Quick, describe your high-level (10th+) game.

[RangerWickett]

I just want to know what sorts of high level games everyone's running, to see the sorts of stuff that goes on with high-powered PCs.

Two weeks ago, my 12th level party tried to recover an artifact that can teleport armies from the shadowdancer assassin who had it. They researched a spell to eliminate all shadows in the area of effect, bought multiple potions of invisibility and flying each, and planned a quick hit and run. They knew of him vaguely, but couldn't scry on him. So instead they scryed on some of his allies, found out from them where the assassin was, and then they teleported after the guy.

Many combat rounds of hiding, sniping, sending ghosts at the PCs from the assassin's soul-stealing sword, and PCs casting fireballs into random trees in hopes of hitting, the assassin was finally spotted. One warrior flew in and hit, and in his attempt to flee to a new hiding spot, the assassin was visible long enough for him to go down to an old-fashioned hold person.

Next session, the group uses the artifact to teleport an army onto the one-mile long living airship that a villain is using to destroy all his rivals.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Probably a bit less exciting

The party averages 11th level (10-11-12th characters). An evil baron conned them into retrieving an item for him that he probably intends to use to attempt to usurp the kingdom of Tanor from its rightful ruler. They have just reached the capital of Tanor and are seeing the biggest city in the world for the first time, and are pulling strings to see important nobles and their attaches who they first met some 5 levels ago.

In the meantime they are also attempting to track down and halt the activity of Daros, the evil high priest who has been subverting temples to evil across the Southlands, forging alliances with hidden nations of dwarves and elves (who are just legends to most of the world and never seen as PCs), wondering how they might rescue the main religious nation which is fallen into oppressive hands, all while preparing for eventual battle against creatures from beyond the planes which are attempting to bind "the gods" and re-establish control over the world which was once theirs.

But this Sunday they're probably going to a party.

Cheers

 

[Cylock]

I have been running a 4 year long FR campaign and now have 6, 18+ level characters.

The players investigate a strange plague affecting the Bedine in the desert of Annorach. They discover that Drow are behind it and must travel into the Underdark to stop them. During their travels they find out that a Drow city has fallen to a group of males taking advantage of the disappearance of Lloth. More importantly, a group of Shadovar are behind the revolution and are using the Drow to reap the souls necessary to complete a ritual that will pull the City of Shade back to the Prime Material Plane.

For high level characters I like using the Underdark as a setting. I use a random monster encounter table and run environmental encounters so they really get a feel for what it is like to travel there. I house rule that due to Faezress (natural radiation) players from the World Above using divinations and travel spells of all kinds must succeed on spellcraft rolls.

For resources I use Underdark and City of the Spider Queen,

 

[Darklone]

Hmm.

PCs are bordering 10th level right now. Story is a little bit complicated, it's a severely buffed Coins Trilogy from Kenzer... more stuff see my post here.

 

[Bagpuss]

My group are pretty low magic, compared to the stuff you've mentioned, but they are just 10th level, as apposed to 10th+.

I'm playing in the Scarred Lands, but using that as a backdrop for published senarios. So the party have lead a group of Refugees from the town of Brindinford (Speaker in Dreams) where they failed to stop the events in that adventure. Back to the abandoned dwarf mines (from Forge of Fury) which they had cleared out earlier.

Brindinford was free city situated just outside the border of the Castilian Hegemony, results of that adventure lead to it joining the Castilian Hegemony and hence the refugees fleeing the city. The mine having been cleared of orcs by the PC's the dwarves (who the PC's didn't removed completely) had expanded their mining operations and were mining mithral to arm the Castilian Hegemony's armies in preparation for the summer campaigning season.

The PC's stopped this operation and captured the last shipment of arms and armour. They have formed the fighting men and women among the refugees into a decent force able of defending the mine, and are about to establish relationships with the Broadreach Elves and Hollowfaust the nearest possible allies, as it appears the Castilian Hegemony is intent on expanding its territory once more and they are the likely next target.

They still travel most places on foot or by horse back. The best melee weapon they have is a +2 Dwarven Waraxe which no one has taken the Exotic weapon proficiency in so they use two-handed.

 

[hetrulz316]

Currently running a party of 11th level PCs through a FR campaign. The basic premise is that Cthulhu is bursting through the dimensional void to take control of this reality. Lolth was the first of the gods to realize the invasion. She sought the aid of the other Gods only to be rebuked by all except for Torm. The two have formed an agreement to provide aid to the party of PCs to deal with the secular threat. Lolth has been giving the party clues on how to deal with threat through dreams/nightmares and by providing the Paladin his mount. She has posed the question which came first the God or the followers. Chicken or the egg variation.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I'm a player in this one: (party 10th-12th level).

We're off to break into and sneak around the castle of a hugely powerful necromancer, trying to find out how he's spreading an unstoppable plague that kills spell casters. Fun for the whole family!

On the way, we've gotten sidetracked, trying to free some imprisoned nomad horsemen from a castle full of orcs. We underestimate them a little and changed our 'Teleport' > 'Kill' tactic into 'Teleport > 'Tactical Withdrawal' (with 100% extra running and screaming!).

Still, we managed to free most of the the captives, as well as a small girl the orcs were keeping. She's friendly, hungy, amnesiac, a little shy and detects so strongly of evil that she KO'd our paladin...

It's all messy and I've got a funny feeling it might get worse!

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Okay these folks are about 15th level. They've restored as fallen elven nation and killed the ghostly dragon that had corrupted it. This involved finding the key to the pocket realm where the kingdom was locked away, fighting the corrupted elves that were trying desperatly to get out and making peace with the spirits of the murdered elven princess and her court.

This lead to the group chaising the dragon to it's pocket dimension and finally killing it for good. Of course the dragon managed to kill the party mage in the opening round and almost toasted the rest of the group as well. Never line up all pretty for a dragon to breathe on, and then follow up with a lighting bolt.

After all this they discovered the Emperor the was looking for them, but they suspected for a rather nefasrious reason. This paranoia only escalted when their nemisis showed up to inform them he now worked for the Emperor and that he had been named Lord of the Northern Armies. He was dispatching a legion of his best troops to "guard" the characters lands and vassals for them to "protect" them from the roaming hordes left over from the Army the characters had smashed earlier in their career. (oooh were they ticked off)

Of course they also had an evil artifact locked away in a portable hole that slowly raised the dead as shambling zombies and skeletons. They needed to find a way to destroy it permanently before the psycho sorceress showed back up demanding to know why they hadn't destroyed it yet.

This led to the group tramping off to the astral plane and fighting gith on a floating dead gods head (thanks piratecat! ). They found the book with the ritual they needed but in the process discovered that the dead god was an ancient evil god of the dark north wind. They ventured down into the depths of the head and over the green lake of clambering lost souls. fought through the shadow demons and discovered a spirled room of masulims. The paladin detected a massive evil so the ventured down to the depths and were attacked by two flesh golems made from the gods own flesh that screamed "You shall not release the North!" as they attacked.

Once the golems were dispatched the paladin (I think he had lost it at this point ) broke through the sealed wall and released the North. They were not quite sure what it was, but they suspected it was either a former high priest of the god, or a former aspect of the god itself. Either way it wiped the floor with them and then ran off. Thanking the paladin for his freedom. He even offered to allow the paladin to accompany him and join him.

It was at this point that the campiagn fell apart and when the dust cleared I was left with a foul taste in my mouth torwads it. So I have started a new campaign in a homebrew Arcana Unearthed world. Lots of fun so far and I have a very good group of players this time around.

 

[Cor Azer]

Well, I can't say too much...

Because the high-level stuff is in the process of beginning, and I don't want to spoil things for those players (well, player) of mine who read(s) this board.

My face-to-face game is quite liberally inspired by LotR and ASoIaF:

A thousand years ago, an evil wizard/warlord tried to conquer all the lands of Valandi with an army of kobolds and giants from his fortress of Dor Ulm, but he was defeated by the Free Alliance of (most of) the rest of the continent. Several powerful goodly wizards gave their lives to seal the evil inside their domain, purportedly forever.

When the PCs started, they discovered that the 'Wall' sealing in the evil hordes was failing, and would fall within a year or so. Through the course of levels 1-10, they had to discover about the new threat from Dor Ulm - corrupted elves that the party named Bhenbiir (the idea was that the world had no orcs/bugbears/goblins/etc... the main non-PC race humanoids were kobolds. My idea for the bhenbiir took the (sometimes used) mythology of orcs being corrupted elves, but it was done in the present rather than the distant past), rally the Free Alliance to reform to battle this threat, free the sealed Elven Kingdom from the enslaving wraiths, and finally defeat Dor Ulm.

Plenty of twists happened, including a group of evil knights allying with the Free Alliance after turning from Dor Ulm because the Evil asked them to betray their knightly oaths, as well as a former vassal country turning on the rest of the Alliance to try to conquer some of the lands from the kingdom that used to rule them. The dwarves dropped all tunnels leading to their underground kingdom, and nobody knows why yet.

Oh yeah... and civil war is now breaking out in the main country of Callin (where all the PCs are from). The king at the start of the campaign died just before the 'Wall' fell, and his son Aerys was a complete brat (think Joffrey from ASoIaF) who didn't understand the significance of war. Half of the country wanted to war on Dor Ulm (led by the former king's advisor, Lord Helspont. The PCs sided here) and the other half dismissed them as a threat (Aerys' side).

The PCs have just returned from the campaign on Dor Ulm, having been victorious (and after setting up the evil knights as the new rulers of the evil nation. They're about 11th level now, and the campaign is shifting from continent-wide war to internal, civil wars and intrigue. At the end of the last session, the party learned that the boy king Aerys has died (although they don't know how or why), and that the Royal Shields (bodyguards to the king and royal family) have sealed off the capital of Tal Callin. A Baron in the east of the country has claimed to have married Aerys' youngest sister, and is now claiming the kingship (although the party knows that he was married to another woman whom they were not aware of as having died nor divorced). Aerys' older sister is missing. But now Helspont's supporters are looking to him to claim the throne since he organized the resistance against the evils of Dor Ulm... although he lost a lot of support when he made an alliance with the new rulers of Dor Ulm.

So there's a whole lot of intrigue-y goodness going on.

 

[S'mon]

Last week my 11th-13th level PCs killed some goblins, some bugbears and some ogres. They killed the Goblin King, and complained about lack of treasure.

The previous session, they assassinated a 2nd level aristocrat and rescued a 4th level aristocrat captive from his guards, mostly 2nd level Warriors. Oh, they also assassinated his 4th level Fighter Constable.

The previous session to that, they attacked the lair of the Frost Giant Jarl Gungir and his ally the cambion Harecules, a CR20+ Fighter type with etherealness, flight, energy resistances and a big black sword. 3 PCs died, survivors fled.

Time before that, they scouted Gungir's hall. 2 PCs and a cohort died, survivors fled.

Time before that was my last session running Necropolis (yuck). Two PCs got eaten by CR 14 Hippodilemons, the survivors smashed a statue of Set and were rescued from Set's clutches by a bit of divine intervention from Isis.