Quote from: S'mon;1074983Has anyone here played dnd or similar extensively with the PCs at max level? What was it like?

Once only, in a relatively long lived 6year  campaign from about '78 to '84. I didn't actually pass 20th myself, most of us didn't, I think I topped out around 16th,  but one of the magic users reached 21st (22nd briefly until an unfortunate level drain).*

What was it like? well it certainly wasn't epic/immortal mano a mano with ever bigger and badder big-bads. By the end we had long since moved on to a quasi domain game, forging alliances and raising mercenary armies, battling our foes through proxies. In a way we had come full circle, we came to rpgs as wargamers, spent years slogging it out as schmoes, and  ended up fighting a higher level wargame campaign. Fantastic game, at all stages and for a variety of reasons.

*EDIT: I say unfortunate, but to be honest none of us cared about levels at that point, it was all just about gold, power and influence.

Quote from: VincentTakeda;1075214This is a source of frustration with me at some of my more recent gaming tables, with campaigns that fall apart once the party achieves competence, but I do have a pair of characters in palladium's heroes unlimited that 'capped out' at level 15 and continued on in active play.  They are the party's engineer/operator and medic, so good support for other more battle minded team members.

I suspect that it's due to the conceits of "standard fantasy". For me - when things get to "competency" level, I switch to a "Supers" style of play. Where the PC's are now the mover's and shakers of the world. I suspect a lot of GM's have a hard time feeding that compentency/power-curve and what it actually means in their fantasy setting.

Especially when/if the PC's are so powerful they can drastically affect the status-quo. My standing rule is: YES! let them! But when GM's have a hard time concepting and running such games AND the mechanics of the system gets in the way, it reinforces how onerous the task can be. I'm no different, despite my own expectations and experience, high-level play needs good mechanics to help smooth things along. It's one of the reasons that I've walked away from modern-D&D, because I *want* to let me players rise from humble-beginning to God-Mode and drink deeply to their satisfaction.

Quote from: VincentTakeda;1075214Caveat though is that first level characters in a supers game can often be on par with very high level characters in other systems right out of the gate, and their level of power doesnt grow as much as a result of the level gain, so the high levels and low levels play very similar.  One of the reasons I prefer supers gaming is I like running powerful characters and agonize over the slog through the rat killing stage of most tabletop games.  I've been playing too long to enjoy the rat killing phase.  With campaigns falling apart at the drop of a hat, its good to hit the powerband early.

Absolutely! So threading that needle requires a system that lets you, ideally, get that low-mid-tier kind of playing but can scale seamlessly to high-powered without anyone missing a beat. There are only a handful of systems out there that are GM-friendly that can do this well.

Quote from: tenbones;1075708I suspect that it's due to the conceits of "standard fantasy". For me - when things get to "competency" level, I switch to a "Supers" style of play. Where the PC's are now the mover's and shakers of the world. I suspect a lot of GM's have a hard time feeding that compentency/power-curve and what it actually means in their fantasy setting.

Especially when/if the PC's are so powerful they can drastically affect the status-quo. My standing rule is: YES! let them! But when GM's have a hard time concepting and running such games AND the mechanics of the system gets in the way, it reinforces how onerous the task can be. I'm no different, despite my own expectations and experience, high-level play needs good mechanics to help smooth things along. It's one of the reasons that I've walked away from modern-D&D, because I *want* to let me players rise from humble-beginning to God-Mode and drink deeply to their satisfaction.



Absolutely! So threading that needle requires a system that lets you, ideally, get that low-mid-tier kind of playing but can scale seamlessly to high-powered without anyone missing a beat. There are only a handful of systems out there that are GM-friendly that can do this well.

Greetings!

Indeed, Tenbones! LET THEM COME!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon;1075232Rise of the Runelords stuff converts over very scary to 5e (or is statted scary in eg Tome of Beasts or Primeval Thule, for the Cthuloid stuff). But even with core monsters, a squad of giants is a big threat. Recently my son's BBn-19 (now 20) flying dragonborn Shieldbiter attacked 3 fire giants he saw attacking a fortress, thinking his AC 24, 260+ hp and Rage damage resistance would keep him safe. One round of ass-thumping later and he was flying away with tail between his legs.

Greetings!

S'mon, Primeval Thule sounds like an pretty awesome campaign you have going there! What do you like about Primeval Thule as a DM? How well do you think Primeval Thule aids you in preparing for a high level campaign with the player characters?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1080786S'mon, Primeval Thule sounds like an pretty awesome campaign you have going there! What do you like about Primeval Thule as a DM? How well do you think Primeval Thule aids you in preparing for a high level campaign with the player characters?

Thule is very much based on 1930s+ 'Weird Tales' lurid pulp swords & sorcery. It does a lot of clever stuff like the Heroic Narratives grounding the PCs in the world. I've cautioned the players not to expect balanced fights - or 'raise dead' - and run away a lot! I like how it makes regular 5e D&D work so well with a completely different feel from 'standard fantasy', just by altering GM-side stuff - no orcs/goblins/hobgoblins/ogres, no easy access to magic items or much in the way of friendly spellcasters, lots of moral ambiguity - currently the 'good' PCs in my Tuesday game are working for a moneylender to bring him a debtor so she can be messily tortured to death; while she herself is a pretty ruthless but charming slaver.

My Thule games are low level but Thule has a lot of Cthulu mythos monster stats I can use in my high level Runelords game - Moon Beasts, Night Gaunts, Byakhee, Shoggoths, that sort of thing.