D&D 5E High-level no-save spells in practice

[miniaturehoarder]

70 skeletons!? This is crazy! I'm just curious, how do you manage combats at this scale?

I just run them and if the players don't use their area effect capacity, lots of table time gets used up.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

70 skeletons!? This is crazy! I'm just curious, how do you manage combats at this scale? I use Roll20 which is great for managing a ton of creatures at once, but after running a fight against like... 20-30 bullywugs and giant frogs, I got kind of turned off to the concept (PCs bottlenecked them and used lightning bolt to fry them 5 or 6 at a time) of hordes of enemies, but maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Perhaps more pertinent, on a practical level, what are the effects of this style of combat? I bet it scares the snot out of your PCs for one... do you do waves, or do they all come in simultaneously? Group initiative where all the skeletons go at once?

I don't want to give a false impression here. 6000 HP of CR 7 Stygian skeletons (from Fifth Edition Foes) outputting 1400 ranged DPR is not "a combat." It's practically a war. It's over a million XP of difficulty and can't be approached casually or it will destroy you. I don't put them all in the same room, and my players wouldn't fight them if I did. The largest combat that I've run in detail with full HP tracking and initiative for every individual was roughly twenty combatants per side.

For larger battles, I've developed a set of mass combat rules. On tapatalk I can't link to it but I made a "mass combat" thread a few weeks ago that goes into detail.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

The description of force cage includes a rule for what happens when creatures too large to fit in the area are caught in the spell's area (they simply get pushed aside). Given this I think it's unreasonable for a player to claim that the DM is gimping their character by ruling a creature is too big. The expectation that not all monsters are trappable is set up right in the spell description. It's totally up to the DM to determine which monsters fit into the area and which do not.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Right, the tarrasque has a 20'x20' base / face / space, but that doesn't mean it fits in a Forcecage. MM clearly calls out it's 50' tall and 70' long.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

For those players who want to cage the tarrasque there is always Wall of Stone. Its HP are substantial and it doesn't have to be a plane like other walls do.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Then since we're ignoring grids completely and using our imagination, I'm guessing that your players can poke their heads out of fog clouds and attack, gaining +5 cover? Squeeze up against a corner and fire their crossbow for similar reasons? Jump on the Dragons tail 20ft away from where it's actually represented, or hack it off? Since it's wings suddenly matter, I suppose now we can now misty step onto its back and hack it's wings off now too?

Jump out of fog, attack, move back into fog: I'd allow it.

Fire a crossbow around a corner and fall back into total cover: I'd allow it.

Jump on a dragons tail 20' away: Id allow if you readied an action and he tail swiped you.

Misty step onto the dragons back: I'd be rooting for you, but you would be making some difficult skill checks to stay mounted. I'd even give you advantage on attacks if you pulled it off.

Forcecaging a creature not OBVIOUSLY but POSSIBLY bigger than the cage but might be if it compacted itself: I'd assign a percent chance the creature ever compacts itself into a 20' space during combat, let you know that chance, and decide if you want to spend your turn "waiting for the chance" to pull it off.

I'd even let you take actions or have other party members take actions to up your percentage when it comes to the roll. A combat ending with a warlock using an ice-spell to stick a dragons wing to its body temporarily while the barbarian bullrushes the tail into position and the archer pins the other wing to up that chance to 80% is a HECKUVA lot more memorable and cinematic than a flat no.

Its my perogative as GM to chip away at, shape, and modify the rules to fit the mechanics to my story. Just last night I had the party encounter a non-evil Mummy Lord. He was a high priest trusted with guarding the pyramid they were ransacking. He's not evil, he's just defending his turf.

DS

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

JI'd even let you take actions or have other party members take actions to up your percentage when it comes to the roll. A combat ending with a warlock using an ice-spell to stick a dragons wing to its body temporarily while the barbarian bullrushes the tail into position and the archer pins the other wing to up that chance to 80% is a HECKUVA lot more memorable and cinematic than a flat no.

Especially the part where the barbarian realizes he is now trapped in a forcecage alone with a dragon.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Especially the part where the barbarian realizes he is now trapped in a forcecage alone with a dragon.

Barbarian darwinism at its finest. Only those individuals wise enough to push the tail in and then let go before the shield closes down on him live to procreate.

In just a few hundred generations the entire barbarian genepool is getting a +1 Wisdom bonus.

Ba Da Bing!

DS

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Barbarian darwinism at its finest. Only those individuals wise enough to push the tail in and then let go before the shield closes down on him live to procreate.

In just a few hundred generations the entire barbarian genepool is getting a +1 Wisdom bonus.

Ba Da Bing!

DS

Somebody obviously knows who Hap the barbarian and Glirindree are.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

 

[DaveDash]

Right, the tarrasque has a 20'x20' base / face / space, but that doesn't mean it fits in a Forcecage. MM clearly calls out it's 50' tall and 70' long.

By the standard, consistent, and easy to understand rules we use, which go all the way back to third edition, it's pretty obvious you can't force cage a Tarrasque.