damerell

Not, alas, ancient (today we have the D&D 3rd Edition _Epic Level Handbook_) or related to encumbrance, but this struck me at the time so here it is.

The Epic Level Handbook is intended to extend 3rd Edition past the normal level cap of 20... well, indefinitely. The first chapter makes it pretty clear that epic [1] characters are not only the bee's knees and the dog's bollocks but, improbably, both at the same time. Names like Baba Yaga and Gandalf fall off the page. "Given time, they rival the powers of the gods", and indeed later on ascension to godhood is mentioned as a possible campaign goal.

There's an actually rather useful chapter about skills which emphasises the way epic characters can be supernaturally competent even without magic - example (high) difficulties are given for tasks like balancing on a cloud, squeezing through a space smaller than your head, or - a personal favourite - forging a document without having seen an example beforehand.

So far, so good. Now we come to a list of epic prestige classes. 3rd ed has prestige classes anyway; not classes you start with, like cleric or monster-whacker, but ones you qualify for by being special, like arcane archer or dwarven defender. The qualification criteria tend to be some mix of skills, alignment, being a dwarf, character factors not measured in game mechanics - but the epic prestige classes, of course, you just aren't allowed them at all unless you are over 20th level and hence as previously mentioned bestride the world like a colossus.

One of the epic prestige classes is the Union Sentinel, "a member of an elite police force that guards the demiplane-city of Union". They "patrol the city streets" and "are regular sights in Union, appearing in small units of two to five."

I don't know about you, but when I worked through the previous chapters, I did not expect one of the things epic-level characters to do to be "beat cop"; even given that the demiplane-city of Union is super-amazing, surely an epic character who wishes to defend justice can do it more effectively than pounding the pavement and, presumably, arguing the toss as to who gets to be the grizzled veteran in the squad today.

There's more of this stuff (in sharp contrast to, say, the divine emissary, who there's one of per god) - a legendary dreadnought might be employed by a prominent ruler or noble, "engaging in staged combats for money" (given that even a 21st-level character is expected to be worth about a million gold pieces, and presumably expects a worthwhile quid pro quo for each fight, what is this - professional wrestling for Croesus' court?)

I daresay Conan the Barbarian sometimes murders people for money, but can you imagine him collecting a wage packet afterwards? Elric of Melnibone clocking in late and being chewed out by his sergeant?

(Union is kind of silly; there's a 15th level fishmonger, raising the question of why he bothers selling fish, even given that he has a super-amazing interdimensional fish portal. I'm not making this up. There's a 10th-level innkeeper, too. The earlier chapters have a bunch of stuff about an epic campaign shouldn't be a regular campaign with bigger numbers which, apparently, the author of this chapter thought was complete rot.)

[1] as a side note, this book uses the word "epic" to mean "anything restricted to characters above level 20" and as a result I have now read the word so often it has lost all meaning.