How to fix epic play

[Jeremy Mcgillan]

So I started this thread to throw around a few ideas. Start to identify the problems with epic play, maybe we may even be able to get it too a point where it'll be more feasible and easier to play/ write adventures for.

1) A complaint I have run into a few times in the 3 campaigns I have run to 1st- 25th level. Power scale difficulties, Pcs and monster seem to jump in power really quickly after 15th level, dying becomes way to easy, magic items seem like candy in a pinata.

2) Instant death effects- Seem to be entirely too common at high levels, everything seems to be save or die all the time.

3) Massive damage- A wizard for example can do ridiculous amounts of damage, to a point that if it gets it's spell off half the party is dead.

4) Bulky amounts of number crunching- This gets to be a problem when you just don't have that many d6 to roll. Or your dealing with monsters with HP in the thousands.

5) Huge stat blocks that take up 2 pages. I've seen it and it does get ridiculous. From a GMs perspective it's entireley confusing to keep the number of ongoing effects in place, let alone which ability to use. From a publishing perspective this would be a nightmare to try and write up a single encounter and not use up all your word count.

These are just a few of the problems I have identified. Let me know some solutions or ideas. Lets use this as a place to have CONSTRUCTIVE thoughts on how to fix it, and not to bash peoples preference in game play, nor to rag on epic level play. Feel free to add any solutions or other problems you have identified.

[Alexander Kilcoyne]

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

4) Bulky amounts of number crunching- This gets to be a problem when you just don't have that many d6 to roll. Or your dealing with monsters with HP in the thousands.

This is the least of your complaints- just take average damage for the amount of D6's. An empowered disintegrate dealing 60d6 damage? 30x3=90 + 30x4=120= 210 damage.

[Majuba]

Alexander Kilcoyne wrote:

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

4) Bulky amounts of number crunching-

This is the least of your complaints- just take average damage for the amount of D6's. An empowered disintegrate dealing 60d6 damage? 30x3=90 + 30x4=120= 210 damage.

To preserve the effect of varying range (and some random fun), I created charts of results for large quantities of dice, averaged by frequency (so for instance, the average of the bottom 5% of 10d6 results is 24).

Here's the chart, can be quite useful (especially for those dual-wielding rogues!)

As for the topic as a whole.. in the past I've had very little trouble with Epic play, up to L.30. It could get a bit slow, but that was mostly due to 10 buffs coming from the Bard (and you can only get one song now).

I will say that it's my belief that the higher level you go, the more allowing non-core options will destabilize the game, particularly if hand-waving any costs for them (templates and such).

The only really crazy, "everybody dies", time I had was in a mirror universe scenario. Edit: oh yeah... and that time with the 12 Wail of the Banshee's in two rounds...

[Skeld]

Epic level play cannot be adequately fixed without rebuilding the entire system (or using and entirely different system for Epic). It's simply an outgrowth of what starts at level 1 and continues through level 20.

-Skeld

[Majuba]

Okay, so a full response:

1) Pcs and monster seem to jump in power really quickly after 15th level, dying becomes way to easy.
This always seemed to level off a bit for me after 20th. You *do* have to pay attention to level differences in the party, just as you always had to. A 21st and a 27th character can be as different as 5th and 12th level characters.

2) Instant death effects- Seem to be entirely too common at high levels.
So many ways to deal with it though - scarabs of protection if nothing else. Plus True Resurrection (scrolls/spells/tokens).

3)Massive damage- A wizard for example can do ridiculous amounts of damage, to a point that if it gets it's spell off half the party is dead.
Okay - that I had to deal with a bit (I actually forget exactly how). However, there were plenty of suggestions in the Epic Level Handbook, and Pathfinder fixed it a lot already (you have to hit half full hp, in addition to 50 minimum).

4) Bulky amounts of number crunching.
Dealt with above.

5) Huge stat blocks that take up 2 pages. I've seen it and it does get ridiculous. From a GMs perspective it's entireley confusing to keep the number of ongoing effects in place, let alone which ability to use. From a publishing perspective this would be a nightmare to try and write up a single encounter and not use up all your word count.
This is both the biggest actual problem, and the least.

It's virtually unavoidable... but... does it really matter? So you forget 4 things that would have wiped out a PC, but you remembered two others that *did*. The PCs will be forgetting almost as many things as you are. Enjoy it!

[Jeremy Mcgillan]

Majuba wrote:

Okay, so a full response:

1) Pcs and monster seem to jump in power really quickly after 15th level, dying becomes way to easy.
This always seemed to level off a bit for me after 20th. You *do* have to pay attention to level differences in the party, just as you always had to. A 21st and a 27th character can be as different as 5th and 12th level characters.

2) Instant death effects- Seem to be entirely too common at high levels.
So many ways to deal with it though - scarabs of protection if nothing else. Plus True Resurrection (scrolls/spells/tokens).

3)Massive damage- A wizard for example can do ridiculous amounts of damage, to a point that if it gets it's spell off half the party is dead.
Okay - that I had to deal with a bit (I actually forget exactly how). However, there were plenty of suggestions in the Epic Level Handbook, and Pathfinder fixed it a lot already (you have to hit half full hp, in addition to 50 minimum).

4) Bulky amounts of number crunching.
Dealt with above.

5) Huge stat blocks that take up 2 pages. I've seen it and it does get ridiculous. From a GMs perspective it's entireley confusing to keep the number of ongoing effects in place, let alone which ability to use. From a publishing perspective this would be a nightmare to try and write up a single encounter and not use up all your word count.
This is both the biggest actual problem, and the least.

It's virtually unavoidable... but... does it really matter? So you forget 4 things that would have wiped out a PC, but you remembered two others that *did*. The PCs will be forgetting almost as many things as you are. Enjoy it!

Ok as for the solution to #5 is a bestiary full of epic monsters with quick references for publishing. Problem is that would add to "necessary books for play" which is what paizo is trying to avoid. Also means production of another book..... so not much help I guess.

[Freesword]

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

1) A complaint I have run into a few times in the 3 campaigns I have run to 1st- 25th level. Power scale difficulties, Pcs and monster seem to jump in power really quickly after 15th level, dying becomes way to easy, magic items seem like candy in a pinata.

3) Massive damage- A wizard for example can do ridiculous amounts of damage, to a point that if it gets it's spell off half the party is dead.

4) Bulky amounts of number crunching- This gets to be a problem when you just don't have that many d6 to roll. Or your dealing with monsters with HP in the thousands.

Cap the numbers.

Set a hard cap where where they top out. Epic play doesn't need even bigger numbers. No more automatic stat increases. Cap BAB at 20. Cap number of hit dice at 20 with a feat that can be taken multiple times granting 2hp and set a hard max of 240 HP + Con mod (which is max for 20 d12). Max base saves at 12. Grant a feat every level which can be used to increase one of your numbers toward the cap or grant a level's worth of class abilities (with previous level abilities as prerequisites). Cap sneak attack at 10d6. I think that illustrates the concept.

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

2) Instant death effects- Seem to be entirely too common at high levels, everything seems to be save or die all the time.

5) Huge stat blocks that take up 2 pages. I've seen it and it does get ridiculous. From a GMs perspective it's entireley confusing to keep the number of ongoing effects in place, let alone which ability to use. From a publishing perspective this would be a nightmare to try and write up a single encounter and not use up all your word count.

Unfixable.

Let me elaborate.

Save or die are one shot fight enders/winners. At high level you have access to more of them. They will be more common. The best you can hope for is to cap DC and but allow saves to be improved up to a hard cap of maximum best base save for a 20th level character.

Stat block growth is inevitable so long as there is character growth. As long as characters can gain levels, they gain abilities and their stat blocks will grow. Somewhere around level 200 there will be a character with every class ability, maxxed BAB, HP and Saves, access to highest level spells on all spell lists, and nearly every feat in the game. The best you can hope for is to slow down the power gain past 20th. Character advancement pretty much == power gain.

[The Admiral Jose Monkamuck]

Freesword wrote:

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

2) Instant death effects- Seem to be entirely too common at high levels, everything seems to be save or die all the time.

5) Huge stat blocks that take up 2 pages. I've seen it and it does get ridiculous. From a GMs perspective it's entireley confusing to keep the number of ongoing effects in place, let alone which ability to use. From a publishing perspective this would be a nightmare to try and write up a single encounter and not use up all your word count.

Unfixable.

Let me elaborate.

Save or die are one shot fight enders/winners. At high level you have access to more of them. They will be more common. The best you can hope for is to cap DC and but allow saves to be improved up to a hard cap of maximum best base save for a 20th level character.

Stat block growth is inevitable so...

The original epic book did address this with an optional rule. Simply put instead of save or die you made it a LOT of dice if you failed, exactly as disintegrate now is.

More importantly this is not a problem that is specific to epic play, despite what some people think. You don't need access to 10 save or die effects, you just need access to 1. If you are willing to prepare it enough times you throw it plenty. How about a cleric that fills ever slot they can with slay living?

I think people's experiences are that people have been more interested/willing to resort to save or die effects at highter levels. I try to stear the players away from those effects at any of the levels they are available at.

[MicMan]

Make your own system, really.

I found Epic play to be handable under the following prerequisites:

1. Core rulebooks only!
This can't be overstated. A lot of the problems stem from a plethora of optimisations by combining the rulesbits from various settings and splat books (Nordic Berserkers with Temple Swords ftw) that very often are pure nonsense.

2. "E20"
At levels of 21+ each PC would get a flat out +1 to attack&saves every odd number and a new Talent every even and NOTHING else. Now go and invent Epic Talents like:
- your caster level is raised by one in regards to overcoming spell resistance and saves
- you gain Hitpoints as if you gained a level
- you are +1 to damage with a weapon that you have Specialised in
- your sneak attack does an additional d6 of damage
- your animal companion is advanced a level (max: your level-4)
...

[Jeremy Mcgillan]

MicMan wrote:

Make your own system, really.

I found Epic play to be handable under the following prerequisites:

1. Core rulebooks only!
This can't be overstated. A lot of the problems stem from a plethora of optimisations by combining the rulesbits from various settings and splat books (Nordic Berserkers with Temple Swords ftw) that very often are pure nonsense.

2. "E20"
At levels of 21+ each PC would get a flat out +1 to attack&saves every odd number and a new Talent every even and NOTHING else. Now go and invent Epic Talents like:
- your caster level is raised by one in regards to overcoming spell resistance and saves
- you gain Hitpoints as if you gained a level
- you are +1 to damage with a weapon that you have Specialised in
- your sneak attack does an additional d6 of damage
- your animal companion is advanced a level (max: your level-4)
...

I think not allowing a huge amount of excess rules and sticking with core stuff is pretty key.