Higher level campaigns

[teaman]

All of the PC's in our BFRPG campaign are now 10th level and above, and I need some guidance:

• How do you keep things interesting at that level?

• Any suggested monsters/foes?

• How do we keep it from being dungeon after dungeon. but still keep some action? (I don't want to run Negotiations and Diplomacy)

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[monkeywork]

At higher levels you have to increase the stakes of what they are working towards. What is being threatened that they care about?

Do any of your players feel like trying a different class or race (assuming getting to 10th took a while?) give them a new character and say that their original character has been kidnapped and now the group is off to find that character.

Is there a town that they are well known and loved in (maybe they saved someone there previously) well now make the entire town at risk of something instead of just the single person you saved.

Did the world have heroes in the past - what sort of things did they save the world from, how did they die? Maybe something they thought they had defeated they really only paused?

[BusterBluth]

I guess you could start introducing extra-planar stuff. There lies endless potential!

Sounds like you're not interested in domain-level play where the PCs are running baronies, kingdoms, etc. I would argue that domain-level play can be a springboard to a variety of challenges for high-level play. It doesn't have to be all-political stuff.

Exploration on a continental scale could be interesting - crossing oceans, trekking through virgin wilderness. Not just a regular hex-crawl, but more of a one-way trip into the world's unknown.

Time travel is another option. There was an old BECMI module with this theme, i think ... 'Where Chaos Reigns'. Getting shot into the Stone Age (or earlier!) could prove very difficult for even high-level PCs. Imagine an RPG scenario inspired by the Dinosaur ride at Disney World!

My theory is that once you start digging through options for high-level play, the possibilities are much more numerous than the more familiar low-level play.

[Snarkythekobold]

10th level? It's time for "Saga of the Giants," isn't it?

You could also go with armies in combat and having to do special missions for one side of the combat. High level characters will still steer clear of combat with large groups. That could make it interesting.

Also, it could be time to introduce a new "big time" baddie who is uber powerful.

A Hex Crawl type of adventure that featured very limited resources and lots of danger would be great as well. That way, they would be more focused on managing resources and such. Have the players be harassed by enemies on their crawl which will slowly deplete HP and resources and they will have to get imaginative to through the crawl alive.

I think it would also be good to use the "Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeon" (it's free) and run with one of the adventures found therein, filling it with a mix of bigger hordes of monsters and monsters greater in strength . . . and some good challenges here and there. I did that recently and my players really enjoyed it.

Hope that helps

[Hackworthy]

My players are in the 7 - 10 range now and are mostly leading military campaigns. They're not really running domains but they did install a new Emperor in Urd and are acting as his general staff in a campaign to reconquer the southern continent of the Western Lands. My players have had a lot of fun with sieges. Maybe try some of those. Siege weapons = fun.

[teaman]

At higher levels you have to increase the stakes of what they are working towards. What is being threatened that they care about?

Do any of your players feel like trying a different class or race (assuming getting to 10th took a while?) give them a new character and say that their original character has been kidnapped and now the group is off to find that character.

Is there a town that they are well known and loved in (maybe they saved someone there previously) well now make the entire town at risk of something instead of just the single person you saved.

Did the world have heroes in the past - what sort of things did they save the world from, how did they die? Maybe something they thought they had defeated they really only paused?

Thanks for the comments. Our current villain is actually a lot like you described in the last paragraph.

Thanks for taking the time.

[teaman]

I guess you could start introducing extra-planar stuff. There lies endless potential!

Sounds like you're not interested in domain-level play where the PCs are running baronies, kingdoms, etc. I would argue that domain-level play can be a springboard to a variety of challenges for high-level play. It doesn't have to be all-political stuff.

Exploration on a continental scale could be interesting - crossing oceans, trekking through virgin wilderness. Not just a regular hex-crawl, but more of a one-way trip into the world's unknown.

Time travel is another option. There was an old BECMI module with this theme, i think ... 'Where Chaos Reigns'. Getting shot into the Stone Age (or earlier!) could prove very difficult for even high-level PCs. Imagine an RPG scenario inspired by the Dinosaur ride at Disney World!

My theory is that once you start digging through options for high-level play, the possibilities are much more numerous than the more familiar low-level play.

Thanks so much. I liked the idea of the one-way trip into the unknown.

[teaman]

10th level? It's time for "Saga of the Giants," isn't it?

You could also go with armies in combat and having to do special missions for one side of the combat. High level characters will still steer clear of combat with large groups. That could make it interesting.

Also, it could be time to introduce a new "big time" baddie who is uber powerful.

A Hex Crawl type of adventure that featured very limited resources and lots of danger would be great as well. That way, they would be more focused on managing resources and such. Have the players be harassed by enemies on their crawl which will slowly deplete HP and resources and they will have to get imaginative to through the crawl alive.

I think it would also be good to use the "Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeon" (it's free) and run with one of the adventures found therein, filling it with a mix of bigger hordes of monsters and monsters greater in strength . . . and some good challenges here and there. I did that recently and my players really enjoyed it.

Hope that helps

Thanks for the Giants recommendation. I have that book, though I still need to finish reading it. Thanks again.

[teaman]

My players are in the 7 - 10 range now and are mostly leading military campaigns. They're not really running domains but they did install a new Emperor in Urd and are acting as his general staff in a campaign to reconquer the southern continent of the Western Lands. My players have had a lot of fun with sieges. Maybe try some of those. Siege weapons = fun.

Thanks for the good thoughts. Hadn't thought about integrating them more closely with the government.

[sean8223]

At higher levels I try to encourage the players to think beyond doing things directly and to start working on larger projects through their henchmen, whom they play as secondary characters. The higher level PCs support the lower level ones by providing things like magical research and a stronghold/safe haven (after collecting tax -- castle bills don't pay themselves!). It makes things like battling smugglers more interesting when they are stealing from your PCs' pockets.

It also lets you introduce the concept of scarcity, both of time and material. Want to research that killer sixth-level spell? It might take a year of game time and a bunch of components from far flung places, and these tasks can be be delegated to the lowers as well.

And of course having nice things and or/a reputation attracts attention, usually of the unwanted kind and on a scale that is larger that requires a team to deal with.