Do you stop at a certain level? Sweetspot?

[reveal]

The campaign I run has 6 players. One is 18th level, three are 17th level, and two are 16th level. We all have fun. They love playing their characters to their full capacity (this is the highest level character for anyone) and I love playing high level NPCs for the same reason. But we all have the same complaint; combats take way too long.

For example, we started the last session at 2:30 and ending at 10:30, so 8 hours. We had a total of 2 combats. The first combat consisted of the 6 PCs against 2 enemies. The second combat consisted of the 6 PCs against 3 enemies. Each combat lasted at least 2-3 hours.

Like I said, we have a lot of fun, but we are finding it to be a bit tedious. We've decided that around 15th or 16th level is as high as we would like to go in the future.

As far as the "sweetspot," it all depends on the characters. For spellcasters, it depends on what their favorite spells are and by what level they can take them. For classes and prestige classes, it depends on when they get their favorite abilities.

 

[LostSoul]

I think part of it could be that the (kill+loot)x13 = Advance! cycle gets boring after a while. Unless the DM mixes things up somehow, or your characters grow in new and unique ways, I can see that getting boring.

Which I think is why people talk about the game getting more "political" - they need to do something different, face different challenges, or stagnate in a morass of CR-appropriate encounters.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I really enjoy the range from 3rd to 7th level. For me, that's the point where I start feeling strong enough to take on significant challenges and pull off some fun moves, but before the game beings to lose touch with the 'group of dudes adventuring' and that seems to be where the people I play with have the must fun. Pst that, either the entire world seems to be way too powerful, the game shifts into an area where the players each start to become their own immense power base, or it's easy to become reclusive.

There seems to be a point where normal people avoid you, and only your enemies, or people who want to use you, seem to seek you out. Or is that just my expierence?

 

[reveal]

There seems to be a point where normal people avoid you, and only your enemies, or people who want to use you, seem to seek you out. Or is that just my expierence?

It all depends on a) how the PCs decide to interact with people and b) how the DM allows them to do so.

 

[scourger]

Our group has defined the "sweet spot" for D&D & d20 gaming at 1st through 5th-7th levels. At least, that's where most games fade away and never get reprised. It's great at low levels, but the game quickly gets out of control fast. The magic is just too much. The game devolves into a magic arms race in the war of hit point attrition. After my last attempt at a campaign last summer, I've just about called it quits.

 

[jester47]

The reason it runs out:

The problem is the nature of the world. To keep a world believable, the power levels increase in rarity as you go up.

Typically the party is never set back in their experience gain, and generally the death of a character is somthing that many DMs try to avoid.

Even if a character does die, he is replaced by a character of equal or near equal level.

Homoginised party level = homoginised challenges.

I have found that there is really only one cure for this problem:
RAT BASTARD DMING.
Well, not that bad. But I have found a "dice land where they may/restart at first level/there are places that are too dangerous for you to go" attitude to be wonderful in fixing the problem of players getting too high a level too fast.

Here is my logic-

The numbers as the Good Col and Co put them together were done so with attrition in mind. Just go read some of the stuff about the early games.

When you have a level of character attrition, with new characters starting at 1 you get a more mixed party. Now, it is assumed that the party will get loot and be somewhat successful. So what happend when you have a level 1 character running around with three other 7-10 level characters?

The 3.5 xp system helps them to level faster in the presence of greatness. Also, those 7-10ers probably have some hand me downs that they can give to the new character to increase the chance that 1) the character can do more damage and 2) the character will survive.

If the DM runs as status quo, then the party should regularly run into opponents that are good for the first level guy to fight and wont be barred from participation.

This is really counter intuitive, but it really works.

Think the fight at Balin's Tomb in LotR and the encounter with the Balrog on the bridge. Gandalf is this immensely powerful being so the DM throws in a balrog, but the other more mid and lower characters need somthing to fight also so he throws in a Troll and a bunch of orcs.

 

[Shemeska]

3e did a great job of getting rid of many relics of the 2e rules system. 4e will need to do the same thing, primarily in the area of spells. The spells that break dungeon-based play need to be pushed much into higher levels so that dungeon-based play remains more viable for longer. Yes, this means that teleport and other spells will need to be pushed to 8th or 9th level.

You could also argue that "dungeon-based play" is a relic of even earlier editions than 2e, and shouldn't be a primary focus of any rules revisions in future editions. The game isn't relagated to such anymore, and it's capable of supporting styles of play vastly different from the original hack'n'slash kill things and take their stuff in the dungeon style. And as such, there's no reason to mess with teleport and other spells, at least in my opinion.

But as to the direct topic at hand, I've always found that around level 7 to level 13 is where the game is most interesting, both as a player and a DM. They PCs are capable, but not superheroes in wizards robes yet at that point.

However, I've never felt a need to stop based on whatever level the PCs were at. I'll run a game till the campaign plotline is realistically over, not before. And I won't water down the power and threat of a BBEG just to allow PCs to have some level of victory at earlier levels. I'll have archfiends be archfiends: ancient primal horrors of incarnate evil, beings capable of putting terror into deities, and I won't artificially make them CR 20ish just so PCs can kill them and take their stuff at earlier levels. If the PCs want to come into conflict with such a being, they'll have to gain the power to support foiling their designs or taking them down, be it level 30 or higher. I won't sacrifice depth and realism to support making things more easy to kill.

Simply stated, the campaign lasts till the level it needs to be, no more and no less.

But it doesn't ever take on the tone of the [booming voice]EPIC!!!![/booming voice] campaigns that we hear horror stories about with 400th level PCs looting EPIC dungeons and later relaxing with EPIC microbrews and chatting up EPIC bar wenches in EPIC taverns.

 

[pogre]

While the game certainly changes at the higher levels my players do enjoy the new found powers that come with the teen levels. We have only played one campaign into epic levels. We enjoyed it very much, but it is a lot of work for your friendly DM.

 

[KenSeg]

Our gaming group, going strong for 20 years now, has always ended campaigns around 9th to 11th level on average. By that point we have completed the main goals of the characters and DMing into the higher levels becomes more work than wanted. Our DM is masterful at off the cuff DMing in the lower levels and we play to his strength.

-KenSeg
Gaming since 1978

 

[Psion]

I find the best levels to be 8th-16th or so.

I usually put a campaign up in 3.x somewhere in the range of 20 +/- 3. A few epic levels is find, and gives the players of taste of greatness, but after a few truly Epic tasks, you threaten to kill the specialness of that position.