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

[Celtavian]

I don't care if you use the PCs. At least it gives you a starting point for designing lvl 13 PCs. Damn that was tedious writing up five level 13 PCs.

The general idea is control of the battlefield, the enemy, and ranged hammering. Used a lot of advanced scouting. Use ritual divination spells to enhance intelligence gathering. The invisible sprite should be used to scout as often as impossible. Illusions should be used to draw out combatants. Use the wizards familiar as well for scouting. I suggest the bat familiar with blindsight and flight. Bring lots of 25 gold castings of find familiar, since they die quite easily. wall of force is your friend. You can seal a battlefield or key combatant or protect yourself with wall of force. Keep bless up as much as possible. Use aid to bolster hit points for your frontline. Try to use the terrain to tactical advantage as much as possible.

I usually buy a few packs of metal darts for the gnome mage. 10 in each pack I believe. I liked to cast animate objects on the darts. 8 or 10 attacks on top of your normal spell casting can be pretty potent in a lot of fights.

If you fight a lot of casters in a single fight, try to get circle of power active. You may have to counter dispels or counterspells, but circle of power is a caster killer spell.

Have fun with the combat. It will be interesting to see how it goes. I hope Bold Italic manages the tactics well.

 

[Flamestrike]

First 5 PCs I get mailed in get a shot at the crown.

BI gets the first 2 spots. I think Azurewraith gets a spot as well. I may have missed someone.

I'll hand out a few magic items (feel free to request one or two) when I have the characters in.

 

[Azurewraith]

First 5 PCs I get mailed in get a shot at the crown.

BI gets the first 2 spots. I think Azurewraith gets a spot as well. I may have missed someone.

I'll hand out a few magic items (feel free to request one or two) when I have the characters in.

Ill be a few hours getting sorted hard to roll up anything with the kids about.

 

[Celtavian]

Which is all fine if you want to DM a group of murder hobos. But, given that the NPC Archmage offered you a mountain filled with magic items and enough dragon-shaped experience bundles to level at least once, all for the very low cost of half a day's work, I think you've missed the point of this exercise; does the 6-8 encounter adventuring day work for level 13 characters?

That's all I planned to test, then the roleplaying started. I don't know if you noticed the background of Jubali, but she's a princess already. She would not have been impressed with a king or wealth. I think I played her according to the personality I designed for her. I'm still not sure why people thought the gnome was speaking.

 

[Flamestrike]

Ill be a few hours getting sorted hard to roll up anything with the kids about.

Thats cool man. Im off to bed here myself (Australian time).

Im not sure how to run this with multiple players, this thread could be active for some time, waiting for everyone to declare actions, roll stuff and post! I could post the encounters as written, and we can all theory craft how they might play out, or we could run through them in order (that could prove to be quite challenging).

Im happy for a group consensus. Ill check back in in the morning to see what people want to do.

Perhaps we get the characters up and running and compare them to the encounters and get a feel for how they would play out to save time.

Ill throw this one open to the floor.

 

[Azurewraith]

Thats cool man. Im off to bed here myself (Australian time).

Im not sure how to run this with multiple players, this thread could be active for some time, waiting for everyone to declare actions, roll stuff and post! I could post the encounters as written, and we can all theory craft how they might play out, or we could run through them in order (that could prove to be quite challenging).

Im happy for a group consensus. Ill check back in in the morning to see what people want to do.

Perhaps we get the characters up and running and compare them to the encounters and get a feel for how they would play out to save time.

Ill throw this one open to the floor.

Could slide it over to the play by post section and take it from there as a well pbp? We know what bedrock is class wise?

 

[Flamestrike]

Could slide it over to the play by post section and take it from there as a well pbp? We know what bedrock is class wise?

That works. I have zero experience with PbP though.

Ive always been a bit sketchy on it too. Prefer the face to face group consensus vibe of sitting around a table or (at a pinch) skype.

I dont know. It may be easiest to just post characters, I explain the encounters as they crop up, I await and adjudicate actions till combat is triggered and then we play it in blocks of play rather than round by round/ turn by turn stuff.

Its got me stumped how to resolve it.

 

[Celtavian]

Thats cool man. Im off to bed here myself (Australian time).

Im not sure how to run this with multiple players, this thread could be active for some time, waiting for everyone to declare actions, roll stuff and post! I could post the encounters as written, and we can all theory craft how they might play out, or we could run through them in order (that could prove to be quite challenging).

Im happy for a group consensus. Ill check back in in the morning to see what people want to do.

Perhaps we get the characters up and running and compare them to the encounters and get a feel for how they would play out to save time.

Ill throw this one open to the floor.

I guess you have yourself a new game. I'll go take a look at the encounters after you post them in the PbP thread. For me this is a thought exercise. I know what I was going to do with the party. I'll analyze with a focus on what I would have done.

Hopefully no hard feelings. You have your way of doing things. I have mine. It's why I play with a select group and don't go looking for games anymore. I'm prickly and play a certain way that I enjoy.

Now I can work on my actual campaign. I forgot how damn hard it was to build lvl 13 PCs from scratch, at least it's not as difficult as 3E. I'm glad multiple players are picking up the characters this time. One guy designing five lvl 13 PCs including their strategies is not fun. I'll never take on that challenge again.

 

[Celtavian]

That works. I have zero experience with PbP though.

Ive always been a bit sketchy on it too. Prefer the face to face group consensus vibe of sitting around a table or (at a pinch) skype.

I dont know. It may be easiest to just post characters, I explain the encounters as they crop up, I await and adjudicate actions till combat is triggered and then we play it in blocks of play rather than round by round/ turn by turn stuff.

Its got me stumped how to resolve it.

What would be the easiest way? I planned to mostly talk about it with you. A tactical discussion of how to coordinate. I planned to let you do all the rolling, so you could do it at your leisure. This is a combat and encounter resolution test mostly involving high level coordinated play. We just want to see how a high level party does in a 6 to 8 encounter day with a mix of encounters.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I thought the test would encompass a day that is standard for the assumption of the game. Everything between the encounters should be handwaved in the spirit of the test. You should assume the characters have reasons to deal with the threats. And as a DM you should try to make those encounters as standard as possible without making boring white room scenarios. Intersting terrain and maybe some interaction should should be in, as well as the possibility of avoiding encounters by spending some limited resources or by using abilities of the non combat pillars.


Outeight refusing your presented adventures is by default not the spirit of a heroic game and by all means not the default assumptions for the target audience of those guidelines. So please, make this test and make it as a game DM playing woth the other players not one DM vs PCs.