My first 3.5 campaign has finally reached high level (13+). The party is a meatgrinder. There is only one +5 item in the party, a suit of +5 chainmail and the most powerful weapon is a +3 keen greatsword, so I don't think the magic is too much.
....I'm probably missing something and somebody can point it out to me please, but this high level play...well....it's a bookeeping nightmare. To present a decent challenge, I have to run complex monsters, CR appropriate NPC's with buff spells prepared, magic items, spells to keep track of, damage resistance, spell resistance, etc. etc. etc....the party hasn't seen an orc since 6th level and when they fight...I doze off by the time each one of them has gone through their retinue of full round attacks, each one of which involves 3-4 rolls, then rolls for damage, then adding it all up, keeping track of who got hit, who has what buff spell up, invisibility, blink, the list goes on and on and on....
Sure, the story is fun, but the combats are just a major pain in the ass. If I take shortcuts and try to throw some generic CR appropriate monsters at them, they walk through them like Grant took Richmond.
I'm spending a couple of hours of game prep just on studying the stat blocks from Dungeon magazine or preparing my own stat blocks, making cheat sheets to keep track of all the magical effects and enhancements.
I love the consistency and the clean mechanics of 3.5, but I don't remember the high level stuff being this much of a pain in the butt when I played 1e/2e...sure, it was complex, but there were no full page stat blocks that I recall. Also, the power curve is intensely different than in AD&D. In AD&D, I could throw 8-12 4th level fighters at a 10th level party and it would be a pretty tough fight with some real risk, but tonight I threw four CR9 supported by eight CR10 creatures at five player characters of 13th level and they hardly broke a sweat.
Random encounter tables? I don't want 'em anymore. I can't even imagine trying to run a decent random encounter for a high level party (excuse for me about an hour guys while I study these stat blocks and take notes....screw it, "YOU GUYS ENCOUNTER A DRAGON" flip, flip, flip....here it is in the Monster Manual, all prepared and ready to go--instead of challenging them with good tactics, I'll just keep claw/breathe/bite routine for 3d6+24 pts of damage up.
I enjoyed tonight's game for the story and the RP, but I cancelled the final combat encounter and knocked off early because I looked at the stat blocks of the creatures and just got a headache. I tried to adopt some timesaver mechanics, such as duplicating creatures and re-using stat blocks, but the players sense this and make snide comments like "hey, isn't this the barbarian prince from yesterday with a different color helmet? Let me guess, he has barkskin up...yep, he does, it is the same guy!"
Anyone have any ideas for remedies for the high level blahs? I don't want to adopt a bunch of variant rules, as I'd like to keep things pretty close to standard 3.5. I
The key is preparation. Photocopying the adventure and highlighting and scribbling on it helps, but for me the main key is using initiative cards for everyone (including PC's). My favourite is still buried here even though any link seems to have gone:
http://www.wizards.com/rpga/downloads/rpgainitcards_01.zip
Then there's these ones, I've never used, but worth a look too:
http://www.thegamemechanics.com/freebies/TGM_Initiative_Cards_Fantasy.zip
I like the first ones because they are clean and simple - for more complex creatures, I scribble extra bits front and back, like DR, SR, potions etc in the HP area, and spells etc on the back.
And keep everyone's turn snappy, players need to prepare too.
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Use single, high CR monsters rather than lots of monsters to make up the numbers, as (1) it is easier to keep track of one monster and (2) a single high CR adversary is more challenging than a group of lower CR adversaries.
Also, if you are anything like me, you tend to be nice to the party - fiddling dice rolls. At high level, you don't have to be.
I remember DM'ing War of the Spider Queen - two particular encounters stand out as fun: a fight with a balor (just an off-the-cuff encounter) and some vampiric demons with four arms. The balor was a high level encounter and just plain vicious - his final immolating burst killed two of the party (heh heh) - and it was also fun as it was a three dimensional battlefield due to flight (interesting situation requiring different tactics). The vampire demons were fun simply because the party had no idea what they were, and therefore took a while to work out their weaknesses and powers. So I find, in general, if you make the battleground interesting as well as just the monsters it adds to the experience (and that works at any level) and hit them with the unexpected.
But I also think that high-level play is just like that - it takes a long time to work through those iterative attacks. So encourage your players to roll to hit and damage dice together, don't give them all the time in the world to trawl through their spell lists (it is a pressured combat situation, after all) and keep it moving.
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Hoo boy! This is a tricky problem, one that is not easily solved and something I still have some problems with. My advice comes from a combination of Dungeon magazines and my own personal experiences. *****MINOR AGE OF WORMS SPOILER*****
-Sense of Urgency: a high level group has incredible resources, and if you have spell-casters, will walk over any single fight in a day, rest, and do it all over again with only a little harm to them. There are generally two solutions: (1) Ensure that the party must deal with several encounters in a day, or at least operate in a limited timeline so as to avoid “fight, rest, repeat.” (2) Give them more time, but ensure that each encounter is a real knock-out fight (see Age of Worms for some examples)
-Encounters Per Day: Four encounter does help, especially if your party knows to expect something like this and will better conserve their resources. Feel free to spice up the session with things other than combat so you aren’t trying to run three to four fights in a given session. Fact: no matter how high-level D&D gets, somehow, the average fight never tends to go above ten rounds (Low-level spells are going to become less and less used)
-Checking Out Age of Worms: You may be doing this, but definitely look over Age of Worms, especially “Spire of Long Shadows” and higher, to get a good sense of it. There are almost no NPC class-based encounters to be found; just lots and lots of monsters, or classed monsters, or NPCs with monstor cohorts. Our friends at Dungeon might not be perfect, but I know those encounters are a heck of a lot more challenging than some of the stuff I used to cook up, especially when I relied on classed NPCs even at sixteenth level.
-Player Responsibilities: all attack and damage rolls should be made ahead of time (it only gets worse in epic, especially with five attacks per round). If they’re good about not metagaming, after the first round, you can always tell them AC, DR, etc, so they can just tell you how many times they hit and the total damage they did (e.g. “I hit it twice with my halberd, dealing 26 damage and 11 fire damage after DR and resistances. Oh, and my last attack is a disarm and it has to beat a 18 on the roll”) If new (or unfamiliar) spells are being cast, have them have the PHB page open so that you can read it quickly if needed.
-Initiative: if this is a problem to keep track of, you can have a trusted player run that for you. The player that I always have do it in my games says who’s next and the person who comes after that so they’ll know to be ready. They also keep me well informed of what I’m supposed to be doing and that frees me up to focus on what those creatures will be doing.
-Spells and Encounter Design: any potent spell-based combinations that your players use (not to nurf or metagame with NPCs) sometimes become a GM blindspot—a frequent weakness that all your encounters share. For example, if high-damage energy spells are a player-reliance, consider evasion-users or outsiders; if every fight is being won by dominates and charms, look into clerics, gollums, and the undead (just make sure not to overuse this tactic)
-Random Encounter Tables: Yea, chuck them out the window if you are playing in the material plane. The game loses all verisimilitude when Ironback Pass had dire wolves roaming it when they were fourth level but now has packs of legendary wolves and beholders everywhere (a bit of hyperbole used)
-Numbers: numbers help, but you’ve got to use the right type of minions. Your game is different than mine and you may not like to use demons, but they’re a good example. Use monsters as minions if you have the opportunity and it fits. (Out of curiosity, what were the CR9s and CR10s you mentioned?) You did well to keep the challenge within four CR of the party. You may find that no creature with a single CR less than 3 below (i.e. 10 for 13th level) should be used. They just stop working. I also don’t recommend using more than 6 to 8 creatures in a single fight because any more than that often serves only to overwhelm us GMs, becomes repetitive, and generally proves to be less efficient than using a smaller number of higher CR monsters.
Aubrey has a point on high CR creatures, but be warned that any ONE creature versus four or more players is at a severe disdvantage based on actions per round alone and may go down much more quickly than you'd expecting (making it not much of a challenge after all--especially when it lost init.) Dragons exceed this rule slightly, but even they are not immune. And two dragons of two less CR will be far more potent.
-Boosting Your Fights: At high levels, a straight shot “roll init” fight becomes very easy for the party to win. Terrain, surprises, well-defended “home-team” advantages, and non-humanoid opponents become more critical as levels increase. This is a challenge for any GM because we’re used to NPCs, especially for those who’ve played 2e, but a tenth-level fighter and a CR10 giant are NOT created equal. Again, monsters as minions work well. As you probably know, too many NPC encounters results in too much gold; it also results in bigger statblocks, more customized equipment for even your melee charactrers, and tactics get complicated. Fiends, giants, trained magical beasts, aberrations, constructs, and even the occasional dragon can all flesh-out an encounter with an NPC villain, but share less treasure and often less frailty than any humanoid cohorts (not to mention significantly fewer pages of numbers in front of you). This is very true the more “core” you play. Back to my first point: “Home-team” advantage--> tight spaces, traps, secret passages, and environmental hazards (some of which the villain is immune to) all spice up an encounter and help to challenge a potent high-level party without delving into the unpleasant world of CR and experience-boosting additives. For example, a Red Dragon in his lair is a potent challenge due to the escape routes and hiding spots that flowing lava can provide.
-Choice of Environment: Beyond the more mundane terrain challenges (like lava *wink*), a GM may also utilize “strange” locations where the standard rules may not apply or the hazards are extremely dangerous and magical in nature. First, the latter: one can see highly dangerous environments used in Age of Worms such as the Tabernacle of Worms (worms in the walls, doors, ethereal plane, etc) or the final Tower of Kyuss where negative energy vaults from every surface. As for my first point: one can use demiplanes or magically codified events (high-magic coliseum or trial-by-combat) to also throw your players for a loop. Personally, I’ve used two such events in my last campaign. The first was an unhallowed demiplane within an unholy artifact where corrupted monsters abounded, corruption could not be healed due to the unhallowed nature of the realm, and the players risked losing themselves within this corruption. The second was a tournament of single-opponent combats within a highly mutable environment (featureless plane altered by ones will) in which the players lacked the advantages of divinations, prebuffing sessions, and general companionship as they had to face very potent enemies, many of whom were more adept at molding the world than the party. I even introduced Vitality and Wound for this event, ascribing the new frailty/strengths to the nature of the environment (it was all a bit complicated, but I had a lot of fun creating it).
-Talking to the Group: If this bothers you, mention it to your party. If they’re a good group, they will understand your concern and some may have felt the same. Your mileage may vary, but most players like good, fun, and varied challenges, and there may be some good discussion, since all of you want to enjoy.
There is no doubt that this is one of the greatest challenges for a GM, and you’re not alone. I’m still figuring this out and I’ve run a lot of high-level stuff. My last high-level campaign ended slightly sourly partially because of my inability to challenge them properly (but then again, they definitely had a habit of overabusing the old polymorph). Also, I should really have discussed the matter with them; their tendency toward being XP-mongers aside, we may have been able to find a group solution instead of both sides just feeling somewhat resentful toward the other in the end (I recommend you don’t repeat my mistake).
There's no doubt that you're hitting a nail on its head, Farewell2kings. Our games seems to break down at about level 13-14 -- thats the point where it stops beeing fun to be the GM. The prep/fun ratio tilts.
In theory it doesn't have to be that way.
You have to cheat a bit, and push the players a bit around.
If you want combat to take longer than 2 rounds, then add hitpoints to the monsters. Double the hit points and the combat should take 4 rounds (You're the GM), or play a bit more by the rules and add a template with SR or DR.
Set the stage: Try to place the characters in situations where they are forced to improvise. A high-level group that has the initiative is extremely hard to handle, but any group that's forced to be reactive and both run and think at the same time is another matter.
They should not be allowed to cast all kinds of buff-spells and teleport to the Throne room and wrestle with the bad guy while fully buffed.
Multiple throne rooms, throne rooms filled with poisonous gas, dobbelgangers, traps, illusions... Any reason why the bad-guy doesn't employ a cleric that casts Divination and asks if there'll be any hostilities in the next week or so?
Most spells in D&D has some kind of counter-spell. A wise cleric that memorizes Death Ward, Break Enchantment, Spell Resistance and True Seeing might be easier to handle that the one with four Flame Strike spells.
Present (sometimes foreshadow) monsters and scenes that put the players in bad-bad situations if they don't think about defensive spells. Hurt'em badly (preferably save-or-die) if the players don't take the advice.
Other hints:
- If a monster casts spells, only concentrate on memorizing and reading up on the highest-level spells. Combats will be over in a few rounds anyway.
- You know their AC's - don't select monsters that cannot hit (or too seldom hits) your players. Advance or add class levels.
- Don't be afraid to set up situations that take out a player (antimagic zones, undeads that cannot be sneaked...) - you shouldn't take out the same player all the time, though.
- Give them a princess to save (could be anything, scepters, vials, tomes, creatures), key point is that the princess must not be harmed. Combine liberally with combat, imminent deadlines and chase-scenes.
- Don't overlook traps. Crumpling celings, revolving walls, disappearing floor tiles, "spell cannons", poison, gas. About anything goes with 12+ level characters -- and it might be a help in creating an unpredictable, dynamic battlefield.
- Keep track of the magical equipment (and prestige classes) that you give to your players. Some players look at the DMG as a shopping catalogue where just about anything can be ordered. That leads to overpowered characters. Talking to the group about it really helped in our group.
I agree with Magagumo in that this is a problem that's hard to solve. If you find a silver bullet, then please post about your approach.
/ Henning
I don't have anything to add other than I hear ya on the NPC problem. It doesn't even seem worth running an NPC villain unless they're 4 levels higher than the PCs. Aside from their lack of equipment in general, D&D's total dependance on magic for AC makes it a sure bet that the PCs will hit with a +5 power attack, while your BBEG will be lucky to hit the party tank twice in a row. No wonder the PCs have no respect for any other living demihuman...
Wow, some really great advice and feedback. Thank you all very much!
Hi All,
I like several of the suggestions already posted to try and ease high level play. I too have had issues with high level play due to the amount of time as a GM one spends prepping and then actually playing through the encounters. Here are a few of my own suggestions that seem to have helped my group and I:
1) Use initiative cards. I have each player fill out an index card with the information I deem pertinent for my use as a GM (I use the cards as a planning tool in between sessions). On the bottom, right hand corner I affix scotch tape. Then I use an overhead projection pen to right down what the initial initiative results were at the beginning of an encounter. I sort the cards along with the cards I prepped for the foes in initiative order. If there is a tie among the players I resolve it by Dex. If there is a tie with a foe, the player gets the benefit automatically (they’re heroes after all). I have one card that simply says End of Round and is placed as the last card. I then simply flip through the cards as the battle progresses. If anyone holds or delays, I set their card aside and when they act, enter them back in the deck at their new initiative point. When the End of Round card comes up, I click off the new round and start going through the deck once more. As foes are removed, I simply remove their cards from the deck. Note, only major foes get their own cards. Mooks all go one the same card rather than having multiple initiative cards for each individual. Of course, different mooks get different cards (i.e. Orcs on one, wolves on another). Finally, the initiative cards have the added benefit of being spell markers since you can write down durational effects and check them off as the rounds progress.
2) Players are responsible for knowing their character’s abilities. This seems like it should be common sense I know, but I have had instances when 3.X came out where the players did not take the time to really learn what their character capabilities were. This created delays and frustration at the table, both for myself and for my players as constant questions were raised and answers looked up. As GMs we already have full plates behind the screen. We really do not need the added responsibility of managing player character abilities when trying to run high level combats. Encourage your players to really get to know what their characters can and cannot do on a given basis. Have them look up those spell effects or know how their feat and skills work. Let them have their books open to how grappling runs or the break down for how dispel magic is resolved. Anything they can do for themselves helps take some of the burden off of our shoulders when running at the high levels.
3) I agree that limited encounters at the higher levels are beneficial. By now you should have a solid feeling of how long it takes your players to work through a combat encounter. Use that information when pacing out your session. If you know that on average it takes an hour or so to resolve a fight and you play for 4 hours, then probably two fights is the most you want to try and handle in a given session. Also, give the players the occasional walk through. Not all fights for your high level characters need to be maxed out to the razor edge of life and death. This does two things. One, it allows you to show case just how powerful the PCs have become. Two, it’s a “no brainer” fight for you to run while still providing that combat release that many groups crave.
4) Prep time. We all know that being a GM is loving to spend all of our free time in front of a computer working on our campaigns till we cannot walk without being stooped over, right? :-) Seriously, as GMs running at the high levels, we already put in a large amount of prep time before each session. Whether that is reading the adventure we are going to run out of the latest Dungeon or creating a scenario from scratch, preparation time seems to become less productive when dealing at the high levels. This is personally where the game becomes less enjoyable for myself. Spending a coupe of hours designing major foes, especially those with class levels, eats up a large amount of time. Especially since most of these foes will only be “on screen” for a few rounds at best. This is where taking advantage of the DMG’s NPC chapter can really help. In addition, I don’t worry most times what skills to assign beyond those that are going to be needed for the scene. Feats are the same way. For spell casters, it’s a little different, you need to know how many spells and what spells are critical for the scene. However, overall, by focusing only on what will be relevant I find that prep time does seem at least more productive.
5) Recycle, recycle, and recycle. When you do take the time to write up your encounters and to design your foes and their minions, save that information. I have found that simple equipment changes, spell selections, a level here or there, or a base race change allows me to rapidly build up encounters. The added benefit is that by having used that material once before in a different disguise, I have increased familiarity about what worked and didn’t. Therefore by extension, the challenge to my players and their characters is increased as well.
6) There are no random encounters at high level. In my own experience, I typically plan what encounters I wish to run. It may seem random to my players, but be sure that the encounters were predetermined during prep time. This takes much of the need for designing and running an encounter off the cuff away from when you are actually playing. In turn reducing frustration and the need for additional brainstorming.
7) Take a Break. I have found that when I begin to get frustrated at the higher levels of play and feeling GM burn out, taking a break from the campaign sometimes helps. Typically, I use this time to catch up on some books, movies, comics, or other source material. Sometimes, I’m even lucky enough to get one of my players to run a one shot where I get to play. The important thing here is that I use the down time to reestablish my perspective and to give my overworked patience a rest. Typically, it is only a couple of weeks before I am ready to start running again.
I hope the above is of some use and thanks to all of the other posters for their suggestions. I have seen several ideas I will be looking to include in my own games.
Good gaming,
Mark
I appreciate all the lengthy and well thought out responses.
We won't be gaming again until the 24th and I have a vacation between now and then, so my batteries can get recharged. I'm going to implement several of your suggestions and I'm also switching back to a hex grid instead of a square grid. All my players agreed that the square grid was annoying them because we were all used to hex grid battlemats from many years of playing 1e/2e and other RPGs.
I'm also going to be pulling stuff from high level Dungeon adventures I don't plan to use, such as stat blocks, etc.
Wow - I'm glad you asked for help, F2K! One of my players decided he REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY wanted to use this 10th-lvl character he's worked up. Now, honestly, I've never DM'd higher than 5th-lvl parties and that last time saw a skirmish take several hours! So, I'll be using the ideas from this thread to help ME out in my upcoming one-shot that may evolve into a bit more...
I have just a few more pieces of advice:
If your players aren't an appreciative bunch, then it's okay to ask for comments and feedback once in a while.
If they're enjoying themselves (and I suspect that they are), then just hearing that will be a great boost to your morale.
In the eyes of your players, you're most likely doing a great job.
Try not to get frustrated about your role as a GM. It has never been your role to punish and slay PC's -- the point with D&D is that the heroes defeats the monsters in a great, epic story.
The role of your monsters is to be on the loosing side. Even if every monster represents an hour of prep time (or more).
I've played with a GM where every gamenight seemed followed the same "one-and-a-half step forwards, one step backwards" pattern:
First, we did a recap of last gamenight. Last gamenight had ended with our group beeing forced to retreat due to some kind of overpowered encounter. Then we went into some kind of planning mode which involved serious boosting and we went back and fought the same encounter as last time. Usually, the extra specific preparation made the difference. Then we went to fight the next encounter - from which we (usually) had to withdraw. End of gamenight.
Two steps forward, one step backwards - every gamenight ended with a major frustration - and frustrated, disillusioned players are even worse for the mood at the table than having a frustrated GM.
In my interpretation, the encounters were that GM's darlings, and he didn't like us players to finish them off too easy. He as the GM, wanted the taste of victory too.
You should always be prepared to loose your darlings and see encounters develop in unexpected ways that turns your planning upside down (no potent ranged attack, no easy-to-protect exit route and no ways of detecting invisible creatures? then that monster *will* get fireballed by the invisible spellcaster - take a deep breath and get on with the story).
If the players are really into your story, then you're succeeding as a GM. Gamemastering success is never measured in PC defeats and deaths.
/ Henning
All good suggestions above.
I can only add:
Put them through "The Prince of Redhand" adventure from AoW... that really evened things out.
I am not running AoW but I adopted that adventure into my campaign. I love that thing.
"I can't go in there with my flaming morningstar!?"
My group and I just capped a four-year campaign that reached PL 29. We spent a good year in the 20s. There was a lot of preparation involved before each game. Lots of notes and stat blocks. Lots of tactical lists. The battles did often last an hour or so, but they were epic. EPIC.
Now that we're just getting into the Dourstone Mine, it's a nice relief playing at low levels. Change is a good thing.
One of my players decided he REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY wanted to use this 10th-lvl character he's worked up. Now, honestly, I've never DM'd higher than 5th-lvl parties and that last time saw a skirmish take several hours! So, I'll be using the ideas from this thread to help ME out in my upcoming one-shot that may evolve into a bit more...
Good luck, jumping straight to 10th level is difficult for players as well as DM's. Chances are at least some of you won't be used to all the new options at your disposal, and will run your PC's (or monsters) well below their potential.
I know it can take a fair bit of time, but there's nothing like having earned those levels to teach you what works well and what doesn't. Even if you've played high levels before, growing up with a character always seems better than one you've just created. I guess part of that is familiarity with their unique winning tactics, the other part is the emotional attachment.
Personally, I cheat, yes cheat, I comb their character sheets for weaknesses and use them, repeatedly until they fix them and then I find the next hole. Just make sure you are not being completely unfair. Hey, whats more fun for the players, crushing everything or having the smart NPCs all using the little old silence spell to make their sonic attacks useless. Or what about protection from energy-force. Just make sure you make whatever you come up with available to the players too.
I don't have a problem finding ways to challenge them or push them to the edge of defeat, but I'm just not used to the amount of work I have to do to accomplish that. I guess I got lazy in the old edition(s) because the power curve wasn't so steeply divided and I could use a larger number of lower level creatures to present a combat encounter without doing as much prep work. I tried to to this in 3.5 and it didn't work. In 1st or 2nd edition, had I thrown eight 10th level monsters/NPCs at a party of five 13th level characters, it would have been a very tough fight.
I'm finding that I don't like this. Right now, 3.5 high level play seems like "superhero" stuff--they can only battle other "superheroes" for the game to be challenging and entertaining. That's a flavor I don't care for at all.
There's one quick fix--adopt the massive damage rule from d20 modern and make the Fort save equal to the damage dealt, but that changes the entire game dynamic.
You could do what Gary Gygax did when his PCs got too cocky, i.e. just wear them down. WG-6 was designed to really push his pcs (well anyways, Gygax was a brutal brutal DM or so the lore goes). The way he did it was by attrition. I.e. they powered through the first encounter and the second and the third and the fourth, but by numbers 8 and 9 their resources were tapped, their power ups were expired, their scrolls were gone, their spells were cast. In the end they ran, I think they used plane shift to escape and did so with their lives, but they did end up leaving all of their gear. :)
I'm finding that I don't like this. Right now, 3.5 high level play seems like "superhero" stuff--they can only battle other "superheroes" for the game to be challenging and entertaining. That's a flavor I don't care for at all.
But the "superhero" aspect of high-level play is the best explanation why there are any low-level threats at all. One high-level character could single-handedly finish the first six Age of Worms adventures, but their abilities are needed elsewhere.
As a player, my favorite aspect of high-level play is in role-playing. Combat became kinda dull when I had a good chance of disintegrating anything that came against us. I eventually took a personal vow of not-killing when at all possible (at least where intelligent living creatures were concerned), which several other players took up on as well.
As a DM, I just try to play to my player's likes and goals, and challenge them here and there. I pretty much figure that most of the encounters will be well within their abilities, and will throw out a really tough encounter once a session.
Having fewer intricate encounters per game makes things go quicker, that's for sure.
farewell2kings,
I don’t think that you have become lazy as you put it. I have followed your campaign log and it is obvious that you have put considerable time in to make a campaign that your players greatly enjoy. As stated earlier in your post, you are mainly frustrated at the amount of work high level D&D entails. So I think you may have come to a decision point regarding your game, mainly; is it time to look at retiring the campaign? I only say this since I myself have been in games (and have run games) where the burn out factor resulted in truncated campaigns or very unsatisfactory conclusions that felt premature or forced.
Believe me, this is definitely not a decision to make lightly, but I do think you need to do some thinking about it since the work load is going to be heavy from here on out. I also encourage you to talk the situation over with your players. They too have invested considerable time and effort in developing their characters along with getting involved with the campaign. Talk about where the game has been and where you all see it going. Ask if they feel if the game’s tone has changed or if high level play feels like they’re “super heroes”. Depending what comes out of these discussions, you should have a better understanding of what you and your group are looking for.
That said, my advice is to start looking at making a list of what major stories are left to be told. From this, develop an outline of how those stories need to be woven to provide the most satisfaction for you and you players. Once this has been hammered out, use the outline as a guide to mine those Dungeon resources for the needed stat blocks of major NPCs. Also, utilize the advice concerning using monstrous henchmen of the needed CRs rather than classed based foes for the mooks. Basically, look at doing anything to help reduce the workload and, by extension, the tedium of prep work. When all of that is accomplished, go back to focusing you efforts on the stories themselves so you and your players can build the most memorable conclusion to your shared campaign.
Regarding looking at changing how D&D 3.X works. I think you hit the nail on the head that any serious change will have a significant impact on the tone and dynamics of the game. Still, it may be a solid option if you and your group feel that you all want to take campaign just as far as it will possibly go. Just be aware that by changing out certain game components, you may inadvertently be looking at more work for yourself behind the screen and during the prep time.
In closing, as I mentioned earlier, I have followed your campaign log for quite some time now and am truly sorry to hear how frustrated you have become. I honestly think you have a great campaign and a great group of players. I have really enjoyed reading the journal entries and adventure recaps. Believe me when I say I think you have been doing a fine job as a GM. Please keep that in mind as you think about what you want to do concerning your campaign.
Good luck and good gaming,
Mark
Hey, thanks for all the thoughtful feedback (I've said it before, but I'll say it again).
I won't retire my campaign until the PCs are 20th level. I want to run a full gamut, full blown official 3.5 campaign before I start changing stuff. I appreciate the nice words about my campaign log, Marcos--thanks!
As far as no combat? My players might sound like seasoned role-players who muse about their romances and feelings in my campaign log, but trust me--they're sword and spell slinging munchkins all, who can't wait to level up to get the next feat and get pissy when we've gone an hour or two without something to kill....and my gaming group is 60% female (that was a chauvinist thing to say, but screw political correctness when it's the truth)
However, all this great advice here has given me good ideas on how to reduce the headache. I don't mind the prep work as much as I mind the fact that running a high level game requires as much concentration as it does. You guys should know that when we game, we have anywhere between 10-15 children running around, ages 2 to 15. Concentration is difficult, so this distraction factor probably has as much to do with my frustration as do the encyclopedic stat blocks.
As far as no combat? My players might sound like seasoned role-players who muse about their romances and feelings in my campaign log, but trust me--they're sword and spell slinging munchkins all, who can't wait to level up to get the next feat and get pissy when we've gone an hour or two without something to kill....and my gaming group is 60% female (that was a chauvinist thing to say, but screw political correctness when it's the truth)
All the more reason to run Pett's "Prince of Redhand".
And if violence is the only language they understand, then they are at the ripe level to meet Velikar and Asiroxus in Greg "V for Violence" Vaughn's Istivin 3-part campaign arc.
Wonderful thread and excellent ideas to all those who have posted.
I have a rule for high-level campaigns: DM min-maxing. I just try to create the most broken, CR appropriate guys I can.
Somethign I do in my encounters at all levels, that becomes very important as you go into the higher levels as well is making sure the combat has a high level of tactics in it. Use creatures with reach, things that slow people down, ranged attacks from far away, flying, diving monsters, areas where PCs have to avoid, etc. It may not alleviate the complications, but it gives and opputunity for you to challenge them more.
Just wanted to chip in and say this is one of the best threads I've ever read. I halted my last campaign once they hit 9th-10th level for the very reasons listed above (Wind Walk just made it too hard to create an encounter where they couldn't gain an advantage before it started). I just didn't have the time to create a challenging encounter for them.
I started Age of Worms and it's been much better. They're rapidly approaching that same level, and I'm debating letting them swap out their current chars for their old ones.