D&D @ High Levels = No Problem?

[Wolfspider]

My campaign is at level 14 and we're doing great.

Ditto, and no problems at all so far.

Mix of casters and non-casters, and no one seems irrelevant at all.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Last month we just wrapped up my 3e game we started a month after the 3.0 DMG came out, with the players at 23rd level. I've run a couple other multi-year campaigns but this one was the first to reach completion that wasn't an "adventure path" (aka long term quest, like the Rod of the Seven Parts).

I can't stress how important it is to keep the players involved in the game. Anytime it was a question of letting the players pursue a goal that interested them vs. what I had planned, I'd let them do their thing. I'd tell them when I didn't have material prepped that it was going to be "looser" than normal but they were much happier.

As a DM, you get irked to waste work. So don't. 90% of the time, you can recycle the material. Change some descriptions and european castle becomes an egyptian pyramid or an arabian desert fortress. Rename the monsters to something appropriate to their skills and the new settings. Wolves become "sewer gators" or "giant sand fleas", that kind of thing. I also recycle old BBEGs. The evil boss wizard of 7th level becomes the default minion caster to the 12th level BBEG. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Trust me, few players are so detail focused that they can recognize identical stat blocks from the player side of the screen as long as it doesn't happen in the same session.

Now, just because the players ignored your BBEG's plot doesn't mean it goes away. Instead when the players go gallivanting off after the Lost Temple of Gold and Ale, you maybe have some other heroes get acclaim, or you burn a village, or both. Sometimes you burn a village full of people they like. Sometimes the acclaimed heroes turn out to be people they hate. Sometimes the "heroes" are just the villain in disguise.

The best thing I learned how to do was to make the players want to be seen as heroes, even the neutral evil greedy rogue. Heroes get invited to dinners with nobility and get to stay in the manor house. Heroes get introduced to people with influence and power.

The rogue liked that but what really hooked him? Heroes get money making opportunities thrust at them. No really, they do, just like movie stars. Some people want the prestige of a hero as advertising. Some prefer to work with "good people." And a couple want to use it to control the hero. The nobility tend to be the last one.

"Sir Killamonga, must you go across the Mountain of Pain at the call of a people we've never heard of when you've got vassals and retainers here who you've commited to protect? Have you made preparations in case your old nemesis, Mrs. Ex-Killamonga, launches an attack on your manor in your absence? Wouldn't it make more sense to send your young knights on this quest?"

That's what keeps the game from being a superhero slug fest, hostages to fortune. You have to get the players to care about their minions. That means a) the minions have to be useful and b) the minions have to be trustworthy. I love the Leadership feat. My players know that any non-follower may in fact be a double agent or other plot device but that their true followers will never betray them and if they do, it's dopplegangers or mind control.

Sure, it means some hassles for the players to have other assets, but after two or three levels of letting the minions be useful they start being a hostage to fortune. The players have to protect those fifty or a hundred people, either by keeping them secret or exerting wealth/assets/influence to keep them safe.

Plots become much less about the world shattering power the players have and more about how they can't be two places at once. They have to arrange things with allies and it looks much more like Lord of The Rings

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm finding at 16th level that unless I throw little flip cards out on the table (thanks to Bradford Ferguson for that tip) that people forget about the aid spell, the bless spell, the heroes feast spell, the benefits/penalties of enlarge, etc...

Outside of that, having good saving throws becomes more and more important. Unfortunately, most classes have a weakness or three and we're finding that reflex saves are really taking their toll on us.

 

[Chimera]

I'm finding at 16th level that unless I throw little flip cards out on the table (thanks to Bradford Ferguson for that tip) that people forget about the aid spell, the bless spell, the heroes feast spell, the benefits/penalties of enlarge, etc...

I've got a small white board, about 1' x 1.5' (the kind with magnets on the back for putting on your fridge) that I take to games, along with red and blue dry erase markers. I'm the Bard player, so most of it is mine, but on the board, I track (in blue) all our positive modifiers, and (in red) all our negative mods and effects. Works great. Very handy for people to glance over while they're adding things up.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Outside of that, having good saving throws becomes more and more important. Unfortunately, most classes have a weakness or three and we're finding that reflex saves are really taking their toll on us.

My 9th and 10th level Eberron group has an average Wisdom of 8. The 10th level fighter/rogue just last level managed a positive Will save. +1 Will save, baby, yeah!

The last BBEG fight was with a 10th level beguiler. Very touch and go fight, for obvious reasons. Thank God for magic circle against evil!

 

[JoeGKushner]

My 9th and 10th level Eberron group has an average Wisdom of 8. The 10th level fighter/rogue just last level managed a positive Will save. +1 Will save, baby, yeah!

The last BBEG fight was with a 10th level beguiler. Very touch and go fight, for obvious reasons. Thank God for magic circle against evil!

One of the fighters has a feat that lets him use his Con bonus or something along those lines so he's high. I'm a cleric so mine's high. Another is a sorcerer. The barbarian is the lowest of us but it's about equal to his ref save.

 

[ashockney]

I am one who has had no problem with grappling, attacks of opportunity, running monsters or all the other moaning pitfalls so many find fault with in D&D 3.X.

This deals with high-level D&D play. Not epic, just high level. What's wrong with me that my 3.X campaigns had one end at 15th level, one at 17th level, and one at 19th level and they ran to that point with no problems? Or, what am I doing right? So many complain that the game 'breaks down' after 10th level and usually point that the DM looses his mind and can't hack it.

It's not the work, because in two of those campaigns the work was done for me by running adventures I tweaked here and there. But one, the 17th level one, was me stringing together plots and sometimes running published adventures intertwined with stuff I had to make up. The combats got a little bigger, but only in that everyone had bigger weapons and spells to use. We never found combat taking any longer, it just moved everything up on the scale. It might be my players, who are mostly very table-savvy and don't abuse their high level status in the campaign.

If the DM can't be bothered to know what his players can do or be bothered to look up the new powers his monsters have that can't be blamed on the game system, can it? I mean, the stat blocks are bigger, but with a highlighter, a few minutes of homework and some strategy notes you're ready to rock.

You may even ask why did those campaigns stopped when they did. They stopped because the story/campaign arc was over! The only thing about high level play I may find problematic is campaign realism. In that you have to keep finding bigger and bigger things to hit the party with until eventually it dawns on you that this creature/thing/cult could have taken over a nation already. If you can solve that problem, then that's not an issue either.

So, ask questions, or tell us your foibles with high level play. Or even better if you have shortcuts or tricks to making high level play easier, let's hear it. Maybe we can all solve some problems.

-DM Jeff

Foibles of high level play:
Polymorph
Buff-Scry-Teleport
The prevalance of Save or Die(Incapacitate), and ability to min/max saves
Too many complicated choices to manage
Too much preparation for the DM
Too much power creep that threatens the natural balance of the game system
Too many rolls, too many modifiers, and too many adjustments to manage
Too much emphasis on the rules and preparation, not enough emphasis on the gameplay and player decisions
The proliferation of world altering effects and the strain placed upon a DM to maintain versimilitude: Teleportation, Flight, Invisibility, Etherealness, Commune, TrueSight, Mirage Arcana, Planeshift, Heal, Ressurection, Scrying, Immunity, Domination, Summoning/Cohorts, and Wish

Can these be things be worked through and around? But of course! I've run campaigns to the teens, to the twenty's and one into the 30's. It can be done. I think what's important to emphasize is that doing so drastically alters the effort to fun ratio for both players and DM's. So much so, that most will end their campaigns. Alternatively, it is clear now, 8 years later, how the game can easily be reworked to make the game easier, less complicated, and more fulfilling! Come on 4e!!!

 

[DM_Jeff]

Foibles of high level play:

These are challenges, and yes, they require the attention of botht he players and DMs.

Can these be things be worked through and around? But of course! I've run campaigns to the teens, to the twenty's and one into the 30's. It can be done. I think what's important to emphasize is that doing so drastically alters the effort to fun ratio for both players and DM's. So much so, that most will end their campaigns.

I don't find doing a little extra work to keep 'in shape' to challenge the players to be a bad thing. The going gets a little tough and folks get going? Wow.

Alternatively, it is clear now, 8 years later, how the game can easily be reworked to make the game easier, less complicated, and more fulfilling! Come on 4e!!!

It is yet to be seen, but if 4e really eliminates the need for a DM to look things up to challenge their 23rd level players, that would truly be a miracle. I'm betting it will still be work, just of a different kind.

-DM Jeff

 

[Dragonblade]

Foibles of high level play:
Polymorph
Buff-Scry-Teleport
The prevalance of Save or Die(Incapacitate), and ability to min/max saves
Too many complicated choices to manage
Too much preparation for the DM
Too much power creep that threatens the natural balance of the game system
Too many rolls, too many modifiers, and too many adjustments to manage
Too much emphasis on the rules and preparation, not enough emphasis on the gameplay and player decisions
The proliferation of world altering effects and the strain placed upon a DM to maintain versimilitude: Teleportation, Flight, Invisibility, Etherealness, Commune, TrueSight, Mirage Arcana, Planeshift, Heal, Ressurection, Scrying, Immunity, Domination, Summoning/Cohorts, and Wish

Can these be things be worked through and around? But of course! I've run campaigns to the teens, to the twenty's and one into the 30's. It can be done. I think what's important to emphasize is that doing so drastically alters the effort to fun ratio for both players and DM's. So much so, that most will end their campaigns. Alternatively, it is clear now, 8 years later, how the game can easily be reworked to make the game easier, less complicated, and more fulfilling! Come on 4e!!!

This.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I don't find doing a little extra work to keep 'in shape' to challenge the players to be a bad thing. The going gets a little tough and folks get going? Wow.

I think that the definition of a "little" work varies from person to person, and for a game that is being played for entertainment, the threshold of "too much effort" will be fairly low for some people.

It is yet to be seen, but if 4e really eliminates the need for a DM to look things up to challenge their 23rd level players, that would truly be a miracle. I'm betting it will still be work, just of a different kind.

-DM Jeff

I agree with this. I will be interested to see how it works, but I'm fairly sure that 4e will come with its own set of issues, especially as you move to higher level play.