How do you handle epic levels in Pathfinder?

[GM_Arbiter]

Just like the title says, I'd like to hear how people handle epic levels in Pathfinder. I'm about to start a PBP game at the higher levels to prepare for some things I'll be doing in the future RL game.

I'm aware of the existing suggestions in the Core Rule Book, but I'd like something more robust. And I dislike how the original 3X epic handbook handled things. Yes, I realize I'm being difficult here. That's why I was wondering what other people use and how it works for them.

One of my friends basically suggested gestalt - once the players hit level 20, they still gain levels but their bonuses cannot exceed the caps (+20 BAB, +12 to a save, 20 levels of spell casting in one class, etc.). That seems like it would work mathematically, but I'm not sure it would be satisfying to the players.

So, anyone got any ideas or anecdotes to share?

[sunbeam]

Good luck. 3.0 had an Epic Level Handbook, but as you can expect most people thought it was kind of broken.

The sheer number of things you can do at that level would necessitate very large playtests for a longer period of time than I think any company is going to want to go through.

The old Immortals supplement for Basic D&D had something that sort of worked. At least it was more playable than most things that have come out.

The biggest problem I see with your gestalt idea is exactly what kind of opponents are they going to be facing?

You might try snatching some ideas from E6. Maybe make it E20. That was kind of what most people did in the 1e era.

[Robot_nachos]

You know a third party company called little red goblin games just recently put out rules for epic level play called "legendary levels" it may not be a perfect system, but it is a very good one.

[GM_Arbiter]

Thank you both. Once the time comes, I'll ask my players how they want to handle it. It'll be a few months, at least, so there's time. I was hoping someone who runs a high level game would share what they use. But I will examine this new system.

Thank you both again for taking the time to respond.

[Artemis Moonstar]

I like how someone's group played it. Don't remember who, but I read it on the forums about a month ago concerning Epic Level play.

Advance side-ways. That is, you have the max level limit of the given class as per it's table, but while you cap at Sorc level 20, for level 21 you decide to advance into Fighter, and gain all bonuses and what not the fighter gets as is. BAB, saves, etc.

I have yet to manage to play a game like this, where you essentially just multi-class at higher levels, as my old group simply could not keep with a campaign for more than seven levels (games typically disintegrated due to clashing character mentality, GM burn out, players growing bored with their character because they didn't get to be the center of attention for a single session, etc).... I hope to one day play with a group that sticks with a campaign into sideways advancement.

It sounds fine on paper, though I'm not entirely sure how I'd handle advancing into spell casters, given that opponents will pretty much make their saves all the time, if I'm recalling higher level play right.

[Master_Crafter]

The main bar to epic lvl gaming in DND/PF is that the differences in different stats can become very unbalancing.

Saves and spell DC's are the biggest issue, especially the disparity of good vs. bad saves. Take out the key ability modifier for any spell DC/save bonus to normalize things and you see that save DC's for a full caster increase at a rate of 1/2 lvls. Good saves match this and give a +2 on top of it, but bad saves only advance at a rate of 1/3 lvls. by 20th lvl, when using a die roll of 10, the spell DC's outpace a bad saves by 3. Advance this trend to 30th (using hightened spells) and they outpace by 5.

Take out hightened spells and the good saves, which were previously outpacing spell DC's by a flat 2 across all lvls are now advancing to outpace spell DC's by 7. and these trends get worse with higher lvls, which is why most people don't play much past 20th, if that.

Under this no-hightened system, bad saves actually start catching up and by lvl 30 the disparity between a bad save and spell DC's is reduced to 1, but now in favor of the save vs the spell.

This trend is further complicated by touch AC and spellcaster's touch spells also, given that there are only so many things that affect touch AC (Dex, Dodge, and Deflection) which cap out, unlike the spellcaster's BAB under this system.

I think what most people do to deal with this is simply not to play at epic lvls, and those that do try not to venture too far into that realm.

Another tactic, however, is to cap bonuses, replacing them with better stats for multiclassing characters (thus a lvl 20 wiz with a +10 BAB could increase that by advancing as a fighter, up to +20 by replacing the worse stat for the better one with each lvl). This works best if you only allow advancement up to the lvls listed for each class, after which you have to multiclass.

A third tactic is to allow the stats to continue advancing at a static rate for all characters in lvls past 20 (usually 1/2 for all stats).

What I think I'd favor, however, is an amalgamation of the two, where if the character continues a single class past lvl 20, the stats increase by 1/2 lvls for that class past that point, regardless of what the progression was before 21st lvl. However, if a character multiclassed, after 20th lvl he may opt to replace the regular progression for any stat for a previously taken class with that of the new class, if it is better, in addition to the 1/2 advancment. All other stats maintain the flat progression.

This at least allows characters to progress without loosing benefit or becoming (any more) unbalanced, and allows the multiclass sorc/fighter to have the same stats at any given epic lvl, regardless of the order taken.

(sorc15>fighter15 might have a BAB from 13 [sorc 15/fighter 5] to 17 [fighter 15/sorc 5] at lvl 20, which could result in diff BAB at lvl 30 if only the static +1/2 were observed)

[Wiggz]

It also kind of sucks to be a 20th level wizard and do all the work necessary to become... a 20th level Wizard/1st level Sorcerer. Hoo-freakin-ray.

Honestly, I think the best way to deal with it is to take a book from 4E - make prestige classes that characters who have reached 20 can begin advancing in... just a handful, perhaps a dozen tops, but make them kind of unique with some interesting power options that might expand a character into the larger multi-verse.

This used to be much less of a problem in the old 3.0/3.5 because multi-classing and prestige classing was so attractive... but with the core and base classes being so strong, players are much more likely to want to stick to 1 class all the way through.

Take my two favorite melee types right now:

An Oath of Vengeance Paladin taking the Eldritch Heritage feats and following the Orcish bloodline... once he tops out at 20 there aren't a whole lot of directions for him to go as rules exist now. I'd be very tempted to retire him after an adventure or two.

A Sorcerer 10/Dragon Diciple 8/Paladin 2 on the other hand... he still has 2 more levels of Diciple, 5 more levels of Sorcerer and 18 more levels of Paladin to occupy his time, so 20+ play has somewhere to go.