D&D 5E (2014) Anyone played to 20th level and kept going?

[Mercurius]

I'm curious if anyone has played a campaign all the way to 20th level AND kept on going. What did you do? Did you just keep things at 20th or did you use house rules for some kind of Epic or Mythic play?

As a side note, how did 5E hold up at high levels?

 

[Celtavian]

We played to 16th level.

1. Solo monsters didn't hold up too well. A party focus firing a solo creature made fights fairly trivial.

2. GWF outshone the damage of other members of the party at high level. Hard to gauge at the moment given my wizard didn't take the time to use simulacrum because it didn't feel necessary. Though the ease of the fights may have been due to the design of the module. Module writersare notoriously bad at designing challenging encounters.

3. Spell saves both ways were pretty harsh. Casters can attack really weak saves with no bonuses. If they do, the spells start to work quite well.

4. The game remained easy to run and play at high level. Combats were not complicated with tons of buffs or modifiers. That was a huge plus.

I think it is playable. As usual it will have to be tailored to the capabilities of the players. Fortunately, 5E is much easier to tailor than 3E/Pathfinder was by a large margin.

 

[Inchoroi]

I've played up until level 20 (playtested, really, but it amounted to the same thing). Pretty much everything [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] said is accurate all the way to level 20.

I'd love to be able to continue the game after level 20, but it'd be hard to start a whole new adventure after you've just fought an ancient black shadow dragon...

EDIT: When I say playtested, I don't mean the playtest from years ago; it was August right after the PHB came out, I was just out of hospital, so I stated up five characters and playtested them against different encounters for each level. Things might work differently for you, since it was all coming out of one brain, slightly addled by lots and lots of morphine.

 

[DaveDash]

I'm curious if anyone has played a campaign all the way to 20th level AND kept on going. What did you do? Did you just keep things at 20th or did you use house rules for some kind of Epic or Mythic play?

As a side note, how did 5E hold up at high levels?

I am currently now 17th level (yes, 9th level spells are scary for the DM).

My campaign will end at level 19.5 - however I plan to do a few things to take them to level 20+ so they get to experience level 20 play.
I am not 100% sure what I will do yet, but it will probably involve a planar force invading the realms, and involve them having to put a stop to it. I'll use RHoD as inspiration. They also have a few strongholds (a tavern, a fortress, and a mage tower) which I want to incorporate into this as well.
Maybe I'll get them to fight the CR30 Tiamat at the end, although I don't think they'll be able to win.

I will give them epic boons from the DMG and probably go a couple of levels over 20.

All of what @Celtavian says is true.
My main point of difference is I use the DMG to create high CR monsters and NPCs since there are quite a lack of them in the MM (except for Dragons and Fiends). This makes them much more appropriately challenges for a high level group. Stock MM stuff doesn't stand up to well.
High level combat feels as dangerous and exciting as low level combat using DMG created creatures, I can still kill a high level character in 2 hits if I get lucky on the rolls.

My comments:

1. High level Characters have a lot of resources at their disposal and are able to trivialize the exploration pillar of the game. My group turned a month of underdark adventure into a few hours using wind walk , and they are very effective at scouting using divination magic and stuff like arcane eye.
Big lake with a Kraken? Wind walk over it. Burning city filled with an enemy army? Wind walk over it. Tough encounter? Throw up a wall of force then Wind Walk out of it. Replace with Teleport, Fly, or whatever other resource your party has available.
They can also take extreme measures to protect themselves, so without "cheating", it's hard to wrest the initiative (the term - not the game mechanic) from them when running a module that doesn't cater for that.
In short, expect your players to have a much easier time retaining the initiative and dictating the pace of the adventure.

2. I echo harsh spell saves. Spells like Hold Person become huge at higher levels (DC19) and battles become massive counter spelling fests.

3. NPC spell casters created with PHB rules don't hold up so well. ~100-150 hit points, concentration mechanics, and lack of good all day buffs means they can be killed round 1 in combat pretty easily.

4. High level combat is easy to run.

5. Bards and Rogues can get very high passive perceptions - and ability checks in general. Don't expect to rely on anything that requires a perception check to remain hidden for long.

6. If you use magic items, attunement starts to become quite a constraint at higher levels. My group now is starting to have a few interesting items gather dust because of the attunement limit.
Also an aside - magic items aren't too scary at higher levels. The Paladin player in my group has a +3 Vorpal Greatsword (recently acquired and all rolled for randomly) and it's impact on play hasn't been profound.
Likewise - The Wizard has a Staff of Power and Wand of the Warmage +3 - so a total of +5 to his attack bonus. It makes him like scorching ray a little more, and his firebolts don't usually miss, but I wouldn't say its game breaking.

 

[Celtavian]

My main point of difference is I use the DMG to create high CR monsters and NPCs since there are quite a lack of them in the MM (except for Dragons and Fiends). This makes them much more appropriately challenges for a high level group. Stock MM stuff doesn't stand up to well.

I'll have to give this a shot.

High level combat feels as dangerous and exciting as low level combat using DMG created creatures, I can still kill a high level character in 2 hits if I get lucky on the rolls.

That's harsh.

1. High level Characters have a lot of resources at their disposal and are able to trivialize the exploration pillar of the game. My group turned a month of underdark adventure into a few hours using wind walk , and they are very effective at scouting using divination magic and stuff like arcane eye.
Big lake with a Kraken? Wind walk over it. Burning city filled with an enemy army? Wind walk over it. Tough encounter? Throw up a wall of force then Wind Walk out of it. Replace with Teleport, Fly, or whatever other resource your party has available.
They can also take extreme measures to protect themselves, so without "cheating", it's hard to wrest the initiative (the term - not the game mechanic) from them when running a module that doesn't cater for that.
In short, expect your players to have a much easier time retaining the initiative and dictating the pace of the adventure.

Dimension door and fly were used a lot to close the distance for combat in our campaigns.

3. NPC spell casters created with PHB rules don't hold up so well. ~100-150 hit points, concentration mechanics, and lack of good all day buffs means they can be killed round 1 in combat pretty easily.

We noted this too. Caster alone in room dead quick. Very little danger.

5. Bards and Rogues can get very high passive perceptions - and ability checks in general. Don't expect to rely on anything that requires a perception check to remain hidden for long.

You have any experience with high level rogues? How are they?

6. If you use magic items, attunement starts to become quite a constraint at higher levels. My group now is starting to have a few interesting items gather dust because of the attunement limit.
Also an aside - magic items aren't too scary at higher levels. The Paladin player in my group has a +3 Vorpal Greatsword (recently acquired and all rolled for randomly) and it's impact on play hasn't been profound.
Likewise - The Wizard has a Staff of Power and Wand of the Warmage +3 - so a total of +5 to his attack bonus. It makes him like scorching ray a little more, and his firebolts don't usually miss, but I wouldn't say its game breaking.

We wouldn't allow a wand and staff to stack. We look at them in the same fashion as weapons. We wouldn't allow the bonus for sword used in each hand to stack together for a single attack. Wand and sword serve the same general function. You aim them at something and cast using them as a targeting device for spells. Sure, you could argue RAW it can be done. I'm about 99% sure it is not intended. From a fictional standpoint, it's pretty strange to have a guy aim a staff and wand at the same time gaining the bonus from each for a single spell.

Since this is the first time I can recall D&D incorporating magic items that give a caster a bonus like martials get with weapons, I imagine they didn't think they would have to write they don't stack together. To me it was intuitive that a wand of the war mage and a staff of power was an either/or scenario similar to the choice made between +1 greatsword or a +2 vorpal greatsword.

 

[DaveDash]

I'll have to give this a shot.



That's harsh.



Dimension door and fly were used a lot to close the distance for combat in our campaigns.



We noted this too. Caster alone in room dead quick. Very little danger.



You have any experience with high level rogues? How are they?



We wouldn't allow a wand and staff to stack. We look at them in the same fashion as weapons. We wouldn't allow the bonus for sword used in each hand to stack together for a single attack. Wand and sword serve the same general function. You aim them at something and cast using them as a targeting device for spells. Sure, you could argue RAW it can be done. I'm about 99% sure it is not intended. From a fictional standpoint, it's pretty strange to have a guy aim a staff and wand at the same time gaining the bonus from each for a single spell.

Since this is the first time I can recall D&D incorporating magic items that give a caster a bonus like martials get with weapons, I imagine they didn't think they would have to write they don't stack together. To me it was intuitive that a wand of the war mage and a staff of power was an either/or scenario similar to the choice made between +1 greatsword or a +2 vorpal greatsword.

When you look at the damage by CR table monsters start doing 100+ DPR. On a crit that can be enough to take out a player if you have a smaller number of attacks.
Stuff in the MM tends to do many more attacks on lower number of dice. I've used a range of things like a CR15 Banshee that did 15d10 necrotic on a single hit to lots of attacks + elemental damage riders.

Good point about the dual wielding weapon. However attunement generally limits what the player can do - dual wielding two swords which require attunement (like the wand and staff does) means the player is missing out on other things. I might even let a player dual wield + weapons since bonus action attacks now from offhand are much weaker.

Rogues at higher levels are not awesome in combat. I'd prefer a Bard over a Rogue most of the time. Rogues can do better multi-classing into Fighter or Barbarian. Much better in combat (seen a Barb/Rogur with uncanny dodge tank?) and still get pretty good skills. Scouting can be replaced as well by magic when you have enough resources to dedicate to it (high levels).
On the other hand Bards are so awesome.

 

[Celtavian]

Rogues at higher levels are not awesome in combat. I'd prefer a Bard over a Rogue most of the time. Rogues can do better multi-classing into Fighter or Barbarian. Much better in combat (seen a Barb/Rogur with uncanny dodge tank?) and still get pretty good skills. Scouting can be replaced as well by magic when you have enough resources to dedicate to it (high levels).
On the other hand Bards are so awesome.

Barb/rogue uncanny dodge sounds ridiculous. Since the Uncanny Dodge mechanic works differently than barbarian rage, they stack. That is just nasty. And Evasion with Rage too. Evasion works different than Damage Resistance. So you have a tank that takes a 1/4 damage once a round from an attack and 1/3 damage from dex-save damage if he misses his save. That is insane. Were you able to bring that character down?

Bards do look awesome. I've never been able to get into the whole sing-songy thing. It is so hard for me to imagine some guy singing or orating on the battlefield. I keep trying to come up with a bard concept I like, but it always looks a little goofy in my mind's eye. I can see the power of the bard. I was thinking of a valor bard archer that used animate objects to animate some of his arrows when he ended up in melee combat. I thought that would look pretty cool.

 

[DaveDash]

Barb/rogue uncanny dodge sounds ridiculous. Since the Uncanny Dodge mechanic works differently than barbarian rage, they stack. That is just nasty. And Evasion with Rage too. Evasion works different than Damage Resistance. So you have a tank that takes a 1/4 damage once a round from an attack and 1/3 damage from dex-save damage if he misses his save. That is insane. Were you able to bring that character down?

Bards do look awesome. I've never been able to get into the whole sing-songy thing. It is so hard for me to imagine some guy singing or orating on the battlefield. I keep trying to come up with a bard concept I like, but it always looks a little goofy in my mind's eye. I can see the power of the bard. I was thinking of a valor bard archer that used animate objects to animate some of his arrows when he ended up in melee combat. I thought that would look pretty cool.

You wouldn't catch me dead playing a Bard, but I have a player who is fond them. He plays "Sebastian" the half-elf Bard, and "Ronaldo" the half-elf vengeance Paladin is his brother. They make quite the pair. He plans on taking a level of Life Cleric next (currently Lore Bard 17).
Same guy who also built "Tinkerbell" - the Barbarian/Rogue - who was a very effective and well rounded character. We never played her in a campaign but we did play test her, and she was impressive.

 

[pukunui]

I'm currently playing an 18th level fighter/paladin in a converted Age of Worms campaign. Maybe it's just because the DM's been converting stuff over from 3.5, but for the last few levels, the game's felt a bit too easy. We can deal a lot of damage and take a lot of damage, and we can do things that bypass a lot of stuff that would've been challenging a few levels earlier.

I agree that solo monsters are too easily dispatched. The last big solo boss fight we had was with this monstrously huge carrion crawler. The DM had given it legendary and lair actions, but those hardly slowed us down. We dispatched that thing with ease. I want to say that giving it minions would've helped, but it would've depended on the kind of minions.

An earlier fight we had consisted of a horde of undead creatures trying to scale a slope while some monstrous skeletal dragon thingy loomed over them. My paladin used plant growth to slow the horde's advance and the druid shapechanged into a gold dragon and that was that. We picked off the horde easily from a safe distance, while the druid dragon dealt with the skeleton thing.

I'm glad to hear that other DMs are still able to challenge their high level PCs, though. It's possible my DM just hasn't figured out how to do it properly yet.

 

[PnPgamer]

Sadly i havent gotten to level 10, let alone 20. This thread gives cool insight.