extreme CoC, where PC power curves are quite flat and you won't generally run into this sort of issue, but you also have real problems creating a truly epic feeling story. CoC characters NEVER EVER directly face a Great Old One. If they do it is the disastrous finale of a campaign or else the DM is going to introduce a deus ex machina to resolve the situation because the PCs are utterly out of their league. It is in other words a totally different type of game, certainly not heroic fantasy in the vein that D&D is designed for. GURPS is somewhat more in the middle but still not nearly as suitable to an epic feel as 4e is.

I think the upshot of what I'm saying is that 4e has the tools to do epic. Epic is just a highly constrained kind of mode of play that really admits of only a limited possible group of overall story devices to make it work. Even then these are not really unique to this tier, they are just exemplified in a more extreme way. If a group really isn't interested in those kinds of stories and devices then playing epic 4e is likely to disappoint them. I don't think any twiddling around with the rules is going to substantially change that. This is why I brought up earlier editions in the first place. Even with some substantially different mechanics the issues are still the same. Once you have designed a game like this to have a big jump in power levels over character lifetime the same basic issues will always arise. Note the difference with the super hero genre in general. Super heroes rarely change radically in power level. Superman was ALWAYS Superman and always will be. Lex Luthor will always be a worthy opponent, they are on similar power levels. It isn't a setup where there is a progression. Thus it has a whole different set of plot and story dynamics.

In terms of the need to flesh out various themes in 4e epic monster lineups, yes you will need to do that. The thing is I'm not really sure 4e left that to the DM accidentally. I'm not at all sure it is really again unique to 4e either. The 1e MM had around 300 monsters in it. VERY few of them are really going to be challenging to 12+ level PCs. There certainly wasn't enough material to supply all the material for a whole high level campaign arc. Look at the GDQ module series. It contained a vast number of new monsters. In fact practically everything in it was new beyond the G series. 

I think 4e supplies a core for each of a number of themes and simple resource constraints on what WotC can supply dictates that you WILL have to fill that out with reskinning, new monsters, etc. Using one of the themed books like Open Grave or Demonomicon you have what you need pretty much. There are a bunch of main opponents and their core henchmen available in each book, plus a modest variety of base types and variations for mooks, plus a number of templates and such that can be used to round out the mix. Notice how DMG2 introduced monster themes to go along with templates. This is exactly WHY (well it goes even further than that, but filling out epic is a big part of it).


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## Brent1 (Dec 4, 2010)

Well nice post to helping out me the gaming zone or try to understand how to play a perfect game ...


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 4, 2010)

Howdy Matrix Sorcica! 



			
				Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> Krusty, you really need to release those rules. Before 5E, please




I know, I know amigo. I'm working on it.



> Knowing you and release schedules, I'm a bit worried. How about some previews or other tidbits? Or a rules release and _then_ the adventures.




I have previews of the *Vampire Bestiary* on both my websites. That book will have the new rules for converting solo's into bosses. That book is a few weeks away from being released.

After that is the *Serpent Riders*. An adventure + mini-bestiary book. It has the new rules for armies. It is going to take about 3 months after the Vampire Bestiary release.

I'm not totally sure at this juncture which book to release after that. Probably the *Immortals Handbook: Immortal Tier* (31-40) rules.

The next bunch of books were meant to be:

*Angels & Devils* (Epic Tier monster book for 4E)
*Immortals Index: Canaanite Mythology* (4E)
*Vampire Bestiary: Part Two* (Levels 16-30) (4E)
*No Chance In Hell*, follow-up to the Serpent Riders Adventure (Levels 29-32) (4E)
*Vampire Bestiary: Part Three* (Levels 31-45) (4E)

Each is meant to be about 64 pages.

I'm not sure which book will have the Super-solo Monster rules. I was sort of thinking the Vampire Bestiary: Part Three (since it has lots of relevant examples), but I suppose whatever monster book follows the Immortal Tier rules. 

Alternatively I suppose I could just sell the...
- Boss-Monster Rules
- Army Rules
- Super-solo Rules
...as tiny stand alone pdfs for maybe a dollar or somesuch. Just to get them 'out there'.



> Man, you're the reason I registered to ENWorld back in March 2002  - to comment on your Immortals Handbook.




I appreciate the commitment.

I started my first website and released the Epic Bestiary: Volume 1 in 2005. From then I was working on the Immortals Handbook: Ascension; which was finished* in March 2008.

*Admittedly only one third of the proposed interior art was ever completed, but the text was finished.

From 2007 I have been working another job to pay the bills, initially full time (about 38 hours a week), subsequently it became part-time (31 hours). However it slowly sank in that I was unable to make any serious headway on my RPG writing and as of this August I dialled it back to 18 hours. Since then progress has been very good (I can get about 10 pages done per fortnight). 



> 4E was released in June 2008, with the IH still far from complete




I have only really been able to work on my RPG writing in any serious capacity since August this year, and I had a 2-week holiday at the end of August, so really I have only been working since about September...added to which during September I spent far too much of my time updating my new website. 

But I think I have a good grip on things now. *fingers crossed*


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## JoeGKushner (Dec 4, 2010)

In an ice age setting, there could be all sorts of things to hold up the PCs.

While I'm not a big fan of the Fey, the Fey of the Winter Court include some high level individuals.

Then of course there are frost giants, white dragons, rhemoraz and other 'big fish'.

Tribes of the north could be united under various warlords of equal or greater power than the players for example. the frost and ice age itself could be caused by planar energies from the plane of water or ice and the players can actual stop the ice age!

If your only reason for not continuing on is a lack of enemies, one of the nice things about 4e is it's realtively easy to bang some out quickly unlike 3e.



Dausuul said:


> My campaign ran from level 1 up to level 14, then went on break for a while and recently resumed. When we came back, I was fired up to go all the way to 30th--and then I started planning out encounters, and realized I was already struggling to find reasonable threats.
> 
> When we started this campaign, I created a campaign setting that was, IMO, ideally designed for heroic-tier adventures: A world in the grip of an ice age, where the PCs would go on long treks through tundra and snowy pine forests and icelocked mountains, battling white wolves and orc marauders and lurking trolls, and dealing with the dangers of the wintry environment. And in Heroic tier, it went smashingly.
> 
> ...


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 4, 2010)

Hello Dausuul! 



			
				Dausuul said:
			
		

> And that's a grand total of maybe four encounters. What do we do for the rest of epic tier?




Exactly, which is why (as I have been saying) you should have multiple themes (and thus multiple) BBEG's in the epic tier. Not one BBEG over the course of 10 levels...thats just crazy talk. 



> And to the best of my knowledge, none of them commands armies of epic-level creatures, or even high-paragon-level creatures that could be minionized. I'm not real familiar with what Lex Luthor's got on hand, but Galactus by all accounts is a single solo, and the only servants Sauron has that seem potentially epic-level are the Nazgul. (And that's being pretty generous to the Nazgul; they look more like mid-paragon to me.)
> 
> Remember, we're not talking about _one_ epic foe. That's easy enough to work into a campaign. And it's not too hard to stretch that out into 3, 4, maybe 5 combats by giving the epic foe some epic henchmen and elite guards. All this I readily concede.
> 
> But we're talking about an _entire tier's worth of combat_. 10 levels--25 sessions or so. Even if you have only one combat a session, that's 25 battles, and if you follow a more typical pattern for D&D, it'll be more like 50. Just how many elite guards and epic henchmen do these guys have?




Totally agree.

Assuming 4-5 combats per BBEG/threat, or two per level of play. That means you would need about 20 Major Villains/Threats (etc.) to keep the Epic Tier interesting. Of course some of those may be themselves henchmen to greater villains to be faced later in the tier. 

But this is exactly the approach I advocate in the epic tier. Shorter, sharper shocks. 



> Now consider that if the heroes battle those 25-50 gangs of epic foes, there are presumably a lot more of them that the PCs never fight. It's ludicrous to suppose that the heroes would fight their way through _all_ of the villain's elite forces in a series of small groups. If the villain's forces are sufficiently spread out that the PCs have to engage in 25-50 separate combats, then it logically follows that there must be hundreds of groups out there that the PCs bypass on the way to their objective.




Indeed. We generally used to bypass the villains army/servants (when possible) and go straight for the jugular (Command Tent, Throne Room, Divine Realm). A typical ultra-high level 'adventure' was probably 3-4 encounters. The whole idea of having 90 epic tier encounters building up to a confrontation with Orcus just seems a bit pedantic. Cut the head off the snake and the body dies. 

*Plan A*: Get in - Kill The Guards - Kill Him - Get Out. End of.
*Plan B*: We need Macguffin 'x' to have a chance. Travel to the Place - Kill the Guards - Get It - Get Out - See Plan A.
*Plan C*: Infiltration, we need some piece of information (location of Macguffin 'x' maybe). Sneak In - Kill The Guards (and take their uniforms) - Find the Information - Get Out - See Plan B.
*Plan D*: We can't kill the BBEG directly (political reasons maybe, or just he is that powerful), so we have to weaken him indirectly. Find his weakness(es) - Exploit Them - Kill Some Guards anyway - Get Out - See Plan C.
*Plan E*: We need to Defend Something or Someone from the forces of the BBEG, who have invaded. We Are The Guards (so don't get killed) - Hold the Line - Attack Retreating Enemy - See Plan D for seeking revenge.

So most of the time, the goal will be simple (defeat the BBEG). In and of itself thats a very short adventure. You can expand it by putting more and more obstacles in the way and shifting the goalposts to different objectives.

However, you have to imagine that there is a limit to how far you can credibly stretch out a threat/theme before it gets a bit stale.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 4, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Indeed. We generally used to bypass the villains army/servants (when possible) and go straight for the jugular (Command Tent, Throne Room, Divine Realm). A typical ultra-high level 'adventure' was probably 3-4 encounters. The whole idea of having 90 epic tier encounters building up to a confrontation with Orcus just seems a bit pedantic. Cut the head off the snake and the body dies.
> 
> *Plan A*: Get in - Kill The Guards - Kill Him - Get Out. End of.
> *Plan B*: We need Macguffin 'x' to have a chance. Travel to the Place - Kill the Guards - Get It - Get Out - See Plan A.
> ...




Well, there is a LOT more to an epic story arc, potentially. It could go something like:



Appearance of the threat. In the course of tying up whatever portion of the story happens in paragon tier the characters become aware of a greater threat. This threat might already be implicit in the setting, but it now becomes a matter that has direct relevance for the PCs. This phase further involves the acquisition of knowledge and information. This is good for at least 1 and possibly 2-3 adventures.
Reconnaissance. Once some information has been gathered on the possible nature of the threat the party sets out to find answers to questions which require interacting with the threat in a fairly direct manner. This could be investigating remote locations, etc. The general theme being learning more directly and answering specific questions.
Marshalling of Forces. McGuffins may need to be gathered or made, specific allies recruited, etc. The characters acquire the tools needed to defeat the threat.
Direct Action. The characters take on the threat directly, ultimately leading to their victory or defeat.
Each one of these phases can be reordered, interjected into the others, repeated, etc in a wide variety of ways. Entire sub-arcs can be created which recapitulate various elements of each phase in a narrower context, etc. The key parts are a fairly overall thematic linkage, epic scale, and epic action. 

I can't imagine not being able to fill 10 levels with this kind of thing. It really shouldn't be that hard at all. I can also imagine condensing it all down to a single level if you were so inclined. 

Note too that while all elements will have some overall thematic linkage they don't require a narrow kind of tactical theme. The characters might need to engage the mighty Arch Fey in the course of seeking knowledge and information. This could involve various fetch quests, etc. Then they might need to seek a lost library in the Elemental Chaos (or some remote location in the world etc). Each of these can involve totally different kinds of opponents. The next phase might involve some travel and delving in order to learn more about the enemy (traveling into the far icy wastes of the north in an attempt to figure out where the legions of the Ice Lord come from). You get the idea. At each stage agents of the BBEG might show up now and then to harass the party.


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## Dausuul (Dec 4, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> The "why haven't the epic level threats long since overtaken the world" sort of question is just one of those many observations about a D&D style world that is never going to really be answered. Trying to rationalize how such a world works never leads anywhere terribly profitable. The other thing is it isn't a question that is somehow unique to epic tier.
> 
> You could imagine that a high heroic tier threat MIGHT be restrained by the existence in the ordinary course of things of other figures in the world that are capable of standing up to them, but you're already FAR beyond the level of what 95% of the ordinary (non-PC) population of the world has ANY hope of dealing with mechanically. The town guard is going to handle a couple ogres? Really? I doubt it. Certainly not by fighting them!




Certainly yes, by fighting them. You underestimate what fifty 8th-level minions can accomplish with bows and longspears. It's quite doable.

In fact, after crunching some numbers and looking at the results, I'm revising my opinions. A lot of people on both sides of this debate, including me, have been taking for granted that an epic-level threat is simply beyond the ability of "town guardsmen" to handle. But, y'know... now that there is no longer any such thing as damage reduction versus ordinary weapons, that isn't true any more. Through the magic of natural 20s and the law of large numbers, a sufficient number of human soldiers can take on ancient dragons and demon princes and emerge victorious.

Moreover, "sufficient number" is often lower than you might think--certainly lower than I thought when I started doing the math. Suppose a human soldier is a minion who deals 8 points of damage per hit, and hits on a natural 20. Suppose further that 50% of the minions are in a position to attack at any given time (the rest are infantry who are out of reach of the threat, or archers whose line of sight is blocked).

Then against a foe with 1,000 hit points, who kills 5 minions per round, you need, on average... 222 minions to win. That's a substantial force, but well within the ability of any decent-sized town to field. I played around a bit with Lolth from Monster Manual 3 and found that with 480 men, fighting in an open field, you can force her to discorporate even with the most generous assumptions on her behalf (e.g., any burst or blast attack hits the maximum possible number of targets, Lolth's attacks never miss, a dominated foe always kills one ally per turn, etc.).

Still thinking through the ramifications of this, but epic tier is clearly not as inherently wahoo as I had thought. Powerful though they are, epic creatures cannot simply wade through armies and expect to survive. A hundred epic-level monsters can be overwhelmed by ordinary mortal humans; you may need twenty or thirty thousand of them to pull it off, and a leader who can inspire them to suicidal heroism, but you can do it.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 4, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Certainly yes, by fighting them. You underestimate what fifty 8th-level minions can do with bows and longspears. It's quite doable.
> 
> In fact, after crunching some numbers and looking at the results, I'm revising my opinions. A lot of people on both sides of this debate, including me, have been taking for granted that an epic-level threat is simply beyond the ability of "town guardsmen" to handle. But, y'know... now that there is no longer any such thing as damage reduction versus ordinary weapons, that isn't true any more. Through the magic of natural 20s and the law of large numbers, a sufficient number of human soldiers can take on ancient dragons and demon princes and emerge victorious.
> 
> ...




Eh, as a practical matter I wouldn't think it to be likely that ordinary forces would have any luck against threats much more than 5 levels beyond them. Sure, by theorycraft a large number of minions can hypothetically do pretty well. The question is more what would actually happen. Now, I suspect that my example ogres could be handled by a reasonable human town. The town probably has some physical security mechanisms (walls for instance) that an ogre can't just ignore and as you point out if the town guard can muster enough people in a single place it is certainly possible to mechanically beat down a threat of this type. This would however presume sufficient planning and organization, strong leadership, and a rather high degree of individual dedication not usually seen. Presumably threats in this kind of range will be dealt with in some fashion, usually by hiring adventurers or having a special class of warriors or a religious order that has this function.

Lets consider a dragon though. Very few dragons are idiotic enough to involve themselves in a fight with several hundred humans under conditions where the humans have any chance of victory. Not only that but I think you underestimate the difficulty of raising a force of this size. Raising 100 trained militia will require a base population to draw from on the order of 30,000 people. Thus raising 500 men to stand up to the local Red Dragon could well require the resources of a fairly large duchy or something like that. Said dragon will almost certainly be looting North Wazumbaville while said militia is off guarding the Duke's Castle. I'd lay high odds on the dragon totally dominating this situation.


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## Dausuul (Dec 4, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Lets consider a dragon though. Very few dragons are idiotic enough to involve themselves in a fight with several hundred humans under conditions where the humans have any chance of victory. Not only that but I think you underestimate the difficulty of raising a force of this size. Raising 100 trained militia will require a base population to draw from on the order of 30,000 people. Thus raising 500 men to stand up to the local Red Dragon could well require the resources of a fairly large duchy or something like that. Said dragon will almost certainly be looting North Wazumbaville while said militia is off guarding the Duke's Castle. I'd lay high odds on the dragon totally dominating this situation.




Where are you getting these numbers? This is _militia_--farmers taking up arms to defend their homes, not a professional standing army. There was a while in medieval England when every able-bodied man was required to have a longbow and be trained in its use. In a country with a strong militia tradition--and in a D&D world, that ought to include pretty much everywhere--I should think you could call up as much as 10-20% of the population to defend a settlement, and do it on very short notice, too.

Obviously, militia wouldn't have nearly the training and discipline of a professional force, and an epic-level threat could often rout them by sheer terror. But don't underestimate the willingness of people to fight for their land.

Now look at it from the dragon's perspective. Dragons aren't dumb. What's the tradeoff here? If the dragon wins, it gets a paltry town's worth of loot; maybe a few trinkets from the mayor's house. If it loses--it dies. That's a bad gamble even at highly favorable odds. The richer targets, like a duke's castle, will be correspondingly more "hardened," with stone walls and professional soldiers guarding them.

The end result of this is that a dragon, even an elder or ancient, isn't going to just fly about wreaking havoc. When it gets hungry, it will raid an outlying settlement, snatch up some livestock or peasants from the farms on the periphery, and vanish back into the night. When it wants plunder, it will look for a merchant caravan. Direct dragon attacks on towns and cities will be rare, because they depend heavily on the dragon's ability to catch the town off guard. Once word spreads that a marauding dragon is ravaging the land, people will make plans and be ready for it.

And dragons are a really extraordinary case. They're one of the hardest foes for a "town guardsmen" force to take on--intelligent, highly mobile, with lots of area attacks and a big "shock and awe" factor. A typical high-level monster threat looks more like a gang of ogres or giants; they're big, they're bad, but they won't fare well against a fortified settlement, and a strong kingdom could mount a punitive expedition to hunt them down and wipe them out.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 4, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Where are you getting these numbers? This is _militia_--farmers taking up arms to defend their homes, not a professional standing army. There was a while in medieval England when every able-bodied man was required to have a longbow and be trained in its use. In a country with a strong militia tradition--and in a D&D world, that ought to include pretty much everywhere--I should think you could call up as much as 10-20% of the population to defend a settlement, and do it on very short notice, too.
> 
> Obviously, militia wouldn't have nearly the training and discipline of a professional force, and an epic-level threat could often rout them by sheer terror. But don't underestimate the willingness of people to fight for their land.




I think you're drastically overestimating the utility and capability of such forces. The entire history of medieval warfare demonstrates the almost uniform total ineffectiveness of this kind of system. Norse raiding parties roved all over the countryside of northern France for 100 years looting practically at will and rarely, if ever, ran into serious opposition. 

The problems are manifold. First of all the population is HIGHLY rural, so basically if you have a Duchy with say 250,000 people in it maybe 3-4 thousand of them might live in anything resembling a town. The rest are scattered hither and yon across the countryside. When the bad guys show up getting them mustered requires a very considerable amount of time. Remember, there is no system of communication besides sending people around the countryside at horse speed at best. Even a well oiled militia will probably take DAYS to muster. By then the action has long since played out.

The other issue here is that you simply cannot afford to be constantly calling up the militia. The same 20% of the population that are your militia are also your main pool of labor. Those people are out doing vital agricultural work.

Check out for instance Harald's response to the invasion of England by William. The Fyrd was called up, but most of them were unable to muster and Harald eventually engaged with a force of less than 10,000 men, probably much less, out of a population of at least a million. 

There are other problems as well. Logistics was very poor and underdeveloped. Even if you COULD gather together a substantial number of fighters in one place they would run out of food in short order. Disease and other issues would ravage your army pretty quickly too. On the whole mass mobilizations were infeasible and ineffective in a medieval context. You might manage to get together a bunch of men and drive off moderate threats, but relying on a militia as any kind of feasible defense in the long term or against a major threat didn't even work in historical medieval Europe and would be unlikely to work in most D&D campaign worlds either.



> Now look at it from the dragon's perspective. Dragons aren't dumb. What's the tradeoff here? If the dragon wins, it gets a paltry town's worth of loot; maybe a few trinkets from the mayor's house. If it loses--it dies. That's a bad gamble even at highly favorable odds. The richer targets, like a duke's castle, will be correspondingly more "hardened," with stone walls and professional soldiers guarding them.
> 
> The end result of this is that a dragon, even an elder or ancient, isn't going to just fly about wreaking havoc. When it gets hungry, it will raid an outlying settlement, snatch up some livestock or peasants from the farms on the periphery, and vanish back into the night. When it wants plunder, it will look for a merchant caravan. Direct dragon attacks on towns and cities will be rare, because they depend heavily on the dragon's ability to catch the town off guard. Once word spreads that a marauding dragon is ravaging the land, people will make plans and be ready for it.




I think actually the case from the dragon's perspective is quite good. He's enormously more mobile than any army. He's able to concentrate all of his force trivially on one spot, and can scout the enemy with impunity. He's going to ALWAYS strike unguarded places, and few places are going to be guarded because if the local humans muster a large force he's simply going to ignore it. In a few days the militia will go home, starve, etc. In the mean time he's out burning their farms, and they can't possibly defend more than a few of them. The defense is effectively a lost cause.

I'd say even a low paragon adult dragon won't find your average human society much of a challenge. Their only actual response that will be effective is to gather up a band of heroes and have them try to off the dragon. 



> And dragons are a really extraordinary case. They're one of the hardest foes for a "town guardsmen" force to take on--intelligent, highly mobile, with lots of area attacks and a big "shock and awe" factor. A typical high-level monster threat looks more like a gang of ogres or giants; they're big, they're bad, but they won't fare well against a fortified settlement, and a strong kingdom could mount a punitive expedition to hunt them down and wipe them out.




Well, dragons are certainly one of the toughest types of monsters in this scenario, but again look at what the Norsemen did in France. Defense in this case was largely ineffective. Now, they had ships (mobility) and their bases were practically invulnerable. A bunch of bands of giants and humanoids however could probably pull off raids without too much trouble.


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## Tuft (Dec 4, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I Remember, there is no system of communication besides sending people around the countryside at horse speed at best. Even a well oiled militia will probably take DAYS to muster. By then the action has long since played out.




Minor point: There are much faster signal systems than horseback: *Beacons.*

The chains of beacons along the Swedish coastline were in use before the written laws in the 12th century. The last time such a chain was manned was at the start of WW 1.

When the English navy was sighted outside Vinga on the west coast of Sweden during the Crimean War in 1854, and was mistaken for an invasion force, it took the news 24 hours to travel by beacon to the capital of Stockholm on the east coast, a distance of about 1000 km (620 US miles) along the coastline.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 4, 2010)

Tuft said:


> Minor point: There are much faster signal systems than horseback: *Beacons.*
> 
> The chains of beacons along the Swedish coastline were in use before the written laws in the 12th century. The last time such a chain was manned was at the start of WW 1.
> 
> When the English navy was sighted outside Vinga on the west coast of Sweden during the Crimean War in 1854, and was mistaken for an invasion force, it took the news 24 hours to travel by beacon to the capital of Stockholm on the east coast, a distance of about 1000 km (620 US miles) along the coastline.




Notable for its rarity. I mean you can certainly come up with signaling systems, it IS a magic world, but the point is that mustering any significant force of men was a pretty slow process. There were exceptions but few areas in medieval or ancient times had terribly effective militias. There can be exceptions, like the Swiss, maybe Spartans, etc. but typically these are associated with larger communities. You're not going to find too many of these kinds of things in PoLand. The DM can certainly decide to equip his militias with sending stones and lightning rails too, but then you have a whole different set of assumptions.

I mean as an interesting scenario for PCs to get involved in this would be cool. The local militia, unable to come to grips with Thargrax the Terrible without of course the assistance of the PCs. Now, I wouldn't really run that as an epic scenario, more like a good low paragon kind of thing, maybe high paragon depending on your settings tone.

In an epic scenario I'd say any militia would be at best a plot device. Yes, 100 minions with bows (even level 1 ones) can be pretty dangerous. But that's another point. Although the English mandated longbow practice practical considerations limited the number of men that were called up. Bows were expensive and thus limited, and by far not all men of the right age actually got sufficient training to be useful. Another consideration is that most medieval armies had such crappy supply that 2-3 arrows per man was quite typical. 

Now, a bunch of militia and trained soldiers defending a castle? Sure, I can see them driving off a dragon attack. In the open, not really. Considering the dragon can strike quickly from any direction I doubt anyone outside arrow range of a heavily fortified area would be safe. Open battle at poor odds simply wouldn't happen anyway, Mr Dragon can burn crops until said army has starved.

And again with any other epic or high paragon monster threat it is perfectly feasible that a wealthy and well-organized state of some size or other can hold some of them off. Generally settings assume that most of the countryside is empty and large well-organized states are rare or don't exist. 

You could have a more epic version of the dragon vs kingdom thing though with an invasion of dragons. Now, sure there can be castles and cities that can brush off a single dragon, but can they defeat the Lords of Scale? Probably not. Instead it would be PCs, maybe with some appropriate level allies in some scenarios taking on the enemy's leaders, leading battles, etc.


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## ashockney (Dec 5, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> 3e, 20th level:
> 
> *Hit Points:* 214
> *AC:* 44
> ...




I'd draw attention to a couple of things.  

First, the 3e attack matrix would be  5 attacks at an average of +32.  Which if its against an average AC of 44, for an average 44 damage.  That means there is a 8/20 (40%) * 5 * 44 = 88 dam/rd.  The 4e attack matrix would be 1 attack at +38.  Which if it's against an average AC of 44, for an average of 60 damage = 15/20 (75%) * 1 * 60 = 45 dam/rd.  I point this out to note this is a little closer than you may think.
Second, which you've already highlighted, it is very, very difficult to get a full attack action off.  It is not at all hard to get an attack off in 4e, just a given.  It's not a fair comparison to say this will happen 100% of the time, and the less it does, the closer they get.


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## Tuft (Dec 5, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Notable for its rarity. I mean you can certainly come up with signaling systems, it IS a magic world, but the point is that mustering any significant force of men was a pretty slow process. There were exceptions but few areas in medieval or ancient times had terribly effective militias. There can be exceptions, like the Swiss, maybe Spartans, etc. but typically these are associated with larger communities. You're not going to find too many of these kinds of things in PoLand. The DM can certainly decide to equip his militias with sending stones and lightning rails too, but then you have a whole different set of assumptions.




Oh, it's a real-world example that worked for a long++ time in one of the most sparsely populated areas of Europe, so I'd definitely say that it is relevant for PoL. 

In a PoL setting, road-building will be rare. That means that waterways will tie people together, and landmasses separate them. Look at the old river civilizations (Nile, Eufrat/Tigris, Ganges, Yellow River), how the Greek civilization centered on their islands, or how the Norse built on the Danish straits, the Norwegian fjords and the Swedish archipelago and great lakes. Across water, sight carries. That means that signals like beacons and smoke is most relevant.


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## AllisterH (Dec 5, 2010)

Actually, 4e, especially if you use inherent bonuses is more conducive to "large number of flunkies can take the big bad" since combat magic is nowhere near as wide-ranging or has an area of effect as large as previous editions.

A human town guard is level 3, a human veteran is level 6. Meaning for a human town guard, you have to be well into paragon range before their chance to hit actually drops below 25% (which inversely applies to high level opponents.Need to be in the mid teens before a creature actually has above a 75% chance to hit a town guard)


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 5, 2010)

Hello AbdulAlhazred! 



			
				AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> Well, there is a LOT more to an epic story arc, potentially. It could go something like:
> 
> 
> Appearance of the threat. In the course of tying up whatever portion of the story happens in paragon tier the characters become aware of a greater threat. This threat might already be implicit in the setting, but it now becomes a matter that has direct relevance for the PCs. This phase further involves the acquisition of knowledge and information. This is good for at least 1 and possibly 2-3 adventures.
> ...




My main point is that a DM won't have enough monster resources to fill 90 encounters over the course of the Epic tier.

So, the subsequent point is that you can't operate under a single (or even double) theme over the course of that many encounters.

So a DM has to either...
A. Design, Re-skin or Template potentially 90% of their monsters.
...or...
B. Have multiple themes and shorter adventures (even if they are linked under one larger 'umbrella').

If you look at E1-E3 (which runs two concurrent temes of Undead and Demons*), in every module, I estimate...

- 50% of the stat-blocks are new monsters created for that adventure.
- 30% are existing stat-blocks from soucres like the Monster Manuals 
- 20% are modified stat-blocks or NPCs

*Arguably the two best supported themes in the Monster Manuals at the epic tier.

In fact lets just go over Death's Reach...

#1: New Monster
#2: Modified Monster, New Monster, Existing Monster
#3: Modified Monster, Existing Monster, NPC
#4: 2 Modified Monsters, New Monster
#5: Existing Monster, 2 New Monsters
#6: New Monster, NPC, Existing Monster, Modified Monster
#7: 3 New Monsters
#8: New Monster, New Hazard
#9: 4 New Monsters
#10: New Monster, NPC
#11: NPC, 2 New Monsters
#12: 2 New Monsters, 2 Existing Monsters
#13: 2 New Monsters, New Trap
#14: 2 New Monsters, Existing Monster
#15: 2 New Monsters, 2 Existing Monsters
#16: 2 Existing Monsters, 2 New Monsters
#17: 4 New Monsters
#18: 2 New Monsters, 1 Existing Monster
#19: New Monster, Existing Monster, Modified Monster
#20: 3 Existing Monsters (I think)
#21: New Monster, Modified Monster, Existing Monster
#22: 3 New Monsters, Existing Monster
#23: Modified Monster, 2 Existing Monsters
#24: 2 New Monsters, 2 New Traps
#25: New Monster, Existing Monster
#26: 4 New Traps
#27: 3 New Monsters, Existing Monster
#28: 3 New Traps
#29: NPC, 2 New Monsters, Existing Monster

93 Total Stat-blocks: 
23 Existing Monsters (8 repeats)
13 Modified Monsters & NPCs
57 New Monsters/Traps/Hazards (14 repeats)

So about 15% Stat-blocks from existing sources, reused to make an extra 10% (Total 25%)
14% Modified Stat-blocks & NPCs
46% New Stat-blocks with an additional 15% gained from re-use (Total 61%).

So basically 15% of the content in Death's Reach already existed and 60% had to be created fresh. With the final 25% from reuse.



> I can't imagine not being able to fill 10 levels with this kind of thing. It really shouldn't be that hard at all. I can also imagine condensing it all down to a single level if you were so inclined.




The question is where are you going to get your stat-blocks from. 



> Note too that while all elements will have some overall thematic linkage they don't require a narrow kind of tactical theme. The characters might need to engage the mighty Arch Fey in the course of seeking knowledge and information. This could involve various fetch quests, etc. Then they might need to seek a lost library in the Elemental Chaos (or some remote location in the world etc). *Each of these can involve totally different kinds of opponents*. The next phase might involve some travel and delving in order to learn more about the enemy (traveling into the far icy wastes of the north in an attempt to figure out where the legions of the Ice Lord come from). You get the idea. At each stage agents of the BBEG might show up now and then to harass the party.




Absolutely, but in essence then you are doing exactly what I am suggesting; having multiple themes and shorter (mini)adventures, simply linked into some overaching plot.


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## Aulirophile (Dec 5, 2010)

The French notably did not have a strong militia tradition. The English did. Which one got raided by vikings for longer? As long as we are going to make assumptions about these fictional people, let us not insult them by making them French. 

Bows were what now?  English long bows were ubiquitous, and England had a lot of forest in which people hunted with short bows. Metal arrowheads were slightly rare, but your average peasant would have a bow and 10-20 arrows and 3-4 metal arrowheads, possibly supplemented with some stone arrow heads. Irrelevant, in 4e sharp wooden arrows do as much damage as metal ones. 

Communications: Rituals, instantaneous. 

Travel: Portals, high initial cost but once setup are permanent, easily within the resources of a place large enough to have cities to begin with. Each settlement of sufficient size can have a caster capable of casting Linked Portal.

Sexism: Men were required to be trained in the use of the bow in order to be called up as militia, women were not welcome except as camp followers/doxies/etc., In 4e a natural 20 is a natural 20, women can use bows! Barring old people and "children" , more then 50% your population could instantly be called upon to start shooting arrows. 

A dragon in an open field versus readied action bows dies vs a calculable number of arrows. An Elder Dragon will die in _two rounds_ against roughly 1,800 people. Lesser threats aren't even worth considering, considering the advantages the Dragon has, and the scenario is not at all unrealistic: many times, in many places throughout history people have been required to maintain a weapon. Bows are cheap to make, arrows are cheap to make. 

Given all that, let us set up a scenario. A single epic level something that rules a small barony. He has a clever arrangement of portals in his barony for various uses (cheap from his perspective). He receives word that a Dragon is attacking part of his kingdom. He goes there personally, waits for the dragon, and using his PC-like powers he auto-prones/dazes/stun/dominate/whatevers it for one round using a Daily. It doesn't live to see another round because of the peasant archers. I feel comfortable in the assertion you don't get to be an Elder Dragon by putting yourself in a situation where being taken out by peasant archers is not only possible, but likely.

And it carries over to larger numbers. 100,000 level 1 minions led by a handful of epic characters can take out 2,000 epic level creatures. In a credible war the larger population of weaker units is a real threat against a smaller army of elite units (WW2 American tanks vs German tanks). 

The _only _assumption necessary is that epic characters run into epic monsters because they go looking for them, not because they are incredibly common. So long as they are uncommon at a roughly 5,000:1 ratio with your average Halfing/Eladrin/Elf/Human/etc population, the mortals win.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 5, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Hello AbdulAlhazred!
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Well, I see 106 epic demons in Compendium. Approximately 20 of those come from E1-E3 (and only 2 are E1 and 1 E2, the others are ALL from E3). I agree that isn't enough demons to sustain a 10 level story arc by itself. There are 182 epic undead, likewise perhaps not enough to sustain an entire 10 levels without making ANY new monsters. 

I think my point was really that we pretty much agree, nobody is going to feasibly run 10 levels of any single theme without break and use largely pregenerated monsters. You MIGHT almost get away with that in earlier tiers if you squint a bit, but truthfully I don't know why a group would want to slay demons for 10 levels at a time without a break. Certainly the DM would need to stretch the concept of demon a fair amount to make that exciting.

What I'm saying though is that if you include the newest source books in the equation like Demonomicon things are actually pretty well laid out for you. You're going to WANT to create some different monsters, but you generally don't absolutely have to. When you do go to make different varieties there are now pretty nice tools available. MB could still use support for themes and templates, but with 100+ epic monsters available for the major monster types plus these tools I don't think WotC desperately needs to shovel in more monsters. 

I think what would better support Epic would be some more EDs and a book that discusses the kinds of issues and ideas that are in this thread. I know I find this discussion quite useful. I'm working on a setting now and it will be good to keep in mind the various ideas on theme and tone.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 5, 2010)

Hello again AbdulAlhazred! 



			
				AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> Well, I see 106 epic demons in Compendium.




The combined sum from every single official source I presume...? Does that include DDi Insider as well?



> Approximately 20 of those come from E1-E3 (and only 2 are E1 and 1 E2, the others are ALL from E3). I agree that isn't enough demons to sustain a 10 level story arc by itself. There are 182 epic undead, likewise perhaps not enough to sustain an entire 10 levels without making ANY new monsters.




I am curious if beyond Undead, Demons and Dragons there are any other themes hitting 20+ monsters in the epic tier?



> I think my point was really that we pretty much agree, nobody is going to feasibly run 10 levels of any single theme without break and use largely pregenerated monsters. You MIGHT almost get away with that in earlier tiers if you squint a bit, but truthfully I don't know why a group would want to slay demons for 10 levels at a time without a break. Certainly the DM would need to stretch the concept of demon a fair amount to make that exciting.




Which is why I think something akin to an Adventure Path is probably not the way to go (in the epic tier at least).



> What I'm saying though is that if you include the newest source books in the equation like Demonomicon things are actually pretty well laid out for you.




Basically, if WotC make an entire book based around one single theme and we combine that with all the other books, we just might have enough monsters to make things interesting. 



> You're going to WANT to create some different monsters, but you generally don't absolutely have to. When you do go to make different varieties there are now pretty nice tools available. MB could still use support for themes and templates, but with 100+ epic monsters available for the major monster types plus these tools I don't think WotC desperately needs to shovel in more monsters.




Agreed. But I think what would be more useful, is if monster books DID concentrate on a limited number of themes.

For instance, having Imix is a bit of a waste, since none of his servants are relevant when the heroes knock on his door. So he really exists in isolation.

Whereas by contrast, Lolth is great, because we have loads of relevant options (Drow, Demons) near the latter half of the Epic tier.



> I think what would better support Epic would be some more EDs and a book that discusses the kinds of issues and ideas that are in this thread. I know I find this discussion quite useful. I'm working on a setting now and it will be good to keep in mind the various ideas on theme and tone.




I'll keep that in mind when penning my future epic tier books.


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## giant.robot (Dec 5, 2010)

I've always explained the lack of epic monsters overrunning the world in terms of threat radius. Even the most bad-ass dragon has a fly speed of 10 squares, this gives them a maximum of 100 mile range assuming they are performing full round movement. They're unlikely to want to stray too far from their lair so you divide that by 2 to get their threat radius of 50 miles. Everything in a 50 mile radius circle of the dragon's lair is under threat but as long as your village is outside of that range you're cool. When a dragon becomes a threat is when some noble decides to annex some region unknowingly (maybe knowingly) in the dragon's threat radius or when the dragon first moves into an area. The distributed nature of agrarian societies works against the dragon as well, the places with the best loot at the best defended and likely developed outside of the dragon's effective threat radius. 

BBEGs need large armies to do their evil deeds on a large scale. Getting these large armies to the places they want to commit their evil is a limiting factor on their plans. The best case scenario for a BBEG is somewhere like Bael Turath where portals were opened for the devils and there was an existing population to recruit or feed on. BBEGs might also have over kingdoms of their own to send against their enemies Sauron style but it would take years to build their own forces and destabilize the opposition. Epic level evils are kept in check as long as they have credible opposition like epic level NPCs and PCs.

I like to level BBEGs with the PCs when they get up to a level to challenge it. My BBEG might start at level 20 when it starts it's evil campaign but due to the actions of it's minions is able to gain power as the campaign goes on. A level 20 BBEG is impressive at the paragon tier but once the PCs hit level 20 the BBEG bumps up a few levels to maintain the power curve. Back at level 20 the BBEG was a valid threat to the paragon tier NPCs that otherwise kept it in check but as it gained power it falls to the PCs of increasing power to deal with it.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 5, 2010)

giant.robot said:


> I've always explained the lack of epic monsters overrunning the world in terms of threat radius. Even the most bad-ass dragon has a fly speed of 10 squares, this gives them a maximum of 100 mile range assuming they are performing full round movement. They're unlikely to want to stray too far from their lair so you divide that by 2 to get their threat radius of 50 miles. Everything in a 50 mile radius circle of the dragon's lair is under threat but as long as your village is outside of that range you're cool. When a dragon becomes a threat is when some noble decides to annex some region unknowingly (maybe knowingly) in the dragon's threat radius or when the dragon first moves into an area. The distributed nature of agrarian societies works against the dragon as well, the places with the best loot at the best defended and likely developed outside of the dragon's effective threat radius.
> 
> BBEGs need large armies to do their evil deeds on a large scale. Getting these large armies to the places they want to commit their evil is a limiting factor on their plans. The best case scenario for a BBEG is somewhere like Bael Turath where portals were opened for the devils and there was an existing population to recruit or feed on. BBEGs might also have over kingdoms of their own to send against their enemies Sauron style but it would take years to build their own forces and destabilize the opposition. Epic level evils are kept in check as long as they have credible opposition like epic level NPCs and PCs.
> 
> I like to level BBEGs with the PCs when they get up to a level to challenge it. My BBEG might start at level 20 when it starts it's evil campaign but due to the actions of it's minions is able to gain power as the campaign goes on. A level 20 BBEG is impressive at the paragon tier but once the PCs hit level 20 the BBEG bumps up a few levels to maintain the power curve. Back at level 20 the BBEG was a valid threat to the paragon tier NPCs that otherwise kept it in check but as it gained power it falls to the PCs of increasing power to deal with it.




Stunjelly?!? You get to be a Stunjelly at level 2? Jeeze, in the old days we only got to be an orc or something, 

Yeah, mostly I find what you're saying to be logical. It is pretty much how my own world is laid out. There are regions which are fairly civilized and most overt threats like epic dragons don't exist. The Kingdom of Gilduin is well enough organized that it probably CAN put together an expedition of 1000 men to go whack a dragon that moves in. On the border lands and wilds of the world there are more and less safe areas. An epic dragon is also probably not motivated to make a total wasteland of its territory either. 

For other more large scale epic threats there are the usual list of options, they evolve over time so they only appear now and then, there is a sort of balance of power where (mostly immortal) epic threats generally can't act overtly without endangering themselves, etc. 

I think though some of what I was suggesting in my earlier post was a that a lot of epic tier ADVERSARIES of the PCs aren't necessarily threats. They may simply be locations and beings with which the PCs are forced to interact due to whatever story considerations. The PCs may well fight them, and they are epic dangers, but they might never blow up into threats themselves. The ancient libraries of the Arcanum hold mighty secrets that the PCs need, but they aren't getting them without some hazard since the Keepers are not eager to part with their lore, etc.

Let me give a bit of an example in the game I'm running now. There are demons and a demon summoning evil wizard. There are devils and a diabolic plan to overthrow a kingdom etc. There are undead, ancient beings of evil that hold ancient objects of power which the PCs might need later on. There are the Eldar (eledrin basically) who have great stockpiles of knowledge, but also ancient secrets and crimes they will fight to keep hidden. How exactly all these forces will interact with each other and the PCs as the game evolves (it is currently a low paragon tier campaign) isn't set in stone yet, but each of these factions (as well as some others I haven't mentioned) are potential epic level threats that could become manifest and need to be dealt with in the course of the campaign. Others the PCs will probably deal with during paragon tier and I'll keep them scaled down to work well at that level.

One of the great things I find with 4e is that my threats can be pretty nebulous. I don't need to follow some specific rules about what they can do like in 3.x or (less so) in AD&D.  Monsters can have whatever powers I want them to and whatever ritual magic or whatever I want them to have. This was one of the things that always annoyed me about earlier editions, there was at least an unspoken rule that if a monster was going to be able to do something that it was supposed to fit in mostly with what PCs could do at a similar level.


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## Matrix Sorcica (Dec 5, 2010)

Upper_Krust said:


> Alternatively I suppose I could just sell the...
> - Boss-Monster Rules
> - Army Rules
> - Super-solo Rules
> ...as tiny stand alone pdfs for maybe a dollar or somesuch. Just to get them 'out there'.




Yes, please. I'm worried we won't see your super-solo rules before 5E if you don't get the _rules_ out 



Upper_Krust said:


> I started my first website and released the Epic Bestiary: Volume 1 in 2005. From then I was working on the Immortals Handbook: Ascension; which was finished* in March 2008.
> 
> *Admittedly only one third of the proposed interior art was ever completed, but the text was finished.
> 
> ...



I realise you're not a full time writer and never has been. I'm just worried as I said. Please put my worries to shame


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## pemerton (Dec 6, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> In an epic scenario I'd say any militia would be at best a plot device.



I agree, and would go further: I don't find the notion of calculating the mechanical threat posed to an Epic Dragon by Heroic Minions to be very worthwhile either in campaign design or encounter planning. The numbers on 4e monsters are mechanical tools for building and resolving combat encounters involving the PCs. I don't think they're intended to be used to engage in this sort of task. Trying to do so gives rise to all the silly questions like How do minions avoid dying when they sneeze if they only have one hit point? or Why do minions not get to do 1d8 + stat damage with their arrows?



Aulirophile said:


> Metal arrowheads were slightly rare, but your average peasant would have a bow and 10-20 arrows and 3-4 metal arrowheads, possibly supplemented with some stone arrow heads. Irrelevant, in 4e sharp wooden arrows do as much damage as metal ones.



I find this to be the worst version of this mechanically-guided thinking - we use real world data to calculate the availablity of materiel and equipment, but then turn to the mechanics to get the conclusion that, in wacky D&D land, sharpened wooden arrows are just as dangerous as metal-tipped ones.

At least in my campaign world it goes without saying that unless the target has some special vulnerabilities, a metal-tipped arrow will pose more threat to a target than a sharpened wooden one. The fact that this is not reflected in the action resolution mechanics tells us something about those mechanics (eg they're not simply a model of propensities in the gameworld) but doesn't undermine the truism about metal vs wood.

If I wanted militia vs dragons to be part of an Epic adventure (or a Paragon one, for that matter) I would build it into a skill challenge. Raising the militia would be part of the challenge, and the outcome of the challenge would determine what (if any) damage the peasant levies did to the dragon, and vice versa.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 6, 2010)

I think the major challenge would be getting the dragon to come within arrow range of your militia. If you're going to get into this kind of 'realistic' extrapolation scenario then I still don't see a viable way for the militia to come to grips with the dragon. It is going to fly overhead at 500', laugh at the peasants below and go burn their crops and fields, then go home and wait for them to get hungry and disband. With its huge mobility, the total infeasibility of ambushing a creature that flies, and its vast firepower superiority at any specific place and time any kind of 'realistic' military action of this kind against it is virtually doomed to failure.

Obviously the PCs have their work cut out for them. No doubt the players would come up with some interesting ploys. They might even work.


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## Dausuul (Dec 6, 2010)

pemerton said:


> I agree, and would go further: I don't find the notion of calculating the mechanical threat posed to an Epic Dragon by Heroic Minions to be very worthwhile either in campaign design or encounter planning. The numbers on 4e monsters are mechanical tools for building and resolving combat encounters involving the PCs. I don't think they're intended to be used to engage in this sort of task. Trying to do so gives rise to all the silly questions like How do minions avoid dying when they sneeze if they only have one hit point? or Why do minions not get to do 1d8 + stat damage with their arrows?




Many of these "silly questions" are answerable with a little thought. A minion's single hit point simply brings into sharper focus something that's always been true in D&D, to wit: _Anything that deals hit point damage, even just 1 point, can kill._ It follows that anything which shouldn't be able to kill, shouldn't be dealing hit point damage. For any given threat, imagine it happening to a PC with one hit point left (and keep in mind that such a PC is in good enough shape to be up and fighting). Does it seem like that threat should be potentially deadly? If so, why can't it be equally deadly to a minion? If not, why is it dealing damage at all?

As for 1d8 + stat damage, minions belong to an NPC class* which gets "deal a flat X points of damage per attack" as an at-will.

To the more general point: Unless you're running something like "Order of the Stick," I don't think anyone would seriously claim the rules are an exact simulation of the game world. They gloss over things like the difference between metal and wooden arrowheads, or the possibility of crippling permanent injuries. As I mentioned earlier, there are two main schools of thought on what the rules actually are: An _approximation_ of the game world, or a means of resolving the PCs' moment-to-moment interactions with the world, everything else being decided by DM fiat behind the scenes**.

If you take the second view (the rules are entirely subjective), then of course the interaction between NPC villagers and epic monsters is whatever the DM wants it to be. However, a lot of us favor the first view: The rules are an approximation of reality. Most NPC villagers _are_ heroic-tier minions, more or less. The DM may apply some judicious fiat to deal with corner cases where the simulation fails, but in general NPCs play by the same rules whether PCs are around or not.

By this view, the question of what happens when you stack a lot of heroic-tier minions up against an epic-level monster is a question with some relevance. If the PCs rally the townsfolk to help them fight the dragon, the townsfolk will bring their heroic-tier minion stats to the battle. The DM may prefer to resolve their impact on the battle by way of a skill challenge--it beats rolling a few hundred d20s every round!--but the possible outcomes of the skill challenge should bear _some_ resemblance to what might happen if the DM did actually roll all those d20s.

From there, moving on to the question of what happens if the villagers try to take on the dragon by themselves is a natural step.



pemerton said:


> I find this to be the worst version of this mechanically-guided thinking - we use real world data to calculate the availablity of materiel and equipment, but then turn to the mechanics to get the conclusion that, in wacky D&D land, sharpened wooden arrows are just as dangerous as metal-tipped ones.




Yeah, I agree with you here--this is pushing the simulation beyond its limits. The rules don't say what happens if you swap out your regular iron-tipped arrows for wooden ones. In general, I would assume that any given minion has appropriate gear; the militia archer will have wooden arrows and the professional soldier will have iron-tipped. Since the soldier is almost certainly higher level than the militia, this difference (plus better training, greater experience, and a superior bow) will be reflected in the soldier's higher damage output. If you swap the militia archer's wooden arrows for iron, or the soldier's iron-tipped arrows for wood, the DM will have to make something up to decide how that affects them.

[size=-2]*This class is an NPC class for the same reason "commoner" is an NPC class in 3E--to wit, it's the suckiest sucky class that ever sucked. It's so sucky WotC didn't bother to do a class writeup for it, on the assumption nobody would ever want to play one. You only get one hit point and your level is set by various semi-arbitrary factors rather than earned XP.

**In reply to your earlier post on this topic, I've run adventures where the PCs make decisions beyond the scope of regular combat encounters and skill challenges, and find they work just fine in 4E. In fact, they do a lot to breathe life into a game that can otherwise feel like a chess match between the party and the DM.[/size]


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## Ryujin (Dec 6, 2010)

Regarding why Epic threats don't take over the world, I have a working theory. They say that when the student is ready, the master will appear. I tend to think that when the hero is ready, the villian will appear. 

We're talking about things like the end of an Age of the World. The ring is cast into Mount Doom. Konrad finds that the ice is melting. Magic fades from the world. The Eternal Champion dies, his soul moving on to his next life.

Of course this makes it difficult if you're playing multiple groups, in the same world, but it could make for some interesting storylines for the other groups also. Think about what World of Warcraft is doing, these days.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 6, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> Of course this makes it difficult if you're playing multiple groups, in the same world, but it could make for some interesting storylines for the other groups also. Think about what World of Warcraft is doing, these days.




If you've got multiple groups. having the epic fallout of one group's activities affect all the others is something that works best if each group is playing basically the same theme of game. If you have diversely themed games in the same world, it can get trickier. For instance, one group is doing "classic" D&D but another is playing an urban swashbuckler game -- a situation that I'm involved in right now -- having a classic D&D epic world-shaking event involving hordes of demons or flights of dragons would derail the urban swashbuckling game severely. The players might have an interesting new set of problems, but they also wouldn't be playing the game they signed up for.

Of course, I'll freely admit that I tend to be in the minority; I don't think that many people out there run such differently themed games set in the same game world. D&D encourages entire worlds to be built around themes, such as Athas or Dragonlance.


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## Ryujin (Dec 6, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> If you've got multiple groups. having the epic fallout of one group's activities affect all the others is something that works best if each group is playing basically the same theme of game. If you have diversely themed games in the same world, it can get trickier. For instance, one group is doing "classic" D&D but another is playing an urban swashbuckler game -- a situation that I'm involved in right now -- having a classic D&D epic world-shaking event involving hordes of demons or flights of dragons would derail the urban swashbuckling game severely. The players might have an interesting new set of problems, but they also wouldn't be playing the game they signed up for.
> 
> Of course, I'll freely admit that I tend to be in the minority; I don't think that many people out there run such differently themed games set in the same game world. D&D encourages entire worlds to be built around themes, such as Athas or Dragonlance.




Do the 'heroes' move from one urban centre to another? One way to deal with this, in your sort of campaign, might be to change up the sort of travelling encounters they have. If the world is being invaded by the Far Realm then they start running into more aberrations, less natural creatures. If they occupy the same large city, the whole time, then they might be able to take advantage of the odd distraction created by the city guard all being called up, to defend the walls. 

In most cases the fallout could be treated as exactly that; relatively minor incidents on the periphery of the main epic warfare. Collateral damage. Spill-over.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 6, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> Do the 'heroes' move from one urban centre to another? One way to deal with this, in your sort of campaign, might be to change up the sort of travelling encounters they have. If the world is being invaded by the Far Realm then they start running into more aberrations, less natural creatures. If they occupy the same large city, the whole time, then they might be able to take advantage of the odd distraction created by the city guard all being called up, to defend the walls.
> 
> In most cases the fallout could be treated as exactly that; relatively minor incidents on the periphery of the main epic warfare. Collateral damage. Spill-over.




Sure, it's possible. But the theme's the thing. Aberrations are _terrible_ at engaging in witty banter mid-duel. Demons decline to show up at neutral occasions like a grand ball and sneer at the PCs over their wineglasses. (Devils might, on the other hand.) Ravening zombie hordes don't employ courtesans in their intrigues. And it's a rare apocalyptic fire elemental that will attempt to woo and then abandon your chaste cousin solely to anger you. One of the grand set pieces of a swashbuckling game is the civilized but malicious enemy.

I figure there are at least two basic problems that would necessitate solving (and they could be solved, though it would take careful consideration). The first would be making sure that whatever epic conflict is affecting the entire world, it has applications that are in-genre for other games that they affect. The second would be figuring out ways that the lower-level games could either end their engagement early (if they don't care for the crossover material) or extend it past the point at which the epic-level characters have "fixed" the problem (if they like it and don't want it to stop). 

These are both pretty tricky, because optimally each campaign is designed for the needs of the group. An epic fallout event is technically designing one campaign for the needs of the other, which is pretty great for the epic game that's taking precedence, but not necessarily for the others.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 6, 2010)

It can go both ways actually. The epic group could easily be the ones dealing with the fallout from some other lower level group's actions. Rescue missions would be an obvious crossover, though that might not be too easy work logistically. Other possibilities exist though. Any scenario where you might have a group go back and fix something they messed up at a lower level could be recast this way.

Maybe the most successful kind of situation would simply be using the epic action to provide a simple backdrop and some story drivers for a differently themed lower level story. The swashbuckling intrigue game plays well at paragon for instance, but setting it against the War of the Gods being played out in epic should work pretty well. The epic action could be fairly distant and just serve to explain some of what happens in the intrigue game. 

Having run my original setting through a whole slew of cycles of different levels of play and parallel groups I find you can do it. One easy approach is just the 'surviving the storm' theme where some heroic adventurers try to keep their town or whatnot in one piece while the rest of the world falls apart around them.


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## Ryujin (Dec 6, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> Sure, it's possible. But the theme's the thing. Aberrations are _terrible_ at engaging in witty banter mid-duel. Demons decline to show up at neutral occasions like a grand ball and sneer at the PCs over their wineglasses. (Devils might, on the other hand.) Ravening zombie hordes don't employ courtesans in their intrigues. And it's a rare apocalyptic fire elemental that will attempt to woo and then abandon your chaste cousin solely to anger you. One of the grand set pieces of a swashbuckling game is the civilized but malicious enemy.
> 
> I figure there are at least two basic problems that would necessitate solving (and they could be solved, though it would take careful consideration). The first would be making sure that whatever epic conflict is affecting the entire world, it has applications that are in-genre for other games that they affect. The second would be figuring out ways that the lower-level games could either end their engagement early (if they don't care for the crossover material) or extend it past the point at which the epic-level characters have "fixed" the problem (if they like it and don't want it to stop).
> 
> These are both pretty tricky, because optimally each campaign is designed for the needs of the group. An epic fallout event is technically designing one campaign for the needs of the other, which is pretty great for the epic game that's taking precedence, but not necessarily for the others.




Ah, I see the problem. You're mixing up your memes:

- Demons employ courtesans, in their court intrigues (succubi)
- Devils engage in whitty banter, mid-duel or at parties
- Aberrations and zombies are plagues; the sort of thing that strikes fear deep in the heart of any medieval city-dweller
- Fire elementals are merely the personification of another medieval city-dwellers' primal fear; fire

So buckle that swash, whydoncha.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 6, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Maybe the most successful kind of situation would simply be using the epic action to provide a simple backdrop and some story drivers for a differently themed lower level story. The swashbuckling intrigue game plays well at paragon for instance, but setting it against the War of the Gods being played out in epic should work pretty well. The epic action could be fairly distant and just serve to explain some of what happens in the intrigue game.




That's more or less what I see as the basis for a workable model. The question that keeps drawing me back, though, is sort of this: "What's the advantage of a crossover event compared to the more tightly themed and personalized content that's the default?" The stakes are higher, but also more generic; when the elemental incursion happens, it really doesn't matter if it's another PC group or a bunch of NPCs that were the trigger, you're still dealing with someone else's mess instead of chasing your own ambitions. I think that's an unfortunate trade-off.  



> Having run my original setting through a whole slew of cycles of different levels of play and parallel groups I find you can do it. One easy approach is just the 'surviving the storm' theme where some heroic adventurers try to keep their town or whatnot in one piece while the rest of the world falls apart around them.




The trouble I have with that focus is that it cannibalizes themes, turning them into "survive the apocalypse." I realize I'm emphasizing the importance of theme and subgenre here a lot, but basically the games I run are things the players have voted on. When I run a swashbuckler, that's because the group decided that option (out of the 20 or so confronted with) appealed to them the most, in part influenced by a fondness for Assassin's Creed, I figure. Turning that game into a "brace against Armageddon" game would be a bait-and-switch.



Ryujin said:


> Ah, I see the problem. You're mixing up your memes:
> 
> - Demons employ courtesans, in their court intrigues (succubi)
> - Devils engage in whitty banter, mid-duel or at parties




(succubi are devils now)

I've considered this, actually, but all the best reasons I come up with for infernal intrigues playing out in the courts that PCs move in, particularly those that are playing a subtle game, instead of just marching a legion into the throne room and taking command, don't really require world-shaking epic events. They have a fascinating dynamic when the infernal types are bound by some rules to "play by the letter of the law" or cannot reveal themselves openly, and that plays at least as well in a stable world than one on the brink.



> - Aberrations and zombies are plagues; the sort of thing that strikes fear deep in the heart of any medieval city-dweller
> - Fire elementals are merely the personification of another medieval city-dwellers' primal fear; fire




To my ear those come across more like staging methods to set up an urban terror event than urban swashbucklers; there's the city element, but there's terror instead of panache. And an urban apocalypse is a decent idea for a game in its own right -- but if the players are signed up for a swashbuckler, they may very well prefer that to an urban apocalypse. 



> So buckle that swash, whydoncha.




It's already being buckled quite effectively, sans distractions. That's kind of the trouble I'm getting at: the way that Big Stakes Based On Some Other Group's Deeds tend to move the action away from the content that's personalized for _this_ group.


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## Upper_Krust (Dec 7, 2010)

Howdy Matrix Sorcica! 



			
				Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> Yes, please. I'm worried we won't see your super-solo rules before 5E if you don't get the _rules_ out




Next up is the Vampire Bestiary, after that I'll see about those tiny rules pdfs. 



> I realise you're not a full time writer and never has been. I'm just worried as I said. Please put my worries to shame




Thats the plan.


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## Aulirophile (Dec 7, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think the major challenge would be getting the dragon to come within arrow range of your militia. If you're going to get into this kind of 'realistic' extrapolation scenario then I still don't see a viable way for the militia to come to grips with the dragon. It is going to fly overhead at 500', laugh at the peasants below and go burn their crops and fields, then go home and wait for them to get hungry and disband. With its huge mobility, the total infeasibility of ambushing a creature that flies, and its vast firepower superiority at any specific place and time any kind of 'realistic' military action of this kind against it is virtually doomed to failure.
> 
> Obviously the PCs have their work cut out for them. No doubt the players would come up with some interesting ploys. They might even work.



One epic daily, engagement is no longer the Dragon's choice. I made this point. If you assume a mortal population and epic creatures, then among the mortal population there are going to be epic characters. These have Don't Need to Hit effects like prone/dominate/etc _and _the ability to rapidly travel from place to place via portals or what have you, then 1,000 peasant archers and one of the mortal epic people who guard/rule/run the kingdom can take out _any _epic level monster. Since they can do so in two rounds the equation comes down to one daily from a mortal epic NPC = one dead epic creature that was attacking the town.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 7, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think the major challenge would be getting the dragon to come within arrow range of your militia. If you're going to get into this kind of 'realistic' extrapolation scenario then I still don't see a viable way for the militia to come to grips with the dragon. It is going to fly overhead at 500', laugh at the peasants below and go burn their crops and fields, then go home and wait for them to get hungry and disband. With its huge mobility, the total infeasibility of ambushing a creature that flies, and its vast firepower superiority at any specific place and time any kind of 'realistic' military action of this kind against it is virtually doomed to failure.




Not sure what the rules say on ranges, but flame simply doesn't travel that far.  500 feet is an enormous distance for flame to travel from a single source, being pushed only by the sheer breath-force of the dragon.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 7, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> One epic daily, engagement is no longer the Dragon's choice. I made this point. If you assume a mortal population and epic creatures, then among the mortal population there are going to be epic characters. These have Don't Need to Hit effects like prone/dominate/etc _and _the ability to rapidly travel from place to place via portals or what have you, then 1,000 peasant archers and one of the mortal epic people who guard/rule/run the kingdom can take out _any _epic level monster. Since they can do so in two rounds the equation comes down to one daily from a mortal epic NPC = one dead epic creature that was attacking the town.






shidaku said:


> Not sure what the rules say on ranges, but flame simply doesn't travel that far.  500 feet is an enormous distance for flame to travel from a single source, being pushed only by the sheer breath-force of the dragon.




Why would the dragon come within a MILE of said militia? What purpose would it serve? The military situation is a militia that can march at say 10 miles a day, or maybe if you have a REALLY well trained force they might even make 40 miles on a good day, tops. OTOH you have a dragon that flies at basically 3x their speed. They can sit on top of exactly one target and guard it, until the food runs out. The dragon can just go around the countryside burning and pillaging, driving all the refugees in to help eat the army's food and making sure that everyone will starve. Then it goes home or gnaws on whatever it finds elsewhere until said militia inevitably disbands.

There is no physical danger to the dragon at all. The situation is fundamentally asymmetric. The peasants MIGHT arguably have a firepower advantage, but they have a zone of control that is very limited, 1/3 the speed of their adversary, and in any group smaller than say 500 are basically going to die horribly.

Yes, if there are epic PCs around then the EPIC dragon has a problem and the militia might be a useful resource for them in some fashion. PCs at that level have equivalent mobility and firepower. It is probably inevitable that there will be a meeting, but again the dragon really has no motive to go near the militia, not even miles near. The PCs can try to pull some ruse or whatever and make it happen (sounds fun) but left to its own devices the dragon will probably just guard its treasure and assume that the annoying humans will go away in a couple years. Or send its minions etc out to deal with them.

Anyway, the whole question was "do towns full of human militia keep epic threats in check". I think the answer is maybe kind of. They might work reasonably well on some threats and not at all on others. There are certainly MANY epic threats that it is hard to see being thwarted by JUST ordinary mostly level 1 minion kind of people.

And I don't think personally that 1:1000 humans are epic, nor 1:10000, nor even 1:1 million. My idea of epic is pretty much "you are it". Maybe in the world you will find a small number of other scattered figures of great power, but the PCs are the Jason or Hercules or Merlin of their age. Not every town and city (or even kingdom) can count on calling one out at need. OTOH the gods/fates/whatever tend to see to it that some show up at the very most critical time and place in history. Its sorta like Elan's Dad said in the last couple OotS, inevitable dramatic structure.


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## Aulirophile (Dec 7, 2010)

Your definition is interesting, but even at 1:100,000 or 1:1,000,000 since it only takes one epic character to make the archers insta-win by ensuring the engagement happens the scenario is more like > epic creature attacks > local uses a scroll to send a pre-arranged message > epic character shows up within an hour at most > creature is forced to engage by the powers of said epic mortal (which isn't even worth bothering to argue about in 4e, particularly if you assume that said epic PC spent time "training" to be specifically prepared for said threats, a purpose built level 21 of any class is going to be able to force the dragon to engage). For starters, a single proning ability that can't miss or is an Effect (trivial) gets the dragon on the ground. Then you just keep slowing it at a range greater then it can hit (also relatively trivial with a purpose built-PC). Archers will get there and then it dies. 

And that is an _extremely _favorable situation for the epic creature. Anything that can't fly will be even easier to deal with.


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## pemerton (Dec 7, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> If you assume a mortal population and epic creatures, then among the mortal population there are going to be epic characters.





AbdulAlhazred said:


> My idea of epic is pretty much "you are it". Maybe in the world you will find a small number of other scattered figures of great power, but the PCs are the Jason or Hercules or Merlin of their age. Not every town and city (or even kingdom) can count on calling one out at need.



I agree with AbdulAlhazred on this one also. The rulebooks are a bit amibuguous, because each epic destiny description tends to talk about the experiences and path of previous mortals who have realised that epic destiny. My tendency is to treat those bits of text as illustrative examples of how the destiny might play out, rather than as canonical descriptions of the core D&D world.



Aulirophile said:


> the scenario is more like > epic creature attacks > local uses a scroll to send a pre-arranged message > epic character shows up within an hour at most > creature is forced to engage by the powers of said epic mortal (which isn't even worth bothering to argue about in 4e, particularly if you assume that said epic PC spent time "training" to be specifically prepared for said threats, a purpose built level 21 of any class is going to be able to force the dragon to engage).



I'm not sure if you really mean PC here, or rather NPC.

The notion that locals have scrolls to summon epic NPCs to help them kill attacking ancient dragons is entirely at odd with the world description in the DMG/DM's kit. 

If we're talking about PCs, on the other hand, then we don't need to get into the territory of whether or not the minion archers kill the dragon, because the PCs do so anyway. Whether they do so by combat, by skill challenge or by a combination of the two depends upon how the players and GM want to run the encounter.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 7, 2010)

pemerton said:


> I agree with AbdulAlhazred on this one also. The rulebooks are a bit amibuguous, because each epic destiny description tends to talk about the experiences and path of previous mortals who have realised that epic destiny. My tendency is to treat those bits of text as illustrative examples of how the destiny might play out, rather than as canonical descriptions of the core D&D world.




Well, it depends on the setting. The PCs could be the only epic heroes the world has ever known. They could be the most powerful amongst some nominal number of such heroes. There could be a long tradition of such heroes too. I always thought of those mentioned in fluff as figures of myth and legend that may have lived far in the past, like the Greek heroes to us. 



> I'm not sure if you really mean PC here, or rather NPC.
> 
> The notion that locals have scrolls to summon epic NPCs to help them kill attacking ancient dragons is entirely at odd with the world description in the DMG/DM's kit.
> 
> If we're talking about PCs, on the other hand, then we don't need to get into the territory of whether or not the minion archers kill the dragon, because the PCs do so anyway. Whether they do so by combat, by skill challenge or by a combination of the two depends upon how the players and GM want to run the encounter.




I think in terms of either NPC or PC I don't know how Aulerophile thinks even an epic character is going to get his dragon within range of his powers, certainly not while he has his 1000 peasants around. Not that it is impossible but it would be a worthwhile adventure goal. Of course any really worthy epic threat is going to have more depth than one creature. Even an epic dragon is likely to have epic mooks of some sort too. I don't really see how most of these kinds of threats are going to be dealt with at all WITHOUT an epic hero or two around. I think that was my point at the beginning. Either epic threats are latent, already operative and mostly likely in control of things, only appearing when the PCs manifest themselves, or growing to epic proportions during the PCs career. Or of course they can simply be located in far remote locations.


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## Crazy Jerome (Dec 7, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Either epic threats are latent, already operative and mostly likely in control of things, only appearing when the PCs manifest themselves, or growing to epic proportions during the PCs career. Or of course they can simply be located in far remote locations.




I think that is the basis for something that is very workable, and more flexible than is perhaps being considered.  As long as the locals are willing to keep feeding a maiden to the dragon every season (or send youths to the Minotaur's lair or whatever appeasement is required), then the status quo can go on for some time.  The heroes might even start from such a region.  And this is also traditionally one of the reasons that the population is not totally enamored of such heroes--simply by existing they threaten to piss off some threat.

But eventually, the dragon asks for a maiden a month or a week, or a new ruler doesn't want to appease anymore.  Then someone tries to sneak off to find a hero to fight back, even though not everyone agrees with this course.

You can easily play out some of this from a horror/unknown angle, too.  I've gotten good milage out of fairly large communities that avoided dealing with predators from some dungeon complex, because deep down everyone knows that it is something awful.  People stay away best they can, and try not to get caught out at night.  Lots of people really do act that way when confronted with terrible threats--especially if some local sherriff has come to a gruesome end in the recent past.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 7, 2010)

Yeah, there are a lot of ways to play it . Basically I think the old 'why haven't the monsters eaten everyone long ago' thing is just one of those D&D tropes. There are plenty of ways to 'explain' it and some of them are fairly plausible, but ultimately a world full of dungeons and dragons and such is a trope, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is fun.


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## Dausuul (Dec 7, 2010)

At this point I'm going to concede the dragon argument to Alhazred. He's convinced me that dragons, and indeed any reasonably bright, moderately powerful flying monster, are beyond what a village militia can be expected to handle. A castle or fortified city could hold the beast at bay, but could not prevent the dragon laying siege if it so chose; a military force dispatched to hunt it down could only succeed by catching the beast napping in its lair. In general, to slay a dragon requires a high-level dragonslayer(s).

However, the discussion of dragons has shifted the focus of the discussion toward the single, individual epic threat. The original question was whether humanity could survive in a world where there was a _substantial number_ of pre-existing epic threats (enough to plausibly provide a reasonable series of challenges to a group of epic-level adventurers).

I think the answer depends on a number of factors:

What _are_ the epic threats? Certain traits drastically increase a monster's "threat level" to a medieval military force: Intelligence, flight, and area attacks are three examples. The easiest foes to handle are the big dumb brutes that just hit really hard.
How aggressive are the epic threats? Obviously, the more inclined they are to sit and lurk in their lairs instead of going out to wage war on humanity, the easier a time humanity will have.
How organized are the humans? A decentralized "points of light" setting will have to rely on militia forces and will struggle with groups of epic foes. On the other hand, a powerful empire with a strong military could punish epic monsters for encroaching on its borders, or even wage a campaign of extermination.

This brings up a number of interesting possibilities. One relates to the "fallen empire" scenario, which is generally assumed to underlie the 4E points of light setting. If there was, up until recently, a powerful human empire controlling a wide swath of territory, the epic monsters may have learned to fear the empire and withdrawn before the might of its armies. Since epic monsters usually have long lifespans, their fear has been slow to fade; the villages of "points-of-light-land" are unknowingly shielded from destruction by the memory of their ancestors' strength*.

Another option, suitable for a more stable setting, is to have the points of light be rather bigger--towns which follow the medieval "knight and castle" model that helped repel the Vikings. When monsters threaten, the townsfolk flee to the local strong place along with their livestock, and the knights are summoned to deal with the problem. Of course, being specialized to fight big monsters rather than Viking raiders, these "knights" would look rather different from their historical equivalents; they'd probably resemble Mongol horse archers rather than plate-armored heavy cavalry.

And, of course, as Crazy Jerome points out, there's always the possibility that epic counters epic. Each region is dominated by a powerful epic creature or small group of epic creatures, and the locals have worked out some kind of living arrangement. Heroic and paragon-tier adventurers will have to work around these overlords, while epic-tier adventurers may confront them directly. (Dark Sun is a fair example of this.)

[size=-2]*This does of course raise the question of how the empire ever got started; maybe it was founded by epic heroes, now long dead.[/size]


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 7, 2010)

True, there are a lot of factors involved in how society relates to epic monsters. You missed the "serve them/be ruled by them" option, which may well be pretty close to the 'just try to live underfoot' as I'd say DS is a bit of each. You want to stay below the SCs radar and if that fails you hope you can appease them or be useful to them. Sort of like the 'send a maiden to the dragon' thing too, just to a higher degree.


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## pemerton (Dec 8, 2010)

Crazy Jerome, AbdulAlhazred and Dausuul - I can't posrep any of you at present but those last few posts are excellent!


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## Tony Vargas (Dec 8, 2010)

My DM is very anxious to get us to Paragon Tier (so much so, that we level after prettymuch every session).  She just wants to run stories with Paragon scope and theme.

I find I like Heroic, even low Heroic, but that may be in part because of tastes formed under earlier eds when the game fell apart at high levels.  (In some cases  'high' meaning 9th).


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## Dausuul (Dec 8, 2010)

Tony Vargas said:


> My DM is very anxious to get us to Paragon Tier (so much so, that we level after prettymuch every session).  She just wants to run stories with Paragon scope and theme.
> 
> I find I like Heroic, even low Heroic, but that may be in part because of tastes formed under earlier eds when the game fell apart at high levels.  (In some cases  'high' meaning 9th).




Ha, that's funny. My experience is it usually works in reverse: The players are champing at the bit to get to the high levels with the cool powers, and the DM wants to keep the campaign at low level where it's easier to manage.


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## Ryujin (Dec 8, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Ha, that's funny. My experience is it usually works in reverse: The players are champing at the bit to get to the high levels with the cool powers, and the DM wants to keep the campaign at low level where it's easier to manage.




That was certainly me, as a player character. I had a character concept that only became on-par with other strikers at Paragon, and became really good (though still not optimized) at Epic and just when we hit 20th, the DM declared we were done 

It was a Fey/Darklock with Bard multiclass, that would be teleporting around the battlefield in a blur of light, while doing an additional 9 points of radiant fire damage to all cursed opponents.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 8, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> That was certainly me, as a player character. I had a character concept that only became on-par with other strikers at Paragon, and became really good (though still not optimized) at Epic and just when we hit 20th, the DM declared we were done
> 
> It was a Fey/Darklock with Bard multiclass, that would be teleporting around the battlefield in a blur of light, while doing an additional 9 points of radiant fire damage to all cursed opponents.




You should run your own then, start at Paragon and go up from there.


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## Ryujin (Dec 8, 2010)

shidaku said:


> You should run your own then, start at Paragon and go up from there.




That's the plan. Working on it now.


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## Sunseeker (Dec 8, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> That's the plan. Working on it now.




Be sure to drop back by and tell us how it goes!


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## Ryujin (Dec 8, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Be sure to drop back by and tell us how it goes!




I'll certainly do that. My current plan is to start at perhaps 9th level to quickly step the characters into their Paragon Paths, to give them an immediate sense of accomplishment, then work up into Epic. Our current DM, who isn't fond of Epic, has been missing a lot of sessions lately and I want to set up at least a backup game.


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## functionciccio (Jan 13, 2011)

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think we need revised rules for epic level combat. And improved epic level threats.
The new (post MM3) monsters are fine, but the epic ones need to be more hardcore, expecially the "named" ones, like archfiends, archfeys, gods and primordials.

Right now, the worst thing that can happen while facing a god, is being pushed 10 squares. It's ridiculous.

I think epic level monsters need powers like the old 3.5 "save or die" mechanics, or "save and drop to 0 hp" or even "save and be bloodied" type of attacks. On a regular basis. Top tier epic level monsters should have the power to kill the PCs (or severely cripple them) with one attack. And the PCs should know that. And fear that.

I mean, Lolth's poison (the poison of the most bad@SS spider in the universe) should *KILL* me if I fail a save!

We know that epic PCs are super powerful, and have many ways to avoid\reduce\redirect\heal damage and\or attacks and\or effects, and are even able to get back from the dead almost without issues. Well, fine, but we (DMs) should give them a run for their money.

_sorry for my bad english_


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jan 13, 2011)

I think Orcus DOES have an SoD... 

There are some fairly nasty powers out there on some of the demon lords for instance, but yeah, not quite as extreme as some of the stuff you would find on a 1e demon lord. OTOH you can easily make changes or build environmental or other conditions into encounters that provide those elements. I'd imagine a battle with Demogorgon would involve some pretty harsh conditions. He's not going to stand around and take on the party on his lawn. He's going to be prepared, and it is going to be UNPLEASANT.


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## Ryujin (Jan 13, 2011)

functionciccio said:


> I know I'm in the minority here, but I think we need revised rules for epic level combat. And improved epic level threats.
> The new (post MM3) monsters are fine, but the epic ones need to be more hardcore, expecially the "named" ones, like archfiends, archfeys, gods and primordials.
> 
> Right now, the worst thing that can happen while facing a god, is being pushed 10 squares. It's ridiculous.
> ...




If it was a party of Paragon adventurers going up against Lolth, then I would agree. In fact the ongoing damage can essentially be a save (or a few saves), or die in that case. When it comes to Epic level characters though, you're talking about demigods and creatures who can warp reality, taking on major demons, demigods, and gods. Such creatures shouldn't drop from one strike. They should be able to fight for days on end, laying waste to continents.

Then again I've NEVER been a fan of the save or die mechanic. Characters, that die in my campaign, generally do so through a mistake in tactics or judgment; not at the whim of a die roll.

[MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION], I've started my campaign and have already run several sessions in Pyramid of Shadows. I figured that I would run one adventure prior to the characters attaining Paragon, so that the players weren't stuck learning their characters abilities completely cold. So far, so good. They're enjoying themselves.


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## Aegeri (Jan 14, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think Orcus DOES have an SoD...




Sort of. It reduces you to zero HP but doesn't actually mean you die. So Epic Destiny features and powers can easily circumvent it. It's still pretty nasty though, but it doesn't quite get to SoD levels.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jan 14, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Sort of. It reduces you to zero HP but doesn't actually mean you die. So Epic Destiny features and powers can easily circumvent it. It's still pretty nasty though, but it doesn't quite get to SoD levels.




No, not quite, but then even 'you die' at level 30 is not quite world shattering for most PCs. And of course Orcus is otherwise pretty lame, so it kind of doesn't matter either. Eh, I always was more of a fan of Demogorgon anyway, and now he can kick Orcus' butt with one tentacle tied behind his back...


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## Aegeri (Jan 14, 2011)

Demogorgon is pretty solid if upgraded to MM3 maths and you change his dual brain to automatically end charm, daze, and stun effects at the end of his turns. I also like to change his gaze of abyssal might from a daze, to forcing a PC to use their highest level encounter power attack against their nearest ally or be dazed and take 20 psychic damage (so they can choose to be dazed, or risk making the attack to get their full turn. If they can't attack/use the power then they just end up dazed instead. It makes for a tactical choice). I also bump up demogorgons damage against dazed creatures by 3d10. 

Finally just because I'm sadistic he drops the incredibly worthless variable resistance and picks up Soul Stealer. Just for extra fun.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jan 14, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Demogorgon is pretty solid if upgraded to MM3 maths and you change his dual brain to automatically end charm, daze, and stun effects at the end of his turns. I also like to change his gaze of abyssal might from a daze, to forcing a PC to use their highest level encounter power attack against their nearest ally or be dazed and take 20 psychic damage (so they can choose to be dazed, or risk making the attack to get their full turn. If they can't attack/use the power then they just end up dazed instead. It makes for a tactical choice). I also bump up demogorgons damage against dazed creatures by 3d10.
> 
> Finally just because I'm sadistic he drops the incredibly worthless variable resistance and picks up Soul Stealer. Just for extra fun.




Yeah, that sounds about right . I'm stuck with one group now and they're in low Paragon, so who knows when or if they'll even get there so I can try it out, but I'm planning on a couple nice demon lord fights to cap things off when the time comes.


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## pippenainteasy (Oct 12, 2011)

functionciccio said:


> I know I'm in the minority here, but I think we need revised rules for epic level combat. And improved epic level threats.
> The new (post MM3) monsters are fine, but the epic ones need to be more hardcore, expecially the "named" ones, like archfiends, archfeys, gods and primordials.
> 
> Right now, the worst thing that can happen while facing a god, is being pushed 10 squares. It's ridiculous.
> ...




Amusingly wotc chose not to stat out Moradin or Bane (supposed to be around level 37-39) because they felt nobody could realistically beat anyone above level 35.


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## jcayer (Oct 12, 2011)

I wish I had them.  My guys are due to face Vecna in a few sessions and unless I take him way over the top, they will trounce right through him.  I dread this encounter because as the end of the campaign, I don't want them to cruise through it, but at the same time, epic is extremely hard to balance.


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## keterys (Oct 12, 2011)

Well, it's Vecna... so you should make sure he doesn't face them head on easily. Ie, do everything you can to avoid being a block of tofu for the PCs to carve up. Yes, a PC can get some temporary bonuses for +9 attack and +20 damage and make 10 attacks with various means... and if the first pops his illusory duplicate, or he swaps with a minion, or he teleports away to the next room. Oh well.

Also, he knew they were coming, and planned around it. So, consider each of them individually, and have a tactic for defeating them. Make sure the hazards and accompanying monsters live up to that. It's the last fight of the campaign, so it's okay to kill a few people in the encounter too, so feel free to ratchet the difficulty up.


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## pippenainteasy (Oct 13, 2011)

> Vecna’s Aura (Healing, Necrotic) aura 10; any living creature that
> starts its turn within the aura takes 50 necrotic damage. Any
> undead creature that starts its turn within the aura regains 50
> hit points.




Does Vecna benefit from this aura himself, or does being the origin point of the aura negate himself?


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## S'mon (Oct 13, 2011)

I'm looking forward to running Epic Tier in the Wilderlands and Forgotten Realms.  Both these worlds have plenty of Epic threats right there, without need for planar adventuring - I'm expecting to keep planar excursions more like brief delves, not 4 levels of Abyss-bashing.

Really, the impact 4e Epic PCs & critters automatically have on the setting is vastly less than even 15th level Wizards in 1e or 3e.  The whole design is centred around *not* disrupting things!  

The kind of plots I'm looking at:

1. Epic villains - plenty of BBEGs in the 21st-30th range, maybe a few gods supra-30th.
2. Epic monsters - rare, mostly big dragons, summoned demons, aberrations, hench-things of the Epic villains.
3. Epic warfare - huge wars, battles with tens or hundreds of thousands of warriors.  Much more playable in 4e than 1e-3e's "We fly over the field at 1000'+ and fireball everything".
4. Epic politics - tied in to #1 and #3.  Nation building, dynasty founding, dealing with established Epic peers.


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## Delgar (Oct 13, 2011)

I've been running an online eberron campaign for 2 years and the players are only 8th level. I have plans to run it right through epic and even have plot lines in place to take me there, just need the time to get there. I'm hoping to have a weekend in DnD where we all get together soon, so that I can mash them through into paragon.

I don't know how it will all play out in the end but one of my players said if I die before I finish this campaign, he'll raise me from the dead and stangle me.


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## S'mon (Oct 14, 2011)

Upper_Krust said:


> Indeed. We generally used to bypass the villains army/servants (when possible) and go straight for the jugular (Command Tent, Throne Room, Divine Realm). A typical ultra-high level 'adventure' was probably 3-4 encounters. The whole idea of having 90 epic tier encounters building up to a confrontation with Orcus just seems a bit pedantic. Cut the head off the snake and the body dies.
> 
> *Plan A*: Get in - Kill The Guards - Kill Him - Get Out. End of.
> *Plan B*: We need Macguffin 'x' to have a chance. Travel to the Place - Kill the Guards - Get It - Get Out - See Plan A.
> ...




As Krusty's DM I just wanted to concur with this (I missed this thread first time round, reading through it now).  In our 1e 'Epic' campaign, a typical Epic adventure such as an attack on the lair of a demon lord or god-entity like Druaga, or a battle with an enemy army & its god(s), or a quest to save a world by collecting the maguffins, or to save the multiverse by going back in time to restore the timeline, was never ever '30 ecounters over 3 levels of play'.  It was typically more like 4 encounters over a single session.  

There were lots of BBEGs.  Some BBEGs took years and many efforts to finally defeat (Druaga), others could not be truly defeated, and needed to be avoided or confronted indirectly (Hel), others could even be allied with (Graz'zt).  And some were one-shots destroyed on the first encounter (Wotan the Hanged God).

Personally I think the 'Dungeon Delve' 3-encounter model is a vastly, vastly better one for Epic play than is the 30-encounter 'Prince of Undeath'.  I think that lengthy slogs are an appallingly bad choice of design for Epic, and the source of this belief that Epic is 'more of the same'.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2011)

S'mon said:


> I think the 'Dungeon Delve' 3-encounter model is a vastly, vastly better one for Epic play than is the 30-encounter 'Prince of Undeath'.



I'm inclined to think this is true at all levels!


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## vagabundo (Oct 16, 2011)

pemerton said:


> I'm inclined to think this is true at all levels!




Then what would we pad the rest of their time with? Like talking and stuff??


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## S'mon (Oct 16, 2011)

pemerton said:


> I'm inclined to think this is true at all levels!




I think the lengthy dungeon worked well in eg 1e, with its emphasis on exploration.  It worked ok in low-level 3e where fights were still fairly quick.  It does not work well in 4e at any level - running battles & adventures at 1st level in 4e feels quite a lot like those Epic deity-level battles & adventures I used to run in 1e!  

So, yes, I think you're right.  I own a bunch of long 4e adventures, but neither of my current 4e campaigns has used any of them, and both have benefitted from a focus on short adventures, typically 1 session.  One is about to go into its 4th episode of 'The Slaying Stone', and that is really too long IMO.  Next time I run a published adventure I'm going to be ruthless in cutting out unnecessary fights.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2011)

S'mon said:


> I own a bunch of long 4e adventures, but neither of my current 4e campaigns has used any of them



I did the Chamber of Eyes from H2 as a standalone, taking 2 or 3 sessions. I did the Well of Demons from the same module separately, and it took at least 4 sessions, I think, but had quite a bit in it, and split up nicely into distinct sections - the gnolls, the demons themselves, then the "guardian" and the final ritual room. And it didn't have any filler.

I've got no interest in filler. I've got enough trouble fitting in the non-filler stuff that I want to deal with in the campaign!



vagabundo said:


> Then what would we pad the rest of their time with?



I think that D&D has always had an issue with too much padding.

The "Burning THACO" pdf, with ideas on how to run D&D modules for Burning Wheel, is good on this:

it seems that every module I pick up has the structural integrity of mushy peas. You'll have to take it into your own hands. Front load conflict. The first module I ran for this group (The Vakhund), had the players join up with a caravan in a town and described days of journey before it got to the point that something happened (other than random encounters, natch). We're talking potentially hours of play before something significant happens...

A lot of obstacles and opposition in modules is filler. It's there to take up time, to provide a reason for the niche skills of one type of character, or to make the experience seem "real." It's ok to leave a few of these in for old time's sake, but mostly, unless it's something your players will really get a kick out of, just go ahead and invoke the Say Yes or Roll Dice rule. Give maybe a sentence describing how the characters overcame the obstacle and move on.​
This was writen about AD&D modules, but I think can be true even of 4e modules.

Not all of them, though. I've used a couple of the mini-modules from Open Grave, for examle, and they're good. I only use them when I already have an idea about how the scenario fits into the game, and they only have a handful of encounters which are all directly to the point.


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## Ryujin (Oct 18, 2011)

pippenainteasy said:


> Does Vecna benefit from this aura himself, or does being the origin point of the aura negate himself?




He's an "undead creature within the aura", so I'd say he's effected too.



Johnn3ie45 said:


> It's sad. Our group's usual DM doesn't want to run into Epic, largely based on the (lack of) quality support for Epic Tier. I was looking forward to it, but he cut us off upon reaching level 20. In our our new campaign, he has already stated that it's likely to top out between 16th and 18th.
> http://daxibeidelang.teasm.cn/Index.aspx




Our group had the same problem. We ran right up to 20, then the DM called it. He said that it was due to there not being any good adventures beyond that point, but I'm firmly convinced that he bought into it being too difficult, because of comments he read online. 

Unfortunately it means that he read all of the available material, and he has a phenomenal memory, so it screwed me for running any of the stuff released to that point if he's going to participate. I'll work it out.


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## pippenainteasy (Oct 18, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> He's an "undead creature within the aura", so I'd say he's effected too.




The main confusion I have is the glossary definition of an aura which says: *An aura does not affect the originating creature unless the text specifies otherwise.*

So the question is, does Vecna count as one of the undead in the aura, or would the description have to say, "all undead creatures within the aura _including Vecna?_


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## Ryujin (Oct 18, 2011)

pippenainteasy said:


> The main confusion I have is the glossary definition of an aura which says: *An aura does not affect the originating creature unless the text specifies otherwise.*
> 
> So the question is, does Vecna count as one of the undead in the aura, or would the description have to say, "all undead creatures within the aura _including Vecna?_




The description of auras implies no, but the text of the aura implies yes. As implication isn't direct statement I'll have to retract my previous comment, but I'd still do it anyway


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## MerricB (Oct 20, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Personally I think the 'Dungeon Delve' 3-encounter model is a vastly, vastly better one for Epic play than is the 30-encounter 'Prince of Undeath'.  I think that lengthy slogs are an appallingly bad choice of design for Epic, and the source of this belief that Epic is 'more of the same'.




Prince of Undeath has been an interesting experience so far. Some of the encounters have been really entertaining (twin beholders are great fun!), and we've avoided too many "slog" encounters. The pacing is much, much better than E2.

Of course, it helps that with only 3 players (+ Splug) the encounters go by pretty fast. 4-5 encounters per 3.5 hour session is nice. Mind you, I'm waiting for the grind to set in as we go deeper into the Abyss.

The biggest problem with the adventures (and it goes for Paizo's APs as well) is that requiring a target level at the end of the adventure often causes a lot of padding in there. I can think of a lot of dungeons that are grossly overinflated just because there need to be enough encounters for the next level to be gained. (An alternative of a few REALLY TOUGH ENCOUNTERS, like Spire of Long Shadows doesn't work that well, either).

However, because the first section of Prince of Undeath was getting control of the Chaos Ship, and there weren't actually that many encounters in the Hold (and quite a few of them felt like advancing the plot), it worked really well.

Cheers!


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## Motorskills (Oct 20, 2011)

I'm new to 4e, but not new to D&D.

I have to say I'm a little surprised by this conversation. I know there was some politics involved, but WOTC presumably still owns the rights to the concepts developed in BECMI.

Whilst the implementation was a little shaky, the idea of two tiers above 'simple adventurers' was well-established via the Companion and Master boxed sets (and later in the Wrath of the Immortals boxed set).

D&D went from L1 to L36, which is essentially compatible with the 4e L1 to L30

At Companion level (L15-L25), the idea was that you and your merry band of entrepreneurs could be done with making a living killing monsters for their stuff. The campaign documentation supported developing domains, fighting wars and sieges and so on. Of course there would still be plenty for high-level PCs to do that employed all their dubious talents on a regional or even global basis.

At Master level, (L26 to L36) you were essentially done even with that, and would be on the hunt for one of the four PC Paths to Immortality. That would involve world-spanning, and planar-spanning, fun-and-games.
Pretty clever stuff really. 

IIRC, first You needed to find an Artifact (an Immortal-level magic item that was specifically 'buried' somewhere by your Immortal patron, for you to quest to find.) Then you would need to either 

i) create a Dynasty, and time-travel to help your descendants out three times over the next 1000 years, per the prophecy that you yourself created(!)

ii) change the landscape for 100(?) miles around. I mean really change it. One of the Mystara regions is now comprised of floating islands. Another is a super-giant-tree forest (Elf-ville, natch).

There were a couple of other routes. 

The baddies had their own Path to Immortality (in the Sphere of Entropy). That was deliberately not described in detail, but it would often involved KILLING EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD! (You might also have to betray your closest friend, corrupt the land for 100 miles around etc.)


As I said, the implementation was a bit shaky, but we coped as always. It seems to be that Paragon and Epic campaigns could do worse than tap into those concepts (perhaps as dedicated books / boxed sets?)


Finally, BECMI Immortals were exactly that. They couldn't die. The worst that could happen was that you forced them to recreate another temporary mortal shell, while all their Immortal buddies laughed at them for losing to a bunch of normals.

I really dislike the idea of deities being just another monster to fight.


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## Motorskills (Oct 20, 2011)

Update: having had a brief opportunity to review (the excellent!) Dark Dungeons, I would note a few things.

First, although domain management and mass warfare/siege rules are well-described, those can off-putting to people that want to play their 20th level rogues, rather than 20th level accountants. It is up to the DM and his players to work out how those aspects of mid-high level play should appear their game, and to what extent.
The guide to playing PARAGON-level should describe the role that a high-level group can play. Threats to the realm should be large-scale (e.g. invasion), and require the PCs to use their skills in a much wider forum.

Secondly, although I note that Dark Dungeons goes into significant detail about Immortals, it pretty much skips over the requirements to become one, you just seem to need a hella lot of XP. That's a shame, since the chapter title suggests otherwise. 

Now to some extent "just XP" is not necessarily a bad thing; one of the issues with the BECMI Paths to Immortality was that they weren't really set up for a party to achieve. At least with XP, everyone can qualify, and it's up to the DM to determine what's required to be done to earn that XP.

But I think it's a missed opportunity. I thought the Paths to Immortality - or at least the basic ideas behind them - were superb, and truly met the requirement of EPIC (which is what the bulk of this thread is complaining about.)

As for the Paths not being suited for a party of adventurers, that's only partly true. I think the DM can and should be able to create a Master/EPIC level campaign that requires all the adventurers to work together, and allows them to ascend as a group. 

Unfortunately BECMI didn't really address that at all. But I see that very much as a straightforward problem that can be overcome.
(IIRC there was a group of Immortals referenced in one splatbook, elfy GAZ5 mebbe, that had ascended together.)


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## Upper_Krust (Oct 23, 2011)

I think rather than the WotC approx. 30 encounter approach a much better way of designing 4E adventures would be to have maybe simpler 12 encounter adventures:

Act One: 3 encounters
Act Two: 6 encounters (some encounters in Act Two optional/variable paths)
Act Three: 3 encounters (Encounters in Act Three of variable difficulty depending upon events in Act Two).

ie.

Act One - getting to the 'dungeon'
Act Two - in the 'dungeon'
Act Three - something bad happens ('dungeon' starts to collapse/flood - race to escape while fighting enemies/boss)

Every detailed encounter must feature an important elite or solo opponent/trap. Anything else is a potential random encounter.

In Act Two, the path might split between 2-3 options. Depending on which path you take (which might be a story path not necessarily a literal pathway) the encounters in act three might be easier or harder.

A potential random encounter between the (defensive position) detailed encounters could be avoided, but at the risk of having the enemies of the random encounter folded into the next main encounter (showing up after 3 rounds for instance).

You could probably boil E3 down to its 12 primary encounters without much of a problem.


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## MerricB (Oct 26, 2011)

It took us one 4-5 hour session to finish the Forge of Four Worlds segment of E3, which comprised of 7 encounters. One of them, thankfully, was a skill challenge/negotiation (so took about 5-10 minutes). Only about 2 of them were really significant/long encounters. I think that I could have taken one or two encounters out without affecting the adventure too much.

I'm now pretty sure that the biggest problem with the 4E adventures isn't the number of encounters, it's the length of the encounters. At present, our group is able to race through the encounters, and it changes the feel of the adventure significantly. 30-40 minutes per encounter is very different to 1 hour per encounter.

Cheers!


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## keterys (Oct 26, 2011)

Yeah, that's _very_ group dependent. In playtesting the level 23 adventure for LFR we had crazy disparities - the most egregious was one encounter that was 22 minutes for one group and 4.5 hours for another. My theory is to design encounters to take 60-90 minutes, and if some groups take 30-60 minutes - good for them - and nobody should ever take more than 2 hours. Some of which _has_ to be on the DM and PCs.


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## Gort (Oct 26, 2011)

MerricB said:


> At present, our group is able to race through the encounters, and it changes the feel of the adventure significantly. 30-40 minutes per encounter is very different to 1 hour per encounter.




Why do you suppose this is?


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## Primitive Screwhead (Oct 26, 2011)

My group takes 1.5 to 2 hours to get through a combat encounter.

This is due to a number of things:
  Large group. {5 to 9}
   Long spread between games {once a month}
  Fast leveling {every 2 or 3 sessions}
     - these last two result in players who take more time to figure out what they are going to do
   'Casual' gamers..we often get sidetracked on other topics.

Its not bad, but I am working to shave as much time as possible while still feeling epic. {24th level}


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