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ken-do-nim
2008-12-17, 02:46 PM
My favorite level is 11th. Everybody's feeling good about themselves. Some claim that the class imbalance between full casters and non has already become too much of an issue, but I don't agree. The martial classes just picked up their 3rd attack and are serious power houses. The monk just picked up greater flurry and the very underrated immunity to poison. The rogue most likely has had opportunist for a level now, the wizard is having fun with disintegrate or summoning bralani eldadrin, clerics are playing around with heal/harm, the bard is throwing out inspire greatness, and just all in all everyone is having a dandy time and feeling useful. Plus, there aren't so many modifiers in play that the game has bogged down to the point of being an exercise in record-keeping. In both campaigns I played in that went that high I remember that time as a high point.

What's your favorite level?

Fax Celestis
2008-12-17, 02:47 PM
I'm a fan of 8-11, myself.

Morty
2008-12-17, 03:12 PM
7th level, myself. At this level, everyone already has a number of abilities, feats, spells etc. but they're not too powerful yet.

AmberVael
2008-12-17, 03:15 PM
I'd agree with Fax. 8th-11th is just about right- I might go just a tad lower, but only to about 7th-9th.

Gerrtt
2008-12-17, 03:17 PM
1-5...

It's all I seem to have played in the past 5 years.

There's just something magical about dying because a goblin gets lucky with that morningstar, although it's not as funny as it was in 3.0 when they were still swinging d8 morningstars.

herrhauptmann
2008-12-17, 03:19 PM
7-10.
Class imbalance isn't too bad, and an underoptimized character doesn't automatically lead to the death of a group. And making a character at those levels is fun, doesn't take forever like in level 15. And not aggravating in your weakness like level 1.

Kantolin
2008-12-17, 03:39 PM
I like a wide variety of levels of play.

Lately I've steered away from levels 1-3, as those tend to be a bit too fatal for my liking. But overall, it depends on what I feel like at a given moment - sometimes I feel like low-level play, sometimes high level play.

Yukitsu
2008-12-17, 03:44 PM
11 precisely. It's just at that point that the system starts its full on collapse, and there you are, teetering on the brink of the oblivion that is soon to be the campaign. 7 in modern, because it tends to degenerate a lot quicker. I like campaigns that flicker that much more brightly just before someone does something stupid and we all die.

Zen Master
2008-12-17, 03:46 PM
With a good GM, level is a very minor consideration. However, most GM's I've met have a hard time challenging high-level parties - say level15+.

valadil
2008-12-17, 04:10 PM
For me it's all about the magic. I like casters to have 3rd - 6th level spells. There is a lot of win in there, but the daily allotment of win is lower than it is at later levels.

That said I also appreciate low level games where players have to rely on creative uses of mundane equipment. These require the right sort of GM though.

KIDS
2008-12-17, 04:14 PM
I'm ok with a broad range of things; I prefer minimum which allows for a comfortable amount of spells or fleshed out multiclass combinations... while the upper range is mostly what the OP wrote. I'd say I am a fan of anything lvl 3-13.

Ironically, most games I play in always start at level 1 :(

AslanCross
2008-12-17, 04:20 PM
8-12. It starts just before that Lv 9 feat, so you can get a feel for the campaign and your character before you pick it. At that level monsters get pretty interesting, and you can the whole middle band of monsters. You could fight lots of CR 3 monsters or get up to CR 16 monsters for boss encounters. And you get that Lv 12 feat.

Blood_Lord
2008-12-17, 04:42 PM
10-15.

Just getting to do super cool stuff instead of doing things for people. And you can finish off a PrC.

Eldariel
2008-12-17, 11:36 PM
15-20. Power, give me power! That said, I play 6-14 quite a bit too. I try to avoid 1-5 since the character's identity isn't mechanically realized yet, one unlucky roll is all it takes (on high levels, you can at least legally fudge the rolls) and one has too few options.

RTGoodman
2008-12-17, 11:39 PM
I'd have to go with probably around levels 5-7. It's high enough to where casters/ToBers have some nifty things, but it's before everything gets really complicated.

(Also, it's the highest I've ever played in a real game, so I guess I'm slightly biased. :smallwink:)

Hal
2008-12-17, 11:57 PM
Couldn't say. I've never played in a game that made it past level 7.

Sanzh
2008-12-18, 12:15 AM
8-11 personally. Generally pretty balanced, and I play meleers a lot so I get to feel like I'm contributing.
Unfortunately our DM has a nigh-obsession with epic level play, along with his belief that classes are balanced. And evocation is good, and you can take two standard actions, and charging is a standard action, and readied actions can save you from bullets, and with certain feats you can perform full-attack sunders, and so on. I could go on for a while. :smallsigh:

Eclipse
2008-12-18, 12:32 AM
Anything between 6th and 20th, really. I like casters, and 6th level is when my favorite casters, the sorcerer and mystic, get their 3rd level spells. By this point in time, they have a lot of staying power since they have a fair number of spells per day. Also, as has been said before, in general higher level = more options for most classes.

I haven't had a chance to play D&D above 20th level before, so I couldn't say how I like the epic rules in practice.

Thurbane
2008-12-18, 01:15 AM
5 - 8

Low enough level to still feel the thrill of a very real chance of dying in an encounter without hope of raising, but high enough to have some interesting options in and out of combat.

ivendale
2008-12-18, 01:54 AM
1st because, as Haley said "it's all kobats and copper peices" pluss their is a very good chance of death.

potatocubed
2008-12-18, 02:48 AM
7th, give or take a level or two. You've got enough punch to be interesting but you're not immortal yet.

Kizara
2008-12-18, 02:58 AM
Mine is 2. You don't die in 1 hit, you can set up a multiclass already, and your next feat and often some main class features are only 1 level away.

Satyr
2008-12-18, 03:10 AM
That depends on the party constellation. The more spellcasters are involved, the more the latter levels become strenuous. With a mostly mundane party, levels 12-20 are still interesting and offer relevant chalenges. With one or two primary spellcasters, in the party, everything in the double-digit levels is no fun anymore.

Kaiyanwang
2008-12-18, 03:13 AM
Even if i like to see great wyrms, a world-shaking powers and a finished build, there's nothing like 1st level.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-12-18, 03:16 AM
~11. You have a PrC under your belt, you have a good bit of awesome, and a bit of room before wrecking all that is good and pure.

Kurald Galain
2008-12-18, 05:32 AM
4-10, myself. Plenty of options without being overpowered yet, and pretty much all classes can contribute meaningfully.

Curmudgeon
2008-12-18, 06:00 AM
21-22. Leave out the Epic spell stuff, and you've got all the options in the world, with just enough control to not be completely unworkable. It's fun living on the edge of the abyss. :smallwink:

Chrono22
2008-12-18, 06:05 AM
3-7

This is the sweet spot for me. At level 3 you have an established character with weaknesses and strengths. His power is comparable to most npcs, but he's got enough tricks to survive most encounters. At the high end, most level 7 characters are heroic, but weak enough that I can appreciate a harrying combat or defeating a foe.

bosssmiley
2008-12-18, 06:43 AM
1-5...

It's all I seem to have played in the past 5 years.

There's just something magical about dying because a goblin gets lucky with that morningstar, although it's not as funny as it was in 3.0 when they were still swinging d8 morningstars.

You refugee from the old school you. :smallwink:

My personal mechanics/gameplay sweet spot: 3rd - 12th for 3.X. The characters are tough enough to survive a single bad die roll, but are still weak enough that they don't dominate the world and force it to wear a red gingham dress for their amusement.

An artistic impression of what high-level play does to the game world:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/Quarantine_(Red_Dwarf).jpg

Given how well 4E models most aspects of this 'mid-game' phase of the adventuring lifecycle I find myself sorry that I can't like it more. Too stuck in my ways to get on board with these new-fangled 'Healing Surges' and 'Powers' I suppose.

"Back in my day you had one attack per minute. And you could only move 12ft/minute while exploring. And you had smaller hit dice. And you rolled stats on 3d6. And..."
-- Senile old faert Eggy, yesterday :smallamused:

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-12-18, 06:47 AM
I have played games at just abot any level. Levels 13 and Epic (sans epic spells) I like the most because they're the most balanced.