[Raven Bloodmoon]

So I was flipping through the Forgotten Realms rulebook when I stumbled upon soemthing I had long forgotten about. There is a sidebar at the bottom of page 289 that might be of some interest to some of the people on here. It basically describes a vastly different way of handling epics from the manner presented in the Epic Level Handbook.

Quote

...At each level beyond 20th, a character selects a single epic-level benefit. Characters do not gain level-based ability score increases and feats beyond 20th level as they did before.

+1 Effective Level: The character gains a level in a class, acquiring the class features adn skill points for that class level, and inceasing his maximum skill rank by 1. He does not increase his base attack bonus, Hit Dice, hit points, or base saving throws. You cannot use effective levels to increase a character's class leevl above 20. You canot use effective levels to increase a character's level in a class that he abandoned (such as becoming an ex-cleric, ex-monk, or ex-paladin)....

+1 Ability: Add 1 to one ability score. This epic-level benefit replaces teh ability score increase taht characters normally get every four levels.

+1 Attack: Add +1 to base attack bonus. This bonus does not increase the number of additional attacks you get due to high base attack bonus.

+1 Bonus Spell Level: The character gains 1 spell slot per day whose level is oen higher than the highest level spell he can already cast in a particular class. This benefit is only available if a character already has 20 levels in a spellcasting class....No spells exist of a spell above 9th level for wizards, sorcerers, clerics, adn druids; 4th for paladins adn rangers; or 6th for bards. However, these spell slots can be used for lower-level spells or metamagic spells.

I omitted the examples. I think that is a tad less crazy than what the Epic Level Handbook presents, and may actually be what Wizards' original intent was, considering this was published before the ELH. Personally, I think I would allow two more abilities as follows:

+1 Epic Feat: Choose one feat that may be epic or otherwise. You gain the benefits of this feat.

+1 Saving Throw: Add +1 to your saving throw bonus for all saving throws.

I might even consider an epic-level benefit that grants an additional Hit Die, but none of the level-dependant benefits that go with it. So basically, you'd get only hit points from it. You'd also be creature with more HD, and thus not subject to as many spells.

Overall, I think it is an interesting varient for people who wish to venture into epics without the absolute insanity inherent in the Epic Level Handbook.

[Dthclaw]

Huh. Neat.

Unfortunately, I can't add this rule without seriously pissing off my ECL 21/22 group.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Hey, remember it for next time! Btw, any comments or suggestions? It looks pretty good, but anything to make it better would be appreciated. It's a shame they didn't actaully run with that version of epic levels...

[Dthclaw]

*shovel shovel shovel*

Mmm... gravedigging...

I'm actually going to be giving revised epic rules some serious work and consideration in the coming months. I do plan to heavily base my variant on the FR epic rules as originally presented, but with some other possibilities allowed. Going to be almost a direct read of the FR material, but I'm going to throw in some stuff for epic characters to start getting some truly neat and cool abilities to set them apart from other creatures (since the variant is going to make epic a little less, well, whacked than it is).

I will promise to update as I come up with stuff, if you'd like.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Definitely. Personally, I've adopted the idea, though no game ever seems to last into epics, of just making more class levels and continuing the progression out. I have no idea at what point that will break down, but until then, I figure it makes more sense than the current epic rules.　

[Dthclaw]

The problem with Epic RAW is that the designers approached it with the 'anything goes' attitude. They figured that no one was really going to use the rules anyway, and they had this notion that at 21+ they just shouldn't try deep balancing and should make crazy-nucking-futs abilities commonplace and borked to hell. (If that's not the case, could someone explain why they didn't bother supporting Epic beyond the ELH except for blurbs in the 3.5 DMG and small sections in the Complete series? These are the same people that had to release a 3.5 edition because they didn't bother testing 3.0 beyond level 10, after all)

If we're going to unbreak epic, the first thing that has to go is the current attitude. And then comes the rules.

Theoretically, with properly written Epic rules, level 21+ should make it into base rules rather than being an optional variant - an optional variant of critical importance to groups that go longer than the 270 encounters to from level 1 to 20. The biggest trick, really, is to just contain the power creep.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Very true. I'm currently trying to contain that creep by just creating the levels above 21st as people need them. I figure that way they should develop in a controlled and heavily playtested environment. The drawback is that not all classes will get the same number of levels at the same rate.

On a side note, I'm also experimenting with spell levels beyond 9th for those who do ventur into the epic range. They just creep in power at the same rate that spelsl already have been and are learned in the same way. Again, my thinking is to just take the core rules and scale them up until they break and observe how they break. I figure that should start to give clues as to how to revise the entire system to scale properly.

But for any of this to happen, I need to hold a group together beyond 20th level...hahaha

[Dthclaw]

Raven Bloodmoon, on Aug 2 2007, 07:32 AM, said:

Very true. I'm currently trying to contain that creep by just creating the levels above 21st as people need them. I figure that way they should develop in a controlled and heavily playtested environment. The drawback is that not all classes will get the same number of levels at the same rate.

On a side note, I'm also experimenting with spell levels beyond 9th for those who do ventur into the epic range. They just creep in power at the same rate that spelsl already have been and are learned in the same way. Again, my thinking is to just take the core rules and scale them up until they break and observe how they break. I figure that should start to give clues as to how to revise the entire system to scale properly.

But for any of this to happen, I need to hold a group together beyond 20th level...hahaha

As for levels: that's one way to do it, but it's really a stop-gap measure. There needs to be a rules reform on the entire issue.

As for spells: at spell level 9 you already have the ability to make your every wish come true, stop time for a little while (on yourself), stop time forever (on someone else), create giant explosions, make creatures implode, demand divine intercession... how are these scaling, again?

As for groups: you know you can always start at higher levels, right?

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Dthclaw, on Aug 2 2007, 08:54 AM, said:

As for levels: that's one way to do it, but it's really a stop-gap measure. There needs to be a rules reform on the entire issue.

Well, if each class only offers 20 levels, and you want there to be no level cap, how would you propose reforming the rules so that it scales without limit? Very few classes are so perfectly repetitive that they grow at a constant rate. Really, only the Fighter fits that bill.

Dthclaw, on Aug 2 2007, 08:54 AM, said:

As for spells: at spell level 9 you already have the ability to make your every wish come true, stop time for a little while (on yourself), stop time forever (on someone else), create giant explosions, make creatures implode, demand divine intercession... how are these scaling, again?

I don't use that set of spells, for starters. I have no Time Stop or Wish or Miracle...or Teleport...just don't ask. But that's my personal set, I suppose.

Dthclaw, on Aug 2 2007, 08:54 AM, said:

As for groups: you know you can always start at higher levels, right?

But they always say they want to start at 1st level...

[Dthclaw]

Raven Bloodmoon, on Aug 2 2007, 07:59 AM, said:

Well, if each class only offers 20 levels, and you want there to be no level cap, how would you propose reforming the rules so that it scales without limit? Very few classes are so perfectly repetitive that they grow at a constant rate. Really, only the Fighter fits that bill.

I don't use that set of spells, for starters. I have no Time Stop or Wish or Miracle...or Teleport...just don't ask. But that's my personal set, I suppose.

But they always say they want to start at 1st level...

Hmm, that's a good point on the scaling issue. I'm thinking of ways to deal with that while formulating Multiverse, but in d20 you need the epic nerf... hehehe, that should be an item, but I digress.

Ah... if you're throwing out the standard spell set then that makes things easier.

...

Why are so many people enamored with 1st level? Characters suck and die at 1 and have nothing neat to start with. I want my fantasy game off the bat, dammit >.<

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Dthclaw, on Aug 2 2007, 09:18 AM, said:

so many people enamored with 1st level? Characters suck and die at 1 and have nothing neat to start with. I want my fantasy game off the bat, dammit >.<

Well, with the exception of magic breaking an aweful lot of plots, higher levels can be a bit more interesting. But I guess I should just start beign truly evil to my players until they except that offer of 5th, 10th, or 15th level starting....lol....that or they'll start makign stacks of character sheets ahead of time.

[Dthclaw]

More cybernecromancy!

I'm actually working on revising epic rules in pretty much every aspect. One of the most basic is revising the economics of 21+, but Wizos unwittingly provided me with the perfect means to do this - the Magic Item Compendium. Basically, I reversed the formula they supposedly used for designing item level values, and instead based character wealth on these numbers. Because there's a steady progression from item level 21-30, it's actually easy to come up with plausible progressions for 31+ which seem balanced on the face of # of items of level X at character level X. These plausible progressions translate into formulaic wealth values for level 21+ (I ditched the given values for 21-30 and substituted the formula-derived numbers, using a half-rate wealth progression for 21+). I literally have a progression and table put together for levels 1-100 right now, and could easily extend it even further.

I also kind of reversed my thinking on epic levels - they should be extremely powerful. Rather than ditching the powers and abilities available, I'm just going to fix the more broken ones. The campaign I'm currently running just has epic levels and characters as extremely powerful Immortals, beings that run their own agendas and campaigns above the interference of other mortals. The campaign world's epic content basically either doesn't care about non-epics or are being held at bay by epics, allowing me to have two plausible sets of content in one campaign world. Anyway, hard for me to describe quickly, but it's going to be cool when my players get there.

[super sorcerer]

While the standart epic progression rules (of the FR) are OK (after testing it) there are a few problems I have with your saving throws increase. the only way to increase the DC of your spells/speacial abilities on epic levels is increasing your ability score. Even if you are a wizard who only increas his inteligence every level he gain you increas the DC of your spells by 1 every 2 levels. Any character who take the save increase more than half of its epic levels will sucseed every save at some point becouse it saves increase faster than the DC. It is similar to the problem we have with the epic level handbook rules and monks who use almost all of their feats on SR and DC of their stunning fist.
Although the +1 feat is ok if you forbid epic feats.

[Dthclaw]

Yeah, the balancing act in Epic is tricky no matter which way you swing the axe.

There's just an unfortunate problem of trying to reconcile RAW with balance. Basically, you just have to shoot for internal self-consistency and - if you go with a complete rework - tell the players to forget RAW altogether. Me, personally, I'm just reworking Epic into an actual epic guide rather than putting myself through the headache of trying to fix Wizards from the ground up.