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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 6906636" data-attributes="member: 32659">Interesting discussion, this last few pages. I should be working. BUT LET ME POST INSTEAD!TL;DR: the game is designed for levels 6-10, so levelling past that in the APs means that the difficulty decreases.I had a TPK around level 7 in Princes. I discovered at this stage that the party were severely underlevelled, since I hadn't kept an eye on whether they were getting enough exp. Whoops! Anyway, we re-created with level 10 characters, skipped a couple dungeons, and I gave the party a carefully-curated selection of magic items (according to the 'starting at higher levels' chart in the DMG, though I went for level 11 not ten according to that). So I had an opportunity to see how a level 7 party compared to a level 10 party, albeit the latter having rather more magic items. They destroyed everything, pretty much. The final fight was good and tough, but none of the other fights (other than, oddly, a Roper - it scared them pretty badly) really posed much challenge to them, so they could romp through several in a row without breaking a sweat. My analysis: the dungeons were tough, even challenging, for a mid-level party, but the moment that the players were level 10 then it went far in the other direction. I will also agree directly with @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?12731-CapnZapp" target="_blank">CapnZapp</a> about the end levels in OotA. Not run that one, but read through it (fun read) and I saw nothing towards the last half that really made me feel that a tough fight was on the cards. I mean, the Demon Lords may be CR23-26, but I have no doubt at all that my homebrew campaign PCs (levels 15, with DMG-rolled items) could take on any one of them without too much trouble. Yet the campaign acts as though the (level 11-15) characters will run away from everything, that they need Demogorgon's help to hunt down and kill the Demon Lords, and that things like 2 Vrocks will be more than a speedbump. I have come to the conclusion that WotC are doing this on purpose. Part of a levelling system is the feeling of increased power. I believe that they are deliberately making the APs easier towards the end, in order to facilitate that feeling. In addition, the game as a whole seems calibrated for level 6-10 characters to be able to handle everything. I think that if you just stopped levelling the players at level 10 during OotA, they'd still be able to finish the campaign in good order. They might run more risk of TPK in boss fights, but otherwise the adventures just don't get any harder in the general fights. Probably that is because the MM doesn't really provide any 'goons' to fight after about level 7, so every non-boss encounter thereafter stagnates in difficulty.</blockquote>

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