Fiddling around with Fifth Ed

Now, I've never played 20th level in 3e or Pathfinder. And my 4e game fell apart at the end of the heroic tier. The highest play I've seen is 17-18 in Pathfinder, which was in a pretty long couple sessions.

But I played in a 5e 20th level story for four or five sessions. And it worked really well. The characters were mortal and the skilled DM (typically the party optimiser) managed to keep us on our toes with constant challenges that could be really deadly. Rounds flew by fairly quickly, and combat wasn't a slog despite the high level characters. But we still felt fairly epic and had a lot of tools at our disposal, but not an overwhelming number. Meanwhile, concentration keeps buffs in check, attunement limits the magic item Christmas tree, and martial characters can more than hold their own. My wife's totem barbarian was unkillable (even compared to the moon druid) and was queen of DPR.

So while the game does not "support" high level play through adventures, high level play works better than in any prior edition and there's enough high level monsters to get decent play. Especially when paired with NPCs using class levels and mobs of low level monsters.

Retreater said:

A few observations I've made (and some that my players have shared with me):
1) 5e doesn't seem to support high level play. Most official products tap out at 11th level. There's little to no help in showing DMs how to craft adventures or encounters for higher level. It's as if there is no intention that characters should play beyond mid level.
2) The encounter creation math just doesn't work. Some monsters (such as hellhounds) can decimate low level parties. Others are not even challenging at all.
3) Most combats are boring. There are few tactical options, and most monsters are just bags of hit points, ever-increasing as characters level up. (This seems to originate from the bounded accuracy design goal.) Most monsters can't reliably hit PC Armor Class.
4) You either have a TPK or no character ever dies. (Not that I like character death, but it should at least feel threatening without being "campaign-ending")
5) Few groups (or official products) actually follow the encounters per day guideline, creating overpowered casters and underpowered martial characters.

I've been watching Matt Colville's YouTube videos, and at his advice, I'm going through my old 4e books for inspiration. I've been redesigning every monster and the encounter math. The game I'm running now is still 5e from the players' perspective, but everything on my side of the DM Screen is homebrewed.

Has anyone else run into similar issues? If so, how did you address them?

Click to expand...

hmm, I feel like I have heard this somewhere before....do you have a twin brother?

Here's the thing, D&D is a 1 size fits all game. It has to apply to hundreds of thousands of tables which having varying levels of player experience, optimization, and RP/exploration/combat balance. They give you a base template, then they give you options and guidelines and tools to massage it to fit your table and your style. I have been at one table where 3 CR 1 monsters against our 5 person, level 3 party was a near TPK. At the same time I have played and DM'd tables that where only marginally challenged with dangerous and deadlly encounters and I had to crank it up a notch. Heck, I am playing in 3 games right now and all 3 are roughly the same level but are COMPLETELY different. Just with different players and DMs there is such a variance that no one of those encounters would work for all 3 tables without tweaks.

There are 3 basic things I would say that you should consider.
First, not having enough encounters between rests is the number one way to screw the encounter creation math. D&D above all is a resource management game. If your PCs can go nova on 1-2 encounters and then reset instead of having to budget out their power over 5+ encounters, the math will be horribly off. Now before people start crying and screaming, I am not saying you have to run 5+ encounters, I am saying that if you don't, you are going to throw off the math and need to tweak to compensate.

Second, the game sort of assumes the baseline, if you add feats, multiclassing, plentiful magic items, or allow stats to start higher than standard array or standard point buy, it will throw the math way way off. Again, perfectly fine to do, but expect to have to adjust to compensate.

Third, gauge your table and build for it. My last major campaign was full of experienced, strategic, and optimized players. For that campaign I dialed up the encounters by adding monsters, adding class templates to the monsters, or ourright creating monsters. I also took time and care in designing the terrain and overall encounters to challenge the party. I tried to use monsters that were intelligent enough to be strategic, and I used casters on the monster's side to help wreak havoc and control the battle field. The last one-shot (actually it was a two-shot) I ran was for a bunch of new players. At that table I stayed on the cautious side of the encounter guildlines and played my monsters with much less intelligence. The campaign ran to 20 and I had no issues, and the one/two-shot was at level 10 and went perfectly fine.

I think the moral of the story really is, this game is likely not written for your table and your exact playstyle. Use it as a base, and build to fit. Like most things in life, you get out what you put in.

Retreater said:

3) Most combats are boring. There are few tactical options, and most monsters are just bags of hit points, ever-increasing as characters level up. (This seems to originate from the bounded accuracy design goal.) Most monsters can't reliably hit PC Armor Class.

Click to expand...

If this is the case, you (or your DM) are not fully thinking up challenging situations.

20'x20' white rooms with only one door DO get boring fast, but the PCs should be entering rooms full of descriptions.
At higher levels, where PC AC >= 20, use attacks (such as spells) that require a Saving Throw.

I was able to challenge an L14 party with an equal number of L4 lizardmen - by having them pop up out of a lake to throw javelins then swim underwater to a different square.

The issues in the OP are issues that stem from behind the screen not in the books.

Ath-kethin said:

I've never really had a problem with the encounter math myself, but then, I also tend to play the way the math was designed: that is, without using the optional feat and multiclasing rules. I think it's disingenuous to use a bunch of optional stuff not accounted in the calculations and then claim the calculations are wrong.

It's your game. You do you, and gripe as you will.

Click to expand...

How do feats and MC make that much of a difference? I play a RAW campaign playing a published adventure and I see some of the "problems" noted in OP, but I have never played without feats or with MC, so I have no reference point. Feats dont seem to a high impact on our game.

Jester David said:

My wife's totem barbarian was unkillable (even compared to the moon druid) and was queen of DPR.

Click to expand...

That's what dominate person is for. Want to put the fear of god into people? Have the barbarian turn on the party.

Easiest way to fix your problems:

Also use one or two the rest options in the dmg. Or make one ip yourself. If your players are resting all time just make a long rest take more time. That way you easily achieve more balance because you get to your 6-8 encounters per day often enough to at least make your PCs not spend all daily resources in one fight.
That was the turning point in our mid level campaign. Before that the wizard dominated and trivialized some fights. After that we had a well enough balanced game.

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] you should really try to speak only for yourself and stop claiming that other people's experience is wrong. Even though the game may not work for you, it works well enough for at least a few of us. And we are all a vocal minority.

Salthorae said:

There has long been a self-defeating loop. "There's no support so we don't play it, so they don't design it because no one plays it." Mordenkainen's Tome has a bunch of new high level monsters with more than just hit point stuff.

Click to expand...

Let's hope official adventures will use them, then.

ccs said:

Official adventures top out around 11th lv? Yeah, that's intentional.

Click to expand...

Calling out yet another apologist.

He complained there was no high level support.

In what way is your reply in any form or shape useful?

And the answer is, it isn't. It only serves to shift blame away from where it squarely lies, at the feet of WotC.

Setting you up as another stooge in the process.

Good job, except I'm calling you out on it.

CapnZapp said:

Calling out yet another apologist.

Click to expand...

CappnZapp, please don't post in this thread again.