D&D 5E How much magic do you have in your game?

[DND_Reborn]

Without having tried it, I think it's probably a good starting point & would probably try it if I were still gm'ing 5e right now.

A side-effect is that since PCs can have 15 cap with standard array or point-buy, and only get higher than 16 through the racial ASI +2 (if you still use it LOL). So, PCs tend to near max-out the one or two scores that are really important early on and then focus on feats or shoring up weaknesses, which is good strategy in my book because otherwise I will exploit it!

 

[dave2008]

I think it is a nice balance. When you consider creatures like Ogres (STR 19) are large and supposed to be much stronger than a human could hope to be, a STR 16 cap (18 for "strong" races such as Half-Orc) makes sense and keeps it so items like Gauntlets of Ogre power would still be attractive to a human fighter with STR 16.

That is another thing I like about. We haven't changed it in our current campaign, but might try it in our next.

I actually did a little study of monsters, size, strength, and damage and came up with the following rule of thumb I use to design monsters (with some exceptions of course):

Size	Min. Strength	base damage
Medium	NA	1x (weapon), ex: 1d8
Large	19	1x (weapon), ex: 2d8
Huge	22	3x (weapon), ex: 3d8
Gargantuan	25	4x (weapon), ex: 4d8
Colossal	28	5x (weapon), ex. 5d8

Also, I would allow a PC with gauntlets of ogre power to do 2d8 + mod longsword damage on a hit.

 

[TwoSix]

That is another thing I like about. We haven't changed it in our current campaign, but might try it in our next.

I actually did a little study of monsters, size, strength, and damage and came up with the following rule of thumb I use to design monsters (with some exceptions of course):

Size	Min. Strength	base damage
Medium	NA	1x (weapon), ex: 1d8
Large	19	1x (weapon), ex: 2d8
Huge	22	3x (weapon), ex: 3d8
Gargantuan	25	4x (weapon), ex: 4d8
Colossal	28	5x (weapon), ex. 5d8

Also, I would allow a PC with gauntlets of ogre power to do 2d8 + mod longsword damage on a hit.

That's a handy little chart, I like that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

LOL, of course they did... Sorry, but that kind of design it was turned me off from D&D during 3E. I like the concept of prestige classes, but "epic" level never had any appeal to me--just not my style of game. shrug

I'll never understand this.

No one in my group wanted to play epic levels either, so we....didn't. You can play a whole campaign without ever leaving Heroic if you want, and it works fine.

Now, if the power progression was less extreme, we'd love to have 30 levels, but since each tier had a power jump beyond just the math scaling, we only ever played one campaign that planned to go that high, and we switched to 5e while it was still at level 14 or so.

 

[TwoSix]

No one in my group wanted to play epic levels either, so we....didn't. You can play a whole campaign without ever leaving Heroic if you want, and it works fine.

I'd argue 4e works best in mid-late Heroic, especially if you use themes.

 

[dave2008]

I'll never understand this.

No one in my group wanted to play epic levels either, so we....didn't. You can play a whole campaign without ever leaving Heroic if you want, and it works fine.

Now, if the power progression was less extreme, we'd love to have 30 levels, but since each tier had a power jump beyond just the math scaling, we only ever played one campaign that planned to go that high, and we switched to 5e while it was still at level 14 or so.

Yep, our regular campaign only got to level 11 in 4e after 4 years of play. However, we did several one-shot adventures at different levels, include an epic LVL 30 adventure where they group fought two gods.