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A recent thread had a player throwing out ideas on how his high level character would operate (level 20 wizard, trying to create a new religion effectively)
The idea sounds awesome, but a number of us (Players and DM's alike) felt that this player was getting away with his plan very easily.
I'd like this thread to be a place where players and DM's alike post things that pop up in high level play that are capable of working but may destroy campaigns if abused.
Let's not shut down every trick, let's come up with in game reasons why those tricks could be limited in their use to avoid serious in world repercussions.
I'll start with a favourite of mine.
Explosive Rune bag o' death.
- Simple premise, make a ton of explosive runes and plant them as a bomb for the big bad to read. BOOOOOOOOM! red squishy.
It's been posted in many threads as the answer to everything.
Here's some things that would limit it/end it in a campaign if it starts getting overused.
1) Scry. Another caster hearing of the super power of the caster using the trick scries on him. Reads the runes in the bag or as the caster is preparing him. BOOOOOM. (easily defended against if the caster is paranoid enough.)
2) Creature with awesome perception reads the runes from a safe distance. BOOOOOOOM. Wasted effect. (I have a ranger in the game I play that regularly gets 40+ perception on his rolls. He could probably make out the little full stop on the rune from 30 feet or more).
3) Steal bag. No BOOOM here. But the trick is useless now. (can be protected against, but not as easily as the Wizard might think if the levels are high enough).
4) Dispel magic as he gets the trick ready. Easily accomplished in many situations. Caster just has to fail (also easily done if you buff a low level caster minion to be sneaky and then cast the dispel.) Failing a dispel on the Runes makes them go BOOOOOOM!
Now, I wouldn't do these unless the player was trying to abuse the trick. In reality it's a really clever trick and should be allowed to work occasionally. However, once word starts getting out that this is the preferred tactic, then try these.
OK, let's see if this goes for more that a few posts.
PS. Let's endeavour to keep the personal attacks out of it. I like hearing players ideas. I like the creative approach to problem solving and think clever tricks should be rewarded by working occasionally. I just think some players feel they are the be all to end all and this thread is for everyone to have some ideas on how they can be reasonably limited to ensure the entire campaign doesn't break down.
Cheers
A recent thread had a player throwing out ideas on how his high level character would operate (level 20 wizard, trying to create a new religion effectively)
The idea sounds awesome, but a number of us (Players and DM's alike) felt that this player was getting away with his plan very easily.
I'd like this thread to be a place where players and DM's alike post things that pop up in high level play that are capable of working but may destroy campaigns if abused.
Let's not shut down every trick, let's come up with in game reasons why those tricks could be limited in their use to avoid serious in world repercussions.
I'll start with a favourite of mine.
Explosive Rune bag o' death.
- Simple premise, make a ton of explosive runes and plant them as a bomb for the big bad to read. BOOOOOOOOM! red squishy.
It's been posted in many threads as the answer to everything.
Here's some things that would limit it/end it in a campaign if it starts getting overused.
1) Scry. Another caster hearing of the super power of the caster using the trick scries on him. Reads the runes in the bag or as the caster is preparing him. BOOOOOM. (easily defended against if the caster is paranoid enough.)
2) Creature with awesome perception reads the runes from a safe distance. BOOOOOOOM. Wasted effect. (I have a ranger in the game I play that regularly gets 40+ perception on his rolls. He could probably make out the little full stop on the rune from 30 feet or more).
3) Steal bag. No BOOOM here. But the trick is useless now. (can be protected against, but not as easily as the Wizard might think if the levels are high enough).
4) Dispel magic as he gets the trick ready. Easily accomplished in many situations. Caster just has to fail (also easily done if you buff a low level caster minion to be sneaky and then cast the dispel.) Failing a dispel on the Runes makes them go BOOOOOOM!
Now, I wouldn't do these unless the player was trying to abuse the trick. In reality it's a really clever trick and should be...
Most of this will only work on the low level uses and even then not against suicide bomber summons with Explosive Runes.
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It only has to work on a low level caster. After that he's dead.
However, since the thread stated high level:
High level, all of those will still work. You're fighting higher level creatures that all have abilities that let them do what I laid out. Particularly humanoids with class levels.
Suicide summons doesn't work. The runes explode when you hand them over as they read them. This kills you.
You can specify who can read them safely, but the word specify means specific. You can't say "these runes work for whatever I summon". At least not with GMs running normal mode.
Super permissive GMs might let that fly though. It depends on the campaign that's being run.
Edit - although it's probably ok to specify groups I guess. Things like "safe for all cultists of blah de blah", or "safe for all minions of hell". That would get you around limits I'd place on the summon suicide bomber at least. It also puts restrictions on what it works on.
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Wrath, while I am in the "stacked explosive runes destabilize each other" camp, Anzyrs solution is more along the lines of:
Roll up the runes tightly, bundle them together. Summon a creature, and hand him the tightly rolled bundle. Tell him that he is to go parlay with the enemy, and that the rolled bundle is the terms of surrender, and is for the enemys eyes only.
Then when he gets close, greater dispel magic on the bundle and watch it explode.
(Okay, I may have elaborated, but that is the general gist.)
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Oh I know that's how he plans it. But at a level where that's going off then the plan will fall apart purely on the skill of the other guys.
It will work for stupid opponents, and really it should occasionally. It's a pretty neat trick. But intelligent opponents are going to destroy that plan in seconds. Really intelligent opponents will do it in such a way that the caster responsible will end up eating his own Rune bomb.
I remember him posting it about a dungeon clearing challenge once. He was going to create a heap of undead using blood money to avoid paying the cost of raising them. Then he was going to strap explosive runes to them and send them into the dungeon. He reasoned he could clear the entire dungeon using that.
I really like the plan for its creativity. It's cheesy on the blood money, but still creative. However there's no way it would clear the whole dungeon. Maybe a small bit at the beginning, but that's about all.
As a player, he wouldn't even know why it failed until he went to investigate himself.
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The elegant solution to the rune problem is that they take up a spell slot until they explode. So you can try and stack them, eventually you will run out of spell slots.
There are a ton of challenges to high level play. Many of them are difficult to deal with. This is why most APs only go to levels 12-15.
Level 20 is Rocket Tag. Whoever goes first wins. 9th level spells simply end an encounter when used intelligently.
The unfortunate problem is the only way to realistically counter it also involves killing off the party.
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It's funny, every one says that but I've played 5 campaigns into the 20's and never experienced this rocket tag syndrome.
Some encounters get toasted, some are real struggles, but mostly it's just a good challenge.
My experience in real situations shows that while there is "Potential" for spell casters to do everything the actuality shows they can't. Not enough time or resources to pull it off sorry to say.
However, for the sake of thread please present some situations and lets see what we can come up with as a collective group of experienced players. Maybe someone struggling with this very thing will read something here and find it helps.
It's just about casters defeating an encounter with a single spell. Melee characters can damn near kill anything in a single full attack at level 20.
Assuming optimized characters. Your statements make it sound like your group does not have a high level of optimization, which is fine. But I have personally built level 20 barbarians that easily dealt 200+ damage with every full attack, with crits throwing it up much higher. Which happened often with weapons like the nodachi. And that's simply a barbarian.
A caster can use time stop to set up really 1 sided situations. Like chain summoning multiple monsters. Or multiple delayed blast fireballs.
I'm not experienced with playing full casters, so it's not really my strong suit of discussing their tactics.
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Many people have made that assumption Claxon. My players are optimizers, but then I design for that. When I run AP's, I make sure we follow the design intent there to (15 point buy, 4 players). If we stray outside that design intent then I modify up or down as necessary.
This thread isn't about optimization, it's about addressing the issues that players may bring to high level.
Time stop for instance is an important one to mention.
You can't actually attack anyone during time stop.
Delayed fire balls are ok, but fireballs do bugger all at high level play where nearly everything is resistant or prepped to be resistant to such things.
A Barbarian doing 200 plus damage is awesome, and should be. I take care of them by swarming them with minions of 80 hit points. It's easy to control a single character with creatures that pose small threat to them but might be a threat to others. Interestingly it also changes the CR of encounters very little.
200+ damage will kill an 80 hp minion every attack, but its 120 more than you needed. And there's still 8 of them t go all of them taking shots at you that do some damage but not much.
Barbarian cant reach opponents. Barbarian can't see opponents. Barbarian is hit with calm emotions at metamagic levels to make the DC harder.
All of those are ways to control the impact of high level players tricks so the game maintains it's enjoyment.
The one thing to note here is that single combatant combats are very bad design for high level play. Always have been, even at lower levels.
There really isn't a way around stuff like Dazing spell. It can be selectively applied to different types of damage or to target different weak saves. Unless an opponent can avoid all of that they are probably going to find themselves dazed. Save or Dies are also many and varied at high levels. And there is no being immune to Maze. And if the target doesn't have plane shift or a good INT, there is effectively one less person in the fight. In turns of action economy, that's an absurdly powerful advantage.
Take a look at andreww's Beastmass runs to see why the game turns into rocket tag at high levels. It is a perfect example of this exact scenario.
Well, except minotaurs. They are immune to maze.
I would have said the Beastmass runs are the epitome of theory crafting and about as far from actual natural play as you could ever get.
Uh, he actually put unnecessary restrictions on himself that he didn't have to. I see nothing in it that would deviate from actual play, unless by "actual play" you mean "the GM rewrites the scenario to prevent you from succeeding like you should". Really it's pretty much the AP as written. With rolls and everything. Nothing that would deviate from how the AP would work in practice.
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And there is no being immune to Maze. And if the target doesn't have plane shift or a good INT, there is effectively one less person in the fight.
Or six level spells in anything but wizard / sorcerer.
find the path is a 6th level spell for everyone else.
Maze is awesome, it just isn't *that* awesome.
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Uh, he actually put unnecessary restrictions on himself that he didn't have to. I see nothing in it that would deviate from actual play, unless by "actual play" you mean "the GM rewrites the scenario to prevent you from succeeding like you should". Really it's pretty much the AP as written. With rolls and everything. Nothing that would deviate from how the AP would work in practice.Well, except minotaurs. They are immune to maze.
I would have said the Beastmass runs are the epitome of theory crafting and about as far from actual natural play as you could ever get.
Are you talking about this?
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pbrv?Beastmass-A-challenge-to-Master-MinMaxers
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dimensional anchor stops maze too. As does a ranger with favoured terrain dungeon or some other level things (assuming the GM is allowing those options as well as the intelligence 20 check). Anything with an intelligence bonus of one or more also increases the odds of getting out. Mind you, maze is awesome to throw at a cleric who's not ready for it.
Also, taking out one target is not much at all at high level. A bit tough on the party, but then that adds to the challenge.
Dazing spells run out. High level opponents play intelligently, We're talking spread out to deal with AOE spells. Magic missile, stopped by shield or amulets of such (which lots of players get). High level enemy casters can too.
And once again, I ask now many are prepared? Sorcerors have it easier there, I must say.
High level game play involves intense days of combat and problem solving. Not one fight per day, not the standard 4 fights per day. Sometimes it s 4 fights that actually roll into one. Sometimes its ten fights, sometimes its two amazingly hard fights.
Something I did with maze once was actually have multiple things trapped in it. The guy taken out of the fight had to make saves, and fight other trapped critters. It made the spell useful in challenging the party but still gave the trapped player something to do while in there every round.
Uh, he actually put unnecessary restrictions on himself that he didn't have to. I see nothing in it that would deviate from actual play, unless by "actual play" you mean "the GM rewrites the scenario to prevent you from succeeding like you should". Really it's pretty much the AP as written. With rolls and everything. Nothing that would deviate from how the AP would work in practice.Well, except minotaurs. They are immune to maze.
I would have said the Beastmass runs are the epitome of theory crafting and about as far from actual natural play as you could ever get.
Are you talking about this?
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pbrv?Beastmass-A-challenge-to-Master-MinMaxers
No. This:
And sure Wrath, high level campaigns have *more* fights. But even 10-12 Fights is not an issue at these levels for casters. Particularly since some of them are going to be at CR and some are going to be *under* CR. Even ones that are only CR +1 or 2, probably don't necessitate the use of higher level spells. So that leaves us 2-3 CR +3-5 that the caster needs to use their actual high level spells on.
Many people have made that assumption Claxon. My players are optimizers, but then I design for that. When I run AP's, I make sure we follow the design intent there to (15 point buy, 4 players). If we stray outside that design intent then I modify up or down as necessary.
This thread isn't about optimization, it's about addressing the issues that players may bring to high level.
Time stop for instance is an important one to mention.
You can't actually attack anyone during time stop.
Delayed fire balls are ok, but fireballs do bugger all at high level play where nearly everything is resistant or prepped to be resistant to such things.
A Barbarian doing 200 plus damage is awesome, and should be. I take care of them by swarming them with minions of 80 hit points. It's easy to control a single character with creatures that pose small threat to them but might be a threat to others. Interestingly it also changes the CR of encounters very little.
200+ damage will kill an 80 hp minion every attack, but its 120 more than you needed. And there's still 8 of them t go all of them taking shots at you that do some damage but not much.
Barbarian cant reach opponents. Barbarian can't see opponents. Barbarian is hit with calm emotions at metamagic levels to make the DC harder.
All of those are ways to control the impact of high level players tricks so the game maintains it's enjoyment.
The one thing to note here is that single combatant combats are very bad design for high level play. Always have been, even at lower levels.
Optimization is one of the issues that players can bring at high levels. High levels plus optimization mean the problems are further enhanced.
And while you seem to know the response to many of the problems and are dismissing them, many do not. Further, you acting a bit like Schrodinger's GM. As though all those options actually make since to be able to employ all the time. If every fight has 10 mooks just to block the barbarian from killing the BBEG it's going to get old.
At high levels fireballs don't deal fire damage, you've most likely taken levels in something that allow you to change the damage type. Acid is usually good, or electricity.
Barbarians can reach opponents. If a barbarian doesn't have fly and other magic items/abilities to ensure he can always do his thing he's a bad barbarian. Blocked sight can be a problem, but at level 20 darkness wont cut it, and the other options block sight for 90% of creature. Also, only if you use heighten spell does the DC of calm emotions increase.
There is always a counter for everything in this game. But being able to reasonably employee it without pulling it out of your ass is the hard part.
Uh, he actually put unnecessary restrictions on himself that he didn't have to. I see nothing in it that would deviate from actual play, unless by "actual play" you mean "the GM rewrites the scenario to prevent you from succeeding like you should". Really it's pretty much the AP as written. With rolls and everything. Nothing that would deviate from how the AP would work in practice.Well, except minotaurs. They are immune to maze.
I would have said the Beastmass runs are the epitome of theory crafting and about as far from actual natural play as you could ever get.
I would say that is a lot of it right there. AP's are pretty much written so a group of complete beginners can play the game. Every time I have people with even just a little bit of experience in the game, I always have to scale up the encounters. If they are pretty good at optimizing and tactics, I have to scale them up dramatically.
But I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't think it is just complete rocket tag meaning who ever gets initiative wins. But I also rarely see drawn out struggles (unless the GM actively works to create that).
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Anzyr, let me give you age of worms as end game content. It was 3.5 but it works for an example.
Spoilered in case.
After that, they then had to fight their way to theyramid where Kyuss himself was being summoned.
After that they had to beat Kyuss himself.
If the casters hadn't blown high level spells during that one day of constant battle, they would not have succeeded in the campaign fully, and likely died to Kyuss with his increased power.
It was brutal, but hey, they were level 20.
We lost two casters at the end of that. Sorceror and wizard. Plus the monk.
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Claxon, the point of my thread is to give people options to deal with those issues. High level play is not something many have experienced and so this is the combined wisdom of folks to try and mitigate that.
I agree it sounds like schrodingers GM. I'm not saying you use all of those things. They certainly turn up often enough though. What I'm giving is options for GMs to try if they find the game getting destroyed.
The one thing I feel Paizo really needs to address for level is encounter design. The standard model just doesn't seem to work for high levels.
Something else to remember is that high level creatures have been fighting other high level creatures and have survived long enough to meet the party. They are aware of and able to counter many things a group of high level players can throw at them. Players should not be shocked when the tricks fail occasionally.
Note the word occasionally. I firmly believe they should be able to play with their toys and show how damned powerful they really are. Just occasionally it doesn't work as they planned.
The idea is to keep it fun and challenging without wiping the group.
Also, I really appreciate the input so far. I'd love to hear more from other DMs too, and other players and more scenarios etc.
The idea is to keep it fun and challenging without wiping the group.
This is my ultimate point, and what I meant ultimately with rocket tag. It is an incredibly fine balance to be able to challenge a high level party without causing a TPK and without holding back on the creatures end (overbuilding them and then withholding).
The ultimate goal for every combat (for me) is to make it appropriately challenging.
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Well Claxon lets throw some more stuff out there and see what we can get.
I've heard the Simulacra and snow cone wish machine stuff. I've spoken about them before as well but I'm sure other situations pop up.
What are the worst spells that GM's need to be aware of that may blow things up?
Wish is one that comes to mind.
This is a situation where the game world itself needs some balancing factors if you aren't willing to see players going silly with this.
Mind you, there are people who love a world where access to wish lets their players to amazing things. If that's the case, then make sure the world reflects that others have done that before as well. The place itself is miraculous and Wish is a form of currency that builds and destroys nations. Or some other feature.
This spell only becomes an issue when it is meant to be a thing that is rare and difficult, but now you're players are bandying it about willy nilly.
Before getting into high level play as a GM you need to consider how very powerful spells are brought into your game. Here are some thoughts to consider.
- Ensure that the highest level of spells are not freely available to choose. They must be earned or taught, either through quest or divine intervention, or deal with extra planar beings. The research to "create" that power may itself take years or even need quests to get the initial ingredients required to achieve it. While the rule states a cost to getting those spells learned and researched, it doesn't outline what the costs are spent on. That gives a DM leeway to place restrictions on how soon that spell can get into the game, if at all.
- A less restrictive method is to allow your players access as normal, but have limits built into the world. The Game world responds to the actions of the players. Many people believe that's how the game should be, and I'm certainly one of those. My players have used wish, but when it started getting to be a case of "No worries, I've got wish!" I had a bunch of Genies turn up and warn them of the Wish economy currently running throughout the multiverse. The party laughed and killed them.
Next time they used wish the Genies sent a hunter party and appeared the very round the wish was cast. That nearly killed the party. They took a bit more care then. This method means the players can use their powers, but they really do start thinking long and hard about when it should come into play.
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Heya Loren thanks for the input.
Teleport is another great one. In my games it's used a lot by players to get out of trouble. It's the higher level version of running away, and it gets used when they over stretch themselves. So for us, it's never been a real issue.
It does make settings interesting though, especially for certain types of games. For example, how does one expect to secure an evil magic user for trial if they can plane hop, teleport, d-door etc.
Golarion doesn't have anything specific that I know of but other settings do.
Zeitgeist by EN publishing has the best that I've read. A ring of gold will do it. Place on finger or over wrist and it prevents all those effects. Build a thin unbroken ring around a room and that works too. It's a cool way to ensure certain plots and ideas for gaming can still work in a high magic world.
Things I've toyed with include
- null shackles that generate anti magic. (Expensive and a little too blunt for my taste)
- biding gloves that prevent hand moments for somatic components. Combine with mouth gag to require meta magic still and silenced. While that can be done, it makes things more interesting.
- the easiest one is a room with permanent dimensional anchor in place. This one also works for preventing scry and fry. Heck, you can even justify entire palaces or fortresses having that effect. It's beyond the scope of almost anything short of a nation to build, so that's going to be overused.
- another of my favourites act like gravity wells for teleportation. Major cities use gates for safe teleport. They work in direct line. However, they emit an almost magnetic field around them too. Teleport too close to one and you end up inside it. This makes defense easier and allows the regulation of magic travel in a city. Means they can tax folk trying the teleport and sell trick too.
Those are options for homebrewsand though, as Golaroin has none of those that I'm aware of.
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Heya Loren thanks for the input.
Teleport is another great one. In my games it's used a lot by players to get out of trouble. It's the higher level version of running away, and it gets used when they over stretch themselves. So for us, it's never been a real issue.
It does make settings interesting though, especially for certain types of games. For example, how does one expect to secure an evil magic user for trial if they can plane hop, teleport, d-door etc.
Golarion doesn't have anything specific that I know of but other settings do.
huh?
Hallow is ideal for this.
Finally, you can fix a single spell effect to the hallowed site. The spell effect lasts for 1 year and functions throughout the entire site, regardless of the normal duration and area or effect. You may designate whether the effect applies to all creatures, creatures who share your faith or alignment, or creatures who adhere to another faith or alignment. At the end of the year, the chosen effect lapses, but it can be renewed or replaced simply by casting hallow again.Spell effects that may be tied to a hallowed site include aid, bane, bless, cause fear, darkness, daylight, death ward, deeper darkness, detect evil, detect magic, dimensional anchor, discern lies, dispel magic, endure elements, freedom of movement, invisibility purge, protection from energy, remove fear, resist energy, silence, tongues, and zone of truth. Saving throws and spell resistance might apply to these spells' effects. (See the individual spell descriptions for details.)
Alternately Shackles of Durance Vile (Dominate till removed) or Thorned Manacles (Dimensional anchor and damage if anyone tries to take them off.)
Note that the thorned manacles are a little evil in that they get around the ability of high level characters to impersonate eachother by simply not allowing anyone to take them off the target. ever.
It's from the Inner Sea world guide. Make a save - if you fail you are put in a special prison - if you succeed your spell doesn't work.
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For many folks blood money doesn't even pop up. It's a Golarion specific spell out of an AP. It's not core at all.
It's never been used in my games. If it were I'd come up with some way of making it less than pleasant to overuse it. I'm not big on outright banning things, I prefer to allow players to use it but have them really think about the action and repercussions that might have.
And I agree, the con penalty comes from base stats, not buffs. Like the barbarian temp hit points. Once that buff drops, make sure you haven't spent too much con.
I thought the point of this thread was to find ways to deal with powerful caster tricks without resorting to "I'm the GM, so I can change the rules to say it doesn't work."
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Some spells and abilities simply are problematic (like dazing spell, which can turn any damage spell into a save or lose), and so modifying them is the way to handle them if you still want them to be used without them causing enormous problems.
Otherwise, your best bet is a gentlemen's agreement that amounts to "Don't engage in BS behavior and we won't have to worry about it."
My usual rule of thumb is "if something is causing a problem, be sure it's actually being run by RAW;* if an ability actually IS being run correctly and still causing a problem, modify it so that it stops causing a problem."
(One easy fix to the simulacrum snow-cone wish machine - a ruling that simulacrums can't ignore expensive material components for their SLAs. Since simulacrums are fakes, they need the expensive components to actually cast their spells. (Much like limited wish requires the components of any expensive spells you duplicate.) So you've got your perfectly loyal fake efreeti, but it still costs 25,000 gold a pop to grant your wishes. (There's other tweaks I'd make to simulacrum, because it's a spell I want in the game, but not in its current, insanely abusable, form.)
* Never forget to check the Magic chapter of the Core Rulebook for the rules governing the various subtypes of spells. Most of the drawbacks/limitations of a spell subtype (like charm and scrying) aren't described in the actual spell descriptions because they're all in the Magic chapter.
For example, you arguably can foil teleportation just through clever furniture arrangements - teleportation requires empty spaces to arrive in.
(Though it's also worth noting that by RAW, teleporting into mid-air is illegal! That's a rule I ignore in my own game because I want mid-air teleportation to be a valid tactic, but yeah.)
I don't have a lot of experience at the really high levels but even in the 9-15 range the wheels start coming off.
Teleport: This one drives many GMs crazy just for the ability to avoid hazards. Dimension Door does this as well, but Teleport adds the ability to avoid 900 miles of travel time.
I find this one to be no problem at all. If I am designing an adventure for levels 9+ I simply assume they will do this when convenient. Never had a problem with scry & fry either, we just assumed that people who can cast 5th level spells should be able to assassinate people who can't and got on with the game.
Wind Walk: The next spell that drives GMs crazy after they ban Teleport. What do you mean you can go 60mph over unexplored territory and avoid most fights without trying? Transport via Plants would go here if it came up more often as well.
Mind Blank: This really messes up plots. When the players get tired of divination only ever working against them or being mind controlled they find a way to get this. Never seen it in play for more than a couple of sessions, but it is stupid hard to write plot around.
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Anzyr, let me give you age of worms as end game content. It was 3.5 but it works for an example.
Spoilered in case.
** spoiler omitted **
3.5 is a different animal. Spellcasters have unparalleled endurance in it. It's the home of Reserve feats and the original Persistent spell for 24/7 buffs. Not to mention plenty of ways to mitigate or erase the metamagic cost of doing so.
Off the top of my head, a Persistent Born of Three Thunders Lightning Ring while immune to daze (additional metamagic to taste) should be sufficient to easily deal with the mostly trash encounters that make up Dawn of the New Age (the final chapter of Age of Worms). I mean come on a group of 12 Kyuss Knights is only CR 13.
The Unlife Vortex is nothing but a bunch of super weak creatures that have made into ghosts. Vulras is a joke being a multiclassed Rogue/Ranger. Lashonna run by a GM who rewrites her spell selection could be terrifying, but is the first encounter that is something of a challenge. The Blessed Angels are weak creatures with a few class levels, nothing worth mentioning.
Hermiss is a rogue/assassin, so nothing to fear there. Maralee would be scary if she wasn't just a big dumb fighter. Without access to flying she just kind has to stand there and die though she is immune to Electricity, so she'll only take the sonic damage. Kyuss himself is surprisingly easy thanks to the interactions Hand of Vecna/Sphere of Annihilation have on him. Not to mention destroying the Unlife Vortex gives you a whole two turns to just completely faceroll him.
And honestly, if you picked the right PRCs, you can probably just Shapechange into a combat form and rip most of the encounters limb from limb. Or even just the right buff spells.
Sorry for the delay in response, but I wanted to have my 3.5 books and Dungeon 135 on hand for it.
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Anzyr, knowing what's coming is always easier to deal with. However, my example was used to show the intensity of high level play. Take that encounter set and roll it into Pathfinder. Plus all the random encounters, plus keeping the citizens alive, plus not losing the gear you worked hard for (Hand of vecna is something many of those guys would be looking to get their hands on).
The challenge wasn't to keep yourself alive, it was to keep everyone alive.
That's another easy way to challenge high level players. It's no longer just about them, it's about everyone else around them who doesn't have the awesome power they have. This one's a bit harder to pull off when you have evil characters in the party so other motivations might be necessary.
Protecting a number of sites against incursion or destruction is another way to spread the party thin.
The idea is to know what the party is capable of and allow it to work, but still have situations where it won't.
Finally, custom magic items (which I think the one you mentioned above is, could be wrong), completely fall under DM discretion. My advice to any DM running custom items is to seriously consider the ramifications of allowing them before letting them pass. If you're not confident in designing challenging encounters with that in play, don't let it pass.
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Zhangar - I think many issues from things like snow cone wish machine etc arise from the fact the wording allows multiple interpretations. How accurate does the sculpture need to be? Must it be specific to the thing you're creating? If you want wishes, must it be a specific genie you craft or just something vaguely genie like? What SU abilities or SL abilities does it actually get within the limitations of the game?
When it comes to DM's having to make calls on those, I always urge to read around different threads on the topic to make sure it works how the players think, or to allow them to understand higher level implications.
Gentleman's agreement is always the best option to be honest. If that isn't an option at the table though, or if people like the challenge of working with that type of power, then coming up with a plan is important.
I remember someone trying to create a simulacra of the Tarrasque in a thread about a year back. I suggested that it actually could be one of the ways the real tarrasque is summoned. Since no one knows how it comes around or why, this was a great opportunity for the DM to show the players one of the ways it does come about. It would most likely remain a mystery to the rest of the world too, since they wouldn't survive the experience at the level they were trying this.
Anzyr, knowing what's coming is always easier to deal with. However, my example was used to show the intensity of high level play. Take that encounter set and roll it into Pathfinder. Plus all the random encounters, plus keeping the citizens alive, plus not losing the gear you worked hard for (Hand of vecna is something many of those guys would be looking to get their hands on).
The challenge wasn't to keep yourself alive, it was to keep everyone alive.
That's another easy way to challenge high level players. It's no longer just about them, it's about everyone else around them who doesn't have the awesome power they have. This one's a bit harder to pull off when you have evil characters in the party so other motivations might be necessary.
Protecting a number of sites against incursion or destruction is another way to spread the party thin.
The idea is to know what the party is capable of and allow it to work, but still have situations where it won't.
Finally, custom magic items (which I think the one you mentioned above is, could be wrong), completely fall under DM discretion. My advice to any DM running custom items is to seriously consider the ramifications of allowing them before letting them pass. If you're not confident in designing challenging encounters with that in play, don't let it pass.
Lightning Ring is a spell (the metamagic feats should have given that away), that deals 10d6 to enemies around and lets you fire two bolts for 5d6 each. With Persistent up it's a continuous source of damage and there's plenty of room to add more metamagic to it. Born of Three Thunders is mostly a "Why not?" since if you are immune to dazing there is no reason not to add it. You'll note my breakdown didn't even bother trying to "Fight Despair" and instead went straight for the Unlife Vortex and then after that straight to curb stomping of Kyuss (Lashonna and co. are en route). Keeping the items safe is pretty easy when you move fast and have storage.
The goal is killing Kyuss and bring a stop to the Age of Worms. The safety of the citizen is a minor sidequest at best. Practical Heroism 101 dictates that one should stop the major calamity before worrying about minor ones.
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Greg, Good spells to point out. The game changes at key points and DM's need to be aware of it and design appropriately.
If you want a party to actually walk those distances, you need to have a good reason for it. Make it a search rather than just fixed location.
Having places that the players don't know about, or are hidden from prying etc means they can't just use those options. Don't overdo it though, that becomes tedious.
The best option is to just understand its there and plan for it.
I remember ethereal jaunting once through a DM's game and it caught him completely off guard. It would have ruined his planning completely so we just agreed to drop out for that session and walk through his plans.
After that we sat down and planned some random encounters for the ethereal plane. It meant we could still do the jaunt, but had to weigh the risk of running into something more dangerous on that plane that what we'd encounter on the material plane. It was a good compromise to be honest.
Etherealness does not stop Spiritual Weapon despite it being a 9th level spell. One GM found that out the hard way and something we were supposed to run from ended up running from us. Certain tactics that are peculiar to a character can have oversized impact when you least expect it. Rolling with it when it happens is one of the challenges of running games.
Fabricate can throw people for a loop the first time they see it hit play. It can wreck the economy, and the economy is really hard to fix as it amounts to GM fiat.
Item Crafting feats in general require a delicate balance of downtime and goodwill to use at all. If the GM plans for the PCs to be crafting for long stretches of time and works it into the plot it can be awesome, but if not it can cause problems.
Speaking of problem feats, Leadership can totally wreck a campaign like no other. Would you like another character? At the cost of one feat you too can have another character... It gets banned for a reason.
Commune. Be prepared to roleplay the divine caster's deity as a regular recurring NPC from this point forward.
Limited Wish. Who are you calling a prepared caster? This spell is every condition removal spell on demand among other things.
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Commune can trash an entire game session. I've had a player using commune to prepare for things and it took the better part of an hour to just answer his stuff in a suitable way.
As a resource for a high level caster its awesome, and should get some use. As a game slowing mechanic it is right up there with the worst of them.
Something I've discussed before but never put into play is the idea that if you can do it so can your enemies.
It's like the old cold war idea of escalating threat to minimise the chance of actual war. You commune with your god and find out what the pans are. The baddies commune with their god and work out you've discovered them so they change the plan. It works as a total mitigation of power as a tool to just plot solve. Instead you now have to be clever in finding ways around the other guys ability to discover what you're doing. Think code breaking movies or spy movies where everything is suspect and could actually be false information. It could be awesome but would take some work on the DM's part.
Leadership is a shocker. However if you enforce the gear requirements coming from the players wealth per level itself, it can mitigate its impact in terms of power.
The biggest problem I find with it is the time it consumes at the table. We run a game where regularly only three players turn up. We don't have a class capable of divine magic for healing options etc. As a consequence my fighter was allowed to take a cleric co hort and it worked out well. That's only because there were three of us though
Put in 5 players each with a co-hort, then you have an issue in time.
On top of that, there's the issue of who is in charge of the co-hort? It's debatable, and debate can cause issue. Do you roleplay it as a separate character or does it just become an extendable tool of the main PC? Do you have to track its loyalty to you? Are there things that will make the co-hort leave or betray you if you start acting differentl to when they joined you? These can make cool plot twists but I think they are too easily abused from one side or the other. Keeping it balanced quite literally comes down to an agreement between GM and player, and the above questions need to be considered by both before taking that feat on board.
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Just thought of something else with commune as well.
At my tables, we expect our players to play to both class and alignment. They build their personality around that.
By the time a cleric has reached the level of personally communicating with their god, they need to be demonstrating that devotion regularly in game with good roleplay and/or general statements of things they are doing to promote their gods faith in the world. If that isn't happening, myself and the other DM will send a small warning in not granting a level of spells one day, or maybe refusing to answer a commune, or not allowing you to summon creatures etc.
It's significant enough to impact the game, but not so crippling as to destroy a players fun. We embrace it, and we discuss it as a group before it goes into effect. If the majority of the table don't see the cleric or paladin or whatever divine class it is as needing the reprimand, then the DM won't put it in play. It has caused some awesome roleplay moments for us though.
This is very much a group consensus though.
I would encourage all DM's, particularly at high level to consider the gods of their world and what they expect of their followers and come up with agreements with their players to follow that stuff as often as possible in game. It doesn't need to be onerous, just something as simple as asking the player what their plans are in town etc, and giving them a chance to show their devotion.
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Lightning Ring is a spell (the metamagic feats should have given that away), that deals 10d6 to enemies around and lets you fire two bolts for 5d6 each. With Persistent up it's a continuous source of damage and there's plenty of room to add more metamagic to it. Born of Three Thunders is mostly a "Why not?" since if you are immune to dazing there is no reason not to add it. You'll note my breakdown didn't even bother trying to "Fight Despair" and instead went straight for the Unlife Vortex and then after that straight to curb stomping of Kyuss (Lashonna and co. are en route). Keeping the items safe is pretty easy when you move fast and have storage.
The goal is killing Kyuss and bring a stop to the Age of Worms. The safety of the citizen is a minor sidequest at best. Practical Heroism 101 dictates that one should stop the major calamity before worrying about minor ones
The custom item is something that needs to be addressed.
One of two options there that I can think of, I'm sure there are others
1)If you've got the AP as written and know that item will make the end game pointless then don't allow it. Maybe part of it, but not the whole thing. Balance it and discuss with the player why.
2) Change the encounters to cope with it. Kyuss' minions are well aware of the parties capabilities by this stage and would be easily able to prepare a counter to such a thing, or at least buff to prevent the majority of it's effects. They would even go so far as to order minions to try and destroy it or take it if possible. This one may work well and is more along the lines of what I'd do. My games evolve to run with the actions of the players, rather than stay in a vacuum around the players actions. I know this upsets certain people, as they feel it is actively going out of the way t foil the PCs. However, in all honesty, that is exactly what the big bads are trying to do at that stage, foil the PC's.
Again both of those need to be used with care and agreement.
As for your final point, that is 100% valid Anzyr. If you know what is going on and know that this is the exact moment of the summoning and exactly what the vortex is then that is what you'd do. Some parties probably did exactly that, mine certainly didn't care about the citizens too much since they were an evil party. Since that was outside the original intent of the AP's design I made sure to have other reasons why they went through town first (Powerful magic items on certain NPCs that would aid them significantly in the fights ahead).
Maybe that's where that custom ring you mentioned above could have been placed in fact! Incorporate both things at once to get the gist of the game and allow what the players created.
Lightning Ring is a spell (the metamagic feats should have given that away), that deals 10d6 to enemies around and lets you fire two bolts for 5d6 each. With Persistent up it's a continuous source of damage and there's plenty of room to add more metamagic to it. Born of Three Thunders is mostly a "Why not?" since if you are immune to dazing there is no reason not to add it. You'll note my breakdown didn't even bother trying to "Fight Despair" and instead went straight for the Unlife Vortex and then after that straight to curb stomping of Kyuss (Lashonna and co. are en route). Keeping the items safe is pretty easy when you move fast and have storage.
The goal is killing Kyuss and bring a stop to the Age of Worms. The safety of the citizen is a minor sidequest at best. Practical Heroism 101 dictates that one should stop the major calamity before worrying about minor ones
The custom item is something that needs to be addressed.
One of two options there that I can think of, I'm sure there are others
1)If you've got the AP as written and know that item will make the end game pointless then don't allow it. Maybe part of it, but not the whole thing. Balance it and discuss with the player why.
Uh, what is this Custom Item you keep talking about? There's a severe disconnect here because nothing involves custom items here. Lightning Ring is a spell. Not an item. It's just one of many different spells you can persist to get free damage sustainable damage every round. My issue has been spellcaster endurance in 3.5.
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Yeah, that is a disconnect, sorry Anzyr.
Edit- Just read the spell.
So, you now do consistent damage to anything standing next to you (not just enemies). You can cast lightning bolts at things too.
So as long as you don't go into town ever you should be fine. However going into town causes everyone to flee in panic because you kill them if you go within 5 feet.
Meh, I'm not arguing it.
I want the example to stand as something high level play looks like. It is easy to adjust that AP to pathfinder, which did actually mitigate many of the abuses of 3.5. Since this thread is about high level play in Pathfinder, rather than edition stuff.
The only three APs that I've had that go to level 20 were the ones in the Dungeon mags. The end game for Cauldron was pretty boring, the next two were awesome though. I DMd age of worms, into the Beta test for Pathfinder. We played The pirate one using Beta and then core release.
I homebrewed one using Core release.
I'm now playing in Second Darkness and the DM is pushing that to level 17.
I ran the Genie AP in pathfinder and pushed that into level 17.
The Dungeon AP's were good high level game play. They've gotten better at designing AP's, though now they stop at level 15 or so. I believe that's less about high level than it is about getting the AP into a six issue format for bi annual AP's. Getting someone to level 20 in six issues is too difficult I believe James Jacobs said.
On a different note, how might you design a high level situation that challenges a group Anzyr?
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oh, you thought you killed the wizard/bbeg?
IT WAS A DOOMBOT
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With APs there is also the widening competency gap. You want an AP that will challenge people, but is winable. Past a certain point however, you just can't really write that without tailoring it to the specific party. Things that one party can handle, will wipe another, and vice versa.
Yep, at some point the DM needs to step in and modify the game to match the party. I've always been in that camp. Either stepping it up or modding it down as necessary.
Also remember that the AP's are written for 4 players at 15 points not min maxed. If you stray from that assumption at all then things can go hay wire pretty fast.
I remember James Jacobs saying once that players who were insistent on power gaming their way through the AP's should really be trying it on Hard Mode to better suit their skills. He suggested 10 point buy, only one stat less than 10 before racial mods.
That would certainly make it more difficult to trounce things. Although at higher levels, initial stats aren't as impacting as they are at the beginning. Still, it will drop some of the more ridiculous saves into something reasonable.
And for that player who decides to drop one stat right into the low levels in order to get say, intelligence, up high. Well make saure that you ask to play to that stat and target it as a weakness occasionally.
Choice and actions you make in the game should come with consequences. DM's can create those as needed and feel creative in their ways of applying it.
Others may not agree with that last one. It certainly seems to be a point of contention on the boards.