And that's cool. We all bring different perceptions to the game. I can really see some elments of the Wheel of Time or Clash of Kings that could be emphazied with role playing the Dragon Marked houses.
I personally just don't see 20th level characters who can shake the earth really going on quests for someone unless they want to. Some parties that's going to be very easy.
"For 50K, will you go on this quest."
"For the hand of my daughter, will you gon on this quest."
I don't see it as being their primary gig. If a 20th level character has no motivation in and of himself, he's one sad character. "Man, I hope that the boss gives me something to do today!"
But seriously...if Saddam were a 20th level wizard and could cast Wish, the war would not be about neutralizing weapons of mass destruction...because the man himself is a weapon of mass destruction.
A 20th level D&D character can be an "army of one" in a way you don't see in real life...a threat to an entire nation, even operating all by himself. Sending the combined resources of an entire nation against one man is not implausable [although you don't really want to send an army of 100,000 1st level warriors..what you want is one 25th level character who likes you a whole lot.]
But seriously...if Saddam were a 20th level wizard and could cast Wish, the war would not be about neutralizing weapons of mass destruction...because the man himself is a weapon of mass destruction.
A 20th level D&D character can be an "army of one" in a way you don't see in real life...a threat to an entire nation, even operating all by himself. Sending the combined resources of an entire nation against one man is not implausable [although you don't really want to send an army of 100,000 1st level warriors..what you want is one 25th level character who likes you a whole lot.]
Modern Magic, a d20 supplement by the Game Mechanics, played around with some ideas in this vein but didn't go anywhere near the distance it needed to be actually be more than a, "Hmm... that's interesting" for me.
But the comparission is still sour. We have much greater communication abilities today, but the 20th level D&D party has much greater mobility. With that in mind, we still didn't attack individuals, we attacked countires. Think about it, the most powerful country in the world can't catch one man. Heck, a 9th level wizard can make his own demi-plane and plan his next route of action. And if the party has a 20th level cleric, he is the closest voice to God that the campaign really has.
Line of Thinking: A 20th level character, as my original post said, is not one to be triffled with. A 20th level character is a super hero. He is a force to be respected. He's technically more powerful than a balrog and most dragons. 20th level characters, especially those who've crawled their way from 1st level, deserve the GM's respect.
Line of Thinking =! 20th level character = immunity to damage/death.
In challenging such characters, I would let the players take the lead. Do they want to move into politics? Do they want to search unknown planes? Do they want to go to Sigil? Do they want to get their own kiln and make their own warforged? In such cases, it's an 'reaction' style of GMing, but it's fun because it let's the players make the plots.
Well, personally, I don't see any problems with high-level characters having no one left to fight.
For one thing, the setting has plenty of powerful groups with their own agendas...just because they lack any 20th-level members doesn't mean they are not a threat to the PCs.
Second, there's various Bad Things more or less off-screen right now. Dragons, and entire dimensions full of Unspeakable Horror, among other stuff.
Third, just by virtue of being the biggest kid on the block, the PCs will attract a lot of attention from people who covet that spot themselves.
And fourth, you can always advance Joe Evil NPC to whatever level seems appropriate. You're not the only one out there killing things and taking their stuff, after all.
It seems to me you are confusing skills that, in most ways, the mechanics of D&D either play down or ignore, with things like combat ability.
A king would most likely be an Expert. If he is a good king, with many years of successful rule under his crown, he might even be a fairly high-level Expert.
I think you misread my post since I stated that most nobles are of non-combat classes. Sure, I mentioned rogue as a class for nobles but that is in part because European-style nobles are expected to have martial skill in excess of the peasantry and partly because rogues get tons of skills. IMO I consider warriors, fighters, rangers, and paladins to be the combat classes since they are so focused on the martial side of things.
I'm sure King Henry the VIII was not a great fighter, but he was a king.
Unfortunately, you chose a poor example. Henry was a big, muscular man until the end when, like Brando, he bulked up a lot. Henry was a highly competitive individual who loved the tournaments and was widely seen to be skillful warrior. He wasn't the greatest warrior but he was definitely in the upper echelon.
But I agree, there are many great kings who were fairly poor warriors. The greatest, however, tend to have a surprising amount of warrior spirit. Roosevelt, Gustav Adolphus of Sweden, Winston Churchill, and the list rolls on.
I see plenty of things for the character's to 'fight'. As you've noted, there are 'entire dimensions of Unspeakable Horror', not to mention dragons and other beasties.
My whole 'rant' if you will is that if you treat 20th level characters like 1st level ones, there isn't a whole lot of freedom for the characters to explore their power. This stems from the first response to my post where I stated, I thought pretty simply, that 20th level characters deserve the respect due to their level and that since D&D isn't real life, and Eberron isn't the middle ages, that people who didn't respect that raw power and work with them, were going to get mowed down.
There's one country I was reading about the other day that hates elves. Their patrols are notorious for causing trouble. Now imagine a 20th level wizard elf (favored calss and all), just doing his standard business walking through the road and getting attacked by these soldiers thinking that they've got an easy thing going. Pity those soldiers....
In some ways, it gets back to Christopher Walker's post of "Let my PC be cool." If your character is always someone else's tool, then why bother playing? If the GM never allows you to flex your muscle without thousands of consequences... "Yes, the guards were all blood relatives of every noble house and you will now be hunted down like a dog!".
In Eberron especially, due to their power level, I can't help but think that there will be many who would suck up to the characters just to learn from them. A person who can cast wish? A cleric who can ressurect individuals dead for years? A fighter who can kill 100 soldiers or more? These are living legends.
If I was a wealthy ruler and some band of 20th-level punks was getting ornery on my turf, I'd bribe a dragon (or similar creature) into killing them for me. Or multiple dragons.
Anyway, if the 20th-level party plays smart, they're almost unstoppable if the best their opposition can muster is like 12th level. (Unless they have an army of 12th-level troops. )
This entire contest ("kingdom vs. high-level party") needn't be about open warfare, you see. Subtlety and cloak-and-dagger maneuvers can (and generally will) be much more effective than waltzing in and openly nuking the royal family.
For starters, they have the resources (illusions, shapechanging, summoning spells, mind control, high-level Rogues) to pull off extreme actions (like assassinating the ruler) and convincingly put the blame on someone else (like the ambassador of a country they want to see destroyed) - and then offer their services to the outraged people. If they're careful, they'll get what they want and be lauded as heroes.
I see plenty of things for the character's to 'fight'. As you've noted, there are 'entire dimensions of Unspeakable Horror', not to mention dragons and other beasties.
Let me rephrase my previous quote: "Running out of things to fight in Eberron is not going to be a problem, because there are plenty of things to fight, even at very high levels."
There has been a lot of talk here about the fact that most of the NPCs in Eberron are of mid level. If you are running an Eberron campaign, what do you plan to do to challenge your high-level PCs?
I see lots of threads about Eberron being better than FR. IMO Eberron is better because of the lack of high-level good-aligned NPCs. Most of those can't move or are commoners or for other such reasons can't adventure.
One of the most important people in House Cannith is only 4th-level! She's hardly going to steal the player's thunder with that kind of power.
Frankly I wouldn't have cared if Eberron's villains were all high-level (like so many are in FR... although FR has lots of mid-level villains too). Making the villains high-level simply means you have space for mid-level villains of your own creation. In some ways this is better; taking on and killing a high-level villain is a campaign-shaking event, even if the villain is actually mid-level (like the Lord of Blades). It may be better to go after the small fry first.
In any event the mid-level villains can always gain levels over time, too. Who knows what the LoB is doing. Since he's probably not adventuring, he's probably doing magical and technological research, as well as converting more warforged to his cause, which gains him his XP
Here's my take: First of all, and most important, one does not have to be personally "powerful" to be dangerous. I don't think that most world leaders could take on a trained soldier in one-on-one combat, but they could pick up the phone and have that soldier attacked by 1000 others.
So power, in the real world or Eberron is not always about the combat skills of an individual. The king may only be a 5th level fighter, but his army is quite powerful. You can't normally just waltz into the king's castle and murder him. And even if you succeed in doing so, there are consequences.
A 5th-level king is probably going to have a 10th-level paladin or fighter bodyguard, an 8th-level expert advisor, a 7th-level mage advisor and probably a cleric there, too.
Furthermore if the players attack and can't quietly get by or incapacitate the guards, the king would probably have sneaked out the secret passage by the time the players get to him. Since his bodyguard is always around, the scry-port solution would still work but wouldn't be ideal.
Lower-level villains could work as part of a conspiracy ... those dwarven bankers would likely wield more power than their level would indicate.
Second, there are plenty of monsters, including a whole continent of dragons, that can ruin a high-level PC's day. Plus the Lords of Dust, residents of Khyber, etc.
And Vol, and the Lord of Blades when he gains new levels since the players weren't able to kill him (something about the Mournland being a hellhole only insane living creatures would visit ), and that new gate to Xoriat that just opened up ... whoops! Not to mention any neutral high-level characters (there are probably only a few of them) who might go evil for some reason, and the Sharn army is too busy trying to fend off those barbarians who united under a new chief and are invading Khorvaire to do your work for you...
At high level, I expect the PCs to be carrying out dangerous missions FOR someone, or they could try to establish their own kingdom/domain. I don't see the need for dozens of epic-level NPCs running around.
Those are worthwhile for high-level PCs, but some PCs may not be so interested in that. Realistically, adventuring groups would break up as they gain levels - they often joined forces for different reasons (often based on their differing classes) and they would probably have gotten what they wanted by the time they've reached such high levels.
FredRamsey said:
Listen, if you want to play tabletop Diablo, that's you're business. But unless you stack the deck heavily in the PC's favor, then waltzing into the palace and killing even 100 people is not going to win you a kingdom by any stretch of the imagination.
You could end up in a situation like Interesting Times
where 7 high-level characters conquered a kingdom and later realized they didn't want to run it. It's a lot of work, and if you don't execute the bureaucrats they end up running the country. If you do execute the bureaucrats things just get worse...
As for the comments about high-level mages wiping out armies, it won't happen. However a high-level mage can act like a commando, storming (invisibly) onto the battlefield and killing dozens of soldiers with cloudkill and chain lightning spells, even stealing the loyalties of a huge number of soldiers with his mass charm spells. These won't defeat a 40,000 person army by itself, however, and the mage can't hold the territory either.
However, he could conceivably devastate camps with spells like earthquake.
As for the comments about high-level mages wiping out armies, it won't happen. However a high-level mage can act like a commando, storming (invisibly) onto the battlefield and killing dozens of soldiers with cloudkill and chain lightning spells, even stealing the loyalties of a huge number of soldiers with his mass charm spells. These won't defeat a 40,000 person army by itself, however, and the mage can't hold the territory either.
However, he could conceivably devastate camps with spells like earthquake.
Yeah, taking on an army this size isn't feasible unless you want to spend a half a year slowly whittling them down with one hit-and-run attack after the other.
But then, unless - say - they're besieging something and you need to lift that siege, there should be no reason to fight an army anyway: They can't catch you and they can't prevent you from going wherever you want.
Plus, their commanders, as well as any nobles who might have sent the army, are far more vulnerable than the army itself. So if you need to do something about the army, you should go after them instead.
If you really need to go after an army, though, destroy their food (and water, unless easy to get by geographically), kill their officers, lay waste to their camp, infect soldiers with contagious diseases, turn people into contagious undead (at night, so they aren't detected as soon), magically disguise yourself as an officer (or create an illusion) and give confusing/deadly/demoralizing orders, and randomly slaughter dozens of people with area effect spells in hit-and-run attacks. Repeatedly.
In short, destroy any semblance of order, organization and troop morale (and kill/disable large numbers of people as efficiently as possible *edit* - if necessary; IMO making them retreat or desert in large numbers is generally preferable to killing them outright).
)
), and that new gate to Xoriat that just opened up ... whoops! Not to mention any neutral high-level characters (there are probably only a few of them) who might go evil for some reason, and the Sharn army is too busy trying to fend off those barbarians who united under a new chief and are invading Khorvaire to do your work for you...
