What is High-Level Play Actually Like at the Table?

[Schadenfreuda]

After reading thread after thread about theoretical optimisation and all the ridiculous overpowered nonsense that's possible at high levels, I've become quite curious about what playing with 17th- or higher-level characters at the table. So, what are the experiences you've had? What's it like to be a party that powerful?

[StevenC21]

At that point, it depends hugely on class composition and optimization level.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Sometimes it's rocket tag, i.e. whoever goes first just blows up the opponent and it's over.

Most often it's not much different from mid-level play. Most actual games don't have silly builds that are mediocre for most of the game and then peak at an absurd power level at the higher levels. Being higher level generally means having more/better options, higher numbers, etc. but in turn opponents have more immunities, higher stats/hp, and can be more numerous.

[Schadenfreuda]

Sometimes it's rocket tag, i.e. whoever goes first just blows up the opponent and it's over.

This matches my experience from high-level play in 5e. Winning was a matter of getting a surprise round where everyone remembered their roles. Our barbarian would charge casters and wreck them hard, while our ranger and rogue would finish them off with sneak attacks and high DPR, and casters would use crowd control like Maze as well as summoned monsters to prevent or hinder enemy retaliation. Most fights were cleanup by the time any opponents even took a turn. I imagine 3.5e, especially at medium- to high-op, must be like that on steroids.

[noob]

This matches my experience from high-level play in 5e. Winning was a matter of getting a surprise round where everyone remembered their roles. Our barbarian would charge casters and wreck them hard, while our ranger and rogue would finish them off with sneak attacks and high DPR, and casters would use crowd control like Maze as well as summoned monsters to prevent or hinder enemy retaliation. Most fights were cleanup by the time any opponents even took a turn. I imagine 3.5e, especially at medium- to high-op, must be like that on steroids.

3.5 at high op and high level is more "and so the adventurer team have a cunning plan to kill all the opponents in the dungeon as well as all the hostages(killing the hostages is a good bonus: anyway you want to be sure they are not undead and the best way for that is killing them and resurrecting them) without seeing them directly" than rocket tag.
Stuff like extreme siege tactics with carpet bombing with tons of objects(possibly including magical explosives or regular explosives if you have the right to regular explosives) at once from the air while invisible and with contingencies to flee instantly or earthquake spam or having heavy objects falling from orbit on the target(orbital bombardment is a thing in 5e but it is much harder than in 3.5).
Or yet the thing called scry and die.
Or if the whole thing you target is not in antimagic zones it becomes horribly complex with all the dimensional travel around and the teleporting flying spell clock battlecubes.
or you give up thinking and swarm stuff with more solars that swarm stuff with even more solars and so on.

I remember when we discussed about falling objects and concluded that the way the dmg was written in the language that was used at the table that falling objects had their damage capped at 20d6 and so that we had to use 500 grams spiky objects for optimal crushing.
And getting scried and killed is a major concern too with the gm I have.
(although at my table it is core only high optimisation)

[Inchhighguy]

It does depend a lot on the game play.

A lot of games do just let the players ''win'', so nothing much changes at high levels. In this game the DM is just making encounters for the players to win...and the players will always win. Some DMs don't try much. They just put foes in front of the PCs and let them win the fight.

System mastery and rules mastery also plays a huge part. Not only the level of mastery the DM has, but how the rules are used.

And while it comes up in every level of the game, the DM wearing the 'Black Hat' (that is doing things against the characters) is very big in high level games. Lots of foes, traps, ecounters and such can be very dangerious for PC....unless the DM hand waves it all away by being too 'White Hat'.

All that said and (not) done, high level play can be amazing.

High level characters are demi gods doing amazing things on legendary adventures. Like characters in myths.

[StevenC21]

High level characters are demi gods

I hate to be "that guy", but you are incorrect, because Demigod is a specific, tangible crunch that even high level players do not attain automatically.

[ezekielraiden]

Assuming you mean "high-op but still playable," the best term I have for it is "hectic." I can handle it in (relatively) small doses, but it's gotta be broken up by non-combat stuff (not strictly RP, though that's a big part of it). You may see dozens of attack rolls per turn, multiple spells used at once, or any of a number of other things. Definitely not for the faint of heart. I only really like it because I have a dirty filthy powergamer itch sometimes and getting to scratch it is nice.

[inuyasha]

For me? The fighters are having fun smashing things to pieces, rangers and rogues are looking for every little modifier they have, and the spellcasters are debating with themselves on what spell slots to use while occasionally shooting a crossbow or throwing a dart. It's honestly just like lower level play with fewer limits, my groups have never cared about optimization tooooo much.

[BWR]

I've only played in two games with high-level characters, and the optimization level was different, though neither were anywhere near the absurdities that are (supposedly) RAW legal but anti-RAI. Mostly the games were/are like mid level play except that since resurrection is comparatively cheap, I don't feel bad about PC deaths so long as at least one survives. The first group was more high powered than the second, and combat was often a tedious affair to plan (according to the GM), and it was rather rocket-taggy. Rounds took a long time and things tended to be decided on the first one, even if you might need another round to mop up.
The second group plays (dare I say it?) the game as intended. Combat usually lasts a few rounds and while one-shots absolutely can occur they aren't the norm.

Higher level options mean that some issues that were problematic at lower levels simply aren't a problem any more, such as food or a 100' cliff or having to move around the world quickly, but that means I don't put low-power obstacles in the PCs' path as anything but flavor.

[Eldariel]

Less about playing the tactical and more the strategic side of things. As stated, things like surprise are a huge deal and there are lots of options for generating surprise (or being immune to it, i.e. Foresight, Dire Tortoise Wild Shape/Shapechange and so on). On the other hand, studying your opponents preferably before fighting and building a strategy for how to get what you want (usually some item, stopping some ritual, saving the universe or whatever) is key. If you've got an access to the module, Bastion of Broken Souls is an excellent high level premade adventure (it's a part of the line of adventures from 1 to 20 starting from the Sunless Citadel) at least with how it includes the various magical abilities you've got at your disposal (assuming the party actually has 9s casters) and how the adventure is structured. The enemies are a bit weak for what all-day buffing does on this level but that's easily remedied.

One thing though, combat turns tend to last a long time unless the players (and particularly the DM! It took ours a long time to get the point where high level games became somewhat fluid; this is of course true from the teens) are extremely well-informed of the various key abilities and what they're doing. Also, the most efficient means of attack is generally trying to rip your enemies' magical buffs first and attacking otherwise later. That does require keeping a list of all the relevant information of all the buffs (Caster Level/Dispel DC, school of magic, aura strength, your stats without it) so that the game doesn't grind to a halt the first time targeted Greater Dispel Magic is cast (of course, Disjunction has less of a problem in that sense since it's all gone; but magic items are another matter and you need to keep close tabs on those).

[noob]

Less about playing the tactical and more the strategic side of things. As stated, things like surprise are a huge deal and there are lots of options for generating surprise (or being immune to it, i.e. Foresight, Dire Tortoise Wild Shape/Shapechange and so on). On the other hand, studying your opponents preferably before fighting and building a strategy for how to get what you want (usually some item, stopping some ritual, saving the universe or whatever) is key. If you've got an access to the module, Bastion of Broken Souls is an excellent high level premade adventure (it's a part of the line of adventures from 1 to 20 starting from the Sunless Citadel) at least with how it includes the various magical abilities you've got at your disposal (assuming the party actually has 9s casters) and how the adventure is structured. The enemies are a bit weak for what all-day buffing does on this level but that's easily remedied.

One thing though, combat turns tend to last a long time unless the players (and particularly the DM! It took ours a long time to get the point where high level games became somewhat fluid; this is of course true from the teens) are extremely well-informed of the various key abilities and what they're doing. Also, the most efficient means of attack is generally trying to rip your enemies' magical buffs first and attacking otherwise later. That does require keeping a list of all the relevant information of all the buffs (Caster Level/Dispel DC, school of magic, aura strength, your stats without it) so that the game doesn't grind to a halt the first time targeted Greater Dispel Magic is cast (of course, Disjunction has less of a problem in that sense since it's all gone; but magic items are another matter and you need to keep close tabs on those).

Honestly once you have disjunction you should probably not use other dispelling spells because they are way too easy to counter and even if not countered if your opponent have part of its immortality buffstack in items you can be still unable to harm the opponent if somehow you can dispell it(which you can not due to rings of counterspell because (greater) dispell is targeted and so utterly trivial to stop)

[Eldariel]

Honestly once you have disjunction you should probably not use other dispelling spells because they are way too easy to counter and even if not countered if your opponent have part of its immortality buffstack in items you can be still unable to harm the opponent if somehow you can dispell it(which you can not due to rings of counterspell because (greater) dispell is targeted and so utterly trivial to stop)

True, Disjunction makes GDM more or less obsolete for party use (though not breaking items is convenient). However, there are many enemies you face on these levels that have GDM at will but no Disjunction. Particularly when facing numerous outsiders, they often have GDM and they can afford to spam it (particularly if there's a lot of them). Also, Chain Spell'd GDM is pretty reliable for taking out magic items, more so than Disjunction since there's no save to stop it. It does worse against buff stacks though, but disabling all magic items is a good start before targeting the enemy directly and thus invoking any related contingencies and item protections (Spellblade & al.).

[Anthrowhale]

...though not breaking items is convenient...
It's an expensive solution, but casting Disjunction within a Time Stop removes this drawback.

[Efrate]

If your party is reasonably competent it comes down to immunities, information, and intiative.

The party should never venture anywhere or into anything without near perfect information, and then reach the destination near instantly. They should know what they will face, what tactics the foes use, and what those enemies are prepared for. Spells like find the path, greater teleport, and the various divinations elemental weirds give you access too will cover nearly all of this. If the enemies do not have defenses against this, they pretty much auto lose.

Being immune to as much as possible, freedom of movement, mind blank, and protection from death effects/negative energy/ability damage and drain. You negate all the non hp damage threats, which are infinitely more scary than a 20d6 evocation spell. You pump elemental resistance vs. the favored elemental damage, or get immunity, so its very difficult to be hurt or taken out of a fight. If your enemies are stopped by any of that, they cannot meaningfully interact with you, and they lose. If they do not do mirror levels of prep, they lose.

And rocket tag is real. If you go first through absurd initiative, dire tortise shape, foresight or the like, you should win, as you strip any protections your enemies have, or you target their weakness that you discovered earlier and they are shut down before they can act. If your enemies cannot do the like, they lose.

True res is cheap so do not be afraid to have party members die. Its less than 20k iirc to bring someone back and that is chump change. Bad guys can do that too and be better prepared next time.

[noob]

True, Disjunction makes GDM more or less obsolete for party use (though not breaking items is convenient). However, there are many enemies you face on these levels that have GDM at will but no Disjunction. Particularly when facing numerous outsiders, they often have GDM and they can afford to spam it (particularly if there's a lot of them). Also, Chain Spell'd GDM is pretty reliable for taking out magic items, more so than Disjunction since there's no save to stop it. It does worse against buff stacks though, but disabling all magic items is a good start before targeting the enemy directly and thus invoking any related contingencies and item protections (Spellblade & al.).

Greater dispell magic against items is less reliable if your opponent use cl 100 items(there is ways to make an item be cl 100 for 1250gp extra cost by making one of the smith able to make cl 100 items add a cl100 level 0 spell as a scroll like activation effect)

[GrayDeath]

In actual Play I only remember 2 Groups with which we went above Level 15 for any amount of time.

The first, back in the day, was "Played as intended", ergo you didnt see much difference to med Level play except for higher numbers, and was pretty bland (next big Dragon? OK then....) overall. But we all were relatively new to D&D back in the day, and only had Core books and such. Overall: Not much difference to mid Level play.


The second one was about 5 years ago, and aside from banning clearly "RAW only TO" stuff, as well as Ice assassin/Aleax/Simulacrum exploits, it went "full". Howdy that was a blast, if very very hectic. I played a Sorcerer in that one, with a clear focus on Tramsformation and Summoning, and the group had a Cleric, an Initiator of complicated class composition and a Druid iirc.
Only alsted about 2 months until we died to a well prepared Ambush of a lot of Devils, and was almost entirely No I ahve X" hectic, but was fun.


If everything starts to go faster my most recent group will reach Level 15ish within the enxt 1-2 adventures, so I might update the experience.

[Eldariel]

Greater dispell magic against items is less reliable if your opponent use cl 100 items(there is ways to make an item be cl 100 for 1250gp extra cost by making one of the smith able to make cl 100 items add a cl100 level 0 spell as a scroll like activation effect)

That does require access to CL 100 in the first place though, something I'd expect most games to lack. So I wouldn't consider that relevant for most games.

[Aotrs Commander]

Eh, I'be had one party finish at 17th and one party into low Epic. In both cases, it was only mid-high optimisation (so strong, but not close to TO) levels and is was pretty much like the lower levels only with a lot more kabooms on both sides.

(I also have in 3.Aotrs some inherent limitations to stuff like divination and teleportation, such that scry-and-die would not always be a viable option (any sensible fortress is going to be scry and teleport warded), though I didn't have to really dig them out in either place.)

There's only maybe one or two in our group (not including me) that would even approach close to TO (and, for that matter, the amount of material allowed in-game is selected (not even all of core gets a unilateral pass without modifications!) and okay'd mostly by me, so there's that.

I am, however, STUPID enough to have stated that after we finish Rise of the Runelords (at approximately 17th), I am going to run most likely Return of the Runelords as a direct sequel. (Yes, I know how stupid a thing that was for me to volenteer...!) So, ask me again in... A few years, in all honestly, given that it'll be another year, probably before we've seen the end of RotRL and it likely won't be the first thing I do after that...

[noob]

That does require access to CL 100 in the first place though, something I'd expect most games to lack. So I wouldn't consider that relevant for most games.

Ways: 1: wish does not require you to have the needed cl for adding an effect to a magical item(one of the safe clauses of wish)
2: Just play the right chain of classes and you can have cl 100 at level 20(and still a gigantic cl before level 20) for creating magical items which can be useful for a whole lot of things including making magical items resistant to dispel magic
Or do the usual circle magic abuse.

[DarkSoul]

Ways: 1: wish does not require you to have the needed cl for adding an effect to a magical item(one of the safe clauses of wish)
2: Just play the right chain of classes and you can have cl 100 at level 20(and still a gigantic cl before level 20) for creating magical items which can be useful for a whole lot of things including making magical items resistant to dispel magic
Or do the usual circle magic abuse.Guess I know what my next house rule addresses.

As far as high level play goes, it's all what you make of it. I ran a campaign to level 21 and had a great time using all kinds of high-CR monsters. My current campaign is at level 13 and I plan to go to about 30.
If everyone sticks to a gentleman's agreement to not abuse the rules it can be a really rewarding experience, and create moments everyone talks about for a long time.

[noob]

one idea for getting really high cl is the duegar monstrous class: it is crappy but it gives you a sla that have a cl of twice your hd.
add to that spellthief and master spellthief and you have at least twice your hd in cl.(but you have less hd than ecl due to having a monstrous class)

[Eldariel]

Ways: 1: wish does not require you to have the needed cl for adding an effect to a magical item(one of the safe clauses of wish)
2: Just play the right chain of classes and you can have cl 100 at level 20(and still a gigantic cl before level 20) for creating magical items which can be useful for a whole lot of things including making magical items resistant to dispel magic
Or do the usual circle magic abuse.

Oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. That said, obscene CL inflation is pretty high up there in the "Nope"-ladder at least in every game world I've played. And obviously Wish item creation is pretty borked straight-up.

[DarkSoul]

Oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. That said, obscene CL inflation is pretty high up there in the "Nope"-ladder at least in every game world I've played. And obviously Wish item creation is pretty borked straight-up.Agreed, and besides the thread is about what high level play is actually like, not how to break it and get books thrown at you.

[Darth_Versity]

From my personal experience with high level play (once as DM, once as a player) its very slow. Warrior types have lots of attacks. Spellcaster cause lots of saves. On top of that are multiple modifiers which change from round to round so the numbers are different, which all helps to bog play down to a crawl. And that's with low to medium optimisation.

If playing at higher levels I'd highly recommend some tricks to speed things up such as rolling attack and damage together, cheat sheets for commonly used spells and abilities and especially the five second declaration rule.

[Melcar]

After reading thread after thread about theoretical optimisation and all the ridiculous overpowered nonsense that's possible at high levels, I've become quite curious about what playing with 17th- or higher-level characters at the table. So, what are the experiences you've had? What's it like to be a party that powerful?

We have a group we play, which we started in 2002. Back then we were 5 players, now we are two left.

I play a this awesome character:

Melcar Silverdragon

Male human Wizard 15/ Arcane Avatar 5/ Arch Mage 5/Wizard King 5/ Wordbearer 2: CR 32; Medium–size humanoid (human); HD 15d4 plus 5d4 plus 5d4 plus 5d6 plus 1d4 plus 217; hp 343; Init + 9; spd 30 ft.; AC 30 (touch 22, flat-footed 25); Atk + 20/+15 melee (1d4+5/19-20, +4 silver dagger) or +20/+15 ranged touch (by spell); SQ Arcane Avatar abilities, Arch Mage High Arcana, Wizard King abilities, Wordbearer abilities, enhanced constitution, enhanced intelligence, SR 30; AL CG; SV Fort +24, Ref +22, Will +30, (+5 bonus vs. spells and spell-like effects); Str 12, Dex 21, Con 24, Int 43, Wis 23, Cha 9; Height 6 ft. 2 in.
Skills and Feats:, Appraise +16, Balance +5, Bluff +0, Climb +1, Concentration +42, Decipher Script +22, Diplomacy 2, Disguise -1, Escape Artist +5, Forgery +17, Gather Information 1, Heal +17, Hide +5, Intimidate -1, Jump +6, Knowledge (Arcana) +54, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +34, Knowledge (Elven Culture) +34, Knowledge (Geography) +34, Knowledge (History) +35, Knowledge (Imaskar) +34, Knowledge (Nature) +34, Knowledge (Netherill) +34, Knowledge (The Planes) +37, Knowledge (Religion) +37, Listen +23, Move Silently +5, Perform -1, Ride +5, Search +22, Sense Motive +7, Spellcraft +58, Spot +23, Swim +1, Use Rope +5, Survival +6;Feats: Automatic Quicken x3,Practiced Spellcaster, Empower Spell, Eschew Materials, Great Intelligence, Greater Spell Penetration, Improved Initiative, Improved Meta-magic, Insightful Caster, Maximize Spell, Quicken Spell, Scribe scroll, Silent Spell,Skill Focus (Spellcraft), Spell Focus (evocation), Spell Focus (transmutation), Spell Penetration, Still Spell, True Believer, Summon Familiar.
Special Qualities: Arcane Avatar abilities: Avatar of magic, augment magic, call spell, counter-magic, master of magic; Arch Mage High Arcana: Mastery of elements, mastery of shaping, spell power +1, spell power +2, spell power +3; Wizard King special abilities: Mastered spells, increased spell power, arcane resistance, fundamentals of magic, enhanced intelligence.

Spellfire (Su): Melcar has the ability to control spellfire, like that of the feat, Spellfire wielder.

Avatar of Magic (Ex): Melcar’s physical form is infused with magical power. Energy washes over him without harm or flows through him and his spells as he chooses. He has Spell resistance 15+ his charisma modifier. Melcar continuously radiates magic, and can thus be seen with detect magic spell or effect. He also sees magical auras with his regular vision. He has detect magic as his normal vision as a supernatural ability.

Augment Magic (Ex): Melcar cast all his spells still and silent as of the meta-magic feats of the same name. He does this without increasing their level.

Call spell (Ex): When preparing his spells for the day, Melcar may sacrifice any two spell slots of a given level to prepare any spell of the same level from his spell list. For example, if Melcar did not have the spell lightning bolt in his books he could choose to prepare it by using two of his level 3 spell slots.

Counter-Magic (Ex): When attempting to counter an opponent’s casting, Melcar need not use dispel magic or his enemies spell. Instead he attempts to choke off the flow of energy to his foe’s casting. Instead of casting a spell to counter his enemy he imposes his force of will on the magical patterns that surrounds him.

Master of Magic (Ex): Once per day, Melcar may enter a meditative state in which he melds his spirit with the magical energy and patterns that surround him. In this state, he command s absolute control over the arcane magic en his direct vicinity. He shunts magic away from his enemies while allowing it to flow to his body and mind.

Mastery of Elements (Ex): Melcar can cast anyarcane spell he knows with the acid, cold, fire, electricity, or sonic designator to be cast as a different element. For example, a fireball may be cast to deal sonic damage instead of fire damage.

Mastery of Shaping (Ex): Melcar can alter area and effect spells that use the following categories: burst, cone, cylinder, emanation, or spread. The alteration consists of creating spaces within the spell’s area or effect that are not subject to the spell. The minimum dimension for these spaces is a 5-foot cube. For example, she could cast a fireball and leave a hole where her ally stands, preventing any fire damage. Furthermore, any shapeable (S) spells have a minimum dimension of 5 feetinstead of 10 feet.

Spell Power +1 (Ex): Melcar receives +1 to the save DC of his spells. This effect stack with spell power 2 and 3

Spell Power +2 (Ex): Melcar receives +2 to the save DC of his spells. This effect stack with spell power 1 and 3.

Spell Power +3 (Ex): Melcar receives +3 to the save DC of his spells. This effect stack with spell power 1 and 2.

Mastered Spells (Ex): Melcar may cast Teleport without Error in place of other prepared spells at any time. In order to do this, the character merely casts the spell and then marks one prepared spell off his list. This ability works exactly like the spontaneous casting of a cleric.

Increased Spell Power (Ex): Melcar’s spells from the schools of Evocation and Transmutation has their save DC increased by two.

Arcane Resistance (Ex): Melcar has a +3 circumstance bonus to all saves against spells and spell-like abilities.

Fundamentals of Magic (Ex): Melcar has 10 levels of free meta-magic levels.

Enhanced Intelligence (Ex): Melcar has a +4 legendary bonus to his Intelligence.

Word of Power, Sleep (Su): With the pronouncement of a single, primal syllable, the wordbearer forces a single foe within 60 ft. to collapse to the ground, deeply asleep. This word forces a creature’s mind to immediately shut down and enter the state of sleep. This ability works only against creatures that are capable of hearing spoken words and vulnerable to the sleep spell. The victim of this ability may make a Will save to resist its effects. A creature forced asleep by this power awakens in 1d4 hours or if forcefully shaken or disturbed, as per the sleep spell. The wordbearer may speak this word three times per day.

Word of Power, Terror (Su): This word of power arouses crippling fear in a single subject, freezing him in place as his muscles become rigid and his mind blanks. The victim is allowed a Will save (DC 20 + Int modifier) to overcome this effect. On a failed save, the creature is helpless. All melee attacks against a helpless target gain a +4 bonus to hit. A helpless creature treats his Dexterity score as if it were 0 and his Dexterity modifier was –5. As a full-round action, an opponent may deliver a coup de grace against a helpless creature. On a successful save, the victim still suffers the effects of a close brush with his deepest fears. He is considered shaken, suffering a –2 morale penalty to all attacks, damage rolls, and saving throws. The effects of this ability last for 2d4 rounds. The Wordbearer may speak this word three times per day. Mindless creatures and creatures immune to fear-effects are not subject to this word of power.

Enhanced Intelligence (Ex): Melcar has a +5 inherent bonus to his Intelligence.

Enhanced Constitution: Melcar has a +1 inherent bonus to his constitution.

Wizard Spells per Day: 5/11/10/10/10/9/9/8/8/8/8. Base DC 35 + spell level, 38 + spell level for Evocation and Transmutation spells. Caster level 32.

Signature Possessions: Robe of Am’mara*, Headband of Intellect +6, Gloves of Dexterity +6, Pearl of Wisdom +6, Belt of Constitution +6, Ring of Protection +5, Ring of Evasion/ Enduring Arcana, Bracers of Armor +8, Cloak of Resistance +5, Boots of Sprinting and Striding.
* Rope of Am’mara: (Artifact)

This black and dark red robe is of epic beauty. It is long with black runes magically drawn upon it. It gives the wearer the appearance of rulership. This great robe was given to Am’mara, as rulership of a Netherese city became hers. It grants the wearer the following abilities:
• Spell resistance 30
• Immunity to mind effecting spells.
• Ability to cast one extra spell per lvl. 1-9.
• DC of all spells increase +2
• +2 to all saving throws against spells and spell like abilities.



The other player plays:


HP: 330

Level 12 Paladin
Level 8 Lightbringer of Lathander 'Morninglord'
Level 3 Dawn Knight
Level 5 Sovereign King
Level 3 Human Paragon
Level 1 Sovereign

Str 18 (24) +7
Dex 14 (20) +5
Con 12 (18) +4
Int 15 (21) +5
Wis 13 (19) +4
Cha 32 (38) +14

Saves Total Base Ab. Mod. Divine Grace Feat Sacred Resist.
Fort 60 19 4 28 2 2 5
Reflex 51 13 3 28 2 5
Will 53 14 4 28 2 5

Initiative: +13 (+4 dex, +4 improved initiative, +5 Kauper's Skittish Nerves)

Attack Bonuses
32/32/27/22/17 1d8 + 10 15-20\x3
Silvered Dagger +3 31/26/21/16 1d4 + 9 19-20\x2

Armour Class
+5 full plate of great fortification +16
+5 large steel shield +10
+5 natural armor +5
+2 sacred bonus (Touched by Lathander) +2
Ring of Protection + 5 +5
Dexterity +4 (mithril full plate)
Shield of Charm 14 Cha

Total 66

Gear:
+5 dwarven crafted obdorium mercurial keen ghost touch longsword of holy power, cloak of charisma +6, barbuta of protection from evil, silvered dagger +3, +5 mithril battle plate of grace, belt of excellence +6, +5 extreme mithril shield of leadership, ring of protection +5, headband of clear mind +6, choker of eloquence, bracers of natural armor +5, 1 potion of fly,



Special Qualities:
Divine Grace
Divine Health
Altered Appearance (Good Outsider, unnaturally intense stare, sun birthmark)
Contact
Touched by Lathander (+2 to AC and Saves)

Special Abilities:
Detect Evil, at will
Lay on Hands 674 HP
Aura of Courage
Smite Evil 1\day +12 to attack 22 to damage
Remove Disease 6\week
Turning 20/day
Greater turning 1\day
Create Food and Water 3\day
Cure Lathander's Flock 1\day (2d8 + 12)
Instill Lathander's Strength 1\ day (1d6 str for 20 rds)
Shroud of Lathander (+12 AC for 18 rounds, reveals hidden\invisible enemies within 90 feet)
Planar Travel 1/day
Summon Blade
Burial Blessing
Eagle's Splendor
Daylight
Sending
Commune
Holy Word
Lathander's Ever Seeing Eyes
Divine Might
Leadership +2
One With the Land
One With the Fauna
One With the People
Hands of a True King
Boon of a True King
Pass the Mantle
Adaptive learning - Profession (Politician)
Ability Boost +2 Charisma


Feats:
Improved Initiative, Endurance, Great Fortitude, Weapon Focus (Longsword), Improved Critical (Longsword), Massive Critical (Longsword), Weapon Specialization (Longsword), Leadership, Extra Followers X3, Landlord, Entourage, Mighty Leader, Epic Leadership, Legendary Commander, Divine Blood, Shield of Charm and Aura of Command.



As you can see, we are pretty high level, but we run a fairly low to medium optimized game. I, the wizard are currently doing archeology with my 4 level 17 apprentices, where we try to uncover more info on the Wordbearer class. We are currently in Mulhorand scouring through the libraries.

Beregond, is King of Waterdeep and has named his kingdom Walden. He runs a high political intrigue campaign in which his political and religious enemies try to undermine his rule and create chaos and tension in his kingdom. A few wars too, but his armies are so massive and powerful that non really dares face him in open combat, so its underhanded methods and the like being employed!

So, as you can see, there are no underwear sewn with the fabric of space time itself, or +50 items. Yes, both our characters are really powerful in combat, but nowhere near the level to power ratios that goes on here at Gitpf.


I see and hear the usual tropes too. "At level 20+, you are basically challenging The Lady of Pain for the rule Sigil..." and frankly I think that happens only at tables where people actively try to abuse strict raw to basically break the game. In 99% of tables I highly doubt that Pun Puns are actually something that happens.

The main reason for us still playing is the fun. We rarely have personal encounters or combat and its really just that we have had so much fun with our characters throughout the years, that we don't want to stop. Also, we all set some really high lofted goals back in the day, and we have yet to fulfill them. For me, I wanted to basically become the most powerful mage in all of Faerun and well Larloch, the Srinshee and Ioulaum's still more powerful than my character. For Beredond is was to be King (Emperor) of all Fearun. He's currently having trouble managing one kingdom and one colony. So we still have work to do.

Most of our game is purely talking, with the odd skill check here and there. When it does turn into personal tactical combat, its either against the King, which means a host of Kingsguards or its against me and 4 level 17 wizards, and well its either done in the first round or we end up disengaging because we are unable to destroy each other. Basically a gaming night is an evening of talk, laughs and confusing puzzles.


Hope this helps!

[Quertus]

So, at my tables, high-level play is much like mid-level play: balance to the table.

As much as I'd like to play 5d Chess at Tippy's table, my tables just don't like that style.

So, let's go through a few examples:

Quertus' preferred party: Quertus mostly just reads his book while the crit-stacking 3.0 Vorpal Fighter beheads everything, and the Monk is the party MVP.

The BDH party: almost every combat is decided in a single round, with the opponents (and some of the party) likely never getting a turn. Turns are extremely fast, dozens of fights can be had a night, everyone gets to shine. Few parties are more fun, or easier to design content for. The rare monster / challenge that actually makes the party think / work for their victory is not just memorable but legendary - moreso than most any other monster in any other campaign, because it actually challenged these guys. OTOH, with the tagline, "we waded through them like they were humans", this party struggles with things like CR 0 basic social interaction. So "the friendly town mayor" may be more of a challenge than the CR+8 Dragon.

The "all-Rogue" party: epic fails. Not everyone is stealthy, so we cannot just bypass encounters. Despite what should be ridiculous DPS, numerous opponents have survived our attacks to attempt to flee. Still, our foes are usually naked before they get a turn.

BBEG & friends: This party… played the game "as intended" - they dealt damage to things. And that's the only way that they played "as intended". Their début mission set the tone by turning a published module on its head, with them surrendering to the "proper authorities" (who happened to be monsters, including an Illithid). For its climax, well, I had set someone up with the obvious intent of them becoming the late game BBEG, that the party even helped to create. Instead, the party joined forces with him. Good times.


Agreed, and besides the thread is about what high level play is actually like, not how to break it and get books thrown at you.

Which is why y'all should stop calling BadWrongFun on how people at actual tables play - *if* that's what happens at their tables. Wasting 5k+ XP (25+k GP) to protect one item from one spell, that no one wants to use anyway for metagame reasons of "****, that's a lot of bookkeeping - and would slow the game down"? That would be horrifically suboptimal, but would otherwise fly at my tables.

Also, if spending huge sums of gold or XP to protect an item from a single spell breaks your games, maybe you should take a careful look at your games, to make them more robust, and less easy to break.

[Quertus]

So, as you can see, there are no underwear sewn with the fabric of space time itself,

Underwear seemed a little personal; Quertus, my signature academia mage. for whom this account is named, just made a cloak. He rarely wears it, though. :smallwink:

[Hiro Quester]

In the two campaigns I have played to low-epic levels, there are a lot more options for players to solve problems, but also a lot more options for the GM to use to challenge the players.

The enemies are probably working for, supplied by, and fed intelligence by Gods at this point. They are able to know about and plan for the players' typical strategies. So enemies are rocking energy immunities, spell resistance, anti-magic fields, and equipment and abilities designed to take advantage of the players' weaknesses.

Our DM also made the God-supplied bad-guys teleport out the round they died, so at best a player might have a chance (reflex save) of grabbing one magic item from a body before it disappears. That enabled the God to supply they bad guys with good gear, but not just be inadvertently supplying the PCs with all that gear.

In addition, the McGuffin is usually under a time-pressure threat, so players need to face many different encounters without time to rest in between, so conserving spell resources becomes a serious concern (which enables the mundanes to shine).

This means that even though the T1 PCs could end an encounter by unloading their best spells and abilities on the problem, they have to think about holding some back for the unpredictably-many further encounters there are going to be before they get to the McGuffin.

[Drache64]

I made the combat a smaller part of the quest and players actually enjoyed it. Think about it, players at that level want to feel godlike, giving them small combat encounters that they blow up are extremely rewarding for them, I make the challenges more of a mental thing, I introduce grey bad guys that force a moral decision, give them puzzles then introduce a level 30 baddy every few weeks, like a darmmamu to the strange

[RNightstalker]

High-level play requires more preparation on the players and DM. Knowing your character and NPC's will make the game flow, no matter how you run or what style of play. The game I'm currently in is low 20's and due to the Incantatrix persisting all of the cleric's buffs, it requires a lot more effort for me as the DM to come up with something challenging that actually stands a chance...if the PC's can't die, there's no point. Not that I'm going for the TPK, but I don't want to waste my time either.

[Telok]

Lets see how well I can recall...

Dwarf Fighter 1/Psion 15: Flying, teleporting, scrying, disintegrating, teleporting weapons out of people's hands and into mine, precognition abuse, self healing, effectively energy and ranged attack immune during combat. Death: Last one standing at a "TPK" ambush after several sessions of telling the rest of the group that they needed to invest in anti-scry and anti-teleport. The rest of the party got a scry & die dropped on them when he went out shopping (because they couldn't scry with him around). The six 10th level rogues, 13th level cleric, and 11th level wizard took two successive ambushes to wear him down so the third ambush could kill him. He died standing in front of the local captain of the guard, in a major city, surrounded by soldiers. A number of the soldiers died too. I wasn't surprised, I expected some backlash for sacking twelve evil temples and turning all their gold holy symbols into a giant solid gold urinal in a dwarf gutter bar.

Elan Wizard 5/Mage of the Arcane Order 9: Flying, teleporting, true strike & no SR disintegrating... I think there's a theme here... quad huge air elemental summoning ("make a f*** ton of saves versus whirlwinds and pile everyone in that corner"), nearly energy immune, party haste and energy resist provider, casting Grease on people's weapons, spiky black tentacle hentai & sleet storm combos. Flooded a demon tower (near the top of a mountain, it involved sealing up all the entrances and unleashing several decanters of endless water) for laughs, put almost all feats into more psychic power points for the elan damage resistance (resulted in a surprisingly tough wizard), was starting to try to set up a succubus whorehouse. Game died out over vacations/schedule disruptions.

Hideous Duskblade/cleric/crusader/warblade/ruby knight vindicator/jade phoenix mage multiclass monstrosity: Truestriking empowered vampritic touch x3 + about 6d6 other random damage adds on a single short sword swipe as his normal attack at about +40 to hit. Iron heart surge, the 'Fort save vs damage to ignore going under 1 hp' stance, an pretty insane Fort save, a number of pretty good melee & save counters, lots of dimension dooring. Death: It was a two session high level one-shot, I came in on the second session. Some semi-minion had TWF improved crit brilliant energy sun blades with full-bab power attack got a hasted pounce-charge leap attack on me. Apparently in the previous session someone's fighter had failed a basic Hold Person save and gotten coup-de-graced, resulting in the opposition getting his loot. Specifically those swords and something that gave more bonuses to hit and another extra attack or three. While my character survived that initial attack, and was possibly the only one in the party who could, the maximized searing meteor storm / maximized blood to water combo later that round got me and half of the rest of the party. I got better a few rounds later but nobody else did, so I ended up switching sides because "these guys are too lame to live".

Elf cleric 15: Archery spec for multishot (not greater) and lightly abusing DMM persist and DMM reach spell, took craft wand because the elf domain gave him a divine version of True Strike. Shot every other round at about +30 to hit for... three? four?... arrows doing +20-ish damage each. Decent defences, lots of status mitigation, Revenance+Revivify combo, Heal, had a small selection of special arrows for specific occasions. Very much a back line support character. Survived the game, which ended when half the party had gone down in a combat and been Revenanced, was out of heals, we agreed that we needed to retreat and recover. He used the cleric teleport (the linked item one that takes you back to a specific place) taking one other character with him, the other three used regular teleport but to a different city. Then their Revenance spells wore off because they didn't have any more teleports.

Interestingly I note that we never broke into 9th level spells/powers, and were mid-op casters with high-op warriors. Even though the DMM cleric didn't use nightsticks he was still much better off than the non-casters in the group.

[Afghanistan]

Playing this game at the level of optimization that this forum demands seems, to me at least, outright boring. I'd rather play Exalted, so that it is at least patently obvious that I am already a divine super being.

My current tables don't play beyond 12th level because 7th level spells and powers generally start to warp the game into pudding, and 8th level spells and powers can do this in a literal sense. This can be applied to 3rd level spells as well, and even more so to 4th level spells, so the fact that this applies to spell levels beyond that is totally unsurprising. The commonly accepted solution of course just being "ban those books then" or "play core only", but is core really anymore balanced than expanded play?

[Quertus]

Playing this game at the level of optimization that this forum demands seems, to me at least, outright boring. I'd rather play Exalted, so that it is at least patently obvious that I am already a divine super being.

My current tables don't play beyond 12th level because 7th level spells and powers generally start to warp the game into pudding, and 8th level spells and powers can do this in a literal sense. This can be applied to 3rd level spells as well, and even more so to 4th level spells, so the fact that this applies to spell levels beyond that is totally unsurprising. The commonly accepted solution of course just being "ban those books then" or "play core only", but is core really anymore balanced than expanded play?

"Core only, for balance" is an oxymoron at best.

"Balance to the table" is my mantra on this topic.

[Afghanistan]

"Core only, for balance" is an oxymoron at best.


Read as: "3.5 is a poorly balanced system where you either go big or play something else."

I agree.


"Balance to the table" is my mantra on this topic.

Again, I agree. However, I am curious how one balances to "Party is immune to damage and status effects." At which point do you simply accept that you are better off playing freeform if your players characters are that overwhelmingly equipped to solve problems.

[Melcar]

I agree.



Again, I agree. However, I am curious how one balances to "Party is immune to damage and status effects." At which point do you simply accept that you are better off playing freeform if your players characters are that overwhelmingly equipped to solve problems.

Who did give the players these immunities. I'm wondering, by your longer post, whether its actually the players who's at "fault" I mean, do you always find the magic items, always have the money or find all the scrolls all the time? I mean as long as the DM sets no limit, or accepts anything then the game can spiral out of control, but only if the players abuse these things... Not saying that that is what is happening at your table, but it sounds boring never going above level 12 to me. Not saying your game is not good or right, just that I don't understand how your games become so broken so quickly or become what sounds like broken... My experience is just radically different... just dont quite get it... I am genuinely curios!

To me it seems like the player are not trying to play a balanced game...

[Afghanistan]

Who did give the players these immunities.

So a bit of backstory since it seems like this is a veiled inquiry:


My old table played with a very simply philosophy: "If it is in the book, it's all in play"

Suffice to say, there are quite a few books that are allowed, and a few that aren't allowed, however we allowed the entire book as a consequence of this. We did this because it is a simpler way of remembering what is and isn't acceptable. Simple enough right?

Yes and no. We allowed Complete Divine. A very common enough book to allow that most tables would accept as a fairly good book because of the resources it adds for divine characters. In Complete Divine (as an example among other sources), you had the Ur-Priest, and Divine Metamagic in addition to the Sacred Exorcist, the Contemplative, and several other sources. Most notably Rapid Spell. Now, Rapid Spell, by itself isn't THAT powerful, but it is an inadvertent buff to the Conjurer. You've also introduced Lesser Vigor to the game which has a reputation of more or less invalidating out of combat healing if it is persistent (It can't be in this case because Complete Arcane isn't explicitly allowed, but hypothetically, it can be).

Furthermore, players are awarded their GP as appropriate for an adventure or encounter or whatever and, provided there is a means to convert it into whatever resource you'd like (either buying it, or crafting it yourself), you can absolutely make use of it assuming you are willing to expend the resources to do so. Did we allow custom magic items? Absolutely. You pay for it, you can get it. The custom magic items obviously not being too much of an issue because the counter response was that the player could absolutely get whacked with a Disjunction if they weren't careful enough at high levels.

So to answer your question of who was giving these players their various festival of immunities? The players were giving it to themselves. This post in particular is deeply fascinating to me.


High-level play requires more preparation on the players and DM. Knowing your character and NPC's will make the game flow, no matter how you run or what style of play. The game I'm currently in is low 20's and due to the Incantatrix persisting all of the cleric's buffs, it requires a lot more effort for me as the DM to come up with something challenging that actually stands a chance...if the PC's can't die, there's no point. Not that I'm going for the TPK, but I don't want to waste my time either.

Mostly because it does not necessarily require that the players be at level 20 to do so. An assistant buffing Incantatrix can be as low as 7th level to achieve their desired effect with their assistant buffing Cleric.


To me it seems like the player are not trying to play a balanced game...

Yes, which is why I suggest free form at this high level of play. Any semblance of balance from this game died at a very low level. Whether it is a Squad of Druids Wildshaping their way to victory, Clerics Zone of Truthing your murder mystery away, Wizards just flying and casting protection from arrows out of range of your monster of the week, or the Rogues or Bards Diplomancing/Blufflomancing the bad guys away, the game lost any balance from the Introduction.

[Melcar]

Thank you for your answer. A few followup questions...


Wizards just flying and casting protection from arrows out of range of your monster of the week, or the Rogues or Bards Diplomancing/Blufflomancing the bad guys away, the game lost any balance from the Introduction.

Don't you enemies have fly too?

I mean it seem more like the DM is simply not presenting adequate challenges, be that puzzles or combat. Combat is easily fixed, puzzles and role-play not so much!

Anyways, it sounds like a very different game and different people than my table. At our table, it was a given, that if we came up with some shenaniganz, the BBEG would come up with similar... So we always had crazy difficult encounters... The time we tried to invade a Red Wizard Holding in Thay, was tough. We had to fight our way through 100+ guards, and about 10 mid level wizards and 2 epic level wizards... Granted we were a bigger party than 2 back then, but it kind of sounds like your DM is not mirroring your actual EL...

[King of Nowhere]

there's lots of math involved.

expect the fighters to have to continuously recalculate their to-hit bonus to keep track of buffs, conditions, and stuff that got dispelled.
you'll spread out to avoid area effects, and then all the spell ranges will suddenly become relevant.

At my table, the cleric prepared a half dozen mass heal per day, and he has a rod of quicken too. the npcs can either kill a party member in one round, or stop the cleric from casting, or they are not worth rolling dice for.

[Elkad]

Way back in 1e days.

Isle of the Apes module, but the DM upgraded it (namely giving The Big Monkey™ a druid to put a stack of buffs on him, including Animal Growth).

6 party members. In the final combat, which went about 15 rounds, we had about 20 deaths between us. About half of those were my 24th level paladin. If he got hit with both claw attacks (10-100 each), the followup rend (for an extra 20-200dmg) killed him every time. And despite his astoundingly high AC (negative 50ish, equivalent to AC70 in 3.5), that happened on a roll of 4 or so.

Nothing the Wizard was casting would stick, between saves, SR, and immunities, so the wizard usually spent his action Wishing my Paladin back to life. If I happened to survive a round, the Cleric would Heal. If I died, the Cleric was free to throw a Heal at someone else (who were mostly just taking bite damage)

That was actually one of our faster fights in terms of table time. Maybe 6 hours for the whole thing. That fight had only 2 enemies, one of which was a simple 80HD beatstick, where normally there would be at least 2 per character, huge amounts of spells flying around, etc. Taking an hour for a single round of combat was probably the median past 18th level, and I know we had single rounds that consumed 4 hours or more. A dispel magic might eat an hour all on it's own, as everyone was forced to check vs huge buff stacks, and then recalculate their stats.

[Quertus]

So, I'm not sure if I got my ideas across, so I'll try again.

"Balance to the table" is short for "balance to the table, and the module", which replaced my (sadly unpopular) mantra of "balance to the module".

A related me-meme is "never get into an arms race with your players, because they cannot win".

So, IMO, optimally, the "module" - the adventure content - should exist before the PCs do. Further, in a perfect world, it would be accompanied by a set of sample characters, to indicate the "expected" power level of the party.

Then all books, all material, etc, are fair game for the players to use to make PCs which fall within the group's balance range of those sample characters.

This is the simplest version of my mantra's meaning. The corollary to this version is maximum player agency - the ability to choose how easy or difficult the module is through their selection of characters.

Alternately, the group could have an established power range, and everyone - players and GM - are required to build things within that range.

Lastly, yes, I suppose that the players could set the balance point, and other players - including the GM - are required to balance around it.

The problem I have with a dynamic GM, making dynamic content, is that it feels too much like getting into an arms race with the players.

EDIT: similarly, the DC to climb the mayor's fence should be determined by the mayor's fence, not by the climb skill of the person trying to climb it.

[RoboEmperor]

No different than lower levels.

Beaters will beat.
Spellcasters will disable enemies, or buff beaters.

The End.

Can Spellcasters completely replace the beaters with superior minions? Yes. If you do that though the beaters will complain and the DM won't let you do that.
Can Spellcasters completely end encounters with one spell like Gate? Yes. If you do that though the beaters will complain and the DM won't let you do that. Incantatrix one shotting every creature in the encounter in one round also counts.
Can Spellcasters solve all problems without leaving their home? Yes. If you do that though the beaters will complain and the DM won't let you do that.
Can Spellcasters solo the game? Yes. If you do that though the beaters will complain and the DM won't let you do that.

So ultimately whatever your spellcaster is capable of, everyone won't let you do anything other than what you've been doing at lower levels so nothing changes.

[noob]

No different than lower levels.

Beaters will beat.
Spellcasters will disable enemies, or buff beaters.

The End.

Can Spellcasters completely replace the beaters with superior minions? Yes. If you do that though the beaters will complain and the DM won't let you do that.
Can Spellcasters completely end encounters with one spell like Gate? Yes. If you do that though the beaters will complain and the DM won't let you do that. Incantatrix one shotting every creature in the encounter in one round also counts.
Can Spellcasters solve all problems without leaving their home? Yes. If you do that though the beaters will complain and the DM won't let you do that.
Can Spellcasters solo the game? Yes. If you do that though the beaters will complain and the DM won't let you do that.

So ultimately whatever your spellcaster is capable of, everyone won't let you do anything other than what you've been doing at lower levels so nothing changes.
Except in full spellcasting teams which then face challenges fit for full spellcasting teams and have no beaters that complains.

[RoboEmperor]

Except in full spellcasting teams which then face challenges fit for full spellcasting teams and have no beaters that complains.

I haven't been in one so I wouldn't know. But I think encounters where all creatures are +8 CR than your level would result in you reaching epic way too quickly and the game falls apart because of that.

So even in full spellcasting teams I fully expect the DM to tone everyone down so that at most CR+4 encounters challenge you.

[Quertus]

I haven't been in one so I wouldn't know. But I think encounters where all creatures are +8 CR than your level would result in you reaching epic way too quickly and the game falls apart because of that.

So even in full spellcasting teams I fully expect the DM to tone everyone down so that at most CR+4 encounters challenge you.

Or to switch to… whatever those aberrant leveling techniques are called.

[radthemad4]

My only experience of high-level play involved spamming Contact Other Plane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/contactOtherPlane.htm) like crazy (we had a marshal to boost the check such that there was no risk of failure) and we'd verify the results using Commune (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commune.htm) before acting on them as Contact Other Plane has a possibility of inaccuracy (an easy way to get Communes without XP is to round up a lot of Imps (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/SRD:Imp)). Contact Other Plane could be used to see the future as some deities can (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm) (the GM ruled this like Minority Report). I spent a lot of out of game time asking the GM questions via Contact Other Plane on discord throughout the week between sessions. The GM wrote a short retrospective of the campaign here (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=57216) (Age of Worms spoilers).

Incidentally, Contact Other Plane gives you single word answers and the numbers from one to twenty are all single words.

Contact Other Plane: 'Hey Boccob, if I divide this map of the continent I'm holding into twenty portions horizontally, which number from one to twenty corresponds to the location of the bad guys' lair? Cool, now vertically. Now for the narrowed down region.'

And after every question, Commune: 'Boccob, did you just lie to me? Good to know... Hey Corellon...?'

[noob]

I haven't been in one so I wouldn't know. But I think encounters where all creatures are +8 CR than your level would result in you reaching epic way too quickly and the game falls apart because of that.

So even in full spellcasting teams I fully expect the DM to tone everyone down so that at most CR+4 encounters challenge you.

Wait creatures?
You are not solving as encounters problems like the existence of violence?

[MeimuHakurei]

Or to switch to… whatever those aberrant leveling techniques are called.

Or even simpler, throw a multiplier on the exp curve to slow it down.

[Reprimand]

This is the reason wizards cannot ban divination. You would be a fool to! Information is power and going into things blind at these levels will get you killed exetremely fast! Being able to ward yourself againist SoD or SoS spells and effects will greatly stack the law of averages in your favor. You need to get in instantly take something out and get out instantly Scry and Die as Xykon once referred to it. And also being able to simultaneously protect against similar strategies. Any risk is too much if you can cheese any enemy you should do so because fighting "fair" is just poor planning as the players have odds stacked againist them one natural 1 or bad roll can set the players back thousands of gold in resources.

[Anachronity]

My response would be "it depends on the players"

There is a practical limit on the preparatory effort an individual is willing to contribute to a game. So while on paper you have unlimited freedom, in practice you just get a lot of 'hard nopes'.

If you're talking about a literal table in-person... My exclusive experience has been that anyone you personally know who wants to run a high level campaign has minimal actual knowledge of the rules and no intent to follow them, and is just doing it because they want the stakes to be cataclysmically dire and/or they want to use the big, cool-looking monsters from the monstrous book of pretty pictures. To them, that means high-level.

They'll expect you to be afraid of the scarynasty colossal dinosaur-that-also-has-scythe-arms that the book totally says is CR 22, or the demilich BBEG who mostly just knows different blasting spells. If you act contrary to expectations then you'll just get GM fiated and whatever you try won't work. Basically there is a large disconnect between how the GM thinks a high-level game works and how the rules say it works, and the rules do specify that the GM gets the final say (until you call shenanigans and quit playing).


When playing with a GM who does know game well, it'll either go one of two ways.
-You end up with very low-OP PCs who can't or won't do most of the game-breaking things so that a reasonable story can be constructed around them. These can be extremely fun, but they require a lot of cooperation from the players.
-You play high-OP, and because there's only so much prepared you end up with a lot of 'soft nopes' instead of 'hard nopes' that take the form of astronomical save DCs, skill checks, or other mechanics to dissuade you from stepping away from what was planned, generally with an added reason why you can't just be immune to them or bypass them with a spell. If you try to play it like normal D&D then it rapidly becomes immunity-check rocket tag. If one of your players likes being the tactician then it will instead revolve around never actually being in the same room as the bad guys and creatively nuking them from orbit. In any case the GM will usually be forced to fight fire with fire. These sorts of games can be fun though if the GM puts a lot of thought into them, and even the mediocre ones still create memorable moments which is like half of what D&D is about.

[remetagross]

My only experience of high-level play involved spamming Contact Other Plane (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/contactOtherPlane.htm) like crazy (we had a marshal to boost the check such that there was no risk of failure) and we'd verify the results using Commune (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commune.htm) before acting on them as Contact Other Plane has a possibility of inaccuracy (an easy way to get Communes without XP is to round up a lot of Imps (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/SRD:Imp)). Contact Other Plane could be used to see the future as some deities can (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm) (the GM ruled this like Minority Report). I spent a lot of out of game time asking the GM questions via Contact Other Plane on discord throughout the week between sessions. The GM wrote a short retrospective of the campaign here (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=57216) (Age of Worms spoilers).

Incidentally, Contact Other Plane gives you single word answers and the numbers from one to twenty are all single words.

Contact Other Plane: 'Hey Boccob, if I divide this map of the continent I'm holding into twenty portions horizontally, which number from one to twenty corresponds to the location of the bad guys' lair? Cool, now vertically. Now for the narrowed down region.'

And after every question, Commune: 'Boccob, did you just lie to me? Good to know... Hey Corellon...?'

That was hilarious :smallbiggrin:

[Endarire]

In reality, D&D is what people make of it. It's a toolset.

Regarding my experiences playing tabletop 3.x at level 17+ sometimes while GMing...

The first time was team, "The GM Got All These Books And Wants Us To Play With Them," meaning the lot of us were new to the game in general but thrust into level 30 characters. In general, none of us understood the rules very well, but knew that the Druid would likely go first. We didn't fight much and things went quickly since the GM narrated much more than we used any minis or boards or such.

Another time was team, "You All Meet In A Level 30 Tavern," where we did just that. By this point, I had a much better grasp of the rules and we played a one-shot where we had one fight that lasted 2-4 hours. I probably spent much more time preparing the character for then. None of us did anything high-OP.

The most notable was the time I was the primary GM for a campaign running levels 1-21 (and would have gone higher after the final fight had that final fight not been, indeed, final) with "Team Xeen (https://campbellgrege.com/work-listing/dnd/)." (Each person had at least 1 planned turn to GM.) We basically played this game like a 3.5ish version of a Baldur's Gate II/World of Xeen mix: Non-casters did lots of damage and casters did a lot of other things - often teleporting, blasting, flying and crowd controlling. We purposely avoided loops, though we occasionally made reference to them like with Solar-activated gate loops and our joke, "I wish I had a scroll of wish." Only after we had reached mid-levels did I notice planar binding but never made use of it.

As GM, I had provisions for the party to be frequently revived via clone farms and off-screen NPC casters using true resurrection or rituals. We avoided treating the game like "RAW is LAW!" but instead adapted many things to our purposes. By game's end, everyone was immune to foresight and time stop via Spell Stowaway or plot and we were totally fine with that. In fact, the game's final boss was Nerull, god of Death, in a perpetual time stop atop a tower during a unification ceremony to unite two halves of a flat world into a spherical planet to defeat an alien invasion. Yeah - good times. (|=^)

Regarding Bastion of Broken Souls, if played by RAW, it's possible for a core-only Wizard/Red Wizard to solo the module with minimal harm to himself ir properly prepared. Use Circle Magic to get caster level 40 all day, add an orange Ioun Stone, then spam holy word or similar via a UMDed staff. (To be immune, selectively deafen yourself if need be, or/and shapechange or PAO into something with the [Good] subtype.)

[Mordaedil]

For my level 24 rogue it basically looks like 300+ damage per round.

[StevenC21]

I can do that with a Fighter at level 16.

[AthasianWarlock]

I've played in two campaigns that went into epic territory and am DMing one that is around level 15.

The two games I played were high OP and the one I'm DMing is that players can do anything RAW.

In the campaigns I've played usually one player (usually a caster) ends or mostly ends the encounter in 1 or 2 rounds. Occasionally there is a huge rules discussion on some obscure weird interaction. Stock monsters and tactics don't do too much to the party but woe to the new guy who shows up with a single class Tome of Battle guy. They arnt going to have a good time. Monsters disable or debilitate players pretty fast and tactics often involve surprising enemies. At high levels the whole "get a quest do a job" starts to fall apart because characters can use metafaculty, greater teleport etc. And they just teleport into areas. Disjunction gets thrown around a lot which slows the game down because all attacks and macros need to be changed to take into account no magic. Players become immune to most if not all status effects. Antimagic fields become used a lot more often.

Usually DMs end games about this time because it's too hard to prepare for games. Building custom monsters with class levels takes too long, characters can at will ignore prepared material or trivially solve most problems.

Players have a lot of fun. They are able to do all sorts of silly stuff and able to challenge demon Lord's, gods, powers that be. They arnt constrained to a city or town. They can decide they want to find a god, recover an artifact, and kill all the dragon in x,y,z area. They can become kings, princes, or whatever.