Why don't more people play high level campaigns? 13th+

[hong]

Most of the reasons I've seen aren't really "game breakers" but more of "I don't like having to work around this" things, like frequent teleportation, high-level divinations, and ease of coming back to life. I think many could argue that the game breaks as soon as a PC can fly. And that happens way before high levels.

Actually, flight isn't that much of an issue, so long as a large portion of the party is built for melee. The people it really helps are archers and blaster mages. Everyone else still has to close in, so the monsters still get a swing at them.

Now you may get the situation where the players are happy to have their tanks stay out while the archers shoot away, but that's rare IME.

 

[Shade]

Actually, flight isn't that much of an issue, so long as a large portion of the party is built for melee. The people it really helps are archers and blaster mages. Everyone else still has to close in, so the monsters still get a swing at them.

Now you may get the situation where the players are happy to have their tanks stay out while the archers shoot away, but that's rare IME.

Nah, the real problem with flight is that it renders several skills mostly useless (Balance, Climb, Jump), takes pits and other similar traps out of the game, and so forth.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not crusading against flight as part of the game or anything, just using it to illustrate that the game "breaks" thanks to magic at low levels, too. Invisibility is another "game breaker" at low levels, for example.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Campaign Cap @ 12th

I just started a new campaign and by group consent we decided to cap the campaign at 12th level. From about 5th to 10th is the sweet spot for us. We as a group enjoy the game much better at these levels.

 

[hong]

Nah, the real problem with flight is that it renders several skills mostly useless (Balance, Climb, Jump), takes pits and other similar traps out of the game, and so forth.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not crusading against flight as part of the game or anything, just using it to illustrate that the game "breaks" thanks to magic at low levels, too. Invisibility is another "game breaker" at low levels, for example.

Heh. I remember one low-level AoW module where we were in an abandoned waterfront warehouse. The floors had rotted through, leaving just these posts standing in the water to balance on. And my ftr/monk was the only character with Balance, which I'd taken purely for flavour....

 

[Henry]

It seems like most people don't play a lot of high level games (i.e. 13th+). What are your takes and experiences?

For me, it's because I have a harder time keeping up with (1) what everyone can do, and (2) the best tactics to overcome a really big bad villain. As a player, it's difficult but manageable, as a DM, it's absolute murder to set up a challenge that challenges, instead of either being a cakewalk or a party slaughter. It's like an oversensitive mouse on a computer -- you're always missing the mark.

While I don't mind the plots -- there are ways to set up tough storylines that take the PCs newfound powers into account -- it's the combat numbers-juggling that is the hardest for me, and our group loves a good fight...

 

[jasin]

1. Changes from "gritty realism to goofy super-hero adventure". Good point, but even in high fantasy fiction this is often the case.

It's been pointed out to me once that most people's character concepts are pretty static. It was in a different context (about characters changing from self-serving mercs into selfless heroes), but I think it still applies here, and that it's one of the reasons why people feel that high-level games become cartoonish or super-heroish in a bad sense.

Everyone likes playing Ned Nimblefingers, rogue 1, a street urchin who manages, along with his unlikely companions an apprentice wizard and a young savage nature priestess, to defeat a plot by doppelgangers to infiltrate the Town Council, and gets to rogue 4 along the way.

Most people would like playing Thanee of the Thousand Faces, rogue 13/shadowdancer 4, the Mistress of Whispers in the kingdom ruled by Aelfric the Paladin King, her once adventuring companion, who has creatures of evil more afraid of the night than Aelfric has them afraid of the day, who can wear anyone's face, and enter any fastness, even those with no locks to pick and windows to break, as she foils the plot by the Grey Council, a circle of Hextor-worshipping lich clerics, to bring down Aelfric's kingdom.

But unless the campaign is crafted to take into account this change (and IME, it often isn't), many people feel a disconnect when they realize that after few months of sewer-crawling and monster-bashing, Ned Nimblefingers is now rogue 13/shadowdancer 4 and doesn't really fit the concept they set out to play, since he's now much more of a legendary ninja than a shifty urchin.

It's not impossible to deal with this. Age of Worms, so far as I've seen, does a decent job. The PCs go from wannabe adventurers who get the idea looting an ancient tombs might be a way to some quick cash, through accidental saviors to a small garrison of besieged soldiers, to the darlings of Greyhawk's fans of gladiator games. (That's about halfway through.)

But considering the range of power levels D&D spans, if you create a street urchin, or a merchant's bodyguard, or a poor peasant girl who spontaneously manifests magical powers, it's best to be prepared that those concepts won't work quite as well 15 levels later. You can easily start out as a poor peasant girl, but by 15th-level she had better evolved into a seductive manipulative sorceress who hides her humble beginnings, or the legendary saint touched by the gods, or something like that. A 16th-level, shapeshifting, teleporting, dead-raising, wind-walking poor peasant girl with hundreds of thousands of gp in magical equipment doesn't really make much sense.

 

[Schmoe]

My most recent campaign ran to 14th level before I moved away, but I felt it was getting more enjoyable as the PCs gained power. As DM, I felt that higher levels gave me more freedom to throw challenges at the party. The PCs were gaining reputation and becoming significant decision makers, taking part in councils between ambassadors, meeting with rulers of the kingdoms, etc. I found that the scope of adventure possibilities was broadening, giving me greater flexibility and more creative license, and the impact of those adventures was increasing, giving the players greater satisfaction in the accomplishments of their characters.

Combat did become more complex, but it was still tactically interesting and not overwhelming. For example, our group had 7 PCs, an NPC, an animal companion, and a cohort, for a total of 10 party members. A battle between the party and 3 grafted Frost Giants, 4 Winter Wolves, a Frost Sorceress, an Elite Advanced Winter Wolf, and 2 Frost Giant Zombies that lasted about 8 rounds took us 2 hours to play out. I find that to be acceptable, as it was a big, significant encounter and still left us with 2+ hours for the rest of the evening.

I found that dungeon settings still had their place, too. Although the party could teleport, they couldn't do so with just one spell, and the chance of a mishap made it risky. In fact, the physical distance limited Teleport as well, as they had traveled over 1500 miles from where they wanted to be.

Prep time had increased, but not to an unreasonable level. For the adventure that featured the battle above, I had the following:

Grafted Frost Giants - I had three varieties of Frost Giants, each with different grafts and different ability arrays. It took about 10-15 minutes to stat up each variety, for a total of about 40 minutes

Winter Wolves - Standard from MM, no prep time

Advanced Winter Wolf - 10 minutes

Frost Giant Zombies - 10 minutes

Frost Giant "Jailer" - 30 minutes

Human Sorceress - 45 minutes

Ice Devil - Standard from MM

Some corrupted creature - 10 minutes to apply the template to the Fiend Folio stats

So total prep time for the opponents was about 2 1/2 hours. That covered 3+ weeks of gaming. I had started plotting and planning for the adventure weeks before the party got there, so it wasn't much of a burden at all.

I have created a "library" of high-level NPCs for use as needed, and there are a lot of online resources (such as this one) to provide NPCs, so it's not too much effort to create NPCs when I want them.

Overall, I find that my enjoyment has increased with higher levels, rather than decreased. There may be a point where this starts to reverse (probably around epic level), but so far I haven't reached it.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I hear this a lot of the boards but no one ever seems to want to explain what that actually means.

I agree. People keep saying this and never really explain.

Also, I th\ink the lack of decent NPC stat blocks from WotC is ridiculous. The ones in the DMG *AND* the PHB 2 are...well, silly. They are not good.

Revenge? Best one so far, though they don't leave that many foes alive.

In a fantasy game, that's not a problem.

 

[bowbe]

Jasin you hit the nail on the head there.

Most often the campaigns are NOT crafted to account for such changes in the characters as they grow and develop. Many published adventures either take great pains not to address this (DCC's...no thats not a slam on DCC's) They give you the adventure, you figure the if's and's or why's of it.

Eric Mona, Chris Perkins and the crew do a fabulous job of this because they are at heart very oldschool imho. They offer the motivations, give use of explanations to the changes characters face that you can use in your campaign because they give you a campaign and they are great students of classics like Slavelords, Against the Giants, and the D' series.

Sure those old books didn't go into extrapolating all the if's and's or buts. Instead most of them had a great introduction page that gave the run-down of some of the various sub plots and thematic ploys. The adventure paths are great for that type of adventuring and even folks who prefer to "run it their own way" or create whole cloth their own adventure mileu could definitely learn a thing or two from reading them. The same can be said or some of the other fine published setting/adventure material that is out there when it comes to putting some jazz into their campaigns be they low or high.

Another thing I have learned from my experiences running high level campaigns is that the locations although massive and huge need not be detailed with every door and chamber. So yes the nature of adventuring at High level does change. Why waste time developing the enemies in every single room when PCs can teleport or plane shift or scry or whatever. At the same time if the PCs have a stronghold, their lairs may be targets of organized bands of foes who seek them out individually.

Just some thoughts.

Case

 

[Umbran]

Speed up character advancement.

My players do not want speedy character advancement. My players want to start at the beginning, and they want to spend some time at each level getting used to all the options they have before stacking new things on top.

But then, they aren't particularly worried about how high they get. They want advancement, sure, but failing to ever reach 12th level isn't going to bother them any so long as the stuff between now and then is interesting.