Level 20 Reached

[Numion]

Yeah, it was nasty. My wizard was this decendent of Dydd and the demons locked on to me.

I had a little bit of guilty conscience for the player of the character who I chose to be the descendant. First attack by Cathezar got him killed, and they took no precautions for further attacks once he was rezzed. Next time the Balors took him alive. Easy since they didn't prepare for anything, despite being scryed every now and then. Oh well.

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.

Well, high-level game can become quite boring for non-spellcasters, because lot of time is spent looking for right spells and casting just the right combinations of spells.

 

[Frosty]

Well, high-level game can become quite boring for non-spellcasters, because lot of time is spent looking for right spells and casting just the right combinations of spells.

Yeah, and there is no finess to it either. First you cast haste and then you use as many instakills as you have (or dismissal or insanity or whatever). If the enemy is still standing after that treatment you cast greater dispelling in the hopes it will lower the baddies defenses so the fighters at least has a shot at chopping the baddie up. Before that dispel the fighter can't even dent the monsters, all with their blurs, hastes and stoneskins.

It's a bit sad. I mean my character is pretty epic in the literary sense; flies a giant owl, has a hundred followers, commands angels, has been to hell and back, yet conflict always seem to boil down to who misses a fatal save first.

Next time I DM I will certainly name a few spells that haven't been invented yet...

 

[BiggusGeekus]

::takes notes::

Mmmm. I guess items with bonuses to save are more highly valued then?

 

[jasamcarl]

Good points all

I gather that levels 15-20 can encourage 'conservative' tactics to say the least, as they mostly focus on preparation. Epic level feats, though, do reestablish the potency of grappling, flanking, etc. Combat should be more interesting past 20, especially if you use hoards of non-epic, yet still challanging encournters.

 

[toberane]

We're doing the Bastion right now! We just got to it this past Saturday, but we haven't entered it yet. I must say, though, that a 21st level rogue, with a ring of blinking and a +5 short sword (holy, bane vs. evil outsiders) comes in real handy when fighting demons. I roll 14d6 every time I hit one of these guys. Get me hasted and spring attacking, and I can usually take out a Balor in a couple of rounds.

So what does the DM do? Gives the Balors character levels, really nifty feats, and some absolutely evil magic items.

I posted a question in the rules forum regarding the way the Epic Feat Lingering Damage works, particularly for a character with multiple sneak attacks in a round. If anyone else has any thoughts on how this would work, please visit the thread here:

Lingering Damage Thread on the Rules Forum

We worked this module into an ongoing Forgotten Realms campaign, so we have fought a number of other demons not included in this module, cleared out a Cult of the Dragon stronghold (including killing a Dracolich), and made a couple of forays into Hellgate Keep in addition to tracking down and killing Ashardalon.

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Did anyone else run into this problem? We went to speak to Deseus (or however it's spelled) and he's being guarded by a solar and a planetar (or some other celetial beings like that.) When you meet him, you find out that not only is he not evil, he was once rather noble. Our DM told us that the module said explicitly that he would not part with the section of the soul totem voluntarily, and we needed it to get into the Bastion.

However, we have two Paladins in our party, and one fighter who spoke with Corellon Latherian while her fighter was temporarily dead, and came back Lawful Good bearing Corellon's mark on her breast. We were not about to kill this guy, and he was not going to give the soul totem to us. We had no problem running around chopping demons to bits, but we couldn't bring ourselves to raise a hand against this sad ex-deity.

Our DM got out of it by allowing everyone to make diplomacy checks, and if we could make a total combined score of 150 between the five of us, we could convince him to give it up.

Good thing we have a party full of charismatic, diplomatic people.

 

[ForceUser]

I play in a weekly game where the group's average level is about to hit 15th. It's exciting and strange; the cleric possesses a staff once used by a god's avatar, the psion is pulling strings to get metafaculty powers used on our behalf (psionic wishes/miracles). My bladesinger just met an artifact longsword, intelligent, which is at least a +4 chaotic longsword. And the campaign - a demon hunts a newborn goddess, and its up to us to protect her. Not to mention the queen of dragons is out to destroy elven civilization and the githyanki want to invade and conquer the world.

All in a day's work, I guess, for high level characters.

 

[toberane]

- 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.

Four a day!?!?! Doesn't Miracle cost like 5000 XP to cast?

 

[ForceUser]

Re: Re: Level 20 Reached

Four a day!?!?! Doesn't Miracle cost like 5000 XP to cast?

I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, it's supposed to cost 5000 XP per casting.

 

[gfunk]

Re: Re: Re: Level 20 Reached

I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, it's supposed to cost 5000 XP per casting.

Miracle only costs 5K for certain uses, usually the more powerful ones. For replicating spells lower level spells, it does not cost XP.

 

[der_kluge]

We got to level 12 in the last campaign we were in. I had a Clr9/Illusionist3. It took us a year and a half to get there playing once every other week, with 4 hour sessions. That's the highest I've ever gotten a PC to.

If I run a game sometime in the future, I think I might like to start the PCs at 15th level. That might be fun. I don't think anyone in our group has ever really played high level. It would be interesting.