Tell Me About Your Experiences With High Level 5E

[AkaKageWarrior]

I only DM'd a 5e campaign up to level 12, and then it started to get too "high-level" for me.
The way they basically obliterated a beholder and a few of his nooks was frustrating.
(Gosh, that dragon sorcerer was effective!)

But I guess high level 5e works much better than 3e / 4e or Pathfinder, in these games the power gap between higher and lower levels is ridiculous (currently playing a level 16 admixture evoker in PF, holy cow...).

It's just personal preference, for me the sweet spot is somewhere between level 3 to 10, no matter if 5e or other games.

 

[CapnZapp]

I consider this a truism with no basis in anything more than having given up on the publisher.

To me, this mindset says "since D&D has been terrible at providing robust high-level support for decades it must be that this is impossible to provide. Thus, TSR/WotC are blameless for not even trying."

Bollocks.

Of course you can provide robust high-level support. For starters, have NPCs and monsters actually be competitive with actual player characters created using nothing but the tools given by the PHB. Of course there will always be variance, but that fact does not excuse setting the baseline at "pathetic". I understand the desire to keep things simple for beginners. But that excuses only so much. A CR 5 critter with no special abilities? Fine. A CR 15 without any enablers that gives it a decent shot at delivering its main attacks agains competent players? That is indeed pathetic.

So that's a given.

You could actually engage in a discussion about expected character abilities, instead of sweeping them under the rug - or worse dressing them up. If you state things like "we expect a front-line warrior to do an average of 45 DPR and have an AC of about 20." then that tells you what you really truly need to know, as opposed to giving you a load of horse crock about "expected encounter levels" and pseudo-scientific-sounding "encounter difficulties". With hard numbers you don't have to guess! You don't have to be bewildered why your heroes cuts through the BBEGs minions like butter. Instead you simply go "oh, this adventure works best when my party is 4 levels higher (or lower)". One group might do alright at level 13 where another group needs to be level 19. But this is (to 90%) determined by real numbers for offense and defense and certainly no made-up BS calculations.

Then just add robust tools for managing the mountains of gold official adventures heap onto the heroes (not by removing the gold, but by allowing heroes to spend it on things with immediate use in further adventures aka magic items) and you're basically done. Or if not exactly done, at least in way better shape than any official so-called "support".

So no. I will keep characterizing WotC's current efforts as weak-sauce to newcomers because I know they could do better, thankyouverymuch.

 

[Zardnaar]

I consider this a truism with no basis in anything more than having given up on the publisher.

To me, this mindset says "since D&D has been terrible at providing robust high-level support for decades it must be that this is impossible to provide. Thus, TSR/WotC are blameless for not even trying."

Bollocks.

Of course you can provide robust high-level support. For starters, have NPCs and monsters actually be competitive with actual player characters created using nothing but the tools given by the PHB. Of course there will always be variance, but that fact does not excuse setting the baseline at "pathetic". I understand the desire to keep things simple for beginners. But that excuses only so much. A CR 5 critter with no special abilities? Fine. A CR 15 without any enablers that gives it a decent shot at delivering its main attacks agains competent players? That is indeed pathetic.

So that's a given.

You could actually engage in a discussion about expected character abilities, instead of sweeping them under the rug - or worse dressing them up. If you state things like "we expect a front-line warrior to do an average of 45 DPR and have an AC of about 20." then that tells you what you really truly need to know, as opposed to giving you a load of horse crock about "expected encounter levels" and pseudo-scientific-sounding "encounter difficulties". With hard numbers you don't have to guess! You don't have to be bewildered why your heroes cuts through the BBEGs minions like butter. Instead you simply go "oh, this adventure works best when my party is 4 levels higher (or lower)". One group might do alright at level 13 where another group needs to be level 19. But this is (to 90%) determined by real numbers for offense and defense and certainly no made-up BS calculations.

Then just add robust tools for managing the mountains of gold official adventures heap onto the heroes (not by removing the gold, but by allowing heroes to spend it on things with immediate use in further adventures aka magic items) and you're basically done. Or if not exactly done, at least in way better shape than any official so-called "support".

So no. I will keep characterizing WotC's current efforts as weak-sauce to newcomers because I know they could do better, thankyouverymuch.

They did try, high level adventures did not sell that well along with high level content. The CMI part of BECMI sold a lot less than the B/X part of it. And BECMI is about the only edition of D&D I would want to run above level 20 and we had a high level game of it circa 1995 and it was fun in a munchkin teenage way.

They also tried the expected damage per level thing and they made a very dry and boring version of D&D that got people playing Pathfinder that crashed an burned in 2 years and was out of print in 4 years.

Pretty much any veiled dig you can make at 5E because its not 4E was done for a reason. Pretty much anything you can imagine in D&D has been done somewhere, I have around 400 odd D&D items and are still finding bits and pieces I missed in books from 20+ years ago.

The reason BECMI worked at higher level was the power level was a lot lower along with the numbers, a level 20 fighter only got +13 to hit with a maximum of +3 off strength. That is not to different from 5E at +11 and 4E even at +10+ ability mod. Lower numbers are good (5E could stretch ACs perhaps a bit on CR 10+ critters). Hell in BECMI a level 1 cleric had no spells, topped out at level 7 spells and wizards did not get level 9 spells to around level 21 or 22 IIRC. They also had very few to pick from clerics had 8 at each level, wizards 12 or 13 IIRC. Not that you got to pick your spells either you had to find scrolls or research them, which also kept the power level down. Not being able to buy items also keeps the power level down.

The more things you do kicking player entitlement to the curb (less moving parts, less choices etc) the better your D&D works at higher levels. That is the other reason why BECMI works at higher level. The more things you add the more things go wrong (3E and 4E are good examples there).

 

[cmad1977]

5e is working great at 15th level for my players. Combat moves fast, they’re scared for their lives by the end of most adventures and they have a blast feeling powerful.

At this point they are doing things like battling giants in a floating castle powered by love or rescuing an ancient dragon on another plane of existence or taking part in a massive battle for the souls of an entire city.

It really isn’t hard to plan adventures for them or make things challenging.

Any DM that tells you that sharpshooter or great weapon master feats are broken or OP isn’t someone to take advice from. How can you possibly build a challenging adventure for your players if you’re overwhelmed by a couple simple feats?

 

[Eric V]

Pretty much any veiled dig you can make at 5E because its not 4E was done for a reason.

I don't know that that is what he was doing...it sounds more like guidelines for within 5e only: the difference between feats and no feats; magic items and no magic items; multi-classing and no multi-classing, etc.

Not saying print that on the cover of the adventure, but somewhere in the DM Toolbox part of the DMG, show "behind the curtain" (4 9th level PCs should be able to inflict X damage per turn, for example) so that DMs can make informed choices as regards their particular groups.

 

[Oofta]

I don't know that that is what he was doing...it sounds more like guidelines for within 5e only: the difference between feats and no feats; magic items and no magic items; multi-classing and no multi-classing, etc.

Not saying print that on the cover of the adventure, but somewhere in the DM Toolbox part of the DMG, show "behind the curtain" (4 9th level PCs should be able to inflict X damage per turn, for example) so that DMs can make informed choices as regards their particular groups.

There are a lot of variables in play though. I've judged two different groups at the same time. Each were roughly the same level, same options across the board, same number of players.

A medium fight for one group would have been a killer fight for the other group. The campaigns were in the same world, but regularly fighting different opponents but I used the same base calculation for each group. Both groups were fun, but one was simply better at tactics and countering what the enemy did. The mix of classes and synergies probably made a difference as well.

I'm not sure there's any way to boil it down to a simple equation. Hopefully by the time you get to high level you've got an idea of what your group can handle and whether you increase the default XP budget by 110% or 150% like I ended up doing.

EDIT: forgot to add, that it would be nice to have a "how to adjust the threat level for your group" ... but if it doesn't already exist in the DMG (I haven't looked lately) there's many blog posts . Or just ask on this forum. We're full of it. Advice that is.

 

[Stalker0]

High level worked for me, but I agree about upping the difficulty to 11. Players at this point can handle amything...and if they can’t they have the means to run.

Also time pressure is critical. Players at this point can do everything with ease if given time to prepare and rest...so the best method is the adventure have s key time pressure

 

[CapnZapp]

They did try, high level adventures did not sell that well along with high level content.

They also tried the expected damage per level thing and they made a very dry and boring version of D&D that got people playing Pathfinder that crashed an burned in 2 years and was out of print in 4 years.

Pretty much any veiled dig you can make at 5E because its not 4E was done for a reason.

Man. Why can't you just agree with someone, or at the very least, you know, not reply. Instead of inventing arguments to shoot down that I never made, I mean.

What has sales of high level adventures to do with general system support for high level play? (Unless you agree high level support is piss poor and just wanted to explain why WotC doesn't care)

Who suggested expected damage per level? Or dry and boring? Or anything from 4E really? (I just suggested that instead of byzanthine encounter guidelines, how about stating (making up numbers here) "this adventure is made for 45 DPR 20 AC 90 hp heroes" allowing DMs - for the first time - actually useful parameters to judge their own party's capabilities against. Minmaxers then count as level N+3 heroes, while naive newbies might count as N-2 heroes. In no way do I advocate changing any actual rules. I was just suggesting to completely scrap all existing attempt to hide the actual numbers that count.

Finally, how can someone characterize my very explicit, frank and specific criticisms against 5E as "veiled digs"? (It's a mystery.)

But no, there's no need to reply. I'm here to tell newbies that 5E has poor high level support for no good reason. That is all.

 

[Oofta]

...
I'm here to tell newbies that 5E has poor high level support for no good reason. That is all.

All I can say is that your opinion is not shared by myself, or apparently the majority of people posting to this thread.

Do the default assumptions work for most groups? Probably not. So turn it up to 11. Or 12, or 20. Increase your XP budget to whatever number you need. Try different tactics or limit the number of rests between encounters. The solution is going to vary by group and there's no one answer.

In my experience 5E has the best high level support yet. Not perfect of course, there is no such thing.

 

[Quartz]

That's been basically true for anything above about 12th level since the game came out in the '70's.

There were many high level adventures in Dungeon Magazine.