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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fenes 2" data-source="post: 919295" data-attributes="member: 6166">Well, if you post that you find a campaign where you struggle for a +1 sword boring, and find a campaign where you enjoy a +6 holy vorpal avenger much more interesting, then you kind of beg the question if more powerful items would be even more interesting.As far as lower magic is concerned, I have stated before that Ia) dislike the magic as mundane items/substitute for technology (i.e. everyone has it)b) am not willing to spend the preparation time to deal with several spells that have far-reaching consequences in a campaign (raise dead etc., divination spells, teleport and a couple more).As others have said, if the +6 vorpal avenger is THE Vorpal avenger, then I am (mostly) fine with it (save for the vorpal part). But if it is just the latest model in a long line of holy avengers, and each paladin will wield one at one time... not my cup of tea. I want a world where magic, when wielded is something to be held in awe, but also a world where heroes are not defined by magic items - where heroes do not need magic items to be heroes, and I adjust the world accordingly.I don't take monsters straight from the MM and run them, I tailor them to my party. As an example, if I want to bring in a vampire I check the vampire template, check my party's abilities, and then build a vampire I can run against my party right now - I don't say "I need to wait until they got Level x with spell y or it will be a massacre". Level drain? Can the party withstand that? No? Does this power add anything to the adventure? Not in my opinion, and off it goes. Can the DR be overcome by the party? If not, it gets adjusted. etc.Then, after that is done, I design a (hopefully) impressive NPC vampire with character, quirks and goals, add it in an ongoing plot, and mix it with some loose ends.My goal is not to run the MM vampire exactly as it is written - my goal is to run a vampire that has the "feeling" of a vampire for my players without requiring them to have "items/spells of protection against level drain effects+5" just to go toe to toe with the monster. I could also take an "epic monster" from the ELH and scale it down to my partys size, preserving the feeling of the monster without requiring massive stat, AC and save boosting items and spells. If neccessary I add one-time boosters to the party like special one-specific-creature-bane weapons etc.IMHO, boosting the party's saves with items and/or spells serves the same goal as lowering the save DCs of my monsters' special attacks and adjusting their BABs, but I prefer the later - less bookkeeping, less gear-dependency, and more manageable. In the end it all comes down to the number you have to roll with your d20 where stats are concerned.On another note, SHARK's world description sounds impressive, but I kept asking myself this when I read it: What does one need those levels for? I could run the same campaign (apart from a couple spells) with much lower levels and adjusted monsters. Level 15 to 30 cohorts? Make that level 4 to 8, and scale accordingly. If your opponents are lower level a fireball will have the same impact as a meteor swarm against higher level opponents (You can even call it meteor swarm if you like). In Everquest I had the same problem: Things got bigger each level, but stayed the same - essentially you were fighting the same monsters at level 50 as you were at level 1, each side just had tons more hit points, did tons more damage, and had a few more options, most of them since level 20 or so. And the novelity of having cool item X went down fast as everyone and their brother had the same item, or comparable items.Not my cup of tea. I agree with DragonBlade - playing the grunt struggling for some poor reward against boring monsters all day and game session gets old very fast. I just have another solution - rather than scaling things up stat- and level-wise, starting at higher levels, having better gear I alter the campaign world so that (hopefully) the monsters are not boring anymore, the goals not meaningless, the rewards not poor - relative to the rest of the campaign world. In order for that to succeed however, the players have to agree (among others) that a +1 Sword with a long history (and maybe some additional powers yet to be unlocked, or some destiny yet to be fulfilled) is a cool item. But if I can't manage to convince the player of that when people wonder at the magic sword, sinistrous organisations seek the blade for nefarious purposes, and he knows that very few people carry a magic sword, then we better part ways - he would probably not enjoy, or not take seriously any adventure I run anyway since it did not conform to DMG standard.</blockquote>

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