I refuse to DM 3/3.5 past 7th level. How about you?

[Navior]

I've DMed 3rd Edition up to 30th level before, and never had a problem. My current group is in the 6-7 range and I'm looking forward to seeing them rise much higher.

Part of the trick to high levels is definitely having the characters rise through all the levels on the way. This lets you develop the world and the NPCs gradually. Starting a game at high levels means you have to develop everything from scratch and that's when the game starts to get unmanageable.

 

[frankthedm]

The Ruleset goes from being a fantasy game to a magic addicted super heroes in fantasy clothing numbers crunching game at around 10th level. Changing Genre is a deal breaker for me and as such the game won't be run after 10th or so.

Teleport at 5th level was balanced when there was a minimum 1% risk of instant, irrevokable death.

 

[maggot]

For me, the game as written degenerates as 5th level spells become commonplace. Around 11th level I would say. With enough controls in place, the game doesn't degenerate until the 9th level spells hit, but most 9th level spells are so outrageous (Mord's Disjunction, Gate, etc.) that the game degenerates even with access to only a few per day. So I would say the game is unrunable after 17th level.

But with the right players, you can probably run past 20th level.

 

[Terwox]

I haven't gone past 22. I'm not a big fan of the epic level handbook, but it does somewhat work. I'd probably prefer stopping somewhere around 18 or so.

 

[Numion]

The Ruleset goes from being a fantasy game to a magic addicted super heroes in fantasy clothing numbers crunching game at around 10th level. Changing Genre is a deal breaker for me and as such the game won't be run after 10th or so.

What changes the genre at that point? 5th level spells? In my experience at 10th level the fighters still hack the enemies and the spellcasters still lobb spells at enemies, like they did for the previous 9 levels. At group level the PCs still explore dungeons, advance in formations, search for traps, etc.

Do you equate ability to fly to being a game in the superhero genre?

 

[JoeGKushner]

As far as the original question, my last Forgotten Realms campaign feel apart at 12th level due to people infighting.

After that, 8th level with Black Company.

Right now, 5th level in Shackled City.

Higher level game play takes more time to prepare for, should be more character focused, rely less on combat, and the GM should know the rules well enough so that his players don't "pwned" him.

 

[Uder]

I don't have a problem running the game itself at high levels (although it's a drag when a single combat dominates your whole session), but prepping for a high level game? Ugh. The effort:fun ration is too high, especially once you start straying from the core rules.

I voted "after level 15", but the break point where I hate designing adventures is right around 17th or 18th.

 

[helium3]

I've never DM'd anything above 16th level, so I don't know how game play is affected after that. That being said, I don't think the game gets fully developed until after 10th level, and that's where most of the fun is to be had. I do agree that the combats can get very long if there are numerous opponents, but that's mostly just an issue of the DM being smart enough to know how things are going to roughly play out ahead of time. I don't understand people that say the game is unplayable after 7th level. That just seems bizarre to me since I've run plenty of games at levels higher than that and have had no problems.

 

[scourger]

As I read this thread, I pondered my own d20 games. Most faded somewhere on or just after 5th level. For the last one, I determined that it's just too much work for the play. I can't DM d20 at present. I didn't really enjoy the last core 3.5 game in which I played. The excesive bookkeeping as a DM has driven me to Savage Worlds. D&D would have to be heavily modified by me to run it. I think it would lose too much of its charm, but I may try it anyway since those games are likely gone otherwise. I still hope to do d20 games in other genres, though; although those seem less & less likely as well. Posting to this board notwithstanding, my time & desire for gaming are greatly decreased.

 

[Akrasia]

... I'm currently trying True20 however, and I don't expect the same difficulty there.

I hope that this is true (and think that it is). One of the things that appeals to me about True20 and C&C is the relative ease of high-level play. Having run two 3e campaigns in the past, I found the irritation in prep work to increase dramatically around levels 6-10.

C&C has a slower progression rate and is a simpler system. True20 is a simpler and 'lower-powered' system (high-level PCs can be felled by a single blow, albeit rarely). These aspects appeal to me in addition to the relative ease of high-level GM'ing.

However, if I were ever to run some version of 3e again (I would never run RAW again), I'd simply use slower progression rates for PCs (something like the Wilderlands rules), ban he more annoying spells (scry and teleport), and end the campaign around level 10 or so.