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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tormyr" data-source="post: 7449924" data-attributes="member: 6776887">I have the other opinion in these discussions, not having a problem running a fun and effective game at any level. We used feats; everyone had plenty of magic items; and at least one PC multiclassed. One PC was a GWM champion with a Defender greatsword that frequently had foresight cast on her.1. I converted Age of Worms to 5e and ran the campaign from levels 1 to 20 over 3 years. We had a lot of fun with the higher levels. In preparation, I did nothing more than use the 3.5 adventures, build the missing monsters using the guidelines in the DMG, and build the encounters using the guidelines in the DMG. 2. The encounter building math worked for us throughout the campaign through every level of play.3. The monster hp and frequency to hit are part of the balancing act. If the monsters hit more frequently, the PCs would not make it through the adventuring day. If the monsters were not bags of hit points, the fights would be over fast as PCs can dish out the damage. I try to have each monster do at least 1 interesting thing. One was a long-distance eldritch blast warlock who shot a PC off a drawbridge, sent him through the 9 hells, and had him reappear in midair before falling into the moat of acid. Another was a CR 20 oathbreaker paladin. One class of monsters turned PCs into favored spawn of Kyuss if they died in its gullet. There was the spellweaver lich who could cast up to 6 spell slots worth of spells (in any combination) each turn. A half-orc barbarian had a potion of growth. Inquisitors have an unblockable counterspell.4. I have never had a TPK, but I have had many sessions where some of my players were starting to chant "TPK! TPK!" <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I have had characters die several times, but they almost never stay dead.5. My issue with the 6-8 encounters per day is that a DM follows that at the risk of having encounters just to have encounters. In my opinion encounters should be there to further the story, and sometimes the story does not have 6-8 encounters in a day. Some encounter days are "long days" with 6-8 encounters either at or a little above the party's level. One day recently was two EL 7 encounters for the level 3 party with a short rest in between.I have built a few things to help me with all the number crunching. The first is a CR calculating spreadsheet. The second is an encounter building spreadsheet that modifies the guidelines slightly. In the DMG rules, there are spikes in the encounter XP multiplier as you pass certain numbers of monsters and PCs. My spreadsheet smooths out those spikes so that adding a monster moves the multiplier predictably (instead of 1 number after the first monster and a wildly different number after the second). Both of those files, as well as my Age of Worms conversion, are available by clicking my user name and then clicking the Downloads link.I have also adopted two main house rules. The first is to use Matt Mercer's resurrection rules which feature a chance of failure on resurrection while allies can aid the person performing the ritual. The second is a modification of the falling rules. I was frustrated that high-level PCs can shrug off falling 1,000 feet. Rather than arbitrarily deciding when a PC dies from a fall. I made a table based on falling speed of a 6-foot person while allowing the creature to make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check as a reaction and reduce the damage by the amount of the check. The end result is that a commoner can both die or take no damage from a 10-foot fall, a PC has a chance of taking no damage from a 20-foot fall, and some high-level PCs can scrape themselves off the pavement but be heavily damaged after a 1,000-foot fall. The falling house rule is also in my Downloads section.</blockquote>

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