High Level Campaigns

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Whats the highest level character you have played or ran in D&D (PnP) campaign? And what difficulties did you experience?

The reason I ask is because I am currently running a high level campaign set in FR. The main character is a 28th lvl Paladin who has recently become the champion of Helm(his title is the High Sentinal of Helm). One thing I have noticed over the years of this particular campaign(9 years of real time)is that roleplaying difines the gaming sessions(ie the PCs would rather spend a game session manipulating local politics to solve a problem than drawing their swords and sorting it out them selves).

The other issue raised recently is concerning the Paladin's recent aquisition of a Holy Sword(gained after defeating Aramassanath, an Elder Red Dragon of the Fire Peaks in the Endless Plains). Although it challenging to come up with intresting encounters for the Paladins party to defeat(instead of a group of evil mages or priests going up against the party they now encounter psionic Illithid and backstabbing thieves over whose ablities the Holy Sword circle of power has no effect)I still miss hurling crazy wizards and twisted dark hearted priests at the party.

Any one experienced similar issues in their High Level Campaign?

 

Amazingly, my own experience with high level characters is with a paladin too!

My first character, Belisarius, was at 21st level before I semi-retired him. After 20th level, it does get hard for the DM to think up great challenges for them to pursue. Because by then, you are high enough where your actions can quite possible make major alterations to your campaign world.

What we did was when our pc's got into the 20's(although there were not many...a lot of them died along the way), we would turn them into NPC character's and let the DM run them. We would select new characters, that may have interactions with the older ones, either as patron, apprentice, etc...

My paladin earned his Holy Sword around 12th level or so...But he did it solo. None of the other characters in my gaming group could join him in the quest. That made it pretty hard, but challenging...and also a lot of fun!

[This message has been edited by Sir Belisarius (edited January 24, 2001).]

 

I take from the lack of responses that not many of you have had the patience to get your characters above 20th lvl......

........or you can't be "darked" to come up with a response...

....either way, I am grateful for Sir Bels reply....

...following on from your comments it appears that Paladins are the singular class that can survive in solo mode (ie one DM and one player) for a longer period of time once they hit 18th Lvl +.....


..great HP,fair spell roster,healing ability,good Thaco(2nd Ed?!?!)...

...it also intresting to find out that you gained your holysword at 12 lvl...

....how did it effect your gameworld ,Belisarius? Which God did the Nobel Paladin serve? And how many time did he/you journey into the lowerplanes?

 

I'm just interested. Please note though before I ask that I have never played PnP, so don't flame me. O.K., if a Paladin can survive at high levels solo becaues of their fighting ability and spells, why can't a ranger, or for that matter, a fighter D mage or a fighter/cleric-druid(multi of dual)? Just interested as such classes benefit from differing levels of spellcasting power(especially high spell power for fighter/mages and fighter/clerics-druids). And all of the above classes should be able to hold their own in the thick of melee.

 

Funny thing is, when I DM, the paladins never seem to live past the first few levels. Odd eh?

 

I played him in the Greyhawk campaign...and I suppose it did change things somewhat...at least when you compare some of the events that took place when Greyhawk was revised in "From the Ashes."

Belisarius was a paladin of Heironeous and lived in the Grand Duchy of Geoff. When he attained 15th level or so, the Grand Duke granted him lands in the Duchy for his service in stopping an incursion of strange plant monsters that were attacking some of the remote villages and mines in western part of the Duchy near the Crystalmist Mountains (This was the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks modules - for any of you familiar with the Greyhawk modules).

As a result, the Grand Duke appointed Belisarius Protector of the West March, and granted him lands and a small fortress near the Mountains...Unfortunately, the fortress and surrounding lands had been overrun and occupied by giants a few years earlier. So Bel and his band were tasked with liberating the lands, and re-establishing order and trade from the mountain region....

Wow! This is getting long! After that, Most of the parties adventures consisted of keeping the giant incursions at bay, and forays into the Underdark wrecking the plans of the drow, illithids, and other nasty folk.

That's where the revision and our campaign split. In the Greyhawk revision, the grand Duchy of Geoff was completely overrun by Giants. In our campaign, however, Geoff stood its' ground against the invasion, holding the hordes of evil at bay. Belisarius led several campaigns against the giants, and also founded the Shield Legion, which was a group of knights and clerics that banded together to take the fight to the giants and their drow associates in the Crystalmist mountains.

That's pretty much where Bel became an NPC, without writing all the details of his wonderous and heroic exploits...

Thinking back, I had a blast playing him!

 

Anyone played a high level Ranger?
I would like to hear about it.

 

Wow !!!!

Sir Bel sounds "almost" as Epic as Absalom Dakk the High Sentinel of Helm(intresting that Heironeos was Bel's patron deity....

......he shares the same attributes as Helm. The Valourous Knight(Heironeous's title bestowed upon him by his followers) is a character I am planning to bring into the Realms for a future quest(I like the idea of these gods of Law joining forces against a common enemy that threatens both Greyhawk and the Realms). Just out of intrest Bel, how many times did 'the Protector of the West March' experince visions from his god or gain an audiance with his patron deity?(what I am getting at is.....


....how many times did you have an encounter with your god at high Level? Was it at the end of a major quest? Or was it a story driven thing(ie your DM used you Paladin's acts of mercy to get on to another adventure?) And if so did Heironous loose his mistique after the third or forth encounter?

As for Rangers at high Lvl ....


...I don't think that they can survive as well at high levels as Paladins or Clerics for that matter. Its all to do with the healing aspects of both of the latter classes. Rangers benifit from having a good THACO,HP and some priestly abilities and to a greater degree stealth(if they stay away from armour). So a short ranking of solo characters would probabily read.....

i. Paladin
ii. Cleric/priest
iii. Ranger
iv. fighter
v.mage (minimum lvl 12th)
v. thief.

GA

 

Actually, we had a pretty good variety of characters attain high level. The Shield Legion I was talking about was formed by Belisarius, but other members of my gaming party also had positions in it. They were (IIRC):

Gandor the Red: 17th level Human Mage
Turpin: 18th level human cleric of St. Cuthbert.
Maseena Sunbow: 1/2 Elf Ranger (I think he was 14th or 15th level)
Geevois Thunderhammer: 15th level Dwarf fighter.
Lyssander De Soleil: Elf F9/M11/T11

Each pc had a general command of different types of units in the Legion. Bel was overall commander and led knights and cavalry (when fighting in plains, but most of the battles were fought in/near the mountains. Turpin had about 5-6 lower level clerics that would support the infantry with healing and augmentation spells, as did Gandor - using spells. Maseena and Lyssander led small unit actions with other low level rangers and rogues. and Geevois commanded the infantry.

That's one of the reasons we "retired" most of these characters...The logistics of maintaing the armies, forts and castles got a little...Well, boring. Plus, we as characters were hardly ever together as one team anymore. Bel had to go see the Grand Duke to coordinate battle plans and advise on situations, Gandor began researching new spells and items at his tower, Turpin began a temple, So all of us decided to make new characters, and build off of the old campaign.

As far as visions and stuff from our gods...We didn't do very many. Turpin had a few I remember, and I had 1 or 2 involving quests against an evil temple, and one to destroy a devil or demon (It's been a while). But that's about it. No specific reason why. I guess the DM running our game either didn't think to use it that often, didn't want to, or was too busy with other details. We had a couple of adventures in the hells...But I'm having trouble remembering specifics.

Anyway...As our characters got higher and higher, and accumulated more responsibilities, there was less time to adventure - and more administration. So we let them become NPC's so we could get back to the fun stuff! Adventuring and fighting!


[This message has been edited by Sir Belisarius (edited January 26, 2001).]

 

I think the main problem with high level campaigns is either you lack prospective or it takes a _long_ time to get there.

I played in maybe 20 serious campaigns over the years and starting at 1st, the highest I ever got was 12th level. In a well balanced campaign it should take over a year to get to 20th level. Maybe even longer. We played twice a week for about 5 hours at a time and it took us around a year to get to 12th. I admit our DM was a little light on the XP sometime. But after a year or so most people begin to have interest in new campaings, and thus the old PC never make it to extremely high level.

On the other hand a campaign that starts at a high level never really caught on. The players did really 'know' their PC as well and did respect the power they had. It was fun for a while but lost steam fast once the novelity faded away.

As the answer is a group of PC with good staying power and a DM who can come up with good advenutre for all levels. It might happen in my current group of 3E. We started in Sept. and are still going strong. We'd made 8th level and who knows what will be the limit.

 

We played those characters for a while...I don't remember how long exactly, but it was close to 3-4 years.

 

3-4 years of play with the same characters and the same DM show a good group with a lot of staying power, plus a DM that can run games at a lot of different levels. You're a lucky bunch of gamers!

 

We were...It was a long time ago...In what seems now as a galaxy far, far away...
Plus, we were kids with a ton o' extra time on our hands, no jobs, no mortgages, etc...

Sorry all about the bad joke...It is Monday after all.

 

Level 8 was my highest.

 

When I was a wee lad, say 7 or 8, my brother, 13, myself, and 2 of his friends played D&D about every day. Our parents thought it was the work of the devil, but we were both extremely bright students. We had all the 1st edition core books that we borrowed from one of the friends' dad. We played for about 3 years. By the end, I had gone through 2 characters (I hated priests and paladins) and had settledon a Necromancer that I had taken to the higher progression charts and reached level 29. We went by all of the accurate experience awards. Of course, we were just little powergamers who would cheat when we were losing. Hehehehe.

In a true D&D atmosphere, the highest I've ever reached is a 17th level wizard, straight up.

Amon-Ra