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

[Gundark]

I have to say, I'm really not liking high level. Last night in our AoW campaign a fight took 2-2.5 hours of real time (we only have 3-3.5 hours to play every week). Game time was 7 rounds. This is way too slow for me. I'm also experiencing a loss of control as a DM, I understand that this is par for the course at high levels, I just thought it wouldn't be so much.

I'm considering using an "average" system. The long fights seem to be due mostly to too much dice being rolled and the counting up of those dice. I'm thinking of using a system where you don't roll, instead you use average damage. For example instead of rolling 15d6 for a flame strike you do 52.5 points of damage (round down to 52). I know that the players might not like this, however I don't see any other options.

Suggestions?

 

[bento]

The system I use, True20, can handle some of these issues. There's only one attack per round no matter what the level, and there's not the assumption for magical items and buffs that D&D has.

I posted a link to this thread over on their forum to see how many people have played the game at higher levels. Here's their discussion: http://true20.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1256

The jury is out so far but my hope is it works well for all levels.

 

[marune]

Wind Walk, Invisibility and Telepathic Bond...

Yeah, that's the combo that was used by my players in my last campaign.

Wind walk is nice as an overland movement spell, but a bit too good at scouting.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

post 15

I think your on to something. Thats a very good idea for a long lasting, interconnecting and cascading campaign.

 

[Hussar]

Which, again, goes back to my response to this.

Your initial quote wasn't "Wow, the suckage of this region" it was "To be honest, this is the first time I've had PC's of these levels and I'm pretty shocked how powerful the group is."

Hence, not out of context at all.

On top of which, it points out just how deeply even designers (who, one assumes, are better than average at this sort of thing) can underestimate the relative power of high level characters in 3.X.

EDIT: OTOH, at least the fights weren't taking 4 hours!

The problem is, the encounters aren't underestimated. Looking through the region, the majority of the encounters are between EL 10-14. This is in an adventure for 15th-18th level. That's just plain old bad design. Add to this, the fact that those EL's are generally arrived at by using large numbers of CR 2 and 3 critters, you wind up with some very, very easy encounters.

My initial reaction was because I thought it was character level. Looking closer at it, it's because the region is badly made. That's why I said you took me out of context. In the previous region, which was for 12th-14th, I didn't have this problem. Suddenly, at 15th the party is breezing through six or seven encounters without breaking a sweat. In the first post, I thought it was a level thing. Then I sat down and read the module closer and realized that the region's design was very, very poor. Honestly, I think D is the worst region of the entire module. And that's saying a lot considering the mess that B is.

Which gets back to my point about the DM doing his homework. Reading the module before play is part of doing your homework IMO. I got lax and paid for it. After a few sessions, I tweaked things back to where they should be.

As far as epic play goes, I really have no idea. Never played it and don't know the mechanics, so I can't comment. But, high level standard D&D isn't as difficult as some people make out. I wouldn't recommend it for casual play and, I think, some of the problem comes in with people starting with 12th level characters and playing, rather than growing into the character from low level.

But, so long as your players are willing to put in the effort to knowing their own character rules, high level play isn't all that much more difficult.

Again, on the whole S-B-T thing, I think it's something that so rarely actually comes up in play. It's far too easy to get around. Any BBEG worth having a name is going to have a pretty darn high Will save, meaning that he's going to know you're coming most of the time. Add to that the chances of failed teleport, and the relative ease of blocking teleport, I fail to see why people have such a hard time with this.

 

[Dark Dragon]

Wind Walk, Invisibility and Telepathic Bond...

Yeah, that's the combo that was used by my players in my last campaign.

Wind walk is nice as an overland movement spell, but a bit too good at scouting.

Hehe, that's why we changed Wind Walk a bit: Once the creature changed back to normal form, the spell ends...voilà.

 

[Azgulor]

The spells and power of magic change the flavor of the game becomes something that I don't like.

Which is why I prefer lower-magic games such as Conan, A Game of Thrones, Grim Tales, etc. Without the ridiculous magic- & magic-item induced power spikes, the game is much easier to sustain at high levels.

Azgulor

 

[Raven Crowking]

The problem is, the encounters aren't underestimated. Looking through the region, the majority of the encounters are between EL 10-14. This is in an adventure for 15th-18th level. That's just plain old bad design. Add to this, the fact that those EL's are generally arrived at by using large numbers of CR 2 and 3 critters, you wind up with some very, very easy encounters.

Except, isn't that actually in keeping with the CR/EL and encounter design parameters in the DMG? X% of encounters are APL, X% of encounters are APL -X. Etc.? I don't have either book (WLD or DMG) in front of me, and the guidelines might have changed with the jump to 3.5.

My initial reaction was because I thought it was character level. Looking closer at it, it's because the region is badly made. That's why I said you took me out of context. In the previous region, which was for 12th-14th, I didn't have this problem. Suddenly, at 15th the party is breezing through six or seven encounters without breaking a sweat. In the first post, I thought it was a level thing. Then I sat down and read the module closer and realized that the region's design was very, very poor. Honestly, I think D is the worst region of the entire module. And that's saying a lot considering the mess that B is.

Fair enough, but it still drives home exactly the point I am making:

(1) WLD is an ambitious project, which utilized the talents of DMs who, presumably, are above-average designers.

(2) The editors are above average designers who, even under a time crunch, surely would have noticed the problems in ten minutes were they obvious enough.

Therefore

(3) It is difficult for even above-average designers to design effective encounters for 15-18th level PCs, given that

(a) They cannot take the specific players into account, and
(b) They cannot take the specific characters into account.​

and (4) It is difficult for even above-average designers to realize that there is a problem with design ahead of time unless they have large amounts of time to go over the material.

Which gets back to your point about the DM doing his homework. How much worlk does the average DM wish to do? How much work is the average DM capable of doing?

I suggest that this might be one (of several) real reason why you see less high-level than low-to-mid-level play.

Again, on the whole S-B-T thing, I think it's something that so rarely actually comes up in play. It's far too easy to get around. Any BBEG worth having a name is going to have a pretty darn high Will save, meaning that he's going to know you're coming most of the time. Add to that the chances of failed teleport, and the relative ease of blocking teleport, I fail to see why people have such a hard time with this.

Even Dragon Magazine ran an article on this. You don't target the BBEG, you target his stooge. Then you wait for said stooge to enter the BBEG's presence.

 

[Hussar]

When was that article RC? I've been subscribing for the past three years and don't recall that one.

Except, isn't that actually in keeping with the CR/EL and encounter design parameters in the DMG? X% of encounters are APL, X% of encounters are APL -X. Etc.? I don't have either book (WLD or DMG) in front of me, and the guidelines might have changed with the jump to 3.5.

Oh come on. When almost every encounter is 1-4 levels BELOW APL, that's piss poor design. Even by the suggestions in the 3.0 DMG that's poor design. Of the encounters in the region, only two or three are actually par or above.

They dropped the ball on this region. Jim Pinto said so. It happens. This has nothing to do with the level of the adventure either. A 5th level adventure with the same spread of EL's would be a poor adventure as well. The problem is compounded even further by the use of large numbers of very small mooks, when the DMG specifically calls out that large numbers of critters badly skews the EL calculations.

In other words, this is a badly written adventure. It doesn't even come close to following the guidelines in the DMG. It's fine to ignore the advice if your adventure works, but, that advice is there for a reason. It tends to make for good adventures. The recent Wolgang Baur articles on the WOTC site make good examples too.

This region is a good example of what not to do. Just because it got published, I don't think you can say that it is automatically written by above par writers. The d20 landscape is littered with the broken corpses of poor game designers.

As far as work load is concerned, I would think that reading a module is probably considered basic level. I didn't do that. I got very lazy and tried running things straight from the book. That would have worked fine in a number of other regions in the WLD. G, K, J, C, all work fine straight from the book. D doesn't. Since G, K and J run level ranges from 10th to 15th, I have been doing higher level gaming for a bit.

In other words, my initial reaction was wrong. Which I've tried to repeatedly point out here. The problem wasn't with high level play but with poor game design. A 7th level adventure where the majority of encounters were EL 3 or 4 would be a poor adventure. Too easy. No challenge.

 

[Azgulor]

For me one of the serious flaws of high levels is that the players drop out of most of the social context of the game.

They never faced 5th and 12th level shopkeepers and commoners. Now they are uber powers able to kill everyone in a city block and the world at large has no natural relationship with them, except maybe as supplicants.

The opportunity for adventure has now changed from a whole city to maybe 5-20 individuals that might be on par with the players. Most of the 'laws' are conveniences. Either you have to progress their whole setting with all the stat blocks or they outstrip everyone they would typically meet.

If players act strategically they do huge damage fast, allowing them to drop the uber foes. If their opponents act with the same ruthlessness the players drop like flies and are not happy about it.

s

This is another nonsensical aspect of D&D and one which I dropped almost immediately. Several years ago, someone (MavericWeirdo I believe) posted an NPC rule whereby the NPC "learns something every day". Each day from young adult age onward, the NPC earns 1 experience point per day from going about their business. This results in the average human NPC of adult age being 2-4th level. Older NPCs have higher levels. Granted, most are commoners, but you get the idea. Additionally, this has the added benefit of resulting in demi-human communities where, due to their longer lifespans, you have a much more competent baseline population.

It may not work for everyone, but for me, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than the world population being 90% 1st level characters.

Azgulor