What level do you end your game?

[Rhyltran]

I'm not asking the best time to end the game. What this thread is about is as the original post states. What level do you end your game? This is less about "When the game breaks up" but more about your "ideal point." I usually have games with mid to high optimization. Because of that my games typically end at level 12-16. By then there's not much the characters can't do. So what about you? When do you end your game? Why?

[Calthropstu]

I like to play all the way through. When the characters get to a certain point I say "Ok, this is it: the last dungeon. You are probably all going to die... who's up for it?"

I like putting up challenges worthy of high level characters. I have posted a few of them on the forums before: such as the guy who visited their room and dropped notes secured with "rocks" that had silence cast on them that were also trap the soul trigger items. Or the guy who was scrying on a room that was suspended over a pit chock full of prismatic spheres and he disintegrated the pillar holding the room up. (TPK both instances)

Or the color coded teleportation orbs... and one of them happens to be black. WHEEE sphere of annihilation.

[Crake]

Personally, I end it when the campaign feels like it should end, not when a certain level is hit. When characters achieve their personal goals, or the big bad guy has been stopped, or for whatever reason. I have had games end as early as level 8, while others inched into epic before the players decided to just retire rather than go through the insanity that is epic levels.

[Geddy2112]

It depends on the length of the campaign. If I am running a short game, 6ish sessions, it will probably end 1-3 levels higher than it started. I rarely run 1-20 campaigns, but on average my longer games will go about 10-12 levels by the time it is over.

[Rhyltran]

Personally, I end it when the campaign feels like it should end, not when a certain level is hit. When characters achieve their personal goals, or the big bad guy has been stopped, or for whatever reason. I have had games end as early as level 8, while others inched into epic before the players decided to just retire rather than go through the insanity that is epic levels.

Yeah, I get this though when I say what level my campaigns at it's usually set to end around there. Not that it's forced, the story generally runs about that long. (Not usually intended to go longer.) Curious with your players occasionally inching towards Epic, what's the highest they've gone if you don't mind me asking?

[TheCorsairMalac]

My campaigns tend to end in the level 10-15 range. I try to set a primary story in motion, and the story usually wraps up around then unless I make soap-opera style plot twists.

[Lormador]

I find that it depends very much on the setting and the tier of the characters rather than the level, or even whether the story is complete or not. What causes games to end is the gradual increase of preparation time to levels where I just can't keep up, or a degree of freedom that I can't bring creative powers to do justice to.

I don't think I've met a lot of DMs who are really able to run something like Waterdeep or Sigil for a 11th level (or higher) wizard. On the other hand, a more confined setting like Ravenloft is much easier to manage.

[Cozzer]

In my settings, the maximum level (not just for the characters, but for everyone) goes from 8 to 12, more or less. I usually like to end things with the characters slightly below the maximum, so that each of them isn't top tier for the setting yet, but as a group they can bring down even the strongest character around.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm with Crake, it ends when it ends. I do, however aim to bring things to a close by late 16/ early 17 at the latest. 9ths are a bear to deal with in anything but short bursts.

[Crake]

Yeah, I get this though when I say what level my campaigns at it's usually set to end around there. Not that it's forced, the story generally runs about that long. (Not usually intended to go longer.) Curious with your players occasionally inching towards Epic, what's the highest they've gone if you don't mind me asking?

One game went up to 17 before one player quit because he royally ostracised himself from absolutely everyone else (in character, not out of character) and the other, playing the high tier spellcaster, was burning out from their absolutely incredible amount of spells to manage.

My current game is at 16, and looking to likely edge out my previous game, the plot involves Ashardalon and Lolth, and the players don't seem at all as burned out as the previous game, likely because they have a goal, rather than the previous one, which was much more open ended and a kinda "do what you want" game, so most players lacked direction and ended up less interested. I'm anticipating this game to likely hit level 19ish before they go after ashardalon. Whether they go after Lolth (custom setting where Lolth isn't actually a god, but rather the firstborn daughter of the unseelie queen, so it's much less of an impossible task than it seems) after that will likely determine whether or not they go into epic levels, though based on how things are going right now, they will probably decide to not go after her, so probably a level 20/21ish or so finish I'm expecting.


I'm with Crake, it ends when it ends. I do, however aim to bring things to a close by late 16/ early 17 at the latest. 9ths are a bear to deal with in anything but short bursts.

My table kinda feels the same way, 9th level spells from both the player and enemy perspective become an ordeal to try and sort out. It becomes even worse when your party consists of a ranger, 2 warblades, a swordsage/rogue/shadowdancer and a sublime chord desperately trying to keep up, with a binder cohort and a cleric cohort.

There just gets a point where the question becomes "Why haven't the drow wizards and clerics not wiped you off the map yet" and every session feels like the verisimilitude is stretching to the point of breaking :smallfrown:

[HalfQuart]

My current DM has instituted a hard cap of level 15; we're currently levels 11-14 (1x 11, 3x 12, 1x 14). His previous group went all the way to 20, but he didn't enjoy DMing the last few levels, so is going to cut it off sooner. We're a pretty low-op group, so i think we could go further. I think he's going to just stop leveling the highest-level character when he reaches 15, then let the rest of us catch up. But we're also nearing the end of a major "save the world" adventure arc, so maybe we'll all just retire (or die with the rest of the world if we fail) at the end of the arc.

[Aetis]

Level 12 is where we end.

We play through 1 to 12, and each playthrough takes around 6 months or so.

[Kelb_Panthera]

My table kinda feels the same way, 9th level spells from both the player and enemy perspective become an ordeal to try and sort out. It becomes even worse when your party consists of a ranger, 2 warblades, a swordsage/rogue/shadowdancer and a sublime chord desperately trying to keep up, with a binder cohort and a cleric cohort.

There just gets a point where the question becomes "Why haven't the drow wizards and clerics not wiped you off the map yet" and every session feels like the verisimilitude is stretching to the point of breaking :smallfrown:

My biggest problem isn't that I don't know how to get around them. Rather it's that doing so can be incredibly specific.

Just as an example, have you ever tried to work around the foresight, nerveskitter, contingent celerity, "I always go first, yes even then" combo? Once or twice in an adventure does it make sense for the enemy to be that prepared and the human errors get corrected -fast- if you jump on 'em.

A war between casters of that realm is very much a once-in-a-blue-moon kinda thing. :smallsigh:

[Mato]

End?

You mean you don't just start playing new characters one thousand years into the future of the last game when the newest BBEGs are trying to resurrect your old character that your last one killed five hundred years ago?

[Kelb_Panthera]

End?

You mean you don't just start playing new characters one thousand years into the future of the last game when the newest BBEGs are trying to resurrect your old character that your last one killed five hundred years ago?

Eh, I'd call those more sequels than continuations.