Customer Reviews

Dungeon Master Option: High-Level Campaigns (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition: Rulebook/2156)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Chapter 1 is about how to avoid irrealistic powerful characters! (very useful with high level characters)

Chapter 2 is about how to plan and organize an adventure. It shows clearly on what a DM has to take a look. (very helpful for every DM)

Chapter 3-5 is about the dangers with magic. It explains how to integrate magic in the right way in an adventure. (very very good!! it's so simple to destroy the game with to much magic)

chapter 7 : learn managing high level characters

This is a very good and usefull book, and I have the impression that good books are becomming rare; to much comerce!!

After reading this book, I felt that if I had read this along with the Dungeon Master Guide before I started my campaigns my world would have been improved greatly. It's perfect for those characters that have reached insanely high levels, but it also tells the DM how to avoid creating God-like characters that can ruin any campaign.

Great read. After playing since 1983 new ideas are always sought for. It is amazing how many documented ideas in this book we had hand crafted into our own games. I especially like the section on uber monsters. We had often argued that somewhere out there was the Orc to rule all Orcs. Seems that it was not a unique concept. Worth buying if you want to get some consistency with how the rest of the world used to level up the game.

PS. We never got across the idea of v3, v3.5, v4, v6.2.1b just too much to relearn.

Thought this was a players option, when i bought it. While i do DM now and again, i prefer to use the 3-3.5 system more. But it turns out; it makes a perfect gift for the 2-2.5 DM of your circle.

It deal with everything that an 'overlord' Player would need his DM to know, but it was too much for this simple player. Gods Bless Dungeon Masters!!!

If you take your campaigns into the upper reaches of immortality in mortal form, this is the book for you. MANY more skills and other interesting abilities that make any character (except the psionicist--an oversight) into a very formidable character. Also includes entire chapters devoted to helping a DM run those campaigns without unbalancing or simply adding tougher "super" opponents. If you retire your characters around 9th to 11th level, however, you need this book like a hole in the head. It is definitely a question of campaign style and player tastes.

This book is excellent, it can help extremely to improve the real role-playing of a high-level campaign. Not only does it help the DM make very interesting adventures, but it includes some very cool high-level abilities for characters that manage to get to high levels. It also includes a section devoted to characters who achieve 30th level, and how a mortal can attain godhood. Highly recommended.

High Level Options, as can be expected, is designed to appeal to the player who has a god-complex. Oddly, however, the book is split evenly between a very useful discourse on good DMing and some bells and whistles for characters of 15th level and higher.

The first half of the book should have been part of the reprinted Dungeon Master's guide. While TSR has a tendancy to publish fairly uncreative and "hack-and-slash" style adventures, the suggestions and guidelines here are wonderful, a good review for an experienced DM and a great primer for an amateur DM.

The second half of the book leaves a bit to be desired. I'm not a fan of "high level" campaigns, but the information presented here has some rather obvious flaws. In many ways, the 10th level spells are disappointing in effect. They aren't more ingenious than 9th level spells, nor are they particularly effective. Likewise, the material presented for additional class abilities is too little, too late, in my opinion. These abilities do little to make a more formidable character.

All in all, the book is best thought of as a supplement for the DMG.

Although I doubt that a DM without the Munchkin syndrome can lead several PC to such apexes of power without getting a few clues on how to run the campaign, the high level campaigns has several very good guiding lights for those DMs that have strayed into the darkness and can't get out ( overpowerful items, characters, and other forms of blight). This should have included some type of section dealing with STRIPPING overly mighty characters of their powers within the bounds of rational role-playing. Overall, I find that some sections of this book should have actually been included in the basic rules several years ago, rather than be used as a leaky life-boat for a dying game. Useful, but less than spectacular.