D&D 5E (2014) The high-level play I'm hoping for.

[jodyjohnson]

We like to keep things as unilateral pre-emptive strikes. Those are so much cleaner.

Edition X sucks, you may not retaliate or it will be war.

 

[Umbran]

That is the nature of a level-based system.

Honestly, it is the nature of a system that does character advancement. Point-buy systems still call for nastier and nastier opponents as time goes by, you just don't have a solid scale of what's appropriate for the GM to follow.

This as compared to some forms of FATE, which don't do advancement, but do character development - your character changes over time, but does not become more powerful. When one skill goes up, another goes down, and so on.

 

[nogray]

In my opinion, high-level play doesn't automatically equal fighting gods and near god-like beings. Sometimes, I like for high-level play to remain in cities and dungeons as much as possible. I still want to fight orcs, very strong orcs, and other things that you fight at lower levels. ... {snipped for later} ... I don't want stats for gods and primordials becaise I feel like they are beyond mortal comprehension and mortal reality.

Only in some mythologies are gods and primordial beings, "beyond mortal comprehension and mortal reality." In the Norse mythology, the gods were quite fallible; while superior to mortals, they were far from omnipotent. There are stories where the gods (particularly Thor and Loki) adventured with mortal companions. In the Greek mythology, the gods were far more powerful (like "normal mortals can't look on true forms of gods without dying" powerful), but their motivations were fairly understandable and human (and in many cases, sort of juvenile). Other mythologies span that range and some go farther afield in one direction or the other. Additionally, "mortals" in D&D have little relation to mortals in the real world. They can become earth-shakingly powerful (some at relatively low levels).

The basic idea of the initial post has its good parts. It is absolutely true that high-level play needn't automatically deal with battling (or negotiating with, or what have you) "godlikes." If a group decides that they want to deal with orcs from 1-__, that is well within their rights. Of course, both options (fighting perhaps-advanced-low-level creatures and godlikes) should be there, for those who want either choice. Epic creatures like the tarrasque and ancient dragons and (to use a 4e term) primordials can certainly make for interesting opponents. The stats for such "epic" foes should be available for those who want them, and they should be playtested and balanced to be good challenges.

A nice process for creating high-level versions of low-level creatures would be nice and useful to most, if not all, DMs, but from the sound of D&D Next, bounded accuracy will make it somewhat less necessary. Others with more Next experience can weigh in on the veracity of this. If it is the case, and if we do get a good system for increasing the level of foes, then you can have a lot of choices for your high-level foes, from hordes (or armies) of low-levels, to advanced versions thereof, to "regular epic" creatures like ancient dragons or the tarrasque, to low-level godlikes. That sounds like a good place.

For myself, the high level play I'm looking for is more interaction with the cosmology and deities. In the campaign I DM, the PCs (level 19, planning on making it to 30 and having a few "levels" worth of adventures at 30) have already negotiated and allied with Mab (played similar to the version in the Dresden Files books), caused an entire nation's army to become corrupted and changed into sort-of-hive-minded undead creatures, and had an audience with Vorkhesis (exarch -- minor godling -- of fate under the Raven Queen). In later levels, it looks like they will (my players, if you are reading this, can kindly not click the spoiler) ...

[sblock]... cause the entire race of tieflings to revert to being humans, found an empire, destroy at least one primordial, restore the deity that Asmodeus slew (perhaps destroying Asmodeus in the process), rearrange the portfolios of several deities, and maybe, just maybe, heal the Abyss.[/sblock]

Some of that would be pretty hard to pull off if the gods were of the "omnipotent, and thus un-statted" sort. For this campaign, at least, I much prefer gods and godlikes that are high level (the lowest level deity is Torog, a 34th level solo; that's still a challenge for high-epic characters), but statted. I think that, in general, I prefer that mortals can have an influence of the comings and goings of deities. Mechanics help this.

To me, 4th edition had me feeling like I was climbing the creature ladder amd just killing things until I reached the most powerful creature left.

See, this part, though, is where it seems to me that the post has gone completely off-base. An "accusation" was leveled at a particular edition of D&D, when that same statement applies to most or all of the prior editions. Perhaps it's because you aren't familiar with any but 4e, but that same "creature ladder" has existed in prior editions.

I have no experience with OD&D, so I can't speak to it, but AD&D 1e had its progression of creatures, and I know I'm not the only one who participated in deicide in that era. (The Deities and Demigods book made for an interesting combo Monster Manual and Magic Item Compendium, back in my adolescence.) BECMI had a whole boxed set devoted to becoming immortal, presumably battling godlike foes at some point in the process.

2e (to my recollection) lacked stats for gods themselves, but had stats for avatars of gods; meanwhile, the whole slew of demons (tanar'ri) and devils (baatezu) existed in a ladder-like formation. In Dark Sun, you were somewhat expected to deal with the Sorcerer Kings, and Planescape had the possibility of dealing with gods and their servitors (though the emphasis was on the Factions; I'm not a big Planescape scholar, so I can't recall precisely how much deity-and-servitor-thereof interaction was expected).

3e re-introduced the stats for gods, adding in a lot of rules to make them really, really challenging to actually battle, but it retained the whole progression of other creatures in ladder-like formation. It also had unlimited PC advancement in the form of the Epic Level Handbook (and 3.5's extensions to classes in the DMG drawn from that book), making it likely that even the stats given for those gods would be surpassed, given a whole lot of patience and play time.

While 4e undoubtedly has a default progression of creatures as PCs level (see [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]s campaign pacing comments regarding kobolds to Orcus in other threads), it is also very, very friendly to the OP's stated goal. It is extremely easy to level creatures on the DM side. As DM, you have the option to just make the creatures tougher, or you could (given a sufficiently tough initial creature) progress the creature from a low-heroic solo, to a mid-heroic elite, to a high-heroic standard creature, to a paragon-level minion. Further advancement might require some added creativity in making the minions into a (mid-or-high paragon) swarm creature. This idea could be extended to epic, too, with a little more creativity.

Let's not edition war, shall we?

It's only edition war when you make it into one.

What was perceived as an edition war post (probably; I'll not speak for the Jester, but rather for how I saw the OP) was most likely the "attack" on 4e. As previously noted in my (rather lengthy and verbose) post above, the same criticism applies to D&D in general, but instead of leaving it in general terms, a particular edition was unnecessarily singled out.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

In my opinion, 3rd edition, while you could fight gods and everything else under the sun, you could fight orcs at really high level because of class levels and hit dice. You could fight a squad of 25HD orcs for example, and still challange your party. There was never an emphasis on working your way up to finally killing the gods or the demon lords like I felt from 4th edition.

 

[Sage Genesis]

In my opinion, 3rd edition, while you could fight gods and everything else under the sun, you could fight orcs at really high level because of class levels and hit dice. You could fight a squad of 25HD orcs for example, and still challange your party. There was never an emphasis on working your way up to finally killing the gods or the demon lords like I felt from 4th edition.

You can do the exact same thing in 4e as well. Take a normal orc, apply a class template, and increase its level to whatever level is suitable. All of this is in the DMG. You can face a level 20 orc Fighter in 3e... and you can face a level 20 orc Fighter in 4e. Besides some minor differences in how the mechanics work they're essentially the same.

And I know that you started this thread but can we just stop slamming 4e for a change? This is about what we hope to see in Next, not to endlessly repeat (ill-conceived) critiques about past editions.

 

[Halivar]

You can do the exact same thing in 4e as well. Take a normal orc, apply a class template, and increase its level to whatever level is suitable. All of this is in the DMG. You can face a level 20 orc Fighter in 3e... and you can face a level 20 orc Fighter in 4e. Besides some minor differences in how the mechanics work they're essentially the same.

In fact, I'm pretty sure 4E already has level 20 orcs in the compendium.

 

[Wulfgar76]

In my opinion, 3rd edition, while you could fight gods and everything else under the sun, you could fight orcs at really high level because of class levels and hit dice. You could fight a squad of 25HD orcs for example, and still challange your party. There was never an emphasis on working your way up to finally killing the gods or the demon lords like I felt from 4th edition.

I you should forget about the stuff you didn't like about 4th, and discuss D&D Next.

What do you think of the Stated Design Goal of D&D Next to keep monsters relevant longer through flatter attack progression?
This aspect of Next should be exactly what you're looking for.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Halivar, I found orcs of 17th to 18th level (Tanarruks, MM3) and orcs of epic level in The Plane Above of all places. And if you need a more fighter-like orc NPC, I can make one in five minutes, or ten if you include making a PDF out of it. I suspect making a 20th-level orc fighter in D&DN would take about as long.

What do you think of the Stated Design Goal of D&D Next to keep monsters relevant longer through flatter attack progression?
This aspect of Next should be exactly what you're looking for.

I don't think the flat math works very well. A rogue or monk PC might see lots of AC growth over levels, and a fighter might see none at all. Without a predictable AC, the monster's attack bonus doesn't mean much. If monsters get "proficiency bonuses" then this concern becomes less relevant, but at the moment a high-level rogue can laugh at many non-casting monsters.

 

[the Jester]

In my opinion, 3rd edition, while you could fight gods and everything else under the sun, you could fight orcs at really high level because of class levels and hit dice. You could fight a squad of 25HD orcs for example, and still challange your party.

Right- and you still can in 4e. In fact, the party in my game is currently fighting an army of troglodyte zombies, statted as a combination of level 24 swarms (basically big masses) and level 24 minions (individual zombies).

 

[Wulfgar76]

I don't think the flat math works very well. A rogue or monk PC might see lots of AC growth over levels, and a fighter might see none at all.

Why would a rogue see more AC growth than another class?
Leather armor and a 20 Dex (max) is AC 16.
Plate mail and shield is AC 20.

Without a predictable AC, the monster's attack bonus doesn't mean much.

Actually with unpredictable, or wider-ranging ACs, attack bonuses mean MUCH MORE.
A +6 to hit is consistently hitting the low AC wizard, while the same bonus consistently misses the better armored fighter.
The "Attack bonus treadmill" of 4e (and 3e to a lesser extent) meant pretty much rolls of 9+ always hit, every monster, from level 1 to level 30.

If monsters get "proficiency bonuses" then this concern becomes less relevant, but at the moment a high-level rogue can laugh at many non-casting monsters.

Monster attack bonuses are too low in the playtest Bestiary. This is a known issue.
When the MM comes out, I expect monster attack bonuses to get better as the level of the monster goes up.