D&D 5E High level play

[dave2008]

Yeah I could have made that clearer. The classes are 20th level. We are just using higher character levels to represent number of boons, so a '23rd' level character has 3 boons. Most of these are conversions of older characters where they were that level. One campaign from 3rd/4th and the other from AD&D

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Pssthpok]

I strongly agree, but I don't think letting stats go to 30 is a good idea, giving out +5 bonuses will screw up the math eventually. I've been thinking a lot about advancement beyond 20th as it's quite likely both my 5e campaigns will go that far, and the game seems well-suited to it. My current plan is not to use XP beyond 20th, rather the PCs earn an Epic Boon every time they complete a genuinely Epic task, something like a 4-5 session adventure at least (probably about half as frequent as a level-up below 20). I may let them take a Feat or +2 stat bump (to max 20) instead of the proferred Boon, not sure yet.

I think the DMG Epic Boon system offers great potential for long-term play with mostly lateral development, in a way that adding levels 21-30 to the base game would not. Much easier to stat eg demon lords that can be threatening indefinitely.

Letting PCs get a 30 in their primary stats gives them the same DCs and attack bonuses as stat-capped CR 30 monsters, so I don't see it as too big of a deal. By the time a PC gets their primary stats from 20 to 30, they're functionally 25th-level. If they just bump their Con and their primary, they're functionally 30th level and on an even footing with CR 30 monsters.

 

[Prism]

My idea (and what I use) - replace epic level adventuring with character goals.

All (in-game) characters should have a goal. An ultimate desire. Sure, perhaps they have been adventuring because, like mountains, it is there. But after you hit level 20 (and with an allowance for epic boons), what does the character really want to do with all of that power?

Retire to his keep and oversee a small kingdom?

Advance to demi-godhood?

Depart from this plane in search of the ultimate magic?

Break through to the Far Realms to meet the Old Ones (good luck with that!)?

Retire to seclusion unless called forth to save the world?

A character should go towards their character's goals, and, hopefully, meet them. Which may mean the character is (effectively) dead, or retired to NPC status, or only playable for certain occasions.

At a certain point, it's time to retire, and start anew. This is the circle of life D&D.

Absolutely. In our epic campaign we don't adventure in the traditional sense. We actually use a different system (Microscope) to create the ongoing shared story and we develop our individual character goals out of game. My character spends most of his time creating his demiplane. The wizard is slowly becoming a devil and has his own small domain in hell - he is finding it more difficult to leave each time. The rogue is a exarch of Gond and spends much of his time doing His work.

The 5e epic bits only come into play a couple of times a year when we need to get something done or something killed. We don't always adventure as a group and sometimes enlist other characters and NPC's

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

One thing that would be valuable is a tool for determining a party's capability to take on high CR creatures. I mean, how many boons do you need to take on a CR31 creature? Stuff like that.

That's not actually something that can be boiled down to anything near concrete - really can't even get as close as the already very loose encounter building guidelines, and I'm not just saying that because there is currently no such thing as a CR31 creature.

With class levels up to 20, there are predictable gains, and while they are not entirely equal at every point there is a shared framework that isn't severely deviated from regarding how many combat, non-combat, or dual-purpose features each class will get.

Once you get to the epic boons, there is no more predictability - one character might gain Immortality, which doesn't actually change their ability to overcome challenges outside of the very narrow band of things which might age you to death, and another character might gain Skill Proficiency which provides a significant amount of ability to overcome challenges in all pillars of game-play, and another character still might gain High Magic which is even more potent an increase in ability to overcome challenges.

So, in my opinion, the best way to handle challenge estimation once you've reached the 20th+boons level of play is to not actually try to get a close estimation in the first place. Anything CR 20 or lower, unless encountered in significant numbers, is fully within the realm of expecting the party to be able to handle. Anything CR 21-30, the party can probably also handle unless found in numbers or with a lot of lesser creatures aiding them, they just have to be a touch more careful in selecting their strategy.

I haven't really tested the theory yet, but I expect that there isn't a point at which CR 21-30 creatures become non-challenging to the characters just because they've accumulated X number of epic boons, since even the benefits of epic boons are limited (ability scores don't go past 30, and each boon can only be taken once unless it specifies otherwise, which only the option to increase an ability score actually does).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy dave amigo!

The are making a totally different game really (or so it seems from their preview). The monsters rank from Epic 1 to Epic 6 I believe,

Is that like Mythic 1-10 or something actually 'good'?

and have phases (multiple stat blocks similar to your 4e uber monsters).

About time someone else started using that idea (itself borrowed from videogames obviously).

 

[dave2008]

Howdy dave amigo!

Right back at ya - glade to see your still lurking around.

Is that like Mythic 1-10 or something actually 'good'?

Unfortunately, though the preview material gives examples of different tiers of epic monsters (each one is 4-6 pages), it didn't provide details about how the Epic Tiers work as far as I could tell. I skimmed it pretty quickly though. The strange thing, again at a quick glance, was that the creatures of different ties didn't appear to be that different statistically. So maybe the stat are relative to the epic tier? That is an idea I have been working with for some time myself, but I'm not sure that is what is going on here or not.

About time someone else started using that idea (itself borrowed from videogames obviously).

Well it was a good idea and worked really well with the 4e mechanics, super-solos just made sense. I made a few myself, and to be fair the 4e Lolth was basically a phased elite or super-elite. So the concept to get a little usage.

 

[dave2008]

That's not actually something that can be boiled down to anything near concrete - really can't even get as close as the already very loose encounter building guidelines, and I'm not just saying that because there is currently no such thing as a CR31 creature.

With class levels up to 20, there are predictable gains, and while they are not entirely equal at every point there is a shared framework that isn't severely deviated from regarding how many combat, non-combat, or dual-purpose features each class will get.

Once you get to the epic boons, there is no more predictability - one character might gain Immortality, which doesn't actually change their ability to overcome challenges outside of the very narrow band of things which might age you to death, and another character might gain Skill Proficiency which provides a significant amount of ability to overcome challenges in all pillars of game-play, and another character still might gain High Magic which is even more potent an increase in ability to overcome challenges.

So, in my opinion, the best way to handle challenge estimation once you've reached the 20th+boons level of play is to not actually try to get a close estimation in the first place. Anything CR 20 or lower, unless encountered in significant numbers, is fully within the realm of expecting the party to be able to handle. Anything CR 21-30, the party can probably also handle unless found in numbers or with a lot of lesser creatures aiding them, they just have to be a touch more careful in selecting their strategy.

I haven't really tested the theory yet, but I expect that there isn't a point at which CR 21-30 creatures become non-challenging to the characters just because they've accumulated X number of epic boons, since even the benefits of epic boons are limited (ability scores don't go past 30, and each boon can only be taken once unless it specifies otherwise, which only the option to increase an ability score actually does).

You could convert the PCs to a CR rating. Then balance around that. A bit cumbersome, but its the only idea I can see working if you go straight boons.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You could convert the PCs to a CR rating. Then balance around that. A bit cumbersome, but its the only idea I can see working if you go straight boons.

Yeah... you could do that, but given the inherently inaccurate nature of CR, I'm not sure why that would be seen as any more useful than the simple, mathless method that I mentioned previously.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah... you could do that, but given the inherently inaccurate nature of CR, I'm not sure why that would be seen as any more useful than the simple, mathless method that I mentioned previously.

But at least this way they are both equally inaccurate, so it balances out right?!

And of course your suggestion isn't really a method at all. With stats up to 30 from boons (or just alternate progression I forget which) there can and will be a large change in difficult as the PCs gain more boons. So some method would be good, but it will never beat a good DM who knows his party and the adversaries she is throwing at them.