D&D 5E (2014) How To Make High Level 5E Work.For You +

[billd91]

High level characters put out a lot of damage. The easiest way to boost high level monsters is to boost their hit points so they last longer. I did a lot of this in my high-level campaign.

 

[billd91]

I agree with all of this. Much of it is orthogonal to mechanics, though. If the fighter player wants his character to ascend to the throne, there is not much that the wizard can do to disrupt that through magic, I don't think. At best, GMs can remind players to respect one another's spotlight -- but that is true at all levels of play and not especially related to high level play, I don't think.

Considering people are always yapping on about casters' abilities to warp reality and how it increases with level (the ol' linear fighter/quadratic wizard chestnut), it's a particularly important principle to emphasize at high levels. Lower levels, when the power differential in that regard is lower, are better at taking care of themselves.

And many GMing tips, particularly at high levels, are going to be orthogonal to mechanics.

 

[billd91]

Don't allow silvery barbs as a spell in your campaign unless you're explicitly running Strixhaven. It just gets more and more annoying. Crits are a delight not just for players to get, but for DMs to finally lay a bit of smack down on a high hit point character. Don't let PCs take that away from you so cheaply.

 

[Reynard]

Considering people are always yapping on about casters' abilities to warp reality and how it increases with level (the ol' linear fighter/quadratic wizard chestnut), it's a particularly important principle to emphasize at high levels. Lower levels, when the power differential in that regard is lower, are better at taking care of themselves.

Fair enough. I am just having trouble imagining a concrete example of something that might occur in play. But, again, the overall point is good.

 

[TheSword]

I found one of my posts from a couple of years back about the Seven Maxims raised in AD&D’s High Level Campaigns accessory. It contained all sorts of weird and wonderful rules - 10th level magic etc. I still have my High Level Campaigns hardcover from AD&D. Ironically one of the few books i struggled to sell on eBay… I wonder why? Seven Maxims seems as relevant today as they did three decades ago.

- Don’t Depend on the Dice (At high level and high stakes randomness becomes less and less satisfying this ties back to the point about not relying on combat and the previous point about saving throws. Losing a character to a single bad roll or even a couple is pretty frustrating. So instead depend on decisions. Give players choices and let that be what determines what happens next rather than just a die roll.

- Intelligent Adversaries When you are running fights consider the opponent’s intelligence; review the creature’s weaknesses; review the creature’s strengths; prepare for defeat; minimise personal risks; don’t Fight Fair. It’s less about playing gimmicks though and more about making things surprising and unusual. The powerful villains either know about the PCs or are fast learners and take the PCs into account in their plans.

- Control Magic Use magical items as foes, make magic tempting, remove unwanted magical items, challenge spell memorization and acquisition with timers and long rest interruptions or limitations, understand magic’s limitations and use them to create interesting challenges.

- Be Aware of Demographics Understand the PCs place in the world. If high level characters are common then it’s one thing but they are likely not to be. @GuyBoy told me a story of a campaign he was a player in where the prison guards were all 20th level spellcasters. Implausible and lazy. Breaks immersion and is the same school of management as ‘rocks fall you die’.

- Think on an Epic Scale Heroes are not anonymous; heroes deserve heroic tasks that have reaching Impact. Kind of @EzekielRaiden ’s point about statues of the PCs and them having fame and clout. Really lean into that. One of the things that makes John Wick awesome is that everyone knows him.

- Plan Ahead Create villains who learn, have consequences, use fame and infamy, maintain the balancing act. Baldurs Gate series of CRPG have always been good at doing this with villains that are part of the local power structure and are equally known and respected by the PCs. Now killing the villain in their throne room may set the PCs against an entire community and leave them pariahs.

- Share Responsibility Garner player interest, have players set goals, form allies and enemies, give all NPCs personality. To run HLC don’t be afraid to offload some of the world building to Players. They will care more about NPcs that they had a hand in bringing to life. Avoid DMPCs like the plague. Give stuff to players.

Thought it was worth sharing these again.

 

[billd91]

High AC characters with a cloak of displacement suck. Fighters with high end magic armor, magic shields, and cloaks of displacement will annoy you. High AC is hard enough to hit without disadvantage in doing so - so you'll have to constantly work hard to strip that disadvantage from them to even that fight out a bit.

In general, PCs can accumulate some pretty substantial defensive gear over their levels. And that's good... to a point. There's a good reason defensive magic in the form of magic armor got a lot rarer in 5e than other editions. I think most people tend to worry about PCs having too much offense, but they can be unbalanced with defense as well.

 

[TheSword]

High AC characters with a cloak of displacement suck. Fighters with high end magic armor, magic shields, and cloaks of displacement will annoy you. High AC is hard enough to hit without disadvantage in doing so - so you'll have to constantly work hard to strip that disadvantage from them to even that fight out a bit.

In general, PCs can accumulate some pretty substantial defensive gear over their levels. And that's good... to a point. There's a good reason defensive magic in the form of magic armor got a lot rarer in 5e than other editions. I think most people tend to worry about PCs having too much offense, but they can be unbalanced with defense as well.

Yeah the two most unbalancing things in the game are ridiculous ACs and ridiculous spell/abilities DCs. Both trivialize the game to one extent or another.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

High level mosters can have a glut of abilities and features, bells and whistles, but too many in the same fight will almost gaurantee you will forget something as the GM that could have made the fight more interesting or tense. Thus, try to limit the amount of complicated monsters in fights. Scary-high and constant damage keeps the pressure on high-level PCs like nothing else.

I've also become a fan of not rolling damage for monsters at high levels; too many dice. The times I've used average damage went so much better/faster.

This is really a tip for almost any game I've played. If your NPCs have too many abilities, you are going to forget some of them. Keep it simple and have some helpful pointers on when to use them. I think especially stuff that happens every turn like regeneration/fast healing can be easy to forget IMO.

I think mechanics like "multi-phasic" bosses might actually help here, though - in total, you have a lot more abilities, but per phase, only a few are active. Now you only need to remember that they're multi-phasic, though.

 

[J-H]

High level characters put out a lot of damage. The easiest way to boost high level monsters is to boost their hit points so they last longer. I did a lot of this in my high-level campaign.

Related: In my Baldur's Gate II game, HP growth followed the 2e model. After level 10 you get 3, 2, or 1 hp per level based on your character class. Nobody's ever going to crack 200hp without an epic boon, and the casters are still a little under 100hp at level 17. This keeps the players from getting arrogant and just tanking multiple fireballs. The cleric was actually pretty happy to have a chance to pick up Absorb Elements (although it still wasn't enough to keep him from being basically one-shotted by Meteor Swarm when they ran into a serious spellcaster).

High AC characters with a cloak of displacement suck. Fighters with high end magic armor, magic shields, and cloaks of displacement will annoy you. High AC is hard enough to hit without disadvantage in doing so - so you'll have to constantly work hard to strip that disadvantage from them to even that fight out a bit.

In general, PCs can accumulate some pretty substantial defensive gear over their levels. And that's good... to a point. There's a good reason defensive magic in the form of magic armor got a lot rarer in 5e than other editions. I think most people tend to worry about PCs having too much offense, but they can be unbalanced with defense as well.

Enemies can get higher to-hits than PCs, and often have easier access to Pack Tactics.
Notice we're seeing complaints about "fighters too hard to kill" and "fighters doing too much damage" here? 5e's higher levels are much more balanced than 3.5's were.
The sorcerer in my BG2 game is achieving some of his best damage by acting like a fighter (polymorph to giant crocodile, or Bhaal slayer form; literally defeated the BBEG one time by transforming and then tackling them both off a treetop to take 20d6 falling damage; Feather Fall doesn't help when you're being carried down by a 1500lb avatar of murder that's also trying to bite you for 3d12+x damage during the fall).

 

[billd91]

Enemies can get higher to-hits than PCs, and often have easier access to Pack Tactics.
Notice we're seeing complaints about "fighters too hard to kill" and "fighters doing too much damage" here? 5e's higher levels are much more balanced than 3.5's were.

Enemies can get access to pack tactics but that ability tends to be given to lower-CR creatures - which is good. They'll need that to appropriately threaten PCs at lower levels. But by the time they're facing the high AC/displaced PC, they're often only hitting on 20s anyway. Higher CR monsters don't generally get pack tactics.

And, yes, 5e has improved balance between casters and martials all the way up the level chain. And that's why a high level fighter can become a legitimate balance concern, particularly if their defensive prowess starts to outstrip their companions which puts you, as DM, at risk of overtuning a monster to prove a suitable challenge to the fighter. In the high level campaign I ran, I think I put the fear of god in the fighter only twice between 13th level and 20th - once when the lich dispelled their magnificent mansion so he had to fight without his armor, and a second time as a warlock spammed enough eldritch blasts at him to hit and hurl him through hell.
Don't get me wrong, I approve of the way the fighters are formidable at high level. I'd just prefer either high AC OR the cloak of displacement - not both at the same time.