We are playing ours for almost 6 months now and its still hella funny.
If there are more people like me please share your level cap campaign ideas here.
Ill post some when i get home.
I prolly won't invoke the 'immortality' feature of my epic destiny until after I've played a 30th level character for awhile. The only other time I ever played a 'godling' was in a one-shot Forgotten Realms game inspired by the Time of Troubles. So, it should be fun.
I'd really love to face off against Vecna someday. Big imagination, I know ;). I've seen the Archlich's stats though, and an outright fight would be insane, as in no way to win. Still, it would be fun I think.
As for powers, you'd gain a second Paragon Path, gaining the new paragon powers at 31, 36, and 40. (instead of 11, 26, and 20). You'd gain a new Level 22 utility at level 32, you'd replace encounters at 33 and 37 (with level 27 or lower encounters), and you'd replace dailies at 35 and 39 (with level 29 or lower dailies). We also toyed with the idea that when you replace these encounters and dailies, you'd now be able to select powers from any class with the same power source as your primary class.
The DM would then need to create all the creatures for the various encounters completely from scratch, since the Monster Manuals don't have a lot of stuff that would be challenging for such players, however if you're a DM that already does that, then it wouldn't be that big of stretch.
For items, you could either keep what is already there, or put in +7 and +8 versions of most things.
*groan*
Do you guys really just delete your characters when you reach level 30?
Haven't reached it via legitimate leveling in any of my games, but one of our "speed" games is close and I've done several one-shot delves and arcs at 30.
We are playing ours for almost 6 months now and its still hella funny.
It is, and the sheer insanity of your power levels and the stuff you're fighting is the RPG equivalent of (to mix geek metaphors) Morrison's run on the Justice League. I don't think it's got great long-term potential, though. Playing for ten or twenty encounters in an arc with a clear finale would be fun. Playing for years, I suspect I'd get tired of the uberness long before then. There's only so many times you can fight six Pit Fiends (a "soft" encounter, no less) or beat down Orcus or whatever before it just gets old.
Can't see where sticking rules for post-30 advancement would change that. I want to play honest-to-goodness supers, I'll dig out Mutants & masterminds or Champions or Aberrant instead.
Oh sweet jeebers. Now that you've said this I'm absolutely certain that Wizards is kicking around rules for Mythic Tier play (levels 31 to 40) for introduction possibly in PHB4.
*groan*
At one point one of my 3.x friends asked me what Divine Rank Asmodius was promoted to.
Well, I don't know about Asmodius but... Epic levels goes up to 30, and Tiamat is level 36... so Tiamat has 6 divine ranks, I suppose...
The fact is its not because you reached level 30 tht your campaign needs to die. The way they put it in the books its like for example: your character becomes a powerfull archlich and it made his own demiplane and now he is immune to anything, impossible to reach and he donest care anymore about the world etc... For some campaigns it works, but not for me.
If the group is still having fun and the Dm is creative the game still goes on. Imagine heroes like wolverine, dracula or anything alive for more than 200 years.He didnt grew stronger over the centuries, he just got more experienced and knows how to better use his powers.
Also when you first reach level 30 there are still dozens of items you still want for your character and there will always be higher level monsters gods and powers offering you any kind of possible threats.
Since now the players are important and probably are involved in some major political issues across their planet or even beoynd that. They could keep doing really world-changing deeds.
Even more, you can also start a low level campaign involving the same world and same story-line, maybe their sons, descendants or people involved with them somehow and run paralel campaigns(its good to see the repercutions of what your main character brought to the world).
Long forgotten villains could come back in new forms, imagine the old necromancer the pcs defeated in paragon made a pact with orcus and became something nasty.
Dont forget that when you mess with one god, faith or country you will never be 100% safe. Someone will always be plotting the PCs fall and they must be always ready for it.
And we expect to hit level 30 sometime later this year,
We have a Human Inspiring Warlord/Knight Commander/Legendary General
a Halfing Star Pact Warlock/Student of Caiphon/Radiant One
and a Half-elf Paladin of Kord/Astral Weapon/Demigod.
When we were approaching Epic the group discussed how we wanted the campaign to end, and felt that Epic characters needed a sufficiently powerful threat, one that if not resolved could mean the world would not be the same again.
As we had encountered Orcus cults on more then a few occasions (we make up our own adventures, but did play H1/2 and P1), we decided that the final enemy had to be Orcus, so the campaign went as follows
Paragon (level 18-21)
Orcus had plans to overthrow the Gods but first needed to distract (and hopefully eliminate) the Pesky heroes who had blocked him before, so he reanimated Kalaral (from H1) and sent him after the heroes with a legion of undead.
Epic (level 22-24)
After defeating Kalaral the PCs realise they've been duped and it was simply a distraction so Orcus could move against the Raven Queen, he had discovered her True-name and therefore she was powerless and he had taken over her realm.
The PCs had to fight their way into the Raven Queens realm defeat the Aspect of Orcus and Restore her True-Name, meanwhile Orcus was using the power gained from her to create a Ritual to awaken the Primordials and restart the war between them and the Gods, with Orcus left at the end to mop up the survivors and gain ultimate power.
(level 25-27)
The Gods become aware of Orcus's machinations and summoned the PCs to the Astral Sea where they are each given a Quest to locate an item by their respective God
Warlord (Erathis) The Golden Banner
Paladin (Kord) The Resplendant Axe
Warlock (Vecna) The True Hand of Vecna
when these items are brought together it will be possible to Bind Orcus into his realm for 101 years as punishment.
(Level 28-30)
The PCs must now fight their way into the Abyss and defeat Orcus to save all.
When we finish we'll put the Characters away, have fond memories of a fun campaign that ended well, rotate the DM duties and start a new Campaign two weeks later , in fact we already have basic plans for a Forgotten Realms campaign.
This can go two ways. A) WoTC keeps producing new books drawing out the standard campaign reach at ten level intervals, 40, 50, 60 etc... a lot like World of Warcraft, making new players have to spend lots and lots of money on PHB 1-6, which might bring in good profit, but it might also prevent anyone new from picking up D&D. Or B) The DM keeps the game going after level 30, coming up with new challenges that scale in difficulty, a lot like Guild Wars, making the game easy to pick up by new players, but eventually ending in a DM going crazy or running out of ideas.
While I wouldn't mind if there was another tier or something, I think in the end I like knowing there's a solid cap and after that there's a good chance to start a new game and try something new.
I think that being level 30 in a campaign setting still has great distance from being a Watchman -- you're popular, not forgotten --, but the idea is still there. You know the tricks, you've seen all the monsters. The real quest is to deal with something that's not so linear as "beat up the monster."
I don't expect I'll get to arrange such a quest any time soon, though. My group only just hit level 3.
My gaming group has talked about how we would go about running a campaign beyond level 30. Mapping out levels 31-40 wouldn't be that hard.
I'll share a secret with everyone here: I'd like to do this, but I Have A Plan.
Somehow, during the final boss fight, something goes wrong. Either an artifact asplodes, a time vortex rips open, something. They could even kill the BBEG for all I care.
The point is, everyone returns to level 1.
BUT! you keep the ability scores you had before and have to choose a different class, specifically one that uses different ability scores.
As you grow levels again, you will also recover powers from your previous life. Eventually, when you get to level 30 (again) you will have the power list from two level 30 characters.
For example, say the STR/CON fighter decides to become an Avenger for G2, with a focus on Wis/Dex. Later, that Wisdom bonus is going to make his OA's land like nukes, the boosted CON from G1 will give his Avenger incarnation more HP, and the DEX boost can even push him to be a light armor fighter.
The way I envision this, you will start to recover powers from your past life during high Heroic (7-8 ish), starting with trained skills and some low-level utilities. During early Paragon you begin recovering Heroic feats. During mid-paragon you begin regaining attack powers, and at Epic you regain at least one at-will power. By this point the extra points poured into G1 primary stats won't be overshadowing G2 primary stats.
By level 30 G2 you should be able to take on practically anything, so feel free to throw several uber monsters at the team (imagine fighting a nest of Ancient Red Dragons :drool
I've done some basic matharizing on this, and I think it would let you do Level + 2 as the new 'average' encounter difficulty. Run everything else as normal.
Example
Picking some reasonable random die rolls here
G1 Fighter, level 1
18/17/14/10/14/12
32 HP
G1 Fighter, level 30
26/25/16/12/16/14
214 HP
G2 Avenger, level 1 (assuming reset to L1 gives +1 to all)
27/26/17/13/17/15
46 HP (normal Avenger HP = 29-35, so not LOTS higher)
G2 Fighter-Avenger, level 30
29/28/25/15/25/17
223 HP (assuming higher class HP by this point, but would be 222 otherwise, so meh)
Picking some reasonable random die rolls here
G1 Fighter, level 1
18/17/14/10/14/12
32 HP
G1 Fighter, level 30
26/25/16/12/16/14
214 HP
G2 Avenger, level 1 (assuming reset to L1 gives +1 to all)
27/26/17/13/17/15
46 HP (normal Avenger HP = 29-35, so not LOTS higher)
G2 Fighter-Avenger, level 30
29/28/25/15/25/17
223 HP (assuming higher class HP by this point, but would be 222 otherwise, so meh)
As for a 31st level "class", the theme of each should represent what the new "immortal" has done with his new status. Much in the way that a deity develops a "portfolio" of influence to represent the realms of influence on it's followers, so would the PC eventually exert influence over the world in ways determined by the his or her choices.
I love the "reincarnation" sort of system there, with the reset to level 1 !!! Wow. So many possibilities. Absolutely genius. I'll be stealing that for my main campaign eventually, thankyouverymuch. :D
No problem! :D
Also, I just realized how awesome this would be for my Dragonborn Fighter. He's currently STR/CON, but I could choose Monk for my next incarnation. With my G1 ED as Adamantine Soldier, I negate all penalties from armor, because I'm basically one with the armor.
Now imagine G2: A high-level monk/fighter, kicking rear in heavy armor. Imagine the epic flying/jumping powers of a monk, backed up by the brute force of a tank-style fighter.
Oh, I totally have to do this now... It gets even better with Draconic Arrogance! Several monk powers push foes around, and I would be quite surprised if I can't find a way to increase the push distance of any power. Now imagine said tank-monk punching a dragon and sending him flying into the wall
[edit]: Gauntlets of the Ram
Do you guys really just delete your characters when you reach level 30?
We are playing ours for almost 6 months now and its still hella funny.
If there are more people like me please share your level cap campaign ideas here.
Ill post some when i get home.
Out of curiosity, two questions:
How do you "delete" a D&D character, and how in the name of Sweet Zombie Jesus did you reach level 30 so quickly?