High level campaigns

[caldan]

Are there any plans for high level campaigns [10th and above].
I seem to have a problem with challenging my players at higher level.
My group are approximately 13th level and consist of Aesir barbarian, Pict Barbarian, Hyrkanian Nomad, Zamoran Thief. Most Npcs are despatched easily as they are very formidable. We have played most of the published scenarios the last being the Reavers of Vilayet which ended with them at 13th level.
I am struggling to start a new campaign that will challenge them. Just chucking more Npcs at them doesnt appeal as they pretty much kill anything and the sessions turn out to be bogged down with number crunching. I also want to convey the feeling that they are veteran adventurers that should have bigger goals but I dont know how to go about this.
I have been Gm for over twenty years and my campaigns always seem to end at this level for the above reasons

 

[rgrove0172]

Honestly by the time my players reach such status in my past games, we normally retire them. Granted, there are still challenges to be had at high level but personally I enjoy the lower level adventuring and development more.

 

[Banesfinger]

I feel your pain.

With (regular) d20 settings, you can usually fill in those high levels by traveling to other Planes, defeating spider demi-gods, gain artifacts, etc. But these kinds of 'fantastical' adventures don't really fit in the Conan world.

To keep the hyborian flavour, I would suggest high-stakes political intregue (like King's advisors, or trying to take over the throne, etc), but if roleplaying is not your group's cup-of-tea, then large scale battles seem to be the only option. Unfortunately, I agree, high-level d20 does not simulate the danger of these very well.

Edit: you mentioned being 'bogged down' by lots of rolling in high-level combats. Hopefully, if 2nd edition uses some of the ideas from Saga Edition d20, it should speed up game play greatly.
(There are several threads about 2nd Ed, and Saga, so I will not elaborate here).

 

[Clovenhoof]

Didn't get there with Conan yet, but in my previous D20 experience, things only got really _interesting_ at those higher levels. I regard low levels as a way to get accustomed to a setting and rules, if you aren't already. If my players were experienced with D20, I would have started the campaign at level 6 or something. But they're all noob so they startet at level 1.

So, anyway: what to play at high levels? I say there are plenty of opportunities, also and especially in a world like Conan's. However, you may find it difficult if you tie yourself slavishly to the canon.

- maybe a warlord from the far side of the world comes riding with his army and threatens the lands your PCs have an allegiance with. It will require some mass battles, whose success will depend a lot on the brave and inspired leadership by your party.

- if you don't like mass battles, make it a high-level sorcerer, who commands relatively few, but powerful minions (both mortal and demonic) and seeks to... to... to do whatever eveil overlords love to do, like take over the world or summat.

- or one or more player characters get the idea that they should be king, as is also proposed in the core book. That should provide sufficient grounds for lots of role-playing and fighting alike.

- if you like barnraising events, have some natural disaster destroy a city, and the survivors are led by the PCs to an unsettled land to build a new home there. The new settlement will be virtually helpless except for the PCs. Add high-level threats and stir well.

Just a few ideas, maybe not all the most original, but should work. If however your players really feel like the current campaign does not challenge them any more in an exciting way, it may be indeed time to start over fresh.

 

[Krushnak]

or have them travel far out into the western ocean and find some lost island or continent with plenty of strange and varied creatures leftover from the previous age.

i know my lost western continent is going to be alot like lustria from warhammer, plenty of mayan/aztec inspired city states and ruins amidst the jungles where humans are ruled over by a few but very powerful lizardmen(both sorcerous and warrior).

 

[Aholibamah]

One thing I have on the backburner is Dungeon Magazine's Isle of Dread series "The Savage Tide". It is fantastical but at the same time it could be fun and it is fairly higher level so it would be sufficiently challenging for high level Conan D20 characters. You could alter such an adventure and just take out some of the magical stuff, replace some encounters with tribesmen and the like.

 

[argo]

Well, most high-level campaigns usually break down into 2 modes.

The Epic Quest - this is a bit tricky in Conan's low-magic mileu but it is still dooable as shown in Hour of the Dragon. Send the players to the other side of the world looking for a setting-approrpiate McGuffin then make sure the trip back is even harder (oddessey-style). You should have plenty of excuses to introduce terrible beasts, foul demons and strange high-level NPC's in the wild places far from civilization without invalidating the established areas of your game where the low-level people live.

Build and Protect - get your players involved in "politics" weither that means making them barons of a border march or Kozaki chieftans (or mercenary captains, or pirate captains, or border scouts in the westermark, or caravan owners, or..... ). It doesn't matter what your BAB is or how many HP you have when your objective is providing what your followers need, weither that is fair taxes or loot from sacking a caravan. And having to protect what you build means that you can still challenge your player - one high-level PC can't be everywhere at once and their low-level followers are still vulneurable to mundane threats. Every once in a while have them fight a high-level assasin or get involved in a massed combat so they can show off. Conan makes all this much easier than other d20 games espically with the Reputation rules.

And whatever you do try to think of ways how what the players have done/not done in the past can come back to bite them in the @$$. You don't make it to 13th level without pissing off some people or else owing obligations to some people. A good GM should be able to pull all sorts of adventure hooks out of prior loose ends.


OTOH maybe your players don't want any of this. If your group would rather just keep playing "footloose vagabond adventurers" then perhaps you should retire the characters and start new ones. Nothing wrong with that.

Hope that helps.

 

[Axerules]

Have you seen this thread ? I asked if Hyborian Empires was still sheduled. In another thread MS Sprange wrote that it was "still on the cards". I hope I will one day see the release of this book. It was supposed to be "Birthright in Hyboria". It could be helpful to run high-level campaigns. Most of the adventures and products published so far are more for low-level than for high-level characters.

 

[caldan]

Thanks for the replies. Ill work with the players to see what we can come up with.
The Hyborian Empires sounds very good. I did have the Birthright system but never got round to using it, although it was very good quality.


why do you think there is a shortage of high level scenarios?

 

[argo]

why do you think there is a shortage of high level scenarios?

-Because they are harder to write than low level scenarios perhaps?

-Because there is a perception that scenarios are tools for beginning GM's and said beginning GM's play low level to keep things simple? The flip side of that perception being that experienced GM's playing high level games prefer to craft their own scenarios.

Personally I think the lack of higher level modules is a grave disapointment. I am by no means an inexperienced GM, but I also happen to be a working adult with a J-O-B. Thats a job folks, in a cubicule no less. I just don't have time to do all the work myself. I've been hopping for a while that Mongoose will release a good 1-20 mega-module for Conan like they did for the Slane RPG, or the Drow War that they put out a while back. Maybe after the release of Conan 2ed.....

 

[Majestic7]

I've planned my campaign to carry in to high levels. If the characters manage to crawl back alive to Nemedia and carry at least portion of the riches they have earned with them, they can well buy noble ranks with their money. Especially since the war with Aquilonia has seen many Nemedian nobles killed. (My campaign started at the last pages of the Hour of the Dragon.) Thus, if things turn high-level, I think the action will be more strategic stuff using Free Companies and court intrigue -style plots, rather than running in dungeons wrestling with ghouls.

 

[Aholibamah]

why do you think there is a shortage of high level scenarios?

-Because they are harder to write than low level scenarios perhaps?

-Because there is a perception that scenarios are tools for beginning GM's and said beginning GM's play low level to keep things simple? The flip side of that perception being that experienced GM's playing high level games prefer to craft their own scenarios.

Personally I think the lack of higher level modules is a grave disapointment. I am by no means an inexperienced GM, but I also happen to be a working adult with a J-O-B. Thats a job folks, in a cubicule no less. I just don't have time to do all the work myself. I've been hopping for a while that Mongoose will release a good 1-20 mega-module for Conan like they did for the Slane RPG, or the Drow War that they put out a while back. Maybe after the release of Conan 2ed.....

Hear hear. For my part while I will often adapt stuff once I've bought it it is still way easier to do that than to spend hours every day wracking your brains from scratch.

 

[Auggie]

I adapt lower-level adventures as well for my players. Sure, it would be nice for a high-level adventure to be published, but we'll have to make due in the meantime...

 

[bjorntfh]

I'm in a campaign that's just hit 14th level, and we're used to going through 1-2 fate points a combat. Remember: just because you're high level doesn't make your massive damage threshold any higher. A good PA or crit means dead PC.

We're hiring a merc army for the defense of a kingdom we're allied with... oh and exploring in out airship (mad science high level sorceress... low sanity, high "stuff" factor) and causing general havok (heck, we looted a small town as a party because... um... we were bored and drunk?)

 

[Clovenhoof]

An airship. oO Are you sure your GM isn't confusing Conan with Final Fantasy? :lol:

 

[bjorntfh]

Actually, it's the consequence of a literally "mad science" Khitai sorceress. It's a big hot air balloon made using tech from around the 3rd century BC (the Aeliopile and a few other Greek steam and cloth toys) mixed with elemental binding.

Mind you, like any sorcererous construct it's costing a fortune to keep aloft and it fits more into the "strange sorceress's fortress" than a anything that is common in Hyboria. After all, look at Lemuria: they can literlly create matter and energy without effort, have high science magitech (powered by demons...) and have collapsed into decadence.

If I can summon a demon to fly the party anywhere I want at 14th level (technically much earlier), why shouldn't I be able to put a box around the demon so I don't have to deal with the wind messing up my hair?

 

[Etepete]

I think there's plenty of high level potential in Conan.

I'd go for an Unspeakable Threats-type plotline: Time to go up against those sanitystripping demons from beyond and nightmarish things that lurk just beneath the surface of the Hyborian World. Valusian ruins and Acheronian secrets are just the stepping stone for pitting oneself against unhuman plots and horrors.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Yeah, that's a good suggestion, and actually close to what I have in mind for when our party hits the high levels. It may go beyond the typical "one entity per story", but if you always pit the PCs against a pile of mooks and one sorcerer, or a horde of pillaging savages etc., things get repetitive and tedious after a while.

Here I've got it easier again, using a homebrew world, I don't have to butcher the official Hyboria and can arrange things as I see fit.