Running dungeons with high level PCs (my players don't read - and yes, I'll know!)

[Steverooo]

At second level (IIRC), my lowly Ranger had a tent made with lead foil sandwhiched between the layers of leather... Why? Most scrying magics are stopped by a thin sheet of lead or gold. I'm sure the bad guys know this, too. (Does it stop Teleportation? I don't recall).

As for resting, the bad guys probably have access to a few ghosts they can use to follow the PCs around, once they know where they are, in the dungeon. They can pretty much spy invisibly, and relate party plans to whatever needs to know, while a big boss coordinates troops...

Of course, the areas just outside and inside the "throne room" (or whatever) should have an anti-magic zone on them... That's where I'd put it, if I were designing one! (High ceiling, create something big above the AMZ, splat! You try to cast a spell, there - Oops!)

The Haunted Lead-Mine is a baddie, but is one of those nerf-thingies...

You've got your evil temple and priests, right? Any enemies who can't be ressurected can be reainmated. When any undead go "boom", a rapid-response strike team moves in to assess and report back. The big bads then respond.

Any of this helping?

 

[Joshua Randall]

The early portions of this story hour feature a high-level party versus a dungeon; specifically, the Black Academy from Return to the Tomb of Horrors. The PCs are powerful, smart, and have a lot of magic at their disposal. They use hit-and-run tactics. They rest in a magnificent mansion. They buff like crazy. They scry. They divine. They commune.

The NPC villains are also powerful, smart, and have a lot of magic at their disposal. They set up unhallow'd dispel magic and dimensional anchor. They try to divide and conquer the PCs using walls of force. They also use hit and run, including scry-buff-teleport assassination missions. They take the fight to the PCs.

This all culminates in a spectacular battle when the chief NPC villain takes hostages and forces the PCs to fight her in arena combat. How's that for a "dungeon crawl"?

The most important thing for high level adventures is to make the NPC villains proactive. Do that, and the PCs will learn to fear you - as they should.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

5 characters, 10th level. Includes 2 wizards, a cleric, a ranger and a fighter, plus one thief cohort. We're playing 3.5.

The "don't let them rest" part is hard to do. I have no desire to spend hours running random encounter after random encounter (that's just boring...), and the characters are able to hide easily, as mentioned earlier. It seems very difficult to use the attrition tactic which most dungeons seem to rely on - avoidance and recuperation seems very easy. Run away, rope-trick/teleport/dig a secret cave/numerous other tactics.

Part of your challenge as DM is that you have two wizards available. This is a classic party plus one spellcaster. Same situation in an 11th level 3.5 game that I'm an occasional DM in. Party has a barbarian, a rogue or a bard, a priest, a wizard and a sorcerer. Needless to say, having twice the spellpower for movement spells in addition to damage gives them a big advantage.

So I recommend changing the nature of the encounter. They're going to want to only have 1-2 encounters per game day to maximize their resources. Let 'em. But bring in minions or other foes on the heels of whatever they encounter. If you think of it as two back-to-back fights, it works well.

You won't get the classic dungeon crawl feel. I think we've established that. Aside from the Bag in the Rope Trick issue (which your players may hate), I wouldn't actually keep attacking them when they're resting. It seems like you've already reached that conclusion.

What you might want to do is to bring in some victims that they have to go rescue. As Orcus points out, this is the lair of a BBEG with godlike powers. But what about his minions? Do they automatically get these powers too, or do they have to sacrifice to Orcus to get them? If the priests in there start taking prisoners to specific, dimension-locked areas for sacrifices, and the PCs find clues, they'll come looking. Now what if those priests are waiting for this? They decided on this tactic to bring the fight to a place of their choosing instead of trying to catch these crazy people zapping through their home.

Good luck with the game!

 

[Mystery Man]

10th is nothing, I remember fondly being able to push my guys around fairly well back then. Wait till they hit their teens.

Maybe some of this will be obvious I dunno, but some of the things I've learned....

Preparation is key. Know what they can do and what they have access to and expect them to use it. When you look at those CR's and the abilities of the monsters, don't think to yourself that it could wipe them out. They'll find away to not die and most likely come out hardly hurt at all. Just award XP percentages accordingly.

Have the bad guys gang up on one or two and put them down in the negatives fast, see how the rest deal with it.That's one of my favorite things to do when my players are lulled to sleep by their own magnificence.

Have the creatures with special abilities running before the encounter, they don't live in a vaccuum where they just stand around waiting for the players to show up and kill them. They know they're coming!

Don't be afraid to use the finger, slay living, harm, circle of death etc.

 

[Piratecat]

There's some great advice here; A'Koss and Kamakazi Midget already said some of the things I was going to.

The best rule to remember is that actions have consequences. As Orcus said, the people who have designed these dungeons knew about magic and wished to avoid pesky adventurers. That means that you can use some sneaky tactics that don't necessarily screw over the PCs' abilities, but which do make them think creatively.

The second thing to remember is that you should make them cautious. This means that you don't have to screw over their tactics every time, but doing so once in a while will make them have more fun. For instance, the PCs have successfully avoided two challenges by having a polymorphed umber hulk burrow under them. At a third similar challenge, they try the same trick - and he falls through the floor into a pit full of acid or water, where the skeletal hydra starts ripping him apart. Do the other PCs jump into the liquid to try and save him? Do they smash away the floor, or does the weakened floor disintegrate when breached (dumping everyone into the liquid), or does the hydra rend the fleeing umber hulk? A fine question - and if the group survives, then hit them with an area similar in appearance to the one they tried to avoid. Now they have to decide whether or not to try the same tactic or something new.

This can be done with other types of monsters, too; in certain areas, it's not unreasonable to assume that the priests of Orcus bound a spectre (incorporeal, so it can attack through rock!) or a half-fiendish earth elemental to the areas. Anyone breaching the stone will have to deal with it. This sort of monster is effective because only the burrowing PC is at risk.

If they are hiding in rope tricks and are facing intelligent opponents, a wonderful way to keep them on their toes is to have one of those opponents use detect magic to find the entrance to the rope tricks. Then, a handy dispel magic or two will dump the sleeping PCs out on their heads. Let the ambush ensue!

Finally, letting the PCs use these cool tactics is fun for them, so long as it doesn't get boring. People get a huge charge out of circumventing the nasty trap. Just make sure they don't get incautious.

 

[Henry]

Never EVER feel bad aobut modifying an adventure; for one thing, it was designed or converted for 3E three years ago, at the introduction of the game; there are three years worth of Rat Bastard Player tactics that have been invented in the confines of 3E in that time. For another thing, Clark and Bill never saw your players in action, I assume.

Keep in mind that the builders have access specifically to not only bound undead (ESPECIALLY UNDEAD), but elementals, as well. Ever see the look on a player's face when he melds with stone, and gets attacked by an Earth Elemental? (evil grin)

PCat's important point is to keep the players paranoid, but don't harrass them. Occasional harrassment by enemies that are as well prepared as the players should be enough to remind them that they don't know ALL the secrets of your demesne.

 

[A'koss]

I agree with Joshua that villians should be proactive against intruders. Particularly if the dungeon has a strong leadership core and especially those that have the resources to get at PCs who can teleport back to town and are merely "hen-pecking" away at the dungeon.

Though, really, we all know in our hearts that it's not difficult to defend a dungeon if we really wanted to, particularly if it has a strong central leadership. We just play "nice" so that the PCs don't get massacred. Just utilize the vast majority of the dungeon denizens in a single encounter instead of letting the PCs pick away at scattered groups throughout the dungeon. If the PCs assult your place, meet them with a force they simply have no chance of opposing. Have a large numbers of innocent captives chained helplessly in their midst and/or strapped onto your giant-sized forces (literally, meat shields) so that the PCs will think twice about using area-affecting spells. If the PCs begin to flee, then the bad guys go to work on the innocents - slow and nasty-like.

If the bad guys figure out who the PCs are, going after their family, friends, valued associates and homes are always tried and true ways to get a little payback...

Of course being this nasty and vindictive all the time doesn't make for much of a fun game so we pull our punches a bit so that it's still worth playing the hero.


A'koss.

 

[DonAdam]

If they are hiding in rope tricks and are facing intelligent opponents, a wonderful way to keep them on their toes is to have one of those opponents use detect magic to find the entrance to the rope tricks. Then, a handy dispel magic or two will dump the sleeping PCs out on their heads. Let the ambush ensue!

That's the kind of talk I like to hear, but there's one more important element to this: the ambusher need not stay to fight. Hourly hit and run raids against the PC's keep the spellcasters from getting their needed sleep.

 

[Kugar]

I had the same types of problems in my last campaign. The real killer here is the easy access to rest. If you have 2 spell casters fully rested before every encounter, the challenge diminishes and it is not how the game was designed. I have seen the balance break down like this and 1) It is not pretty and 2) It is going to get worse as their level increases. I also see this as a friction point between players. If the spell casters can fire off the complete wad of spell for even minor encounters, fighter types can feel left out of the limelight. The good news there are some things you can do to make the decision to press on more "attractive"

1) Impose a game-time time limit. If the necromancers in the bottom levels have a evil scheme that will go down in 3 days that means that your clerics can only regain spells 3 times and the arcane casters (3*24/8) = 9 times. By using this type of time control you can tailor the number of "idealized" encounters per rest period and let the players decide for themselves how to use them.

2) Keep track of the limits of the spells used. It's pretty commonsense, but make sure that everything jives with the spell description. I don't know how many times I've re-read a spell description and said "Do'h" after a game.

3) Don't be afraid to put in challenges that require spell use. Every one of these forces a spell out of "inventory" for the day and makes the player feel like they are really contributing - Bonus points for the DM

4) Super-Evil-Genius guy is not stupid. If someone is blowing through your minions and/or local neighbors you either 1) Hunt them down or 2) Move. I once had a whole complex empty out while the PCs rested in a rope trick - they were not pleased because they had to track them down again and even the grunts were more prepared. React to the threat that the PCs represent and use those eight hours the PCs gave you.

5) Make rest less safe. Just an encounter here or there and mentioning an uneasy feeling might be enough to discourage resting. A shadow with significant levels of monk will definitely "discourage" them.

6) Technique A part of a game under your control is presentation and energy. Excessive rest time may be avoided if the game is presented in a way that rest seems inappropriate or just "wrong". I don't know how else to explain it, but many time the party rests there is a let-up in the energy of the game. If the session stays high energy then are fewer opportunities to rest unless the PCs need to.

 

[Psion]

That, though, is one of those "arbitrary ability nullification" tactics which I hesitate to use. You keep doing that, it gets annoying for players and becomes obvious that it's what you're doing.

I think the key here is to not keep doing it.

In other words, let it work sometimes, so as to let the players know that their abilities and clever application thereof are not for naught. But other times, have them run into complications...

Also, vary the complications. For example, one time the tunneling players might run into impregnable stone, another time anti-magic fields that negate their polymorph. Another time, they get into a territorial dispute with umber hulks.

Another thing is to keep the pressure on the players. Sure, they can use their teleport to bridge a gap, but that's one less fifth level spell. RA is designed with lots of encounters, so keep the pressure and and make them tap out their resources.