Help with the difficulty of a level 20 campaign


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Malag wrote:

@Snowblind

It doesn't work like that in the long run. I personally think that it's lame to min-max bad guys in the same way as PCs in order to reach DC 42 Mass Charm Monster or other spell, but my opinions completely aside, it's ineffective due to time spent in building such opponents. While it might be okay to build it once or twice, stating these NPCs/monsters in order to make them viable becomes a chore.

Which is why you build alot of encounters by fiat.

You can min max a couple of options and then take the resulting numbers and plug them in where you need them.

I dont have to build a diviner VMC kitsune arcane sorcerer (blah blah blah) everytime, all I need to know is that for an attack spell that a caster specializes in I will set the DC around 40.

That is one of the best parts of being a DM and not a developer. I dont have to show anyone HOW I came to a build, I just need the stat block.

Sczarni

Snowblind wrote:
Malag wrote:

@Snowblind

It doesn't work like that in the long run. I personally think that it's lame to min-max bad guys in the same way as PCs in order to reach DC 42 Mass Charm Monster or other spell, but my opinions completely aside, it's ineffective due to time spent in building such opponents. While it might be okay to build it once or twice, stating these NPCs/monsters in order to make them viable becomes a chore.

Level 20 campaigns don't generally work in the long run if they are supposed to be carried by the combat.

At least by building min-maxed PC classed enemies, it can work for a bit in the short term until you get sick of having to read a guide in order to build every single NPC, or until your players get sick of the ultra-rocket tag.

Comepletely true. It tends to be even hard to keep the story interesting because PCs can simply "wish" their way out of it.


BigDTBone wrote:
Malag wrote:

@Snowblind

It doesn't work like that in the long run. I personally think that it's lame to min-max bad guys in the same way as PCs in order to reach DC 42 Mass Charm Monster or other spell, but my opinions completely aside, it's ineffective due to time spent in building such opponents. While it might be okay to build it once or twice, stating these NPCs/monsters in order to make them viable becomes a chore.

Which is why you build alot of encounters by fiat.

You can min max a couple of options and then take the resulting numbers and plug them in where you need them.

I dont have to build a diviner VMC kitsune arcane sorcerer (blah blah blah) everytime, all I need to know is that for an attack spell that a caster specializes in I will set the DC around 40.

That is one of the best parts of being a DM and not a developer. I dont have to show anyone HOW I came to a build, I just need the stat block.

It also helps that half of spells most arcane casters pick are the same.

The difference between a Kitsune enchanter and a Human dazing blaster's loadout is probably around 1-2 spells per level and less than half of their feats.

Sczarni

BigDTBone wrote:


Which is why you build alot of encounters by fiat.

This logic crumbles on high level. A single lv 20 sorcerer has over 50 spells. It takes too long to drain party of their resources.


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Additional advice and suggestions coming out of left field, which may unintentionally overlap with previously given advice:


  • Have something vaguely resembling a story/central plot railroad for them to travel along. I think that you have this covered, but doing so can also establish a theme for you to focus on when picking the monsters.
  • KISS, use vanilla stat blocks - the reason follows with ...
  • Make a day really matter. Task them to use as much of their spells/day, daily power pools (rage, etc) as much as possible. Monsters that are rampaging throughout their favorite city from any previous campaign works wonders to (a) add that extra touch of emotional investment; and (b) to hopefully provoke " Hey, we LIKE that tavern! Nobody trashes OUR TAVERN!! " reactions. Hopefully, this means that they're savvy enough to save their highest level/day goodies for the more important foes.
  • Critters that can call/gate/summon support mooks are perfectly okay for this campaign. Let them in, by the bucket loads. This makes the PCs that take spells like dismissal or banishment feel that those choices were worthwhile.
  • Save your customized stat blocks for the mythic challenges you have in mind. IMO there are too many required as-is, so condense things. When they lay the smack down on your mythic maestros of carnage and mayhem, they'll hopefully remember each one for years to come.
  • Play big or go home. Early on trashing their favorite city/tavern/whatever is the starting point. Later they need to be galavanting to all kinds of exotic locales. Some of them should be deadly or potentially so if they don't prepare accordingly.
  • Do NOT use disjunctions unless they're all kitted out with artifacts. This is a pace-wrecking spell unless your players do what I do,which is knowing what my baddies/PCs can do when completely shut down magical bonuses-wise. In counterpoint, forbid spellbane along with it, as this spell's primary benefit is that it can give a particularly rude gesture to disjunction.
  • anti-magic fields have their day, so design a particularly rewarding scene or two that this spell can really shine. Especially if they have to deal with one that jacks them up without their bling.
  • Give serious consideration to the automatic bonus progression rules from Pathfinder Unchained. It cuts the gp limit in half ... for everyone. This lets you keep the 'boring big six' items out of the loop and, more importantly, NPCs with class levels (and not much else) become a worthy threat instead of a speed-bump nuisance.
  • Don't worry overmuch about the particulars of what the PCs can do. They're going to annihilate almost everything they come across. Instead put together gonzo encounters for your mythic tier bump moments that make 'em go "Holy Shiznit, Batman!!".

As always, have fun with this! It's not often a group gets to make liberal use of capstone abilities for very long.

Although one does wonder about the commoner. ;)


It sounds like this is going to get out of hand really fast, but good luck with it. Remember that Mythic Ranks add +1/2 CR to your characters, so level 20 with MR 10 is really a CR 25. Facing any kind of CR 17 monster will be a cakewalk not a fight. You'll have to deal with CR 23 for "easy" encounters up to CR 27-28 for the difficult ones.


Euryale wrote:
I'm not sure exactly how they fight at this level, but at a guess (though I've only seen them play low level) I'd say they're going to focus on running up and hitting something, rather than elaborate strategies - unless they've looked them up. I've never seen any of them - even when playing full casters - do anything fancy, but that may have been because of the low levels. To add to this, when they've looked at the demon lords (as they know they're going against them, but they don't know which ones) they've said that they look difficult (sometimes too difficult), so that leads me to believe that they don't have anything super-broken in mind. In addition to that addition, I've ran a mini combat encounter with the bloodrager and the mongrel mage using a single CR20 (a Yamaraj) and they nearly died (and only hurt the psychopomp a tiny bit as the sorcerer kept using lightning spells...

This thread raises many valid concerns for running a level 20 campaign, but judging from this, I don't think min-maxed rocket tag is a big concern. I'd prioritize figuring out ways of shortening each player's combat turn.


Turin the Mad wrote:


*...Monsters that are rampaging throughout their favorite city from any previous campaign works wonders to (a) add that extra touch of emotional investment; and (b) to hopefully provoke " Hey, we LIKE that tavern! Nobody trashes OUR TAVERN!! " reactions. Hopefully, this means that they're savvy enough to save their highest level/day goodies for the more important foes.
*Play big or go home. Early on trashing their favorite city/tavern/whatever is the starting point. Later they need to be galavanting to all kinds of exotic locales. Some of them should be deadly or potentially so if they don't prepare accordingly.

Thanks for the advice :) these two parts in particular reminded me of something; the commoner's tavern was destroyed by the tarrasque, and in a half lucid thought I wondered if the tarrasque could wield/throw the flaming remains of the tavern, and then this somehow made me think of Mogura wielding the tarrasque. I don't think I'd do something like that, but if the players are after something a little... Different, well, you never know.


Brother Fen wrote:
It sounds like this is going to get out of hand really fast, but good luck with it. Remember that Mythic Ranks add +1/2 CR to your characters, so level 20 with MR 10 is really a CR 25. Facing any kind of CR 17 monster will be a cakewalk not a fight. You'll have to deal with CR 23 for "easy" encounters up to CR 27-28 for the difficult ones.

While that's the book ratio, it's... wildly off. Mythic and CR don't get along well, but if your level 20/Mythic 10 can't solo Cthulhu you're probably optimized far under the iconic-grade baseline.


Euryale wrote:
Turin the Mad wrote:


*...Monsters that are rampaging throughout their favorite city from any previous campaign works wonders to (a) add that extra touch of emotional investment; and (b) to hopefully provoke " Hey, we LIKE that tavern! Nobody trashes OUR TAVERN!! " reactions. Hopefully, this means that they're savvy enough to save their highest level/day goodies for the more important foes.
*Play big or go home. Early on trashing their favorite city/tavern/whatever is the starting point. Later they need to be galavanting to all kinds of exotic locales. Some of them should be deadly or potentially so if they don't prepare accordingly.
Thanks for the advice :) these two parts in particular reminded me of something; the commoner's tavern was destroyed by the tarrasque, and in a half lucid thought I wondered if the tarrasque could wield/throw the flaming remains of the tavern, and then this somehow made me think of Mogura wielding the tarrasque. I don't think I'd do something like that, but if the players are after something a little... Different, well, you never know.

Give the Tarrasque a "HULK SMASH!" type of thing, complete with bonus feats with Catch Off-Guard, Throw Anything, Improvised Weapon Mastery and Mythic Improvised Weapon Mastery/Throw Anything. *Pouf*, the Tarrasque can pull a "Hulk" (TWF or otherwise with chunks of burning building, PCs, monsters, whatever's at claw) and make a spectacular mess of things.

Edit: if you want to get really nasty, have the kaiju/Spawn of Rovagug use chunks of environment as siege weapons. LOTS of damage with no save often on an area template. ;)

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Also, expect lots of counters. Lots of immunities. I played a few 3.5 epic games, and they reminded me of Magic: the Gathering because everything was immune to all the cool stuff.

And there is lots and lots of math. Maybe use average damage for spells and other things with 10+ dice.

Battle can really bog down with all the options and looking up all the rules. Especially if tons of books are allowed, too.

Action economy is key, but putting 20 mooks and a BBEG against 5 PCs is gonna take a TON of time to run. 10 identical BBEG might be easier.


Turin the Mad wrote:
Euryale wrote:
Turin the Mad wrote:


*...Monsters that are rampaging throughout their favorite city from any previous campaign works wonders to (a) add that extra touch of emotional investment; and (b) to hopefully provoke " Hey, we LIKE that tavern! Nobody trashes OUR TAVERN!! " reactions. Hopefully, this means that they're savvy enough to save their highest level/day goodies for the more important foes.
*Play big or go home. Early on trashing their favorite city/tavern/whatever is the starting point. Later they need to be galavanting to all kinds of exotic locales. Some of them should be deadly or potentially so if they don't prepare accordingly.
Thanks for the advice :) these two parts in particular reminded me of something; the commoner's tavern was destroyed by the tarrasque, and in a half lucid thought I wondered if the tarrasque could wield/throw the flaming remains of the tavern, and then this somehow made me think of Mogura wielding the tarrasque. I don't think I'd do something like that, but if the players are after something a little... Different, well, you never know.

Give the Tarrasque a "HULK SMASH!" type of thing, complete with bonus feats with Catch Off-Guard, Throw Anything, Improvised Weapon Mastery and Mythic Improvised Weapon Mastery/Throw Anything. *Pouf*, the Tarrasque can pull a "Hulk" (TWF or otherwise with chunks of burning building, PCs, monsters, whatever's at claw) and make a spectacular mess of things.

Edit: if you want to get really nasty, have the kaiju/Spawn of Rovagug use chunks of environment as siege weapons. LOTS of damage with no save often on an area template. ;)

That's a pretty awesome idea ;) I think I'll be giving the Tarrasque something akin to the Honkytonkineer's planar leap; it wouldn't be tearing through the fabric of reality, but it would be putting that absurd acrobatics skill for jumping into use. Plus, having the Tarrasque goomba stomp a city to death sounds fun. It would only be able to use it a certain amount of times, but I'm hoping to shock the players the first time the turtle of death descends from the skies to obliterate the environment around them.

I'd also like to use the environment in a very destructive way, so the kaiju/spawn idea sounds great for that.

To shorten turns, I have asked everyone to create a list of their likely summons and give them stats, so we don't spend too much time waiting for people to find what they're doing. Also, most of the mooks are the same, and will be going off the same initiative, so I won't have to bog down the adventure with rolling 25 initiatives and keeping track of them all.

And about the likelihood of the players playing rocket-tag, I think that at first they won't. As the only way they've played the game so far (in other adventures) is run up, stand their for full attacks, hope not to die, I don't think they'll think of anything too fancy at first. Maybe they'll adapt their strategies and start thinking up new ways to abuse the wizard's spells, or maybe they'll all die because they challenged Lucifer to a staring competition :P

I'm hoping that the fight against the Tarrasque on Saturday sheds light on the team's ability (the monk, the mongrel mage, the skald, and the commoner are coming to that), and then I'll have the time to adjust encounters as to make them both challenging and fun, but mostly fun.


kestral287 wrote:
... Merfolk are an 'overpowered advanced race'? News to me. :P

Yeah I'm not super familiar with Merfolk, My main point was just the Level 20 commoner

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I would ask the Level 20 Commoner to make up a back up character.

d6, no good saves, and +1/2 BAB??? At least Perception is a class skill, so he can see what will kill him....


SmiloDan wrote:

I would ask the Level 20 Commoner to make up a back up character.

d6, no good saves, and +1/2 BAB??? At least Perception is a class skill, so he can see what will kill him....

They made a backup character, along with everyone else (so if they die in the middle of a session and they can't get home, they can jump in straight away with their secondary character instead of being forced to simply watch combat they can't take part in).


20th level commoner is still 20th level

UMD doesn't scale with level very well if at all.

Buffs can and will patch up an awful lot of holes.

Dying at 20th level will happen rapidly, often with out much regard for things like hit points. Those commoner hp are about the equal of a wizards in any case. Death can be undone about as rapidly and easily as the dying part as well.

Things like system mastery and intelligent play have zero to do with the character(s) and everything to do with the player(s).

Is he more likely to die than the others, I'd say that depends as much if not more on the player than the character and how much the players work together as a team.


I ran the first segment of the game, and it went a lot better than I thought it would; all but the commoner stuck to simple tactics (eg, running up and hitting the Tarrasque), and the commoner's grand plan of magic jaring the Tarrasque didn't work unfortunately as the turtle of death passed the save. As for tactics and difficulty, they nearly died to a level 15 wizard, and didn't manage to damage the Tarrasque at all (but this was probably because one player wanted to sacrifice the other players to Satan), so they didn't have an easy time.

Overall, everyone seemed to have a good time, but the general consensus was that the rounds took too long (as we had to search spells very often) and we didn't know the characters well enough to decide strategy. As such, I think we're going to be playing a level 1 adventure in Hell (dying will be bad for their health as well as their power) that'll eventually build up to a high level adventure, but probably not a level 20.

Thanks again for the tips everyone :)

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

If you want to high level play eventually, maybe run a campaign where you level up once or twice a session, and then in 10 to 20 sessions you'll be high level. It would give you practice with new spell levels every 1 or 2 sessions.

Also, maybe do all spontaneous casters so there is a limited number of spells known.

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