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L&L: The Challenges of High Level Play
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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5825349" data-attributes="member: 58197"><p>I have encountered two concerns with high-level play:</p><p></p><p>1. Because players mostly stay in the lower end of the level range, most player feedback is based on low-level play and designers focus most of their attention on improving that part of the game. The high levels remain largely unpolished and untested. As well, the desire to give out more and better options as PCs advance causes rules bloat. So you end up with a single combat round taking an hour to resolve, horrendous class imbalances, "rocket tag," et cetera. This can be fixed by more testing and design focus on the high levels. 4E made some progress here, though not enough IMO.</p><p></p><p>2. While I think most people agree that high-level play should be different, there's a question of <em>how</em> it should be different. There are two models here, which I'll call the BD&D model and the 3E model.</p><p></p><p>The BD&D model holds that the activities of the PCs should change as they advance, from dungeon crawling to wilderness adventuring to domain rulership to seeking immortality. A high-level PC in the BD&D model spends much less time as a footloose adventurer without responsibilities, and much more leading armies and conducting diplomacy and intrigues.</p><p></p><p>The 3E model holds that PCs remain engaged in dungeon crawling from beginning to end, but the nature of the dungeons and the experience of the crawl changes dramatically. A high-level PC in the 3E model will be going on quests and battling monsters just like always, but the quests will be on distant planes where the very nature of reality is different, and the battles will look less like medieval skirmishes and more like superheroes duking it out.</p><p></p><p>AD&D stood in between the BD&D and 3E models--there was a clear implication that high-level AD&D PCs would establish strongholds and rule domains, but there was far less support than in BD&D. Since 3E's release, the BD&D model has pretty much ceased to exist. Neither 3E nor 4E lent any support to it to speak of. I would really like to see the BD&D model revived in 5E, and the 3E model toned down.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5825349, member: 58197"] I have encountered two concerns with high-level play: 1. Because players mostly stay in the lower end of the level range, most player feedback is based on low-level play and designers focus most of their attention on improving that part of the game. The high levels remain largely unpolished and untested. As well, the desire to give out more and better options as PCs advance causes rules bloat. So you end up with a single combat round taking an hour to resolve, horrendous class imbalances, "rocket tag," et cetera. This can be fixed by more testing and design focus on the high levels. 4E made some progress here, though not enough IMO. 2. While I think most people agree that high-level play should be different, there's a question of [I]how[/I] it should be different. There are two models here, which I'll call the BD&D model and the 3E model. The BD&D model holds that the activities of the PCs should change as they advance, from dungeon crawling to wilderness adventuring to domain rulership to seeking immortality. A high-level PC in the BD&D model spends much less time as a footloose adventurer without responsibilities, and much more leading armies and conducting diplomacy and intrigues. The 3E model holds that PCs remain engaged in dungeon crawling from beginning to end, but the nature of the dungeons and the experience of the crawl changes dramatically. A high-level PC in the 3E model will be going on quests and battling monsters just like always, but the quests will be on distant planes where the very nature of reality is different, and the battles will look less like medieval skirmishes and more like superheroes duking it out. AD&D stood in between the BD&D and 3E models--there was a clear implication that high-level AD&D PCs would establish strongholds and rule domains, but there was far less support than in BD&D. Since 3E's release, the BD&D model has pretty much ceased to exist. Neither 3E nor 4E lent any support to it to speak of. I would really like to see the BD&D model revived in 5E, and the 3E model toned down. [/QUOTE]
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