Ridiculous amount of buffs

[Kestrel]

The only thing you forgot was "Remember to tell them that they're idiots for being so predictable," and "have assassins ready to strike when they teleport back to their inn rooms."

I love running bad guys like this. Planning what the PCs will do, then countering it, and considering their fallback plan so that they can counter THAT too, makes for a fun exercise!

I did this after I got tired of that tactic. One of the characters managed to get paralyzed while the assassins killed his cohort and threw his heart to the dogs in the street. Hilarity ensued as the other PCs arrived and chased the dogs to save the heart for Raise Dead.

Or later when mundane assassins were not enough, so the vampire knight in the Temple (can't remember his name) made vampire assassins to harry the pcs.

I had a lot of fun with that campaign, trying to figure out what the High Priests were doing to counter the pcs. In retrospect, there's a lot of things I would have changed to make the temple more fun. Like spreading out the four different temples across Oerth and just used the Crater Ridge Mines for the main complex. The game fell apart around 12th level, as I got tired of running it. (just not sure the high levels are for me...I'm trying again, but we'll see)

 

[Warren Okuma]

There's a number of threads out there about how to run effective high level games. I've posted in many of those, and will try to be brief. Many of the key ideas have been highlighted already:
1) Change the scope of your game - dungeon crawling is too limited in scope for high level
2) Anti-magic fields
3) Dispelling
4) Buff your villians
5) Employ more dynamic villians, especially BBEG
6) Where possible provide more "environmental" and "non-combat" challenges
7) Use MORE villians (ie, a typical encounter should outnumber the party 2:1, 3:1)

These strategies, still allow for some variety for PC's but grant you a bit of freedom as a DM to continue to challenge your PC's at higher levels. Regretably, you just don't have the kind of flexibility and freedom you do as a DM to run any appropriate EL encounter with no prior preparation, like you do from about 3rd level - 9th level, where the game plays super sweet.

A couple of notes to those who've made comments:
USING CHARACTER ABILITIES should not ever equal UNCREATIVE/UNFAIR/BORING

As a DM, I always assume if somethings put in the game, it's there for a reason, and it should be expected to be used. Characters should get the opportunity to flex their muscles.

HIGH LEVEL PLAY is TOO COMPLEX

I've written a lot about this elsewhere, so I won't beat a dead horse. Just for reference, however, what exactly were you planning on doing with your 1st - 3rd level spells? If you think you're using a fireball on anything above 15th level, you're really just kidding yourself. Buffs (particularly some of the swift action ones in the new books) become one of, if not the only, viable option to find a relevant use for these 25 of their 50 spells for the day.

5a) Retreat.
5b) Practice pursuit.
5c) Attack.
5e) Practice scry and fry on the PC's.

I like giving the PC's full options. To buff or not to buff. It makes the game more interesting for me, because it's a challenge to react to the PC's, and that's fun for me.
Druid1: Look they're buffing.
Druid2: The ceiling should be mud, Rock to Mud.
Druid1: No, Mud to Rock.
Druid2: Time to leave.

I love high level play, to run and to play, because you get all the cool spells. It takes all kinds.

 

[shilsen]

I went a very different route to most of the suggestions here. I just gave my 13th lvl PCs the following permanent abilities:

+4 enhancement bonus to all six stats
+4 resistance bonus to saves
+4 enhancement bonus to natural armor
+3 deflection bonus to AC
Fast healing 1 (which only kicks in 1 minute after they take damage, so effectively no healing needed between fights if they have enough time)

So now they're all buffed all the time and there's a whole lot of stuff we don't have to track.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Hi there ashockney!



I appreciate the love dude,

although I have been thinking perhaps...

Physical
Mental
Spiritual
Magical

...would be more apropos.

Another possibility might be to have a spell-level limit based on your level (or one of your ability scores).



Not sure if they would work as subcategories, I think you need a certain catch-all degree of ambiguity. I mean which of the above are True Seeing, Greater Magic Weapon and Fly going to fit into.



Absolutely. Also I think it helps place more emphasis on higher-level spells rather than 20 low-level spells.

To draw up a parallel with videogames. If we contrast Doom with Halo (for example). Halo limits the number of weapons you can carry, forcing you to make a tactical choice. So your decisions have consequences, and as such Halo is the more involving game.

In buff heavy D&D games, tactics are secondary to the sheer volume of spells.



If you think its complex now, try writing books on it.

One of my goals has been to boil high/epic gaming down to the bare essentials. To a degree I think I have succeeded.



I have solved this problem (take a look at Automatic Metamagic Capacity and Metamagic Freedom).

http://www.immortalshandbook.com/freestuff9.htm

Basically you gain no more spells after 20th (except from increased ability scores). But using Automatic Metamagic Capacity all those 1st, 2nd and 3rd level spells become relevant even at epic levels.

So every time you take this feat you choose a feat and then one instance treats it as automatic for the 1-3 level spells? Like the other automatic feats?

If so, IMO it is not worded very well and I only understand that because of the examples. If I am wrong, please explain further.

Thanks

You mean us?

ROFL

 

[DM-Rocco]

Hehehehe

I'm having visions of one of the keepers of the temple of elemental evil running down tactics in my head now.

"Listen, theres this group of adventurers, they raid our temple, kill a bunch of our guards, and then teleport out before we can kill them. They've done this twice now. So here's the plan; we move everyone into the back room of the temple. Take all the crap you can carry. Leave the walls BARE. Yes, I know what's back there. That's the point. I'm asking the big guy for help on this too. he's going to be watching the loot. We all leave at nine in the morning. And go hide about in the wilderness outside. When the adventurers come back, we let them go in. Count to a hundred while they wander around like idiots... then we all rush in and slaughter them from behind. I'll keep them from teleporting out with a scroll of Dimensional anchor I found in the back, and my henchmen will just keep hitting them with "dispells" until they die.

See, now your getting it

 

[DM-Rocco]

I went a very different route to most of the suggestions here. I just gave my 13th lvl PCs the following permanent abilities:

+4 enhancement bonus to all six stats
+4 resistance bonus to saves
+4 enhancement bonus to natural armor
+3 deflection bonus to AC
Fast healing 1 (which only kicks in 1 minute after they take damage, so effectively no healing needed between fights if they have enough time)

So now they're all buffed all the time and there's a whole lot of stuff we don't have to track.

That is very interesting, and I thought about that too. How has that been in practice?

 

[Kestrel]

I went a very different route to most of the suggestions here. I just gave my 13th lvl PCs the following permanent abilities:

+4 enhancement bonus to all six stats
+4 resistance bonus to saves
+4 enhancement bonus to natural armor
+3 deflection bonus to AC
Fast healing 1 (which only kicks in 1 minute after they take damage, so effectively no healing needed between fights if they have enough time)

So now they're all buffed all the time and there's a whole lot of stuff we don't have to track.

Did you ban the buff spells or is there just an understanding that these bonuses replace those spells?

 

[Upper_Krust]

So every time you take this feat you choose a feat and then one instance treats it as automatic for the 1-3 level spells? Like the other automatic feats?

No.

- This feat applies to all spell levels, not just 1-3.
- This does not give you new metamagic feats, it just lets you add metamagic feats 'for free' up to your number of AMC feats.
- This feat allows you to exceed 9th-level spells

Everytime you take Automatic Metamagic Capacity you gain one free spell level of metamagic which you can add to every spell (of levels 0-9).

So if you take AMC three times you could maximise or widen (not both) all your spells on the fly (assuming you had the maximise spell and widen spell feats of course). You don't need to pre-memorise metamagicked spells.

e.g. Normally you would need to use a 5th-level spell slot for a quickened Magic Missile spell. But with this system you could take four AMC feats and cast a quickened magic missile still using a 1st-level spell slot. Or you could cast a quickened Meteror Swarm using only a 9th-level spell slot.

When you take the Metamagic Freedom feat. That allows you to stack the same metamagic multiple times.

So you could widen a fireball twice using a 9th-level spell slot (or with 6 AMC feats).

If so, IMO it is not worded very well and I only understand that because of the examples. If I am wrong, please explain further.

Its one of those things thats incredibly simple if you 'get it' but something of a nightmare to explain.

Thanks

My pleasure. If you (or anyone) want to pose me a specific example I'll happily and take you through it step by step.

 

[DM-Rocco]

No.

- This feat applies to all spell levels, not just 1-3.
- This does not give you new metamagic feats, it just lets you add metamagic feats 'for free' up to your number of AMC feats.
- This feat allows you to exceed 9th-level spells

Everytime you take Automatic Metamagic Capacity you gain one free spell level of metamagic which you can add to every spell (of levels 0-9).

So if you take AMC three times you could maximise or widen (not both) all your spells on the fly (assuming you had the maximise spell and widen spell feats of course). You don't need to pre-memorise metamagicked spells.

e.g. Normally you would need to use a 5th-level spell slot for a quickened Magic Missile spell. But with this system you could take four AMC feats and cast a quickened magic missile still using a 1st-level spell slot. Or you could cast a quickened Meteror Swarm using only a 9th-level spell slot.

When you take the Metamagic Freedom feat. That allows you to stack the same metamagic multiple times.

So you could widen a fireball twice using a 9th-level spell slot (or with 6 AMC feats).



Its one of those things thats incredibly simple if you 'get it' but something of a nightmare to explain.



My pleasure. If you (or anyone) want to pose me a specific example I'll happily and take you through it step by step.

It sounds a bit over powered.

Anyway, let me get this straight, if I have AMC 5 I could cast a maximized and empowered meterswarm? That seems a bit much if I am right.

 

[Wavestone]

It sounds a bit over powered.

Anyway, let me get this straight, if I have AMC 5 I could cast a maximized and empowered meterswarm? That seems a bit much if I am right.

If I understand it correctly, UK's Metamagic Capacity feat is one of the ways he has changed epic magic in his Immortals Handbook..

Basically, its an epic feat.. meaning to have 5 AMC feats, you have to be lvl 25+ I think..

So of course its very powerful.. a spell with 5+ AMC is a substitute for an epic spell.


If I've got it right., that is..