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DM can't get the hang of high-level play
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<blockquote data-quote="Fimmtiu" data-source="post: 901263" data-attributes="member: 7953"><p>Expert advice urgently needed! </p><p></p><p>I'm in a gaming group that's had a 3E campaign running continuously for about a year and a half now, and we're up to the following levels:</p><p></p><p>Barbarian 2/Wizard 10</p><p>Psychic Warrior 8/Slayer 4</p><p>Cleric 10 (was 11 last session, but...)</p><p></p><p>So the average party level is about 12th, with some of us nearing 13th. Our DM, an old-school roleplayer with many years of experience, is starting to run into serious problems with keeping the campaign going at these levels, and we can't quite put our fingers on how to fix it.</p><p></p><p>The main problem is that we're having a <strong>serious</strong> problem with player mortality as we go up in levels. Weird, right? You'd think that things are more dangerous when you've only got 6 HP and lousy AC. But in higher-CR encounters, you tend to live or die just on the outcome of a single die roll.</p><p></p><p>The wizard's latest death: Peeking over the edge of a well, accidentally meeting the gaze of a medusa we didn't know was there. Failed two fort saves, dead. The psychic warrior failed a save for an assassin's death attack. The cleric had a low initiative roll when we were surprised by an angry carnivorous plant: surprise round, full attack, chomp chomp chomp. In all three cases, death came from an instant and entirely unexpected source, and was decided largely on the basis of one or two bad rolls.</p><p></p><p>Now, our DM isn't terribly fond of the whole "revolving door" Raise Dead thing, and he's not really interested in running the campaign if we're going to be dying and coming back at the rate of one character per session. He feels it kills the flavour of the game, and frankly, as a player, I have to agree. Aside from the optimistic advice of "never let yourself be surprised by anything again", what can we do to improve the game's survivability at high levels? The DM is good about playing monsters fairly -- everything gets sensible motivations, he does almost all rolls out in the open, he's not "out to get us" or anything like that, we don't do modules or big dungeon crawls, et cetera. But it seems like one bad roll is all that stands between a character and a messy demise most of the time, and death (and the subsequent level loss) is becoming disturbingly frequent recently.</p><p></p><p>Now, don't get the wrong idea -- we're not playing with the safety on or anything. The DM is quite consistent about playing bad situations to the hilt if we just bumble in without thinking, and we all know that death is a very real possibility in this campaign. It's just that when we die, it tends to be an instant, "Roll a Fortitude save. You missed? OK, you're dead again!" that leaves everyone frustrated and annoyed. Fights at this level tend to be very all-or-nothing so far: did I save against the monster's instant-kill attack? If not, we lose. Next round, I cast Hold Monster. Did it save? If not, it loses. It makes high-level combat seem very... well... non-heroic.</p><p></p><p>So for any DMs out there with experience in high-level play, we would be seriously grateful for some advice. How do you play high-level characters to avoid dying? How do you construct encounters and plots for high-level characters that will be challenging without ruining two years' worth of story with an inglorious TPK? We're getting a little worried here. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fimmtiu, post: 901263, member: 7953"] Expert advice urgently needed! I'm in a gaming group that's had a 3E campaign running continuously for about a year and a half now, and we're up to the following levels: Barbarian 2/Wizard 10 Psychic Warrior 8/Slayer 4 Cleric 10 (was 11 last session, but...) So the average party level is about 12th, with some of us nearing 13th. Our DM, an old-school roleplayer with many years of experience, is starting to run into serious problems with keeping the campaign going at these levels, and we can't quite put our fingers on how to fix it. The main problem is that we're having a [B]serious[/B] problem with player mortality as we go up in levels. Weird, right? You'd think that things are more dangerous when you've only got 6 HP and lousy AC. But in higher-CR encounters, you tend to live or die just on the outcome of a single die roll. The wizard's latest death: Peeking over the edge of a well, accidentally meeting the gaze of a medusa we didn't know was there. Failed two fort saves, dead. The psychic warrior failed a save for an assassin's death attack. The cleric had a low initiative roll when we were surprised by an angry carnivorous plant: surprise round, full attack, chomp chomp chomp. In all three cases, death came from an instant and entirely unexpected source, and was decided largely on the basis of one or two bad rolls. Now, our DM isn't terribly fond of the whole "revolving door" Raise Dead thing, and he's not really interested in running the campaign if we're going to be dying and coming back at the rate of one character per session. He feels it kills the flavour of the game, and frankly, as a player, I have to agree. Aside from the optimistic advice of "never let yourself be surprised by anything again", what can we do to improve the game's survivability at high levels? The DM is good about playing monsters fairly -- everything gets sensible motivations, he does almost all rolls out in the open, he's not "out to get us" or anything like that, we don't do modules or big dungeon crawls, et cetera. But it seems like one bad roll is all that stands between a character and a messy demise most of the time, and death (and the subsequent level loss) is becoming disturbingly frequent recently. Now, don't get the wrong idea -- we're not playing with the safety on or anything. The DM is quite consistent about playing bad situations to the hilt if we just bumble in without thinking, and we all know that death is a very real possibility in this campaign. It's just that when we die, it tends to be an instant, "Roll a Fortitude save. You missed? OK, you're dead again!" that leaves everyone frustrated and annoyed. Fights at this level tend to be very all-or-nothing so far: did I save against the monster's instant-kill attack? If not, we lose. Next round, I cast Hold Monster. Did it save? If not, it loses. It makes high-level combat seem very... well... non-heroic. So for any DMs out there with experience in high-level play, we would be seriously grateful for some advice. How do you play high-level characters to avoid dying? How do you construct encounters and plots for high-level characters that will be challenging without ruining two years' worth of story with an inglorious TPK? We're getting a little worried here. :( [/QUOTE]
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