Either I posted this in the wrong area, or there are no 15th+ level campaigns.
I hear ya. I have a level 9 ... that's my highest so far, but the table is already slowing down.
I encourage the players to have their decision and dice ready for their turn. I have to push that hard every session.
For things that require a lot of dice (such as the rogue's backstab that does 5d6 at this point for EACH hit...and he has like 4 attacks/round) we simplify.
We have the rogue roll to hit first. Then we have him roll damage, once. That damage roll is considered the final value for each hit.
On a spell like fireball (9d6 at this point), I have the player roll 3d6 and multiply by 3.
Yeah, these ideas change the bell curve of averages a little bit, but not that much. Most importantly, they keep things moving fast.
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I didn't see this thread when it first came up.
I ran a campaign that went from level 14 to 19.
First, in short: Kyle Olson's Combat Manager. Download it and use it. I really, really, really wish I had this program when I started my campaign -- I didn't know about it till the last few sessions, but it made those last few sessions SO much easier to run combat with its initiative tracker, monster modifier, quick rules lookup... every thing.
In long, the challenging part about running high level combat is that there is simply a lot to keep track of. Even sometimes with a statblock staring me in the face I'd miss an ability or forgot what it did. The program makes it easier. Before I used printouts of custom statblocks I made in Word. The Combat Manager program makes this much, much easier.
The GameMastery Guide NPCs are okay. There are actually not a lot of NPCs that are high level, with only two at CR 14, the highest CR NPC offered. So if you want to make a high level Big Bad, you'll have to write them up yourself (though do bear in mind it's better to attack a part with 3 or 4 CR 12 baddies than one CR 15 baddy anyway, but still). But the NPC gallery is still useful for filling stuff in quickly. There's another site that used to be out there that had pregen NPCs and damned if I can remember what it is...
One of the mistakes I made was used a lot of high level spellcasters. Seemed a great idea. But preparing spell lists and noting what all the spells do is a pain in the rear. By all means use some but don't plan on a lot of them.
Inkwell Ideas has some neat random generators, including treasure. Also I think Combat Manager has a treasure generator too. (By the way, get Combat Manager, did I say that? Best thing ever.) Search the homebrew and 3PP forums for other random generators as well.
Some general advice:
- Be ready to wing it and go off the rails. Powerful PCs are FUN to run but they will come up with random ways to solve stuff and the best way is to just be able to adapt to what they try to do. Make sure you've got good setting notes so if they make a wrong turn at Albuquerque you can just figure out what they encounter. And you can pull up your statblocks in Combat Manager. Also, get Combat Manager.
- DR and SR are a pain in the ass. Not because they are hard to deal with--your high level PCs will figure out how to bypass them. And that's the thing--they're not very challenging, they just are speedbumps at high level and slow things down with extra math and die rolls you don't need. Pick monsters with less DR and SR, more immunities, high HP, and regeneration/fast healing.
- Finally, I suggest that if you have not done so already, get Combat Manager.
In my experience, the thing which hindered us the most was waiting on players to figure out what they wanted to do and then resolve it with dice rolls. Primary Advice: A helpful tip, each time it's someone else's turn, make sure to notify the next person that they are, in fact, next. Make eye contact when you do this.
Now, I understand the game is fluid and circumstances can change, but this has been very helpful with all the high level stuff I've run. It definitely helps to mitigate option paralysis that some players can experience.
Additionally, I have one player who is a fantastic help with keeping things moving. Before his turn even comes up, he rolls all his attacks (monks who flurry tend to get a few) and then damage and he jots them down on a note pad. When it's his turn, he just rattles off the numbers for me and I say "yay" or "nay". Granted, if you have munchkiny players who are ok with lying to you about dice rolls, this will not work =P
Seating arrangements can also help. If you can have it so that your strong, rules-familiar player can sit next to your absent minded player who doesn't remember how his abilities work, that will help you a bunch if the savvy player is cool with offering advice and guidance.
I'm a fan of letting Big Bads go more than once per round. Perhaps at their Initiative Count and then again at Initiative -10. The "-10" part doesn't actually matter, so long as the round looks something like
[Big Bad] | [Some of the Good Guys A] | [Big Bad] | [Some of the Good Guys B]
(Having the Big Bad open and close the round isn't all that hot)
The bonus to this is that I have to stat less bad guys, and I get to use more of the abilities/spells that I statted into this Big Bad to begin with.
I'm a fan of letting Big Bads go more than once per round. Perhaps at their Initiative Count and then again at Initiative -10. The "-10" part doesn't actually matter, so long as the round looks something like
[Big Bad] | [Some of the Good Guys A] | [Big Bad] | [Some of the Good Guys B]
(Having the Big Bad open and close the round isn't all that hot)The bonus to this is that I have to stat less bad guys, and I get to use more of the abilities/spells that I statted into this Big Bad to begin with.
Oh wow...what a really great idea. Why didn't I think of it!? hahahaha. I mean, it's now in the rules...but that's what MAGIC is for!!! I love it!!!!!
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I'm currently running a campaign with APL around 18.5. On the GM side of things I offer the following:
1. If you're running spellcasters don't bother choosing all their spells, they'll probably only get a few rounds to cast anyway. In addition, pre-calculate their Spell Penetration, Concentration and base spell DC (I usually note this as DC=#+spell lv).
2. If you're running physical combatants with feats pre-calculate their attack bonuses factoring in Power Attack, Vital Strike, Deadly Aim, etc. and any combination of the above so you can quickly choose on the fly.
3. Note how many hit dice a creature has. I use custom stat blocks I designed with Excel and make sure to include this number. At high levels many things are HD dependent and knowing immediately how effective a spell, such as Dictum is can speed things up greatly.
4. Have a general idea of what high level spells can do. Wish and Miracle especially. Once players have access to them they will immediately search for ways to utilize them.
5. Figure out exactly how willing you and your party are to let PCs and enemies fall to save or die effects like Destruction or massive damage. As a corollary, decide how willing you are to fudge dice rolls to prevent a party member or NPC being obliterated or Soul Bound.
6. Know what resources are available in your campaign. At high levels PCs are able to buy or locate nearly anything. How much diamond dust is around (for Wish and True Res), where can they forge, buy or sell +9 weapons, who can tell them the deepest secrets of the world (assuming they don't have a high level bard)? Even just a few vague ideas can give you and your party a framework for what is possible.
7. Finally - try to be at least one or preferably two sessions ahead of your party in preparation. A clever high level party can blow through a huge amount of content quickly and leave you scrambling.
Well...that's all I've got. Hope it was helpful.
Good luck.
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Oh wow...what a really great idea. Why didn't I think of it!? hahahaha. I mean, it's now in the rules...but that's what MAGIC is for!!! I love it!!!!!
Yeah, when I first did this to my players they were absolutely dumbfounded. When one of them finally stammered, "H...h...h...how?!" I simply replied, "Template. He's got several, by the way." And then proceeded to laugh a great deal at the looks on their faces.
Templates are great. Mostly because if it were a spell, they players would want it and go to the ends of the multiverse to get it. I don't have to share templates =)
"Template. He's got several, by the way."
You sir are a genius. And evil. I salute you.
The great thing about the NPCs in the GMG is that they are all single classes. This makes it easy to multiclass them. Print out the Monk 10 and the Cleric 10 and make notes on one of them to bring them together, things like BAB, hp, saves, combat stats mostly. Skills are a little tricky, though if I want it quick and easy I use them as written. This cleric/monk is pretty cool.
Have character sheets show the math when it comes to the bonus types. Quickest way to have party imbalance is when one guy has two morale bonuses and three luck bonuses stacking. Plus, when you can Disjunction or Anti-Magic Zones, the party will not grind to halt for quite as long.
This is all great advice.
As one of the players in this campaign I can say what I am doing to make life easier for you.
As I am playing a summoning druid I will only ever summon 1 creature at a time and have full character sheets for all my summons (with all base buffs already figured in)
All my prepared spells are on spell cards from http://www.thegm.org/perramsSpellbook.php
I have them in a 3 ring binder in sheets for baseball cards (9 to a sheet) one sheet per level of spell.
all casters should have to do these things.
nothing slows down a game more then looking crap up.
People need to know what they are doing/casting BEFORE it is their Init and what it does.
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I'm currently running a level 16 campaign that started at level 14 and will go to around 21 or 22.
The Pathfinder OGC is your friend http://www.d20pfsrd.com/.
In particular there is a monster builder in their bestiary section that allows you to advance most of the monsters from the Pathfinder Bestiary by adding the most common templates and straight hit dice increase.
There's also a great random treasure generator under the Extras section (at the bottom of the left most column).
There are a few things that have made this easier and more fun for me.
The first is remembering not to sweat precise details. Don't build full NPC stat blocks if you can avoid it. Give them the stats you need for their purpose in game. Base it off of something similar if you have it, if not wing it. Don't create a brand new monster if a repurposed monster can do what you want (use the stats for a white dragon to create a new ice demon for example).
The Second is ignore experience points. Keep a rough tally of the number of level appropriate encounters that it should take to advance to the next level and when they're there tell them to level up. If you stop tracking XP it greatly reduces your book keeping.
Third throw out the treasure by level guidelines and don't bother tracking it to closely. Start them at about half what the book tells you to give them. Otherwise your treasures will be minor bumps (from a +4 sword to a +5 sword, instead of from a +2 sword to a +5 sword). Realize that certain characters will get way more use out of certain items than other characters and so it's actual impact on gameplay is way less than it's gp value would suggest. For example, my current party is a paladin, a ranger, a sorceror, and a cleric. At this point they've all specialized in their chosen fighting styles. So if I throw in a +5 holy anarchic hammer I know only the cleric is going to be interested in using it and he almost exclusively casts spells in battle. So despite this being a +9 weapon by gp value it will almost never come into play. This can be a problem if you allow easy selling and purchasing of magic items since they might sell it, but I don't make it easy to do that so it hasn't been a problem for me and the treasures feel substantial. The trick is to keep their primary weapons relevant, but not overpowered.
Also don't be afraid to throw really powerful creatures against them or to kill them. At this level, they can handle almost anything. Also don't be afraid to throw underpowered encounters at them, you want them to feel powerful at this level. Just use what your story calls for. If they can't beat it they almost certainly have the power to escape, gather new resources, and try again.
I ran a campaign that went up to 14th level (this is actually a continuation of it with nearly all new characters) and I hated it because I tracked every detail meticulously. Learning to relax and just go with something approximate makes all the difference in the world.
Good luck!
I few things that has worked well for me in the past:
Use color coded dice and roll them all at once. This will speed play a fair bit.
Ex: a fighter with 3 attacks, rolls 3d20s and 3dXs (weapon damage) in three colors, so the blue d20 has the blue dX damage already rolled.
ex: when a mage is rolling spell damage dice, also roll d20 for spell penetration - if it is not needed, no problem, but if so, it has already been done.
Have those who have variable modifiers for their attack, have all the variants already precalculated, so they just state the attack and roll the dice - no math needed to figure out what AC they hit during play.
Ex: Archer character has straight attack, point blank attack, deadly aim attack, point blank and deadly aim attack, etc..
Task a player to be in charge initiative, with the job of not only organizing the list, but being responsible to give the next player a heads up, so that they are ready when it is their turn.
If a player is not ready to go, has not decided what they are doing, then they are automatically delaying and move on to the next one in the initiative order (after the first few shocked looks and complaints, this will speed things up, as they know that they need to stay on top of what their character is doing and will be doing).
Spellcasters: Have their spellbook ready, that is somekind of document that has all their spells in it, so no scrampbling for books and it is easy to show the GM what their spell does if the GM isn't sure of what the spell can and cannot do. Also have the DCs listed for each spell.
Summoners: Have all the possible summoned creatures stat blocks ready to go, with the appropriate templates already applied (ex: augmented and celestial templates)
NPC spellcasters: Have all their spells chosen, with those that should already have been cast have been strikeout on them. This will let you know what they have active, you can cross them off as they are cast, and seeing what they have left, you can plan on how they will use them.
NPCs with special abilities: Have checkboxes for each ability for each creature. I usually have the hit points, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities listed in a small group, along with which figurine. This allows me to check them off as they are used, and to know which powers / abilites are still available to the monsters still alive.
ex, for two monsters I would have:
blue cloak
82 hp
fireball OO
fly at will
green cloak
82 hp
fireball OO
fly at will
Keep copies of all your killed off NPCs. You can often recycle the stat block fairly easily, it saves you time when you are prepping and provides you with ready to go NPCs for when the PCs go off in directions that you weren't expecting.
Unlike some others, I like to have all the details of NPCs worked out, including skills. This allows me to use them more effectively and know what they can do for when the PCs surprise me. As I stated above, I re-use the stat blocks on a regular basis, with minor tweeks, so all the work is not just for a one-shot.
As others have stated, be ready to wing it, relax and enjoy the game too.