D&D 5E High Level 5e - any actual play? How's the balance?

[S'mon]

It kind of depends. You talking standard orcs? Thirty standard orcs would not butcher a high level fighter unless he was built extremely poor and used poor tactics. A high level fighter's AC will be in the 18-20 range. He'll have well over a 100 hit points. He'll be able to dish 22 points of damage or more a hit against orcs using Great Weapon Mastery. That is usually enough to kill an orc a hit. He should be able to take them down at three to four a round eliminating attacks as she does so. It won't be as easy as a caster, but he' can do it.

Back of envelope: on an open field with 8 orcs attacking/round (wolf pack tactics cycling cheese) AC 20 Fighter would get hit by 30% of orc attacks (15+) for avg ca 10 dmg, so 3 hp/orc/round, 3x8=24 dmg, he'd last around 5 rounds, killing around 18-20 orcs first. A big change from pre-3e where he'd typically kill a couple hundred orcs.

If he were holding a choke point he'd be ok, though.

It looks as if a Fighter-20 can be Horatio on the bridge at Rome, but not Ares at Troy, or Arthur at
Badon Hill, unless maybe he had +3 plate & +3 shield - then the orcs would be hitting on a '20' only.

 

[Celtavian]

Back of envelope: on an open field with 8 orcs attacking/round (wolf pack tactics cycling cheese) AC 20 Fighter would get hit by 30% of orc attacks (15+) for avg ca 10 dmg, so 3 hp/orc/round, 3x8=24 dmg, he'd last around 5 rounds, killing around 18-20 orcs first. A big change from pre-3e where he'd typically kill a couple hundred orcs.

If he were holding a choke point he'd be ok, though.

It looks as if a Fighter-20 can be Horatio on the bridge at Rome, but not Ares at Troy, or Arthur at
Badon Hill, unless maybe he had +3 plate & +3 shield - then the orcs would be hitting on a '20' only.

Hopefully he doesn't allow himself to get surrounded. Sure, a defensive fighter would stand up longer. If he were an Eldritch Knight, he could boost his AC with shield quite often. If he were a battle master, he could riposte a few times too. As far as wading into a crowd of orcs, not recommended in this edition. Same thing for a wizard though. If he doesn't kill them with his fireball, they will chew him up. He might be able to use his one concentration spell to fly around. He won't be able to do that and be invisible. Power is toned down in this edition. Dangerous to take on hordes in this game for anyone.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Back of envelope: on an open field with 8 orcs attacking/round (wolf pack tactics cycling cheese) AC 20 Fighter would get hit by 30% of orc attacks (15+) for avg ca 10 dmg, so 3 hp/orc/round, 3x8=24 dmg, he'd last around 5 rounds, killing around 18-20 orcs first. A big change from pre-3e where he'd typically kill a couple hundred orcs. If he were holding a choke point he'd be ok, though. It looks as if a Fighter-20 can be Horatio on the bridge at Rome, but not Ares at Troy, or Arthur at Badon Hill, unless maybe he had +3 plate & +3 shield - then the orcs would be hitting on a '20' only.

Kinda dumb to melee without barbarian levels to halve damage or at least heavy armor master. If he's both he's only taking 3 points on a hit, easily kill all the orcs and regenerate all the axe wounds instantly with second wind. Hour's rest and he's fine. Wizard needs 8 hours to recover his spells used and depending on how his HD work out, to close his wounds.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As far as wading into a crowd of orcs, not recommended in this edition. Same thing for a wizard though. If he doesn't kill them with his fireball, they will chew him up.

That's prettymuch iff he doesn't catch them all in the fireball, because 1/2 damage is going to kill them.

He might be able to use his one concentration spell to fly around. He won't be able to do that and be invisible.

Either one sounds like a pretty profound advantage to have over creatures you can auto-kill with 40' wide explosions.

Power is toned down in this edition.

Well, relative to 3.5, anyway.

Dangerous to take on hordes in this game for anyone.

Which kinda sucks for the whole Conan-standing-on-a-pile-of-bodies trope.

That is, the wizard archetype is supposed to defeat armies by standing on an unassailable tower or mountain peak or cloud castle or whatever and raining down spells on them - or scare them away with an illusion - if he's supposed to defeat armies at all. That still works, if you can arrange for such a spot. The archetypes represented by the fighter, OTOH, are supposed to defeat armies by scything through them like wheat and ending up standing on a rampart of their dead - again, if they're supposed to defeat armies single-handed, at all. 5e has issues with delivering on that. It's not alone, most editions of D&D had problems, either with the fighter getting killed, or the player & DM getting repetitive motion injuries from rolling so many dice trying to resolve the tedious scene.

You could always hand-wave such things, play through the first round of slicing through orcs and just 'story mode' the rest, conveniently ignoring that the PC would be beaten down in less than a minute. Or adopt some alternate mechanic, like the 'mooks' mechanic from 13A, which conveniently converts high DPR to piles of dead enemies.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've played lots of high level combat and the balance is fine. Better than any edition of D&D to date.

While that's a very weak claim (D&D, for most of its 40 year history, suffering from pretty poor class balance at most levels, and generally balanced even worse at higher levels), I still find it difficult to believe.

What's 'lots' and 'high' level in this statement? Were these white room combats, or part of an actual campaign where everyone played up from 1st?

Yes, spells can be powerful against low level foes, but they're a much more limited resource now.

So you meant 'better balanced' than editions that had spells as a less-limited resource than in 5e.
So, 3.5/Pathfinder.

(Classic D&D may have given high-level casters more high-level slots, but they gave lower-level casters even fewer than 5e, and hand no cantrips or short-rest spell recovery, and they piled restrictions on spells and the act of casting, itself, that made them a much more heavily-limited, less flexible resource than they are in 5e.)

"5e better balanced at high level than 3.5" is a much more plausible headline.

A wizard could wipe out 30 Orc but when facing a dragon he's going to want Mr Fighter. As mentioned martials tend to out damage casters against single powerful tough foes, casters out damage martials against groups.

That's what theorycrafting has suggested, so far, yes. The reality in play, I've seen though, while only at lower levels, already diverges from it slightly. Caster-martial synergy, such as Hold Person followed up by Sneak Attacks - seems to deliver the most single-target DPR, in actual practice, for instance.

I wouldn't be surprised if having a martial 'blocker' or 3 helps casters output the AE DPR more efficiently, too. Well, or some sort of blocker (companion creatures, summoned monsters, animated dead, illusions, wall spells,etc), anyway.

 

[LapBandit]

If I am a level 20 fighter with the appropriate level magic items, I will tear through those orcs in just a few rounds.
First round : 10 attacks: 4 normal, 4 action surge, 1 reaction, 1 bonus (all likely to be used against that many enemies)
Second round : 6 attacks : 4 normal, 1 reaction, 1 bonus
Third round : 6 attacks : 4 normal, 1 reaction, 1 bonus
....

They are not going to kill me in that span of time, and that is without Battlemaster, Champion, or Eldritch Knight abilities.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Using the variant rules for Cleaving and Large Mobs in the DMG. A party of 5 level 20's defeated 300 Orcs. (Party was a Devotion Paladin, Hunter Ranger, Draconic Sorcerer, Tempest Cleric, and Valor Bard.) It took a lot of resources but the party killed all the Orcs with out a single one of them dropping.

 

[Remathilis]

Using the variant rules for Cleaving and Large Mobs in the DMG. A party of 5 level 20's defeated 300 Orcs. (Party was a Devotion Paladin, Hunter Ranger, Draconic Sorcerer, Tempest Cleric, and Valor Bard.) It took a lot of resources but the party killed all the Orcs with out a single one of them dropping.

Three hundred orcs.
I have but a butter knife,
Of course, I attack.

 

[DaveDash]

While that's a very weak claim (D&D, for most of its 40 year history, suffering from pretty poor class balance at most levels, and generally balanced even worse at higher levels), I still find it difficult to believe.

What's 'lots' and 'high' level in this statement? Were these white room combats, or part of an actual campaign where everyone played up from 1st?

So you meant 'better balanced' than editions that had spells as a less-limited resource than in 5e.
So, 3.5/Pathfinder.

(Classic D&D may have given high-level casters more high-level slots, but they gave lower-level casters even fewer than 5e, and hand no cantrips or short-rest spell recovery, and they piled restrictions on spells and the act of casting, itself, that made them a much more heavily-limited, less flexible resource than they are in 5e.)

"5e better balanced at high level than 3.5" is a much more plausible headline.

That's what theorycrafting has suggested, so far, yes. The reality in play, I've seen though, while only at lower levels, already diverges from it slightly. Caster-martial synergy, such as Hold Person followed up by Sneak Attacks - seems to deliver the most single-target DPR, in actual practice, for instance.

I wouldn't be surprised if having a martial 'blocker' or 3 helps casters output the AE DPR more efficiently, too. Well, or some sort of blocker (companion creatures, summoned monsters, animated dead, illusions, wall spells,etc), anyway.

My current campaign is level 15, and I've play tested almost every class in the game against almost every monster in the book in a series of encounters, across level 17-20. I stand by my statement 100%, and beyond this post, unless you have actually chalked up any experience yourself, I don't plan on getting into a 30 page argument about it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My current campaign is level 15

Did it start with 5e at 1st, or with Next or something else and then convert when 5e finally arrived?

How many players?

What mix of classes? Did players stick with the same characters & classes throughout, or was there some turnover?

I've play tested almost every class in the game against almost every monster in the book in a series of encounters, across level 17-20.

OK, so 'white-room' then. Thanks for making that effort, BTW: It's interesting to hear the results of such experiments, even if only in generalities.