Epic level heroes, demigods, and planeswalker player characters

[fdw3773]

Before the pandemic and more recently as people are starting in-person gaming again in friends' homes, I've overheard various D&D players/DMs discuss their respective campaigns where their player characters were epic-level (Level 20 or higher) and essentially demigods/planeswalkers as depicted in Magic: The Gathering in terms of power level. Basically, it would be the equivalent of creating a Champions character but for Fantasy Hero in the 400+ point range (or even more), depending if you're using 5th or 6th Edition rules.

 

Has anyone done something similar in their respective Fantasy Hero campaign?

[Grailknight]

Never done it myself, but you might want to look at The Atlantian Age in the Hero Store. It's a sourcebook for these types of campaigns.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

Never done it myself, but you might want to look at The Atlantian Age in the Hero Store. It's a sourcebook for these types of campaigns.

 

Not so much "planewalkers," but game play supported in The Atlantean Age  can range about as high as fantasy goes without turning into four-color superheroics. Even the basic starting characters are at the 250-point level, not counting equipment (under 5E standards), and some of them are literal demigods, with divine blood in their veins. Their physical abilities can be genuinely superhuman, and the magic and weaponry they can achieve may be world-shaking. Some of the NPCs written up would be major challenges for whole teams of modern superhuman opponents.

[Opal]

Come to think of it, back when the BBB was current, a group did run, for a little while, a high-power supers level game, set in the distant past where the PCs were on the level of minor deities  (an Angel, a startrekkian sentient energy being, a primeval spirit ....) ... high-power supers seemed to work fine for that though it was less in the high defenses and heavy hitting and more in the weird powers and VPPs....

[Spence]

Not specifically.  But our Fantasy Hero characters were always more Fantasy Supers than the standard games like D&D or PF.  

 

I guess we liked hero because we could stretch the boundaries more than you could in a class level system. 

 

 

[MordeanGrey]

I ran a Planescape game (old TSR/Wizards of the Coast/AD&D setting) for roughly two years using Fantasy HERO. There were two separate games.

 

In the first one the players all created normal fantasy characters (from a Prime world) and were thrust into Sigil, finding a complete world of wonder as they experienced all of it as a group for the first time.

 

The second game was also set in Sigil, but I allowed all of the players to create Planar characters who were already familiar with the Planes and allowed a wider range of character types and more powerful options.

 

Both games were a blast and really fun to run and popular with the players. Taking them outside of traditional fantasy world settings created a situation where they didn't know what they were encountering or how things worked. It was a nice break from the standard settings that we all use most of the time.

 

There are a ton of online resources available that might help you if you want to have them experience the Planes. The main boxed set covers the city of Sigil and provides an overview of the Planes.

 

Hellbound: The Blood War dives into the eternal conflict between the Devils (Baatezu) and the Demons (Tanari) and provides a great background setting for powerful characters to be challenged by powerful enemies.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape

 

http://theplanardm.com/resources/

 

[Panpiper]

I played in such a campaign some years back. The characters 'started' at 600 points. (!!!) The campaign lasted five years running weekly, and ended when we resolved the main quest that involved literally saving the universe. We had a technologically ignorant Tarzan, a super Vampire, a Sorceress, and my character, essentially a melee tank who was an Immortal, like literally. He resurrected once from a nuke.

 

It was more than a little freeform, and wildly fantastic. We could hop dimensions, we dealt with godlike entities both malevolent and benign, we vanquished Godzilla like threats, confronted armies and demon hordes.

That campaign remains my favorite campaign of any I have ever played. The GM too told us that ours was the only campaign he had ever run in over thirty years that had ever successfully run it's course by completing its ultimate quest.

My (starting) character in that game, Vestige.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/fr1y4w14hd7k0gh/vestige.hdc/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/lstc7tmc59aiclh/Vestige.pdf/file

 

We are now playing D&D. 

[DoctorImpossible]

I've done the inverse sometimes, when I was in a D&D campaign as a D&D character (a Human Fighter, specifically) and played them as a superhero (took the folk hero background, played the leader of a rebel village of nomadic refugees, fought with no weapons, using a luchadore style masked vigilante hero identity).