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Message: <blockquote data-quote="twofalls" data-source="post: 2174158" data-attributes="member: 23718">I'm finding that I don't in particular. I've been running my current 3.0 D&D game now for 3 and a half years and the group has reached 13th level. We meet twice a month for 6 hour sessions and I have intentionally retarded their growth in order to prolong the lower level game. I've run many campaigns over the past 26 years, and the highest I've ever run a game is to 13th level prior this. At that point the players in that prior game had achieved either lordship, or were managing large estates of one fashion or another and it was simply time to move on. Now however, this current group has several goals to achieve yet, so the game can't end yet, but I find that I’m just not enjoying it as I used to.Combats are a bore for me, for example. They come in one of two varieties, complete pushovers where the group so dominates the situation with their magic and abilities that it’s hardly worth rolling dice, or game day long affairs where they come close to death several times during the encounter. It takes me a long time to prep the enemies, generally several hours of prep which I find terribly unexciting. Then, once the combat actually starts in session I find the whole affair a rather boring exercise in rolling dice and determining changing battlefield tactics. I'm great with the flavor text during the combats... its one of my strengths, and my players claim to be having a great time. I'm just not, and I'm not sure what to do about it.What I really love about our hobby is the plotting, NPC schemes, method acting (the role playing itself) and creating complex and interesting scenes and challenges for the PC’s to figure out and overcome. At this point the players are so powerful that the game has moved well beyond anything that feels real to me anymore. Mundane challenges are so casually ignored with magic that they are meaningless. To create a challenging combat encounter takes hours of working up effective NPC combatants and figuring out tactics that won’t simply be defeated by a spell, or magic doodad the players have acquired. With the two clerics they have in the group they can spring back from the brink of death immediately, and it happens nearly every time they have a climactic encounter. Their divinations are so powerful that keeping a mystery from them without bending the rules to the point of nerfing the PC's spells and items becomes difficult to say the least. And yet, in spite of all this they are having fun... go figure.I promised to play the game to 18th level, because I have always ended games around this time. I own the Epic level handbook but haven't ever read it since it’s for things over 20th level. I'm starting to think that I should be looking at it now.I have seven PC's between 11th and 13th level (avg party level is 12). I have fighters who are averaging 60 pts of damage per round (with spellcasters pumps), and a mage who is probably the most clever role player I've ever played with in using his spells. If I were running a group with the standard book concept of four PC’s I think this wouldn't be so difficult, but with seven the formulas in the books for calculating CR's breaks down completely and even with all my gaming experience I'm not used to running games with this type of a power curve.Anyone else had this type of a problem and if so what have you done to deal with it?</blockquote>

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