30th-level PC versus kingdom--who wins?

[robertliguori]

One trick I used in my long running fantasy campaign is make the players come up with the solution. To do this I ran theme campaigns.

For example I had a campaign where everyone was a city guard. Everyone was a fighter. Through the course of that campaign they ran into the community rampaging party. And let me tell you they came up with some interesting solution. Mostly in the area of tactics with a few bits of equipment that aided them in executing those tactics. Basically doing for City Guards what that one DM did with his killer kobolds.

The players were looking over what spells had verbal, somatic, and material components. Which of the three they can hinder the most. Odds of X guards scoring a hit, etc, etc.

The next campaign were we want back to adventuring. The PCs respected the guards a helluva a lot more.

So finally if everyone here is talking about the problem of a epic level PC ramaging destroying community. Turn the problem on its head.

You are a member of that community with typical mix of classes and levels. How do you stop an epic party from ramaging. Remember sometimes it not actually about winning but making the victory so costly that they just do something else that is more profitable use of their time. Also things like attrition tactics can get you to the point where you can win or make the epics back off. Eventually a mage is going to run of spells and stuff, get him that point then you have options. People need to sleep. A 100 crossbowmen fire someone is going to crit.

My games were run using GURPS so I don't have much in the way of specifics but any RPG system can be revese engineered this way. If a world of people is forced to live by the rules of that system, what would they do. What would YOU do.

In D&D, you pray for GM fiat. There is no simple way to stop the wild-shaped druid from flying into your town and Earthquaking it, and that's just a quick and simple method of destruction.

The numbers can be run; when a 30th level party goes up against a nation that tops out around 10th level, the high-level party wins. There simply are not tactical options the nation can take to impede the party if the party is willing to use certain tactics.

 

[Slife]

In D&D, you pray for GM fiat. There is no simple way to stop the wild-shaped druid from flying into your town and Earthquaking it, and that's just a quick and simple method of destruction.

The numbers can be run; when a 30th level party goes up against a nation that tops out around 10th level, the high-level party wins. There simply are not tactical options the nation can take to impede the party if the party is willing to use certain tactics.

200 tenth level characters take the landlord feat from stronghold builder's guide*. They pool their 50,000 gp each in order to build a million gp colossus.

What do they get for this? A giant mecha that can teleport, planeshift, fly with perfect manuverability at 88 feet/round, attack with multiple 9th level spells each round, is immune to damage due to the bard playing a lyre of building in it's belly, and has built in communications/scrying.

The mecha is built at a substantial discount, since they have a lyre of building to supply the labor costs (30% of total), it's mobile so it can go to the resources, knocking off the shipping costs (5% off), and since it's made with the local government's blessing it gets an additional 10% off, as if it were in a lawless area and didn't have a government to pay, fabricate knocks off another 5%, and finally it's made of stone so they get 20% off the costs of all the walls for being able to cast stone shape/wall of stone. Because of all these enhancements, it has comparable attack power to most epic PCs, and much better defenses.

The only problem is the PCs might fight back with their own mecha. Of course, that's sooo anime.

*That one book where you can solve any problem by throwing money at it.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Been there, done that.

Really, at this stage of the campaign the PCs have likely done things like that for 30 levels.[/QUOTE]
You group killed Demogorgan? Now you got gods as enemies. Gods are not stupid you know and they are vengeful.

You are still thinking in terms of physical combat when it is social combat you should be worried about.

Only if you stay.

Just because you are sitting on the throne doesn't mean that you actually run everything in your nation directly - or that everyone tells you what is really going on. Becoming an effective ruler without being seen as a tyrant will be quite a challenge. Besides, the old power centers (merchant houses, noble families) are still out there and they are not likely to stop their scheming just because there's a new guy at the top - but you can't just get rid of them because they are the only ones with the skills to keep the country running.

Yes and you are a CR 35 encounter. Appropriate for a Level 32-33 group. You just opened up a dungeon with a "Here we are, come and kill us" sign. Merchants? No. Other adventurers. Been there done that, got killed for it. The DM warned us first... all the bad guys do not come from from the elemental plane of stupid you know and evil gods they carry grudges like you wouldn't believe.

Again, you are thinking too much in terms of violence. In such a scenario, the PCs have likely proven to be so powerful that most others will realize that using violence to remove them isn't going to work.

At level 30? Nah. You just gotta go recruit at Union. You think small. You have gods as enemies at this level you know...

Instead, those people will attempt to make the PCs unpopular enough that they will leave out of their own accord (if they have a strong sense of ethics) or else see what they can get away with to further their own agendas.

If they stay. Stupid to stay.

As Real Word history has shown, holding an election does not automatically translate into a stable and prosperous democracy. Even in the best cases (i.e. post-WWII Germany) it took a lengthy occupation and large-scale social engineering to pull it off. The same will even be more true of the typical pseudo-medieval D&D setting where most people haven't even heard of democracy. If all the PCs do is call for election and then get out of the place, they will likely find once they return that the nation has collapsed under its internal squabbles, a new strongman has arisen in place of the old, or a larger neighboring nation has used its weakness to occupy it.

In the meantime, thousands of people have died or become refugees. And it is their fault because they couldn't be bothered to do a better job when they had the chance. So, do they really want this on their conscience?

The city is of a different alignment, so yeah.