The Gaming Den

Where would you even begin fixing Epic play? The best answer I can come up with is "Continue the same progression rules as actual D&D."

But I'll admit I just don't know epic. I've never had to learn the peculiarities in 3.x, and never wanted to badly enough.

But I've tried to introduce people to stuff like the Fire Mage, only to have a DM freak out because "It's not complete and can't enter Epic!" It might be handy to have some fixes for Epic rules to suggest. Hopefully.

Maxus wrote:
But I've tried to introduce people to stuff like the Fire Mage, only to have a DM freak out because "It's not complete and can't enter Epic!" It might be handy to have some fixes for Epic rules to suggest. Hopefully.

Tell the DM to go eat a big bag of baby dicks that one could just take prestige classes since pretty much everyone else is doing that by 20th level.


Now onto some actual help:

You can't just keep on with regular DnD but with bigger numbers is because the higher you go the wider the gap between a classes good numbers and bad numbers. Hell even the DnD Joke books says give and "epic" bonuses instead of regular progress of saves and BAB. Of course BAB get screwed since it's not an increase of BAB but a bonus so no extra attacks you are stuck with the ones you got at 20th level.

Then Epic spellcasting... wow what a terrible execution of a decent idea. Build your own spell, but make casting it based off a skill check. Now let's put "defects" to it that lower the DC to a point were it can be zero or just one.

-more later-

Leress wrote:

Maxus wrote:
But I've tried to introduce people to stuff like the Fire Mage, only to have a DM freak out because "It's not complete and can't enter Epic!" It might be handy to have some fixes for Epic rules to suggest. Hopefully.

Tell the DM to go eat a big bag of baby dicks that one could just take prestige classes since pretty much everyone else is doing that by 20th level.

Oh, how I wish. But I'm not even in the game. A buddy wants to be a blaster. He's a newbie. Furthermore, he really wants to just burn stuff. His character is even sort of interesting about it. I showed the fire mage, the DM rejected it for the aforesaid reasons.

But it did get me thinking about Tome Epic.

The game still falls apart at very high levels; the tomes don't actually prevent that. You'd practically have to write a new game from scratch to get an epic game that isn't completely shattered from the get-go.

The Epic Monsters are all over the place, numbers wise. And ability wise. There are a tonne of bullshit monsters you can beat with a pegasus and a bottomless quiver, but then there are also a tonne of monsters with a list of immunities that takes two paragraphs that can do one thousand damage in a combat round.

There really isn't anything to balance things to in Epic. The challenges are inconsistent and make no sense, the PC options don't make any sense at all. One feat allows you to conduct rituals that produce armies of solars, while a feat right next to it gives a +1 bonus to Constitution. It's totally at "scrap it and rewrite from scratch."

But of course, Tome alrady acknowledges that the levels in the high teens don't make sense. The more recent classes simply "win D&D" at level 20.

-Username17

Yeah, a friend recently looked at the "At level 20 you win D&D" thing and commented "What if the game is Epic? Does everyone automatically win?"

I just told him Epic doesn't happen. If you want Epic, you need to:

1. Fix shit so any two characters can exist side by side before Epic (so, stop the game falling apart in the higher non Epic levels).

2. Make sure that, now you've magically made the game go 1-20 just fine, it can go 20-100 without a problem - possibly by doing some "All the numbers actually freeze in place" thing, or possibly "All numbers freeze in place but you get a big Epic Character boost of +20 to all ability scores, then +1 to all per level." Only through these increases can any numbers improve.

3. You then fix xd6/level type damage because it stops but characters are getting HP boosts as Con rises.

4. Make fucking huge stuff that's bigger than what people can do in non-Epic D&D, which probably doesn't exist.

5. Raise Guan Yu back from the dead and cure Lupus.

Koumei wrote:5. ... and cure Lupus.

what would be the point of that? The only thing lupus text books are good for is hiding drugs

I thought level 10 was Epic play.

TOZ wrote:I thought level 10 was Epic play.

Oddly enough, level 10 and above is considered 'Legendary', as per Legend Lore.

Why does advancement have to continue without limit? Why not simply label 16-20 Epic and be done with it? There's not a single story that can be told at standard level 50 that can't be told at Tome level 20, so what does having more advancement really get you?

well, the furries need to be satisfied.

How about mixing it in with a couple levels of something else like Star Mage or soulborn or something?

NineInchNall wrote:Why does advancement have to continue without limit? Why not simply label 16-20 Epic and be done with it? There's not a single story that can be told at standard level 50 that can't be told at Tome level 20, so what does having more advancement really get you?

Well, the advancement -does- give you a reason to keep playing if you reach that high. Something new to look forward to.

Maxus wrote: Well, the advancement -does- give you a reason to keep playing if you reach that high. Something new to look forward to.

That's kind of ...

So without the advancement, there's no reason to keep playing?

DUDE!

Take Fire Mage, litter it with 5 levels of Elemental Weird (specialized for the Pyre or Fire sphere), and then B.S. an epic progression (which isn't hard at all. Damage continues to improve, and extra feats every 3 levels.).

Done.

DUDE!

Take Fire Mage, litter it with 5 levels of Elemental Weird (specialized for the Pyre or Fire sphere), and then B.S. an epic progression (which isn't hard at all. Damage continues to improve, and extra feats every 3 levels.). Since the Fire Mage is only Rogue-level, you could bump the BAB of the Elemental Weird up to 3/4 and give the class good Ref and Will.

Done. So it won't suffer from the monk argument "All it's saves are good!", it'll have believable BAB progression, and it goes 20 levels (it's also epic-able)

If you think it's a decent enough idea, I can write up a 20-30 epic progression.

NineInchNall wrote:

Maxus wrote: Well, the advancement -does- give you a reason to keep playing if you reach that high. Something new to look forward to.

That's kind of ...

So without the advancement, there's no reason to keep playing?

Not at all. But someone asked what does advancing add? And it adds progression and change and something other than using the tactics you have well-established by now.

and players would want a way to advance anyway. If they don't advance by level, they'll start seeking out exploits and transforming themselves and shit. The wizard will go seek out a black tome and find the ritual for becoming a lich, the fighter will slay a dragon and drink it's blood to become a half dragon or whatever, the rogue will find a way to become living shadow, etc.

Then the wizard will go demilich, and the others will find other progressions of their transformations, and so on. People want to progress, they're used to it by now, so going from RPG to FPS will feel weird, and they'll find RPG progression where they can. Even if it's just accumulating material power and wealth.

Actually, I kind of like the transformational advancement at higher levels. I wonder how workable that might be? Obvious not workable out of the box, but I wonder if something might be designed.

well, it'd basically require a new system where you gain CR instead of levels, and bunch of templates, with specific requirements.

edit: well, ok, not a new system, but it'd definitely be a different advancement philosophy.

So, for example, you make Dragon Juicer, and it requires tracking down a dragon, killing it, making a special alchemical draught from it's blood and possible it's hoard, and you get boosts to str, con, a natural flight speed from big wings, possibly a size increase, shit like that.

Meanwhile, there's Asmodeus, and it requires actually killing Asmodeus. You get his rod, his office, and his title. You become Tanar'ri, have hoards of devils at your beck and call, and get a bunch of spell likes or something.

Druids and rangers can pursue the Avatar of Nature, and basically you travel to the world tree, and attune to it. You have to beat it's guardians, possibly defeat the tree itself in "psychic" combat, and if you do, and hold to the proper ideal, it accepts you and infuses you with power. You'd basically become a native outsider with plant traits, I guess, and have increased power over nature.

I guess it's somewhere between Epic Destinies, or whatever 4e calls them, and the magical location loot of 3.5, just done right and such that it actually matters.

Transformation is basically just leveling by a different name. You go do adventures and then you gain power. It's basically prestige classes with prereqs. Generally much better in computer games than in table top RPGs, because in computer games you are controlling the entire party, so it doesn't suck for you when you've completed the transformational advancement sidequest for some of the party and not the rest. Thus, the inevitable massive power discrepancy just isn't a big deal. But in table top, it totally is.

-Username17

The problem with Epic is that it really sells itself as being something different. Level 21 isn't just another level, its when you become EPIC! When you give this part of the game a whole different title it cannot simply offer more of the same thing you've been doing from levels 1-20. This means that the nature of the game has to change.

However, you have probably been playing your character for a long time by this point and don't simply want to screw it up and make a new one, so the game has to move on from level 20 in some way. However, by this point the game has already gone to crazy town in three different ways. Firstly, the math is all borked. Stats have diverged so far that you are well into "auto suceed or auto fail" territory with all the oops-you're-dead suck that involves. Secondly, abilities have become so powerful that it is almost impossible to determine what the players are actually capable of. Level 9 spells have been a reality for 4 levels here, with characters able to have their wishes granted several times per day. Lastly, as Frank mentioned, there is no consistent balance point for what is level appropriate.

If you are attempting to fix Epic these points need to be addressed in some fashion at the start. I could see the game moving into more of a tall-tale direction, with characters able to jump between dimensions and throw mountains at each other. At the very least an Epic campaign would be very likely to leave the campaign world forever changed by the vast powers of the characters involved. I would imagine it would also be quite short, perhaps as a kind of last hurrah for the characters.

I could see Epic as a kind of "Go out with a bang" series of incredible adventures. Something like a short series of adventures revolving around the characters hunting down the corrupt old gods and killing them to take their place as the new pantheon. Or travelling to Hell to finally end the Blood War by helping the Demons or Devils finally triumph over their enemy. I think you'd have to flat-out ignore or replace a lot of the stats that were important in lvl 1-20 though.

well, yeah. When we look at epic, characters should be pulling shit form epic myth. They should be having battles that last days, they should be demolishing mountains or using them as weapons, they should visit their enemy and drink the ocean, wrestle time and lift the world serpent. They should be pimp walking around their multiverse and smacking the gods down to take their place.

and at the speed of advancement in the current 1-20 system, that could happen in 5 levels.

Side note, I'm looking at the Elemental Weird. What abilities, do you think?

First 2 levels are Fire Mage, then 2 levels of Weird (Origin: Fire, Sphere: Fire), 3 levels of fire mage, 2 levels of Weird, 2 levels of fire mage, 1 level of Weird, and the rest in Fire Mage.

You could also drop Hardiness of the Elements and give the class something WotC-based.

You want me to write an epic progression?