D&D 5E Looking for Campaigns for 14+ level PCs

[dave2008]

Really? The Banishment spell really ruins that situation for me... :/

I hear people say that, I guess I am lucky - none of my players have it!

 

[Reynard]

No, I know what Banishment does, believe me. So do my players, who protect the Banish-er with greater ferocity than they would for any princess!

Casting it at 5th level gets 2 targets, which is more than enough. A random Hard encounter for 4 17th level PCs would be 2 Barbed Devils, 1 Chain Devil, and 1 Bone Devil. The last two get banished, leaving only the Barbed Devils, who are now easily dispatched.

So, yeah, a bunch of lower level fiends would make more sense...but then you're going through the motions of lots of attacks that are destined to miss, which isn't terribly exciting (at least in my group, the players hate facing hordes, even though they love fireball).

If you are going to cater encounters to the players win condition preferences then you can't really complain that the encounters aren't satisfying. 5E is really bad at single opponents. PCs punch way above their weight class when they don't have to distribute their action economy. Even more so if they get to nova. In my experience, there should be at least one foe per PC, usually 1.5.

 

[dave2008]

Then they are not really CR 3 anymore though, right?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's the way to go; I'm just sympathizing with Paul about how BA doesn't really work as presented...or, it does, but having a ton-load of low CR mooks hoping to roll 19 or 20 really slows the game down.

It is not so hard for a group of mooks to roll a 15-16 which is the highest they would need to hit my player with the highest AC. Couple with the fact I often pre-roll large groups and it even easier when it is easy for a large group of mooks to get advantage on attacks, we haven't had any issue with running the large groups of monsters needed to challenge a high level group.

 

[Reynard]

I hear people say that, I guess I am lucky - none of my players have it!

When people complain about banishment online, they rarely acknowledge that it has a save and most creatures you use it against have magic resistance.

 

[dave2008]

It also makes the fights slower and harder to keep track of when you have half-a-dozen stat blocks to keep track of.

For some yes, others not so much.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

roll a 15-16 which is the highest they would need to hit my player with the highest AC.

Which again emphasises the different makeup of parties. I see characters packing ACs well into the 20s.

 

[dave2008]

No, I know what Banishment does, believe me. So do my players, who protect the Banish-er with greater ferocity than they would for any princess!

Casting it at 5th level gets 2 targets, which is more than enough. A random Hard encounter for 4 17th level PCs would be 2 Barbed Devils, 1 Chain Devil, and 1 Bone Devil. The last two get banished, leaving only the Barbed Devils, who are now easily dispatched.

So, yeah, a bunch of lower level fiends would make more sense...but then you're going through the motions of lots of attacks that are destined to miss, which isn't terribly exciting (at least in my group, the players hate facing hordes, even though they love fireball).

But that is about right. A "hard" encounter should cost you a spell slot or two and maybe a few hit points. Which seems good for a side quest. If you want to make things interesting, you need to start with deadly and go up from there. Even more so if your talking about 17th level PCs

 

[Eric V]

If you are going to cater encounters to the players win condition preferences then you can't really complain that the encounters aren't satisfying. 5E is really bad at single opponents. PCs punch way above their weight class when they don't have to distribute their action economy. Even more so if they get to nova. In my experience, there should be at least one foe per PC, usually 1.5.

I don't do the italicized part, and I am just referring to the bolded part. 1 enemy per PC is like the devils example I gave above, and Banishment would indeed trivialize it. Even following the 1.5 per PC advice (say, 4 cambions and 2 night hags), the spell still has an outsized effect.

 

[dave2008]

Which again emphasises the different makeup of parties. I see characters packing ACs well into the 20s.

IF our fighter had a shield he would have a 20, but he doesn't, so 18 is our max AC.
PS the group is level 14 at the moment.

 

[Eric V]

When people complain about banishment online, they rarely acknowledge that it has a save and most creatures you use it against have magic resistance.

Yeah, like I said, I know exactly how the spell works. If it were a WIS save, it might not be the biggest deal, but it's CHA, and even having advantage doesn't mean much when you need to roll a 17+ or be removed from the fight (making the rest of the fight markedly easier)