Advice for Running Epic Levels

[evil-frosty]

Hello all, I have foolishly agreed to run an additional adventure for my party's group of 24th level adventurers. So anyway, I was looking for advice on how to do this while still providing a challenge to the group? Is there anything beyond don't bother?

[ShadowFireLance]

Hello all, I have foolishly agreed to run an additional adventure for my party's group of 24th level adventurers. So anyway, I was looking for advice on how to do this while still providing a challenge to the group? Is there anything beyond don't bother?

...Epic my foot, I once ran a 500th, Tristalt, God game, Nations, Using Immortals handbook....:smallcool:

Yes, There are a lot of things that you can challenge them with, looking through you're Epic Level Handbook is the first step.
Otherwise, If you want a custom monster, I might help with that.

[Jack_Simth]

Hello all, I have foolishly agreed to run an additional adventure for my party's group of 24th level adventurers. So anyway, I was looking for advice on how to do this while still providing a challenge to the group? Is there anything beyond don't bother?
1) Do something about Epic Spellcasting. Ban it, limit it, or perhaps just make the costs of it (time, GP, XP) based on the pre-mitigation Spellcraft DC, rather than the post-mitigation Spellcraft DC.
2) Be ready for a lot of extra work. You're going to need to handcraft most of the opponents for the party; at higher levels the optimization disparity is more significant, so you're going to need to tailor basically all opponents to be a reasonable challenge.

[AmberVael]

Playing in high/epic levels has its quirks and difficulties, but it can be fun if you know what you're doing. And I want to stress that- it works best if you have a group that is very comfortable and familiar with the ins and outs D&D 3.5. If you don't have that knowledge, keeping the system from falling apart in a horrible mess becomes a lot harder.

A few points of interest:

- Don't use the epic spell system. It's just awful. Just... really. It's really bad. And largely unnecessary, as 9th level spells are plenty powerful enough.
If you feel the need to make epic spells, my honest advice is to just toss out the system and make your own epic spells without its "help." Just used Improved Spell Capacity and homebrew 10th level spells and beyond.

- Don't trust CR. Lean towards custom challenges. CR is pretty dodgy even at low levels, but by the time you hit epic levels of play, it's just completely crap. Furthermore, most of the epic level monsters are problematic, either through possessing absurd weaknesses, really annoying and troublesome mechanics, or just frustratingly difficult numbers to work with. My advice is, look at player characters and make your own custom NPC enemies to throw at them. At this point, you'll know way better than the monster books what will challenge your PCs without utterly destroying them.

- Keep PCs stats within a reasonable range. You don't want everyone with the same stats, but if Wizard McSpellslinger has +50 will and Ragepants BarbarianFace has +20, then you may experience difficulties, since there is no save DC that challenges them both. Either one always succeeds, or one always fails, and that's generally not very good to have. Try and keep everyone within at least 10 points of each other on things like AC and saves, barring more unusual builds and defenses. This isn't a hard rule, but it is something for a DM to keep in mind.

- Gaps between class tiers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=266559) have become really noticeable and huge by this point. Definitely try and make sure everyone is on the same page as to power and optimization level, else what blows away one character won't even scratch another.
Also, honestly? I tend to prefer the higher tiers for epic level. You tend to really feel epic using one of those classes, while something like a fighter just... doesn't have much different available to them. But that's just me, less about more objective stuff.

- Immunities are annoying, but sometimes necessary. It's really easy to get various immunities and complete shutdown abilities at this level. My take on it is that it is, to an extent, necessary. When monsters are throwing around abilities that can petrify, kill, or otherwise completely doom characters for at least the fight at hand, and what's more, can do it once a round or more, high saves and other defenses just aren't enough, simply because you have more chances of rolling a 1. If the PCs don't want to be consistently taken out of fights, they need immunities.

- Ablative defenses for monsters. On the other hand, having monsters completely obviate the abilities of PCs doesn't make for a more challenging opponent so much as it makes for less powerful PCs. Generally, as a DM, you want a tough opponent rather than one that is invulnerable, so what you do is give monsters resistances, temporary hit points, or limited uses counters or protective powers that can ward off attacks for a while, but not indefinitely. Allow the PCs to make progress with their attacks, but don't make it easy or a one shot kill.

- More monsters, not bigger monsters. I find that a lot of DMs throw one monster at their players and expect its power to let it hold out, but that generally isn't how it ends up going. Single enemies tend to die quickly. If you want longer and more challenging fights, make multiple opponents, not massive ones. It allows for more tactics, puts more actions on their side, and generally means luck plays a smaller roll.