Topic: Highest Level Game

[Tywyll]

What's your highest level campaign? How did the game run at high level? Very interested in hearing if anybody played at 15th+ level games. How did high level characters avoid the inevitable death by crit?

[stuck923]

We didn't avoid it, it happened more often than in DnD (from my recollection, it was about 20 yrs ago). 

We did two things. 
1)  Always focus on defense first, and attack a close second.  Deciding on defense strategy was always first consideration.  Especially if there was a chance of soul capture/destruction.  This was our first concern in any battle.
2)  We always kept a nice set of herbs/spell around for preservation and a team pool of cash on hand to do resurrections. if possible.

[vector]

My highest level campaigns had characters at 20+ levels. We even occasionally break them out of retirement (now 50th level) for a particularly epic scenario.

How to avoid death by crits? stuck923 makes a good point about focusing on defense, and at high level there are a lot of options.

Another very useful tool are the optional Fate Point rules. My players nearly always used them defensively, avoided any instant death crits. Even so, sometimes a powerful sorceress queen just melts your face off anyway.

[Tywyll]

Cool!

How did the system play with 20+ level spells getting chucked around? Is it dramatically different? Were non-casters still viable?

[vector]

Cool!

How did the system play with 20+ level spells getting chucked around? Is it dramatically different? Were non-casters still viable?

Good question. The lineup for that epic game was:

High Elf Archmage (Champion of Eltara, God of Magic)
Dwarf Cleric (Champion of Alakar, Head of Pantheon)
Half-Elf Ranger (Champion of Myrill, Goddess of Nature)
Human Nightblade (Champion of Cathos, God of War & Vengeance, when in a vengeful mood)
High Elf Fighter (Champion of Naydor, God of Fate & Death)

So as you can see, most characters were pure and semi spell users. Magic gets rather impressive once 15th spells can be cast easily. I never really had any difficulty challenging them, but then again their enemies were rather epic too.

I will admit, they would have had a harder time dealing with the usual opposition of undead armies, wraith lord sorcerers, ancient dark drakes, demon lords and demi-god emperors if they were just a plucky band of fighters with moderately powerful equipment.

I will say that by 20+ level the fighter was so quick and skilled that she was a fitting champion for Death.