Local Heroes that are just starting out and learning the range of their new abilities
LEVEL 5 - 10
Heroes of the realm. By now, the heroes have mastered the basics of their abilities and have found their place in the world.
LEVEL 11 - 16
The heroes are now masters of the realm and have become shining examples of courage and determination. They are true paragons of the world by this point.
LEVEL 17 - 20
The heroes are now masters of the world and have superheroic capabilities.
However, I want to extend this beyond level 20, into the realm of epic play - as detailed below:
LEVEL 21 - 30
The heroes are now masters of the universe and start to face threats beyond their world. The threats are still only to their specific world, but they come from foes beyond the world, in which the heroes live. The heroes might face the Archfiends, for example. Or powerful, high ranking celestials.
LEVEL 31 - 40
As masters of the multiverse, the heroes now face truly powerful enemies and their actions affect many worlds, beyond their own. The characters are very close to becoming Gods at this point.
LEVEL 41 +
The heroes truly become Gods and entire worlds are created or destroyed by the power of their imagination, At this point nothing less than a God can even stand against them and their foes become The Great Old Ones, other Gods and time itself.
So I am just curious what you guys think. Is this a decent progression into the realms of epic play?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Makes sense enough I suppose. I take some issue with the last category though - I'm just not sure that without introducing divine ranks you can really demonstrate or replicate just how powerful gods are in the dndverse. Just getting there through class levels alone will leave glaring weaknesses that deities just... don't have.
I think I'd describe level 30-50 characters as being demigods. Anything above that and you'll probably need to make a divine rank mechanic to capture true divine power.
Also consider that, past 20th level, in a world with bounded accuracy growth slows down quite a bit. Most of the growth you get past then is horizontal and linear in nature. Being able to cast wish twice a day just isn't that much more powerful than being able to cast wish in the first place, if that makes sense, and having to reset spell progression for new classes can really be a damper on levels 20-30 and 40-50. It seems less like your abilities "Scale up" significantly, and more that they just last longer past a certain point.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
PbP characters: Allison Adrova - Reign of the Dragon King Delilah Thorne - Eidolons of Eramyth Melody Velias (Spy) - Power Trip
You can go back to earlier editions for this. I almost just took a picture of some tables and posted it but realized that would violate copyright but if you can find an old D&D Rules Cyclopedia it has break downs for up to lvl 36. Some of it would need some tweaking for 5e but not much.
It also has a small section on players trying to reach immortality. Suggesting they can go on epic quests after lvl 30 to pursue this end.
Problem is this bupkis ability cap. I've been a GM for almost 20 years and I've had PC with high stats AC so on an so forth. I still used low level monsters just increase the volume it turns into "horde mode" but the PCs had to disengage, win, or die their choice. I've never intionally PCK because one people get attached to their PC and two it takes time to reroll replacement PC which leads to the problem of a armored humvee rolling with Abrams main battle tanks. DEX stat will once again becom king if players want to survive an with a block on feats limits versatility players had to build their classes for survival without a high DEX stat. This " bounded accuracy " means players have to roll at least a 10 to hit an with AC less than 15 they always get hit unless the GM fudges rolls (because secretly a good GM wants his/her PCs to have fun and not almost dying every encounter) not that a GM should always do that because a lot of players like the struggle. Ultimately 5e will always play better with house rules and I like give my PCs magic stuff as rewards so that would only work with house rules stand point. Campaigns are ideas let your Players walk a path of their choosing an stear them when you need to get some type of plot rolling after you see their varied adventure interests. If player power throws a monkey wrench in the works get a bigger crowbar because their wrench will never beat your crowbar unless you want it too.
These are some pretty cool ideas. I can't see ever really playing this far, but maybe that's just me. I prefer the lower levels and grittier feel than the "super hero" aspect. I can't imagine DMing for such a powerful group either, to have to be able to maintain worlds on a whim. That's just my opinion though.
Local Heroes that are just starting out and learning the range of their new abilities
LEVEL 5 - 10
Heroes of the realm. By now, the heroes have mastered the basics of their abilities and have found their place in the world.
LEVEL 11 - 16
The heroes are now masters of the realm and have become shining examples of courage and determination. They are true paragons of the world by this point.
LEVEL 17 - 20
The heroes are now masters of the world and have superheroic capabilities.
However, I want to extend this beyond level 20, into the realm of epic play - as detailed below:
LEVEL 21 - 30
The heroes are now masters of the universe and start to face threats beyond their world. The threats are still only to their specific world, but they come from foes beyond the world, in which the heroes live. The heroes might face the Archfiends, for example. Or powerful, high ranking celestials.
LEVEL 31 - 40
As masters of the multiverse, the heroes now face truly powerful enemies and their actions affect many worlds, beyond their own. The characters are very close to becoming Gods at this point.
LEVEL 41 +
The heroes truly become Gods and entire worlds are created or destroyed by the power of their imagination, At this point nothing less than a God can even stand against them and their foes become The Great Old Ones, other Gods and time itself.
So I am just curious what you guys think. Is this a decent progression into the realms of epic play?
I think a supplement or specifically a book focusing on epic level play would be good. I would say probably up to level 30 with just a basic formula of how to extend beyond that.
Conceptually this all appears to be about right but for me personally I don't think D&D really operates well at those level, least of all 5e. I know it goes into homebrew so it can theoretically work but there so much balancing, narrative and gameplay changes that need to be considered that I think it is so rarely designed/DMed correctly. That isn't to say don't to go and give it a try, its more of a you're going to need to be a top tier DM to be able to execute all of this effectively, so be ready for that should your games get to these levels you're outlining.
You're going to need homebrewed abilities that are balanced but that are also befitting of characters that are 'basically gods', some regular fighter techniques and rogue sneak attacks aren't going to cut it any more. You're going to need to be ready to plot out from a narrative perspective the consequences of actions as they filter across a multiverse ,not to mention potentially designing said multiverse for the players to bound across (the usual setting for a D&D adventure basically multiplied). Then you're going to need to factor in completely upending the usual gameplay and narrative elements, players aren't wandering around adventuring any more, they can't just get quests from people and creatures, they're beyond that point now they can do as they wish and have the powers to do whatever they want. Level 20 can already be a challenge for DM's as players have the ability to go anywhere in the world at a whim so DM needs to be ready for them to do that, wherever they may go never mind when that includes a multiverse and they can basically do anything as well as go anywhere.
Its your game, so if you think you can do all that then by all means give it a shot its certainly not impossible. However there is a lot of posts I see of people wanting to move into Epic Level play and they rarely sound as if they have considered just how much they'll have to basically reshape the entire game/gameplay from the ground up. I design games for a living and I'd expect to need months of prep work minimum in order to execute gameplay at those levels to a quality I'd be happy with.
I have the Immortal books from the Basic D&D era, and I would suggest using something similar. Add a mechanic similar to Sorcery Points that represent a new set of abilities that your characters get access to as they approach semi-god status - otherwise, the bounded accuracy just kind of falls apart and classes will become quite redundant.
If you get a hold of the Immortal book it really covers the gamut of things a Demi-god would do.
Also get the epic level handbook from 3.5 and take a look at what they did with 4e 9now I don't like 4e but the characters were intended to go to L30 as a max there so it has some ideas.) you might also read the WotC Elminster series of books to see how an epic level character fits into the regular world - granted it was a 3.5 world not a 5e world but ...
In dnd, characters.are supposed to.go.high levels. This is fantasy...your fantasy... see, when.they made people like Mordenkainen and Elminster, THEY DID NOT MEAN FOR THEM TO BE THE.ULTIMATE HEROES. That was for all people, not you in particular. You see everybody..( time out I've been playing dnd since I was 7.in 1981 fyi ) ok, yeah everyone, everyone, listen up.. They are not the heroes of all time.... You know whom is??? YOU ARE...That's right YOU, the players..You are the greatest heroes of all time. Its fantasy. And what's the point of fantasy??? Living the dream... You wanna.be like Conan? Do it. You wanna be like Merlin? Do it. You wanna be Robin Hood? Do it. You wanna be something from your own fantasy??? Doooo ittttt. That was the point all along. Always was. And dont even get me started on that wish spell. If you had TRUE knowledge of the d&d multiverse, YOUD KNOW THE WISH.SPELL REQUIRES SOMEONE.TO GRANT IT TO YOU. That's why the Efreets are the richest race all around. They grant wishes.And being lawful evil heres the catch, they cant break thier word.... yall see that?? Gooood. Thats why people feel safe going to them, lawful evil can never ever break thier word when its givin as such. That's what they used to become so rich.And well, sorry but I'm tired of seeing my game destroyed by this spell, heres a spoiler... The wish spell is why Asmodeus dies in the end. He's based on the contracter devil hmm?? Why would anyone wanna sign a deal with that, In a world where wish works?? Oh jeez, is that why he made a deal with the efreets too?? Anothrr spoiler for ya. And from 40 years.... experience.. I can tell ya, no level 50 character would stand a chance vs a deity. Heres a third and terrible spoiler... Though when the next book comes out, I will be remembered. ( they're talking bout continuing from where Elminster and Mystra fought ) Elminster never beat Mystra. look at 3ed, its simpler for most modern players than 1ed n 2ed .If you look at 3ed, an average deity has 40 character levels. Plus another 20 of the dm's choice. Plus 20 of the most powerful outsider hit dice in existance. All counting towards thier challenge rating. Plus thier divine ranks get counted as well. Mystras was a 10. So right off the bat without adding domain of the deity or followers, Mystra was a challenge rating 90 encounter. Elminster was a 34....lol....Theres no way in the 9 plane's of hell he.beat Mystra. All deities do have a thing called avatars though.... and avatars are only exactly half the strength of the deity. Her avatar would be a cr of 45. A bit high for a 34, but.. for a legend like Elminster, not impossible. Plus if you know about deities, they only fight to half thier power.. avatars included. Meaning Elminster only foght half that avatars power... it's TRUE...oh it is...oh it is.. dnd takes years of dm'ing before you begin to fully understand all the rules and implications. And I can tell yeah, take a 1ed or 2ed player with ya when you go beyond level 20. They'll show you what's up in those levels. They're used to it. Cause they know same as me about that wish spell.
Hi Guys,
in the DMG - the tiers of play are as follows
However, I want to extend this beyond level 20, into the realm of epic play - as detailed below:
LEVEL 21 - 30
The heroes are now masters of the universe and start to face threats beyond their world. The threats are still only to their specific world, but they come from foes beyond the world, in which the heroes live. The heroes might face the Archfiends, for example. Or powerful, high ranking celestials.
LEVEL 31 - 40
As masters of the multiverse, the heroes now face truly powerful enemies and their actions affect many worlds, beyond their own. The characters are very close to becoming Gods at this point.
LEVEL 41 +
The heroes truly become Gods and entire worlds are created or destroyed by the power of their imagination, At this point nothing less than a God can even stand against them and their foes become The Great Old Ones, other Gods and time itself.
So I am just curious what you guys think. Is this a decent progression into the realms of epic play?
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Makes sense enough I suppose. I take some issue with the last category though - I'm just not sure that without introducing divine ranks you can really demonstrate or replicate just how powerful gods are in the dndverse. Just getting there through class levels alone will leave glaring weaknesses that deities just... don't have.
I think I'd describe level 30-50 characters as being demigods. Anything above that and you'll probably need to make a divine rank mechanic to capture true divine power.
Also consider that, past 20th level, in a world with bounded accuracy growth slows down quite a bit. Most of the growth you get past then is horizontal and linear in nature. Being able to cast wish twice a day just isn't that much more powerful than being able to cast wish in the first place, if that makes sense, and having to reset spell progression for new classes can really be a damper on levels 20-30 and 40-50. It seems less like your abilities "Scale up" significantly, and more that they just last longer past a certain point.
PbP characters:
Allison Adrova - Reign of the Dragon King
Delilah Thorne - Eidolons of Eramyth
Melody Velias (Spy) - Power Trip
You can go back to earlier editions for this. I almost just took a picture of some tables and posted it but realized that would violate copyright but if you can find an old D&D Rules Cyclopedia it has break downs for up to lvl 36. Some of it would need some tweaking for 5e but not much.
It also has a small section on players trying to reach immortality. Suggesting they can go on epic quests after lvl 30 to pursue this end.
That's what happens when you wear a helmet your whole life!
My house rules
Problem is this bupkis ability cap. I've been a GM for almost 20 years and I've had PC with high stats AC so on an so forth. I still used low level monsters just increase the volume it turns into "horde mode" but the PCs had to disengage, win, or die their choice. I've never intionally PCK because one people get attached to their PC and two it takes time to reroll replacement PC which leads to the problem of a armored humvee rolling with Abrams main battle tanks. DEX stat will once again becom king if players want to survive an with a block on feats limits versatility players had to build their classes for survival without a high DEX stat. This " bounded accuracy " means players have to roll at least a 10 to hit an with AC less than 15 they always get hit unless the GM fudges rolls (because secretly a good GM wants his/her PCs to have fun and not almost dying every encounter) not that a GM should always do that because a lot of players like the struggle. Ultimately 5e will always play better with house rules and I like give my PCs magic stuff as rewards so that would only work with house rules stand point. Campaigns are ideas let your Players walk a path of their choosing an stear them when you need to get some type of plot rolling after you see their varied adventure interests. If player power throws a monkey wrench in the works get a bigger crowbar because their wrench will never beat your crowbar unless you want it too.
These are some pretty cool ideas. I can't see ever really playing this far, but maybe that's just me. I prefer the lower levels and grittier feel than the "super hero" aspect. I can't imagine DMing for such a powerful group either, to have to be able to maintain worlds on a whim. That's just my opinion though.
I think a supplement or specifically a book focusing on epic level play would be good. I would say probably up to level 30 with just a basic formula of how to extend beyond that.
Conceptually this all appears to be about right but for me personally I don't think D&D really operates well at those level, least of all 5e. I know it goes into homebrew so it can theoretically work but there so much balancing, narrative and gameplay changes that need to be considered that I think it is so rarely designed/DMed correctly. That isn't to say don't to go and give it a try, its more of a you're going to need to be a top tier DM to be able to execute all of this effectively, so be ready for that should your games get to these levels you're outlining.
You're going to need homebrewed abilities that are balanced but that are also befitting of characters that are 'basically gods', some regular fighter techniques and rogue sneak attacks aren't going to cut it any more. You're going to need to be ready to plot out from a narrative perspective the consequences of actions as they filter across a multiverse ,not to mention potentially designing said multiverse for the players to bound across (the usual setting for a D&D adventure basically multiplied). Then you're going to need to factor in completely upending the usual gameplay and narrative elements, players aren't wandering around adventuring any more, they can't just get quests from people and creatures, they're beyond that point now they can do as they wish and have the powers to do whatever they want. Level 20 can already be a challenge for DM's as players have the ability to go anywhere in the world at a whim so DM needs to be ready for them to do that, wherever they may go never mind when that includes a multiverse and they can basically do anything as well as go anywhere.
Its your game, so if you think you can do all that then by all means give it a shot its certainly not impossible. However there is a lot of posts I see of people wanting to move into Epic Level play and they rarely sound as if they have considered just how much they'll have to basically reshape the entire game/gameplay from the ground up. I design games for a living and I'd expect to need months of prep work minimum in order to execute gameplay at those levels to a quality I'd be happy with.
I have the Immortal books from the Basic D&D era, and I would suggest using something similar. Add a mechanic similar to Sorcery Points that represent a new set of abilities that your characters get access to as they approach semi-god status - otherwise, the bounded accuracy just kind of falls apart and classes will become quite redundant.
If you get a hold of the Immortal book it really covers the gamut of things a Demi-god would do.
Also get the epic level handbook from 3.5 and take a look at what they did with 4e 9now I don't like 4e but the characters were intended to go to L30 as a max there so it has some ideas.) you might also read the WotC Elminster series of books to see how an epic level character fits into the regular world - granted it was a 3.5 world not a 5e world but ...
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
In dnd, characters.are supposed to.go.high levels. This is fantasy...your fantasy... see, when.they made people like Mordenkainen and Elminster, THEY DID NOT MEAN FOR THEM TO BE THE.ULTIMATE HEROES. That was for all people, not you in particular. You see everybody..( time out I've been playing dnd since I was 7.in 1981 fyi ) ok, yeah everyone, everyone, listen up.. They are not the heroes of all time.... You know whom is??? YOU ARE...That's right YOU, the players..You are the greatest heroes of all time. Its fantasy. And what's the point of fantasy??? Living the dream... You wanna.be like Conan? Do it. You wanna be like Merlin? Do it. You wanna be Robin Hood? Do it. You wanna be something from your own fantasy??? Doooo ittttt. That was the point all along. Always was. And dont even get me started on that wish spell. If you had TRUE knowledge of the d&d multiverse, YOUD KNOW THE WISH.SPELL REQUIRES SOMEONE.TO GRANT IT TO YOU. That's why the Efreets are the richest race all around. They grant wishes.And being lawful evil heres the catch, they cant break thier word.... yall see that?? Gooood. Thats why people feel safe going to them, lawful evil can never ever break thier word when its givin as such. That's what they used to become so rich.And well, sorry but I'm tired of seeing my game destroyed by this spell, heres a spoiler... The wish spell is why Asmodeus dies in the end. He's based on the contracter devil hmm?? Why would anyone wanna sign a deal with that, In a world where wish works?? Oh jeez, is that why he made a deal with the efreets too?? Anothrr spoiler for ya. And from 40 years.... experience.. I can tell ya, no level 50 character would stand a chance vs a deity. Heres a third and terrible spoiler... Though when the next book comes out, I will be remembered. ( they're talking bout continuing from where Elminster and Mystra fought ) Elminster never beat Mystra. look at 3ed, its simpler for most modern players than 1ed n 2ed .If you look at 3ed, an average deity has 40 character levels. Plus another 20 of the dm's choice. Plus 20 of the most powerful outsider hit dice in existance. All counting towards thier challenge rating. Plus thier divine ranks get counted as well. Mystras was a 10. So right off the bat without adding domain of the deity or followers, Mystra was a challenge rating 90 encounter. Elminster was a 34....lol....Theres no way in the 9 plane's of hell he.beat Mystra. All deities do have a thing called avatars though.... and avatars are only exactly half the strength of the deity. Her avatar would be a cr of 45. A bit high for a 34, but.. for a legend like Elminster, not impossible. Plus if you know about deities, they only fight to half thier power.. avatars included. Meaning Elminster only foght half that avatars power... it's TRUE...oh it is...oh it is.. dnd takes years of dm'ing before you begin to fully understand all the rules and implications. And I can tell yeah, take a 1ed or 2ed player with ya when you go beyond level 20. They'll show you what's up in those levels. They're used to it. Cause they know same as me about that wish spell.