D&D 5E Tell me about 5E at 11th level

[Reynard]

Every year I build a sandbox for play at conventions and for next year I am considering going a little higher level (11th) than what I have in the past (5th-7th). before then I will do some intense play testing but in advance of that, i just wanted to solicit some opinions on how 5th Edition plays at 11th level, what pitfalls to watch out for, what's fun or not fun or doesn't work or rocks. That sort of thing.

Thanks.

 

[iserith]

I ran a game for 10th and 11th level. I found it wasn't very hard to put together challenges for the PCs. We did have a lack of spellcasters though, so I would just keep an eye out for what spells the PCs have at their disposal and plan for their use. And by "plan for their use," I mean, prepare your adventures in a way that takes them into account rather than come up with ways to negate the advantages they impart.

 

[OB1]

I'm running at 12th level campaign right now. Agree it's not too difficult to put together challenges. I will say it's more important at this level to keep an eye on the daily adjusted xp total as even deadly encounters can be trivial if it is the only one the party faces that day.
Also, it's probably worth establishing early the idea of multi part encounters, where reinforcements come in a few rounds after the battle begins. It helps keep PCs a bit more conservative early in a fight.
I also like letting the players feel the level of their power in the world. Having them single handedly take out a marauding band or Orcs, for example. But once they do, they discover that the Orcs were under the thrall of a powerful (cr appropriate) demon who's not happy about having his subjects slain. Take out that demon, and her two or three lieutenants come out to avenge her.
Good luck!

 

[Reynard]

I'm running at 12th level campaign right now. Agree it's not too difficult to put together challenges. I will say it's more important at this level to keep an eye on the daily adjusted xp total as even deadly encounters can be trivial if it is the only one the party faces that day.
Also, it's probably worth establishing early the idea of multi part encounters, where reinforcements come in a few rounds after the battle begins. It helps keep PCs a bit more conservative early in a fight.
I also like letting the players feel the level of their power in the world. Having them single handedly take out a marauding band or Orcs, for example. But once they do, they discover that the Orcs were under the thrall of a powerful (cr appropriate) demon who's not happy about having his subjects slain. Take out that demon, and her two or three lieutenants come out to avenge her.
Good luck!

Thanks. One of the challenges I have when running these con games is I usually have a full table so there are 8 players. Even at 7th level, they are powerful enough to walk over even deadly level appropriate encounters and if things get dicey and they decide to nova, I am consistently astounded at how powerful such a party can be.

In your estimation, is the CR system reliable at that level (or at least as reliable as it is at any level)? In other words, can I build XP budgets into encounters for 8 PCs and have them be reasonably challenging and balanced?

Another thing is that even at 6th-7th, PCs are notoriously hard to kill. I am guessing by 11th it is all but impossible aside from save-or-die effects. if that is the case, how do you build tension into combat encounters?

 

[iserith]

Something to consider when you have a lot of players is to make the challenge about something other than reducing enemy hit points to zero (for both PCs and monsters). Multiple objectives also help. The CR system doesn't take these things into account, so you can tend to go way over or under the recommended guidelines and still have a fun challenge.

 

[ElderElementalEye]

Something else to consider is that at this level the DC of spells and monster abilities becomes really challenging. If you attack one or more PCs with high-level spells or effects, where several members are not proficient with the saving throws, it can become really hard on the party. Dragon breaths are particularly deadly...

 

[Tigerzak21]

Last night i just finished a super-hero style 5e game played at level 13. We had a couple of neat character builds, such as a paladin/sorcerer ironman type, an elk totem barbarian 'speedster' using boots of speed, an unarmed unarmored paladin played as a cosmic 'captain marvel' type, and a sun soul monk supersaiyan-type.

What was most challenging for the group was cooperating IC, coming up with combat encounters was not too difficult. Challenging the party without the combats being a long, slow resource drain or a quick burn of weak enemies or a game of rocket-tag /was/ difficult. Very rarely did my heroes suffer any significant resource drain due to the short length of the adventure and being allowed 2 longs rests in adventures short duration (3 in game days) but they did face interesting challenges that they had to bypass within these encounters.

I included several lower CR creatures with legendary actions or multiple turns in combat, 'skill challenges' built into the combat such as needing the players to lure a villain through a night time chase to areas lit by floodlights to make then vulnerable to attack, or having them deactivate machines that reduced a villains immunity to damage (but reduced ability to harm then) to 3/4 cover, resistance, 1/2 cover, and then regular damage/no cover.

The monk was very adept at avoiding attacks/damage. the speedster could move VERY far in a turn and could move in then away from danger on top of having rage resistance and many hp. The ironman had high ac, ancient paladin magic resistances, massive save bonuses, and (at the end of the game) armor of invulnerability. Characters at this level are VERY hard to 'challenge' by means of comnat hits/damages/save effects, unless yiu pepper them with above-cr-appropriate encounters or use 'Problem-solving' encounters like i did. I played with.a group that is decent at optimization, so this was my experience and solution because not everyone in the party wanted to always kill everything or have huge long difficult fights all game long. Your mileage may vary.

 

[ehenning]

Thanks. One of the challenges I have when running these con games is I usually have a full table so there are 8 players. Even at 7th level, they are powerful enough to walk over even deadly level appropriate encounters and if things get dicey and they decide to nova, I am consistently astounded at how powerful such a party can be.

In your estimation, is the CR system reliable at that level (or at least as reliable as it is at any level)? In other words, can I build XP budgets into encounters for 8 PCs and have them be reasonably challenging and balanced?

Another thing is that even at 6th-7th, PCs are notoriously hard to kill. I am guessing by 11th it is all but impossible aside from save-or-die effects. if that is the case, how do you build tension into combat encounters?

http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

Not a perfect solution for encounter building, but it automates the calculations and takes into account larger parties.

 

[zicar]

I've noticed that our game changes at about level 13-14. It's all about the saving throws after that. YMMV

 

[Kreinas]

11th level and above plays well for optimized characters/parties, but certain classes will perform better than other regardless. Blasters tend to scale quite well regardless of optimization, with rangers coming in last as "man, I optimized perfectly and still can't keep up". Beyond multiclassing, many melee fighters will tend to make use of "cheese" to beat fights. Examples include Polearm Mastery/Sentinel, Booming Blade/Dissonant Whispers, or ridiculous AC boosting. Additionally, once a party reaches 13, access to save-or-suck spells and duplication (looking at you, simulacrum!) will make it necessary to have at least one legendary enemy in an encounter, or risk the party breezing through each fight.

Overall, 11+ plays well, but the game assumes you've grown beyond basic encounters in order to balance out the power climb of PCs. If you want to test an encounter, imagine each party member having access to the most broken spell available at the time, and build around that. Alternate wincons become a great help in allowing unoptomized characters to pass challenges as well.