I am curious what the thoughts of the pathfinder community are on the subject.
Epic Level play has become some what of a forgotten aspect of many games which is a shame.
What are the reasons?
Almost everything that previously was 3.5 D&D seems to have translated well enough, but Epic Level play is still left behind.
Is there anything good that can be salvaged from it?
Would it be best to have a brand new system to build from?
The biggest problem is that the d20 mechanic breaks down. You have the problem that good save always makes, bad save always fails. High BAB always hits, ect, ect.
I really like the idea of epic level play, but I find I works much better if you cap classes to 10 levels so a 25 level character will have to have at least 3 classes. This helps smooth the imbalances in different ability progressions vs the d20 mechanic.
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What are the reasons?
Rules complexity.
The devs aren't really a fan op epic play, and have done little to support it, in fact I'd say they largely have made it less feasible to have meaningful epic play because of the capstones. There are probably many reason epic play is rare but here are what I have on the top of my head.
1) Several mechanics largely fall apart- saves, bab, ac to name a few.
2) the disparity between many character types (martials and casters primarily) grows ever larger.
3) Capstones - Not all capstones but I think many capstone are a giant nail in the coffin. The staggering.number of just save or die power are going to quickly devolve the game into rocket tag. The vast majority of players and gms I know really don't like the game when it becomes that.
4) Very little support from paizo. There isn't a lot of support for epic play with a bestiary or rules, and even in 3.5 these were pretty limited. You'd largely end up fighting the same thing over and over, or your gm will have to custom make things(like level creatures humanoids or custom beasties), which starts to take a gigantic time expenditure at those levels for the gm.
In my opinion, the best epic campaigns start to hardly look like pf/d&d. Combats are rare, complex political/otherworldly plots need unraveling, etc. This leads to many characters being ousted as they are no longer really useful. Most the time you'd want to start at or close to epic levels so someone doesn't bring a fighter thats going to be useless 90% of the time to the party. Although realistically pf/d&d isn't the best system for strong story driven plot whichI have found you really need to make it ssuccessful, so.it may be better yo just choose a new system as well.
Epic rules for 3e and 3.5 were a VERY volatile subject and very hotly debated. As they were, people basically saw them as flawed, even those that liked them (as in the wizard20/fighter20 vs. the fighter20/wizard20 debates).
Hence, finding an arena which everyone agreed upon would be...difficult.
I think the option Paizo went, which is with Mythic rules, is actually a better choice overall.
The allowance in the core rules to let you PICK which epic rules you want to play with (so if you like the 3e epic rules, go with those, if you like 3.5 epic rules, go with those, if you like Sword and Sorcery's Advanced Players guide Epic rules...go with those...or maybe you like a combination of all of the above...so go with that) with a few vague guidelines I think is perhaps the BEST option they could go without causing strife and internal discord.
Honestly by the time I get to level 17 or higher I hope the game is done soon and we make new characters for a new campaign. There are sooooo many options for playable characters, I don't see why anyone would want to play as the same one for more than a couple of years and not get somewhat bored.
I concur with the rest. Also at epic levels the roleplaying breaks down. Someone on the path to godhood has very little in common with the guy starting a tavern for retirement, and they won't have a lot of options to talk either.
You would also completely run out of enemies, certainly ones that form any sort of challenge. Look at the recent mythic campaign, I killed 1 demon prince and redeemed a runelord.... so what are you going to throw at me for the next 10 levels?
Obviously, if your campaign is not part of a particular setting you could potentially create infinite evil to beat, although your players would have to wonder "why wasn't the world enslaved by evil before we could defeat it"
... Its just not that fun anymore, there's no struggle, no challenge and no growth. At that point you have to let go and start anew.
I am curious what the thoughts of the pathfinder community are on the subject.
Epic Level play has become some what of a forgotten aspect of many games which is a shame.
What are the reasons?
Almost everything that previously was 3.5 D&D seems to have translated well enough, but Epic Level play is still left behind.
Is there anything good that can be salvaged from it?
Would it be best to have a brand new system to build from?
Even at level 15 the game becomes much more difficult to manage for many GM's. 13 to 15 is where GM'ing become "not fun" for many GM's so getting some willing and able to run past 20 is difficult. Even with that aside real life often gets in the way. It takes a long time to run a game all the way to 20 and beyond.
We have mythic. That is less troublesome than epic levels and some complain about that so I think mythic is the best option for most groups.