I love roleplaying games, and while I probably still prefer the old-school pen and paper approach I see the benefits of things like Roll20 or the DM having the information on his laptop and not in a chaotic pile of paper.
On the other hand, there are things that really irritate me when they crop up, and in this post it’s all about my issues with high level characters.*
*This post is mostly about my experiences with D&D and Pathfinder.
Some background information
I’ve played RPG for about 28 years (a little on and off and both as player and DM) and to be true, I still haven’t that much experience with high level campaigning. We tend to start as 1st level characters and after several modules and a sandbox approach we usually end up starting anew or even switching to another RPG-system before returning to D&D (or Pathfinder). So you could claim my problems are in part just an effect of not playing enough high level adventures and learning the fun of playing or challenging truly epic characters, but that there are too much things that drag the whole experience down and reduces the fun. Let’s take a closer look;
1. Combat is either dreadfully slow or too fast
Combat in general is a big part of a D&D/Pathfinder game, and while I prefer more social interaction I have no problem with combat-heavy RPGs. The problem is that on high levels two things tend to happen. Either the enemies arrive in large quantities and you get a mass combat where the initiative order is bogged down with dozens of NPCs and PCs that need to act (the PCs also come with companions, allies, henchmen and/or summoned monsters). This leads to painfully slow combat rounds, also enhanced by the fact that players can do multiple things on one round (thanks to buffs, special abilities, quickened spells etc.). On the other hand, if it’s just one big bad enemy they either have save or die-spells/effects or they can become targets by the same spell by the adventure group. Even though they maybe don’t go down by 1 spell, four 10th+ characters to act against only 1 enemy is a pure action economical suicide. And the characters are either useless in such a combat (again boring for the player) or too deadly teamed up with his team mates.
2. Save or die spells
Yes, it is part of the first problem, but it is such an issue it deserves its own heading. SOD spells (or the similar but a bit less crappy, save or suck spells) really makes things anticlimactic, and that’s very seldom a good things. If it is saved against, the villain often is at a serious disadvantage (due to a wasted round), if it hits it takes 1 players out of the loop for a whole encounter (that can become dreadfully slow), and if the wrong players goes down it can quickly be TPK. All thanks to 1 roll of the die.
3. Your shoehorned into the game balance
With things like SOD-spells your group is forced into a group dynamics to actually be able to handle these effects (heavy on buffs, death wards etc.) and stock up on resurrection magic (and available scrolls and non-clerics with good UMD skills). OK, this isn’t a major problem, but I’ve seen too much modules and campaigns that basically expect the players to handle all the “standard nasty stuff” and be able to continue. This breeds the paranoid group who always stocks up on scrolls, protective gear and so on and almost always ends in one player being the designated healer (a bit like a designated driver who too often takes the supporting role to the true heroes).
4. Travel and exploration becomes a joke
At low and middle level adventures half the fun was getting there (and stumbling upon side quests and various distractions). At high level you can teleport, fly or wind walk and basically skip all of these kinds of encounters. The quest loses some of its epic-ness when you can almost instantly arrive at your destination. This is a bit like “why didn’t they use the giant eagles?” question in Lords of the Rings*.
This is also a problem when they do arrive at the castle/dungeon they plan to enter and most likely face the main villains (D&D is at heart a dungeon crawl styled RPG). Why bother with the animated speaking mouth who commands a password to enter when you can stone shape an opening or fly through the cracks as gaseous forms? These utility spells make the heroes more effective, but at the expense of storytelling and reduces most problem-solving tasks to just memorizing and using the “correct” spell.
This problem could in part be avoided by clever writing, but most written adventures follow the same formula. I currently am DMing the Carrion Crown campaign (Pathfinder system) and the sixth and final book still have thing set up that rather easily can be avoided by the correct spell.
*And yes, I get that they might have raised the guards if they flew straight into Mordor, but surely they could have taken the fellowship part of the way. And the “they didn’t want to interfere with the humans” is hogwash!
5. Monsters are only challenging because of things the heroes can easily avoid with 1 spell/item
This is a bit circumstantial, but there are a few abilities that so easily are cancelled by spells the players most likely have ready on high levels. Surprisingly many big monsters focus on grabbing the targets, this is also true when talking about mass low level enemies that try to gang up on heroes, but Freedom of Movement makes you immune to grapple checks. Death Ward gives bonus to death spells but also makes you immune to energy drain and negative energy damage (a lot of evil clerics and undead are based around this concept).
6. Death is common, so is resurrection = Death loses it meaning
So your group is bound to see a hero or two go down in tough fights. No problem, the cleric or scrolls will soon fix that problem. Death becomes either just a drain on resources or the first step to TPK. There is very little middle ground on higher levels. You also throw out many classic fantasy tropes. A kidnapped princess which the villain tries to use as a bargain chip in the final confrontation? Just unleash area of effect spells and just focus on the bad guy; princess can always be resurrected after the battle. The king is dead you say? Not by poison or a dagger to the back as any high level cleric can raise him from the dead…
Death at low to middle level is always a very real concern but at high level it’s just a nuisance (unless it’s a TPK).
7. Social interaction goes down the drain
With spells and massive skill modifiers (20+ on social skills are common) you basically can manhandle any ordinary NPC. The need to interact with NPCs becomes boring when you easily can intimidate or use diplomacy, or just a charm spell. Again, it is often a problem with how an adventure is written. The friendly NPCs are outclassed by a high level adventure group and the final book in a Pathfinder Adventure Paths tend to just be combat as they understand that social interaction as a problem so quickly can become meaningless.
Tabletop Cave 