Accelerated characters. [Archive] - Wizards Community

Accelerated characters. [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
KyoMamoru
01-05-08, 02:33 AM The long short of it is, the players in my group are pretty horrible at staying alive, and have perhaps the most unlucky saves in the universe. That being said, despite playing for about six months now [with gracious exp hand outs for merely surviving] they've never finished a campaign alive enough to ever reach levels higher than seven.

As of late, they've decided that they want to experience the higher end of the spectrum, and want to start a new campaign/characters with the following:

Starting Gold: 250,000 gp.
Starting Level 15.
Restrictions: None.

With that said, I'm more or less looking for what a level 15 character is normally capable of. I've looked at the pre-rolled Npcs in the book for an idea, but that's nothing compared to what occurs when players actually meticulously plot and plan their characters out. So, I was curious if anyone could provide me with the 'base line' gear that a level 15 should have, etc. [Or post your level 15s.]

Information such as main stat bonuses, ac, to hit, weapon damage, etc would be handy. =D
happy_fuzzy
01-05-08, 09:36 PM I'll get back to this, but could you post whether you are rolling die for ability scores or is it pointbuy? (and how many points), and are your players ok at optimizing? Because an optimized party has a much baseline for ac, to hit, dmg, etc. than an rp group (EWP scythe-using necromancer I'm looking at you ^^), that would make it a lot easier to set guidelines.
KyoMamoru
01-05-08, 10:02 PM Point buy, except it's the lazy man's system that one of the players all but demanded. All the characters start at 10 in all skills, with 15 points to distribute. There are no increasing penalties in order to move the points higher.

[Also, another reason that we tend to have failed campaigns is due to my DM dice rolling skills. Evidently, the idea of having 3 20's in a row for a kill is not a good idea. So, I kinda auto-killed the entire party in one secession. We no longer use this roll.]

>>
DrMorganes
01-06-08, 02:20 PM That's a 37 point buy. Why not just call it that? You can still only buy up to an 18 before racial adjustments.
wizarddog
01-06-08, 05:13 PM [Also, another reason that we tend to have failed campaigns is due to my DM dice rolling skills. Evidently, the idea of having 3 20's in a row for a kill is not a good idea. So, I kinda auto-killed the entire party in one secession. We no longer use this roll.]

>>

Maybe you need to change up on how you challenge the PC's. Combat may not be their forte. And it would be very frustrating to me if dice rolls ultimately determined my characters fate rather than smart tactics and roleplay (maybe can I talk my way out of a fight). ;)
Kouk
01-06-08, 07:07 PM I also get the impression that your campaigns are a bit too lethal if nobody makes it past 7...

Perhaps you could roll behind a screen to fudge occasionally in their favor to prevent automatic TPKs?

Something that seems like will be in 4th edition is that level 1 characters will start with a larger number of hit points, like perhaps 20 or 30, then they gain normal hit points by HD each level up. That alone could be enough to keep your players alive longer (though also give enemies these extra HP for first level). Or just max hit points for a few levels.

On the other hand, if they are all crazy and don't try tactics at all then they may just be getting what they deserve.

Anyway, if you start straight with everyone at level 15, expect that there will be loads of confusion about how to handle things like the spells and effects, how to run the monsters, and in general reconciling the differences in power. It may be better to start at level 5 or 10 even rather than 15. I wouldn't expect a fresh campaign of all level 15 characters when the players have not played those levels (nor the DM) would last long.
metalmayhem80110
01-06-08, 08:51 PM At level 15 each PC (If optimized in the slightest) should be capable of dealing 50-60 points in a turn (from a full attack/highest spell).

Mages will be on the higher end of this level being able to deliver maximized/empowered spells for easily over 100 points of damage.
Sergikins
01-07-08, 12:25 AM If you never ran a campaign or played one that went above level 10, I'd advise not running it if you don't want the full experience

I've observed how my players have matured in my group, and we usually began campaigns at level one and advanced them till they ended (usually because the DM was tired of it). we never ended up going much farther than level 6, and when a friend tried to run a level 15 campaign, it just ended up being terrible.

But anyway, to answer your question

The damage a mage can deal shouldn't be the biggest problem, but rather, what he can pull out of his hat. Be prepared to deal with spells like force cage or dominate monster (though thats level 17, but close enough) that seem to completely nullify your monster until you read that special ability it has that in fact, makes it a CR 15. make sure you understand your monsters thoroughly, and check what non damage spells are being used.
Axiomatic_vampire
01-07-08, 02:20 AM A lot of people (I'm one) believe that the levels from 5-13 (more or less) are the good part. 15 and up can be brutal for the DM and players alike, as too often those encounters between powerful spellcasters come down to initiative. Are you sure your players wouldn't like to start at level 7 and dig into the next step, instead of skipping it? Well, that's just my opinion, because I love the mid levels.

What to expect from high levels?
You cannot challenge the party with traveling. Too many teleport/shadow walk/wind walk type spells. If the party knows where they want to go, they can get there. Greater teleport allows a great deal of skipping encounters the DM might have planned, especially in combination with scrying. The ol' Scry and Die. If you like, you can solve that by implementing a limitation on all travel spells that even on a success, the party will land 1d10th of a mile from the intended location. my players grumble about the rule, but I love it. No, you can not teleport into the BBEG's bedroom and jump him. Not yours.

You're going to have to populate the world with challenges high enough to both provide content for the party to play through, and to keep them in line in towns. Can a level 15 party walk into any town and own the place because no one can challenge them? Well, hopefully not, but that means every town has to have high level NPC's that keep adventurers in line. But high level NPC's are supposed to be rare, so credibility tends to be stretched. At least I've never been able to solve that problem. I like to use a guild of mages that contract with all town guards, a sort of mercenary band that can be called in to deal with lawbreakers. In return, they get to keep the PCs stuff. Just make sure you have a plan for the high level party run mad.

There's a lot to consider, those are the two pieces of advice that come immediately to mind.
KyoMamoru
01-07-08, 03:41 AM Well, lots of things to answer, I suppose:

Previous Campaigns/ me being the DM from hell.
Well, to put it simply... You ever had a guy in your playing group that had the worst luck in the game, yet he wanted to be the crucial go to guy in a situation? We have that player in a gentleman dubbed Gopher to protect his identity. Gopher enjoys playing important roles, such as Cleric. Unfortunately, Mole's usual heals would typically be the lowest possible.

If your life was on the line, and he was attempting to stabilize, he'd have better luck punching you in the jaw to aid you. The pain would be better than any help he could administrator.

We had a fighter who would refuse to engage in melee combat for fear of taking any damage what so ever. He was the only 'tank' class, aside from a Sorcerer that was leveling in Dragon Disciple. More or less, the Sorcerer did a far better job of tanking than he did. Typically, it was the players that were causing the massive issues that were occurring. No one was adapting to their party role. =(

Then there were freak occurances with the groups min/maxer of the group. In attempts to gain more feats/stat points, he'd heavily cripple his 'unused stat' and in one case with his character it was strength since he was planning to be a caster of some sort. Well, he fell into a small river, and drowned due failing his swim check... six times. >>

Obviously, the variant rule that we were using [3 20's = Auto Kill] wasn't such a great idea in hindsight. The players are simply going to be attacked more than what they are fighting over the duration of a campaign. Anytime they'd fight some mob of 1/4th Cr army of [whatever], they'd be at the risk of an auto kill. Sure they can kill the enemies in a hit, but the chances begin to increase against them. I believe I killed seven PC's total with this rule, before we threw it out.
-
That was a tad longer than necessary... Moving along!

The new campaign is more of an excuse to dungeon hop than anything. Though I'm the usual DM of the group, they've all decided they wanted to have their chance. Of course, this means that during today's secession I had many, many looks in my direction for help. [Not that I don't mind]. So the gist of it is, our characters are constantly being warped around to different worlds/dungeons in order to gain mystical items to break the curse they are under, and save reality.

I think that this whole adventure is just going to become a lesson to them about the game, more than anything else. No doubt the plot hooks and villains will be rather wacky, but I think it's already shifted into a more casual/wacky focus than any thing else that we've ever done. To give you an idea, we have a player [The min/maxer of course] using:
Cat race + Monster of Legend Template.
And some Cannon attached to him that is a ranged touch attack that has a chance to inflict a mucus membrane that causes suffocation.

Another user is playing a Time Lord [which I aided him in making. Basically a bard without the music abilities, Rogue skill points per level, BaB/Saves as a Wizard, and the ability to take all knowledges as class skills.]

I have to say, tonight was filled with a ton of laughs, and it hasn't been this way in a long, long time. Sure, we just did an incredibly generic dungeon, just a cave with four large rooms, and slaughtered progressively stronger foes in large groups, but it was fun.
-
Shockingly, we don't have any true casters in the entire party thus far, unless the player that missed today [Gopher] shows up with one. Perhaps that's why things went so smoothly today, we didn't have anyone critically failing!
-
So more or less, the campaign is going to become just an excuse to be grossly overpowered. Obviously this is something that may grow tiresome after a few secessions, but most of the games that we play [PC/console] normally have the player heads above his competition aside from the Big Bad Bad-guy. The main thing is, with the inexperienced DM's, they won't truly use high CR monsters to their fullest. Today, we fought a Horned Devil that just attempted to use normal attacks [No casting or summoning]. Then again, he was tripped in the second round, and then pummeled to death. >>

Thanks to everyone for the input. ;x
kuonji
01-07-08, 03:51 AM Something to keep in mind is that higher level campaigns tend to more, not less, lethal to the PCs. Enemies and PCs alike will be wielding powers and spells that can kill or incapacitate in one round (save or die/suck effects). Melee combatants can deal out hundreds of damage in a single round. Combats tend to be short and deadly so bring your resurrection magics.
solbergb
01-07-08, 04:48 PM I would go really, really easy on the CR's for a while till you get a grasp of the PC's abilities and they shake down as a team.

It is a much harder thing to write up a L15 character from scratch and play him well than to play one from 1-15 and have him grow into his environment naturally. There will be startling gaps in capabilities, equipment and party cohesion and ability of the player to get the most out of the character due to inexperience with the character.

This is less true with very experienced players, but that doesn't sound like your situation.

The other problem is the GM needs to run completely different kinds of adventures for L15. You have to consider scrying, teleport, plane shifting, death being just an expensive nuisance, damage dealing in the 200 point/round range, monsters who make all saves on a "2", NPC's with dozens of spell effects that need to be used for them to be effective and a lot more effects that flat out just plain work (solid fog, forcecage, dimensional lock, disintegrate used on objects, mordenkeinen disjunction on spells, discern location, mind blank etc).

I didn't run anything over level 10 in D&D 3.5 until I'd played it for a year and practiced a bit with higher level tactics.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
KyoMamoru 01-05-08, 02:33 AM	The long short of it is, the players in my group are pretty horrible at staying alive, and have perhaps the most unlucky saves in the universe. That being said, despite playing for about six months now [with gracious exp hand outs for merely surviving] they've never finished a campaign alive enough to ever reach levels higher than seven. As of late, they've decided that they want to experience the higher end of the spectrum, and want to start a new campaign/characters with the following: Starting Gold: 250,000 gp. Starting Level 15. Restrictions: None. With that said, I'm more or less looking for what a level 15 character is normally capable of. I've looked at the pre-rolled Npcs in the book for an idea, but that's nothing compared to what occurs when players actually meticulously plot and plan their characters out. So, I was curious if anyone could provide me with the 'base line' gear that a level 15 should have, etc. [Or post your level 15s.] Information such as main stat bonuses, ac, to hit, weapon damage, etc would be handy. =D
happy_fuzzy 01-05-08, 09:36 PM	I'll get back to this, but could you post whether you are rolling die for ability scores or is it pointbuy? (and how many points), and are your players ok at optimizing? Because an optimized party has a much baseline for ac, to hit, dmg, etc. than an rp group (EWP scythe-using necromancer I'm looking at you ^^), that would make it a lot easier to set guidelines.
KyoMamoru 01-05-08, 10:02 PM	Point buy, except it's the lazy man's system that one of the players all but demanded. All the characters start at 10 in all skills, with 15 points to distribute. There are no increasing penalties in order to move the points higher. [Also, another reason that we tend to have failed campaigns is due to my DM dice rolling skills. Evidently, the idea of having 3 20's in a row for a kill is not a good idea. So, I kinda auto-killed the entire party in one secession. We no longer use this roll.] >>
DrMorganes 01-06-08, 02:20 PM	That's a 37 point buy. Why not just call it that? You can still only buy up to an 18 before racial adjustments.
wizarddog 01-06-08, 05:13 PM	[Also, another reason that we tend to have failed campaigns is due to my DM dice rolling skills. Evidently, the idea of having 3 20's in a row for a kill is not a good idea. So, I kinda auto-killed the entire party in one secession. We no longer use this roll.] >> Maybe you need to change up on how you challenge the PC's. Combat may not be their forte. And it would be very frustrating to me if dice rolls ultimately determined my characters fate rather than smart tactics and roleplay (maybe can I talk my way out of a fight). ;)
Kouk 01-06-08, 07:07 PM	I also get the impression that your campaigns are a bit too lethal if nobody makes it past 7... Perhaps you could roll behind a screen to fudge occasionally in their favor to prevent automatic TPKs? Something that seems like will be in 4th edition is that level 1 characters will start with a larger number of hit points, like perhaps 20 or 30, then they gain normal hit points by HD each level up. That alone could be enough to keep your players alive longer (though also give enemies these extra HP for first level). Or just max hit points for a few levels. On the other hand, if they are all crazy and don't try tactics at all then they may just be getting what they deserve. Anyway, if you start straight with everyone at level 15, expect that there will be loads of confusion about how to handle things like the spells and effects, how to run the monsters, and in general reconciling the differences in power. It may be better to start at level 5 or 10 even rather than 15. I wouldn't expect a fresh campaign of all level 15 characters when the players have not played those levels (nor the DM) would last long.
metalmayhem80110 01-06-08, 08:51 PM	At level 15 each PC (If optimized in the slightest) should be capable of dealing 50-60 points in a turn (from a full attack/highest spell). Mages will be on the higher end of this level being able to deliver maximized/empowered spells for easily over 100 points of damage.
Sergikins 01-07-08, 12:25 AM	If you never ran a campaign or played one that went above level 10, I'd advise not running it if you don't want the full experience I've observed how my players have matured in my group, and we usually began campaigns at level one and advanced them till they ended (usually because the DM was tired of it). we never ended up going much farther than level 6, and when a friend tried to run a level 15 campaign, it just ended up being terrible. But anyway, to answer your question The damage a mage can deal shouldn't be the biggest problem, but rather, what he can pull out of his hat. Be prepared to deal with spells like force cage or dominate monster (though thats level 17, but close enough) that seem to completely nullify your monster until you read that special ability it has that in fact, makes it a CR 15. make sure you understand your monsters thoroughly, and check what non damage spells are being used.
Axiomatic_vampire 01-07-08, 02:20 AM	A lot of people (I'm one) believe that the levels from 5-13 (more or less) are the good part. 15 and up can be brutal for the DM and players alike, as too often those encounters between powerful spellcasters come down to initiative. Are you sure your players wouldn't like to start at level 7 and dig into the next step, instead of skipping it? Well, that's just my opinion, because I love the mid levels. What to expect from high levels? You cannot challenge the party with traveling. Too many teleport/shadow walk/wind walk type spells. If the party knows where they want to go, they can get there. Greater teleport allows a great deal of skipping encounters the DM might have planned, especially in combination with scrying. The ol' Scry and Die. If you like, you can solve that by implementing a limitation on all travel spells that even on a success, the party will land 1d10th of a mile from the intended location. my players grumble about the rule, but I love it. No, you can not teleport into the BBEG's bedroom and jump him. Not yours. You're going to have to populate the world with challenges high enough to both provide content for the party to play through, and to keep them in line in towns. Can a level 15 party walk into any town and own the place because no one can challenge them? Well, hopefully not, but that means every town has to have high level NPC's that keep adventurers in line. But high level NPC's are supposed to be rare, so credibility tends to be stretched. At least I've never been able to solve that problem. I like to use a guild of mages that contract with all town guards, a sort of mercenary band that can be called in to deal with lawbreakers. In return, they get to keep the PCs stuff. Just make sure you have a plan for the high level party run mad. There's a lot to consider, those are the two pieces of advice that come immediately to mind.
KyoMamoru 01-07-08, 03:41 AM	Well, lots of things to answer, I suppose: Previous Campaigns/ me being the DM from hell. Well, to put it simply... You ever had a guy in your playing group that had the worst luck in the game, yet he wanted to be the crucial go to guy in a situation? We have that player in a gentleman dubbed Gopher to protect his identity. Gopher enjoys playing important roles, such as Cleric. Unfortunately, Mole's usual heals would typically be the lowest possible. If your life was on the line, and he was attempting to stabilize, he'd have better luck punching you in the jaw to aid you. The pain would be better than any help he could administrator. We had a fighter who would refuse to engage in melee combat for fear of taking any damage what so ever. He was the only 'tank' class, aside from a Sorcerer that was leveling in Dragon Disciple. More or less, the Sorcerer did a far better job of tanking than he did. Typically, it was the players that were causing the massive issues that were occurring. No one was adapting to their party role. =( Then there were freak occurances with the groups min/maxer of the group. In attempts to gain more feats/stat points, he'd heavily cripple his 'unused stat' and in one case with his character it was strength since he was planning to be a caster of some sort. Well, he fell into a small river, and drowned due failing his swim check... six times. >> Obviously, the variant rule that we were using [3 20's = Auto Kill] wasn't such a great idea in hindsight. The players are simply going to be attacked more than what they are fighting over the duration of a campaign. Anytime they'd fight some mob of 1/4th Cr army of [whatever], they'd be at the risk of an auto kill. Sure they can kill the enemies in a hit, but the chances begin to increase against them. I believe I killed seven PC's total with this rule, before we threw it out. - That was a tad longer than necessary... Moving along! The new campaign is more of an excuse to dungeon hop than anything. Though I'm the usual DM of the group, they've all decided they wanted to have their chance. Of course, this means that during today's secession I had many, many looks in my direction for help. [Not that I don't mind]. So the gist of it is, our characters are constantly being warped around to different worlds/dungeons in order to gain mystical items to break the curse they are under, and save reality. I think that this whole adventure is just going to become a lesson to them about the game, more than anything else. No doubt the plot hooks and villains will be rather wacky, but I think it's already shifted into a more casual/wacky focus than any thing else that we've ever done. To give you an idea, we have a player [The min/maxer of course] using: Cat race + Monster of Legend Template. And some Cannon attached to him that is a ranged touch attack that has a chance to inflict a mucus membrane that causes suffocation. Another user is playing a Time Lord [which I aided him in making. Basically a bard without the music abilities, Rogue skill points per level, BaB/Saves as a Wizard, and the ability to take all knowledges as class skills.] I have to say, tonight was filled with a ton of laughs, and it hasn't been this way in a long, long time. Sure, we just did an incredibly generic dungeon, just a cave with four large rooms, and slaughtered progressively stronger foes in large groups, but it was fun. - Shockingly, we don't have any true casters in the entire party thus far, unless the player that missed today [Gopher] shows up with one. Perhaps that's why things went so smoothly today, we didn't have anyone critically failing! - So more or less, the campaign is going to become just an excuse to be grossly overpowered. Obviously this is something that may grow tiresome after a few secessions, but most of the games that we play [PC/console] normally have the player heads above his competition aside from the Big Bad Bad-guy. The main thing is, with the inexperienced DM's, they won't truly use high CR monsters to their fullest. Today, we fought a Horned Devil that just attempted to use normal attacks [No casting or summoning]. Then again, he was tripped in the second round, and then pummeled to death. >> Thanks to everyone for the input. ;x
kuonji 01-07-08, 03:51 AM	Something to keep in mind is that higher level campaigns tend to more, not less, lethal to the PCs. Enemies and PCs alike will be wielding powers and spells that can kill or incapacitate in one round (save or die/suck effects). Melee combatants can deal out hundreds of damage in a single round. Combats tend to be short and deadly so bring your resurrection magics.
solbergb 01-07-08, 04:48 PM	I would go really, really easy on the CR's for a while till you get a grasp of the PC's abilities and they shake down as a team. It is a much harder thing to write up a L15 character from scratch and play him well than to play one from 1-15 and have him grow into his environment naturally. There will be startling gaps in capabilities, equipment and party cohesion and ability of the player to get the most out of the character due to inexperience with the character. This is less true with very experienced players, but that doesn't sound like your situation. The other problem is the GM needs to run completely different kinds of adventures for L15. You have to consider scrying, teleport, plane shifting, death being just an expensive nuisance, damage dealing in the 200 point/round range, monsters who make all saves on a "2", NPC's with dozens of spell effects that need to be used for them to be effective and a lot more effects that flat out just plain work (solid fog, forcecage, dimensional lock, disintegrate used on objects, mordenkeinen disjunction on spells, discern location, mind blank etc). I didn't run anything over level 10 in D&D 3.5 until I'd played it for a year and practiced a bit with higher level tactics.