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Observations and opinions after 8 levels and a dragon fight
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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6617675" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>Our Arcane Trickster was hiding behind a tree looking for an opportunity to cast <em>Tasha's hideous laughter</em> in the first fight also. The party knew it was good, and it would have probably let them kill the dragon rather than just beat her to within an inch of her life before she got away. Fortunately the dragon never got close enough for him to get a chance.</p><p></p><p>In the second encounter I forgot to mention that the dragon's tower was filled with <em>silence</em> (courtesy of the orc Eye of Gruumsh who stayed safely out of the way to avoid getting concentration broken), so the PCs barely got to cast any spells. They had to climb high enough to escape the sphere. At the very beginning, the wizard ran back into the adjoining cottage and ducked her head down by the door to see if she could get outside the <em>silence</em> to cast <em>dispel magic</em>. She could, because I had already determined that that was the one spot far enough away to work. Of course, the orc cast the spell again on his next turn, and the fact that the cottage was filled with wood and sawdust and on fire discouraged the wizard from going back in and trying it again. If it hadn't have been for that lucky wild surge that gave the party the benefit of (effectively) <em>greater invisibility</em> it would have been a slaughter. The hag was kind enough to throw a nice <em>faerie fire</em> the party's way, which negated the invisibility on some of them.</p><p></p><p>Even though they did get trounced in the second encounter, it still demonstrated that 5th level PCs in 5e are much more powerful than I'm used to. My mental calibration of the power level of PCs at various levels came from my experiences in AD&D (AD&D video games to be precise, since they include a lot of combat). While 3e was a bit more powerful, my assumptions mostly held*. In 5e I've had two points of calibration. I ran a one-shot Halloween game when they were 3rd level where they entered a haunted house designed to TPK them with a tiny chance of one or more party members surviving (they didn't survive), that turned out to be a dream. Then there was the second dragon fight. Pushing the characters to their limit and TPKing (or essentially doing so) is the best way I can think of of mentally calibrating their power levels. 5e characters seem to considerably surpass my prior calibrations. Other than the squishiness of 1st level, they appear to me to be equivalent to earlier edition characters of a level about 50% higher. At 3rd level their power level felt like 5th level, and at 5th it felt more like 7th. Those same numbers held all the way from 2nd to 5th. At some point I assume that increase will level off (I expect it won't get any higher than +2 or +3 levels), but higher levels are harder to evaluate.</p><p></p><p>So it is easier to threaten the PCs, but they are overall more significantly more powerful.</p><p></p><p>(I'm not a completely cruel DM, so the current adventure has them playing high level characters fighting a bunch of dragons, to give them the satisfaction of slaying vast numbers of them.)</p><p></p><p>* I'm not including 4e, because it has a completely different calibration and isn't directly comparable.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 6617675, member: 6677017"] Our Arcane Trickster was hiding behind a tree looking for an opportunity to cast [I]Tasha's hideous laughter[/I] in the first fight also. The party knew it was good, and it would have probably let them kill the dragon rather than just beat her to within an inch of her life before she got away. Fortunately the dragon never got close enough for him to get a chance. In the second encounter I forgot to mention that the dragon's tower was filled with [I]silence[/I] (courtesy of the orc Eye of Gruumsh who stayed safely out of the way to avoid getting concentration broken), so the PCs barely got to cast any spells. They had to climb high enough to escape the sphere. At the very beginning, the wizard ran back into the adjoining cottage and ducked her head down by the door to see if she could get outside the [I]silence[/I] to cast [I]dispel magic[/I]. She could, because I had already determined that that was the one spot far enough away to work. Of course, the orc cast the spell again on his next turn, and the fact that the cottage was filled with wood and sawdust and on fire discouraged the wizard from going back in and trying it again. If it hadn't have been for that lucky wild surge that gave the party the benefit of (effectively) [I]greater invisibility[/I] it would have been a slaughter. The hag was kind enough to throw a nice [I]faerie fire[/I] the party's way, which negated the invisibility on some of them. Even though they did get trounced in the second encounter, it still demonstrated that 5th level PCs in 5e are much more powerful than I'm used to. My mental calibration of the power level of PCs at various levels came from my experiences in AD&D (AD&D video games to be precise, since they include a lot of combat). While 3e was a bit more powerful, my assumptions mostly held*. In 5e I've had two points of calibration. I ran a one-shot Halloween game when they were 3rd level where they entered a haunted house designed to TPK them with a tiny chance of one or more party members surviving (they didn't survive), that turned out to be a dream. Then there was the second dragon fight. Pushing the characters to their limit and TPKing (or essentially doing so) is the best way I can think of of mentally calibrating their power levels. 5e characters seem to considerably surpass my prior calibrations. Other than the squishiness of 1st level, they appear to me to be equivalent to earlier edition characters of a level about 50% higher. At 3rd level their power level felt like 5th level, and at 5th it felt more like 7th. Those same numbers held all the way from 2nd to 5th. At some point I assume that increase will level off (I expect it won't get any higher than +2 or +3 levels), but higher levels are harder to evaluate. So it is easier to threaten the PCs, but they are overall more significantly more powerful. (I'm not a completely cruel DM, so the current adventure has them playing high level characters fighting a bunch of dragons, to give them the satisfaction of slaying vast numbers of them.) * I'm not including 4e, because it has a completely different calibration and isn't directly comparable. [/QUOTE]
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