D&D 5E Challenging High-Level 5e Characters

[Distracted DM]

Waves, like others have said.

But also more set pieces (walls with a batista, catapults, lightning rods), time constraints (they will escape in 2 turns, the room is flooding, enemies get resurrected every other turn), in addition to the monsters.

Give the monk a reason to dash up wall, or a wizard to cast pass wall, or a Barbarian to roll Athletics.

Does the "waves" answer work with OP's question of "how to do it without taking a long time to run?"

 

[mellored]

Does the "waves" answer work with OP's question of "how to do it without taking a long time to run?"

Somewhat.

Assuming 20 monsters and 5 dying a turn.

All at once would mean 20 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 50 rolls.
4 waves of 5 give you 5 + 5 + 5 +5 = 20 rolls.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Are there in-universe reasons for the immunity to crowd control effects?

First of all it doesn't matter because it is established at Session Zero that this is a house rule. Players choose to either accept the house rules or not join.

Second of all, I'd argue the answer is Yes. The same in-universe reason for legendary resistance existing would apply here. Certain creatures are so tough that they are able to shrug off your spells... or whatever logic you want to use for legendary resistance. The house rule is effectively that any creature with legendary resistances gets an infinite number of them that I only use on CC abilities but never on other saving throws.

 

[tetrasodium]

Are there in-universe reasons for the immunity to crowd control effects?

How deep does the reason need to be? Is"because that's how magic works" good enough or how much more is needed? In the past SR:yes/no once functioned to help encourage that sort of spell selection while still allowing them when the bosses of levels back have fallen far enough towards mook to overcome.

Unfortunately by removing the sr:yes/no tag from spells 5e created the need for the GM to some monsters to vaguely "ban" powerful cc & what post 10 called "broken" spells rather than making them extra difficult & unlikely to land. Without those hooks it's a Herculean task for the gm to predefined all of those spells rather than just making a tweak if a spell or two justifies it.

 

[Shardstone]

Thanks for sharing- who's done the art? And where can one keep an eye out for this book?

I work with Romanian artist Andi Alexandru! We're hoping the PDF will launch on drivethru and itch.io later this year. I can DM you more information if you'd like!

 

[Distracted DM]

I work with Romanian artist Andi Alexandru! We're hoping the PDF will launch on drivethru and itch.io later this year. I can DM you more information if you'd like!

Yeah I love the art, and that's always a big point for me. DM away!

 

[Micah Sweet]

How deep does the reason need to be? Is"because that's how magic works" good enough or how much more is needed? In the past SR:yes/no once functioned to help encourage that sort of spell selection while still allowing them when the bosses of levels back have fallen far enough towards mook to overcome.

Unfortunately by removing the sr:yes/no tag from spells 5e created the need for the GM to some monsters to vaguely "ban" powerful cc & what post 10 called "broken" spells rather than making them extra difficult & unlikely to land. Without those hooks it's a Herculean task for the gm to predefined all of those spells rather than just making a tweak if a spell or two justifies it.

I was perfectly fine with SR actually. "That's how magic works" is a vague but acceptable answer.

 

[Quartz]

Elite-style monsters should be able to drop 1 character per round, and Solos should drop 2 or 3 characters every round.

How is that fun for the players?

 

[crater]

Variant resting rules and splitting the party does most of the work.

 

[Distracted DM]

Variant resting rules and splitting the party does most of the work.

I had an excuse to try the gritty realism rules for rests in one of my games, and man I love it. Separating rests from sleep is :chefskiss: regardless of level.
Allow downtime activities with said rests and suddenly you have a good amount of time passing in your games without trying!