Epic Progression?

[barna10]

Ok, I've been out of the loop for several years and this may have been debated before, but anyway...

I have a BIG problem with both the Epic Attack Bonus and Save progressions and the reasons behind them.

First, why a different rule for monsters and characters? Just cap extra attack generation at +20 and be done with it! Why over complicate things with characters but then present a nice simple rule for creatures?

Second, what is the big deal about one character having a +32 FORT save and only a +20 REF save? Who gives a crap if it's even as broad a gap as +100/+10. All this is is an argument that Superman shouldn't have a weakness to Kryptonite! Was Wizards trying to say that characters shouldn't have weaknesses? That every character should be some type of juggernaut able to handle anything thrown at them with ease?

Thirdly, you just spent 20 levels making your character unique. You then get to 20th level and suddenly your Fighter's martial knowledge advances at the same rate as the Wizards? Where's the balance or logic in that? Why not just abandon Fighter and pick up a new class? Why shouldn't EVERY character take up spellcasting at this point?

In the last Epic game I played, we used the normal progression. I'm a new game now (10 years later), and I'm going to suggest we scrap this weird set of rules and just progress things as normal.

Anyway, thoughts?

[Urpriest]

Monsters would have had to be retroactive, since there were already plenty of monsters with >20HD.

Saves are relevant because if your roll doesn't matter then you shouldn't have been offered a roll in the first place. Spells that offer saving throws are balanced against ones that don't by the assumption that everyone has a non-negligible chance of succeeding, even if some people will be dramatically weaker to the effect than others.

BAB isn't supposed to help make a character unique, generally. That's the job of class features. If it isn't worth taking Fighter in Epic Levels for the bonus feats, then it probably wasn't worth taking it in non-Epic levels for the bonus feats.

[AmberVael]

Second, what is the big deal about one character having a +32 FORT save and only a +20 REF save? Who gives a crap if it's even as broad a gap as +100/+10.

Every point of difference equates to a 5% change in probability of success on a given die roll.

When you reach epic levels, the presence of save or die mechanics is quite strong. You can find all kinds of creatures that can paralyze, petrify, mind control, or just outright kill people with a single save provoking attack.

Lets assume that there is a monster that can kill people if they fail a save. We'll say the save it provokes is DC 40.
In this hypothetical scenario, introduce two player characters. One has the relevant saving throw at +100, while the other has it at +10. The first character, with his massive saving throw, will succeed every time he does not roll a 1. His chance of success is 95%. The second character, with his low saving throw, will fail every time he does not roll a 20. His chance of success is 5%.

Pitting these characters against the same monster, for any DM who wants to challenge a group, but not just slaughter characters carelessly, is impossible. One will essentially always fail, and one will always succeed. One will not be challenged or threatened at all by this, and the other has no chance of surviving. Such an imbalance makes it impossible to create appropriate encounters.

The slightly more sane example, the +32 vs +20, effectively leads to the same situation. Again, look at the DC 40 save. The person with +32 will have a 65% success rate, which is fair if a little risky for them if they get hit multiple times. The person with +20, on the other hand, needs to roll a 20- a 5% success rate. The gap is far closer than 100 / 10, but it still is such a significant change in probability that it becomes hard to account for.


This is the reason for the epic progressions, because this argument applies far more broadly than saves. If BAB continues to increase as normal, for example, spellcasters will be unable to hit enemies with ray spells and similar effects if Armor Class is tailored to the increasing BAB of the combat class character. (Well, in theory anyway).

Now, from experience, I can say that the changed epic progression isn't enough to actually solve this problem at epic levels. But taking it away will just make things even worse, and you should avoid that.

[docnessuno]

All reasonable arguments, but i'm still really bugged out by the fact that a Barbarian 20 / Wizard 20 (yes silly, but who cares) has +20 BAB and +30 ATK, while a Wizard 20 / Barbarian 20 has +10 BAB and +20 ATK, losing 2 attacks along the way.

[AmberVael]

All reasonable arguments, but i'm still really bugged out by the fact that a Barbarian 20 / Wizard 20 (yes silly, but who cares) has +20 BAB and +30 ATK, while a Wizard 20 / Barbarian 20 has +10 BAB and +20 ATK, losing 2 attacks along the way.

While this is suggested nowhere in the rules anywhere that I know of, I've always thought it would be a reasonable houserule in such situations to have the later progression replace earlier progressions.

That is, lets say you are the level 20 wizard, and then you hit epic level. If you begin taking Barbarian levels, you begin replacing your BAB and Fort saves as if your first 20 levels had been Barbarian. So at level 21, when you're Wizard 20 / Barbarian 1, you calculate your Fort and BAB as if you were a Wizard 19 / Barbarian 1. Once you reached level 40, and were Wizard 20 / Barbarian 20, you'd have full will, full fort, and full BAB (all while still accumulating epic bonuses).

Doing it this way preserves relative numerical balance, while still giving you the bonuses that should be inherent to the classes you take, and avoiding the silly situation you described above.

Admittedly, it is a somewhat complicated rule.

[Heart]

A game I'm currently in does this. But that's just because the DM didn't know that wasn't the rule, and by the time I realized it I didn't say anything because we had been doing it for so long that it would take a long time to tweak all of his NPCs. That and I'm a psion, so it didn't have too big of an effect on me personally. I find it works out well.

Though, most of our enemies are NPCs, and we use epic magic and regularly receive +15 weapons and such. I currently have a +36 to intelligence, untyped, so take my words with a grain of salt.

[TuggyNE]

Thirdly, you just spent 20 levels making your character unique. You then get to 20th level and suddenly your Fighter's martial knowledge advances at the same rate as the Wizards? Where's the balance or logic in that? Why not just abandon Fighter and pick up a new class? Why shouldn't EVERY character take up spellcasting at this point?

Some would say (and I'm tempted to agree) that all characters should take up spellcasting in epic levels (or before), just because epic is so high-powered that pure mundane characters are inherently unable to really compete. (Instead, they generally patch it up by turning astronomical quantities of wealth into powerful magic items.)

Mathematically, though, as has already been mentioned, a d20-based system starts to have serious problems when you get modifiers that are off the die on one end or the other, and it's worse when you have both at once. So epic progressions are designed to keep the RNG in some sort of fragile equilibrium, rather than just falling apart. (They could certainly use a redesign, but I'm not sure exactly what would be better.)

[TypoNinja]

While this is suggested nowhere in the rules anywhere that I know of, I've always thought it would be a reasonable houserule in such situations to have the later progression replace earlier progressions.

That is, lets say you are the level 20 wizard, and then you hit epic level. If you begin taking Barbarian levels, you begin replacing your BAB and Fort saves as if your first 20 levels had been Barbarian. So at level 21, when you're Wizard 20 / Barbarian 1, you calculate your Fort and BAB as if you were a Wizard 19 / Barbarian 1. Once you reached level 40, and were Wizard 20 / Barbarian 20, you'd have full will, full fort, and full BAB (all while still accumulating epic bonuses).

Doing it this way preserves relative numerical balance, while still giving you the bonuses that should be inherent to the classes you take, and avoiding the silly situation you described above.

Admittedly, it is a somewhat complicated rule.

I'm a fan. While its kind of complicated I feel like any group seriously playing up to 20 and beyond (and not just randomly starting at level 30something because you want to try out the ELH) is pretty much got to have enough experience and system mastery to be able to cope fairly easily.

I understand why the progressions changed. Across 20 levels the difference in a fort save on a fighter vs a wizard is small enough that the wizard can still make it, even if he does suck at it compared to the fighter, but after 40 (Or more levels) you are probably looking at saves it's physically impossible to make in whatever your weak stat is.

On the other hand it does seem silly that a wiz20/fighter20 would have different saves and BAB than a fighter20/wiz20. It's also another case of melee can't have nice things as your BAB progression suddenly drops from the best to the worst.

[Aracor]

The problem is that you're thinking of BAB in a vacuum. You need to compare the entire character rather than just that minor detail.

The level 20 barbarian is also going to have a +12 fortitude save, and a +6 will and reflex save, and will qualify for barbarian epic feats and such, along with having damage reduction and mighty rage. When they take a level of wizard, they'll have a CL of 1.

The level 20 wizard will have a +12 will save, a +6 fortitude and reflex save, and will have 9th level spells as per the normal spell progression. They'll qualify for wizard epic feats, and their CL will be 20 at level 21 (when they take a level of barbarian).

If the BAB increased normally post-20, then there will be no difference between the two except their feats. As it is, there's still more evidence of where the character actually started than that.


This isn't a question of melee not having nice things, it's the same as saves. If they keep progressing things as normal post-20, eventually things with full BAB will never miss, and things with half BAB will never hit. So they want to keep the distribution similar enough that there's still a chance. Plus, the only thing melee GETS as a "nice thing" other than their feats is the chance to have a 3rd and 4th attack. Everything else is feats / HP that is gotten regardless of when the level is taken.

[Alleran]

Mathematically, though, as has already been mentioned, a d20-based system starts to have serious problems when you get modifiers that are off the die on one end or the other, and it's worse when you have both at once. So epic progressions are designed to keep the RNG in some sort of fragile equilibrium, rather than just falling apart. (They could certainly use a redesign, but I'm not sure exactly what would be better.)
Pathfinder has just released the playtest material for the Mythic ruleset, if you're interested.

[barna10]

Again I take you back to Superman. All of your arguments are arguments against having a weakness. What's the point? If your character has a weakness, address it. Avoid situations where you are weak, or strengthen your character in that area. Making the system bland because players are going to whine about one character being far better than another in one area is ridiculous.

Besides, you could create a character that took 20 martial classes 1st levels to have a +40 Fort save, and a +0 Ref and +0 Will. How is epic progression going to save his butt? Without it he could start taking levels in something like Wizard to correct the imbalance.

[Aracor]

It's not about not having weaknesses and/or strengths. It's about keeping the d20 that actually gets rolled relevant. To do that, the different areas that involve rolling have to be kept within the same stratosphere.

Otherwise the problem is if you attack a strong save, you do nothing (except on a natural 1). If you attack a weak save, they can't stop you (except on a natural 20). Same with attacks. If you're only missing on natural 1 with your 4th iterative attack, why bother even rolling? If you can't hit on your first attack unless you've got a natural 20, same thing.

[Feralventas]

My argument for epic progressions is one of fluff more than mechanics. The first five levels set the tone for your character; most prestige classes are accessible at level 6, and proceeding with a pure class past 5th level doesn't come up very often, but can be a choice in and of itself to the same vein. Going Fighter for 5 levels and then Wizard for 15 still leaves a feeling and theme of a warrior before all that magic. Your initial vocation sticks with you, and simply abandoning that, while not impossible, isn't something people are prone to doing. We tend to keep to our old habits unless we train long and rigorously.

Now, applying this to level 20, the idea that someone who spent the years and hours learning 20 levels of a given class would be able to give up on the habits and methods that kept them alive through challenges that would frighten celestial entities or demon-lords of the pit doesn't make nearly as much sense.

If you want additional attacks, there are ways to get them outside of BAB. Speed weapons, haste, Divine Power, and the like all easily make BAB a moot or at least meager difference.

The Tome of Battle classes might be a better choice at epic levels since their initiator level grows with non-initiator levels at 1/2 rate. So, if you went Wizard 20/Warblade10, you would have Caster Level 20 and Initiator Level 20. Wizard 20, Warblade1, Jade Phoenix Mage9 would grant Initiator 20, Wizard 27, IIRC. Warblade and Swordsage also grant abilities to allow additional attacks per round via maneuvers (Diamond Mind's capstone maneuver gives two full-round attacks).

By 20th and on, base saves aren't much of an issue as you've the monetary capacity to do a great deal to augment them via equipment, either directly boosting the save or boosting the ability scores associated with it.

As for level 20 characters having no weaknesses; the PC at level 20 has surpassed things that might be considered by normal mortals as gods. They can perform feats that are downright astounding, and if you're going to harm them, it's going to mean getting past their defenses, not simply looking for a weak point, because if they'd Had weak points they wouldn't have survived to epic levels. Confronting them, therefore, is an exercise in counter-measures and counter-counter measures and Counter Counter Counter Counter-combo-Counter-palooza. The game gets more complicated as the PCs progress in level, and this is one of the reasons why E6 exists; not everyoe, and frankly, not many people want to go through the slow process of dealing with the intricacies and frustrations inherent to epic level abilities, capacities, and faculties.

[barna10]

It's not about not having weaknesses and/or strengths. It's about keeping the d20 that actually gets rolled relevant. To do that, the different areas that involve rolling have to be kept within the same stratosphere.

Otherwise the problem is if you attack a strong save, you do nothing (except on a natural 1). If you attack a weak save, they can't stop you (except on a natural 20). Same with attacks. If you're only missing on natural 1 with your 4th iterative attack, why bother even rolling? If you can't hit on your first attack unless you've got a natural 20, same thing.

If everything is always going to be balanced versus your current level, why have levels? Your argument doesn't make much sense.

The situations you are describing could happen at ANY level. 1st level characters could be put in the situation where they hit only on a 20 and save only on a 20, or they miss only on a 1. Level is irrelevant to this argument since the situations you are talking about could happen at any level.

So why is Epic level so much different? Are players or Dungeon Masters suddenly worse players after 20th level? Are there no Dungeon Masters that understand how to challenge their players without following a formula? Sorry, but my 26 years of playing this game are insulted by this crappy rule.

[Aracor]

I did not say everything has to be balanced to your level, nor did I imply it.

Yes, it's certainly possible for you to be in a situation where you're outclassed and need natural 20s to hit, or someone will only fail a save on a 1. That's normal. That may be a good reason for you to run the heck away and get out of that fight. It's possible you'll get into a fight where you basically can't miss because you outclass your opponents. This is fun once in a while to demonstrate just how powerful you've grown compared to when your character started, and how far they've advanced from their roots.

These aren't a problem. These are under the control of the players and the DM. The problem is when an enemy wizard is casting a finger of death, DC 50, and you have two characters that have a +53 or so to their fortitude save, and the other two have a +28ish.

Either the enemy wizard can hit someone who basically can't fail, or they can hit someone that basically can't succeed. And this is happening IN THE SAME PARTY! Or even a single character has a +53 to their will save and a +28 to their fort save. This isn't a weakness at that point. It's the difference between you passing and failing virtually automatically.

This isn't balance. The idea behind normalizing the progressions is so that there's still a variance, but it's not so extreme that it's basically pass/fail depending on whether you target a strong or weak save, or whether you're trained to use weapons or not.

This is not about balancing everything against the party. It's about keeping the d20 relevant. If you keep a normal progression past level 20 (and frankly, the game starts degenerating before that), eventually the d20 doesn't matter any more unless it happens to roll a 1 or a 20.

[NoldorForce]

If everything is always going to be balanced versus your current level, why have levels? Your argument doesn't make much sense.

The situations you are describing could happen at ANY level. 1st level characters could be put in the situation where they hit only on a 20 and save only on a 20, or they miss only on a 1. Level is irrelevant to this argument since the situations you are talking about could happen at any level.

So why is Epic level so much different? Are players or Dungeon Masters suddenly worse players after 20th level? Are there no Dungeon Masters that understand how to challenge their players without following a formula? Sorry, but my 26 years of playing this game are insulted by this crappy rule.Thing is, your argument could very well be used against any implementation of the d20 as a conflict resolution system. Consider that the d20 has a range of 19 - 1 to 20. If something happens to consistently wander outside that range, then we end up with degenerate consequences - either you get an auto-success or an auto-failure. (Natural 1s and 20s only slightly change this.)

Before 3E, I don't believe the modifiers scaled that high. For instance, -10 was the lowest (ie, best) possible AC out there, barring some optional rule from a splatbook. (I've only played Baldur's Gate and heard about it secondhand, so I apologize if I fudge some of the details.) But with 3E, modifiers can go wildly out of control. Consider for instance the three-headed sirrush - AC 50, CR 28. A non-optimized melee character might wonder how to hit it consistently on all of his attacks (say he's got an attack bonus of +40, so that's a +25 for his fourth iterative). An optimized melee character, on the other hand, might be wondering quite the opposite (attack bonus +60 or more, AC 80+). A bit of a problem, no?

Do keep in mind, of course, that the epic bonuses are fixing only a symptom of the larger issue. 4E dealt with the issue by keeping bonuses confined within that 19-point range. Sure, it feels a bit wacky when you're spending effort to keep up with the curve, but when the game is and has always been, fundamentally, about killing monsters and taking their stuff, holding things on that curve isn't such a bad thing. If you're looking for a method by which to allow indefinitely scaling modifiers, a simple d20 isn't going to cut it. In its place I'd recommend something like what White Wolf or Shadowrun use (roll dice, each that reachs or exceeds some threshold is a success, count successes) - the better your modifiers, the larger you can make your probability range. As a bonus, your probability distribution is a bell curve, so modifiers are more significant when you're in the middle than at the end. (Being good at something is far easier than being utterly amazing.) Unearthed Arcana (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/variableModifiers.htm) even has something like it.