I’m currently running one of my groups through E2: Kingdom of the Ghouls, and our first session of the adventure was quite a lot of fun. It helped that some of the more egregious Warlock and Cleric powers have been nerfed just recently, and I’m also using the updated damage codes for monsters. So, combats have been enjoyable.

Conceptually the HPE series from Wizards works for me, and despite some of the action of E2 taking place in Sigil (one of the elements of Planescape that I despise), the overall structure of the epic tier adventures feels suitably epic.

Paragon tier was a revelation for us, as it really felt like a step up from heroic: the addition of triggered powers based on action point use was significant, as were the paragon paths. Epic hasn’t quite had that kick, as the epic destinies often take quite a while to come fully online.

If I consider the structure of 4E D&D, the game – certainly as expressed through the HPE adventures – works as follows:

Heroic – adventures in the mortal world.

Paragon – adventures in the feywild & shadowfell

Epic – adventures in the astral sea

You start off exploring the world you know, you move to the near cousins of your world, and finally come to the lands of the gods and great powers of the cosmos. There’s some bleed between the tiers, of course, but enforcing those strictures does give a lot more structure to how the campaign evolves. (To quite an extent, the tiers give the levels at which the PCs should feel comfortable adventuring in those locales.)

Can an epic threat live on the Prime Material plane? Certainly – consider Iuz in the World of Greyhawk. However, Iuz is constrained in his powers compared to the deities in their home planes in the Astral Sea.

This structure also informs my dislike of the creation of epic Feywild or Shadowfell threats: perhaps in the deepest pockets of such, but if there are too many such threats, then only epic characters really should venture into the Feywild or the Shadowfell. It’s a place where paragon characters should do well, with a paragon character venturing into the Astral Sea should feel very much out of his or her depth.

The first Heroic/Paragon/Epic split in D&D comes from the BECMI line, where Heroic maps to the Basic/Expert sets, Paragon to the Companion set, and Epic to the Master set. Of course, BECMI has significant problems because of how it splits things up: Companion level adventures just happen in the north of the continent, where all the big threats live. Sigh. And at Master level you only just become aware of the powers of the Immortals, rather than them being an inherent part of the setting from the start. Master D&D very much feels like “we tacked this on”, as does the Companion setting of Norwold, Alphatis and Thyatis.

(BECMI really ties itself in knots with its “Immortals aren’t gods” stance, and it causes some real dissonance and major problems in how the setting comes together).

4E, with its Mortal World/Feywild + Shadowfell/Astral Sea split, even if it is more in my head than actual, works conceptually for me, providing “sandboxes” for adventuring that are separated.

Although the sandboxes are separated, to provide a cohesive framework for the entire campaign you need threads that tie them together. In the HPE adventures, those threads are given by the plans of Orcus. Orcus’s minions turn up a number of times in the series (H1, P2, E1-3, with P3 being related as well), and so the idea of “Orcus is unusually active” is planted before the actual reasons become apparent in E1-3, which is really one long adventure.

Something that *should* be there in more D&D games – certainly it’s something that isn’t as present in my own – is the influence of the gods of the PCs. If, in the epic levels, the PCs will become agents of the gods, then this really needs to be set up earlier. If a PC has a patron deity, surely that deity needs to be a little more patron-y? You know, saving the PC at various times, talking to him or her and setting quests, and suchlike. (This, of course, assumes you play the D&D game with the ‘active gods’ that become a part of the campaign in the epic tier).

Fun fact: I’m currently playing in one D&D 4E game and running two more. The levels of the three campaigns? 4th, 14th and 24th. 

Gods are something of a problem in D&D because you really need to run them as gods, and not just as really powerful monsters. Settings with 60+ gods often devalue them: what do they all do, anyway? If someone worships a god, it should be for a really good reason. “You delivered my people from slavery”, “You gave us the gift of fire”, or something like that. There’s also the possibility of the god’s gift being revoked. The reason I dislike Sigil so much is because of the Lady of Pain: her existence basically says, “Gods don’t count”. Gods need to be mighty; they need to be feared.

My rule of thumb is this: God vs mortal? God wins. Every time, without breaking a sweat. However, once you get God vs God, things become interesting, and the actions of the PCs become significant. (Thus the entire E1-3 saga). At the higher epic levels, PCs are on their ways to becoming gods/demigods or of similar power, so depending on your world, perhaps they can even fight the gods.