Some questions about the rules

[Ezram]

Dissenting opinions, bad. Blind alleigance, good. Ook! Ook!

[Crafty_Pat]

Dissenting opinions, bad. Blind alleigance, good. Ook! Ook!

Dissenting opinions are fine. Combative opinions are not. If you can't treat people with the same respect they afford you, then silence might be your best option.

[Ezram]

Untrue. I've been far more civil before and met with equal, if not greater, subtle hostility.

It's only become this overt when being direct. A shame it had to happen.

[Crafty_Pat]

A shame it had to happen.

I couldn't agree more.

[Nepenthe]

It will be quite a bit before we see Shatterpunk. Perhaps not until next year. Fantasy Craft, Henchman, and 10kB are up first, along with a number of PDFs.

I'd consider next year "early", tbh.

We're not there with next year's schedule yet...but such is the life of a small company with big ideas 

I was speaking from some experience of trying to write something, anything, while juggling a full-time job.

[whiterabbit]

Not to continue a potentially combative line of thinking, but  what else beyond BAB, defense bonus, and saves would need to be rebalanced for epic rules? I merely ask because there are several NPCs in the setting I'm converting that would need to be full characters, and could only be handled with beyond 20 rules.

[Morgenstern]

I would consider taking a page from D&D epic rules and just stop advancing those characteristics at 20. Levels 21 and up only giving you vitality/skills and class abilites, and maybe the career-level based banefits from table 1.3 (which are very easy to extrapolate) will make things much, much easier to handle. Because every class is being weakend in the same way (losing the 8 columns) they all remain balanced as desirable options without as much book keeping or gross disparity you can ger from continuing to spread the haves/have nots gap.

[Krensky]

Instead of stripping the columns out, you could replace them ala the Epic Attack and Save bonuses from the SRD. Use the BAB and Save bonuses presented, probably use the Epic Attack for Defense, Epic Save for Initiative, Start Wealth at 0 and have it go up by 1 every third level. Gear I'm not so sure about. Perhaps one pick (Faction or Freelance) per every three levels?

Also, why particularly do you need 21+ level NPCs? More accurately, where does the NPC system fail in making them?

[whiterabbit]

Instead of stripping the columns out, you could replace them ala the Epic Attack and Save bonuses from the SRD. Use the BAB and Save bonuses presented, probably use the Epic Attack for Defense, Epic Save for Initiative, Start Wealth at 0 and have it go up by 1 every third level. Gear I'm not so sure about. Perhaps one pick (Faction or Freelance) per every three levels?

Also, why particularly do you need 21+ level NPCs? More accurately, where does the NPC system fail in making them?

I was thinking along those lines, myself actually. As to why? Well, there are a small handful of NPCs, movers and shakers, true powerhouses that need to be full characters, and can only exist as they did in the original system as epic characters.

[Krensky]

That doesn't answer my question though. Where do the special NPC rules fall apart for them? Are they threats, allies, something else?

[TheAuldGrump]

A shame it had to happen.

I couldn't agree more.

Quiet you kids! People are trying to sleep here!

Dang kids and their arguments, when I was their age I never woke people up arguing about....

The Auld Grump, failing his Perform (Humor) test once again....

[whiterabbit]

That doesn't answer my question though. Where do the special NPC rules fall apart for them? Are they threats, allies, something else?

Definite threats, but some are also potential allies. And some will have psionic powers that need to be defined, so they'll need class levels.

[Crafty_Pat]

That doesn't answer my question though. Where do the special NPC rules fall apart for them? Are they threats, allies, something else?

Definite threats, but some are also potential allies. And some will have psionic powers that need to be defined, so they'll need class levels.

It wouldn't do to just set them up at the high end of the scale and set everyone else lower?

I think your concept might benefit from the Godspawn toolkit. While it'll most focus on godly characters using the 1-20 scale, you should still be able to apply the fundamentals to your epic characters, leaving the others to use the base system. That might handle a bunch of your needs, and the rest could be handled with somewhat amped (read: somewhat broken) character builds and ability adjustments.