Ways to handle high-level headaches

UoaS: Ways to handle high-level headaches
by Lewis Pulsipher

If you DM any fantasy role-playing game long enough, some characters are going to rise to such levels that the game (and you) can no
longer adequately cope with them. In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons this problem begins around twelfth level if not sooner. The
characters are so powerful, not merely hard to kill but able to employ
many means of escape or attack, that only extremely powerful monsters (or very large numbers) can threaten them during normal adventures.
Of course, it is possible to invent grossly powerful new monsters, or
to introduce encounters with gods and demigods regularly, but this is
only a minor palliative; and the frequent use of godlike beings is unbelievable, if not downright offensive, to those with a sense of game balance. Regardless of which route you take, you cannot get away from
the fundamental problem: the players and their opponents have so
many choices open to them that it becomes difficult for the DM to
keep up with the game. There are just too many possibilities for the
average DM to control. Often he doesn’t recognize this, or can’t do
anything about it, with the result that the players easily defeat the
monsters and the characters become even more powerful. Then we
hear of twentieth- or even hundredth-level characters.

To put it another way, luck becomes a bigger factor in the game;
when both sides can call upon great magical or other supernatural
powers, the side which shoots first has a tremendous advantage. (I
must admit, I often wonder how even very high-level characters stay
alive in adventures against the super-monsters, who have the great
advantage of defending; but in many campaigns they do.)

Let’s assume you don’t want to take the super-monster or demigod
route, and you don’t want to arbitrarily kill off the high levels, though
some DMs have been known to do so. What is left to keep your campaign from being overrun by high-level characters? There are four alternatives which take the characters out of the adventuring part of the
game, so that they won’t rise yet further.

The first of these, and the hardest to institute, is voluntary retirement. Some DMs encourage players to retire high-level characters, to
be used only for the rare Major Quest (such as a rescue mission to
Hell). The character can sit in his castle, collect his taxes, possibly construct magic items or have others construct them for him, gather information, etc. Unfortunately, many players refuse to retire their characters, so some compulsion which is effective in game terms (“realistic”) must be found.

This leads to the second alternative, sometimes called the “gunslinger effect.” When characters begin to reach experience levels
which are rare, whatever that level may be, then they become famous
adventurers, men and women who live by violence and who may be
expected to die violently — rather like the gunfighters of the Old West.
Young swordsmen or magicians who want a quick reputation, who
don’t think “Conan” is as tough as people make him out to be, will
come looking for a fight, just as kids with sixguns called out Billy the
Kid or Wyatt Earp. And as in the Old West, the person looking for the
reputation often won’t be worried about the niceties of fair play; as
long as he manages to kill his target, he’ll get the reputation he desires

Whether this alternative will be feasible depends on the nature of
your world. If wars are common, or if for other reasons individuals are
more concerned about a group of enemies than about individual
reputations, the “gunslinger effect” won’t come into play much. If it
does, however, players will voluntarily retire their characters in order
to avoid a grave on Boot Hill, coming out of retirement only for vitally
important (and secret) adventures.

The third (and best) road away from adventuring is politics. Highlevel characters can become involved in the larger issues of your
world, wars, dynasties, colonization, court intrigue, and so on. They
won’t acquire much experience, for most of the time they’ll be working through intermediaries. Their reward is political power, or additional wealth, not experience points. They are able to participate in
this kind of activity because they are well-known (if not feared) people
with a lot of money. Their actual powers and magic items, however,
are largely neutralized because they must work behind the scenes. It is
a new challenge for the players as well, so they’re less likely to be unhappy that their strongest characters are no longer gaining levels. Of
course, they’ll want to start new characters to join in more typical adventures.

If none of these work for you, then in AD&D, at least, where
eighteenth-level wizards can cast Wish, there is a final resort — the
“wish wars.” No one is going to rise to eighteenth level without making enemies. Even if one could, similarly high-level characters of opposing alignments aren’t likely to ignore such a powerful person. What
will happen? Will these supermen (and women) use wishes to destroy,
or at least hinder, their adversaries? Perhaps more likely, they’ll use
wishes to attempt to undo enemy wishes. For example (roughly), “I
wish to know of any wishes which have adversely affected me.” (The
exact wording would have to be more concise and less all-encompassing, of course.)

Mind-boggling, no? The gods themselves probably become involved. The twentieth-level characters are going to spend all their time
just staying alive; yet in such a rarefied environment it would be a little
unfair (not to say difficult) for the DM to decide who would live and
who would die. It would be better to say that any character reaching
such high levels gets so involved in the “wish wars,” whether as wisher
or as accessory, that he can no longer divert his attention to mere adventuring. And thus these overly high levels are taken out of the
game.

I hope you never have to resort to the wish wars. But AD&D is a
better game, and more believable, when the characters are not superpowerful and visitations of gods and demons are rare if not unknown.
Somehow you have to neutralize the characters who, by hard work or
good luck, have reached the rarefied heights of twelfth or fifteenth
level.