D&D 5E How do you keep your players going from "goblins to gods" in your games?

[MostlyDm]

I've had a house rule for hit point advancement bouncing around my head for a while that might help.

Characters only gain 1+Con mod HP per level (minimum of 1). Characters still have the normal amount of hit dice available to use during short rests.

Bounded accuracy means low level monsters can still hit PCs but hit point inflation means the damage becomes pretty negligible at higher levels. I'm hoping(Haven't actually tried it in play yet) that this rule addresses a few issues:
1) shortening combats by reducing the HP grind at high levels

2) make smaller encounters more deadly. At level 11 it takes 24 orcs to make a hard encounter for a party of 4 PCs which slows things down a ton

3) still let PCs handle more encounters before resting as they level up. Keeping the number hit dice the same means it's easier to get back to full health and keep going so there's less incentive to take a long rest.

Not sure if that helps but I wanted a way to extend the feeling that the lower levels have, where any one encounter can turn deadly and things like orcs and humans are a major threat, while still letting the PCs have the fun of leveling rather than stopping at a certain point. I also think this rule could pair well with the longer healing variant from the DMG if you wanted to slow down spell casters and other rest based abilities

Someone posted a pretty fantastic work in progress hack to HP and Hit dice in the homebrew forum a while back.

Basically everyone gets static, low, HP, and then hit dice are an active resource that you can choose to spend when hit to reduce the incoming damage.

It's very extreme, but it looked like a cool mod that might evoke the feel of E6/Savage Worlds/etc.

 

[n0nym]

Someone posted a pretty fantastic work in progress hack to HP and Hit dice in the homebrew forum a while back.

Do you have a link to this thread ? It looks interesting.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Someone posted a pretty fantastic work in progress hack to HP and Hit dice in the homebrew forum a while back.

Basically everyone gets static, low, HP, and then hit dice are an active resource that you can choose to spend when hit to reduce the incoming damage.

It's very extreme, but it looked like a cool mod that might evoke the feel of E6/Savage Worlds/etc.

That sounds like a very cool idea. It would make the term 'Hit dice' more appropriate. You got hit? Spend some dice!

 

[cmad1977]

This might be a little off topic but... My DM is using the 'silver standard'. Basically rewards come in silver instead of gold(though gold exists and items are costed in gold, silver is the standard monetary unit). We're only 3rd level, but it makes things like heavy armor/horses etc feel like luxuries. Kinda cool.

 

[MostlyDm]

Do you have a link to this thread ? It looks interesting.

Found it!
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469082-Vitality-Dice-A-damage-variant

I have several disagreements with the system as presented (which you can see if you read the whole thread!) but I love the core concept. Haven't had a chance to run it yet.

 

[Lejaun]

If a player can get to high levels, so can BBEG bosses who just might be in adventuring parties similar to the player. You don't to run everything straight out of the MM. A good BBEG is going to through out his fodder first, making players expend spells and abilities on the trash. Then he's going to trick the players into an environment favorable to him/her before engaging them.

Maybe your party can beat a dragon, but can they beat a dragon after going up against a treasure-hungry party of similar level who doesn't want to share the gold and treasure with them?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If a player can get to high levels, so can BBEG bosses who just might be in adventuring parties similar to the player.

Which means the BBEG is just as likely as any PC to die from some goofball crit by a giant, or accidentally get disintegrated in the bottom of some dungeon where nobody will find the remains for 7d20+14 years.

 

[S'mon]

If a player can get to high levels, so can BBEG bosses who just might be in adventuring parties similar to the player. You don't to run everything straight out of the MM. A good BBEG is going to through out his fodder first, making players expend spells and abilities on the trash. Then he's going to trick the players into an environment favorable to him/her before engaging them.

Maybe your party can beat a dragon, but can they beat a dragon after going up against a treasure-hungry party of similar level who doesn't want to share the gold and treasure with them?

Or how about a flight of enemy knights, mounted on adult dragons? No gods needed.

From what I'm seeing in my Wilderlands game, 5e is exceptionally favourable to high level play where the PCs are powerful but still 'grounded'. My 11th-14th level group can storm a castle (with
luck), but for taking on an enemy army they still reckon they need their own army.
Quite unlike 3e/PF.

 

[jgsugden]

First: Pick up your DMG and read the sections on encounter design and treasure. Follow the guidelines. Many DMs are giving out far too much treasure, utilizing too few encounters per rest and otherwise giving their PCs too many 'legs up'. If you follow the guidelines, they feel like characters from Lord of the Rings rather than Superfriends.

Second: Feel free to slow down experience awards. A lot of people find levels 5 to 12 to be the sweet spot for adventuring. If so, make advancement through these levels slower and you get to enjoy it more with the same characters. If you feel that too much time spent at a certain level might end up boring players who want more evolution, use half levels. At the midpoint between levels they get some of the benefits of the next level, but not all. An easy version of this is to just give the hps for the next level out at the midpoint and everything else at the level.

Third: Limit relocation magic. Teleportation and plane shifting massively transform the game and give that feeling that anything is possible. Just cut these out of the game, or limit their use. 5E already does a good job of this by upping the level of teleportation magic relative to 3rd and earlier editions... but you can do it even further.

If you follow those three ideas, you can spend 8 hours a week role playing with a group and not feel like you need to put Gods across the battlefield to challenge them anytime in the first two years...