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

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I've been running high level campaigns for a long time. Has something to do with the age of my setting, and the fact that a couple of my players have been playing in the world for about 12 years.

Teleport into a high level dungeon? No way. They don't want teleport misdirection to happen, with incoming teleports shunted into a prison-like section. Gorgon's blood is still used to prevent ethereal and astral travel into a location, and powerful magics can prevent incoming and outgoing teleports.

It works both ways, both on the dungeons and on their strongholds. One of their strongholds, the only way to get in is to teleport 17 minutes into the past onto a balcony. From there, you can enter into the stronghold. It's an odd requirement, but they like it.

Fights are usually fast (in the number of rounds) and brutal, sometimes with a lot of collateral damage, or drawn out as one side tries to batter down the other.

Fighters still have their place, as they've got good SR's, have the ability to shield others from area of effect spell effects, and once the warriors clash, it's sweat, blood, and bad breath time. THey're usually taken reflex and will boosting PrC's to keep their saves somewhat level, without sacrificing combat power.

We don't have fighters level 30, though. We have: Fighter 20, Monk 10, or Fighter 20, Rogue 5, Monk 5; or what have you. NO class goes beyond 20 levels, but starting with 21st level, there is no multiclassing penalty.


There's politics. The PC"s are past the point of meeting with the mayor of some podunk town. THey speak eloquantly to the members of the Council of the Republic, trying to motivate the nobles into mobilizing their house armies to combat a threat from beyond the borders.

They sail into the unknown on ships, to open new trade-routes, meeting with new and exotic kings, and being wary of any betrayal and having to quickly come up to speed with local customs and speech.

They delve into the Astral Core, looking for fragments of a great Gith city that was conquered and broke apart a thousand years ago, looking for fragments of a tome.

They fight liches in the Etheral Storm who are backed by foul and loathsome creatures that lesser mortals would go mad just to view their Prime Material shadows, much less their ethereal reality.

They bargain with demons, betray angels, take sides on a demi-god war, and strive to keep any weakness from showing to their peers.




Epic game/High Level games can be rewarding and a lot of fun, but first the mold of "kick down door/take treasure" has to overcome, and the players have to be willing to explore more of the world than some crappy ruin.



----------Edit----------------

And the game I play Saduul in is above 13th level now.

And we don't think we've done everything there is. How can we teleport somewhere we've never seen? How can we scry without a crystal ball?

AND WHAT IS THAT THING IN THE CAVE?

 

[Lord Zardoz]

My own guesses

There are a few reasons that come to mind.

- Dms like to start out at low levels, if for no other reason then to grow the game with the players. But by the time they hit level 13, the campaign often goes toast due to players flaking out.
- Boredom. People get the urge to try some other game or campaign.
- Frustrating due to tracking so many different modifiers and magical effects. (#1)
- Work load. It is easier for a Dm to put together a low level adventure. As power levels escalate, the work load gets tougher. (#2)


#1: The one big problem with the current game is that because everything is tied in together, it is easy to create a spell that is +X to some stat or roll. Many effects stack. Some effects do not apply in all cases. This is where the number crunch frustration sets it. Consider this.

Lvl 1 Fighter: Attack roll = Bab + Str + Wpn Focus.
Lvl 4 Fighter: Attack roll = Bab + Str + Str Buff + Bless spell + Wpn Focus - Power attack.
Lvl 10 Fighter: Attack roll = Bab + Str + Wpn Bonus + Wpn Focus + Str Buff + Bless - Power Attack - Iterative Attack - Enervation spell + Potion of Heroism;

At higher levels, you get too many modifiers affecting the same thing. It gets worse when some bonuses do not apply but others do not. This is why so many Dm's complain about running high level games. It is very easy to lose track of so many persistent effects. The only way around this problem is to cut back on items and spells that are flat bonuses to spells.

#2: The work load effect happens because many Dm's prefer to home brew their campaigns. Dm's who like their story lines will throw alot of custom NPC's at the party. Generating high level NPCs takes time. You have to account for things like their magical gear, their Feats, their skill points, which stats they bumped at levels 4, 8, 12, etc. If you multi-class, you have to apply the skill points correctly (a Fighter / Wizard cannot put fighter skills into Spell craft except as a cross class skill). If you increase your Int bonus, you have to decide how that affects skill aquisition. And you have to list all the class abilities for your NPC's, and finally any templates you wish to apply.

There are two ways around this problem. One is to use monsters exclusively for combat, which allows you to just use a statblock. Another is to stick to published modules. Neither of which really allows for much in the way of customization of the storyline.

I myself have never Dm'ed for players higher then 6th level, but that is usually due to luck with respect to being able to maintain a campaign. I do hope to hit level 13 and beyond. But I intend to do so using published modules. I just do not have the time to create a balanced campaign otherwise.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Nyeshet]

D&D makes less sense at those levels . . .

As others have no doubt mentioned (I have not yet read the thread in full.), the divination spells available to characters of those levels makes any level secrecy not involving deities or similar beings rather difficult. Similarly, travel is no longer a notable issue - planar or 'normal' - due to Teleport, Plane Shift, etc. Thus there are no more encounters during transition from location to location. Plot hooks for characters of that level are also difficult, as the PCs are of such a level that they are likely being sent to topple high(er) level tyrants - in which case they may be facing small armies, literally, which can be difficult to adjudiciate on the fly, or they are facing 'minions' who, per force, must at least come near to equaling them in level. This then raises the issue of how any of the populace exists at all under such scourges, as any single one of them could wipe out entire towns without breaking a sweat.

It *can* be done, but encounters beyond 12th level are difficult to arrange, and modules often have to make occasionally odd arrangements to explain why this or that spell does not work in the dungeon or local setting, as otherwise the use of this or that spell would ruin the adventure path, reducing to a mere few encounters as all the others in between are skipped.

 

[phindar]

Maybe I'm missing something, but if you see the problem as being to do with magic - spells, magic items, whatever - do something about it!

Like play at lower levels? Why go to all the trouble of taking everything out of high level D&D to make it work like the lower levels, when we already have the lower levels for that? Players who enjoy high level D&D aren't going to be satisfied with nerfed high level D&D, and players who don't like high level D&D still aren't going to like it for the many reasons already listed in this topic (like the excessive bookkeeping).

I don't think high level play is broken, I just have more fun in lower level games.

 

[Metus]

A lot of good, legitimate points in this thread. Personally, I don't have a problem with high level play.

Yes, the players are more powerful, and they have many more options at their disposal, but I like that. As a player, I salivate at having all that power and all those choices. As a DM, I enjoy seeing the various plans my players can come up with, and how I can creatively counter those plans. I do enjoy superhero games as well (Mutants & Masterminds go!) so destroying buildings and flying around sits well with me.

It's hard for me to understand the timesink problem. I deal with baddies and plots in the high levels just the same as I do in the low levels: I just eyeball the stats and run by the seat of my pants. I know some DMs spend a half dozen hours in preparation, high or low campaign, but I prefer to just work spontaneously, and my players seem to enjoy it.

Finally, a lot of people say that low-level is closer to the spirit of D&D, where you slog through dungeons and fight the baddie or whatnot. I absolutely abhor dungeon crawls, with every ounce of my being; I like the scope to include cities, airships, forests, etc. If high-level players are not required to slog through dungeons, more the better, I say.

That being said, I can easily understand some of the problems mentioned about high-level. However, while high-level play has its downsides, I don't think it's worse than low-level play, and in some ways, is even better.

 

[GVDammerung]

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

Brilliantly put! This is precisely my experience summed up better than I have ever managed. For whatever reasons, I never encountered these phenomenon to the same degree in prior editions, even while playing at equally high levels with the same frequency. 3X seems over over-the-top at high levels whereas prior editions were merely over-the-top at worst.

 

[I'm A Banana]

For whatever reasons, I never encountered these phenomenon to the same degree in prior editions, even while playing at equally high levels with the same frequency.

This utterly baffles me.

In earlier editions, NPC's were 0-level non-nothing dirt farmers. By the time you were 4th level you were GODS among MEN except for the occasional high-power setting or unique NPC

In 3e, NPC's spread all 20 levels. Your characters grow up in a context where there's likely a cleric somewhere that can raise the dead (or so you've heard), and the local bard can help out some victim of a farming accident. There are people who travel the planes in this world, contemporaries of your characters.

Why any PC in 3e can lord it over 2nd-level commoners confuses me. The world is set up so that at least until epic levels, there's always a couple of fish at least as big as you in this pond.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Our Planescape campaign began with 12th level characters. Should I be scared?

 

[broghammerj]

As a player, I salivate at having all that power and all those choices. As a DM, I enjoy seeing the various plans my players can come up with, and how I can creatively counter those plans.

Your description reminds me of DND at 7-12th level and is precisely what I enjoy as well. 13th+ starts to lack creativity IMHO. Challenging the PCs seems to be comprised of blasting them with save or die spells, uping damage reduction, increasing spell resistence, and hitting them with an incredible amounts of damage. Nothing wrong with it, just not my style.

 

[Particle_Man]

My dwarven miner stated above had +3 enchantments on both his picks which began to become useless compared to the barbarian with the two handed sword. I could never beat damage reduction. Try a whip specialist at 15th level....good luck with a dragon.

Off-topic, but this is where "bless weapon" oil can really be a useful item to stock up on lots of. It pierces the DR of any evil creature. The auto-confirm of criticals is just icing on the cake. Mind you, you would be spending 200 gp per combat you use them on if you are using two picks in combat...

I must admit, I was doodling with the idea of banning certain spells (or even banning all spells above 3rd level, and just letting the spell slots be used with metamagic feats), magic items, spell-like and supernatural abilities.

Or I could just go with Iron Heroes or Savage Worlds.