I believe we identified two issues that may make or break our current Epic campaign. The primary issue is that at our current power levels when one or two people go missing our party is put way off balance and we can no longer deal with some opponents or issues as well as we could. This was demonstrated quite clearly with our last fight where we lost all three Kobolds to two well placed blasts of sonic energy. Patrick had not expected this and felt that, had we had Paul with us, we could have taken care of it much quicker and with a lower loss of life. Even if we had lost all three Kobolds they would have been brought back in moments.
The secondary issue builds off the first. Character power levels are uneven and some people feel that they can no longer offer much of anything to the party when in or out of combat compared to other characters. Of particular note is Jordan's Dragon Shaman which can no longer provide any real benefit in combat. To some extent this is based on the relative abilities of each class involved and could be solved by reclassing.(In Jordan's case from Dragon Shaman to Marshal which are close enough in style to not be too improbable.)
There is opposition to simply abandoning our Epic game so some sort of solution must be found. Of the two issues i've outlined the first is an availability issue and thus difficult to resolve due to real life issues. The second is the more fixable one but the possible fixes are varied and will often not resolve the problem fully.
The easiest thing that can be done in my opinion is to allow Jordan to reclass his character into a Marshal. This would allow him to be more involved in combat while keeping true to his origional character idea.
The next up from that would be to allow gestalt for all characters. Adding a second class tree to each character would broaden each individuals ability and would help make up for any absent players. It wouldn't be true gestalt as our characters didn't start as gestalt. If we assume feats and, for the most part, skills and HP are fixed then the only thing gestalt would really add are saves and class abilities. It is a complex bit of work and since total character reworks are not something Patrick seems comfortable with it probably isn't a possibility.
Any solutions beyond these two however seem to be to difficult, to time consuming, or would not be as easy to work in story wise.
What are everyones' thoughts on this subject. I know we just went over it but we've had two nights to sleep on it now and I'd like to reopen the discussion.
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3 comments:
i don't know really how to solve this issue. if possible i would prefer solving the first issue (or at least stopgaping it) because if we don't, then it will just pop up again.
The only way to solve the first problem as far as I can see is to simply not play when not everyone is available. Simple as that.
Of course that isn't anywhere near ideal since, if we go with that, then Paul saying he won't be around for another 2 weeks pretty much kills epic for another 2 weeks.
"Hi my name is Epic and these are my two friends, Rock and Hard Place."
I still think that Epic is dead. With people unable/unwilling to multiclass we will run into this same problem. I Do not understand how a DS could do 3000 hp against a phyalctory, but now (10 levels later)be unable to fight effectively. Start a cleric/rogue. It would not be the first change of characters in the game, and with the death of current characters, it should be able to work (DM's approval of course). Obviously I am missing a lot, and I don't think that the issue wants to be resolved. If one DS could be a sorc/marsh or anything like that, and the other a cleric/rogue than I think that we could weather most any storm even if we are missing a player. But like I said, I don't think the problem wants to be fixed.
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