I don't get high-level D&D (merged)

[CCamfield]

I don't get high-level D&D

I was going to post in the travel-magic thread but I kept feeling my response would be out of place.

I haven't played any high level D&D that I can think of. (Perhaps because of how long it took to level up in previous editions, and I haven't been in any long campaigns of 3rd ed.)

It seems to me that D&D is very unlike other games with regards to magic. Not only does all sorts of long-distance teleportation magic come into play, getting rid of travel, but divination magic makes conventional mysteries impossible... etc.

Now, this may seem perfectly normal and fine to you, but to my mind it's counterproductive. Just because characters go up in level should be no reason for styles of adventure to become outmoded. You don't see this sort of thing in - I dare say - most RPGs or fantasy novels.

So why is this so treasured by veteran D&D players?

 

[maddman75]

I'm with you. I love 3e, but only the first half of it. My campaigns tend to wind down about 12th level, and I'm completely itching to send a group of barely competent strangers into a hole filled with orcs or kobolds by 15th. Too much overhead, too much bookkeeping, too much everything. The further the game gets from genre fiction the less interested I am in it.

 

[Piratecat]

Just because characters go up in level should be no reason for styles of adventure to become outmoded. You don't see this sort of thing in - I dare say - most RPGs or fantasy novels.

Hmm - I think I disagree. Do you see James Bond solving dime store shoplifting mysteries? In that genre (as in D&D), the nature of the challenge tends to expand with the resourcefulness and experience of the law enforcement agent.

High lvl D&D adventures scared the crap out of me until we slowly eased our way into them over time. Now, for me, they're just as easy and as much fun as any other type of D&D game.

 

[Harlock]

Care to share more, p-kitty? I've been one in the past to detest high level play in 3rd ed. So much so that I slowed down advancement majorly by increasing XP needed to level from 6-20. I tend to prefer a mid level game. I've run an epic game once. With characters we ran from 1 to 20 through some of the adventure path and then RttToEE. Both playersand I were bored stiff. Combats seemed to drag on forever as creatures healed themselves. Scrying hasn't ever been a problem in our D&D games. It seems an unwritten rule that we don't like to spoil the mystery, so we tend to gather information the old fashioned way and just listen to rumors and talk to folks.

 

[Belen]

I have to agree with Harlock. I would love to hear your advice on high level play. Right now I am running an epic game with characters that I have been GMing for from 1-20.

Not only is it boring, but it takes a terrible amount of time to challenge them, and there are not many example of high level story lines that I can pull from....

I'd enjoy hearing some wisdom.....

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Easy way to fix the teleporting and high level divination problems...get rid of the spells

I find teleporting quite useful though. It stops the random bull that can slow down the game that happens while traveling (which can also be a bad thing, random encounters are fun).

If you don't want to eliminate teleporting but power it down rule that you cannot teleport to some place where you have never been before.

Divination does piss me off though. Kidnapping use to be a great way to challenge powerful people (such as superman) in D&D you just cast the right divination and find them instantly. You could make up an epic spell to stop that sorta thing though.

And I'm pretty sure there are some mid level spells to fool just plain scrying

 

[WayneLigon]

It seems to me that D&D is very unlike other games with regards to magic. Not only does all sorts of long-distance teleportation magic come into play, getting rid of travel, but divination magic makes conventional mysteries impossible... etc.

I don't know; we've played two high-level games and neither one became like that. We still travelled on horses, though usually they were Phantom Steeds and we'd treat rivers like highways because of it (plus it makes a hell of an impression on your enemies to come galloping across a lake on glowing-eyes horses make of mist and smoke).

I really don't know how people are teleporting all over the place, anyway. Greater Teleport still requires you have a reliable description of the place you're going, and most of the places we've wanted to go to very quickly we don't have any description of, much less a reliable one, or they'd be on another plane. I guess if you're transporting back to your home it might be useful, or we're just enamored of travel. The other teleport still has a chance you end up inside a wall, so we've seldom if ever used it. I've never known anyone to waste a 9th level spell slot on Teleport Circle.

We never made a great use of divination spells, either, save for attempting Divination. What we got from it was accurate, but we never understood it until after what was going to happen had already happened most of the time After all, it's not like it says 'Duke Phelan was murdered by his council of advisors on the 12th'. Scrying has a save and Spell Resistance affects it, making it less useful against high-level opponents, esp. high level spellcasters and extra-planer creatures who seem to be our main opponents. Discern Location is a problem, but has again some ways around it (have to have touched an object, or seen a creature).

 

[WayneLigon]

For adding some extra wrinkles to Teleporting, I suggest the first Book of Eldritch Magic. There are some very good spells in there dealing with teleport, such as ways to block it and redirect it.

 

[Pielorinho]

I'm only in midlevel play right now, but I can definitely run mystery stories even in the presence of communes and divinations. It's just that the scale of things changes.

My first adventure in the current campaign was a murder mystery: a slave realized that one noble had cast enchantment magics on another noble, and was blackmailing the enchanter, and got killed for his troubles. The PCs got involved, did a lot of footwork, got arrested by an overzealous cop, went undercover, and eventually captured the villainous noble when she tried to escape the city. It was lots of fun.

My most recent adventure was another political mystery, but it was far more grandiose: due to a religous dispute, the grand vizier killed the king, kidnapped the queen, sequestered the prince, and made a deal with a barbarian druid to impersonate the queen, acting as his political and religious puppet. The PCs got involved because the vizier had ordered the massacre of a monastery, and the lone survivor had begged their assistance. Communes and divinations pointed them in the right direction, but given the shaky political situation (you can't go accusing the grand vizier of murder unless you've got more than a divination as evidence), they still had to do a lot of footwork, a lot of asking questions, a lot of finding bad guys and beating answers out of them.

As long as your brain is suitably convoluted, I don't see why you couldn't continue doing mysteries into epic levels.

Daniel

 

[CCamfield]

Hmm - I think I disagree. Do you see James Bond solving dime store shoplifting mysteries? In that genre (as in D&D), the nature of the challenge tends to expand with the resourcefulness and experience of the law enforcement agent.

Oh, I'm certainly not arguing that mysteries should stay piddly. Pielorinho's evil vizier adventure sounds great, for instance. But I think there's more potential fun in having to question people or sneak into the villain's rooms to search for evidence than in just casting a spell that might produce the same evidence.