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Or your defeats of evil never qualified as 'major'. Joking aside, no of course that's not what happened in my games. But when such things are mentioned in canon material, it can be hard for people to ignore.

My big problems with FR's gods are: 1. There's very little reason to worship some of them, and they are in a world where their number of followers directly affects their power. 2. The goddess of magic is good and not neutral. This wasn't always the case, she was orginally neutral, but even then...

There is indeed a mountain of material for FR, which is a positive for many and a negative for many. But consider this... if any of these other worlds were supported in the way that FR has been supported, they would suffer from the same issue of "too much material" and "the good guys always...

One of the things that bugs me about FR is the "power creep" that has taken place over the years. It kicked off in the jump from 1e to 2e, when suddenly many of the major NPCs jumped up 5-10 levels. Then, with the release of the Volos Guides to X, every city was suddenly populated with L15+...

So are you saying it's not possible to do a deadly encounter at the beginning of the adventuring day? If you have the PCs fight a deadly encounter at the beginning of the day, with the assumption that they fight several more encounters afterwards, how then is it still a deadly encounter? I...

So are you saying it's not possible to do a deadly encounter at the beginning of the adventuring day? If you have the PCs fight a deadly encounter at the beginning of the day, with the assumption that they fight several more encounters afterwards, how then is it still a deadly encounter? I...

Here's an example: Let's say I was designing "the" Demogorgon. Sure, I could assume that the 20th-level PCs will only meet him after fighting legions of his servants, and therefore they will only have about 18% of their resources by the time they encounter him. So, I make him "deadly" for PCs...

I think we're talking past each other a bit. When the ogre was given a CR, it was done so based entirely on its own stats and not on whether the designers thought the ogre would be encountered early or late in the adventuring day. The same applies to my creations. I will build them and then...

Yep, we'll see how it works out. When designing a monster that is supposed to be deadly for a 20th level party I don't want to assume that they've already been through a bunch of fights. Pretty sure that isn't how other monsters were designed.

Good advice Flamestrike. But the encounters I'm creating are meant as BBEG encounters and I'd like to assume that the PCs make it to that encounter with full resources, and that the encounter has the potential to kill them. I realize that 5e isn't built with this in mind, but 6-8 encounters a...

These PCs will have access to the "high-magic" setup in the DMG, with a twist. 3 uncommon, 2 rare, 1 very rare. Or they can trade 1 very rare + 1 rare for 1 legendary. The encounters will be "deadly" and they will start at full resources.

I'm about to run some playtest combats in another forum so I'll let ya'll know how it goes. First up: one of the demon princes vs. 5 20th-level characters.

Maybe WotC knows what the average magical item layout is for high-level groups, but I doubt even they know. Still, after a couple of decades of magical items being handed out like candy, I expect that many groups still are fairly lenient with them.

I'm trying to design monsters that would work well in most play groups. And my guess is that by 20th level most players have some pretty impressive magical items, simply because players like getting them and DMs like handing them out. I think it's safe to assume that most characters of that...

Isn't it pretty likely that any attacks will be with advantage? 20th level characters have a lot of ways of getting advantage after all. One should assume at least a +1 weapon, and I wouldn't be surprised about a +2 or +3 considering the level. Although it would help if more people posted about...

I was thinking more in terms of things like paralysis only lasting 1 round and so on. And yes, I am only speaking to my own personal tastes since there's no such thing as ghouls and such. But there is a simulationist perspective that effects should not simply be tailored for the combat round...

Wouldn't that be the same for something that can kill you in a round? Like getting hit by a giant? I definitely see where you're coming from, but I consider the threat of an instant death part of the appeal I guess. Also some spells and monsters seem to be so weakened without their save or die...

Are save or die effects really that un-fun? Maybe I'm just old-school, but I consider them to be part of the thrill. Good point about how advantage brings that to 75%.

I figure that DC 22-25 are pretty difficult for most 20th-level PCs, although a +5 paladin bonus plus advantage would make them quite a bit easier.

Save DCs in the 30s?? That seems really really high. What were your PCs saves before and after the paladin feature?