D&D 5E D&D Mechanics Work Very Well at High Level

[ren1999]

The D&D 3 Core books may be disorganized but the game system is solid and playable at high levels thanks to all you play-testers.

Combat does not drag in this game. That is the best part.

The classes work so well even with mixed levels. A 13th Level Druid, a 10th Level Rogue Assassin, and a 5th level Paladin from another game system. All together in White Plume Mountain.
http://dnd5.weebly.com

 

[PnPgamer]

Very glad to hear that it functions.
Our group npc ranger died, and we got a barbarian dwarf as a replacement starting from level 1. Dm gave him double xp to catch up to our level 3 characters, and he didnt manage badly at all.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Very glad to hear that it functions.
Our group npc ranger died, and we got a barbarian dwarf as a replacement starting from level 1. Dm gave him double xp to catch up to our level 3 characters, and he didnt manage badly at all.

Giving double XP isn't necessary. Because of the shape of the XP table, he will catch up over time anyway, even if no one else ever dies.

 

[Zardnaar]

Hmmn I found the game starts to break down around level 11 if not 9.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hmmn I found the game starts to break down around level 11 if not 9.

What does "break" mean in this context?

I can imagine the game "breaking" in the narrative sense: once you've wiped out all the hobgoblins in the kingdom getting from level 1 to level 8, it just doesn't make sense that you'll suddenly be fighting your full DMG allotment of XP every single day. (A dragon today, a horde of werewolves tomorrow? Where do they come from?) My current plan is that when/if my players' PCs pacify all the threats in their current region, they start uncovering threats to a wider region which until now had pretty much ignored their kingdom. Instead of the one Rakshasa who is pulling strings behind the scenes, there will be an actual Slaad invasion. Instead of the one crashed spelljamming ship full of illithids who have set up in the hills and started a cult, there will be Hive ships full of beholders in a full-on beholder civil war.

The game can also "break" from a tactical standpoint that squad-level combat stops making sense, but since the game actually handles medium-sized battles pretty well that's not a breakage. My 3rd level PCs just had a set-piece battle with 7 neogi and 12 umber hulks. Most of the heavy lifting was done by two dozen NPC troops under their command and by traps the PCs set up in advance and then had the Thief trigger--the actual PCs cast some Scorching Rays and Web spells in key places, and hit some guys with hammers, but the majority of actual combat effectiveness came from deciding what "their" troops were doing each turn. It didn't hurt the narrative any.

There are some things I would do differently in a battle that large but they largely relate to book-keeping. As far as the game itself goes, no breakage.

 

[Zardnaar]

What does "break" mean in this context?

I can imagine the game "breaking" in the narrative sense: once you've wiped out all the hobgoblins in the kingdom getting from level 1 to level 8, it just doesn't make sense that you'll suddenly be fighting your full DMG allotment of XP every single day. (A dragon today, a horde of werewolves tomorrow? Where do they come from?) My current plan is that when/if my players' PCs pacify all the threats in their current region, they start uncovering threats to a wider region which until now had pretty much ignored their kingdom. Instead of the one Rakshasa who is pulling strings behind the scenes, there will be an actual Slaad invasion. Instead of the one crashed spelljamming ship full of illithids who have set up in the hills and started a cult, there will be Hive ships full of beholders in a full-on beholder civil war.

The game can also "break" from a tactical standpoint that squad-level combat stops making sense, but since the game actually handles medium-sized battles pretty well that's not a breakage. My 3rd level PCs just had a set-piece battle with 7 neogi and 12 umber hulks. Most of the heavy lifting was done by two dozen NPC troops under their command and by traps the PCs set up in advance and then had the Thief trigger--the actual PCs cast some Scorching Rays and Web spells in key places, and hit some guys with hammers, but the majority of actual combat effectiveness came from deciding what "their" troops were doing each turn. It didn't hurt the narrative any.

There are some things I would do differently in a battle that large but they largely relate to book-keeping. As far as the game itself goes, no breakage.

Spell DCs and PC damage and abilities aliong with feats like Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Style.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Spell DCs and PC damage and abilities aliong with feats like Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Style.

Yes, Sharpshooter is awesome, starting at level 1. What do you mean by "break" though? Does it become unplayable for you?

I do think the CR guidelines are calibrated a bit low, starting from level 1, but I'm okay with that, since it is much more fun to know that your level 4 characters just barely beat a CR 13 encounter because you're AWESOME than to find that your level 4 characters just ran away from a CR 3 encounter because you stink. (Even if it's the exact same encounter in both cases.) I think the game goes better though if you are willing to occasionally ignore the encounter-building guidelines. If by "break" you mean "level-appropriate encounters are boring" I agree, and that starts very early on, way before level 9.

Edit: and by "boring" I mean "tactically boring." They don't have to be narratively boring. If your group of 4 11th level PCs bumps into a group of 6 hobgoblins, I as the DM would allow to just say, "We kill them," and declare them dead without any dice rolls (except maybe at most a random 2d6 damage that I would inflict on someone as a lucky hit). But it is even more fun if the hobgoblins sneer at you and bluster and try to demand your weapons, while you know the whole time that you are no longer the 1st level characters from long ago who would have been terrified by these hobgoblins. And then you take the sneering leader's weapon, snap it in half, and punch him in the gut before he has a chance to react, while the wizard blows a hole in the wall with Firebolt and the ranger pulls out of a fistful of arrows (Volley) and aims them all simultaneously at the hobgoblins. Then you watch the hobgoblins wet themselves and meekly drop their weapons. It's not a tactically interesting encounter but it doesn't have to be boring to play through.

 

[Werebat]

So, how "off" are the level-appropriate encounters? I tend to have trouble (or HAD trouble in 3E and PF) when I follow the level-appropriate encounter rules with my powergaming PCs.

Please, no "a CREATIVE DM would be able to CHALLENGE a group of intelligent players by mixing this template with that monster and these specific tactics!" type comments. Have those ever helped anything? No, they have not.

 

[Zardnaar]

So, how "off" are the level-appropriate encounters? I tend to have trouble (or HAD trouble in 3E and PF) when I follow the level-appropriate encounter rules with my powergaming PCs.

Please, no "a CREATIVE DM would be able to CHALLENGE a group of intelligent players by mixing this template with that monster and these specific tactics!" type comments. Have those ever helped anything? No, they have not.

Our record is X6 over the encounter building guidelines and we ignored the numbers multiplier to the xp. We have also gone CR+6 over the party level with the monsters a CR 14 Dragon vs level 8 party

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So, how "off" are the level-appropriate encounters? I tend to have trouble (or HAD trouble in 3E and PF) when I follow the level-appropriate encounter rules with my powergaming PCs.

Off enough to make CR almost irrelevant. In particular, the CR-assignment guidelines basically ignore everything but HP and damage rates: special abilities get translated into boosts to effective HP/damage and then that is used to compute the CR. Disguises, movement and ranged combat are particularly undervalued except, oddly enough, by low-level monsters like orcs (Aggressive trait helps a lot) and (hob)goblins (decent DX, long-ranged weapons). Teleport is a free ability for monsters, for example: it doesn't affect CR at all! CR appears to be built under the default assumption that all monsters will charge directly into melee with all the PCs and hammer away at each other under one side falls down. Thus, it scales pretty linearly in HP/damage.

There are CR 5 monsters that I would gladly take on solo as a 1st level character, just for the XP. And there are CR 2 monsters that I would avoid like the plague even at level 10 because the risk/reward ratio is just not there.

If you have players who are tactically-minded and took abilities which let them control the pace of combat and the engagement range (Mobile feat, Longstrider, Expeditious Retreat, etc.), you can and should pretty much ignore CR guidelines for any combat where the PCs are not ambushed at melee range. I mentioned throwing 80,000 XP worth of enemies at my 3rd level PCs, right? It was touch and go until they took out the enemy spellcaster with Fireball, but exploiting surprise, terrain and ranged weaponry was enough to win the battle. (They didn't kill them all to death either; they were smart enough to mostly ignore the Umber Hulks and focus on killing the Neogis, on the assumption that once the masters were dead the slaves would lose their motivation.)

Of course, after that battle, they are no longer 3rd level PCs.

I think 5E works best from an AD&D mindset of "there's as many monsters as there are, now what are you going to do about it" instead of a 3E mindset of "the DM will give you level-appropriate encounters." I skipped 3E except for in video games, but from Internet forums I get the idea that 3E players expect "fair" challenges calibrated to PC level.