D&D 5E Classic High Level Threats?

[Jester David]

In the podcast recording of the Gamehole Convention Panel Mike Mearls mentioned how Volo's Guide to Monsters was not designed with high level threats in mind.
Two reasons were give: because most people play at low levels, and because there are fewer iconic high level threats. They wanted to support the levels people play and they didn't want to artificially inflate the CR of threats.

Now, most campaigns do end before reaching too high of a level. Or rather, used to - in past editions, high level play was frustrating, so ending before that made sense - but that *might* not occur in 5e.
There's also a bit of a chicken-egg thing. There's limited high level support so fewer people play high level games.


The above aside there is more salient problem: fewer iconic or established high level threats.


I haven't much looked into this. What are some classic high level opponents for D&D that are CR 15+ that do not currently exist in 5th Edition?
What monsters that could be added? Ones that have a history to the game and are interesting but aren't just a higher level variant of another monsters. And probably aren't just gods, archdevils, arch fey, and the like.

 

[dave2008]

Well, I have a whole thread on that subject, 5e Epic Monster Updates: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468639-5e-EPIC-MONSTER-UPDATES

I think I currently have just over 200 monsters identified and just half of that completed. That being said I don't know how many would be considered "classic." Here is a quick list of what I would call classic high level threats, but there are probably more.

Abominations (many types)
Angels (MM)
Beholders (both 2e and 4e had some variants higher CR than 5e)
Demodands
Demon Lords (OotA)
Greater Demons (some in MM)
Greater Devils (some in MM)
Arch Devils
Demilich (MM)
Dragons (MM)
Elder Brain (Volo - but lower CR)
Golems (MM) - could add more (adamantine)
Kraken (MM)
Lich (MM)
Purpleworm (MM)
Sladdi (white, black, & lords)
Tarrasque (MM)
Titan (Empyrean? - MM)
Yuan ti Anathema (Volo - but lower CR)
Yugoloths

EDIT:
Gibbering Orb
Gargantuans
Umbral blot (aka blackball)

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Now, most campaigns do end before reaching too high of a level. Or rather, used to - in past editions, high level play was frustrating, so ending before that made sense - but that *might* not occur in 5e.

They surveyed what level peoples 5th edition campaigns were ending at, or what level they expected to end at, and the results showed little if any difference from prior editions. I personally think it is because a significant number of people haven't tried playing at higher levels in 5th edition - they just know that they didn't like the way it went in one or more prior editions and as a result are intentionally avoiding it now even though the game is different. I think that because it makes the most sense to me, given the survey I mentioned, and that I've seen only a few people making complaints against high-level 5th edition play with practical experience behind their arguments rather than just math and theory.

That said, I think other posters have already covered the "classic" high-level threats - demons, dragons, powerful undead like liches and vampires - and they all happen to have made it into the Monster Manual. I can't think of any other monster that is high-CR and a "classic" that isn't a variation on those themes.

 

[Parmandur]

Actually, that is not quite what he said: he didn't give those as separate reasons: the issue was is that they were selecting monsters that had popular demand in some form, that had not made the MM; he pointed out that people think of Mindflayers as high level threats, at CR 7, and that tougher monsters usually had less traction in the public imagination because so few people have ever used them in a game.



He also said the NPC appendix was consciously trying to fill that gap, by providing more high level opponents to deal with...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In the podcast recording of the Gamehole Convention Panel Mike Mearls mentioned how Volo's Guide to Monsters was not designed with high level threats in mind.
Two reasons were give: because most people play at low levels, and because there are fewer iconic high level threats. They wanted to support the levels people play and they didn't want to artificially inflate the CR of threats.

Now, most campaigns do end before reaching too high of a level. Or rather, used to - in past editions, high level play was frustrating, so ending before that made sense - but that *might* not occur in 5e.
There's also a bit of a chicken-egg thing. There's limited high level support so fewer people play high level games.

The above aside there is more salient problem: fewer iconic or established high level threats.

Haven't much looked into this. What are some classic high level opponents for D&D that are CR 15+ that do not already exist in 5th Edition?
Monsters that could be added, which have a history to the game and are interesting but aren't just a higher level variant of another monsters.

The core of the problem, IMO, is that classic high-level opponents don't fit the "die in droves with no sense of self-preservation" model that fits hack-and-slash gaming at a lower level. Even if you have tons of dracoliches and Empyreans in your campaign, it isn't believable that the party would be encountering them in little bite-sized Medium/Hard packets. So the game has to change to a more cerebral pace, with more stuff happening offscreen (because dracoliches and Empyreans are proactive, not reactive). And that requires a different DMing style in order to keep the game fun, because players don't like to lose because of something that they couldn't see happening.

If you were just playing some kind of prehistoric campaign fighting bigger and bigger dinosaurs to defend your puny human tribe from getting eaten this wouldn't be a problem, but iconic high-CR foes in D&D are typically meant to command respect, which implies a more active style.

But 5E does have alternatives, because bounded accuracy keeps lower-CR monsters relevant. In theory you could just get comfortable as a DM with running large numbers of monsters simultaneously, and then your high-level adventures can primarily feature the PCs vs. ever-growing armies of wraiths/shadows/slaads/demons/vampire spawns/young dragons/etc., led by the occasional pit fiend/vampire/lich/dragon. I've only gamed this out in test battles, not run it for real, but in principle it ought to work.

 

[Quickleaf]

There are several iconic high-level D&D creatures not in the game yet. For example, the Worm That Walks springs to mind. From the 3.5e Epic Handbook.

Personally, I think they should start looking toward creating/re-imagining some new "iconic" stuff rather than only re-treading old ground. For example, the firbolg player race in Volo's seems well-received, and it deviates a bit from the original D&D ruddy-bearded arrow-catching giants, perhaps a bit truer to Irish mythology. Maybe they could use a similar "horizontal creative logic" for high-level threats.

As an example, there was a House Hunter Mimic in one of the AD&D Monstrous Compendium Appendices, which I think also got treatment in the 4e Monster Vault. That would be a great high-level enemy that creative DMs could use in a variety of ways.

 

[dave2008]

There are several iconic high-level D&D creatures not in the game yet. For example, the Worm That Walks springs to mind. From the 3.5e Epic Handbook.

I think that is the next monster I am going to convert, but is it iconic? I had never heard of it until I picked up the Epic Level Handbook a few months ago. Now I skipped the 3e/3.5e area so maybe they were featured in a big way in that edition (don't recall a 4e version). I think they are pretty interesting, but I think it might be a stretch to call them iconic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Two reasons were give: because most people play at low levels, They wanted to support the levels people play

I know that was a thing all through the early game, and a self-fulfilling prophesy for 3.x (their research showed people didn't play to high levels, so they didn't playtest high level play much, so it sucked, so people didn't play to high levels), but it needn't have been that way for 5e.

and because there are fewer iconic high level threats. and they didn't want to artificially inflate the CR of threats.

Seems like there are plenty of iconic 'high level' monsters, especially considering that 5e Bounded Accuracy lets a 'high level' (CR) monster be used at a much lower level (and vice versa).

Now, most campaigns do end before reaching too high of a level. Or rather, used to - in past editions, high level play was frustrating, so ending before that made sense - but that *might* not occur in 5e.

There's little about 5e that's radically different from those classic editions. The biggest differences I can see between high-level 5e and high level classic D&D (AD&D 1e is classic ed I'm most familiar with) are that saves got much better across the board at high level, while in 5e most of them tend to languish, and that the exp required to level ballooned at high level in the classic game, but in 5e you're actually likely to blow through high levels faster than you did the mid-level 'sweet spot.'

They surveyed what level peoples 5th edition campaigns were ending at, or what level they expected to end at, and the results showed little if any difference from prior editions.

It can take a while to even want high level play. There's an impetus to try a new character and new options for instance, when the game is new. And of course, it's expected to start at 1st level and it naturally takes time to bring a character to high levels 'legitimately' from there. So it's hardly surprising that there haven't been a lot of high level campaigns only 2 years in. Then there's the AL format. It's not as extremely low-level-oriented as Encounters 1st-4th over and over, nice as that was for introducing new players, but it still doesn't encourage high level play.

I personally think it is because a significant number of people haven't tried playing at higher levels in 5th edition - they just know that they didn't like the way it went in one or more prior editions and as a result are intentionally avoiding it now even though the game is different.

That's not unreasonable. If you do the same thing, you expect the same result. 5e tries very hard to be recognizably the same as D&D, especially classic D&D, which is where a number of classic bugaboos (5WMD, LFQW, etc) that contributed to high-level problems were established. If you're playing a game that strongly reminds you of the game you loved 25-40 years ago, but that always found a lot less lovable after 9th level, it's understandable if you don't try to play through to 20th. It's not even irrational, Vancian magic seems, if anything, even less 'restrained' than back in the day, hps balloon even faster - the old problems seem like they'd be present.

That said, I think other posters have already covered the "classic" high-level threats - demons, dragons, powerful undead like liches and vampires - and they all happen to have made it into the Monster Manual. I can't think of any other monster that is high-CR and a "classic" that isn't a variation on those themes.

Nod. I think of high-level threats as the 'Three D's from back in the day: Demons, Devils, and Dragons.

Thing is, I haven't memorized a MM since the 80s, so I'm actually not sure what's 'missing' from the latest one.

.

 

[Jester David]

I think that is the next monster I am going to convert, but is it iconic? I had never heard of it until I picked up the Epic Level Handbook a few months ago. Now I skipped the 3e/3.5e area so maybe they were featured in a big way in that edition (don't recall a 4e version). I think they are pretty interesting, but I think it might be a stretch to call them iconic.

The Worm that Walks is Kyuss, from the 1e Fiend Folio IIRC.
It's spawned a cheesy metal band, and is the trope namer of a TV Tropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWormThatWalks

That's pretty iconic I guess.