Zardnaar
Legend
Kind of a spin off of this thread.
I've run a few stress tests hack n slash and are running 2 campaigns. Origins haven't been popular with feats locked to ability boosts. 5E 2014 backgrounds with floating ability scores and pick whatever Origin feat you like are being used by players who care enough. SCAG has a new lease on life due back grounds
Main campaign has been level 1-7 with 2024 from 4th level. They started with Dragon of Stormwrack Isle and recently completed a couple of wotc ones and have started an adaption of 3.0 Tears for Twilights Hollow. I have tweaked encounters and lots of DM specials.
Theme is BG3.5. Stress test was selling magic items. They can buy common and uncommon ones curated rare or rare equivalents. Typical weapons are +1 with a d4 elemental rider maybe a spell attached eg thunderous smite 1/short rest. Gold Wrymling Staff, Cacophony and Sword of Screams adaptions are used from BG3. Spellcasters have a +1 wand, rod, or something equivalent uncommon slots. 5 person party. Mix of 5E+5.5 eg races are generally 5E, classes are 5.5 generally. Party is Monk fists, Dragon Sorcerer, Light Cleric, Monk, Glamour bard or Battlemaster/Champion Fighter (one player left-moved to different province)
Second campaign is new level 1. 4 person party.
Stress tests were level 6 and 12. 4 person party. Guidelines were from DMG for magic items. Generally each PC had a very rare, 2 rare, and 3 or 4 uncommen items. Rotating cast of nameless test PCs. Locations used water, mountains+ice, and some flyers. Classes tested included Dragon Sorcerer, Celestial Control Warlock, World Tree Barbarian, Champion Fighter, Avenger Paladin. Repelling boasts into hunger of hadar. World Tree teleporting foes into icy rivers or hunger of hadar.
Also seen Fae Touched Ranger to level 7, another Sorcerer to 7, life cleric 6, and lore bard 6. Magic items only a few uncommon +1, gauntlets ogre power things like that.
Encounters. Mostly WotC usually tweaked. Eg 50% more hit points, +2-4 support creatures added, DM specials, Zard template added, level 6 OCs in level 9 dungeons. 2024 MM isn't here yet. Zard templates usually along the lines of AC boost, a resistance, extra hp, charisma to saves something like that.
Very broadly. Fights are faster as PCs are much stronger. Less incentive to multiclass as a lot of classes get key abilities around levrls 3,6,10.
Champions surprisingly good. Vex+Nick is advantage machine. With elven accuracy they don't miss much.
Dragon Sorcerers been popular. Can't twin haste but they have command. Cheap to twin hold person/monster. It's very powerful. Sorcerers in general. If you've played BG3 you probably know.
Magic Initiate feats in general mean any class can get key lvl 1 spells. Command, bless, faerie fire, Chromatic Orb have been popular pick ups. Less shield spells used players care less about taking damage.
Combat lengths. Mostly two or 3 rounds. One combat ended round 1 before final 2 PCs got a turn. Largest/longest combat had 2 or 3 CR 12-14 monsters. 5 CR5, 8 CR2. Spellcasters got used archmages, warpriests, mages, cultists and priests from PotA. Tweaked spell lists.
Newer players are struggling with weapon masteries. Nick+vex are tripping up more experienced ones.
Between weapon masteries, Monks, Battlemasters , command ots of prone characters. Lots of advantage granting as well due to prone, vex, innate sorcerery,
paralysis. Spellcasters might want shocking grasp. Keeping track of status effects is slightly annoying. More work for DM.
Spells. Counterspells more of a tempo thing than a counter. Buying a round is fine still as combat generally lasts 2 rounds or do. If you have a pile of 5E adventures from WotC their encounters are obsolete. I'm buffing most of them
Magic. Playstyle changes. Players aren't using direct danage much. Occasional fireball and Chromatic orbs. Lots more control spells due to buffs. If a damage spell doesn't deal lots of damage (fireball, lightning bolt, tactical use of Chromatic orb) or have riders (eg synaptic static) it's probably not good enough. Non fire dragon sorcerers much more viable/visible with Tashas metamagic in the phb.
Shield spell being used less even if it's an easy pick up via feat. Command has been buffed and cheap to twin. Very low opportunity cost to stun lock using it. It's basically the BG3 version. Halt or prone are used a lot. Glamor bard almost solo locked down encounters using it plus blindness/deafness. Throw in a cleric and Sorcerer with command. Chromatic Orb got buffed it's interesting. Level 4+ seems really good. Combos with paralysis (twinned hold monster). I've seen a level 6 one fired in this scenario which is common. Warlocks, Sorlocks and Sorcerers taking magic initiate feats or tome pact have a lot of cantrips.
Cantrips. Starry wisp nice pick up for druids and the magic initiate feat. Radiance damage is good. Sorcererous burst is great for versatility abd it's exploding dice mechanic more at higher level (5. 11). Once you're rolling 3 dice or more you'll notice it.
Short rests. Players a lot more receptive to using them. A lot of classes gave short rests. Short rest based classes eg Monks and fighters are enthusiastic. Prayer of healing in effect grants another one. So 2-3 short rests are typical depending on presence of a cleric. 1-2 without.
At level 12 you cant really attrition people out. At least without absurd encounters. They cleared 4 with 1 short rest via prayer of healing. Old 6-8 idea they dropped won't work. Think 8-12 absurd ones. Mine didn't even have many charged wands or whatever. 1 staff iirc. Old rules I went up to deadly X5 at higher levels (12-14) I'll have to experiment more. 1-2 hour combats probably not feasible due to 5E hp bloat. Which are super deadly type encounters (translation throw everything at them then some add more and the kitchen sink). Or you metagame heavily (lair design, deliberately targeting party weaknesses over and over, using the infamous monsters a lot).
On the plus side it's kinda fun from player PoV. Can't see DMs enjoying higher level play to much. BG3 kinda made it official for me I'll probably cap campaigns at 10-12. You can go higher but the fun vs work required ratio means I can't be bothered.
I've run a few stress tests hack n slash and are running 2 campaigns. Origins haven't been popular with feats locked to ability boosts. 5E 2014 backgrounds with floating ability scores and pick whatever Origin feat you like are being used by players who care enough. SCAG has a new lease on life due back grounds
Main campaign has been level 1-7 with 2024 from 4th level. They started with Dragon of Stormwrack Isle and recently completed a couple of wotc ones and have started an adaption of 3.0 Tears for Twilights Hollow. I have tweaked encounters and lots of DM specials.
Theme is BG3.5. Stress test was selling magic items. They can buy common and uncommon ones curated rare or rare equivalents. Typical weapons are +1 with a d4 elemental rider maybe a spell attached eg thunderous smite 1/short rest. Gold Wrymling Staff, Cacophony and Sword of Screams adaptions are used from BG3. Spellcasters have a +1 wand, rod, or something equivalent uncommon slots. 5 person party. Mix of 5E+5.5 eg races are generally 5E, classes are 5.5 generally. Party is Monk fists, Dragon Sorcerer, Light Cleric, Monk, Glamour bard or Battlemaster/Champion Fighter (one player left-moved to different province)
Second campaign is new level 1. 4 person party.
Stress tests were level 6 and 12. 4 person party. Guidelines were from DMG for magic items. Generally each PC had a very rare, 2 rare, and 3 or 4 uncommen items. Rotating cast of nameless test PCs. Locations used water, mountains+ice, and some flyers. Classes tested included Dragon Sorcerer, Celestial Control Warlock, World Tree Barbarian, Champion Fighter, Avenger Paladin. Repelling boasts into hunger of hadar. World Tree teleporting foes into icy rivers or hunger of hadar.
Also seen Fae Touched Ranger to level 7, another Sorcerer to 7, life cleric 6, and lore bard 6. Magic items only a few uncommon +1, gauntlets ogre power things like that.
Encounters. Mostly WotC usually tweaked. Eg 50% more hit points, +2-4 support creatures added, DM specials, Zard template added, level 6 OCs in level 9 dungeons. 2024 MM isn't here yet. Zard templates usually along the lines of AC boost, a resistance, extra hp, charisma to saves something like that.
Very broadly. Fights are faster as PCs are much stronger. Less incentive to multiclass as a lot of classes get key abilities around levrls 3,6,10.
Champions surprisingly good. Vex+Nick is advantage machine. With elven accuracy they don't miss much.
Dragon Sorcerers been popular. Can't twin haste but they have command. Cheap to twin hold person/monster. It's very powerful. Sorcerers in general. If you've played BG3 you probably know.
Magic Initiate feats in general mean any class can get key lvl 1 spells. Command, bless, faerie fire, Chromatic Orb have been popular pick ups. Less shield spells used players care less about taking damage.
Combat lengths. Mostly two or 3 rounds. One combat ended round 1 before final 2 PCs got a turn. Largest/longest combat had 2 or 3 CR 12-14 monsters. 5 CR5, 8 CR2. Spellcasters got used archmages, warpriests, mages, cultists and priests from PotA. Tweaked spell lists.
Newer players are struggling with weapon masteries. Nick+vex are tripping up more experienced ones.
Between weapon masteries, Monks, Battlemasters , command ots of prone characters. Lots of advantage granting as well due to prone, vex, innate sorcerery,
paralysis. Spellcasters might want shocking grasp. Keeping track of status effects is slightly annoying. More work for DM.
Spells. Counterspells more of a tempo thing than a counter. Buying a round is fine still as combat generally lasts 2 rounds or do. If you have a pile of 5E adventures from WotC their encounters are obsolete. I'm buffing most of them
Magic. Playstyle changes. Players aren't using direct danage much. Occasional fireball and Chromatic orbs. Lots more control spells due to buffs. If a damage spell doesn't deal lots of damage (fireball, lightning bolt, tactical use of Chromatic orb) or have riders (eg synaptic static) it's probably not good enough. Non fire dragon sorcerers much more viable/visible with Tashas metamagic in the phb.
Shield spell being used less even if it's an easy pick up via feat. Command has been buffed and cheap to twin. Very low opportunity cost to stun lock using it. It's basically the BG3 version. Halt or prone are used a lot. Glamor bard almost solo locked down encounters using it plus blindness/deafness. Throw in a cleric and Sorcerer with command. Chromatic Orb got buffed it's interesting. Level 4+ seems really good. Combos with paralysis (twinned hold monster). I've seen a level 6 one fired in this scenario which is common. Warlocks, Sorlocks and Sorcerers taking magic initiate feats or tome pact have a lot of cantrips.
Cantrips. Starry wisp nice pick up for druids and the magic initiate feat. Radiance damage is good. Sorcererous burst is great for versatility abd it's exploding dice mechanic more at higher level (5. 11). Once you're rolling 3 dice or more you'll notice it.
Short rests. Players a lot more receptive to using them. A lot of classes gave short rests. Short rest based classes eg Monks and fighters are enthusiastic. Prayer of healing in effect grants another one. So 2-3 short rests are typical depending on presence of a cleric. 1-2 without.
At level 12 you cant really attrition people out. At least without absurd encounters. They cleared 4 with 1 short rest via prayer of healing. Old 6-8 idea they dropped won't work. Think 8-12 absurd ones. Mine didn't even have many charged wands or whatever. 1 staff iirc. Old rules I went up to deadly X5 at higher levels (12-14) I'll have to experiment more. 1-2 hour combats probably not feasible due to 5E hp bloat. Which are super deadly type encounters (translation throw everything at them then some add more and the kitchen sink). Or you metagame heavily (lair design, deliberately targeting party weaknesses over and over, using the infamous monsters a lot).
On the plus side it's kinda fun from player PoV. Can't see DMs enjoying higher level play to much. BG3 kinda made it official for me I'll probably cap campaigns at 10-12. You can go higher but the fun vs work required ratio means I can't be bothered.
