What to Expect at Higher Levels

[iamtheend]

My experience with D&D was that I invested a lot of money as a kid on 2e and all of a sudden 3e came out! I put all the money I had left into 3e but had no one to really play with. I had to get people that had never heard of d&d and we only played about two or three times until people stopped coming.

I find out that 3e is no longer whats happening and its all 3.5 so I just get all mad and give up.

The past year or so I've been trying to play 3.5 and learn as much as I could about it. The group I've been playing with has been flaky and when we get around like level 10 the DM just stops trying and instead of having long breaks just chooses to stop the campaign forever.

So my question is what can I expect at higher levels in D&D? I've never gone beyond Level 10 and had the privileged of fighting high CR monsters. I usually play Melee builds like Fighters and Monks and when I look at some of the monsters I just think of their high Attack Bonus say, "At higher levels does every monster just auto hit you over and over?"

AC doesn't go up over time like a BAB so it just seems that higher CR monsters with multiple attacks are just dealing out massive damage each turn. How does one survive at higher levels in this game?

I've always been discouraged from looking thoroughly through the MM since I'm a player but things like monsters who have insane Grapple checks would utterly destroy my party if they got ahold of us.

So any warning of what I should expect and plan ahead for how to approach higher level encounters? I know this post must be strange but without the actual experience of doing such encounters I honestly don't know what to expect.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Higher level play is very difficult. Because characters are so powerful, your actions are limited more by your imagination than by the rules. "Imaginative" spellcasters can take the game over if the DM is not careful.

Battles often come down to who fails the first saving throw. As you've noted, AC doesn't scale with level, so you either spend your character's wealth on AC items or accept that you will get hit a lot. Spells per day barely matter.

Stat blocks are bigger. Battles take longer. Prep takes longer.

It can be worth it, but only if everyone is on board and no one is trying to take over the game.


Personally I've run games at high level and well into epic. It brings out fundamental flaws in the D&D rules and inspired me towards revisionism to some extent. That said, it created some memorable experiences.

 

[Dandu]

More options = more power at higher level. For example, while a Fighter has to slug it out with an enemy vs his AC, a Rogue can bypass it all with a wand of Wratihstrike via UMD, and only have to contend with touch AC.

Grappling becomes a poor idea in general, disarming doesn't work on things that use natural attacks, and tripping becomes your best bet for a combat maneuver, unless you are a Dungeoncrasher fighter and can bull rush people.

But yeah, at high levels, enemies are incoporeal, flying, teleporting, blinking, casting powerful spells and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. You have to get to know all the options in the game that become available at that level.

 

[iamtheend]

So as a higher level melee character should I focus more on hitting or causing massive damage? If the Attack Bonuses are already stacked up high enough shouldn't I focus on dealing tons of damage? But then again the higher the bonus the more attacks I hit on a full attack.

Feats like RGambit make more sense when monsters are hitting you for a ton.

How often do people need to take fortitude saves to prevent instant death from 50+ damage?

 

[Dandu]

So as a higher level melee character should I focus more on hitting or causing massive damage?

Both.

How often do people need to take fortitude saves to prevent instant death from 50+ damage?

I don't know anyone who really plays with that rule in place since 50 or more damage will happen on every other attack at higher levels.

 

[Sekhmet]

When my groups get above 10th level, but prior to 15th, the game becomes harder to manage. It's about the level where some monsters really start to shine in comparison to their CR, and some monsters become almost trivial. It's the level where a lot of player character class features start defining themselves, but aren't enough to make them game breaking in their very nature.

Once people start to get to 15, the difficulty changes slightly. Either the monsters I want to use have so much damage reduction/so many abilities that only the party casters can effect them or they're so simple the party fighter can do the entire encounter on his own without fear of getting hit.

AC comes into play when you consider magical gear. You can have, with just a few books, armor bonuses, two different stat bonuses, dodge bonuses, deflection bonuses, divine/profane bonuses, luck bonuses and untyped bonuses. I've seen level 10-20 characters with over 50AC, others with higher than 40 TOUCH AC.
Simply put, if you build for armor - you can make yourself almost unhittable by conventional means.

You'll notice at higher levels that spell casters absolutely dominate the field in all respects, and you'll also notice that dealing outright damage becomes less important than disabling. If an enemy has hundreds of hitpoints, it's easier to keep them tripped or grappled and allow your allies to actually deal the damage than it is to hurt them yourself while they're tearing into you and your's.

 

[kitcik]

Since nobody has mentioned it yet - one of the most important things at high levels is: INITIATIVE.

If you win initiative, you can disable them before they can disable you.

Pretty obvious, but much more important at high level.

As a melee class, your best chance outside of somehow emulating a caster is to win initiative and kill. That is why pounce is so important.

Having something that provides s miss chance, preferably 50%, is also a good idea.

And you should roll high on our saves

 

[frankthedm]

AC doesn't go up over time like a BAB so it just seems that higher CR monsters with multiple attacks are just dealing out massive damage each turn. How does one survive at higher levels in this game?

Cleric welds their hand to the front liner and Heals each turn.

Also everyone needs to sink GP into protective magic items. +'s on armor are cheap, cloaks of resistance are basically mandatory and Ring of Protection isn't just a item for armor-less characters. Concealment is also a Live or Die sort of deal.

Each person probably should buy a pearl of power [ 1st level ] for the mage so everyone wears a mage armor since Bracers of armor are pricey and Ghost touch is viewed as overcosted for armor. Mage armor won't stack with their actual armor, BUT 4 points of armor against incorporeal touch attacks should help with stat-whacking incorporeal undead.

 

[Dandu]

Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.