Help with the difficulty of a level 20 campaign


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Hi, I'm new to this forum so if this is the wrong place to ask then I apologise in advance :)

Anyway, I was recently asked by my players to GM a level 20 mythic adventure for them in the same vein as God of War (basically, having open season on gods and demon lords). The only problem is that, well, I'm not all too sure how difficult I should make it; I want it to challenge the players, and for every important fight to be at least a little epic, but I don't want the players to die immediately.

But, first of all, the players:

The players rolled their stats through 2d20-lowest, and at the end of that they could choose to replace any stat with a 20. All races and classes (as well as archetypes) were available, and all but the leadership feat is okay; in addition to this, adding a template (such as half Dragon) to their character did not cost levels, but instead cost money (they started with the standard 880,000gp). I wanted to let people have 'OP' characters, and I encouraged them to experiment with different builds.

The characters are a merfolk arcane bloodline sorcerer, a merfolk mongrel mage, a suli skald, a human commoner, maybe an orc Abyssal bloodrager, and a human wizard (as well as an as of now unmade Drow noble necromancy-focused cleric). Unfortunately I can't remember their stats or build off by heart.

The players themselves aren't inexperienced - they have played quite a few games before - but they're certainly not veterans (if I were to take a guess, I'd say they've been playing for on average a year).

With that in mind, I'm not sure how difficult to make the fights; I've got an idea of who they're going against, the tarrasque and Cerberus are examples, and I want to end with Lucifer - by then they'd be mythic tier 10 - but I don't know how tricky I should make the battles themselves. Eg, for a fight with a demon Lord, would it be unfair (and more importantly unfun) for the demon lord to summon a load of demon critters and then stand at the back and cast, or could (with their stats and class in mind) they only handle a demon Lord if said Lord was getting up close and personal without mooks (which would make it easier). Another example is how smart should I make a creature with 30something intelligence (something I definitely do not have) without it coming off as deus ex machina - should I make them trick the players and target their weakspots that aren't immediately apparent, or play them as simply talking brutes? Basically, as all of the baddies I've GM'd before have been unintelligent monsters that were never meant to be very difficult (I'm probably too forgiving of a GM), I'm stuck on the best (by that I mean most challenging in a fun way) way to play superintelligent god-like beings, or even how to make a difficult fight that isn't too difficult as for it to be unfair.

tl;dr I've never ran a level 20 campaign before, now I am, I don't know the best way to play difficult monsters and to create challenging situations. Please help :)


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lvl 20+ is not about combat. at least it isnt about killing.
it's about shaping the world, about moving planets and going the god mode.
it's not killing 100000 orcs, it's killing 100 orcs while not harming the hostages.


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Oh you probably will need some resources:

3.5 epic handbook

3.5 gods and demigods.

Mythic Heroes handbook (http://paizo.com/products/btpy9dso?Mythic-Heros-Handbook)

mythic monster manual (http://paizo.com/products/btpy9dsp?Mythic-Monster-Manual)

mythic spell compendium http://paizo.com/products/btpy9dsq?Mythic-Spell-Compendium)

And for the mythic rules: DONT use mytchic monsters rules, instead put tiers as if they were characters, nor monsters. the rules for mythic monsters are so underpowered against the mythic players rules. so if yu realy want to challenge them, dont bore with that.


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If you are not use to running a game for them I would start the game well below 20, and have them level up to 20. That gives you time to adjust the game for what they can or can not handle. It also gives you time to get a handle on they mythic rules.

Running high levels games if you are not used to it is very difficult. That is why I suggest working your way up to it instead of trying to start at 20.


First of all, thanks for the replies :)

666bender wrote:

lvl 20+ is not about combat. at least it isnt about killing.

it's about shaping the world, about moving planets and going the god mode.
it's not killing 100000 orcs, it's killing 100 orcs while not harming the hostages.

They will be shaping the world, but at the same time, they'll be killing a lot of stuff and hopefully making decisions.

I think I should have explained that the players want combat and to see how OP they can make their characters - it's not a serious adventure at all, so the story holds little value.

Juda de Kerioth wrote:


And for the mythic rules: DONT use mytchic monsters rules, instead put tiers as if they were characters, nor monsters. the rules for mythic monsters are so underpowered against the mythic players rules. so if yu realy want to challenge them, dont bore with that.

Thanks for the links! I'll make sure to look at them :)

wraithstrike wrote:


If you are not use to running a game for them I would start the game well below 20, and have them level up to 20. That gives you time to adjust the game for what they can or can not handle. It also gives you time to get a handle on they mythic rules.
Running high levels games if you are not used to it is very difficult. That is why I suggest working your way up to it instead of trying to start at 20.

I was going to do something like that - start them at about level 3 and level them up pretty quickly, but when I asked the players, they all wanted to start at level 20 and get to world killing off the bat.

I've told the players that I don't think the games will run very smoothly, but they understand this and seem fine with it. I think I want to give it a go, and see if I can handle it, and if everyone enjoys it.


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If you're worried about the difficulty curve, start easy and ramp up. The first guy doesn't really aim for weaknesses, the second guy does sometimes, by the third you better have your blindspots protected. First-second guys doesn't use mooks, third-fourth have a few, that Cleric prepped a few Banishments for #5 right? Etc, etc.


kestral287 wrote:
If you're worried about the difficulty curve, start easy and ramp up. The first guy doesn't really aim for weaknesses, the second guy does sometimes, by the third you better have your blindspots protected. First-second guys doesn't use mooks, third-fourth have a few, that Cleric prepped a few Banishments for #5 right? Etc, etc.

Thanks, this sounds like a good way to do it :) I have a few easy monsters to start them off (about CR17) and this builds up into the 20s without mooks, and then finally very high CR and with mooks. I suppose I could see how well they perform on the easy monsters, and cater the next monsters/demon lords to this - if they're struggling, I won't make them too harsh, but if it's a breeze, then the baddies will be ramped up in difficulty.


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No offense, this is a recipe for disaster.

Level 20 is nearly impossible to balance. Level 20 mythic characters will be impossible. The game has quit being rocket tag, and literally turned into ICBM tag. If any of your NPCs got the chance (and were mildly threatening to the PCs) they should obliterate the PCs. By the same token, a prepared PC vs an unprepared NPC..the NPC should be little more than a bloodstain or ash.


Eh. He has to custom-build these encounters anyway. If he wants, he can build them with stupid-good defenses and middling (threatening but not one-shot range) offenses to avoid that.


If you are trying to DM a high level game, make it as difficult as possible. Absolutely slaughter them with nigh impossible scenarios. I guarantee that at least 1 PC will have some ability to or idea to get through it that you didn't think of. And if they don't? Who cares. Death is a slap on the wrist at this point, and if they don't have the proper team combination they shouldn't be able to win, IMHO. You don't get to level 20 if you have shitty saves, AC or HP, IMHO.


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O.k speaking as someone who has both played in WotR and GMed the final book of WotR (which is level 20/10), you prolly need some guidelines.

Firstly, if its mythic, you gotta force people to burn that mythic power. Create a situation where players can either roll through the first 4-5 encounters by burning MP and then get stuck on the boss fight, or they save it and have to struggle through earlier fights without breezing through them because "lol mythic". The toughest thing our group fought was some homebrewed antipaladin our GM threw at us that just tanked our team, forcing us into burning MP to take it down...and then, you guessed it, the GM then revealed the REAL boss (which I wont mention cos spoilers),which encouraged us to get clever. I think I made a thread about it which shouldn't be hard to track down if you want a general idea, but I'm sure your DM could find suitable encounters to present the dilemma to his players.

Secondly, at Mythic Tier 10, you really need to put a "on the clock" deadline on whatever mission thing you have going. Since PC's are effectively immortal, you need to create a negative to PC's dying for a couple of hours and then coming back to life.

Thirdly, you gotta jack your encounters up. IIRC someone posted a gdocs of upgraded WotR encounters that actually did a good job at being challenging, so look at that for an example "how hard should I be". Duel Init for monsters is a really good start on this, giving the bad guys allies is also important.

Anyway it sounds like your guys want more "Heroic Slaughtering" than "Roleplay" so just ramp up your encounter difficulties and give it your best shot. Ask your GM to pull out all the stops, cos at Level 20/10, ur going to need it.


My personal advice is to not touch that kind of campaign with a 30 foot pole.

From what your players are asking in facts, that's not even a campaing, but sensless ego boost from butchering high level something without efforts.

I guess any player has undergone that stage in their gaming "career" where they search personal gratification in higher numbers and higer volumes of absurd massacre, but i suggest you to try and stay away from this kind of circlejerking since only bad things happen down that road.


Dekalinder wrote:

My personal advice is to not touch that kind of campaign with a 30 foot pole.

From what your players are asking in facts, that's not even a campaing, but sensless ego boost from butchering high level something without efforts.

I guess any player has undergone that stage in their gaming "career" where they search personal gratification in higher numbers and higer volumes of absurd massacre, but i suggest you to try and stay away from this kind of circlejerking since only bad things happen down that road.

Why?

I mean, they all seem to understand what it is, and sometimes a mindless hack'n'slash is fun. It's not my thing for a tabletop, but I had a hell of a lot of fun playing God of War and I don't think anything bad happened to me because of it.


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Dekalinder wrote:

My personal advice is to not touch that kind of campaign with a 30 foot pole.

From what your players are asking in facts, that's not even a campaing, but sensless ego boost from butchering high level something without efforts.

I guess any player has undergone that stage in their gaming "career" where they search personal gratification in higher numbers and higer volumes of absurd massacre, but i suggest you to try and stay away from this kind of circlejerking since only bad things happen down that road.

Absolutely not true. I have done just this sort of thing with great success.

We have summer games where we take a break from our regular game to do something that is totally different. Two summers ago it was "Save the Gods!" The PCs had to break the good gods out of "God Jail."

Things I did to help this flow more smoothly:

Players were dropped into an unknown area with only their carried gear and were not able to use magic travel to leave.

Game was run as essentially as a railroad that hard extremely hard checkpoints (you must pass through this door into the next area) but had total flexibility within. [Areas were between the size of a battlemat up to several thousand square miles]

Each area could use magic travel within it, but you couldn't use magic travel to go forward (ie, you have to have been there, and you've never been here.)

Each area had a different theme that featured iconic high-end baddies AND custom stuff that I worked up.

Some of the custom stuff were altered/advanced versions of recurring enemies that the PLAYERS knew from previous games. Those were slaughtered with delight.

Liberal use of class levels on bestiary monsters. Off the top of my head, I remember using a Elder Minotaur with 20 monk levels. Another time there were mounted archers with gecko mounts and the geckos had 13 monk levels. Then the PCs captured some and got to use them.

Create cool stuff for the PCs to use that would never get into a regular game (like geckos with 13 monk levels), but dont worry about loot. Loot is just incidental and only from what you specked NPCs to fight with.

Build NPCs with as much attention and optimization as the PCs will have been built with. Dont be afraid to try out crazy ideas (A group of Magus/Cleric/Mystic Theurges using whips to do harm via spellstrike was particularly memorable.)

Dont worry about NPC wealth, give them what they need to be challenging.

Create situations where terrain is a problem. (I gave them an encounter where a 20th level sorcerer vampire had a nightshade,nightwave "tank." Which was an immense room that had ramps on either side leading to the exit at the bottom. The room began to fill with "negative energy infused water." The sorcerer spammed them with suffocation, mass. That one almost TPKd the group. Universally they said afterward the hardest part of that room was the negative-energy water. It was 20d6 a round, save for half if you were fully submerged. [we used average rolls for everything like that] The exit was at the bottom, as was the pull release to drain the room. After some time the water level rose above the ledge at the midpoint and everyone had to employ their own means of flight. Not everyone was very good at that.)

Don't be afraid to kill them, or their cohorts. Basically, give them a run for their money. Don't pull punches. Make it hard, if they win they will have earned it and will remember it forever.

Insane people with super-powers are SCARY. (The whip/harm guys had a stronghold that the only way to enter was with the password. No exceptions. The password was a 2 minute barbershop quartet performance. DC 30 INT to remember an individual part after only hearing it once, DC 30 perform check to get it right.)

If you want more particulars of how I did it I'll be happy to share. But basically, you have to set yourself up for success or it wont be as fun as you (and your players) hope for.


Thanks for everyone's input :) and thanks ginganinja for the tips on how to make encounters harder at mythic tier; you're kind of right about the lack of interest in RP, and that was originally the case, but people seem to be growing attached to their characters now (we have a little RP Facebook chat for people to use, and there have been quite a few conventions), however, the game is not really built with RP in mind.

BigDTBone wrote:
Dekalinder wrote:

My personal advice is to not touch that kind of campaign with a 30 foot pole.

From what your players are asking in facts, that's not even a campaing, but sensless ego boost from butchering high level something without efforts.

I guess any player has undergone that stage in their gaming "career" where they search personal gratification in higher numbers and higer volumes of absurd massacre, but i suggest you to try and stay away from this kind of circlejerking since only bad things happen down that road.

Absolutely not true. I have done just this sort of thing with great success.

We have summer games where we take a break from our regular game to do something that is totally different. Two summers ago it was "Save the Gods!" The PCs had to break the good gods out of "God Jail."

Things I did to help this flow more smoothly:

Players were dropped into an unknown area with only their carried gear and were not able to use magic travel to leave.

Game was run as essentially as a railroad that hard extremely hard checkpoints (you must pass through this door into the next area) but had total flexibility within. [Areas were between the size of a battlemat up to several thousand square miles]

Each area could use magic travel within it, but you couldn't use magic travel to go forward (ie, you have to have been there, and you've never been here.)

Each area had a different theme that featured iconic high-end baddies AND custom stuff that I worked up.

Some of the custom stuff were altered/advanced versions of recurring enemies that the PLAYERS knew from previous games. Those were slaughtered with delight.

Liberal use of class levels on bestiary monsters. Off the top of my head, I remember using a Elder Minotaur with 20 monk levels. Another time there were mounted archers with gecko mounts and the geckos had 13 monk levels. Then the PCs captured some and got to use them.

Create cool stuff for the PCs to use that would never get into a regular game (like geckos...

@Dekalinder: I understand how you might get that impression, and it's true that many of the players are just aiming for big numbers, but we're doing it for fun. To use God of War as an example again, we are looking to create havoc and unrealistic (but epic fights), as well as experiment with builds (whether that be the biggest numbers, or how good someone can make a level 20 commoner) - Kratos (from God of War) was stupidly powerful, and took down stupidly large foes, and it was a lot of fun.

@BigDTBone: That's a really cool idea with the sorcerer vampire, and it's made me think of a few ways a combat encounter can be challenging to high level players without it being to do with who can punch the hardest - thanks :) do you think you could share any more trap-like combat encounters, or otherwise unusual terrain tips please?


666bender wrote:

lvl 20+ is not about combat. at least it isnt about killing.

it's about shaping the world, about moving planets and going the god mode.
it's not killing 100000 orcs, it's killing 100 orcs while not harming the hostages.

well, unless you're a fighter--then you get to swing your stick at people!

but i digress! personally i keep the character sheets largely off-the-table for post-15 campaigns--most of the party will have passive scores to shrug off most mundane stuff and can generally do as they please (since by that level they're all fairly widely heard of and respected or feared).

if it gets down to SRS BSNS then the fights are large, over the top, and generally befitting people of their power (or i throw a piddly issue at them as a curveball--if they nip it in the bud, great! if they dont, then that's a bigger bad i get to introduce later), but most of the time they're either managing their lands/titles/various allegiances made over their adventures, or dealing with (either diplomatically or sword-in-face-atically) something far too big an issue for their minions/contacts/neighboring kingdoms to deal with, or traveling to one of those two.


Make sure to include a mundane tavern scene....one where there are circumstances that they MUST remain incognito for fear of the enemy or his agents knowing they're coming.

And in this scene, have some really annoying people start teasing and tormenting the group, yet the PCs dare not react, and these level 20 mythic PC's have to accept their torment and be labeled by the locals as wimps/cowards, whatever. They even have to sleep in the barn and eat porridge. THAT would be a challenge to set up.


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And while it's probably late/not enough time left for the OP -> Read as many high level modules/AP's as you can get your hands on. More than a few of them (especially the earlier ones from late AD&D and 3.0) have sections specifically with advice on how to challenge high level characters. Though as mentioned above it's often not so much about the creatures/CR as world and campaign it does include advice on some of the high level spells including various often problematic divination sorts as well as dealing with the ability of high level characters to go from A to B between the first course of a meal and dessert plus other issues.

And a couple links to go with the above links:

Having some issues with it not directing the link properly (It keeps going to a Paizo page ??) ...
http://www.jessejackjones.com/sites/default/files/EpicPathfinder1.5.pdf
http://www.jessejackjones.com/pathfinder

Caveat and related to Wraithstrike's post: High level characters built from scratch will often be very different and may have some glaring holes when compared to characters built and then played from low levels upwards. The likelyhood that even an experienced player will overlook 'something' while spending that 880,000 gp is substantial particularly if they aren't used to high level play.

And a last note (as much for clarity as the OP) Mythic and Epic are totally different systems for handling such characters.


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wraithstrike wrote:
Running high levels games if you are not used to it is very difficult. That is why I suggest working your way up to it instead of trying to start at 20.

It's difficult even if you are used to it.


Owly wrote:

Make sure to include a mundane tavern scene....one where there are circumstances that they MUST remain incognito for fear of the enemy or his agents knowing they're coming.

And in this scene, have some really annoying people start teasing and tormenting the group, yet the PCs dare not react, and these level 20 mythic PC's have to accept their torment and be labeled by the locals as wimps/cowards, whatever. They even have to sleep in the barn and eat porridge. THAT would be a challenge to set up.

I was doing this for a little while, and it was all going well until one of them blew up a church and then punched a load of guards in the face. She did later decide that she wanted that character dead anyway, so I (and the other players) didn't mind as it didn't compromise the party, but I don't think all of them want to do subtlety :P

Kayerloth wrote:


And while it's probably late/not enough time left for the OP, Read as many high level modules/AP's as you can get your hands on

Actually, by some twist of fate, I've been granted a few more weeks to get this sorted (it was originally going to be this Saturday but then life got in the way) so I'll have quite a bit of time to look over some modules - thanks for the tips and links :)


So, the biggest piece of advice I have for you is make sure you know and understand what your players can do. Make sure your players submit their characters to you for review. Aside from the possiblity of genuine or not so genuine errors on high level characters built from scratch, the crazy stuff they are capable of will necessitate specific encounter choices. Challenge rating wont be a useful tool here. You will have to customize everything you want to be meaningful.

Insist your players submit their characters in full to you at least a week before the game, and that they explain exactly how they plan to use various abilities, spells and gear. That should be a prerequisite for this kind of campaign. Once you have that we can give you more specific advice, but it is absolutely vital that you know what they can do before designing your adventure and it's encounters if you want there to be a descent level of challenge.


Kolokotroni wrote:
So, the biggest piece of advice I have for you is make sure you know and understand what your players can do. Make sure your players submit their characters to you for review. Aside from the possiblity of genuine or not so genuine errors on high level characters built from scratch, the crazy stuff they are capable of will necessitate specific encounter choices. Challenge rating wont be a useful tool here. You will have to customize everything you want to be meaningful.

Kolo's right, challenge rating won't me of much use. However, part of the fun in a "God of War" style game is actually the thrill of defeating things that ought to be invincible. In this way, the psychological value of a known CR is something you could exploit, even if it has little or no value in actually balancing encounter.


Thanks for the advice on CR and it not being too useful - I think I'll begin looking at interesting ways to trip the team with traps and tricks, as well as terrain :) I'll also mod a few monsters with DR, immunities, anti-magic and the like.

I have a bit more info on the characters now:

Skald:

HP: 200, DR3/-

Str: 28
Dex: 28
Con: 20
Int: 22
Wis: 18
Cha: 26

AC 37, touch 20, flat footed 32

Fort 31 Ref 29 Will 32

Spell resistance 40

CMB 24, CMD 43

+25/10/15

Has a blade (1d8) with +10 vampiric drain, but it doesn't work in Hell (the harder half of the campaign is here).

Feats: iron will, improved iron will, Skald's vigour, greater Skald's vigour, power attack, arcane strike, maximise spell, intensify spell, eschew materials, combat reflexes, scribe scroll

He hasn't chosen rage powers yet, as far as I know.

Spells (I only have 4-6th level here for some reason):

4th: cure critical wounds, discordant blast, greater invisibility, shield of the dawnflower, song of healing, wall of sound

5th: cure light wounds (mass), deafening song bolt, ki shout, resonating word, (something I can't read but looks to have 'of the spheres at the end)

6th: cure moderate wounds (mass), shout (greater), deadly finale, sonic form, (there's another one I can't quite read, ends with 'knights')

He also has armour that allows him to go ethereal.

Commoner:

Very much a Mick-take character, with about 100HP and +22 to hit on the best of days. I don't know her exact stats as I don't know have her sheet, but I know she throws tankards of beer at people, so I'm guessing she's all about improvised weapons. She's both dex and strength based, from what I've been told.

Bloodrager (Abyssal):

Again, I don't have the sheet, but I've seen it so this is from memory

About 400

Str: 50
Dex: 26(ish)
Con: 38
Int: not sure
Wis: low, but not sure
Cha: 17

AC: 31

Fort: 30something Ref: high-ish Will: 13

Duel wields flaming bastard swords and has a large attack bonus when raging (30-something).

Sorcerer (mongrel mage):

Not sure of stats, but I know he has time stop and the summon monster spells. He also has about 30 in each save.

Sorcerer (arcane):

As the player is very new (like, this is their second game), and I suggested they didn't play; after a while, he decided he did want to, but I think all he wants to cast is Dragon form 3 (not that I dislike that - if I had the option, I'd turn into a Dragon tol). That said, he only has +22 to hit in Dragon form, so he may go down very quickly. He does have other spells, disintegrate, time stop, and dominate monster being three that I remember.

Unfortunately I can't remember the stats for this character either.

Wizard:

I don't think they've done the stats yet, but I know they are not at all an optimizer. I think they just want to prepare earth spells and cast for damage, rather than anything fancy.

The cleric hasn't even been started, so I couldn't tell you much (though I know they rolled three 9s for stats)

From what I know of the team, I don't think any of them would want to break anything/would have the system mastery to break anything (we've all, besides the newbie, played for around the same time and so aren't very experienced with proper maximization).

Again, thanks for the help :)


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I will point out that "gods" are explicitly statless in Golarion. Their Heralds are not though, and you can find a list here. They're all CR 15 so you don't need to go full 20/MR 10 if you don't think you can handle it.

That being said I have a few little pearls of wisdom for running high level (and probably especially mythic, though I haven't run that specifically).

Never use a single creature as a serious threat (explained in the next point). Unless you're doing something like Tiamat from 4e (where each head had its own initiative) even mythic can only do so much to alleviate issues of action economy. Any monster that can successfully fight the entire party with one turn of actions will probably wipe them out if the rolls go bad.

Let the players feel awesome. Not every battle needs to be an actual threat. Let the players wade into an army and defeat them all. Throw a giant golem at them and let them take it apart in a single turn. Throw the Tarrasque in as a speedbump before they get to the real threat (Rovagog?). Especially if this is God of War inspired.

Be aware of what your players can do. This will get much harder as they get higher level but if you're not aware of what your players can do you'll get blindsided constantly.

Addendum to the above, never assume your players will actually do what they're capable of. Don't make a puzzle, monster, situation, etc. dependent on the players taking a specific course of action, using a specific spell, or similar. They might forget, they might not prepare it, it might not be as obvious to them as it is to you.

Corollary to two above, be prepared to improvise. You may miss what players can do, they might just plain suprise you, or you may hit a situation with no exact rules. Make something up, try to keep it consistent, move on and look things up and ask questions afterwards. Get a feel for which direction players want (from the sounds of it they would like the world to run of Rule of Cool) and try to aim that way with the ruling. The key point is to keep it consistent. If you decide you don't like a ruling tell the players once you decide you don't like it, don't spring it on them next time they try to do it again.

And finally, since you said God of War inspired, find, make, beg, borrow, or steal rules for fighting supermassive creatures. Pathfinder has kaiju (it's not much but it is something), there's probably a few others out there. One of the more interesting I've seen is to treat the monster like a dungeon (either by going inside it or climbing on it) and the "weak point" of the creature is the only part that causes damage to the creature.

And as a final note, never assume the players can't break the game. You have a wizard. The definition of tier 1, to which the wizard belongs, includes "can accidentally break the game on a whim". To be fair a sorcerer is tier 2, or "can accidentally break the game but you'll at least be able to see it coming".


Bloodrager Str50... Attack bonus in the 30's... hmm...no. it's much higher then that.

In general..

Expect your players to deal multiple hundreds of damage each person's turn without trying hard.

The Exchange

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One of the few bits of useful advice I can still offer for a campaign at this end of the power spectrum is that no enemy worth his salt will engage the PCs in a straightforward fight. They'll use body doubles, gate in a sphere of annihilation, deliberately throw bags of holding into portable holes, drop earthquake on the PCs' solid-gold mansions, send 400 Wizard 1s at the PCs armed with nothing but scrolls of trap the soul, kidnap the PCs' mothers with intellect devourers and send them on a suicide run, disguise themselves as the PCs and go pants Orcus on his throne*, you name it. You, as the GM, are still held to the usual standard of scrupulous impartiality... but your NPCs are geniuses with colossal resources and not a trace of morality. Use that.

* I chose Orcus because he's usually got that loincloth on. Odd, I never noticed before how many demon lords are buck nekkid.


That bloodrager is going to get destroyed with a Will Save of +13. IIRC certain Demon Lords have aura that are DC 40, so IDK, he's going to need like a Mind Blank or something to handle high tier enemies.


Thanks for the tips again :) I think that, at first, we're having the Rule of Cool take over - they'll be going against a singular Hekatonchinere (yeah... That isn't spelled right) which will hopefully be very easy, but awesome enough to make the players feel awesome. But later on, against demon lords, they'll be summoning their champions to fight for them and their underlings to take up action economy like no one's business whilst the lord themselves will be casting summons from afar or maybe trying to trick the PCs will illusions (I've always liked pitfall traps).

ginganinja wrote:
That bloodrager is going to get destroyed with a Will Save of +13. IIRC certain Demon Lords have aura that are DC 40, so IDK, he's going to need like a Mind Blank or something to handle high tier enemies.

Fortunately we're not going against Cthulhu, so the DC40 will or die shouldn't be a problem, but the other lords do have a few other auras - none as deadly, but still damaging (as far as I know). Honestly I'm quite glad for the low will save; it gives me something to hurt them with, and if anything gets too out of hand, dominating them when they're in the middle of the party might make things more difficult (with the dominate spells, I'm never keen on using them on players and taking away their control, so I usually just give the player instructions to follow and it's their job to follow them).


Uh, you may want to sit down and take a look at what high level monsters can do. Lucifer, for instance, has a DC 47 Fear aura. Oh, and at-will CL 39 DC 29 Blasphemy. Oh, and DC 31 Dominate Monster. And that's the SLAs, not the level 19 cleric casting. Or the level 20 sorcerer casting. Or the DC 47 Gaze attack that forces an alignment shift or hits them with a double-strength bestow curse. Those are just the will saves. That's true of most high level monsters, actually. Even the Hekatonkheires, giant beatstick that it is, has a pile of SLAs.

Look, I'm just trying to say there's a lot of fiddly bits when you get to higher levels and some of those fiddly bits can accidentally kill high level players who haven't prepared appropriately. A +13 Will save (depending on level) counts as not prepared, though it's more like "wants to turn against the party/flee in terror/be paralyzed at the earliest convenient opportunity".


A +13 to will means that you have a 40% chance of getting charmed by a Succubus, or a 45% chance of getting dominated. That is a CR7 creature, and the CR20 bloodrager is seriously threatened by it. The fact that 5 of them (CR12ish) are extremely likely to turn your bloodrager into a level 20 meat puppet by the second round is atrociously bad. Like, unforgivably bad. The bloodrager is a liability. If your PC seriously wants to play like a level 20 character(rather than some low CR monster playing the character for them) they need to be sitting in pass-on-a-2 territory or very close to for minor stuff like that. It isn't even difficult. +5 cloak, luck stone, competence bonus to saves ioun stone, +6 wis bonus from headband is +10, and that costs about 130k, a fraction of level 20 WBL. Bloodrager has +6 will at level 20, so if they didn't dump wis they are sitting at +16. With Mighty Bloodrage that jumps up to +20 when raging. This makes the bloodrager borderline acceptable. Toss on a Cap of the Free Thinker and a +4 inherent wisdom bonus and the bloodrager's saves should be sufficient (not great, but enough to get by so long as they don't run into really nasty stuff). Actually investing feats makes a big difference - Steadfast Personality will boost their saves against mind affecting, and would be really good if the level 20 bloodrager actually put serious resources into improving their spellcasting stat...17 Cha at level 20, really? Did the bloodrager start off at 11 Cha or something?


Well, "deadly" sorta depends on your view. Sifkesh for instance, will trigger Despairing Cry, with a Dominate Person, to force said bloodrager to carry out suicidal commands, just on an opening round attack. On the bloodragers turn, he then coup's himself as a full round action and, (depending on tier iirc), could possibly end up killing himself for good. Nocticula Dominates the bloodrager as a swift action and sends him against the casters, the Old Ones force him into insanity, etc

I don't have any objection to a player having weaknesses, but I'm fairly sure most mythic enemies have SLA / Spells / Special / Supernatural Abilities that destroy a will save that low. Just...just let him know that unless he wants to spend the entire encounter being some BBEG's b~%*@, he should attempt to bump it up a little bit higher. Like, if hes cool with it then thats all fine, but Domination is not really fun :(

Grand Lodge

1st level protection from evil... How many baddies has dispel magic as SLA?


*Khan* wrote:
1st level protection from evil... How many baddies has dispel magic as SLA?

At this level?

All of them.

Grand Lodge

kestral287 wrote:
*Khan* wrote:
1st level protection from evil... How many baddies has dispel magic as SLA?

At this level?

All of them.

Actually only 8 out of 24 on the list Bob Bob Bob postede earlier.

But they could have a scroll or wand.


*Khan* wrote:
kestral287 wrote:
*Khan* wrote:
1st level protection from evil... How many baddies has dispel magic as SLA?

At this level?

All of them.

Actually only 8 out of 24 on the list Bob Bob Bob postede earlier.

But they could have a scroll or wand.

Which list, the Heralds?

Those are CR15s. If we assume CR still works at this level, you need five of them to challenge one PC.

Look at stuff more in the CR20 range and you'll see a lot of Dispel Magic SLAs. There are a few Big Dumb Bruisers that don't, like the Shoggoth and Tarrasque, but those things are cannon fodder, not a real challenge.

Sovereign Court

It's god of war, whatever, focuses on big monsters. Use the Kaiju template for some monsters, and just like god of war, they would be able to climb big creatures and hit them.

Stuffs I would recommend:

-God of war, you might consider using inherent bonuses from Unchained, there isn't really any need to have them fully decked in magical gear. So they can walk around half-naked without looking like Christmas trees, go read some magic items description, and imagine your character wearing it.

-Mythic Hero from Legendary Games has some ideas to tweak/house rule mythic games to be more sane, and would recommend to give it a read.


Um... several of these?
Pumped up Mohrgs...?

Is there anything that could be thrown up as a screen between Big Bads that takes minimum damage from everything? (Ah, Chthulu Mythos...)

Also remember BBEGs are allowed to use their "smart-stat" and research the party coming up against them; I find it doubtful a group so epic could keep their progress against the bad guy that secret?


Snowblind wrote:
A +13 to will means that you have a 40% chance of getting charmed by a Succubus, or a 45% chance of getting dominated. That is a CR7 creature, and the CR20 bloodrager is seriously threatened by it. The fact that 5 of them (CR12ish) are extremely likely to turn your bloodrager into a level 20 meat puppet by the second round is atrociously bad. Like, unforgivably bad. The bloodrager is a liability. If your PC seriously wants to play like a level 20 character(rather than some low CR monster playing the character for them) they need to be sitting in pass-on-a-2 territory or very close to for minor stuff like that. It isn't even difficult. +5 cloak, luck stone, competence bonus to saves ioun stone, +6 wis bonus from headband is +10, and that costs about 130k, a fraction of level 20 WBL. Bloodrager has +6 will at level 20, so if they didn't dump wis they are sitting at +16. With Mighty Bloodrage that jumps up to +20 when raging. This makes the bloodrager borderline acceptable. Toss on a Cap of the Free Thinker and a +4 inherent wisdom bonus and the bloodrager's saves should be sufficient (not great, but enough to get by so long as they don't run into really nasty stuff). Actually investing feats makes a big difference - Steadfast Personality will boost their saves against mind affecting, and would be really good if the level 20 bloodrager actually put serious resources into improving their spellcasting stat...17 Cha at level 20, really? Did the bloodrager start off at 11 Cha or something?

Yeah, I understand the desire for capstone abilities, but really multiclassing in a few splashes helps with this ALOT.

Also SIMPLR rings of save boosting should be considered by every player at that level.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

To the OP. You need to have the PCs communicate with each other on their builds as well. No one can have a save lower than +30 unless they have some kind of immunity.

Immunity to compulsion and energy drain, freedom of movement and evasion should be automatic always on effects at this point. Everyone sees invisible and has flight. High resistance to ability damage is also called for.

Mythic foes should have dual initiative and never be by themselves. They should have abilities which bypass immunity (to a point) and drain/transfer mythic power. Spell immunity/reflection may be fairly (annoyingly) encountered.

On a side note...have you considered a superhero game system instead? Just a thought.


How strong the PCs are aside, how experienced are your players at high-level combat?
Do they regulary practice the following tactics, or tactics on par with:
Spamming blood-money / simulacrum in a slow time demiplane
Mind Blank + Permanent Invisibility, or similar hard-to-counter high level spell combos
Scry and Fry

If your players do NOT do these things, then you might be lucky. Your players might treat the scope of high level combat like low level combat. In such a case, you can set up encounters like you would for a mid-level party. Just prepare high CR stuff in a dungeon, and watch your players steamroll through them. Adjust enemy count as you feel necessary.

Also, one last warning. Be prepared about how much time your players will take each turn. Level 20 characters tend to have a LOT of options, and players who aren't used to a huge spell list can easily spend many minutes, sometimes tens of minutes, for their 6-second turn. Start thinking of ways to speed up combat so your other players don't get bored.


Perhaps you could try variations of existing monsters. The advantages are: it is easy to remember what they can do, they are quick to build and also to describe to the PCs.

For example:
1) The Juggernaut, base stats of an adamantine golem but with seriously boosted hit points (5,000 - 10,000).
2) The Cat Demon, base stats of a rakshasa mahrajah but must be killed nine times in a year before it permanently dies and each time it returns it is immune to what killed it last time.
3) The Magic Elemental, base stats of an elder air elemental but it is powered by magical energy. Magical attacks heal 10 hit points and boost strength by 2 points per spell level (temporarily, lasts an hour).


Hahahaha, I skipped most of the posts in this thread coz I assume I'm a bit late to be much help.
I just want to give a shout-out to one of the players.

Quote:
The characters are a merfolk arcane bloodline sorcerer, a merfolk mongrel mage, a suli skald, a human commoner, maybe an orc Abyssal bloodrager, and a human wizard (as well as an as of now unmade Drow noble necromancy-focused cleric).

Everyone's taking overpowered advanced races, and there's that one guy who just said: "Screw it, I'm never gonna get another chance to play a lvl 20 commoner!"

I love that guy, s/he's my new hero!

If you are still looking for ideas, there was a thread recently that looks like it's tailored just for you.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qpgs&page=2?Hints-for-High-Level-DMing


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

Sovereign Court

Merfolks make excellent everything, better at being charisma based spellcaster of course. The movement speed is a joke for a spellcaster, between spells like fly or teleport or just having to use long range spells. Archer merfolk as well don't need to move often and can just shoot opponent to death.

Of course at level 20, it doesn't even matter, at level 20 humans/half-elves/half-orcs are usually better due to having the best kind of favored bonuses and more support materials out to take advantage of their full potential.


Eltacolibre wrote:

Merfolks make excellent everything, better at being charisma based spellcaster of course. The movement speed is a joke for a spellcaster, between spells like fly or teleport or just having to use long range spells. Archer merfolk as well don't need to move often and can just shoot opponent to death.

Of course at level 20, it doesn't even matter, at level 20 humans/half-elves/half-orcs are usually better due to having the best kind of favored bonuses and more support materials out to take advantage of their full potential.

Exactly.

At the low-levels, Merfolk have fairly strong abilities neutered by them being a liability to most parties in some key areas like movement.

At the high levels, Merfolk abilities fade into obscurity along with their weaknesses, while a bonus feat, strong exotic weapon, or +2 to all saves... doesn't. And then you add in stuff like the FCB and I really don't understand the argument for Merfolk being overpowered (which I was saying a bit tongue-in-cheek before because I don't know how earnest Mr. Charisma was being, but to be serious... I don't see it at all).

Sczarni

@Euryale

I do not wish to sound negative in any context, but you should very carefully consider if you are up for leading level 20 campaign. With all my heart's honesty, take my advice and think, think twice before venturing into those waters. I am not saying that playing at level 20 is bad, it isn't, but as a GM you need to master the Pathfinder rules. Here is few things that you should be aware of in general:

- Normal tactics do not work. You need to think twice before setting an encounter because spellcasters at this point reached highest peak.
- High level gameplay includes a lot of math. Your PCs will most likely spend a lot of time buffing themselves before encounters and your NPCs and monsters will do the same.
- High level gameplay favors PCs. In order to challenge them, you need to up the game standards and equalize the fights. How you do this depends on your player characters.
- Buffs are one of the reasons that tips the CR in favor of PCs. If you buff your opponents in the similar manner (I am not talking about adding templates), it should correct it somewhat.
- Spells with DCs fail to work completely. You will notice that PCs are walking with +25 on their Saves or so. Now, that's not normal really or to be exact, it becomes redundant to even use offensive spells with DCs. How you manage to pass around this obstacle is up to you. I never did.
- Fights can last several hours and I am not talking about the boss fights.
- Control what items they buy. A PCs spending his entire fortune on Staff of Instant Death both unrealistic and gives them additional advantage in long run.
- I strongly advise you to not bog down the game with unnecessary rule talk. It will only slow down the game more.
- Last and most important advice. Don't make the game into a fighting contest and make sure that not everything is about "killing stuff". The bigger the diversity of quests and situations, the better.

That's about all I could think of.

Adam


Malag wrote:


- Spells with DCs fail to work completely. You will notice that PCs are walking with +25 on their Saves or so. Now, that's not normal really or to be exact, it becomes redundant to even use offensive spells with DCs. How you manage to pass around this obstacle is up to you. I never did.

Humanoid SoL specialists can still toss out disgustingly high saves if they are built for it.

Heck, A Diviner VMC Kitsune Arcane Sorcerer is looking at throwing out Persisted Piercing/Focused DC42 Mass Charm Monsters and Irresistable Dances, while winning initative every single time against most builds. Both can be cast at the same time if they pick up a staff of the master(Enchantment) and fuel quickens every round using the Arcane capstone and 12 spell levels per casting. Your players will be scared if they get ambushed and three of them are dominated by the beginning of the first round from Persistent Quickened Dominate Monster, Persistent Dominate Monster, Persistent Quickened Dominate Monster (alter self into that PC race with 4 arms to hold the rod and staff).

Pick something less obnoxiously amazing at what it specialized and you might not even turn the entire party into sock puppets in the first encounter. In any case, if you don't go with stock monsters and actually build characters saves aren't that difficult to overcome.

Sczarni

@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.


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.


Thanks for everyone's advice :)

There's a lot of points to go through, so I'll try to cover them all.

I'll talk to the player about her bloodrager and see if she wants to change it (after explaining the drawbacks of having a save that low), but if she doesn't want to change it for whatever reason, then I'll make sure to not spoil her fun by starting every fight with "shall we just assume you get dominated off the bat?"; I'll use her weak will save if it persists, but I'll try not to abuse it - bringing it in to spice things up, but not forcing her to be a liability.

The commoner guy is pretty epic :P I quite like seeing someone being... Brave with their class choice. He's in it purely for the fun, which is great.

Merfolk have got a reputation in our group; my first PC was a mermaid, and a lot of the time she survived because she was so slow that by the time she'd arrived in shooting distance, all the other players had already weakened the monster (and sometimes died to it) and she could chip off the last few bits of health... I didn't have a clue what I was doing when I first started (and I'm not sure I do now :P).

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 on it), and I didn't even make the bloodrager make a will save.

Thanks for the tips on revamping some enemies to make them more durable - I think I'll have to do that, as well as tweak a few ACs and attack bonuses. I may even add that cat demon into it - maybe as a reoccurring enemy.

I think I'm going to give the demon lords wizards or clerics of their own to buff them, help control the battlefield, and maybe throw in a few heals. But yeah, reading through a few posts about the length and possible ease of combat, I think I'm going to have more unique encounters. Some may end in combat, but I want more of them to be puzzles or challenges (that can be solved in multiple ways), or maybe even a few traps. There's a demon lord called Slaad (or something like that), and he has a mansion full of traps, so I think the main focus of his encounter shouldn't revolve around trying to bash the poor guy's head in.

Ah yes, the party composition has changed again: the one who was going to play a cleric, is now playing a monk (unchained).

Also, while the main game was moved to a later date, we are having a small game on this Saturday; this will include the skald, the mongrel mage, maybe the commoner, maybe the monk, and maybe the other sorcerer, but not the wizard or bloodrager. I'll try to use this to determine how people are going to play, and see if I can test them through normal CR means (I think I'll be using the tarrasque, because everyone loves the tarrasque). I'll report on how that goes, as then I'll (hopefully) be able to give a full description of some people's tactics.

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