This last year or so, I've been experimenting with high level gameplay. Specifically, running high level games. I've hit on a few things that worked, and a lot that didn't, once you get to this level, and after experiencing some moderate level of success, I thought I'd let people know what I've discovered, in case anyone else was interested.
Wish: I have one player who always abuses Wish every time he has the chance (or his plan is always "Let's just figure out how to get a Wish spell and I'll make the perfect wish to end this threat"). Drives me crazy. What also drives me crazy is every time there's a world ending catastrophe coming in one of the games, he says "I'll just hire a Wizard to cast Plane Shift for me and my family and we'll just leave this place." Really frustrating. Like, why are you playing? So I made a rule regarding Wish: If your Lvl 20 character can get access to Wish naturally, you can have it. But you've already made your Wish, and you've already lost the ability to cast it again. So just tell me what your Wish was, and you can have it, but can never cast Wish again. I did this so they couldn't just spam Wish to end every encounter. I also Planarly Locked the realm they were in. They could go to outer and inner realms, but not to other Material Planes. No escaping.
Magic Items: I made Magic Items hella expensive and rare in this setting. They each got 10 points to spend. Uncommon items were 1 point, Rare were 3, Very Rare were 5, and Legendary were 7. If they really wanted that Vorpal Sword, they could have it, but then they get fewer items. That's actually worked pretty well. It is possible to buy magic items, but that brings me to the next point.
Wealth and Influence. This took a month or two of playing before I got it fleshed out. Essentially, I replaced Gold with a Wealth and Influence Ability Score. Your Wealth Score determines your spendable income. The higher the score, the more you are able to purchase without thinking. Having a Wealth Score at all means you are independently wealthy. A 10 in Wealth means you can purchase anything up to 10,000 gold without blinking. If you want to buy something above that, you have to make a Wealth Check, using your Wealth Score. If you succeed, you're good. If you fail, you can still buy it, but it will cost one Wealth Point, which lowers your score. The higher your Wealth Score, the larger your budget where you don't have to roll. You can gain Wealth points in various ways, usually by finding a large influx of cash or by investing. If you ever get to a 20 Wealth, you don't have to make Wealth Checks anymore. You can pretty much buy Kingdoms if you wanted to. The only exception is Magic Items, which cost Wealth Points (equal to the point cost at character creation), and cannot be purchased with a roll.
Influence is similar, but for followers, as well as whether you can be the leader of a group of people. Like a City. A 14 Influence gets you a city to run, complete with an Army. An 18 lets you have vassal states, and if you have more than one you can call yourself Emperor. The size of your loyal population grows with your Influence score, and if your Influence ever falls too low, your population can revolt.
These two things have done wonders for this campaign, because the most powerful people in the world (the party) no longer has to worry about money, and can know exactly how big their city (or in one case, commune) is. And if they don't care about governing (which some don't), they can just ignore Influence and focus on Wealth.
So that's some of the mechanics I ran. But what's really been interesting is the quests. I put a whole End of the World quest in front of the party, and literally no one bit on it. They still wanted to play, they just had absolutely no interest in the campaign. They wanted to do their own things. They wanted to run their cities. One of them wanted to become a Lich. Another wants to conquer other cities and expand his empire. Another wants to become the Champion of his god. Not a one cares one Iota that Tiamat has escaped the realm and the Tarrasque is on the other side of the world threatening to destroy it. None at all. They just want to do their own things.
And so...I let them. I put the Tiamat stuff in the background. And we focus on their personal quests. It's just whatever they want to do. One of them used his initial Wish to make it so "every time I kill someone with a Necromancy Spell, they rise again as a Wight under my permanent control". Basically, Finger of Death, only they become Wights. I said ok. So he had a Wight army. But none of that came up during sessions, because during a Quest it was something he had to take care of himself. But in between sessions? He had a blast.
Another is paranoid, so his city is in the mountains somewhere. He's a conquest paladin, and he and the newly minted Lich (took him a bit, but he figured out how to do it) have kinda been going at each other in a cold war. Each of them is making preparations in case the other attacks. The Paladin could one shot the Lich, though unless he finds the Phylactery he'll just come back, but the Lich, a Sorcerer, can cast Meteor Swarm, which can destroy cities. So they constantly eye each other from across the room, and I'm the only one who knows the depths they each have gone through to protect themselves from the other.
So here's what I've learned: At high levels, it's about letting the players have what they want. All those long term plans your characters always have but never get to? They can do it. They can become a Lich. They can conquer cities. They can stand before Kings and make demands. Because they're awesome. They aren't the ONLY awesome people in the world, but they are among the most powerful. Now, they can't get everything immediately. They have to quest for it. I don't give anything for free. But if they say "I want a gauntlet that lets me make things rust away like a Rust Monster", I say "Ok, we'll get to that next session." And then I make a new quest where they have to go fight Rust Monsters. Rather than it being some side thing I have to figure out how to incorporate into the Main Quest, that IS the Main Quest. It's whatever they want it to be. And it's interesting how enemies kind of reappear, and larger questline show up during the course of this.
A few benefits of running a lvl 20 game: I don't have to hold back. I can use any creature in the Monster Manual. I've hit them with Loup Garou, Star Spawn, Orcus, Death Knights, Liches, Vampires, Assassins, Greatwyrms, Slaad, and a few creatures of my own making. Yes, at the beginning of the game, they bowled through whatever I sent them, but I'm getting smarter, and in the last session, they had to run away and lock the enemy in the Astral Plane because it was getting too close for comfort. I think they could have taken the bad guy out, but it would have been REALLY close. Not because I sent too many enemies at them, but because the enemies played smart.
But yeah, that's been my experience with a lvl 20 game. Give them what they want, but make them work for it. The Wealth Mechanic really helps make them feel like they have money. The Influence Mechanic helps with the few who want to deal with ruling a city of their own without getting too crazy. It keeps things fair, and is mostly in the background, but my players have been loving it. The game is all about them, and what they want to do, and they say it's so freeing to not worry about leveling up or builds or starting from scratch and working up to lvl 20. They can just...play.
Oh, and one more thing. Want to watch a bunch of badda** lvl 20 characters pee their pants and run away from a fight like little girls? Sick 6 Rust Monsters on them while they're sleeping and alter it so they can affect Magic Items. The week before, the Paladin had taken on a Narzugon, alone, with it's Nightmare and double HP and I gave him 2 Feats (Sentinel and Mounted Combat), just to boost him a bit more, and the Paladin chewed through all 200+ hp, a 100 hp heal, and the Nightmare's HP, in 4 rounds. By himself. When the Rust Monsters showed up, this same Paladin summoned his Nightmare (which he won from the Narzugon) immediately and blinked into the Ethereal Plane and didn't come back until the fight was done. All because he wore Adamantine Plate (one of his starter items, so he would never have to worry about getting critted). Oh, and they killed the Rust Monsters with a frickin Tsunami spell. Rust Monsters are CR 1/2. And there were only six of them.
Their next challenge will be to find some important McGuffin which is hidden in a secret catacombs infested with Rust Monsters. Because you should never let the DM see what makes you sweat.
Wish: I have one player who always abuses Wish every time he has the chance (or his plan is always "Let's just figure out how to get a Wish spell and I'll make the perfect wish to end this threat"). Drives me crazy. What also drives me crazy is every time there's a world ending catastrophe coming in one of the games, he says "I'll just hire a Wizard to cast Plane Shift for me and my family and we'll just leave this place." Really frustrating. Like, why are you playing? So I made a rule regarding Wish: If your Lvl 20 character can get access to Wish naturally, you can have it. But you've already made your Wish, and you've already lost the ability to cast it again. So just tell me what your Wish was, and you can have it, but can never cast Wish again. I did this so they couldn't just spam Wish to end every encounter. I also Planarly Locked the realm they were in. They could go to outer and inner realms, but not to other Material Planes. No escaping.
Magic Items: I made Magic Items hella expensive and rare in this setting. They each got 10 points to spend. Uncommon items were 1 point, Rare were 3, Very Rare were 5, and Legendary were 7. If they really wanted that Vorpal Sword, they could have it, but then they get fewer items. That's actually worked pretty well. It is possible to buy magic items, but that brings me to the next point.
Wealth and Influence. This took a month or two of playing before I got it fleshed out. Essentially, I replaced Gold with a Wealth and Influence Ability Score. Your Wealth Score determines your spendable income. The higher the score, the more you are able to purchase without thinking. Having a Wealth Score at all means you are independently wealthy. A 10 in Wealth means you can purchase anything up to 10,000 gold without blinking. If you want to buy something above that, you have to make a Wealth Check, using your Wealth Score. If you succeed, you're good. If you fail, you can still buy it, but it will cost one Wealth Point, which lowers your score. The higher your Wealth Score, the larger your budget where you don't have to roll. You can gain Wealth points in various ways, usually by finding a large influx of cash or by investing. If you ever get to a 20 Wealth, you don't have to make Wealth Checks anymore. You can pretty much buy Kingdoms if you wanted to. The only exception is Magic Items, which cost Wealth Points (equal to the point cost at character creation), and cannot be purchased with a roll.
Influence is similar, but for followers, as well as whether you can be the leader of a group of people. Like a City. A 14 Influence gets you a city to run, complete with an Army. An 18 lets you have vassal states, and if you have more than one you can call yourself Emperor. The size of your loyal population grows with your Influence score, and if your Influence ever falls too low, your population can revolt.
These two things have done wonders for this campaign, because the most powerful people in the world (the party) no longer has to worry about money, and can know exactly how big their city (or in one case, commune) is. And if they don't care about governing (which some don't), they can just ignore Influence and focus on Wealth.
So that's some of the mechanics I ran. But what's really been interesting is the quests. I put a whole End of the World quest in front of the party, and literally no one bit on it. They still wanted to play, they just had absolutely no interest in the campaign. They wanted to do their own things. They wanted to run their cities. One of them wanted to become a Lich. Another wants to conquer other cities and expand his empire. Another wants to become the Champion of his god. Not a one cares one Iota that Tiamat has escaped the realm and the Tarrasque is on the other side of the world threatening to destroy it. None at all. They just want to do their own things.
And so...I let them. I put the Tiamat stuff in the background. And we focus on their personal quests. It's just whatever they want to do. One of them used his initial Wish to make it so "every time I kill someone with a Necromancy Spell, they rise again as a Wight under my permanent control". Basically, Finger of Death, only they become Wights. I said ok. So he had a Wight army. But none of that came up during sessions, because during a Quest it was something he had to take care of himself. But in between sessions? He had a blast.
Another is paranoid, so his city is in the mountains somewhere. He's a conquest paladin, and he and the newly minted Lich (took him a bit, but he figured out how to do it) have kinda been going at each other in a cold war. Each of them is making preparations in case the other attacks. The Paladin could one shot the Lich, though unless he finds the Phylactery he'll just come back, but the Lich, a Sorcerer, can cast Meteor Swarm, which can destroy cities. So they constantly eye each other from across the room, and I'm the only one who knows the depths they each have gone through to protect themselves from the other.
So here's what I've learned: At high levels, it's about letting the players have what they want. All those long term plans your characters always have but never get to? They can do it. They can become a Lich. They can conquer cities. They can stand before Kings and make demands. Because they're awesome. They aren't the ONLY awesome people in the world, but they are among the most powerful. Now, they can't get everything immediately. They have to quest for it. I don't give anything for free. But if they say "I want a gauntlet that lets me make things rust away like a Rust Monster", I say "Ok, we'll get to that next session." And then I make a new quest where they have to go fight Rust Monsters. Rather than it being some side thing I have to figure out how to incorporate into the Main Quest, that IS the Main Quest. It's whatever they want it to be. And it's interesting how enemies kind of reappear, and larger questline show up during the course of this.
A few benefits of running a lvl 20 game: I don't have to hold back. I can use any creature in the Monster Manual. I've hit them with Loup Garou, Star Spawn, Orcus, Death Knights, Liches, Vampires, Assassins, Greatwyrms, Slaad, and a few creatures of my own making. Yes, at the beginning of the game, they bowled through whatever I sent them, but I'm getting smarter, and in the last session, they had to run away and lock the enemy in the Astral Plane because it was getting too close for comfort. I think they could have taken the bad guy out, but it would have been REALLY close. Not because I sent too many enemies at them, but because the enemies played smart.
But yeah, that's been my experience with a lvl 20 game. Give them what they want, but make them work for it. The Wealth Mechanic really helps make them feel like they have money. The Influence Mechanic helps with the few who want to deal with ruling a city of their own without getting too crazy. It keeps things fair, and is mostly in the background, but my players have been loving it. The game is all about them, and what they want to do, and they say it's so freeing to not worry about leveling up or builds or starting from scratch and working up to lvl 20. They can just...play.
Oh, and one more thing. Want to watch a bunch of badda** lvl 20 characters pee their pants and run away from a fight like little girls? Sick 6 Rust Monsters on them while they're sleeping and alter it so they can affect Magic Items. The week before, the Paladin had taken on a Narzugon, alone, with it's Nightmare and double HP and I gave him 2 Feats (Sentinel and Mounted Combat), just to boost him a bit more, and the Paladin chewed through all 200+ hp, a 100 hp heal, and the Nightmare's HP, in 4 rounds. By himself. When the Rust Monsters showed up, this same Paladin summoned his Nightmare (which he won from the Narzugon) immediately and blinked into the Ethereal Plane and didn't come back until the fight was done. All because he wore Adamantine Plate (one of his starter items, so he would never have to worry about getting critted). Oh, and they killed the Rust Monsters with a frickin Tsunami spell. Rust Monsters are CR 1/2. And there were only six of them.
Their next challenge will be to find some important McGuffin which is hidden in a secret catacombs infested with Rust Monsters. Because you should never let the DM see what makes you sweat.
