D&D General The Logistics of High Level Play. TSR to 5.5

[mearls]

I am necro-ing this thread simply because I don't feel like making a new one.

Tonight I ran a playtest of 6 17th level PCs versus a CR 25 monster plus minions and holy crap did the PCs wipe the floor with it. not even 2 full rounds. the pure damage output of the PCs was out of this world. I used the Warforged Colossus from Ebberon and just don't -- without legendary actions, it is useless.

The playtest was in preparation for some con games I am running in a couple weeks and hoo boy do I have some design to do.

FWIW, when I run high level games with pregens I always build custom monsters based on what the PCs can do. I don't think any edition of the game outside of 4e accounted for what high level PCs can do in its monster design.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I had hoped the presence of the rook of wyvyrns (following the collosi like vultures) would have been enough to split their attention. Unfortunately one of the high level casters eliminated them with a single spell (mass suggestion).

For monsters weaker than individual PCs, if they are fought in numbers where they can be caught in a single spell, the likelihood is they will.

So in a lot of cases just use "Minions" to add a bit of flavour rather than any viable threat.

One alternative is to have Minions where actually defeating them creates an outcome worse than killing them (buffs/heals boss, they explode, mutates into more powerful monster when slain etc.).

Otherwise typically pair Boss monsters with enemies roughly on par with one of the PCs.

For instance, I have Orcus detailed in my book (my version of him anyway). This Orcus is CR 28 (tIMO CR 28 should mean a Hard Encounter for 10 Epic Tier characters - who would each individually be CR 11-13 themselves, streamlined to CR 12 for simplicity). However, this version of Orcus is primarily designed to be fought* by Quasi-deity characters (approx. CR 20 each), not epic tier characters who should be too weak to defeat a Demon Prince on their home plane. Against the Quasi-deity Party I suggest Orcus (typically with 1d6 Wraiths for flavour) is also accompanied by one additional 'Bodyguard' for every additional PC after the first (Balor, Lich, Molydeus, Nightwalker, etc.).

Mini-Boss = CR +4 Monster = 2 PCs
Boss = CR +8 Monster = 3 PCs
Solo Threat CR +12 = 6 PCs
CR +16 or more = 10+ PCs, Probable TPK, don't use.

Of course the individual monsters need to be designed to be worth 2, 3 or 6 PCs in the first place (which the official monsters typically are not). 'Luckily' there are so few official Epic monsters that tweaking them is not a major undertaking.

2 collosi might have worked but still the fact that it had no legendary actions or useful reactions was the main problem. I think I am going to give it LAs as well as create a random environmental effect that PCs can choose to either fix, or take the hit.

I use multiple Combat Reactions (on a sliding scale dependent upon the CR difference between the PCs and the monster) in place of Legendary Actions. That way only monsters more powerful than the PCs 'get' those extra Reactions. So it doesn't clog up epic games when you use multiple monsters that would have had Legendary Reactions. There is bit more to it, but its a neat system.

So unless a creature is designed as a Minion from the get-go (in which case I wouldn't add any Combat Reactions), CR 16+ Monsters will always potentially have multiple Combat Reactions (as per Legendary Actions) in the stat-block.

...my meandering point being always give more powerful monsters Legendary Actions (or the equivalent in my case - multiple Combat Reactions).

 

[Upper_Krust]

FWIW, when I run high level games with pregens I always build custom monsters based on what the PCs can do. I don't think any edition of the game outside of 4e accounted for what high level PCs can do in its monster design.

If 5E assigned Challenge Rating (a bit more like 4E) so Games Masters knew what represented an Elite or Solo threat, then they could better build encounters.

Personally I think the way to do this for 5E (at the Epic Tiers at least) is to just build monsters in units of 4 CR (16, 20, 24, 28 etc), where each increase of 4 is the equivalent of moving up a threat 'rank': Mini-Boss - Boss - Solo, etc. Where a Mini-Boss is worth 2 (Epic Tier) PCs, Boss = 3, Solo = 6.