D&D 5E Tell me about 5E at 11th level

[Zardnaar]

Most of the monsters in the game don't have features that give them advantage while gaining up on a single target, so it sounds like you are using the optional flanking rule in this estimation of how the game treats front liners.

Might I suggest that you simply not use that rule? I mean, it really does have very clear negative impact on the overall game-play experience (in that it both makes the features included in the game that generate advantage under specific circumstance less valuable and appealing, and that it runs counter to the idea that advantage is meant to be circumstantial because things which happen in basically every combat that has at least 2 creatures working as allies seem anything but circumstantial) even before getting down to the fact that it favors monsters more than the party (as is true of anything which enhances the frequency, or potency, of critical hits).

We tried this rule out and dumped it after a session. If we use a flanking rule its +2 not advantage.

 

[feartheminotaur]

[MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION]

Setting aside the veracity of your other claims (and man, you've come a long way from your 5e bashing over on the old forums), I will say you are 99.9% correct about the XP/CR guidelines for monsters being off at higher levels. Not sure why, and not sure it's a systematic flaw.

At first I thought it might be because the DMs were using WOTC adventures (RoT, PotA, OotA) without tweaking. Hey, it's not fun if you TPK everyone at the FLGS launch session, so modules are less challenging off the shelf.

But the DM for both of my long term games have noticed it as well. They are starting at Hard or Deadly and adding to it. And both noted it started level 10-ish. Both of those games are standard array and strictly ruled; only two or three PCs out of a dozen are 'optimized' in any way.

Could just be the nature of high level play. Spells and powers are more versatile. In any event, you're not the only one on this particular phenomenon. Now, your frequent "OP" claims, well...

ETA: Wasn't clear who I was replying to.

 

[OB1]

We use 3:1. If three enemies are engaged against one opponent, and the opponent doesn't have an ally within 5' the enemies get advantage on their Melee attacks. We base this off of the "if circumstances warrant" portion of the advantage rule

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I have seen PCs hit AC 20+ critters with SS/GWM.

That isn't a counterpoint to anything I said.

Things like bless, bard dice, faerie fire make it reasonably trivial.

Yes, teamwork is beneficial. Since all of that requires spending resources, and isn't inherent to every party, it is all working as intended.

You can get the foresight effect at a lot lower levels as well with greater invisibility just with a shorter duration. There's plenty of ways to boost your accuracy in 5E.

Again, not a counterpoint to anything I said.

And have a look at some of the other posters more or less saying the same thing.

What, and I'm the only one saying something contrary? No.

The encounter guidelines do not work

They work as intended. Not everyone is judging them on their actual intent, rather than some incorrect assumption as to what the intention is.

the combat math doesn;t work

Except in that it works just fine.

monsters are to easy

Again, a mismatched assumption and intent. And to anecdote, one which I have frequently seen come down to a case of "I ran my monster poorly and it was easier to defeat than I wanted it to be" rather than the "I did everything I could to make this monster a challenge, and the players didn't hit a lucky string of rolls or spend more resources than normal, and it was still a complete cakewalk" which some folks try to act like the former is the same as.

High level 5E probably runs worse than say level 15 BECMI or 2E. It just runs better at level 1-3 than BECMI.

I disagree with both of those estimations, even though I run all the mentioned versions of D&D in the same fashion.

 

[Zardnaar]

[MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION]

Setting aside the veracity of your other claims (and man, you've come a long way from your 5e bashing over on the old forums), I will say you are 99.9% correct about the XP/CR guidelines for monsters being off at higher levels. Not sure why, and not sure it's a systematic flaw.

At first I thought it might be because the DMs were using WOTC adventures (RoT, PotA, OotA) without tweaking. Hey, it's not fun if you TPK everyone at the FLGS launch session, so modules are less challenging off the shelf.

But the DM for both of my long term games have noticed it as well. They are starting at Hard or Deadly and adding to it. And both noted it started level 10-ish. Both of those games are standard array and strictly ruled; only two or three PCs out of a dozen are 'optimized' in any way.

Could just be the nature of high level play. Spells and powers are more versatile. In any event, you're not the only one on this particular phenomenon. Now, your frequent "OP" claims, well...

ETA: Wasn't clear who I was replying to.

I kind of noticed it right out the gate once we leveled up using the guidelines more or less RAW. II thought I may have been doing something wrong until I played some of the offical stuff as well. Near TPK in Lost Mines of Phandelver due to 8d6 fireballs on a flameskull, 2 TPKs in HotDQ and then seeing CR 13 Dragons being used on level 7 PCs.

I also played with other DMs who run tings differently than I do and noticed similar things as well when playing the early parts of PotA or DMs wining it and throwing crazy encounters RAW at us and somehow winning.

 

[Cernor]

Responding directly to the OP,

IME something which is important at all levels, not just high levels, is to provide monsters with environments suited to their strengths. I know it seems obvious, but bear with me: as an example, I've seen Water Weirds used in two different scenarios. One was when I was the DM, and it lurked in a fairly large pool; the other was when three of them were arrayed in a pool of shallow water for a straight fight. Despite both fights being against a group of (five and four, respectively) 5th-level PCs, the Weird in the pool was significantly deadlier (drowning one PC before the party fled), whereas the group of three was defeated fairly easily. Finding scenarios to minimize the PCs' strengths and preying on their weaknesses provides a more natural challenge than simply throwing creatures to overwhelm them through high CR. (Incidentally, drowning is my personal favourite hazard in 5e because PCs with average Con can be dropped to 0 HP in 1 to 2 rounds, and casters generally can't do anything about it once they've been dragged underwater).

Something else I've found is that single monsters usually die quickly; pairs of monsters more slowly; and pairs of monsters with reinforcements even more so. Reiterating what @OB1 said, adding reinforcements is a good way to challenge the party in an otherwise routine encounter. A single Young Red Dragon would probably be killed in 1 round without many resources expended. A pair of Young Red Dragons, while formidable, is still fairly easy for 11th-level PCs. However, if a group of kobolds shows up and attacks the party wizard, even at +4 to hit against 16 AC she'll take a few hits (more with Pack Tactics). She'd probably have to use a Shield to avoid most of the damage and a Fireball to take them out, and if that happens three times in a fight, she's spent all of her 3rd level slots and most of her 1st; while still doing nothing to stop the dragons toasting the party with breath weapons. Or grappling someone to fly away and drop them in lava. Or simply ganging up on the front-line fighter and tearing him apart.

If you're looking for really nasty combos, combining Magma Mephits and an Iron Golem is somewhat ridiculous. They use Heat Metal on the golem and/or heavy-armour wearing PCs (2d8 fire damage per turn as a bonus action! No save!), then they cover the area in Fire Breaths, and the party takes heavy area damage while the golem heals for each point of fire damage it takes. Not to mention that when they die, they explode for yet more fire damage (and healing for the golem).
Combining Vine Blights (attack and restrain on a hit) and Shambling Mounds (if both attacks hit, target is restrained and slowly beaten to death as the Mound moves) is also fun. With the blights' Entangle slowing down the party, the Mound's lower movement speed is less important.
As has been previously mentioned, invisibility is HUGE. Water Weirds, Invisible Stalkers, and others can really put the hurt on, while being immune to pesky things like opportunity attacks (Relevant phrase being "You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach," emphasis mine) and retaliatory attacks.

EDIT: As far as actual play experience past 11th level (and large parties), I'm admittedly limited. Having reached 10th in a party of 3 I'll say that casters hold most of the "I win" buttons, and it didn't seem like that was going to change any time soon when we ended up finishing the campaign.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Its not just me saying the encounter rules, monster math and SS/GWF are broken/OP. 5E did a good job in some ways but there are problems with it I think it is getting harder to wall paper over. I don't think it works that much better than any other edition before it at higher level.

Not by-the-book, sure. But it's less by-the-book than any edition since 1e.

 

[Luz]

I think the adjusted daily xp budget guidelines are reasonable at this level assuming the party doesn't have magic items (since if they do they are designed to make the game easier) so you may want to not allow characters to start with them.

For that large a party in a convention space, I would think about something where perhaps you drop them behind enemy lines to accomplish an objective. Have paths available that allow them to go just under the recommended daily to an upper limit of several times the daily budget.

If they are smart and lucky, they will avoid encounters. If they run around guns blazing, they will soon have an entire army on top of them and will need to run. Bounded accuracy means that no mater how strong a party, they can be defeated by enough lower cr enemies. Telegraph this and give them ways to escape, but if they don't take them come down hard.

Maybe make it clear early on when they get into a mid difficulty fight only to have a deadly group of reinforcements show up because someone sounded an alarm.

I'm leaning heavily on Meta Gear Solid 5 encounter types in my level 12 campaign and it's working great to keep tension up.

I completely agree with OB1. After reading his post, the first thing I thought of was the 2E module WGR6 City of Skulls, where the party must infiltrate an evil city (Dorakaa in Greyhawk, but its easy enough to plant in any campaign) and rescue an important good guy imprisoned in a dungeon. Emphasis is on keeping a low profile, lest the party be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. One of the things I've noticed at all levels of play is how difficult it is for the entire party to be stealthy or bluff enemies. Even when using group checks, they inevitably fail - especially if there are some heavily armored types (or lower Charisma types, in the case of bluffing) in the group.

If you don't mind a little conversion work, give City of Skulls a look. It is for a party of 9th-12th level characters, can be played and finished in a single session and runs this type of scenario very well. Lots of opportunity for all three elements of play (exploration, interaction, and combat).

 

[Flamestrike]

I have seen PCs hit AC 20+ critters with SS/GWM. Things like bless, bard dice, faerie fire make it reasonably trivial. You can get the foresight effect at a lot lower levels as well with greater invisibility just with a shorter duration. There's plenty of ways to boost your accuracy in 5E.

Bard dice
Spells that grand advantage (Faerie Fire, Greater Invisibility, Foresight)
Knocking things prone
Bless Spells
Class feature granting advantage
Conditions (stunned, blind, paralyzed)

Everything you mention above is keyed off a resource - a sup dice, spell, bardic inspiration dice etc.

Over a 6-8 encounter adventuring day, these things matter less.

And have a look at some of the other posters more or less saying the same thing. The encounter guidelines do not work

They work perfectly fine.

 

[Zardnaar]

Everything you mention above is keyed off a resource - a sup dice, spell, bardic inspiration dice etc.

Over a 6-8 encounter adventuring day, these things matter less.



They work perfectly fine.

Erm bard dice recharge after a short rest, things like knock things prone is a bonus action with shield master and you can get enough resources to easily do the 6-8 fights thing. Hell bless by level 3 is 4/day only using level 1 slots. Its why 5E starts to break down or at least be very easy at the higher levels.