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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Retreater" data-source="post: 4112897" data-attributes="member: 42040">Well, this whole thing started when the group wanted to play "higher levels." I have to admit I'm most comfortable with the 1st - 7th spread of levels. We just wrapped up a Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign with another DM, ending at 9th level, so the guys were wanting to start a new campaign "where we left off." We also brought in three new players, so everyone made up new characters. Here's what's been going on. This isn't based only on the number of players we have (though there are a lot). Many enemies (of equal CR to the party's level) have to roll a natural 20 just to hit the characters. Other enemies, even with a load of hit points, pretty good AC, and DR are getting chopped down left and right. The worst thing though is summoning. Both the druid and the cleric are throwing lots of monsters/animals with many attacks. It's slowing down the game by adding even more combatants into the fray. It's not unusual to have a 2 hour combat with what amounts to 10 or more PCs (including their summoned creatures and animal companions). So the villains stand around pummelling the summoned creatures. Even if I did kill one of them before getting taken down ... well, big deal - that's what the creature is there for. Meanwhile the "real" party members aren't being challenged, escape every combat unscathed, and the players are getting bored waiting 30 minutes to 45 minutes for their turn to come around again. So my problems are dealing with summoning, dealing with impossibly high ACs (in the 30s at 10th level), spell effects that (when combined through 2-3 casters) inflict close to 100 points of damage/round, and having monsters that can do some significant damage to a character before getting turned into ground beef by summoned creatures. Retreater</blockquote>

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