Is it harder to be a DM in a high-level campaign?
- Thread starter candidus_cogitens
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(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
I noticed some of the high-level adventures deliberately nerf high-level divinations.
Lord of the Iron Fortress takes great pains to say that Greater Scrying can ruin an adventure (I'm not sure why - it isn't like the villain is always plotting). It contains a magic item (artifact?) that prevents scrying. If you dare to use Commune, there's a 50% chance that a pit fiend intercepts the response and twists it
A little over the top?
(There's also the Invisibility Purge effect, which is just cool and evil.)
Apparently Bastion of Broken Souls also takes the time to nerf Commune, but I don't own that adventure - that's the impression I get from Gfunk's Story Hour.
There are some Divinations that don't bother me - Speak with Dead won't, since I have a pretty good idea how much info the corpse has. It could be none, it could be a lot, or there might not even be a corpse!
Teleport can be annoying, along with Mord's Magnificent Mansion.
Lord of the Iron Fortress takes great pains to say that Greater Scrying can ruin an adventure (I'm not sure why - it isn't like the villain is always plotting). It contains a magic item (artifact?) that prevents scrying. If you dare to use Commune, there's a 50% chance that a pit fiend intercepts the response and twists it
A little over the top?
(There's also the Invisibility Purge effect, which is just cool and evil.)
Apparently Bastion of Broken Souls also takes the time to nerf Commune, but I don't own that adventure - that's the impression I get from Gfunk's Story Hour.
There are some Divinations that don't bother me - Speak with Dead won't, since I have a pretty good idea how much info the corpse has. It could be none, it could be a lot, or there might not even be a corpse!
Teleport can be annoying, along with Mord's Magnificent Mansion.
I changed Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion into a more luxurious version of Leomund's Secure Shelter. That way I don't have to deal with extradimensional troubles, PCs recovering easily in the thightest tunnels of a dungeon and vanishing from the earth at the drop of a hat.
Kalendraf
Explorer
Plane Sailing said:
This is exactly the same issue I encountered with a group of approximately the same level (actually 9th thru 12th). The lethality of the party's attacks increase exponentially, but so do the attacks of their foes. Multiple attacks, high attack and damage bonuses, and spells dishing out damage dice in huge multiples all contribute to exponential damage application. The time the characters have to react and heal reduces to fewer and fewer rounds, until finally, they simply can't react in time to save their allies from death. Defensive spells like stoneskin or elemental resists certainly help, but they aren't a sure fire answer either. Smart opponents will dispel those effects and higher level foes may have attack types that still get thru.
As a DM, I think it is important to understand the consequences of this higher level play. Death will happen. I don't understand why some DM's would prevent Raise Dead or Resurrection kinds of spells, since at the higher levels, these are simply a must have kind of spell to offset the increased likelyhood of character death. Storylines should intertwine with character development, but if you force players to bring in new characters with each death, that hurts both the story and character development.
sithramir
First Post
No offense man, but restricting things because you are too "lazy" or "unimaginative" means you probably should stop DMing. I hate to say that when there are lack of DM's in my area for players sometimes, but if you think divinations are game breaking you aren't using them to the rules. A lot of the answers are cryptic or in rhymes, etc.
Whoopdie do I can teleport and windwalk. So I scry the BBEG and I can teleport to him. He can scry me and teleport to me? Or teleport away? Or cast a low level dimensional anchor?
They can't easily scry someone in 3.0 until they get greater scry. Put some time constraints where they can't go spend an hour casting and then start searching around all day. The BBEG has taken control of the castle and is slaying peasants for fun. You already have a clue where he's at but not exactly. You can't just scry in or teleport in because the king had placed protective magics or even if he didn't you can but when you get there theres too many innocents to just arrive and blast him. Those spells are useful to have but not game breaking if you know they have them and make sure your npc's use them.
Nondetection protects from scrying. any wizard/sorc can have this at very low levels. Misdirection points to someone near them. Perhaps they scry and find the BBEG and arrive to attack to realize that they were misdirected and its just a soldier he brought in as a "dupe". They turn around and "surprise" its a set up and he has 20 guards attack them to capture them.
Whoopdie do I can teleport and windwalk. So I scry the BBEG and I can teleport to him. He can scry me and teleport to me? Or teleport away? Or cast a low level dimensional anchor?
They can't easily scry someone in 3.0 until they get greater scry. Put some time constraints where they can't go spend an hour casting and then start searching around all day. The BBEG has taken control of the castle and is slaying peasants for fun. You already have a clue where he's at but not exactly. You can't just scry in or teleport in because the king had placed protective magics or even if he didn't you can but when you get there theres too many innocents to just arrive and blast him. Those spells are useful to have but not game breaking if you know they have them and make sure your npc's use them.
Nondetection protects from scrying. any wizard/sorc can have this at very low levels. Misdirection points to someone near them. Perhaps they scry and find the BBEG and arrive to attack to realize that they were misdirected and its just a soldier he brought in as a "dupe". They turn around and "surprise" its a set up and he has 20 guards attack them to capture them.
Marimmar
First Post
Mord's Magnificent Mansion was (for some time) my 2e wizard's favorite place to rest. Just cast it, enter, rest. Almost impossible to get disturbed and with a cleric casting hero's feast for breakfast it get's a bit annoying over time. Well, since the party's fighters back then didn't get along well with the wizard (letting enemies through to get him is not nice) so he just teleported home to sleep in his bed while the rest of the party was forced to rest in a cold, wet dungeon.
High level mages rule.
~Marimmar
High level mages rule.
~Marimmar
sithramir said:
So nice I should stop DMing just because I'd rather spend 4 hours on 2 weekly campaigns where everyone has fun and not on one single campaign where I hate the resulting magic slaughterfest-chessgame. Sheesh, the nerve of some people. Sure, I can use the dupe, the protection from scrying, the counter-scrying etc., but it gets old fast. Always countering such abilities is not exactly fun either, imho. If everyone is using nondetection, why bother with the detection spells at all?
More important though, any time spent handling teleport, scry etc. is time not spent on characterisation, plot, ideas and possible developments. Since my group (and I myself) prefers social encounters to combat or puzzle solving, I know where I spend my time.
And lastly, I don't like the sort of campaign where teleport is available to any level 9 mage, where people routinely fight flying, stoneskinned and invisible, with the ressurect-o-mat (sorry, the cleric) on stand-by.
As far as the lethality is concerned, I don't use save or die spells, and neither do my players. Combat is not that important in my game, and no one in my group plays D&D to "beat the monsters" or "risk" his PC. Therefore I don't kill off PCs without warning, and encourage my players to play more cinematically instead of lethally and effiently during the battles we have.
Arnwyn
First Post
Not sure what the difference is between that and Rope Trick. My players use Rope Trick all the time. In fact, the high level wizard has two prepared always... (12 hours each!).Marimmar said:
(That's why I can't figure out when some complain that adventures like "City of the Spider Queen" is too hard. They should be using Rope Trick between virtually every battle if the adventure really is that hard...)
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