Justifying high level 'guards', 'pirates', 'soldiers', 'assassins', etc.

[Fenes]

Slipping because one attempted an epic feat of acrobatics involving a ladder is not the same as slipping while trying to climb a ladder just like a level 1 character does.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I completely disagree with this. The idea of a paragon or epic rogue who has been wall climbing for half his career having any trouble at all with a ladder, looks incredibly stupid to me. How can he scale the icy cliffs of the Fortress of Frost if he risks falling off a ladder in town?

Are heroes never gonna learn anything? If they can't tie their shoelaces as toddlers, they can't tie their shoelaces as heroes? What about the bully from recess? Will he always be a threat, even to the epic PC?

Part of becoming a hero is outgrowing some challenges. A ranger who can shoot three arrows into the three eyes of a god during a hailstorm shouldn't be challenged in a archery competition held in a small farm, where the best archer is a peasant doing some hunting at the side.

I think I didn't word this quite right. Let me try again...

The Rogue will always become better at "climbing ladders"; particularly, at the level tiers. Meaning, if he wants to climb the icy cliffs at the Heroic level, it's a hard DC challenge (and all the foes on top of the cliff are likely hard to unbeatable. If he's Paragon, it's a medium difficulty (and the foes will be hard to beat, but closer to medium difficulty). At Epic, climbing is a cinch and the foes will be easily conquered.

I do this so that I am not constantly "adjusting" encounters as players explore. Meaning, the Fangorn Forest (for LOTR fans) will always be populated by Paragon or Epic difficulty monsters. That never changes, even if the players decide to go romping/traveling/exploring at Heroic levels. Farmlands will always be plagued by Heroic-level foes (with the occasional Paragon-level foes).

Naturally, the characters themselves, nor the PCs, will ever know exactly what areas are dangerous in a metagame sense, but know well-enough through talking with locals to stay out of Shelob's lair because she eats even the most "fortuitous" adventurers.

edit - I agree with the poster above.

 

[Prism]

This has been one of the most interesting and thought provoking threads for a long while IMO. Shame some of you guys couldn't share your toys nicely

I started off with the mindset of the majority (I reckon) but what Snoweel and Permeton have said have given me a lot to think of. 3e sometimes disappointed me really with the speed at which you left older challenges behind and the relative level of advancement and I can see a lot of benefit in 'certain' campaigns flattening the progression. I can see 4e being the same so far - my current character is 5th level and I don't expect to fight kobolds again enmass, which is a shame

When I read the first post about high level humans it did sound ridiculous to me but now I'm getting it. Don't know if I would do it .... but I'm not opposed to that style of play if done well

 

[Fenes]

I posted earlier: Once one doesn't allow the "standard" buff spells, and the tons of magic items, you don't need minion rules in 3E to have evne low level NPC pose a threat - the AC of the PCs won't reach such heights as to make them invulnerable.

 

[Mallus]

I posted earlier: Once one doesn't allow the "standard" buff spells, and the tons of magic items, you don't need minion rules in 3E to have evne low level NPC pose a threat - the AC of the PCs won't reach such heights as to make them invulnerable.

And by doing so you open yourself up to a host of other issues (for instance, melee PC's which can't stand toe-to-toe with powerful melee monsters --like giants-- which now hit on every iterative attack, instead of just the 1st) . 3e is built around the assumption that stats get boosted and magic items get acquired (and traded in/upgraded).

Sure, any given group can work around this, but it will take work.

 

[Korgoth]

One thing that I enjoy in a campaign setting is rarity of high levels. That's something that I actually liked about Eberron: there were very few uber-NPCs. There's no lazy Elminister to send you on missions and then swoop in to save your hash like he could have handled it all by himself anyway, etc. There are a few very powerful dudes/beings, some of which are suitable as ultimate foes, but for the most part the world is populated by the sorts of beings you'd expect.

That entails, for example, that if the safety of the world is actually threatened, it really does have to be the PCs who save it. It also gives the PCs the opportunity to establish themselves as living legends.

 

[Fenes]

And by doing so you open yourself up to a host of other issues (for instance, melee PC's which can't stand toe-to-toe with powerful melee monsters --like giants-- which now hit on every iterative attack, instead of just the 1st) . 3e is built around the assumption that stats get boosted and magic items get acquired (and traded in/upgraded).

Sure, any given group can work around this, but it will take work.

Work I already did. Although we are using Bo9S, so melee fighters - which are all the pcs we have - are not supposed to stand next to giants and trade full round attacks. Not that I am using many giants anyway - most of my enemies in the sword & sorcery campaign are classed npcs.

 

[Delta]

And by doing so you open yourself up to a host of other issues (for instance, melee PC's which can't stand toe-to-toe with powerful melee monsters --like giants-- which now hit on every iterative attack, instead of just the 1st)

Of course, you've picked on a particularly broken detail in 3E. Giant stats are pretty much broken powerful (if you compare them to other creatures of the same size; there's a history of 2E->3E sequential power creep to blame for that). If you fix giants and dragons in particular, there's not really another standout example you can point to with quite as extreme a problem.

(See the DimD20 link for an example where I did that in the monsters section.)

 

[Pseudopsyche]

3e sometimes disappointed me really with the speed at which you left older challenges behind and the relative level of advancement and I can see a lot of benefit in 'certain' campaigns flattening the progression. I can see 4e being the same so far - my current character is 5th level and I don't expect to fight kobolds again enmass, which is a shame

It's true that kobolds don't last too long as respectable enemies, but I will point out that a level 3 solo (750 XP) is worth more XP than a level 20 minion (700 XP). So if the DM is willing to restat monsters, the same legion devil legionnaire that almost took out your entire party on their first adventure could still be a component of a challenging encounter in the early epic tier. It's more likely that a monster might go from being a normal monster (level 3 brute) to a minion (level 11 minion), but that still provides a +8 boost to its level, greatly increasing the longevity of that monster type in the campaign.

 

[Mallus]

Work I already did. Although we are using Bo9S, so melee fighters - which are all the pcs we have - are not supposed to stand next to giants and trade full round attacks. Not that I am using many giants anyway - most of my enemies in the sword & sorcery campaign are classed npcs.

Sounds pretty cool, actually. I can see how your approach would work well, given that kind of campaign set-up. My comments were made with an assumption of more typical campaign parameters: caster PC's, monstrous opponents, etc.