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The adventure path says that characters who finish RotR will be close to 17th or 18th level. Say I wanted to run a RotR game with the intent of having it so with enough extra encounters, i could push the party to 20th level before reaching the BBEG.
As long as I scale the challenges to match this, is there any word of caution I should be given before doing this? I've never run a game at levels these high, so I'm unfamiliar with any concerns about doing this.
I think the main problem is keeping Karzoug competitive. His primary edge (my prediction versus my group, anyway) is the number of 9th level spells he has. At 17, the PCs get just a couple ninths, and have to spend them wisely. At 20, they have a more comfortable amount, and there's no room to improve Karzoug, except with mythic tiers. That said, mythic should help.
What would be ideal, IMO, is running to 17 to Karzoug, and up to 20 in an aftermath scenario. However, not sure what that should be.
Make this a running gauntlet, modifying the "aura" of the city so that the PCs can't just *bamf* out via teleport, shadow walk or wind walk - they have to hoof it. The winds more than 40 feet or so above ground level hit tornado+ strength, debris is flying everywhere and all manner of Things are rampaging about. Dragons rise from fitful slumbers, rune giants are roving in packs, the restless dead long quiescent emerge from the rubble. The 20th level finale is Gargadros, a ravener and a fistful of rune giants that the PCs get to lay the smack down on before finally escaping Xin Shalast.
20th level, as I have heard, becomes something like Nuclear War. Whichever side side that gets to throw out the 15+ dice of damage first has the best chance of winning unless the otherside has their defenses up. Consider the larger sized dragons who can pump out such extremes of fire/whatever that protection Spells are exhusted and Resistances are overwhelmed. Plus they can do that every 1d4 rounds!
Over at the Necromancer Games forum, there have been two groups that ran high level play in Rapan Athuk and one Dm said it gets exhusting to do so much prep-work for high levels(running multiple foes, spell effects and so on.) The PCs spend longer prepping as well.
So while doing high level play can be fun once in a while, I don't think it is something that can be sustained for long.
Yes and no. Currently one of the ways to make high level play less "homeworky" are higher end polymorph effects. If the group suspects that they're throwing down with a great wyrm red, and they have some prep time, the best bet is to use polymorph effects to provide outright immunity to fire for a time.
Another way to make the players poop a sailboat is the old standby: disjunction. Some high level encounters make doing so as a player a Bad Idea for tactical considerations, others presume that the bad guys drop the disjunction, many don't feature it at all.
The biggest thing about high level play is that it is not the low-to-mid-level rapid fire multiple encounters per session that is more often the norm up to about 12th-13th level. Which is really what 'kills' it: it's slow, snail leaving slime on a branch slow, playing out many combat encounters, especially starting at whenever the group gets access to 9th level spells.
Specifically gate, mage's disjunction, miracle, time stop and wish as these five spells are the most drastic 'instant game changers' in the game. For my homebrew encounters as a GM and for my own PCs (starting at level 13 or 14) I make sure that my stat blocks actually show a "naked" or "disenchanted" set of stats. Heavily spell dependant characters/BBEGs/mooks in my experience need this kind of prep work done in advance. It's the one headache that doesn't go away for the last chapters of APs as the regular stat block formatting is generally inadequate (and sometimes inaccurate) in reflecting the 'nekkid' stats of the BBEG, especially ones that are heavily magic dependant.
Redesigning character sheets would probably be the greatest player friendly thing to make this happen. All of the character sheets I've seen are not set up to make this happen well. It is a side effect of trying to cram everything onto a single double-sided piece of paper, which simply doesn't cut the mustard for high level Pathfinder play.
There are other tricks that result in speeding up high level play if the entire group buys into using them. Most don't that I've seen, and it gets even worse if there are 'arithmetic challenged' players involved...
Is there any good programs for buff tracking? Something where you can add or subtract buffs depending on what happens.
I'm fond of the Combat Tracker app. Its Windows and iOS right now, but it does a good job of managing buffs, its tied nicely into Herolab and the SRD, and there is an android version in the works.
Is there any good programs for buff tracking? Something where you can add or subtract buffs depending on what happens.
If I had the skills, believe me that need would have been filled. One of my longest term players, during the Savage Tide campaign, kitted his character out on an enormous spreadsheet that plugged in every single buff available to the (very large) group of players. He could dial it down to disjoined, had a 'normal, no buff' setting and then manual toggles that he clicked on and off when the buff spells started flying. It was not even remotely pretty to look at, but it worked and kept everyone honest once I had them feed him their stats and stuff to keep me in the loop where their 'real' stats were as opposed to where the several arithmatic-challenged players thought they were.
I hear about HeroLab and one or two other programs that are commonly in use these days, but they cost fairly hefty bits of money that are simply not in the cards to be spent.
The simplest solution without using a tablet or something is to cobble together a set of cards that you can play at the table in combination with a small dry erase or wet erase 'mini-board' to keep your running total. I have a small wet erase board that I used to use that I could draw a column on the left and put in the normal stats. To the right of that column I could write/doodle in the buffs as they were applied.
I suppose something similar to this could be put together with some work in a pure hardcopy format. How much of a project it would be depends on the scope of rulebooks your table uses, specifically regarding buff magic and abilities (bardic inspire courage, various domains/schools/bloodlines, etc). It could start fairly small - say, up to the 3rd spell level stuff before expanding spell level by spell level.
there's an excel-based character Sheet called "the One Sheet" that is quite customization-friendly and two of my group SWEAR by for their Wizard and Cleric. Considering that we're at 15th level now, being able to track buffs and debuffs is key to its success.
Of course, they are also both geeks, so the tech side might be daunting, I'm not sure. I use a Mac\Android and the Vbasic stuff does not translate reliably, so I got used to pen-n-paper.
20th level play isn't really all that different from 1st level, it just opens more possibilities. The ultimate truth of what you try and achieve with 20th level challenges should be around the same as what you try and achieve with a 1st level challenge: Dangerous means potentially lethal in 2-4 turns for most characters.
The only difference in 20th level encounters is the number of factors at play. Mobility, Disables, and Buffs all take on very different mantles, but are essentially a means to the same end. 100 Damage to a character with 200 Health is relatively the same as 4 damage to a character with 8 health. The levels aren't meant to change the relative dynamic of the game, but rather to put the heroes head and shoulders above the lowly threats they may still compete with from time to time. After all, we all enjoy watching simple henchman and street criminals threaten superheroes in movies, because we the audience understand that poor sap has no clue as to the depth of the feces he's quickly sinking into. When a player is behind the wheel of that superhero, these observations can have an even more thrilling effect when a DM plays the part of the "in-over-their-head" villain well.
As for the villains who can still challenge the players, or even vastly outclass them in some cases, you have a few basic things to address about level 20.
1) Capstones: The cornerstone ability that elevates the character from mundane to near god-like status. Any potentially life-threatening encounters for level 20 characters should have some elements at play that make these capstones a necessity for success. In short, an epic challenge for a level 20 party should be something that a level 19 party has almost no chance of surviving.
2) The Basic CR Formula: CR 1 does not mean the encounter is challenging for a party of level 1 characters, it means it is run of the mill. Barring extreme circumstances, no encounter of equal level should ever really come close to killing a party member or forcing the group to flee, even if most of their resources are already exhausted. Use this general outline:
CR +0: Run of the mill, not meant to do much damage or really expend resources.
CR +1: Some heavy lifting. This might cut a few resources out of the team, but generally they can push through a few of these and still have a fair amount of steam.
CR +2: Challenging. This is what starts to exhaust a party, sometimes expending half their resources or more, and sometimes coming close to, if not killing somebody. At this level the party should be fighting an enemy of slightly less statistical output and turn economy.
CR +3: Epic. At this level the party should be fighting an enemy with equal or greater statistical output and turn economy than they have. The risk of total resource depletion and TPK is very real. Good rolls can get them through this with a little fight left, but they should probably be trying to find a hole to crawl into.
CR +4: Extreme. This pushes the party's limits in every way barring incredibly lucky rolls. Generally this level cannot be truly achieved by solitary monsters properly, this should always be a group such as a rival adventuring party, or a dragon or mad-wizard with henchmen.
CR +5: Asian Difficulty. Why are you doing this to your players? Because they are the enemy, that's why. Mistakes were made, a wrong turn was taken, and now only an incredible combination of luck and strategy can save them from a few hours of creating new characters.
Contrary to what people in this thread seem to say, I believe this same formula holds up at level 20. Remember that a hero class of level 20 is technically only CR 19, with two being CR 21 and a party of four being CR 23. I consider Pathfinder extremely well playtested, and if you pay close attention to potential tactical outs in any situation, you can find something to keep your players fearful for their lives.
I think the main problem is keeping Karzoug competitive. His primary edge (my prediction versus my group, anyway) is the number of 9th level spells he has. At 17, the PCs get just a couple ninths, and have to spend them wisely. At 20, they have a more comfortable amount, and there's no room to improve Karzoug, except with mythic tiers. That said, mythic should help.
What would be ideal, IMO, is running to 17 to Karzoug, and up to 20 in an aftermath scenario. However, not sure what that should be.
I certainly plan to have Karzoug be a Mythic character.
Book should hopefully be out before my players reach him :)
Not all CRs are created equal, especially at higher level play.
Hence my 'Nuclear war' mentain which fits into 'Rocket Tag'. Defenses can help against high damage from things like a dragon's breath, but not all last for hours(ex. the various stat boost spells from 3.0. They went from hours to minutes so popping one on at the start of the day is no longer an option.) Check out the Ancient White dragon from Sins of the Saviors, by the time you are aware that you need your protection from cold, you have no doubt already eaten 15d6. Now being aware of what happens in that encounter, I could be all meta and pop one on before we trigger the encounter but then I would get the stink-eye from the GM.
It comes down to judgement calls as well. My cleric ate 6 STR damage from a shadow in Council of Thives. I was aware that there was undead around and had a Death Ward memorized, I just made the choice to hold on to it in case we it was needed later(The Packrat Syndrome) I survived but easily couldn't of.