D&D never stops being playable.

[Essence]

I've been playing for some time now, and I have to say that the more I play, the more I realize that D&D never stops being playable.

I keep hearing people say this. "D&D is unplayable past level 14." "D&D breaks at level 12." This is crap.

D&D is playable until at least 92nd level. I speak out of personal experience. The problem DMs have is that the players are too powerful for the CRs listed in the MM, or capable of shcticks that make them damn near invulnerable or omnipotent.

I have to tell you, I have no pity for these DMs. I've played groups in which the weakest character dealt out somewhere along the lines of 2d6+32d8+4d20+2135 damage on a critical sneak attack (which she got at least once each round guaranteed). I've also played groups where the strongest character dealt 4d8-2 damage on a crit, which he almost never got.

The problem is the amount of work that is required by the DM to keep up with the PCs, pure and simple. When you can't rely on the old standbys in the Monster Manual or that stupid book of NPCs, you have to really work to make PCs respect the NPCs and the plot properly.

Part of that work means making PrCs, races, classes, feats, spells, and other mechanics that the players haven't seen before, to keep them guessing. But that's not really the problem. The problem is that DMs are afraid to break the rules in the way that they are afraid the players will.

If you're going to DM D&D at a high level, you have to be just as willing to abuse Initiate of Mystra, thought bottles, and the Sublime Chord as the PCs are. And, more importantly, you have to invent counters to each of those and make them available to PCs and NPCs.

(I gotta tell you, nothing scares a 'broken' 20th level Cleric Archer like coming up against a Paragon Titanic Moon Rat with the feat Reflect Arrows and an aumlet of AMF.)


I've got a PC right now who can Time Stop as a swift action for 5 rounds/day, render a creature helpless until further notice with a successful melee attack 1/day, and has 20 levels of spellcasting on top of it. To top it all off, she can "save" and "restore", moving back to a "temporal anchor" she has previously set, making her effectively immortal as long as she's capable of taking actions. The rest of her party is almost as powerful.

You know what? She still gets her butt fought to a standstill on a regular basis. Because it's trivially easy to invent defenses against stuff, and there's enough similarly-broken stuff out there that she's literally incapable of defending herself against it all.

And really, that's D&D. You are good at stuff, and other people are good at stuff that you may or may not be good at protecting against. The "playability" literally depends strictly on your willingness as a DM to be creative and take the strong path, and your player's ability to trust you not to bend them over a gallows because you control their reality.

Trust, communicate, and invent what you need. That's my "Rule -1" for successful D&D games -- and without it, no game is truly enjoyably playable...at any level.

[Imban]

I keep hearing people say this. "D&D is unplayable past level 14." "D&D breaks at level 12." This is crap.

I really do agree - you can make D&D work out to almost any level. The real thing that you need to realize, though, is that there are some things which just end the game if anyone at all is allowed to have them. Like the broken version of spell-like Wish.

And there are other things that make it very difficult to have a game - epic summoning chains, CL-pumped Blasphemy, etc.

[Essence]

The funny thing is, the CL-pumped Blasphemy is a perfect foil to the Epic summoning chains. And a Swift Silence is a really simple counter to the CL-pumped Blasphemy.

The spell-like Wish, I have to admit, I've never had anyone attempt. But seriously, it's not that different from being an Epic Mystic Theurge (which we've had before). The only real issue would be someone obtaining that ability and then actually using it to somehow make themselves immune to the things that would stop them -- like obtaining abilities that made you immune to every status effect that prevented you from taking an action, and a Ring of Counterspells for those spells that simply took away your actions without afflicting a status effect (like Hideous Laughter and Irresistable Dance).

But there's always more offenses out there than there are defenses available to a specific individual. I'd wager that any SLA-Wish-abusing whore in my games would find themselves the victim of a perfectly mundane (i.e. non-teleport) ambush on the part of an Epic Forsaker/Iaijutsu Master and Initiate of Mystra tag team.

The best thing about D&D is that, as the agents of change in the world, the PCs can't hide away in towers and protect themselves full time. They, by the very nature of the game, necessarily expose themselves to all kinds of risks -- one of which will 'happen' to be the one that can beat them.

If it wasn't, it wouldn't really be very fun, would it?

[erik]

1162352027[/unixtime]]
I have to tell you, I have no pity for these DMs. I've played groups in which the weakest character dealt out somewhere along the lines of 2d6+32d8+4d20+2135 damage on a critical sneak attack (which she got at least once each round guaranteed). I've also played groups where the strongest character dealt 4d8-2 damage on a crit, which he almost never got.

The trouble is really when those two players are in the same game.

The higher you go, the greater the disparities between characters may become. For the guy doing 50 damage per round while there is another guy doing 2000+ per round, probably isn't going to be enjoying combats too much if that is their main form of contribution.

Keeping everyone on the same table can be rough especially in epic where some classes get jack squat on their good levels and others get to own deities like little chihuahuas.

[power_word_wedgie]

I'd agree, but it depends on what is meant by "playable." If playable means rule/mechanics cohesive, then D&D can be playable at high levels, or pretty much in any state. However, if playable mean intended means for players and DM to enjoy their game, then it may be unplayable depending on your group. If your group is just a group of people that want to relax and escape for a while from the real world, then it may not be playable. For a DM to keep track of all of the options for a 42nd level encounter and players to keep track of their spells, for some, then the "game" transfers to the realm of "work" and thus their intended goal for the game is lost. Now, for others, this is what they live for and high level games are the only way to go.

All I'm trying to note is that "unplayable" has a subjective meaning to it and isn't only driven by mechanics.

Beyond that, I'd say that the "Rule -1" is really applicable to all level games and IMHO may be treading very closely to the Oberoni Fallacy. That's doesn't mean that I object to it or don't use it in a game - just noting that it sounds a lot like "the rules work/don't work if your GM runs/modifies: doesn't run/doesn't modify them correctly" sort of logic. YMMV.

[Imban]

CL-pumped Blasphemy is not a counter to epic summoning chains because the stupidly broken ones tend to let you summon things far in excess of yourself. It's relatively easily countered itself, though - the same rituals from Savage Species that the Word uses to be immune to his own Blasphemies can be used by anyone (and everyone) else, too.

Spell-like Wish really does just wreck the game, though - it makes making a Ring of +1,000,000 to All Ability Scores legal for free, and that ruins the game right there.

[RandomCasualty]

1162352027[/unixtime]] I've played groups in which the weakest character dealt out somewhere along the lines of 2d6+32d8+4d20+2135 damage on a critical sneak attack (which she got at least once each round guaranteed).

I don't see how you'd keep such a character in line without just blatant ability hosing mechanics, like having all enemies immune to sneak attacks, or antimagic fields or other absolute stealth nerfs.

That's the problem I see with epic levels, it gets into a counter-or-die proposition, where you either have a way to beat the supercombo or you don't. So you either have to get into one of two patterns.

Rocket launcher tag, where monsters use tons of one shot kill combos like the PCs. This gets to a point where the game is super deadly and eventually the PCs luck just runs out and they lose. Also it makes gaining levels pointless, as both sides can annihilate the other easily. It's the cold war of D&D where your next level may let you kill the next battle 30 times over instead of only 25, but nobody cares,so you're just as good at level 30 as you were at level 20.

The other option is the Stealth nerf fest. This involves having monsters with abilities that cleverly nullify a PC's superschtick and force them to do other stuff. The rogue's sneak attack is so good that all enemies now are immune to criticals. Effectively, you take away abilities you deem too powerful by giving NPCs counter abilities that absolutely nullify them.

Neither of these is a particularly fun alternative.

[Username17]

You'll have to excuse me, I'm still awake, and I've been passing young women from lap to lap for most of the night while watching Chan Wook Park movies and drinking rum, so this is probably going to be less well spelled than it should be.

Honestly, D&D isn't playable, I don't know what the fvck you'e talking about. It isn't that I don't follow your argument, it's that you aren't talking about D&D and I dont know what the word for the thing you're talking about even is.

In D&D, disparities between characters increase over time and auto-kills rule the day. Seriously every 45th level character has to expect that if an opponent gets an action that they have a 95% chance of instant death. And that's not playable. The instant all four players fail their initiative check, the entire campaign ends.

And if that isn't happening to you, you aren't playing D&D. D&D doesn't have any DCs, any tasks for a 30th level character to do with their Climb or Knowledge: My Ass checks. They just don't exist at all. So there's no fvcking difference between a level 44 character and a level 45 character.

Except that the numbers keep diverging. They can't do anything new or interesting, but instant death is ever more of a certainty the higher you go.

Sure, you can pull out all the stops and throw down enough crazy house rules that you can keep playing forever, but long before you hit 20th you are using more house rules than printed rules. If you are to make Epic work at all (and not, for example, have the Wizard chain bind a crap tonne of Sylphs and have them all work together to raise the DCs on all his spells to 50,000 in an entirely permanent fashion), you're basically writing the system whole cloth.

And that means you aren't playing D&D. So the fact that you're playing whatever the fvck it is you're playing doesn't mean that D&D is playable at that level. In fact, your statement proves exactly the opposite of what you were trying to get across.

-Username17

[User3]

One thing the OP does not address is the play-style composite of a given gaming group (players *AND* DM).

The majority of gaming groups have players with a wide variety of experience and preference in optimizing, buildcrafting, and tactical prowess. As a group advances in level, the "bridges" between these aspects of D&D gameplay broaden almost exponentially. If a group makes a strong, conscientious effort to stay together in the above play characteristics, mechanical imbalances can be limited as the group advances in experience.

Having played in 3 broad, long-term Epic-Level campaigns in 3.5 D&D (in 2 different groups), I can honestly say that Epic gameplay is not only imbalanced - it's in need of a total massive rehaul. And I didn't play with any uber powergamers or people with a mission out to break the game.

[Nerem]

You know, when you gotta tailor a monster SPECIFICALLY to countering your character's build by maxing them out with stealth nerfs to your PCs... then that character is totally broken.

[User3]

I think DnD is playable from 1-20, but only if you say "no" alot.

I mean, using the core rules, you can just say "no" to like 10 spells that everyopne knows are broken and your game is generally fine. You may have to drop an artifact sword/shield/armor/whatever on the fighter or something, but thats not really a deal.

About half the material from most supplements is broken because of poor design. Its either too powerful, or makes fundemental mistakes (like dropping caster levels from caster PrCs). Spot nerfing this takes more time, and you have to really know the game, which is not required.

[RandomCasualty]

1162755551[/unixtime]]I think DnD is playable from 1-20, but only if you say "no" alot.

I mean, using the core rules, you can just say "no" to like 10 spells that everyopne knows are broken and your game is generally fine. You may have to drop an artifact sword/shield/armor/whatever on the fighter or something, but thats not really a deal.

In my opinion, it's all about limiting synergies. The real unbalancers at high level tends to be things that cause multiplicative increases, such as combining pounce and deadly charge or shocktrooper. Most uber rocket launcher builds, like the blastificer are built by excessive synergy combos. It's possible to disable these combos./
And really anything that hands out extra actions, like time stop, is a total gamebreaker for excessive synergy.

The other problem tends to be overscaling. Overscaling is the idea that buffs have to keep on getting better and better, and that a stackable +3 bonus on a d20 roll is somehow weaker at 20th level than it is at 5th. Abilities like arcane strike are great examples of overscaling.

Then you've got to fix or ban things that are just outright broken, like shapechange, planar binding and so on.

That with a ton of houserules to do all that you will make it to level 20.

Once you hit epic, well then you're going to need to effectively design enough house rules such that you're not even playing D&D anymore. The epic rules are such a mess.

[Fwib]

The trouble with limiting synergy is that without synergy, casters are just fine - they have level-appropriate abilities - but meleeists tend to derive a lot of their power from synergies, even when they aren't trying to throw small moons or one-hit deities, so cutting down on synergy will weaken the non-uber-build meleeists still further.

No?

[RandomCasualty]

1162920748[/unixtime]]The trouble with limiting synergy is that without synergy, casters are just fine - they have level-appropriate abilities - but meleeists tend to derive a lot of their power from synergies, even when they aren't trying to throw small moons or one-hit deities, so cutting down on synergy will weaken the non-uber-build meleeists still further.

No?

Oh absolutely, but you need to nerf casters as well.

Basically the high level games turns into one big nerf fest because you're trying to get the game away from rocket launcher tag. That means bringing people's damage scores way down. Of course, casters need to get taken down a few notches too.

Some caster limitations I use for high level play:

-No extra action spells (time stop for instance)
-Only one use of 'free metamagic' per spell (free metamagic is defined as any metamagic that doesn't increase the slot of the spell)
-bunch of individual spell nerfs to the broken spells.

[User3]

1162352027[/unixtime]]I keep hearing people say this. "D&D is unplayable past level 14." "D&D breaks at level 12." This is crap.

D&D is playable until at least 92nd level. I speak out of personal experience. The problem DMs have is that the players are too powerful for the CRs listed in the MM, or capable of shcticks that make them damn near invulnerable or omnipotent.

Actually, those you hear kvetching about the D&D "breakage" at 12th and 14th level aren't up on their latest tech. There's a whole bunch of documented threads at WotC CharOp and a few at EnWorld showcasing outright "game screeching to a halt" breakages as early as 3rd level with things like Sarrukh Abuse via wizard, artificer, and what have you.

If you search diligently enough, players can present bonafide game abuses at a consistently ultra-powerful level at most early-to-mid play levels. You know, the stuff that gets the instant attention of your mortified DM who has to nerf-hammer (with immediate authority) said game abuses before continuing onwards.

12th & 14th level gamebreaking is a bit old-school. But even when you do experience that late, it still doesn't encourage anyone to even think about wanting to get anywhere near Epic Level play.

[erik]

I think it isn't that we aren't aware of the early broken builds. They come as news to just about nobody here, and further they aren't a even problem in actual games that are played since every DM will just say "No."

The trouble is that by level 12-14, the normal deviation between characters becomes so great that the game is grinding to a halt since some players are useless while others are awesome. It's not that you have to wait until those levels to be uber-broken, it's that by those levels that average players not even trying to break the game have drifted so far apart in capabilities that it is hard to keep them on the same island.

I mean you've got a 12th level fighter who can't do jack squat against almost any enemy of CR 12, then you have a 12th level caster who can own just about any enemy of CR 12.

[rapanui]

The game is "playable" roughly up to level 10. After that, instakills rule the day... or rather ruin the game.

For characters to survive after 10th, the DM has to constantly be increasingly fudging rolls and after a point, lethal attacks don't even grant saves. (Not to mention helping crimpped characters along by a variety of means, like doling out non-standard equipment that helps them play catch-up to their min/maxed companions)

Of course the game is playable if the PCs and the DM ignore all that crap, and kind of just fudge their way through everything. At this point, I kind of have to wonder:

Why are you even playing with rules to begin with?

[Imban]

Well, you're ostensibly still playing with some rules. Just not the standard ones.

[rapanui]

Yeah, the rules the DM makes up behind the screen. Might as well go outside and beat each other with sticks.

Actually, with the right crowd, that can be fun.

[Imban]

No, the variant rules the DM and players make up together which stop your game from becoming rocket launcher tag.

[RandomCasualty]

1163119611[/unixtime]]
Of course the game is playable if the PCs and the DM ignore all that crap, and kind of just fudge their way through everything. At this point, I kind of have to wonder:

Why are you even playing with rules to begin with?

Well it's not exactly fudging. We're talking about modifying the rules before play starts and then possibly making some tweaks between sessions once the game is running. But the agreed upon rules don't change in the middle of a session.

And that isn't that remarkably different from playing a straight by the book game, aside from the fact that people have to remember a lot of extra stuff. But it's certainly not the DM just making up the game as he goes along.

[Crissa]

I don't know any modified rules which place everyone's saves on the same die, or everyone's ability to hit a target with effects.

Honestly, I don't find 3.5 playable at level 1 without alot of tweaks. 3.0 didn't need a 'starter' package, but 2-dot and dot-5 do... Or a really, really confident GM who can do math.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1163195487[/unixtime]]I don't know any modified rules which place everyone's saves on the same die, or everyone's ability to hit a target with effects.

Actually saves aren't too hard to manage. You just need the following two changes

-You reduce the starting good progression saves to +1 and +2 on the first two levels, so people can only get a max of +1 to saves from any one level.

-Two ability scores to saves just don't work (ie. DIvine grace). I recommend changing that to ability replacement (Use cha instead of dex to reflex saves).

Once you've done that, you're going to have pretty reasonable and close saves.

[Zherog]

I think you also need to remove the "a 1 is always a fail" rule for saves. A 20 always being a success isn't as bad (in my opinion). But the autofail rule just leads to lots of weirdness if you let it - like vampiric domination of the whole world.