Heroes, Paragons, and Epics

In the run-up to Fourth Edition, WotC has promised that they will be doing updates and previews three times a week. (I promise we won’t post about every single one, just the interesting ones.)

Today’s update is a doozy: it’s all about the three tiers of play. It describes, generally, what you can do at each tier. It also provides the chart for how many powers you should have at each level. It also lists other guidelines for creating a character above 1st level, and I gotta say, it’s totally easy. As someone who has run a bunch of epic games in 3.x, this looks far, far better. My favorite part is:

Mundane equipment is much less important for higher level characters than it is when you’re starting out. Choose whatever standard adventuring gear you want from the tables in the Player’s Handbook. For magic items, choose one item of your level +1, one item of your level, and one item of your level –1. In addition, you have gold pieces equal to the value of one magic item of your level –1. You can spend this money on rituals, potions, or other magic items, or save it for later.

So basically, pick three appropriate magic items. Done. Is that easy or what?

The only other item of note, to me, was final confirmation that the 8 classes we’ve seen are it for PHB1. Not a big surprise, but it’s nice to have it nailed down.