D&D General Tips for starting at higher-level?

[LordEntrails]

Agree with this. The last time I ran a high-level game, I gave them the backstory that they had previously (20 years prior) saved the kingdom from an invasion of elementals, and were hailed as heroes throughout the kingdom. Fat and lazy from their cushy government jobs, the heroes are called forth again when the kingdom is again in urgent peril.

Are you implying that I've gotten fat and lazy in my old age? Well you are right!

 

[grimmgoose]

On the DM-side, unless you want to get bullied by spellcasters, you've gotta embrace the Adventuring Day.

I said this in an earlier thread, but you can't just make an encounter to fight the Elder Brain; you've gotta first have a mindflayer fight in the creepy-brain laboratory, which leads to some exploration and then a fight with the experiments-gone-awry, which then leads you to the Elder Brain.

D&D 5E is a game about resource management, and at high level, that design becomes more and more pronounced.

 

[TwoSix]

What tips do you have to be "ready to deal" with the aforementioned spells?

I'm assuming you're talking about...
Animate Objects = time to resolve multiple rolls, taking up space on map
Wall of Force / Forcecage = few methods to thwart RAW

I'm less familiar with how Magic Jar and Simulacrum are problematic.

If you're not ready for it, Animate Objects does an incredible amount of damage for its level. It's counterable, but if you don't have the counter, just be ready for tougher monsters to get wrecked.

Wall of Force is pretty much like you said. If you have combined forces in an enclosed area, prepare for them to get cut into 2 smaller groups.

Magic Jar is a one-shot save or die on a weakened enemy, and you can do some serious shenanigans while controlling an important NPC. Not terribly bad unless the players to cheese it with some combination of death ward, clone, simulacrum, etc.

Sumulacrum is ripe for abuse with cheesy shenanigans. But even at its least cheesy, it's 1500 gp and a day of downtime to give yourself a buff of double your spell slots and two castings a round, which is pretty darn good for a 13th level caster.

 

[Distracted DM]

For you, what did "being prepared for a higher mental load" look like in terms of actionable steps when starting at higher-level?

I'd recommend against doing a sandbox at high level unless it's a premade adventure. Basically, at high levels the characters (mostly spellcasters) can start covering a lot of ground, very quickly. They can get answers to things very quickly. They can hit a lot of things that you're either not prepared for, or if your games are heavily reactive and improvised, it requires a lot more brain-RAM to keep everything that could be happening, all the things in play, going at once.

It goes from "ok I have to know what's going on in the local area" to "ok I have to know what's going on in the entire setting."

So my advice, I guess, is use a premade adventure and make the players aware that it's not a "railroad" but don't go entirely off-road.

As others have said, high-level spellcasters can be a real pain to challenge. This encounter that on paper was deadly has now been rendered impotent by a few spells. You really need to start planning around what the PCs can do... it requires A LOT more work on the GM side.

 

[Quickleaf]

I imagine some test combats would be important for people to learn their characters' features.

On the GM side, be prepared

Expect combat to take longer. How much longer depends on a lot of factors. A time limit on turns may be helpful.

If you're not ready for it, Animate Objects does an incredible amount of damage for its level. It's counterable, but if you don't have the counter, just be ready for tougher monsters to get wrecked.

Wall of Force is pretty much like you said. If you have combined forces in an enclosed area, prepare for them to get cut into 2 smaller groups.

Magic Jar is a one-shot save or die on a weakened enemy, and you can do some serious shenanigans while controlling an important NPC. Not terribly bad unless the players to cheese it with some combination of death ward, clone, simulacrum, etc.

Sumulacrum is ripe for abuse with cheesy shenanigans. But even at its least cheesy, it's 1500 gp and a day of downtime to give yourself a buff of double your spell slots and two castings a round, which is pretty darn good for a 13th level caster.

How did you handle simulacrum in your game? Or any of those simulacrum combos you mentioned?

 

[Shardstone]

ONe of my favorite games was an 8-shot that was 17th to 20th level, with multiple sessions at 20th.

On the player end, I allowed, at the time, all official WotC content. Had 4 players. Setting was Crifoth -- a blasted wasteland haunted by demons and affliction. Players went around killing Archfiends, one of them became an Archfiend, and in the end they succeeded in bringing humanity back to the wasteland to fix the world.

I prepared my monsters to have teleportation for spells like force cage. MOst combats were against solos or duos, since we focused on the archfiends. I ran very high damage, several turns-per-round for my solos. Combats were consistently close; at this level, most combats were also fresh because they have so many resources they they can almost always be something close to fresh, and you can't really attrition them the traditional way. Despite that, I found that running for 20th level characters as if they'll always be fresh (even if they aren't in reality) was instrumental in creating a challenging atmosphere.

I didn't concern myself at all with what my players might be capable of, and instead welcomed them to surprise me with their characters. In order to start at a higher level, you have to be willing to improvise and build on the wild spells casters can drop. If you can do so well, it'll create a very strong sense of dynamic play; something is always happening, there is always spectacle, and because the players themselves are normal humans, there's a surprising amount of grounded reactions too. The players were very much thespians (though two were optimizers) and so I found that the dramas that exist at low level still existed at high level.

First session was essentially a test run. I wanted my players to exercise and play with their toys freely to see what would happen. From there, they pretty much got the hang of piloting their high level heroes and it was smooth sailing.

I did allow them plenty of magic items. One of each tier, or several rare/uncommon and one very rare or legendary.

 

[TwoSix]

How did you handle simulacrum in your game? Or any of those simulacrum combos you mentioned?

The player used it to make a simulacrum of a monster they had vanquished, so it was mostly just acting like a permanent summon or henchman. It lasted until it got critted in the final battle (which was at 14th level), so I never got to see what else the player would do with it.

I'm aware of the combos with it, but I haven't used them as a player myself because I generally don't take the problematic spells when I'm a high level caster. The worse abuse I'm aware of is the wish/simulacrum loop, where you make a simulacrum and have it cast wish for you, without suffering the possible drawback of losing wish forever. (There's errata and AL rulings against that, naturally, but it seems allowable by tight rulings of RAW.)

Wish is of course a problem, but Tier 4 balance of spells is so out there it's another topic of conversation entirely.

 

[Shiroiken]

Something I'm going to try for with my Vecna game is to have the players build their characters with no additional starting equipment. Then I'm going to roll the appropriate number of treasure hoards for the first two tiers. The players will spend the last part of session 0 dividing up the loot they've acquired over the first 10 levels. I might just go ahead and roll up the loot first, allowing the players to build around it, preventing "useless" items that require a specific feature to use.

 

[bloodtide]

What are your tips for helping players who are playing a new character type at high level for the first time and/or are less experienced with high level play?

Do you second the "run test combat" suggestion?

I'm a big fan of the Crash and Burn method: You need to burn it all down to build it back up.

A lot of players with high level characters are not sure of all the rules and details and everything else. So when I start a high level game with new players...I will have a disaster strike. The players will face tough opponents, and very likely loose. Some characters even die. Then they have to build back better. Slowly remake each character or make a new character.

What tips do you have to be "ready to deal" with the aforementioned spells?

You really need to be up on game, rule, and mechanics mastery.

You might want to add spells, items, abilities and anything else to be counters.

But my big recommendation is : just let them do it. Let them take out plenty of big bad foes Easy. The twist is to make not just "zapping foes" an automatic win. Have a big plan in motion that is not effected by the defeat of a couple monsters.

Just to throw in a Magic Jar one...have the big bad foe....possessing bodies. So even when the characters kill a beholder..or whatever....the bad guys spirit escapes to come back.

 

[Quickleaf]

@Shardstone How did those multiple-turn-solo-monster combats run in terms of time spent at the table? More generally how long did your high level combats take?