Houserules/Gentleman's Agreements Required for an Epic Game?

[Marthinwurer]

What rules, written or unspoken, would be required for a high-epic game to be viable without massive amounts of rocket tag, wizard=win, and other not-much-fun symptoms of most optimized epic campaigns?

[Karnith]

Banning Epic Spellcasting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#epicSpellcasting) is pretty much necessary, at a bare minimum.

[Icewraith]

No chain gating or wish looping.

[Emperor Tippy]

Depends entirely upon the group and the game. As a general rule, if you have to ask then you aren't ready for epic and shouldn't play it.

Epic lite (epic without Epic Spellcasting) is generally easier but it is still not recommended if you have to ask for advice on how to run it.

If you want the game to feel epic without using the epic rules then my advice is to chuck pretty much everything but epic magic items, epic monsters, and selected epic feats and then gestalt your characters.

For example, you have a Wizard 20. When he gets 210,000 XP he gains the first level of any other class (base or Prestige) that he qualifies for. His AB, saves, HP, and skill points increase just as if it was a normal gestalt. For example, lets say that he gestalts with a Fighter. His AB increases by 1, his Fort save increases by 2, his HD becomes 1d10+19d4, and he gains no skill points (as both give 2+ Int per level).

If he gestalted with Monk instead then his AB stays the same, his Fort save and Reflex saves each increase by 2, his HD becomes 1d8+19d4, and he gains 2 skill points.

Every 20,000 XP another level is gained and once he is 20//20 it starts again with another class until he is 20//20//20 and so on.

If you want a bit more power then continue to give an additional feat every 3rd "level" and an additional attribute every 4th HD.

You might also want to do something like "spend 10K XP for +Int mod skill points, spend 20K XP for an additional feat, spend 30K XP for an additional attribute point".

Playing "epic" that way becomes far easier to DM and in a lot of ways far more fun.