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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 4042237" data-attributes="member: 9053">I am running a higher level D&D campaign now (just hitting 13th level) and all I can say is ... ugh! The real problem is that D&D at this level doesn't have to be complicated, there are just many character builds that make it so.In the game I'm running now, we have basically five characters: a tattooed monk, a scout, a dwarven fighter, a paragon elf wizard and a kobold sorcerer.The first three characters are a piece of cake to run a game for. They're powerful, but not too bad by any means. They can effectively deal with threats at or above the CR pretty well, especially the dwarf, who has the two weapon pounce thing down pat.It's the other two characters who are nightmares. The elf is a conjuration specialist with the sudden teleport ability, and he uses all of the "mark of" buff spells to make him far more effective in combats than he should be. The spells from the last few splat books ... ugh! Why anyone would use stoneskin with it's pricy material component when they could cast mark of earth and get the benefits for a combat for no cost. It beats me.The kobold sorcerer? All I can say is races of the dragon + dragon magic can be very broken. I love the "wings of cover" spell, which gives him total cover against one attack aimed at him every turn ... at the cost of a single level 2 spell slot. Level 13 sorcerers have a lot of spell slots they can use for that type of thing. I've told them that EVERY sorcerer they run into will be taking this spell, which made them more than a little perturbed.The real problem is that these abilities can be balanced fairly well, if you're running the characters exactly by the rules and keeping all of the restrictions for each spell and ability working together in total, but it just gets far too complicated. None of my players are cheaters, but I've found many mistakes in their builds or in how they combine them together when I really start to look at the characters, and that cheezes the players off at me ...  even though it really shouldn't.All I can say is "bring on 4E" and restore some sanity to the game ... even if it's only for a little while.--Steve</blockquote>

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