Dungeons & Dragons may have a level cap of 20, but players can push those top-level characters to even greater heights thanks to a new epic boons system. Today, Wizards of the Coast debuted its redesigned Fighter class that will officially be introduced in the 2024 Player’s Handbook due out in September. Included in the notes for the new Fighter Class is a description of “epic boons,” a new feature the Fighter class (and other classes) gain at Level 19. When a player reaches Level 19, they can choose one epic boon, which is basically a supercharged feat that grants players tremendous power. One such example is the “Boon of Combat Prowess,” which allows a character to choose to hit on an attack when they would otherwise miss.
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Every Epic Boon also comes with an ability score increase and allows players to increase “one ability score by 1 to a maximum of 30.” That’s notable not only because it raises the ability score cap from 20 to 30, it also implies that there are ways to continue increasing ability scores despite the fact that at Level 19, players hypothetically only have one more level increase.
However, in a video explaining the Fighter class, D&D lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford explained that the epic boons allow players to continue to grow their characters even once they reach Level 20. “We also include rules in the new Player’s Handbook that if your DM wants to keep playing at Level 20, you can go beyond the power that characters typically have once they reach the Level Cap,” Crawford said. “Now, every time you hit a certain amount of XP, you can pick another one of these epic boon feats or another feats if you so choose. So if you play at Level 20 long enough, you could conceivably get one of you [ability] scores up to 30, which means you are truly god-tier.”
While Dungeons & Dragons isn’t truly introducing “epic” levels like the game did back during its 3.5 Edition era, these new epic boon feats seem like something of a compromise, a way for players to continue to grow characters even though they can’t increase the number of hit dice they have or add more spell slots. It’s an interesting addition and one that should encourage more high level play in Dungeons & Dragons, something that the current edition currently lacks.
