Worlds of Design: Tough Times at the Top

I’ve always thought that combat-oriented Dungeons & Dragons-style tabletop role-playing games become less fun to play as characters reach double-figure levels of power. Here’s why, and how to fix it.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

The “Who Shoots First” Problem​

A major reason is the “who shoots first” problem. Analysis of tank battles in World War II shows that whoever shot first tended to win the tank battle. You can see why that might be likely, because the defenders can conceal themselves, not needing to move. The attackers turn up and are likely to get nailed by initial shots. On the other hand, if the attackers detect the defenders from a distance or even just suspect, they can call in air strikes and artillery barrages (if they have the capability) and likely that's going to reveal the defenders and also damage or destroy some of them—the attackers shoot first.

This is not so bad at lower levels in RPGs, but as characters get stronger and stronger, the first shot becomes more devastating. They have such great offense in the form of magical “artillery” (area effect spells) or other kinds of spells and occasionally non-spell offense, that they can devastate the other side before that side gets a chance to do anything. In effect, time moves faster because high level characters can do so much in a small slice of time. That is true even if there is no punishing surprise rule such as the rule in AD&D 1e (surprised 33% of the time, surprised cannot do anything for what seems like forever). A designer could greatly strengthen defense as characters reach higher levels, but that can get ridiculous; worse, you may end up with very long battles when no one gets the drop on the other side.

Moreover, super-powerful characters (such as high levels) don't fit the standard fantasy or science fiction stories where the hero, at least at first, is a relatively normal not-so-powerful character. In other words, people can’t identify with those very strong characters; although you can counter that by saying people can identify with superheroes in superhero gaming, so why not in fantasy or science fiction? But superhero stories (comics) are quite different from fantasy and science fiction stories. (In particular, there’s a tendency to have lots of one-on-one matchups in superhero fighting, by design.)

Is there any solution? I can think of several.

Stop While You’re Ahead​

You could stop playing when the characters get too powerful, and start a new campaign, or start new characters and only use the super-powerful characters in a really extraordinary situation. I’ve always preferred that each player have several characters available to play, so that an appropriate party can be gathered for any prospective adventure.

That's not so much a solution as a palliative, but it's the nature of the game; and I would say that if you have any kind of combat game, not just a role-playing game, where you have a strong progression of capability, you can have these problems of shooting first and overwhelming offense. On the other hand, if people are playing for the story and are not actually worried about losing, they may not take advantage of these two problems.

This is why, at the start, I specified a combat RPG. Another kind of RPG may not suffer this problem. Or the designer may have insured that the adventurers are always “human not superhuman." (See Human vs Superhuman: Functional vs Emotional Modeling)

Take Time to Get There​

Another solution is to make sure it takes a huge number of adventures to reach the rarified air of great combat power. That’s my preference, but it may not be for everybody: with each iteration of D&D, advancement has sped up so that there’s an expectation that characters level up quickly. Unless you’re using milestone leveling or some other system not tied to gaining experience points from combat, players will expect a steady progression. Slowing things down requires a conversation with players beforehand so they understand that they will level up at a slower pace than they might expect.

It’s Not the Destination, It’s the Journey​

Another solution would be to make sure everyone understands that their characters will almost certainly die before reaching the super-powerful levels. If it takes a telescope (so to speak) to look up to the next level, then players may pay attention to the journey more than the destination. So enjoy life and heroism while you can!

Your Turn: How do you manage high level characters in your campaign?

 

[univoxs]

In D&D specifically it just becomes a game of "look what I can do" as players take turns whipping out the fruits of their long planned builds. This is fine but clearly not everyone's taste. I think what is missing at higher levels are skill challenges, investigations and role play because these scenarios can be solved by magic. This takes away a major component of the game and requires the GM to think a lot harder to come up with challenges.

I've played in plenty of games where high level play was compelling but they were always official modules of some kind. Professionally written material in this vein usually works much better than a non-professionals attempt, which makes since. It takes a lot more work to prepare high level material and not everyone has that kind of time.

If you want something with much less of a power curve there is CoC, WoD, WFRP, and obviously, infinitely more. D20 is far from the only game that has this kind of power curve though. In Travaller, once you have the money to buy bananas power armor you can just murder your way through any problem. I seem to remember Shadowrun getting wacky as well but it has been a long time. I just think if you want D&D to play differently than it does, maybe you should just play a different game.

 

[GrahamWills]

Well, this absolutely isn't an issue in Pathfinder 2, or in 13th Age, and with 4E it was noticeable, but not a serious problem. I'm thinking that it's only an issue with some versions of "combat-oriented Dungeons & Dragons-style tabletop role-playing games". Has @lewpuls played multiple high-level campaigns in these systems, or this is article mostly about other systems?

 

[Mortus]

I’ve never experienced this problem in the almost 40 years of playing D&D. I don’t ‘balance’ combat encounters. I use variant rules to make combat ‘war’. With 5E, I’m using most of the gritty/lethal variants in the DMG. That has worked well at high level. With the conversion for Bloodstone Pass for 5E for 20th level PCs, the players needed multiple 20th level PCs to finish the last adventure with an approximately 50% PC mortality rate. Combat can be as challenging as the DM wants at any level.

 

[TerraDave]

These problems were less in 4e, but not entirely absent. And they were less because 4e had that mid-level feel for longer.

At some point encounter design did get harder. Everyone has a big nova in 4e, especially at higher levels. That high level solo--plus environment and some softening--might or might not challenge the party.

But an army of Githayanki, or mutants, would work. (That was a good campaign).

 

[Paragon Lost]

Best solution is to not play level based rpgs where hit points go up as you level and are considered abstract in nature. Play a skill based system with little to no real hit point/health increases and where hits are more devastating. Something like GURPS, Basic Roleplaying RPG (RuneQuest, Mythras, Delta Green etc) etc.

 

[Oofta]

Best solution is to not play level based rpgs where hit points go up as you level and are considered abstract in nature. Play a skill based system with little to no real hit point/health increases and where hits are more devastating. Something like GURPS, Basic Roleplaying RPG (RuneQuest, Mythras, Delta Green etc) etc.

So the best solution to the perceived* issue with high level D&D is to ... not play D&D? I mean, I get that the game is not everyone's cup of tea but it's always odd to me when people go out of their way to find a D&D dedicated forum to post "D&D sux".

*And yes, I do believe it is a perceived issue. I've had a lot of fun playing and DMing high level games, we get to tell different stories than low level.

 

[jgsugden]

I just don't get this whole complaint. It isn't that the game doesn't work, it is that people try to play the game wrong at those levels. They get frustrated when they can't run a murder mystery at high level without someone defeating it with a spell. PCs have powerful abilities at those levels, and they're intended to be used - and they will trivialize some challenges. Evolve your game. You can absolutely have a blast running a high level game if you consider the resources that everyone has and play them out sensibly. Heck in a great high level game, where you built up the story and the PCs are invested in the world, the combats are not the primary driver of a great game anymore. They're connective tissue, not the meat.

'Who shot first' isn't a problem in most parties. The way the game plays out, you tend to have the PCs and monsters mixed in their initiative. If you're doing group initiative, and all of one side goes before the other side ... well, that isn't a problem with high level play - that is a decision you made.

 

[Shiroiken]

It really depends on the edition and the DM. High level BECMI and AD&D wasn't all that bad, but the DM did need to be aware of a handful of spells the players might have up their sleeve. I didn't DM 4E, but I played a level 1-30 game that worked pretty well, even in the epic tier. My first 5E campaign ended at level 18, and since I'm going to pull them back for an epic adventure, I obviously had no issues.

Honestly the only time I've seen issue with high level play was in 3E, where the martial/magic divide became ridiculous. I also had issues with certain DMs that had particular notions of how the game "should" be played, then became irate when the edition in question didn't work that way after a certain level. This last part is where things go wrong for most people, since the game is normally meant to change at a certain point, and if you don't adjust for that as a DM the wheels can fall off of the campaign. While not my cup of tea, I think the E6 is a great solution to this problem.

 

[MarkB]

I didnt feel that 4e had this problem because the monsters scaled in terms of not just maths (like the the PCs) but terms of the flexibility, breadth and impact of their abilities. I played a 4e campaign to 30th level and while I think 4e had some problems, it really worked in regards to challenges for all levels.

So I think one alternative to this problem is to design the game (both PCs and monsters) with the full range of levels in mind.

In 4e it felt like, more often than not, mid to high level combat was all about the stunlock. Monsters had ways to mess with the PCs' action economies and vice-versa, and the key to staying on top of a combat was to be able to counter what they were throwing at you while still dishing out some of your own.

Then again, I did play a Bravura Warlord in our only high-level campaign, so my viewpoint may be skewed.

 

[Argyle King]

I believe that game design and encounter design would benefit from having some understanding of real-world war and combat.

"But it's fantasy!"

Yes, yes it is, and there certainly are differences. At the same time, I believe there are things added to the game and design-approaches to the game which add problematic elements because there is a lack of understand why/how an option influences the outcome of an encounter.

Example: High mobility is (as per the encounter guidelines and design views built into the game) viewed as having zero value -even when the mobility includes covering space/distance in a way which violates normal expectations.

At lower levels, this is not noticed much. As the levels and numbers of the game grow, the influences of small pieces become larger.

I also think that contemporary D&D's reliance on increasing HP as one of the primary ways of making a challenge tougher can sometimes be unfun. The outcome of the fight doesn't change, but the amount of time it takes to achieve that outcome does.

As far as the "who shoots first problem;" I agree that it can be a problem, but I think that somewhat circles back around to having an understanding of war and combat. Understanding how a conflict plays out, how, and why is useful to building a compelling and fun combat within in a game; and useful for designing a game which approaches combat in a better way -even in a fantasy game.