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OK, I thought I won't have to do that, but it's time to raise hell and kick off a crusade against epic rules. I am VERY glad that they are off the radar for now and I would loathe to buy Paizo books where half the space is taken up by ridiculous 3-page long statblocks of things my players will never fight against.
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They're in the queue for sometime in the future, but let's face it: there just aren't really enough of us who are hard-core Epic fans for it to be a priority for the Paizo crew to explore (read: profitable area to publish a book on).
I'd love to see them, the OP would love to see them, James Jacobs would apparently love to see them, but for every fan, there's people like Gorbacz who hate them with a passion.
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Paizo has said before that it was their experience that high-level stuff just didn't sell all that well. Looks like they're starting to flirt with higher level stuff. If that goes well, you might see some Epic rules in the future.
Personally, I wouldn't mind some guidelines in a future book for statting up something like a 23rd level Sorcerer to throw against a higher level party. I don't think it requires an entire new ruleset though.
-Skeld
I’m not going to say any names to put anyone on the spot, but I spoke with one of the Paizo designers at Gen Con and he indicated that the Epic book is something we will most likely see eventually.
And to cement it even more so, he indicated that it would almost be guaranteed to be seen even before the Psionics Handbook. And if we don’t ever see a Psionics Handbook, I’d be very surprised.
Essentially, it was Oriental, Epic, or Psionics - only one per year.
I've always hated the so-called Epic play. It's was horribly done with WoTC's attempt and rules for 20+ play never mechanically made much sense. For me lvls 15-20 WAS epic play. Your at the end of your career, your the best in your game. Hit level 20, defeat the big bad. Time for a new game.
Not everyone agrees - that's why the topic keeps coming up.
Edit: By the way, that's exactly how I feel about oriental settings. I've never understood the fascination, have no interest, and probably never will.
The primary difference for me is that I don't make any claims that no oriental material should ever be made just because I have no interest in it.
In all the time I have been gaming, I have never gotten the chance to do some epic adventures - nobody in my group wants to run it. While I generally agree that 20th level adventures are pretty epic for mortal adventures, I'd think that level 21+ would work well when dealing with adventures among the gods themselves. So I, for one, would like to see the epic rules combined with the deity rules. Who says the game has to end when you pass the test of the Starstone? :D
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I have a question for the people who have had players or ran a game for epic level groups. How did the characters get to epic level? did you actually play that much that you leveled the characters to epic level?
I'm asking because as a gamer for 37 years the highest character I ever got was a 14th level paladin back in the first edition days. And that was back in high school when I was able to play every weekend for 20 to 30 hours a weekend and this was over the course of 5 or 6 years in the same campaign. And as a GM I have never had players make it past 7 or 8th level, I am known to be a fairly ruthless GM and the fact i do not award XP i merely award levels might have something to do with it but how much time is involved of getting a character to Epic levels?
I have a question for the people who have had players or ran a game for epic level groups. How did the characters get to epic level? did you actually play that much that you leveled the characters to epic level?
We started in the fall of '06 with something we wanted to go epic.
I conceived a storyline, we built 4th-level characters, and played weekly (for several years, up until early last year, when we went bi-weekly).
XP was given out at a flat rate per game, rather than being encounter-based, and was designed so that the characters would level every 2-3 games on average.
This allowed the characters to be real, as opposed to someone crafting an optimized 25th-level whatever, and forced real tradeoffs.
I topped it out at 20,000xp/game when they hit 30th level or so, and that's still what I hand out per game.
The other thing I did was enforce a minimum level. We had some more sporadic players, and I ensured they weren't overwhelmed by having a minimum level. It started out at 5 less than the highest level character and these days I've got it set at 10. Below that, a character gets bootstrapped. But at the really high levels, it doesn't make as much of a difference.
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I have a question for the people who have had players or ran a game for epic level groups. How did the characters get to epic level? did you actually play that much that you leveled the characters to epic level?We started in the fall of '06 with something we wanted to go epic.
I conceived a storyline, we built 4th-level characters, and played weekly (for several years, up until early last year, when we went bi-weekly).
XP was given out at a flat rate per game, rather than being encounter-based, and was designed so that the characters would level every 2-3 games on average.
This allowed the characters to be real, as opposed to someone crafting an optimized 25th-level whatever, and forced real tradeoffs.
I topped it out at 20,000xp/game when they hit 30th level or so, and that's still what I hand out per game.
The other thing I did was enforce a minimum level. We had some more sporadic players, and I ensured they weren't overwhelmed by having a minimum level. It started out at 5 less than the highest level character and these days I've got it set at 10. Below that, a character gets bootstrapped. But at the really high levels, it doesn't make as much of a difference.
Huh. I was playing weekly for 2 years, and my PCs got to level 13. Different strokes, I guess :)
Personally,
I'd rather see a monstrous pc's book over an epic one. Or over a psionic for that matter.
I have a question for the people who have had players or ran a game for epic level groups. How did the characters get to epic level? did you actually play that much that you leveled the characters to epic level?
The one time my group got to epic levels was when I ran the Age of Worms adventure path. They started adventure #1 as 1st-level characters, and ended up as 22nd-level characters after about 1 year of real-life time.
Huh. I was playing weekly for 2 years, and my PCs got to level 13. Different strokes, I guess :)
I've played and run in a number of campaigns like that. The goal of this particular campaign was to play at epic level, so we structured the advancement for that goal.
In general, I prefer slower advancement - I think the characters feel more real when they're not screaming up the level charts.
However, we all really enjoyed the epic play, and I'm looking forward to doing the same thing under Pathfinder, especially now that there's a reasonable amount of material out there (it was feeling kinda thin with just the core rulebook as source).
I have a question for the people who have had players or ran a game for epic level groups. How did the characters get to epic level? did you actually play that much that you leveled the characters to epic level?
I am about the same. I have been playing for almost 30 years and I was in one campaign that lasted for several years of weekly sessions and my character ended up around 14th level. Of course, this was back in the days of 2nd edition and xp was not given out at nearly the amounts that can happen in 3rd/PF.
Of course, with the way Paizo does the Adventure Paths, anyone who plays the same character from beginning to end in one will finish with around 15-17 levels and that is not far from epic range. Now, an AP takes 6 months for all the parts to be published and I wonder how long the average group takes to finish one, because I personally cannot imagine taking a character from 1st to 16th level in so short a time as a year. Leveling a character, to me, is about much more than just the xp earned. It is also about the life and history of the character and the role-playing you are doing. If I do an entire session where it is all role-playing and no combat or problem solving and there is little or no xp earned, then that is fine with me and part of the gaming experience.
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2 times for me, with one honorable mention. The first time was with the Bloodstone series (H1-4 I think it was) for the Forgotten Realms. They were written originally for 2nd edition but I converted them over to 3.5. Sweet, epic, chocolatey (a word?) goodness. That group finished somewhere around 24-26th level after something like 2 years of play time, 1 per week for about 8 hours. That campaign started with Temple of Elemental Evil, went on to Against the Giants/Descent into the Depths of the Earth/Vault of the Drow/Queen of the Demonweb Pits, then finished up with the Bloodstone stuff. The hardest part about that campaign was converting everything from 1st and 2nd edition to 3.5...that and converting the Greyhawk stuff over to locations and deities in the FR. But mucho fun. All players involved fondly remember that campaign as one of the best we've ever been involved in.I have a question for the people who have had players or ran a game for epic level groups. How did the characters get to epic level? did you actually play that much that you leveled the characters to epic level?
Thats pretty close to the campaign my paladin went through. We did some random stuff at lower levels then did Slavelords,Against the Giants,Queen of the Demonweb Pit then Tomb of Horrors with alot of side stuff in between. We then for the fun of it made our characters high level and did a little bit of the bloodstone stuff but I was 14th level at the end of the "Real campaign"
The honorable mention was during our Rappan Athuk Reloaded campaign. RA is, hands down, the best dungeon-based adventure I've ever seen. Our group was 19th level and we started over new guys literally on Orcus' doorstep at the end of dungeon. Campaign fatigue got the better of us.....man what a shame. We'd have hit epic for sure with those guys...<sniff sniff>. That was also the campaign where I learned just how dangerous a min/maxed, high level monk can be.
And this is the campaign I am currently running online using D20pro It started with Necromancer games W0 Wizards Amulet now the characters are in W1 Crucible of Freya moving on to D1 Tomb of Absythor then onto R1-3 Reloaded. Hoping that this might get close to Epic levels but I doubt it.
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Count me as one who could care less about an Oriental setting/rules and who would absolutely love an Epic book. I'd also like a Psionics book, but only after the Epic book. Having said that, I understand that they have chosen to do the Oriental One first, and that is fine with me. I can wait.
What I don't want to see is a bunch of folks piling on here about how they hate Epic stuff and don't want Paizo to do those rules. Why should the Oriental segment get their pie and the Epic segment be left to eat dust bunnies? If you don't care about Epic rules, then don't buy them when they come out. But it's just wrong to try and sway Paizo NOT to do them because you just got your Oriental fix and don't care about the rest of us. We have to all learn to be accepting of people's wants even if they don't mirror our own. If anyone can do Epic rules justice; it's Paizo. Some of us have been waiting years for someone to do Epic right; try not to piss on our parade.
Thanks in advance!
The one epic level character I have ever played started at 20 level. But, all of the other characters in the group started at 1st, I joined in later. My character is now 41st level the rest a a couple above me. There are other PC's in the same game world that I believe are in the 60s. One of them actually had a divine rank at one time.
The DM that runs this world is all sorts of excited about updating all of the characters to Pathfinder. Me? I'm sort of 'meh' on it. My epic level character didn't really excite me anymore than some of my 10th and lower characters did. Granted, he did some WILD stuff and had some fun powers, but it honestly felt like I was playing a super-hero character, not a fantasy character.
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They're in the queue for sometime in the future, but let's face it: there just aren't really enough of us who are hard-core Epic fans for it to be a priority for the Paizo crew to explore (read: profitable area to publish a book on).
I'd love to see them, the OP would love to see them, James Jacobs would apparently love to see them, but for every fan, there's people like Gorbacz who hate them with a passion.
I strongly dislike epic rules as well. I like the idea of retiring the character at level 20, if he makes it that far, Becoming a God, or an NPC, or just wandering off to parts unknown.
I think a lot of the dislike of Epic rules stems from Wizards of the Coast's awful rules.
Paizo has specifically said that, if they do Epic rules, they will do them in their own way, not try to recreate 3.5's Epic rules. Thus, dislike of 3.5's Epic rules really shouldn't even be in the picture for a discussion of whether to make Epic rules for Pathfinder.
The problem with epic level play is at that point the only thing challenging to the PCs are God like beings and that can get old quickly.
GM: Ok, so you guys have cleared the 6th layer of Hell when suddenly you are attacked by Mammon! Roll initiative.
Player 1: Dude, seriously? We're just going to chump him like we did Dis and everybody else in this place. Why don't we just skip ahead to where we're fighting Asmodeus and get it over with?
Player 2: Yeah, I haven't even started using my epic level spells yet.
Player 3: And besides since we purchased all of those vorpal weapons its not like this combat is going to last longer than 2 to 3 rounds at the most.
GM:......(mouth agape)
Player 1: I think we broke him.
Trust me its hard to come up with stuff that not only challenges epic level players but is also believable. I had one player who wanted to just walk into Thay (FR) and make a leadership change. It was hard to give him a damn good reason why he couldn't just do so.
Much as I hate to suggest it, since I really don't particularly like the system, perhaps something like Palladium's mega scale damage might be appropriate as a basis.
1 Epic HP = 10 normal HP, 1 Epic Damage = 10 normal damage. +10 normal = +1 Epic, +1 Epic = +10 normal.
You'd basically end up playing epic as if you were about 3rd level. But you'd be a 3rd level Epic character, so your AC might suck at 16, but it'd be 160 to a normal character (meaning you only get hit on a 20 by a mortal), and you hit a mortal on everything but a 1. It would be brutal for the mortals, but I kind of like that. Mortals taking on gods should get squished regularly. Gods taking on mortals should squish them hard.
But palladium leaves a really bad taste in my mouth (I sat down with a friend and worked out something that ruined the system for me, you can stand against a cinderblock wall, per the core rules, and get hit by a humvee that blows through the cinderblock wall, and get up and shake off the dust. A freight train might leave you needing medical attention doing the same thing).
I have a question for the people who have had players or ran a game for epic level groups. How did the characters get to epic level? did you actually play that much that you leveled the characters to epic level?
I had a DM when 3.0 first came out who ran a (mostly) solo game for me. He played a CE elven wizard DMPC; I played a LN human monk. Occasionally we'd have a full party including a gnome cleric of Garl Glittergold, a wizard/fighter, a rogue, and possibly one other character that I'm forgetting.
We used standard XP progression, and my monk, Keris Jade, made it to level 21 in two years. 'Course, that was splitting XP two ways most of the time instead of four.
Have that said the Tian Xia book is hardcover
I thought they specifically said they havent decided that
see
to be honest, since a lot of the crunchy bits will be in Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Comabt I suspect it will be a soft cover book
Anyone checked out the old Immortals rules?
I always liked the power progression concepts that OD&D set out.
Basic - PC's were newbies, Expert - they were having an affect on local and just on to national stage, Companion - they were heavily involved in struggles between nations, Master - thoughts turned those really pulling the strings - the Immortals. And so began the 'epic' tasks of attaining immortality!
Only to find as a new immortal you were the new kid on the block again. Although for fun you could always pop up as an avatar and kick some mortal butt.
The mechanics are outdated but there is still some value in the concept for high power play.
I remember those old rules. The black box if memory serves. It was good stuff but I never liked the limits on the "demi-humans"
The problem with epic level play is at that point the only thing challenging to the PCs are God like beings
I disagree. There are several examples in the Bestiary of CR < 20 monsters who aren't Godlike at all (Tarrasque, various great wyrm dragons). There's also things like taking on whole armies with just the party or even solo, travelling through the planes, finding legendary artifacts, etc etc.
There's a vast gulf between Gods in Pathfinder and everything else. Gods are so exceptional that they have no stats. They just have "I WIN" buttons. There's a huge realm of imagination in between taking on a single Balor (CR 20) and taking on a God (CR infinite). I'd like to see that realm explored.
The "problem" with epic play is our cultural touchstones.
Gandalf never used powers much greater than you'd see out of a 5th level Wizard. (Not counting the contingency-resurrection.) And if you read the Simarillion, you'll see that he was actually a demi-god (kindof).
Merlin was 9th level, tops. His spell effects never went higher than those offered by 5th level PHB spells. The greatest wizard in western fantasy.
Hercules? All the amazing stunts he pulled off? Maybe he'd be pushing the low-double-digit levels. And he's already half-god!
If you look at the amazing and crazy things that Krishna and the other gods of Hinduism do in the Bhagavad Gita, they can all be faithfully duplicated with 14th level PCs. And these are avatars of gods.
Zeus? I'd peg him around level 12. And he's a full-on god.
When we think about "normal heroes" people like Robin Hood, King Arthur, Odysseus, Davy Crocket, heck, even Harry Potter, they never pulled off feats/spells/etc much higher than you'd get out of 8th or so level characters.
Given that, what could a 15th level character do? They are a fair challenge for Krishna. What could a 20th level character do? Uh, I dunno, I have no cultural touchstone any more. 25th level? 30th level? These terms don't even make sense any more.
The way I see it, you are as epic as your GM lets you feel. You can conquer/save the known world at level 10 if your GM writes that plotline. You could conquer Baator at level 13 if your GM writes that plotline. You don't need your character sheet to say "21" for you to do that; that's just arbitrarily self-limiting.
The "problem" with epic play is our cultural touchstones.
I guess that depends on your cultural touchstones, doesn't it? Thor, for example...
Meanwhile, Paul Bunyan created the grand canyon simply by dragging his axe along behind him; Emperor Palpatine created a device that turned an entire planet to cosmic dust in a single shot; Eurynome created the entire universe; the Dagda made the sun stand still for nine months so that he could have an affair with a goddess, get her pregnant, and have her give birth within the span of a single day; Cu Chulain (who wasn't even a demigod) outfought the Goddess of War three separate times while fighting a duel with another person (oh yeah, and he's only 17 at the time); etc.
Personally,
I'd rather see a monstrous pc's book over an epic one. Or over a psionic for that matter.
+1. I'd enjoy a monster-as-PC book more than an epic one, and I think it would get more use. Not to say I don't want both (all three - psionics, too) but the order matters here.
+1. I'd enjoy a monster-as-PC book more than an epic one, and I think it would get more use. Not to say I don't want both (all three - psionics, too) but the order matters here.Personally,
I'd rather see a monstrous pc's book over an epic one. Or over a psionic for that matter.
So you want to play a psionic, monstrous, epic-level character? ;)
+1. I'd enjoy a monster-as-PC book more than an epic one, and I think it would get more use. Not to say I don't want both (all three - psionics, too) but the order matters here.Personally,
I'd rather see a monstrous pc's book over an epic one. Or over a psionic for that matter.
Sounds like my DM. He loves playing monster races. He says he's done all the combinations mulitple times over and playing the base races is 'boring' to him now.
+1. I'd enjoy a monster-as-PC book more than an epic one, and I think it would get more use. Not to say I don't want both (all three - psionics, too) but the order matters here.Personally,
I'd rather see a monstrous pc's book over an epic one. Or over a psionic for that matter.Sounds like my DM. He loves playing monster races. He says he's done all the combinations mulitple times over and playing the base races is 'boring' to him now.
Same here. For a GM, you play every freaking combination.