Why don't people play at high-level?


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Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Milo v3 wrote:

I've seen a decent amount of posts on this board about how anything above 15th level doesn't matter because no one ever plays at those levels, is that actually true in general?

I know my group does, but maybe we are in the minority. Why don't people play at high levels?

Because the game changes to something very different at those levels and it may clash with their preferred gaming style.

It's the reason variants like E6 were invented.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
KestrelZ wrote:

The answer is - your mileage may vary.

Many groups start from first level and play until the group dissolves. This could take a year to progress to tenth level if you play once a week or once every other week.

Groups that can play more often tend to level faster, and of course groups could always just start at high level. (I occasionally start a group at 20+ levels for over the top play).

Pathfinder society play caps levels before 15th, last I heard. Bear in mind, pathfinder society play is not the same as a home game since all sorts of rulings are adhered to. This also tends to limit player exposure to beyond 15th level play.

Actually scenarios cap at the point where you hit 12th level. At that point you can play a retirement arc such as Eyes of Ten, that takes you to 13+2, and all PFS play at that point is sanctioned modules, and pieces of adventure paths tha top you off at 19 or 20 depending on whether you can catch the right events at cons that hold a table that high.

It gets very hard to get groups together at that point though.


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Milo v3 wrote:
Envall wrote:

Unless the GM has a good reason to continue the adventure to high levels, there is the issue of breaking the immersion by giving an idea to the players the world works by MMO zones.

In MMOs, you move to a new zone in the persistent world and the level of the wildlife and common folk usually jump by 5-10 levels. Wow, the shore crabs are now as strong as the final boss of that early dungeon in the game! Woah! Oh course nobody cares in an MMO, we do not need immersion for a number generator. Same can't be said of tabletop RPGs.

I don't understand why people keep giving this as a reason. If the GM does that, it is their doing, not something innate about high levels.

I'm currently writing up a campaign plotline that goes from level 2-22, and at each stage I know were all the different characters of different levels are and what they are doing. If the party interacts with those higher or lower level beings then they do, creatures don't just pop into existance when the party level's up unless the GM does it.

While that can be construed as weak GMing and isn't something I'd recommend for every campaign, it can in-fact work out quite well.

There's a reason East Blue is considered the weakest sea. [Although even there we do get cameos of some of the super powers in the One Piece universe.]


We've got a 15th level campaign going on right now. Basically, on a per session basis it's half a session talking / working out puzzles, half combat.

The combat tends to be one combat, roughly 4-6 rounds long. By the time everyone figures out what to do, that's eaten up about 2 hours.

Its a completely different kind of game. In some respects, things slow down immensely. In other respects, its very much a chess match. From the DM's point of view, you no longer have to worry about the PCs safety. They are, for the most part, not at all squishy and they can probably come up with something that will get them out of whatever predicament you've put them in. If not, oh well.. they should have been prepared better.

Case in point: Last week, the two baddies were just about to escape, having traded several rounds of combat with the PCs and bloodied and worried them considerably. The two baddies were good as gone when one of the PCs decided to blow a hero point to take an immediate action to stop them. Good thing too, because if they hadn't, those two would have gone and wrecked havoc on the village the PCs loved.

Which brings us to the point of high level games, IMHO - the "superman" quandary. How to protect the people you have sworn to protect while defeating your enemies? Yeah, you may be beating up the main villain in his lair, but is his contingency plan killing your townsfolk left and right? How do you stop two different attacks miles away occurring at the same time - and if you can't stop them, who do you let die?

It's not always easy being a demi-god, after all...


TriOmegaZero wrote:
mplindustries wrote:
High level play is boring and swingy.
Meh. Only if you spend all your time in combat. (Which if you get into combat, it will take up all your time.) If you instead spend your time exploring exotic locales that require your new powers to reach and traverse, and dealing with planes spanning plots and politics, where your attack bonuses don't matter as much as what you can do for your allies and enemies, it can be pretty fun.

But you don't need high levels to do the majority of those things.


Chemlak wrote:
Extremely useful thread for ideas on how to run high level games.

I don't know how I missed it, but that thread is really golden. Puts into word a lot of things i'd had to learn by hand. Thanks for bringing that up.


Milo v3 wrote:
Envall wrote:

Unless the GM has a good reason to continue the adventure to high levels, there is the issue of breaking the immersion by giving an idea to the players the world works by MMO zones.

In MMOs, you move to a new zone in the persistent world and the level of the wildlife and common folk usually jump by 5-10 levels. Wow, the shore crabs are now as strong as the final boss of that early dungeon in the game! Woah! Oh course nobody cares in an MMO, we do not need immersion for a number generator. Same can't be said of tabletop RPGs.

I don't understand why people keep giving this as a reason. If the GM does that, it is their doing, not something innate about high levels.

I'm currently writing up a campaign plotline that goes from level 2-22, and at each stage I know were all the different characters of different levels are and what they are doing. If the party interacts with those higher or lower level beings then they do, creatures don't just pop into existance when the party level's up unless the GM does it.

Are those higher level creatures in sensible locations? Are you avoiding making more Undermountains which are absolutely nonsensical?

Players are just more demanding of world building, at least that is my observation. An explanation is not enough, it also has to be good for them.

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Saldiven wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
mplindustries wrote:
High level play is boring and swingy.
Meh. Only if you spend all your time in combat. (Which if you get into combat, it will take up all your time.) If you instead spend your time exploring exotic locales that require your new powers to reach and traverse, and dealing with planes spanning plots and politics, where your attack bonuses don't matter as much as what you can do for your allies and enemies, it can be pretty fun.
But you don't need high levels to do the majority of those things.

It depends on how you set it up. It's difficult to do planar travel without at least 5th level spells, either provided by the PCs or by magic items, for example. If the PCs toys use high level stuff, you're still using it, you've just put limits on it.

Here's an example of a high level plot I ran once: Time is unraveling. There is a rift in reality centered on some event that has been erased from history, and it's growing bigger, both backwards and forwards in time, erasing events from the past and future as it grows. Fix it.

That's it. That's all the PCs get. They want to consult an expert? Who? They are the best experts in the world. How do I (as the GM) plan for them to solve it? I have no idea. Seems like a nasty problem to me. Hope the PCs have some good ideas.

If this were a lower level adventure, I'd feel like I'd have to give some clues, maybe a sage, or old journal from a time wizard or something, basically provide a way to win. But high levels free you from that constraint. You can make up the most crazy, undefeatable plots and watch your players use their PCs' amazing abilities to solve it.


Envall wrote:

Are those higher level creatures in sensible locations? Are you avoiding making more Undermountains which are absolutely nonsensical?

Players are just more demanding of world building, at least that is my observation. An explanation is not enough, it also has to be good for them.

They're in "sensible locations", except for minor exceptions the aboleths and the fey are going admittedly going to be basically impossible to reach at low-level because of lack of water breathing and lack of planar travel, and the leader of the cyclops faction and the Positive Energy faction are currently dead at the very start of the campaign and will be resurrected part-way through.

But the Black Dragon faction, Cyclop faction (sans past/future leader), Aboleth, Imperial Dragon faction, Positive Energy faction (sans past/future leader) are all going to be in accessible sensible realistic locations from the start.


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My major problem with high-level play is that most people can't write high-level adventures that make any damned sense at all. They tend not to take into account the PCs' (and villains') godlike abilities, and end up like low-level adventures with bigger numbers. And, as noted, it quickly becomes absurd when all the town guards "just happen" to be 15th level fighters, when last year they were only 1st level warriors.

One adventure to get it right was "Diplomacy" (Dungeon #144), IIRC, in which an 18th level party is trying to outmaneuver various other bidders for a demi-plane full of diamonds or something. It provides a reason for high-level enemies to be in one place, minimizes mindless combat and endless slog-fests, and assumes that everyone is actually using the abilities they have (you're pretty much assumed to have a diplomancer bard backed by major arcane and divine support).


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KG: Please run that as a one shot!
using kirthfinder rules...

Gives Kirth sad face and corner eyes.......


I am starting to suspect that one reason for things falling apart at high levels is that things have been hard-limited, thus causing class abilities, spells, etc. to be crammed into a set number of high levels instead of spreading out like lower level abilities. Thus, some classes have ridiculously overpowered capstones, even if relatively underpowered before getting their capstone (Ninja's Hidden Master capstone, anyone?), and spells do similar things (all-or-nothing effects from Anti-Magic Field to Time Stop, where the scaling that you would want with increase in levels just breaks). This understandably causes people to complain that the game is broken at high levels, which causes them to avoid playing up there, which causes the high levels to be relatively untested and prevents the proper design of higher level parts of the game and causes further compression of high powered stuff into the existing high levels (more ridiculous capstones for some classes, but some classes get lackluster or no capstones), even rougher design of high levels (Wizards of the Coast's Epic rules), or introduction of completely broken high level rules into lower levels (Mythic, I'm looking at you).


Another problem: If you start at a high level, then the GM has to deal with the casters using an unfamiliar bag of tricks.

When you work from level 1, you may get into the habit of using a certain set of spells as go tos. But when you start with a high level character, with all those fancy high level spells you never use adn you are totally excited about...you get creative in ways that makes your flow hard to read.

Sovereign Court

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This, I am led to believe, is the reason for 5th edition and the design principals that extended the "sweet spot" of play. All games become unhinged when you reach upper levels, as the proliferation of high powered options, magic item accrual, and bonus stacking can quickly make a game less about a shared tactical story and fight time, and more about an arms race curated by paralegals and accountants.

Those who have been through the experience can attest to the intense levels of frustration, having tried their hardest to just return to the simplicity of telling a story, challenging the players in a way that is fun, and finding the moments of cinematic glory that come from a well balanced encounter.

Can higher level play be done right? I would wager that it can and has, but the implementation of it is a skill set that is clearly distinct from the definition that drives lower level play. Before we even implement mythic play, it seems that there is a need to codify the structure necessary to enjoy the higher level play that already exists within the 20 level paradigm.


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Kirth Gersen wrote:


One adventure to get it right was "Diplomacy" (Dungeon #144), IIRC, in which an 18th level party is trying to outmaneuver various other bidders for a demi-plane full of diamonds or something. It provides a reason for high-level enemies to be in one place, minimizes mindless combat and endless slog-fests, and assumes that everyone is actually using the abilities they have (you're pretty much assumed to have a diplomancer bard backed by major arcane and divine support).

And I think this underscores why there aren't many adventures written for really high levels. I remember that issue and, as good as the adventure is, it's hard to assume that every campaign will have a diplomancer bard because, by the time PCs are that level, there have been a lot of build choices that may have shifted PCs a totally different way. The market for that publication is going to be pretty small.

Unfortunately, that's also the segment of the market that could use the most support from creative adventure writers.


I just played a lv20 session last night, we started at lv20. We have two optimizers in the party and a very low player. She built a caster druid with 8 str. In the session she used burning gaze and wildshaped into an elemental to melee :P

The more optimized caster "soloed an encounter" when he used blood mist on a group of mooks and had them all kill themselves before we continued on. With just two good players we steamrolled the encounters. We had three fights, the first one the party took a total of 10 damage. The second we killed the mooks before fighting the froghemoth, which Didn't last 2 turns. Then we fought a Linorm dragon, and that one did about 100 damage to the melee guy.

And this is with the caster optimized for buffing


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Lorathorn wrote:
Those who have been through the experience can attest to the intense levels of frustration, having tried their hardest to just return to the simplicity of telling a story, challenging the players in a way that is fun, and finding the moments of cinematic glory that come from a well balanced encounter.

I have to pause and question... what exactly IS a well balanced encounter, and why does it matter so much? Does it matter whether the party steamrolls or 'struggles' or fights to the last man only to either finally triumph at the last second or completely and utterly fail?

I'm generally of the mindset that working too hard to balance encounters is counter-productive. I'd much rather just have fun throwing shit within 2-3CR of the party for the most part while stringing together some kind of story on the fly, with the occasional rare 'extra hard opponent' which may or may not actually truly be extra hard.

Quote:
Can higher level play be done right? I would wager that it can and has, but the implementation of it is a skill set that is clearly distinct from the definition that drives lower level play. Before we even implement mythic play, it seems that there is a need to codify the structure necessary to enjoy the higher level play that already exists within the 20 level paradigm.

True enough, high level play has a lot of crazy shit. It's easy enough to pare down the worst of it with houserules, but those are indeed houserules rather than RAW.


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Lorathorn wrote:

This, I am led to believe, is the reason for 5th edition and the design principals that extended the "sweet spot" of play. All games become unhinged when you reach upper levels, as the proliferation of high powered options, magic item accrual, and bonus stacking can quickly make a game less about a shared tactical story and fight time, and more about an arms race curated by paralegals and accountants.

Those who have been through the experience can attest to the intense levels of frustration, having tried their hardest to just return to the simplicity of telling a story, challenging the players in a way that is fun, and finding the moments of cinematic glory that come from a well balanced encounter.

Can higher level play be done right? I would wager that it can and has, but the implementation of it is a skill set that is clearly distinct from the definition that drives lower level play. Before we even implement mythic play, it seems that there is a need to codify the structure necessary to enjoy the higher level play that already exists within the 20 level paradigm.

I think high level play can be done right, but it's not just a function of game design. 4e's take on it, particularly with the scheduled bonus advancements and mathematic attempt to extend the sweet spot, relied on game design to deliver it and was a pretty tightly constrained design - and even then the opportunities for high level PCs to stunlock opponents into oblivion got out of hand.

A significant element of good high level play really has to come from GMs understanding the PCs the players have created. The more choices available in a game system (like Champions, Mutants and Masterminds, or 3e/PF) the more important this is. Rather than focus on rules at that level, I think more game design resources need to focus on analyzing what various choices lead to in the game. Champions does this reasonably well with some powers that have the potential to derail campaigns. PF could use a lot more of it, particularly when spells like fly and teleport become commonly available.


I admit that a character created at level such and so is always going to be optimized much better than a character where each level choice was made along the way. The other issue is gear selection and crafting, PCs made for a higher level game using the appropriate wealth are way better equipped than PCs who went through the levels.


ryric wrote:
Saldiven wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
mplindustries wrote:
High level play is boring and swingy.
Meh. Only if you spend all your time in combat. (Which if you get into combat, it will take up all your time.) If you instead spend your time exploring exotic locales that require your new powers to reach and traverse, and dealing with planes spanning plots and politics, where your attack bonuses don't matter as much as what you can do for your allies and enemies, it can be pretty fun.
But you don't need high levels to do the majority of those things.

It depends on how you set it up. It's difficult to do planar travel without at least 5th level spells, either provided by the PCs or by magic items, for example. If the PCs toys use high level stuff, you're still using it, you've just put limits on it.

Here's an example of a high level plot I ran once: Time is unraveling. There is a rift in reality centered on some event that has been erased from history, and it's growing bigger, both backwards and forwards in time, erasing events from the past and future as it grows. Fix it.

That's it. That's all the PCs get. They want to consult an expert? Who? They are the best experts in the world. How do I (as the GM) plan for them to solve it? I have no idea. Seems like a nasty problem to me. Hope the PCs have some good ideas.

If this were a lower level adventure, I'd feel like I'd have to give some clues, maybe a sage, or old journal from a time wizard or something, basically provide a way to win. But high levels free you from that constraint. You can make up the most crazy, undefeatable plots and watch your players use their PCs' amazing abilities to solve it.

The plane traveling is about the only part lower level characters couldn't do.

For the example you give, with a group of lower level characters, instead of the characters being the already experts on the subject matter, the adventure could easily revolve around the party having to find the forgotten, ascetic sage high on a lost mountain top who points them to the lost library in the center of a vast wasteland which points to a powerful artifact hidden in the ruins of a civilization sunk beneath an ocean to solve the problem.

Seriously, there is nothing that higher levels do that changes how the players' role playing, creativity, and problem solving abilities function.

(Don't get me wrong; I have no problem with high level adventures. I just seriously didn't understand how "exploring exotic locales that require your new powers to reach and traverse, and dealing with planes spanning plots and politics, where your attack bonuses don't matter as much as what you can do for your allies and enemies" could possibly be limited to higher level games.


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KenderKin wrote:
I admit that a character created at level such and so is always going to be optimized much better than a character where each level choice was made along the way. The other issue is gear selection and crafting, PCs made for a higher level game using the appropriate wealth are way better equipped than PCs who went through the levels.

Speaking from experience, this is not always true.

Myself and many other optimizers I know plan our progression very carefully from level 1-X [X being the projected end of the campaign] and often have a general idea of what we want to do after X [unless X is 20.]

Sometimes this means suffering through sub-optimal levels to hit the sweet spot where a combo comes together.

On the subject of gear, getting the important gear relevant to the build is usually just as easy [if not easier] in play, except in cases where the GM is specifically restricting access to magic items and/or wealth.


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There are a number of issues here, some have been mentioned, some havent.

The biggest one I think is that of storytelling. At 15+ you arent telling the same story as you were at 1st or even 10th levels. Yes its more complicated (a significant problem) and the diversity of options on both player and dm slow things down . Yes it takes a long time to get there and some games break up, or peter out before that. Yes balance problems between 'optimized choices' and 'sub-optimal' choices become dramatically more pronounced at high levels. But ultimately, those are all workable problems. You could have a story that starts at high levels. You could have a new dm pick up where an old dm left off and start a new story. You can make sure everyone puts together characters of similar power levels, and carefully learns all their abilities to keep the game moving. But you cant change the fact that you aren't playing lord of the rings anymore.

Not just in terms of 'power' as in the ability to end encounters. That can all be 'scaled' or use a 5E type 'bounded accuracy' thing. Very high level characters aren't fantasy characters anymore. At least not in the terms we are used to. They are DC's justice league. They are green lanter, superman, wonderwoman, the flash, batman. Characters so absurdly capable, that when they are teamed up you have to come up with truly contrived reasons they dont just fix whatever is wrong.

You can no longer tell many kinds of stories. You need a whole new story to crop up. How long does the lord of the rings take if the characters are high level pathfinder characters? 4 minutes? Forget using the eagles, Elrond had been to mount doom before. Greater teleport, drop ring, greater teleport. Man that was easy, who's up for some hobbit weed?

If Eddard stark was a 20th level Fighter, he would have literally laughed as the headmans axe failed to kill him after hitting him square in the neck. Not to mention arresting him would have been a fair bit more complicated given the difficulty in keeping high level characters prisoner, particularly if they have allies who are not prisoners. You have to have like some super high security death fortress to keep them contained...maybe.

It is hard to write and tell a good story with high level characters. You are strongly limited with the kinds of stories you can tell. The scale has to be grand, it has to be earth shaking, worldshaping and sort of crazy. Most dms and adventure writers alike really struggle with this. So, less games, which means less experience at high levels, which just exagerates all the other problems. But in the end, I think the most important issue, is it's impact on story.


KenderKin wrote:
I admit that a character created at level such and so is always going to be optimized much better than a character where each level choice was made along the way. The other issue is gear selection and crafting, PCs made for a higher level game using the appropriate wealth are way better equipped than PCs who went through the levels.

Both of these are a serious failure on the part of the dm. If they let people create new characters from scratch but NOT allow people to rework characters periodically (we have retraining rules now for crying outloud) if the player is disatisfied is asking for trouble. This just makes dropping characters for new ones more appealing and is bound to create strife in the group.

Also, if they are both under equiping characters (either intentionally or unintentionally) and/or dont let them in some fashion trade out less useful gear for more useful gear in some fashion AND they let new characters pick and choose precisely what they want by strict WBL they are being stupid. All they are doing is encouraging people to drop existing character for new ones, either by choice or death. That is bad gming 101 right there.

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kyrt-ryder wrote:

I have to pause and question... what exactly IS a well balanced encounter, and why does it matter so much? Does it matter whether the party steamrolls or 'struggles' or fights to the last man only to either finally triumph at the last second or completely and utterly fail?

I'm generally of the mindset that working too hard to balance encounters is counter-productive. I'd much rather just have fun throwing s+*# within 2-3CR of the party for the most part while stringing together some kind of story on the fly, with the occasional rare 'extra hard opponent' which may or may not actually truly be extra hard.

Quote:
(stuff that I [Lorathorn] said)
True enough, high level play has a lot of crazy s#*~. It's easy enough to pare down the worst of it with houserules, but those are indeed houserules rather than RAW.

I'm not saying that encounters need to be groomed to the extreme, though high level encounters demand a certain amount of detail oriented work...

But what I am saying is that there lies in high level play a difference between "fun encounter that almost killed us" and a TPK. Being in that zone becomes harder, and you chase the dragon (if you'll pardon my turn of phrase) trying to stay there more and more often. It is those fun fights that punctuate the combat experience, and not being able to accomplish them successfully is what can lead to burnout.

As far as houserules go, I think that contributes as well to the need to establish some sort of baseline for higher level play that is not necessarily intuitive. I firmly believe that it is a different skill set that is not being currently addressed within 3.5, especially as options continue to proliferate. #notabloatcomplaint

Bill Dunn wrote:


I think high level play can be done right, but it's not just a function of game design. 4e's take on it, particularly with the scheduled bonus advancements and mathematic attempt to extend the sweet spot, relied on game design to deliver it and was a pretty tightly constrained design - and even then the opportunities for high level PCs to stunlock opponents into oblivion got out of hand.

A significant element of good high level play really has to come from GMs understanding the PCs the players have created. The more choices available in a game system (like Champions, Mutants and Masterminds, or 3e/PF) the more important this is. Rather than focus on rules at that level, I think more game design resources need to focus on analyzing what various choices lead to in the game. Champions does this reasonably well with some powers that have the potential to derail campaigns. PF could use a lot more of it,...

Indeed. I think that the mentoring necessary to ingrain the tools for high level play need not be some rules document, but rather advice and guidelines, as well as a strong and solid statement that encourages discussions at the table about player agency and game master guidance. It's a hefty task, though needed as we have demonstrated.


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Hmm... variety of reasons.

Many have already been mentioned, so I will just point out the ones that I think could use a bit more emphasis or explanation.

Unlike a lot of people, I actually don't mind starting at 1st level. Though I think 2nd or 3rd often works a little better. (It is much more difficult to GM for 1st level and come up with something interesting / challenging that doesn't accidentally TPK on a couple of bad rolls.) But if you always start at very low levels some people just plain get tired of the whole thing before they get to really high level.

Some of it is a self replicating cycle. The GM never plays high level so doesn't really know how to handle it. The game starts to fall apart at high level, so he wraps it up. And never gets any experience at high level.

Some are the 'sameness' of themed campaigns.
A while back we played a heavily modified synthesis of Ravenloft and Carrion Crown set in Ebberon. Eventually we were just sick of fighting vampires and lycanthropes and rolling horror checks for things we had already been fighting for months. We pretty much had it down on what to do vs. various types. It became a yawn fest. We started using kinda stupid tactics just to see if it would work and because we really didn't care if we got killed anymore.
Does it have to be that way? No of course not, but it often is. Remember not too many GM's are actually professional caliber authors. They often have a good idea for a campaign. But that may not really be enough material for 20+ levels of encounters.

Slow and complex. If the group doesn't really force the pace of the game, it can really slow down. At 3rd level your PC probably really only has some where around 3 reasonable things he could probably do in any given round of combat. Once he gets to 18th level, even a simple character is likely to have a couple dozen possible things to do. Plus it becomes even more difficult to tell which ones are good from which ones are less good. I've heard of groups taking an hour or more for each round of combat especially at high level. Which could mean they can't even do 1 fight in an evening of play.

System breaks down. A few levels is so incredibly more powerful that things stop making sense. I've been in a few level 15+ situations with "Why isn't this guy running the world?" constantly running through my head.
Ok, the lich cleric 18 can quite obviously take on the whole entire country in a stand up fight all at the same time. No one else in the kingdom other than us is above 8th level, so really can't threaten him. Last month our characters were 8th level. So why didn't he just walk in, take charge, and kill anyone that disagreed? Why would he bother trying to trick/scam his way onto the throne?
(Plus you start getting silly things like the martial taking on the dinosaur with his bare hands just because he can.)
Again, does it have to be that way? No of course not, but it often is.

Anyway, that is some of my random thoughts.

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I think that ElterAgo mirrored my thoughts and then some. Thank you. (In other words, seconded)

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Levels 5 to 12 are usually the "sweet spot" of the game. You're heroic enough to face greater threats than goblins and bandits, but not powerful enough to render most adventuring tropes and skill checks completely trivial. This is so true that one of Pathfinder's designers is actually making his own RPG such that you spend 60% of the game in that sweet spot instead of only 40%.

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Saldiven wrote:


For the example you give, with a group of lower level characters, instead of the characters being the already experts on the subject matter, the adventure could easily revolve around the party having to find the forgotten, ascetic sage high on a lost mountain top who points them to the lost library in the center of a vast wasteland which points to a powerful artifact hidden in the ruins of a civilization sunk beneath an ocean to solve the problem.

Amusingly, your example of how to "level down" the plot illustrates one of the reasons I like high level play. In your example, basically the PCs become errand runners. They go find the hermit/sage, get the info, go find the artifact, and use it. All the power and agency comes from other, "better" characters than the PCs - all the actual planning and solving of the problem is done for them. In most good high level games, there is no one else to turn to. The PCs are it. They are the Justice League and if they can't solve the problem certainly no one else can.

It really hammers home to the players just how far they've come when they realize that they are now the high level guys who hire lesser groups to do the small stuff they don't have time for. They are now the group who has to deal with the unbeatable evil - do they seal it away for a later generation? Do they try to kill it now and risk the destruction of civilization? High level PCs should be making choices that change the world. They are the big boys now.


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ryric wrote:
Saldiven wrote:


For the example you give, with a group of lower level characters, instead of the characters being the already experts on the subject matter, the adventure could easily revolve around the party having to find the forgotten, ascetic sage high on a lost mountain top who points them to the lost library in the center of a vast wasteland which points to a powerful artifact hidden in the ruins of a civilization sunk beneath an ocean to solve the problem.

Amusingly, your example of how to "level down" the plot illustrates one of the reasons I like high level play. In your example, basically the PCs become errand runners. They go find the hermit/sage, get the info, go find the artifact, and use it. All the power and agency comes from other, "better" characters than the PCs - all the actual planning and solving of the problem is done for them. In most good high level games, there is no one else to turn to. The PCs are it. They are the Justice League and if they can't solve the problem certainly no one else can.

It really hammers home to the players just how far they've come when they realize that they are now the high level guys who hire lesser groups to do the small stuff they don't have time for. They are now the group who has to deal with the unbeatable evil - do they seal it away for a later generation? Do they try to kill it now and risk the destruction of civilization? High level PCs should be making choices that change the world. They are the big boys now.

I actually agree with you almost completely on this.

However, I also have to say that when I am GM, I just plain don't know how to write a good 'change the world' adventure.


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ElterAgo wrote:
ryric wrote:
Saldiven wrote:


For the example you give, with a group of lower level characters, instead of the characters being the already experts on the subject matter, the adventure could easily revolve around the party having to find the forgotten, ascetic sage high on a lost mountain top who points them to the lost library in the center of a vast wasteland which points to a powerful artifact hidden in the ruins of a civilization sunk beneath an ocean to solve the problem.

Amusingly, your example of how to "level down" the plot illustrates one of the reasons I like high level play. In your example, basically the PCs become errand runners. They go find the hermit/sage, get the info, go find the artifact, and use it. All the power and agency comes from other, "better" characters than the PCs - all the actual planning and solving of the problem is done for them. In most good high level games, there is no one else to turn to. The PCs are it. They are the Justice League and if they can't solve the problem certainly no one else can.

It really hammers home to the players just how far they've come when they realize that they are now the high level guys who hire lesser groups to do the small stuff they don't have time for. They are now the group who has to deal with the unbeatable evil - do they seal it away for a later generation? Do they try to kill it now and risk the destruction of civilization? High level PCs should be making choices that change the world. They are the big boys now.

I actually agree with you almost completely on this.

However, I also have to say that when I am GM, I just plain don't know how to write a good 'change the world' adventure.

Thankfully you really don't have to. Give the players freedom and agency and encourage/inspire them to go for their own goals and they will change the world for you. You just need to be ready to roll with the punches.


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Milo v3 wrote:

I've seen a decent amount of posts on this board about how anything above 15th level doesn't matter because no one ever plays at those levels, is that actually true in general?

I know my group does, but maybe we are in the minority. Why don't people play at high levels?

I have seen many arguments that many players feel like the game breaks down in the "high-level" gameplay arena. It depends on the GM and players. I've been told that my best games are those run in the higher levels (anything above 10th level). I always approach high-level play as the arena in which the PCs choices and actions have far reaching results, almost as though they are the "Justice League" or "Avengers" of the game. They don't just save people, they save the world. It can be taxing. It all depends on ones perspective. I think the fun levels as a GM exist in the 10 plus range, while as a player its 10 and lower that I enjoy.


1) Players usually get bored of their characters and want to play something else before we get there.

2) Players in the group move away and new players would prefer playing a new campaign.

3) Rocket tag: Based on initiative, either you kill or be killed. Damage just doesn't scale at all with hit points. It's not fun.

#1 and #2 are two reasons I like PFS so much.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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Oh yeah, I enjoy low level and high level play. Bizarrely, it's the so-called "sweet spot" that I enjoy least. I like being either a struggling neophyte or a world-shaking power player. I'm "reasonably competent" in real life so I like my fantasy time to be different.

ElterAgo, that sort of issue is why I think a high-level "how-to" guide is a good book idea; focusing on levels 13-20. The 2e High Level Campaigns book was a gold mine of advice for actually making high levels work. We haven't really had much since then. The ELH tried but it wasn't really there.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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To me, high-level play is VERY fun, but only if you get there organically, after building a character up from 1st level in the company of a group of allies so that you've not only built the character up to high level XP by XP (and thus know your character well), but so that you've built your character into the story of the world and the story of your fellow PCs.

The fact that it takes years to get there, and the fact that there are a LOT of ways for a campaign to end before it gets there, is my theory as to why there's not more high-level play. It takes time to get there, and therefore there are just more low level players because it doesn't take time to get THERE.


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those are good words that make a lot of sense

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Saldiven wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
mplindustries wrote:
High level play is boring and swingy.
Meh. Only if you spend all your time in combat. (Which if you get into combat, it will take up all your time.) If you instead spend your time exploring exotic locales that require your new powers to reach and traverse, and dealing with planes spanning plots and politics, where your attack bonuses don't matter as much as what you can do for your allies and enemies, it can be pretty fun.
But you don't need high levels to do the majority of those things.

That only highlights the point that if high levels are 'boring and swingy' then so are low levels.


TriOmegaZero wrote:


That only highlights the point that if high levels are 'boring and swingy' then so are low levels.

That is also true. I think mid levels are the sweet spot for gameplay

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

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What might be a better question is "What are the warning signs that high level play is going to be unstable?"

It almost always comes down to magic and what it can do.

Your campaign is going to change when:

---The PC's can cover vast distances easily, without covering the distance in between. This means you don't have a journey of attrition, AND that they are no longer subject to one country's laws...they can just go elsewhere.

---They can find out 'secret/rare/hidden knowledge' instantly/quickly. This is usually accomplished via divination magic, or magically aided skill checks.
Suddenly there are no longer other experts they need to rely on.

A lesser version of this is makers/crafters. When Fabricate and Masterwork Item can instantly make up any raw desired item you want, and instantly, you have precious little need for lower level people around to do stuff you don't know. No need to commission a smith for a masterwork X when one skill point and Fabricate does what days/weeks/months of labor do.

---When they can one-round powerful monster routinely.
This puts them far above the power level of the average person, and distances them from them. It makes it hard to relate to people when you are so much mightier then them, and know it. Likewise, the comic book secret identity thing just doesn't work in PF, so you can't have a low level beloved wife and children and nice civilian life, because some enemy of yours will wipe them out without a second thought. Peter Parker in PF would be a renowned knight of the kingdom, not a schlepping broadsheet guy.

---Spells with guarantees to work, or save/dies.
Things like geas, that make someone your servant and slave. Spells where if you lose the save, you die to overwhelming damage or outright death effects.
Ouch. Combat becomes a different animal. There's no room or time...you make the save, or you're done.

---Imbalance between character classes.
Characters drive the story. Martial/caster disparity is a thing, and nowhere more visible then at high levels. Casters can do so many things, have so many options, and melees have no class abilities offering them anything nearly as unique.
As Kirth puts in, equal ability to drive the narrative. When the casters are zipping around the world, making private demiplanes, recruiting powerful outsiders, making simulacarums, instantly doing six months crafting with one spell, changing into all sorts of monsters, and plumbing the secrets of the universe...they are also capable of doing the exact same king of political schlepping and kingdom building that a fighter would be involved in, because they are just as good at it.
Or better. They can make magic items.

These are the problems with the game and how it's made, and they just become bigger problems at higher levels.

Like 4E, the game really does have 3 stages. And at some point, you have to set your players down and tell them the game is going to change, and do they want to change with it? Or is it time for something new to get back to the sweet spot they've always enjoyed?

Or do they want to cap things now, here, where it's fun, and work from this point? Which is where your E6,8, 10, and E12 (PFS) come from.

==Aelryinth


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I disagree with every single point Aelryinth made, and I suspect that the vast majority of his positions are due to the types of games he plays in.

The idea of teleportation inspiring lawlessness, or that secrets can be discovered quickly and easily with even spells like vision or commune, that equal CR monsters are trivial or that high levels preclude relationships with low level characters, and so forth is completely alien to me in every meaningful game in which I've ever played at high levels.

But then I suspect my lower level games are also vastly different than his games too, what with it taking like a year to go from 5th to 9th level even with two players and 6-8 hour games every week.


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I agree with almost everything Aeiryinth said. The only part I disagree with is no save, save or die, etc. spells are not a problem at high levels. They're a problem at all levels. Followed closely by the poorly written ones, the ones that make other classes look like chumps, and the ones that make other subsystems look like chumps.

Greater Teleport cannot miss, cannot be stopped (except by Forbiddance), and if you're wrong you just return to where you cast the spell. Forgot travel and local laws, anything not covered by Forbiddance (so someone paid an 11th level cleric several pounds of gold) or actively watched by a guard at all times will just disappear. Include the number of outsiders with at-will Greater Teleport and everything not nailed down will disappear in a poof of brimstone. That's not high level though, that's Lesser Planar Binding a Bearded Devil.

Meet the spell Turn rumors into reliable information. Takes a while if you start with rumors (2 months on average) but can literally turn rumors into reliable information. Oh, and includes the note that:

Legend Lore wrote:
As a rule of thumb, characters who are 11th level and higher are "legendary," as are the sorts of creatures they contend with, the major magic items they wield, and the places where they perform their key deeds.

So it works on everything level 11 or CR 11 or higher. So not necessarily something you can learn super fast, but the fact that you can turn vague rumors into concrete information (information that was forgotten or never generally known) with no chance of failure or misinformation is pretty powerful.

If you've regularly played high level combat you should be super familiar with this line: "Everyone roll a Will/Reflex/Fort save". Auras, AoEs, death throes, breath weapons, I'm sure I could find more names for them. High level combat is no place for a low-level character to find themself. They'll probably be dead by accident before they can act.

Fighters have the same number of base skill points and non-combat feats as wizards. Technically I think wizards have more because they also get free feats, but we're calling them even to make a point. Anything the fighter can do with the story the wizard can do. Plus spells. And the wizard probably has more actual skill points because they actually use Int. The only thing the fighter contributes at higher levels is the same thing they contributed at lower levels (fighting and skills, also known as the things every class can do). The wizard gets whole new spell levels, more of them, and their lower level spells grow more powerful.


Hmm... I should probably make some Legendary Feats for characters at 11th level, with most of them being combat feats and having at most one other feat as a prerequisite.


Milo v3 wrote:
Hmm... I should probably make some Legendary Feats for characters at 11th level, with most of them being combat feats and having at most one other feat as a prerequisite.

Why not skip the middle ground and just let 11th level characters take Mythic feats? :P


Because then you have casters taking Mythic Spellcasting.

Also, my player's setting doesn't allow mythic.

And finally, lets fighters get some new tricks since I get to homebrew the tricks up.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Like the Epic Level Handbook, some Mythic feats would be fine at 1st level, and some should never have been written.


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Aelryinth post is a perfect explaination of why there are no high level games: most people can't be arsed with actually adapt to the new paradigm and just want to run the same exact crap, just with higher numbers.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Like the Epic Level Handbook, some Mythic feats would be fine at 1st level, and some should never have been written.

Oh come one. It has all the fun* of high level, and it doesn't take a year to get there.

*definition provided by the munchkin dictionary, between unbalanced ("takes 2 turns to kill") and level appropriate equipment ("+6 greatsword of god slaying by level 2 or it is not wealth by level")


kyrt-ryder wrote:
ElterAgo wrote:
ryric wrote:

...

It really hammers home to the players just how far they've come when they realize that they are now the high level guys who hire lesser groups to do the small stuff they don't have time for. They are now the group who has to deal with the unbeatable evil - do they seal it away for a later generation? Do they try to kill it now and risk the destruction of civilization? High level PCs should be making choices that change the world. They are the big boys now.

I actually agree with you almost completely on this.

However, I also have to say that when I am GM, I just plain don't know how to write a good 'change the world' adventure.

Thankfully you really don't have to. Give the players freedom and agency and encourage/inspire them to go for their own goals and they will change the world for you. You just need to be ready to roll with the punches.

Ok, now I have to call bull carp on you. I have never seen a worthwhile campaign where the GM doesn't have anything set up and just says "Whatever you want to do. La ... " resulting in a believable storyline from level 1 to 20.

There might be a few times it happens and I would call those groups spectacularly lucky. But it is ridiculous to just assume anyone can do that and it will just work out for them.
.
.

Dekalinder wrote:
Aelryinth post is a perfect explaination of why there are no high level games: most people can't be arsed with actually adapt to the new paradigm and just want to run the same exact crap, just with higher numbers.

Disagree to an extent. I know of quite a few people who have tried quite diligently and creatively to keep the game going in the upper levels. Yet have still been unable to come up with any kind of meaningful plot that makes sense other than you are now fighting the gods.

In less than a year of game time, the PC's are suddenly a few orders of magnitude more powerful than anyone else in the civilization.
However, they suddenly find out the powers greater than themselves that have been working to overthrow the civilization for hundreds of years. Apparently the level 8 crowd held them in check for a few hundred years. But suddenly and just coincidentally, the same year that the PC's become nearly god like is the same year the forces of evil realized they don't need to let the level 8 crowd stop them. Yeah right ...

Almost every single high level campaign I've seen has about that level of believability or is a fight against the gods.
OR
They make a completely different setting decision and there are lots (relatively) of good and bad higher level NPC's running around all along. So yes there were people to keep them in check before. Still takes some believability dumping to have none of them suddenly be available anymore. But not nearly so much problem.
Unfortunately, then the low level game suffers consistency and believability problems. Most of the earth shaking stuff the PC's did at lower level no longer make sense.
If the kingdom had a few level 17+ NPC's on call to deal with problems. Why were the nobles even slightly plagued by the wraith last spring. It would have literally only taken about 15 minutes of no-sweat effort before breakfast to eliminate it and save those half dozen nobles that got consumed.

Is it a mandatory problem that is completely insurmountable? No of course not. There are people that do play enjoyable high level games. But most players, GM's, and groups that I have seen find it vastly more difficult to play a campaign that goes from level 1 to level 30.

I believe it is a system problem that has gotten worse with the various iterations of the game. Try taking a look at the capability difference between say a 3rd level and 17th level character in the old blue and red box. Compare that to the PF 3rd and 17th.
There is a much greater difference today. Most especially if you look at casting classes. But it is still there when you look at a reasonably built and equipped martial or skill character.


A lot has been said already, but my main reasons:

- Game balance is much better at low levels than at high levels.
- Most games start at level 1 but not all go very long. And even IF you play a complete AP most of the time played is below level 15.
- It's harder to make fights interesting without making them too lethal, at higher levels.


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@ElterAgo
First, your world need to be fitted for high level characters from the start, not retrofitted after your PC got a few levels.

On the second issue, the answer is the same os why wasn't Elrond but Frodo carring the ring. Or why in the company there was Legolas instead of Thranduil, why gandal was always somewhere else ecc.
The short of it, is that there are always bigger troubles. And on the other hands, you always need fresh blood to rise up through the ranks.
Also, even if 17 level wizards may be aroud, that doesn't mean they are actually available. If you are a 17 level character, you definatly can't be bothered to interrupt your planeshaping resarch to come solving some low level trouble.

I encourage you to read the thread that was linked in the first page.

No one ever suggested that running a high level campaign was easy. But the classic complaint that "the games break" is only because people refuse to adapt to the new paradigm.

On a last note, if I remember correctly, in the BECMI starting 10th level you had to deal with characters having castles, reigns, wizard towers, and warriors having armies in the thousands of mens. It's just that right now people complain much too easly.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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Dekalinder wrote:
It's just that right now people complain much too easly.

Eh, I wouldn't say that people today complain any more than people of the days of yore. I had a subscription to Dragon back in the 80's and there was still complaining about broken rules, oddball rulings, and so forth. High levels have always been a challenge. The 1e module Throne of Bloodstone(for character levels 18-100) had a whole section on advice for high level play.

Transitioning to high levels has always been tricky. It's a ton of fun if you grok it but I can see how it's frustrating if you don't.

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