Campaigns beyond level 20. I ran the numbers.

[Avatar86]

So, I have been working on a mythic campaign where I intend for my players to end up at 20th level with all 10 mythic tiers achieved. My problem with this is that I have yet to find any good sources on how to level a party beyond 20. Paizo has stated in the Core Rulebook that you should double the XP required to get to the last level. The problem with this, though, is that if you want to take characters to level 30, they need 1,075,200,000 XP to go from level 29 to 30. Mthic adventures states that level 29 encounters award 6,553,000 XP in total (1,638,400 per person). This would mean, though, that to get to level 30 your party would need to fight 657 average difficulty encounters.

Nope. Not doing it.

So, I decided to see if I could come up with a more reasonable solution. I think I have. Behold.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fuqUzup22KoY0mYXoVF_UQpZh5KyUN3cXgW G9ALDiWo/edit?usp=sharing

What I wound up doing was basing the XP needed to get to the next level beyond 20 off of how many encounters the average party of 4 would need, at medium XP progression, to achieve the next level while still going from level 2 to 20. I actually found that when encountering nothing but average difficulty encounters it almost always took about 20 encounters to level. So, I just kept assuming the same thing for levels 21-30 and ended up with level 30 being achieved with a grand total of 114,704,000 XP.

The spreadsheet actually goes into more detail than that, and even has a comparison of my method vs the method using Paizo's numbers. Check it out, let me know what you think.

[Asmodeus' Advocate]

I, rather than bothering with xp, would just level up the players when the story calls for it.

[Avatar86]

Lmao, in the end that's what I actually decided to do. The benefits of tying PC development to story events are too many to pass up on. I simply posted this here for anyone that was interested

[Lathiira]

Not to mention that mythic tiers are driven by narrative means, i.e. the GM says that event was your moment of ascenscion, this one's a mythic trial, so that one is too, not by xp.

[Brother Fen]

The game is designed to stop at level 20.

Close thread.

[Kenny Garg]

Level 20 is what you can go to. Thats it.

[SorrySleeping]

Brother Fen wrote:

The game is designed to stop at level 20.

Close thread.

This game is designed to be changed at every table.

Delete post.

[Klorox]

maybe, but it does not give any tools to go beyond level 20...so a DM who want to design his game to do so is SOL, up dreck creek without a paddle.

[Shiroi]

Nah, there's a small paddle. There's a Homebrew/3pp epic book I remember. It basically suggested a number of ways to exceed 20 with different intents. It had some extra abilities for core classes, suggested following the table advancement without new features, or that you could easily hard cap classes at 20 and should multiclass after that.

Basically epic levels is an option, not the most balanced but possible, and there are resources out there to help. That includes the forums, despite someone being unnecessarily unpleasant about it once in a while.

[SorrySleeping]

Klorox wrote:

maybe, but it does not give any tools to go beyond level 20...so a DM who want to design his game to do so is SOL, up dreck creek without a paddle.

The core rules pretty well spell out how saves, hit die, BAB, and many other things works. 3.5 had epic rules which are easily convertible. D20pfsrd has a quick guide at the bottom of the Character Advancement rules, which while not paizo material, does basically spell out what is needed.

[Claxon]

It's important to note that level 30 and level 20 with 10 mythic tiers are two completely different things.

Mythic tiers are awarded as plot reward, and have nothing to do with leveling up. You can be level 1 with 10 mythic tiers, nothing forbids it, except that it doesn't make a lot of sense.

So, OP your calculations are wrong. If you want 20th level characters with Mythic tiers you stop needing XP when the characters get to level 20. And either along the way you grant mythic tiers or start granting them en lieu of other character advancement.

[Shiroi]

Claxon wrote:

I think the impression is that they're reaching for level 30 mythic 10.

[Mysterious Stranger]

The big problem is the game does not scale very well at the upper levels. By the time you reach 20th level there are very few decent challenges. When you add in mythic tiers thing get even worse. Going beyond that is more trouble than it is worth.

There was an old joke in 1st edition AD&D it went something like this. GM: you enter a room filled with Orcuss. Player: you mean a room filled with Orcs? GM: No a room filled with Orcuss.

[Avatar86]

Claxon wrote:

It's important to note that level 30 and level 20 with 10 mythic tiers are two completely different things.

No, I am aware of that fact. It's why I decided to go with an XP-free, plot driven progression instead. But my interest in taking the game beyond level 20 with mythic tiers got me thinking about how one would do it in a non-mythic campaign. I probably should have clarified that at the start, but here it is.

I didn't like how Paizo had laid out the groundwork and thought that achieving level 30 with 2.1 billion total XP and over 650 average difficulty encounters just to get from 29 to 30 was absurd. Hence, I whipped this up in my downtime at work. I think it's a much more reasonable epic campaign progression for anyone that would ever want to do it this way.

[blahpers]

Klorox wrote:

maybe, but it does not give any tools to go beyond level 20...so a DM who want to design his game to do so is SOL, up dreck creek without a paddle.

Not true. The CRB devotes valuable text space to suggest such tools. They aren't as refined as the precision tools used for normal play, but they are tools nonetheless.