D&D @ High Levels = No Problem?
Hammerhead
Explorer
The big problem with me in high level play (I've ran a game that ended at 18th, and one high level 15th-20th game) is creating high level NPCs. A lot of work.
Flynn
First Post
I've run one campaign to 16th level, one to 19th level and one to 24th level. For me, the problems stemmed from three primary sources: 1) prep time, 2) combat time and 3) challenge.
Prep Time: I can build characters and the like at those high levels, but it does take time to do. Even if I can use pre-published NPCs (and I did when I could), we sometimes had sessions where half the time was spent with the players discussing their spell lists. That's not excitement to me. That's shopping for spells, and it sucks. Bookkeeping that detracts from game time is a bore, and I saw this increase dramatically as the levels increased.
Combat Time: The more options a player has, the longer they take to choose the right one for the current situation. The more dice they have to roll (i.e. more iterative attacks, etc.), the longer they take to resolve the action they've selected. As my games increased in level, these led to combats that took over our entire session. This slowed down forward motion of the plot, and left me unsatisfied with the progress of the game.
Challenge: The higher level you get, the more the PCs become brittle: they either walk all over their opponents, or their opponents walk all over them. Very rarely did I see an in-between, particularly at epic levels. So I found myself routinely lessening the challenge of an encounter because a TPK was unsatisfying at that point in the campaign. I don't enjoy being put in this kind of position by the rules as they stand, and would love to see a middle ground in terms of epic encounters.
Now, I will say that all of my campaigns ended where they did because of the story, but just as much they ended because I couldn't challenge the characters without killing them, and that just wasn't fun for me. My players may have had a blast, but I became very dissatisfied with the game. When the story ended, I took the opportunity to close up the game rather than introduce another multi-level story arc.
I don't have anything against 3E except that I don't enjoy this kind of game with experienced characters. Therefore, I'm more likely to play something streamlined where I don't have to worry as much about my or my players' prep time, about the fact that a combat eats up an entire session or that PCs become brittle in regards to challenging them at higher levels.
However, that's only my personal perspective, and I applaud and encourage those who do not experience this to continue what they're doing and enjoy the games they are in.
Best of Luck, Guys,
Flynn
Prep Time: I can build characters and the like at those high levels, but it does take time to do. Even if I can use pre-published NPCs (and I did when I could), we sometimes had sessions where half the time was spent with the players discussing their spell lists. That's not excitement to me. That's shopping for spells, and it sucks. Bookkeeping that detracts from game time is a bore, and I saw this increase dramatically as the levels increased.
Combat Time: The more options a player has, the longer they take to choose the right one for the current situation. The more dice they have to roll (i.e. more iterative attacks, etc.), the longer they take to resolve the action they've selected. As my games increased in level, these led to combats that took over our entire session. This slowed down forward motion of the plot, and left me unsatisfied with the progress of the game.
Challenge: The higher level you get, the more the PCs become brittle: they either walk all over their opponents, or their opponents walk all over them. Very rarely did I see an in-between, particularly at epic levels. So I found myself routinely lessening the challenge of an encounter because a TPK was unsatisfying at that point in the campaign. I don't enjoy being put in this kind of position by the rules as they stand, and would love to see a middle ground in terms of epic encounters.
Now, I will say that all of my campaigns ended where they did because of the story, but just as much they ended because I couldn't challenge the characters without killing them, and that just wasn't fun for me. My players may have had a blast, but I became very dissatisfied with the game. When the story ended, I took the opportunity to close up the game rather than introduce another multi-level story arc.
I don't have anything against 3E except that I don't enjoy this kind of game with experienced characters. Therefore, I'm more likely to play something streamlined where I don't have to worry as much about my or my players' prep time, about the fact that a combat eats up an entire session or that PCs become brittle in regards to challenging them at higher levels.
However, that's only my personal perspective, and I applaud and encourage those who do not experience this to continue what they're doing and enjoy the games they are in.
Best of Luck, Guys,
Flynn
HeavenShallBurn
First Post
I've never had problems and I've run games well into the epic levels. I could be wrong but it seems like many of the problems people tend to have are trying to DM a high level game like it was a mid-level game. Then getting upset when the playstyle at those levels (15+) doesn't mesh with the sort of challenges and plots of a mid-level game. Or are just interest related, they can't hold a campaign or group together long enough on a single wavelength to get that far.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
I applaud your ability to run high level campaigns, and in fact I even envy you.
That said, I think the Adventure Path we ran worked pretty well, even at high levels. (Well, at least I think Banewarrens and Shackled City were pretty successful. Age of Worms was a disaster for us, due to continual high lethality, and the DM seemingly incapable of using the adventure path correctly.)
Problems begin if someone has (or at least: If I have) to create a long-running campaign.
1) Ability to create a continous, compelling storyline to entertain both the players and myself. I had some high level ideas for D&D, Dragonstar and Arcana Evolved, but somehow I never managed to see it through the end. I think it might be a multitude of other factors, but I think one problem of me is that I try to have an idea where a campaign will lead up to, but somehow don't manage it well to convey this to the players. It's not that they are disrupting my railroad attempts
, it's more like what I have in my mind doesn't come out as good in real play. Though I am not seeing this change much with a different game system...
2) Preperation for high levels. Creating NPCs takes a lot of time, at least it used to, when I was still trying to do it all "by the books", optimizing skill points to model my idea of the NPC perfectly to the game rules (going all simulationist), even though I knew the PCs would see the NPC only once, during a violent meeting (some refer to it as combat). Stupid me.
3) General gameplay at high levels. I don't enjoy the "instant death" effects that come as Save or Dice or just massive damage in surprise rounds. I just don't like the Save or Die/Ressourection Cycle at higher levels. As a DM, it's not so bad. I can pull the punches if it appears as if the PCs are close to death. But as a player, I don't have this control.
The Death & Life Cycle ensures that my hard earned XP and GP are for nothing, and the likelyhood of my next death has just increased, but its meaning has been diminished greatly.
I think it is a good strategy to run published modules and just adjust them as you see fit. It is less work, and usually, the important stuff is taking care of you.
That said, I think the Adventure Path we ran worked pretty well, even at high levels. (Well, at least I think Banewarrens and Shackled City were pretty successful. Age of Worms was a disaster for us, due to continual high lethality, and the DM seemingly incapable of using the adventure path correctly.)
Problems begin if someone has (or at least: If I have) to create a long-running campaign.
1) Ability to create a continous, compelling storyline to entertain both the players and myself. I had some high level ideas for D&D, Dragonstar and Arcana Evolved, but somehow I never managed to see it through the end. I think it might be a multitude of other factors, but I think one problem of me is that I try to have an idea where a campaign will lead up to, but somehow don't manage it well to convey this to the players. It's not that they are disrupting my railroad attempts
, it's more like what I have in my mind doesn't come out as good in real play. Though I am not seeing this change much with a different game system...2) Preperation for high levels. Creating NPCs takes a lot of time, at least it used to, when I was still trying to do it all "by the books", optimizing skill points to model my idea of the NPC perfectly to the game rules (going all simulationist), even though I knew the PCs would see the NPC only once, during a violent meeting (some refer to it as combat). Stupid me.
3) General gameplay at high levels. I don't enjoy the "instant death" effects that come as Save or Dice or just massive damage in surprise rounds. I just don't like the Save or Die/Ressourection Cycle at higher levels. As a DM, it's not so bad. I can pull the punches if it appears as if the PCs are close to death. But as a player, I don't have this control.
The Death & Life Cycle ensures that my hard earned XP and GP are for nothing, and the likelyhood of my next death has just increased, but its meaning has been diminished greatly.
I think it is a good strategy to run published modules and just adjust them as you see fit. It is less work, and usually, the important stuff is taking care of you.
Agamon
Adventurer
I've never said I "couldn't hack it". It's just not fun. Iterative attacks, mounds of damage dice, multiple modifiers all make combat an exercise in tedium. And save or die attacks just suck (I'll assume enough has been said here about that, so no explanation required).
Age of Worms was lots of fun until The Prince of Redhand was done, after which, I started counting the sessions until Kyuss was dispatched (and speeding it along where I could).
Not that I think 4e will really improve this. Mechanically, maybe, dunno, but having abilities that go off when you die....I'm really starting to believe that D&D was not meant to be played high level.
Age of Worms was lots of fun until The Prince of Redhand was done, after which, I started counting the sessions until Kyuss was dispatched (and speeding it along where I could).
Not that I think 4e will really improve this. Mechanically, maybe, dunno, but having abilities that go off when you die....I'm really starting to believe that D&D was not meant to be played high level.
Storminator
First Post
I know the Scry-Buff-Teleport-Disjunction cycle really sucked the fun out of the game for me. We had a two page list of spells we routinely cast, then teleported into combat, only to have the Disjunction go off.
Half an hour to calculate the buffs... less than a minute of gaming... 45 minutes to resolve the Disjunction... 10 minutes of combat, 2 PCs die... teleport home and Res*2, plot the next move.
The biggest thing is the difference between playing a spell caster and a non-caster. At high levels, non-casters are irrelevant, and casters are an enormous headache.
PS
Half an hour to calculate the buffs... less than a minute of gaming... 45 minutes to resolve the Disjunction... 10 minutes of combat, 2 PCs die... teleport home and Res*2, plot the next move.
The biggest thing is the difference between playing a spell caster and a non-caster. At high levels, non-casters are irrelevant, and casters are an enormous headache.
PS
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
FWIW most of the complaints that I have seen are not about high level play being "too difficult", but just annoyingly fiddly (e.g. buffs from multiple sources, some overlap, some stack, then a dispel knocks out some of them but not all of them).
I've seen some people mention that they use cards and other techniques to keep track of stuff, although I've never done that myself. Some other guys in my group use software (DMgenie) to help keep track of stuff.
Did you ever have the multiple buff (wizard + cleric + bard) plus dispels flying around problem?
Cheers
I've seen some people mention that they use cards and other techniques to keep track of stuff, although I've never done that myself. Some other guys in my group use software (DMgenie) to help keep track of stuff.
Did you ever have the multiple buff (wizard + cleric + bard) plus dispels flying around problem?
Cheers
Our groups has never had a problem recalculating buffs. It's addition. I've never understood why if someone says "ok, buffs #1, 3, and 7 are no longer active" that it takes more than 15 seconds to re-add your remaining ones and establish the new number that matters. Are most players that bad at math?
Also I have to agree that high level play goes a lot faster if the players like putting in the effort. In our current group, we have three people playing casters (two playing wizards, and one playing an arcane trickster with a druid cohort). We do most of our spell list stuff at home between sessions. The two wizards (myself and another player) make pre-set spell lists. Each day we pick which basic list to use, and then swap out a couple individual choices when we need to adjust to specific circumstances that day (such as replacing Orb spells with different energy types if we expect to face certain types of creatures, or replacing single target spells with area ones if we expect hordes of mooks).
If people don't like to put in effort between sessions, then yes the sessions themselves will go more slowly.
Also I have to agree that high level play goes a lot faster if the players like putting in the effort. In our current group, we have three people playing casters (two playing wizards, and one playing an arcane trickster with a druid cohort). We do most of our spell list stuff at home between sessions. The two wizards (myself and another player) make pre-set spell lists. Each day we pick which basic list to use, and then swap out a couple individual choices when we need to adjust to specific circumstances that day (such as replacing Orb spells with different energy types if we expect to face certain types of creatures, or replacing single target spells with area ones if we expect hordes of mooks).
If people don't like to put in effort between sessions, then yes the sessions themselves will go more slowly.
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