What's the top level in your campaign world?

[Tinker Gnome]

Hmmm, well, I have always imagined there to be no upper limit to the level of creatures on the prime material plane. Sure, the PCs might leave to the planes for a while, but when they come back, they find that some obscenely powerful threat has arisen while they were gone.

 

[pawsplay]

My campaign world supposes primeval dragons and titans slumbering under the Earth, so effectively never. Anything you're likely to encounter in a typical fashion probably tops out at around CR 25.

 

[Bullgrit]

How do you "justify" the existence of such powerful creatures in a world with 1st-level commoners? How do the common people survive in a world with creatures so powerful? How do normal cities, towns, and villages exist in the same world with violent/evil/destructive CR 20+ creatures?

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[Tinker Gnome]

How do you "justify" the existence of such powerful creatures in a world with 1st-level commoners? How do the common people survive in a world with creatures so powerful? How do normal cities, towns, and villages exist in the same world with violent/evil/destructive CR 20+ creatures?

I myself do not even use the Commoner clas, or any NPC classes for that matter. Most NPCs are simply unclassed. If it becomes necessary to give them a class, then I use a PC class. As for how such people exist with such powerful creatures around...Well, usually the PCs are the ones taking out those monsters before they can wipe out the rest of the populace. Other times, the big bad 20+ creatures either simply are not interested in destroying large swathes of land, or they are in a hibernation of sorts.

 

[Baron Opal]

How do the common people survive in a world with creatures so powerful? How do normal cities, towns, and villages exist in the same world with violent/evil/destructive CR 20+ creatures?

Excellent questions. For me, the answer that I came up with is a group of defended city-states that engage in trade through heavily armed caravans. When owlbears, manticores and dire animals are wandering through the countryside it can be difficult to earn a living as a farmer.

Also, I have a détente in place between the mind flayers, yuan-ti, hobgoblin empire and the Scaled King who is an ancient red dragon and his full and half-blooded progeny. The 16-20th level characters in the background are occupied in surgical strikes that maintain the détente between the powers and prevent any from gaining the upper hand.

If only there were some heroes that could actually defeat one of these powers...

 

[Vascant]

I think the highest I have designed for my world is what is called in game as the "Frozen Mist", most think it is just the wind in the extreme frozen northern part of the world but it is actually the last breath of a dead god still lingering (CR 85). Though I have never had a group even attempt to learn more or try to deal with it I am a detail nut and stat out everything when I design it or come up with it originally.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Siluria really doesn't have a top-end, that's why I made my setting a Dyson sphere effectively infinite room for more trouble. Gods and other cosmic entities I put in the CR40-70 range depending on relative power. If you've read GURPS fantasy, the setting is somewhere between a much more violent than standard Dawn Age and a City-States age with few scattered city-states, most civilized settlements small, and very low population density. Thus plenty of room for the howling wilderness full of high level threats.

 

[pawsplay]

How do you "justify" the existence of such powerful creatures in a world with 1st-level commoners? How do the common people survive in a world with creatures so powerful? How do normal cities, towns, and villages exist in the same world with violent/evil/destructive CR 20+ creatures?

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

The same way people exist in the same world as tanks. Or ants and people.

 

[Psion]

The same way people exist in the same world as tanks. Or ants and people.

Good call.

I file this particular argument in with "why would people build fortresses in worlds with dragons and wizards?" To which my usual reply was "why do we build fences in a world with helicopters?"

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

In my campaign, "high level" is around 8-10. I scale my campaign on the assumption that level 10 is about as high as the most powerful mortals typically get. Threats that require heroes of that level are rare, and typically do not bother the world at large (e.g. the ancient red dragon sleeps for centuries, the demi-lich lies hidden in his tomb, et cetera).

Once power levels advance into the teens, I'd start thinking about extra-planar adventures as a better type of challenge -- perhaps as the climax to the campaign, prior to PC retirement.