What needs to be removed to make high level dungeons work?

[Ghostwheel]

Usually the players won't need to gate things in; sometimes they will, and when they do, and their gate spell is now on recharge, they will not want to adventure until it comes back, because something similar might on one of those adventures, when it does, they won't have their trusty gate ready to deal with it.

...Which is the whole point of scrolls. To serve as utility devices, not as every-battle-we'll-resort-to-this abilities. Of course, if you're assuming the wish economy players will be able to easily abuse the system and wish time after time for five-score gate scrolls *shrug*

[Swordslinger]

No encounters on the journey are absolutely necessary, but if used correctly, it can add flavor to the game. For instance, maybe your PCs run into victims of the latest villain, peasants who lost their home or maybe a starving child whose parents got killed.

This gives an alternate perspective on the villain's evil, and gets your players more emotionally invested in the story. It can also throw out useful tactical information about the villain or his minions too.

I think most people here are losing the point of the game. It's about the journey, not the destination. You want to build up to a climax, not just do an introduction and leap right to the climactic battle. The PCs won't have any investment in the story, your villain will be boring and undeveloped and the plot of every adventure will end up being the same.

[RadiantPhoenix]

If you're high level, the journey should be high level, not the same crap you've walked back and forth through for the past fifteen levels.

Let me make an analogy:
When you're a little kid, you have to walk places, or else get your parents to drive you there.

When you're older, you get a bicycle and learn to ride it to places. You can go much further and get much faster changes of scenery.

Older still, and you learn to ride the bus and the train, and you go even faster. You also don't have to worry about low-level problems like the mean dog owned by one of the people who lives between you and where you want to go.

Later still, you drive a car, and you don't even have to worry about getting stuck next to unpleasant people on the ride.

Later on, if you have the time, money, and desire, you can learn to fly a plane and not have to worry about road construction or congestion in the intervening area.

Having to worry about random encounters in the woods at high level is like having to worry about your childhood bully walking by when you're driving on the highway.

[Swordslinger]

Having to worry about random encounters in the woods at high level is like having to worry about your childhood bully walking by when you're driving on the highway.

Well you shouldn't be worried so much, as looking at it as an opportunity for the heroes to kick ass and show off their skills. At high levels you shouldn't be challenged by random encounters in the woods, but having them there if they serve some kind of purpose to the story is a good thing. Though you want to set them up in a way that makes the PCs feel more heroic.

They don't just run into a group of the villain's death squads alone, they come upon the death squad attacking a village. And that's something you probably don't want to take away from the game.

Having people take time to travel places is good. It gives an explanation why Elminster and the other high level heroes can't be everywhere at once and gives avenue for PCs to experience the world. And the best part about random encounters is that you don't need to use them when they're unnecessary. But taking away the ability to do so is probably a bad thing for the game.

Long range teleport should really be a very restricted power very few people have, especially bringing along others.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Actually, I think that "they're dimensional anchored so they can't be gated into a trap by their enemies" is a more interesting explanation for why the famous NPCs don't just teleport in and save the day.

[Swordslinger]

Actually, I think that "they're dimensional anchored so they can't be gated into a trap by their enemies" is a more interesting explanation for why the famous NPCs don't just teleport in and save the day.

Not really, because they can just dispel the anchor temporarily and teleport anyway. It's unlikely that their enemies will be aware the instant they drop the anchor, nor will be willing to risk 1000 XP to constantly test it.

[Novembermike]

Actually, I think that "they're dimensional anchored so they can't be gated into a trap by their enemies" is a more interesting explanation for why the famous NPCs don't just teleport in and save the day.

Nah, it's pretty retarded unless you have the Big Bad gate the PCs into a trap as soon as he's aware that they're competent.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Why can't the dimensional anchored high level good guys gate them right back?

[DSMatticus]

In a wish economy, scrolls of gate come free, so the XP cost is negligible. But that'd be a serious drain of wishes and a massive time waster of high-level casters to try and constantly do that. But casters in such a scenario would probably spend huge amounts of effort trying to spy on eachother, whether it be physically or with magical spells, and there's always the chance your enemy has some clever way you haven't caught yet of knowing the second you drop that anchor, and then yank. It's off to your ambush. And maybe you do have buddies to gate you right back - if you can trust them, and if they're quick enough, and the enemy wizard hasn't prepared his trap complete with contingent dimensional anchor on your arrival. (Man, this sounds like some convoluted shit.)

And whether or not teleport should be so freely available and quick to use (it probably shouldn't), it remains the fact that it is, and that's a bit of a problem. It's an assumption and understanding you have to make about the world. You can house rule, but if you were going to start house-ruling high-level wizard utility spells to make them not alter the fundamental nature of how the game can be played... That is a looong ass list. And after that, you have quite a few creatures to fix.

But even if you've done that, what have you accomplished? You've turned levels 9-20 into level 8, with inflated numbers. You'd really be better off just playing E8, because high-level D&D is about being able to do crazy shit like teleport and gate crap, and not being able to do that crap stops making sense. (Note: I love E6/E8/E10, so this isn't a shot at that. It is hard to build a campaign world that actually makes sense when characters are that powerful, so I don't do those worlds.)

And yes, this is the problem with 4e - heroic tier is paragon tier is epic tier. The numbers on your character sheet go up, but you are exactly the same character you were 10 levels ago, or even 20, or 29. It's a joke. You could literally make level 1 characters, and then make a version of Orcus with his stats linearly toned down to match level 1 expectations, and then have them fight, and it'd be no different than doing it at level 30 except the numbers would (both damage and HP) would be smaller.

Really, the entirety of 4e should be rewritten as heroic tier, because that's all those characters do. Hero things. The fluff is retarded and it doesn't match the mechanics, and needs to be shot in the face. The idea that a demigod is a demigod because he gets to use his "stab shit super hard," maneuever once a fight instead of once a day and has 50% or 100% more hitpoints (I can't remember his self-revive mechanic) is pathetic and laughable.