>Epic6 (E6) is a variant of the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition
Stopped reading.

It and Epic 8 do a good job at stopping the game before casters outpace martials completely while making it feel grittier-going up against a dragon feels like a planned process that takes resources and tactics, not an encounter that should be balanced for 4 x level players. That being said, there's more work from the GM to make sure higher level encounters work within the Epic 6 or 8 framework, and some settings need to be revisited before being used in e6 or e8.

I'd rather just play something different than try yet again to fix the broken mess that is D&D 3.x.

>>43946142
>>Epic6 (E6) is a variant of the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition

Epic 6 is just regular D&D stopping at 6th level. I don't get why some people treat it as if it was some sort of breakthrough in game design.

>>43946690
But the whole charm of high-level encounters in E6 is that they no longer work. If a high-level dragon shows up, the answer is not to grind more until it's a "fair" encounter, or avoid him comfortably with the knowledge that he wasn't meant for the party to take on anyway and some high-level NPC will take care of it. You have to either come up with some insane hail-mary strategy to win an unwinnable battle, or flee for your lives with the knowledge that the dragon is going to win. Life's unfair, people are fragile, and there is nobody else who will cover you if you fail.

I really hate all the modding people do for E6, like padding on and making up new feats to the point of annihilating the level cap. Some people apparently even have a house rule where a PC can't be killed without the player's permission. If that's what you want to play, why are you using a set of house rules intended for exactly the opposite kind of play?

>>43947505
I agree with you. By more work for the GM I meant more common sense, less reliant on standard tables and encounter rules. A high level dragon in an e6 or 8 campaign is going to be known-nations will be terrified, peasants will flee before its wake, and bards will tell of its coming long before its seen. Both setting tone and giving players a chance to prep or at least be prepared. Environment and all the other things players can use as dirty tricks against said dragon becomes that much more important in an e6/8 campaign.

Standard campaigns said dragon wouldn't get that attention in game, nor would environment or prep need that time devoted to it. I guess I should have said more attention to detail from the gm is necessary rather than work.

>>43946755
Its just the point where martial and magical balance is relatively equal, and thus most enjoyable.

What would be the qualities and defaults of epic 8 compared to epic 6 if played on say, core Pathfinder?

>>43949972
Fourth-level spells. That's pretty much it. Casters would be a little better and martials a little shittier. They probably chose 6 instead of 8 because that's when fighters in 3.PF get their second attack, so their power has just begun to spike a little before a five-level plateau.

>>43944915
Its the only way you can make DnD work these days. Just hand out bonus extra feats and rework the classes so they get something cool in each of their 6 levels.