D&D 5E Observations and opinions after 8 levels and a dragon fight

[Celtavian]

FWIW, we got an answer to this only a few days later:

https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/553730387751337984

Jeremy Crawford:

"A creature can try to hide within blindsight range behind cover."

"Blindsight lets you spot an invisible creature in range, but that creature can still try to hide behind something with Stealth."

We discussed this in a separate thread. I was the one that asked. Not sure why it works or why they ever gave dragons the means to detect invisible creatures since they don't have it in books other than a strong sense of smell or hearing. They've been doing it for a while, I guess they stuck with tradition.

 

[occam]

FWIW, we got an answer to this only a few days later:

https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/553730387751337984

Jeremy Crawford:

"A creature can try to hide within blindsight range behind cover."

"Blindsight lets you spot an invisible creature in range, but that creature can still try to hide behind something with Stealth."

It does says all that I wrote quite clearly. There is no other way to interpret it. If you feel like allowing Stealth rolls within range of Blindsight, have at it. If you believe your viewpoint is the way the rule works, I'd love to bet you money you're wrong. I'll allow The Sage to settle the bet.

…

To put it simply, Blindsight picks up on anything within its range regardless of whether that thing is hidden behind a rock, masked by an invsibility spell, moving silently with elven shoes, or clouded in a mist. Unless the ability says it functions against Blindsight, it doesn't stop Blindsight from detecting you within its range. As in it does exactly what it says it does. What it says it does is better than sight because spells and special abilities that work against sight don't work against Blindsight.

You choose to add exceptions that do not exist. And with that I'm done with this particular discussion as there appears to be no amount of logical discussion that will cause you concede that you are wrong. I imagine only an official ruling will do that. I doubt such a ruling will be made as it is unnecessary for 99% of the community that clearly understands how it works.

Oh, well, too late to take that bet. I guess The Sage is part of the 1% of us that doesn't clearly understand how this works and found another way to interpret the rule.

 

[S'mon]

Wow, this is really interesting. The OP doesn't sound like my game (highest PCs at level 6) at all. The play style seems completely different, more like 4e and far more high magic. I'm running low-magic swords & sorcery with a lot of human and near-human foes; the Barbarian & Rogue are both awesome.

Edit: Also been finding the Paladin a rather dull class, except when Smiting.

 

[Hussar]

Wow, this is really interesting. The OP doesn't sound like my game (highest PCs at level 6) at all. The play style seems completely different, more like 4e and far more high magic. I'm running low-magic swords & sorcery with a lot of human and near-human foes; the Barbarian & Rogue are both awesome.

Edit: Also been finding the Paladin a rather dull class, except when Smiting.

Heh, went back and reread the OP. Yeah, I'm similar to you S'mon. Completely different experiences.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My experiences in a DL campaign after 7 levels...

FIGHTERS!
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1. I no longer envy the fighter's damage dealing capability. The fighter is still a fighter. A very limited, specialized class that does damage. It's about all he does.

The Protection-style fighter has saved folk's hide more than once IMC, and is solid at dealing damage, with a sky-high AC. He tends to have bad luck (he's hit a LOT more often than he should be!), but he's got staying power and a lot of party enhancement.

In a low magic game like 5th edition, it's tough to be a fighter. No easy access to flight, protection from elements, movement enhancing powers, and the like. Totally reliant on casters that are highly limited. If they are not archery specialized, they suffer immensely against highly mobile creatures with reach and powerful attacks like breath weapons.

IMXP, this has not been a major problem - mobility hasn't gotten ANY monster out of reach of our melee machines, and while they're hit pretty hard by monsters that hit with area effects, their survivability has neutralized those effects on the rest of the party.
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CONCENTRATION!
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It's tough to be a caster. This concentration rule is highly limiting. It's very hard to buff people due to concentration. You are very limited in spell selection once you have a concentration spell up. No more casting protection from energy with fly and invisibility. You can cast fly. Then spend your time making sure you keep it up, so the martials have a chance to engage the flying dragon with reach.

IMXP, Concentration hasn't been that awful. This may be in part because we're a party that does not really buff (I know invisisbility, the other party caster knows fly, mostly we use those spells on ourselves). I employ a lot of Concentration-oriented debuffs though, and I haven't found it that limiting - I can't polymorph and hypnotic pattern someone, but either of those prevents enemies from doing much, so I don't need to do both at the same time. And I can't do either one when I'm invisible, but that's entirely fine - invisible isn't for fighting.

You really have to coordinate with other casters due to concentration.
...
you have to worry about spreading out to avoid the breath weapon or AoE attacks.

These are positive in my mind - it's about time people stop relying on Waggly Fingers Magoo to to their thinking for them.

The lack of access to consumable items along with limited spell slots and the concentration mechanic leads to logistical nightmares if the DM has intelligent monsters wait until spells and spell slots expire.

I dunno about lack of access - I've got all the healing potions and alchemists' fire I need. And again, our experiences may differ because my party doesn't have a lot of buffs: it's not usually critically important that fly or invisible be up in a fight.
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DRAGONS!
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It is nearly impossible to defeat an intelligently played dragon in 5E.

I killed two simultaneously last session with a sleep spell. I mean, they were like, babies, but still.

If they fly around using lair actions waiting out spell durations and spell slot depletion as an intelligent dragon would do, you have no shot at beating them. They have an unlimited breath weapon that can keep recharging. You have no means of limiting the damage to an entire group and extremely limited means of mitigating the damage against even on member of your party. You are meat for their larders.

I think the fights my group has had with dragons are a little skewed thanks to some story-based Dragonlance shenanigans - we're fighting them on the march, two out of the three dragonfights has been with allied dragons, and our party has two dragonlances that are basically dragon-slaying machines. Two out of the three have also been with multiple dragons.

...all I know is that my gnome wild sorcerer absolutely adores causing these things to plummet out of the sky by disabling them.
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HEALERS!
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4. You need a healer. There's not getting around it. You need combat healing. Things hit hard. The damage adds up. An inability to heal in combat leads to major problems, especially when you get hit by hard AoE damage. Rough game that requires a good healer. You almost need a cleric or Lore Bard built for healing.

Healing potions + fast combat have IMXP worked against this idea - if someone goes down (as our paladin often does), the fight's over in time to stabilize them and spend some HD. Healing potions get folks back in the game if they drop early. Our party has not had a cleric, and has little to no in-combat healing (a ranger who RP's it so she usually doesn't cure us during fights, and a paladin who would prefer to smite). We've been chuggin' along just fine.
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PALADINS!
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5. Paladin is the best martial. A paladin's ability to defend himself and unleash burst damage comes in immensely handy when fighting things like dragons. Being able to unleash burst damage when the dragon gives you an opportunity to hit it is immensely helpful. Having better saves and the best self-heal ability is immensely helpful given all the different saves for main special attacks, legendary action attacks, and lair action attacks is extremely useful. Having immunity to the frightened condition is immensely helpful. The paladin is an amazing martial class with a high level of useful versatility.

Eh.....the one in our party is known for dropping pretty quick, and smiting pretty hard. He holds his own along with our Fighter.
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ROGUES!
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Rogues are nearly useless against creatures like dragons or with truesight or blindsight. Completely eliminates their powerful stealth abilities. A paladin doesn't need stealth to use their most powerful abilities.

Our party rogue is a multiclassed battlemaster, so she doesn't rely on hiding to get advantage. In fact, with all the disability I'm tossing around, even if she didn't get it from superiority dice, she'd probably get it half the time without hiding anyway.
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BARDS!
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6. Bard is pretty amazing as well. Bardic inspiration and Cutting Words can be lifesavers. Their mix of offense and defense can be helpful. A lucky crit by the bard with a chromatic orb won the day. Our two martials and cleric were dead. My wizard had dropped from a lair action attack. The bard hucked that orb and rolled 20. It did the job. Though it wouldn't have been wounded enough if not for the paladin unleashing a bunch of smite damage on it. The fighter did a total of 12 points with an arrow. He was chewed up by the lair actions and breath weapon before could do much as was the cleric. Concentration made defensive casting impossible for the group. No way to buff everyone against the breath weapon damage.

I dunno, my bard died at 4th level because he tried to be a hero, and focused on buffs, so I didn't get a good comparison, but I'm enjoying my wild sorcerer probably just as much.
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LEGENDARIES!
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7. 5E legendary monsters are rough. If you play them intelligently, can really make life nightmarish for a group. They usually have a nice combination of offensive and defensive powers that create real problems for a party. If they go all offense, they can be easy to kill. If a DM uses their offensive and defensive capabilities to the fullest, the fights are rough. We haven't had a party decimated like this in ages. This was against a standard module designed encounter we're used to crushing. The dynamics of caster power have changed dramatically. Casters can't mitigate damage like they used to and they have to be very selective with their spells with the concentration mechanic. Healing is far less powerful than it used to be as well, though just as necessary as previous editions. All these factors making 5E very rough in combat.

The one time annoying legendary stuff came up was when a dragon auto-saved after I tried to drop it from the sky. *SIGH*

Being legendary didn't help that beholder I polymorphed, though. THAT thing dropped like a rock once I turned it into a bee. It might've been scary, but my gnome is scarier.
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Overall, my experiences are quite a bit different!

 

[Celtavian]

I should start a level 16 thread. Some of my views have changed.

I have a level 5 monk and cleric I'm playing now. I might do another thread after I get them to level 16 or higher for comparison.

Cleric is surprisingly strong. They don't appear to have the most interesting abilities, but the ones they do have work very well.

Monk seems to be a slow starter due to low number of ki points and his better abilities coming later. I'm hoping once he hits level 5, it will start to pick up.

 

[sithramir]

How are you knocking dragons out of the sky?

 

[Celtavian]

How are you knocking dragons out of the sky?

I shrug when I read stuff like that. Different play-style. I'm sure there is a way.

 

[ThirdWizard]

How are you knocking dragons out of the sky?

I've got $5 on either polymorph or hold monster.

 

[I'm A Banana]

How are you knocking dragons out of the sky?

PHB pg. 191, under "Flying Movement": If a flying creature is knocked prone, has its speed reduced to 0, or is otherwise deprived of the ability to move, the creature falls, unless it has the ability to hover or is being held aloft by magic, such as by the fly spell.

Though probably open to some DM interpretation, most dragons don't use spells to fly, and so, if they are knocked prone, or have their speed reduced to 0, they fall.

Method A (the one I used Monday to kill two dragons...probably wyrmlings...): Sleep: 5d8 "damage" (+2d8/level), no saving throw, no concentration requirement, 90-110 ft. range. Though only useful late in the battle, the "it just works" quality of the spell, plus the ability to ramp it up, means that by about round 3-4, it's typically worth the gamble, even on a Legendary dragon. Arguably, as a wild sorcerer, less "efficient" than a chromatic orb tossed with advantage, but VERY reliable. This translates into Xd6 falling damage for the dragon, and if they're weak enough to be affected by sleep, they're weak enough to have that be a considerable risk.

Method B (one I used against a dragon while fighting it in the air on dragon-back myself): Hypnotic Pattern sets the target's speed to 0. Most dragons are not immune to charm. In conjunction with Bend Luck and Heighten Spell as a wild sorcerer, and they've gotta get lucky to resist that bad boy. While I wouldn't use this against a Legendary dragon without softening it up first, it has dealt 20d6 to a dragon before...and while that didn't kill it, it DID take it out of the fight long enough for us to mop up the other dragons we were fighting.

Also, I'm thinking of buying nets or getting some things of flying onto our party warriors, since both nets (for the smaller dragons) and "shoving" with a melee attack would do the same thing, but they're both a little limited and our party warriors usually just want to stab things to death, and it's hard to fault them for that.

I've got $5 on either polymorph or hold monster.

Polymorph has not been the most reliable for that - while it would probably work, the long duration and the high-level slot (I'm only 7th level!) and the limited range means that usually I'm using that spell more defensively, to stop creatures from taking actions that are awful for the party. I've shut up two Banshees, and turned a Beholder into a bee, and in both cases it was more important to keep them transformed than to simply deal damage to them. One full party readied action later, the banshees and beholders get hit with 7 attack actions, which, with the amount Extra Attacks in the party, is oddly more damaging than a 200-ft. fall.

The part about Polymorph that I think is hilarious is that it lasts for up to an hour, so, as I pointed out the the party, we could take a short rest while we have that banshee-pig hog-tied to a post and kill it afterwards. But the main point was to stop it from screaming.

I haven't bothered to learn Hold Person yet, and I might not....between Sleep and Hypnotic Pattern, it almost seems redundant, and wouldn't even work on dragons!

My gnome has taken to calling himself "The Herald of the Rain of Evil Dragons" with a menacing look in his eye. The fact that others here that as "reign" just adds to the humor.