High-Level Play: Nightmare for DMs?

[Lela]

UltamaGabe and Liquedsabre seem dead on the money to me. Best to start thinking of high level gameplay as epic as soon as 9th level spells enter the mix. Big things are going to happen, the challenge is thinking of something new to keep throwing at the PCs.

If he has the time, I'd consider recomending some of the story hours to your DM. Sep and P-kitty come to mind as excellent examples of high level play. While he probably can't match their mastery of the rules and creativity (um, who the heck can?), he can learn a lot about plot devices. Titivilous is always fun to work with, especially since the PCs can't hope to take him at 17th level.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

I'm just continually amazed at people who actually use the polymorph spells and shapechange in their games.

Last time we played D&D, I played a wizard, and I came to the conclusion two minutes after finding a spellbook with polymorph self in it that actually casting those spells is such a goddamn headache and such a game-paralyzing, time-consuming nightmare that I would feel horribly guilty if I ever tried casting it.

Oh, I know, they're amazing and flexible spells, they're ridiculously powerful, and smart, canny players can use them to accomplish important goals and dominate the game and cure cancer and promote world peace and so on, but it was all just too aggravatingly finicky for me. The thought of telling everyone else to wait for two to ten minutes while I messed around with a copy of the monster manual and some scratch paper to decide what to polymorph into and work out all the details of the polymorph made me realize that in our game, this would always be the wrong spell to cast.

Which makes me wonder if all the people who extol the virtues of polymorph spells are just more patient than I am, or if they have more patient gaming groups than I have, or if they spent a lot of time learning the monster manual forwards and backwards, or if they've just figured out some handy shortcuts that let them actually cast it in the game without bringing everything to a screeching halt and annoying the crap out of the GM and the other players.

If I were running a D&D game, I doubt I'd ban those spells outright. But I certainly wouldn't be encouraging anyone to pick them, and I wouldn't feel obligated to make someone feel comfortable about using them if it meant stopping the game for a few minutes while he worked out the stats on his new form. I don't know how the rest of you guys manage it, to be honest.

--
alas, i've never played in a genuinely high-level game, so i can't offer any practical advice
ryan

 

[Thanee]

The thought of telling everyone else to wait for two to ten minutes while I messed around with a copy of the monster manual and some scratch paper to decide what to polymorph into and work out all the details of the polymorph made me realize that in our game, this would always be the wrong spell to cast.

Well, you can just choose one form that comes to mind, you don't have to first run an optimization process to figure out the best possible form for that moment.

You could also just assume forms of creatures you have actually seen (kinda becomes a bookkeeping nightmare, tho).

When I use the spell, I normally just pick something that comes to mind at the moment. Of course, I know a couple creatures which make good polymorph targets, but often also just use some we have encountered earlier. Sometimes the DM lets me roll a knowledge check to see, whether my character is familiar enough with the creature (DC 10+HD usually, can be higher for unusual creatures, tho).

I only figure out stats when they are needed, I don't write down a whole character sheet every time my character polymorphs.

Really, polymorphing takes about as much time as rolling an attack for me, not much patience necessary.

Bye
Thanee

 

[reanjr]

Easiest thing for a DM to do is simply throw the most impossible challenge at the party. If the DM can figure out a way to accomplish the task, then it's not appropriate for high-level play.

Put the long lost princess on a demiplane only accesible from the 54th layer of the Abyss. Once there, she is trapped in time stasis and will age into death if she leaves. But she is necessary to fulfill a prophecy that will open a door to hidden pocket of the negative material plane where resides the banished demon-lord who is the whole point of the adventure.

Stuff like that. Sorry about all the planar stuff; I was reading Planescape stuff.

 

[hong]

Knowing that your inscrutability often hides fonts of wisdom (for want of a better term) - how do you see 9th level spells (other than, perhaps wish and the imprisonment/freedom dyad) as 'plot devices'?

In the good ol' days when dinosaurs ruled the earth and diaglo was in school, 9th level was the ceiling. It was where you put stuff that was potentially extremely powerful, but could still have a place in a game, mostly as one-off effects to be used by NPCs or as a static device. Soul bind, storm of vengeance and gate are prime examples of the former, and teleportation circle is a prime example of the latter. Basically, these are spells that can take the game in a completely unexpected direction, or are just too powerful to be balanced without multiple paragraphs of qualifications (eg wish and shapechange; the latter is still broken even with the qualifications).

All of this is a side-effect of working at the ceiling, which is the point where balance ceases to be a driving factor in designing spells and abilities. At the ceiling, the prime concern is whether it provides an effect that a DM can use in creating an adventure: I doubt that most PCs will ever use teleport circle more than once or twice, for instance, whereas it might be encountered plenty of times in BBEG lairs. Ditto for spells like gate or wish (at least as it was originally envisaged); these are spells to shoehorn a plot device into the D&D rules framework, not stuff that a PC might use routinely.

Now it's certainly true that game-changing magic shouldn't be a surprise to any DM who's run a campaign from low to high level. To that extent, then, the difference between 9th and lower-level stuff is a matter of degree. It's a pretty big degree, though.

Setting the ceiling at 9th level worked for 1E and 2E, when a campaign might go for years and never progress beyond 12th (character) level or so. It breaks down for 3E, with its more rapid rate of advancement. That said, note that the ceiling hasn't disappeared, it's just moved up a notch. "It's broken but it could work at 9th level" was the attitude for 1E and 2E. In 3E, you now hear "it's broken but it could work at epic" instead.

Some 9th level spells are certainly just more powerful versions of lower-level spells: Bigby's crushing hand, mass hold monster, meteor swarm, etc. But IMO it's not really worth cherry-picking the list, when you'd probably end up tossing the majority of spells.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Is your DM running adventures that focus on battles with straight-forward, enter the room, hack'n'slash battle lines?

A big problem with high level play often comes down to the huge difference in power between the melee classes and the magic using classes. A DM might feel the need to continue to run straight up combat encounters that will please the player of a melee class, while the magic using classes are able to turn such straight up combat encounters into trivial encounters. Magic using classes often eliminate the combat advantage of a big, tough creature letting the fighter kill it with complete ease. Creating challenging combat encounters for a high level party is a nightmare.

I feel that high level play isn't really suitable for people who enjoy mostly hack'n'slash if your DM becomes irritated when you defeat encounters too easily or your player's don't like to die. One or the other is going to happen is going to happen if the majority of encounters involve high level combat.

A more suitable way to run high level play is to include alot of intrigue, politics, and strange situations that requires thinking and role-playing. There are quite a few players who might have become overly accustomed to the hack'n'slash style of play suitable for lower levels, and would not enjoy playing in a game that involves heavy role playing.

Your DM can either shift his campaign focus to heavy roleplay with occasional combat, or just let combats happen as they will. A good deal of the time the players will run roughshod over their opponents, but sometimes the players will get thoroughly reamed with multiple deaths, possibly even a TPK. That is the nature of high level combat. A few missed saves or a particularly powerful monster can really lead to alot of dying. The PC's can make themselves immune to virtually any kind of attack the DM can throw at them causing the DM to scream and pull his hair out. Either way, the DM and players should ease into high level play. It takes a while to get the hang of how to run it and play it.

 

[Tessarael]

Broken 9th level spells

Following up on what hong said, I had a quick look through the SRD to see which 9th level spells I consider broken or plot device spells:

Mage's (Mordenkainen's) Disjunction: removes spell buffs and destroys magic items, broken because the first side to disjunction the other will usually win. This spell has been nerfed for arena smackdowns.

Miracle, Wish: plot device for undoing something bad

Shapechange: in my opinion it's way too good a buff spell. Change into a different dragon each round to use a different breath weapon each round, etc.

Time Stop: time out to buff et al., probably not broken as allowed in arena smackdowns.

Those are the only 9th level spells that look really disturbing to me. There are lower level plot device spells and spell combinations that may also be an issue (Find the Path, Scry + buff + Teleport, etc.), but should have already been dealt with by this stage.

 

[ruleslawyer]

You don't find gate, arguably the worst offender of the bunch, broken? Wow.

 

[rushlight]

Following up on what hong said, I had a quick look through the SRD to see which 9th level spells I consider broken or plot device spells:

Mage's (Mordenkainen's) Disjunction: removes spell buffs and destroys magic items, broken because the first side to disjunction the other will usually win. This spell has been nerfed for arena smackdowns.

Miracle, Wish: plot device for undoing something bad

Shapechange: in my opinion it's way too good a buff spell. Change into a different dragon each round to use a different breath weapon each round, etc.

Time Stop: time out to buff et al., probably not broken as allowed in arena smackdowns.

Those are the only 9th level spells that look really disturbing to me. There are lower level plot device spells and spell combinations that may also be an issue (Find the Path, Scry + buff + Teleport, etc.), but should have already been dealt with by this stage.

Bah. Those spells are only "broken" when used in a campaign with a DM who either 1) is unprepaired for the level of play he has chosen or 2) is just running the same style of scenario he's been using since 1st level.

I'm running a campaign that has reached the beginnings of epic level, and I've not found any 9th level spells that were "broken". The mage has all of the spells you mentioned - and more. I take his abilities (and those of the other players, like the fighter who can reliably dish out 200 points of damage a round) into account when I design my scenarios.

Here's some things about those spells you might not have considered:

1) Disjunction. Sure, the PCs can totally hose the bad guy. One spell, and all the magic items he's got are gone. But then, what's left for the PCs after the battle? My PCs will almost never Disjoin a bad guy - they want his stuff after he's dead.

2) Miracle, Wish. Both take 5000 XP - nothing to sneeze at. Miracle requires total alignment with the deity - and that may not always be the case. Wish either gives some pre-configured benifits (inherent bonuses and whatnot) or risks dangerous results. DMs shouldn't wimp out when the PCs ask for more that the usual stuff.

3) Shapechange. Notice that the HD cap for the creature you change into is your caster level or 25 HD, whichever is less. If your 20th level party is fighting an Old Red Dragon (CR 20) then it would be fairly irrelevent for the mage to shapechange into say, a Young Adult Silver Dragon (CR 13, 19 HD). Sure, he'd get some extra HPs and a 10d8 cone of cold, and perhaps a better BAB - but he coulda just cast a Comet Swarm (a Meteor Swarm with cold damage). That's a 9th level spell too, and it does 32d6 of unsaveable damage. Which would you do? You'll quickly find that HD 20 monsters aren't that much more effective at fighting CR 20 monsters than the mage was to begin with.

4) Time Stop. This is the only spell that must be carefully watched - but as long as the DM keeps a close eye on it, it's fine. The DM must strictly enforce the "unable to effect other creatures" clause in the spell. That really eliminates it's offensive use. At that point, it's just a "get a few personal buffs off" spell, and that's not that bad. Or, if you are the mage in my game, it's used for replacing alcoholic beverages with water - without alerting your host. (See, he's got this Vow of Abstenance...)

Those 9th level spells may look all big and bad, but as long as the DM is aware of the abilities of his players, and plans accordingly, the opposing monsters can be equally nasty. My players just recently had to fight their way out of an ambush set by a CR 21 blue dragon and a CR 22 green dragon - when the PCs had no idea dragons were around. Given that the party consists of two 20th level characters and two 21st level characters, it was a tough battle, and it used every spell the mage and cleric had over 6th level (and the mage had 3 10th level slots!). They were victorious, and it was an amazing fight - but never an easy one.

 

[rushlight]

You don't find gate, arguably the worst offender of the bunch, broken? Wow.

I don't find gate that bad. I assume it's the "creature calling" part that you object to. First it has a 1000 XP cost. Second, you are somewhat limited (to 2x caster level) in the HD of the creature if you intend to use it to fight. Sure you can get more, but a DM would be an idiot if he just let you call 90 HD creatures without some sort of payback. Those sorts of creatures wouldn't take kindly to being bandied about by tactless wizards.

And honestly, when you keep the HD limit enforced, basically what you've got is a bigger, badder Summon Monster. As a DM, if your player tends to use this spell often, you can compensate by adding additional bigger, meaner monsters for the called creature to fight. Or have the BBEG cast gate himself and summon a balor to deal with that solar. Whatever, it's not that big of a deal.

And also don't forget - gate actually physically brings the creature to the matieral plane. If it dies, it's DEAD. If the mage kills off too many extraplanar creatures, you can be sure that others will come looking for the reason...