D&D 5E Who raises the dead?

[devincutler]

Given what you've said thus far in the thread, I have a question: What was your previous D&D of choice before 5e? That is, before 5e, what would you consider your "favorite" edition, and (if different) which edition did you play the most?

My previous edition I played was 3.5. It was my favourite before 5th, until I DM'd a game that got to higher levels and saw how broken it was.

I have played all editions but 4th since 1974.

My favourite edition is 5th.

I run long term campaigns lasting years of real time and tend to take my players from 1st to 20th level. This is why higher level balancing is a concern for me while, it seems, most players never get that far and are willing to just brush off such things. My campaigns tend to involve things other than pure module hopping, and so issues of inter-world logic, magic economics, and the like matter more to me than most. While the idea of a 17th level wizard using Wish to spam Symbol spells may not be an issue for most people, it is for me. I have to eventually deal with PCs doing it all over their strongholds, and, by internal consistency, I have to figure out why enemy wizards of 17th level or higher don't have symbols over every 5 foot square of their strongholds.

Inter-world consistency is a big deal for me. I want the world to make sense as much as a fantasy world of magic and demons and a rule system overlaid on top of that can be. If continual flame costs 50 gp per casting, I will want to know why every city and town in a world is not fully lit by such spells. I won't just hand wave that (and my players, all smart adults and players who have played for more than 30 years, won't either). So either my cities and towns are all fully lit with continual flame spells, or I have to nerf the spell, making it last 7 days, or make it where you have to cast it X times in a row to make it permanent...something to explain away the lack of continual flame spells everywhere.

I do understand that 17th level wizards don't grow on trees, and that 14th level transmuters do not as well. However, 14th level is not all that rare in a world like Forgotten Realms. There are enough so that transmuters can run a business providing youthful appearance to pretty much any noble who wants. I don't want a world were every rich person or person with a title looks like a 20 year old. But given its availability, how does one explain otherwise? Why aren't these nobles paying to look 20? I would think most of them would want to, and could find a transmuter willing to do it since it costs the transmuter nothing except 8 hours of time. So you pay for the time and you get 3d10 years back. For inter-world consistency, I have to either decide every nobleperson or wealthy merchant looks 20 years old, or I have to come up with some reason why this youth is not given to everyone willing to pay for it.

I've had to, in 5th and 3.5, nerf Fabricate so that finely crafted items cannot be made no matter how skilled the caster is. Why? The spell destroys any economy in which it exists otherwise.

It is interesting to me that Wish cost 5,000 XP in 3rd edition and that was considered acceptable as a balancing issue for the spell, but in 5th edition no one has a problem with essentially the same spell doing the same thing for no cost at all.

 

[devincutler]

Length of session can be a major variable - some people play for 2 hrs, some for 12, and everything in between - but, the exp required to level up relative to the exp for an expected medium-hard encounter is lower at higher levels than at mid levels.

I did not know that it sped up at higher levels. I wonder why they did that? It may be something I have to change, since for my campaigns, high level play is just a continuing facet of a long term campaign and there is no race to the finish line level-wise.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I did not know that it sped up at higher levels. I wonder why they did that?

Presumably to extend the play experience in the more functional mid-level 'sweet spot.' Similarly, the randomly-deadly/frustrating 1st level goes the fastest of any in the progression.

It's a pretty clever solution to the dilemma posed by demand for both 'classic feel' - which included grueling/deadly/frustrating low-levels and over-the-top-broken high-levels sandwiching a more appealing, all too brief 'sweet spot' - and for an 'expanded sweet spot' of relative playability. Tweaking the exp progression allowed them to present a traditional 0-to-hero dynamic, but with the 0 and super-hero ends inconspicuously minimized to salvage the play experience for anyone not inured to the vagaries of D&D by decades of devotion.

(Hope that didn't sound too cynical. I tend to sound more cynical than I really am. And I am really cynical.)

 

[devincutler]

Presumably to extend the play experience in the more functional mid-level 'sweet spot.' Similarly, the randomly-deadly/frustrating 1st level goes the fastest of any in the progression.

It's a pretty clever solution to the dilemma posed by demand for both 'classic feel' - which included grueling/deadly/frustrating low-levels and over-the-top-broken high-levels sandwiching a more appealing, all too brief 'sweet spot' - and for an 'expanded sweet spot' of relative playability. Tweaking the exp progression allowed them to present a traditional 0-to-hero dynamic, but with the 0 and super-hero ends inconspicuously minimized to salvage the play experience for anyone not inured to the vagaries of D&D by decades of devotion.

(Hope that didn't sound too cynical. I tend to sound more cynical than I really am. And I am really cynical.)

I'm confused though.

Given that level advancement is a linear process, I can understand how speeding up the lower levels gets you to the sweet spot sooner and therefore "expands" it. But explain to me how quickening the higher levels AFTER the sweet spot, expands or affects the sweet spot in any way whatsoever?

In other words...people who never get to higher levels won't care one way or the other. So they should have kept higher level progression at the same rate as sweet spot or even extended it more, and they should have better balanced high level effects. That or just cut off advancement at whatever the end of the sweet spot is.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm confused though.

Given that level advancement is a linear process, I can understand how speeding up the lower levels gets you to the sweet spot sooner and therefore "expands" it. But explain to me how quickening the higher levels AFTER the sweet spot, expands or affects the sweet spot in any way whatsoever?

It's all relative. The 'sweet spot' is expanded because those levels take more exp relative to the exp you'll get from same-challenge encounters. So, over the course of a campaign, you spend less time at low levels, more at 'sweet spot' levels, and less finishing out the campaign at high levels (assuming you even bother to). Anyone feeling compelled to go through the motions of reaching 20th level would also get to their next campaign sooner, I suppose.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I'm actually designing a campaign (for after CoS) that thematically focusses on the idea that adventurers are the only ones who come back from the dead.

 

[Ashrym]

I don't understand why you feel this way. Are you saying a group is going to be fine spending 10,000 gp and an hour for a Resurrection when a Wish can do it for free for a single action? Really?

By the time they can cast wish the answer would be yes. Giving up that 9th-level slot to accomplish something easily accomplished with a lower level spell is a big opportunity cost.

I am more likely to save wish for something more important or use that 9th-level slot more effectively to prevent a death in the first place. Foresight, for example, is an amazing spell that likely would have already taken the spell slot.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The legend of Orpheus is a terrible example of a bard bringing someone back from the dead because he doesn't actually do it.

He didn't succeed in the end, but he clearly had the ability. Sure, not as convenient or everyday or certain as the spell in D&D, but it's not like it ever is...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Given that level advancement is a linear process, I can understand how speeding up the lower levels gets you to the sweet spot sooner and therefore "expands" it. But explain to me how quickening the higher levels AFTER the sweet spot, expands or affects the sweet spot in any way whatsoever?

You're expected to stop the campaign, or at least stop using the same characters, shortly after they reach level 20. By reducing the time spent at high levels, you hit the end of the game more quickly, so you can all move into the next campaign with low level characters again.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

While the idea of a 17th level wizard using Wish to spam Symbol spells may not be an issue for most people, it is for me. I have to eventually deal with PCs doing it all over their strongholds, and, by internal consistency, I have to figure out why enemy wizards of 17th level or higher don't have symbols over every 5 foot square of their strongholds.

Meanwhile, I've been taking advantage of these changes in order to flood every wizard's tower and high-end dungeon with wall-to-wall Private Sanctums. It solves about half of the problems caused by the Teleport spell.