Stuck in the lower levels.

[Mistwell]

I love my gaming group. We are 6-7 adults who have been friends for years and enjoy gaming together.

That said, I feel we have a problem. My gaming group is stuck in the lower levels.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the lower levels. I'm just a bit done with them, for now.

We have been playing for about 3-4 years now. We play one time a week, from 7:30 to 11:00. There have been plenty of delays over the years, from people going on vacations to work delays to relationship delays to chatter...all the normal stuff that adults who play games every week would encounter from life.

In that time, we have been through 3 different games, with 3 different DMs. None of the games overlap, and all start at first level.

Every time we appear to even vaguely approach mid-range, we seem to switch games. The highest level anyone has achieved in any of our games is 6th level I believe (possibly 7th for a brief period of time).

Over the years I have tried with my characters to plan out prestige classes (taking skills with little purpose, feats that are less useful, and even armor choices are impacted), and uses of spells that will come in to play in the future. But all of that seems wasted. We are never going to get to those prestige classes, or higher levels.

I’ve thought about all the wondrous monsters and allies that might be out there, but we have not seen merely because they are higher level. I’ve thought too about the magic items and powers available to friend and foe at such levels. Probably more than half the monster manual, and a third of the player’s handbook, DMs guide, and expansion books, have no possible impact on our games because they are intended for mid to higher levels.

And forget about the concept of Epic characters. We will be senior citizens before that even becomes a possibility.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem. If so, did you find any way to solve it (other than ditching the game and going on to another group)?

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Ask if everyone would be OK with starting at higher levels. Starting at 6th level really isn't all that different from starting at first, if you're prepared to put in a bit of work towards backgrounds and so on.

 

[Plane Sailing]

In one my campaign the big problem was mortality, and keeping the whole party alive to get past that 6th level mark.

We've done it now.

It sounds as if your situation is more to do with campaign length than anything else. A couple of options would change things quickly.

1) in the next campaign, start everyone at 3rd level. This leg up will mean that your characters are not so fragile and have a range of options without getting into the twinked out land of characters generated at high starting level. This will help.

2) get the DM to throw in some CR challenges which are several points above the party - if you are cunning you can win, and gets lots of extra xps.

You didn't say, but I assume you are running standard xp awards? If that is the case you should be gaining a level every 13-14 encounters

Do you think the problem is that the DM's don't like the idea of running "higher" level games? What reasons do the DM's give for folding campaigns?

Fingers crossed

 

[Mistwell]

Ask if everyone would be OK with starting at higher levels. Starting at 6th level really isn't all that different from starting at first, if you're prepared to put in a bit of work towards backgrounds and so on.

I've tried that. This new game will be Unearthed Arcana. I've made my pitch for it to start at higher levels, or skip a few levels at some point...but I strongly suspect that request will get me nothing. The DM just really likes the lower levels, particularly since there is all this stuff we have never used in UA at the lower levels.

 

[Zogg]

I agree - start at 6th level. Tell your group to read up on Prestige classes. Tell your fighters to check out that Whirlwind Attack feat. Tell your spellcasters to start studying all those spells that are "4th level" and above. It's really time to take the next step!!

 

[Sanackranib]

to answer your question yes.
this was true in 1e and 2e as well. I have gotten 2 characters above 8th level and both were multiclassed in prior editions.
since I run the game most often I have only managed to get 1 characted up to 8th level and we started at 6th.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So it is a DM problem then?

Do you have just the one DM, or are there several which rotate? If it is just the one then it seems like it IS a big problem for you. Perhaps you could arrange for two different people to DM and interleave campaigns? Perhaps (although you want to play mid level yourself) you could volunteer to DM a short mid-level campaign so everyone can see what it is like... get the other players on-side too?

 

[Arnwyn]

I'm just wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem.

Never.

Why do you suddenly "seem to switch games"? Answering that might help you solve your problem.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Our groups actually have a hard time not flying thru the lower levels. Most campaigns start at 2nd level thou to give more survivability.

Still XP awards until 4th level are pretty good and characters should be advancing pretty fast until 5th - 6th lvl.

 

[Mistwell]

We have three DMs, myself, J, and T. We started with DM J (with the WOTC modules). I took over BRIEFLY, running some one-shots for a time, until DM T was ready. We have switched back to DM J for a time, because DM T got tired of it and had some other stuff going on in his life. We switched back to DM T for a while. Now we are about to go back to DM J because DM T could use the break, and DM J is anxious to DM again with Arcana Unearthed. DM T, I suspect, has nothing against higher levels, we just never got to that point (we are approaching 7th level, and in the Temple of Elemental Evil). DM J, however, does seem to prefer the lower levels. He seems to feel that higher levels lead to too much power for the players, and feels it is less fun than the survival-at-all-costs that happens at lower levels.

So far, very few characters have died (with the one that comes to mind WANTING to die so he could try another character).

Part of the problem is the long period of time between encounters. With all the dinner and talking and socializing and people being late and leaving early, we often only get 1-2 encounters a night (unless there is massive role playing, in which case there are no encounters, which can be a good thing at times). This is a separate problem we are starting to deal with.