D&D 5E No One Plays High Level?

[Crimson Longinus]

I still think you are over emphasizing the danger of these encounters, but that isn't something we can determine who is right about

That certainly is possible, but I think the damage potential of these foes look rather devastating to first level players. When one shotting is this easy, fights are super swingy and who gets the initiative might decide it. I see non negligible likelihood of a TPK, especially if the bugbear a hobgoblin, and even just couple of goblins are part of the same encounter.

Page 84. The adventure I presented is pretty much exactly what is suggested for 1st level PCs.
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Yes, but that's six or eight encounters, and that's more than at least I can fit in a four hour session unless it is just some sort of non-stop arena combat. You can run fewer, tougher combats, but then we run in the issues like I criticised with your examples. One issue is that whilst having multiple foes has a multiplier for purposes of determining how hard the encounter is, it for some unfathomable reason doesn't actually affect the XP earned. For example six kobolds is a hard encounter for four level one characters, as it had adjusted difficulty rating of 300 XP, yet the party will only earn 150 XP from it. So the budget suggested by that chart and the XP actually earned are different things, the latter often being less.

 

[Reynard]

You can run fewer, tougher combats, but then we run in the issues like I criticised with your examples.

Just to be clear, I did not saying anything about specific combats. I collected the 1200 XP worth of creatures in the place. How the PCs engage those creatures and what size the resultant combats are is highly variable, based on their choices, random dice, my adjudication, and so on. I was not saying that there were fights X, Y and Z.

As to length: I run at cons a lot. You can get a lot done in 4 hours.

 

[Maxperson]

Slot in this system includes Cantrips, Feats, class features, subclass features, extra attunement slots, multiclassing, and racial upgrades.

A 20 Intelligence wizard would spend 1 of their 20 slots to cast spells, another for a spellbook, and 4 more for their 4 Cantrips. Warcaster? That's another spell you can't prepare. Bladesinger? You're down to 10 spells prepared.

The higher level you get, the more you suck!

Let's see. 20th level wizard.

1. Spellcasting.
2. Arcane Recovery
3. Ritual Casting
4-9. Feats(because stat increases aren't worth it)
10. Spell Mastery
11. Signature Spell
12. Divination Savant
13. Portent
14. Expert Divination
15. The Third Eye
16. Greater Portent

The mighty archmage with his 4 actual spell slots spread over cantrips to 9th level! Fear him!

Edit: No, wait. Without stat increases he probably only has 14-16 int and has no spells at all. lol

 

[Maxperson]

The video is pretty much correct on the issues. The matter of bypassing adventures with high level magic has been pretty extensively already debated in the other thread.

I'll also repeat the observation that high level adventures are also conceptually harder to craft. Having run a ton of Exalted, which is designed for this, it still felt more difficult to come up with adventures in the long run (I still did it and liked it.) It is like Batman and Superman. It just starts to some point seem contrived and unrelatable that there always is some new massive super threat to deal with. More mundane stuff happening all the time is way less weird, and it is more relatable to the players.

Depends on your style of play. I prefer to start the the over plot at low level with the plot progressing over time and completing with the final fix/confrontation/whatever happening at high teens to 20th level. Then done. No need to keep coming up with more and more, or greater and greater things.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

1st level 5E characters are not that fragile.

From personal experience: Yes. Yes they absolutely are.

I have seen multiple DMs accidentally TPK 1st-level parties. There is a reason I speak so strongly about this sort of thing. Inexperienced and experienced alike.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Hence fighting them directly is a bad idea. That's not, to me, a good enough reason for them not to be there.

It's not about whether they're there. This was presented as a set of things a group of players could work through in just the very first session of play. Whether they fight, negotiate, or whatever else, it was presented as being eight different encounters (chief; 2 lieutenants; a warg; two groups of two goblins and two groups of three goblins, for a total of four groups; and a suit of animated armor.) Eight encounters which could be run in much less than four hours. Assume half an hour of setup/discussion/narration stuff to connect things together, and half an hour for the "with time to spare" part. Being generous, that's 25 minutes per encounter.

I don't think I've ever had any game, of any TTRPG, that moved at that pace. And sure as hell not Session 1, which is always going to be wilder and woolier than the later sessions when people have settled into routines.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Does anyone really like keeping track of experience points? It's been many, many years since I've done that. I just level up the party when I feel like it.

It depends on the game. I actually do like tracking XP up to a point. I just prefer that the model is reversed: each monster gives <number> XP to each PC when defeated/overcome/bypassed, regardless of the number of characters in the party. Almost no groups have more than six players these days, so it's just easier to not have to tally fractional XP.

Chunkier games like Werewolf and Dungeon World, tracking XP is important; for the former, because different things cost different amounts of XP, while for the latter, you only ever need (current level + 7) XP to gain the next level, and my group has turned XP into a minor benny point system.

 

[kigmatzomat]

One of the ideas I like is simply limiting the scope of combat magic to what would be equivalent to cannons from the Napoleonic or Revolutionary War eras of warfare. Powerful enough to be effective, limited enough to not force some version of modern warfare.

I don't think people understand how dangerous cannon were. A napoleonic cannon ball had way better range than a lightning bolt spell, effective to more than a mile. Anything or anyone you hit becomes shrapnel. You do grazing shots and get rocks and cobbles flying on each bounce. You hit a ship and turn the hull into a wood shotgun blast, ripping up foot-long "splinters" of wood the size of a crosshow bolt and sending them flying. And then there's shot and cannister, a straight up cone of shrapnel or bullets ranging from 1800ft - 2700ft long.

A 20th level caster has, what, a dozen spells of 3rd level and higher? A cannon crew could fire 2-3 shots/minute so 5 minutes of sustained cannon fire outweighs a "fireball!" caster at 20th level. Casters are so not up to the snuff to be Napoleonic cannons. Probably not even 17th century cannons.

The truth is, in a major battle casters are more effectice not doing damage and instead being controllers. Fog to blind gunners & archers, Wall spells & Move Earth to block troops, summons/portals to cause trouble in the rear and countering the enemy casters.

Wars are where warriors, especially archer types, come into their own. They can fight for hours, each one as effective as 6-10 basic troops. A short rest here or there to recover and they are good as new.

 

[Reynard]

I don't think people understand how dangerous cannon were. A napoleonic cannon ball had way better range than a lightning bolt spell, effective to more than a mile. Anything or anyone you hit becomes shrapnel. You do grazing shots and get rocks and cobbles flying on each bounce. You hit a ship and turn the hull into a wood shotgun blast, ripping up foot-long "splinters" of wood the size of a crosshow bolt and sending them flying. And then there's shot and cannister, a straight up cone of shrapnel or bullets ranging from 1800ft - 2700ft long.

A 20th level caster has, what, a dozen spells of 3rd level and higher? A cannon crew could fire 2-3 shots/minute so 5 minutes of sustained cannon fire outweighs a "fireball!" caster at 20th level. Casters are so not up to the snuff to be Napoleonic cannons. Probably not even 17th century cannons.

The truth is, in a major battle casters are more effectice not doing damage and instead being controllers. Fog to blind gunners & archers, Wall spells & Move Earth to block troops, summons/portals to cause trouble in the rear and countering the enemy casters.

Wars are where warriors, especially archer types, come into their own. They can fight for hours, each one as effective as 6-10 basic troops. A short rest here or there to recover and they are good as new.

It is no surprise that D&D magic is only effective at man to man tactical scales: D&D was designed initially as a man to man tactical wargame. True War Magic has been done in various ways throughout various editions, but it really has never been an issues of "power level." Rather, War Magic has to do with the scale of the conflicts involved -- scales that D&D is pretty bad at in any edition (with the possible exception of the War machine from BECMI).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think people understand how dangerous cannon were. A napoleonic cannon ball had way better range than a lightning bolt spell, effective to more than a mile. Anything or anyone you hit becomes shrapnel. You do grazing shots and get rocks and cobbles flying on each bounce. You hit a ship and turn the hull into a wood shotgun blast, ripping up foot-long "splinters" of wood the size of a crosshow bolt and sending them flying. And then there's shot and cannister, a straight up cone of shrapnel or bullets ranging from 1800ft - 2700ft long.

A 20th level caster has, what, a dozen spells of 3rd level and higher? A cannon crew could fire 2-3 shots/minute so 5 minutes of sustained cannon fire outweighs a "fireball!" caster at 20th level. Casters are so not up to the snuff to be Napoleonic cannons. Probably not even 17th century cannons.

The truth is, in a major battle casters are more effectice not doing damage and instead being controllers. Fog to blind gunners & archers, Wall spells & Move Earth to block troops, summons/portals to cause trouble in the rear and countering the enemy casters.

Wars are where warriors, especially archer types, come into their own. They can fight for hours, each one as effective as 6-10 basic troops. A short rest here or there to recover and they are good as new.

I'd be fine with that too.