D&D 5E Running D&D 5e for Levels 10+

[Rhenny]

It's not so much that they see a CR 2 brute, as they see the reality which its statistics reflect. They see the huge muscles, which we see as Strength 19. They see the hide armor it wears, which we see as AC 11. They see its size and relative lack of skill, which we see as 59 Hit Points.

Unless it has different stats, in which case they see a different reality. If it has more HP, then they can see that it's bigger and/or more skilled. If it's wearing plate armor, then that's also obvious. Or if it's some homebrew rock giant that I introduce because I think ogres need to be 30% harder, then they can see that it's proportionally stronger and tougher and more skilled or whatever.

I know you don't have to play that way, but honestly, I really don't want to play the game of hiding information from players or making them second-guess what they think their characters should know. It's one of the reasons I'm so dead-set against unnecessary abstraction.

Totally! This is one of the reasons I'm glad there are no scaling bonuses automatically tied to AC.

That said, I do like to alter creatures, but I do make sure that the description I give of them matches their increased prowess (like some will be bigger, stronger, faster, more agile, etc.).

 

[hawkeyefan]

Basically this. Despite the misunderstandings of the poster you're responding to, some of us really would like some guidance by the experts who designed the game (though I appreciated [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s ideas, certainly), because we think they're the best place to go for it. We'd be willing to pay for a well-crafted book around this idea, too. Why is that bad? And it's certainly not asking for a "re-write" of existing books.

I don’t think wanting some guidance is bad at all. I think that part of the problem with these discussions is that people involved tend to throw each other into two camps, one at either extreme, not allowing for any nuance.

If WotC put out a book that offered advice on how to take the existing material and tweak it to get the desired results, I’d be fine with that. I actually think it’s a good idea. I do think the DMG does a good deal of that, but more would not hurt.

What I wouldn’t want, and which some others have called for, is essentially a rewrite of the Monster Manual. Not advice on how to make monsters tougher or how to create cool encounters, but instead an alteration of the mechanics for existing material. For me, that’s a bit more problematic, especially for any products to follow. They’d have multiple versions of creature to refer to, and so on.

It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker or anything, but given my approach to the game, it would be a product I’d be less inclined to buy, is less useful to the hobby overall, and so I’d rather see them make something else. Essentially, instead of giving DMs a fish, I’d rather thay teach DMs how to fish.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Totally! This is one of the reasons I'm glad there are no scaling bonuses automatically tied to AC.

Scaling defense is actually one of the things I miss most about 4E. It's way easier for the characters to understand that they can't hit something because it's skilled enough to dodge, than it is to try and understand the in-game reality which represents 40hp left from a starting total of 70hp (if skill is a significant factor in what HP are supposed to represent).

I'd rather have a game where to-hit and AC scale strongly with level, and HP stay mostly flat, instead of the reverse.

 

[robus]

Just popping in to note that maximizing HP this evening resulted in a much more satisfying combat encounter for my players. It’s the grand finale and they have a few NPC allies that they’re running and what with worrying about their allies getting hit and enemies that were hard to take out with a single fireball (or whatever) they definitely felt challenge. A critical hit on one of the allies certainly helped to raise the stakes.

Anyway, so far so much better, and they’re still just approaching the big bad...

 

[ClaytonCross]

Hence the dichotomy: The MM can work when the DM plays a monster like a stupid meatsack against players with a similar grasp of tactics, both in combat, and in character optimisation.
It can also work when the DM uses cunning tactics against a party that have optimised their characters and relish the challenge of tactical problems.
It falls down however, both where the DM plays optimally but the players don't want to (they find countering the tactics unfun, and lose charaters), and where the players are optimised but the DM doesn't want to: - (The party wins too easily, making it unfun for the DM and possibly also the players.)

If the MM works in both the cases you describe and not in the cases you say it doesn't then your issues is not with the MM but with player /GM style miss match. There is no MM change that will ever fix that and as you said "it is indeed generally up to the DM to make D&D work." Because it is not on the book to account for Player / GM miss match.

Also, an CR17 adult Dragon is a good epic fight for a 1 or 2 level 17 player characters as the XP system indicates. I think your problem is your setting an CR17 Adult Dragon against a group of 4 level 17 players characters under the incorrect assumption that should be an equivalent fight but its not. An Adult Dragon (18,000XP) is a deadly challenge for the epic fight your talking about with a group of 4 Player characters no higher than level 12 (4,500 xp each for a total of you guessed it 18,000) ... So if your using the CR only to determine your challenges and your putting your group of 4-5 level 17 player characters against a single CR17 adult dragon of course you are getting the instant kill dragon but not because the MM is wrong but because your not not following the instructions. Now if your party is 4 "Dragon slayers" designed with the appropriate elemental resistance, swords and arrows of dragon slaying, and casters with long range attacks all power gaming for DPS... your also going to find the dragon weak against them because they invested to do that. They might not do so well against the CR17 Death Knight .... Again this is not a flaw in the CR/XP system it simply that the CR/XP system is a very good guideline and as you said ultimately its the GM that makes D&D work.... So if he sends the dragon to fight Dragon slayers then maybe its on easy mode but then maybe that is what they asked for if the GM sends the death Knight instead.. well maybe they have a rougher day than expected.

 

[The Liverpuncher]

Nah - I'm running a one shot - a long game session for my friends, which I've wrote and run previously using 1st edition.

 

[The Liverpuncher]

I have not found it problematic at all. But I think that is largely due to play style. One thing I’ve observed in threads about this topic, there are two primary play styles that folks seem to fall into: role playing opponents, and roll playing opponents.

Before people get all worked up, neither is objectively better; it’s personal preference. What I mean by this, is I consider myself in the role playing camp. How an encounter plays out is significantly impacted by how the opponent would normally act, both during the encounter, and before the encounter ever happens. Will they plan for the party? Use the environment to their advantage? A lot of this is dictated by the flavor text and intelligence of the opponent, which IMO is just as importance as any other stat. A group of devious goblins can far out punch their CR. A group of wolves may constantly harass the party, looking for weakness, and making rests nearly impossible because as soon as the party tries, they do hit and run attacks. You wanna see players who feel challenged? Watch what happens when they can’t recharge their abilities whenever they want.

The other style, I’ve seen, is dependent on actual defined abilities, and combat is played tactically as if they are game pieces on a board. Again, nothing wrong with this, and it comes to preference. The problem with that is if you’re ignoring the flavor text and environment (which while not a mechanic, is a rule to show you how to play the monster), you’re leaving some of the challenge off the table and may need to make changes to make up for that. For mundane creatures, give them a superiority dice or two like the battlemaster. For others, give some magical limited use abilities. Or something like legendary resistance, only instead of saving throws, they can turn a hit into a miss.

I like a combination of role and roll playing in my games; social interaction can certainly help avoid an encounter, but combat is often a reasonable course of action.

I agree with the previous ideas regarding tactics, etc. The biggest surprise is in a typical combat - a face off between the pcs and monsters - in 5e, the pcs are vastly more powerful than in previous editions (1st - 3.5). And given that reality, I was looking for suggestions. I like the ideas presented; changing the scope of powers, increasing the power, etc.

Thanks all.

 

[pemerton]

No single monster has ever been able to go toe to toe with a D&D party. Not unless it massively out leveled the party. It just doesn't work and it never has. This was a problem in every single edition of the game and it's because the PC's simply overwhelm any single monster too easily.

This claim isn't true. I've run 4e monsters that could go toe-to-toe with a party. A heroic tier black dragon was one; a heroic tier solo vampire another; Torog another. That's from memory, without going back through notes/campaign logs to look for other examples.

 

[pemerton]

You obviously never played with my group where the PCs stomped on Lollth (CR 34?) at level 22 because I had set up a fight I thought they couldn't win.

It took them a round and a half. Yeah, 4E was so much better.

Must be because you were min/maxing powergamers who ignored two-thirds of the game!

Loth has AC 51, Fort 46 and Ref and Will 49.

Level 22 PCs have +11 from level, +5 from item, +8 or so from stats of 26, which is around +24 before more individual adds - suppose those take it to +30 (which is higher than I've seen in my game, mostly because I don't use Expertise feats), you still need fairly strong buffs to get a 50% hit chance.

To drop Lolth requires dealing 1268 hp. To it with 5 PCs therefore requires 254 hp per PC. With 4 attacks (two rounds + action point + some sort of minor action or off-turn effect) requires each PC to deal 64 hp per attack. With a 50% hit chance, that is an average of 128 hp per attack.

My 4e party - which based on experience on these boards seems to be fairly effective, given the amount of surprise I've encountered at the number of encounters they can pull of between long rests - has never been capable of this level of effectiveness. The sorcerer's Demon Soul bolts were that good vs a single target, but not useable four times in a row; the archer ranger at 21st level (I can't find a 22nd level PC sheet) was more like half that with Twin Strike.

So I have to conclude that Oofta's PCs were rather optimised.

(Lolth herself has very poor action economy as written. I rewrote her before using her in my game, at 28th level. She survived for three rounds.)

 

[pemerton]

Sounds to me like having a Dragon land amidst PCs and then try to just go punch for punch with them is the very definition of a "boring bag of HP".

I think that depends heavily on the intricacies of mechanical design: action economy, effects inflicted, etc.