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High-Level Play: Nightmare for DMs?
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<blockquote data-quote="hong" data-source="post: 1683736" data-attributes="member: 537"><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="hong, post: 1683736, member: 537"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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