Epic Level Unhappiness (rant)

[Tequila Sunrise]

I am currently playing in a campaign called The Drow War, created by Mongoose Publishing. The Campaign is released in three books, each book encompassing ten levels. So one of these books is epic 21-30. When I first saw this, I was terribly excited. I have been playing Third Edition since it came out and I have never ever played in, or DMed an epic level game. When I knew I would eventually go epic, there was only one class choice I knew I had to do: Wizard. The very idea of creating my very own epic spells had me shivering for joy. I couldn't wait.

As a preamble, I'd like to point out that nothing in any book suggests that you can't create your own non-epic spells. The only difference in epic play is that the ELH goes out of its way to encourage custom spell creation.

I discover that most epic spells have spellcraft DC's so atrociously high that even with my skill focused and synergy'd spellcraft of 36, I would never achieve such cool spells as Hellball (and a few others whose name escapes me). At best, even with epic skill focus, my spellcraft will only achieve a 48 + whatever my final Int bonus will be. Did you see that? A spellcraft of possibly high 50's? I can scarcely conceive of such a thing, and yet it is still too low. How utterly disappointing.

To be blunt, the ELH is rubbish and the Epic Spellcasting is the toxic waste of the landfill. Among epic players it is a commonly known fact that epic spellcasting's only useful purpose is to create stupidly long lasting buff spells and one or two other niche spell types. Any epic spell that deals damage is a waste of gold and XP because such spells are much easier to use as meta'd non epic spells.

since this epic game has started, I have been consistently and frustratingly useless. Every monster we face has a SR so high that I can almost never succeed against it. Last night I fought Paragon Gargoyles. Their SR was higher than what I could achieve on a natural 20. They were essentially immune to me. How about touch attacks with no SR you say? Wonderful! I'll try that. *rolls a 19 plus touch attack!* Misses touch AC. What? So I have to roll a natural 20 there too? *cries*

Yeah, epic monsters are just not very well thought out. Any epic DM should really be tailoring his monsters to his PCs' abilities.

monster has an attack rating of 40-60+. So my high wizard AC means absolutely balls. How about that monsters spell-like abilities? Is that a DC 40? What what? But! But I can hardly make that! And they're ALL like that??

Well to be fair high level AC isn't supposed to stop anything, it's only supposed to prevent massive Power Attack usage. But again, epic monsters and epic play in general is poorly thought out.

those of you who actually read my ridiculously long tirade, please tell me what the deal is. Comments, questions, ideas. Anything. It would really be appreciated.

I have come up with my own epic rules based on my experience with epic play; to play in epic under standard rules you basically have to be a power gamer, which I don't like. If you're interested I can provide you and your DM with them.