DM's: Highest Level Campaign?

[Evilhalfling]

I have had three campaigns end at 12th level, one in 2nd ed that took 3 years and ended herioically, and 1 in 3.0 that ended with the end of one quest and the group planning to take a short break and let a few ingame years pass. but the player mix changed and half the group is new since then. The last was in 3.5 and they drove off the Far realm invasion, destroyed a reality cyst, redeemed thier undead squire, and gained an enchanted tower (and are only a little insane). I was burned out at the end of this one.

So the next DM started us at 11th and we played to 15th. (CoSQ) By the end he was tired of it and really wants to back off from the high levels, and mostly anyone who played a wizard/cleric has no desire to return to it. We averaged 1 death per session with one specific player dying every game in the last 5 sessions. There were lots of us, we had great stats and HP and the CR scale was no help. I sometimes had fun playing a partially maxed meele cleric (see sig for best damage I ever delt but othertimes it was very frustrating, lots of arguing and sessions spent planning spell choices.

 

[Dracomeander]

I answered Epic, but really we eventually went Divine. So that breaks the scale here.

I have to agree. It was a 2nd Ed. campaign that I ran from first level up to mid-20s for multi-classed characters. (I allowed humans to multi-class in 2nd Ed.)

The campaign lasted for 12 years. It was interesting as the characters discovered during the course of the campaign that they each had the spark of divinity within them. It was fun keeping things interesting and challenging as they explored their abilities. If you think 3E's Epic levels are hard to balance, try balancing things when each of the PCs can use 1 or 2 schools of magic at will because it is part of their portfolio.

 

[kenobi65]

Both me ass GM {snip}

I hope that's a typo.

 

[Jdvn1]

If you think 3E's Epic levels are hard to balance, try balancing things when each of the PCs can use 1 or 2 schools of magic at will because it is part of their portfolio.

Dude, no kidding. That's why once you get Divine Rank 1, you lose CR. It's nearly impossible to balance since the Divine Salient Abilities vary so much.

 

[kenobi65]

One of the campaigns I'm currently running has the PCs around 15th-16th level. We're planning on keeping going, at least until 20th level. (I'm only running pre-written modules for this group, and, as has been mentioned in other threads here, the pickins for modules get slim once you're in Epicland.)

 

[megamania]

Nearly all of my campaigns ended around 8-9th level. Once we made it to 11th. The current campaign we are at 5th with a goal of 16th. Time will tell (at least another year!)

Ravenloft 1-4 (left that group)
Darksun 3-9
Darksun 3-8
Darksun 3-11
Darksun 3- 6 (left gaming)
Greyhawk 1-6 (left gaming)
Eberron 1- 5 (still going)

 

[Jdvn1]

I'm pretty surprised that almost 50% of the voters haven't gotten to 15th level. Seems like you're missing out on a pretty cool part of the book.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

My group meets now about 3 times a week. During the summer, it's 5-6 times a week. We get at least four hours of playing.

The Campaign SETTING has been going on for 22 years.

The current crop of characters? The oldest has been around for 14 years...

She's 81st Level.

It's still fun, but the record keeping is enormous, so we are enjoying our "Savage Tales" game.

Other than that, we mostly get about the high teens low 20's before dropping into a new set of PC's in the same campaign world.

 

[Dracomeander]

Dude, no kidding. That's why once you get Divine Rank 1, you lose CR. It's nearly impossible to balance since the Divine Salient Abilities vary so much.

What CRs? What codified Divine ranks? This was 2nd Edition. That campaign reached a satifactory conclusion before we even started play-testing 3E.

I wasn't complaining. I'm the one who set them up with their Divine Sparks. For more than half the campaign I had to keep track of what the PCs could do and what they were immune to as well as keep track of the NPCs because the characters didn't know they were divine. (Yes,I'm masochistic when I GM. )

 

[pogre]

Our first 3e campaign made it to 23rd level or so. Two subsequent campaigns ended with a TPK at 5th level. The current campaign is at 12th level and going strong!