D&D 5E Running D&D 5e for Levels 10+

Stalker0 said:

A few notes on thst dragon fight... you should expect fire resistance at that level. Most parties are going to find ways to get resistances st thst level, especially fire.

Could be spells, abilities, magic items, nature domain, whatever...but a party of thst level going against s real dragon will find a way to get resistance.

Also that warlocks hitpoints are way too low. 100 hp is going to be your norm, either by base or some temp hp ability. To put it in context, every single one of my players at 20th level had over 200 hp...but thst was with feats and an extra +2 con. Our barb had over 300. Oh and thst was before inspiring leaders temp hp.

Lastly the warlock should have +12 minimum....and probably advantage. Again at those levels you are going to have something that boosts attacks, could be a magic weapon could be bless. And there are many ways to get advantage at those levels.

And I think that right there is where high level crs break down. There are certain bonuses at those levels that you just have to expect. You may not know how the party gets them...but you have to trust thst at those levels they just will.

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I got my stats strait from the players hand book AFTER asking for the actual players stats and not getting them. So your estimates are just as arbitrary as mine but I had to work with something since he wanted to be vague. A 10 constitution for a warlock is not bad an I gave him about the best armor he could have as a warlock. I could have given him more hp and more average armor which would have raised all the DPR and possibly off set the HP. I feel I was generous with an AC18 warlock so I don't feel then need to re-run the number at least unless actual stats are provided.

As far as fire resistance and proper planing it comes down to if they know or if it was a surprise fight. I am going with surprise because I think there is no accounting for good preparations. I mean if I was a fire dragon with fire immunity and knew a party was coming for me. I would turn on an anti-magic field, flood the place with a foot of lava after they entered, and watch them burn to death. So I am not really going to consider preparations.

Saelorn said:

The warlock in this example has fire resistance, either from race or class. That's not planning, but it is a coincidence. Even ignoring the possibility of making the save, which is an extreme assumption when it comes to PCs, you still have the dragon dealing 31 damage every third turn, for a DPR of ~10.3. Congrats, your adult red dragon will kill a warlock of equal level in sixteen rounds.

Sure, let's go with that.

That was my entire point, is that dragons are way scarier in melee. Trying to play hit-and-run with their breath weapon would be suicide for such a creature.

You specifically said that a dragon should be played intelligently by having it fly around and use its breath weapon, which is actually one of the worst things it could possibly do. You specifically said that many DMs run their dragons foolishly, by putting them into melee combat, when going into melee is actually one of their most effective options. I mean, make no mistake about it, that dragon is probably going to lose either way because their stats are a complete joke in this edition, but a well-played dragon that breathes once and then jumps directly into melee at least has a chance of winning.

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I get what your saying but Its hard to math mathematically show if you can kill a player with tactics. While I still thing that is the way to go I can't really show that in a post. I would have to play it out in a video or something and I am not the right guy for that. I was mainly replying to your post:

"A dragon in flight is a sitting duck. Between their terrible armor class and pathetic flight speed, an ancient dragon would have a tough time in a ranged fight against one ranged PC of the same level, let alone one ranged PC with a support healer (and any other spellcasters in the party)."

All I have to prove against this argument is that the Adult dragon could easily take one level 17 caster. Now that said at the time I did the post I was not aware it was a tiefling which would make the fight harder. At the same time you picked a fire dragon knowing your caster was strong against it. Then also add concentration checks for all hits causing the loss of hex and the face that even a level 20 warlock has a max of 4 spell slots and I still think an Ancient dragon has a shot. If your accounting for player preparations for the fight then doesn't the dragon get them too? That becomes an irrelevant conversation about "what if" which does nether of us or our points any justice. So I am going to say its a surprise encounter and no preparations were involved. That in mind if the character was not a tie-fling or fire resistance dragon born your warlock is dead hands down. If your lucky to have resistance on your warlock that matches the dragon then it is a special skill that should be a highlight making them stronger against the opponent as intended not a deficiency of the Dragon.

Now back to the tactics I described. I have seen them used. They work 95% of the time. Can you build a party of 2 that is strong against fire dragons... yes. Can you fill up on resistance potions prior to a known fight.. yes, but that's not comparing the Creature's combat value or viable tactics it is comparing party preparations and GM willingness to make things like fire resistance potions available in a largely rare magic item platform. My GMs have never given more than a couple of different resistance potions out in a single campaign. We might get a belt of dwarvin kind for poison but usually not much. That said the In our latest campaign the GM is trying this new method of finding and buying magic items at moving magic shops... as a result It might happen in this my very latest game. My point is that is a rarity and it would mean that your GM is equipping you for the challenges so... ya they are easier.

Also, is your party actually 2 or is it more like 4 and if it is 4 have you ever had to fight 2 dragons doing AoE breath at the same time? Because per XP that would be about right... If that is the case your one warlock may survive longer than expected but if I was setting that up chances are it would be 2 different types of damage you would need to resist. Hit and run becomes alot more likely with 2 dragons, mobility is greater, and the recharge of a breath weapon should come twice as much and they can still hit multiple if not all the party members. Since the standard party size list in the book is 4... that really lines them up.

I think I have at least illustrated the Dragon is not a sitting duck, with terrible armor, and pathetic flight speed. At best you have a very specific case where it would be harder but not impossible for the dragon to win.

ClaytonCross Fiendish Resilience is PHB standard 10th level patron fiend warlock feature.

You can certainly presume dragon surprise as standard, but i myself have seen more stories of dragons and such in both fiction and games tent to treat adult dragons and lairs as not anything subtle, more like environmentsl hazards affecting the locale. That combines with terrain preferences seems to me to make "i choose fire" a reasonable daily chouce.

Also, of course a GM can add anti magic, spells, armies, waves of beholders as they see fit to a dragon's package as he sees fit. That just does not do much to say the baseline MM creature is this or that or the other... Except maybe to support the idea it needs beefing up by GM.



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One other thing to note - why are you assuming the dragon is going to remain in line of sight to the caster? If there are any buildings/trees/craggy hills the dragon flies in, strafes and then flies out of sight. If there's nothing to hide behind, a billowing cloud of gas hides it. If it can't do it's breath weapon, it flies in takes one attack and then uses it's wing buffet and flies away preferably behind total cover again, or even just dives into one of those handy fiery chasms.

If the PCs can stop it from using hit and run tactics, that helps but it should in most cases get a couple of rounds where it is using them. Throw in some allies, even simple fire elementals and you have a fight on your hand. Legendary creatures are not necessarily solo monsters, and even in editions that did have "solo" monsters I rarely found them effective against high level PCs.

If you don't see how high CR monsters get shredded by high level adventurers, you need to reconsider your players' ability to min-max.

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CapnZapp said:

If you don't see how high CR monsters get shredded by high level adventurers, you need to reconsider your players' ability to min-max.

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Sorry, you lost all credibility to make a statement like this when you posted a thread describing how you DMd high level opponents who got “curb stomped” as you put it, when you played those opponents about as incompetent as I’ve ever seen. You ignored their abilities, you played them with no tactics or planning despite some of them literally being geniuses, etc. That thread made it crystal clear that if your experience is that high level parties are shredding high level opponents, it’s largely based on how you’re running those high level opponents.

It’s also nice to see how no thread is complete without you complaining how the topic of discussion is broken, and you taking a shot at the developers.

Sacrosanct said:

Sorry, you lost all credibility to make a statement like this when you posted a thread describing how you DMd high level opponents who got “curb stomped” as you put it, when you played those opponents about as incompetent as I’ve ever seen. You ignored their abilities, you played them with no tactics or planning despite some of them literally being geniuses, etc. That thread made it crystal clear that if your experience is that high level parties are shredding high level opponents, it’s largely based on how you’re running those high level opponents.

It’s also nice to see how no thread is complete without you complaining how the topic of discussion is broken, and you taking a shot at the developers.

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Nope.

I reserve the right to not always play my opponents optimally. That has no bearing on the discussion at hand. Several posters have pointed out that, for example, demons are generally a joke in this edition. They are entirely correct.

Your crude attempt to discredit me for sharing my fun experience with the forum has failed.

That said, if anyone (else) is interested in reading a fun story where the party ate a nominally powerful NPC party for lunch, feel free to click here
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?503624-last-encounter-was-totally-one-sided

If your position is that high level opponents will get shredded by high level PCs, and the only example of you describing how you play high level opponents is as incompetent as in that thread, then you better believe it has bearing on this discussion because it tells the rest of us why you would have such a position when many others of us have completely different positions.

That is, your opinion is hardly objective truth like you think it is, and you have no authority to tell other people they aren’t thinking hard enough if their opinion is different than yours. Because maybe they are actually playing the opponents competently and up to their ability, which obviously you don’t judging by the only examples of your play style we have. You want to play opponents as game pieces with no individual thought or reactions, and ignore some of their abilities? More power to you. But you don’t get to tell others they are wrong or not aware for not doing the same as you. Especially since the game is designed around the assumption that DMs will be running opponents as living beings with motivations where intelligence and flavor text actually matter and have an impact, and not non-thinking game pieces.

Oh, and you are confusing “non optimal” with incompetent. Non optimal is not optimized for maximum affect, which is 90% of how most monsters are run. That does not mean you ignore abilities, behaviors, and thinking skills of the opponents. When you do that, you’re neutering them to incompetence. What you did is far less effective than not being optimized. You didn’t run those opponents non optimized, you ran them incompetently.

CapnZapp said:

If you don't see how high CR monsters get shredded by high level adventurers, you need to reconsider your players' ability to min-max.

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Ability to min-max and desire to do so are separate things. Also; If you always see high CR monsters get shredded by high level adventurers you need to reconsider your GMs ability to play the monsters.

If someone’s car breaks down on the road and they ask how to get it car started again, telling them that Nissan needs to design better transmissions does not help, regardless of how valid a criticism it may or may not be. Say that to someone on the side of the road and see if they say thanks.

The way to challenge high level groups is to:
- have the NPCs/monsters behave as thinking creatures with goals other than challenging the party, with a primary focus on how to not die
- vary the goals of combat so that there is more to it than depleting the opposition of HP
- change up monster stats and abilities to keep players on their toes
- match the player level of optimization- if your players have squeezed out every last bit of character utility, then do so with monsters and NPCs as well
- vary the number and types of encounters in a day/week/whatever so that the players cannot predict when they “can” nova
- don’t be afraid to let the PCs succeed...and then learn from that as a DM. If the PCs beat the crap out of a Balor, then think about why it happened, and don’t be afraid to change things to make the Balor be the kind of threat you want it to be for the party
- solo creatures are weak if not bolstered by lair and legendary actions- use these design elements. Do not pretend that these design elements don’t exist. Hell, increase them if you feel you need to. Why can’t some legendary dragon that you intend to be an epic threat to your PCs have 5 Legendary Actions? Why can’t one of those actions be an additional movement?

Pretty sure almost all of the above has been offered as advice in this thread and others, but it never hurts to repeat. The truth is, when asking what can be done to improve the game, the answers are in our hands.