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GeneralF

GeneralF

Golden Knight of the Realm
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Urlithani said:
Low level adventures into the lower planes were something that always irked me. All manner of fiends love being summoned to the Prime and messing with mortals. How do you think they'll react when some weak mortals are walking around on their home turf?

Low level adventures in many outer planes have to suspend a bit of disbelief; you run into the weakest possible encounters (manes, dretches, etc.) And never really encounter all the horror and nightmares those places are known for (because if you did your under level 6 character would be paste).
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IIRC one of the reasons they mention for this is that fiends on their home planes are more willing to talk because if they die there they really die, as opposed to just respawning if they die on the prime material plane.

It's still stupid, but that's pretty much in line with the new approach for millenials they now have at Wizards.
 
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Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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Urlithani said:
Low level adventures into the lower planes were something that always irked me. All manner of fiends love being summoned to the Prime and messing with mortals. How do you think they'll react when some weak mortals are walking around on their home turf?

Low level adventures in many outer planes have to suspend a bit of disbelief; you run into the weakest possible encounters (manes, dretches, etc.) And never really encounter all the horror and nightmares those places are known for (because if you did your under level 6 character would be paste).
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Yep. Totally agree. The Plane of Fire is particularly difficult because, under canon lore, anyone (and anything worn) will instantly immolate to ash without total immunity to fire. Just opening a portal to the Plane of Fire from the Prime Material Plane will kill creatures close to it.

I don't feel comfortable sending my players to any of the hostile/evil planes until they're at least level 9 without feeling like I have to constantly throw softballs. Even at 9, they still have to be incredibly careful because they're very low on the food chain.
 
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Urlithani

Urlithani

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GeneralF said:
IIRC one of the reasons they mention for this is that fiends on their home planes are more willing to talk because if they die there they really die, as opposed to just respawning if they die on the prime material plane.

It's still stupid, but that's pretty much in line with the new approach for millenials they now have at Wizards.
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Yeah that's stupid because any mid level fiend with a brain would let the mooks go in first. When the 4th level paladin is having trouble with just a few Manes, they know its gonna be a fun time.

Oh that might work for a low level lower planar adventure: a bunch of fiends get in a fight over who gets to mess with the mortals. Demons straight up brawl for their Demon Lord patrons over who gets them: "Socothbenoth wants them for the pleasure dungeons! Death by snu snu!" "Go back to Horny jail, degenerate! We claim them for our lord Orcus to fuel our soul engines for necromantic rituals!"

Devils will drag the mortals to a court and argue endlessly about all the loopholes. Eventually they let the party go "on parole", but will come back in several decades to bring them back to the nine halls once the court case is settled.

...This is my greatest weakness as DM: I can find humor in most things, and I can't help but derail the seriousness of a game from time to time.
 
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Abigailicious

Abigailicious

Lord Nagafen Raider
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> Low level adventures into the lower planes were something that always irked me...

Low level lackwits who venture into Hell die fast, end of story, not interested in trash explanations about how someone with eight hit points can withstand the attack of a Name Demon that has been around for ten thousand years. Postmodern TSR's pathetic enablism must stop at the gates of Hell.
 
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Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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Abigailicious said:
> Low level adventures into the lower planes were something that always irked me...

Low level lackwits who venture into Hell die fast, end of story, not interested in trash explanations about how someone with eight hit points can withstand the attack of a Name Demon that has been around for ten thousand years. Postmodern TSR's pathetic enablism must stop at the gates of Hell.
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Qhue

Qhue

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When I saw they were doing Avernus as a scripted campaign I was all excited that they were finally embracing higher level stuff...then I saw it started at level 1.

This was after Dragon Heist and the whole 'citt destroying' plotline that is meant to be thwarted by a bunch of level 4 nit wits.

Low level shit doesn't need to be bear asses, but it should remain in-scope!
 
Rime

Rime

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5e Absolutely falls apart in the early/mid teens. By high level, there is zero balance, so I can see why there are no higher/end game campaigns that are official.
 
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Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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Rime said:
5e Absolutely falls apart in the early/mid teens. By high level, there is zero balance, so I can see why there are no higher/end game campaigns that are official.
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lol Yep. At that point it's the Wild West and the DM is just trying to hold on tight enough to keep from being bucked off completely.

However, I've had a couple of campaigns (one in particular) where the group had a really massive shift in focus. Almost to the point they were playing a different game. They went from typical adventurers to leaders managing kingdoms, espionage, nation-building, etc. It was A LOT of fun, but the first few months I was in a tail spin trying to come up with rules, guidelines, stats, and interesting things for them to do on such a large scale.
 
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bigmark268

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Yeh I really like the whole 5e approach on stuff.

My 4e group has finally began cresting into epic territory. Snd that's after 10yrs. 1 of us is 21 and 4 more will be by November.

And for the first time since we've started playing. I've actually sat down with them all and showed them feats to choose to make things better. Like they all had about +12ish to hit. Now they all have around 25 to 30.

So now it's finally time. for them to begin returning to the planes. And start really digging deep.

Weve been to the feywild, and a bunch of pocket dimensions. Also the plane of fire. But now things can really get interesting.
 
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Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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bigmark268 said:
So now it's finally time. for them to begin returning to the planes. And start really digging deep.

Weve been to the feywild, and a bunch of pocket dimensions. Also the plane of fire. But now things can really get interesting.
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I don't have a clue what the framing, narrative, or theme is at your table so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt. Also, my comments may be self-evident or completely irrelevant for you and your players.

For Epic (level 21+ characters) that, inevitably, spend a lot of time plane-hopping, I'd caution you against allowing them to directly challenge, or more importantly kill, gods. LOTS of players talk about wanting to "Kill a god." I've seen that kind of thing in far too many games and in, some, published material.

However, the reality is that gods literally cannot be killed by players. Even a party of level 30 bad-asses in the best gear available wouldn't stand a chance. To put it in to conceivable, physical terms -- It's still a contest of a handful of ants versus an elephant.

That said, gods do have avatars that CAN be killed. The avatars represent a fraction of the god's power, but an avatar is still an incredibly powerful physical manifestation of the god. And, depending on the gods rank in the pantheon, they can have several avatars spread across the planes. Those avatars are often what characters encounter (mistakenly thinking the avatar IS the god), but killing an avatar is little more than an annoyance that will do little but anger the god. Gods can replace an avatar in a month to as little as a day, depending on tier.

There are only a few ways to actually threaten a god existence and, essentially, none of them are feasible for players.

Last year I spent several months framing a campaign centered around players trying to 'kill' a god by undermining the entire faith while simultaneously building the following of a competing faith/god to take the place of the 'fallen' god. I've still got that one in the oven, but it's going to take a lot more work from me.
 
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bigmark268

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Oh no. God killing is out. That's just not a thing I'll ever be having them do. I mean maybe once everyone is 30 there may come a time to slay an avatar.

My crew is also lazy. Like no ones ever asked to buy or craft armor so no one has like every item slot filled. They also have never even filled out all their feats. I ain't gunna push em if they don't want to lol.
 
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bigmark268

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I also run games almost as if they are one offs. We only get to play. Every 6 to 8 weeks. So we over all the story just is continuous. But I like to try to finish what we start each night. Mainly cause no one remembers anything from the previous game. So trying to pick up is a nightmare lol
 
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Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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bigmark268 said:
My crew is also lazy. Like no ones ever asked to buy or craft armor so no one has like every item slot filled. They also have never even filled out all their feats. I ain't gunna push em if they don't want to lol.
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That's a totally different dynamic than my groups, but I also try to foster a fairly complex environment. Playing online really let's you go crazy with certain aspects of the game.

I started running games on Fantasy Grounds 5-6 months ago and it allows you to easily do a lot stuff that is much more difficult to do at a real tabletop, but it also brings a shitload of problems you don't face in person, too.

The transition has from table to online has definitely not been seamless. FG has a steep learning curve and there are a ton of technical problems you can encounter. Not to mention, just re-programming my brain to DM online after doing it in person for decades is extremely difficult. I'm still learning and things continue to improve, but when I look back at the first half-dozen or so sessions I ran on FG, I cringe a little.
 
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j00t

j00t

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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In reference to high level content at low levels, i.e. Avernus, it's a catch-22. It's exceedingly rare for players to naturally get to lvl 16+ games. Because of that, wotc doesn't want to put the time and resources into a high level module that no one will get to.

There are a lot of reasons why the vast majority of players don't get beyond level 12, but one of the major reasons is because dm's don't like to let their players get that high. It's all untested and theoretical.

It forces DM's to create their own content and just experiment and unless they are the kind of dm's that have been running games sans modules, it functionally turns into the end of those characters when they do beat a module.

So what wizards needs to do is start making high level modules so that players can get to high level, but they won't use the resources until players GET to high level.
 
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Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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bigmark268 said:
I also run games almost as if they are one offs. We only get to play. Every 6 to 8 weeks. So we over all the story just is continuous. But I like to try to finish what we start each night. Mainly cause no one remembers anything from the previous game. So trying to pick up is a nightmare lol
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That sounds really fun.

Everyone getting together every couple of months for a few hours of high-level, episodic adventure would be a blast.

Only being responsible for one game every 8 weeks would allow me to craft some really amazing sessions. I'm not an incredibly expressive person, but for those sessions I'd try hard to be high energy and animated during the session since getting together is so infrequent.

If you guys have been doing it for years, my hat is off to you. That's a difficult thing to do, no matter how often you get together.
 
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bigmark268

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It's nice now that I have say 6 to 8 weeks to plan. But I always find the more I plan the more the guys go and do what they want. So as I plan things i kinda have to just throw in bullet points for myself so they can bounce to what they want to do.

A few times I literally planned like 2 sentences and just let them take the reigns and I gotta just do the whole thing on the fly
 
GeneralF

GeneralF

Golden Knight of the Realm
389
226
It's the second session in a row that I buy a 20$ mini and paint it for my group of friends. If they don't rescue Hekaton I'm gonna be slightly salty I'm not gonna lie
 
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