D&D 5E How viable is 5E to play at high levels?

[Tony Vargas]

... but it was a "harm" spell that essentially took her out.
...I think the real issue is compared to prior versions- she doesn't have damage resistance except against energy, she doesn't have any offensive or defensive spells (like Darkness or Silence), she has no "aura" attack, her AC is not that high when talking 15th level characters, and she doesn't have any summoned creatures BTB

And no % magic resistance to foil that 'Harm' spell?

 

[JeffB]

See, and IMO, I think her intelligence would matter quite a bit, because it opens the door to much greater tactical thinking. For example (and this is just a brief easy example off the top of my head), since we know she's usually around other demons, she would instruct them on tactics they normally aren't smart enough to think of on their own. Like telling two barlgura's to keep invisible until the party is within sight. Then have them leap and grapple the fighter types (maybe tossing them into lava pits, or even sacrificing themselves to bring the PC over the ravine along with them, etc) as the dretch pour out of hiding to act as minions that would have lots of attacks of opportunity if the PCs tried to move around and engage the marilith. Meanwhile, the marilith uses teleport to go right to the casters, making mincemeat of them with her grapple and 7 attacks. Her parry reaction (which can be used every turn) would give her an AC of 23, which is still pretty good even against level 16 PC attackers (that would have an average of +10 to hit assuming prof bonus and max attribute bonus). She would keep teleporting out of range of the PC melee types, who have the choice to keep chasing her at the cost of all those dretch AoO (assuming they've managed to break free of the grapping), or spend several rounds at the very least taking care of the minions, all the while she's in melee range grappling the squishy casters. A marilith has the potential to take out a wizard in one round. Even with rough averages, it would only take 2 rounds.

Keep in mind her Teleport is an Action. She either Teleports or Attacks, cannot do both.

It all sounds well on paper (on-screen), but in play she did not have the juice to back up her smarts.

 

[CapnZapp]

Now that I've looked at the DMG, I will point out this. It's so important, it's right up front in the introduction of the game:

"A Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats....As an actor, the DM plays the roles of the monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them. And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them....The D&D rules help you and other players have a good time, but the rules aren't in charge."

That right there tells you in clear terms that the game is not meant to just pit one monster stat block against the PCs, but are living beings that interact with each other as living beings normally would. That means genius opponents act like genius opponents and use their in-game knowledge and environment like a genius would. It's incredibly explicit that if RAW doesn't fit your needs as a group, you change and tweak them so they can.

The introduction is literally the job description of the DM. And like any other job description, if you refuse to do a large chunk of it because you just don't feel like it, then that's lazy (when I made that argument earlier). At the very least, if you choose to ignore these aspects of the DM's job and just want to run a combat sim (which is perfectly OK if that's what your group wants), then you need to understand that you are deviating from how the game is designed, and therefore you need to make tweaks accordingly and not blame the designers as at fault.

What I mean by that, in the context of this discussion, is that a group of orcs that just engage in combat like pieces on a game board is going to be much less challenging that a group of orcs that use tactics or the environment to their advantage (setting up traps, or funneling the PCs into desired areas, etc). The game assumes, per the job description of the DM, that you as the DM will be doing these things. If you don't, then no wonder why monsters seem less challenging.

Sigh. Nobody reading this thread doesn't already know that, Sac.

All I'm saying is that you can't argue that when you increase a single secondary number of a stat block (the Int score) that is sufficient to increase its CR.

That has nothing to do with what you quote from the books.

 

[CapnZapp]

You just said high stat scores (like INT) need to be in the stat block. Now you're saying they shouldn't be. Which is it?

Don't be absurd. It can and should be in the stat block. It has no greater weight than any other number. For the purposes of the CR, all it does is make the monster better at knowledge skills and resisting Feeblemind.

It does not get to replace the designer's work.

The designer does not get to go "oh, I need to get home to my dog and my TV, but I still have to finish off this monster. I realize it's kind of weak for its CR, but instead of giving it a new cool power, or bluntly up its damage, how about I just double its INT score, and then Sacrosanct will do the rest of the work for me? Sweet."

If you really had done all the work you say us DMs need to do when we spot an Int 20, and worked at WotC so you had written it all down right there, in the MM stat block, then and only then I would agree with you.

 

[CapnZapp]

So what you're saying here is that the timing and environment and tactics can make a big difference?

Weird.

No I am giving a data point to Sacrosanct that messes with his theory that I'm a badwrongfun DM

(Btw, what on earth makes you ask that question. Have I said that timing and environment and tactics can't make a difference? )

 

[CapnZapp]

No I'm not. I'm not the one saying they are broken. I am curious to know how CapnZapp can hold opposite positions, however, especially within a short period of saying each one. He said high stats should be reflecting in the stat block, then immediately said they shouldn't be. So I am honestly curious as to how he would like for that to be reflective

You are one seriously confused poster.

Only you seem to have trouble with my position.

5e Mariliths are disappointingly incapable.

The description says

These demons possess keen minds and a finely honed
sense of tactics, and they are able to lead and unite
other demons in common cause. Mariliths are often
encountered as captains at the head of a demonic horde,
where they embrace any opportunity to rush headlong
into battle.

Okay, so they can be encountered in the company of other demons. That does not change their CR.

The long and short of it is that Mariliths used to possess great abilities that did enable them to "rush headlong into battle", but that 5e stripped them of these powers.

In the high level combat environment they are simply hopelessly outclassed.

Basing a CR on just damage input and output is laughably simplistic. At high levels, what matters most is the monster's ability to project its threat. As a chiefly melee mob, the Marilith needed those powers it used to have.

Without them, all it remains is a simple bruiser. To be effective, simple bruisers need to be employed either in numbers (which goes against the role we all want a Marilith to play) or against a sufficiently low-leveled party. All that counts is the question "will one of them be able to reach the party members in melee".

If the answer is no, its CR is hopelessly overblown.

Its INT score cannot and does not change this fact all by itself.

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't think that's very good design work on WOTCs part.

Thank you.

 

[CapnZapp]

See, and IMO, I think her intelligence would matter quite a bit, because it opens the door to much greater tactical thinking. For example (and this is just a brief easy example off the top of my head), since we know she's usually around other demons, she would instruct them on tactics they normally aren't smart enough to think of on their own. Like telling two barlgura's to keep invisible until the party is within sight. Then have them leap and grapple the fighter types (maybe tossing them into lava pits, or even sacrificing themselves to bring the PC over the ravine along with them, etc) as the dretch pour out of hiding to act as minions that would have lots of attacks of opportunity if the PCs tried to move around and engage the marilith. Meanwhile, the marilith uses teleport to go right to the casters, making mincemeat of them with her grapple and 7 attacks. Her parry reaction (which can be used every turn) would give her an AC of 23, which is still pretty good even against level 16 PC attackers (that would have an average of +10 to hit assuming prof bonus and max attribute bonus). She would keep teleporting out of range of the PC melee types, who have the choice to keep chasing her at the cost of all those dretch AoO (assuming they've managed to break free of the grapping), or spend several rounds at the very least taking care of the minions, all the while she's in melee range grappling the squishy casters. A marilith has the potential to take out a wizard in one round. Even with rough averages, it would only take 2 rounds.

PLEASE Sacrosanct - you cannot include other monsters in the Marilith's Challenge Rating.

And your teleport tactic would be GREAT. Except she doesn't get Teleport as a bonus action. She can't dish out ANY damage in the round where she teleports. She teleports to the Wizard. The Wizard teleports away. Now its her turn again.

She can't teleport out of range of melee types, unless that is all she want to do in the fight. Note she has zero ability to deal damage at range. That's always a critical weakness, but is she given ANY tools to make sure she gets to dish out her signature melee damage? Nope. None. (Unless you again bring in adds)

Her Parry is only good against ONE attack per turn. While this is far from bad in general, it does her absolutely no good against a party fighter that decides he's had enough of her. As long as the party is level 11 (a fair assumption), she can only block one out of six attacks. (Yes, I'm talking about Action Surge. And at level 15, for a sufficiently minmaxed fighter, that number could be one out of nine).

I can understand she's very dangerous in your dream scenario, Sanct, but to make her stat block actually support that scenario, I need to do the designer's job for them. Try these quick fixes:

Teleport (recharge 5-6) The marilith uses her bonus action to magically teleport, along with any
equipment or creature it is wearing or carrying or grappling, up to 120 feet to an
unoccupied space it can see.

That change alone means a huge jump in actual challenge. Want more. Let's suggest we add back just one of three of the things she needs from the work of previous, more competent, designers: Mislead, Crishing Coils, and Unholy Aura.

Let me take you through each of them, step by step:

Mislead as per the 5e spell, allowing her to sneak up on the party while sending their melee types on a wild goose chase. Even a single round is gold in high-level combats. This spell, even if she only gets 1/day does wonders to enhance her reputation as a snaky sneaky bitch

Crushing Coils (Ex)

A creature that takes damage from a marilith’s constrict attack must succeed on a DC 25 Fortitude save or lose consciousness for 1d8 rounds. The save DC is Strength-based.

This is Pathfinder, so don't look too closely at the mechanics and numbers, but you get the idea - if she can start taking people OUT of the fight, she's that much closer to earning her status as described.

A third suggestion would be to give her (back) the ability to cast
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/unholyAura.htm

This is because every objective analyst of the 5e Marilith stat block immediately notices a complete lack of a buffing capability. If she can't enhance her troops, what kind of leader is she?

Are you really so blinded to your desire that 5th edition be flawless that you truly can't see the objective flaws and weaknesses in her design...?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Sigh. Nobody reading this thread doesn't already know that, Sac.

Then why do you insist on ignoring it? If you acknowledge you know about it (playing NPCs and monsters as they were living beings with personality and intelligence appropriate to their stats, and tweaking the rules to fit your style), then I must assume you intentionally are refusing to do it. That seems a you issue, and not a game issue.

All I'm saying is that you can't argue that when you increase a single secondary number of a stat block (the Int score) that is sufficient to increase its CR.

If a creature's strength goes from a 0 bonus to a +4 bonus, that is enough to increase the CR. Why should INT be excluded from that, especially when INT has such a huge impact?

CR is based on a creature's challenge. It's right there in what CR stand for: CHALLENGE rating. How you are advised to play a monster very much affects how challenging it is. And since the DM's guide tells you right up front what a DM's job is (to breath life into monsters and play them as actual creatures), you are literally instructed to play the monster as challenging as a high INT monster would be.

Between your responses here, and that thread I linked to where you described your gaming style, it seems like you refuse to either incorporate or acknowledge the impact something like intelligence can have in an encounter. More than just me has said how intelligence can make a huge difference in how challenging an encounter is. And we gave examples as to why. All I have to go on is that thread of your example of game play, where you played high level NPCs as incompetent morons. That sounds harsh, but it's true. They had no planning, no preparation, didn't react at all like an intelligent creature would in combat, no personality, and even engaged in behavior directly counter to what they normally would have done. That is mind blowing to me because you're constantly saying how your group are optimizers, but then play the NPCs and monsters incompetently. Then when I combine that with your responses here, where you say things like "all it (INT) does is make the monster better at knowledge skills and resisting Feeblemind.", I'm left with an impression that the concept and instructions given to us on how to DM is either a concept you just don't get, or you refuse to acknowledge it. That's what "breathing life into monsters" means. It means role-playing them as more than just a combat stat block. It means intelligence is much more impactful than just a skill check or resisting feeblemind.

It does not get to replace the designer's work.
.

I admit I might be a bit biased since I am a designer myself. But this is getting old, fast. I am really tired of you blaming the designers for your shortcomings or preferred style of play. It seems clear to me that you prefer to play D&D with the monsters as nothing but game pieces with no actual thought or personality tied with them. Judging by the example we have from that thread, you also neuter them in effectiveness. That's great. You can do that. There's nothing wrong with that because it's the style you prefer. I'm not calling that "badwrong". But what is wrong is when you insist on ignoring how the game is designed to be played, and then constantly attack the designers as being lazy or incompetent. I posted the quote out of the DM's guide about what the DM's job description is because it's important. It directly tells us how we are supposed to play NPCs and monsters. I.e., treat them as living creatures and play them as they would normally act. That means a genius monster is going to be played like a genius monster, and do things a genius would do both in and out of combat, which very much affects the challenge of a particular encounter. You either don't get that concept, or refuses to acknowledge it by your adamant position that INT doesn't matter and only affects mechanical things despite people clearly explaining how that isn't true.

The bottom line is you still refuse to take any ownership of your style of play, ignoring the instructions on what a DM's job is, and then blame the design team. That's what I have an issue with, and what I would describe as "badwrong". Not your style of gameplay, but your continued insistence that your deviation from the way the game is designed is the design team's fault, and your refusal to tweak the game as you need due to your style of gameplay (also right there as an instruction of what a DM should do, that I quoted above). Ignoring flavor text and how a monster would act, and refusing to tweak the rules to fit your style (both things clearly in the DM job description) is 100% on you. Own it. Stop insulting the design team. More than just me has asked you to put up or shut up on this topic. That if you have all the answers and know all the best ways to design a game, to show your work. Do it. Prove it. Where is your stuff on the DM's guild or DTRPG?

 

[CapnZapp]

Then why do you insist on ignoring it? If you acknowledge you know about it (playing NPCs and monsters as they were living beings with personality and intelligence appropriate to their stats, and tweaking the rules to fit your style), then I must assume you intentionally are refusing to do it. That seems a you issue, and not a game issue.



If a creature's strength goes from a 0 bonus to a +4 bonus, that is enough to increase the CR. Why should INT be excluded from that, especially when INT has such a huge impact?

CR is based on a creature's challenge. It's right there in what CR stand for: CHALLENGE rating. How you are advised to play a monster very much affects how challenging it is. And since the DM's guide tells you right up front what a DM's job is (to breath life into monsters and play them as actual creatures), you are literally instructed to play the monster as challenging as a high INT monster would be.

Between your responses here, and that thread I linked to where you described your gaming style, it seems like you refuse to either incorporate or acknowledge the impact something like intelligence can have in an encounter. More than just me has said how intelligence can make a huge difference in how challenging an encounter is. And we gave examples as to why. All I have to go on is that thread of your example of game play, where you played high level NPCs as incompetent morons. That sounds harsh, but it's true. They had no planning, no preparation, didn't react at all like an intelligent creature would in combat, no personality, and even engaged in behavior directly counter to what they normally would have done. That is mind blowing to me because you're constantly saying how your group are optimizers, but then play the NPCs and monsters incompetently. Then when I combine that with your responses here, where you say things like "all it (INT) does is make the monster better at knowledge skills and resisting Feeblemind.", I'm left with an impression that the concept and instructions given to us on how to DM is either a concept you just don't get, or you refuse to acknowledge it. That's what "breathing life into monsters" means. It means role-playing them as more than just a combat stat block. It means intelligence is much more impactful than just a skill check or resisting feeblemind.





I admit I might be a bit biased since I am a designer myself. But this is getting old, fast. I am really tired of you blaming the designers for your shortcomings or preferred style of play. It seems clear to me that you prefer to play D&D with the monsters as nothing but game pieces with no actual thought or personality tied with them. Judging by the example we have from that thread, you also neuter them in effectiveness. That's great. You can do that. There's nothing wrong with that because it's the style you prefer. I'm not calling that "badwrong". But what is wrong is when you insist on ignoring how the game is designed to be played, and then constantly attack the designers as being lazy or incompetent. I posted the quote out of the DM's guide about what the DM's job description is because it's important. It directly tells us how we are supposed to play NPCs and monsters. I.e., treat them as living creatures and play them as they would normally act. That means a genius monster is going to be played like a genius monster, and do things a genius would do both in and out of combat, which very much affects the challenge of a particular encounter. You either don't get that concept, or refuses to acknowledge it by your adamant position that INT doesn't matter and only affects mechanical things despite people clearly explaining how that isn't true.

The bottom line is you still refuse to take any ownership of your style of play, ignoring the instructions on what a DM's job is, and then blame the design team. That's what I have an issue with, and what I would describe as "badwrong". Not your style of gameplay, but your continued insistence that your deviation from the way the game is designed is the design team's fault, and your refusal to tweak the game as you need due to your style of gameplay (also right there as an instruction of what a DM should do, that I quoted above). Ignoring flavor text and how a monster would act, and refusing to tweak the rules to fit your style (both things clearly in the DM job description) is 100% on you. Own it. Stop insulting the design team. More than just me has asked you to put up or shut up on this topic. That if you have all the answers and know all the best ways to design a game, to show your work. Do it. Prove it. Where is your stuff on the DM's guild or DTRPG?

Nothing you say or do change the basic facts:

If a doubling from Strength 10 to Strength 20 is enough to increase the CR, it is because the monster makes strength-based attacks, and the resulting attack bonus or damage passes some threshold in the CR calculation.

Conversely, if a doubling of Int should lead to an increase in CR, it needs to be because the creature makes Int-based attacks (say, spells) and the increased save DC passes some internal threshold.

In this way, the Int increase is indistinguishable from, say, a Charisma increase.

Intelligence is *not* a magic number that miraculously makes the monster use different tactics or allies. None of that is in the actual design, numbers and words on paper.

In your reply you completely ignore all the objective fact-based complaints. At this point let me remind you that you can always put forumists you disagree with on your ignore list.

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