Playing at High-Level

[Lemmy]

Hey, guys!

So, I'm currently GMing a campaign for my group. The party is about to reach 8th-level. So for the moment I don't have many worries.

However, I intended to extend the adventure 'til at least 16th-level. Maybe more, depending on how things go. If we're still having fun, I plan to extend it to 20th level just so everyone gets to use their capstone ability.

It's been quite a while since I played a game beyond 13th-level. I do remember a few of the issues that come with that, such as the increasing disparity in power between casters and mundane characters, and how combats end in 1 or 2 rounds, but each round takes way t0o much time to resolve.

Since I don't want to start thinking about that only when it's too late, I'd like to hear what the playground has to say.

What are the most common problems I'm likely to have to deal with?
How can I mitigate them?
What are your personal experiemce with high-level play, and how did it go?
Any other advice or houserule that may be helpful?

We are currently playing a Pathfinder game.

[Cookiemobsta]

You can always just put a cap on the campaign (12th level, say) and level up sloooooooooowly until you get there. Party members can plan their builds accordingly. Obviously eventually the party will get antsy to go beyond the level cap, but this won't happen for awhile.

[Hiro Protagonest]

...Switch the melee characters to Tome of Battle classes, and the skillmonkeys to factotum?

[Lemmy]

This is mostly Pathfinder. While I do allow some 3.X material, my players don't seem inclined to use much of it, except for a few feats.

Also, I'd like advice that doesn't require a complete character rewrite.
"Just make them play class X" is not really helpful.

[Endarire]

Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice (http://antioch.snow-fall.com/~Endarire/DnD/Challenging%203.5%20and%20Pathfinder%20Parties%201 %2031%2011.doc)

[u-b]

Just recently had some nice experience with REALLY high SR enemy wizard at level 15. Our melee guys were busy killing lots of melee stuff and quite good at it. So - it could be made mere-or-less equally fun for everyone. If you put everyone in high-wind limited-vision hard-to-teleport conditions, that is. ;)

[Arbitrarity]

I'd argue solutions should be tailed to your party. A lot of common problems are only really issues if the players notice them or are bothered by them. If your wizard prepares nothing but evocation spells, caster balance problems won't arise. Posting characters and player profiles helps make sense of what problems you might see, and their solutions. The problems in high optimization games are often different from those in lower optimization games.

The common "problems" faced by high levels in PF/3E come in a few forms. Player power disparity is the one most discussed. Long round times, combat monotony, and unchallenging (or rocket tag) encounters are another.

Player power disparity is a big problem in a lot of situations. When some of your players are competent at optimizing, innocent choices between Druid and Fighter become big problems as you get to higher levels. Pathfinder doesn't really fix this, from what I've heard. The usual advice for fixing this is to aid your weaker players in various ways, or tone down the stronger ones. This is usually done on a case-by-case basis.
I prefer to aid weaker players with build advice and rebuilding, usually before a game starts, and possibly at level-up. As people have said, "make your fighters play a warblade" works. If you don't want to, or can't (recalcitrant players) do this, you can tailor encounters to some extent to play to player strengths. Finally, you can metagame power boosts in, via items, inherent powers, or whatever. I'm a bit leery about doing this, usually, because I feel like I'm playing favorites, but it can work.
Player power disparity also comes into effect out of combat. Things like scouting, socializing, and even trapfinding and lockpicking, can be effectively done by casters, especially when magic starts having a low opportunity cost. Fighters also have a hard time contributing to non-combat situations.

Long round times are a function of both complex interacting effects, and poor preparation. For me, it's mostly the latter. You and your players should know the attack bonuses and damage of your various forms of attack, as well as hitpoints and defenses, as well as their conditional bonuses. I've had too many games where we end up retroactively making a saving throw or hitting because we forgot a bonus somewhere. If you have to, make a spreadsheet or something. You need to be able to instantly tell people "yes, you saved" or "yes, you hit", as soon as you see the d20 roll. Rapidly mapping and resolving actions is essential.
Make sure your players can count dice efficiently, or make houserules about averaging results for damage (i.e. replace 20d6 with 4d6+56).
Try to get a handle on your players' characters, if you find they cannot. A couple people I used to play with were kind of hopeless; they'd constantly be looking at character sheets and adding bonuses painfully slowly. It was actually faster for me to walk them through their autoattacks (roll a d20; that hits. Roll another. Roll another. Now roll 6d8+42 for damage) than it was for them to do it. It was dumb, but it kept the game moving. At higher levels, we eventually handwaved one of them a "deal xd6 damage, save for half, each round", because they had no idea what they were doing with the options at that level.

Combat quality is another problem. Some classes are inherently a bit monotonous (fighters), since they don't get much in the way of meaningful tactical choices or opportunities for creativity. Homebrewed stunt systems, or designing interesting terrain, are some opportunities to help spice things up. If your players don't really care... eh, that's fine. Designing quality encounters is a mixture of playing to party strengths (give each person a role) and being willing to disregard encounter guidelines. High level parties have many more force multipliers, so you should be aware that the CR system hits this point where it stops accurately giving estimations for how tough a fight will be for your party. This requires a bit of theorycrafting, and a bit of experience to get right. Smart use of "trash" is also important. Some fights might have highly resistant "main threats", who can't be significantly impaired by spells, necessitating your fighters wear them down, while the casters manage enormous numbers of weaker foes. Others might have a dangerous enemy wrapped in layers of magical protection, resulting in (slow) wizard duels, while melee combatants handle groups of melee threats.
If you have good round-resolution speed, but short fights, because of rocket-tag, you can try adding ablative protections to some enemies. Free spell turning effects, or absorbers, can help draw out combats that might otherwise be over in a round, without the rock-paper-scissors of immunities. Use this sparingly though, as it can confuse players who might think it's spell resistance or immunities.

I had a novice DM try a level 16 game. Everyone played wizards. I think I had more fun designing my various layers of protections, drawing my Magnificent Mansion floorplan, and exquisitely detailing the contents of my Portable Hole than I did actually playing. Because he was new, combat was kinda uninspired, and basically became "how many spells do we need to deal with this threat". While slapping time pressure on things to force casters to ration spells a bit is a solution, you can't overuse it. Similarly, mixing things up (fights without certain items, disabling spells) should be used only occasionally. Another, more experienced GM, had a oneshot combat encounter at level 20. It was surprisingly decent, mostly because he threw a good mix of immunities and handwaved special powers on the enemies. Also, we weren't all wizards. And the enemies had about triple regular health.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Just recently had some nice experience with REALLY high SR enemy wizard at level 15. Our melee guys were busy killing lots of melee stuff and quite good at it. So - it could be made mere-or-less equally fun for everyone. If you put everyone in high-wind limited-vision hard-to-teleport conditions, that is. ;)

So you didn't have Transmute Rock to Mud and Transmute Mud to Rock prepared? Or Telekinesis, if there were some heavy objects around? Or dome-shaped Wall of Stone? Or used Solid Fog, then started hurling SR: Yes spells, if you had the feats Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration?

Oh wait, wizard. Well, this means the enemies have to follow a gentleman's agreement so that the enemy wizard won't just use one single spell (Slow, Heightened Slow, Quickened Slow, Solid Fog, Acid Fog, Stinking Could, Incendiary Cloud, Transmute Rock to Mud, etc) to hamper the mundanes so that the mooks have an edge on them before focusing their attention back on the party wizard. A Quickened Slow has something like a 50-50 chance to take out a fighter, or a barbarian out of Rage or with a Rage ACF, as a swift action.

[u-b]

So you didn't have Transmute Rock to Mud and Transmute Mud to Rock prepared?
Of course not! Why would anyone prepare such a nonsense? Two rounds to check if that guy has DimDoor? I assure you, he does. ;) Anyway, there was mostly ice and snow around and frozen mud is even worse then its soft variety.

Or Telekinesis, if there were some heavy objects around?
Well, no. While I like the spell, lobbying <what> at <what> is usually not the best way to damage the second <what>.

Or dome-shaped Wall of Stone?
Not anymore (was not first fight in a day). Also I read it as "reflex avoids" and don't like Schrödinger enemy casters.

Or used Solid Fog
Did I say there was WIND?

...feats Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration?
Nope. These two might helped some, but at two feats... Honestly, I was relying on Arcane Mastery and not expecting anything more resistant than ancient black dragon level or so. That guy had 30. Still, fixed today.

Oh wait, wizard. Well, this means the enemies have to follow a gentleman's agreement so that the enemy wizard won't just use one single spell (Slow, Heightened Slow, Quickened Slow, Solid Fog, Acid Fog, Stinking Could, Incendiary Cloud, Transmute Rock to Mud, etc) to hamper the mundanes so that the mooks have an edge on them before focusing their attention back on the party wizard. A Quickened Slow has something like a 50-50 chance to take out a fighter, or a barbarian out of Rage or with a Rage ACF, as a swift action.
Well, while slow (of any kind) would probably glance off our casters, it would have a reasonable chance to affect fighter types. Stinking Could might affect them too, if they rolled poorly. Not sure why you mentioned Incendiary Cloud - at 4d6 per round, reflex half, it is a form of nonsense. All of this would have been dispelled next round with 100% probability, but still, a good try on that Slow.

[navar100]

Embrace Teleport. Do not get angry and upset the wizard wants to teleport the party instead of having to spend weeks traveling, skipping over all those random and game world filler encounters. The campaign is about St. Ives, not who you meet on the way. Also, some adventure locales could possibly only be accessed via teleport. It's in the mountains, the other side of a chasm, in underground caverns, or other not so easily reached location the party has to teleport because if they don't it will be too late to stop the Great Evil.

[Yora]

However, I intended to extend the adventure 'til at least 16th-level. Maybe more, depending on how things go. If we're still having fun, I plan to extend it to 20th level just so everyone gets to use their capstone ability.
Why? What do you hope to gain from playing at high level? The other option would be to slow down the amount of XP the characters get so they stay in the 8-12 range for a very long time until you reach the end of the campaign. If you decide you want to get up to 16 or 20, you probably have reasons you want to do that. Those reasons would help to give you advice.

[Bahamut Omega]

I've only played 3.5 (always wanted to try a full on Pathfinder game) and I find the rules as whole just start to really break down around level 15. As has been already mentioned, the biggest pain in the neck is how casters get continually more powerful while mundanes pretty much just stay the same. I feel the Pathfinder system did a lot more than 3.5 to not make mundane classes at least some like they become a lot more proficient with weapons and armor.

I've always been rather annoyed by the fact that the RAW allow for a 20th level fighter to be completely inept against a caster with Wall of Force. To a lesser extent inept against a caster with Resilient Sphere or Charm Person, but only because they allow a save. If the caster has Force Cage, the fighter may as well roll over and start sucking his thumb for all the good he can do as he's stuck in there for more than a day, probably with the caster periodically trying to disintegrate him.

I ran a play be post game awhile ago which was gestalt and I really liked it simply because one shotting player characters wasn't too likely. Assuming the player knows what they're doing, the gestalt character shouldn't have much if any significant weaknesses, preventing save or die spells from being so insanely broken. Now and then, firing off a save or die spell is a good idea, but knowing that if the enemy saves (and has a better than 50% chance of succeeding) you've used up your action for the round is a powerful disincentive to become too reliant on them.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Why? What do you hope to gain from playing at high level? The other option would be to slow down the amount of XP the characters get so they stay in the 8-12 range for a very long time until you reach the end of the campaign. If you decide you want to get up to 16 or 20, you probably have reasons you want to do that. Those reasons would help to give you advice.
Why not? The simple fact that there's 20 levels on the class entry can be enough for most people.

Either way, if you got a wizard I suggest putting a few limits on that one. Nothing obscene, but things like actually using the spell book rules can help quite a bit. (I'm not too familiar with PF but in 3.5 a spell book has 100 pages and a spell takes up one page per level.) The more spells he wants available the more books and scrolls he gets to drag around. I'd also actually track weight. And the higher the spell level the harder it's would be to find someone who knows it or a scroll with it to actually learn it in the first place. A fireball would be fairly common but once you start getting up to 7th level spells (or even 5-6th depending on how common magic is in your setting) research and/or some serious luck is required.

Use the terrain rules, rules for narrow passages etc. if you're not already.

Don't be afraid to turn a combat into part combat, part skill challenge. One of my favorite battles ever was one where an old pirate ship had come into harbor (one well known for having sunk and killed everyone on board almost a hundred years earlier). We had to fight and sneak our way to the harbor, through increasingly worse fog, only to end up facing the captain who challenged one of the melee fighters to a duel. Being the honorable type he accepted. Except there was a snag, no matter the damage the guy wasn't going down. So my character and another sneaky-stealthy member of the group snuck off to see what was going on. Turned out he couldn't be destroyed without destroying his ship. Said and done we found a way to blow up the ship, giving the fighter a chance to kill the captain, which pretty much threw all the other monsters into chaos.

Yes that encounter was clearly tailored to my group at the time, but my point is that from time to time it really is worth it to turn battles into challenges that requires more than brute force. (Of course don't make it impossible if they miss a check, just a little harder.)
That battle was years ago but it's still the most memorable so far, and that was just a mini-boss fight, but it required some thinking out of the box.

[Jay R]

I haven't played anything more recent than 2E but my experience is that the major advantage the fighters have is lots of hit points, but only if you make it matter. So use lots of large area-effect damage. When your casters get to single digit hit points, the melee guys don't feel so underpowered.

[Lemmy]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Teleport is not a problem, in the setting we play in both games (the one I DM and the one I play) there is no teleport or plane shift spells. The exception are class-features such as a monk's Abundant Step. There is also no Wish/Miracle or similar spells.

As the party goes, it's composed of a Barbarian, a Bard, a Paladin, a Magus and a (not highly optimized) Cleric. Although a player who may join us showed insterest in playing a Witch.

Houserules in effect:
As I said, No Teleport or Wish/Miracle spells (The game was originally intended to be played in the Iron Kingdoms setting)
+2 skill points/level to all Tier 3 or lower classes
+1/4 character level as a bonus to all skills (not that much of a difference in PF)
3.5 Material may be used if approved by me and all other players.

Rules We're Considering to Use, But Not Sure:
Hero Points (APG) - Avoid those nasty SoL spells.
Called Shots (UC) - Increased power and variety to martial classes

Anyone has any experience with these rules in PF? I mostly used Hero Points in M&M and have never really used Called Shots.


Why? What do you hope to gain from playing at high level? The other option would be to slow down the amount of XP the characters get so they stay in the 8-12 range for a very long time until you reach the end of the campaign. If you decide you want to get up to 16 or 20, you probably have reasons you want to do that. Those reasons would help to give you advice.

Sorry, I was not very clear about this.
I plan to end the campaign at 16th level.
As in, the final confrontation against the BBEG happens when they reach this level.
If, and only if, we are all still having fun, let's say, if I can successfully use the Playground's advices, I'll extend the campaign beyond 16th level. What I'd have to gain is the fun we'd still be having and the opportunity to use high level abilities, which are rarely seen in play.

Arbitrary, you suggested using a homebrewed Stunt system, do you know where I can find something like that online?

[Yora]

Why not? The simple fact that there's 20 levels on the class entry can be enough for most people.
Sure "I want to try out high level play" is a perfectly good reason. But not the only one.

[Lemmy]

Sure "I want to try out high level play" is a perfectly good reason. But not the only one.

I don't have an specific reason. I guess I could say it's 50-50 between "Let's try high level play and use those cool capstone abilities" and "I want my character to grow powerful enough to face gods (or become gods themselves)!"

[Arbitrarity]

As the party goes, it's composed of a Barbarian, a Bard, a Paladin, a Magus and a (not highly optimized) Cleric. Although a player who may join us showed insterest in playing a Witch.
Fairly standard distribution then. Considering that Magus get only 6'th level spells, and have a focus on close combat, and the Cleric isn't excessively optimized, you shouldn't have enormous class balance issues. Witches have a rather finite spell list, not nearly as many tools as wizards. I don't know enough about PF spells to say if they have enough to be a problem, but I doubt it. Since you don't have teleportation or planeswalking, I doubt Create Demiplane will be a problem. If it could be, remove the Time trait (duh)

I'm surprised I haven't seen much in the way of stunting systems for D&D... anyways. I first heard about stunts from Exalted.
Thoughts on adapting Exalted stunting system
They're a fairly simple all-purpose system for boosting checks of all kinds, based on vivid description. There are 3 "levels" of stunts, based on description quality. (quote from http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Exalted_Stunts which gives a decent overview of their concept and feel)

A one die stunt is where you describe your action in a more interesting fashion than "I hit him with my mace" or "I use Socialise to seduce her", and you aren't repeating an earlier description. It doesn't need to be long, it doesn't need to be worthy of the Illiad or Crouching Tiger, it just has to add some colour to the game, preferably by appeal to the senses.
Why yes, roleplaying out a conversation would almost always count a 1 stunt, so long as the conversation was actually doing something (ie it incorporated a dice action). I'm glad you noticed.
A two dice stunt is just like a 1 stunt, only it incorporates the scenery, environment, or ongoing drama of the scene. "My goremaul whistles in with such force that blocked or not, the stones under his feet shatter!" or "I quickly snatch a white rose from Mnemon's hair as she's busy sneering at Cainan, and present it with a wordless yet eloquent smile to V'Neef, letting my kimono fall open just enough to catch her eye" are both fine 2 stunts.

Easy, right? Don't worry too much about whether the stunt is super-cool, if it fits the criteria above it deserves the award. The important thing is that everyone tries to contribute to the imagery of the game and don't repeat themselves - the core of what the stunt system is trying to achieve.
This makes it pretty easy for the GM. Haven't heard that exact stunt before? 1. Did it involve the environment? 2. This allows you to easily assess most stunts objectively and super-fast.

3 stunts are really hard, but don't worry about that, either. They tend to be spontaneous, someone doing just the right thing at just the right time without really trying for it, but it fits so well and is so cool that everybody at the table knows it's a 3. As GM, you'll probably have no trouble picking out a 3, but if in doubt, remember the actual reward isn't that big a deal (it's only another mote or two and a die), so don't be afraid to give it out - just don't do it so often that it loses its special status.

With that basic framework in mind, you just need to map it appropriately to D&D. Depending on your preferences, you might map 1/2/3 dice stunts into +2/4/6 bonuses to a skill check, a saving throw, AC for one attack, an attack roll, or damage, or +1d4/1d6/1d8, or +1d4/2d4/3d4. Heck, you can do +1d6/2d6/3d6, though that's higher than I'd like. I prefer +2/4/6, since it has some precedent, and it doesn't require extra dicerolling.

To restrict/balance these a little, you might want to add a skill/ability check, either opposed or with an eyeballed DC. I tend to go with 20/25/30, but as your party scales up in power, that might increase. You can also forgo this in favor of coolness (and speeding up combat).

Exalted also hands out a reward for succeeding at stunts, based on description level. If you plan on using hero points, 3 dice successes are probably worth one (this should tell you how hard they are). You can come up with limited rewards for smaller stunts, inflict status ailments, or reduce the time required for an action. Use discretion with these, depending on stunt.
What I'd consider standard rewards are things like...
Inflict -2/-4/-6 penalty to next save (possibly a specific save)
Deal an extra 1/2/3d6 damage
(for skills) reduce action 0/1/2 steps (full round to standard/move, for example)
Stagger/Daze/Stun target for one round (with saving throw)
Move an extra 5 ft/15 ft/speed as part of the action.
Slow/Entangle/Stun target for one round (generally harder saving throw)
Attack applies to two adjacent targets, or gains some AOE.
Free disarm/trip attempts.
You might forgo the bonus to a roll if it's obvious players are aiming at one of these effects, or it seems appropriate.
Generally, these should let players "stretch" their abilities in combat a bit further, and produce useful effects as a reward for evocative description and terrain use.

There's also the Iron Heroes stunting system. There's a reference sheet (http://joasaerano.pbworks.com/f/IH+Stunt+&+Challenge+Sheet.pdf) but it won't make much sense without the full rules. It's based on "pick a skill, select penalties, make a check against DC 20, or opposed check, gain effect of choice". It's a bit more mechanically complex than making up an Exalted-style system, but still requires description to justify the skill check.

[eggs]

I've used the Called Shots rules. They were sometimes useful to the crit-monkey Magus who took the associated feat line, but they didn't really affect anyone else - without both feats, they just weren't worth the actions.

I've never used Hero Points. If there are 3-4 players, each player gets one per session and they take 2-3 sessions to level up, they could come up from one player another about once per combat. That sounds like it could be very interesting.