I Have 8 20th Level Characters -- Now What?

[Tarangil]

When I had players reach very high lvls and they acquired tracks of land and had added responsibilities, there was one thing the players really dove into when given the opportunity. With some leisure time, they ended up procreating. I had to foreward things 15 years ahead though but they found in fun to create the next Generation of their Favourite Characters. I've never had anyone fill out character history in such detail before that. On top of that to keep the feel of continuing, rather than starting allll over again is that I allowed the parents to give ONE of their items to the new character and depending on wealth, a little more starting money. So they have a little more edge than most first level players but are still first nontheless.

At times I'd also bounce back to their origional characters who may have to deal with bigger problems from time to time. When you're talking kingdoms the armies aren't 190 troops, I'm talking about the size of Roman legions. When you deal with that there has to be diplomacy because usually the controllers of the legions is about the same lvl as the PC's.

I've also had the PC's use their cohorts for various missions around the countryside while they're tied up with beaurocracy and such. That way they also get to flesh out their main men/things a bit more and become more attatched to them rather than having just another henchman in a red shirt.

 

[SBMC]

Epic characters are the ultimate - the Achillies, Hector's , Hercules, etc. of the times.

"Going epic" should start well before 20th level. Think about it; how many people in the world ever actually make it past 1st level? Probably 1 commoner in a billion - and perhaps the top 25% of craftspeople and aristocrats and the like. The soldiers and guards that see lots of war…a few.
To tenth level? The elite of the world; the best of the best of crasftsmen and politicians and the like. The generals of armies would as well. But that would be over most of ones lifetime; not before the character's 30th birthday (if not sooner!).

IMO Starting preparing for epic levels should start early; say 10-12th level. This is where you start setting up for it; setting the stage. Will these guys settle down? Stay in one place? Are the due title from someplace? Who did they anger in the past that has gained levels as he have over time? Have they done enough to be sung of by bards across the continent…

At the moment I am in a homespun campaign with characters ranging from 12-15. The level discrepancies are due to death and raising dead (loss of level).

To prepare for higher levels are DM set up a serious long term adventure with all sorts of plot twists and such (some of which, even now are still unfolding). However we did the main thing after about 6 sessions of playing (4-5 hours a pop). We saved the nation we were in from certain doom - as such the entire party was knighted and we were given a keep and lands. The populace of the city we reside in (now that is - once we got the keep) knows us and worships the ground we walk on; people constantly ask for stories of our adventurers and honor us wherever we go. Soldiers and guards salivate over the thought be being led or fighting with us. My character has the leadership feat and to that point only used it to get his cohort. When he "activated" it to staff the keep they had to bar the doors.

Now the option to leave I always there mind you; but the stage is set for us; we are the great heroes of reknown. Defenders of the people and such…just by being what we are; adventureors.

Thus we went from well known 10+ level (at that time) adventurers to nobility (low level but none-the less nobility). The region ahs lots of ruins and such around for us to go and poke around in as well as "constant" threats to the nation and such. As you would guess we are called upon frequently (officially or unofficially) to assist. This also goes without mentioning that the fighters are essentially honorary generals.

Nobles and wealthy alike seem to love or hate us; lots of political intrigue. Certain folks resent us greatly (seeing as we bask in glory) and that we got lands and a good sized keep as well for "free" does not help that situation. An assassination attempt was already made on one party member (the assassin died; violently).

So you see this is doable; but at higher levels to be one of those "legendary" epic guys having a base of operations makes you life easier. Gotham city always went to Batman for help; same with Superman. The city of greyhawk calls upon its own heroes in times of need…

Also don't forget that those same nobles (in your world or mine) all have their own agendas. If you have a female PC someone may want to marry heir son off to her. A male PC; powerful nobles and merchants could try to parade their daughters in front of them. "Super badguys" fear our mere presence in the world - knowing we would come or them when they show their face regardless of the local they are in versus us - and thus plot…

There are also (what we got into a lot) other business. Our lands produce crops, we herd animals, etc. We are stating up a winery soon as well and our Cleric is building a HUGE temple as well (and getting lots of donations for the costs!).

The casters have helped build walls, buildings and the like for the people; rebuild them after a dreadful attack (that we of course rectified by the sword!).


Summary:

By the time we hit 20th level we would indeed be of higher nobility and the like. Ya see; the RP portion of it matches the mechanics portion of it.



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Had we decided to just move around it would indeed still become difficult to not get mobbed at most major cities; a folks may recognize us and want to be with us. Kings would try to hunt us down to engage us for services; princesses offered as prizes…evil minions waiting for the chance to destroy us as they fear our mere existence in the universe…

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Anyway ya cut it - a lot more RP'ing and intrigue, politics, etc. come into play.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Anson Caralya!

Ellie, very glad to hear that you enjoyed the Quicksilver Hourglass! Not to hijack this thread, but, as the author, I'm naturally curious to hear a bit more about how it played for you.

Kudos for that. Great adventure. Interesting back-story. Inventive encounters. Memorable villains. Cool stuff.

One thing I am curious about is Dungeon Magazines policy on epic adventures, to be specific, how often would they consider having an epic adventure, in your opinion?

While epic gaming only represents about 5-6%* of all D&D, it does represent about 20%* of all high-level gaming, and since Dungeon magazine includes one high-level adventure per issue, would it be too much to expect an epic adventure probably every 5 or 6 issues I wonder?

*Based on the most recent poll here at ENWorld that is.

 

[Anson Caralya]

One thing I am curious about is Dungeon Magazines policy on epic adventures, to be specific, how often would they consider having an epic adventure, in your opinion?

While epic gaming only represents about 5-6%* of all D&D, it does represent about 20%* of all high-level gaming, and since Dungeon magazine includes one high-level adventure per issue, would it be too much to expect an epic adventure probably every 5 or 6 issues I wonder?

Upper-Krust, I know Dungeon's stated policy is to do epic about once a year, but I'm just a freelancer (somewhere James Jacobs is doing Mr. Incredible's "You are not affiliated with me!" line), so have nothing more to provide than what I've read on their boards. However, I know they read these boards, so maybe someone will weigh in... (And, uh, just kidding about that, James...)

 

[Zimbel]

Challenges

They wiped out around 140 9th level barbarians and their strong group of leaders, it was as if they were un-checkable. The previous encounter had them square off against an Ancient Red Dragon. Although I made charcoal out of two of the characters on the first blast of fire, the rest of the group (in a fierce fight) finished the dragon off in grand style.

I ran a party up to LV 22 (3E).
Yes; around LV 20, a bunch of 9th level barbarians should be mincemeat regardless of the number (there's a reason the XP chart dosen't give XP for creatures that low); I'm surprised that the dragon caused them significant problems - the average damage on a failed save should be something that even the party wizard should be able to survive.

Problems:
1) They could take inordinate amounts of damage, and keep on coming.
2) Crits were common, and they often killed.
3) 100+ results on damage were not uncommon for a single round for a PC.
4) They could go anywhere.
5) Numerous unbalanced spells

In 3.5, I should note, that a few of the above problems are not as bad.

Solutions:
1) Time-limit the adventures. With unlimited time, it's almost impossible to challenge them at this level (without deliberately nerfing a number of their abilities).
2) Assume teleport. I mean assume that they'll use it during the combat. For that matter, design combats that are nearly impossible to solve without the copious use of teleport/Dimension door.
3) Assume Fly. I mean assume that everyone can fly, and create some encounters where it isn't an advantage (ex: entire room is in the reach of a creature). For that matter, create encounters where it's a disadvantage every once in a while (because being on the floor is an advantage).
4) Assume that your big creature will die, possibly before it gets to go. This is why you rarely want to uses a single creature any more; use 2+, each with significant power. If mass damage effects are common, consider having them spread wide apart.
5) If you want to use a lot of low-level creatures, design the encounters to be mean. 8 10th level wizards should be no threat. 4 iron golems should be no threat. However, if you use the iron golems as cover (or even armor) for the wizards, the encounter starts to be more interesting. Again, if the wizards are ordering the golems to grapple the weak characters, again the encounter starts to be more interesting. Simuarly, beholders are weak, but they're great for creating antimagic areas for a combat.
6) Their rogue can disarm any trap, and find it given two rounds, possibly less. Great. Now's the time to integrate traps directly into the encounters. Even better, those who set up the traps will know exactly where they are, and what they do (and will either be immune, or try to avoid it). Immunity is even better than avoiding for area-effect traps- imagine how that red dragon encounter would have fared had it set off a delayed-blast fireball trap or two every round (say, with its wings- which do trivial dmaage normally).
7) Immunity is also nice against large, environmental effects- fighting on the lava, in a tornado, or 3 miles under water can cause difficulty for even high-level characters. For appropriate creatures, it's no problem at all.
8) Animated objects can be big. I mean really big. If you plan to have them go through a dungeon, consider making the dungeon a creature. Consider one of the Epic Golems as a base template.
9) Use active opposition. A carefully staged ambushed, prepped ahead of time can be pretty nasty. Keep it up.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Anson!

Upper-Krust, I know Dungeon's stated policy is to do epic about once a year, but I'm just a freelancer (somewhere James Jacobs is doing Mr. Incredible's "You are not affiliated with me!" line), so have nothing more to provide than what I've read on their boards. However, I know they read these boards, so maybe someone will weigh in... (And, uh, just kidding about that, James...)

I noticed in Issue #123 that they actually had four adventures, low, mid, high and epic. So the high level adventure wasn't sacrificed for the epic.

Seemingly Quicksilver Hourglass was the main focus of the issue given that it covered almost as many pages as the others put together - however its noticeable that Dungeon can fluctuate in size by 20+ pages or more. So its probably more of a case that adventures fluctuate from about 10-30 pages in length and they just run with what they have.

Which leads me to conclude that they could easily integrate an epic adventure every 2-3 issues without hampering the content of the magazine, simply by adding it into an issue where the other adventures are relatively shorter in length than average (where the low, mid and high-level adventures combine to total 55 pages or less for instance).

I'm wondering now if Erik gets that many epic adventure proposals sent to Dungeon magazine?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't understand the mentality of giving up if everyone is still having fun with the existing characters.

You know, usually I'm in a state of polite disagreement with Krusty, here, but I'm with him on this. I guess I can understand the DM's desire to restart, but what's the reason for it, when the PC's want to keep going?

 

[S'mon]

You know, usually I'm in a state of polite disagreement with Krusty, here, but I'm with him on this. I guess I can understand the DM's desire to restart, but what's the reason for it, when the PC's want to keep going?

Well IME there are mechanical problems with high-level 3e - too much complexity, too big numbers, an inappropriate focus on the square-grid battlemat - that didn't exist in prior editions. I've been able to make high level (ca 18th-19th) D&D work recently by running it "1e style" with a much looser focus than 3e standard, no battlemat, skate over most encounters as trivial, focus on the interesting stuff. 3e's player-centric rules focus & increasing complexity with level really causes problems at higher levels. Having GM'd Upper_Krust's Thrin to 117th in 1e I don' think I'm biased against high level gaming, but I definitely think there are good reasons why a 3e GM might not wish to run Epic. They might dislike the high-power genre, but they might also dislike a set of rules that IMO just don't handle high-power very well.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey S'mon!

Well IME there are mechanical problems with high-level 3e - too much complexity, too big numbers, an inappropriate focus on the square-grid battlemat - that didn't exist in prior editions. I've been able to make high level (ca 18th-19th) D&D work recently by running it "1e style" with a much looser focus than 3e standard, no battlemat, skate over most encounters as trivial, focus on the interesting stuff. 3e's player-centric rules focus & increasing complexity with level really causes problems at higher levels. Having GM'd Upper_Krust's Thrin to 117th in 1e I don' think I'm biased against high level gaming, but I definitely think there are good reasons why a 3e GM might not wish to run Epic. They might dislike the high-power genre, but they might also dislike a set of rules that IMO just don't handle high-power very well.

I agree with you to a certain extent, one of my goals with the Immortals Handbook is to simplify epic gaming and I believe I have already solved most of the problems inherant at epic level without sacrificing 'player choice'.

Looking over the Epic Level Handbook and Deities & Demigods you would almost think they were designing it to be complicated. But a few minor tweaks in the right places really does free up a lot of the burdens to the extent that I think the game is certainly no more complex than core high-level play, and may even be simpler than that!

 

[rounser]

Have Rary kill them.

...and take their stuff.

Think of a truly epic plotline that can and will finish - death of characters or not.

Oerth gets blown up by the Death Star.

PC1: I never noticed that moon before...
PC2: That's no moon...it's a space sta-
RARY [PILOTING DEATH STAR]: Robilar, is this thing on? Oh. Hey! HEY! You guys...you guys over there!
PC1: ...
PC2: ....us?
RARY: Yes you! Hand over your stuff or I blow up Oerth!