#high level characters

Creatures or high level characters can just take damage like it's nothing, but it still hurts! From being Just That Powerful, or from having resistence to that damage type, you could set a whumpee on fire sooo many times and have them survive it! Shoot them full of lightning! Crush their bones! (the fire one did happen to one of my characters!)

Like a dagger does relatively little damage and being stabbed will kill am average person, but a high level creature or character can take a dozen of them without ever going down. But they're STILL BEING STABBED!

Massive amounts of HP may keep you from dying, but it sure doesn't save you from pain!

So I am a firm believer in the notion that the PCs shouldn’t be the only people running around the world with power, and that logically there should be many people with PC class levels, and that some of them are going to eventually become epic level.  So the question is, with epic level being as big of a deal as it is, how can you deal with epic characters in your world?  Well let me explain it to.  Note that in my game the max non epic level is 30, with 30-40 being epic, and the technical max level being 50, there are maybe 2-4 people at most past level 40 in a an entire planet at one time, if you’re lucky (or unlucky I suppose).  As each level is harder to gain than the last, it is absurdly difficult to get to level 30, let alone level 40, so this article is only focusing on the level 25-35 type people, anything above that is another matter entirely.  

Now it is important to know this, becoming a PC class, even just level 1 is an investment, it requires a great deal of time, training, and often money, which limits who can do it.  Of those who can, mortality rate is obscene, any PCs who do anything beyond just protecting their homes are going to have a very high chance of dying. While your players might get through each adventure, the vast majority of adventurers will die and horribly on their first adventure.  Imagine every single mistake you could possibly make as an adventurer, now imagine those mistakes being made dozens of times over.  Most adventurers die, which means the amount of people who make it to higher levels is fairly slim.  The lethality rate is at its worse in the lowest levels (1-7), slow down a bit in the lower mid levels (8-12) stabilizes in the mid levels (9-16) starts to rise again in the high mid levels (17-20) increases noticeably in the lower high levels (21-25), reaches lower levels of mortality in the higher levels (25-29), increases dramatically very suddenly (30), and then declines steadily back to the mid level stability (31-35).  This is not taking into account the many people who retire at all levels rather than risk life or limb pathologically seeking out adventure.  Noticeably epic level characters mortality tends to drop down considerably after that beyond simply death by old age, because killing them is such a pain in the ass that most don’t bother (though being an adventurer is never safe).   It might seems strange that more powerful people die more often, but they often have gained the attention of more powerful creatures, and at that level they aren’t quite ready to defend themselves.  It’s sort of an uncanny valley effect, they are powerful enough (and often engaged in high level enough schemes) to earn the full and very serious attention of the big players, but aren’t quite powerful enough to make attacking them a too dangerous venture, hence the high death rate.  The greatest reward earned by epic level characters? The security of anybody attacking them must be obscenely powerful or very serious, rather than spontaneous attacks from people wanting to eliminate a potential rival.  Or in other words, they almost never have to worry about random encounters killing them….almost.  

Needless to say, only a tiny fraction of people achieve that desired level 30 status, and those who do are often the subject of intense attacks as the big players want to eliminate them before they grow secure in their power.  This period, sometimes morbidly called “cosmic hazing” makes the number of epic level characters, in particular spell casters, rather miniscule, and while the mortality rate declines after reaching epic (cosmic forces don’t want to tangle with unknowable epic magic), among such a small population that mortality rate still stings.  Those that are left are often quite old, as leveling up becomes exponentially difficult and those who reach that honored position and aren’t the long lived races tend to retire quickly, as they don’t have much time left.  However those epic characters who want to stay in the game (elves) rarely return back to their homes to right ever wrong and shape the world to their image, the moment they start to get the attention of the cosmic forces they find themselves inundated with opportunities, offers, and recruitments from hundreds of interested parties.  Divine and Cosmic beings are always looking for powerful allies and agents who can give them an edge, the elite universities want their talents and skills, the greatest merchant and research guilds want their services, and fellow epic adventurers want their assistance.  The major factions of the blood war will pay tens of millions of gold for the services of an epic adventurer in their war, though very few survive the tour, those who do can expect to live out the rest of their lives rich and powerful.  Epic level characters are a valued commodity in the Outer Planes, and most find themselves swept up in a world of such possibilities.  Of course the world of Planar Politics is also a world of actual gods, and their vast power makes them still a small fish.  Even those who don’t want to get involved in Planar politics often leave the Material Plane to a world where they can access the most powerful and high quality equipment and magical items, generally this means Sigil which hosts a far higher than average epic level population.  You might think that more epic characters would go home and try to remake their material world, but the type of people who become epic level tend to have a strange personality, driven, paranoid, well-travelled, and obsessive, which tends to detach them from their everyday people, and often they leave their homelands without a second thought to live among the urban world of Sigil.  Others despair of bringing unity to the Prime, seeing how many of its problems are systemic in nature, and leave for Sigil.  Those who do remain often do so in isolation.  But some do stay and integrate with society at large, becoming major players in local politics and legends in their own time.  These people can shape nations with their power, but they have their own limitations.  Firstly they tend to earn a lot of enemies, including each other, and epic level material characters tend to spend a great deal of time dodging assassinations or engaged in ludicrously complicated spy plans.  They also can’t focus much energy on the smaller scale issues because being epic is normally a full time job.  Secondly, the major epic powers of the material plane, namely Gods, don’t normally directly involve themselves in the world because it normally causes more damage than it helps, gives other gods more power and forces them to divert forces from their own divine conflicts, …but if an Epic adventurer starts to make a nuisance of themselves, then they will send in their big guns, possibly interfere personally.  Other epic adventurers often make a habit out of fighting each other either because of personal differences or to loot their stuff.  And of course, old age prays upon epic adventurers as much as anybody else, and reaching epic level often leaves one quite elderly.  Strangely enough though, many epic adventurers are killed by small bands of lesser adventurers who against all odds strike them down through a mix of friendship, sexual tension, and unrestrained dumb luck.  

As a rule though, even those who stay on the Material Plane often can’t help but wander into Planar politics, the greatest threats to the material plane come from the planes, and many simply cannot resist the urge to be in a place less…rustic.  Sigil is one of the very few cities that actually caters to the powerful, and many want to be able to use the massive fortunes they acquire to their best use. After all, where else can you get the greatest components, weapons, magic items, real estate, food, or simply places to spend your money than on the planes, rather than the back water dump that is the Prime.  

But of course, some do resist the temptation and stay on the Material Plane, so how do yhou deal with them?  The following articles will deal with their activities.