Higher level campaigns

[teaman]

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.

Thanks for the thoughts Sean. Lots of good food for thought in this thread!