I ran a game that played to 17th level, culminating with the party fighting the Demon Queen of Spiders (Lolth). It was a blast to run, and from what I understand, it was a blast to play. Everyone liked having neat high level abilities (especially 9th level spells). From the DM perspective, the only thing I needed was more monsters, but from what I understand MToF added several high level enemies to use. Combats did take a while, especially important ones, but overall, I'd say it's the best edition for high level play since BECMI.
Tell Me About Your Experiences With High Level 5E
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
High-level play worked really well for me and my table. I converted all of the 3.5 Age of Worms AP to 5e. http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1254
What surprised me was how well the monster-building and encounter-building guidelines from the DMG worked despite them being just numbers in a table. All the creatures I made (or modified from the MM) were built with the DMG guidelines and fit with the high-level abilities of the PCs.
I also generally had larger groups (5-8) at my table with little knowledge ahead of time as to how many there would be. I modified the encounter building guidelines so that the sudden changes in encounter XP multiplier were smoothed out and placed that in a spreadsheet. http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1186 This allowed me to adjust the encounter on the fly to keep roughly the same difficulty regardless of how many PCs (or even NPC allies) I had that day. It also works for adjusting an adventure to a party of a slightly different level than what was intended. To make an adventure a challenge for a party that is one level higher than that intended for the adventure, build the encounter as if there is 1 more PC than there actually is. The only real downside with having that many people at the table and scaling up the bad guys to keep a similar challenge was that encounters would take longer.
In the end the final chapter was played at PC level "20+". They were able to each choose an ASI, feat, or epic boon from the DMG for the final chapter. There were some crazy battles (ancient vampiric silver dragon high priestess with her erinyes bodyguards, level 20 oathbreaker with her kyuss knight bodyguards, level 20 rogue that stole the wizard's staff of the magi), and it was a lot of fun.
The biggest thing I would say is that high-level play is something that works best with a group that has been playing and developing those characters for a while rather than just jumping in at level 17 or 20. The players have time to learn how the abilities all work together, and the DM learns how much damage the PCs can really take. With the small changes from level to level vs jumping in at the high-levels, the DM and players can adjust to the changes.
What surprised me was how well the monster-building and encounter-building guidelines from the DMG worked despite them being just numbers in a table. All the creatures I made (or modified from the MM) were built with the DMG guidelines and fit with the high-level abilities of the PCs.
I also generally had larger groups (5-8) at my table with little knowledge ahead of time as to how many there would be. I modified the encounter building guidelines so that the sudden changes in encounter XP multiplier were smoothed out and placed that in a spreadsheet. http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1186 This allowed me to adjust the encounter on the fly to keep roughly the same difficulty regardless of how many PCs (or even NPC allies) I had that day. It also works for adjusting an adventure to a party of a slightly different level than what was intended. To make an adventure a challenge for a party that is one level higher than that intended for the adventure, build the encounter as if there is 1 more PC than there actually is. The only real downside with having that many people at the table and scaling up the bad guys to keep a similar challenge was that encounters would take longer.
In the end the final chapter was played at PC level "20+". They were able to each choose an ASI, feat, or epic boon from the DMG for the final chapter. There were some crazy battles (ancient vampiric silver dragon high priestess with her erinyes bodyguards, level 20 oathbreaker with her kyuss knight bodyguards, level 20 rogue that stole the wizard's staff of the magi), and it was a lot of fun.
The biggest thing I would say is that high-level play is something that works best with a group that has been playing and developing those characters for a while rather than just jumping in at level 17 or 20. The players have time to learn how the abilities all work together, and the DM learns how much damage the PCs can really take. With the small changes from level to level vs jumping in at the high-levels, the DM and players can adjust to the changes.
CapnZapp
Legend
This.
OB1
Jedi Master
Not that.
The game knows exactly how much punishment high level parties can dish and take, and the challenge level has been set at default for casual players without magic items, feats, multi classing or maximizing DPR either individually or as a group.
It is trivially easy for a DM to adjust the difficulty level upwards if desired to match the play style of her group.
With the availability of resurrection magic, a DM need not worry about pushing to hard. Even a TPK can be undone by the types of allies the party can have by Tier IV (at a cost of course).
OB1
Jedi Master
I would suggest rolling at CR17 treasure hoard for each PC (or having them roll it live at the table) and leave it at that. Perhaps give them a few months of downtime to engage with the Xanthar expanded downtime rules prior to first session.
Oofta
Legend
There is no "standard". I did find a list a while back that showed what PCs would have at certain levels if you used standard encounters and treasure guidelines. It's better than nothing, although I would never hand characters as much gold at higher levels as is indicated.
See the attached.
Thanks. For some reason I thought maybe there was one in Xanathar's.
I always use the table on page 38 of the DMG when bringing new PCs in at any time other than the beginning of a campaign. I also let them use the gold to "buy" magic items:
Common - 50 gp
Uncommon - 500 gp
Rare - 5,000 gp
That's pretty much what I do. I let 5th level PCs start with 1 Uncommon item + 100gp.
I don't let new PCs start above 8th level, but when I did (running an AP) I used the DMG table Medium Magic settings.
I'd generally suggest Tier 2 PCs should have an Uncommon item, Tier 3 a Rare & 2 Uncommon, Tier 4 a Very Rare, 2 Rare, and 3 Uncommon would work (watch the attunement limit - there are several handy non-attunement Uncommons useful at all levels). But 5e item rarity allocation is very haphazard so best to use a curated list.
My Uncommon Items list for starting level 5 PCs:
+1 weapon, +1 shield, goggles of night 60' darkvision, bag of holding, cloak of elvenkind, Boots of Striding and Springing, Gauntlets of Ogre Power STR 19, Gloves of Swimming and Climbing, Headband of Intellect INT 19, 5 doses of Keoghtom's Ointment, +1 wand of the war mage, pearl of power, helm of comprehending languages, rope of climbing, ring of mind shielding, lantern of revealing.
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