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

[FormerlyHemlock]

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.

To be fair, though, it sounds like your players are pretty reactive. When you described your Underdark campaign there were a lot of wizard tricks that couldn't be played because your players are under time pressure and can't stop for a couple days to cast spells (Planar Binding, Simulacrum). That's relevant to assessing your experiences.

 

[DaveDash]

To be fair, though, it sounds like your players are pretty reactive. When you described your Underdark campaign there were a lot of wizard tricks that couldn't be played because your players are under time pressure and can't stop for a couple days to cast spells (Planar Binding, Simulacrum). That's relevant to assessing your experiences.

A lot of those things in game are not anywhere near as useful as you think they are. Sorry to say, your 40,000gp worth of elemental summoning idea is now an in joke around our table.

Anyway, you guys can take my experience at face value or you can not. I'm not going to argue about it, and I don't feel the need to prove anything.

 

[Celtavian]

There are two of these threads.

And I thought I was just going crazy.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...igh-level-How-s-the-caster-non-caster-balance

Mods: please merge.

Glad you pointed this out. I was wondering where my posts went.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A lot of those things in game are not anywhere near as useful as you think they are. Sorry to say, your 40,000gp worth of elemental summoning idea is now an in joke around our table.

I think Banishment as a counter to elementals is a joke due to concentration requirements, but to each his own sense of humor. In any case, different metagames and playstyles produce different results, at low- or high-level. OP needs to analyze his own game to make predictions for himself.

 

[Celtavian]

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

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

I agree with Dave for the most part. Best balanced edition to date.

Though I disagree about the potential damage of wizards at higher level, I do agree it is easier to let martials do their damage against powerful creatures. You can go balls out as a wizard doing close to equal damage of a fighter or paladin, but why bother? It's easier and more cost effective to let the martials hammer away using your spells to enable them to do it well, while you sit back relatively unscathed and collect the loot.

Though I don't intend to be as passive as the wizard in Dave's group. He doesn't want to have a simulacrum with him or summon any creatures to do some hammering, though according to Dave this is because he designs custom monsters and casters that make the use of such spells impossible. But for the standard game, that is not at all the case. Simulacrum and Planar Binding are great spells if you're not making monsters so strong as to make those spells useless and tossing in a horde of casters capable of easily banishing everything you summon. They're very nice for non-end game encounters.

Some of the downside of Planar Binding is the ability for a lower level caster to dispel your summoned minion with a lucky roll due to the way they set up dispel magic. You have to be prepared for that problem to come up every now and then. In this edition of D&D, casters are very rare. If you don't want to completely screw over casters, they should remain so, as they are in the fantasy genre.

 

[Celtavian]

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

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

Well, relative to 3.5, anyway.


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.

I don't recommend taking on armies for a wizard or a fighter.

Sure, half damage could kill a group of standard orcs massed together in a tight enough bunch to get them all. If there are higher level orcs with spears or bows, that could be a problem. Then again a fighter should fear a horde of kobolds over a horde of orcs. Kobolds are scary in groups.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

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.

Uh...I don't think that's correct. At 20th level you get 4 attacks when using your Action to Attack. Period. Now, Action Surge can be read two ways. In the first, you get one extra attack. Or, in the second, you get one extra Action...and, seeing as you get 4 attacks for one Action, you would technically get 8 attacks that round. Furthermore, a DM could read it that you can use both your extra Action Surges in the same round...giving you 12 attacks.

You never get to "choose" to do a Reaction or a Bonus. Those are circumstantial and not generally under the control of the player.

Personally, I'd let a Fighter get one Action Surge in a round and not let him use both, thusly:

First Round: 8 Attacks (4 normal + 4 Action Surge)
Second Round: 8 Attacks (4 normal + 4 Action Surge)
Third round onward: 4 Attacks (4 normal)

That's about it. Still MORE than enough if you ask me, but then again my group hasn't gotten past level 5 yet... so all my conjecture is based purely on my experience with other games and editions and my reading and understanding of the core 5e rules.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Mouseferatu]

Now, Action Surge can be read two ways.

At the risk of being nitpicky, no. No, it really can't. Not by the definitions that the game's laid out.

1) It gives you an extra action. Not "extra attack." Not "extra bonus action." Extra action.

2) By the rules of the game, attacking is an action. Specifically, the "attack action."

3) The extra action granted by the Surge occurs on the fighter's turn. It's not a reaction.

4) By the rules of the fighter's Extra Attack feature, when the 20th-level fighter "takes the attack action" on his own turn, he makes four attacks.

It's not unclear. It's not questionable. A DM who wants to rule that the fighter only gets one extra attack is making a house rule, pure and simple; he is not playing RAW with a "different interpretation."

(Sorry, Paul. Not meaning to jump on you specifically. Just seen a lot of people claiming that, because 5E's about "rulings not rules," it means every reading of RAW is equally valid despite what the actual language says. Afraid you caught the spillover. )

 

[Prism]

Hiya.


You never get to "choose" to do a Reaction or a Bonus. Those are circumstantial and not generally under the control of the player.

I assume he is specifically referring to the Great Weapon Master feat which will guarantee a bonus attack a round in this scenario, two weapon fighting, or most probably Polearm Master which grants both bonus and reaction attacks against your typical orc horde

 

[Minigiant]

Anyways

You kill 30 orcs with a camouflaged stoneskined ranger with volley atop a tree, against a mountain ledge, or in a sand dune.