Author Topic: D&D (Higher Levels)  (Read 7806 times)

Offline Necrosnoop110

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D&D (Higher Levels)
« on: March 19, 2016, 12:54:19 PM »
My gaming group consists of about 12 people and we usually split them up into two groups and primarily use D&D 3.5E, D&D 5E, and occasionally other random systems. About half are mostly serious the rest are casual gamers who just want to have fun one night a week.

Especially in D&D 3.5, I hear many complaints at the table of higher level gaming. Too many rules, too many interpretations, too complicated, too many abilities, over powered, not fun, hate it, casters take over, etc. 

Now, one obvious solution would be to just not play at those higher levels. Stop each campaign before those levels are reached. Another, would be to use some sort of E6 system or the like. Considering this I got some questions:

(1) Do you hear negative opinions of higher level D&D? And if so what kind of complaints?

(2) What kind of solutions have you tried to address those complaints and have they "solved" things?   

Thanks,
Necro

Offline ketaro

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2016, 01:19:20 PM »
Honestly, it's more of a "practice makes perfect" sort of deal with higher level games.

Like, me & my friends have several higher level games currently, 2 of which are actually Epic level, and we're all minmaxing optimizers on top of that. Rather than constantly placing heavy restrictions on everybody most of our problems are solved with "Okay, yeah, that was stupidly OP, I didn't think it'd be that bad. Let's tone this down some."

There are no quick & easy and/or obvious solutions outside of "Don't play past X level". Once you collectively decide to go beyond that threshold, it's really just more of trusting the players to scale themselves with some common sense and an understanding between everyone that no one wants a Pun Pun at the table.

TL;DR, it's more the player's responsibility to scale themselves based on how the game has been going and how the DM has been running things rather than placing the majority of the work around restricting options and preventing everyone from playing walking WMDs on the DM. Also, it's far easier to do this in games that began at 1st or low levels and progressively worked towards high levels rather than one that begins play with the PCs bringing in new characters with practically complete builds at high levels.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2016, 01:22:09 PM by ketaro »

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2016, 01:54:11 PM »
I really don't have complaints about high levels and have only heard the dumb generic ones from the forums.

D&D is inherently a complex game but the exact level of complexity is up to the Players & the DMs and level, while contributive to the problem, isn't a method of measurement. Like you think it's a problem for a caster to use Passwall to bypass a trap filled hallway with goblins in an ambush? With a sufficient strength score anyone can just tunnel a new path anyway. Teleportation a huge problem because people can skip random Encounters? Have an Encounter where they show up or don't frigging rely on rolling random Encounters anyway.  :P

Now there are some debates to be had about availability. Your highly optimized caster can kick out a save-or-die that auto-murders everything and you totally fear that happening to you. But I assure you this can happen at any level. Even 18 Str & a Greatsword comes out to 2d6+6 or 13 avg. How many Hit Points do you really your party's average at the start was anyway?

Yes the game does trend more towards casters, the fantasy genre is all but based on sword & sorcerery and for your information '&' doesn't mean pick one and only one. If you think spells are inherently bad or D&D is too complex then you really need to ask your self if your time spent would be better invested in a different game. It's that you can't tailor a D&D game to your likes or there is a right or wrong way to play, but playing less than half a game is a complaint against the system. Considering new systems, like we could use a new set of presidential candidates without a republican/democrat system interfering, is honestly a good thing to consider.

Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2016, 02:12:18 PM »
Depending on the party's tactics, DMing for higher levels can be frustrating and cumbersome.  If the party is the type to always ambush foes (and at that level, it's very easy to almost always set things up in your favor) while under Mindblank and Superior Invisibility... Your only hope to provide a challenge is creatures that have always-on Arcane Sight (to know what square the PC's are in, but the PC's still have total concealment), or make liberal use of Otiluke's Suppressing/Impressing Field (CM).

The whole issue stems from WotC trying to "simplify" spells from 2nd to 3rd ed, thus making Mindblank block all divinations, not just those related to scrying, etc, a creature.  If you were to use 2nd ed Mindblank, then True Seeing would still work vs. Superior Invisibility.

I ran a gestalt game (and admittedly, that was part of the problem; they had the extra class resources to spam Mind Blank on everyone, all the time) from level 1 - 20, with plans to go into epic (probably to end around level 26), but by level 20, I was tired of running a high level game.  With such a specific set of abilities (Arcane Sight, Otiluke's Suppressing Field, Mindsight) required to even detect the PC's at all... it limited the type of stories I could tell, because any foe had to be an arcane caster, or have telepathy/Mindsight.  Add to it the party wizard was an Iot7FV... There were many times I never even touched the PC's in an encounter.

I don't know if this is true of other DM's, but for myself, I get enjoyment from two things:
1) Slowly revealing long-simmering plot points.  The big reveal, if you will.
2) Challenging my PC's so that they succeed, but not trivially.  Things shouldn't (always) be a cake-walk.  There should be a threat of death, at least sometimes.

It just takes a much larger amount of prep work to do that at higher levels, and the options to succeed at doing it are much more limited.  But again, it depends largely on how your group plays.

Offline bhu

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2016, 04:53:36 PM »
My one caveat would be that the CR system is particularly borked at the higher levels.  Look at what the critter can do vs what your PC's can do before using it.  It's easy to have encounters that are a speedbump or a wipeout.

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2016, 11:49:58 PM »
I personally don't have a problem with higher level play (as PC or DM) but i hear others in my circle complain about how the higher game is just not real D&D.

Common complaints (not said by me)...
Scry & Teleports/Wind Walk and high level divinations destroy all possibilities of adventure or journeys
There is no mysteries anymore PCs know everything
Martial characters either become ineffectual or must become caster-like by way of items or other means to keep up, no way to just kick in the door and smash things anymore
Combat is either an impossibly difficult three hour slugfest or trivially easy     
Skills become useless
 

Offline IlPazzo

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2016, 10:05:23 AM »
If your group finds that the game becomes too easy for the players or too hard to manage for the DM, just under-optimize on purpose. Tweek the rules. Have some roleplaying challenges instead of "game-mechanical" ones.

The system complexity allows for your party to play in several different ways. You might enjoy some of them even at high levels.

Offline Samwise

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #7 on: March 21, 2016, 01:00:03 PM »
The biggest problem I had with high level play was the design time required.
Customizing monsters, which often meant NPCs, and treasure could take 3-4 hours per encounter, and such encounters were too often used once then left behind.

For other elements, one of the strongest controls I found was being excessively obsessive about the item level chart in the MIC. It isn't a perfect fix of course, but when individual treasure is in a dozen items rather than focused in 2-3 super-items per PC it gets rid of certain destructive optimizations.

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #8 on: March 21, 2016, 02:30:10 PM »
(1) Do you hear negative opinions of higher level D&D? And if so what kind of complaints?

Combat takes too long due to lots of choices per decision and/or lots of dice rolling and math in 3.5.  The numbers just got out of hand for players who were not mathematically inclined.  A lot of character choices were not really choices, though I'm already starting to lose track of specific examples from older editions.  They were related to protecting the character against bad luck on d20 rolls.  After awhile it felt like I was in an arms race to figure out ways past the defenses of the players, and then they would find ways around my newly effective offense.  It was hard to strike a balance where the NPCs threatened the players in a way they wouldn't figure out how to negate.

Quote
(2) What kind of solutions have you tried to address those complaints and have they "solved" things?

Switching over to 5e fixed the player math problems.  The only player complaint I have received from the switch is that some 3.5 characters were impossible to convert to 5e while retaining their play style.  The static numbers make things easy outside of the guy who lands critical hit sneak attacks.  I have avoided giving out +x weapons and armor to reinforce the static numbers, since the system runs pretty smoothly without them.

On the DM side, 5e's CR system is borked at high levels still, with printed enemies not meeting the damage ranges for their CR as suggested by the DM's guide.  I had to tweak damage numbers upward and/or create legendary actions for plot-important creatures.  The encounter experience guidelines combined with no +x armor have allowed me to create threatening encounters with a liberal sprinkling of lower level minions that can still hurt the players but don't take more than a turn or 2 to eliminate.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2016, 02:32:58 PM by TenaciousJ »
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Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2016, 02:58:08 PM »
For other elements, one of the strongest controls I found was being excessively obsessive about the item level chart in the MIC. It isn't a perfect fix of course, but when individual treasure is in a dozen items rather than focused in 2-3 super-items per PC it gets rid of certain destructive optimizations.
Help me with this I don't fully follow.

Peace,
Necro

Offline Samwise

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #10 on: March 21, 2016, 11:05:22 PM »
For other elements, one of the strongest controls I found was being excessively obsessive about the item level chart in the MIC. It isn't a perfect fix of course, but when individual treasure is in a dozen items rather than focused in 2-3 super-items per PC it gets rid of certain destructive optimizations.
Help me with this I don't fully follow.

Peace,
Necro

WBL in the DMG says a PC should have 2,700 gp by 3rd level, 5,400 gp by 4th level, and 9,000 gp by 5th level.
Given a chance, a non-caster is going to leap right for the magic weapon followed by armor with random enhancement, while the spellcaster will obsess about the stat boost item.
According to the MIC, a +1 weapon is a 6th level item, and +1 something armor or a +2 stat boost are 8th level items.

It scales up rapidly for other items, often to a peculiar degree. (A holy avenger is a 22nd level item, and thus epic, despite appearing in the DMG and considered almost "mandatory" for a paladin by 15th level or so.) A +6 stat boost item is 17th level, but could be "afforded" as early as 10th level, when even a +4 stat boost item should still be too much.
It can get even more abusive if PCs try to subvert some WBL concepts by avoiding consumables (potions, scrolls, and wands) like the plague, converting what should be regularly cycled WBL into more permanent items.
I saw this constantly in organized play, and it became a rather absurd task to challenge an over-optimized character, even when writers had access to material the players were barred from, when the PCs were pimped out with 2-3 "high level" items to the exclusion of lesser items that were simply irrelevant with that much optimization.

The whole thing is an artifact of the "Christmas Tree" Equipment Requirement in the design, combined with the poor differentiation of item levels in the DMG, and the regular subversion of WBL item placement in published products. (Check the commentary on the treasure in Vraath Keep in the RHoD sourcebook for an example.)
Altogether, players will "expect" items well beyond what the system expects as "balanced", but such items are so "kewl" even the designers and editors can't help but ignore their own rules.
And then you throw in crafting . . .

Offline RobbyPants

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #11 on: March 23, 2016, 07:57:21 AM »
I personally don't have a problem with higher level play (as PC or DM) but i hear others in my circle complain about how the higher game is just not real D&D.

Common complaints (not said by me)...
Scry & Teleports/Wind Walk and high level divinations destroy all possibilities of adventure or journeys
There is no mysteries anymore PCs know everything
Martial characters either become ineffectual or must become caster-like by way of items or other means to keep up, no way to just kick in the door and smash things anymore
Combat is either an impossibly difficult three hour slugfest or trivially easy     
Skills become useless

Most of these are issues with D&D at higher levels. Some of it is the game, and some of it is spell-specific. Actually, looking back at the list, everything except "Combat is either an impossibly difficult three hour slugfest or trivially easy" is an issue with magic system; that one is a combination of the spells and the monsters.

I'd say if you want to address those things while playing 3E, your two options are:
  • Cap the game somewhere between 6th and 10th level, depending on people's tastes.
  • Don't allow anyone to gain higher than 3rd to 5th level spells, depending on people's tastes. This can be handled with forced multiclassing, but make sure to really look at the difficulty of the monster encounters once you start getting to the point where the casters stop advancing. You don't want them throwing out an ability that the players cannot deal with. Fiends and dragons (two staple boss monsters) might wipe the floor with an under-magicked party.
The second option is more work, but it might be your best bet at having your cake and eating it, too. People can write "15th level" on their character sheets and fight big monsters, while avoiding a lot of the issues you listed.

Edit:
It sounds like your players want low-level adventures (in D&D terms). For example, one complaint is that teleportation and flight ruin traveling and adventures. Honestly, that's the point of those spells. There are ways around some of those spells using adventure design I can get into, but it sounds like they want to travel.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2016, 08:00:13 AM by RobbyPants »
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Offline Unbeliever

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2016, 05:36:33 PM »
Yes the game does trend more towards casters, the fantasy genre is all but based on sword & sorcerery and for your information '&' doesn't mean pick one and only one. If you think spells are inherently bad or D&D is too complex then you really need to ask your self if your time spent would be better invested in a different game. It's that you can't tailor a D&D game to your likes or there is a right or wrong way to play, but playing less than half a game is a complaint against the system. Considering new systems, like we could use a new set of presidential candidates without a republican/democrat system interfering, is honestly a good thing to consider.
Savage Worlds, which has its issues, does a lot of this stuff pretty well.  There's still a little bit of caster supremacy in there, but it's subtle, and takes some work to achieve.

A lot of the issues cited above are issues with specific spells and abilities, such as free-wheeling teleportation, divination, and "hard" counters (e.g., Mind Blank).  Restricting or limiting those effects does a lot of the work for you.  You can also remove some of the rerolls and player armor that are needed for high level games and replace it with a Fate Point/Hero Point system (basically, you're giving them rerolls).  I personally hate super-powerful scrying, and so haven't allowed it in a game in ages. 

High level characters are really complex.  That is part of the appeal.  It's even true of OSR games, where a high level Wizard has a ton of spells to keep track of, not to mention a wheelbarrow full of magic items.  So, if it's really a drag, again, a game change might be in order.  Or, simply avoiding high level play. 

Two other quick comments.  One is that I am a huge fan of doing things that lessen the "cognitive load" of playing.  You have to decide what parts of that you find appealing.  Sometimes having a plethora of options and picking the right one is just what you want to be doing.  That's fun.  Other times, being straightforward and having a handful or even just a single option lets you, as a player, focus on what you want to be doing.  Doing that will help high level play out a lot.  It also has the salutary side effect of making the characters a little less optimized and a little more niche-specific -- always a plus. 

Second, I don't want to break open a magic v. mundanes can of worms yet again.  But, well optimized non-casters can do just fine at high levels for most games (unless there's some hard-core caster optimization going on there).  They do, of course, tend to acquire more supernatural abilities as they do so.  But, again, that's kind of the point of high level D&D play. 

Hope that helps!

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2016, 06:14:21 PM »
Excellent thoughts and suggestions folks. Thanks!  :)

Offline PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #14 on: April 04, 2016, 11:55:28 PM »
Too many rules, too many interpretations, too complicated, too many abilities, over powered, not fun, hate it, casters take over
Don't make the DM know all them. Like the naval rules in SW. I'll never use those. They're cool, yeah. But no thanks. If a player wanted to adjudicate some for me, okay.

The DM should have enough system mastery and enough intelligence to quickly cut through to the point and make a ruling. Players need to not challenge it else they are stopping play.

Lots of abilities are, um, good. People complain about the "I hit it with my sword again" mentality... Nothing is forcing players to play complicated things.

Lastly my sig's 3.5 fixes will help a lot with the caster take-over.

(click to show/hide)

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2016, 09:24:58 AM »
Lastly my sig's 3.5 fixes will help a lot with the caster take-over.
Can't seem to find them, I clicked on your sig and got lost. I can find your builds but not the fixes.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2016, 09:26:41 AM by Necrosnoop110 »


Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #17 on: April 16, 2016, 10:34:57 PM »
Did you use the download links?
Got it.  :clap

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #18 on: October 18, 2016, 05:02:44 PM »
PBMC,

I've been using your files as of late and most of them load up fine. But some folders give me a soup of odd file types and I cannot open them to get to the content. What am I missing?

Thanks,
Necro   

Offline kitep

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Re: D&D (Higher Levels)
« Reply #19 on: October 19, 2016, 12:29:19 AM »
I've been using your files as of late and most of them load up fine. But some folders give me a soup of odd file types and I cannot open them to get to the content. What am I missing?

The folder contains files used by a saved website page.  For example, if the folder name is
"PBMC Thread & Build Compendium 1_files" then there will be a file named "PBMC Thread & Build Compendium 1.html" that uses the folder.  You don't need to open any of the folder files themselves, just open the .html file

FWIW, ".js" I think stands for "javascript", and ".css" is something like "cascade style sheet", both of which are used to make a website function correctly.