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View Full Version : What to do at level 20...



agumathebear
2010-11-20, 07:50 AM
hey all, i've been runing the same campaign for over a year now with generally the same players. in-game we've played for 14 years, starting out with Leon, Madrina, Thane, and Drakk. Now Thane is the only original member who remains. Leon was killed, madrina became chieftain of Longshire (a tribal nation basically), and Drakk became evil. now our party consists of Leon's younger brother gabrial, Thane, and Drakk's son, Ruo.

even though there is only one person from the original cast, everyone is almost level 20 again, so quickly...it's hard to run level 20 campaigns for me as basically the only monsters you can fight and have a challenge are epic (and dragons do not exsist in my world, i know no dragons in dnd right?)

my stories are very character-driven and end-of-the-world type quests, for instance the current objective of the group now is (aside from character goals) to help king michael (brother of leon, heir to his throne) decide which side to join in the coming crusade, east or west, and to defeat a cult that worships dragons who have apearantly found a great black dragon (but it hasn't been confirmmed)

I had some ideas for every year the characters are inactive (such as when the group says 6 years later so they can play as their original character's sons.) they loose 1 level, and for every 10 years their character ages past 40 they lose odd number of levels, like at age 50 they lose 1 level, at age 60 they lose 3, at age 70 they lose 4, etc. and they can't be regained, because who's ever heard of a 90 year old going out and killing dragons lol? who knows, maybe there are stats for this but idk.

basically i just need some advice on what to do with a party that levels up like they are on steroids lol.

Brendan
2010-11-20, 08:01 AM
so an 80 y/o wizard who has trained their entire life is worse off than an upstart whos been going for only ten years?
that doesn't really make sense and remember: you can still adventure if you are an 80 y/o man who is 16th level rather than 20th.

The Glyphstone
2010-11-20, 08:02 AM
Why should age penalize your levels? Age categories already have a built-in penalty, by giving permanent reductions to the physical ability scores. -6 Str/Dex/Con can hurt at Venerable for anyone, even casters. And as for why a 90 year old is hunting dragons? They're level 20. Level 6 is 'superhuman' by real-world standards. These people are simply that badass. Levels represent experience and training, and D&D characters apparently don't suffer from senility (their mental scores actually increase).

Challenging lvl20 groups is hard though. You can still use character-driven epic plots, you just expand the scale to a planar/multiversal adventure instead of a single kingdom/continent/planet.

agumathebear
2010-11-20, 12:46 PM
idk, my great grandfathe is 82 and he's so bad he reads maps upside down and thinks he's reading it right lol. not to mention can't remember anyone's name. but yeah, the whole super-human level thing does make sense, im sure when batman is 80 he'll still be buffed up and beating up 80 year old joker with his bat-cane. idk, i just cant really find any high level monsters other than bosses basically. i mean, if the party can down an elder red dragon like it was high-hp orc im running out of ideas lol. maybe it's time for a new campaign?

JonRG
2010-11-20, 01:06 PM
idk, my great grandfathe is 82 and he's so bad he reads maps upside down and thinks he's reading it right lol. not to mention can't remember anyone's name.

In the D&D-verse, he'd actually be able to see and recall information better. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0218.html) :smallwink:

It can be tricky tailoring an epic challenge so it won't drop in two rounds or ravage your players, so maybe retire these guys and start over? Then just watch how much XP they gain each session. Though a year is a pretty good run-time for a campaign, I think.

Zephyros
2010-11-20, 01:06 PM
a. Think bigger. Just running a kingdom does't really drain a 20-level-character's resources nor does it present suitable challenge.

b. Don't use a single foe for encounters.

c. You can also try using high level NPCs.

BeholderSlayer
2010-11-20, 01:25 PM
Yeah, kingdom-level stuff is suitable for level 8-10 characters. You've got to think on a larger scale. By level 15 characters should be thwarting inter-planar threats to the Prime. By level 20, they should be going after cosmic threats to all of existence. Beyond level 20, they should be doing a mixture of cosmic threats and just toying with reality for kicks.

nedz
2010-11-20, 01:27 PM
I find running high level games to be quite hard work. Its fun the first few times, but after you've taken out a few dieties etc the challange fades.
My advice would be to give them some epic 'win' and start a new game.:smallsmile:

Myth
2010-11-20, 01:29 PM
Level drain by years is a bad idea. Especially since you could just stir them to seek immortality if they are fond of their characters.

In 20+ you are basically stuck with using NPCs to sincerely challenge the party. That or hordes of high CR demons/angels/dragons.

Balor01
2010-11-20, 01:45 PM
What to do at level 20...
1.Go to Sigil. Is far more fun than boring Material plane.
2. Conquer the world.
3. Get in contact with lucrative traders who will generate those hundeds of thousands of GP for you that you may need for magic items.
4. Create creatures. (Disjunction hound or troll with permanent Veil of death sounds super-trolling for lower lvl characters)
5. Get that harem you alvays wanted - and to add to taht - you can put your cute little flowers in stasis, so that they do not age prematurely.
6. Get immortality (if you have not already)
7. Search for highest-possible CR monsters. More XP is always fun.
8. Be a bounty hunter - tier 1 targets are best.
9. Go tippywerse - get a patent on something usefull like trap of "Create food and water"
10. Troll low lvl PC-s by giving them idiotic quests.


... from the top of my head. :smallbiggrin:

mucat
2010-11-20, 01:52 PM
...because who's ever heard of a 90 year old going out and killing dragons lol?

Sir, a Mr. Cohen the Barbarian is asking to speak with you on line three...

agumathebear
2010-11-20, 01:58 PM
yeah, after this the characters are gonna have to be retired. we'll still use the same world but new characters lol.

Callista
2010-11-20, 03:40 PM
You don't like Epic? Well, what about retirement, and having the players pick up NPCs their characters have inspired to start adventuring? You can keep the same world, and even the same people, by having them use NPCs they had gotten to know instead of out-of-the-blue new PCs.

There are lots of legitimate ways for high-level characters to retire; they might be ruling a kingdom, creating a new branch of magic, traveling the planes, or opening a school for elite fighters. They might simply want a quiet life, and hide their high-level nature behind a barkeep's apron.

Of course, you could have something horrible happen to them that sets them back to level 5 or something, if you wanted. But you want to get permission from the players for anything like that. If you've got a mostly-Good party who would do that sort of thing, then you could easily work it that they're feeding the extra power into a spell or artifact to defeat or lock away an enemy that can't be reached any other way. But you've got to make sure they don't mind doing this. Allow them to rebuild their first 5 (or whatever) levels so they can go onto a different path if they so decide. Heck, you could even give them amnesia or something like that--they keep their personalities, but their memories are down for the count.

opticalshadow
2010-11-21, 03:46 PM
if they really want something to challenge them (of which a kingdom isnt) start playing from a delve point of view, you vs the players. at 20 they should be across planes, dealing with corpse collectors for ancheint beasts being summoned, having to deal with beholders and drow for the componets to fight an army of abberitions ultimitly trying to summon a soul damaging breath breathing dragon.

start designing encounters that very well can kill your party, by 20th level they need to know how to survive. evil wizard npcs (at level 20) can cause major havoc, he will be shieled agenst all things, but how often does your party keep scry blocked warbs up protection about? how easy it is to teleport enimies to your party when they are comfertable and realyl nailing heads to the wall.

but get away from the kingdom, they dont work in dnd ever, seriously if the enemy has a million troops one wizard can kill almost all of them in a day, aoe save or die spells on troops, who are at bes a handful of hd, cant live, fireballs will kill everything it hits, which will be everything because troops are very very low hd, the whole kingdom idea is not a optimized role for level 20, if you want invasions then another relam better be invading, with creatures that very well can kill a party.

also dont think in terms of damage only, nasty spells that hinder a party exsist, its often easier to reduce ability stats then it is hp, you only have to lower their weakest one to 0 to take him out of play.

get creative and start thinking on an epic scale, im not saying the wizard should finish each day with no more remaining spells, but you need to remember anything they can do the enemy can do better, and the enemy needs to start consisting of more npcs, liches are easy, until they are fully made pc type of npc.