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How viable is 5E to play at high levels?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7215022" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>First of all, I was in several different games with different styles and different assumptions about play. Secondly, the treasure and ability scores and the like I'm describing are in the same scale as the pregenerated characters in "Isle of the Ape", which you claimed familiarity with and called out as a good example of high level 1e play. Granted, the characters are for the most part poorly designed given the amount of XP and ability scores that they have, and for the same XP, same abilities, and same equipment you could have a much more potent party, but it's still in the same scale of what I'm talking about. Thirdly, if you read the thread, I note that in practice rarely will high level characters have everything that they want, but that if characters can generate even 1/2 of the damage in my examples, then 6-8 characters can kill pretty much every published monster in one round. Even half of my examples results in a party of 6-8 doing around 300 damage a round to almost anything. Fourthly, going back to your example of "Isle of the Ape", to obtain that degree of challenge all of the following occurred:</p><p></p><p>a) Gygax gave all of the NPC's basically maximum hit points per level (for example, shamans had 10 hit points per HD) and cheesed the demographics to insane levels.</p><p>b) Gygax invented new rules, publishing a much needed extension to the monster 'to hit' table that took the table beyond 16HD, given high HD monsters some ability to hit high AC PC's. (Note the AC's of the PC's run from about -4 to -8, which would generally mean even 12HD monsters would struggle to generate a meaningful amount of damage). </p><p>c) Gygax created a dungeon in a special demiplane that can destroy the PCs gear eliminating at a stroke much of the advantage that PC's can expect to have over foes. And like many demiplanes, it has its own laws regarding magic that eliminate some of the more potent end game spells and strategies that PC's might otherwise have access to. The environment also forces extremely high spell attrition on the party, forcing them to rely on magic for most essentials and leaving few spells in reserve for combat. Essentially everything is worse than the worst natural environment described in the DMG.</p><p>d) Gygax published new more potent monsters (the Gargantuan Apes) as well as questionably balanced spells ('serpent missiles' and 'log to lizard') to give NPC's more fighting punch.</p><p></p><p>In short, Gygax did basically the sort of creative things that I said a DM would have to do to challenge a high level party at the end of my essay I linked to and Gygax had in mind what a high level party would look like that looks very much like what I have described.</p><p></p><p>As for the rest, of your comments, read the freaking rules. By your own calculations an archer can fire for 24 damage per arrow when within 30'. On page 18 of the Unearthed Arcana it clearly shows that a 13th level fighter or ranger specialized in the bow can fire 4 arrows per round, which is an average damage of about 91 damage per round assuming hit on a 2 or better (which for most monsters is reasonable). That's one character out of 6, without having to pop haste and burn a year of age or anything you might do if facing off against a BBEG. Six characters with similar process will therefore do like 540 damage per round. Again, even if we assume the characters are half as effective as what you consider the optimal case, that is still 270 damage per round - enough to one shot Demogorgon or Asmodeus, or enough to kill multiple 16HD creatures per round.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7215022, member: 4937"] First of all, I was in several different games with different styles and different assumptions about play. Secondly, the treasure and ability scores and the like I'm describing are in the same scale as the pregenerated characters in "Isle of the Ape", which you claimed familiarity with and called out as a good example of high level 1e play. Granted, the characters are for the most part poorly designed given the amount of XP and ability scores that they have, and for the same XP, same abilities, and same equipment you could have a much more potent party, but it's still in the same scale of what I'm talking about. Thirdly, if you read the thread, I note that in practice rarely will high level characters have everything that they want, but that if characters can generate even 1/2 of the damage in my examples, then 6-8 characters can kill pretty much every published monster in one round. Even half of my examples results in a party of 6-8 doing around 300 damage a round to almost anything. Fourthly, going back to your example of "Isle of the Ape", to obtain that degree of challenge all of the following occurred: a) Gygax gave all of the NPC's basically maximum hit points per level (for example, shamans had 10 hit points per HD) and cheesed the demographics to insane levels. b) Gygax invented new rules, publishing a much needed extension to the monster 'to hit' table that took the table beyond 16HD, given high HD monsters some ability to hit high AC PC's. (Note the AC's of the PC's run from about -4 to -8, which would generally mean even 12HD monsters would struggle to generate a meaningful amount of damage). c) Gygax created a dungeon in a special demiplane that can destroy the PCs gear eliminating at a stroke much of the advantage that PC's can expect to have over foes. And like many demiplanes, it has its own laws regarding magic that eliminate some of the more potent end game spells and strategies that PC's might otherwise have access to. The environment also forces extremely high spell attrition on the party, forcing them to rely on magic for most essentials and leaving few spells in reserve for combat. Essentially everything is worse than the worst natural environment described in the DMG. d) Gygax published new more potent monsters (the Gargantuan Apes) as well as questionably balanced spells ('serpent missiles' and 'log to lizard') to give NPC's more fighting punch. In short, Gygax did basically the sort of creative things that I said a DM would have to do to challenge a high level party at the end of my essay I linked to and Gygax had in mind what a high level party would look like that looks very much like what I have described. As for the rest, of your comments, read the freaking rules. By your own calculations an archer can fire for 24 damage per arrow when within 30'. On page 18 of the Unearthed Arcana it clearly shows that a 13th level fighter or ranger specialized in the bow can fire 4 arrows per round, which is an average damage of about 91 damage per round assuming hit on a 2 or better (which for most monsters is reasonable). That's one character out of 6, without having to pop haste and burn a year of age or anything you might do if facing off against a BBEG. Six characters with similar process will therefore do like 540 damage per round. Again, even if we assume the characters are half as effective as what you consider the optimal case, that is still 270 damage per round - enough to one shot Demogorgon or Asmodeus, or enough to kill multiple 16HD creatures per round. [/QUOTE]
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