Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Nessaj 12-04-07, 01:41 PM	I've gotten a chance to play a 21st level "Epic" duel and while I smoked the competition, I'm trying to get a feel for epic play...In particular, attack, armor class, saves, spell DC's, skill modifiers. I guess my question is rather vague, but I'm wondering what constitutes the sort of modifiers you want to shoot for in low-level Epic play (21-30). Low levels it's easier...At level 10 a +6 Will is low. +10 is decent and +16 is pretty good. At level 21? I've made chars with everything from +15 to +47 (the Dry Lich Cleric Walker in the Waste I used in the duel). Do you practically HAVE to power-game or be a spellcaster (read: powergame :rolleyes: ) in order to survive Epic? A lot of the very low CR monsters are doable for the average party of 20th level chars, but they seem to get out of control quite fast. So...Advice, anyone?
evangelion1010 12-04-07, 06:40 PM	The answer is... it really depends. Excusing characters of infinite or near infinite stats/damage for the time being, you can take one thing out of epic - go big or go home. This applies more to some things than others, but since so many things are determined by a d20 roll, in epic you quickly get to a point on several things. 1. You either have an AC of about 3+ times your ECL, or you don't. (3x is actually somewhat low for AC optimization) 2. If you've multiclassed a lot pre-epic (and you don't use fractional saves), you will tend to have about a 50% better chance than even a monk to make the same save, if it is a class save. If you're a paladin or hexblade it's not hard to have a +5-10 to all saves that no one else will have (+11 from tome/item and a decent base stat gives you a +6-7) 3. It's easier to hit than to do much of anything else. Strength is by far the easiest stat to procure - you get it from changing sizes, and monsters tend to have higher strength scores than any other, and any other methods of getting a stat boost are still valid. 4. Planned right, you can make a character with 10 in everything but charisma. By epic you can have Cha to AC 3-4 times(different bonuses), to saves 1-2 times, replacing strength for attack and damage, and possibly getting it to initiative. Beyond that... You should have immunity to all the 5 energy types, energy drain, ability damage/drain, critical hits/sneak attacks, fear, and mind influencing abilities. Truly optimized characters are technically immune to everything besides sacred, untyped, or 'it only appeared in this one obscure book' damage. Even this is questionable, as they take most things as subdual damage (but surprise, are immune to subdual damage) You should also have things that negate MOST things, such as having an anti-magic field which doesn't affect you or your items (and ideally a way to counter mage's disjunction) In a mostly core epic game with fractional saves and limited epic spells, between levels 20-30, i'd say 40 is a 'high stat' (make that 50-60 if you pour everything into it. Physical stats, especially strength, are exceptions.) Save wise i'd say a +30 to a save is good. AC varies, but 60-70 should be a goal, as it's easier to hit than to prevent a hit. Evasion and mettle are always good...
Taeldrin Laesrash 12-04-07, 08:59 PM	http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=822147 Check out this thread for one set of charts on recommended epic stats. Further discussion goes on about stuff like buffs and item allocation and stuff like that.
Tequila_Sunrise 12-05-07, 12:47 AM	It's impossible to answer that question, except as a reference to a single group's game. Possibly the thing I dislike most about the ELH is the wildly varying power levels which it encourages. Thanks to static epic BAB, a sudden stop in spell progression, epic spell casting, a free-for-all item mentality and a heavy dependance on feat choice, one epic character can have ten times the bonuses that a similarly conceptualized character has. In one 30th level game a +40 AB might be good enough to hit any monster while in another 30th level game you'd need at least a +80. And Pelor forbid two fighters with such wildly different stats are in the same game...
Nessaj 12-05-07, 08:37 AM	Tequila's post captures my sentiment exactly...However I must thank the first two posters for the links and information provided; they are excellent sources! That was pretty much what I was looking for...I knew somewhere someone had to have looked into this already. It seems though, that if you want to play Epic, you HAVE to design your characters to be as powerful as possible (which may sound like a no-brainer considering you're supposed to be above and beyond normal adventurers but not everyone can optimize equally...).
Krispieman 12-06-07, 05:02 AM	It seems though, that if you want to play Epic, you HAVE to design your characters to be as powerful as possible. This is only as true as your DM makes it true. Several of the PCs in my campaign are far from optimized (the one coming closest is a Druid(/Monk) using the Shifter feature from PHB2), but they are still able to take on most of the challenges I present them. So only if your DM likes to throw highly optimized groups of monsters at you, you need to be optimized. Otherwise, you can just play a character you have fun with and your DM will (should?) adjust his challenges appropriately. K-man :cool:
IceFractal 12-08-07, 02:53 AM	Well, I wouldn't say "as powerful as possible" - that would be a tweaked-up caster, which generally leads to infinite loops and crazy damage that requires scientific notation. Fairly optimized though, does seem to be the assumption the ELH monsters were based on. And since the numbers in that thread were directly based off monsters of that CR, I think they can be assumed to be the average. Now while you can of course run a low-powered Epic game, it does mean that the CRs will be increasingly inaccurate, to the extent that a 30th level party stands no chance against CR 30 monsters.