D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[Zardnaar]

The stats are not the issue, it's the verisimilitude of scaling and what lies inbetween each 'rung' on that ladder.

In other words how do I get from fighting Orcs to fighting Orcus?

But then again, I like Shadowdark, so I am not saying it couldn't be done.

Same as 1E.

 

[Maxperson]

Got it. I was also considering out of combat rp and such, but you focus seems to be streamlining options during combat.

Cool, I understand, thanks!

Right. The undead cleaning and serving crew probably aren't going to be liches and vampires.

 

[pemerton]

4E wasn't really high level play.

<snip>

It was also slow, grindy and boring. Level 21 for your at wills to scale. Yay.

That's not my experience.

It was level 3-10 stretched over 30 levels with some minor bits bolted on. May as well make a 10 level game instead.

Go compare 4E phb level 29 powers to 5E spells around 5th level and you'll see it.

It was high level technically as in you could write a 22 on your character sheet. Level 22 was more like 7 with more hit points and an epic boon.

Advancement in D&D has a significant arithmetic component. It's always possible to compress or expand the arithmetic of levelling into fewer, or a greater number of, chunks ("levels").

But if you're talking in terms of non-mathematical effects that are imagined to occur in the fiction, then what you way is not at all true of 4e as I experienced it. The PCs in the 4e game that I GMed to high level did things that are quintessential of high level D&D. They fought off hordes of demons, they confronted (and in some cases defeated) gods and demon lords, they sealed the Abyss, they liberated the Drow from Lolth and their entrapment beneath the surface of the world, etc.

In bare outline they did the sorts of things that are clearly envisaged as the story/drama that will drive (say) the GDQ modules, or the Bloodstone modules But unlike in AD&D, which doesn't have rules for resolving much beyond a wargame-y skirmish, it actually worked.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's not my experience.

Advancement in D&D has a significant arithmetic component. It's always possible to compress or expand the arithmetic of levelling into fewer, or a greater number of, chunks ("levels").

But if you're talking in terms of non-mathematical effects that are imagined to occur in the fiction, then what you way is not at all true of 4e as I experienced it. The PCs in the 4e game that I GMed to high level did things that are quintessential of high level D&D. They fought off hordes of demons, they confronted (and in some cases defeated) gods and demon lords, they sealed the Abyss, they liberated the Drow from Lolth and their entrapment beneath the surface of the world, etc.

In bare outline they did the sorts of things that are clearly envisaged as the story/drama that will drive (say) the GDQ modules, or the Bloodstone modules But unlike in AD&D, which doesn't have rules for resolving much beyond a wargame-y skirmish, it actually worked.

You can do that at level 8 by rewriting the monsters.

1E did it. The demons etc were weak sauce by modern standards.

Have a look at the lvl 29 powers in 4E. Compare to synaptic static in 5E.

4E youre pretending to play high level. You're really play level 9/10 maybe 11 max on a stretched out treadmill.

They lowered the power level to achieve it and bloated the hp to slow everything down.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Same as 1E.

Yes and other than the anomalous 66hp Lolth you weren't defeating any of them at level 10, So either you allow levelling above 10th (as 1E did) and include the iconic villains/creatures. Or cap levelling at 10 and ignore the iconic villains.