D&D (2024) Playtest Druid and Paladin One D&D survey is live.

[Emberashh]

minimum 72d8 dc17con save for half from cone of cold alone

Well first you have to explain how you're getting 10 spells out of 6 players in one round.

But even disregarding that, and assuming you targeted the Orcs, your party on average dealt around 324 damage, doubled as its AOE against a Horde, and then someone probably did nothing with Dragons Breath, as even at level 20 it'd be pretty dumb to walk a caster into an Orc Horde to make that touch range spell

You still have around 4100 Orcs to kill, nobody bothered to do anything to the Arch Mages, and here comes the Dragon.

You should also be aware that, especially at level 20, all bets are off as far as death is concerned. If you die, you die.

My players didn't. They took 7 rounds the first time I ran it, with the Hordes breaking on round 6 and the Dragon BAMFing on the 7th. Archmages were killed early as (IIRC) I rolled for naughty word on some of their saves so they death spiraled, which was fitting given how I roleplayed the bunch.

If the encounter requires the GM to run it with one arm behind their back & the other clad in a gentle velvet glove to avoid round one instagib

The encounter requires neither. As stated, the encounter works. My group has not only run it without issue, but done so more than once as I reskinned it for another campaign.

Your assumptions to the contrary are only indicative of you not listening to what Im telling you.

 

[mamba]

Well first you have to explain how you're getting 10 spells out of 6 players in one round.

not players, enemies... the dragon breath should have given that away

 

[tetrasodium]

Well first you have to explain how you're getting 10 spells out of 6 players in one round.

But even disregarding that, and assuming you targeted the Orcs, your party on average dealt around 324 damage, doubled as its AOE against a Horde, and then someone probably did nothing with Dragons Breath, as even at level 20 it'd be pretty dumb to walk a caster into an Orc Horde to make that touch range spell

You still have around 4100 Orcs to kill, nobody bothered to do anything to the Arch Mages, and here comes the Dragon.

You should also be aware that, especially at level 20, all bets are off as far as death is concerned. If you die, you die.

My players didn't. They took 7 rounds the first time I ran it, with the Hordes breaking on round 6 and the Dragon BAMFing on the 7th. Archmages were killed early as (IIRC) I rolled for naughty word on some of their saves so they death spiraled, which was fitting given how I roleplayed the bunch.



The encounter requires neither. As stated, the encounter works. My group has not only run it without issue, but done so more than once as I reskinned it for another campaign.

Your assumptions to the contrary are only indicative of you not listening to what Im telling you.

Nine archmages can easily cast nine spells in one round, that's the problem with "just use tougher encounters" in a system designed to trivialize any encounter right up to the razor's edge where it immediately topples into killer/adversarial GM'ing techniqies that reflect poorly on the GM.

The tenth is a copy/paste error.

 

[Emberashh]

not players, enemies... the dragon breath should have given that away

Ah that would make sense wouldn't it? Though Dragon's Breath is a spell, so it wasn't that obvious.

However, the issue with that is is that the 9 Archmages aren't literally 9 Archmages, but a "Party" of them, meaning they operate on my horde mechanics, which mechanically speaking turns them into one big Archmage that can attempt 4 spells per turn.

But even with 9 spells, we're talking level 20 characters. DC17 isn't that hard to hit, and between items and potions you can get resistance to a lot of things pretty easily.

And this is also not accounting for the distances involved nor any of the PCs abilities to negate the Archmages spell attempts, nor healing for that matter.

where it immediately topples into killer/adversarial GM'ing techniqies that reflect poorly on the GM.

Unless you're using mechanics that let you account for things like action economy that obviously doesn't function with over 15 entities in the initiative order, never mind over 5000.

But as said, even without them, 6 Ancient Reds is an equivalent encounter in this scenario at 2x Deadly.

 

[Parmandur]

They're having an open playtest.

If begging for some semblance of improvement to the chassis of the game is ever appropriate, it's now.

Like Elrond begging for the ring to be thrown into the fire, I was here last time they had the opportunity and turned their back at the last moment.

Chasis is set at this point.

 

[Parmandur]

No. No he won't. He will be undercut by this nerf. If he has enough slots to last 6-8 encounters, then he's not going to be using them up in 1-3. You can't have it both ways.

Simple solution: up the Encounters. Everything us wonky with few Encounters, that's the nature of the game.

The nova wasn't an issue if you played the game as intended.

Well, a nova on the 1st of 8 Encounters us actually a major potential pitfall, that this change prevents.

 

[tetrasodium]

Ah that would make sense wouldn't it? Though Dragon's Breath is a spell, so it wasn't that obvious.

However, the issue with that is is that the 9 Archmages aren't literally 9 Archmages, but a "Party" of them, meaning they operate on my horde mechanics, which mechanically speaking turns them into one big Archmage that can attempt 4 spells per turn.

But even with 9 spells, we're talking level 20 characters. DC17 isn't that hard to hit, and between items and potions you can get resistance to a lot of things pretty easily.

And this is also not accounting for the distances involved nor any of the PCs abilities to negate the Archmages spell attempts, nor healing for that matter.



Unless you're using mechanics that let you account for things like action economy that obviously doesn't function with over 15 entities in the initiative order, never mind over 5000.

But as said, even without them, 6 Ancient Reds is an equivalent encounter in this scenario at 2x Deadly.

Cone of cold is a 60ft cone. lightning bolt is a 100ft line. are the nine archmages in a small room with the dragon waiting to get ganked at close range? Once you start introducing new rules like that bolded bit though the encounter is rapidly veering off towards "this entirely custom monster with unique abilities & rules" territory & it starts to become a poor example of the system functioning well simply because it's operating outside the system

 

[Emberashh]

Cone of cold is a 60ft cone. lightning bolt is a 100ft line. are the nine archmages in a small room with the dragon waiting to get ganked at close range?

A mountainside town is a small room?

Once you start introducing new rules like that bolded bit though

Thats why I noted that an equivalent encounter outside of those rules also works. But the encounter is much more interesting under my mechanics compared to fighting 6 otherwise identical dragons.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Chasing is set at this point.

A lot of things were set last time, right before the whole thing took a sharp right through the concrete barriers, ploughing through six lanes of oncoming traffic before colliding with a bus full of orphans and nuns who were themselves orphans.

 

[Parmandur]

A lot of things were set last time, right before the whole thing took a sharp right through the concrete barriers, ploughing through six lanes of oncoming traffic before colliding with a bus full of orphans and nuns who were themselves orphans.

If the 5E era is what a bus crash looks like, you can bet WotC is going to keep steering towards those concrete barriers.