MortalPlague
Adventurer
There has been much speculation about how 5th Edition performs at high levels, but not a lot of evidence. I'm in a spot where I'm running a regular game, currently at 14th level. So let me share some notes about how things are going.
Last session, the party finished their military action in the Snakewood of Amn by smashing the forces of the Cult of the Dragon in a decisive battle. Integral to their victory was the success of the cleric's divine intervention, which ended up summoning several erinyes to help cut through the enemy forces.
Before they left the Snakewood, the PCs decided to deal with a lich, Zalastrus the Wretched who lairs nearby beneath a ruined tower. So this session, we began our dungeon crawl!
Our session ran about 4 and a half hours. In that time:
As you can see, we got plenty of dungeon crawling done in the span of a session. Yes, combats do take longer, and they are quite a bit more involved, but we had two big combats, plenty of roleplay, and lots of exploration.
Side note: I used the clockwork horrors here as the basis of my clockwork guardians: http://www.enworld.org/forum/5emonsters/showentry.php?e=36
This was the final state of our PCs. You can see that my party has loaded up on hit points. Borzin, our dwarf barbarian tank has 226 hit points at full health. When he's raging, he's taking half damage from almost everything. It is extremely hard to drop him. Our bard, T'Raste also has excellent hit points. As do our sorceress, Rosaline, and our cleric, Melvina. Only Durbag, the wizard, is a little squishy, and even he breaks 100.
Two of my PCs have 'lucky'. Melvina used all of hers in the session, while Rosaline has two luck points left. Durbag is a diviner wizard, so he can modify rolls (yes, that's three PCs who can modify d20 rolls daily). He has all three portent dice remaining. He also has 3 first, 2 second, 1 third, 1 fourth, and 2 sixth level slots left. I'm not sure how many spells Melvina went through, but I think she's similarly burned out after two tough combats. Rosaline was able to burn her sorcery points to recover some of her spell slots, and she used plenty of cantrips throughout.
So anyway, that's a glimpse of 5th Edition at 14th level.
Last session, the party finished their military action in the Snakewood of Amn by smashing the forces of the Cult of the Dragon in a decisive battle. Integral to their victory was the success of the cleric's divine intervention, which ended up summoning several erinyes to help cut through the enemy forces.
Before they left the Snakewood, the PCs decided to deal with a lich, Zalastrus the Wretched who lairs nearby beneath a ruined tower. So this session, we began our dungeon crawl!
Our session ran about 4 and a half hours. In that time:
- The PCs recruited several NPCs from their army to come along
- Some RP occurred in town; tying up some loose ends from the military campaign
- They journeyed to the lich's tower, with a little bit of RP on the way
- Delved into the cellars of the ruined tower, and poked around for loot
- Took the stairs down, down, down to the dungeon's gate (and its keeper)
- Did battle with the Storm Giant Gatekeeper, his Behir pet, and a Dao who was building a mosaic to glorify the lich (this fight was very dicey, actually)
- Took a short rest to patch up (and revivify Olaf the dwarf, one of the NPCs)
- Figured out how to get two 20 x 15 foot portraits down from the wall, cut them out of their frames, roll them up, and set them aside to bring out as loot later
- Solved the magical lock on the door (since the gatekeeper wasn't around to let them in anymore)
- Explored a couple of small chambers beyond, before...
- ATTACKED by a pair of adamantine clockwork guardians, and a harem of succubi joined the fight (and failed to charm anyone, took lots of damage, then retreated)
- Explored the succubi's chamber and discovered a gate to hell traverseable only by ethereal beings
- Explored a further section of the dungeon, discovered a dormant portal and discerned that it had a magical trap involved with its use
- Deliberated about the safety of sending the sorceress to scout across a chasm with her spider climbing slippers, then finally did
- Figured out how to get everyone else across
- Found some stairs down
As you can see, we got plenty of dungeon crawling done in the span of a session. Yes, combats do take longer, and they are quite a bit more involved, but we had two big combats, plenty of roleplay, and lots of exploration.
Side note: I used the clockwork horrors here as the basis of my clockwork guardians: http://www.enworld.org/forum/5emonsters/showentry.php?e=36
This was the final state of our PCs. You can see that my party has loaded up on hit points. Borzin, our dwarf barbarian tank has 226 hit points at full health. When he's raging, he's taking half damage from almost everything. It is extremely hard to drop him. Our bard, T'Raste also has excellent hit points. As do our sorceress, Rosaline, and our cleric, Melvina. Only Durbag, the wizard, is a little squishy, and even he breaks 100.
Two of my PCs have 'lucky'. Melvina used all of hers in the session, while Rosaline has two luck points left. Durbag is a diviner wizard, so he can modify rolls (yes, that's three PCs who can modify d20 rolls daily). He has all three portent dice remaining. He also has 3 first, 2 second, 1 third, 1 fourth, and 2 sixth level slots left. I'm not sure how many spells Melvina went through, but I think she's similarly burned out after two tough combats. Rosaline was able to burn her sorcery points to recover some of her spell slots, and she used plenty of cantrips throughout.
So anyway, that's a glimpse of 5th Edition at 14th level.
