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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6042252" data-attributes="member: 22424">I mostly play 3e, and usually start campaigns at 1st level. We therefore mostly play low-level (1-5), although we generally venture somewhere into the mid-levels (6-12) before the campaign ends.The last campaign to venture into the high levels (13+), or in fact anything above 10th, was Shackled City, which was 6+ years ago. I'm hopeful that my current campaign will reach approx 15th level before it ends in May. However, I have little to no interest in going into the very high levels again.Four factors:1) There's always the possibility of a TPK ending the campaign.2) I've found that my campaigns tend to have a limited lifespan - after about 6 months both my players and I are becoming a little restless, and ready to look forward to the next thing. In order to sustain interest for longer, a campaign needs careful planning right from the outset - Shackled City had it, "The Eberron Code" has it, but most of my campaigns tend not to get that level of planning.3) Bluntly, the sheer weight of the 3e system starts to grate on me even at quite low levels, and only ever gets worse. Playing in the mid-level range is still a lot of fun, but once the game gets to 10th level or so, it starts to become more trouble than it's worth. Given that I'm already losing interest by that point (see above), there's little reason to fight the system for diminishing returns.4) I have a 'rule' that if any one of my significant* players moves away, then I'll wrap up the current campaign before they go, both to give them closure on the story, and also to give them and their characters a fitting send-off. This has caused two campaigns to end, one at 8th level and one at 10th.* That is, the guys who were there at the start of the campaign and who have regularly attended throughout.All of the stuff in the article seems pretty good.My experience with the game with various groups suggests that it would probably be preferable if starting characters were rather tougher (but not necessarily more competent) than 1st level 3e characters, that the power curve should be a lot flatter than is currently the case (but that they should gain something significant at every level), and that they should probably plateau in terms of complexity around that mid-level range. This doesn't mean they shouldn't become any more powerful... but generally that extra power should come by upgrading existing options with more powerful variants and/or replacing obselete powers with new ones.Or, heretical as it may be, starting everyone at 6th level and then playing E6 - effectively dropping levels entirely.</blockquote>

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