Everything is Epic
Author Ryan Servis gives us details on how Epic Legacy will make our D&D 5e games epic.
How were you introduced to role-playing games?
When I just finished up 6th Grade a friend gave me the 3rd edition of the Monster Manual for my birthday. My mind was immediately blown, as I had never considered an actual game could be made out of material from my daydreams.
I also played the Baldur’s Gate series from my Dad’s lap, he put me in charge of the pause button.
Why write and create role-playing games?
I can’t help it, I get sucked in before I even realize what I am doing. When I think hard about it, it seems to be a way of sharing experiences I’ve had in my own imagination with fellow gamers. I’m sure you can think of some of your favorite daydreams you go to, and I always thought it would be great to take a friend or two along for the ride.
How did you become involved with 2CGaming?
Some friends of mine from High School were big rpg fans, so after I reconnected with one of them after college, it was revealed they were working on projects with the aim of producing actual products for distribution. The idea intrigued me, and after a few months of throwing ideas around we hit on some good areas of development that fit my style and skills. Next thing I know, I’m going to conventions and authoring books.
Please describe Epic Legacy.
Epic Legacy is a serious upgrade to high level content for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, without losing its elegantly simple style or considerations of balance. For Players, it delivers meaningful progression paths for each base class up to level 30, with each one gaining fresh mechanics that help avoid the trap of number bloat.
With that comes all the tools you’ll need to make a true Epic level character. Epic Feats are particularly fun because they add appropriately epic role playing elements on top of game-play mechanics, though they are not a necessary choice.
And man, those Epic Spells. You will feel like a total boss as an Epic spellcaster, and I promise you won’t just be casting Epic Fireball or Epic Hold Person.
For the devious DM’s out there, you’ll get a makeover too. Naturally, you need your Epic Big Boss Baddies, so our Mythic Monsters show up to blow all expectations out of the water. Your player’s Epic abilities won’t seem so overpowered when they are facing down Yggdrasil the World Treant or the Interplanar Astral Pirate Davy Jones ;). You’ll get some awesome epic affixes for some solid mid range encounters, boosting non-epic monsters quickly and efficiently to an appropriate strength level.
One of the more interesting features is our section on Epic Worldbuilding. Making sure power of this magnitude fits into your world in an interesting and meaningful way is essential to us when it comes to telling a quality Epic story.
I’m a personal fan of our “Secret Wars” campaign setting, in which Epic forces are engaged in a covert war against opponents (or each other) that would annihilate the entire world should they engage in open conflict.
Honestly I could talk for hours about what you can do with the content inside, but I think an adequate summary is every Epic Level module, book, or rule set turned up to 11.
Why take D&D 5e characters beyond level 20?
Well the obvious answer is creating this kind of content is a creative exercise that brings endless joy and really flexes my brain.
On a more serious note, high level 5th edition play leaves a lot to be desired. There is only about 25 monsters that are Challenge 15 or higher in the Monster Manual (10 of those are dragon types by the way), so without a supplement, you have to plan to see some reruns in your encounter pool.
Right now D&D feels like a bell curve, with the best moments happening between levels 8 and 15, which seems counter intuitive. Shouldn’t your most incredible, interesting adventures happen when you have your most incredible, interesting abilities?
Now creative DM’s can homebrew up some nasty stuff that could make goblins give a crew of 20th level characters a run for their money, but you still run into the problem of the adventure ending there. Once you’ve hit 20, you’ve got nowhere to go, and I’d be shocked if anyone thought the Epic Boon system was a meaningful progression path.
Epic Legacy fixes these problems, allowing you to flesh out those last five levels from 15-20 with our Epic Affix system, and exciting new horizons at 21st level and beyond that ensures the adventure does not have to end.
You can also start games at Epic Levels fairly easily, which can be a fun option for more experienced players looking for some fresh content.
I’ve always imagined what some of my favorite characters would look like when the attained unlimited knowledge, godlike power, or could rage like the Hulk. With Epic Legacy this is extremely possible, extremely fun, and in our tests it wasn’t uncommon for our players to imagine their favorite characters in this new Epic setting.
Beyond that, it’s something not a lot of other people are working on, so it feels that unique niche that I think a lot of people can appreciate.
How can readers get their hands on Epic Legacy?
Well there are two ways I think deserve mentioning.
The first is supporting our Kickstarter, which would allow us to deliver a complete and comprehensive vision for the project. There is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears going into this project, and every ounce of support is extremely helpful.
The second is the free public beta test you can find at our website or our subreddit, where you can also give feedback and ask questions.
We’d love more people to try this stuff out and tell us what you think, you might be surprised which of your suggestions make it into the final product ;).
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This sounds awesome! I just backed it, and I’ll reshare on Facebook. Hopefully you guys can hit your goal.