D&D 5E Let's talk about actually *creating* high-level content.

[fearsomepirate]

It is what it is. The dragon won't be asleep and they have Blindsight so if they manage to get a good sneak up on them it will be good because they thought ahead to get an advantage.

An acid lake won't be too far from it anyways so it can always use its wing attack to move away after the first hit and its lair actions helps keep things from being too smooth.

Or it gets obliterated round 1 because of something unexpected. It happens but that's the interesting part of high level play anyways. I'm not going to punish genuinely good strategy and teamwork since that's the most important and satisfying parts of D&D combat anyways.

Well, let us know how it goes.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It issue I have with high level adventures is not so much the big set piece battles as the everyday routine challenges between the epic throwdowns.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It is what it is. The dragon won't be asleep and they have Blindsight so if they manage to get a good sneak up on them it will be good because they thought ahead to get an advantage.

An acid lake won't be too far from it anyways so it can always use its wing attack to move away after the first hit and its lair actions helps keep things from being too smooth.

Or it gets obliterated round 1 because of something unexpected. It happens but that's the interesting part of high level play anyways. I'm not going to punish genuinely good strategy and teamwork since that's the most important and satisfying parts of D&D combat anyways.

I'm sure he's safe for the first round or so, though. If alot of pudding gets the jump on a party member, it could easily swing the other way into an easy kill setup.

If there seems to be a glaring weakness in the fight, though, like something incredibly obvious and boring, I'd be alright to hear it.

Um... at 17th level, this is going to be far too easy. Especially with prep.

You've got caster;s capable of turning into dragons, able to grant disadvantage on every single attack anything makes against the party. I mean, I can only guess what the party set-up is, but you have 9th level spells like Gate, Wish and Mass Heal on the table.

Edit: Just assuming a round 1 with a cleric, fighter, Wizard and Rogue. The party has pre-made buffs.

Cleric casts Summon Celestial @ 8th level, summoning a Celestial spirit that can make 4 attacks for 2d6+10, likely dishing out 68 damage

Fighter goes in with Foresight, advantage on all attacks, action surge and GWM can net us 12d6+90 for 138

(dragon is dead)

Wizard uses Sunbeam, getting 6d8 damage a turn, which is about 27 a turn

Rogue goes in and sneak attacks for, let us say Booming blade for 4d8+9d6+5 for about 55 more damage.


And I'm just guessing, and didn't include any magical items or even a lot of sublcass features.

The fight you are proposing would be a medium challenge for level 12 characters, an entire tier above? They are going to cakewalk this.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I'm just wrapping up a 20th level campaign. Here are my observations, for what it's worth.

So...what do we mean by "high level play"? I propose 13th level, when spells like Plane Shift and Resurrection change some fundamental assumptions about the nature of the game.

I've found that 17th to 20th level zip by in the blink of an eye. About as fast as levels 1 to 5. From a storytelling standpoint, you need to move quickly to wrap up loose threads and deliver the big climax (or three). It is not the time to introduce new challenges. Conversely, this means that by level 16 you want to resolve personal PC stories and put them at the pinnacle of their profession. They should have gotten revenge for their parent's murder, become high priest of the reconsecrated temple, unlocked the mysteries of the arcane grimoire, etc. Tier 4 is where they put those resources to work.

When it comes to encounter building, these are the challenges I've discovered:

Details! Counting squares for a 30 foot move feels kind of crappy in Tier 4. I've started handwaving distances. Actually, I've started handwaving most details and being loose with the action economy. It really doesn't matter if you break the game when you only have 10 sessions left and Tiamat is flaming you with 5 breath weapons attacks each round.

Maps! Most maps from pre-published adventures have a lot of 10 foot corridors and 20x20 rooms. They're not epic. Honestly, they're not that great even at low levels, and at higher levels they become simply unacceptable. Since I'm not the guy to make my own maps, I've started pulling pics of epic fantasy art to frame the action and inspire my players to go big.

Minions! Minions are important to make Tier 4 characters feel suitably epic. 5E doesn't have minions and their intended formula ("just use lower CR monsters") doesn't really work...and for sure doesn't work in Tier 4. Low CR monsters have hit bonuses that are too small to hit and do too little damage. High CR monsters have too many hit points. Even at high levels, most martials only do about 20hp damage per hit (with abilities to spike that). This means that any creature with more than 20 hit points takes more than a single hit to drop....and if it can take more than one hit, it's not a minion. I've started developing some mini stat blocks for minions in each Tier that I will trial in my next campaign. Basically, Tier 4 minions need the HP and AC of a CR 1 monster with the to hit and damage numbers of a CR 13 monster.

Bosses! Boss monster design is inconsistent. CR 25 Bel wrecked my party (twice). CR 26 Zariel did not. Most bosses simply need to output more damage--they need to hit harder and more often. Legendary Actions and Legendary Resistances are a must. I'm also toying with "Legendary Attacks" that autohit for maximum damage and ignore immunities. That should put the fear of God into players. Bosses also need minions to divide the PCs attention. And terrain becomes important, too. Terrain is a big deal for keeping battles dynamic. I've had a very steep learning curve on terrain and it'll definitely be a focus of mine in future campaigns.

Overall I've enjoyed Tier 4 play. The core system math holds up even at high levels. But the DM needs a few more tools in the box to keep climactic encounters sufficiently exciting.

My apologies for overusing the word "epic".

 

[fearsomepirate]

Um... at 17th level, this is going to be far too easy. Especially with prep.

You've got caster;s capable of turning into dragons, able to grant disadvantage on every single attack anything makes against the party. I mean, I can only guess what the party set-up is, but you have 9th level spells like Gate, Wish and Mass Heal on the table.

Edit: Just assuming a round 1 with a cleric, fighter, Wizard and Rogue. The party has pre-made buffs.

Cleric casts Summon Celestial @ 8th level, summoning a Celestial spirit that can make 4 attacks for 2d6+10, likely dishing out 68 damage

Fighter goes in with Foresight, advantage on all attacks, action surge and GWM can net us 12d6+90 for 138

(dragon is dead)

Wizard uses Sunbeam, getting 6d8 damage a turn, which is about 27 a turn

Rogue goes in and sneak attacks for, let us say Booming blade for 4d8+9d6+5 for about 55 more damage.


And I'm just guessing, and didn't include any magical items or even a lot of sublcass features.

The fight you are proposing would be a medium challenge for level 12 characters, an entire tier above? They are going to cakewalk this.

Yeah, without putting too fine a gloss on it, the point I've been trying to make is that, despite the complexity of the setup, the party doesn't have to use teamwork or be clever. They can completely ignore the Black Puddings, who at that level are more dangerous when you hit them than when they attack you, and unless the dragon is going to gain surprise, use his breath weapon, and dive into the pool, it's over before it starts.

I ran an encounter a while back with a party of 3 vs an adult black dragon. It was a 15th level EK, a rogue, and a wizard (who were 12th or 13th level). The EK opened up with a >100 damage wallop, and the dragon went down in the second round.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, without putting too fine a gloss on it, the point I've been trying to make is that, despite the complexity of the setup, the party doesn't have to use teamwork or be clever. They can completely ignore the Black Puddings, who at that level are more dangerous when you hit them than when they attack you, and unless the dragon is going to gain surprise, use his breath weapon, and dive into the pool, it's over before it starts.

I ran an encounter a while back with a party of 3 vs an adult black dragon. It was a 15th level EK, a rogue, and a wizard (who were 12th or 13th level). The EK opened up with a >100 damage wallop, and the dragon went down in the second round.

That's part of the problem with high level play in 5e. High level has always gotten a little silly in any edition, but the explosive rests & wide array of "streamlined" systems cut to the bone or even amputated all stack up into a situation where players can just ignore any rube goldberg type hurdles & just nova things away with the most optimum combo of spells & abilities

 

[Asisreo]

Um... at 17th level, this is going to be far too easy. Especially with prep.

You've got caster;s capable of turning into dragons, able to grant disadvantage on every single attack anything makes against the party. I mean, I can only guess what the party set-up is, but you have 9th level spells like Gate, Wish and Mass Heal on the table.

Edit: Just assuming a round 1 with a cleric, fighter, Wizard and Rogue. The party has pre-made buffs.

Cleric casts Summon Celestial @ 8th level, summoning a Celestial spirit that can make 4 attacks for 2d6+10, likely dishing out 68 damage

Fighter goes in with Foresight, advantage on all attacks, action surge and GWM can net us 12d6+90 for 138

(dragon is dead)

Wizard uses Sunbeam, getting 6d8 damage a turn, which is about 27 a turn

Rogue goes in and sneak attacks for, let us say Booming blade for 4d8+9d6+5 for about 55 more damage.


And I'm just guessing, and didn't include any magical items or even a lot of sublcass features.

The fight you are proposing would be a medium challenge for level 12 characters, an entire tier above? They are going to cakewalk this.

Would it turn out like that? Maybe...

But its not something that I'd say is likely. Like I said, as soon as one round begins, the dragon will probably wing attack the nearest characters and dive into the acid, obscuring himself further. He'd also make liberal use of his lair actions to prevent sight-based spells as well as pressure the concentration of some characters.

The cleric probably won't have the reliquary required to summon a celestial. They'll have the money to afford it, sure, but their characters won't have the time or ability to actually purchase it.

Foresight is very generous of the wizard so I'd be glad if they managed so much damage with cooperation. Though previous encounters with Black Pudding may cause their to-hit and damage to take significant hits, possibly destroying whole equipment.

Again, its basically going to depend on how my players roll with what the dice might be shaking up.

 

[Nitrosaur]

I´m not going to try to convince you to change anything about your one shot, far from it, but maybe my experience could be useful, since I have ran a kinda simmilar encounter. The BBEG of my last and first campaing was an adult red shadow dragon, let´s name him Xiu. My players were 5 level 15 with a lot of powerful magic items, ranger, rogue, artificer, paladin and druid.

I buff dragons a lot, with a freebie attack as a reaction, a free breath attack at half health, an elemental aura, stronger spellcasting, new actions and legendary actions, you name it. He was also in possesion of the Ring of Winter, a very powerful artifact from ToA, and at the end of a very hard dungeon; the caldera of an active volcano, lava everywere, extreme heat dealing damage an exhaustion, toxic gas inflicting poison, efreeti, iron golems constantly healing because of the flames, githyanki and abishai squads, undead dragons, two different homebrew CR 19 monsters immune to fire and an arcanaloth with a bunch of yuan-ti, all of them serving the dragon with only one short rest halfway in. I also played the dragon like a true bastard, never landing and swimming in the lava, cornering the party in a small walkway were all of the party but the ranger were forced to take the breath weapon, killing the healer first, grabbing the PCs and sinking them into the lava, taking 18d10 fire damage... The dragon by himself, not taking the lava or the artifact into account was CR 22 or CR 23 with all of the buffs. He was a solo monster, but the part was absolutely spent.

They won, and the only one that died was the paladin, who was revived in the epilogue. They won by the skin of their teeth, but no one else dropped to 0. High level players can deal with things like that. My players defeated the dragon, so i wouldn´t be surprised if your players defeat your dragon easily.

On a related note, what other poster said, you can get crazy with the encounters at these levels, it´s great. We started another campaing, and while I gratly enjoy it, can´t wait to reach the high levels again.

 

[Stalker0]

So...what do we mean by "high level play"? I propose 13th level, when spells like Plane Shift and Resurrection change some fundamental assumptions about the nature of the game.

Its going to vary person to person of course. In general, I think that 9th is the very beginning of high level. That's when 5th level spells like Teleport Circle don't just make you "cooler" but start fundamentally changing the assumptions of how the game is run.

"Mainstay" high level starts at 11th, 6th level spells again bring an entire new tier of power to the game, and 5th level spells have gone from an "emergency button" to a "expected part of the encounters". Further, a lot of classes get some nice big buffs around 10-11th level.

I consider more "epic tier" around 15th. 8th level spells and some of the crazier class features, this is the point where I just assuming the party can basically handle anything with enough prep time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Would it turn out like that? Maybe...

But its not something that I'd say is likely. Like I said, as soon as one round begins, the dragon will probably wing attack the nearest characters and dive into the acid, obscuring himself further. He'd also make liberal use of his lair actions to prevent sight-based spells as well as pressure the concentration of some characters.

The cleric probably won't have the reliquary required to summon a celestial. They'll have the money to afford it, sure, but their characters won't have the time or ability to actually purchase it.

Foresight is very generous of the wizard so I'd be glad if they managed so much damage with cooperation. Though previous encounters with Black Pudding may cause their to-hit and damage to take significant hits, possibly destroying whole equipment.

Again, its basically going to depend on how my players roll with what the dice might be shaking up.

I would have imagined basic spell components wouldn't be something you'd require 17th level character to buy in a one-shot. If they are lacking anything that has a gold price tag on it, that cuts off a lot of spells, especially the high level ones they'd want to actually use for a one-shot.

Also, are you having them go in with completely mundane gear? Because that is the only way the Black Puddings are going to destroy anything.


17th level, but equipped like 1st level characters makes a big difference in how the fight plays out. Though, if your players are smart, they'll completely ignore the puddings, or have the casters deal with them, since the melee characters losing their weapons while the dragon is hiding in the acid is... just such bad tactics.