What makes a monster Epic?

[EJVW]

As our merry band of adventurers creeps ever so closer to obtaining Epic levels, I've been mulling over the notion of authoring custom creatures for future encounters. However, before I attempt such an undertaking, I'd like to tap the collective intelligence of this community:

Do the Rules as Written (RAW) support that there is there a single statistic that elevates monsters (read: non-player creatures) into Epic status? If so, where is it addressed?

- I understand the RAW about a Challenge Rating (CR) of 21+ representing an Epic-level encounter for a standard group of 4 heroes (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard), but determining CR for non-published monsters seems much more akin to voodoo than math, in my opinion.

Instead of trying to artfully plot the CR of homebrewed monsters, what I'm looking for is a reasonable, objective, mathematical threshold (i.e. number of Hit Dice, average damage per round, minimum Basic Ability score, etc.) that I could peg as universal evidence of any being's Epic nature.

Acknowledgement:

I recognize that the Beastiary currently has a pair of Epic monsters; and that even if I didn't want to necessarily play Solars or the Tarrasque as villains when our campaign unfurls into Epic levels, I can either use any of our WotC- or 3rd Party-published Epic monsters, or even group non-Epic monsters in such a fashion as to be assured that the ensuing encounter will represent an Epic effort. But none of those RAW options are at the heart of my inquiry.

[Phasics]

what makes a monster epic ?

when the group can't win a fair fight with it.

e.g.
as a free action the cretaue return hit damage equal to the damage it just recived from a PC no save.

so they either figure out a way to have more HP total than your epic monster (unlikely if you give it crazy HP) or they need the "cheat to win" the battle.

beucase beating down an "epic" creature is kinda boring imho defeating a monster you can't beat straight up, more fun

and it bypasses the issue of making it balenced, don't try make it so overpowered they can't hope to win without setting a trap , luring it into xxx, disabling it by knowing its weakness etc etc

and don't forget multiple weaker cratures can still pose serious threats depening on abilties, a horde of CR18 monsters is no walk in the park even for epic charcters

[wraithstrike]

EJVW wrote:

As our merry band of adventurers creeps ever so closer to obtaining Epic levels, I've been mulling over the notion of authoring custom creatures for future encounters. However, before I attempt such an undertaking, I'd like to tap the collective intelligence of this community:

Do the Rules as Written (RAW) support that there is there a single statistic that elevates monsters (read: non-player creatures) into Epic status? If so, where is it addressed?

- I understand the RAW about a Challenge Rating (CR) of 21+ representing an Epic-level encounter for a standard group of 4 heroes (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard), but determining CR for non-published monsters seems much more akin to voodoo than math, in my opinion.

Instead of trying to artfully plot the CR of homebrewed monsters, what I'm looking for is a reasonable, objective, mathematical threshold (i.e. number of Hit Dice, average damage per round, minimum Basic Ability score, etc.) that I could peg as universal evidence of any being's Epic nature.

** spoiler omitted **

All it takes for Epic is CR 21+. The title of Epic may not mean much if your party is tailored to fight that monster though.

PS: There is a CR guide in the bestiary for what a monster's hit points, AC, and so on should be at certain levels. It may also be on the PRD website. It will be in the form of a chart. I dont know how high the chart goes in terms of CR though.

[Calthropstu]

Actually, anything with Epic DR counts as being Epic. There's a good number of epic monsters, the most powerful of which is the Tarrasque.

I have been toying with the idea of an awesome campaign idea... where suddenly a group of Mu Spores has somehow found some sort of food source and have begun organizing a colony around one spot. It happens to be close to a human kingdom and they see it as a threat. They ask the PCs to eliminate that threat. However, that food source just happens to be an endlessly regenerating tarrasque.

[anthonydido]

Why resurrect a 4+ year old thread?

There is no "epic" game term that describes creatures in that manner. You can have an epic encounter if the CR is APL+4 but how epic it will be depends on how suited to handle it the party is.

DR/Epic was introduced with the mythic rules (I think) and is meant to be a step above DR/-. The ONLY way to bypass DR/Epic is with an epic (+6 enhancement bonus) weapon and you can only get one of those if the GM allows it. Just having DR/Epic doesn't necessarily make the creature "epic" but it is a good indicator of how difficult a creature could be to kill.

[Hawktitan]

Mythic introduced Mythic DR. Epic DR has been around for some time.

[anthonydido]

Hawktitan wrote:

Mythic introduced Mythic DR. Epic DR has been around for some time.

Ah, ok. I thought I may have been mistaken.

EDIT: Are you sure about that mythic DR? I just browsed through the Mythic Adventures PRD and saw no mention of a DR/mythic, only DR/epic. It could be hidden in a feat or something that I missed.

[Kayerloth]

Unlike with Magic Items the 3.0/3.5 Epic rules never gave any guide lines as to what made a creature an "Epic" creature. Nothing along the lines of "if it is greater than 200,000gp, total enhancements equal to +11 or greater or +6 enhancement to attack/damage" for instance. Over all I think the boundary if you will between an Epic and a pre-Epic creature is fairly subjective and more of a zone rather than a line. I would lean towards developing something along similar lines if for some reason it is important for you or your campaign. There would not be in my opinion, typically, by a single stat that elevated a creature to epic status. CR probably comes closer than any other single stat and assigning CR is an art as much as hard science.

Damage Reduction (of DR/Epic) by itself is merely one marker of a potentially 'epic' creature. Both the Solar and the Tarrasque have DR/Epic, are both Epic creatures?

A Solar has indeed existed for a while (since about 1985). It existed prior to 3.0 rules much less the 3.0 epic rules. It was included in the module The Isle of the Ape with rules for what amounted to "epic" AD&D rules. It was for characters for levels 18+ <-- remember this is for 2nd Ed AD&D.

[Hawktitan]

Huh. I guess that it was just rolled into Epic DR. I remember Mythic DR from the play test but I guess it was decided that a different DR type was not needed.