Epic Ravenloft

[NeoTiamat]

Just to throw something out here, but something to consider is whether or not the campaign in question started at low level and worked up to Epic, or whether it was designed to start at level 20 or what-not.

Consider a group of PCs who've reached Epic after a multi-year campaign. They've already done all of your classic monsters. They've met vampires, they've met werewolves, they've probably tracked down a Created or two, maybe gotten into a tiff with some Shadow Fey, etc. They've grown and evolved and developed as characters (hopefully, at any rate), and now they've become powerful enough that they can make a difference on a big scale. You might consider Epic level, in this case, as kind of a long-awaited reward. Now is your chance to finally go and try and kick Azalin in the teeth, after being harassed by Kargat for the last twenty levels / 2-3 years.

I'll grant you that in 'pure Gothic Horror' traditions, the PCs are supposed to lose at the end and it all ends in tragedy, but that's not really very conductive for maintaining an ongoing campaign. The PCs have hit Epic, let them reap the rewards.

Just be sure you make them work for it.

[Garudos Celestar]

I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the US, English beat out German as the national language by one vote-so one man can matter.

Strictly speaking, "no official language" beat out German by one vote... English wasn't even on the table (as that would have implied that we were still part of the British empire).

[High Priest Mikhal]

in 'pure Gothic Horror' traditions, the PCs are supposed to lose at the end and it all ends in tragedy

That's not quite correct. In "pure Gothic Horror," success isn't necessarily off the table. It just comes about less through being tougher than the bad guys and more about defeating them at their own game or else earning that victory by the skin of their teeth or by exploiting key weaknesses of the antagonist(s). Sometimes victories are "break even" or even Phyrric, and yes, sometimes sometimes there's no victory at all, but those just make the times the characters succeed all the more satisfying.

Nathan, losing the intimacy means losing a key part of Gothicism. Your examples are fine, but then what's the point if the characters don't have a personal stake in the matter? Taking down the Nightmare Court just to take them down is not Gothic; taking them down to stop them from hurting a friend/loved one, is very Gothic. They risk losing more than just the battle and/or their own lives.

[Jack the Reaper]

One more note about scaring epic characters. There is one thing which brings fear into the heart of every human being, no matter what his level is - the unknown.

Your epic wizard might scoff at army of dracoliches assaulting his tower; but when faced with creepy, disturbing phenomena, which even he can't explain, his sense of ease will fade away very quickly. He might suffer from lapses of memory- he misses hours, then days, of which he can't remember nothing. He sees or hears strange things, which nobody else seems to notice; reality is not as it used to be, and strange things seem to move on his eyes corner, disappearing when tries to look at them. Familiar features seems to shift when he doesn't look, appear or disappear - or is it just his mind pulling tricks on him? Looking at people, it seems for a moment that there's something very odd with them - this man has no mouth or eyes, and those women look strangely transparent, and he could have sworn that this girl's hair was different colour only a minute ago; but when he checks, he finds nothing. Some disturbing alterations may happen to his body - strange scars or tattoos appears, his eyes shift colour, an unfamiliar sensation of hunger fills him, an eye grows on the back of his head. And we haven't said anything yet about the dreams; or are they dreams indeed? What is dream and what is reality? Is he haunted by terrible incomprehensible powers, manipulating the world around him - his body, mind, and surrounding? Or is he just going insane? Or both?

Good night, mr. epic wizard. Pleasant dreams...

[NeoTiamat]

in 'pure Gothic Horror' traditions, the PCs are supposed to lose at the end and it all ends in tragedy

That's not quite correct. In "pure Gothic Horror," success isn't necessarily off the table. It just comes about less through being tougher than the bad guys and more about defeating them at their own game or else earning that victory by the skin of their teeth or by exploiting key weaknesses of the antagonist(s). Sometimes victories are "break even" or even Phyrric, and yes, sometimes sometimes there's no victory at all, but those just make the times the characters succeed all the more satisfying.

I was thinking more about literary traditions than gaming traditions when I wrote that, but fair enough.

[DocBeard]

Personally, I think that if the Kargat was trying to kill me for three years things would be pretty freaking personal.

I mean do we know a secret police organization that doesn't go for a target's family and loved ones at some point?

[Jack the Reaper]

BTW, speaking about epic wizards and Raistlin, what about this scenario: an evil epic wizard sets on a campaign to destroy all darklords in RL and become the sole, most powerful darklord, merging all the domains to one domain under his rulership. Will it work? What will the DPs have to say in this matter?

[ewancummins]

Pure Gothic Horror?

Wouldn't that be something more like :

A young and innocent governess/maid-servant (the PC) comes to creepy, moss-festooned ancient manor house/castle inhabited by a cursed aristocrat/ghost/clever villain who uses trickery to produce 'supernatural' effects/etc? She has a series of increasingly spooky and weird encounters with the dark forces of the place, culminating in the final revelation and resolution of whatever dreadful mystery lays over the house. Good may triumph over Evil in the end...or perhaps not.

The Innocent heroine (PC) might be joined in the adventure by her young lover (a male PC).

[HuManBing]

...and the young male lover often as not is completely useless in the face of physical danger and possible violence.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

...paging Deepshadow....

DS ran an experimental epic 3.5 campaign: see this thread for a discussion of it and more links.

Yep, ran it over two years, and I was quite successful even if we had to cut it short. The challenge was to avoid adding any epic-level foes. I used Gwydion, Vecna, and the Nightmare Court in strong supporting roles, but the real adversary was the darkest forces of nature (inc. human nature), as embodied by the domain of Saragoss.

I'll be happy to chip into this thread, but bear in mind that the Reckonings game was only one way to play epic in RL. Others may prefer other ways to play.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Most of Ravenloft is a low-level, low-magic setting. Compared to other worlds, its size and population are so small, that should the whole core materialize somewhere in the FR, Krynn or Eberron, it would hardly be noticed. Many fans like it that way; but are those traits intrinsic to the flavor of RL? Would the theme of gothic/fantasy horror be spoiled if things were different?

First of all, I don't normally run RL as low-level or low-magic, nor do I keep the population and scale so low; I don't think my campaign tone suffers. That said, when I ran Reckonings, it was straight from the book as much as possible.

Let's make an experiment of thought. What would have happen had RL been the size of a normal prime world, with population of millions in each domain? What if the level of characters and magic was more similar to this of the FR? If Azalin was as powerful as Vecna or the Shadow King, Drakov's armies were the size of Krynn Dragonlords', and Hazlan was more similar to Thay, or even to Alphatia? If the three hags were closer in level to Baba-Yaga, and Gabrielle Aderre to the Simbul?

That's one way to run epic, but IMO the tone changes from gothic to LotR.

Obviously, such a change would indeed be disastrous for some domains, like Mordent, Lamordia and Souragne

...why?

but couldn't some others benefit from it? Is there no place in RL for high-fantasy and epic adventures?

Great questions, but they don't necessarily follow each other. Yes, some might benefit, BUT I believe there are already plenty of places for high-fantasy and epic adventure in RL.

It might be claimed that this kind of RL is more like "FR with more vampires", which is far from what most of the designers and fans had in mind. On the other hand, I think the reason many of us dislike the FR (myself included) is not its high-magic environment, but the fact that this environment leads too often to power-gaming, flat, shallow characters, and focusing on combat instead of deeper roleplaying. But those symptoms are not inevitable results of a high-fantasy setting, and mature, experienced gamers can avoid them and run high quality roleplaying in this kind of worlds.

I agree. I think I said as much when a thread open up taking cheap potshots at FR.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I reiterate: how do you roleplay someone with massive reality altering powers? How do you roleplay such a character in the context of RL without nerfing their powers (which would invalidate the point of high level/epic tier/high magic campaigns)?

Yes, you can make the threats bigger and badder, but how do you get under the skin of someone who can just Wish most of these threats into oblivion without turning it into a war of who has the biggest magical guns?[/i]

It's called lateral thinking. For one thing, you don't try to one-up the epic by hitting them dead-on. You zig-zag, preferably into territory that can't be easily fixed.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Now, when you have a truly epic PC, it all goes to hell. They teleport from one end of the world to another, have power their disposal, that makes some Darklords puny and worthless (come on, how Ivana Bortisi can be terrifying opponent and nemesis, if heroes are able to shake off her poisons and even kill her or single handedly decimate her thugs?).

All this needs is a little imagination. Aren't there any situations you can imagine where killing Ivana would lead to worse consequences? As I recall, Gaz4 talked about exactly that.

Of course,you can expand Core (as it was proposed several times), but I don't like idea, small measures meant, foes can always find you, no matter where you go and good you'll hide.

I don't understand why people are talking about expanding the Core as part of making RL epic. The two are totally unrelated.

[DocBeard]

I like the cut of your jib, DeepShadow.

As far as Ivana goes, remember that she is a talented enough alchemist to make a reliable servant race of monsters who are made of poison. You might need to do some background reading on the practice of alchemy, but there are plenty of ways to kick her up several notches while staying in character.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Random ideas for messing with epic PC's:

* Have Lucre plant one of his coins on them, and eavesdrop on everything they say.
* Vistani curse
* Mist Claimer
* A vengeful undead can only be laid to rest by slaying his killer's innocent son.
* The only clue to a mystery died with a fallen hero. Sure, the PC's can resurrect him, but doesn't that mean a powers check?
* Give them the wishing imp and stand back
* The villain has a fatal disease, and doesn't care whether he lives or dies
* The villain is keeping a worse evil at bay
* Good people need the villain to stay alive

Speaking of Lucre (1st hint above), how many DL's and other baddies in RL can return after being killed?

* Harkon Lukas
* Toben
* Godefroy
* Hazlik
* Lucre
* Toben
* Adam
* Mordenheim
* Azalin (or any other lich)
* Toben
* Ratik Ubel
* The Three Hags
* The Three Fates
* Toben
* Drigor (or any other fiend)
* Malken
* Jack Karn
* Draga Salt-Biter
* Mordenheim
* The Nightmare Court
* I'm sure there are many, many, many more.

So let's combine these: suppose an epic party lands in RL, and the DM decides to put them in Nova Vaasa. They immediately come to the attention of the DL (Malken), who prepares to pit his criminal empire against them. He sends one of his most trusted henchmen (Lucre) to spy on them from inside their own coin pouches. While that is going on, they run across a slightly altered version of de Penible (CotN:D). The biggest changes are that it is set in Nova Vaasa and that, if the PC's reduce the villain's HP to zero without pain-free methods, he grows from the experience and goes through the next stage of transposition--i.e. he gets stronger. Even if they destroy him, they still have to deal with Louise, who is fully indoctrinated. What are epic powers going to do to de-indoctrinate her?

As the PC's are trying to deal with that, Malken wants to test their abilities a bit more. He arranges for the PC's to find out about the prince's elite werebeast guards. They have plenty of reason to slay the guards, and in the process they find out about how evil Othmar is. So...what? Do they kill him? Put him on trial? Are they prepared for the political ramifications of their actions? Which of the noble houses do they back? Who should be leader? Depending upon the circumstances, either supporting Othmar's rule or removing him could lead to powers checks. What about the Lawgiver clergy that back Othmar--should they kill them, too? This is a fast track to pure anarchy.

I can keep going, but before I do...can anyone see where epic PC's would make a cake walk out of this? Please, I'd like to hear from those of you who have played epic before.