D&D @ High Levels = No Problem?

[AllisterH]

For me, its the swinginess of high level play....

He who gets surprise round just plain wins...At the lower levels, getting surprised sucks but the AC/defenses and the HP of the target tend to insure that many creatures in the level 5-12 range can survive a couple of round plus a surprise round.

At level 13+ though, I simply suck as a DM I think since without fail, the chances of cakewalks and TPKs simply oscillate. There's just no middle ground I've found.

 

[Voadam]

I enjoy running and playing in high level games.

A few annoyances do show up, though.

Spell prep selections can slow down the game. The massive cleric/druid spell prep automatic choices (I have clerics use the spontaneous caster limited spells known variant from UA to avoid this).

Choosing equipment for high level NPCs is time consuming. I use a lot of sample NPCs such as from the d20 NPC wiki but you still have to watch out for whether sample stat blocks are designed for PCs or NPCs for their wealth level or be caught off guard by how much loot your PCs recover.

Advancing monsters or adding NPC levels onto them can be tedious and time consuming.

The multiplicity of slightly overlapping buffs is annoying to keep track of, particularly with dispel magics being thrown around.

Save or die effects are always annoying (I change them to save or dieing when I am DM).

At really high levels having enough money for everybody to do everything through bought items makes the party more homogenous than I like.

Tracking spell durations is annoying.

Scry buff teleport is a little annoying.

The all or nothing approach to many things (e.g. being screwed by grapplers or immune through freedom of movement, etc.).