Our group hit level 8. I'm playing a gnome wizard. We have a human fighter, human bard, elven cleric, and human paladin. We finished our first dragon fight in its lair.
1. I no longer envy the fighter's damage dealing capability. The fighter is still a fighter. A very limited, specialized class that does damage. It's about all he does. In a low magic game like 5th edition, it's tough to be a fighter. No easy access to flight, protection from elements, movement enhancing powers, and the like. Totally reliant on casters that are highly limited. If they are not archery specialized, they suffer immensely against highly mobile creatures with reach and powerful attacks like breath weapons. They shine brightly when can hammer with action surge. But they are almost useless if they can't get into melee range. There are a lot of ways to stop them from doing so for enemy creatures.
2. It's tough to be a caster. This concentration rule is highly limiting. It's very hard to buff people due to concentration. You are very limited in spell selection once you have a concentration spell up. No more casting protection from energy with fly and invisibility. You can cast fly. Then spend your time making sure you keep it up, so the martials have a chance to engage the flying dragon with reach. You really have to coordinate with other casters due to concentration. If the cleric wants to have an active bless, then he cannot cast a protection from energy. There is no mass protection from energy, so you have to worry about spreading out to avoid the breath weapon or AoE attacks. Fire Shield is almost a must have spell now as it is a protection from fire or cold damage without requiring concentration. You can't cast concentration attack spells like slow or hypnotic pattern without breaking concentration on bless or fly. It's extremely frustrating. That type of resource planning is going to take some getting used to before we execute it well.
The short duration of spells also made us wary of casting them too soon. If the monster waited out the duration with the low number of spell slots and a lack of consumables, we end up screwed. But if we bunch together to prepare to cast, the monster hits us with its breath weapon or AoE attack on top of lair actions and legendary actions, we end up screwed. The lack of access to consumable items along with limited spell slots and the concentration mechanic leads to logistical nightmares if the DM has intelligent monsters wait until spells and spell slots expire.
3. Dragons: It is nearly impossible to defeat an intelligently played dragon in 5E. As a DM you have to make them make stupid decisions so the party can kill them. If they fly around using lair actions waiting out spell durations and spell slot depletion as an intelligent dragon would do, you have no shot at beating them. They have an unlimited breath weapon that can keep recharging. You have no means of limiting the damage to an entire group and extremely limited means of mitigating the damage against even on member of your party. You are meat for their larders.
Along with their lair and legendary actions, you can't compete with them unless they're dumb enough to go toe to toe with you or you lure them to a spot where you have the advantage. They can dish out a ton of aggregate damage that further drains resources you can't recover. They move faster than you even with a fly spell. They can't be stealthed up on. Their resources are unlimited versus your very limited resources.
The only way to beat dragons is lucky crits, attacking one vastly weaker than your party, or the DM playing them poorly. The power gap between dragons and a party is vast now unless you have a powerful ranged attacker such as an archer or crossbow expert. A smart dragon would kill that person first and as fast as possible or leave until they can track that person and kill them.
Dragons are vicious now.
4. You need a healer. There's not getting around it. You need combat healing. Things hit hard. The damage adds up. An inability to heal in combat leads to major problems, especially when you get hit by hard AoE damage. Rough game that requires a good healer. You almost need a cleric or Lore Bard built for healing.
5. Paladin is the best martial. A paladin's ability to defend himself and unleash burst damage comes in immensely handy when fighting things like dragons. Being able to unleash burst damage when the dragon gives you an opportunity to hit it is immensely helpful. Having better saves and the best self-heal ability is immensely helpful given all the different saves for main special attacks, legendary action attacks, and lair action attacks is extremely useful. Having immunity to the frightened condition is immensely helpful. The paladin is an amazing martial class with a high level of useful versatility.
Rogues are nearly useless against creatures like dragons or with truesight or blindsight. Completely eliminates their powerful stealth abilities. A paladin doesn't need stealth to use their most powerful abilities.
6. Bard is pretty amazing as well. Bardic inspiration and Cutting Words can be lifesavers. Their mix of offense and defense can be helpful. A lucky crit by the bard with a chromatic orb won the day. Our two martials and cleric were dead. My wizard had dropped from a lair action attack. The bard hucked that orb and rolled 20. It did the job. Though it wouldn't have been wounded enough if not for the paladin unleashing a bunch of smite damage on it. The fighter did a total of 12 points with an arrow. He was chewed up by the lair actions and breath weapon before could do much as was the cleric. Concentration made defensive casting impossible for the group. No way to buff everyone against the breath weapon damage.
7. 5E legendary monsters are rough. If you play them intelligently, can really make life nightmarish for a group. They usually have a nice combination of offensive and defensive powers that create real problems for a party. If they go all offense, they can be easy to kill. If a DM uses their offensive and defensive capabilities to the fullest, the fights are rough. We haven't had a party decimated like this in ages. This was against a standard module designed encounter we're used to crushing. The dynamics of caster power have changed dramatically. Casters can't mitigate damage like they used to and they have to be very selective with their spells with the concentration mechanic. Healing is far less powerful than it used to be as well, though just as necessary as previous editions. All these factors making 5E very rough in combat.
1. I no longer envy the fighter's damage dealing capability. The fighter is still a fighter. A very limited, specialized class that does damage. It's about all he does. In a low magic game like 5th edition, it's tough to be a fighter. No easy access to flight, protection from elements, movement enhancing powers, and the like. Totally reliant on casters that are highly limited. If they are not archery specialized, they suffer immensely against highly mobile creatures with reach and powerful attacks like breath weapons. They shine brightly when can hammer with action surge. But they are almost useless if they can't get into melee range. There are a lot of ways to stop them from doing so for enemy creatures.
2. It's tough to be a caster. This concentration rule is highly limiting. It's very hard to buff people due to concentration. You are very limited in spell selection once you have a concentration spell up. No more casting protection from energy with fly and invisibility. You can cast fly. Then spend your time making sure you keep it up, so the martials have a chance to engage the flying dragon with reach. You really have to coordinate with other casters due to concentration. If the cleric wants to have an active bless, then he cannot cast a protection from energy. There is no mass protection from energy, so you have to worry about spreading out to avoid the breath weapon or AoE attacks. Fire Shield is almost a must have spell now as it is a protection from fire or cold damage without requiring concentration. You can't cast concentration attack spells like slow or hypnotic pattern without breaking concentration on bless or fly. It's extremely frustrating. That type of resource planning is going to take some getting used to before we execute it well.
The short duration of spells also made us wary of casting them too soon. If the monster waited out the duration with the low number of spell slots and a lack of consumables, we end up screwed. But if we bunch together to prepare to cast, the monster hits us with its breath weapon or AoE attack on top of lair actions and legendary actions, we end up screwed. The lack of access to consumable items along with limited spell slots and the concentration mechanic leads to logistical nightmares if the DM has intelligent monsters wait until spells and spell slots expire.
3. Dragons: It is nearly impossible to defeat an intelligently played dragon in 5E. As a DM you have to make them make stupid decisions so the party can kill them. If they fly around using lair actions waiting out spell durations and spell slot depletion as an intelligent dragon would do, you have no shot at beating them. They have an unlimited breath weapon that can keep recharging. You have no means of limiting the damage to an entire group and extremely limited means of mitigating the damage against even on member of your party. You are meat for their larders.
Along with their lair and legendary actions, you can't compete with them unless they're dumb enough to go toe to toe with you or you lure them to a spot where you have the advantage. They can dish out a ton of aggregate damage that further drains resources you can't recover. They move faster than you even with a fly spell. They can't be stealthed up on. Their resources are unlimited versus your very limited resources.
The only way to beat dragons is lucky crits, attacking one vastly weaker than your party, or the DM playing them poorly. The power gap between dragons and a party is vast now unless you have a powerful ranged attacker such as an archer or crossbow expert. A smart dragon would kill that person first and as fast as possible or leave until they can track that person and kill them.
Dragons are vicious now.
4. You need a healer. There's not getting around it. You need combat healing. Things hit hard. The damage adds up. An inability to heal in combat leads to major problems, especially when you get hit by hard AoE damage. Rough game that requires a good healer. You almost need a cleric or Lore Bard built for healing.
5. Paladin is the best martial. A paladin's ability to defend himself and unleash burst damage comes in immensely handy when fighting things like dragons. Being able to unleash burst damage when the dragon gives you an opportunity to hit it is immensely helpful. Having better saves and the best self-heal ability is immensely helpful given all the different saves for main special attacks, legendary action attacks, and lair action attacks is extremely useful. Having immunity to the frightened condition is immensely helpful. The paladin is an amazing martial class with a high level of useful versatility.
Rogues are nearly useless against creatures like dragons or with truesight or blindsight. Completely eliminates their powerful stealth abilities. A paladin doesn't need stealth to use their most powerful abilities.
6. Bard is pretty amazing as well. Bardic inspiration and Cutting Words can be lifesavers. Their mix of offense and defense can be helpful. A lucky crit by the bard with a chromatic orb won the day. Our two martials and cleric were dead. My wizard had dropped from a lair action attack. The bard hucked that orb and rolled 20. It did the job. Though it wouldn't have been wounded enough if not for the paladin unleashing a bunch of smite damage on it. The fighter did a total of 12 points with an arrow. He was chewed up by the lair actions and breath weapon before could do much as was the cleric. Concentration made defensive casting impossible for the group. No way to buff everyone against the breath weapon damage.
7. 5E legendary monsters are rough. If you play them intelligently, can really make life nightmarish for a group. They usually have a nice combination of offensive and defensive powers that create real problems for a party. If they go all offense, they can be easy to kill. If a DM uses their offensive and defensive capabilities to the fullest, the fights are rough. We haven't had a party decimated like this in ages. This was against a standard module designed encounter we're used to crushing. The dynamics of caster power have changed dramatically. Casters can't mitigate damage like they used to and they have to be very selective with their spells with the concentration mechanic. Healing is far less powerful than it used to be as well, though just as necessary as previous editions. All these factors making 5E very rough in combat.
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