On High Level

The goal for NAP III will be to push people to explore an area of oldschool D&D that is not often touched upon. Despite having a progression that goes up to and beyond 20 (or 14 if you play B/X), actual adventures suitable for the higher ranges were present but scarce in the TSR era of D&D and are downright endangered in the OSR. The reasons for this are no doubt complex but some possible explanations may include:

* It takes a great deal of time for oldschool games to reach these higher levels organically and most campaigns end before that
* The great amount of abilities, spells and magic items at the disposal of both players and monsters requires greater investment from both players and GM if you are starting at a higher level and do not have the time to master these elements gradually over multiple sessions of play
* It might not be fun [*]

While verifying the first two points might prove difficult, verifying the third point was quite easy. About a year ago, over the course of several months, I teamed up with the esteemed Gabor Lux, the also esteemed Dr. Lynch (who was unfortunately forced to drop out after the initial training), Settembrini, EOTB and several other worthies to explore this ultra-tellurian realm of staves of power, rings of regeneration, type IV demons and scrolls of wish through the excellent Anthony Huso module Dream House of the Nether Prince for AD&D 1e. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to chuck the macguffin through the Golden Gate at the heart of Orcus’s domain, and possibly beat the stuffing out of ole’ goat hoof in the process. Yes, sir, THAT Orcus.

Preparation felt a bit like training for a commando mission or equipping some sort of futuristic battlemech. I played a 14th level MU by the name of Prospero the Infallible. Soon you are pouring over the AD&D Phb, picking 40 spells of level 1-8, then picking another 10ish spells for your scrolls. Then you are figuring out what all of your items do, your items with daily uses, your charges etc. Getting used to the level of play meant we played a short intro mission that lasted 2 sessions. The module proper was, if possible, more intense.

If you have a week or more of in-game to time to prepare there are several avenues open for reconnaissance. While some sort of rumor could be had from a passing agent of the Nine Hells, I spent one part of the week toiling on a simulacrum of our 18th level fighter (who was soon equipped with our spare magic items) and used any stray time I had to fire off a series of Contact Outer Plane spells to gain some information on the denizens of the palace (obviously demons and undead were expected), which gives you a series of Yes or No questions of variable reliability. We played it very safe, avoiding all chance of insanity, and were able to get a few questions answered about their vulnerabilities, affecting my final choice of spells.

Insertion into the 1st layer of the Abyss took place via the canyon surrounding Orcus’s Mansion. It took us 3? sessions to complete. Noticeable was the relentless pressure, the whirlwind of different challenges that are hurled at you the second you hit the Abyss proper and you are given no place to take a breather. This place is hostile. We avoided the level-draining rain by the fighter’s cube of force, an invaluable tool, and once we were inside, the pressure only got worse.

Blow through a fortified rampart, equipped with ice-cannons and staffed with Manes and Bar-lurga, emerge into a great hall with hundreds of ghouls that soon wake up, hold them off with turn undead and the decanter of endless water while someone busts open the next door with a Chime of Opening, then emerge into an even bigger hall with about 20-30 Polar worms, who move curiously in your direction, once again swear as you make a break for the exit, leaving your simulacrum to fend them off and die in their coils, break through, fight two Type VII demons (this place is so off the scale it has type VII demons) in an atrium, the list goes on and on. With hit points near a hundred, low saving throws and myriad bonuses added to them, your characters feel almost indestructable, but you are quickly disabused of this notion if you stick around and fight. It is not possible to hoard resources. Every encounter feels like it can be blazed through if the right tools are applied, and can roll over you and club you to death if you apply the wrong tools. We ended up in a mexican stand-off between Orcus, Demogorgon with the Golden Gate before us, and having to choose which party to back, and tried to blast open the gate with a Wish spell (which did not work but revealed another method) and did a suicide run for the gate to reset all of space time, losing the Paladin in the process. There was some GM fiat in the end, but the rest was played ah la carte.

So yes, this is fun. It is, in fact, so fun that I want to create more of it. I would do all of it myself, but I am only one man. That is why we are going to marshall the power of the OSR.

In terms of designing high level adventures, it can be helpful to consider the differences between a high level and a low level party. What if I just run B2 but I staff it with mindflayers, beholders, balors, chimeras and liches? And yes, brute force can be a solution, but we can do much better. Consider the differences:

* Brute force: An Obvious difference. Area of effect spells equalize numerical disadvantage. Enchanted weaponry, enhanced strength (depending on the edition). 15d6 fireballs. Low saving throws and high hit points mean that you are far less likely to get taken out by a lucky shot.
* Intelligence: Myriad divinations mean that unless there is liberal use of wish spells and GM fiat, PCs have access to a greater amount of intelligence. Clairvoyance and Scrying can be used to inspect rooms, Augury can be used to discern the effect of certain courses of action, Contact Outer Plane and Commune can be used to gain information about the area beforehand. Consider also Find Traps, Detect Evil, Locate Object, Find the Path etc. etc. And of course at high levels a Rogue’s hide in shadows and move silently abilities border on the infallible, and what if you combine that with a potion of ESP, allowing you to listen in on the enemy’s thoughts.
* Mobility: Even if you strove to make your area as linear as possible, high level PCs are much more mobile then their low level counterparts. This applies both actual movement speed (in terms of boots of speed, or boots of springing and striding, or myriad ways to circumvent encumbrance) but consider vertical options like Levitate, Flight, sequence breaking shenanigans like Passwall, Teleportation, Dimension Door or the dreaded Etherealness. What good are walls if a man can phase into another realm and walk through your dungeon that way.
* Endurance: In low level games, you get into a bad scrape, you might have a potion of cure light wounds tucked away, or a single Cure light wounds spell means you can stay in the fight, but another scrape and you are close to death. The Magic user must nurture his few spells carefully and use them at the opportune time. In high level games healing is abundant, provided you have a cleric, allowing parties to stay in the fight for a very long time. Dozens and dozens of spells are available, combined with plentiful magic items (if the GM uses normal treasure distribution), meaning having to resort to clubbing someone with a quarterstaff is going to be rare indeed. Consider also something like regeneration, available through rings, extremely high Con (AD&D) or other powerful items. Conditions that would cripple or disable the character in lower games like diseases, curses, poison or level drain can be dealt with in situ.
* Resources: If you are playing B/X your characters will already have too much money. This only increases as the characters have titles, lands, and require vast amounts of gold to level up. Hiring a troupe of soldiers, or keeping up half a dozen levelled retainers, is no problem. Assaulting a fortress? What about a diversionary attack using 2000 men? With the ready availability of Raise Dead or Ressurection, even Death loses much of its sting.

My working model is that the best high level adventures don’t work by down-right banning or crippling the aforementioned advantages but by taking them into account when making the adventure. In this sense S1 has done a lot of damage, most of it because of misinterpretation rather then anything Gygax himself did. The idea behind S1 Tomb of Horrors was to put high level characters back in an arena where their dungeon crawling fundamentals would be put to the test. No you dont get Etherealness. Lets see if you have actually earned your levels. This was followed up by WG6 Isle of the Ape, originally (If Trent is to be believed, and he is correct on these matters more often then not) an adventure for OD&D at around the 12th level, now forced into a level 18 mould for AD&D. In order to make it work, all manner of spells and powers receive a blanket ban on the island. This is a heavy-handed and at times artificial form of difficulty; We make a high level adventure by making a low level one that forces the players to act like low level characters.

At the same time, limited use of zones of anti-magic, proof against divination, magical darkness and monsters with immunity as a matter of standard operating procedure is certainly fair game. It is not considered unsporting to occasionally employ narrow corridors, monsters that are immune to sleep or attacks from ambush in a low level game, so the use of unfavorable conditions for magical abilities should certainly not be considered beyond the pale. Nor is Dream House, which uses the rules for Planar Travel, less guilty of this. The Abyss is an extremely hostile place, spells cannot easily be recovered, magic weapons and items are diminished, many spells are curtailed. What do we think of the Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga, that can absorb and steal certain specific spells and turn them against the players? Is that not an interesting complication? It is often a question of frequency, not of concept.

The philosophy is that you make adventures that require the players to use most of their advantages, while occasionally restricting a few to add to the challenge.

* Raw power is the easiest to compensate for and there are ample super-powered monsters in the early bestiaries, to say nothing of the countless additions, OSR and otherwise, that came later. It can be easy to fall into the trap of only using the top of the pyramid but very often large numbers or interesting compositions of monsters can serve to create challenges that are just as interesting, if not more so. Consider something like D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa which uses a hordes of combatants, spearheaded by more formidable champions and specialists and then cheekily throws in an invisible level 8 monks/assassin amid the other combatants. Chefs kiss. Intelligence and strategy is often as good and interesting or better as raw power. D3 goes so far as to pit you against an entire evil civilization, the Drow City of Erehlei Cinlu.
* With increased intelligence capability of the players the obligation for the GM to telegraph possibly lethal encounters or traps diminishes accordingly. The practical application will vary according to taste, and you don’t want to be that guy who puts a pit trap in a random hallway, but do not be afraid to deploy formidable opponents. Traps can be more cryptic. Hazards can be more unfamiliar. Good intelligence will allow the PCs to counter-act or bypass many of these potential hazards. Then, of course, the occasional opponent with an amulet of proof against detection and location will come as an extra unwelcome surprise. Make liberal use of illusion to conceal parts of the complex.
* Mobility is counteracted by complex objectives. If the goal is only to assassinate a single Lord, no matter how powerful, the PCs can figure out his position via scrying, then teleport into his throneroom while he is in the bathroom and shank him. A council of evildoers, spread out across a fortress in a hollowed out mountain, each in a different location, one of them disguised and anonymous, is a different challenge altogether. Perhaps the central keep is protected by an impenetrable field of shadows that is sustained by three anchor points, one of them in another plane?
Mobility is also a dungeon designer’s gift. Make large maps, use verticality, create rooms that are only accessible through magic.
* The obvious way to counter-act increased Endurance is to just make everything really long but that is boring. Instead consider using increased Pressure. In Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Moil, the City that Waits, is located in a demi-plane near the astral. Unless characters are insulated against the cold, they must check con every 6 hours or lose a hit point. Anything living that is killed animates as a zombie within 1d3 rounds. The area is haunted by the Vestige, a slow moving but almost invincible gestalt spirit. In Dream House of the Nether Prince, once you get to the lower levels you must keep moving or you risk depleting all of your resources on near endless opponents before you can get to the more formidable (but numerically inferior) inhabitants of the upper levels. The Isle of the Ape corrodes and damages the character’s items and food. A type of dungeon inhabited by creatures like the Borg or MtG Slivers, that adapt to repeated attacks and develop immunities would be another way of forcing players to advance. You make it challenging to find the room to recover, or you extract a large toll simply to keep adventuring in the place.
* Resources. So your players can field armies? That’s great! Make them use that! Make an order of battle. See how the fortress responds to a diversionary attack. They have an extra party of retainers? Fantastic. That means you can use even more monsters.

Over the course of the coming months, I will be looking at a few high level modules to hopefully give everyone a glimpse into some of the tricks and tools of the trade people have come up with over the decades. I feel there is a lot of untapped potential here so a design competition should be good fun.

Possible candidates include:
* Gary Gygax’s Necropolis
* Monte Cook’s Labyrinth of Madness
* Bruce Cordell’s City of Skulls and Die! Vecna! Die!
* The Dreams of Ruin
* The Rob Kuntz 3rd party modules
* Dream House of the Nether Prince by Anthony Huso
* The C and M series for BECMI
* Crypt of the Devil Lich

Feel free to recommend any others that might apply.

Have a great weekend everyone.