Which "phase" of D&D do you prefer?

[Mystery Man]

And Hong's references to Wuxia (which I have no idea what that is),

Pronounced woo-sha. An example of wuxia are those martial arts movies such as Iron Monkey, Big Trouble in Little China, Kill Bill.

Its' larger than life.

 

[diaglo]

Pronounced woo-sha. An example of wuxia are those martial arts movies such as Iron Monkey, Big Trouble in Little China, Kill Bill.

Its' larger than life.

didn't martin lawrence and will smith do this in Bad Boys II?

 

[Desdichado]

And Hong's references to Wuxia (which I have no idea what that is), there doesn't seem to be any real basis for the kinds of power that this level of D&D represents.

Exactly. It's well and good for hong to find relevance for high-level play in wuxia, but since many D&D players aren't interested in wuxia and especially aren't interested in their D&D game resembling wuxia it's a problematic relationship, at best.

 

[Darklone]

I picked the first two slots, but really my preference is 3-8 or something like that. 1st level is too fragile, IMO -- as a DM I have to be extra careful to not kill 1st level players, and as a player I'm a bit too paranoid. So I typically start 3rd level or so, and I like it up until close to 10th, but it's already starting to feel like high level to me at that point.

Me too.
But the first two level ups happen usually so fast that I don't have to bother with high player mortality

 

[Sayburr]

I find that I prefer the lower to mid levels simply because the skill system kinda breaks down after that. Player, "I want to scry on this person whom they described" DM: "Ok, ummm, DC 30" Player:"Well, I have 18 ranks and an INT of 20 so my base is 23." It just seems to easy to do mundain things to me.

 

[Mystery Man]

Strangely, when i start a new campaign at level 1 I yearn for the higher levels to have access to all that it brings. And when I'm there I long for the simpler days of the lower levels. What I do like for the most part in bringing a party at level one and taking it as high as we'd like to go. This current campaign will probably cap off at level 16 and we'll probably start over. I'll be glad just not to have to use the calculator for awhile.

 

[der_kluge]

Yea, that reminds me, I really need to put a calculator in my game bag.

me: "let's see, 114 minus 58 points of damage... ummm". I'm just not that swift at that kind of stuff.

Especially when something like Flamestrike gets cast, when it does half of one kind of damage, and half of another, and the creature has resistance on one of the types. Messy.

 

[Wombat]

I have done 3 (one very, very short; two decent length) campaigns with D&D3e so far. All three of them have the characters starting at 3rd level; in my upcoming AU-based campaign I may have them start at 4th.

In that time, no one has gotten above 8th level, and we have all been very happy

Realistically, I have a very hard time running or playing in games that hit 12+ level -- totally different dynamic, and not one I am fond of.

 

[der_kluge]

Wombat, my story was very similar, so for our current game, we've started at 9th, and will play to 20th. I've never ran an ongoing high level game, and none of the players have ever played a high level game. So, it will be a new experience for all of us.

 

[diaglo]

I have done 3 (one very, very short; two decent length) campaigns with D&D3e so far. All three of them have the characters starting at 3rd level; in my upcoming AU-based campaign I may have them start at 4th.

i have played in 10 2000ed campaigns by your definition of a campaign. 7 long term and 3 one-shots. all but 1 of the long term and 2 of the one-shots were misable due to way too fast progression and way too much magic. and even the 1 long term was still too fast/ too much magic for my taste, but i made due (you can read about it in my sig )