Need help designing Epic Level Game.

[KnotKnormal]

I recently told my players that i would be holding an "Epic Level Game" next semester. It is starting level 15 in 3.5. The stat role rules are as follows: Role 4D6 keep all four. Re-roll 1s and 2s, 6s explode. Needless to say this can get a little ridiculous. currently the average stat is around 48 with the highest role at 100. The books that I'm allowing are the PHBs, Monster Manual 1, the Complete Books, the Heroes Books, Source Book of Feats, The Book of Erotic Fantasy, and the Nymphology Book. (the last two are because Blue Magic is hilarious.)

The Campaign is based around tracking down, weakening, and ultimately killing Gods that are responsible for the destruction of the world. It starts out as a ego match between the gods that escalates very quickly into a full scale free for all for them and their followers. When the campaign begins about half the gods have already died, and about 75% of the material plane have renounced their connections to their gods. The party is given the job of mopping up the big name gods such as Zeus, Palor.(who started the war)

I'm not having changing the numbers of the creatures they are facing to make it tougher or even making the storyline seem believable. I'm having trouble making the environment feel epic. How do these low level NPCs perceive people that have been given a massive power boost from a dieing god? How would the major Religious cities look? What kinds of mundane encounters would be trivial but still feel exciting and unexpected?

So I guess i need help designing the world around the players rather then the main events of the story. If you have any really helpful tips for this please let me know as soon as possible.

[ArcturusV]

This... depends.

But you mentioned low level NPCs. I'm going to presume that means your players are the Goddamn Avatar, and everyone else is basically a level 1-3 scrub.

Thus looking at something like Avatar: The Last Airbender might give you inspiration. Look at how everyone treats Aang, as he is effectively a walking god upon the earth to these people. NPCs tend to either be fawning fanboys, desperately pleading for his help, or trying to use it almost without exception. Well, when they know he's the Avatar. Those are the common folk. The ruling class/socialites treat him as a threat to their power, or as a curiousity. Something of a status symbol "Hey I just had dinner with the Avatar... I'm that important..." Even if they see him as a possible threat though, they are usually nice to his face (Creepy Smile Ba Sing Sei for example).

That's a good basis for how it'd go. I mean if they're these figurative gods among men walking the earth... people should treat them like that. They hear "The Heroes" are in town? People are gawking out their windows, guys are cheering for them and buying them free drinks, women are throwing their panties at them, etc, etc, etc.

That is how I treat level 15+ish characters in campaign worlds where people just aren't normally that powerful. Granted I feel it works better when players have something they've done to accomplish it (Why I like starting at low levels, thus the fame feels like an organic reward from when they kicked the teeth in of the Bad Guy of Doom). But it still fits with the scope of the characters you described.

[KnotKnormal]

That's actually a good way of looking at it thanks.

But what about the random encounters? like 'the person keeping watch at night hears something in the dark" type of random encounters.

[Tevesh]

There will be no random encounters. At that level, its planned fights because the enemy thinks they're ready for them or planned ambushes when they think the PCs are vulnerable.

I am severely biased against random encounters in general, so take that as you may.

[cakellene]

How did they get 100 out of 4d6?

[KnotKnormal]

How did they get 100 out of 4d6?

6s explode. so if you roll a 6 you roll it again and add it to the 6. if you get multiple 6s out the same die then you keep rolling until you don't roll a 6 and add it all up.

[tyckspoon]

How did they get 100 out of 4d6?

Exploding 6s- any 6 rolled gets added to the total and then the die is rerolled, with the new result also getting added to the total. Repeat until you have no more sixes. On a small die size and dropping 1/3 of possible numbers so you have a 1-in-4 chance of rolling the exploding number.. and then do it again for 6 stats. Pretty much every member of the party should have at least one stat that is completely ridiculous by normal D&D values, although 100 is a bit high.


Edut: Ninja'd by my own verbosity. Oh well.

[cakellene]

Ah, never heard of the exploding die thing before.

[ArcturusV]

More or less I'd avoid "Random" encounters. No random "goblins leap out of the bushes" or anything like that. Not because all enemies will know of the players and plan accordingly... but mostly because it'll be a waste of time. A random "patrol" of goblins or the like just aren't a threat to the players. They won't be earning XP for it. The "loot" they might get like a rusty spear and leather armor for a small figure just isn't interesting to them.

"Random" encounters should still exist. Either because both sides didn't know about the enemy... possible depending on the potential lack of a cleric or a cleric who just doesn't care for their massively powerful divinations, or just because the players got the drop on someone. Raiding some stronghold of Zeus and came across some outsiders who are moving around, etc.

But if you're doing "Random" encounters they should generally come in the following flavors:

Random Side Quest. They have a "random" encounter which leads to some minor, simple plot they can resolve in a single session or less. This fits their statue. Heroes of that level don't just fight a bunch of bandits. Heroes of that level have assassins sent after them, which leads them to a temple nearby where the assassins are being trained which they burn to the ground, rescue soon to be indoctrinated and mindraped would be assassins, etc.

Someone appropriately powerful who has a grudge. Petty harassment of that sort probably isn't "random" but still functions as random encounters. Anything they think that can sap your resources, from some mageling who teleports in and uses a Dysjunction scroll before teleporting out, to factotum assassins, to even just "kill teams" of demons or the like.

Red herrings. Important for more cerebral plots. Might not be the case. But sometimes you need something that just isn't related to what's going on. Random encounters do that. And you have something that seems just... out of place. Be it random tarrasque style rampages, a weird little "cult" that they find and smack down, etc. These don't really go anywhere... but metagame players will try to figure out WHY these are happening... particularly if every other "Random" encounter is somehow related to plot or their long term goals in some way. It can be a fun tool.

[KnotKnormal]

Another problem is how do i handle skill checks vs the low lvl NPCs. they could effectively amass an army because they asked nicely due to there ability modifiers. any way to counter this?

[ArcturusV]

*shrug* Let them. It just probably won't matter. I mean say they walk into a village, convince every Tom, ****, and Harry to drop their pitchforks and abandon their dirt farms to join the fight against the divine.

... it won't do much. Not unless they spend a buttload of resources trying to make them do something. They can have 200 level 1 Warriors or something, it won't impact most enemies they're likely to be facing more than as simple scenery. Even then, saying they're trying to use something like Circle Magic, or Arrow Volley rules, etc, to actually make their army of low level NPCs do something... it's an easy solution. If they're actually effective? The enemies just toast them. You'd be surprised just how big a hole you can punch in an army with a simple Meteor Swarm.

If they're using their skills to get stuff out of NPCs? Even less important. Either at that point they have infinite wealth loops (Shouldn't LET them... but sometimes they do. But considering a low level world, and the planar strife they probably don't have a place to take advantage of infinite wealth as I doubt they can just walk into Sigil and have an easy go of it, considering they're pissing off basically every other plane out there), or they're just not going to be that impactful. When you got gear strapped onto you worth hundreds of thousands of gp.... being able to talk a village into giving you every last coin they can spare, maybe scrounging up 100 gp, just isn't that much of an impact. Similarly I doubt they'll care about getting "My pa's axe" the normal weapon off some woodsman when they have +5 Flaming Shocking Frost Brand Holy Silver Greatswords of Fleshgrinding and such at hand.

So that only really leaves one thing for the army of NPCs to do... behind the scenes work. Rebuilding towns... helping figure out how to defend their homesteads by increasing their defenses, learning how to craft Alchemical Silver/Cold Iron weapons, etc, etc, etc. Which again has no direct impact on the encounters you're running. But let them. Gives them a chance to feel like the big hero who rallies a town, taking what used to be a helpless pile of victims and turning them into a defensive bulwark against darkness, giving them a measure of hope.

I mean really at the levels you're talking about, the only real danger is trying to use NPCs for Infinite Wealth Generation and such. But the world you seemed to describe just doesn't really seem to support that model... or the exploitation of it. So you have unlimited wealth? Where are you going to spend it? Going to go to Sigil and have everything from Gith, Demon Gangs, Celestial Archons, etc, jumping you every time you turn a corner? Spend it at little dirt farms that don't have anything you actually want to buy? I can almost see scenes unfolding where they try to dump 100,000 gp on a guy, he looks at it and goes, "... yeah... that's nice. You know what I RATHER have over that? A herd of cattle. Least we can eat the cattle. Ain't anything we can do with that pile of shine. Goddamn plague demons wiped out all our crops. Gold? The hell is gold going to get us?"