Preserving the Sweet Spot - A Rebuttal

[Hussar]

Wulf Ratbane started a very excellent thread talking about how the "sweet spot" in D&D is between levels 1-10, perhaps as high as 12, but the general consensus was around that area. To be fair, I agree with much of what he says. Running adventures in the single digits is comfortable - I know what I'm doing, the players and their characters lack any really big guns to surprise me and I can utilize a plethora of material out there that caters pretty much specifically to these levels.

What I disagree with is the idea that the game should promote this idea. That we should tweak the rules in such a way that the sweet spot is retained much longer by reducing the exponential power increases of higher level characters.

Reading the Savage Tide is not Intriguing me thread, I see calls for a 1-12 adventure path. This is an idea that I really oppose. I think that we should see MORE products featuring the 13+ levels than less.

Let me digress for a moment and see if my history fu is on target. In earlier editions, we had next to no support for 13th+ in 1e and 2e. There was the higher level rules for Mystara, but, I don't think they were quite as widespread as 1e or 2e. Certainly, there were far more modules for levels 1-12 than for 13+. Given the time it took to play to double digit levels, most campaigns wrapped up around 12th anyway.

Even in 3e, we see the same paradigm. Modules and splatbooks mostly focus on low to mid levels. PrC's can mostly be taken at 7th level. It wasn't until PHB2 that fighters finally got some loving at higher levels. Even spells, while much more powerful at higher levels, are much fewer in numbers. Most classes don't really change all that much at 13th plus as well, other than perhaps the Druid who actually gets some very funky abilities. Other than spells, what's the difference between a 12th level cleric and a 16th level one? Not a whole lot.

What I would like to see is a concerted effort to breathe some life into the higher levels. Modules that focus on higher levels, perhaps a DMG3 which deals with levels 12 to 25, a Monster Manual with no creatures under CR 11. In the above linked thread, it is mentioned how 1/5th of all the higher CR critters are dragons. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for creativity in adventure design. We need shortcuts like David Noonan posted on the Design and Development article for creating and running high level adventures.

I honestly don't think we need to cut D&D off at "name level" in order to preserve the sweet spot. What I feel we need to do is sweeten the higher levels.

 

[Aaron L]

My sweet spot is 18+. I like high powered stuff. Getting there is also part of the fun, but ai like the chancce to reap the benefits of becoming powerful, and the chance to play truly powerful characters.

I would be very happy indeed to see more support for higher levels. Low to mid level material is already well covered.

And redoing the game to make high levels less powerful is a horrible idea. If you dont like high levels, well dont play them I guess. Or slow adcancement to a crawl. Reworking things to make the high level ganme more like the mid level game takes too much away from those o us who like the high levels.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I agree. DMs, don't be jaded and lazy!

What's so bad about being surprised by the players? Sure, the first couple of times it might throw you off track, but then you'll probably learn to roll with the blows. And again, you've become better at running the game again.

Sure, you can't "railroad" (for want of a more fitting term) the players as well as in lower levels (want to sic some wildlife on them? Too bad they won't walk down the road, but teleport there), but that's one of these things you'll learn to work with. Who likes being pestered by dire boars, anyway? By the time you hit the highs, those encounters have gone old.

Besides, many players have "worked" long and hard to get their characters to those levels, and they want to reap the rewards. They had to run around as 1st-level nobodies, being afraid of rats and orcs, now let them level cities for a while


I don't have a problem with rapidly leveling characters. I throw the recommended combat XP at them and give them story XP as well. So they level up every 1-2 sessions? That still means about 60 sessions - over a year with the occaional cancelled session - per campaign, provided they go from 1-20. After that, we can try something new!

My characters are 15th-level or so right now. The story is nearing its end - they just have to find two more pieces of an artifact and then save the world, but I plan to have them face the "end boss" at level 20, even if I have to increase the XP output.

3e is much more suited for high-level campaigns than older editions. They're not perfect, but those high levels actually work. It's a shame not to use them.

 

[Numion]

I was pretty pissed that the first 3E campaign I was a player in ended at 13th level. I mean, levels 7-12 were really fun and 1-6 were okay, but I would've liked to see my character to get to it's 'conclusion', so to speak.

I've had little trouble DMing high level stuff. I've run campaigns (in order) from 1st to 16th level, 1st to 23rd, 1st to 15th and now my ongoing Shackled City that's been on hiatus due to RL inconveniences in my group.

I think the really, really fun stuff starts at around 13th level, or so.

 

[blargney the second]

I just started a new campaign up last weekend, using some ideas from Wulf's thread. What we ended up deciding was:

1) Caster level must be less than or equal to half ECL.
2) Damage Conversion variant for armor from Unearther Arcana.
3) Semi Bell Curve Rolls variant with 2d10 instead of 3d6.
4) Save or Die was replaced with Save or Dying (-5 hps).

There were a few other significant alterations, but we're all pretty stoked about this game!
-blarg

 

[delericho]

What I would like to see is a concerted effort to breathe some life into the higher levels. Modules that focus on higher levels, perhaps a DMG3 which deals with levels 12 to 25, a Monster Manual with no creatures under CR 11. In the above linked thread, it is mentioned how 1/5th of all the higher CR critters are dragons. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for creativity in adventure design. We need shortcuts like David Noonan posted on the Design and Development article for creating and running high level adventures.

I agree with almost everything you said (I don't like the current Epic rules at all, so for me, the cut-off would be 20th level).

Personally, I don't see the point in making the higher levels feel like the lower levels to extend the 'sweet spot'. If they feel just the same, what's the point? Why not simply play at lower levels? Either stop giving out XP, give out less XP to slow progression, or end the campaign and start over.

There are a couple of things I really dislike about high-level play: the way many encounters come down to "who fails a save first", and the proliferation of save-or-die effects and corresponding ease of Raises (but that's a flavour thing - I would prefer less frequent, but permanent, death). Still, each of these are blemishes, rather than fundamental flaws in the system.

Where high-level play falls down for me, though, is that by the time a group has reached high-level they are almost guaranteed to be tightly tied to specific events in the campaign. This, coupled with the relative scarcity of high-level adventures, makes finding a match significantly harder than at lower levels. This means, of course, that the DM has to do almost all the prep-work and adventure design himself, and at just the point where the stat blocks become most complex and balance becomes least well understood (and, of course, also at the point where the DM hits those parts of the system with which he has least experience).

Now, I'm not averse to doing prep work. However, I do think more could (and should) be done to help support the DM in that work. I've mentioned it before, but I think some sort of computerised stat-block generator is a must at that level (and it really needs to support all the WotC books at a minimum, and be easy to use - the existing tools I've tried have all fallen short for me).

So, I support your call for a high-level MM, a DMG3 and/or an equivalent to the old "DM Option: High Level Campaigns" book. But, the book must be full of solid and useful tools to help the DM prepare adventures of that type, and not just more magic items and prestige classes, or advice essays that sound good but don't actually provide an iota of real assistance.

 

[Cor Azer]

I mostly agree. I generally prefer the level range of 5-10, but I think that's because I enjoy role-playing being on the cusp of greatness, as it were.

I don't buy a lot of supplements, and of those even fewer apply to high-level campaigns, but I think those supplements that do apply to such situations (both those from a DM's perspective and that of a player) need to pull characters deeper into the world. I'm not a big fan of suddenly changing the fundamentals of the game (ie, I'm not a big fan of how epic levels work), and I don't like "same feat but with a bigger bonus" stuff.

Alas, I guess I'm resigned to be unpleased with high-level supplements. That's often the biggest reason why I tend to stay in the "sweet spot" - I like being on the cusp of greatness, but I'm not usually thrilled with how the game mechanically defines said greatness.

 

[Henry]

I agree that there should be as much high level support as the market will bear. However, having DM'ed a high level game recently (capping at 15th), and occasionally playing an 18+ level game, I've decided that high levels just aren't where the fun is for me. Not that the players have a hard time being challenged, necessarily (though sometimes a fight I fear will kill them they waltz through) but it gets harder and harder to remember and take into account all the spells, abilities, modifiers, etc. that are running in a game. This weekend I'm to run the biggest battle I think I've EVER run in a D&D game (except for a few war scenarios with low-level warrior mooks) and I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time drowning in details. To have to deal with this much number crunching and NOT be a computer is trying to me. So, I either need to get a firmware upgrade to my brain, or I plan to dial back the max level I plan to DM of D&D in the future. No other d20 game, from Mutants and Masterminds, to Arcana Evolved, to Grim Tales, gives me this much detail in character ability to keep track of.

If I do try high-level again, it will likely be core rules only, if that.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I enjoy high-level campaigns and don't have too hard a time running them. I think the key is the speed of progression to those high levels. My current game is just pushing past 10th level (the PCs will hit 11th in the next session), with no end in sight. Advancement has been fairly slow, which is key not to extending the "sweet spot" but to getting familiar with the characters and frequently-encountered monsters. Slow advancement gives the players time to get used to their increasing number of abilities, but also gives the DM time to figure out typical tactics that the players use. Some stuff can come out of left field, but for the most part a slow advancement gives everyone a chance to familiarize themselves with all the most commonly used rules.

 

[Odhanan]

Wow. Hussar, as always, you have the gift of making well-thought argument crystal clear. I can only say that I agree 200% with what you're saying.

I especially would like to see more love for high levels, more high level adventures, and -dare I dream- a DMG3 strictly about high level challenges and management. This DMG is something I have desired for the game for a long while. It really became kind of a rambling argument for me since about ... the Epic Level Handbook.

I really, really would like to see this happen.

I think that the "sweet spot" is "the sweet spot" because DMs don't get the right support and the right advice to sustain campaigns at high levels. Since DMs then favor low and mid levels, the producers of the game produce stuff they would buy... for low and mid level, and the vicious circle starts all over again.