On D&D adaptations. Which lv range do you prefer?

[Reinhardt]

-> Veteran warrior in a high fantasy world
-> Fearing a rat

Have you heard about that obscure game, Planet Escape Tournament or something like this?

 

[purupuru]

Any specific tier 6 spell which is too much for you?

Off the top of my head: Flesh to Stone, Disintegrate and True Seeing. I think it is the beginning of save or die spells and hard counters. Also the group buff spells in 3.5 like Mass Bull's Strength always feel kinda lazy to me.

 

[Cryomancer]

SOUNDS FUN!
Actually, not.

My point is that if you wanna explore the D&D multiverse, you need to go mid to high level and the coolest places to explore are not in the material plane...

Off the top of my head: Flesh to Stone, Disintegrate and True Seeing. I think it is the beginning of save or die spells and hard counters. Also the group buff spells in 3.5 like Mass Bull's Strength always feel kinda lazy to me.

Well, there are save or die spells on earlier levels. Cloudkill(5) but only works up to 6 HD monsters on 2e. phantasmal killer on 3e is a 4th tier spell which OHK. Slay Living, is a 5th tier spell which OHK on touch, but since is for priests, balancefags doesn't complain about it. Deathward, is a 4th tier spell which makes you immune to even wail of the banshee, a tier 9 spell. OHK spells is something that I saw a lot of people complaining but never understood what is the problem. They have many counters.

The first RPG of my life was Might & Magic VII - For Blood and Honor. In that game, there are a boss which eradicate you in one hit. Eradication is far worse than just death. If you are dead, you have a body to be resurrected into. At end game, you fight an army capable of casting that "spell".

 

[Reinhardt]

My point is that if you wanna explore the D&D multiverse, you need to go mid to high level and the coolest places to explore are not in the material plane...

I woudn't call "EVERYONE IS EPIC LEVUL LICH" cool. It's lazy and boring. If your group clear it - what's next? "EVERYONE IS EPIC LEVUL LICH INCLUDING SLAVES"?

 

[Cryomancer]

I woudn't call "EVERYONE IS EPIC LEVUL LICH" cool. It's lazy and boring. If your group clear it - what's next? "EVERYONE IS EPIC LEVUL LICH INCLUDING SLAVES"?

Wrong. Is not that everyone is powerful lich. Liches even in the city of liches are a tiny minority. The majority are slaves. We are talking about one of the strongest layers of the abyss and the elite of elite who serves Orcus. What is the next? Complain that the average "non slave denizen" of a mindflayer colony is a alien with psionics instead of a human? Complain that the Nessus, deepest layer of the nine hells has a lot of powerful demons and not humans? Complain that the average sentient denizen of the Citadel of Ten Thousand Pearls is a Marid and the second most common is noble Marids?

And you group is not supposed to clear it. Is supposed to only interact with then the minimum possible to gather information. If the group mindless attack this city, they will gonna die. Doesn't matter how powerful they are.

And the game uses also a system to allow your characters to control armies.

Here is a video about it.


There are also a conversion to NWN1.

H4 - The Throne of Bloodstone
v6.4 is a remake of the classic P&P module with the same name.
Bloodstone is harrased by undead troops sent from neighbouring undead ruler Zhengyi. Baron Tranth of Bloodstone needs help to protect his small mining village. Do you have the courage to step to the aid of Baron Tranth and do you dare to face the real threat lurking in the nether realms?

Module require HOTU + SOU expansions and supports bleeding, town portal items. Require food to rest and holds hundreds of new creatures and magical items.

https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/h4-throne-bloodstone

 

[purupuru]

They have many counters

Sure. And I like it when they occur on rare enemies or certain bosses. But I don't like it when a majority of the gameplay revolves around OHK spells and their counters, which is how high level play tend to make me feel. And I don't like Deathward either, but at lower levels you seldom find encounters that requires it, and when you do, like I said earlier I think it's cool as long as it's occasional.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I an surprised that Dungeons & Kobolds level range is winning...

monster variety is much more varied than that, its orcs, kobolds, humans, hobgoblins, gnolls, wolves, bears, skeletons, goblins, zombies, giant frogs, giant spiders, giant rats, giant bats, giant snakes, giant centipedes, ghoul, lizardman, xvarts, grimlocks..I am sure there are more, and then one of my favorite things you can do with low level parties is just give a single higher level monster like a Troll or an Ogre or Owl Bear as a 'boss' monster to fight, to me it actually makes it feel like there are many many possible creatures for lower level parties to fight if you think of it in this way.

 

[Reinhardt]

just give a single higher level monster like a Troll or an Ogre or Owl Bear as a 'boss' monster to fight

And it's more interesting than "oh, another dgagon, what he dropped?"

Remember that party of noobs we hired in ToB? From their excited conversation after quest i always had a feeling they are playing better game than me.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I remember playing D&D3.5 PnP as a monk. Low levels were shit : no strength, no armor, no money. Starting level 5-6or so, the extra attack and bonus saving rolls started to make a difference and somehow got quite good.

To answer the question, I'd say my favorite level range is the one where you stop fearing basic brigands, kobolds, giant rats and such boring shit. You know, simply being able to roam the countryside without dying from a wild boar charge, a wereweasel slash or a dire tick infected bite.

"I remember playing.....as a monk."

Found your problem...

 

[Cryomancer]

But I don't like it when a majority of the gameplay revolves around OHK spells and their counters,

OHK spells are great on 3.5e due the HP inflation. My epic level magician on NWN1 - Throne of Bloodstone(yes, started to play it today) has 184 hp with the CON bonus. My epic level necromancer specialized mage on BG2 had 43 hp. Din't re rolled anything and had 12 CON.

This HP inflation on 3e made OHK spells even better than they already was on 2e.

5e inflated HP even more than 3e which is awful but much less than 4e. There was mobs on 4e capable of resisting being disintegrated dozens of times.

OHK spells on 2e are fine. On 3.5e are debatable. On 4 or 5e aren't fine.

its orcs, kobolds, humans, hobgoblins, gnolls, wolves, bears, skeletons, goblins, zombies, giant frogs, giant spiders, giant rats, giant bats, giant snakes, giant centipedes, ghoul, lizardman, xvarts, grimlocks..

Sorry, but most undeads on Pathfinder are mid level ones. IMO, Juju Zombies, Draugr, Ghasts, Guardian phantom armor,
Wight, shadows, banshees, skeleton chieftains, mummies, vampires, Mohrg, etc are much better than skeletons and zombies.

Note that Hezrou are considered the "foot soldiers of the Abyss" and are CR 11 on Pathfinder. Think on how many creatures you can't include if you never step a foot into the abyss. Most creatures on D&D are medium ones. And on Pathfinder Kingmaker for eg, you only start to deal with interesting creatures "late chapter 2", where the agme is mid level.

And it's more interesting than "oh, another dgagon, what he dropped?"

The problem is simple. Dragons should be far more powerful on D&D. They are too weak. An adult red dragon on pathfinder is CR 13. That is too weak for a adult legendary creature which lived for centuries. Think a little. If a human with a little draconic blood in a lifetime can become a lv 20 sorcerer or even without supernatural blood a lv 20 wizard, what a legendary creature with pure draconic blood could achieve? IMO, every adult dragon should be at least a lv 20 sorcerer and every spell which they can cast be maximized and empowered. Should ignore immunity and they also should be able to have some nasty spells eg :

• Anti magic field - They should be able to use breath weapon on this field
• Disjunction
• Stop Time
• Teleport - Forcing the players to use dimensional lock and maintaining the spell before facing the dragon, otherwise they can escape.
• Wish

The fact that a mid level party can defeat a adult dragon and a high level party can fight multiple adult dragons at once is IMO one of the greatest problems of D&D. IMO, the strongest dragons should be akin to the lesser demon lords.

 

[mondblut]

8-15 is alright... on triple-dualclassed characters

 

[mondblut]

The problem is simple. Dragons should be far more powerful on D&D. They are too weak. An adult red dragon on pathfinder is CR 13. That is too weak for a adult legendary creature which lived for centuries. Think a little. If a human with a little draconic blood in a lifetime can become a lv 20 sorcerer or even without supernatural blood a lv 20 wizard, what a legendary creature with pure draconic blood could achieve? IMO, every adult dragon should be at least a lv 20 sorcerer and every spell which they can cast be maximized and empowered. Should ignore immunity and they also should be able to have some nasty spells

How about, they should be actually capable of flight to begin with?

A proper dragon is an invulnerable Stratofortress dropping fiery death from above. Take it away, and you're dealing with an oversized lizard. Even if you cross it with a lich, enough peasants with clubs can eventually stomp it into the ground.

 

[Cryomancer]

A proper dragon is an invulnerable Stratofortress dropping fiery death from above. Take it away, and you're dealing with an oversized lizard. Even if you cross it with a lich, enough peasants with clubs can eventually stomp it into the ground.

Not truth. Liches are immune to non magical weapons and they can fly, teleport, stop time... I guess that you are talking about 5e liches with the worst spellbook selection for a lich ever.

How about, they should be actually capable of flight to begin with?

With a LOT of powerful heroes and a good strategy.

 

[Reinhardt]

good strategy

Nigga, it's dnd

Even if you cross it with a lich, enough peasants with clubs can eventually stomp it into the ground.

peasants with clubs AND in wheelchairs

 

[Radech]

as I don't acknowledge editions newer than 2E as being D&D, mid-level is about levels 4-8.

Based on my very limited exposure to 5e(dm'ed one campaign from 1-5) I'd say 4-8 is spot on - possibly 3-6, as most kits unlock 3rd level. Yes it's dumbed down 3e. But it's 3e with 2e kits. One player rolled a ftr/rog alternatingly, and it was smooth and comparable to fighter/thieves - even backstab is a wierd hybrid added dice without multiplier(sigh), but only once pr. round, so closer to 2e one-shot meta.

I haven't touched bg3 yet as I'm waiting for it to finish, did the ea stuff with dos2 and it wasn't worth it. Busy figuring out the best to split my ultrawide 4k monitor into two 4:3 displays ToEE looks so good in 800x600.

As for an answer to OP, 70% of my enjoyment of dnd is rolling chars, so I'd say 1+ or 4+. I like rerolling .P

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

At high levels the complex game systems turn every session into a rules-lawyering autistfest. On PnP anyway. Not fun.

 

[Xamenos]

At high levels the complex game systems turn every session into a rules-lawyering autistfest. On PnP anyway. Not fun.

Kick out the autists and play with better people. I haven't had that problem in years.

 

[Tao]

I like the progresion from mid level to high level adventure mainly because i like to play wizards, and i feel i'ts at high levels where i actually get to unlock and play the class.

But nowdays wizards sucks dicks even more because the "balance people" still thinks that being impacfull equal to being overpower, the arcane spell list is trash while every cool spell is given for free to some random spontaneous caster snowflower class but hey! you can cast a +1 to hit on a fighter party member as a wizard!, the vancian system is still a thing and new takes on the system like the Arcanist class from Pathfinder get the finger because we need the Wizard class to be relevant so here take the exploit system as a feat/subclass and be like an arcanist but omg pls dont touch the vancian system, among other things that are somehow sacrosanct but make the class a drag to play.

Anyways on the topic of the thread: it's at high levels where you start to play mindblowing scenarios, where stories can go wild and otherworldy. The point on high level is to play high level content, not to keep playing killing rats at the basement.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Anyways on the topic of the thread: it's at high levels where you start to play mindblowing scenarios, where stories can go wild and otherworldy. The point on high level is to play high level content, not to keep playing killing rats at the basement.

Yeah, but the main problem is that it's much harder to come up with good/believable high level adventure and not fall into ToB pitfall of turning the plot into Dragonball Z episode.

Low level content can also be interesting, it's just that most of the devs want to throw you into action immediately and start killing rats and goblins 5 minutes into the game.

This could be mitigated by designing first couple of quests to not revolve around combat, but rather solving stuff in a non violent way, through conversation/exploration/puzzles. Then after hitting lvl~3 the game could start throwing more and more combat encounters at you.

 

[Nortar]

This is your example of an epic high-level adventure:

You enter <...> a "city of liches" where a lot of Liches who serve the demon lord lives.

And as a reminder what liches can do:

Liches are immune to non magical weapons and they can fly, teleport, stop time...

Why would such powerful beings "live in a city".
Why do they even need to congregate in the same area, on the same continent, if they can be where they want, when they want, and even their "slaves are epic level"?
Are they not different from some lame goblins huddling together in cave and waiting to be slaughtered by a merry band of murderhobos?

Maybe I missed something, but the whole premise of your best zomg-epic! adventure already looks pretty silly to me.
I would prefer a lower level adventure with internal logic that does not make me cringe.

 

[Cryomancer]

I like the progresion from mid level to high level adventure mainly because i like to play wizards, and i feel i'ts at high levels where i actually get to unlock and play the class.

I strongly agree. I like to play arcane casters in general. And fell like before lv 10, I an a mere apprentice. In the beginning, I was preferring spontaneous casters and new takes to vancian magical system like Arcanist on Pathfinder. But after I read a little of Dying Earth from Jack Vance(din't finished the reading), I started to like far more prepared casters. Not only the 1e "magic user". But also kits like Witches on Pathfinder 1e and the 2e complete wizard handbook.

Now I an honestly playing more as a prepared caster.

"balance people" still thinks that being impacfull equal to being overpower, the arcane spell list is trash

I strongly agree. Balance cultists ruined wizards on newer editions of Pathfinder and D&D.

And I never understood why they complain so much about arcane spell casters and so little about CoDzillas, which has stronger spells than wizards, double the hit points dice, better saves, can cast in armor(....) Instead of making fighters interesting, they decided to ruin wizards and now, on 5e and pathfinder 2e, only evokation worth being used, all other spell schools are trash.

Conjuration, necromancy, illusion and abjuration was the spells which took the greatest hit.

Anyways on the topic of the thread: it's at high levels where you start to play mindblowing scenarios, where stories can go wild and otherworldy. The point on high level is to play high level content, not to keep playing killing rats at the basement.

Yep. Many DM's say that is hard to challenge a high level party because they don't wanna to run a otherwordly campaign.

For my experience, high level play can only work on otherwordly campaigns or in few "Faerun" places which are otherwordly enough like Netherese, And even in a Netherese campaign, you will go do otherwordly stuff. DM who say that they can't challenge the players, generally try to make a high level campaign work in sword coast.

Even Pathfinder Kingmaker, when the game becomes high level on later chapters, you start to "face" a lot of things from the first world. Hell, you need to fight two Jabberwocks at the same time and need to deal with a first world invasion depending on your choices and a extremely nasty curse.

---------------------------------

The unique boring high level adventure that I've played in a video game is Throne of Bhaal and honestly, Shadows of Amn late chapters did high level content better than Throne of Bhaal. If was up to me, Throne of Bhaal would happen part on Abyss and part on Limbo with a demon lord trying to get the Bhaalspawn essences to ascend to divinity.

good/believable high level adventure and not fall into ToB pitfall of turning the plot into Dragonball Z episode.

The animes who did "high level characters" right moved to otherwordly settings too IMO. For eg, on Hiatus X Hiatus, now that there are a lot of "high level hunters", the manga is exploring the Dark Continent. On Yu Yu Hakusho, when Yusuke reaches "rank S", he goes to the depths of Makai.

Why would such powerful beings "live in a city".
Why do they even need to congregate in the same area, on the same continent, if they can be where they want, when they want, and even their "slaves are epic level"?
Are they not different from some lame goblins huddling together in cave and waiting to be slaughtered by a merry band of murderhobos?

Maybe Orcus has his phylactery. I din't even read the module. And no, their slaves aren't epic levels. And according to what I read about a adaptation of the module to NWN1 engine, you don't fight then, cuz you have no chance. You interact the minimum to solve a quest and that is it.

We aren't talking about Liches in mid of Faerun. We are talking about Orcus abyssal layer. What is "great" in a place can be average in another. For eg, someone can be tall in a country and average in height in another. What is epic in human world can be "mundane" in a alien world. On 3e, Orcus CR is 28 and on 2e he is even stronger.

 

[Reinhardt]

stories can go wild and otherworldy

You misspelled "full retard"

 

[Hag]

Low level characters are n00bs.
I am not a n00b.
Ergo, I prefer higher levels campaigns.

 

[Reinhardt]

High level characters and their players should be stuffed in the locker.

 

[Cryomancer]

Everything with more complexity than "i attack" is "full retard"

--------------------

Anyway, I an loving Solasta. But honestly, Solasta would be better if was 2e and higher level. The most powerful spell which you would be able to cast on Solasta will gonna be a tier 5 spell heightened to tier 6 as a shock arcanist. Monsters has too much hp on 5e. I saw an eagle with 32 hp. Come on, it is enough to survive multiple critical hits from a javelin... 3e already had a problem with hp inflation on mid levels, they on 5e managed to bring hp inflation even to low level gameplay.