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As the title says - I'm curious.
In a lot of the threads here - whenever someone brings up class balance or builds, many posters immediately start talking about level 15+. Frankly - I've only been in one campaign even in the teens (way back in 3.5), and it was a climax thing. The players worked their way to level 11-12ish, and then I had a storyline stasis for a few years (think ocarana of time - they come back to find the world changed) and had them level several times in prep for the climactic battle of the campaign.
The vast majority of my gaming has been in the single digits.
Frankly - I think a lot of the disagreements on balance stems from this issue. I tend to think that the system tends to break down starting around level 11-12ish, but up until then it's pretty solid.
It's hard to discuss if wizards are OP in general if one player plays levels 1-8, and the other plays mostly 13+.
So anyway - as the title says - at what levels do you guys usually play? And why?
3-8 is the sweet spot for me. I have been playing a lot of 1-2 lately and it is just really random. It is really easy to do everything right and still die before level 3 because you can get one shot very easily. After level 8 the game takes a hard turn to rocket tag and never looks back, I love this point in games, but many GMs and players hate it. This is where things like the caster martial disparity and full attack or lose become the facts of life and not theorycraft. Most GM help threads exist because of level 9+ and the approaching spectre of 9+ play.
Unless I'm doing an E6 game, I play level 1-20.
That being said, ever since 3.5, casters have been strong even at level 1-8, though the disparity between them and martials is much lower.
Levels 3-9 seem common.
Some GMs want people to start from level 1 and work up, though most desire a start at 2nd or 3rd level to avoid killing the party early on. Most other GMs have little experience with campaigns past 10th level, and after 2+ years in a single campaign they switch to another game / GM. So by the time everyone hits 10th level, the campaign tends to lose momentum.
I play a variation of the BB rules with some core added in. So I play 1-6. However, my players have never wanted to run a campaign past level 4.
I normally start campaigns at level two with enough xp to be just below level three. Starting at level two gives characters more survivability for the first adventure, as a GM I never seem to remember how fragile level one characters are and have had bad experiences with TPK which is just unfun. I normally walk everyone through leveling up to level three at the end of the first session, it has been six years since I ran a campaign without at least one newbie so it always seems necessary. After that most of my campaigns have ended around level 10, the highest has been level 17.
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So - it seems like to most, the issues of balance at 10+ don't really matter as most people don't play there anyay.
(from this extremely non-scientific polling of 8 people)
Though of course - one could argue that the reason that they don't play there is because of the balance issues which are inherent to them.
I play mostly PFS so ususally only up to 11 or 12. My current highest is 9. I see alot of talk about how at the late levels casters just rule so its nice when playing a non caster that you are a threat thoughout.
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Personally, I love playing and GMing the 3-7 range. 1-2 just feels too "random." A bad roll of the dice and a PC can bite the dust. Plus a lot of classes cooler abilities don't really blossom until around level 5 or so (I'm just thinking of my bard's inspire courage +2 and inquisitor's bane).
At levels 8 and above, it's still great fun but things tend to take longer. Also, scenarios get a bit more complicated for me. Fortunately, most of my players are 1-7 but when they start to level up I'll bite the bullet and run higher level scenarios for them.
1 to 20 and beyond.
I do feel that the game is not off its training wheels until at least level 5.
The majority of my play time has been at higher levels (10+). As both a GM and player, I get little enjoyment out of my ability to roll a d20 dictating most of what I can accomplish (or as a GM it dictating what my players can do). I tend to see low levels as something you have to slog through.
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Some of the best experiences I've had with gaming have all come recently over the course of a two-year-long E6 campaign. It really helps keep everything challenging and fun without bogging the game down with dozens of iterative attacks, reality-altering high level spells, and the endless accounting of huge treasure hoards.
In a lot of the threads here - whenever someone brings up class balance or builds, many posters immediately start talking about level 15+. Frankly - I've only been in one campaign even in the teens (way back in 3.5), and it was a climax thing.
In PF we got to Lvl 15 (with 3 lvls Mythic) and that campaign ended. Most of my PF playing is done 1-12. I have seen no games get over lvl 15.
In 3.5 we got to lvl 18 once, and yes, Spellcasters took over. Those 9th level spells are killers.
In 3.0 we got Epic. Once.
I dunno, maybe others are playing different or it's a lot of theorycrafting?
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GM: "Player what is good in life?"
My players:
dozens of iterative attacks, reality-altering high level spells, and the endless accounting of huge treasure hoards.
I think you and I might play RPGs for vastly different reasons. :)GM: "Player what is good in life?"
My players:
dozens of iterative attacks, reality-altering high level spells, and the endless accounting of huge treasure hoards.
The crux to me besides the power trip is that what I want for myself as a player and for my players is to have agency. I feel that in extreme low level play, far too much of your agency is stripped by the d20. This eventually goes away, but I feel that with higher levels comes more options in which to express your agency, which is why I gravitate there instead of mid levels.
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For the past four or five years we've done two APs, so 1-15 for both, then a homebrew where we got to 20.
I would say the most enjoyable period in my experience was levels 1-10.
The stuff over level 15 was not fun, simply because it was either the party killed everything I sent at them on round one, or it killed them on round one.
Sure, that one round took the same amount of time as 10 rounds at lower levels, but everything was anti-climactic. You were either alive or dead. There was no drama to the battles.
It's just a completely different game at those levels, which is fine, I just don't like that game.
I'm currently GMing 6, they started at 1 and I find those first two levels a complete slog which I tend to hurry past, but they are mostly new to the game so it's required.
I'm playing a level 16 wizard that started at 13 in a 11+ campaign with a group I've played with on and off for years.
While there is a charm to the first few levels most people I've played with tend to take a shine to the game at 5+, the so called 6-12 power levels and I've probably spent most of my game time there.
High level play is really rewarding when it works, but I tend to find it's most difficult on the GM. The game heavily favors team work.
What my friends think I play at: 10
What my GM feels I play at: 3
What my players feel I run the game at: 20
What I really play at: 1-3
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See - I kind of enjoy the first few levels, though it's a rather different game at that point considering how fragile some characters are. But that's part of the fun - any move might be your last!
Of note though - I think some GMs have a tendency to forget how squishy level 1 characters are, and (for example) throw a few orcs with greataxes at the party since they're only CR 1/2 officially. However, a single good hit will knock a character unconcious, and if they crit the character goes splat! (My level 2 PFS bard was dropped from nearly full to -12 by a greataxe. Ugh. Good thing I hadn't decided to go elf.)
Level 1 is a good time to go up against goblins, kobolds, etc. with a hobgoblin boss. Heck - in Legacy of Fire they have you go up against mostly pugwampis until level 2. (They're annoying as all get out, but they can really only plink away at you.)
Here's the thing; the answer is sort of biased towards the low end.
What I mean is that there will be far more campaigns starting at 1st than there are starting at 11th. If a campaign runs X levels before petering out, there's still a bias for low-end campaigns. For instance, if it were true that the average campaign survives 7 levels before being spent, there are therefore going to be more 1-8 campaigns than 11-18 campaigns.
So.
The groups I run, we do anything from 1st to 23rd.
We're kind of bored with low-level, so a backup campaign I just began started at 4th. I run a Runelords campaign currently at 12th, just finished a Tsar campaign at 23rd which has been replaced with an experiment with Numenera, and the Plan B campaign is for when not all Numenera players are present, to have something to do.
I probably like play most starting at 6th. By then you've got 3rd-level spells and potentially iterative attacks, along with three or four feats. Things start to wake up.
I have never been in a group beyond levels 12-15. I think one of the main issues was that we did not have a sense of direction. The quests we were on did not keep pace even though it seemed like every combat was a battle to the death for us.
If there isn't a compelling storyline, a reason to fight on, the combats and in between get dull, especially after 10 or so levels of play.
There are two main issues I see with levels 10+. First, the players need something new and exciting to keep them interested, as does the GM. This could be an entirely different style of play, a new type of quest, etc. There are many possibilities and any good GM/player set should be able to come up with something that works for them.
Second, I find that the game does indeed lean far too heavy on the quick and brutal combat side. Casters can either dominate or be crushed in a single round, all dependent on whether they act first. This style is NOT fun to me and I do not think it is fun for most.
The issue here is that combats are generally either to easy or too hard. The players either dominate or get destroyed, without much they can do about it. To this, I say it is up to the GM (and this relates to the first problem as well) to construct or find good material that does NOT promote this type of play.
Include more out of combat play. Introduce new enemies or items that even the playing field. Consider devising unique and challenging scenarios so that the expected and typical approaches no longer work. Throw enemies at them that they have never seen, etc., etc.
I guess that I am really saying that while the game can go awry after about level 10, there are many ways to revive it for those who are dedicated and creative enough.
I'm taking my first foray into E6 soon (though I'm tempted to take it up to 8 so the 3/4 classes can get multiple attacks), and it looks to be absolutely perfect for what I want.
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I'm taking my first foray into E6 soon (though I'm tempted to take it up to 8 so the 3/4 classes can get multiple attacks), and it looks to be absolutely perfect for what I want.
As I've said many times, I'm overjoyed with how my local E6 campaign has unfolded. We're going on two straight years, which is quite an accomplishment for a bunch of 25-45 year old professionals with jobs and kids!
The one thing I'd suggest is to avoid all of the extra nonsense people always try to add on to E6. Pure E6 is just fine. Cap the casters out at 3rd level spells, before magic explodes into reality-altering nonsense. Only pure martials get iterative attacks, so combat doesn't take forever. Skill monkey character stay relevant for their entire careers. It's great!
I remember way back in 1st ED AD&D I played 15th level characters and then 2nd Ed I played short games from 3rd level to maybe 6th. We played lots of different games but never played a long standing campaign. Even when we played Freeport in 3.5, the characters went from 1st to about 4th.
It wasn't until Pathfinder that we started playing APs. We finished one out to 15th level and we are just starting Runelords (up to 4th level now).
Having a premade game is a lot easier than what we had before and a lot more satisfying.
My prefered levels are 4-14. I hate levels 1-3. Too random, and too many builds that are not working yet at those levels. But lately my group has been playing more APs, so more 1-3 that I like. 15-20 has problems, and don't see many play, but I vastly prefer it to 1-3. Even as a DM, levels 1-3 feel limited, as I can not throw many enemies I like to the party ( I really like fiends and undead).
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This coming wekend we will play at level 20 and going after Demogorgon in a VERY long running Savage Tide campaign.
Level 20 is my preferred level, or at least 15+.
In my home setting normal humans max out at 10th level. Which represents a lifetime of training. Most are in the 1-5 range. The 11-20 range is for godlings like in Greek mythology and the like. So pretty much I focus entirely on the 1-10 range. Unless I'm running a story arch that focuses on characters that are more then human. Then I'll generally go up to about 15.
My group plays 1st to 20th level, though since 3.5 we've never gone past 15th level.
Campaigns can get horribly out of balance at high levels, especially when you have players who know how to optimise casters and where the group uses sensible tactics, when it becomes a case of "Linear warriors Quadratic wizards".
We have found that high level campaigns are less likely to get out of hand if:
1) 8th and 9th level spells and spell slots do not exist. This takes out most of the campaign wrecking spells.
2) Unnamed bonuses provided by spells and magic items instead become competence bonuses if they affect skills and enhancement bonuses if they affect anything else. This really cuts down on the amount of bonus stacking which can make high CR encounters quite trivial.
3) Certain spells are banned (e.g. long distance transportation spells like teleport which let the party quickly travel long distances)
At low levels we find that increasing everything's hit points works nicely as it makes characters (and monsters) less prone to being eliminated with a single blow. Something like adding the average of your Strength and Constitution abilities to your hit points.
As the title says - I'm curious.
In a lot of the threads here - whenever someone brings up class balance or builds, many posters immediately start talking about level 15+. Frankly - I've only been in one campaign even in the teens (way back in 3.5), and it was a climax thing. The players worked their way to level 11-12ish, and then I had a storyline stasis for a few years (think ocarana of time - they come back to find the world changed) and had them level several times in prep for the climactic battle of the campaign.
The vast majority of my gaming has been in the single digits.
Frankly - I think a lot of the disagreements on balance stems from this issue. I tend to think that the system tends to break down starting around level 11-12ish, but up until then it's pretty solid.
It's hard to discuss if wizards are OP in general if one player plays levels 1-8, and the other plays mostly 13+.
So anyway - as the title says - at what levels do you guys usually play? And why?
I have GM'd 20th level games a few times, but I only get to play up to 13th level before real life ends my games. I prefer to play between up to at least level 7 and higher. I really dont like level 1-3 because it is too easy to die.
I think most GM's can handle things until somewhere between 13th adn 15th level before they start to have problems.
In all of D&D, including pre D20, I just recently got my 3rd pc into the double digit range. And this 3rd one started at 9th level because I joined a running AP.
So mostly levels 1-6 and nothing above level 16 ever. If I remember right.
There might have been a level 20 one-shot somewhere in the fog of time. And there was a homebrew campaign loosely based on AD&D the level of which I do not remember.
@Wizards are OP: You can build an op wizard for every level of the game. Even at level 1 they can dominate combat if they aim for it.
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Since 3.5 was released, I've played exactly one character that made it to 14th level. (A sword & shield fighter that only used feats from the 3.5 Players Handbook. He was easily the most combat-effective character in the party.)
I've never played or run a Pathfinder game that went over 11th level. Even campaigns that I intended to go higher fizzled out around level 9-10.
I think level 4-9 is the sweet spot, both as a GM and as a player.
I have almost always DMed, and each time I start a new campaign I have taken the PCs to 20th (or 25th once). I usually kept a good hold on gold and magical items so the high level play didn't become too unbalanced too often. We had once group play through the giants / demonweb pits series which was all high level and crazy.
I can also let the players have world-changing campaign endings since each campaign is set in a parallel reality. They can save the world every time lol
Every game I've ever been in has ended either with almost none of it's original players, ragequitting or schedule flakes. On average I play levels 1-6 but I try to play 1-12or15 unless I'm running an adventure path. I've played after level 14 and most classes get b~@!$@! then. I like my high magic but at that point it's too high.
Level 1-18 typically for my group as that is where most APs end. We have quite a library of 18th level Characters now we play them from time to time. Usually one off games when a player is missing.
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When we play APs we usually do the whole thing, so levels 1-13,15,17, whatever the AP ends at.
Homebrew campaign usually go to about 22-23. Once got up to the mid 30s in 3.0.
Generally I have no problems GMing higher level games. I find most of the "problems" tend to be armchair/theorycraft and don't actually happen in real play. I think a guidebook to handling high level play would be a good addition to the PF library, as most of the problems I see people have can be fixed by some simple GMing tricks and attitude changes.
My least favorite levels are the 5-9 range. I still have fun playing them but I'd rather be in over my head(low levels) or amazingly competent(high levels), as opposed to reliably mediocre. E6 is not for me :)
Generally I have no problems GMing higher level games. I find most of the "problems" tend to be armchair/theorycraft and don't actually happen in real play.
I have seen "high level problems" without playing much high level. One AP we played had a significant number of martials to begin with and only one in the end. And even the one we had was not the one that player started with. He rerolled because his initial pc sucked.
From my point of view magic broke that game. And I say that with me being one of the full casters. No armchair theorycraft.
The reason is that mundanes have lots of things that can be challenging for them while magic just circumvents them. "This bridge doesn't look trustworthy" kinds of problems are virtually nonexistant for spellcasters from medium levels on while they always remain challenging for mundanes. And then it depends on whether one of the casters has tricks up his sleeve that let others circumvent them, too. If not everybode rolls his eyes because the now have to deal with a problem only the (insert fighter, rogue, slayer) has.
/derail
Lots of "training wheels games" (levels 1-3).
Been playing a lot of PFS lately, so still relatively low level (11 & less), but hoping to get my 11th L game up and running again soon (RL issues caused game pause).
Really missing my 18th level PF game (GM recently moved out of state), even if my inquisitor did die a lot (Quickened Disjunction followed by Clashing Rocks is a stone b*tch, pun wholly intended).
Preference is for 15+, but a bit less friendly to RAWyers than most of the theorycraft I see bandied about.
Of course, from what I can see I'm an outlier of the forums in that I'm ok with consensual PvP, ok with evil characters, like it when PCs can play with all of the toys in the PF box, still think that a god should step all over a 30th+ level mortal, and find that most of my players play like the responsible adults that they are.
-TimD
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I have seen "high level problems" without playing much high level. One AP we played had a significant number of martials to begin with and only one in the end. And even the one we had was not the one that player started with. He rerolled because his initial pc sucked.
From my point of view magic broke that game. And I say that with me being one of the full casters. No armchair theorycraft.
The reason is that mundanes have lots of things that can be challenging for them while magic just circumvents them. "This bridge doesn't look trustworthy" kinds of problems are virtually nonexistant for spellcasters from medium levels on while they always remain challenging for mundanes. And then it depends on whether one of the casters has tricks up his sleeve that let others circumvent them, too. If not everybode rolls his eyes because the now have to deal with a problem only the (insert fighter, rogue, slayer) has.
/derail
Funnily enough, you actually provide a precise example of what I mean when I say most of the problems I see come down to GMs not changing their expectations as levels increase. "This bridge doesn't look trustworthy" isn't a meaningful challenge for nearly any balanced group after about level 5-6. Once your casters can solve the problem with a single spell it's no longer a challenge. I don't want to derail this thread further but if you look at high level advice threads I tend to write a bit about changing your game style to accommodate high level play. If you try to play high level characters as if they were low levels characters with bigger numbers of course there will be problems. I'll end my side of this derail here but I'd be happy to discuss it in other threads(and have).