Level 20 Reached

[Numion]

Last nights game the first character in my game reached level 20. It took a little less than a year in RL to go through levels 1-20. The character is a dwarven cleric of Haela Brightaxe, who likes to kick ass with his greatsword.

We're now playing through The Bastion of Broken Souls, which has been very intresting this far. Cordell has done a fine job in preparing the adventure for the abilities of high-level characters.

A few observations:

- Miracle is pretty good spell. The cleric tends to pop about four miracles a day, which might be too many; it's like he's got his god on speed dial.

- Archmage is too strong. Though one of my favourite PrCs, I've decided to let the player finish this adventure with it, and if it continues to be broken I'll ban the class.

- Save or die spells with multiple subjects tend to be quite strong. (Surprise surprise.. wail of the banshee, anyone?)

- Players may have hard time adapting to the high-level mentality. Trying to camp in an unprotected (teleport-wise) environment can be lethal, if you've got demonic adversaries, for example.

Have you reached level 20 in any game? Share your experiences, so that we all can have better high-level games!

 

[Mark]

Thanks for the tips. I've worked through quite a few things in theory and it will be damned interesting to hear of some actual experiences from a lot of sources. Congrats on making it so far! (BTW, how often do you play and for how long per session?)

 

[Numion]

Thanks for the tips. I've worked through quite a few things in theory and it will be damned interesting to hear of some actual experiences from a lot of sources. Congrats on making it so far! (BTW, how often do you play and for how long per session?)

Once per week usually, with sessions lasting around 8-10 hours. This summer we've gamed more infrequently though, with sessions lasting only 5-6 hours.

Biggest problem for me as a DM for high-level game is that making adventures takes so long. Stat blocks are just huge, and few monsters can be used straight out of the monster manual. Hopefully the situation improves when I get Monster Manual II and ELHB. Which should, god willing, be available in finland this week. After the distributor change things have been quite horrible on this side of the pond. Maybe I'll get BoVD for christmas or something.

 

[Frosty]

We've reached 20th level after playing through BoBS too. I play a wizard (conjurer) and I cast a lot of limited and full power wishes. I still died in the last encounter though but was resurrected shortly by friends of the Circle of Eight. The cheap bastards didn't use a True Res on me. (We lose a randomly determined point of an ability score instead of losing a level; I got weaker.)

The high levels were strange to say the least. Demon's used Scry/Teleport all the time and attacked us wherever we were. We are a Good party but must still fight celestials at every turn (on account of them being totally unreasonable and failing to see how important saving the world is.) Most spells were useless and combat with level bosses were simply an exercise in lucky dice rolling. If you succeeded in passing Spell Resistance and the baddie failed his save you won easily, however if you failed the party was doomed. Strategy or tactics were utterly pointless. Just fire and hope for luck. Moreover we spent more time on various other planes than in the campaign world (GH).

Flanking maneuvers, reach or ranged weapons, knock down or sunder attempts was an exercise in futility for the most part as the baddies are so big, reach so far, don't use conventional weapons, have no discernable anatomy, know everything before hand and are immune to most energy forms and then some.

This is in no way critisism of my DM as we discussed these issues and it was clear that he did what he could to make it work as it is supposed to. It was fun, of course, to become Epic and reach the finale of this two year campaign but sadly it didn't make me (or the others) lust for more things epic. Instead we made new 2nd level characters and begun anew in Scarred Lands.

In my opinion the game (D&D) works best and is the most fun around 7th-14th level. We play for 12 hours every saturday and have manged to squeeze in the Freeport series and also RttToEE as parallell campaigns.

 

[Rashak Mani]

12 hours sessions !! 10 Hour sessions ! I know Finland might not be the hottest place to be around doing outdoors activities... but those are very long sessions !

I myself never got so far level by level. We set up some high level games to "test" and because players could customize their PCs they were awfully powerful for even 10th or 16th lvl. 20th lvl characters "grown" the natural way might not so overboard but certainly make for complicated gaming.

Piratecats story hour is good inspiration for high level gaming. Read it.

 

[Frosty]

12 hours sessions !! 10 Hour sessions ! I know Finland might not be the hottest place to be around doing outdoors activities... but those are very long sessions !

Scandinavia is probably hotter than you think, Rashak. Sure, not as hot as Brazil by any accounts but still pretty hot (22°-32° C). It's all due to the gulfstream which makes the climate mild even at our latitude. (I guess the heat is coming from Brazil in the first place )

This summer has been the hottest summer in all recorded time in Sweden and it seems to never end. The sun sets at a very late hour here so even the evenings are sweltering. Playing RPGs in this weather is not comfortable but still we endure. After all, it's our past-time of choice.

 

[Numion]

The high levels were strange to say the least. Demon's used Scry/Teleport all the time and attacked us wherever we were. We are a Good party but must still fight celestials at every turn (on account of them being totally unreasonable and failing to see how important saving the world is.)

SPOILERS FOR BASTION OF BROKEN SOULS
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At one point the players were attacked by three Balors at night. They scryed first, then teleported in. PCs didn't stand a chance. I just though "What the hell" and each of them opened with a Firestorm. Two PCs down. In first regular round one used Blasphemy, and then it was just game over. They easily kidnapped the one they needed, and sped away.

At high levels it's dangerous to be caught of your guard. A little more needs to be done than keeping a guard at the campsite. (Since the Balor incident, the've slept inside a Magnificent Mansion. I was wondering what would happen if one succesfully cast Dispel at the gate (which is invisible though after it is closed). Would the Mansion be dispelled?

 

[Andor of the Blade]

In the game I play in, most of our party went went from first to 20th in about a year. We played the adventure path series, as well as some BirthRight adventuring interspersed.

BASTION SPOILER
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We did not find Bastion of Broken Souls to be a real difficult module. Challenging - definitely, but with the NPCs well-defined and their motivations laid out, several challenges were overcome without combat. Due to vacations, sickness, etc., we completed the first third of the module with only two players and the last two thirds was done by a single player in one night.

We are back to doing BirthRight adventuring, but looking forward to the first Epic adventure.

 

[Frosty]

SPOILERS FOR BASTION OF BROKEN SOULS
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At one point the players were attacked by three Balors at night. They scryed first, then teleported in. PCs didn't stand a chance. I just though "What the hell" and each of them opened with a Firestorm. Two PCs down. In first regular round one used Blasphemy, and then it was just game over. They easily kidnapped the one they needed, and sped away.

At high levels it's dangerous to be caught of your guard. A little more needs to be done than keeping a guard at the campsite. (Since the Balor incident, the've slept inside a Magnificent Mansion. I was wondering what would happen if one succesfully cast Dispel at the gate (which is invisible though after it is closed). Would the Mansion be dispelled?

Yeah, it was nasty. My wizard was this decendent of Dydd and the demons locked on to me. I protected myself with Mind Blank (which doesn't stop them from scrying but at least they couldn't home in on my exact location.) I also didn't stray from my friends and had a Contingency-spell running to protect me. I used different contingencies such as Stoneskin, Fire Shield or even Shield. I also had a Still Dimension Door prepared which saved me once when I got grappled by some Succubus.

Even though I'm no fan of Scry/Teleport what got to me was the obvious tactics that had to be employed. I.e. hit everything with an instakill and hope for the best. I don't like instakills and rarely use them but my spells of choice (Summon Monster as I'm a conjurer) couldn't be used in the Bastion so I had to.

Well, if this is how epic-level is going to be like I'm not impressed. But then it might get better.

 

[The Forsaken One]

We have a epic campaign going on in the InCharacter Boards on this forum. Check it out!

name; IR aftermath campaign