D&D 5E does D&D support 20 man or 40 man raids?

[Falcon10275]

are there any adventure books out there that have 20 man or 40 man raids like in the world of warcraft?

 

[DM Howard]

are there any adventure books out there that have 20 man or 40 man raids like in the world of warcraft?

Seeing as the Edition is still in its infancy, I doubt it. However, there is nothing stopping you from cranking up the difficulty level of the adventures that are already out to accommodate that amount of players, although you may need some co-DMs for that many people.

 

[Paraxis]

There were two different adventures for the Encounters program during the playtest phase of 5th edition, they were designed to be run at a store with 4 tables going at once to achieve a goal so not exactly a 20 man raid but close.

Vault of the Dracolich
http://www.dndclassics.com/product/120762/Vault-of-the-Dracolich-DD-Next?filters=0_0_45190

and Dead in Thay
http://http://www.dndclassics.com/product/128515/Dreams-of-the-Red-Wizards-Dead-in-Thay-DD-Next?filters=0_0_45190

As far as adventures go both are very cool.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, but you need the Leroy Jenkins module in the DMG. /spoilers

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've deleted a bunch of posts which are speculating about 'spamming' or 'trolling'. If you have real cause to think it is going on then report the post to the moderators. Otherwise, please don't attempt low key bullying by attributing motives to other posters - you know nothing of their age, newness to RPGs or first language come to that.

Thanks

 

[sgtscott658]

I remember back in the old 1E days when I was in the military, we would have at least 20 guys at the table raiding White Plum mountain, Ravenloft and so on. So as long as the DM is organized and has good command presence you should have no problem running a 20 man adventure.

Scott

are there any adventure books out there that have 20 man or 40 man raids like in the world of warcraft?

 

[Greg Benage]

Sure. From Dungeons & Dragons Vol. I: Men and Magic:

Number of Players: At least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ratio should be about 1:20 or thereabouts.

 

[GreenTengu]

Well, it would be an interesting thing to try to pull off. I wouldn't want to try it in 4E. Combats take FOREVER in that edition.

But in 5E where basically everyone is limited to 1 action and maybe a bonus action and one reaction? Hmmm...

Well, you are definitely going to want a full-scale map and either tokens or models when you are going this. Handling that sort of volume is no "theater of the mind" kind of thing. WAAAAY too many variables to keep track of. But make the map much more fun than you would likely do in WoW. The enemies do not follow zombie "mob" logic and both the PCs and the enemies can use terrain to their advantage (something intentionally prevented in WoW).

There can even be traps hidden around the field and such.

And there is going to be rolling. Lots and lots of rolling. Probably you need a few DMs. They can control an army of enemies and divide the army into relatively equal sections so that one DM is not trying to roll dice or keep track of hit points for 20 PC's worth of opponents. In fact, there is every reason in the world to bring back Minions for this kind of thing. That way one isn't trying to keep track of 100 different hit point numbers, but instead the minions just go out in one hit. So I could see 3-4 DMs for 20 players.

Initiative order is going to also be a pain. But if you have 4 DMs, then 4 players can act at once.

The other issue would be the main bosses... you are going to want to build those things off of area attacks. Maybe a melee area attack done by attack roll (targets everything within 10-15') that does a great amount of damage and then a ranged area attack that does less damage and allows a save. Because you don't want to heap all the damage a monster designed to take on 20 adventurers should be doing a round on only 1 or 2 targets.


But you know what? With bound accuracy in 5E, there is every reason in the world to think that 20 level 3-5s adventurers could take on something the scale of a Pit Fiend or Great Wyrm Gold Dragon.

 

[Jester David]

Do any MMOs still support 40 man raids? I thought those went away the better part of a decade ago.

 

[DMZ2112]

There were two different adventures for the Encounters program during the playtest phase of 5th edition, they were designed to be run at a store with 4 tables going at once to achieve a goal so not exactly a 20 man raid but close.

We got Vault of the Dracolich up to 16 players. I can see hitting 32 with good support staff. Forty might be a stretch.

And it's important to note that it doesn't run like a raid. Raid groups travel as a pack, but multi-party adventures involve multiple starting locations and objectives. Even in the final encounter, which could be called a boss fight, you've got different parties with diverse makeups, working on different goals. In a classic raid you've got different parties but they're homogenous -- fighters tank, clerics heal the fighters, rogues burn the boss down and the mages handle adds. And they're all fighting in the same room.

I've deleted a bunch of posts which are speculating about 'spamming' or 'trolling'.

I was wondering where all of those were.

I remember back in the old 1E days when I was in the military, we would have at least 20 guys at the table raiding White Plum mountain, Ravenloft and so on.

That is awesome!

Sure. From Dungeons & Dragons Vol. I: Men and Magic:

THAT IS AWESOME!

But you know what? With bound accuracy in 5E, there is every reason in the world to think that 20 level 3-5s adventurers could take on something the scale of a Pit Fiend or Great Wyrm Gold Dragon.

So much character death. It would be glorious.

Do any MMOs still support 40 man raids? I thought those went away the better part of a decade ago.

There are still MMOGs that focus on that style of play -- Wildstar just came out this past summer and it has at least one 40-man raid. But it's a niche audience, for sure. Perhaps as a result, Wildstar's having kind of a tough time.