Why don't people play at high-level?

[Bob Bob Bob]

Legend Lore can be cast again to turn incomplete information into more complete information. It points that out in the spell description. The rule of thumb it gives indicates that at some point characters become legendary, I don't personally care what that point is, the overall point is that at some level of "high level play" you become a valid target for the spell "Tell me everything you know about this person", including "where can I start looking for them" (the places where they perform their key deeds) and "what's their equipment" (the major magic items they wield).

As for the low-level person in high level combat, I did make a lot of assumptions. First, that the lower level people are not being protected by higher level people's resources. So they're not wearing pimped out gear, not hiding on private demiplanes, not walking around with Solar bodyguards, etc. Next, that the high level player occasionally visits them and not just admires them from afar. Also doesn't pluck them up and take them to wherever the high level player is living. And finally, that occasionally the high level player is ambushed or otherwise engages in combat they did not start. Combined, that leads to a lot of dead villagers. That's not including taking hostages or other malicious intent, just collateral damage from high level combat.

[Kirth Gersen]

ElterAgo wrote:

Just off the top of my head, I can think of 2 published where the ultimate BBEG has divinations, predictions, auguries, whatever that clearly indicate the PC’s are a threat to his very survival. So confident in the truth of that, he sends assassins to kill them across the nation or world on multiple occasions. Yet for some reason he only sends very weak, inexperienced, and small numbers of assassins after them. Yet at the end of the thing you find out BBEG has literally hundreds of agents more powerful than what he sent and dozens that are much more powerful than what he sent.

This always bugged me, too, until I opted for a more indeterminate future/T2 cosmology. The BBEG knows someone will eventually be a threat, but won't know it's the PCs until they get up there in level. Until then, there's a better than even chance that any given adventurer or group of adventurers will die or get side-tracked onto other stuff before becoming a threat. This means abandoning the AP-as-railroad paradigm, and it means not minding too much if PCs die, or change their mission, or whatever. It works out better, then -- you (the DM) have no idea if this particular low-level party will ever be a threat to the BBEG, so neither do the gods, and therefore, neither does the BBEG.

[LazarX]

ryric wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Along the way, we seem to have forgotten that rules on magic item and pocket plane creation were made to regulate PC activity, not the DM. No one ever asked for a list of spells that went into creating Strahd's fortress in Ravenloft, or that spinning giant diamond fortress floating inside a volcano, or that storm giant's castle riding the clouds. They were just there for us to explore, get pasted in, and conquer if we could.

Actually I want that. (kind of) I don't need to know the specifics, but anything an NPC can do should be explainable within the system. Sure, maybe the answer is that it requires a special Craft Arcane Fortress feat, 10 years of downtime, and millions of gp - so that a PC likely wouldn't want to do it - but if a player says "hey, how do I make a floating cloud castle?" I want to be able to answer it. NPCs shouldn't get special powers because they are NPCs. They may get special powers because they are vampires, or demons, or dragons, or because they did a evil ritual and sacrificed people to the dark gods - but not just because they are NPCs and the players can't have that.

Yes they absolutely SHOULD get special powers. At high levels you need that bit of unpredictability more so than ever. You need something to remind the PC's that the more they find out about the world (or just cheat by cramming the source books), the more there is yet to know. That, and I don't feel I should be obliged to come up with item crafting rules they will never have access to.

[Kain Darkwind]

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

Legend Lore can be cast again to turn incomplete information into more complete information. It points that out in the spell description. The rule of thumb it gives indicates that at some point characters become legendary, I don't personally care what that point is, the overall point is that at some level of "high level play" you become a valid target for the spell "Tell me everything you know about this person", including "where can I start looking for them" (the places where they perform their key deeds) and "what's their equipment" (the major magic items they wield).

I'm unfamiliar with that spell. Legend Lore certainly isn't that spell. At best, it gives you a legend.

What enhancements did Excalibur have? That's pretty much the iconic magic sword right there, and we have at least three different published d20 versions of it. You get legends, not game stats. And that's if the item is at hand. You get information enough to seek it out (sounds like a quest) if the item is not at hand. Legend Lore doesn't solve mysteries, it sends the casters (or their minions) on adventures seeking out those mysteries. That's like the exact opposite of a spell that ruins high level adventures. It literally generates them.

[kyrt-ryder]

LazarX wrote:

ryric wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Along the way, we seem to have forgotten that rules on magic item and pocket plane creation were made to regulate PC activity, not the DM. No one ever asked for a list of spells that went into creating Strahd's fortress in Ravenloft, or that spinning giant diamond fortress floating inside a volcano, or that storm giant's castle riding the clouds. They were just there for us to explore, get pasted in, and conquer if we could.

Actually I want that. (kind of) I don't need to know the specifics, but anything an NPC can do should be explainable within the system. Sure, maybe the answer is that it requires a special Craft Arcane Fortress feat, 10 years of downtime, and millions of gp - so that a PC likely wouldn't want to do it - but if a player says "hey, how do I make a floating cloud castle?" I want to be able to answer it. NPCs shouldn't get special powers because they are NPCs. They may get special powers because they are vampires, or demons, or dragons, or because they did a evil ritual and sacrificed people to the dark gods - but not just because they are NPCs and the players can't have that.

Yes they absolutely SHOULD get special powers. At high levels you need that bit of unpredictability more so than ever. You need something to remind the PC's that the more they find out about the world (or just cheat by cramming the source books), the more there is yet to know. That, and I don't feel I should be obliged to come up with item crafting rules they will never have access to.

They should totally have access to. The point being that in the midst of a campaign they're unlikely to choose to do so. But maybe during downtime your high level characters create just such a fortress/citadel/realm

[LazarX]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

LazarX wrote:

ryric wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Along the way, we seem to have forgotten that rules on magic item and pocket plane creation were made to regulate PC activity, not the DM. No one ever asked for a list of spells that went into creating Strahd's fortress in Ravenloft, or that spinning giant diamond fortress floating inside a volcano, or that storm giant's castle riding the clouds. They were just there for us to explore, get pasted in, and conquer if we could.

Actually I want that. (kind of) I don't need to know the specifics, but anything an NPC can do should be explainable within the system. Sure, maybe the answer is that it requires a special Craft Arcane Fortress feat, 10 years of downtime, and millions of gp - so that a PC likely wouldn't want to do it - but if a player says "hey, how do I make a floating cloud castle?" I want to be able to answer it. NPCs shouldn't get special powers because they are NPCs. They may get special powers because they are vampires, or demons, or dragons, or because they did a evil ritual and sacrificed people to the dark gods - but not just because they are NPCs and the players can't have that.

Yes they absolutely SHOULD get special powers. At high levels you need that bit of unpredictability more so than ever. You need something to remind the PC's that the more they find out about the world (or just cheat by cramming the source books), the more there is yet to know. That, and I don't feel I should be obliged to come up with item crafting rules they will never have access to.

They should totally have access to. The point being that in the midst of a campaign they're unlikely to choose to do so. But maybe during downtime your high level characters create just such a fortress/citadel/realm

I don't think we're going to agree on this. Full disclosure, I spent ten years away from D+D, and my gaming philosophy has been heavily influenced by story-based rpg's such as Ars Magica and Storyteller which pretty much goes under a philosophy quite opposite. That not all questions can be answered, and not all things duplicated.

[kyrt-ryder]

Yeah, we probably won't agree on it. I come from a heavy story-based background wherein the players are equal builders of the world and story to the GM.

[Errant Mercenary]

I am TERRIFIED of having to run high level games..never have. The campaign I am running (AP S&Shackles) has many humanoids and I modify it further to be very sandboxy and with even more humanoids (crews of ships, famous pirates..). This means PC classes....having to create so many high level enemies is a nightmare.

One encounter...3 enemies. A cleric, a fighter and a rogue. Level 16. Build them...then another encounter...*headache*

I might just have to move on to monsters.

[LazarX]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Yeah, we probably won't agree on it. I come from a heavy story-based background wherein the players are equal builders of the world and story to the GM.

The players can be equal contributors, that doesn't mean their characters have to be equal to the DM's NPC's to do so. One does not require the other.

[Puna'chong]

LazarX wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Yeah, we probably won't agree on it. I come from a heavy story-based background wherein the players are equal builders of the world and story to the GM.

The players can be equal contributors, that doesn't mean their characters have to be equal to the DM's NPC's to do so. One does not require the other.

Have to agree with LazarX on this: if bosses (not just enemies, or minions, but BOSSES) have to play by the rules all the time, they become a lot less interesting. But if you, say, give them two standard actions a turn, or make their fireball require two Reflex saves instead of one, or whatever, it can be a lot more fun. The PCs are beating things as a party that alone could womp them. And sometimes when you're a DM it's fun to just throw something out there that's interesting or different for you to "play" as. And it puts the fear of god into players when suddenly big bad dragon does something they couldn't have predicted. So long as it isn't just "LAZER BEEM DC 45 FORT OR DIE!!" it can add in some dramatic tension.

[kyrt-ryder]

Having multiple standard actions is sort of turning the 'boss' [a concept I'm not really a huge fan of to begin with' from a single encounter into a multi-encounter. Players are already paired up with others to become a party with multiple actions per round.

Players can cast fireball that requires two reflex saves, it's called Persistent Spell

As a GM I don't put anything in the game that I wouldn't be fine with the party having in some sense.

[tonyz]

One difficulty I run into is that high-level monsters require a lot more effort to DM.

Even if you're using standard stuff right out of the book, a CR14 monster has a MUCH more complicated statblock than a CR1 or CR2 monster -- many more abilities to keep track of, many more attacks and options. So for the same amount of game time you end up spending 2X or 3X or 4X the prep time, and after a while it's just too much of a grind to be worth the effort. Especially if you have to rebuild or tweak them since most players have a LOT more room for optimization in their builds, and are MUCH more effective at high levels than whatever standard was being used to build high-CR monsters.

[Puna'chong]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Having multiple standard actions is sort of turning the 'boss' [a concept I'm not really a huge fan of to begin with] from a single encounter into a multi-encounter. Players are already paired up with others to become a party with multiple actions per round.

Eeeeeexactly.

[thejeff]

Puna'chong wrote:

LazarX wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Yeah, we probably won't agree on it. I come from a heavy story-based background wherein the players are equal builders of the world and story to the GM.

The players can be equal contributors, that doesn't mean their characters have to be equal to the DM's NPC's to do so. One does not require the other.

Have to agree with LazarX on this: if bosses (not just enemies, or minions, but BOSSES) have to play by the rules all the time, they become a lot less interesting. But if you, say, give them two standard actions a turn, or make their fireball require two Reflex saves instead of one, or whatever, it can be a lot more fun. The PCs are beating things as a party that alone could womp them. And sometimes when you're a DM it's fun to just throw something out there that's interesting or different for you to "play" as. And it puts the fear of god into players when suddenly big bad dragon does something they couldn't have predicted. So long as it isn't just "LAZER BEEM DC 45 FORT OR DIE!!" it can add in some dramatic tension.

That's not really what we're talking about, though it's not a bad idea on it's own. Like the Legendary abilities some monsters get in 5E.

More narrative structure things here. Where the evil wizard's tower that's bigger on the inside came from. What spell created the plague we're trying to stop. How the evil Warlord created his Artifact of Doom.
Those don't all need to be spelled out in mechanics that are available to the players.

[kyrt-ryder]

thejeff wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

LazarX wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Yeah, we probably won't agree on it. I come from a heavy story-based background wherein the players are equal builders of the world and story to the GM.

The players can be equal contributors, that doesn't mean their characters have to be equal to the DM's NPC's to do so. One does not require the other.

Have to agree with LazarX on this: if bosses (not just enemies, or minions, but BOSSES) have to play by the rules all the time, they become a lot less interesting. But if you, say, give them two standard actions a turn, or make their fireball require two Reflex saves instead of one, or whatever, it can be a lot more fun. The PCs are beating things as a party that alone could womp them. And sometimes when you're a DM it's fun to just throw something out there that's interesting or different for you to "play" as. And it puts the fear of god into players when suddenly big bad dragon does something they couldn't have predicted. So long as it isn't just "LAZER BEEM DC 45 FORT OR DIE!!" it can add in some dramatic tension.

That's not really what we're talking about, though it's not a bad idea on it's own. Like the Legendary abilities some monsters get in 5E.

More narrative structure things here. Where the evil wizard's tower that's bigger on the inside came from. What spell created the plague we're trying to stop. How the evil Warlord created his Artifact of Doom.
Those don't all need to be spelled out in mechanics that are available to the players.

But what if the players ARE evil Warlords attempting to create an Artifact of Doom, or they want their own evil Wizard tower to be bigger on the inside, or to start their own plague?

I'm not saying a given group of PCs needs to know how it works, but I am saying it should be within their capability to do it given the right circumstances and resources.

[Chess Pwn]

Puna'chong wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Having multiple standard actions is sort of turning the 'boss' [a concept I'm not really a huge fan of to begin with] from a single encounter into a multi-encounter. Players are already paired up with others to become a party with multiple actions per round.

Eeeeeexactly.

Player: "Wow, How can that guy do that?"

DM: "He's a boss so he can"
Player: "How can I be a boss"
DM: "You can't. You can bend reality to your will, but you can't become a boss."
Player: "That doesn't make any sense. We're in the same world aren't we, why is it possible for some of our foes to do this but we can't? What is it they have that we don't?"

[kyrt-ryder]

Chess Pwn wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Having multiple standard actions is sort of turning the 'boss' [a concept I'm not really a huge fan of to begin with] from a single encounter into a multi-encounter. Players are already paired up with others to become a party with multiple actions per round.

Eeeeeexactly.

Player: "Wow, How can that guy do that?"

DM: "He's a boss so he can"
Player: "How can I be a boss"
DM: "You can't. You can bend reality to your will, but you can't become a boss."
Player: "That doesn't make any sense. We're in the same world aren't we, why is it possible for some of our foes to do this but we can't? What is it they have that we don't?"

They're being RP'd by god apparently, sucks to be you doesn't it.

[thejeff]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

LazarX wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Yeah, we probably won't agree on it. I come from a heavy story-based background wherein the players are equal builders of the world and story to the GM.

The players can be equal contributors, that doesn't mean their characters have to be equal to the DM's NPC's to do so. One does not require the other.

Have to agree with LazarX on this: if bosses (not just enemies, or minions, but BOSSES) have to play by the rules all the time, they become a lot less interesting. But if you, say, give them two standard actions a turn, or make their fireball require two Reflex saves instead of one, or whatever, it can be a lot more fun. The PCs are beating things as a party that alone could womp them. And sometimes when you're a DM it's fun to just throw something out there that's interesting or different for you to "play" as. And it puts the fear of god into players when suddenly big bad dragon does something they couldn't have predicted. So long as it isn't just "LAZER BEEM DC 45 FORT OR DIE!!" it can add in some dramatic tension.

That's not really what we're talking about, though it's not a bad idea on it's own. Like the Legendary abilities some monsters get in 5E.

More narrative structure things here. Where the evil wizard's tower that's bigger on the inside came from. What spell created the plague we're trying to stop. How the evil Warlord created his Artifact of Doom.
Those don't all need to be spelled out in mechanics that are available to the players.

But what if the players ARE evil Warlords attempting to create an Artifact of Doom, or they want their own evil Wizard tower to be bigger on the inside, or to start their own plague?

I'm not saying a given group of PCs needs to know how it works, but I am saying it should be within their capability to do it given the right circumstances and resources.

Then they can go research it for years and be the big bads of the next game I run.

That's what the first guy did.

Game over. What do you want to play next?

[kyrt-ryder]

thejeff wrote:

Then they can go research it for years and be the big bads of the next game I run.

That's what the first guy did.
Game over. What do you want to play next?

Evil Conquest and Overlord Opposing Adventurers the RPG, Pathfinder Edition.

[Aelryinth]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Peter Stewart wrote:

The idea of teleportation inspiring lawlessness... is completely alien to me

Larry Niven has writing about that specific topic for the last 40 years.

It's the trope that the whole Lensman series is based on...the need for a Galactic Patrol, with authority in all space, and credentials that can't be faked.

meaning it's been a main factor in storytelling since the 30's, at least, and if you count 'gods not bound by mortal realms', since the beginning of storytelling!

==Aelryinth

[Charon's Little Helper]

Chess Pwn wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Having multiple standard actions is sort of turning the 'boss' [a concept I'm not really a huge fan of to begin with] from a single encounter into a multi-encounter. Players are already paired up with others to become a party with multiple actions per round.

Eeeeeexactly.

Player: "Wow, How can that guy do that?"

DM: "He's a boss so he can"
Player: "How can I be a boss"
DM: "You can't. You can bend reality to your will, but you can't become a boss."
Player: "That doesn't make any sense. We're in the same world aren't we, why is it possible for some of our foes to do this but we can't? What is it they have that we don't?"

The easiest way to deal with that is with Lich style rules.

DM: Okay - you can do that - but first your character has to sell his soul, eat 40 innocent babies, and time travel into his own body 14 times and risk fracturing the space-time continum. Then he becomes an NPC - because I'm not allowing a player character to be that freaky evil.

[Aelryinth]

I note my post was cited multiple times, and thank you, but make no error...those aren't problems with MY game worlds.

Those are problems with the official rules.

I'm plenty happy to rule in limitations on spells and things that don't break the paradigm of the world.
=============

As for what high level people are doing all this time...the answer is "Heroes of another story," I.e. the trope where someone did something awesome off-screen that you don't know anything about.

I was once going to write up a conversation between two people, one of them a storyteller.

The first was about a group of low level adventurer types fighting some smugglers bringing a new drug into the city, cutting off the first tentacle of expansion of a foreign drug cartel.

The next tale was about some adventurers a little more established venturing into the sewers to deal with a mad druid attempting to breed pestilence with disease bearing rats down there.

The third was some people a little higher up investigating a rabid priest stirring up trouble against the druids and rangers that roved the boundaries of the realm as heretics and blasphemers, stopping him before the countryside revolted against the city.

The fourth was some valiant heroes facing off against giants pressing in on the borders while the rangers were distracted by this mad threat.

The fifth was about mercenaries hunting down a red dragon and its horde that had appeared after over a century, and not incidentally driven many giants down out of the mountain.

The sixth was about a band of holy heroes assaulting a nightmare keep where a vampire knight was whelming a necromantic army in anticipation of his master's return.

The seventh was about a group of living legends penetrating an ancient ruin to find the phylactery of a lich long thought destroyed.

And the last was about an archmage telling stories of his unwitting agents' foiling the plots of a returned lich who had stolen the body of one of the nobles of the city, so he could distract the lich enough to gain the time to make sure the lich didn't get away.

And then he gets up as the lich in his stolen body dies the final death, sighing and putting into motion things to stop a demon with a mad on for the royal family from three hundred years ago from exacting its final revenge against the descendants of the paladin-king that banished it. That one might entail a trip to the Abyss or two to make sure it didn't repeat.

and then he was going to need four months just to make the doo-dad necessary to stop that damn dark priest and his little crucible from blighting half the continent...he'd have to have adventurers start nibbling around that man's holdings to slow things down and give him more time, as for certain other things were going to come up...

:)

That's what the high level people are doing.

==Aelryinth

[kyrt-ryder]

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Having multiple standard actions is sort of turning the 'boss' [a concept I'm not really a huge fan of to begin with] from a single encounter into a multi-encounter. Players are already paired up with others to become a party with multiple actions per round.

Eeeeeexactly.

Player: "Wow, How can that guy do that?"

DM: "He's a boss so he can"
Player: "How can I be a boss"
DM: "You can't. You can bend reality to your will, but you can't become a boss."
Player: "That doesn't make any sense. We're in the same world aren't we, why is it possible for some of our foes to do this but we can't? What is it they have that we don't?"

The easiest way to deal with that is with Lich style rules.

DM: Okay - you can do that - but first your character has to sell his soul, eat 40 innocent babies, and time travel into his own body 14 times and risk fracturing the space-time continum. Then he becomes an NPC - because I'm not allowing a player character to be that freaky evil.

Boooooooo *throws rotten tomatoes at the Ferryman's minion*

[thejeff]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Having multiple standard actions is sort of turning the 'boss' [a concept I'm not really a huge fan of to begin with] from a single encounter into a multi-encounter. Players are already paired up with others to become a party with multiple actions per round.

Eeeeeexactly.

Player: "Wow, How can that guy do that?"

DM: "He's a boss so he can"
Player: "How can I be a boss"
DM: "You can't. You can bend reality to your will, but you can't become a boss."
Player: "That doesn't make any sense. We're in the same world aren't we, why is it possible for some of our foes to do this but we can't? What is it they have that we don't?"

The easiest way to deal with that is with Lich style rules.

DM: Okay - you can do that - but first your character has to sell his soul, eat 40 innocent babies, and time travel into his own body 14 times and risk fracturing the space-time continum. Then he becomes an NPC - because I'm not allowing a player character to be that freaky evil.

Boooooooo *throws rotten tomatoes at the Ferryman's minion*

Not that I have any strong objection to evil parties, but I think they should still be evil adventurers. Not BBEGs in someone else's adventure.

Which is what the narrative kind of hand-wavy stuff I'm talking about is for.

[Gilfalas]

Aelryinth wrote:

... As for what high level people are doing all this time...the answer is "Heroes of another story," I.e. the trope where someone did something awesome off-screen that you don't know anything about.

I was once going to write up a conversation between two people, one of them a storyteller ... tons more really inspired things ...

Brilliant sir. Absolutely brilliant.

[kyrt-ryder]

thejeff wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Having multiple standard actions is sort of turning the 'boss' [a concept I'm not really a huge fan of to begin with] from a single encounter into a multi-encounter. Players are already paired up with others to become a party with multiple actions per round.

Eeeeeexactly.

Player: "Wow, How can that guy do that?"

DM: "He's a boss so he can"
Player: "How can I be a boss"
DM: "You can't. You can bend reality to your will, but you can't become a boss."
Player: "That doesn't make any sense. We're in the same world aren't we, why is it possible for some of our foes to do this but we can't? What is it they have that we don't?"

The easiest way to deal with that is with Lich style rules.

DM: Okay - you can do that - but first your character has to sell his soul, eat 40 innocent babies, and time travel into his own body 14 times and risk fracturing the space-time continum. Then he becomes an NPC - because I'm not allowing a player character to be that freaky evil.

Boooooooo *throws rotten tomatoes at the Ferryman's minion*

Not that I have any strong objection to evil parties, but I think they should still be evil adventurers. Not BBEGs in someone else's adventure.

It's been done before

EDIT: incidentally, where do your adventurers call home? Once they reach a certain level this sort of lair is a natural type of thing for them to pursue. There's a reason for the proliferation of the 'Wizard's tower' trope.

[LazarX]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Peter Stewart wrote:

The idea of teleportation inspiring lawlessness... is completely alien to me

Larry Niven has writing about that specific topic for the last 40 years.

Alfred Bester did a much better job in one single book. "The Stars My Destination", with the implications of personal teleportation becoming a common ability... more common than literacy.

There were land riots as the jaunting poor deserted slums to squat in plains and forests, raiding the livestock and wildlife. There was a revolution in home and office building; labyrinths and masking devices had to be introduced to prevent unlawful entry by jaunting. There were crashes and panics and strikes and famines as pre-jaunte industries failed.

Plauges and pandemics raged as jaunting vagrants carried disease and vermin into defenseless countries. Malaria, elephantiatis, and the breakbone fever came to Greenland; rabies returned to England after an absence of three hundred years. The Japanese beetle, the citrus scale, the chestnut blight, and the elm borer spread to every corner of the word, and from one forgotten pesthole in Borneo, leporsy, long imagined extinct, reappeared.

Crime waves swept the planets and satelites as their underworlds took to jaunting with the night around the lock, and there were brutalities as police fought them withotu quarter. There came a hideous return to the worst prudery of Victorianism as society fought the sexual and moral dangers of jaunting with protocol and taboo. A cruel and vicious war broke out between the Inner Planets, Venus, Terra, and Mars-- and the Outer Satelites ... a war brought on by the economic and political pressures of teleportation.

[Captain Morgan]

lemeres wrote:

Chengar Qordath wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

Getting past 12th gets tiresome as a DM. It's really just a lot of paperwork and bookkeeping, and if it's bad for players, it's even harder on a DM. For some people it's their thing, but for others it's just too much. High level play gets boring unless the DM puts a lot of time into designing impossible encounters that the players have to overcome with their godlike power. Lower level play also fits the aesthetic of my group (and my own tastes) more, as well.

Yeah, the one time I GMed a high-level game I got a bit burned out by how much of a pain in the ass tracking everyone's magic items, class abilities, and active spells got to be. The one time I threw a pair of themed sorcerers at the party, the sheer number number of spells in play on both sides just got insane.

And of course the more abilities/powers/spells you have running, the easier it is to forget about things and make mistakes. More often than not when I ran a high-level encounter there would be at least one instance where either I or one of the players went "Oh yeah, I totally forgot that I can do that!"

Still, it is relatively convenient that the enemies generally show up in order of weakest to strongest (raditz to bu)

The androids and cell might get an excuse (reoccurring villain seeking revenge and doing his research), but it awfully convenient that it is placed between frieza and bu.

Of course, maybe I am just forgetting a lot of filler with low tier "villains" (saiyan man .............)

I've read that Toriyama wanted to end DBZ far earlier than it went on, and got pressured by the fans to keep making it. The Buu saga was kind of a joke and self-parody by Toriyama and doesn't fit the rest of the series as well. I think it's all pretty justified up until the end of the Cell saga, and the current stuff they are doing with Battle of the Gods seems to be the characters reaching a point where they are just attracting threats based on being so powerful.

This is all way off topic though.

[Liz Courts]

Removed a post. Please recognize the fact that not everybody plays the game the same way, and what may work for you, might not work for somebody else.

[Barathos]

Captain Morgan wrote:

lemeres wrote:

Chengar Qordath wrote:

Puna'chong wrote:

Getting past 12th gets tiresome as a DM. It's really just a lot of paperwork and bookkeeping, and if it's bad for players, it's even harder on a DM. For some people it's their thing, but for others it's just too much. High level play gets boring unless the DM puts a lot of time into designing impossible encounters that the players have to overcome with their godlike power. Lower level play also fits the aesthetic of my group (and my own tastes) more, as well.

Yeah, the one time I GMed a high-level game I got a bit burned out by how much of a pain in the ass tracking everyone's magic items, class abilities, and active spells got to be. The one time I threw a pair of themed sorcerers at the party, the sheer number number of spells in play on both sides just got insane.

And of course the more abilities/powers/spells you have running, the easier it is to forget about things and make mistakes. More often than not when I ran a high-level encounter there would be at least one instance where either I or one of the players went "Oh yeah, I totally forgot that I can do that!"

Still, it is relatively convenient that the enemies generally show up in order of weakest to strongest (raditz to bu)

The androids and cell might get an excuse (reoccurring villain seeking revenge and doing his research), but it awfully convenient that it is placed between frieza and bu.

Of course, maybe I am just forgetting a lot of filler with low tier "villains" (saiyan man .............)

I've read that Toriyama wanted to end DBZ far earlier than it went on, and got pressured by the fans to keep making it. The Buu saga was kind of a joke and self-parody by Toriyama and doesn't fit the rest of the series as well. I think it's all pretty justified up until the end of the Cell saga, and the current stuff they are doing with Battle of the Gods seems to be the characters reaching a point where they are just attracting threats based on being...

What's wrong with the buu saga?

[Milo v3]

I personally prefer it when everyone in the universe uses the same rules. I like it when the following conversation can happen:

Player: Wait. How did the storm giant get this floaty castle?
GM: Downtime system + Airwalk enchantment on the stone
Player: So, since I can cast Airwalk and have craft wondrous item, I could make one?
GM: Given enough downtime and labour, yes.

Admittedly, I am biased in that the character in the high-level campaign we are planning is a wizard crafter who his spending his downtime trying make the world Manapunk, and does things like invent computers with level one spells.

[Seerow]

Milo v3 wrote:

I personally prefer it when everyone in the universe uses the same rules. I like it when the following conversation can happen:

Player: Wait. How did the storm giant get this floaty castle?
GM: Downtime system + Airwalk enchantment on the stone
Player: So, since I can cast Airwalk and have craft wondrous item, I could make one?
GM: Given enough downtime and labour, yes.

Admittedly, I am biased in that the character in the high-level campaign we are planning is a wizard crafter who his spending his downtime trying make the world Manapunk, and does things like invent computers with level one spells.

My players are more likely to say "That's a fancy floating castle. Once we kill the Giant we're going to call it our own".

That said, I agree that things like that are things players should be able to make given the time and effort. I mean, why not? What possible purpose is served by keeping stuff like that in the GM's hands only.

[Milo v3]

Seerow wrote:

My players are more likely to say "That's a fancy floating castle. Once we kill the Giant we're going to call it our own".

Being teenagers, my players are the sort where they are most likely to crash the castle into the ground or explode it.... and then realise they could've kept it.

[Wrath]

The setting itself determines wether players have the same powers or abilities as NPC they come across.

Theres a quote in ultimate magic where a chief lecturer is telling his students to stop dreaming of being the most powerful magic users in the world, because they've already come and gone, and modern magicians can't hope to reach that potential.

There's any number of settings where what the players have access to cannot emulate everything they find. Sometimes players just have to cop it sweet and move on. Or just steal it.

[Lincoln Hills]

There have already been some solid points regarding the rarity of characters reaching the highest levels, but I don't think I've spotted the main one that's come into play in the few campaigns that came to official ends:

Sometimes the players agree that they've accumulated enough - that their characters' accumulated wealth, goals and - most of all - in-game responsibilities would naturally lead them into legitimate careers (as merchant princes, rulers, research magicians, etc.) which are less risky, and less group-oriented, than their days of robbing tombs or battling armies. The players agree to rest on their laurels and relish a character whose story did not end in humiliating defeat or the strange limbo of 'permanently unplayed'. And, of course, if a really worthy storyline is dreamed up, retirement isn't necessarily permanent.

[Just a Guess]

ryric wrote:

Anzyr wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Did you win intitiaive?

No

Can you make 4 dc 69 fort saves in a row?

Drat, only 3 with rerolls.

You're dead.

Alright guys, getting a pizza. Let me know when you res me.

They won't be able to go far for that Pizza in high level play. Since Miracle/Wish Duplicating Resurrection is only a standard action. Heck you have a whole other spell and 30 ft. you can move after that. People die multiple times in some of my high level fights. Death just isn't a big deal at that level.

Heh. I've been there. Sometimes things get hairy when you can only true resurrect two guys a round.

...and this sort of thing is what we mean when we say that high level play is different. You can indeed reach a point where raising the dead is as casual as a low level cure light wounds.

One difference remains:

Some characters might come to a point where they decide that they deserve to remain dead and go on to afterlife.

[Milo v3]

Just a Guess wrote:

One difference remains:
Some characters might come to a point where they decide that they deserve to remain dead and go on to afterlife.

And then your new PC comes in.

[Scavion]

Because none of the characters are attached to the plot as much anymore.

Its extremely easy to get tagged with a save or die past 8th level so occassionally you end up with everyone of the original party not being around anymore.

[LazarX]

Wrath wrote:

Theres a quote in ultimate magic where a chief lecturer is telling his students to stop dreaming of being the most powerful magic users in the world, because they've already come and gone, and modern magicians can't hope to reach that potential.

That's Aram Zey, Pathfinder Society Master of Spells, who's been bombasting Pathfinders for six seasons now. :)

[Turin the Mad]

My group(s) have deliberately strived to play at least a session or two at 20th level if circumstances permit. It doesn't happen often with the Real Life Monster rearing its ugly mug as often as it does. But it does happen fairly often, probably 1 out of 2 campaigns.

Back before 3e higher level play (well, its equivalent) was a matter of course simply because none of us had anything better to do with our lives.

I prefer the 1e/2e multiclassing/dual classing to continue existing characters to play. The devil lay in the 3e details - and of course whether or not the players are even up for it.

Stripping down to original ability scores/race, previously applied level advancements, inherent bonuses and starting anew has been a heck of a lot of fun. It does require the players buying in to doing so. Not many that I've met and want to game with are willing to play along, sadly.

[Can'tFindthePath]

another_mage wrote:

Wrath wrote:

To prepare for that one fight, I often need to read and understand large numbers of stat blocks, reference feats and spells, work out how they synergise, work out what buffs will be up prior to or during combat then run all of those creatures as intelligent and powerful combatants that want to survive as well as destroy the players.

Given that my work involves large quantities of brain power as well, then high level game play quickly loses its lustre.

This is precisely why I stopped my Pathfinder campaign at Level 12.

Up to Level 9, I found myself spending maybe 4 hours out of game to prepare for 4 hours of gaming.
After that, the time required grows significantly because of the combinatorial nature of powers.

And the power level itself ramps up pretty quickly as well. Poor planning leads to one of two destinations:

- The group steamrolls over the enemy like nothing, because I forgot Player X has Ability Y.

- TPK, because I forgot that none of the players had an effective counter to Big Bad's Ability Z.

Neither outcome is fun, for the players or myself. So, I get to spend 8-10 hours planning around it.
And even after all of it, there's still the element of player surprise that is crazy-difficult to plan for.

So, now I'm running a Shadowrun 5th game for the group. It remains to be seen how much planning will be necessary at Prime Runner levels.

This is an obscure reference, but as I read about your travails I laughed out loud when it occurred to me:

Anyone ever seen Tora, Tora, Tora? The Japanese naval officer who is their strategic planning guru is assigned the task of planning the attack on Pearl.

You see him 'sweat-lodging' it with a towel on his head, rocking like he's autistic, staring at the plans like Gandalf into the hearth at Bag End....

That's what it's like to prepare for high level GMing....(puff, puff....precious...)

[Can'tFindthePath]

Zhangar wrote:

Anzyr wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Did you win intitiaive?

No

Can you make 4 dc 69 fort saves in a row?

Drat, only 3 with rerolls.

You're dead.

Alright guys, getting a pizza. Let me know when you res me.

They won't be able to go far for that Pizza in high level play. Since Miracle/Wish Duplicating Resurrection is only a standard action. Heck you have a whole other spell and 30 ft. you can move after that. People die multiple times in some of my high level fights. Death just isn't a big deal at that level.

Hell, battle res is a thing as soon as limited wish (to duplicate raise dead) becomes available.

At high levels, death is another status effect to overcome (though one of the pricier and nastier ones, at 6,500 to 25,000 a pop). It's low levels where death means it's pizza run time.

Captain America wrote:

If you die ... walk it off.

Indeed. In our long languishing D&D 3.0 epic game, my 20-something cleric wielded a sword that kept him operational though staggered, at deep negative hit points.

During one fight, he took a crit from a heavy war pick (x4 crit) for 202hp (a lot back then), killing him. With his sword in hand, he remained in the melee. The following round, he cast Resurrection on himself. Then the bad guy hit him with a second crit for 212! killing him again...

PS. I know the rez should have taken 10 minutes, it was an oversight.

[Can'tFindthePath]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

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

Amen, brother.

Likewise, many "Epic" spells are pretty much 8th or 9th in real power...and some, well, like you said.

[UnArcaneElection]

Now that I think about it more, the answer to the question posed in this thread becomes a lot more obvious. A lot more people would play epic level games if we had the epic lifespans of Elves . . . ESPECIALLY if it took over 100 years to grow up.

[Aelryinth]

Well, no.

You have to remember the mindset of children. What was important yesterday and is so IMPORTANT for TODAY are vastly different things. I WANT I WANT I WANT I HAVE oh, there's something else I WANT I WANT.

Being young means its hard to control your desires and wants, and to fall back on self-control, patience, and lessons learned.

For practical purposes, this means you tend to plan for things on the spur of the moment, focus on them above all else, and then promptly forget about them once something better/more fun/interesting comes along.

For elves, this is more exacerbated by the fact time flows past so differently. The world changes, they don't, not really. Their perspective on things remains very slow to deal with things as they move from one situation to the next. The world is just so big with so many interesting things and yet its too big and they can't see and deal with it all.

Oh, and its very hard for them to take responsibility for their actions. So they come across as extremely whimsical.

An elven childhood would likely be almost impossibly boring by human standards, giving them a fairly static world which doesn't shift so much so they can learn mental stability. An elf likely regards seasons like humans regard days. Everything is always flowing past them and altering, but the elves themselves remain constant.

Being raised among humans would mean an elven child has almost no fixed point of reference, like a family whose mother and father are almost never there, and every six months you get uprooted as they change jobs and go to a new school, etc. Being afflicted with death by old age of those you love, over and over again, would be heartbreaking. Hence, the 'Forlorn', the sad. Elves who don't have to put up with that transience and impermanence are likely far more balanced individuals.
=============================

That said, I'm a big believer in levels=extended lifespan, and hitting 20 should be about becoming Eternal, and taking steps into what is beyond mortal life. Every class should stop aging, or have it as an option, at level 20, not just wizards and alchemists.

It means the 'hurry up and level' paradigm doesn't need to be there.

I noted with interest in the Tower of God, pretty much nobody ages past their prime. There are people that have been around for literally thousands of years. People have centuries to climb the Tower and work on their abilities. Likewise, the place is lethal deadly as a form of population control - if nobody dies of old age, the only way to clear off people is to kill them, and when age=power, that's increasingly hard to do.

In the Tower, this is solved by high level people living up in the tower, and lowers on levels below. People coming up from below are always pushing, conflicts kill people, but the number of high levels is slowly rising over thousands of years.

Elves would be facing something like this. Elves can potentially live to be hundreds of years old (and in PF, can live for millennia), but they are far more likely to succumb to some manner of violence or disease over that time period. When your military career spans a century, the odds are at some point you're going to meet your maker and the extra centuries are meaningless.

If you go back to the Known World of BECMI, they came out with the Gazetter for the Elves, and a paradigm where they elves earned maybe 1000 xp/year, or 10 xp/week, or something.

So all elves naturally leveled up, but it took them centuries to make it to the hoary ranks of Rank M unless they were adventurers or actively going out. When they hit the max level, they left the forest to go wander the world doing things.

But without some clear line separating low levels from high levels, longevity is going to make a VERY static society, because the young will never be able to grow in power to challenge the old with any speed, and introduce new things into the society on a broad basis.

An Epic Society would by consequence have to separate itself physically and mentally from the society that birthed it, or risk crushing it with the stasis of their nigh-unassailable positions of dominance shrugging off attempts at change.

It'd be a combined geritocracy and meritocracy, and really hard to get power in.

==Aelryinth

[Anzyr]

Aelryinth wrote:

noted with interest in the Tower of God, pretty much nobody ages past their prime. There are people that have been around for literally thousands of years. People have centuries to climb the Tower and work on their abilities. Likewise, the place is lethal deadly as a form of population control - if nobody dies of old age, the only way to clear off people is to kill them, and when age=power, that's increasingly hard to do.

In the Tower, this is solved by high level people living up in the tower, and lowers on levels below. People coming up from below are always pushing, conflicts kill people, but the number of high levels is slowly rising over thousands of years.

Excellent, a Tower of God fan. The best series people aren't reading.

[stormcrow27]

I'm sure some of these issues have already been covered, but here is my two cents worth.

1. Some GMs/DMs aren't comfortable with the power levels that high level play entails. For example: When PCs get access to teleport (at 9th level or 10th level for most arcane casters), distance becomes much less of a factor if you have any sort of access to decent scrying or divination magic. Or wall of stone, consecrate (or desecrate)/hallow/invisibility purge for instant fortresses. Add in animate object on cannons or siege weapons, and you can build bases that an enemy has to assault with no personnel manning them. That's how we took an entire island filled with undead out. Build a base, hold it, slap in defenses, move on.

2. Campaigns will often die out as players have shorter attention spans or are distracted by shiny things, like a raven. A new book arrives and a player decides they want to be the next feature of the month, and the GM can feel guilt-tripped into letting them use it. Also, 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder isn't designed for an organic response to character events. If a person doesn't plan their build out over a certain base, they may fall behind with other players that have more system mastery. This can cause a GM to eliminate plot hooks that were dependent on a player following a certain path, or change them. I've seen a lot of younger players get tired of a game after 6 to 8 levels, but I've seen older ones do it as well. I can't remember the last time I actually finished a campaign before we jumped to a new one.

3. Real life issues-Work, kids, SOs, family events, random acts of chaotic investment in MMOs, or financial strains can cause major disruption in play. It happens all the time.

4. Available time for prep-GMs run into this a lot. High level play requires more of a balancing act, and that time you devote to countering X does nothing when the players do Y. GMing is hard work, even with APs.

[Zenogu]

Aelryinth wrote:

Well, no.

That said, I'm a big believer in levels=extended lifespan, and hitting 20 should be about becoming Eternal, and taking steps into what is beyond mortal life. Every class should stop aging, or have it as an option, at level 20, not just wizards and alchemists.

It means the 'hurry up and level' paradigm doesn't need to be there.

This. This bothers me to an extreme as well. I think I've actually sat down with a player who had a character that had more levels than years of age because of this sort of thought process.

As a GM, secretly I allow Wish to grant similar immortality. It may have some circumstances that come with, depending where the Wish came from. But no one has made an attempt to do so, yet.

[magnuskn]

Well, I've GM'ed more than five campaigns (geeze, my memory seems to go with old age...) to conclusion and have also run RotRL and two more homebrewn campaigns to conclusion as a player, so I've spent quite a lot of time at the high levels of D&D/Pathfinder.

Aside from the pure issue that such campaigns require enough commitment from the players to stay with the group and see the thing through, I think the biggest problem is that the system does tend to break down in certain places, unless everybody is on board to not deliberately try to maximize in the usual places (normally super-high DC's for the casters on SoD spells or damage monster and/or unhittable martials). With the published adventures this is harder to handle as a GM than with homebrewn stuff, since the AP's are written for novice groups, with normally too easy encounters.

Anyway, high-level campaigns take a long time to get to and people intentionally or unintentionally break the game by maximizing their characters too much, thus ruining the fun of other group members and then the campaign falls apart. That seems to be, from what I've read on the boards, seems to be the main problem. I myself have almost always (except for Kingmaker, where I canceled the campaign after module two) have seen my campaigns through to the end, because I don't want to ruin the story for my players. Even Wrath of the Righteous, which was really a wretched experience, due to the broken-from-the-start mythic rules.

[Kalindlara]

Why did Kingmaker fall apart?