High Levels: All Dressed Up And No Place To Go

[Black_Zawisza]

Once you guys start getting way up there in wealth and fighting prowess, what have you done? What world conquest schemes have you pulled? Do you open up shops? What do you sell? Does D&D become very wargame-like at that point? Etc.

[Volos]

My players have started building a fortress in the mountians. It is quite amazing. They all also have the landlord feat, so any money they dip into it is doubled by their patron, a king of a friendly nation.

[TurtleKing]

Have deities negotiate to end some kind of struggle and succeed. The scary part is we are not level 20. The group has two members that are level 5 as the highest in the group. The ripples from this have spread into about four or five campaigns since that campaign. Never let anyone tell you a prinny can't achieve greatness.

The sad part is none of my characters has lived up to quality of that character even if they are higher level. Though my Gnome Bard Alchemist and Doppleganger Factotum have come close. Hopefully my baby Black Dragon might surpass even the prinny even though doing this could easily sunder even the most resilient of cosmologies.

[Remmirath]

Fight bigger and badder villains, mostly - although the most recent group has banded together to create a huge organisation dedicated to destroying the villains who appear to want to destroy the gods and then either eradicate or rule the multiverse (and have a very good shot at doing so). What they'll do after that, if they succeed, is completely unknown.

A couple PCs over the years have become gods as well, of course. They do mostly end up with some kind of castle or fortress or such regardless.

[Alleran]

One relatively recent one had us all going off on our own little quests for a while, gaining individual power/respect/whatever:

- The wizard, of course, found a tower, set up shop and turned himself into a dragon (gold... only because the DM threatened violence if I tried for a Time Dragon). That was me, by the by. Because I'm also a servant of the goddess of magic (part of a deal that was made), I also had to take on a few apprentices. They were very annoying and distracted me from my work on how to make the laws of physics cry.
- The sorcerer came along for the ride and is now also a dragon (silver), though he spent more time working on establishing a spy network while I created the spell rituals (read: learned the Wish transformation ritual from Savage Species) we were going to use. If there's something he doesn't know about, it isn't worth knowing.
- The fighter became a noble of the kingdom and set about building himself a castle. My wizard tower is up in the mountains looking down on him (think the Frostcrag Spire mod for Oblivion looking down at Bruma, if you've played TES IV). He also commands a respectable army now.
- The ranger became a scout for the same kingdom the fighter is a noble of, and was like a roving agent for them.
- The cleric did... actually, I'm not sure what the cleric did. He hasn't told us. He has more Celestial-based powers now, but I haven't figured it out beyond that yet. It's a source of great annoyance to the sorc.

[Amiel]

I've dressed three squirrels in a tiara (or top hat depending on who is asking) and poncho, and had them take over the City of Doors .

[DragonOfUndeath]

I've dressed three squirrels in a tiara (or top hat depending on who is asking) and poncho, and had them take over the City of Doors .

did it work?

[Togo]

In one group we set up an academy and started acting as sponsors to the next generation of aventurers. There were far too many things that needed to be done for them to able to keep up with them all, so they started hiring lower-level adventuring parties to do quests for them...

In another, the wizard bought a tower, made a whole lot of items, acquired a whole lot of traps and monsters, and then 'went travelling' and never came back. Because, in his experience, that's what wizards do. They build dungeons and then leave.

Another group of mine went to Sigil, and settled down to the necessary task of sorting out their various alignement conflicts, and trying to get a good bargain on those last few magic items they'd never been able to acquire.

From what I've seen, the end of adventuring career is when you stop doing one-shot tasks that bring immediate reward, and starting working on the longer-scale things that will take more time and might not be possible in the long run. Finding the lost hier to that kingdom you were fond of. Discovering new insights into the astral plane. Curing your familiar of the affliction that seemed to occur when you got one-too-many levels as an alienist. And so on.

[fireinakasha]

So this one time, my epic level rogue looted the City of Brass...

[Lev]

Level is in direct ratio to world effect scale.

The bigger rock you are, the bigger splash you will make.


Hell, in Goblins the webcomic even a band of 4 level 1 or 2 goblins freed dozens of prisoners from a HEAVILY guarded city, overturned an evil force that guarded the city, redeemed a relic, and retroactively saved a huge number of creatures from unimaginable suffering. Imagine what those same goblins could do at level 10, they could end wars between races, uncover secrets or invent technology, really change the world.

Each character has their own reason for adventuring, as long as that reason exists, the campaign will exist and players will play.

[dsmiles]

Um...not high level, but high finance...

As a lowly level 2 Rogue, I started a trading company, that by the time I was level 5 had become a trading empire. By the time I was level 7, I bought a continent, and set it up as the base of operations for my trading empire (which I owned, but my cohort, who happened to be my character's sister [and an Expert by class], managed).