NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6476103" data-attributes="member: 4937">An optimized party in every edition has sometime after 10th level started breaking the game.   First edition was no different, especially after Unearthed Arcana came along and gave the players more ways to break the game.It sounds to me like you've got the following problems:a) A few feats are OP.b) The most OP feats are the ones that allow ranged combat, and ranged attackers have a tactical answer to pretty much everything in just turreting and unleashing the pain.  Your party has correctly hit on the 'all ranged attacker' strategy that is optimal whenever ranged attackers can compete with anything else in damage.c) You are over 10th level, and over 10th level has always been problematic with a D20 resolution system.  d) You got to 10th level too quickly.  The game was just released this year.  Are you playing 16 hours a week or something?  Slow down.  Reduce the XP awards.  There is no need to rush up to bigger numbers.   I don't expect my current campaign to hit 10th level before its 6th year of play.e) If 5e is anything like 1e, there aren't really good guidelines for how to challenge players above 10th level.  In general, straight up fights with monsters stop being challenging.  There are only so many Hill Giants you can have in the fight before it gets boring.  You'll need to add terrain, environmental hazards, unusual situations, and 'fog of war' to keep high level PC's on their toes.None of that is insurmountable. a) Nerf the OP feats, particularly the ranged combat ones.  Since they involve large numbers, this should be easy.  Start off with -5/+5, though frankly even that seems likely to be too good.   Why that wasn't realized in play testing I don't know.   In general, ranged combat has to be strictly inferior in terms of damage production to melee combat, or else it is strictly superior.b) Half the XP awards.  Stay in the sweet spot as long as possible.c) Gain some system mastery before getting into high level play, and implement some lessons learned in how you create set piece encounters.  Don't just have them fight a couple of Frost Giants.  Have them fight Frost Giants on a slippery glacier where the frost giants can maneuver through a network of ravines and tunnels beneath the ice, have a snow fort where they can unleash boulders from behind cover, and are backed up by pet white dragons, winter wolves, and their own spell casters with Bless and the like.</blockquote>

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