Foreword

Utter the words “high-level character” to just about any group of AD&D® game fans and you are certain to get a strong reaction. Veteran players often shake their heads in disgust, but there are a few whose eyes gleam with fond memories. Referees often look pained or confused. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about high-level play.

If you are a fan of high-level campaigns, there is very little I can say about this book. You have probably already thumbed through the pages, lingering over the choicest bits. Perhaps you’ve studied the rules and tables of legendary monsters in Chapter 2 or considered the possibilities that the new character powers from Chapter 7 can bring to your game. Enjoy!

If your opinion of high-level play is lukewarm or worse, you might be wondering why I wrote this book at all. I’ll share a secret with you. Before I started this book, I wasn’t any too fond of high-level play either. My mind began to change, however, as I began planning the book and talking to people about what it should contain. Although high-level play can be difficult, I learned that there have been plenty of successful high-level campaigns over the years.

Along the way, I began thinking about an old character I once played: Ellis Strongheart. Ellis began life as a 1st-level ranger full of spunk, and he wound up as a the lord of a huge castle. Ellis had a list of powerful enemies as long as your arm and an equally long list of allies, including a time-traveling dragon and a host of servants and retainers. The campaign that gave birth to Ellis is long gone, but Ellis is now firmly ensconced in my own campaign as an NPC. The players in my game are strangely attracted to Ellis (lesser mortals call him Lord Strongheart). Ellis is very much a viable character, with a long history and an enigmatic reputation. To me, Ellis is proof that high-level play can be worthwhile, even if it does get rather wild.

This book’s first chapter, The Seven Maxims, discusses what DMs have to do to make sure their campaigns stand up to the rigors of high-level play. All campaigns require work, but high-level games require a special touch, and it is the lack of that knowledge that causes many high-level games to go astray. If you have tried a high-level game and failed, the material in the first two chapters should help you avoid critical mistakes. The rest of the book provides ideas for keeping a game—and its player characters—fresh. There are rules and suggestions for building adventures and whole new worlds, conducting magical duels, and making magical items. Two chapters are worth special note: Chapter 6, True Dweomers, and Chapter 7, High-Level Characters. Both of these chapters introduce new powers into the game.

True dweomers are essentially 10th-level spells. I included them not just to satisfy power gamers, but to allow high-level spellcasters to create world-shaking magic. When the rules are used properly, the casting of a single true dweomer can keep a group of PCs busy for a long time. Chapter 7 includes some hard-and-fast rules about what characters can do. In it there is a revised rule for automatic failure of saving throws—something that places a little fear back into high-level character’s lives—and a host of new powers. Don’t be put off by these new abilities; their purpose is twofold: First, they give players something to look forward to. No longer do high-level characters simply accumulate more hit points once they reach 9th or 10th level. Second, they put truly epic abilities into the hands of player characters. These new powers are not going to allow PCs to lay waste to the countryside, but using one indisputably marks a character as a legendary figure. That’s what high-level play is all about.

Skip Williams

April, 1995

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