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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 7308055" data-attributes="member: 45197">Hiya!To the OP, I'm not sure if this will be helpful to you or not, but anyway...I once had my group try "high level" play in...Pathfinder, iirc. I think it was 14th? Anyway, here's the base story:They players had their PC's and after not more than 20 minutes, had pooled their brains together to use their PC's abilities/spells to, basically, have a VERY HIGH degree of overcoming the core adventure idea. They started to tell me the 'check list'; you know, "First we do A, then B, then the cleric will use [ability] on B. Now the wizard will use x, y and z spells. Next we do C. Then, when we have him in this location [shows pre-designed death-trap kill zone], we open up with [insert list of major alpha-strikage]. OK?"I looked at them for a couple seconds, shook my head...and then told them A doesn't work because [insert reason]. The 'leader' of the group gave that little smirkey-huff/chuckle with "Fine". I think told the group as a whole: "Look. Do you REALLY want spells, abilities and all that to work this way? I mean, I'm ok with it if you guys are". The leader said "Well, yes, obviously! We thought this out. It's cheap to just say 'no'!". To which I said something like...."Hmmm...[insert about 5 seconds of thinking]...Ok, You all wake up dead. Make new guys"The collective look on their faces was both annoyance and confusion. I quickly spoke up before being tarred and feathered:"Ok...here's what the NPCs did..." followed by a logical list of spells, abilities, equipment and all that which would allow the baddies to, basically, kill everyone without them having any chance what so ever.They got the point.What was "The Point"? The point is that the game has a built-in 'expectation of play'. It expects that everyone makes PC's that will work together, or at least not be opposed. It expects that the DM will not do what I just listed ("Rocks fall. Everyone dies"). It expects that the DM will conduct the game in a fair and impartial manner, with an eye towards "fun". And, just as importantly, it expects that Players will likewise play the game in a fair and, well, impartial manner...in a sense. It's basically the "Poison?" premise of every campaign. If the Players are all hot and heavy for using poisons at any chance they can get...then the DM should likewise do the same thing. It is, basically, the RPG campaign equivalent of "mutually assured destruction".If the players want to "play hardball", they will loose. Every. Single. Time. Well, unless they have a crappy DM who cheapens the whole game by letting the Players and their PC's do X, Y and Z, but never lets the baddies get away with anything other than X.So...with regard to 15th level PC's "breaking the adventure". Look at all the resources the NPC bad guys have available to them and look at their Intelligence and Wisdom scores. If they have Int and Wis scores between them all of 15 or higher...you, as DM, can be pretty sure that ANYTHING the players think of, the NPCs would/could have thought of and then countered (assuming the same resources as the PC's...probably more).Oh, and just because "it isn't in the book", doesn't mean it doesn't exist. "Shackles of Anchoring: These magic shackles draw power from the runes inscribed in them and in/around the room/area in which they are embedded. No form of transportation will work on anyone that is Shackled (no teleportation, gating, turning ethereal, shadow-stepping, etc)".  But the DM has to be careful with this or risk it basically being "No, because I said so!". It's a fine line, but nobody said that being a good DM was easy (and if they did...they're lieing). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />^_^Paul L. Ming</blockquote>

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