D&D 5E Is 5e the ultimate D&D system for a true sandbox campaign?

[ExploderWizard]

If that's the acid test then I can say with some small amount of experience that it's already working. Adventurer's League play has level disparity (albeit only a difference between 1 to 3 levels that I've seen so far) in it and doesn't seem to suffer from it in the slightest.

Of course, it must also be considered that the first three levels are lightening fast. It starts to slow down from 3rd to 4th and it's really noticeable from 4th to 5th. By the time a few PCs are at 5th, the others will easily have caught up to at least 3rd. I don't see huge level disparities occurring until at least the 10th level where the jump to 11th is quite massive.

Good to hear! I can't wait to see how things turn out.

 

[The_Gneech]

I haven't gotten a chance to try it at the table yet, but on paper at least I'm loving the flattened power curve. As nice as the XP-based encounter building systems have been, I would really like to be able to just put down "the monsters that should be there" and be done!

-The Gneech

 

[ExploderWizard]

I haven't gotten a chance to try it at the table yet, but on paper at least I'm loving the flattened power curve. As nice as the XP-based encounter building systems have been, I would really like to be able to just put down "the monsters that should be there" and be done!

-The Gneech

That is kind of the approach I have taken. Due to varying numbers of players showing up at different sessions and not knowing where they intend to explore and when, I have populated the adventure locales largely by setting logic. There are places they might bulldoze through with a full large party and other places that will probably be the end of several characters if they aren't careful even with a full party. I barely glanced at the encounter building guidelines while preparing the adventure areas.

 

[Quartz]

But then... the challenge to the DM, is to make such encounters give the players a change to recognize they shouldn't fight.

Spot on.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think bounded accuracy works great both ways. Yes, as others have said, it means that a horde of orcs is threatening to a high-level party, which is useful. By the same token, though, a dozen militiamen with crossbows are (somewhat) dangerous to a dragon. So if your sandbox has a village being terrorized by a dragon, a level 10 party can track him to his lair and kill him themselves, but a level 2 party might have a social challenge of rallying the villagers and organizing defenses to take him down en masse. The higher-level party takes on a greater challenge and is rewarded accordingly with dragon loot, but even the low-level party can be heroes. (And, of course, eight levels later when they can take on the same dragon in a straight-up battle, or eighteen levels later when the fighter can take one down in a single round, the memory of that desperate village defense makes their newfound bad assery all the cooler.)