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How viable is 5E to play at high levels?
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<blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7214414" data-attributes="member: 15700"><p>I think you seriously need to go back and look at the 1e books again before responding. You have some serious errors there. For example, any monster with more than 10 or so HD is probably going to have as much HP as any PC. When you get into the teens, that's almost assured, even for the fighter, because PCs only get 1-3 hp per level after 9th, and monsters keep getting 1d8 for infinity. Except dragons, which is determined by age. So an ancient dragon of the same HD as that fighter will have 80 hp. This is important, because that means the dragon does 80hp of damage with it's breath weapon. Enough to kill any PC that fails it's save, and most PCs that make their save. Outright.</p><p></p><p>I also suggest you read the entire description of slow poison, and not just bold the top part because the last part is probably the most important. It doesn't <em>cure </em>the poison. After those turns are up, you need to have been cured or you're still dead. Looking at typical AD&D adventures and monsters, it's entirely possible to have to make poison saves several times in an adventuring day, from the plethora of traps or the numerous monsters that have poison attacks. And that's not even considering all of the petrification or other instant death saves.</p><p></p><p>Speaking of saves, even with magic items (you must be playing monty haul if you factor in every PC having several items that give saving throws), that's only a few points added to your save roll. If you still fail on a 5 or lower, that's still a failure of 25% of the time. Not odds I'm comfortable with sine failure often means instant death.</p><p></p><p>And yeah, I know UA pretty much guarantees an 18 stat in your primary attributes, but none of that takes away from the list of things I gave earlier.</p><p></p><p>And you definitely must be smoking something if you think high level monsters pretty much need a natural 20 to hit higher level PCs. A 12 HD monster needs a 9 to hit AC 0. 12th level PCs didn't have ACs of -10 (the max) for all party members.</p><p></p><p>The <em>only </em>way your argument holds any water is if you played monty haul, and maxed out your PCs with the best magic items and gear extremely soon. Using the rules, with random treasure generation, there is <em>no way</em> you would have your entire party decked out with +5 magic items. Statistically almost impossible. Go look at the gear most NPCs had for all of those modules, and it's pretty typical of what a PC would have.</p><p></p><p>I have played 1e continuously for 31 years. And I'm telling you, your assumptions are flawed. It is a lot less challenging to create challenging adventures for 1e PC above level 10 than it is in 5e for PCs above level 15. I don't have to change anything, unless I'm playing in a monty haul style of game. Which of course if I'm doing that and deviating from the expected assumption of play, of course I'd have to make changes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sacrosanct, post: 7214414, member: 15700"] I think you seriously need to go back and look at the 1e books again before responding. You have some serious errors there. For example, any monster with more than 10 or so HD is probably going to have as much HP as any PC. When you get into the teens, that's almost assured, even for the fighter, because PCs only get 1-3 hp per level after 9th, and monsters keep getting 1d8 for infinity. Except dragons, which is determined by age. So an ancient dragon of the same HD as that fighter will have 80 hp. This is important, because that means the dragon does 80hp of damage with it's breath weapon. Enough to kill any PC that fails it's save, and most PCs that make their save. Outright. I also suggest you read the entire description of slow poison, and not just bold the top part because the last part is probably the most important. It doesn't [I]cure [/I]the poison. After those turns are up, you need to have been cured or you're still dead. Looking at typical AD&D adventures and monsters, it's entirely possible to have to make poison saves several times in an adventuring day, from the plethora of traps or the numerous monsters that have poison attacks. And that's not even considering all of the petrification or other instant death saves. Speaking of saves, even with magic items (you must be playing monty haul if you factor in every PC having several items that give saving throws), that's only a few points added to your save roll. If you still fail on a 5 or lower, that's still a failure of 25% of the time. Not odds I'm comfortable with sine failure often means instant death. And yeah, I know UA pretty much guarantees an 18 stat in your primary attributes, but none of that takes away from the list of things I gave earlier. And you definitely must be smoking something if you think high level monsters pretty much need a natural 20 to hit higher level PCs. A 12 HD monster needs a 9 to hit AC 0. 12th level PCs didn't have ACs of -10 (the max) for all party members. The [I]only [/I]way your argument holds any water is if you played monty haul, and maxed out your PCs with the best magic items and gear extremely soon. Using the rules, with random treasure generation, there is [I]no way[/I] you would have your entire party decked out with +5 magic items. Statistically almost impossible. Go look at the gear most NPCs had for all of those modules, and it's pretty typical of what a PC would have. I have played 1e continuously for 31 years. And I'm telling you, your assumptions are flawed. It is a lot less challenging to create challenging adventures for 1e PC above level 10 than it is in 5e for PCs above level 15. I don't have to change anything, unless I'm playing in a monty haul style of game. Which of course if I'm doing that and deviating from the expected assumption of play, of course I'd have to make changes. [/QUOTE]
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