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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 4:13AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jul 23, 2008
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I have to admit that I love having the three tiers of play: heroic, paragon and epic. My idea of removing them will not prove to be popular with 4th fans.
The disparity between an epic tier monster and a heroic PC seems disjointed. If PCs are meddling with an Ancient Red Dragon's plans, why can't he just swoop down and roast them alive at heroic level? An coming up for reasons why the red dragon wouldn't bother leads to stupid or busy villains.
Removing the paragon and epic tiers and having Balors, Dragons, and what-not, at the top of heroic (10th level threat) level, gives them a more active participation in a lower level PCs career. It also puts these critters in striking distance at mid-heroic level (maybe).
This would cut campaign times down but it can be extended by having the XP required to go up for each level.
If removing both paragon and epic tier is too much, then Epic needs to go. Plus, with lesser levels to play, players can try out a lot more of the different classes during the life of an edition.
TL;DR- tiers of play too long; axe both Epic and Paragon- Epic at least .
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 4:27AM
#2
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totally disagree. the idea of actually being forced by a dm to stay at 1st level for even longer strikes me as one of the most uniquely terrible dnd ideas ive ever heard, going back to 1982
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 4:27AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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I don't realy care about epic tier and are planning on going to lvl 20. If the players realy want to go over that (assuming we get to lvl 20) I'll consider it and see how much fun I'm having as well.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 4:35AM
#4
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With a bit of planning and thinking I don't come across the issues you mention. After all, heroic characters will just be disrupting some of the minor plans of that ancient red dragon and if the red dragon is going to personally kill those pesky fleas it means some other more important plans will fail, not to mention that the dragon just painted a big bull's eye to all his enemies to the fact he has a vested interest in the area. For the three tiers to work, you must take care to also keep adventure focus on the right scale for the specific tier or else you will indeed need to look for excuses on wy the dragon does not scourge the PCs or how to top your plot once again. Besides, reducing the xp, and removing paragon play is very drastic. From observing my players, they need to changes to their charaxters once every 8 encounters. If you reduce the number of xp, you probably need to make leveling a bit more significant. Wouldn't it be easier to simply start at level 11?  As for epic, that is already more or less an optional level. There is no reason to use it. I never had the characters fight deities and demon lords in my previous editions, and I did not had to look for excuses to keep them from direct involvement. So why should that be harder in 4E? Mind you, I am looking forward to giving it a try in my current game. It is the first time the epic rules look this workable
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 4:37AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2005
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I don't think they need to be "officially" removed though. Unless you are saying to compress all 30 levels into 10 (i.e. using +6 weapons at level 10 type of deal).
If I wanted the players fighting creatures of that sort in my game by level 10, I would just lower the level of the monster and tweak the stats so that it would be an appropriate challenge (or on the hard side if it was ment to be the final climatic battle).
I don't think it's a bad idea, however.
Welcome to ZomboniLand - My D&D Blog http://zomboniland.blogspot.com/
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 5:08AM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 13, 2009
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It's not like players enter the game with a big sign over their head stating "will be killing ancient dragons in about 2 years". That dragon probably has something better to do.
Epic Dungeon Master Want to give your players a kingdom of their own? I made a 4e rule system to make it happen! Your Kingdom awaits!Update 5th Sep 2011: Added a sample kingdom, as well as sample of play.
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 6:22AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jan 20, 2005
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It's standard fantasy. In a world of random heroes most big villians probably expect some hero meddling. Perhaps there is another group of higher level the BBEG was dealing with while your rag tag group of adventurers stopped a different facet of the plan.
"OK, I am just going to send waves of peons at you until you finally show up in my lair where I will take you out personally, which you should take as a great honor that I even bother with you."
They just don't realize how much of a pain the PC's are until it is too late.
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 6:38AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Sep 28, 2010
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A few other possible approaches that I find personally very rewarding and require no hand-waving, lamp-shading or other silliness are:
- Whether by purpose or accident, the players create/unleash the BBEG. Big Bad isn't stomping them down, because he's simply not around to do so.
- Again, purposefully or unwittingly, the players have been working for towards the BBEGs ends throughout the campaign. People do "the wrong thing for the right reasons" all the time. Every action they take may not have been beneficial to Big Bad, but the fact that much of what they've done has been useful in some fashion.
- Mix in some "villain of the week" type storytelling. Your campaign may have an over-arching storyline and Big Bad, but every moment of every day hasn't been thwarting their plans... The party may not even know there are plans to foil. Every goblin raid isn't masterminded by some eldritch evil, and every war isn't spurred on by some violence craving demon. Sometimes people do @#$%ed-up things because they want to, and the PCs stopping this isn't thwarting some great scheme, just them doing what's right in the situation.
Of course, you can mix and match all of these--or ignore the whole of it and just play a straight up 1-10 campaign. Some folks appreciate this, and it works well for a lot of groups and players. Removing it wholesale from the game, (ripping this content out of everyone's books and not publishing it in the future) however, isn't enabling story, it's making it harder to create.
Jackonomicon™ It's not always safe for work, but it's great for play. It's my blog, yo.
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 7:00AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Oct 24, 2001
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I'm not averse to the idea. However, I have comfortably ignored experience points for the past eight years, so however many levels the game is compressed into will not affect my game much. The party will still level when my campaign design is ready for them to.
For example, I am currently running Scales of War. However, I have cut at least a third of the encounters of each adventure arc thus far -- removing all of the filler encounters, collapsing two successive encounters into one in some, and turning a few others into "nothing to fight here" exploration encounters in others. Because of this, the party has made it to the mid-point of Shadow Rift of Umbraforge (and fifth level) in just six sessions. We anticipate finishing the first eight adventures (and 11 levels) by the end of the summer, playing just once a week.
Here are the PHB essentia, in my opinion: - Three Basic Rules (p 11)
- Power Types and Usage (p 54)
- Skills (p178-179)
- Feats (p 192)
- Rest and Recovery (p 263)
- All of Chapter 9 [Combat] (p 264-295)
A player needs to read the sections for building his or her character -- race, class, powers, feats, equipment, etc. But those are PC-specific. The above list is for everyone, regardless of the race or class or build or concept they are playing.
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2 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2011 - 7:18AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Apr 11, 2007
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If PCs are meddling with an Ancient Red Dragon's plans, why can't he just swoop down and roast them alive at heroic level? An coming up for reasons why the red dragon wouldn't bother leads to stupid or busy villains.
"...leads to stupid or busy villains..."? Ummm, how? Top brass always has underlings to do exactly this sort of work. If you get a bad tire from Les Schwab Tires, Les himself isn't going to come down and replace the tire for you. He's going to have his stores and their management tiers deal with things according to a structure he set up. Bin Laden himself wasn't running around with a bomb tied to his waist. He had lesser idiots to do the dirty work. An Ancient Red Dragon who is apparently working on something dire enough to involve adventurers isn't doing it on his own. He has his own chain of command, power-structure, management tiers, or whatever, with people whose job it is to deal with the possibility of heroes galloping in to thwart his plans.
I don't buy the stereotype of the arrogant villain sitting confidently on his velvet cushions until the heroes beat in the door to his room. Each tier of underlings is like the wall of a fortress. If the heroes defeat the heroic tier walls, the dragon raises an eyebrow and reinforces the paragon tier walls. If they get through those defenses, the dragon reinforces the epic tier walls and maybe takes a more direct hand. This means he has to put other parts of his grand plan on hold, but the party needs to be dealt with directly, not unlike the notion of Les Schwab coming down personally to supervise the changing of your tire. As the epic tier walls begin to crumble, if the PCs have been so lucky, the dragon takes a more direct hand, maybe personally reinforcing the remaining epic tier defenses. (Les personally changes your tire.)
It's not stupid nor is it too busy. It's organization and prioritizing.
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