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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 1292219" data-attributes="member: 1757">That was one of the great posts, WizarDru. Merci beaucoup.My simple take on high-level play is this: Forget about high fantasy, and understand that high-level play is essentially a superhero game. The JLA and Authority are great examples of the kinds of obstacles facing writers (DMs) in this kind of environment: Both teams can teleport practically anywhere they like, they have unbelievable information-gathering powers, and they can essentially ignore the will of any individual government. So what can really challenge them? Well, a few things:1) An unknown foe. As Zad points out, you have to know that you're looking for something in the first place in order to actually find out what it is. High-level opponents have the resources to disguise their identities, create vast misinformation, and cloak themselves from detection. There's absolutely no reason why divinations are going to reveal anything unless and until the PCs can bring their full attention and resources to bear upon something, or someone, that they'd need to know something about in the first place.2) Things from Beyond. So PCs are too big for their home world; no problem! Extraplanar threats, alien environments, and strange magical effects should become their meat and drink. What with githyanki planecruisers and archdevils and continent-sized water elementals running around, high-level PCs should be mere novices in such environments. They'll need all their powers just to survive on the Negative Energy Plane or the Plane of Fire.3) Deadly combat. This one can be turned from a curse to a blessing, you know. If PCs know that any given combat against an adversary of commensurate power is an all-or-nothing affair, they're likely to get very combat-shy. Assuming rationality on the part of the PCs' foes, so will they. Interactions thus start leaning heavily toward role-playing and covert machinations rather than open combat, which can lead to a nice self-sustaining RP-oriented campaign. My 21st- to 23rd-level PCs have this sort of thing going on; they play in FR, and have made sworn enemies of the Zhentarim, the Red Wizards, and several other groups, but they don't just go around slaughtering high-level members of those groups, because they know that a single encounter with Manshoon (CR 25) and a couple of beholders could result in the (permanent) deaths of at least one or two of them.</blockquote>

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