High Level Games - Love 'em or hate 'em?

[kreynolds]

Just curious how everyone felt about high level games, around 15th to 20th level. I myself like pretty much any game, but many people prefer the low level over the high level. Basically, vote for what kind you like, tell me what you don't like about high/low level games and tell me what you do like about high/low level games. Many people have varying opinions and they are all interesting. C'mon! Let's get some feedback kiddies!

 

[EOL]

I feel like it's a wash. I love the challanges and monsters that I can use as a high level DM. I like that my players are running the characters they dreamed about back when they were first level.

But on the other hand it becomes so much more difficult to run a high-level campaign. The players have so many options available that if becomes very difficult to challange them, but at the same time very easy to kill them all off with a single spell. Basically the parameters of the game become much harder to control.

That's why I feel it's a wash.

 

[LostSoul]

I could probably run (or play in) a high level one-shot game. I doubt I could suspend my disbelief long enough to play an entire campaign.

 

[Chris Nagle]

I am currently play a character in the second high level campaign for 3rd Edition.

In this one I have a 16th Level character.
1st Monk/1st Paladin/7th Cleric/7th Sacred Excorsit.

Average party level is 14 with 5-8 players every week.

Now it is starting to get interesting with what we as a party can do. We are in forgottem realms and the campagin has an order of Black Guard trying to take over a country and we are out to stop them.


In our last Campagin we ended up being a party of 23rd to 26th level characters. We would have continued that campagin but the High Level book is not out yet.

 

[The Furious Puffin]

Never played a character above 10th level - Our campagians collapse, altohugh the current one just hit 10th, but is coming apart at the seams

 

[Mali]

I gotta say I like high level games, I have done low levels to death. After 4 characters starting at level 1 I am ready to go for the higher levels now. At present my highest character is lvl 12 (6 Ranger/6 Fighter) and I am really enjoying it.
It is nice to be challenged by stuff, but to also have a chance of surviving it. I have always felt that the higher levels give you more room to do stuff.
But then again this only my opinion, and that is all that counts

 

[Voadam]

I played in a campaign that took my wizard to 20th level and it was a lot of fun. I think it worked well because the emphasis was not on combat every game and it was abundantly clear that there is always something MUCH tougher out there in the game world. There was a continuum that ranged well above and below the characters that was relevan. Also in the campaign, doing something in character and in flavor was more effective than stats so much lower level characters were useful and good at their roles/niches.

It is a lot of fun to run a high level character in a well run campaign. You get to use a wide variety of spells and tactics that can only be utilized by powerful characters.

On the other hand, the campaigns I run tend to be low to mid-level (2-10) games. I have a general feel for the power balance at these levels and can introduce elements and predict how things will generally turn out (tough but doable fight, easy encounter, etc.) The players generally feel very powerful and sometimes heroic but since I run mostly horror, there is usually a palpable sense of danger.

 

[kreynolds]

Excellent input! C'mon people, keep it comin'!

 

[kreynolds]

bump Hey, I get one free bump. I won't abuse it.

 

[Targos]

I enjoy the lower/mid levels more myself when it comes to DMing. Honestly I don't think the game is designed to challenge a high level party. I'd think most players would get bored. Think about it. A pit fiend is one of the biggest monsters around and its only CR16. A single pitfiend is an equal match for 4 level 12 characters. Thats only mid level in the scope of 20 levels. Honestly the PCs start to get the real power with things like teleport and scry and they get those by level 9. I don't know how many times the last party I ran used scry and waited until the enemy went to sleep and teleported in an killed him in his sleep. Of course you can continue to challenge the PCs with level 20 NPCs, monsters with class levels, and wyrms for dragons, but honestly generating those statistics is a lot of work and how common are things like that anyhow. Dragons would be endangered quite easily by the end of the campaign.