D&D 5E (2014) How To Make High Level 5E Work.For You +

[EzekielRaiden]

While I agree with the overall point, I am a little puzzled at your choice of example. First, fabricate isn't particularly high level (4th). And, are blacksmith montages a thing?

Seems a perfectly reasonable example to me, even if fabricate is more like middle levels than high level, it's only going to come up once you reach higher levels. That is, when you're only level 7 (first level you get 4th level spells), blowing your one and only 4th level spell for the day on fabricate unless it's an enormously important usage--otherwise, you'd save it for something more potent, right? But when you're, say, level 16? You've got three of those slots sitting around, and for Wizards, Land Druids, and Clerics, you can probably even refresh the slot afterward. Blowing one of your 4th level slots on fabricate at high level is water under the bridge--even though doing so makes the Fighter's background and context meaningless.

Spells being able to obviate entire chunks of another person's character is and has always been one of the greatest weaknesses of the 3e/5e model. Needing to micromanage your spellcasters so they don't dominate entire scenes is the main issue there. The fact that 4th level spell slots go from "extremely precious, do not waste" to "no big deal" is a big part of that slide from "powerful but limited" to being...well, just powerful, few limits.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The core problem is that the players can go anywhere. I think you have two choices. Up verisimilitude to 200% or up artificiality to 200%. So either establish boundaries because the PCs are so engaged with a setting they don’t want to go elsewhere or establish limits by stopping them going elsewhere.

So basically if you have a rich, fully detailed world that the PCs have been exploring for 15 levels and have met dozens if not hundreds of NPCs then use it. All those folks the PCs have helped and saved become a tool of motivation and also a resource for the group. The detailed world contains all the things the PCs might need to interact with. You can then at high levels shake it all up and have some profound threats to the world and not just to the PCs lives.

Or if you haven’t got that you need to artificially impose limits and threats. Very specific objectives - find the rod of seven parts. Challenge of champions, Demi-planes. Divine intervention. Planar bubbles. Arcane traders. Tightly bounded dungeons. Magic Resistant plagues etc. Go big or go home. It’s the Avengers school of world building/plot.

My preference is the first approach. I probably wouldn’t run the second type. I’d rather not run high level if I couldn’t do it in a rich and fully realized world. It was the biggest fault with the Age of Worms campaign. The first 7 parts deal with dozens of NPCs and threats to Diamond Lake and Greyhawk - establishing bonds. Then it creates Alhaster in part 8 which is a town full of douchebags and then threatened them at the conclusion. Which was barmy to me. A total bait and switch.

I guess I don't understand why anyone wouldn't choose your option 1 if the players are even remotely interested in that direction.

Like...is this a rare thing? I'm having some real "sudden horrifying revelation" feels here if this is somehow rare or unusual...

 

[TheSword]

I guess I don't understand why anyone wouldn't choose your option 1 if the players are even remotely interested in that direction.

Like...is this a rare thing? I'm having some real "sudden horrifying revelation" feels here if this is somehow rare or unusual...

Well the main reason would be it can take years of play to do it. A few times it was mentioned to just jump to high level play. If you do that then option 1 isn’t a choice.

Second reason would be a lot of published campaigns don’t have a structure that supports option 1. Case in point being Age of Worms as I mentioned. If you high level campaign involves haring off across the multiverse it doesn’t really matter if you’ve built an in-depth connection with the folks of Icewind Dale.

But yes I agree with you that option one is by far the most satisfying and long term easier approach.

 

[GrimCo]

This is just my experience with my group, so take it for what ever it's worth.

I actively embrace 5MWD and going nova every fight. High level characters are powerful and we play those level to feel that power. To have ability to stand in front of small army, laugh at their faces and steamroll them in few rounds. Are those fights challenge? Nope, they aren't and they never were meant to be challenging. They were there for players to be awesome.

Removing main focus from personal combat. Most of abilities PCs get revolve around combat and resolving problems with force, but it's still on individual level. But not all problems can be resolved that way, you can still lose war even if you win all the battles. So, games shift to intrigue, political power plays, conflicts on large scale ( no matter how good and strong PC-s are, they cant be at multiple places in the same time). They stop fighting opponents. They start fighting systems, organizations, ideas. Shift perspective from tactics to strategy. They are movers and shakers, so they start go against movers and shakers.

Classic adventuring just doesn't work all that well in high levels.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well the main reason would be it can take years of play to do it. A few times it was mentioned to just jump to high level play. If you do that then option 1 isn’t a choice.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I don't think this requires years of play. It just requires...writing NPCs that are interesting, fun, likeable people that the party would really rather see happy and healthy? I don't really get why that's that much of a challenge. Sure, you'll probably churn through five NPCs for each single beloved NPC, but...that's normal.

Second reason would be a lot of published campaigns don’t have a structure that supports option 1. Case in point being Age of Worms as I mentioned. If you high level campaign involves haring off across the multiverse it doesn’t really matter if you’ve built an in-depth connection with the folks of Icewind Dale.

But yes I agree with you that option one is by far the most satisfying and long term easier approach.

I would argue that it still can be useful, you just have to think about it differently.

Perhaps time passes differently (something you warn the players about ahead of time, to be clear)--so that when they return to Icewind Dale seeking out (say) an elf NPC ally they trusted....they come back to find statues in their honor. Individual folks they knew may be old or have passed on, but the memory of Legendary Heroes transcends lifetimes. They've literally become larger than life. The village in the Dale that you left behind has become a bustling town, bolstered by various things...including what you've done for them.

As long as the players can accept these kinds of consequences, this leads to a whole new understanding. They're no longer just adventurers wandering around. They're bedtime stories for the children of the Dale. They're prayed to by frightened locals in desperate times.

And that's just one possibility. Other options could be to tie in those planar adventures to the Dale--it is, after all, only minimally explored and on the very frontier of Faerun. Who knows what lurks beneath the ice? The ancient species that once ruled Faerun, long ago, have left many mysteries forgotten under the ice. If the PCs care about the folks in the sleepy towns they left behind in the Dale, they'll probably feel all the more keenly the need to do their tasks. Or, perhaps some kind of planar distortion has sent their old stomping ground INTO some other plane, and now they have a deeply personal reason to figure out what the hell is going on and how it can be fixed.

I'm not saying it's a trivial thing--no GMing work is, in my experience--but it's not like these ideas are all that inaccessible.

 

[Reynard]

One particularly 5E thing with high level PCs is that they are probably STILL vulnerable to their weak saves, unless they took special care while leveling up to compensate. This is both a tool in the GM's tool kit, but also something to watch out for.

 

[J-H]

One particularly 5E thing with high level PCs is that they are probably STILL vulnerable to their weak saves, unless they took special care while leveling up to compensate. This is both a tool in the GM's tool kit, but also something to watch out for.

One of the few times my high level party turned tail and ran away was after the 18th level artifact-sword-wielding Paladin peered into a crevice and got mind-blasted by a CR2 Intellect Devourer. They left the entire (optional) dungeon they were exploring and flew elsewhere, with the drooling paladin spending the next day or two atop his smarter-than-him steed until the effect was fixed or wore off (don't recall how they ended it).

 

[Mort]

One particularly 5E thing with high level PCs is that they are probably STILL vulnerable to their weak saves, unless they took special care while leveling up to compensate. This is both a tool in the GM's tool kit, but also something to watch out for.

Yeah, this was one of the easiest ways to sideline a high level fighter. Even with indomitable they're basically never making the high int/cha/wis save unless they took resilient, and even then it was usually a tough save.

5e24, of course, changed that. Now a high level fighter, especially if they took mage slayer, will almost always make those saves.

 

[billd91]

While I agree with the overall point, I am a little puzzled at your choice of example. First, fabricate isn't particularly high level (4th). And, are blacksmith montages a thing?

Yes, blacksmith montages are a thing - particularly if you have dwarven fighters. They'll want to craft their signature weapon (in my high-level campaign's case, it was a dwarven thrower).

But, specific montage examples aside, the generalization of that idea is that casters, particularly wizards, have the power to set a play agenda with their magic. As DM, YOU have the power to enforce spotlight balance between players setting agendas. Use it. Fighters and rogues may not enable adventuring across the multiverse with planar magic, but they probably have things they want to do with their lives. Incorporate them.

 

[Reynard]

But, specific montage examples aside, the generalization of that idea is that casters, particularly wizards, have the power to set a play agenda with their magic. As DM, YOU have the power to enforce spotlight balance between players setting agendas. Use it. Fighters and rogues may not enable adventuring across the multiverse with planar magic, but they probably have things they want to do with their lives. Incorporate them.

I agree with all of this. Much of it is orthogonal to mechanics, though. If the fighter player wants his character to ascend to the throne, there is not much that the wizard can do to disrupt that through magic, I don't think. At best, GMs can remind players to respect one another's spotlight -- but that is true at all levels of play and not especially related to high level play, I don't think.