SilverfireSage
Explorer
Recently, for my friend's father's birthday, he asked if I could DM for them for a 12 hour stretch all day. Of course I agreed, but my dad wanted to play his 16th level wizard he has been playing on and off for over three decades. Thinking about how everyone says D&D is typically broken at high levels (and for sure, I have always hated DMing for high level characters like this) I shrugged, and allowed everyone, if they didn't have one, to make an equal level character. What I was left with was a ranger, 2 fighters (one archer, one melee, both Dex based) and the wizard, all venturing into a dark and terrible crypt. It's been a long time since I've had this much fun in D&D, even playing 5E, but something important occurred to me:
Bounded accuracy works.
Yup, indeed, the thing that is loved and derided as farce seemed to do a hell of a job for my DMing skills. I'll run through the whole adventure itself, but I just wanted to get that out of the way, as it's very crucial to the rest of the story.
For starters, I had them begin trying to find the Warlock's Crypt just outside of Baldur's Gate, after the Wizard in his cloud island (that he commandeered from a Cloud Giant party) caught a glimpse of a dracolich on the horizon. Gathering his friends (the other characters) they went into the Troll Hills in search of this. At this point, things got interesting, as the Wizard left for a little while to go back to Baldur's Gate to try to find some more information about this hidden crypt. In the meantime, the other three characters were hiding out at night in the forest, when one of the fighters, a drow, noticed some wraiths and wights moving to attack them. And wow, I never expected 5CR creatures to do so much to 16th level characters! I didn't even roll particularly well, but when they do 21 damage on a hit with a +6 to do so, they were actually doing some decent damage to the party. Throw in the wights to serve as meat shields, and by the end of the night, I had successfully brought one fighter to half health, and the ranger to 75%, using creatures that wouldn't have had any chance against the party in other editions.
Emboldened by this, I waited while they successfully found the entrance to the crypt, suddenly more than a bit afraid that they were taking so much damage, but went in anyway. Inside the crypt, they found a pressure plate trap in front of them that they avoided, but were then sandwiched by two wraiths and a mass of ghasts attacking from the front. With the ranger (and his undead killing sword) leading the way, they tried to push forward, when one of the Ghasts set off the trap, dropping the floor underneath them. With their high dexterity saves, they all managed to avoid it, but were now hanging on the edge 20ft from each other, with wraiths popping up to attack them from below while they were prone. From another direction, I had a ghost attempt to possess one of the characters, but to no avail, even with a terrible charisma save. At this point, I realized that those kinds of saves would be very valuable to a DM, as they do not scale with player level, a fantastic quirk that will come up later as well. They managed to fight their way out, but only after taking a hefty amount of damage from all sides.
Now wounded, they found an empty part of the complex and took a short rest, then continued, finding a pile of bodies, some fresh some old, a druid hiding among them, then to a large cavern where a necromancer was arguing with a nalfeshnee. All of the characters were very good at sneaking, as they were all dexterity based characters with proficiency (except for the wizard who had a permanent "fly" spell held over from AD&D) and they tried to get the drop on the nalfeshnee by turning invisible and attacking it with a good old fashioned Disintigrate spell. Unfortunately, they neglected to remember that Nalfeshnee have truesight, and so it teleported up and started wailing on the wizard, doing immense damage. He teleported the hell out of there, so the Nalfeshnee turned to the ranger and fighters, successfully frightening two of them with horror nimbus (wisdom isn't one of this party's strong suits) and leaving the ranger to fight it alone. The ranger managed to kill it, but not after taking a significant amount of damage.
They then continued on through the halls, getting attacked by another wraith and several ghasts and ghouls, but this time a drow wizard as well, firing from behind an illusory wall. He managed to get off a couple of good lightning bolts and nearly killed the party with cloud kill until the ranger cast wind wall, but at that moment the ghost came back and successfully possessed one of the fighers, who immediately stabbed his buddy in the back for a large amount of damage. It didn't take but another round before they fought the rest of the creatures off, but now they were wounded, with little healing left, and were beset on all sides by, *gasp* CR 10> creatures! They realized that they would only really be able to get a short rest out before they were attacked again, and so they did, and ventured on to the final part of the adventure, the dracolich and the drow wizard (again).
Now, in the encounter guidelines, for a party of 4 level 16 adventurers, the dracolich in the Monster Manual should be a medium encounter, a good amount of damage taken, but no where near a casualty. However, what I realized then, was that the encounter guidelines don't take into account the health of the party at the time. These PCs were pretty battered after just a few encounters, but the gamers of the group thought they would still be able to take the dracolich, and hey, the DM won't put something in here that we wont be able to beat, right? After entering a large chamber, the dracolich dropped down on them (having been turned invisible by the wizard) and nearly killed two of them, with the ranger only surviving due to his Blue Dragon armor. Frightening Presence served to shock the same two poor souls into submission as were frightened by the Nalfeshnee, and a couple of lucky rolls on my part later, the Dracolich had hammered them with two more breath weapons and a flyby attack. Luckily, one fighter rolled exceptionally well on his attacks against the wizard, even while frightened, and killed him in one round, while the other fighter got off two critical hits in one round (after saving against fear) to put the dracolich down. The final tallies for health were 70-ranger, 15-fighter, 22-fighter, and 100 wizard (abjuration kept him alive for a lot longer), with the wizard having expended most of his spells as well.
To summarize, here are a few nuggets of info I got from DMing this:
1. High level characters are still vulnerable. None of the party had a normal AC of above 20, and as such even low level creatures were able to hit them. Without a dedicated healer, they were only able to use their hit dice to regenerate, and while it let them survive against the dracolich, wasn't quite enough to fight anything scarier. Not to mention the way some saves will stay low throughout all of their levels. While I've seen various threads on this topic, I found giving PCs such obvious vulnerabilities even in the wake of their strengths gave a fantastic dichotomy. The ability to be possessed by a low level Ghost even at 16th level is a wonderful thing. This led to a feeling of fear among them that I haven't seen since the AD&D days, which was very heartening as a DM who relishes instilling such fear into PC's souls!
2. High level characters are still powerful. Even with all of these creatures attacking them, even with bad luck rolls for the PCs and good luck ones for the monsters, they still managed to fight and kill a dracolich. Afterwards, they seemed to relish the challenge, and found that being able to defeat such a powerful creature even while wounded and battered, led to an epic feel that was accentuated by them being hurt and vulnerable, instead of being all powerful.
3. Low CR creatures can still pack a punch. To be frank, while I love 5E and think it's the best edition of D&D by quite a bit, the Challenge Rating system is still wonky. The good thing about it now, is that the CR being meaningless really doesn't effect anything. I simply throw what monsters I want to at the party, and gauge how much I should continue to throw at them. It really feels nice being able to reuse monsters from the depths of the Monster Manual, rather than having to use the same demons and devils over and over again just to give the PCs a challenge. I could have feasibly brought down the whole party with just a few more wraiths, something that hasn't been able to happen in years!
All in all, I was very pleased with the state of this adventure, and optimistic about the future. My main campaign is just ramping up to 12th level, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to challenge the PCs anymore. This short adventure put those fears to rest, and now I can't wait to continue.
Bounded accuracy works.
Yup, indeed, the thing that is loved and derided as farce seemed to do a hell of a job for my DMing skills. I'll run through the whole adventure itself, but I just wanted to get that out of the way, as it's very crucial to the rest of the story.
For starters, I had them begin trying to find the Warlock's Crypt just outside of Baldur's Gate, after the Wizard in his cloud island (that he commandeered from a Cloud Giant party) caught a glimpse of a dracolich on the horizon. Gathering his friends (the other characters) they went into the Troll Hills in search of this. At this point, things got interesting, as the Wizard left for a little while to go back to Baldur's Gate to try to find some more information about this hidden crypt. In the meantime, the other three characters were hiding out at night in the forest, when one of the fighters, a drow, noticed some wraiths and wights moving to attack them. And wow, I never expected 5CR creatures to do so much to 16th level characters! I didn't even roll particularly well, but when they do 21 damage on a hit with a +6 to do so, they were actually doing some decent damage to the party. Throw in the wights to serve as meat shields, and by the end of the night, I had successfully brought one fighter to half health, and the ranger to 75%, using creatures that wouldn't have had any chance against the party in other editions.
Emboldened by this, I waited while they successfully found the entrance to the crypt, suddenly more than a bit afraid that they were taking so much damage, but went in anyway. Inside the crypt, they found a pressure plate trap in front of them that they avoided, but were then sandwiched by two wraiths and a mass of ghasts attacking from the front. With the ranger (and his undead killing sword) leading the way, they tried to push forward, when one of the Ghasts set off the trap, dropping the floor underneath them. With their high dexterity saves, they all managed to avoid it, but were now hanging on the edge 20ft from each other, with wraiths popping up to attack them from below while they were prone. From another direction, I had a ghost attempt to possess one of the characters, but to no avail, even with a terrible charisma save. At this point, I realized that those kinds of saves would be very valuable to a DM, as they do not scale with player level, a fantastic quirk that will come up later as well. They managed to fight their way out, but only after taking a hefty amount of damage from all sides.
Now wounded, they found an empty part of the complex and took a short rest, then continued, finding a pile of bodies, some fresh some old, a druid hiding among them, then to a large cavern where a necromancer was arguing with a nalfeshnee. All of the characters were very good at sneaking, as they were all dexterity based characters with proficiency (except for the wizard who had a permanent "fly" spell held over from AD&D) and they tried to get the drop on the nalfeshnee by turning invisible and attacking it with a good old fashioned Disintigrate spell. Unfortunately, they neglected to remember that Nalfeshnee have truesight, and so it teleported up and started wailing on the wizard, doing immense damage. He teleported the hell out of there, so the Nalfeshnee turned to the ranger and fighters, successfully frightening two of them with horror nimbus (wisdom isn't one of this party's strong suits) and leaving the ranger to fight it alone. The ranger managed to kill it, but not after taking a significant amount of damage.
They then continued on through the halls, getting attacked by another wraith and several ghasts and ghouls, but this time a drow wizard as well, firing from behind an illusory wall. He managed to get off a couple of good lightning bolts and nearly killed the party with cloud kill until the ranger cast wind wall, but at that moment the ghost came back and successfully possessed one of the fighers, who immediately stabbed his buddy in the back for a large amount of damage. It didn't take but another round before they fought the rest of the creatures off, but now they were wounded, with little healing left, and were beset on all sides by, *gasp* CR 10> creatures! They realized that they would only really be able to get a short rest out before they were attacked again, and so they did, and ventured on to the final part of the adventure, the dracolich and the drow wizard (again).
Now, in the encounter guidelines, for a party of 4 level 16 adventurers, the dracolich in the Monster Manual should be a medium encounter, a good amount of damage taken, but no where near a casualty. However, what I realized then, was that the encounter guidelines don't take into account the health of the party at the time. These PCs were pretty battered after just a few encounters, but the gamers of the group thought they would still be able to take the dracolich, and hey, the DM won't put something in here that we wont be able to beat, right? After entering a large chamber, the dracolich dropped down on them (having been turned invisible by the wizard) and nearly killed two of them, with the ranger only surviving due to his Blue Dragon armor. Frightening Presence served to shock the same two poor souls into submission as were frightened by the Nalfeshnee, and a couple of lucky rolls on my part later, the Dracolich had hammered them with two more breath weapons and a flyby attack. Luckily, one fighter rolled exceptionally well on his attacks against the wizard, even while frightened, and killed him in one round, while the other fighter got off two critical hits in one round (after saving against fear) to put the dracolich down. The final tallies for health were 70-ranger, 15-fighter, 22-fighter, and 100 wizard (abjuration kept him alive for a lot longer), with the wizard having expended most of his spells as well.
To summarize, here are a few nuggets of info I got from DMing this:
1. High level characters are still vulnerable. None of the party had a normal AC of above 20, and as such even low level creatures were able to hit them. Without a dedicated healer, they were only able to use their hit dice to regenerate, and while it let them survive against the dracolich, wasn't quite enough to fight anything scarier. Not to mention the way some saves will stay low throughout all of their levels. While I've seen various threads on this topic, I found giving PCs such obvious vulnerabilities even in the wake of their strengths gave a fantastic dichotomy. The ability to be possessed by a low level Ghost even at 16th level is a wonderful thing. This led to a feeling of fear among them that I haven't seen since the AD&D days, which was very heartening as a DM who relishes instilling such fear into PC's souls!
2. High level characters are still powerful. Even with all of these creatures attacking them, even with bad luck rolls for the PCs and good luck ones for the monsters, they still managed to fight and kill a dracolich. Afterwards, they seemed to relish the challenge, and found that being able to defeat such a powerful creature even while wounded and battered, led to an epic feel that was accentuated by them being hurt and vulnerable, instead of being all powerful.
3. Low CR creatures can still pack a punch. To be frank, while I love 5E and think it's the best edition of D&D by quite a bit, the Challenge Rating system is still wonky. The good thing about it now, is that the CR being meaningless really doesn't effect anything. I simply throw what monsters I want to at the party, and gauge how much I should continue to throw at them. It really feels nice being able to reuse monsters from the depths of the Monster Manual, rather than having to use the same demons and devils over and over again just to give the PCs a challenge. I could have feasibly brought down the whole party with just a few more wraiths, something that hasn't been able to happen in years!
All in all, I was very pleased with the state of this adventure, and optimistic about the future. My main campaign is just ramping up to 12th level, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to challenge the PCs anymore. This short adventure put those fears to rest, and now I can't wait to continue.
