From: Robert A. Howard 
>Worse is the player's husband, who's one of the most conniving and sneaky
>players I know and who is intelligently running a 12th level wizard. Using


Now _there's_ a dangerous combination.  My brother and a cunning friend of
his used to achieve more with rogue magic (1st to some 3rd level) than most
of the campaign's higher level mages could with 5th to 6th level magic.
Many of their nastier creations were clever combinations of otherwise
harmless spells.  Can't remember examples right now, but do remember
mentally doubling the strength of a couple of scenarios as they cut their
way through the first rank without a scratch (or just side-stepped them
altogether).

I've also proved to the party on numerous occasions that the most dangerous
opponents they can face are a well organised group of intelligent
adventurers.  I only ran attacks by NPC parties three or four times over ten
years of campaign because the party spent most of the fight in panic
screeching about "Evil GM's throwing grossly over-powered NPC's against the
unprepared adventurers" and most of the aftermath grumbling over my proof
that they were ripped apart by NPC's two or three levels _below_ them.

>So, even over-powered, the group still occasionally gets concerned with
>their health- especially as they lost their healers and only have one NPC
>
To be honest, I've found that getting to the level where survival isn't a
day-to-day problem is when things get interesting.  It separates the
role-players from the rule-lawyers and power-gamers.  Some players simply
don't know what to do once their character has enough wealth and power to
live comfortably.  For other players this is just providing them with the
foundation to really unfold the character.  A fair proportion of the
scenarios a few higher-level players faced were just me desperately trying
to keep up with what they were doing to the world.

One of the worst cases was a dwarven high priest who created the world's
only inter-continental trading concern in order to fund his efforts to
become a japanese war lord.  It sounds like munchkin nonsense but this guy
spent vast amounts of time and cash establishing each organisation properly,
studying both cultures in detail, gifting the right people, ignoring the
right people, head-hunting the right experts.

He even argued convincingly that the warrior ethic, clan bonds and retainer
loyalty of the dwarven warrior and samurai were similar enough for careful
work to overcome the natural opposition to a foreigner.  When players do
cultural research it's time to be afraid.

Chris.

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