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Without necro'ing a thread from last year, I figured I would just address a question that was brought up in it's own thread.
Excuse the rambling begining, I thought it would be worthwhile to establish some context.
I've been catching up on two other games aside from Pathfinder lately, in particular, Rogue Trader and A Song of Ice and Fire. Conceptually, one of the interesting things about both of these systems is that they both introduce epic "scope" even at their very early levels. Massed armies, politics, and regional/global/galactic concerns, and even esoteric things like leaving a legacy, family or just a damn big bank account.
Closer to home, one of the reasons I think "old school D&D'ers" say games were more epic back in the day stems from a matter of scope as well. Check out your old Rules Cyclopedias - there was a definitive change in scope to a characters lives as they went up in level. They started by solving problems in their local town, then their region, by 12th level they owned land, strongholds and guild halls, soon they were kings and queens, heads of religion or maybe even ascended dieties, and at the end of their careers they were battling in the planes creating and controlling the fate of the metaphysical itself. Their lives started by being solved with swords, they then earned a couple of followers and eventually entire armies.
One of the problems I think with d20 epic is that, for better or worse, the original designers of the system made it a vertical problem instead of a horizontal problem. In other words they tried to solve it via scale, instead of scope. People forget, that even at the end of the Lord of the Rings, Aragorn and friends weren't just epic individuals, they were also epic because they had huge armies under their command.
Epic Level 21+ became about feats, and skills and spells that made bigger bangs.
So where am I going with this?
I would like to see epic scale rules introduced into the Pathfinder arena, but rules that introduce more scope to the game instead of scale. Heck, you could even treat level 20 as a hard-cap for a single class with the right ideas.
In other words; where's the rules and guidelines and advice for making characters feel more powerful in the broad sense? Rules for mass combat. Rules for ascending into leadership roles of local, regional or global institutions. Rules for pursuing a leap into the Diefic. Rules for scaling feats like leadership into the political skill it really could be.
I'd like to see guidelines for introducing adventures of multi-regional politics and intrigue. Guidelines for introducing things like legacies or hereditary elements. Guidelines for running adventures that involve war, or battles in the spiritual or metaphysical realms of the Planes.
I'd like to see campaign advice for how to run a campaign that steers the fate, and the conflict, of Heaven and Hell. Advice on running a campaign about artifacts (and not just the stats of artifacts themselves).
Am I missing something? Is the d20 rule set even flexible enough to support this kind of expansion? Is epic really just about bigger and better feats and skills?
Is this even a direction PFRPG can go, without alienating a huge portion of the player base who demand epic gaming rules?
Anyhow, enough rambling. Thanks for listening.
I ran a Greyhawk campaign a few years ago that went epic. The party completely changed the political face of Oerth, toppling every major evil country, causing Iuz the Old and Graaz't the Demonprince to grovel for their lives at one point, conquering the Pomarj, North Kingdom, the Bandit Kingdoms, etc.
Having completely wrecked the World of Greyhawk, the deities of said world sent them (against their will) to a world of my own making where titans with epic levels had conquered and established an empire, enslaving all mortal races. The PCs were now little fish in a big pond again, but their adventures still had an epic scope, as now they were uniting and leading rebellions against the titan overlords. The game kind of lost steam before the titans were overthrown (at around 40th level), and everybody rolled up new 1st-level characters.
But anyway, my point is that the kind of epic you are talking about is completely do-able, it just requires the right DM and players. I agree that a supplement with advise on how to run such a campaign would be valuable. As you suggested, such a supplement should include rules for mass combat, attracting and keeping (or losing through mismanagement!) subjects, ascending to godhood, a la the old Immortal Rules D&D box-set (there was basic, expert, companion I think, master, and immortal?).
I've been in a group that neared hitting 20 only once, and in that game, the DM ended by breaking out the Exalted books and saying we'd continue with that ;p
Looking into how PC games like Age of Empires work might be a good start to homebrewing something of this nature ...
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Check out the upcoming Kingmaker Adventure Path, complete with rules for lording over your own kingdom, leading armies into glorious battle and generally being awesome.
Interesting you say that, because I was thinking the same thing as I was going about trying to compose my thoughts.
I think the options that are being hinted at in that AP could definitely be extended into something that broadens the scope of power the PCs have access to, without having to fixate on post-21 number crunching.
It seems that there is only so many times you can kill epic things before the game starts to turn political. It's natural to want to have your own kingdom if you're already epic. I'd love to see some basis of rules to go off of.
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Excuse the rambling begining, I thought it would be worthwhile to establish some context.
I've been catching up on two other games aside from Pathfinder lately, in particular, Rogue Trader and A Song of Ice and Fire. Conceptually, one of the interesting things about both of these systems is that they both introduce epic "scope" even at their very early levels. Massed armies, politics, and regional/global/galactic concerns, and even esoteric things like leaving a legacy, family or just a damn big bank account...
+1 to your whole post, sir. It's always gotten under my skin when someone goes on about how games never reach "epic levels", as if it were the levels that make the game epic.
I've been involved in a once-twice a month Song of Ice and Fire game, starting out as a small, single-holding house of bannermen for the Tullys, the timeline is set during the opening of A Game of Thrones; we're three sessions in, and the eldest daughter of the family is marrying into Tully blood, we've already killed off The Late Lord Black Walder Frey (tossed him off a rampart and into the Trident), are near open-war with the Blackwoods (the Brackens are on our side - of course), we've hung a Lannister, and are building military forces up like it was nobody's business, because if we don't: it doesn't matter how tall Ser Daeron Pyke (my gargantuan man-bear-pig) is, or how hard he can swing that flail of his, an army is still an army. Pretty epic for being three sessions in, I'd say. We're also way in over our heads, I think we've got a total of 70 troops, not counting myself or our Tourney Knight.
I suppose all you need to do in order to make a game 'epic' is to establish that the PCs are in a position of power (no matter how small) and give them challenges that reflect said position.
When it comes to mass combat there are two tools I like to use. Small party as part of a greater army, or commander of a their own battalion. Small party works and I hate to use a video game as an example like Fire Fight in Halo ODST. You keep the group together as part of another regiment. There are several NPC alies around the PCs as part of a larger force. Enemies keep puoring in wave after wave and the PCs fight till they run low on resources which forces them off the front lines or they meet a commander and defeat that commander wich causes the attacking forces to flee. This can be tough to run due to the #of attacking and defending forces on the field if you use mat/mini setup. One way I handle it is to do alot of GM cheating. No way am I going to roll for over 100 NPCs so depending on how well the PCs do in combat I kill/add enemies or alies as I see fit. If the PC's are doing well they rally their side, If they are fighting poorly the other side is bolstered and thus the PC's side begins to loose. That way the PC's actions effect the battle. Bards shine in this kind of combat because alot of NPC's can use their Bardic Music.
Commander of a battalion works like this: You build a NPC with stats that are average to those who make up the force. If it is mostly composed of archers that are 3rd lv then that is what the NPC is built like. Then I give one of these sheets to each PC. They run the force and depending on their class add certain effects to their army. THis is usually thematic effect: Clerics can heal the group 1D8+lv, Pally cn stop a rout; bard adds +1 to attack and ddamage; ect.... The opposing force is structured the same way then if using a mat/mini their army is their mini. Combat ensues till either the attacking or defending forces are routed (when they reach 1/4 HP). Have used this several time and it has been fun and much less work for the GM and players.