D&D 5E Have you experienced very high-level (18+) play in 5e? Tell me about it!

[dave2008]

I'll post them in my Out of the Abyss Campaign thread.

Great - thank you! I will have to track down that thread now!

 

[MonkeyWrench]

Interesting. As someone who still plays a bit of 2e now an again, I think you might be right. But primarily because only the wizard class really gains any power after 14th level. Everyone else is just getting slightly more HP and better Thac0. Still, there isn't much in 2e that can challenge a high-level party unless you spam save or die spells since monster HP tends to be really low.

It sounds like a party of PCs can deal about 300-400 hp of damage per round when going full tilt. So an enemy that only is affected 50% of the time needs about 800 hp to last 4-5 rounds. Good to know.

Do you think an AC of 25 is sufficient to stop about 50% of PC attacks?

I found AC AC 25 a good benchmark for a "high AC" monster. Advantage is trivially easy to get at those levels (Most of the heavy hitters were running around with Foresight or using summoned creatures to Help), and bless was always on hand if things got tough, so I rarely saw players miss even when using SS/GWM. I also made liberal use of Resistance, either from Potions of Invulnerability or just as a monster attribute when it made sense, to stretch hp.

As for threatening the PCs, I don't think I had a character drop to 0, let alone actually die, after 8th-9th level. There were some close calls, but the party would always have a big heal on hand to save a party member. I had better luck threatening party members with offensive use of Planeshift; on at least two occasions I had a fiend Planeshift with a grappled party member and that scared the bejeezus out of my players.

 

[S'mon]

My Wilderlands game (on hiatus) has a Barbarian-17 and Cleric-15 as PCs, often with some NPC backup. Most recent big fight was being ambushed by a Death Knight and his horde of orcs. The hellfire fireball was nasty. I've not seen any balance problems, but this is a relatively low magic campaign. Most of the enemies are human, with the occasional dragon, purple worm etc, and magic items are few.

I'm also running a much higher magic campaign with 5 PCs who are currently in the level 8-10 range, a 5e conversion of Paizo's Rise of the Runelords & Shattered Star. The players keep trying to buy/commission magic items, which fits the setting but could easily cause major problems since eg Wings of Flying on everyone could unbalance campaign very easily. PCs are (I think) a Druid-10, Bladesinger-9/Rogue-1, Paladin 8/Rogue-1, Monk-9 and Barbarian-8 (or 9). They lost their last battle, Fort Rannick in Runelords, but that was a whole fort of ogres including lots of CR 8 and CR 10 leaders so not at all encounter-balanced.

 

[Celtavian]

One thing that does hurt in 5E more than past editions is heavy use of AoE magic against a party. A group of dragons or wizards using AoE attacks is particularly nasty to a 5E group. It is very hard to get immunity to damage in 5E. Even with resistance, damage from multiple AoE attacks can really tax party hit points. I've had lower level creatures use AoE attacks on a party and it is often far worse than a single high CR creature attacking a party regardless of level.

 

[SwivSnapshot]

After our group finished Tyranny of Dragons, I ran a 2 night, level 20 dungeon crawl because I had doubts about the monsters in the MM scaling properly to be challenging to a high level party.

1. What was the party composition?

• Vengence Paladin
• Assassination Rogue
• _____ Sorceror
• _____ Ranger
• _____ Monk
• NPC Evocation Wizard

Players were allowed to pick any published magic items, but we're limited to having three attuned items being equipped. They could have other items requiring attunement with them but they would have follow the attunement rules to get the benefits. Artifacts and homebrewed items were prohibited.

2. What did you fight?

• Encounter 1: Investigation or religion skill check with DC 25 to identify a ritual of a death cult. Failure resulted in a DC 20 CON saving throw vs poison.
• Encounter 2: 6 Death Knights and 16 mummies.
• Encounter 3: Poison trap with DC 20 CON saving throw vs poison.
• Encounter 4: Investigation (DC 20 after spending a minimum of 1 hour searching the cult leaders private library) or arcana skill check (DC 25) to deactivate a magically sealed portal.
• Encounter 5: 4 Death Tyrants with lair abilities available (I fudged the rules a little on this).
• Encounter 6: A custom party of NPC's built using PC classes and levels.
• Encounter 7: A custom built 3.5 version of Orcus.

The NPC Wizard was a traitor and counted as a bonus encounter.

All monsters had max hit points.

3. How did the fight go? Did you enjoy it? Was it too easy or too hard?

• Encounter 1: PC's ignored the clues and opened the temple. After the Paladin remembered he had an aura, all of the PC's made their saves.
• Encounter 2: PC's completed the encounter in less than 6 rounds without taking damage.
• Encounter 3: PC's triggered the trap. Sorcerer and rogue were the only PC's in the AOE. Rogue saved while Sorcerer took 50 hp poison damage with 50 hp ongoing, but Paladin was able to use his aura on the next round, then lay on hands to heal the Sorceror.
• Encounter 4: Sorcerer took the time to investigate the library while the rest of the group did a short rest and found the key to unlocking the portal.
• Encounter 5: PC's completed the encounter in less then 10 rounds. Lair effects were the Death Tyrants only successful attacks/abilities due to PC's high saving thow mods.
• Encounter 6: The most balanced encounter, but also the most difficult to DM. NPC party had the early edge, but once the players realized I had set them up, they were able to hold their own. Encounter was stopped early so they could reset to take on Orcus.
• Encounter 7: PC's couldn't counter Orcus's legendary abilities and let him escape before he killed the party.

A few PC's were suspicious of the NPC Wizard but never followed up, so his treachery went unrevealed.

4. What would you change to make very high-level encounters better?

• DC's on saving throws needed to be raised (30+) due to the Paladin's aura.
• Monster HP needed to be maxed then doubled to keep them competitive.
• For a long term game, more skill checks would need to be included with more detrimental consequences for failures.
• NPC party needed to be simplified to be faster and more usable.

 

[Charles Rampant]

NPC party needed to be simplified to be faster and more usable.

I found this myself, absolutely. You need to stay away from the PC rules, and stick to things like the NPC statblocks on Volo's: a simple attack routine, a simple list of spells, maybe one or two nifty and interesting abilities. When I ran PC-like characters against the party, it was a nightmare since they had so many minor things (especially to use reactions to reduce damage or whatever) that overall really didn't matter that much.

 

[valarmorgulis]

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

 

[SwivSnapshot]

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

It's been a year since I ran it, so I don't have that info anymore.

Keep in mind that this was a destruction test and the PC's were optimized for combat and max hit points, so. I think the only PC with a Con score under 20 was the Sorcerer. I do remember that the Paladin had maxed his Charisma at 22, with a little magical help, to make for a +6 to saving throws. With 20 Con scores (+5), proficiency bonus, if available (+6) from class features and feats, magical enhancements (Cloak and Ring of Protection, Luck Blade), , Halfling Luck feature, Lucky Feat, etc., and outright immunity to poison (Paladin and Monk), 20 to 25 savings throws are a lot easier to make.

Poison traps were probably not the best choice...

 

[valarmorgulis]

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.

 

[Quartz]

I found AC AC 25 a good benchmark for a "high AC" monster.

A high-level character will have +6 proficiency, +5 stat, +3 weapon for a base of +14, so hitting AC 25 on 11+ or 50% of the time, so 75% with Advantage. Guidance etc will boost that considerably.

There were some close calls, but the party would always have a big heal on hand to save a party member. I had better luck threatening party members with offensive use of Planeshift; on at least two occasions I had a fiend Planeshift with a grappled party member and that scared the bejeezus out of my players.

Very nasty. But that sort of Plane Shift can only affect a willing target, per the PHB (p 266). An offensive Plane Shift (last paragraph) transports the target to a random point on the chosen plane. Absent errata and Rule 0, of course. Actually, that should be pretty much an auto-kill with no hope of resurrection short of a Wish or divine intervention, especially given that it will be the fighter-types (i.e. magic-less) that will be grappled, and as such seriously un-fun.