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lordnequam
2013-07-02, 02:57 AM
Based on my experience with epic Pathfinder campaigns, I've written a handbook for epic-level Pathfinder (http://www.jessejackjones.com/sites/default/files/EpicPathfinder1.4.pdf). (PDF warning)

These rules start with those from the D&D 3.0 Epic Level Handbook, but expand on areas that I thought were strong and replace others that just didn't work for me or my players.

- Includes epic progressions for all 11 core classes and 8 base classes.
- Includes over 300 epic feats, many focused on keeping non-caster characters both viable and interesting.
- Epic-level magic now focuses on metamagic (with over 40 new, epic metamagic feats)

This material is 100% free and I always welcome criticism and feedback. While I have run games using these rules and done my best to edit the document, there are doubtless both typos and oversights in game mechanics that I've missed.

For my other Pathfinder materials (of which there is admittedly only one, right now), you can stop by my website: http://www.jessejackjones.com/pathfinder

I hope you enjoy!

AttilaTheGeek
2013-07-02, 05:36 PM
Oh man, this sounds awesome. Will download now.

Edit with questions:

I love all the new metamagics. While I was reading through the table, a few caught my eye. Cataclysmic, Carnage, Absolute, and Warp spell blew my mind.

Nitpicking: I'd add some commas in Improved Spell Capactity's example. That would make it easier to read.

Does the "Unconscious Control" ability from Epic Ride mean that its DC doesn't matter at all for a combat-trained mount? It's confusingly worded.

How does Improved Metamagic work? For example, say I cast a Quickened Perfect Widened Fireball, and I have Improved Metamagic once. Is the total spell level 17 (3 base + 4 Quicken + 8 Perfect + 3 Widen - 1 IMM) or 15 (3 base + (4 Quicken - 1 IMM) + (8 Perfect -1 IMM) + (3 Widen -1 IMM)). Does it apply once per spell or once per metamagic feat applied? If it's the former, it's mediocre and could probably stand to be buffed. But if it's the latter, it's incredible and should have a limit to how often it can be taken.

What happens if I apply Maximize, Empower, and/or Intensify to a Perfect Spell?

(I have to go now, but more later)

devlingreye
2013-07-02, 05:48 PM
This is one of the most well put together piece of homebrew I think i have ever seen. Just wow.

Logic
2013-07-02, 07:25 PM
I just started skimming this, and my first assessment is that it is good.

EDIT: But...

Void Dodge isn't that great.

A situational +1 to AC that you can take multiple times may make it enough for a feat, but I think not.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-07-02, 07:30 PM
I'll probably comment on all the feats eventually (I would certainly like to), but for now I'm moving on to the epic magic items, skimming and commenting as I go.

"Even an epic magic item can never grant a dodge bonus and the maximum inherent bonus that can be applied to an ability score is +5."

These go a long way toward balance. Good.

Just to be clear, a Fluid set of Mithral Full Plate has no speed reduction or Arcane Spell Failure? Sweet. (Is Fluid really worth a +7, though?) I'd copy the description of Graceful into Fluid just for the sake of readability.

It took me until the last paragraph to realize exactly what an Annhilation weapon is (and it's awesome) - I'd suggest putting a phrase in the first paragraph of the description that refers to the Sphere of Annhilation, like this:

A weapon of annihilation appears normal until its power is activated, at which point the entire weapon is replaced by a terrible construct of absolute blackness, similar to a Sphere of Annhilation.

Why does Calamity deal bleed damage? Why does the Blade Barrier last for 26 minutes? From the fluff text description, it sounds like more of an instant-damage thing.

The Elemental Blast enchantments seem way overpriced. A Flaming Blast enchantment costs six times as much as Flaming for only three times the damage.

I'd give an example of, say, a Force Scimitar that shows how its crit range increase works. I understand what you're saying with it, but just for the sake of complete unambiguity.

Indomitable is not worth a +6. Compare a +1 Indomitable Flaming Blast Longsword to a +1 Annhilation Longsword. The former does 1d8+6d6+1 damage and gives a +1 bonus to will saves against fear (which is rare), but the latter does 1d8+5d6 (untyped)+1 with a crazy encounter power.

Shredding stacks with itself, right? Might want to put that in.

I'd change Tempest's ability to Paralyzed for a number of rounds equal to half the weapon's enhancement bonus on a crit because it seems more in line with electricity than shaken.

I think you have a typo in Robe of the Master Magi:

To most wearers, the robe offers no powers or has no effects unless the wearer's alignment doesn't match that of the robe.
Should this say "matches"?

You're missing a colon between "7th-9th level" and "4 weeks" in the last sentence of True Dweomers, under Epic Spellcasting.

I believe Damnation (the example) should say "a lawful evil or chaotic evil plane", otherwise it comes across as "any lawful plane or a chaotic evil plane".

lordnequam
2013-07-03, 05:12 AM
@AttilaTheGeek - Thanks for all the advice! A lot of the specific things you point out for readability are good advice; much of them are things lifted more-or-less wholesale from the old D&D ELH and probably could have used more editing before I posted the handbook. I'm going through it now with your advice and proof-reading in mind to make changes. As for your specific questions:

Epic Ride - I agree that it is confusing and doesn't make sense as written. I think I should simply remove that line.

Improved Metamagic - It works the latter way (that, in your example, would result in a total spell level of 15). I admit that it is powerful, but magic-users already have a lot of things to spend feats on--like the epic metamagic feats--and don't get feats as often as other classes, so I think it is already sort of self-limiting that way. If they would rather spend their epic feats reducing the cost of their non-epic metamagic feats at the expense of other options, I don't see a reason to penalize that. I will think on it, though, and see if I can think of a compromise that might be less open to abuse...

Perfect Spell - There would be a bit of DM adjudication involved, but my interpretation would be that: Maximize would accomplish nothing (as it is already maximized); Empower spell would cause it to do 50% more maximized base damage; Intensify would add the extra dice in and they would be maximized, but not doubled. Say you have a hypothetical spell (for the purposes of nice round numbers) that did 1d10 per level, to a max of 10d10 at level 10.
- Maximize = 100 dmg
- Empower = 10d10 x 150% dmg
- Intensify = 15d10 dmg
- Perfect = 200 dmg
- Perfect + Empower = 250 dmg
- Perfect + Intensify = 250 dmg
- Perfect + Empower + Intensify = 300 dmg

Fluid Armor - Correct, and I think it is reasonable as it means you've got wizards running around in full plate as a result. It is a powerful addition to any arcanist's arsenal.

Calamity Weapon - The blade barrier lasts 26 minutes, because that is the duration of the blade barrier spell at 26th caster level (i.e., the minimum caster level to make a Calamity weapon)

Elemental Blast - Another holdover of D&D; the magic items I brought over from there are pretty much unchanged as far as price goes.

Tempest Weapon - Paralysis is more thematically correct, but I think it would be a little too powerful. Shaken was the best compromise I could come up with.

@devlingreye - Thank you very much!

@Logic - That's one of the feats I did the most hemming and hawing about...after all, dodge bonuses are one of the better classes of bonus as they (1) stack and (2) apply against touch attacks. Do you think giving it a +1 bonus to Reflex saves as well as AC would help balance the feat?

AttilaTheGeek
2013-07-03, 06:07 AM
@AttilaTheGeek - Thanks for all the advice! A lot of the specific things you point out for readability are good advice; much of them are things lifted more-or-less wholesale from the old D&D ELH and probably could have used more editing before I posted the handbook.

Wizards isn't really known for their editing *cough*Truenamer*cough*IronHeartSurge*cough*Truena mer again


Improved Metamagic - It works the latter way (that, in your example, would result in a total spell level of 15). I admit that it is powerful, but magic-users already have a lot of things to spend feats on--like the epic metamagic feats--and don't get feats as often as other classes, so I think it is already sort of self-limiting that way. If they would rather spend their epic feats reducing the cost of their non-epic metamagic feats at the expense of other options, I don't see a reason to penalize that. I will think on it, though, and see if I can think of a compromise that might be less open to abuse...

I see potential for abuse with a whole bunch of +2 or +3 metamagic feats soon after 20th level. However, if you've done playtesting on it, then you know its power better than I do.


Perfect Spell...

Oh, okay. I'd include that example for clarity, but change it to a 10d6 Fireball to avoid creating a spell just to explain a feat.


Calamity Weapon - The blade barrier lasts 26 minutes, because that is the duration of the blade barrier spell at 26th caster level (i.e., the minimum caster level to make a Calamity weapon)

*shrug* Cool. I see it having more interesting out-of-combat applications, rather than tactical in-combat ones.


Elemental Blast - Another holdover of D&D; the magic items I brought over from there are pretty much unchanged as far as price goes.

Yeah, but that doesn't make them balanced. Of all of WotC's handbooks, ELH was among the least balanced.


Tempest Weapon - Paralysis is more thematically correct, but I think it would be a little too powerful. Shaken was the best compromise I could come up with.

Makes sense. I suggested Paralysis because Stunned would definitely be to good, but it's up to you.

By the way, have you considered starting a play-by-post Pathfinder epic game here on the forums to playtest your rules? I would totally play in that.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-07-05, 12:35 AM
I can't be the only one who's super excited about this. I'm preparing another post where I go through the feats in alphabetical order and comment on most/all of them. But, before I do, I have some questions.

What power level are you aiming for with these feats? Some of them just offer flat numerical bonuses, which become near-meaningless in a setting where numbers are abitrarily high, but some feats unlock literally world-shattering potential. (I'm thinking of Cataclysmic Spell here, but it's not the only one.) Since a character only gets a feat every two levels, I'd assume you want every feat to be a Big Deal, but I wanted to make sure.

Why do many feats have ability score prerequisites that any epic character would already have?

...I'm sure I had other questions, but I can't remember them at the moment. I'll edit them in.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-07-05, 12:53 PM
Woo, more nitpicking! I'm just going through all the feats, in order, and making comments on almost all of them. (All the ones I've skipped are fine.) Here is feedback on all the feats beginning with A.

Absolute Ascent feels... underwhelming. Reading the name and the first paragraph, I expected something apotheosis-like, but it's basically a feat for +2 to your primary stat.

Absolute Channel is really situational. What if it instead (or in addition?) allowed you to apply metamagic feats to your Channel, up to a maximum of half the highest spell level you can cast?

Absolute Judgement is strong but uninteresting.

Absolute Ki Strike is super cool, and I like it a lot. I've always thought Brilliant Energy should work that way.

I feel like Absolute Spell doesn't do enough. It's just Perfect Spell with some number increases. What if it let you choose one thing off the Cataclysmic Spell table in addition to being a Perfect Spell? For a +10 level increase, it's only a two-level difference between Absolute and Cataclysmic.

There's a typo in Arcane Savant - it says "Prerequisite:" instead of "Prerequisites:". It's pretty cool, I guess. A decent buff to Epic Eldritch Knights.

Arctic Rage is a good way to give important immunities to barbarians. Good.

Why does Armed Deflection have a WIS prerequisite? That makes it like a monk feat, but Epic Weapon Focus is a fighter thing.

Armored Skin is awful. A feat for +1 AC is bad even when it stacks with everything (Dodge), but an epic feat? Definitely not. It could be buffed to +3 or +4, I think.

Armored Shape: See above. I'd call it at between +4 and +6.

Armoring Spell is weird. What if it said "gains a circumstance bonus to AC equal to the spell's final level", that is, the spell's final level with metamagic feats? That way, the bonus to AC wouldn't be stuck at a constant +2.

Ascent: You should note that the different inherent stat bonuses from the Ascent feats stack with each other. Why does it give an AC bonus?

Aura of Compassion is very cool and very good. What does "effects improve by +1" mean? So, if you take it twice, the Fast Healing goes from 5 to 6? Why not 5 to 10? It should have the same effect the second time. Also, Fast Healing 10 at epic levels is really not that strong.

Aura of Conviction: See above.

Aura of Glory: +4 damage is really small. For better scaling, try a multiplier. "Deals an extra 50% damage whenever they do damage", for example.

Aura of Misery: See Aura of Compassion. It could use a buff.

Aura of Protection: Strictly better than Aura of Misery in every way, but could also use a buff.

Aura of Shadow: Really cool. I like it.

Aura of Skill is... unusual. I don't understand why anyone would take it. The only application I can see is granting a whole bunch of Leadership minions +10 Spellcraft to have them craft magic items for you.

Aura of Truth: I don't understand why it's named "Truth", but other than that it's cool. Could also use a buff.

Aura of Watchfulness: Strong and powerful. Good.

Aura of Winds: I think it could stand to be a little bigger, but it seems fine as is.

Aura Spell has a typo. "An area of the spells' effect surrounds the caster" should read "An area of the spell's effect surrounds the caster". It's also very vaguely worded. What if it's a touch spell, like Cat's Grace? What does an Aura of Summon Monster do? What about an Aura of Prismatic Wall? Or an Aura of Create Demiplane, or Permanency? It needs clarification about what spells it can or cannot apply to.

Automagic Quicken Spell: Very powerful, but that's a good thing.

Automatic Silent/Still Spell: Seems kinda situational. Silent and Still aren't that great by themselves, so consider increasing the limit to 4th-level spells.

lordnequam
2013-07-06, 12:21 AM
@AttilaTheGeek - Please, nitpick away! I'm finding your comments extremely enlightening. As for a few of your specific questions:

Improved Metamagic - I'm luck that I play with a ground more interested in fun than really powergamig or trying to break my system, so the mechanic--and doubtless others--probably have the potential for abuse.

Play-by-post - It isn't really something I'd be that interested in, honestly. I used to do PBeM's years ago and I'd roleplay in chatrooms and stuff, in my youth. But these days, I run a campaign, play in another, and that uses up most of the time I'm interested in devoting to this particular passtime.

Power Level - That depends on what the feat does. My sort of 'design vision' (though it was nothing so grandiose) was that power should be open-ended at epic levels. If you were high enough level and, thus, had feats enough to spend, you should be able to become as strong as you wanted. I did that in two major ways: by static bonuses to powers that naturally increase (such as skills, saves, and to-hit) and scaling or stackable bonuses to powers that remained static. It isn't perfect and I wasn't 100% consistent, but that was sort of my vision.

I also want to make a second barrier to power around 30th level, since I don't think most epic campaigns get there. It's when abilities like Battlegod and Cataclysmic Spell become available.

Ability Score Prerequisites - That was there (a) to kind of reinforce the idea that these abilities require a character to be superhuman in some respect and (b) for the benefit of campaigns that might use rarer magic items or less powerful PCs (I know, less powerful epic, because that makes sense). Not every PC might have a 21+ in every stat in that game, so it would limit their options to what they're most specialized in.

A few notes about your notes about the feats:

Absolute Ascent - The entire Ascent line is designed more for the roleplayers in the crowd. This feat is an unmistakable sign that you are one of the greatest living beings on the planet; the stat bonus is just there to keep the feat from being a total waste mechanically. It's primary purpose is in the story opportunities it creates and the way it lets you customize your character.

Armed Deflection - WIS is a requirement because it represents the sort of mental focus necessary to cut arrows or bullets out of the air. The Weapon Focus aspect simply means you're good enough with your weapon to make use of that focus.

Armoring Spell - To increase the AC bonus, you're supposed to apply Armoring multiple times to the same spell.

Auras - The entire aura line was a last-minute addition to v1.4 of the Handbook. They definitely need both looking over and playtesting.

Belial_the_Leveler
2013-07-06, 10:33 AM
The system is imbalanced - significantly. I'm going to try and explain why;


1) Imbalanced feats
Improved Sneak Attack gives a +3,5 situational bonus to damage. Assume it applies in half the situations so it averages at +1,8 damage per attack. Since a Rogue 20 is going to be doing 1d8+15+10d6 per attack to begin with at least, the bonus is less than 1/15 of the base value... and it is situational. Now, compare with Improved Metamagic. Each time it is taken, it reduces the spell level increase by 30% on average. That's close to an order of magnitude of difference.
Similarly, take the Epic Toughness. +30 HP for that epic feat you are getting every other level. Umm, what? When a nonepic cleric hits 11th level, they can cast a 6th level spell twice per day. That's 300 HP healed - ten times more than that epic feat. So the class feature for that 11th level are an order of magnitude better than the class feature of an epic fighter for, say, 32nd level. Definitely not balanced.


2) Imbalanced class features
For levels 21-40, how many spell slots does a wizard get as a class feature? Forty? Fifty, if you count the bonus slots? Let's compare with the Barbarian. Does the Barbarian's +5 damage reduction and trap sense even compare with having half a hundred spell slots? How much damage is that class feature realistically going to stop? 50 damage per fight (10 hits that land per fight), 4 fights per day = 200 points of damage. A single spell slot of 10th level can contain a spell to raise a character from the dead with all HP healed. Or deal 200+ damage outright. Or call two Balors of 360 HP each. So a single spell slots is at least as powerful as the Barbarian's Epic Class features.
Thus the class features of a caster are fifty times more powerful than those of the noncaster, at least in this example.


Those are a couple of the more glaring examples but there are far from the only ones - and the point needs to be hammered in.

lordnequam
2013-07-06, 06:19 PM
@Belial_The_Leveler - Everything you say is true, but the trouble--for me, at least--is that I don't know how to really change that while keeping the game system the same. Magic-users at higher levels are just more powerful in all but the most specialized situations, even in non-epic Pathfinder.

Of course, the game tries to balance magic-user power out a little, with things like evasion, energy immunities, resistance or immunity to different conditions, and spell resistance. Given that magic-user saves never get higher than 19 + relevant ability score (barring Heighten/Improved Heighten Spell and a few DC bonuses from things like spell focus), that is another avenue of increased resistance.

But, no, it is merely a stop-gap and doesn't prevent a sufficiently skilled or insightful magic-user from stomping the whole rest of the party if it comes to it. At a certain point, I think you just have to either accept that each member of the party has a different role and comparing them like they were foes is a losing game, or you have to re-design the system from the ground up. It isn't ideal, but it is why Paizo decided to go their Mythic route instead of trying to kludge up a system that would work as well at 30th level as it does at 10th.

And yes, there is definitely more room for balancing in the rules I have presented here; the feedback I'm getting here and elsewhere--yours included--will help immeasurably when I work on v1.5. But these rules will never be perfectly (or, in some areas, even remotely) balanced.

With that in mind, I would like to hear about other imbalance examples you've found, so that I can do what I think makes sense to try and lessen the problem.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-07-06, 10:03 PM
What it comes down to is that Epic play is, by definition, an extension of non-epic play. You can't fix the balance problems inherent in the Pathfinder base in an Epic extension of it.

Belial_the_Leveler
2013-07-07, 09:07 AM
...I blame WotC for this kind of thinking. Instead of sitting down and making a decent epic book for them, they wrote down a couple feat progressions and named them classes. Doesn't it strike you as odd that there aren't any new class features beyond 20th level? That's the biggest flaw I ever saw in epic play, the second being the compounding of the existing pre-epic imbalance. There are steps to fix it I've been working on for some time - they can be summed up as follows;


Epic Classes must have class features.
Feats are too generic and too few to work well, especially since they boost pre-epic mechanics that are already imbalanced. Instead of trying for hundreds of feats, think up an epic mechanic for each epic class, then add features to it. The epic classes will then be the continuation of nonepic play into epic levels - but not the continuation of the nonepic features themselves.
For example, think wizards/sorcerors and epic magic. That those casters stopped getting nonepic spells and got the new mechanic of epic magic made them interesting. The implementation of the mechanic was bad but not the idea. Thus, the epic arcane class - call it High Mage or Archmage (since Pathfinder doesn't have one) - could have class features revolving around epic magic. Give them a limited number of powerful slots then each feature allow them to use those slots in a new way. Epic Metamagic for using them to cast highly improved nonepic spells. Multispell to link multiple versions of a nonepic spell in a single slot. Spellstorm to put a sequence of different nonepic spells in a single slot. Arcane Recovery to expend an epic slot to recover their nonepic slots. Spellforge to craft a new spell by combining existing spell effects. Arcane Fire to expend a spell slot to gain Xd6 damaging attack for X rounds. And so on and so forth.


Epic class features must be balanced.
Let's not repeat the mistakes of pre-epic. Legendary Dreadnought 10 should give equally strong class features as High Mage 10, or as Epic Spymaster 10, or as Epic Hierophant 10. If the Hierophant can raise people from the dead several times per day mid-combat, then the Dreadnought should have enough defenses to absorb comparable punishment. Taking his constitution modifier several times as HP bonus/level or as damage reduction or regeneration is good and so is being able to pull off things that Kratos or Hercules have been able to. And if the High Mage can scry people on other planes and bind netherfiends to his army, why shouldn't the Epic Spymaster have an extraplanar contacts network to spy on the Nine Hells, be able to arrange assassinations, incite rebellions and wars, or have peoples' property stolen or destroyed across nations?
While this does not resolve the pre-epic balance problems, Epic abilities are going to be more powerful than Pre-Epic ones and eventually, the pre-epic abilities will cease being as useful in comparison just like 20th level wizards no longer cast unmodified Magic Missiles or Fireballs in combat. Balance should eventually even out.


Fix the monster progression
Point of order; a monster 2-3 CR higher than another should be as powerful as two of the lesser creatures at once. This is how CR is supposed to work. In nonepic it allows a transition from goblins to balors in the 20-level scale and allows players a reasonable margin to play in without too terrible level/stat inflation. In Epic as is, progression is much slower. This is problematic because it puts the interesting stuff too far apart, diminishes the rate and sense of achievement for the players, inflates the number of options in character creation as character level goes higher and so on and so forth. Not to mention that writing a book for 100 levels of play is way harder than writing one for 20 or 40.
So fit the monsters in that scale and your players immediately get that sense of Epicness in the game; CR 30 is a challenge that could level a major metropolis equivalent to an entire flight of dragons. CR 40 can threaten a kingdom like an army of a thousand Balors. CR 50 would be a global event like an invasion from Hell or an evil god manifesting physically. CR 60 would be events of cataclysmic proportions like fighting major Elder Evils or Greater Gods directly rather than their projections or avatars.


Bring in the artifacts!
In addition to being boring, items with "plusses" pose the same problem a continued progression of fast and slow BAB would - eventually the difference becomes too much and effectively the characters have most of their power on their items.
The first step to address this problem is having the character's primary stats and powers be less dependent on items - see "epic bonuses" below. But the important step is to introduce artifacts - items that produce effects that complement the character and give him more options instead of boosting his own options. Classic example is Mjolnir for Thor in comics. It doesn't boost his attacks so much as it gives options; ranged throws, lightning strikes, controlling weather, really fast flight, overcoming the defenses of giants. So what if instead of giving "plusses", epic items had powers equivalent to their level? Just like epic staffs can cast "Intensified Meteor Swarm" or "Twinned Gate", epic weapons could allow a fighter to hit an enemy with Energy Drain rather than damage, or shatter magical barriers on contact, or raise the fighter's enemies as undead minions after they're slain; not abilities stronger than the fighter's standard but different.
And then there are artifacts like flying castles, mythals, wizard towers that can move across planes, thrones that allow you to see the world when you sit upon them and so on - noncombat benefits that are still awesome.


Epic progression
This purely mechanical aspect is an opportunity to do some balancing. Epic bonuses to saves, BAB, ability scores, skills and the like can achieve the slow but steady rebalancing needed due to the pre-epic baggage. So;
Attack: epic bonus equal to epic level, no iterative. Only half of it stacks with item or spell bonuses. This ensures that as levels increase, numbers will not stray far from the benchmark, reliance on"plusses" is gradually reduced and that a level 60 god does not need mortal magic to punch you in the face with godly levels of skill.
Ability scores: in addition to the standard points for leveling, everyone picks 2 abilities to get a +1 enhancement bonus/level, 2 to get +1 enhancement bonus/2 levels, and the last two get a +1 enhancement bonus/3 levels. The reason behind this is manifold. First, capping the reliance on magic items; a 26th level warrior would be getting as much of a bonus from a +12 belt of strength as a 20th level warrior would get from a +6 one. Epic items will still be giving a bonus but the difference between basic score and score with items would not go beyond +6 as it would get harder and harder to "buff" someone who already has epic levels of strength. Secondly, without this system epic casters could boost their stats meaningfully with nonepic slots in epic play while the noncasters could not - and thus have an imbalance. Third, Hercules should need no strength-buffing to match Antaius the Giant who has 50 strength - epic creatures get justified huge ability scores while epic heroes limited to the +1 stat per 4 levels would never be able to match them. And last but not least, it provides a benchmark for what said monsters should have at a given level.

lordnequam
2013-07-08, 04:00 AM
@Belial_the_Leveler - I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong, because, quite simply, you are not wrong. But, instead, I think we have two different ideas of what we want out of epic, neither of which I feel is incorrect, but do have some elements of mutual exclusivity.

My concept of epic is a sort of open-ended, free-range system. To me, the 20-level progression reflects the end of being what is known as a 'fighter' or a 'mage' or any other class. Beyond that, you become a class essentially unique to yourself, using your own combination of feats to either specialize in what you want to do or branch out and cover what you perceive your weaknesses to be. What this does--or at least what I'm trying to accomplish--is to free the player to become exactly the character they want to be.

Yes, this frees the player to min-max and break the system. This frees the player to make bad feat combinations (though the recent retraining rules do help fix that). And yes, there are feats in my handbook that need serious looking at for balance issues, being either too strong or too weak. But that was sort of my philosophy when I accepted the basic framework of rules that WotC designed and used that as my starting point. As for a few of the specifics you mention:

Epic class features - Well, as I stated, I prefer the more open-ended approach. Especially when you consider that some classes--like rangers and rogues--already have insta-kill techniques as their level 20 power. I do, however, think there is room even in my concept of the system for something like this, in the form of epic prestige classes. 5- or 10-level explorations of interlocking powers outside the domain of feats.

Epic class balance - I've never really been a fan of the idea that every class has to balance perfectly against every other class. In my experience it:

(a) ...tends to invite artificial attempts to balance the classes, often by including silly powers or meta-game concepts (aggro, anyone?) obviously intended for balance over setting. Like your mention of the Spymaster's contact of networks. That's a great idea, but it should be something handled in-game, by the PC. I'm already leery about feats like Leadership because they blur the line between what the PC is actually doing and what the rules say the PC is doing, if that phrasing makes any sense.

(b) ...tries to make every character an island. In your example, you say if a Hierophant can raise people from the dead several times a battle, the Dreadnought should be able to absorb that much damage...so what purpose does the Hierophant serve if the Dreadnought will never need his services? Or do you then artificially inflate the difficulty of battle to reduce the usefulness of both abilities?

You do raise the very real problem of pre-epic abilities basically being 'phased out' of usefulness and I definitely think I need to do more to address that.

Epic monsters - I agree in large part with you on this, but I didn't actually include monster rules in my handbook.

Artifacts - I still think artifacts should be used sparingly, but the magic item rules--especially for custom magic items--do have a degree of flexibility I think most players (and DMs) tend to overlook in favor of the pre-generated stuff. I think if DMs made more custom magic items and sprinkled those in the loot, it would go a long way to addressing the issues you mention. Perhaps giving magic items a way to scale their powers with the wielder's power, as well, like staves do for wizards right now. Artifacts should be more common at epic levels, but I don't think they should really replace magic items.

Epic progression - I actually really like some of the ideas you have here, like the ability scores. But as written, the rules do sound (a) rather complex and (b) devoted to trivializing the pre-epic progression of a character. I understand the need to focus on balance issues, but I just don't like the idea of having epic levels concentrate on invalidating most of the character's work up to that point.

Ultimately, I think we have different design philosophies for what we would want from an epic game. You may not like mine and that's perfectly okay; I encourage you to work on the fix you mentioned and release it. I'd love to look it over when it's done and I don't think the gaming community would be anything but grateful for more options for higher-level play. Until then, feel free to continue critiquing my work as--for all our disagreements on design--your advice continues to be both insightful and valuable. So thank you for your time and your patience.

Belial_the_Leveler
2013-07-08, 12:11 PM
My concept of epic is a sort of open-ended, free-range system. To me, the 20-level progression reflects the end of being what is known as a 'fighter' or a 'mage' or any other class. Beyond that, you become a class essentially unique to yourself, using your own combination of feats to either specialize in what you want to do or branch out and cover what you perceive your weaknesses to be. What this does--or at least what I'm trying to accomplish--is to free the player to become exactly the character they want to be.
Actually, I think we agree on what epic is - we just go about slightly different ways of doing it. My epic classes are sort of like the 3.5 Archmage and Hierophant; it gives the basic bonuses of hd/skills/caster level then you get one or more abilities per level which you can choose from a list at any order you want. Some abilities have prerequisites while others might not. The system works sort of like feats but with certain advantages;
1) People still have the flavor of classes if they want to and there is the idea of continuation of pre-epic play even though mechanics differ.
2) Most people see feats as incremental improvements so naming them class abilities allows for big/unusual bonuses that feats don't normally give.
3) By having the epic classes be separate from any pre-epic class, you help multiclass characters. I.e. a fighter 20 can become epic fighter. A paladin 20 can become epic paladin. But the fighter 10/paladin 10 can become neither - he would have no epic class features in your system for at least his first 10 post-20 levels.
4) Most feats are not general anyway. Epic fighters can't pick epic metamagic and epic wizards can't pick epic weapon specialization. So by grouping the progression under the names of classes, you don't lose anything and you gain in flavor, can more easily help new players pick, can preclude some broken combos and can think of more ability ideas, too.
5) Balancing becomes easier since there can be immediate comparisons between abilities available to each class.



(b) ...tries to make every character an island. In your example, you say if a Hierophant can raise people from the dead several times a battle, the Dreadnought should be able to absorb that much damage...so what purpose does the Hierophant serve if the Dreadnought will never need his services? Or do you then artificially inflate the difficulty of battle to reduce the usefulness of both abilities?
Synergy, not competition. The Hierophant can heal the most. The Dreadnought is the toughest. Sure, they could each function independently and do equally well in combat - that's a feature of balance we're looking for. But if the Dreadnough who takes the least damage is tanking and the Hierophant is healing him, the two synergize to reach higher efficiency; where the group could deal with 2-3 major combats as individuals, now they can deal with 4-5. The idea is that characters can have different mechanics, while being at about the same level of power and being more effective as a group.



(a) ...tends to invite artificial attempts to balance the classes, often by including silly powers or meta-game concepts (aggro, anyone?) obviously intended for balance over setting. Like your mention of the Spymaster's contact of networks. That's a great idea, but it should be something handled in-game, by the PC. I'm already leery about feats like Leadership because they blur the line between what the PC is actually doing and what the rules say the PC is doing, if that phrasing makes any sense.
I don't see the spymaster being handled in-game any more than a gather information check should. In fact, the spymaster abilities are even more complex and streamlined. The in-game action itself might be the spymaster hangs a red kerchief from his belt or opens the third button in his shirt but not the first two as he enters town. But that's the secret signal to the network of allies/spies he's set up that the red-flagged target (flagged in some previous time with equally innocuous actions) should suffer the third fate from the list (assassination contract) for twice the normal contract rate since he was holding a silver coin rather than a copper when he entered the staked town.
The above were the in-game actions. Now, the class abilities give us rules not for the action itself but for how extensive a network the spymaster could reasonably have, what are the usual means available to his agents and how many actions and how fast his network can perform. These things are limited by game rules rather than left to in-game abilities for the same reason Wealth is; a thief or merchant in the game doesn't get more wealth than a honorable warrior for a) balance reasons and b) because trying for more wealth has negative consequences and isn't a sure thing - a character's Wealth By Level is the limit of what he's supposed to have before any consequences come calling. Ditto for the network - beyond just having the expertise to set it up, the skill level (which is reflected by the relevant class ability) sets the background stuff for the whole thing.

Leadership feats work on a similar concept. As for artificial balance attempts? Leave those for the per-level epic bonuses; class abilities should be flavor-based first IMHO.


I actually really like some of the ideas you have here, like the ability scores. But as written, the rules do sound (a) rather complex and (b) devoted to trivializing the pre-epic progression of a character. I understand the need to focus on balance issues, but I just don't like the idea of having epic levels concentrate on invalidating most of the character's work up to that point.
Not as complicated. In fact, they are exactly as complex as the BAB/save progression in nonepic, they just boost different things.
As for the balance issue, I was not aiming for invalidating pre-epic achievement but for gradually phasing the imbalances out; by the time you're 30th level for example, any nonepic bonuses to raw stats would be slowly losing importance the same way "mage armor" spells are less useful for 10th level wizards and by 40th level nonepic bonuses should have almost no impact at all, the way 20th level wizards don't bother with mage armor - because the abilities gained at those levels are so much stronger than what was gained 20 levels or more lower.

spp
2013-12-09, 05:25 PM
According to your Epic Handbook, how do alchemists gain additional extracts known? Also, do you know which meta magic feats would be good with extracts other than extend? I am also looking at stuff for summoners, but that is a bit easier to figure out.

I can see how they gain additional slots (for both). Summoners can take the feats that allow them to gain known spells up to level 9. I assume alchemist would have a corresponding feat? Was this left out intentionally?

thanx for the help.

Sincerely, spp

lordnequam
2013-12-14, 03:31 PM
@spp - Alchemists can gain extracts of 7th spell level or higher via the feat "Epic Extracts," which acts similarly to the "Expanded Spell Selection" feats that classes such as Summoners or Bards can take.

As for meta-magic feats...that's more of a playstyle question than anything else, but I suppose--depending on the spell--you might look at Echoing Spell, Empower Spell, Intensified Spell, or Lingering Spell. And once you get spell slots high enough to apply epic metamagic feats, things like Aura Spell, Grand Spell, or Enduring Spell will no doubt prove useful.

Zadok
2017-03-24, 02:44 PM
so I noticed this thread has been dead for a while, and I don't know if this will even get seen, but I was reading over the 1.6 pdf, and I was thinking "this would be great to run" but as I continued to read I started to think, "but this would be really, really time consuming to run." so I was thinking maybe create supplements, like an "epic bestiary pdf" or one for an "epic NPC/villain/monster codex" if you have already done this, or something like this please supply links, as I couldn't find them, and it really would make this a viable option for games I run, as I have only about 5-10 hours a week in which to write my sessions, and making characters, villains, and organizations, is time consuming even before epic levels, and takes up all but a few hours of my planning time right now, plus all the books paizo already has top off at a CR 25, or 20th level NPC/villains, and 3rd party monsters only have up to 27 before it jumps CRs and has only 1 or 2 per CR which would make for quite boring play, "oh look another Balor Lord. whop-de-freaking-do."
and honestly I really want to try your system, and would Love to be able to play test/critique these supplements if/when they become available. Thanks

Zadok
2017-03-24, 03:30 PM
also maybe like, a spell list or something, like a compilation of the epic level spells you have made, or players you have GMed for have made. to give an idea for players on what to do, or choose from if they don't want to do a spell research character, as well as a reference point for the aforementioned codexes and bestiary

umbrapolaris
2017-03-31, 07:23 AM
Link to PDF is dead

nikkoli
2017-03-31, 07:43 AM
https://web.archive.org/web/20160327094637/http://www.jessejackjones.com/sites/default/files/EpicPathfinder1.6.pdf

Here's the archive for it, it directly opens the pdf though. Ive used it to build NPC's but my players will be using it sometime in the next year or so once they hit 20.