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

[CRGreathouse]

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.

The next version of my dragon generator will support OA dragons and 3 templates: fiend, half-fiend, and dracolich.

You, too, can create a dragon with CR from 1 to 32 in less than 30 seconds!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I think high-level was broken in 2e, but is much more enjoyable in 3e. Then again, I never liked 2e rules.

 

[kreynolds]

*bump*

There's some new people on these boards, so why not?

 

[Magic Rub]

Hey there bumpy boy. . . da da da da da

I like it all. Too much of one or the other gets dull, so some times High some times low. I know how The Furious Puffin feels with the mid range falling apart thing. About 75% of all the campaigns I've played in and/or DM'd that started from 1st lvl and gone from there have drifted into the realm of Poo at about 10th to 13th lvl due to various reasons.

 

[Mortaneus]

... from there have drifted into the realm of Poo at about 10th to 13th lvl due to various reasons.

Realm of Poo? Cool! I'll have to use that in my Planescape campaign!

"Ever wonder if poo has an afterlife? Well, wonder no more! *poof* *splat*"

 

[Marauder]

I gotta say I like high level games, I have done low levels to death....I have always felt that the higher levels give you more room to do stuff.

I agree. That has been the feeling of the players in my campaign. They are used to gaming under a different DM who ran games only up until around 7-9th level or so in 2nd ed. They haven't had a chance to play over that level.

On the one hand I am looking forward to mucking around with powerful opponents to challenge the group, but by the same token it looks as though it may be too easy to misjudge the encounter challnges and make them too easy, or worse, too hard. There's been mention of continuing through to Epic levels, but I fear I may run out of steam at around 20th level (there will be few printed adventures that go beyond 20th level, and printed material is all I use as I don't have time to write my own).

We'll see how it goes. I am running an FR campaign and plan to use the Bloodstone Wars quartet of modules (had to rejig the timeline and history some to get it to fit). There isn't much else in the way of high-level adventures out there, and they seem reasonably solid.

 

[ForceUser]

My highest level character ever is going to make 12th level soon. I'm stoked; I can't wait. I've been playing D&D for 14 years.

The higher the player group, the more options the PCs can exercise. The more options the players have, the more fun the players have. When the players, and not the DM, can begin to control the flow of the campaign in terms of "What's our next move?" then you've got a great campaign. Players, uniformly, love being able to make their own decisions.

After 10th level, the DM's role starts to morph from coach to referee. You need to be more flexible, and you need to be able to adapt to what the PCs are doing. If you've ran the same campaign through to the current party level, then you should have plenty of established campaign information with which to interact when the players pull an unexpected side trip or manuever.

I think the intricacy, intrigue, and interaction of high level characters, monsters, spells, abilities, and magic items makes for fascinating gameplay, both on a mechanical and a roleplaying level. Yes, it's more work for the DM. No doubt about that. Aren't your players worth it? Mine are.

 

[ThomasBJJ]

Hate is a strong word. I voted hate, but it's more that I prefer low and mid levels ALOT more than High. But I dont hate High.

 

[Sir Hawkeye]

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.

You give that pit fiend 6 levels of fighter and 300,000 gp of gear and see what happens!

Although actually in my current game, said pit fiend is the party's ally... for now!

High-level play's main strength is the sheer number of option available to both player's and DM. I enjoy it as a DM because I can throw just about anything of a reasonable CR at them and they'll find some way to deal with it, but it will still challenge them and deplete their resources.

"Ahead you see 20 ghosts"
"I turn undead... I roll a 3."
"Let's see, It says here you can turn undead with up to... 21 HIT DICE!" (Yes, folks, the cleric is 24th level.)

 

[Painfully]

In the higher levels it's very important that the DM be familiar with what the party's capabilities are. There is much more room for social interaction, betrayal, alliances, guild interactions, and good old politics. Those things are good to have at low levels too, but at higher levels the stakes become much greater, and the consequences should be felt within the campaign world, not just the local neighborhood.

By the time the PCs are of higher than level 12, their enemies might form alliances and complex plans against them. DM's need to become more sinister, rather than out in the open about attacking or disabling the PCs.

Magic is probably the party's greatest asset at these levels. Use magic on their opponents to boost their saves and protect them from magic. Use counter-magic and wards. Use another party of adventurers as their opponents (and let them get away to be resurrected if some of them die).

High levels are great, but an experienced DM is a must to take advantage of all the possiblities. Nothing could be worse than a DM who is unable to keep up with the players.