D&D 5E (2014) High level play

[dave2008]

True although a Balor should not even have been Epic Tier to begin with. From the ground up WotC didn't know what they were doing with Epic Gaming in 4E - that's why they simply 'folded' non-epic monsters (dragons, demons and even the Tarrasque) into the Epic Tier to 'pad' it out.

Spread out more like I agree, towards the end of my last 4e campaign, as my players were moving from Heroic to Paragon I started revising all the monsters to be 2/3 their original level. I reduced the hit points accordingly, but kept the damage the same and it worked well.

I had all that solved with my Unit Rules. So you could fight a group of 1000 orcs or 1 million demons (or whatever) within 1 stat-block.

Now you've got me really curious!

Best of luck amigo...it sounds like a lot of work.

Well I have it mostly complete a couple times, just can't seem to go the final mile. Of course, when I say finished I don't mean for publishing, just a collection of notes that make a workable game for me. No one else would know what the hell to do though!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Immortal Tier, Super-Solos; Unit rules for mass battles, Magic Templates; Revised Core Classes to fit on one page...to name a few things) and just never got around to

Some of those do sound interesting. Units seemed easy enough to do as swarms - when facing PCs, anyway. Some sort of easy auto-pilot rules for when they're just grinding against eachother might've been worthwhile, though. What would 'Magic Templates' have been?

 

[dave2008]

Some of those do sound interesting. Units seemed easy enough to do as swarms - when facing PCs, anyway. Some sort of easy auto-pilot rules for when they're just grinding against eachother might've been worthwhile, though. What would 'Magic Templates' have been?

The revised core classes where pretty cool too. I know he posted the wizard, can't remember if posted anything else. It was really short of a class-less concept.

 

[dave2008]

You are incorrectly assuming a difference between my method and being a good DM who knows the party and the adversaries thrown at them.

I didn't assume that all, I think your method is entirely based on having a good DM who knows the party and the adversaries they can handle. That is its flaw.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I didn't assume that all, I think your method is entirely based on having a good DM who knows the party and the adversaries they can handle. That is its flaw.

Then we just disagree about how extremely easy it is to be a good DM, it would seem.

 

[dave2008]

Then we just disagree about how extremely easy it is to be a good DM, it would seem.

How, I've made no comment about frequency of quality DMs? I think you assume to much. Even if it is extremely easy to be a good DM, it is still the flaw. The flaw may be minor, I never said it was significant. Simply that relying on the DM to solve it is a flaw. Furthermore, to be honest, it is a flaw I personally like. Leaving room for DMs to work is great IMO.

However, from my very limited experience, I do think there is a range of DMs, and I think one could be a good DM and not have a strong grasp of one's players adversaries abilities. I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

How, I've made no comment about frequency of quality DMs? I think you assume to much. Even if it is extremely easy to be a good DM, it is still the flaw. The flaw may be minor, I never said it was significant. Simply that relying on the DM to solve it is a flaw. Furthermore, to be honest, it is a flaw I personally like. Leaving room for DMs to work is great IMO.

However, from my very limited experience, I do think there is a range of DMs, and I think one could be a good DM and not have a strong grasp of one's players adversaries abilities. I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

I took your statement as a declaration that my method having a flaw in the reliance on having a good DM to be using the definition of flaw that suggested the method would not work as a result. As such, I thought that the reason you were saying relying on a good DM was such a flaw would naturally be the supposed rarity of a good DM.

Basically, I misinterpreted your meaning in using the word flaw, and incorrectly expected the all too common case of perpetuating the myth that being a DM is difficult and that good ones are so rare that people should accept a bad DM.

I agree though, that there are a range of DMs which includes good DMs with and without a strong grasp of the practical potency of a read monster's abilities.

 

[dave2008]

I took your statement as a declaration that my method having a flaw in the reliance on having a good DM to be using the definition of flaw that suggested the method would not work as a result. As such, I thought that the reason you were saying relying on a good DM was such a flaw would naturally be the supposed rarity of a good DM.

Basically, I misinterpreted your meaning in using the word flaw, and incorrectly expected the all too common case of perpetuating the myth that being a DM is difficult and that good ones are so rare that people should accept a bad DM.

I agree though, that there are a range of DMs which includes good DMs with and without a strong grasp of the practical potency of a read monster's abilities.

I figured as much, nuance is hard to translate through the keyboard. I see where my word choice would lead to that conclusion as well.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Spread out more like I agree, towards the end of my last 4e campaign, as my players were moving from Heroic to Paragon I started revising all the monsters to be 2/3 their original level. I reduced the hit points accordingly, but kept the damage the same and it worked well.

Thats probably what I would have advocated - with the Tarrasque being Level 20.

Now you've got me really curious!

The Unit rules were extremely simple, the trick was just getting it balanced and then making sense of it all; bringing in morale and so forth (when a Unit is bloodied it takes a Rout/Leadership test etc.).

Well I have it mostly complete a couple times, just can't seem to go the final mile. Of course, when I say finished I don't mean for publishing, just a collection of notes that make a workable game for me. No one else would know what the hell to do though!

 

[Upper_Krust]

Some of those do sound interesting. Units seemed easy enough to do as swarms - when facing PCs, anyway. Some sort of easy auto-pilot rules for when they're just grinding against eachother might've been worthwhile, though.

I had a few neat tricks in there that just made it seem a bit more realistic. UNIT vs. UNIT rules would be as simple as pitting any two enemies together.

What would 'Magic Templates' have been?

They would have been Scale templates for spells and similar effects so that you could levitate a castle or a city or a continent. Then there would have been multiple ways to mitigate the boost (multiple casters, sacrifices - both personal and otherwise, time and a few other methods etc.)