High level d20 non-D&D games - how do they hold up?

[mrswing]

The recent thread about the complexity of D&D 3.5 at high levels, which is a turn-off for a sizeable number of players and DM's, got me to thinking. How do the other declinations of D20 hold up at high level? More specifically, d20 modern, Star Wars, Spycraft 2.0, Conan, Babylon 5, True20... Are they more manageable or do they also collapse under the weight of their rule systems?

 

[ashockney]

I'd be interested to hear from someone who's tried alt fantasy d20 as well such as Arcana Unearthed, Everquest RPG, or World of Warcraft RPG.

 

[Particle_Man]

Iron Heroes didn't seem too bad in the 20th level one-shot I ran for it. No magic items or spells were used, though.

 

[celewritor]

Ran an Arcana Evolved game from 1st to 20th. It held up pretty well, much better than my 3.0 1st to 20th game. Mainly I think the effect was the more balanced magic system. As for complexity, it is more complex to run a high level game but I tend to use reoccuring villians a lot at high level (as well as out of the book uber monsters) which cuts down on prep time.

I've never found the rule complexity a problem though. The magic system is the only thing that really get more complex.

 

[Gundark]

True 20, and spycraft 2, and even star wars are faster definetly. Iron heroes is looking like it'll be significantly faster as well. Arcana unearthed and world of warcraft look like (no play xp) that they'd be around the same as far a play time.

 

[Kunimatyu]

In my experience, Iron Heroes is yucky at high levels. There are not as many random magic bonuses, but the sheer number of situational bonuses("if your opponent misses you but hits your shield AC, then...") and iterative attacks boggles the mind. With an amazingly competent group of PCs this won't be an issue, but that's true for Epic D&D as well.

Iron Heroes NPCs are easier to make only if you don't go crazy with tons of feat trees - villain classes, of course, are very easy to set up, but there's only a few of them, even if you include the hongus classes.

I think high level True20 will avoid this, since you can make at most two attacks per round, but we'll see.

 

[maggot]

Ran an Arcana Evolved game from 1st to 20th. It held up pretty well, much better than my 3.0 1st to 20th game. Mainly I think the effect was the more balanced magic system.

Funny, our AE game fell apart around level 15 because of the unbalanced magic system. As I recall there was a no-save stun effect from the acid template and the buff spells were like +10 to every relavant stat at that level. The game devolved into find the broken effect or combo.

Pretty much what happened with my 3.0/3.5 game around the same levels.

 

[pawsplay]

Star Wars holds up pretty well until about 12th level or so... at that point, they are the same level as most of the characters in the movies. My PCs would routinely use the plan, "Let's get captured, then escape" as their method of infiltrating absolutely anywhere. They literally let themselves get taken to prison, then assaulted the guards, took their weapons, hot wired the locks, infiltrated base security, grounded the ships in the space port, and defeated a couple of squads of stormtroopers, while effectiely jamming any transmissions from the base.

They also shot down a wing of 8th level TIE pilots in TIE-Ins while flying a shuttle craft, which had half the shields, hull rating, and armament of any one TIE fighter. Outnumbered 8:1, they destroyed all their attackers in, I believe, four rounds. Their pilot, a force adept/scout/noble, could automatically succeed at any piloting stunt described in the rules, including a full stop or wingover at any speed.

The soldier and fringer had so many attacks that they could count on rolling some 20s eventually, and would therefore try all kinds of shots, including shooting down TIE fighters with a tripod mounted blaster as they strafed.

That stuff you see in the movies? Anakin taming wild beasts while manacled, Han flying through asteroid fields, Kenobi defeating Grievous while hanging from a ledge? They were all amateurs.

I sent them up against three star destroyers without even worrying about how they would take them out. I just figured they would. They entered one of them in a stolen shuttle. They sabotaged the engines to self destrust, then took over the control room and opened fire on the other star destroyer. The third took heavy damage before escaping. They battled their way out, stole a TIE fighter, and escaped.

That's what Star Wars d20 looks like at level 12+. I wouldn't even let them near Darth Vader armed with any weapon of any kind.

 

[Asmor]

Star Wars holds up pretty well until about 12th level or so... at that point, they are the same level as most of the characters in the movies. My PCs would routinely use the plan, "Let's get captured, then escape" as their method of infiltrating absolutely anywhere. They literally let themselves get taken to prison, then assaulted the guards, took their weapons, hot wired the locks, infiltrated base security, grounded the ships in the space port, and defeated a couple of squads of stormtroopers, while effectiely jamming any transmissions from the base.

They also shot down a wing of 8th level TIE pilots in TIE-Ins while flying a shuttle craft, which had half the shields, hull rating, and armament of any one TIE fighter. Outnumbered 8:1, they destroyed all their attackers in, I believe, four rounds. Their pilot, a force adept/scout/noble, could automatically succeed at any piloting stunt described in the rules, including a full stop or wingover at any speed.

The soldier and fringer had so many attacks that they could count on rolling some 20s eventually, and would therefore try all kinds of shots, including shooting down TIE fighters with a tripod mounted blaster as they strafed.

That stuff you see in the movies? Anakin taming wild beasts while manacled, Han flying through asteroid fields, Kenobi defeating Grievous while hanging from a ledge? They were all amateurs.

I sent them up against three star destroyers without even worrying about how they would take them out. I just figured they would. They entered one of them in a stolen shuttle. They sabotaged the engines to self destrust, then took over the control room and opened fire on the other star destroyer. The third took heavy damage before escaping. They battled their way out, stole a TIE fighter, and escaped.

That's what Star Wars d20 looks like at level 12+. I wouldn't even let them near Darth Vader armed with any weapon of any kind.

That... actually sounds really cool.

Of course, from your description it sounds less like something about the system and more like you're just an awesome GM.

 

[The Grackle]

Theoretically True 20 should hold up at any level. I've heard people complaining about the spell users at high levels though. They say the damage output of an adept far outclasses any melee type.