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Message: <blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 7563711" data-attributes="member: 12377">I recently ran a campaign that went from level 1 up to level 20, although after we hit level 20 we wrapped after only 4-5 sessions.It's hard to challenge characters of that level because they have so many tricks up their sleeves. Between all the high-level spells, and the limited-use magic items they've been hoarding the entire campaign, they can survive just about anything. So somewhere around level 17, the gloves come off. You can just throw anything you want at the party. Once they hit level 20, I was actively trying to destroy them by setting up CR 25 encounters that played to their weaknesses. Nothing worked. I'm not generally an adversarial DM but if the game is a cake-walk it quickly becomes boring.One thing that would help, I think, is if the characters care about something more than themselves. If all they care about is wealth and power, then you've got epic-level murder-hobos just wrecking everything and laughing at your encounters. But if they care about their reputations, or their people, or about behaving morally, or about some quest, then you can threaten those things instead of threatening the PCs themselves. The other thing that would really help is for the players to understand their characters' abilities really really well. In particular, high-level full-casters can have an enormous bag of tricks available, and knowing the right spells (and remembering to cast them!) can make a big difference. I've seen casual players really slow the game down by spending a lot of time picking spells, or drag out an encounter by not casting the spells that would have ended it right quick. ("What do you mean, you forgot about dispel magic???")</blockquote>

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