Monte Cook: "High level play isn't broken, just different!"

[OgreBattle]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20120220


In every single edition, when you start talking about high-level play, someone invariably says that the game breaks down after about 12th level. (Sometimes they say 10th, sometimes 8th, sometimes 15th, and so on—the point is the same.) This "truism" of D&D is so ingrained that it doesn't matter what edition you are talking about. So, despite the fact that high-level 4th Edition play is quite different than high-level 1st Edition play, the general commentary about how high-level play breaks down remains the same.

As a fan of high-level play across the editions, I've never agreed fully with the idea that the game breaks down. I think, however, there's some validity to it, but only if you look at it a certain way. What people are recognizing is that, at a certain level, play changes. As I see it, there are three such break points in the game—low level, mid level, and high level. Fourth Edition does a nice job of recognizing these changes, I think, and the changes don't focus on how the characters become more powerful and how the challenges they face grow more difficult. Instead, the very game changes. The three tiers of the game, along with the commensurate change in character power, influence, and potential foes, makes a lot of sense.


A game where characters run around in a dungeon and hit things with swords is arguably a completely different game than one in which they teleport from place to place and disintegrate vast hordes of enemies with artifacts. In fact, they should be different games. I think that players who appreciate the different levels of play want them to be different. (The people who say that the game breaks down at such-and-such a level are self-defining themselves as people who don't care for that style of high-level play, which is fine, of course!)

Some players like low-level, gritty, "where am I going to get two more silver pieces to afford to eat today" kinds of games. Others want to fight basilisks and save the whole town from an invasion of troglodytes. And still others want to create their own plane of existence and lay waste to planets. (And plenty want to do two or all three of these things.) Recognizing these different desires and needs allows game designers to tailor gameplay to suit them.

This means that, perhaps, certain activities, conditions, and effects could and should be level-based. Perhaps teleportation of any kind should be a mid- or high-level effect. Energy drain or ability damaging effects could be medium. Planar travel should be high-level. And so on.

What I am really getting at here is that the level of the game affects the complexity both of the story and the mechanics. (That's not to say that a low-level story can't be deep and meaningful, but it probably doesn't involve multiple levels of reality or the nature of deities.) The level drives expectations, and I think that it behooves a designer to meet those expectations.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being "Completely Disagree" and 5 being "Completely Agree," rate your level of agreement with each of these statements about D&D play:

[HalcyonUmbra]

Where's the poll option for "Holy hell, how could you come so close and still completely miss the point??"

[John Magnum]

That all sounds pretty cool except for the bit about 4e actually handling the different tiers at all well. Because 4e at Epic Tier really ISN'T a completely new game the way high-level 3.X is, it's the same game with bigger piles of damage dice being hurled around.

[K]

I'm hoping Monte has never played 4e, because it does none of the things he says it does.

I mean, the basic idea of 4e tiers is brilliant. The execution, however, does not deliver on the promise.

He also seems to have completely missed the issues with 3e where "it falls apart" actually means, "fighting guys are now grossly underpowered and can't play the same game as the spellcasters AND a number of core spellcasting mechanics are broke as fuck" and not "bigger things now happen and you can't do the same low-level adventure tasks."

[Midnight_v]

Ive found that lots of high level play ends up equalling 10hp x1000
etc. Same games, same adventures bigger numbers. . .
maybe because lots people can't get past "fetch McGuffin" style play.
Convincing the Lich Queen to release the former party members
is the same as
Convince the Pirates to release the former party members.
In the important ways at least.

[hogarth]

He also seems to have completely missed the issues with 3e where "it falls apart" actually means, "fighting guys are now grossly underpowered and can't play the same game as the spellcasters AND a number of core spellcasting mechanics are broke as fuck" and not "bigger things now happen and you can't do the same low-level adventure tasks."

You're missing the point, dude! His point is that high level fighters are fun to play because they get to "teleport from place to place and disintegrate vast hordes of enemies with artifacts"! Isn't that one of their class features?

[CapnTthePirateG]

He also seems to have completely missed the issues with 3e where "it falls apart" actually means, "fighting guys are now grossly underpowered and can't play the same game as the spellcasters AND a number of core spellcasting mechanics are broke as fuck" and not "bigger things now happen and you can't do the same low-level adventure tasks."

We knew this already. They already said the default option is "fighter, no options, FINAL DESTINATION!". This doesn't imply a high power level for the mundanes.

[Libertad]

He also seems to have completely missed the issues with 3e where "it falls apart" actually means, "fighting guys are now grossly underpowered and can't play the same game as the spellcasters AND a number of core spellcasting mechanics are broke as fuck" and not "bigger things now happen and you can't do the same low-level adventure tasks."

You're missing the point, dude! His point is that high level fighters are fun to play because they get to "teleport from place to place and disintegrate vast hordes of enemies with artifacts"! Isn't that one of their class features?

Well, many DMs realized that 3rd Edition gives noncasters (especially Fighters) the short end of the stick. Since the DM had neither the time nor inclination to completely redesign the game, he'd have a special "artifact weapon" appear tailor-made for the PC in a later adventure. A Sword that that can Disintegrate is a good example of this.

[HalcyonUmbra]

He also seems to have completely missed the issues with 3e where "it falls apart" actually means, "fighting guys are now grossly underpowered and can't play the same game as the spellcasters AND a number of core spellcasting mechanics are broke as fuck" and not "bigger things now happen and you can't do the same low-level adventure tasks."

You're missing the point, dude! His point is that high level fighters are fun to play because they get to "teleport from place to place and disintegrate vast hordes of enemies with artifacts"! Isn't that one of their class features?

Well, many DMs realized that 3rd Edition gives noncasters (especially Fighters) the short end of the stick. Since the DM had neither the time nor inclination to completely redesign the game, he'd have a special "artifact weapon" appear tailor-made for the PC in a later adventure. A Sword that that can Disintegrate is a good example of this.

I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm, dude.

And anyway, that's exactly why this article is so bad. Any DM with half a brain notices that Fighters simply can't compete at high level, so they hand out Artifact Swords. THAT'S what people mean when they say that the game breaks down at high levels. Not "Oh, boo hoo, the game chaaaaaaaaaanges!" but rather "This class and these rules that you designed to last us twenty levels stop working after ten." In 3e it was the fact that fighters couldn't have nice things. In 4e, it was the fact that monster HP scaled up way too damn fast. In either case, the problem isn't that the 1st level guys walks places and the 20th level guy teleports. The problem is that the designers playtest the first 5 levels and then throw up their hands and say "Fuck it! I'm sure the rest of the game works fine too."

[Username17]

It's true that many of the things people bitch about "breaking the game" are just the game changing. People bitch that the game "breaks" because being a swording swordster goes obsolete, but they are bitching at levels where it is perfectly possible to be a warrior, as long as you have a bow or a lance. Actually walking into the mouth of a plant monster the size of a house to do battle with it is suicide, and I'm not sure that's a problem.

But let's be honest: a few levels after that the game actually falls apart, even if the wizard doesn't decide to replace the rest of the party with a demon army (which he totally can do). So Monte trying to sweep the entire issue under the rug with the "you have to adapt to a changing environment" deepism is actually insulting. And more damning than that, 4e is actually the worst edition as far as handling changes on level-up. The 4e environment doesn't appreciably differ, you swing the same damn sword in the same damn attack at 3rd level and twenty third level. The part that falls apart in 4e is the actual honest to goodness math. Where the game grinds to a halt on failed hit point calculations alone.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

Actually walking into the mouth of a plant monster the size of a house to do battle with it is suicide, and I'm not sure that's a problem.

I expect high level melee warriors to have the class abilities that support such actions.
Exalted-style defenses in D&D are fine for high level combat. Maybe not as direct ports, but something similar, because as it stands there is no way to defend against such things outside of spellcasting.

[Username17]

Actually walking into the mouth of a plant monster the size of a house to do battle with it is suicide, and I'm not sure that's a problem.

I expect high level melee warriors to have the class abilities that support such actions.
Exalted-style defenses in D&D are fine for high level combat. Maybe not as direct ports, but something similar, because as it stands there is no way to defend against such things outside of spellcasting.

Sure there is. For several levels you could get on your pegasus and shoot arrows at it until it dies. There is source material for that. It's not really an objective problem if warriors have to fight certain monsters in certain ways in order to win. It's at best a subjective problem if the ways warriors need to fight are things you personally think aren't cool. The objective problem comes a few levels down the road, when there is no way for the warriors to fight in order to win. But contrary to what Monte is saying, the objective problem does come, it's a simply mathematically established fact.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

I can understand peoples' dismay, however, since only characters who were originally melee are being asked to significantly change their fighting style. The archers and spellcasters and Pokemasters don't have to evolve their schtick, only the melee guys do -- which can lead to players feeling picked on, especially since it's both common in source material and cool for melee people to be viable for a longer amount of time than D&D lets them.

[Midnight_v]

The archers and spellcasters and Pokemasters don't have to evolve their schtick, only the melee guys do --

I've kinda taken to thinking that that schtick need to be come something akin to fighting like the flash or albert wesker, does. . . faster than the eye travel(super-speed), maybe attacks that let them get up to and "Down" flying opponents. Physical superhumanity is a given at high level play, or should be, but yes many people complain about things breaking the game that are essentially "All that exist in a game at this given level", that populace is extensive. Right now on Gitp they're still debating "SHOULD melee be able to rival casters?" should like at on any level. So there's some serious discrepancy in the understandings of gameplay. . . sadly lots of that seems to come from the people in charge of designing the new system. Though some of what they're saying could be simple "please everyone" political speak.

[hogarth]

But contrary to what Monte is saying, the objective problem does come, it's a simply mathematically established fact.

Nuh-uh, because of Rule Zero.

You simply give everyone the same home-brewed magical teleporting/disintegrating/you-name-it artifacts and everyone is equal, so put that in your mathematically established pipe and smoke it!!

[Prak]

Ive found that lots of high level play ends up equalling 10hp x1000
etc. Same games, same adventures bigger numbers. . .
maybe because lots people can't get past "fetch McGuffin" style play.
Convincing the Lich Queen to release the former party members
is the same as
Convince the Pirates to release the former party members.
In the important ways at least.

The lich queen has gunpowder stores you can use to blow up her castle?

[Midnight_v]

Ive found that lots of high level play ends up equalling 10hp x1000
etc. Same games, same adventures bigger numbers. . .
maybe because lots people can't get past "fetch McGuffin" style play.
Convincing the Lich Queen to release the former party members
is the same as
Convince the Pirates to release the former party members.
In the important ways at least.

The lich queen has gunpowder stores you can use to blow up her castle?

First, it'd be awesome if you'd go fuck youself, instead of retreading tired sarcastic example based bullshit arguments. Seems so fucking petty.

2nd Yeah fuck yeah she does. It some magical phelbotemum device she's trying to use to achive godhood but fuck yeah she totally has "SOMETHING" that you can ignite and blow up her whole bachelorette pad.

Funny "blow up super weapon" is totally a valid thing that works if the superwepon is "gunpowder store, or Deathstar. . . "

[Stubbazubba]

Ive found that lots of high level play ends up equalling 10hp x1000
etc. Same games, same adventures bigger numbers. . .
maybe because lots people can't get past "fetch McGuffin" style play.
Convincing the Lich Queen to release the former party members
is the same as
Convince the Pirates to release the former party members.
In the important ways at least.

The lich queen has gunpowder stores you can use to blow up her castle?

No, but she has the captured souls of a thousand worlds stored in a magical artifact in the heart of her demiplanar fortress, which, if broken, will consume her entire army and then begin destroying the demiplane itself, leaving just her (she's too powerful to be overcome herself), and you, in a fight to the death before the demiplane loses its stability and collapses on both of you. Or maybe that's your tactic, to keep her distracted long enough that she fails to escape the collapse of the demiplane in time while you plane shift at just the right moment? Either way, boss fight music begins playing.

That sounds pretty legit, actually. I'll have to remember that for future use.

[Midnight_v]

Ive found that lots of high level play ends up equalling 10hp x1000
etc. Same games, same adventures bigger numbers. . .
maybe because lots people can't get past "fetch McGuffin" style play.
Convincing the Lich Queen to release the former party members
is the same as
Convince the Pirates to release the former party members.
In the important ways at least.

The lich queen has gunpowder stores you can use to blow up her castle?

No, but she has the captured souls of a thousand worlds stored in a magical artifact in the heart of her demiplanar fortress, which, if broken, will consume her entire army and then begin destroying the demiplane itself, leaving just her (she's too powerful to be overcome herself), and you, in a fight to the death before the demiplane loses its stability and collapses on both of you. Or maybe that's your tactic, to keep her distracted long enough that she fails to escape the collapse of the demiplane in time while you plane shift at just the right moment? Either way, boss fight music begins playing.

That sounds pretty legit, actually. I'll have to remember that for future use.

Which actually is pretty legit, because her total thing is "Achiieve Godhood" whatever the fuck that means. . .

[NineInchNall]

I thought it pretty clear that the type of change in game Monte is talking about is the same type of change that led to a huge flame-thread a while back between people who said
"The game changes fundamentally every few levels, which means obstacles have to change as well"
And those who said
"We should totally be able to have typical dungeons as adventures for high level characters but teleport/divination/dominate/etc make that not work."

[Aryxbez]

Well I got informed of this little piece today: http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... level_play

(sighs) god...100th level characters?! seriously!! no meaningful value that can be made here at this point. I like how they

The three governing rules provided by the adventure for dealing with ultra-high-level D&D characters were:
1) stomp on the power curve of expected character growth;
2) strictly apply all the rules; and
3) actually, don’t apply the rules strictly—instead, weight the results against the fortunes of the high-level characters. They can take it.

I'm wondering what in the hell was meant by the third one there.

[hogarth]

The three governing rules provided by the adventure for dealing with ultra-high-level D&D characters were:
1) stomp on the power curve of expected character growth;
2) strictly apply all the rules; and
3) actually, don’t apply the rules strictly—instead, weight the results against the fortunes of the high-level characters. They can take it.

I'm wondering what in the hell was meant by the third one there.

I'm guessing "If the PCs have been too successful recently, punish them".

(sighs) god...100th level characters?! seriously!! no meaningful value that can be made here at this point.

In 1E, most numerical values maxed out long before level 100. I'm not sure what you would get at higher levels other than a few more HP and a higher caster level.

[talozin]

In 1E, most numerical values maxed out long before level 100. I'm not sure what you would get at higher levels other than a few more HP and a higher caster level.

None too fucking much.

* Spell charts ended at or before level 29, with a 29th level Magic-User having very roughly the same number of spells as a hypothetical 20th level 3.5 Wizard.

* The to-hit charts ended well before that (I think around level 21). This was pre-THAC0, so just imagine that your BAB stopped increasing around 20th level.

* Saving throw charts ended about the same time as to-hit charts -- again, this was before regularized save bonus increases, so it's like you just stopped getting increases around 20th level.

* You stopped rolling hit dice for hit points around level 9-12, depending on class, and instead just got 1-3 hit points per level, depending on class, no Con mod. So a 9th level fighter with 18 Con would have about 86 hit points (9 * (5.5 + 4)); a 20th level fighter would have about 119 (86 + (3 * 11)); and a 100th level fighter would have about 359 (119 + (80 * 3)).

On the other hand, getting caster levels was pretty fucking punk rock, since this was before spell damage caps. 100d6 fireballs ahoy, bitches!

[ModelCitizen]

I once ran a 1st Edition D&D adventure where the player characters took a trip to the Abyss to steal the Wand of Orcus. The recommended level of play was for levels 18 to 100.

He's talking about The Throne of Bloodstone. From the back cover: "Recommended for characters of levels 18-100, The Throne of Bloodstone is the highest-level adventure ever published by TSR!"" Note that this is advertising horseshit and it actually means 18-20. Throne of Bloodstone is H4 from back when TSR numbered modules like that. It's meant to be played in sequence right after H3 (The Bloodstone Wars, level 18-ish). I don't know what happens in H3 but I'm pretty sure it doesn't give you eighty fucking levels.

[talozin]

He's talking about The Throne of Bloodstone. From the back cover: "Recommended for characters of levels 18-100, The Throne of Bloodstone is the highest-level adventure ever published by TSR!"" Note that this is advertising horseshit and it actually means 18-20. Throne of Bloodstone is H4 from back when TSR numbered modules like that. It's meant to be played in sequence right after H3 (The Bloodstone Wars, level 18-ish). I don't know what happens in H3 but I'm pretty sure it doesn't give you eighty fucking levels.

I actually have H2, H3, and H4, and I'm here to tell you that, as a general rule, they all suck ass.

H2 is the closest to being tolerable of any of the three, and it still sucks. You go on a super-high-level dungeon crawl that starts out as being somewhat tolerable ends with bullshit insta-kill traps, multiple fights with battalions of 50 7th-level Duergar fighters at a time, and a room filled with 250 individual undead creatures.

H3 is mostly a set of miniatures battles using the Battlesystems rules. Since Battlesystem sucked, the module wasn't much helped by this. There was also a interlude where you went out to fuck up the Grandfather of Assassins (that is, the big cheese Assassin character in the AD&D world), which was every bit as filled with bullshit insta-kill nonsense as you would imagine it to be.

H4 is the worst, though. It is filled with desperately unfunny "jokes" like having St. Sollars' dialogue written in a broad Texan accent and has a number of "the party vs. 250 Type I demons" fights. It does, however, contain sample pregenerated 100th-level characters, and it even offers an adjustable difficulty scale that is supposed to allow you to scale up the opposition at various points to levels appropriate for various ranges of average party level. So, while it is by and large marketing bullshit, there is at least a token effort made in the direction of actually fulfilling it.

Doesn't matter, though. It's terrible. I would almost rather play Vecna Lives!, which is the most bullshit D&D adventure I've ever read but at least makes an effort to sustain a coherent tone of epic fantasy, no matter how fucking stupid it has to get in the process.