why does this forum not like epic level?

[Kimras]

Whenever I bring up a lvl 50 character I'm making on this forum there seems to be so dislike to even the idea of a character being over lvl 20. Is there any reason why in our games the equivalent of a lesser god is lvl 70 but the forum thinks a lvl is godly powerful.

[Red Fel]

I wouldn't say that the forum doesn't like epic levels. I would say, rather, that this forum tends to focus on RAW and other rules - which can be explicitly stated, debated, and dissected, and therefore make for entertaining discussion - as opposed to more esoteric or mutable concepts, such as fluff or flexible house rules, or other discretionary subjects.

Epic levels are a place where rules cease to function normally. They are the quantum physics of rule-physics. Skill checks do increasingly ludicrous things. Enemies are basically hostile planets. The ordinary rules cease to apply.

Particularly guilty of this sin is epic spellcasting, where the already-powerful spellcasting classes can hand-craft their own literal win-buttons. Seriously, if you wanted to, you could create a spell that requires, as a material focus, a small button labeled "Win" which, if pressed, ends an encounter in your favor. This is a thing you can do with epic spellcasting. The enemies need to be increasingly outlandish and bizarre just to keep up. The arms race becomes thermonuclear.

That, I think, is why you may notice a certain wariness of epic levels. Not from dislike, but from the fact that the rules tend to break down.

[illyahr]

I wouldn't say that the forum doesn't like epic levels. I would say, rather, that this forum tends to focus on RAW and other rules - which can be explicitly stated, debated, and dissected, and therefore make for entertaining discussion - as opposed to more esoteric or mutable concepts, such as fluff or flexible house rules, or other discretionary subjects.

Epic levels are a place where rules cease to function normally. They are the quantum physics of rule-physics. Skill checks do increasingly ludicrous things. Enemies are basically hostile planets. The ordinary rules cease to apply.

Particularly guilty of this sin is epic spellcasting, where the already-powerful spellcasting classes can hand-craft their own literal win-buttons. Seriously, if you wanted to, you could create a spell that requires, as a material focus, a small button labeled "Win" which, if pressed, ends an encounter in your favor. This is a thing you can do with epic spellcasting. The enemies need to be increasingly outlandish and bizarre just to keep up. The arms race becomes thermonuclear.

That, I think, is why you may notice a certain wariness of epic levels. Not from dislike, but from the fact that the rules tend to break down.

Listen to the wisdom of Red Fel. Red Fel will not steer you wrong.

[Abd al-Azrad]

Of the little I can add to what has already been said, past level 20, the disparity between full casters and other classes becomes so vast that there is increasingly little for anyone to contribute to a game, other than drop high- and epic-level spells on problems until they go away.

And (as Red Fel says) given that epic spells are almost entirely a game of mangling the rules and sneaking tricks by your DM, there's not much by way of objective analysis or advice a forum can provide. You can't effectively crowdsource useful information about an epic game, because so much of it is wildly variable based on what you can get away with at your own table.

[Segev]

Yeah, it's mostly that it's just very hard to have meaningful discussion of epic level things on this forum because epic rules are, comparatively, incomplete, and there's no agreed-upon "RAW-obeying blind DM" that we usually assume when having discussions of things in the more normal 1-20 levels of play. We can make some pretty standard assumptions about our hypothetical ruling-neutral DM in a standard discussion; we have sufficiently-defined rules that all we really debate is lawyerisms and interactions of rules.

Epic levels have much vaguer rules, and far more gaping holes. It becomes hard to tell whether a DM would allow something or not, because there's not so clear-cut a "yes, the rules permit this." A lot in epic explicitly says "talk to your DM" (if not quite in those exact words). While we're all happy to give that advice for people seeking to do something in an actual game, we cant' really have a discussion about what is possible without somebody's DM for whom the discussed build will be played showing up to tell us how he'll rule. There are too many variables to keep track of if we have to say "if he rules this way, then.... but if he rules that way, then......."

[Red Fel]

Listen to the wisdom of Red Fel. Red Fel will not steer you wrong.

Yes. Listen to Red Fel. Trust Red Fel. Red Fel is your friend. Red Fel is the only friend you need.

Compliance will be rewarded.

[nedz]

Very few people play the game at those levels and, arguably, the game breaks down before level 20. This is more of an issue at high OP though even at more modest OP levels the discrepancy between casters and non-casters becomes glaring the more xp the characters acquire.

[Urpriest]

There's basically no thematic difference between level 30 and level 50. You can't do anything qualitatively new, unless you're really bad at optimizing (at which point, why play epic?), and while there are CR 50 monsters, if you can't defeat them at level 30 you won't be able to defeat them at level 50 either. Basically, there's just no reason for anyone to play past level 30 or so.

[Chronos]

There's also a bigger difference between high op and low op at epic levels. At low levels, a high-op character might be able to deal with low-op threats of perhaps four or five levels above them. Thus, when we talk about low levels, we can make a guess as to the optimization level, and probably come out reasonably close. At epic levels, a high-op character can deal with low-op threats hundreds or thousands of levels above them. This makes it basically impossible to compare levels of power. To even begin to discuss anything, we'd need to know exactly, to minute detail, what the DM will and will not allow, and even then we're likely to run into things the DM is allowing but which are more powerful than he realizes, or vice-versa, which can lead to things like accusations of power-gaming and munchkinning (as if power-gaming can somehow be expected to be absent, at levels that are supposed to wield inconceivable levels of power).

[Eldan]

In addition to being messy, the rules are also sort of boring. Unless you multiclass, you don't get anything new, really. At least for non-casting classes, there's like three good feats, and after that, you're done unless you just want higher numbers.

[NichG]

I'd say for me, the real issue is the whole 'lack of anything new' thing. I've played in epic and post-epic games using D&D 3.5, and the reason they worked and were fun is that the DM basically had to write in whole rulebook-equivalents of new homebrew mechanics to come into play at those levels to keep things meaningful. Without that kind of thing, Lv70 and Lv25 are pretty much the same.

[Psyren]

Because you might as well play Calvinball or flick rubberbands at each other to decide encounters as roll dice once you get that high up.

[Bronk]

It also seems like there's less of a challenge involved... You can put a lot of thought into how to build a character up to level 20, carefully choosing feats, skills and prestige classes to get, say, the perfect fighty magic user type. However, at level 50, you can just take 20 levels of each class and all ten levels of the prestige class, done, without much challenge at all.

[OldTrees1]

1) At 21st level, either advancement plateaus(martial characters) or goes infinite(casters). That is too large a gap for me to DM for.

2) They give no new content for the middle ground(competent casters and martials). All content in the book falls under #1.

[Talakeal]

I think I may be one of the few people who prefer games where you get nothing "new". I don't like always having to wait to high levels (which most campaigns never get to) before I can use half my class's abilities, and once I finally "complete" my build at level 20 the game ends before I can enjoy it.

[Psyren]

I think I may be one of the few people who prefer games where you get nothing "new". I don't like always having to wait to high levels (which most campaigns never get to) before I can use half my class's abilities, and once I finally "complete" my build at level 20 the game ends before I can enjoy it.

Low epic (say, 21-25, no higher than 30) is fine though. Even the Giant plays/writes in low epic. But levels 50-70? The game's math just plain breaks down at that point.

[Snowbluff]

Listen to the wisdom of Red Fel. Red Fel will not steer you wrong.

Yeah, he pointed out a big deal.

My real issue is epic magic.

I haven't played at epic, so I don't know about the math. It seems to me that if you've survived to that level, you have some crazy math in your character already. This may pose a problem if you've fallen off the RNG, though.

[Red Fel]

Low epic (say, 21-25, no higher than 30) is fine though. Even the Giant plays/writes in low epic. But levels 50-70? The game's math just plain breaks down at that point.

Heck, even extended non-Epic could be fun. Keep the PCs at 20, and switch to E6-style progression rules. The mechanics stay non-Epic, the players get to enjoy their level 20 builds, and there's even a slight additional progression to be enjoyed. All without having to delve into the nightmarish morass that is epic levels.

[Eldan]

I think I may be one of the few people who prefer games where you get nothing "new". I don't like always having to wait to high levels (which most campaigns never get to) before I can use half my class's abilities, and once I finally "complete" my build at level 20 the game ends before I can enjoy it.

Then why not just play at a given level and not level up? Seems to me the result is mostly the same, except you save some time you'd spend on selecting options and changing your sheets.

[Urpriest]

Then why not just play at a given level and not level up? Seems to me the result is mostly the same, except you save some time you'd spend on selecting options and changing your sheets.

Or even do level up. If most of your games don't last long enough to get to level 20, then a game starting at level 20 won't last long enough to go from plausibly useful with some houserules epic (21-30) to stupid and pointless epic (40+).

[ILM]

Personally I'm not interested in epic because it doesn't seem to make much sense. When McGyver is like level 4, Batman maybe level 8, and Superman possibly as high as 12, if that, you're already a god in all but divine ranks by level 20. You can face down greater demons, one-shot the Tarrasque (depending on your build), hide from everything, pull down meteors from the sky - and that's one of your worst spells - and have enough money to buy a fleet of warships. Or hire a thousand trained guys for 6 years straight. Or buy about 84 manors in a city. There is, in fact, very little you can't do already.

[Eldan]

There's still a lot of canonical threats you face at that level. Most are a bit silly or at least not very iconic (the epic level handbook creatures), but there's the various planar and cosmic leaders. Going up against, say, Graz'zt and his armies mano-a-mano is quite nice.

[Talakeal]

Then why not just play at a given level and not level up? Seems to me the result is mostly the same, except you save some time you'd spend on selecting options and changing your sheets.

Two Reasons:

1: Because the other players get very bored playing static characters and the game isn't just about me. I have one guy who says the ONLY time he actually enjoys gaming is when he is updated his character sheet after gaining a new level.

2: Because I like progression, I just prefer it changing in scale. Being able to do things better or more reliably over time is great, its just that not being able to do them at all at low level is a drag.

[Necroticplague]

Things generally liked on this board:
-balance among various options
-meaningful choices for characters
-consistent rules.

Epic games:
-give out even more ridiculously unbalanced options (you can pounce, but only on the first round of combat vs. you can essentially transform yourself into a physical god)
-make many choices meaningless because the numbers are so large that all numerical values become essentially "yes" and "no", while all the non-numerical things things are already mostly just "yes" or "no" already. I find that in epic, fights aren't as so much fights as timed puzzles to see if you can find where you have a "yes" and it a "no" first. In addition, you have so many resources that it trivial to pick up almost everything of note, making the idea of choice moot.
-have rules that are written so vaguely, and with so little thought put into them, that it becomes impossible to create a consistent standard for discussion.

And as a side-note: because of the relatively flatlined progression of things, CR 40 doesn't necessarily have much more difficulty than CR 30, because both of them are just finding which of your "I win" isn't bypassed by its "I win".

[Chronos]

Quoth ILM:

When McGyver is like level 4, Batman maybe level 8, and Superman possibly as high as 12, if that, you're already a god in all but divine ranks by level 20.
And that would be a perfectly valid objection in a game where representations of those characters were those levels. But that game isn't D&D.

[(Un)Inspired]

Then why not just play at a given level and not level up? Seems to me the result is mostly the same, except you save some time you'd spend on selecting options and changing your sheets.

This is what my group does. We basically play E20 but instead of gaining new feats for exp after level 20 you can spend exp to retrain your build. It lets players enjoy being at their maximum power level and they get to tweek around their builds to find the perfect spot for how they want their characters to be at full power.

We've occasionally let epic spell get cast by characters who have caster levels that far exceed 20 by the time they get to level 20 but even then its mostly npcs for story reasons.

[Forrestfire]

And that would be a perfectly valid objection in a game where representations of those characters were those levels. But that game isn't D&D.

To be fair, you can stat all of these characters in E6 (given enough extra exp) and it'd probably be a better representation of the world than Epic D&D.

[Max Caysey]

We enjoy playing epic levels. We feel that it Opels up fluff more than anything else. So We feel more free to explore The campaign world and max out our influence in that setting.

[atemu1234]

While I enjoy Epic levels, I get where people who don't are coming from. The already broken rules get worse, and the unbroken ones start to crack.

[Krobar]

We play epic level games. By that point it's usually more about role playing and problem solving than it is about combat.

[Killer Angel]

Plus, many people like more the feeling of mid-level adventures, instead of playing the Hunt for Gods and all that epic jazz, which can be fun just once in a while

[Psyren]

We enjoy playing epic levels. We feel that it Opels up fluff more than anything else. So We feel more free to explore The campaign world and max out our influence in that setting.


We play epic level games. By that point it's usually more about role playing and problem solving than it is about combat.

Which begs the question - why have a system at all? Once you get high enough you're practically in freeform territory.

[Necroticplague]

Which begs the question - why have a system at all? Once you get high enough you're practically in freeform territory.

Because puzzles need methods by which they work. It also allows some degree of flexibility, generating new solutions by using the rules like a weapon.

[Max Caysey]

Another important thing is, that we do not optimize at all... And we use 80% RAI, so we dont really have any god killers...

[Urpriest]

We enjoy playing epic levels. We feel that it Opels up fluff more than anything else. So We feel more free to explore The campaign world and max out our influence in that setting.

Which fluff, just curious? Most of the game's fluff is written for sub-30. One of the biggest problems I have with high-epic is that there isn't any fluff out there for it.

[NotScaryBats]

Really complicated builds sometimes give me a headache, and seeing the builds in like any of the Epic games in the recruitment boards just makes me shutdown. So, I've never played an epic game, and don't really want to. Especially cranking it up to 11 and making level 50 characters? Level 40 tristalt? No thank you, not for me.

[Rubik]

we use 80% RAIHow, exactly? Am I amiss in assuming that you're not the developers that worked on the game books?

[Psyren]

I assume he really meant RACSD, which we can determine.

[Urpriest]

I assume he really meant RACSD, which we can determine.

But gamers are the least likely to possess common sense! :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

But gamers are the least likely to possess common sense! :smalltongue:

We can't do that much worse at it than RAW has :smallbiggrin:

[Rubik]

But gamers are the least likely to possess common sense! :smalltongue:I can't find it in the rulebooks.

What does it cost in gp?

[Forrestfire]

It's not listed, so it's unbuyable.

Or maybe 0gp. Not sure. Ask your DM.

[nedz]

It's the material component of one of the spells — I think.
So, all casters get it for free.
It's not available for mundanes though.

[Blackhawk748]

I dislike epic levels because with 5 minutes of work i created a character that could control over 40k HD of undead (thank you epic leadership) and a buddy made the "Pirate God" who had a fair sized nation's population as his followers. BTW both of these involved approximately 5-15 minutes of work to pull off. Also, i have no clue what id do other than maybe punch Nerull in the face or go to Faerun via Spelljammer and rip apart the Wall of the Faithless, after that my character would probably retire to his Fortress of Eternal Doom and just hang out with his 70 Vampire generals.

[Snowbluff]

It's not listed, so it's unbuyable.

Or maybe 0gp. Not sure. Ask your DM.

Is there a RAW way for me to get it? Like a trick or Candle or something?

[Forrestfire]

You could wish for it, but your DM could twist the hell out of that. (Nevermind that if you had it, it would tell you not to wish for it...)

[Extra Anchovies]

Is there a RAW way for me to get it? Like a trick or Candle or something?

Paraphrased from the WotC forums:

1. Be a LG Kobold Psion, with 18 Int, four ranks in Knowledge (the Planes), Skill Focus in that skill, and a masterwork item.
2. Take 10 on a K(Planes) check to know how to summon Pazuzu. Summon him.
3. Wish for an LE candle of invocation, and accept the alignment shift to LN.
4. Use the candle to Gate in an Efreet, wish to Plane Shift to the Astral Plane, wish for another Candle of Invocation, wish for there to never be a fifth Indiana Jones film.
5. Use the new candle to Gate in a Sarrukh. Command it to grant you common sense through the use of Manipulate Form.

[EugeneVoid]

Might Makes Right + Epic Leadership + Festering Anger = INFINITELY GROWING HORDE

*+time flow (?) genesis plane

[Max Caysey]

Which fluff, just curious? Most of the game's fluff is written for sub-30. One of the biggest problems I have with high-epic is that there isn't any fluff out there for it.

Indeed... You have a good point. I must admit, that our game is very customized to fit our needs and high 20th level. We play in FR, and well there are some pretty heavy players that we sometime interact with. In our un-optimized game, it's a little like Wow... when gaining levels you gain access to more dungeons and more areas. Also your sphere of influence increases. What that means to us is, that we can use the whole setting. We felt at lover level, that that particular world were filled with very high powered challenges... these are now open to us. My mention of 'fluff' might not have been the best word, but that how it feels. We have one player who have forcefully created his own kingdom, and thus has engaged in a very geopolitical game now, where the NPC of the other nations plays a big part. For the Wizard archeology is the new black and he spends allot of time delving into deep ancient Netheril, Imaskar and Mulhorand tombs... these very powerful nations have for obvious reason places heavy protections so they still present a challenge... Riddles guards /wards and guardians of old.

[Calimehter]

Is there a RAW way for me to get it? Like a trick or Candle or something?

You can get it as a feat titled 'Common Sense'. Of course, in the special section of that feat it says you may only acquire this feat by taking the flaw titled 'Common Sense'.

[Melcar]

I dislike epic levels because with 5 minutes of work i created a character that could control over 40k HD of undead (thank you epic leadership) and a buddy made the "Pirate God" who had a fair sized nation's population as his followers. BTW both of these involved approximately 5-15 minutes of work to pull off. Also, i have no clue what id do other than maybe punch Nerull in the face or go to Faerun via Spelljammer and rip apart the Wall of the Faithless, after that my character would probably retire to his Fortress of Eternal Doom and just hang out with his 70 Vampire generals.

What would punching Nerull in his divine face do? At what level would a punch do anything? Level 30... 50?

What feats, weapons, class abilities would you use to pull down Wall of the Faithless

...

I have head this droth before... "My levl 21 wizard rules the cosmos... Ends intire worlds with a unarmed punch..." Yes this is a RAW forum, but the dieties are just as badly build as are the DMG NPCs... I would say apply the same level of optimization the the deity builds as to your own builds and have a go.

Sorry if I come across arrogant, but somehow I dont see the endless stream of world ending scenarios without some heavy TO.

[georgie_leech]

You can get it as a feat titled 'Common Sense'. Of course, in the special section of that feat it says you may only acquire this feat by taking the flaw titled 'Common Sense'.

Common Sense (Ex)
Benefit: You understand just how rare Common Sense is in the world.
Normal: You think you have Common Sense.

[Brookshw]

Honestly I think epic is a blast. On a practical level the raw pretty much sucks though. By the time were past 20 I let my players submit ideas for epic feats. The big hurdle is spell casting. You can roll with it, but you need to talk with your players often to figure out a joint concept of how it should work.

There's also the odd "where were the epic things previously" conversation where you somehow have to figure out not only where things of that level were previously, but WHY they weren't impacting the game world. It's do-able, but definitely challenging.

[Blackhawk748]

What would punching Nerull in his divine face do? At what level would a punch do anything? Level 30... 50?

What feats, weapons, class abilities would you use to pull down Wall of the Faithless

...

I have head this droth before... "My levl 21 wizard rules the cosmos... Ends intire worlds with a unarmed punch..." Yes this is a RAW forum, but the dieties are just as badly build as are the DMG NPCs... I would say apply the same level of optimization the the deity builds as to your own builds and have a go.

Sorry if I come across arrogant, but somehow I dont see the endless stream of world ending scenarios without some heavy TO.

Punch was more of a....general statement for attack. And the answer to both is Epic Spellcasting, as i have never seen a god stated out with access to Epic Spellcasting even though they should be able to. Though i will admit his Salient Divine Abilities would cause a problem. Also the DM i would play this theoretical game under is fairly lousy at OP so i wouldnt have much issue beating him on that front, on top of this most gods are what? CR 40? I was continuing the discussion of 40+ Epic level, which as Urpriest said is just plain silly. (also i realized that i should have said this)

I do agree however that levels 21-25 or so are still functional but past that it gets pretty nuts.

[Psyren]

At what level would a punch do anything?

Whenever your punch does 841 damage and bypasses epic DR/regen.

[Melcar]

Punch was more of a....general statement for attack. And the answer to both is Epic Spellcasting, as i have never seen a god stated out with access to Epic Spellcasting even though they should be able to. Though i will admit his Salient Divine Abilities would cause a problem. Also the DM i would play this theoretical game under is fairly lousy at OP so i wouldnt have much issue beating him on that front, on top of this most gods are what? CR 40? I was continuing the discussion of 40+ Epic level, which as Urpriest said is just plain silly. (also i realized that i should have said this)

I do agree however that levels 21-25 or so are still functional but past that it gets pretty nuts.

Then I suspect we aggree. If the writeups are takes as is, then they are not impossible to kill, but when build with the same amount of creativity and skill as some of the builds around here, I see them as being nigh invinsible.

Anyways I agree that the mechanics for epic is not good, but they can work, when players and DM alike wants to make them work. As I see it, the most important thing is just that the players restrain from too much optimization, and that the DM uses the same amount and keeps the story inteesting. The it does not matter too much how high it goes... I will say though, that beyong a certain point the math breaks. gaining 1 save/ attack per 2nd level, while not gaining spell DC at all... would simply make it impossible to get spells in at some point. Of course then you have epic spellcasting but that system is just uncool.

[Milo v3]

Indeed... You have a good point. I must admit, that our game is very customized to fit our needs and high 20th level. We play in FR, and well there are some pretty heavy players that we sometime interact with. In our un-optimized game, it's a little like Wow... when gaining levels you gain access to more dungeons and more areas. Also your sphere of influence increases. What that means to us is, that we can use the whole setting. We felt at lover level, that that particular world were filled with very high powered challenges... these are now open to us. My mention of 'fluff' might not have been the best word, but that how it feels. We have one player who have forcefully created his own kingdom, and thus has engaged in a very geopolitical game now, where the NPC of the other nations plays a big part. For the Wizard archeology is the new black and he spends allot of time delving into deep ancient Netheril, Imaskar and Mulhorand tombs... these very powerful nations have for obvious reason places heavy protections so they still present a challenge... Riddles guards /wards and guardians of old.

As far as I can tell, you can do all that just with the levels from 16-20 without any fluff change at all though :smallconfused:

[Extra Anchovies]

I don't like 30+ epic because by that point the gods should have invited you to join the pantheon, which is quite the retirement plan. If they haven't asked you, it's probably because you killed them and replaced them.

[(Un)Inspired]

Indeed... You have a good point. I must admit, that our game is very customized to fit our needs and high 20th level. We play in FR, and well there are some pretty heavy players that we sometime interact with. In our un-optimized game, it's a little like Wow... when gaining levels you gain access to more dungeons and more areas. Also your sphere of influence increases. What that means to us is, that we can use the whole setting. We felt at lover level, that that particular world were filled with very high powered challenges... these are now open to us. My mention of 'fluff' might not have been the best word, but that how it feels. We have one player who have forcefully created his own kingdom, and thus has engaged in a very geopolitical game now, where the NPC of the other nations plays a big part. For the Wizard archeology is the new black and he spends allot of time delving into deep ancient Netheril, Imaskar and Mulhorand tombs... these very powerful nations have for obvious reason places heavy protections so they still present a challenge... Riddles guards /wards and guardians of old.

I can't see how any of the things you bring up in this post would require epic levels. These all seem like mid to low level activities.

I particularly don't understand your claim that FR is "filled with very high level challenges." I've seen the stats on the high level npcs like Elminster and they're all chumps that could be taken down far far far before epic.

[Rubik]

I can't see how any of the things you bring up in this post would require epic levels. These all seem like mid to low level activities.

I particularly don't understand your claim that FR is "filled with very high level challenges." I've seen the stats on the high level npcs like Elminster and they're all chumps that could be taken down far far far before epic.It's kind of like how the tarrasque, a 48 HD creature, can be bested almost without fail with a 2nd level spell. Summon Undead II, if you're curious.

[(Un)Inspired]

It's kind of like how the tarrasque, a 48 HD creature, can be bested almost without fail with a 2nd level spell. Summon Undead II, if you're curious.

Ooooooh! I like that comparison!

Forgoten Realms: The Tarrasque of D&D Settings

[Rubik]

Ooooooh! I like that comparison!

Forgotten Realms: The Tarrasque of D&D SettingsI like how Elminster made it impossible for him to affect himself with Time Stop. It shows just how much thought was put into optimizing him.

[(Un)Inspired]

I like how Elminster made it impossible for him to affect himself with Time Stop. It shows just how much thought was put into optimizing him.

It's not even like they failed optimize any of their cannon npcs it's like they did whatever the opposite of optimized them is... Craptomized them?

Is that what it's called?

I'm not sure but it really seems like they were all built to be worse than it is conceivably possible for someone to even accidentally make a character.

[Blackhawk748]

It's not even like they failed optimize any of their cannon npcs it's like they did whatever the opposite of optimized them is... Craptomized them?

Is that what it's called?

I'm not sure but it really seems like they were all built to be worse than it is conceivably possible for someone to even accidentally make a character.

I ask this question every time i look at a gods stat block. Seriously why does Nerull have levels of Rogue??

[Rubik]

I ask this question every time i look at a gods stat block. Seriously why does Nerull have levels of Rogue??Because he's immune to accidentally sneak attacking himself due to a critical fumble?

I guess?

[Blackhawk748]

Because he's immune to accidentally sneak attacking himself due to a critical fumble?

I guess?

Hell makes the most sense of anything i've ever heard.

[awa]

i haven't seen elimesters stats recently but i can make a good guess as to how hes unoptimized and why.
back in 2nd edition there was a thing called dual classing humans did instead of multi classing basically if i recal correctly you played one class for awhile then decided to change class going back to level 1 once you got higher level then before the switch you got the benefits of the previous class back on top of what you had just gained.

Well in elimisters back story he was a fighter, for a while and then he was a rouge and then he was a female cleric (don't ask) and only then was he a wizard. Back in second edition that represented a lot of power for a character becuase he was basically a wizard who also had all those other powers for free.
But when third edition comes along dual classing not a thing any more now he has to multi class which inflates his level a lot and makes him extremely weak for his actual level.

[(Un)Inspired]

i haven't seen elimesters stats recently but i can make a good guess as to how hes unoptimized and why.
back in 2nd edition there was a thing called dual classing humans did instead of multi classing basically if i recal correctly you played one class for awhile then decided to change class going back to level 1 once you got higher level then before the switch you got the benefits of the previous class back on top of what you had just gained.

Well in elimisters back story he was a fighter, for a while and then he was a rouge and then he was a female cleric (don't ask) and only then was he a wizard. Back in second edition that represented a lot of power for a character becuase he was basically a wizard who also had all those other powers for free.
But when third edition comes along dual classing not a thing any more now he has to multi class which inflates his level a lot and makes him extremely weak for his actual level.

I don't think that dual classing the way he did actual makes for a more powerful character. Admittedly, opening up with one level of fighter is actually a good plan for a wizard if you have 17 or higher into so you can actually dual class into wizard cause a d10 for your first had kicks arse. Beyond the ridiculous ability score rolls he'd need to go fighter/ cleric/wizard I think a few cleric levels are a bad choice for his build in 2nd. They're a not a lot of righteous cleric magic he's picking up and he's just delaying his access to rad wizard spells.

[georgie_leech]

I don't think that dual classing the way he did actual makes for a more powerful character. Admittedly, opening up with one level of fighter is actually a good plan for a wizard if you have 17 or higher into so you can actually dual class into wizard cause a d10 for your first had kicks arse. Beyond the ridiculous ability score rolls he'd need to go fighter/ cleric/wizard I think a few cleric levels are a bad choice for his build in 2nd. They're a not a lot of righteous cleric magic he's picking up and he's just delaying his access to rad wizard spells.

It's less that dual casting this way makes for a more powerful character and more for him being the only one allowed to do it that way ever. You could have a Fighter that chose to focus on picking up Thiefy abilities, or a Cleric that switches tracks and studies as a Mage, but never a Fighter that becomes a Thief that becomes a Cleric that becomes the most powerful Mage in the Realms. In that sense it is an incredibly powerful thing; imagine if in 3.e no one else was ever allowed to multiclass ever.

[Psyren]

Boccob isn't too bad though. He can not only sense any spell you cast 17 weeks before it happens, he can even detect any new spell or item you create that far in advance too.


It's kind of like how the tarrasque, a 48 HD creature, can be bested almost without fail with a 2nd level spell. Summon Undead II, if you're curious.

If you mean Allips, you need Summon Undead 4 for that. Still available long before its CR though.

[Rubik]

If you mean Allips, you need Summon Undead 4 for that. Still available long before its CR though.Ah. Yes. Sorry. I misread the summoning list.

[jedipotter]

I like how Elminster made it impossible for him to affect himself with Time Stop. It shows just how much thought was put into optimizing him.

2e Time Stop also worked completely differently, it really did completely stop Time except for the caster, within it's 15 ft. Radius area of effect. You could do anything you want to anyone else in that time, it wasn't that others were immune to your spells and attacks for that time or being unable to move/harm other beings, objects and creatures, so it really was an "I win" spell in 2e.

It got all nerfed in 3E and later editions....




I particularly don't understand your claim that FR is "filled with very high level challenges." I've seen the stats on the high level npcs like Elminster and they're all chumps that could be taken down far far far before epic.

But that is more on the bad writers of the books more then anything. Very few writers can write powerful things at all. That is why you get endless stat blocks of ''eh''.

[Rubik]

It got all nerfed in 3E and later editions....I was referring to 3.0. Making yourself immune to the best buff spell in the game is...suspect, at best.

[jedipotter]

I was referring to 3.0. Making yourself immune to the best buff spell in the game is...suspect, at best.

Right in 2E Time Stop effect 15 feet around you and frozen everyone in time except the caster. That is the spell Elminster was immune too.

And when some bad writer had to make the 3.0 E stats for Elminster they just copied the 2E stuff and ''converted'' it and obviously had no idea what they were doing. And, as WotC has no editors, no one caught this or the other hundred or so ''tiny mistakes''.

[Psyren]

This is hardly worth arguing over - the guy probably has "Elminster's Efficient Time Stop" in his pipe that gives him 10 rounds and lets him draw moustaches on everyone. And if he doesn't, he just has to go snu-snu Mystra again to get it made.

[georgie_leech]

This is hardly worth arguing over - the guy probably has "Elminster's Efficient Time Stop" in his pipe that gives him 10 rounds and lets him draw moustaches on everyone. And if he doesn't, he just has to go snu-snu Mystra again to get it made.

Believe it or not, it's a plot point in one of the books that his pipe is entirely non-magical. I know you're making a point for humour, but seriously, it's not even a little bit magical, not even self filling or anything like that! What's the point of being a wizard if you have to fill your own pipe?! :smallfurious:

[(Un)Inspired]

It's less that dual casting this way makes for a more powerful character and more for him being the only one allowed to do it that way ever. You could have a Fighter that chose to focus on picking up Thiefy abilities, or a Cleric that switches tracks and studies as a Mage, but never a Fighter that becomes a Thief that becomes a Cleric that becomes the most powerful Mage in the Realms. In that sense it is an incredibly powerful thing; imagine if in 3.e no one else was ever allowed to multiclass ever.

Actually in 2e if you had the ability scores for it a human could dual class more that just one time

[georgie_leech]

Actually in 2e if you had the ability scores for it a human could dual class more that just one time

Huh, really? I've never seen it done that way. Then yeah, that is far less impressive.

[SiuiS]

I don't think that dual classing the way he did actual makes for a more powerful character. Admittedly, opening up with one level of fighter is actually a good plan for a wizard if you have 17 or higher into so you can actually dual class into wizard cause a d10 for your first had kicks arse. Beyond the ridiculous ability score rolls he'd need to go fighter/ cleric/wizard I think a few cleric levels are a bad choice for his build in 2nd. They're a not a lot of righteous cleric magic he's picking up and he's just delaying his access to rad wizard spells.

You don't dual class into cleric for the spell casting. This is 2e; you do it because it's the only way to ever use certain powers or magic items, because turning is handy, because your saves may get better and because no one knows how to handle a wizard who. Can just heal himself, let alone one who can dust off the great sword and start going to town.


Which begs the question - why have a system at all? Once you get high enough you're practically in freeform territory.

Eh. All D&D is like that though; you're not in rules mode unless you specifically engage them. The other response was pretty bang on, though.


Really complicated builds sometimes give me a headache, and seeing the builds in like any of the Epic games in the recruitment boards just makes me shutdown. So, I've never played an epic game, and don't really want to. Especially cranking it up to 11 and making level 50 characters? Level 40 tristalt? No thank you, not for me.

Yeah, when you get some of those they become ludicrous. Not that I'm any better.

We based a lot of our epic decisions off of Seplchrave's Tales of Wyre, though, and it works pretty organically, even up to the preternaturally intelligent individuals leveraging probabilities and reality against each other to transcend limits.


Indeed... You have a good point. I must admit, that our game is very customized to fit our needs and high 20th level. We play in FR, and well there are some pretty heavy players that we sometime interact with. In our un-optimized game, it's a little like Wow... when gaining levels you gain access to more dungeons and more areas. Also your sphere of influence increases. What that means to us is, that we can use the whole setting. We felt at lover level, that that particular world were filled with very high powered challenges... these are now open to us. My mention of 'fluff' might not have been the best word, but that how it feels. We have one player who have forcefully created his own kingdom, and thus has engaged in a very geopolitical game now, where the NPC of the other nations plays a big part. For the Wizard archeology is the new black and he spends allot of time delving into deep ancient Netheril, Imaskar and Mulhorand tombs... these very powerful nations have for obvious reason places heavy protections so they still present a challenge... Riddles guards /wards and guardians of old.

Interesting. I never would have thought to purposefully build in hard-coded levels for access to certain points. You present a captivating tapestry.

[Max Caysey]

I can't see how any of the things you bring up in this post would require epic levels. These all seem like mid to low level activities.

I particularly don't understand your claim that FR is "filled with very high level challenges." I've seen the stats on the high level npcs like Elminster and they're all chumps that could be taken down far far far before epic.

You are not going to be strolling in Orome, where the Sarrukh liches live at mid to low level.... The Terraseeer is level 30. So bypasing stuff like that at low level is just not possible. And what about entering the Imaskar vaults? God luck.

Our interpretation of the realms and the challenges and NPC is of such a character as to not be possibel at mid level. Again I have to streess that we do not optimize... it makes a huge difference when fighting level 30 sarrukh liches that are... Our party started at 4 but are now 2, where on is king, so for some time most if not all expeditions have been done by one single person.

See this (http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16412&SearchTerms=Please+note:+These+totals+are+caster+l evels++not+CR.)

When this is taken into acount... mid to low level seems impossible, when not doing som serious optimizations which never hapened. And as ive mentioned, the DM always did some heavey practical optimizations meaning that he fixed, with his own words the NPC like Elminster. So they represented their storry power more. Monsters were max hp... etc.

I saw a little bit of his Larloch at one point, and he had a lot of epic items... the official does not....

[Roog]

It's not even like they failed optimize any of their cannon npcs it's like they did whatever the opposite of optimized them is... Craptomized them?

Is that what it's called?

I'm not sure but it really seems like they were all built to be worse than it is conceivably possible for someone to even accidentally make a character.


Loboptimised

[illyahr]

Loboptimised

+1 to this :smallamused:

[aleucard]

And when some bad writer had to make the 3.0 E stats for Elminster they just copied the 2E stuff and ''converted'' it and obviously had no idea what they were doing. And, as WotC has no editors, no one caught this or the other hundred or so ''tiny mistakes''.

I actually agree with Jedipotter on something..... Has anyone checked the forecast lately? I'm predicting an 80% chance of it raining fire and brimstone soon.

In short, most (me included) dislike Epic for 3 reasons.

1, what parts of the normal game that are broken become logarithmically more so, in multiple directions at once even. Epic Spellcasting and its binary nature (either it's costly to the point of uselessness or its a route to Over-Godhood on its own the instant you gain access) is the posterchild for this point.

2, what parts of the normal game that AREN'T broken rarely come out any less than cracked in one way or another. Most martials just simply can not keep up at these levels no matter what you do, for instance.

3, there are so bloody MANY different places that can go any number of directions with absolutely zero player input that planning for it becomes basically impossible. We can't have a proper discussion about things without being able to operate under standardized allowances, and there's just too many fiddly bits that a DM could slot in and out for us to factor them out.

If someone came up with a way to address these points in their own version of an Epic Handbook, then we'd be much more amenable.

[Sartharina]

I have head this droth before... "My levl 21 wizard rules the cosmos... Ends intire worlds with a unarmed punch..." Yes this is a RAW forum, but the dieties are just as badly build as are the DMG NPCs... I would say apply the same level of optimization the the deity builds as to your own builds and have a go. Or you could do the inverse, and have the Party be built to the same level of optimization as the deities.

Epic is probably fun in low-op games.

[Aliek]

Rules-vagueness and open-ended stuff vary too much from table to table to comment properly.
On most D&D-based computer games, epics are decently balanced, since everything is specified beforehand, mostly to the detriment of the spellcaster(which is nerfed the hardest on the heroics, but that's beside the point)

Also, speaking of deities' optimization level, has there ever been a deity restat project? Tough to be fair it should be something nobody cares too much :smallbiggrin: (I mean, how often does deities' statblocks actually come into play?)

[Melcar]

Or you could do the inverse, and have the Party be built to the same level of optimization as the deities.

Epic is probably fun in low-op games.

Indeed one could, but the post I replied was about how easy it was to destroy the gods... I understood it as implicit that the PC in question was high OP. And for that to really be fair I suggested having the deities be as OP. To level the playing field. But as long as there is a level playing field it does not really matter whether its TO or non at all. In my oppinion.

[Dimers]

Loboptimised

Thirded! :smallbiggrin:

[Belial_the_Leveler]

It's not so much that Epic is disliked as that the rushed, untested, imbalanced, unsupported unimaginative and largely stupid writeup of the Epic Level Handbook and Deities+Demigods are a joke.

I mean, I once made a balanced Epic Spellcasting system for a game of mine on these forums that was feat-based and a gradual continuation of pre-epic. It took me all of two days. Would it have been too much to ask, WotC spending a month making 4-5 balanced subsystems for Epic, another couple of months making epic creatures that worked and them published the thing?



As for standard rules breaking down pre-epic? Fixable. If you summon Pazuzu pre-epic, you don't get huge benefits; you get the benefit a chaotic evil greater demon wants you to get after having read your mind (immediate Wish perversion). If you try manipulate form shenanigans the DM reminds you that it's a permanent effect, not instantaneous, and multiple instances of the same effect never stack - he does so after you try it so you're left with a kobold character who's wasted most of their wealth on a useless scheme.

Besides, by RAW a DM can maintain the campaign setting's balance. Guess what countless Solars are using their wishes for every single day? Countering threats to the multiverse by mortals messing with Reality. Each time you try to exploit circumstances beyond standard character creation/rewards to gain infinite power, there's a Wish effect waiting to interrupt you in nonlethal but humiliating ways.

[Phelix-Mu]

As far as published stuff goes, I find that they probably were low-balling stuff anyway. Super high-op stuff would only be useful at a few tables, and I think it's generally easier to make stuff stronger than scale it back.

Combine this with the fact that giving an iconic npc or god a really good, well-thought out statblock takes some serious time, compared to a bit of slapdash and spit-polish, and I think they probably decided to keep it simple in the interest of keeping profits....

WAIT, WHY IN THE NINE HELLS AM I DEFENDING WOTC?


Alright, who spiked my drink?

:smalltongue:

I pretty much look at the dicefreaks stuff for the icons, and scale it back a bit for the npcs.

[SiuiS]

I actually agree with Jedipotter on something......

JediPotter often has very good points. They just often use terrible examples and loaded language that sound contrived. Although if the examples given here were real ones, it's easy to figure out why.

[Urpriest]

Indeed... You have a good point. I must admit, that our game is very customized to fit our needs and high 20th level. We play in FR, and well there are some pretty heavy players that we sometime interact with. In our un-optimized game, it's a little like Wow... when gaining levels you gain access to more dungeons and more areas. Also your sphere of influence increases. What that means to us is, that we can use the whole setting. We felt at lover level, that that particular world were filled with very high powered challenges... these are now open to us. My mention of 'fluff' might not have been the best word, but that how it feels. We have one player who have forcefully created his own kingdom, and thus has engaged in a very geopolitical game now, where the NPC of the other nations plays a big part. For the Wizard archeology is the new black and he spends allot of time delving into deep ancient Netheril, Imaskar and Mulhorand tombs... these very powerful nations have for obvious reason places heavy protections so they still present a challenge... Riddles guards /wards and guardians of old.

The highest level content written for any of those is around level 30, though. Even outside the Realms level 30 is reasonably plausible, it's where the top Demon Princes and Archdevils hang out for example. And if someone is around level 30, then they're a decent boss encounter for a level 26 party. The argument here is you don't need anything much above 30. Do your games wander much above 30, and if so what in the Realms do you think falls in that ballpark?


What would punching Nerull in his divine face do? At what level would a punch do anything? Level 30... 50?

What feats, weapons, class abilities would you use to pull down Wall of the Faithless

...

I have head this droth before... "My levl 21 wizard rules the cosmos... Ends intire worlds with a unarmed punch..." Yes this is a RAW forum, but the dieties are just as badly build as are the DMG NPCs... I would say apply the same level of optimization the the deity builds as to your own builds and have a go.

Sorry if I come across arrogant, but somehow I dont see the endless stream of world ending scenarios without some heavy TO.

Here's the problem:

Why don't you tell me which level you can punch a properly optimized Nerull? If you feel like it isn't level 30, or 50, then when?

The problem is nobody can answer that question, because level isn't a good measure of when you can beat an optimized deity. If there's a way to beat optimized Nerull, there's a way to beat him at level 30, maybe even 21. If there isn't a way to beat him at level 21/30, then getting to higher level won't make any meaningful difference, you still won't be able to beat him. Either way, there's no reason to have a level 50 character.

The same applies for things like tearing down the Wall of the Faithless (incidentally, if you want a poorly thought out way to rip that thing up, Antigenesis would probably do it in a localized area). In general, either you can do it before high-epic, or you can't do it ever.

Once you hit epic, challenges become qualitative much more than quantitative, while gaining more levels only gives you quantitative resources.

[SiuiS]

Spellcasting continues to give you alita tube resources. Caster level and spell slots, mainly, but also feats (which allow greater force multiplication of slots and CL). The addition of spell slots higher than 9th allows, eventually, spells above 9th level.

It's ablative, at that point. Challenges have defenses that need to be stripped away while they are also actively stripping your defenses. This can be abstract, in the sense of gathering information through divinations and finding out the truth around defensive measures and learning secrets, or it can be direct on the sense of nullifying their antimagic defenses and weakening their innate resistances before dropping a killing stroke.

One of our PCs has crazy stacked DR, regeneration, immunity to most energies, and DvR to stave off a lot of the other instant win effects. Fights with him involve a hell of a lot of defense negation. Another has seven free action spells a round, personal subjective time asynchrony and a facility with magic that is basically "you're a sorcerer with infinite spell slots and can invent spells as free actions with no cost", and taking her out involved as much social wrangling and political maneuvering as it did direct offense, because her seat as Septarch and Archfey are part of her power source.

[tomandtish]

Actually in 2e if you had the ability scores for it a human could dual class more that just one time

That was actually how the 1E Bard worked. You started as a Fighter for 5-8 levels, then switched to Thief for 6-9 levels (had to finish one level higher then Fighter), then became a Bard (although you also got all Druid abilities except for spells per day). It was a very weird class back then. (Also the only 1E class that allowed more than one change under the Dual Class option).

In order to get the benefits of a previous class you always had to be one level higher in the next class. 1E Bard was a little bit of an exception in that they could use their Fighter and Thief abilities at full (not counting armor limitations) once they started Bard levels. But they couldn’t touch their Fighter abilities while their Thief levels were lower.

They also got no new HP at all until they surpassed their existing level. So if for some reason you went Magic User 7 then switched to Fighter, until you hit level 8 as a Fighter you were stuck with the Magic User HP. You had to have at least 15 in the ability scores for the original class and at least 17 in the ability scores for the new class.

In short, there was almost never any advantage to doing it.

[SiuiS]

In short, there was almost never any advantage to doing it.

Incorrect.

1e had large parties and a power curve. Once you hit about third level, you were going to survive barring stupidity or a module.

In the party of five, at however many thousands of XP needed for a wizard to hit, say, fifth level, everyone likely has their stuff together. When the wizard decides, who needs more spells I want to stab things, he drops to effective 0 XP. The next encounter is probably tough; the party gets into it down a wizard. But when everyone else is dusting off their wounds and drinking healing potions or spiking a door shut, the wizard is now a second level fighter, going through some basic training with his pals.

End of a few adventures, everyone else averages maybe level 7 or 8 (wizards start with a basic XP handicap) the wizard is now a wizard 5 fighter 6, and has a definite advantage over a plain old fighter.

A bard runs through the two lowest XP-cost classes before dipping into Druid and getting crazy powerful abilities, likely only a level behind the rest of the group after an adventure or two.

[The_Rippy_One]

I've played in 2 Epic Level campaigns, got into both as long runner deals - we started one campaign at level 9, and the other was level 3, and both just continued, until we hit epic. 1 had a lot of emphasis on combat, and thus OP'ing, and yeah, by level 27 or so, the solution to everything was "let the sorcerer handle it" (we had a cleric, but she was shacked up with the local love goddess most of the time *shrug* [in reality, her schedule got wonky and she started missing games regularly]). that game died pretty naturally, then. The second was much more concerned with flavor than OP, and more or less ended with everyone in a heavy RP powerbases (so you have 5000 followers and own a kingdom. now, rule it. You are the Don of Dons - get to plotting, everyone wants to knife your back, etc.) most of the magic users sort of looked at the Epic Spell rules, and collectively ignored the crazy they added, and played like they were 20s with more spells and spells per day, not god enders. when that game had to break up (RL hit all of us terribly at the same time) the party was trying to reform Tiamat (not kill her, not mind screw her, reform her; very "so tell me about your progenitor deity" stuff) while supplying the resources to relocate all the chroma-dragons off dimension. It helped that our fighter king happened to enjoy economics. And Sim City XD. (And yes, Tia was pretty much trying to kill us/detonate the world in various ways constantly. We were trying to prove to her that might didn't make right. We figured we'd start making progress after a century or so XD).

I recognize that's not the game everyone wants to play, but it was the game we liked as a group, so, it worked. And yeah, it was mostly freeform, really, but we still had the numbers to fall back on if we needed them, and having them helped in a lot of ways. It also helped that the GM actually stat'd out the economy - helped us in the long term avoid some of the weirdness (for example, we stopped getting market value for stuff after level 18 - literally, buying the +8 Sword of Justice (TM) would have bankrupted most of the local kingdoms...which, more or less, was how the fighter got made king, if you want to oversimplify it [didn't hurt that he's been romancing the local princess since we rescued her 6 levels and 3 years game time back]) [as an aside: since the penetration-increase more or less slowed down [all the new spells were 9th level, remember], the SR didn't need to rise to keep pace, and so new caster-classes weren't entirely boned at the start, which made for some more interesting builds]

And that's my experience with Epic. if people wanted to be powermad, they could be, and it broke horribly. If everyone got their heads into the discussion and worked out the limits, it worked just fine, and was actually pretty fun under the right conditions.



NOW! My rant about Epic, and it's similar to Belial's - Who the heck came up with this idiocy? Not only was WotC smoking something when they came up with it, all evidence points to one of the worst trips in the history of creative design while under the influence, as far as I can tell...and it mostly starts and ends with how they handled their feats and spells. The exclusion of the smaller PrCs urked me something fiercely, too..."I wanna be a Paragon of Humanity" to bad we couldn't think of enough things for you to do, better take it before you hit level 20; or make an Epic Feat that gives you all of 1 racial paragon's feats at once, cause that's balanced. some of it doesn't make a lick of sense, either.
Like, there are half a dozen Epic PrCs that list "Spells per Day/Spells Known: At each [iteration][prc name] level, the character gains new spells per day and spells known, if applicable) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class to which he belonged before adding the prestige class level." Alright, except, you'll remember, that you gain no spells per day in any Epic Spellcasting class - it's all feat based spell growth. If you went in and took a different caster-type, this could be useful, except, of course, those spells are level 1-9, not 10+ like your best spells are, because penetration and DC doesn't stack between classes, ever, but new Epic Spells increase in level, requiring a similar increase in SR to keep pace, which makes a new caster class sort of useless (And let's not forget you just spent 190,000+ XP to cast magic missile or cure light wounds once per day...or pick up an extra non-epic ability like backstab for 1d6).
Then there is the whole "write your own feats and spells. we are certain you [or, more likely, your gm] will be responsible with this power." Ha. Cowards. and to be fair, the example feats aren't too awful...not that I'd take most of them...but they are oddly balanced. I mean, for example, you have Storm of Throws, which involves hitting everything within 30 feet of you with your best bab, as long as you use some sort of light Throwing weapon (which is, what, 50+ dudes in a target rich environment? it's not quite on par with Meteor Storm for squares affected, and you'd need to tinker a bit to get a kill with some reliability from every thrown weapon, but it isn't too shabby as a clearer for a fighter. maybe get a couple hundred daggers of spell storage, store fireball? you're immune by now, right? another option is get a heap mean nasty contact/injury poison). Or Permanent Emanation, which lets you keep an emanating spell (target is you, has an AoE), and makes it permanent (so, End of Strife [anything with an Int score gets hit for 20d6 damage everytime it attacks, if it's within 80 feet of you], whenever you like (standard action to turn on and off)? SURE!) And then you have Superior Initiative...which is a +8 to initiative. whoo. Or Epic Weapon Focus, which gives you a whopping +2 to hit with one weapon type. ye-e-e-a-h...Spells...well, you've heard everyone else's opinion of the crazy involving spells in Epic, and I've found it to be true as well. enough said there.


Frankly, if it weren't such a drag on XP from level 3 to 20, I'd say the best thing to be done with an Epic level is to payoff a major BloodLine with Epic Levels 21 through 23 (I'm pretty sure you have to pay all three to get the full benefit of the Major bloodline - never used them, so I'm not certain, but it seems like a huge hole if you could skip all three basic level points, and then pay them all with one level) - it effectively would net you a lot more than any Epic Level does (you effectively pick up 3 to 5 bonus Epic Feats (depending on the bloodlines involved), +some normal feats, in 3 Epic levels, in return for 6-40 fewer skill points, and 3 hit dice of hp [remember, Epic doesn't care what a level "is," bab and saves rise regardless]. At Epic, I think that's a better than average trade, though I could see a skillmonkey build having a fit at the skill loss)

[RoboEmperor]

Epic spells are balanced if you limit down-time.

The only problem with epic levels is people using 100 clones to bring down an epic spell to 0 spellcraft DC IIRC, along with lengthening the casting time to a 100 days. With this they could turn the entire party into almost-gods at level 21 with like 10 years of down-time.

Try a core-only epic game. You'll be several levels behind mundanes to pay for the XP cost of epic spells, and mundanes will be happy with their epic feats.

You can kill everything with a well made epic spell using the slay seed, so higher levels means how strong a monster your party can take down without resorting to it, which is fun. I once had a max HD iron colossus grappling and fighting a Xixecal while the party took care of the Xixecal's minions before helping the colossus out.

Epic levels is the only level where the highly optimized feel challenged. It took a mailman sorcerer 6 rounds with the help of the colossus to take out the Xixecal.

My wizard had epic spellcasting, so I knew I could do whatever I want and still beat the campaign, which is why I built the max hd Iron Colossus. For fun.

[thethird]

Try a core-only epic game. You'll be several levels behind mundanes to pay for the XP cost of epic spells, and mundanes will be happy with their epic feats.

Two questions:

1.- How do you play a core only epic game if the epic rules aren't core?

2.- Are you familiar with the core option to add casters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/developingEpicSpells.htm#tableAdditionalParticipan tsinRituals) to reduce the DC (thus cost and time) and the core option to acquire (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm) as many casters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelSolar) as needed?

[Necroticplague]

Epic spells are balanced if you limit down-time.

The only problem with epic levels is people using 100 clones to bring down an epic spell to 0 spellcraft DC IIRC, along with lengthening the casting time to a 100 days. With this they could turn the entire party into almost-gods at level 21 with like 10 years of down-time.

Try a core-only epic game. You'll be several levels behind mundanes to pay for the XP cost of epic spells, and mundanes will be happy with their epic feats.

You can kill everything with a well made epic spell using the slay seed, so higher levels means how strong a monster your party can take down without resorting to it, which is fun. I once had a max HD iron colossus grappling and fighting a Xixecal while the party took care of the Xixecal's minions before helping the colossus out.

Epic levels is the only level where the highly optimized feel challenged. It took a mailman sorcerer 6 rounds with the help of the colossus to take out the Xixecal.

My wizard had epic spellcasting, so I knew I could do whatever I want and still beat the campaign, which is why I built the max hd Iron Colossus. For fun.

Even without downtime to cast spells, epic is still borked to all heck. You mention Epic Feats, and i would easily point to the fact that the Epic feats for casters completely dwarf those of martials. Pounce, but only on the first round of combat vs. having a buff simply come back a few rounds later, negating the need to worry about dispels clearing your buff. And Core-only (Well, SRD only, since Epic isn't core) actually makes the problem worse, since pretty much all the good stuff (except for lockdown builds and Power Attack) for martials is outside of core.

Yeah, epic is "challenging", but i find it to be frequently challenging in the same way that playing russian rulette is: You either have the ability to effect something, and win easily, or you don't and die horribly. Might as well just open a flow chart for how the combat works.

[johnbragg]

Very few people play the game at those levels and, arguably, the game breaks down before level 20. This is more of an issue at high OP though even at more modest OP levels the discrepancy between casters and non-casters becomes glaring the more xp the characters acquire.

This is true. There is a Homebrew forum, which is mostly fixes of 3.5/PF to try to rebalance things at mid- to high-levels, never mind levels that were explicitly not supposed to be played.


We play epic level games. By that point it's usually more about role playing and problem solving than it is about combat.

Which begs the question - why have a system at all? Once you get high enough you're practically in freeform territory.

This is true. So there's not much point in creating a level 50 character. I played in a one-shot once where the PCs were epic-level types recruited from various Prime MAterial Planes to be the gods of a Prime MAterial where demons-and-devils had gotten rid of the gods a few millenia ago. I built a gnome-trickster-tinkerer-inventor-alchemist type, but when we learned about the setting, he ended up rebuilding himself and his religion as the Shiny Happy Healing Hippy, because that was what they needed far more than steampunk.

But there were no dice, there was no RAW because we were gods with arbitrary power to do stuff. IF we couldn't do it, (like say perma-banish all demons from the plane) rolling a 20 wasn't going to let us do it.


It's kind of like how the tarrasque, a 48 HD creature, can be bested almost without fail with a 2nd level spell.

The Tarrasque was built as a 2E creature. I'd argue that its vulnerability to ability drain was more a drafting error than a conscious choice.


It's not even like they failed optimize any of their cannon npcs it's like they did whatever the opposite of optimized them is... Craptomized them?

I'm not sure but it really seems like they were all built to be worse than it is conceivably possible for someone to even accidentally make a character.

Optimization was not a thing. It comes to exist as an artifact of the incredible flexibility of the 3.X system of feats and multiclassing.

The characters were not designed. They were roleplayed. And most of their roleplaying was done under 1e rules.

As an example, the first character I built in 3E was a two-weapon fighter, using an Orc double-axe. (No, not a ranger, not a half-orc, not an orc, never mind a Water Orc) He wanted to be a big tough brick fighter, and he was the party's heavy damage dealer. Through experience, he saw the value of arcane spells, and took Wizard 1 as his third level before continuing in fighter because that +7 AC (3.5 nerfed it) boost from the Shield spell made him a better melee combatant than anything Fighter 3 had to offer. (Then I took Fighter 3 at 4th level when his stat boost came online for whichever TWF feat needed Dex 17).

The result by 6th level or so was a Fighter 5-Wizard 1 Power Attacking with an Orc double-axe as a two-handed d8 weapon half the time. Way under-optimized, because he wasn't a build, he was a character. That's how we did it back in the day, sonny, and we Liked It!


But that is more on the bad writers of the books more then anything. Very few writers can write powerful things at all. That is why you get endless stat blocks of ''eh''.

It's difficult to write powerful things, because it's difficult to challenge them. Compare the Batman and Spiderman movies to the Superman movies.



I mean, I once made a balanced Epic Spellcasting system for a game of mine on these forums that was feat-based and a gradual continuation of pre-epic. It took me all of two days. Would it have been too much to ask, WotC spending a month making 4-5 balanced subsystems for Epic, another couple of months making epic creatures that worked and them published the thing?


Are you sure about that? Are you sure that it would stand up to playtesting over 10-15 years?

Because what we forget (and the young ones never knew) is that the Google Hivemind is new. These forums, the SRD, etc effectively do not exist when 3.0 hits the shelves and your Internet access requires you to monopolize the house's landline.

The best analogy to think of is riddles. In the Bronze Age, the Riddle of the Sphinx was a significant intellectual challenge. Now, it's a trivial question for smart 3rd graders. That's what happened to the Tarrasque, and that's basically what happened to the epic PCs from AD&D and the deities and demigods who were statted out in 2e and then basically converted to 3e.

The OOTS reference is to Xykon's monologue about power being power, and interpreting that through the lens of "system mastery." V had epic level power, but had mid-level system mastery. Similarly, because the AD&D epic NPCs grew up under AD&D and 2E rules, they're not built with 3E system mastery.



Yeah, epic is "challenging", but i find it to be frequently challenging in the same way that playing russian rulette is: You either have the ability to effect something, and win easily, or you don't and die horribly.

Right. The system simply wasn't designed to balance challenges at CR 20+. Either you beat them through an exploit, or they beat you through brute force. That doesn't really change between level 20 and level 50. (And before high-op shenanigans were developed, it doesn't really change after level 15 or so.)

[P.F.]

1.- How do you play a core only epic game if the epic rules aren't core?


Core Rulebook II has epic level rules.


2.- Are you familiar with the core option to add casters to reduce the DC (thus cost and time) and the core option to acquire as many casters as needed?


So the DM must now limit access to npc spellcasters through the stated limits of NPC spellcasting services (not available in all areas etc etc) and Leadership feat (explicitly requires DM approval), in addition to downtime, monetary resources, political power, etc.

And this is why I "don't like" epic levels. Not because absurd builds become more absurd, or because those who can reshape reality are more powerful; than those who can't, but because of all the machinations and micromanaging required just to keep the game remotely playable for anyone.

Also, epic spellcasting uses way too many "ad-hoc" values for even the example spells, and the ad-hoc values assigned seem wildly out-of-line with the codified DC's of the spells seeds themselves.

[georgie_leech]

So the DM must now limit access to npc spellcasters through the stated limits of NPC spellcasting services (not available in all areas etc etc) and Leadership feat (explicitly requires DM approval), in addition to downtime, monetary resources, political power, etc.



Quibble: the linked pages were implying that the Epic Spell Caster was Gate-ing in Solar's, not handing out flyers in the local tavern. In other words, magically summoning a host of angels to assist you.

[Haruki-kun]

The Winged Mod: Closed due to thread necromancy, but if you want to continue discussing it, please go ahead and start a new thread.