srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (10/30/84)
> Sigh. See <187@tilt.FUN>. It is NOT impossible to properly balance > a 20th+ level campaign. I know. I've played in several. The trick is > to do a good job of balancing the power. If you make the monsters/NPC's > intelligent and powerful, making the game challenging is no problem at > all, believe me... > Of course, one of the things you have to do is to be willing to hype > the AD&D monsters, realizing that the AD&D monsters aren't geared for > 20th level play... Game balance consists of more than taking 4th level monsters, multiplying their hit points by a factor of 10, giving them rings of wizardry and calling the result 20th level. If you have a 20th level character with 100 hit points and 95% resistance to magic, he SHOULD be damn near unbeatable. You should have a RANGE of power in your campaign. The ideal situation (for me) is to have PCs that are about halfway between the weakest entities and the most powerful. In fact, your campaign sounds to me like a typical high level campaign that has gotten out of hand. You are taking all the typical monsters and "hyping" them up. If you are going to do that, why not cut everyone back to fourth level and unhype the monsters? The result would be the same (there would be the same balance between PCs and NPCs). > Likewise, if a vampire has a +5 cloak in its hoard, let it wear the darn > thing. I sure would, if I were the vampire. I hate dying. > ... > Fourth, let your NPC's do anything the PC's can do -- at least. The only DMs that are running campaigns that don't do this are in fourth grade. Besides, this is beside the point (as far as high-level/low-level goes). In my low-level games, the NPCs act intelligently (at least the ones whose actions can be understood in human terms). > Third, hype your gods... Oh, this is a pet peeve of mine. If you play against Ghods in your campaign then you are farther gone than I thought...long down the road of Munchkinism. The difference between a Ghod and a PC is like the difference between the 2-d dwellers and the 3-d dwellers in Flatland. How can a PC battle a Ghod? Ghods shouldn't just be another monster, for God's sake! > Sure, trashing a city is easy, but it's > boring, and it can lead to 20 NPC's out for blood -- yours. Exactly. At some level, having ultimate power becomes boring, until the DM throws another pasted-together ultra-powerful monster against you. > High-level D&D, if done well, is more challenging than low-level D&D for > the following reasons. First, each PC has more options open to him > Second, usually, you get less and less sure about the capabilities of the > thing that you're going to run up against. > Third, things happen faster. One, interesting options arise from role-playing, not from character abilities. I don't think it is particularly more fun to choose between 10 spells than between 3. In fact, it is probably more fun to try and figure out how to use a small set of spells to best advantage, since you are less likely to have a ready made cure available. Two, the capabilities of what you run up against are the fiat of the DM, and they are no more unpredictable at high-level than at low-level. In fact, they are probably more predictable at high-level, since you can be fairly certain that they are going to be tough. Of course if you run a low-level campaign straight out of the Monster Manual you'll know what you are going to run up against. But that's the fault of the DM for being uncreative, not an inherent fault in low-level games. And once again I must insist that it is more fun to discover a role characteristic of a monster than to discover what kind of blast-em magic item it has. Third, so what? Things also end faster. It works out to the same thing. > One last comment: the problem with high-level D&D isn't the fact that > it's high level, it's the fact that most people can't handle high-level > D&D well. Many DM's aren't creative enough... Agreed, this is a general problem. > It's easy to balance > the power of a 4th-level campaign, just look in your handy-dandy > Monster Manual... It's easy to balance a 20th-level campaign, just look in your handy-dandy G,DG&H. And then throw in a staff of wizardry. > Also, most players aren't used to handling that much > power. They either do stupid things and run wild (leading to death in > a well-run campaign) or they don't learn how to work well as a team > (leading to death in a well-run campaign). The most successful groups > I've ever played in were marked not so much by raw power but by > teamwork. That's one of the misleading things about a high-level campaign. You get a character up to 30th level and think "hey, I'm hot shit now!" So you go out and trash a town and the DM turns around and clobbers you with Wizard X, a 40th level who just happened to be around. You OUGHT to be able to get away with running wild when you are that powerful! Again, teamwork is independent of level. In fact, it is probably more necessary in a low-level game where individual characters have fewer escape routes and less in the way of resurrection resources. All in all, I don't think you've presented much of an argument for high-level campaigns. What you've argued for is a set-em-up/knock-em-down campaign, where every week you can be assured that the DM has thought up some new monster for you to try and take. That's a fun kind of gaming...but it isn't the best kind. Scott R. Turner UCLA Computer Science Department 3531 Boelter Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90024 ARPA: srt@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA UUCP: ...!{cepu,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!srt
jeff@alberta.UUCP (C. J. Sampson) (11/04/84)
> That's one of the misleading things about a high-level campaign. You get a > character up to 30th level and think "hey, I'm hot shit now!" So you go out > and trash a town and the DM turns around and clobbers you with Wizard X, a > 40th level who just happened to be around. You OUGHT to be able to get away > with running wild when you are that powerful! No you _s_h_o_u_l_d_n'_t be able to run wild like that. Anybody who goes out and does somthing as stupid as trashing a town deserves to be knocked off. The player/character is dumb enough as it is. I'm not saying that the PC has to be killed, but he should be punished hard enough to make sure that he doesn't do it again. Also, you don't have to use a 40th level wizard, a milita of fifty or sixty men would probably do as well, and be far more realistic.
chenr@tilt.FUN (The 1200 baud hacker) (11/04/84)
This is meant as (hopefully) a clarifying article on what I consider to be a valid, well-run, high-level D&D campaign and why they can be fun. A valid high-level campaign is one in which play-balancing occurs beyond the point that many people would consider "retirement level" and in which it is possible, although not necessary, to reach those levels in a reasonable amount of time. Thus, a PC is no longer required to retire into NPChood upon reaching a certain level of power. The result is a campaign in which power progression can take place at a variety of paces, depending on the willingness of the party to undertake high-(some would say suicidal)-risk, high-reward adventures, and in which players can retire their characters at any level. Play-balancing at the higher levels often takes the form of unusual, or hyped monsters, high-powered NPCs/NPC groups, or getting the PC's involved in more non-violent (political) matters. Usually it ends being a combination of all three. I find playing at the higher levels of such a campaign (once I get there) appealing due to the facts that first, it is easier to get involved in politics (by say, establishing a city). Second, when adventuring, teamwork becomes very criticle. Split-second timing often decides a battle. Third, due to the fact that the PC is more powerful, it becomes easier to do some serious role-playing. An example of this is the hobbit (not my character, by the way) who became Hobbit King and decided he didn't want people stomping on hobbits anymore. He started up Hobbit Scholarships to fund promising adventuresome hobbits, passed out a few +5 arrows to each hobbit village, and did a variety of other things which made hobbits a force to be reckoned with. Being a hobbit, he also liked eating and throwing feasts so he built the most "hobbit-like" hobbit-hole/feasthall you've ever seen and hired a 20th level magician to do nothing but research cooking spells. My highest-level character was a bit different. He was an elf who was never really into adventuring, anyway, so after he he became very powerful and had tried his hand at a variety of things, he decided to retire to a plane for 1000 years or so and develop his latent physical and psionic abilities and do general research into the fundamental aspects of psionic power (he probably should have been a monk). Eventually, he accumlated a group of followers and fellow-researchers and they ended up forming the core of a Psionics Guild. I guess the moral of the story is that a high level D&D campaign doesn't exclude the possibilities of playing a low-level campaign in the same world. I just like playing high-level characters that I've worked up because I think there's just as much challenge and more opportunity. -- "When are we leaving?" "REAL SOON !!!" Ray Chen princeton!tilt!chenr