D&D 5E Test of High Level 5E: Design 4 or 5 lvl 13 PCs for 6 to 8 encounter adventuring day

[iserith]

Thanks mate!

Ive emailed the encounters already for verification so once I hear back and get the characters posted, we can kick on with the adventure.

Ill post the background (DM information) for the adventure once I get the PCs statistics so readers can get a feel for whats going on. We can safely assume the characters have access to potent enough divination abilities, NPC contacts and so forth to find most of it out anyway (caveat being the short time limit on the adventure).

Im really looking forward to posting the encounters online. Theyre all unique and challenging in their own ways.

I am having an issue with my PMs. I'm over the limit for messages for Inbox, but can't figure out how to delete some older messages. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. In the meantime, I can't reply to any PMs. I have some notes for Encounter 1. If you want to contact me on Twitter (see below), we can set up a DM.

 

[Umbran]

I am having an issue with my PMs. I'm over the limit for messages for Inbox, but can't figure out how to delete some older messages. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. In the meantime, I can't reply to any PMs. I have some notes for Encounter 1. If you want to contact me on Twitter (see below), we can set up a DM.

So, let us see if we can get you rolling. Not PMing you, because, well, your box is full.

Click on Messages in the bar at the top right of any page, to see your messages.

It gives you check boxes individually for the most recent messages, and then beyond a certain point, they are "older". You have two options:

1) Go to any single older message, and click on it to read it. Scroll down past the message itself. At the bottom of the page, there's a section for "Delete this message". Click the checkbox and click the button to delete the single message.

2) There's a bar of page numbers above your messages. Go back to some period in time where there's a bunch of messages you no longer want to keep. There' will be, at the top of the list of messages, a checkbox that says "Messages: 25" (or some lower number) next to it. Click the checkbox to select all 25. Now scroll down to the bottom of the list, and you'll find a dropdown with "Selected messages" on it. Select an option (there are several download options, and one option is "Delete".

Or, at least, that's how it *should* work - the thing doesn't seem to be working properly. [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] will be informed of the issue.

 

[iserith]

So, let us see if we can get you rolling. Not PMing you, because, well, your box is full.

Click on Messages in the bar at the top right of any page, to see your messages.

It gives you check boxes individually for the most recent messages, and then beyond a certain point, they are "older". You have two options:

1) Go to any single older message, and click on it to read it. Scroll down past the message itself. At the bottom of the page, there's a section for "Delete this message". Click the checkbox and click the button to delete the single message.

2) There's a bar of page numbers above your messages. Go back to some period in time where there's a bunch of messages you no longer want to keep. There' will be, at the top of the list of messages, a checkbox that says "Messages: 25" (or some lower number) next to it. Click the checkbox to select all 25. Now scroll down to the bottom of the list, and you'll find a dropdown with "Selected messages" on it. Select an option (there are several download options, and one option is "Delete".

Or, at least, that's how it *should* work - the thing doesn't seem to be working properly. @Morrus will be informed of the issue.

Thanks. I was able to delete a couple of messages using Method 1, but most result in an error ("Invalid Private Message specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator").

Method 2 didn't work at all. Even after I checked the box and hit the Delete option in the dropdown, after Proceed it says, "No private messages selected."

Edit: I chose the option to download all PMs as text file, then hit the Empty Folder option. This cleared out all of Flamestrike's messages (preserved in the .txt file), but some are lingering and cannot be deleted.

 

[Celtavian]

Adventure intro for:

The Return to (whats left of) White Plume Mountain

(Note, you indicated to me in your earlier posts that you prefer to play amoral characters and this party will likely consist of same - the following introduction takes this into account, and is is condensed for brevity)


Keraptis the Mad of White Plume Mountain has always been an interesting fellow. A powerful (if unhinged and paranoid) arch mage, he has always had a penchant for weapons collection, particularly potent magical weapons. Recently he was involved in the heist of three potent magical weapons – the sword blackrazor, the warhammer whelm, and the trident wave – from the high kings armoury.

Responding to a cryptic letter left by the arch mage, a brave band of adventurers was dispatched to his deviously created underground lair located in a hollowed out volcano (naturally) named 'White Plume Mountain' to recover the three weapons. Sent off with much fanfare and the blessing of the kingdom, the greatest goodly heroes of the realm marched off to recover the three relics and put an end to the arch mage for good. Beautiful women and handsome men flocked to admire and see off the departing heroes (and more than a few kisses and promises of more given out), and the streets were filled with ribbons and streamers and the cheering adulation of the crowd. The rumor has it that the heroes even refused to accept the 10,000 gp payment each of them was promised for success. It was as if everyone in the realm was present to see off the greatest forces of good in a task fit for only the most renowned heroes of the realm.

Everyone that is, except for your party.

Overlooked for the task due to some rather ‘dubious’ moral decisions made in past dealings, and the reputation for being a little… shall we say… overzealous in some of your past adventures (I mean come on - Orcs are inherently evil – the orc non-combatants had it coming to them), you all now sit in a deserted tavern in the seedier side of town, a few days after the great send off, spending the last of your copper coins on cheap ale and other assorted vices. I mean yeah – sure you would have loved to have gotten your hands on Keraptis (and even better – to have gotten your hands on the loot he is rumoured to stockpile), but this is a job for some other fall guy. It’s not like you were insulted about being overlooked for the job anyway. Or so you all tell yourselves as you stare down into your flat and rather warm ales, grumbling not so quietly to each other.

Suddenly a jolt of electricity shudders through the tavern and in a flash and a pop of magical energy, a figure appears as if from nowhere. You recognise him instantly as Myrkyn – the High Kings personal wizard – and the clown who overlooked you all for the White Plume Mountain dungeon raid a few days ago. His face is pale as if he has seen a ghost. ‘Still interested in that job?’ he intones, rather sheepishly. ‘We've umm... reconsidered our past objections and... err.. congratulations! Also, we seem to have had a… well... how shall I say this… a… err… a complication. A complication that could quite possibly see the end of the multiverse in (he furrows his brow and does some quick mental arithmetic)… around 5 hours’ time’.

Ignoring the look of shock on your faces, he continues: 'On the plus side, the reward has doubled to the kingly sum of 20,000 - each. Bearing in mind past... indescretions, that money will be paid in full upon completion of your task. And I am pleased to announce that you also have a guarantee from the King himself to expunge all criminal records, and for grants of noble titles to you all if you accept. What say you?

Jubali is playing cards with herself given the tavern is deserted. She analyzes each and all the possibilities using mage hand to lift the cards. She leans back in her chair surveying the table ignoring the wizard for a few moments, as do her compatriots, only Ryken eyeing him closely. She says, "20,000 gold. Why would we take this sum? Your king wishes to pay for ancient artifacts of unknown power while we take money? Tell me wizard, does he think himself so powerful that he can speak to me that way? Do you? He should know who we are and what we have done. We know exactly who has attempted this quest. We are watching as well to see if they retrieve the items the king seeks. Do you understand me?" Her tone is one of disregard.

The gnome wizard chuckles as he puffs on his long, ornately carved pipe sized for his small hand.


OOC questions: Do we know where this tomb is? Why do we need the king? Do we have sufficient intelligence to track the adventurers who have gone on this quest? Do we think there are any more powerful than us?

____________

It would be just as undesirable to have criminal records to my group as to be considered obviously good and heroic. They key here is control. They create characters that tend towards neutrality and self-interest that don't align good or evil. They are pure mercenaries beholden only to themselves. They like to stay off the radar.

From a rules standpoint, this was mostly to avoid a few things. In 3E and past editions it was to avoid alignment based magic and moral quandaries where the DM enforces alignment. In 5E it is just to avoid moral quandaries inserted by the DM.

In your earlier example, they would save the princess, just not on a time table dictated by the DM to the point that they were likely going to die or take excessive risk. The point is risk control to the point where they look at me, often the DM, and say, "You trying to kill us? Screw that. We're going to find something else to do." As in they expect you to cater to their fun and they bluntly state we're not going on adventures where you are just trying to kill the character I spent the last year running up.

Just woke up. I'm on a 7 day schedule right now. I'm going to work some more on the characters now that I have their stats and the placeholders in place.

White Plume Mountain, eh. Love that module. I wonder how you have adapted it to 5E. We shall see.

I have a little better idea of the characters now. I'll add an in character response.

 

[Celtavian]

Very interesting cant wait to see how this turns out. I do find your party comp a little strange mostly due to the lack of a barbarian and to some extent a rogue. IF it were me i would replace the elf fighter with a half-orc barbarian, Huge DPR potential and has cockroach like survival skills. I would remove the evoker to add in a SS rogue. Juts my thoughts on the subject

The objective is to destroy as much as possible from range. Barbarians are notoriously poor ranged combatants. The paladin will quite often act as a ranged attacker guard providing save bonuses to ensure maximum saving throw advantage. If the enemy moves to engage the ranged attackers, well, paladin.

 

[Delazar]

Just posting to see I this pans out!

 

[CapnZapp]

This is a discussion started in another thread discussing 5E at 11th level.

Hmm... Not sure what I can bring to the table, since having the 6-8 encounter adventuring day is the greatest obstacle in the first place.

My stance is that since you can seldom force so many encounters on the party against their will, the encounter guidelines become such weaksauce. Flamestrike did recently agree with me one solution is to change the resting rules to wrest away control from the players, but that solution (which is a true solution) seems to be incredibly unpopular otherwise.

Regarding party composition, how about two sharpshooter/crossbow expert fighters (that function equally well at 0 feet as 120 feet) and two warlocks for starters?

Minimize long rest dependency and increase chance for several "mini novas" during one and the same day. A single warlock is horribly constrained; two can share the load. Its not like 5E needs specialized wizards like past editions anyway.

Then I guess the Paladin is too good to pass up, so he takes fifth spot.

All builds obviously get Perception and try to not suck at Stealth.

 

[CapnZapp]

Hiya!

I was interested until the whole "Feats, MC'ing, all splat books" thing. I know it's one guys campaign, so that's fine. But...the whole premise of "Test of High Level 5E" just went out the window with that.

PHB == MM + DMG
PHB + Options + Splat >= MM + DMG

It's that simple. I fear your guys little experiment is doomed to failure as the MM and DMG are not designed with the base of adding in the OPTIONS (let alone the splat/adventure book stuff).

If you're okay with a book like Princes of the Apocalypse or Out of the Abyss being broken by really common table rules such as "we use feats" then, well...

...there's really not much else to say. In my view, that would indeed short-circuit the entire discussion before it starts, but not in the way you want.

Myself, though, I really expected the core books to hold up to "PHB + Options in the PHB".

 

[CapnZapp]

One recommendation on magic items for this experiment. Go with the DMG guidelines and roll for the items. Take a CR 4, 7 and 11 hoard and roll the dice and hand out the items that way. Or don't allow magic items at all. If you are testing daily encounter guidelines they are written with characters having 0 permanent items. Rolling at least makes it unlikely that characters will have perfect synergies with their abilities.

Since this is relatively high level play I would expect each character to be able to break magic resistance (i.e. have attacks that count as magical) during every other encounter at the very least.

Other than that, "no magic items" would be acceptable.

A shitload of 50 gp healing potions (that doesn't really count as magical) would be trivial at this level, though.

 

[Azurewraith]

The objective is to destroy as much as possible from range. Barbarians are notoriously poor ranged combatants. The paladin will quite often act as a ranged attacker guard providing save bonuses to ensure maximum saving throw advantage. If the enemy moves to engage the ranged attackers, well, paladin.

You do have a point its much safer to kill them before they get close and take 0damge as opposed to taking half damge from the scrim.