D&D General Wishing Away The Adventure

[Shardstone]

One of the best uber-high level adventures I've seen (but not had a chance to run, yet) for PF1 is Sentence of the Sinlord (affiliate link), which was written for 20th(!) level characters that have three to five mythic tiers. It's absolutely insane how over-the-top it is, and I mean that in the best possible way. If nothing else, reading the review on the sales page should help drive home what it's like to run a game at that level.

One day I hope to write a campaign for my version of 5E that is just as epic as this, but probably keeping it firmly in T3-T4 (because I think those levels of PCs can handle this kind of campaign, aesthetically). Just reading the pitch got me pumped.

 

[Mort]

I mentioned in my post that I hadn't, though I'd like to, if given a chance; that said, I'd want my group to get their organically first, so they'd be able to grow into what their characters can do over time, rather than managing level-appropriate characters like that completely out of the gate. (Also, there'd admittedly need to be prep work on my part before each fight, simply because of how much the various creatures and NPCs have available to them.)

PF1 is essential 3.5 with a (very) few tweeks. I ran 3.5 at 20th and it was ROUGH, I was exhausted when the campaign concluded. Of course I was running a weekly homebrew, a module that was expressly for that level, if done right (not easy), might make things quite a bit easier.

 

[Umbran]

And then we teleport past those areas and hazards...

How much of the world is supposed to be a hazard to people who can toss off a 7th level spell or two just to get from Point A to Point B, though?

To maintain consistency with a world that didn't just disintegrate them when they first picked up sword or wand, most of the place has to be pretty mundane. Challenges for such folks need to be pretty localized - so they become the destinations, not the intervening space.

 

[Mort]

And then we teleport past those areas and hazards...

I agree with @MarkB that that's not a huge concern when the areas and hazards are exactly where the party is expected to be.

That said, if it really is a major concern? Bring back the old restriction (3e and prior): Areas of strong physical or magical energies may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.

And before you say "kryptonite solution..." - no not really, everything has limits and when something is exploited/overused (say teleportation), others learn those limits pretty quickly.

There's a reason BBEGS like volcano and deep sea lairs so much!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

How much of the world is supposed to be a hazard to people who can toss off a 7th level spells or two just to get from Point A to Point B, though?

To maintain consistency with a world that didn't just disintegrate them when they first picked up sword or wand, most of the place has to be pretty mundane. Challenges for such folks need to be pretty localized - so they become the destinations, not the intervening space.

I'm mainly thinking about other planes or some other specifically hazardous Mordoresque areas that are no-go zones for normal folks to begin with.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm mainly thinking about other planes or some other specifically hazardous Mordoresque areas that are no-go zones for normal folks to begin with.

You can still use those. Knowledge of the Macguffin is known to be held by a certain family who his themselves on the plane of Hostile Environment. They were last seen five hundred years ago, so who knows how many generations they've been or which one knows what you need to hear. You're going to have to investigate, starting with the Gate Town of Hostile Environment and going from there in a detective-like fashion.

 

[pemerton]

ultimately what certain sort of powerful magic does, is greatly limit what sort of interesting stuff we can have. No travel adventures, no murder mysteries, no threat or death nor drama because someone died etc.

To me, high level D&D (and broadly similar sorts of FRPGs, such as Rolemaster) is about the cosmological. So the travel is to other worlds and planes, through the Void, etc; the murder mysteries involves gods; and so on.

I think there's a routine mistake made that casts high level as an aesthetic, like your point earlier about "navigating your flying ship through the Nine Hells." That isn't a high level adventure, and the game should make it clear that's the case. Asking for that to be a high level thing, is asking for the extension of the so-called "sweet spot" to a larger progression range, which arguably has been a goal to varying degrees in 4e and 5e for a while now.

High levels are defined by the limited obstacles that are still available, and the proactivity of everyone involved, trading appropriate countermeasures and prodding for weaknesses in the opponent's planning. Characters don't get into fights unless they've been outmaneuvered, or they've instigated them. The available problems that can challenge them are so thin on the ground they tend to need a reason to go seek them out, instead of encountering them in the world at large.

I don't agree with that. There was a period early in the life of D&D (say, c 1974 to c 1984) where high level play meant a completely different game - Diplomacy-esque wargaming - but that seems to have faded over the past 4 decades, which are the bulk of the game's lifespan.

I've run high level AD&D, high level Rolemaster and high level 4e D&D, and it didn't involve the sort of fundamental change that you are talking about. The fictional scope of the PCs' actions grows, which matches changes in fictional concerns. There are corresponding mechanical changes to, although 4e D&D is the only one of the three games I've mentioned that is fully coherent in this respect: high level A&D and high level RM are both pretty wonky, and will regularly need applications of blutack and duct tape!

The distinction you draw between "seeking out" challenges and "encountering them in the world at large" seems to me a different thing, about who is driving play. This is pretty orthogonal to character level, in my view.

 

[pemerton]

It's not about railroads at all. Trivially bypassing potentially interesting stuff limits the possibility of emergent game play. We don't need to have specific end goal in mind for this to be an issue.

If the players only experience interesting stuff by sticking to the GM's authored path, it seems like a railroad to me.

Frankly, this seems to be missing the point.

Because by this definition, any game that features survival mechanics is "a railroad-y game."

You seem to be making some additional assumption that I'm missing.

Torchbearer is a RPG that features survival mechanics, and it's not a "railroad-y game".

Because that's literally one of the most common "nope, we're nixing that 100%, that won't happen to us at all ever" spell problems. It can happen literally from level 1 (goodberry, create or destroy water, and purify food and drink are all 1st-level spells obviating the "can you find food/water" angle), and becomes fully, unequivocally operational at level 5 (create food and water and Leomund's tiny hut, the latter of which is a ritual so it doesn't even cost a spell slot.) With but one Cleric and one Bard or Wizard, you can--by spending no more than two spell slots--completely eliminate an entire swathe of concerns. And not just for the party! You get enough food and water from create food and water to feed fifteen people or five steeds (so, presumably, you could choose to feed, say, six people and three steeds), and while the food only lasts 24 hours, the water is permanent.

D&D (and some similar games) have straightforward ways to bypass surivival as a concern. In my 4e game, I placed a Basket of Everlasting Provisions as a magic item pretty early on, precisely because I (as GM) was not interested in survival logistics.

That didn't make the game a railroad. Nor would the game have been a railroad otherwise. The issue of what sorts of challenges are salient to a given group of PCs, given their capacities and is this game a railroad are quite distinct, and I'm not sure why you're running them together.

I still maintain that the core problem is a failure to actually link tasks--meant to be enjoyable challenges to overcome--with the outcomes the game tells you are worth pursuing. Substitute tasks, which are usually much less interesting and rewarding to play through, are thus endured (even if the player or players explicitly recognize that it's less fun to do it that way!) because the substitute tasks are simply better at reaching the desirable outcomes.

Those outcomes don't have to come from any specific source. They can be selected purely by the players.

If the game becomes less interesting because travel from A to B is resolved as an instance of teleportation magic, rather than as an instance of overland travel, that is a problem in how situations are being prepared and framed (and perhaps also a sign that the teleportation magic is too tedious in its resolution rules; but that's not really an issue for D&D).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If the players only experience interesting stuff by sticking to the GM's authored path, it seems like a railroad to me.

It is not about any specific path, it is about the sort of things than one can engage with in the game and then to be interesting, and certain sort of magic limits that set.

D&D (and some similar games) have straightforward ways to bypass surivival as a concern. In my 4e game, I placed a Basket of Everlasting Provisions as a magic item pretty early on, precisely because I (as GM) was not interested in survival logistics.

That didn't make the game a railroad. Nor would the game have been a railroad otherwise. The issue of what sorts of challenges are salient to a given group of PCs, given their capacities and is this game a railroad are quite distinct, and I'm not sure why you're running them together.

This is literally an example of that. Which is fine, if no one wanted survival aspects in the game begin with, but if someone did, the existence of this sort of magic still eliminates that as aspect of the game.

 

[Oofta]

...
The one fighter in the party is the only one going into battles unpolymorphed these days. She just doesn't need it. The party is more worried about her getting charmed or possessed than dying.

If I really want to make my group shudder in terror, pretty much all I have to do is have the caster dominate the fighter.