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

[SkidAce]

13th Age gets close but it still isn't simple enough at high level.

Daggerheart and Draw Steel both feel like 10 levels of mid level play. Only played Daggerheart so far but it felt still mid level.

But it think the idea of fully replacing low level stuff with high level stuff popularized by 13A & DH would be the way.

A rhetorical question so I can understand your view...

A high level necromancer would lose Animate Dead and replace it with something more powerful? What if they wanted to merely animate skeletons?

Thanks.

 

[SkidAce]

Making a high module for general consumption cannot be done well, because it has to appeal broadly to people, and that means monster fights, traps, etc. which don't do high level well. It's a catch 22. They need to not make high level adventures, but teach DMs how to do it themselves. There are a few ways to do it well and the DMs can mix and match the ways they like to play and/or the way the players like to play.

Agreed.

BL: High level adventures need/should be tailored to the high level group and campaign. Wizards cant do that for you.

But they could offer guidelines.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

A rhetorical question so I can understand your view...

A high level necromancer would lose Animate Dead and replace it with something more powerful? What if they wanted to merely animate skeletons?

Thanks.

You did not ask me, but--at least if I were the one writing it--I would expect that at the level you lose access to Animate Dead, you would have the option to pick up Greater Animate Dead if you want it. And at the level you'd lose Greater Animate Dead, you could pick up Mass Reanimate (raising many of the weaker undead) and/or Create Undead (allowing you to produce the strongest possible individual/small set of undead minions). In other words, if there's something that's supposed to be a pretty core tenet of the experience, it should grow with you, not just remain frozen in place.*

More or less, your abilities intensify once you cross certain thresholds, rather than solely expanding. This helps simplicity by restricting the total number of simultaneous options, while still allowing growth. It is, however, still some complexity cost and not none--because needing to change your abilities is a complexity increase, just less of one.

*Alternatively, make it a core class feature that gets updated inherently. Don't let the Necromancer not have some version of "Animate Dead", because it's meant to be part of the experience.

 

[Minigiant]

A rhetorical question so I can understand your view...

A high level necromancer would lose Animate Dead and replace it with something more powerful? What if they wanted to merely animate skeletons?

Thanks.

He can.

It does if anything high level looks at it so go ahead and waste a turn.

 

[SkidAce]

He can.

It does if anything high level looks at it so go ahead and waste a turn.

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!

 

[Upper_Krust]

not sure what you mean, I doubt marketing insists on having Orcus in the MM or an adventure

I'm highlighting how many Adventure books use these iconic villains front and centre and that capping the game at level 10 effectively takes them out of the game.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I share this exact idea for how high level should play - not that I currently have any solutions myself.
My table is 16th level - the idea I have for my table to take it as far as we can go as I have high level ideas I wish to explore, of course the system might make this impossible.

@Upper_Krust is busy designing high-level and post-20th material. My intention is, as you said, to fade the lower-level features into the background and simplify the character sheet. Focus on what is pertinent and ensure that combat is not a grind so that we can move through storyline quickly.

The key is to keep it as simple as possible. Stop levelling at 20. After that are extremely simple Divine Ranks which will increase less often. But when they do it's a bigger jump (as in 50% power). You get Divine Boons, but very few, exchanging old boons for new each Divine Rank (if you meet the prereqs).

 

[Zardnaar]

I've GMed a lot of, and played a bit of, high level FRPGing - AD&D, Rolemaster, 4e D&D.

4e D&D worked well, and to me it seemed pretty well designed. There is a fairly clear progression of effects, eg from slow or prone on Heroic tier encounter powers to Dominate on an upper Epic tier encounter power. Epic destinies establish a clear logic and place in the world for high level PCs.

The high level NPCs and creatures in the MMs were a bit underdone, at least for my group, but I didn't find it overly much work to build variants that had a bit more condition removal/avoidance (using creatures like the MV dragons, and hydras, as inspiration) but didn't simply shut down the players' successful abilities.

I did use the full suite of tools in the 4e toolbox: for combat, I liberally used minions and swarms to reflect low level NPCs/creatures; in skill challenges, I established fiction and stakes that matched the tiers of play - eg no epic tier PCs haggling with tavern keepers over the price of a meal.

You can't make a FRPG simple, yet high power, and stick to D&D conventions for how actions are declared and resolved, how combat is handled, etc.

A game like Agon 2e is simple, and can be high-powered. But it completely avoids all the D&D-isms. Its play is almost nothing like a wargame.

4E wasn't really high level play. 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.

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

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm highlighting how many Adventure books use these iconic villains front and centre and that capping the game at level 10 effectively takes them out of the game.

You would rewrite them.

Look at their 1E stats. An ancient dragon stats would resemble an adult dragon in a 10 level system.

If D&D was a 10 level system would spells cap at 5th level or spell progression table like the old ur priest. Hmmn.