Pathfinder: Playing the Endgame? (20) / (20 / 6)

[Rerednaw]

So, I've never played at the upper levels (stick with Society and early APs) so I was wondering how did the system hold up?

How does a level 20 fighter fare when compared to a level 20 cleric, wizard, or druid for example?

What is the rogue doing?

And how's the monk?

How did Mythic change anything (if it did at all?) did the even out the scales a bit?

I'm not looking for builds. I am wondering how your group fared. If you think it would help quantify and clarify the talking points feel free to post your campaign build guidelines (e.g. 20 point buy, standard wealth, some/no item crafting, whatever).

[Nawtyit]

The Wizard took 10 minutes for his turn; then it was over.

[Ciaran Barnes]

The highest I've hit is level 18, but even then my cleric had 9th levels. Save or die spells were dropping nearly every round, you can plane shift and teleport anywhere, divination reveals all secret, death is a mere bump in the road, any problem is solved with a standard action, and most of all the GM has a tremendous amount of work to do if the game is to stay fresh, challenging, but still fun. It was mind blowing and extremely exciting to play for the time that I did, but the struggle to get there is over and the only place to go next is even further over the top. I honestly prefer low and mid levels (each for different reasons).

[Tim Statler]

flagged last post.

[Hylozoist]

I generally love the 3.5 / Pathfinder rules, but must say that high level play is where they break down. I haven't had the problem some have w/ caster/martial disparity, as my players seem happy to deal out the mega damage martial classes have at these levels. However, DC's for spells are generally either trivial or very hard for characters to pass. There are tons of buffing spells on both the enemies and PCs to keep track of. Creating meaningful challenges for your players is difficult when they have the full array of spells at their disposal. You will spend hours creating NPC's that will die in one round, and if you don't have a ruthless tactical mind you may not play your evil wizards and devils w/ the intelligence they're supposed to have. Combat often slows to a crawl.

All that being said, my players still like the game and enjoy using their high level abilities. As a DM whose campaign is reaching 15th level and seeing some familiar problems as the last time we hit these levels, I get frustrated. Not sure there is a solution, a lot of these issues seem pretty hard coded into the base rules themselves. I do wish there were more high level adventures out there, could cut down some of the crazy prep-time required.

[Lincoln Hills]

Trouble with the PF crew trying to design suitable high level pre-fabs, Hylozoist, is that the number of stipulations and assumptions you can count on decreases as your group goes up in level. Party composition can completely throw off an otherwise "effective" adventure design.

A group that includes a sorceror who knows greater teleport is going to play very differently than a group whose spellcasters all stuck with combat spells; a group that didn't keep anybody around with Disable Device is going to suffer things that a group led by an Archeologist Bard would bypass or overcome with a single skill check... things like that.

[Majuba]

Highest Pathfinder so far is 16th-17th for the end of Runelords. Balance between characters was just fine.

My Slumbering Tsar campaign should be reaching upwards of that point by the end of the year, I'll know more then.

I've run up to 30th successfully in 3.0/3.5 and didn't have any trouble. I do stick to a fairly Core game (then and now), so YMMV.