High-Level Play: Nightmare for DMs?

[FreeTheSlaves]

My high level experience is limited to 12th level campaigns and a one off 20th level session; so make of it what you will.

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  [1] Spells, magic items and special abilities need to be looked at on a case by case basis. They may need to better understood, altered or banned; the 3.0 cloak of displacement was permanently on, I didn't like that, so I gave it a duration.
  [2] The above can only be done by sitting down with your players and discussing the commonly intended tactics and ponder the internal logic. Afaic something the PC's can do will be done by the NPC's. There must be a defence and MAD is a situation that I won't tolerate (disjunction has a blanket temporary effect or a targetted permanent effect).
  [3] The adventure design moves from an encounter area basis to an event basis. Locations are so easily bypassed that their detail can be dropped; special locations are the exception rather than the rule. Events are a sequence of timed encounters that largely can't be interrupted by the PC's so they will 'create the adventure' by setting a scene.
  [4] That leads to the proactive v reactive angle. Higher level play allows for a more proactive approach by the PC's. I asked my players broadly what they intended to do next session to help me plan.
  [5] Statting up NPC's and special encounter areas required a plan of reaction so to speak. How will they react when under attack? Do they have a counterattack potential.
  [6] BBEG lairs must be warded against scry and interdimensional travel. The magical trap construction rules can be used to permanently affect an area.
  [7] Important information does not have to be given to the PC's via a lame journal. Their knowledge skills and divinations should be adequate enough.

 

[andargor]

Wow! I come back from a weekend away, and find so many insightful responses!

Thanks all.

Yes, game play has indeed changed from 1e and 2e, and 3.5 makes it so easy to attain high levels. Our highest before was I believe around 15th in 2e.

Anyway, with the comments you have offered, we'll certainly figure it out.

Thanks again,

Andargor

 

[Piratecat]

Hong, please remember that this isn't usenet; taking apart a post line-by-line to answer each line without the context of the whole is considered really annoying. (It's considered annoying on usenet too, truth be told, but that's beside the point.) To be specific, it annoys your friendly moderators. Please don't do that when you're discussing subjects here.

Yes, even if you're annoyed.

Thank you.

 

[wizofice]

I'd like to sum up some of the advice in this forum to see if there's anything to add seeing it together.

1) Nerf spells/abilities that don't work or are broken.

2) Remove spells/abilities that don't work or are broken.

3) Think carefully about what your party is capable of and plan accordingly.

4) Set up an impossible situation and let the players figure out a way to make it possible (this is interesting!).

5) Play situations that require less mechanics/combat and more problem solving and roleplaying from the players.

I've been discussing a similar idea to #5 with a friend offline; mentioned attempting to get two deities to fall in love for whatever reason; problems: Epic Diplomacy or a wish could at least get them in the ballpark.

 

[ForceUser]

It seems to me that you are trying to keep the PCs in trapped their box rather than adapt to what the players do.

I second that. Hong's all about keeping a brother down!

 

[kigmatzomat]

I'd like to sum up some of the advice in this forum to see if there's anything to add seeing it together.

As an addendum to #3, there is out-of-campaign practice. IMG when my GM sense starts tingling because there are several weird spells coming into the party's repetoire we run a one-shot about 6-10 levels higher than the regular campaign. I encourage casters and since it's a one-shot, they can get silly with the spell expenditures. Usually there are a handful of "can you do that?" debates when somebody layers on a couple of odd effects.

Even though you won't deal with every situation, you'll hit enough odd crap that the hiccups in your game don't feel as big and you can roll with it more.

 

[orangefruitbat]

It seems to me that a DM should reward behaviours that he wants to encourage and punish behaviours that he wants to discourage. What the DM wants to punish is rote solutions that are boring and kill game fun. What the DM wants is innovation and excitement.

Example 1) the party learns to teleport. They begin to use the classic scry, buff and teleport gambit. DM gets annoyed. So the next stronghold they try this on isn't warded to prevent teleports - instead it redirects their teleport to a trapped area/really big monstrous pet. And they get hid by some quickened dimensional anchors to prevent a quick getaway. Assuming they survive, the party has to enter the stronghold the old-fashioned way - plus they've blown all their buff spells already. Weakened, they decide to disguise themselves and slip in as evil servants, and enjoy better success.

Example 2) the party ethereally jaunts/astrally projects/shadow walks and scouts out the lair, bypassing all the encounters. DM remembers that wandering encounters occur here too. A night hag/githanki raiding party/nightwing random encounter makes these planes much less safe than the material (this is probably a good idea in general - other planes should be more dangerous than the material). Back on the material plane, the fighter intimidates the hell out of a defeated minion and get the information they need to avoid the traps and get where they need to be.

Example 3) the party gates in a solar to do their dirty work. The next week, a wizard in the serivce of the same religion as the solar gates in a party member or members. Why not? What's good for the goose...The party uses its gate abilties with a lot more caution, plus they get a new adventure to boot.

Example 4) Shapechange/polymorph self,etc. have two problems. The first is that they can be so mechanically complicated as to bring the game to a halt. The solution is to houserule this so that you can't shapechange into anything unless you've prepared the stats in advance. Why should everyone wait while you flip thorugh the MM? The second problem is harder, because the shapechange is incredibly effective and has a rather long duration. To counter this is more specific, but the spell can always be dispelled. The caster may now have a poorer will save. Most of the time, they've just made themselves a bigger target...

Example 5) the wizard 'alpha' strikes the opponent (say a timestop plus three or four delayed fireballs). But what if the wizard hit only an illusion. Or perhaps only the first wave of enemies. In general wizards are stronger with against a few higher CR encoutners, but weaker against waves of lower CR encounters. Mobs of low level creatures with one level of sorcerer (for true strike) can be great equalizers

Example 6) a cleric has a permenant true seeing, negating all illusions and magical darknesses. But a high-level assasin with lots of ranks in disguise, bluff and hide can still be an incredible danger. And if the assasin is mind-blanked, he can, with time, possibly take out an entire party.

The important thing is that it's not about punishing the wizard, but getting ev eryone a chance to shine. Areas of wild or antimagic to give fighters and rogues. Monsters with high SR to Diplomatic challenges to give social characters a chance, etc. A good rule of thumb is to let anybody get away with something - once.

 

[rushlight]

XP cost does not automatically balance a broken spell; otherwise, why bother with all the limiting language on wish.
Ooh, so I can only call a solar (CR 23), a monster that constitutes a "overwhelming challenge" for an opponent of my party's power level, as a 17th-level wizard? C'mon; you can't be serious.

I think there are more ways to keep challenges balanced than you are accounting for. Sure, Gate is powerful. However: first, the players are toying with creatures of far greater power - and that can bring role-playing consequences or even direct retribution (say from a deity who's tired of the PCs getting his most powerful angels killed!).

Second, the XP cost is significant. Consider this: with the basic assumptions (4 players in a party, all of whom are 19th level) Gate is generally a bad idea unless it's absolutely nessecary. A CR 19 creature gives 5700 XP, divided by the number of people in the party - that means the caster gets 1425 XP from defeating the monster. If, in the process of defeating the monster, the player casts Gate then he only gains 425 XP from that encounter. If the caster does this every time (which is the assumption here - if the caster only used the spell a single time ever, you wouldn't be calling it broken) then he's dropped his advancement from the standard 13.33 encounters to 44.7 encounters required. It's a dumb wizard who does this, and his use of Gate will be painful.

No you don't. See the example above. Nor is that one a particularly abusive example of gate in combat; try cracking open the Epic Level Handbook and see how high you can go just using a by-the-book standard in-combat application. An 18th-level wizard can summon a phane (CR 25), a creature with the ability to cast epic spells as SLAs. A 20th-level wizard can summon a dream larva (CR 31), another creature with the ability to cast epic spells as SLAs.

Never mind the possibility of using gate to summon monsters with wish available as an SLA (takes less than 1 round/level to cast one, y'know!) or to cast it from, say, the Negative Energy plane to bring a foe to your location and force him to stand still for 1 round/level while you kill him. Good stuff.

Sorry, Abominations are not Extraplanar creatures, they are Outsiders only - which are forbidden by the Gate spell. Only Extraplanar creatures may be called. (Note that the Solar for example is a Large Outsider (Angel, Extraplanar, Good) creature.) Also, a Gated creature can't be forced to cast Wish. See page 173 of the PHB - summoned creatures can't be forced to spend XP, and it's a simple to see that Called creatures under control of the caller should also fall under this rule.

Second, you can't just Gate in the bad guy. Unless the bad guy in your campaign is a random "balor" from the lower planes. If the bad guy is a balor named Joe then that's a unique being - and that too is forbidden by Gate.

I am currently running an epic level game, and honestly, I have never had issues with any of these spells. Can someone give some examples of how these spells have been abused in your game? Or is this simply a case of "well, they look broken"?

 

[rushlight]

Example:Astral projection -
Either :
1) The party forms a bunch of exact duplicates that can travel almost anywhere bypassing all non magical obsticles. It fights the BBeG and even if the BBeG wins all that happens is he kills a few duplicates with no harm to the party.
OR
2) Some etherial creature kill the whole party by cutting the cords.

In practical terms the spell is basically unplayable. Because its either kills the whole party or makes them invulnerable.

Or the BBeG casts Dispel Magic on the Astrally projected party. *POOF* they disappear. Sure 9th level magic is powerful - but the enemies also have access to the spells, knowledge, and counter-measures required to make combat challenging for high level play.

Unless you are sending your 19th level PCs against an orc and 5 goblins. But then, the problem wouldn't be with the rules, but the DM's scenario construction. And you can hardly blame the rules for a DM's misuse of them.

 

[Scion]

SRD:
Calling Creatures: The second effect of the gate spell is to call an extraplanar creature to your aid (a calling effect). By naming a particular being or kind of being as you cast the spell, you cause the gate to open in the immediate vicinity of the desired creature and pull the subject through, willing or unwilling.

Looks like you can call joe the mage just fine, so long as you arent on his home plane.


Also, who cares if the caster gets almost no exp from the battle. Effectively he just won. Sending in a CR 30 creature to do the battle you were about to do means, in nearly every case, that he just won. So against a battle a few CR above his level he can take it out single handedly. If it costs you 1k exp to cast but you get 8k exp from defeating it then it sounds like the best option ever.

Probably a bit too powerful yes?