I've never actually played BECMI D&D that high, but the current new project I'm working on is shooting for the same level cap, and I'm a bit unfamiliar with the high level D&D rules on this.

Anyone have sample characters or general ideas they can share about how higher level characters in BECMI/RC work?

Pundit's probably your best bet. He's run a campaign where the characters became Gods.

I'm not sure I quite understand what you're looking for. If you have the BECMI series, you can just do the math and see how many Hit Points, spells and the like they've got. In terms of what they're busy doing, that would be "questing for immortality". IIRC, they can start questing a couple of levels before that, and would assumably do so given the chance. At this point, those quests should be keeping them busy acquiring artifacts, founding dynasties, expanding kingdoms, getting involved in time travelling adventures, probably stints on other planes (though they'll only really come into their full swing once Immortals) and, assuming the DM is using the full BECMI millieu, probably already have had dealings with Immortals beyond the one sponsoring their immortality.

Well, partly I ask because I recently had to sell my RC to pay the bills, so I can't look myself.  

More relevantly, my next project is a JRPG-inspired OSR game, and I want to shoot for a much higher level cap than Hulks and Horrors did, in keeping with the source material, and I'm curious how BECMI handled the 36 cap without the numbers getting out of hand.  

So I thought I might ask how BECMI handled it in terms of mechanics.

Ah, so you actually want the numbers!

Well, hope you don't mind me not copying down everything by hand, but here's a small selection, as per RC:

Cleric spell progression, excerpts:

Lvl 15-17:
6/5/5/3/3/3
6/5/5/4/4/3
6/6/5/4/4/3/1

Lvl 24-26:
8/7/6/6/5/5/4
8/7/6/6/5/5/5
8/7/7/6/6/5/5

Lvl 34-36
9/9/9/8/8/8/8
9/9/9/9/9/8/8
9/9/9/9/9/9/9

Cleric Saving Throws, Magic Wands:
Lvl:
1-4: 12
5-8: 10
9-12: 8
13-16: 7
17-20: 6
21-24: 5
25-28: 4
29-32: 3
33-36: 2

In general, human classes reach Saving Throw values of 5-8 roughly in the area of levels 16-24 and only improve slowly after that, reaching 3s and 4s around lvl 25-32 and all 2s for the last three levels or so.

Demis can only go up to lvl 8-12, but their Saving Throws improve much faster, topping out at values of 2-4 at around their max levels.

JESUS EFFING CHRIST WHO THE HELL THOUGH IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO DRAW THE ELF WEARING THAT

Turn Undead table follows a mathematical progression, at lvl 21-24 Liches are automatically turned (2d6 HD's worth of them), from lvl 25 onwards everything weaker than Liches is automatically destroyed (at least several HD's worth).

HP: Cleric/Elf/Halfling 1d6, Fighter/Dwarf 1d8, Thief/M.U. 1d4, always up to & including 9th level. After that, +1 to +3 and Con bonuses no longer apply.

Thief skills, for some reason, I can copy & paste in whole without the rest of the page sticking to it. Table format is screwed but you can work it out.

Level/O. Locks/F. Traps/R. Traps/Climb/M. Silently/H. Shadows/P. Pockets/H. Noise
1 15 10 10 87 20 10 20 30
2 20 15 15 88 25 15 25 35
3 25 20 20 89 30 20 30 40
4 30 25 25 90 35 24 35 45
5 35 30 30 91 40 28 40 50
6 40 35 34 92 44 32 45 54
7 45 40 38 93 48 35 50 58
8 50 45 42 94 52 38 55 62
9 54 50 46 95 55 41 60 66
10 58 54 50 96 58 44 65 70
11 62 58 54 97 61 47 70 74
12 66 62 58 98 64 50 75 78
13 69 66 61 99 66 53 80 81
14 72 70 64 100 68 56 85 84
15 75 73 67 101 70 58 90 87
16 78 76 70 102 72 60 95 90
17 81 80 73 103 74 62 100 92
18 84 83 76 104 76 64 105 94
19 86 86 79 105 78 66 110 96
20 88 89 82 106 80 68 115 98
21 90 92 85 107 82 70 120 100
22 92 94 88 108 84 72 125 102
23 94 96 91 109 86 74 130 104
24 96 98 94 110 88 76 135 106
25 98 99 97 111 89 78 140 108
26 100 100 100 112 90 80 145 110
27 102 101 103 113 91 82 150 112
28 104 102 106 114 92 84 155 114
29 106 103 109 115 93 86 160 116
30 108 104 112 116 94 88 165 118
31 110 105 115 117 95 90 170 120
32 112 106 118 118 96 92 175 122
33 114 107 121 118 97 94 180 124
34 116 108 124 119 98 96 185 126
35 118 109 127 119 99 98 190 128
36 120 110 130 120 100 100 195 130

So yeah, it just merrily goes above 100%. Penalties of up to 20% can be applied by the DM for difficult tasks, and a roll of 100 is always a failure. Backstabbing only ever gives you +4 to attack and double damage.

Can't comment on Combat Maneuvers or Weapon Mastery or whatever it was called in BECMI, never read those parts.

If you need something specific, I can look it up for you.

Several years ago I might have been able to show you one of the characters of the party that reached level 36 by the end of my epic Mystara campaign.  Now I have no idea where they are.

However, I should mention that by the time they got to that level, the characters were immensely powerful; and on top of that could basically choose to have just about any magic weapon or armor they wanted because of how item construction rules worked, so they were insanely kitted out.  Using the weapon mastery rules, spells as written, and fighter options, it meant that even against opponents that were relatively their equals, most battles would tend to come down to who won initiative first.

So I don't think that the very highest-level rules handled things extremely well, to be honest.  It was clear to my players that the fun of D&D play as a group of adventurers topped out at about level 20-25 or so; and after that most of the entertainment came from domain management and very high-level political/social adventures with the characters basically being involved in the affairs of emperors and gods as major power players in mapping the destiny of the entire planet.

RPGPundit

Yeah I think that levels 20-25 will give you plenty of JRPG power feeling...

That said thought, RC D&D has the wheels fall off at high levels less than other versions of D&D.

Quote from: J Arcane;576866my next project is a JRPG-inspired OSR game

color me intrigued.  something i've thought doing as well, but never panned out.  just combine gamma world items for the techy side with general d&d mechanics?  

but then thinking of the spell-like abilities in phantasy star that used technique points, you'd have to adapt a limited spell palette for something like that, i suppose. . . .

Quote from: beeber;577453color me intrigued.  something i've thought doing as well, but never panned out.  just combine gamma world items for the techy side with general d&d mechanics?  

but then thinking of the spell-like abilities in phantasy star that used technique points, you'd have to adapt a limited spell palette for something like that, i suppose. . . .

I'm still puzzling out how the marriage of mechanics will work out, and I was most particularly interested in BECMI/RC because it seemed like the edition most likely to handle higher level D&D with the least amount of unnecessary complexity.

Spells and abilities will indeed probably follow a more JRPG-style proscribed advancement, and likely use spell points as well, but the big concern is that I felt like it did need a relatively high level cap and rapid advancement, but without the numbers getting out of hand.  

I'm even considering doing away with traditional Hit Dice for this purpose, so I can keep HP numbers and damages from getting too out of hand.  I'm shooting for Dragon Quest numbers here, not Final Fantasy, as the former is a lot closer to something handleable at the table.