Low-level DM preparing a mid-level game. Tips? (3.5)

[Savannah]

As a rule, I tend to play and run in the 1st-6th level range. However, I'm currently working on a one-shot adventure that is for 10th level PCs (who will almost certainly be played by people with more experience at that level than I have). I've been looking through classes and spells (mostly in core, as I'd go nuts looking through all the splats...) for some idea of the sorts of things PCs can do at those levels, so that I'm prepared to handle whatever they throw at me. However, I wanted to make sure that I'm not missing something important, as I know higher level games tend to run quite differently from the lower levels I'm used to. Any advice would be appreciated :smallsmile:

[Runestar]

Well, at that lv, spellcasters have more slots, and have the caster lv to make them last a decent duration, so be prepared for your party members to be running around with multiple buffs active. I think that around that point, the barb in an old game of mine was entering combat with 5-7 spells on? (bull's str, haste, polymorph, prot from evil, prot from elements and ...?) :smalleek:

It may or may not be an issue, but you might want to prepare encounters with dispel magic active. Also remind the players they are responsible for doing the tracking, not you, and you cannot be held accountable for any effects they forget to declare. If this slows down the game, then you may want to impose an in-game limit on how many buffs can be active at any one time.

Also, at that point, useful utility spells like teleport also become accessible. Death is also less of an issue with spells like raise dead, revivify, revenance and delay death.

Nothing that can break the game outright at this juncture though, so you can probably just continue what you were doing. :smallsmile:

[Kol Korran]

well, a few main things that come to mind (i'm sure they are more). the main issue is casters/ psionicists abilities, and more magic items. on the whole a few things to consider:

- a fairly large amount of utility/ buffs and manuverabilty of low levels- shield of faith/ PFE, expeditious retreat, the various ability boosting effects from level 2, and so on. expect 1-2 each character to be able to:
- move fast (40+ ft move)
- fly
- teleport short distances (10/20/60 ft) with magic items or dimension door. escaping tough fights (and grabbing monsters!) more easily

- 4th/ 5th level spells (especially divine) open more options for information especially come Divination, Commune (which can circumvent many things, but few players use it to it's full potential) and scrying.

- i too suggest using either SR creatures (though that can be overcome with the Vulnerability spell and Assay spell resistance) and possibly dispel options for the opponents. not all of then, but on some battles- targeted dispels do wonders to take down party resources, and put a character suddenly ina a serious disadvantage (especially useful against super duper melee clerics, and persisted spells)

- with the aid of metamagic lesser rods blasters start to come to rediculeous amounts of damage. but the battle controllers are worse- black tentacles for examples is easily an encounter ender. beware of polymorph (either limit it or ban it) as it is probably the single most powerful and versatile spell of those levels.

- getting back from the dead: 3 main options (assuming they have only their own resources): reincarnation, raise dead, and revivify. the last two require a fairly whole body though. other than revivify, they each take a level of the character, but that's not that bad. note- many players will prefer changing a character over reincarnate. a matter of personal choice.

- teleport and plane shift makes long distance travel faster, but far from safe. read the spells carefully. they can also simplify adventuring for the DM though...

that's all i can think of. general suggestions that fit any campaign though:
- don't let players have all the initiative. push back.
- some things can be discovered, but there are always secrets and surprises.
- a monster does not an encounter make! time limits, environamental conditions and other exotic influences. or just pure good tactics.
- challenge through an adventure and campaign structure and choices. develop situations, not encounters.

ok, i'm done ranting. :smalltongue:
good luck!

[bloodtide]

A good trick for mid-level(and high level) is to counter magic with mundane.

Take knock for example, at mid level a group can open every door in a castle in seconds. So what to do? Add more doors, as even a wand of knock will run out of charges. Add more hidden doors, you can't knock if you don't know it's there. Add other ways to 'lock' a door. For example, the bad guy rolls a huge bolder in front of a door...you can't 'knock' that way.


Add in more exotic stuff. Don't make the gate guards '3rd level orc warriors', make them '1st level tefiling warlocks'. And the mundane works here too with exotic races. Have an aquatic bad guy. So when the characters attack is lair under the city...the whole lair is in a cave underwater.

[Basket Burner]

As a rule, I tend to play and run in the 1st-6th level range. However, I'm currently working on a one-shot adventure that is for 10th level PCs (who will almost certainly be played by people with more experience at that level than I have). I've been looking through classes and spells (mostly in core, as I'd go nuts looking through all the splats...) for some idea of the sorts of things PCs can do at those levels, so that I'm prepared to handle whatever they throw at me. However, I wanted to make sure that I'm not missing something important, as I know higher level games tend to run quite differently from the lower levels I'm used to. Any advice would be appreciated :smallsmile:

Low level dynamics do not work at mid and high levels. No matter what you do with the numbers. No, not even then. If you take a low level adventure and boost the numbers to supposedly be level 10 appropriate, any remotely decent party is going to run right through it without even slowing down.

A few of the many changes:

Expect the party will be flying all day every day, or close to it. Don't even bother making non flying, non ranged enemies. They are either going to get flown over or killed from absolute safety. Fortunately most enemies at this level can also fly.
Mundane anything... not so useful. Classes, items, tricks, doesn't matter. If it doesn't involve magic, it doesn't really impact things anymore. If your players are very good, they could make a melee character that could still contribute at these levels but don't be surprised if the group ends up caster heavy.
Buffs. Expect them. From both sides. Dispel Magic is an important part of the meta at this point. Not buffing in combat, but before it.
Saves. Expect them to be high on both sides. If they aren't, expect a lot of Bad Things Happening to whatever side does not. Don't bother with Spell Resistance, all it does is make Evokers even worse than they already are.
Immunities. There aren't too many at these levels, but expect them to come up as a part of the magic war.

[Savannah]

ok, i'm done ranting. :smalltongue:

But it was super-useful ranting! :smalltongue: Thanks for the tips, everyone :smallsmile: (And feel free to add more :smallwink:)

[Pigkappa]

Expect the party will be flying all day every day, or close to it.


Well, items that allow you to fly usable every day aren't cheap at that level. The winged boots cost 16k (over 49k WBL) and I think they are the cheapest one.

Also, nonexperienced players won't think about it. This happened to me several times. Everyone can Fly or at least Levitate, and someone playing a Barbarian or Fighter or whatever spent all his money on items increasing his damage output.

[Basket Burner]

Well, items that allow you to fly usable every day aren't cheap at that level. The winged boots cost 16k (over 49k WBL) and I think they are the cheapest one.

Also, nonexperienced players won't think about it. This happened to me several times. Everyone can Fly or at least Levitate, and someone playing a Barbarian or Fighter or whatever spent all his money on items increasing his damage output.

I was thinking of 10 min/level and hour/level flight spells. Not things that only give you a few minutes.

[Curmudgeon]

Expect the party will be flying all day every day, or close to it. Don't even bother making non flying, non ranged enemies.
On open plains, maybe. But in a dungeon with low clearance, or a forest with a thick canopy, blocking line of sight past short distances makes flight unimportant. It doesn't matter if the PCs can fly, when they're using a map based on landmarks only visible at ground level. :smallsmile:

Mundane anything... not so useful. Classes, items, tricks, doesn't matter. If it doesn't involve magic, it doesn't really impact things anymore.
bloodtide already countered that point pretty well even before you posted, but I'll add a couple things. Doorways and ceilings need structural support. Using Passwall will reliably make an opening, but the spell description has no guarantee that you won't collapse the entire space above that opening due to missing support material. Knowledge (architecture and engineering) and Open Lock are mundane skills, but plenty useful. Also Hide (with adequately high numbers) is much superior to Invisibility, because there's no magical counter. Supernatural Hide in Plain Sight is a magical enabler, yet what it enables is purely mundane and thus hard for magic to deal with. A spellcaster cannot use any targeted spell if they don't have line of sight to their intended target, and no castings of Dispel Magic or True Seeing will help them when their Spot check fails. Always pay attention to this oft-overlooked rule:
Action: Varies. Every time you have a chance to spot something in a reactive manner you can make a Spot check without using an action. Trying to spot something you failed to see previously is a move action. If they don't spend a move action, they'll never be able to notice what they've already overlooked.

Buffs. Expect them. From both sides. Dispel Magic is an important part of the meta at this point. Not buffing in combat, but before it.
Excellent point. If the DM doesn't have the enemy force include spellcasters with Dispel Magic (or similar, like Reaving Dispel), they're not prepared.

[Basket Burner]

On open plains, maybe. But in a dungeon with low clearance, or a forest with a thick canopy, blocking line of sight past short distances makes flight unimportant. It doesn't matter if the PCs can fly, when they're using a map based on landmarks only visible at ground level. :smallsmile:

Oh, it's a fixed location? Scrying. Teleport. Can we get on to something else now?

Cookie if you get the reference.


bloodtide already countered that point pretty well even before you posted, but I'll add a couple things. Doorways and ceilings need structural support. Using Passwall will reliably make an opening, but the spell description has no guarantee that you won't collapse the entire space above that opening due to missing support material. Knowledge (architecture and engineering) and Open Lock are mundane skills, but plenty useful. Also Hide (with adequately high numbers) is much superior to Invisibility, because there's no magical counter. Supernatural Hide in Plain Sight is a magical enabler, yet what it enables is purely mundane and thus hard for magic to deal with. A spellcaster cannot use any targeted spell if they don't have line of sight to their intended target, and no castings of Dispel Magic or True Seeing will help them when their Spot check fails. Always pay attention to this oft-overlooked rule: If they don't spend a move action, they'll never be able to notice what they've already overlooked.

Knowledge (architecture) is something even the people that obsess over skills never invest it. I suppose if it really matters you can Divine Insight it, though really there are plenty of ways past walls other than Passwall. Open Lock is a mundane skill that is entirely defeated by mundane locks. A 150 gold lock has been affordable since level 3, is DC 40, and is practically invulnerable to picking even at level 10. Suffice it to say something that you will never, or almost never succeed at even with investment is a waste of that investment, and that you will bypass the locked door by means other than picking the lock.

Mundane stealth skills in any number are automatically defeated by a long list of things. Darkstalker stops many of them, but not all. Not to mention conditions have to be right for you to hide, which essentially means it has to be somewhere that a suspicious person looking right at you would not see you. There are also very few means of getting HiPS at this level, and even if you do it only solves one small part of the problem. Namely, you can hide behind a tree when someone is looking at you. You still need a tree.

Spellcasters get easy access to the aforementioned detection abilities, and one Glitterdust later the would be stealther has tasted the rainbow and is now visible.


Excellent point. If the DM doesn't have the enemy force include spellcasters with Dispel Magic (or similar, like Reaving Dispel), they're not prepared.

That and if he isn't familiar with the game at these levels, and he isn't, they're the only ones that are going to make for meaningful encounters as making anything else credible requires more experience than he currently has.

[Curmudgeon]

Knowledge (architecture) is something even the people that obsess over skills never invest it. I suppose if it really matters you can Divine Insight it
Not without mundane training, for anything important enough to matter.
Knowledge (Int; Trained Only)

Untrained: An untrained Knowledge check is simply an Intelligence check. Without actual training, you know only common knowledge (DC 10 or lower).

Open Lock is a mundane skill that is entirely defeated by mundane locks. A 150 gold lock has been affordable since level 3, is DC 40, and is practically invulnerable to picking even at level 10.
Open Lock is a DEX-based skill. That's the Rogue's key focus, and it's pretty reasonable (racial bonus, 2 ability increments @ 4 & 8) to have a 20 in that by level 10. That's a guaranteed success on DC 40 Open Lock checks with standard tools, so those locks are not "practically invulnerable".

13 ranks
+5 skill modifier
+2 circumstance from masterwork thieves' tools
"take 20", since there's no penalty (just extra time) for failure
There are magic items to boost your check, too. Magic Item Compendium has the Lockpicking Ring for a +5 competence bonus, for instance.

Not to mention conditions have to be right for you to hide, which essentially means it has to be somewhere that a suspicious person looking right at you would not see you.
Anywhere with a shadow within 10' isn't exactly a difficult condition to establish, and I doubt most characters would be suspicious every time they're within 15' of a shadow (10' + attacker's space). A 1-level dip into Shadowdancer, or in Faerûn +1 LA for the Cormyr: The Tearing Of The Weave Dark Creature template will give you Supernatural Hide in Plain Sight.

[Savannah]

That and if he isn't familiar with the game at these levels, and he isn't, they're the only ones that are going to make for meaningful encounters as making anything else credible requires more experience than he currently has.

*points to gender symbol* Just FYI :smallwink:

And I like to think I'm a little more competent than that -- I know what my weaknesses are and where to look to overcome them (for example, this very thread to make sure I'm not missing something important in my planning -- for the most part, I wasn't).

[bloodtide]

Mundane anything... not so useful. Classes, items, tricks, doesn't matter. If it doesn't involve magic, it doesn't really impact things anymore.

Not true. You can over come a lot of magic with mundane things. Read up on the spells and effects.

*Passwall can't go through a wall of metal, for example. Or a 'wall' made of living plants/roots.

*In a world with fly buildings will have aerial defenses(much like modern ones). For example, have no safe landing stops on top. Why build a tower with a trap door to a flat roof that says 'fly up here and attack'? And lots of flying creatures make good guards...not to mention just winged dogs too.

*A lieutenant bag guy might have never met his boss, just got orders from a 'talking skull', so all the charms and compulsions in the world can't make him say anything about who his boss is...

*Darkness, smoke, fog and such can block line of sight. A large smoky campfire can block the sight into a room, for example. Dark, murky water also blocks line of sight.

[Zaq]

First off, kudos for realizing that mid/high level games aren't just like low level games with bigger numbers. A lot of GMs don't realize that, and that's rarely fun.

I don't have a whole lot of specific advice, but I will say that you should be prepared for the PCs to have a way around nearly anything (except, of course, when it would make sense for them to do so). There are a lot more ways for players to just take care of things at these levels, and a lot of them are surprisingly affordable. If you have even one player who's fond of making a utility belt kind of character, expect to hear "I think I have something for that . . ." with relative frequency.

This might depend on your party, but in the one level 10+ campaign I've ever been in (it went from 10 to 16 before we got frustrated and shifted to E6), the higher up in levels we got, the more eager we were to try to avoid fighting things, either through diplomacy (and/or Diplomacy), going around them, shunting them off on someone else, or whatever. At level 10 or 11, we'd often just roll initiative and charge, but by level 15 or 16, we were always trying to think our way around or through things. The reason? On some level, we all realized that the stronger we got, the more likely it was that anything capable of challenging us at all would just kill us outright. In short, we recognized the rocket tag, and while we were fairly confident that we wouldn't TPK, we weren't exactly eager to tempt fate. Your party might experience something similar.

[Godskook]

I forget what the 4 'stages' of 3.5 play are named, but basically, by level ~10ish, players are beginning to outgrow kingdoms and look at the world as a whole, if not the planes overall. They're capable of dramatically altering the landscape simply by passing through. Read the OotS, and realize they're unoptimized level 12+ characters. You should assume that a competent player is more than capable of dropping that or worse onto your table in any given session. To illustrate, look at what V was capable of doing at the battle for Azure City. Most of his spell selection is available to a level 10 character in that battle.

Hell, just look at what a level 6 wizard is capable of doing against a 'mundane' boat with:
-Protection from Arrows
-Fly
-Fireball

He's cleared the decks of anyone with ~2 HD, and likely most 3HD characters as well.

[Kol Korran]

not entirely on topic, but i think it might be somewhat relevant. in the past i used to play mostly levels 1-5/6. and it was fun. but when i started a big higher, i found out i really really like the 6-10 range of levels (from the DM's point of view).it enables you to do challanges a big differently:
- the characters are less squishy, so you can throw a few more things to them, with less of a chance of a party wipe out at 1-2 rounds.

- their resources enable them to usually last longer. (longer adventures, or siege scenarios, or racing against time, without ability to rest)

- and most importantly- they have more varied options, so they can face more interesting challenges, more complex ones: either a situation with more elements in it, or a series of encounters, but each different.

- a side benefit is that "get back from the dead" magic becomes more available (if expensive) so the DM can make some "slightly over the top" encounters as well, knowing that favorite characters can come back, if at a price (level and components)

- the players are not super powerful at these levels (at 10 they are getting strong, but...) sure- plane shift/ teleport/ dimension door/ revivify and so are great options, but at these levels, they take up a serious chunk of resources.

i found out i enjoy these levels much more. soon i'll be DMing a bit for higher levels (and later on perhaps even up to 20? :smalleek:) we'll see how it goes.

good luck! a 10th level game should be quite fun!

[Basket Burner]

Not without mundane training, for anything important enough to matter.

Then you use a means other than Passwall.


Open Lock is a DEX-based skill. That's the Rogue's key focus, and it's pretty reasonable (racial bonus, 2 ability increments @ 4 & 8) to have a 20 in that by level 10. That's a guaranteed success on DC 40 Open Lock checks with standard tools, so those locks are not "practically invulnerable".

13 ranks
+5 skill modifier
+2 circumstance from masterwork thieves' tools
"take 20", since there's no penalty (just extra time) for failure
There are magic items to boost your check, too. Magic Item Compendium has the Lockpicking Ring for a +5 competence bonus, for instance.

Just barely able to get it with a take 20. That is practically invulnerable to picking. After all, every other method of bypassing a door takes less than 2 minutes, and has been available for a lot longer. It also requires a lot less resources other than time.


Anywhere with a shadow within 10' isn't exactly a difficult condition to establish, and I doubt most characters would be suspicious every time they're within 15' of a shadow (10' + attacker's space). A 1-level dip into Shadowdancer, or in Faerûn +1 LA for the Cormyr: The Tearing Of The Weave Dark Creature template will give you Supernatural Hide in Plain Sight.

If you have taken Shadowdancer, great you can hide now. Sort of. But that's all you can do, because Shadowdancer is just that bad. Losing a level is only slightly better.


*points to gender symbol* Just FYI :smallwink:

And I like to think I'm a little more competent than that -- I know what my weaknesses are and where to look to overcome them (for example, this very thread to make sure I'm not missing something important in my planning -- for the most part, I wasn't).

I missed the gender symbol. But that comment wasn't meant to be insulting, just to get across that it is incredibly difficult to make anything that doesn't cast spells a threat at those levels. Particularly when those things are on your side of the DM screen as NPCs have less resources (particularly equipment) than PCs.


Not true. You can over come a lot of magic with mundane things. Read up on the spells and effects.

*Passwall can't go through a wall of metal, for example. Or a 'wall' made of living plants/roots.

*In a world with fly buildings will have aerial defenses(much like modern ones). For example, have no safe landing stops on top. Why build a tower with a trap door to a flat roof that says 'fly up here and attack'? And lots of flying creatures make good guards...not to mention just winged dogs too.

Fixed locations will be scried and fried. We've already been over passwall.


*Darkness, smoke, fog and such can block line of sight. A large smoky campfire can block the sight into a room, for example. Dark, murky water also blocks line of sight.

Sounds like low level things. You know what that means.