Epic Levels, and how they are supposed to work in PnP

[BloodRiot]

I have to say PnP3.5 is a mess of a system. Allow me to entertain or bore you (whatever the case) with my research dissertation on the matter below. If anything just for my own amusement. Also forget what you know about NWN2. It's implementation of epic levels is not accurate to PnP which is what I'm talking about here.

I was reviewing what I thought I knew about the PnP Epic rules and I realized how a lot of the crap I thought about the matter was , even if only partially, incorrect, and I found some of its terms confusing.

Rules Source provided here: https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/basics.htm

First let's distinguish two confusing terms that are NOT interchangeable:
1. Epic Character
2. Epic Class Level

whatever you class level distribution, you become and Epic Character once you gain your 21st level. What this does is:
1. You stop gaining BAB at 20. All BAB and Save Progression is halted.
2.You gain +1AB every odd level, starting at 21
3. You gain +1 to all saves every even level, starting at 22
4. You gain an Epic Feat Slot (which can be used to take non Epic Feats as well) at levels divisible by 3 (21, 24, 27, 30...)
5. An Epic Character that takes a level that grants a bonus feat slots can only take epic feats if they are Bonus Epic Feat slots, such as the ones that fighter gains past level 20.

Epic Class Level, is when you raise a class above it's maximum (20 for base classes). What happens is pretty explicit in the link above. The short of it is that once a class goes above it's maximum, it stops gaining new features, though it continues to improve features that increase with class levels. Example would be a wizards not learning new spells past 20 but still gaining Caster Level. Epic PRC class levels though have a limitation: since you can only take epic class levels on epic characters, the earliest you can take an Epic PRC Class Level is still level 21.

Certain class epic benefits only kick in when you have reached epic class levels, regardless of character level. The requirements for Bane of Enemies state that you must be a Ranger 21+, not that you must be a character level 21+. Like in NWN2, a Ranger19/Cavestalker3/Assassin8 does not qualify, nor can get Bane of Enemies. Epic Spellcasting actually should function the same way. A wizard15/rogue15 would NOT be able to cast Epic spell because Epic Spellcasting requires you to have spellcasting progression of 21+. So a wizard 21+ works, a wizard12/EK10 would too (supposedly).

This is mostly to see jsut how different NWN2 treats this progression.

Let's compare a Fighter, a Rogue and Wizard all level 30 and see how their base scores would look under PnP compared to NWN2:
(For saves we are handwaving all scores at 10 we just want to highlight the differences here)

Case	BAB	Final AB	APR	Fort	Refl	Will
NWN2 Fig30	30	30	6	17	10	10
PNP Fig30	20	25	4	17	11	11
NWN2 Rog30	22	22	5	10	17	10
PNP Rog30	15	20	3	11	17	11
NWN2 Wiz30	15	15	3	10	10	17
PNP Wiz30	10	15	2	11	11	17

Seems pretty straight forward but now we need to add multiclassing examples. Let's work with an example of a fighter10/Rog20. Fighter First will take all fighter levels first, and Rogue First will take all rogue levels first. Remaining assumptions as above.

Case	BAB	Final AB	APR	Fort	Refl	Will
NWN2 Both Cases	25	25	5	13	15	9
PNP Fig 1st	17	22	4	15	15	11
PNP Rog 1st	15	20	3	11	17	11

This tells us that unlike nwn2 order of taking levels matters. It seems it favors taking high BAB classes before 20. The saves you end up with may also change depending on the order. BAB, and thus AB + APR tend to be reduced by comparison. Saves see small improvements compared to NWN2. For pure classes, the AB difference seems to be slightly flattened, changing less for lower BAB Classes and more for Higher BAB Classes.

My final conclusion of the system as a standalone and when compared to NWN2:
Personally, I think Epic levels are a bad addition to the game overall. Given a choice I'd not allow or play with Epic Levels altogether. They introduce over inflated stats and needless complexity to an already complex and crunchy game. That said, PnP seems to be more sensible with it's only drawback in my opinion being the extra complexity of having to choose an order to take levels to maximize gains.

I still don't like having epic levels, but i think pnp did it better.

Bonus tidbit:
If you MUST have Epic Levels, I would prefer the way DDO (yes, an MMO) did it. Basically an epic level in that game is a classless level. You gain the AB and saves like in PnP as well as the Epic Feats, but no class features or class skill points because there are none, because these levels do not really have a class.

[DaloLorn]

In a perfect world where we had absolute control, I think I'd favor a mix of PnP and NWN2:

• Take your 20 highest-BAB levels for BAB, and get an extra 1 AB on every odd epic level.
• Likewise, take your 20 highest-Fortitude, etc., levels for base saves, and get an extra +1 to all saves on every even epic level.
• Keep epic feat progression as-is. I'm not really married to either system here, but since we've already been playing with the current feat progression for a decade, it could be troublesome to sell people on the change.

Basically taking the PnP BAB and save rules, but eliminating the build-order complexity so that the end result at 30 is always the same regardless of build order. For similar reasons, I might favor retroactively increasing a PC's level 1 skill points when they took a higher-SP class (e.g. multiclassing from Fighter to Rogue would give you an additional 6*3=18 skill points at Rogue 1)...

[BloodRiot]

Ye it's pretty much a detailed version of what i had in mind for a "mostly PnP, but with the level order micromanagement removed".

[Goat]

Epic levels are a problem for balance sake, nor am I against the odd/even balancing act of saves and BAB. If the majority wanted it, it could be looked at, though it would require a rather large amount of work and balancing of alot of epic areas. Which is fine, just would be important to sort that out in some cases. Some areas may be fine however.

I'm not saying this because I'm pro or for this, I'm actually not sure my take on it, martials are strong of course, even with the proposed idea. It just narrows the gap between martial and other classes (Which isn't terrible) which means the PVE gap doesn't need to be so extreme in some cases.

I don't think feats need to be changed in full, but that's my take.

[DaloLorn]

Honestly, probably the most painful parts here are all about plugins. The BAB, AB, and save progressions suggested in my post are all virtually impossible without plugins (or at the very least a heavy dose of experimentation with lesser-understood NWScript APIs).

There is a chunk of PvE revamping to be done afterwards... but in a pinch, you could probably hack together a few scripts to programmatically adjust mob stats to taste.

[BloodRiot]

I'm sorry i'm gonna pull a Dalo here and nitpick language/understanding of the situation, for a beat.

My presentation on Epic Levels as they SHOULD be is not about making martials weaker in comparison to other archetypes, even though that will somewhat happens as a side effect. And the order of operations is also wrong, Ideal both at the same time, but as it needs to be a progressive work on both fronts, PVE should happen first. If anything so that people get to know the new PVE and see that the previously useless things now work, before you nerf them and the monsters remain as they are, "silly". Epic level overhaul would by have to be but ONE of the several changes needed to bring an arguably better pve home.

There are ways to pull it off without a plugin. I was actually having this discussion last night with Nlyh about how they pulled it off on an E15 server. Though if you can manage a plugin solution it MIGHT be better(?).

[DaloLorn]

That's nitpicking?

I do have a few notions of how it could be done without plugins, but I wasn't aware anyone had actually tried it out yet...