D&D (2024) Wrapping up first 2-20 2024 campaign this week, some of my thoughts

[SlyFlourish]

We started the campaign in September the week the new PHB came out. We are currently level 18 and will likely finish it this week. This group has played multiple 1-20 adventures before, so we have a lot of experience from 5E for comparison.

We played MDCM Where Evil Lives started at level 2. Our party consists of a Dwarf Champion, Human Light Cleric, Goliath Abjuration Wizard, Human Valor Bard (with Paladin 1/Warlock 2 dip) and me - a Halfling Arcane Trickster/Fey Warlock (with Bard1/Paladin1 dip). Here are some thoughts:

1. The combat takes a lot longer at lower level, but is quicker at high level because enemies fall quickly (too quickly TBH)

2. Combat balance is worse at high level than in 5E. By the end of the campaign most fights were lasting only 1 round. Bosses went down without a turn at all about half the time. This is an MCDM adventure with a bunch of buffed monsters too, it would be worse using 5E or 2024 standard monsters.

3. We were playing with both crafting and purchasing magic items. A few magic items are problems.

Vicious weapons in particular are Uncommon and should probably be Legendary as they are better than just about any Rare or Very Rare weapon. They are superior to a Very Rare Flame Tongue and will generally do more damage than a Legendary +3 weapon.

Removing attunement from Ring of Resistance in 2024 resulted in most of our party wearing 10 rings of resistance and being resistant to almost all damage by game's end.

4. The new Champion is the real deal when it comes to damage.

5. A 1-level Paladin dip is pretty awesome on any caster that is going to use melee weapons and has the Charisma and Strength.

6. Abjuration Wizard is basically unkillable at high level.

Now that you have these experience, what advice would you give to DMs getting ready to run D&D 2024?

 

[eyeheartawk]

Yo-yo healing ensure PCs are basically immune to death. If Dave first then Bob is 100% certain it's because Alice executed him as everyone watched it obviously being done to overcome yo-yo healing

I'm still shocked they didn't fix this.

I know that they dialed up the superheroics for player characters even more, but the way yo-yo healing stands you up without consequence all the time surely couldn't have been intentional originally. But man, they've really just run with it since.

 

[TwoSix]

It is changes in the Vicous weapons too, a Rare weapon that will blow away a Legendary +3 weapon.

Vicious is flame tongue, probably the best overall weapon in 2014 rules for its rarity, but even better because it doesn't need to be activated and doesn't do fire damage (which is commonly resisted).

Yep, that's going in the "preemptive house rule nerf" pile.

 

[ECMO3]

Now that you have these experience, what advice would you give to DMs getting ready to run D&D 2024?

Well here is what I would do:

1. Ban Vicious Weapons and make rings of resistance attunement

2. Play a lot of monsters that are resistant to BPS, this will drive down the effectiveness of martials who use extra attack with weapons and thereby make mastery less effective.

3. Make "Deadly" encounters the norm at level 9+

4. Don't allow buying or crafting magic items except for potions, scrolls and things explicitly allowed as part of class or subclass (i.e. Artificer).

5. Don't allow special facilities in Bastions, make them flavor only.

6. Going to 0 hit points and being revived before dying healing raises exhaustion by one level.

7. Grappling someone moves you into their space (you occupy the same space while grappled so dragging through spike growth damages both of you).

Those things would make it better, I don't know if they would fix it.

 

[ECMO3]

Vicious is flame tongue, probably the best overall weapon in 2014 rules for its rarity, but even better because it doesn't need to be activated and doesn't do fire damage (which is commonly resisted).

Yep, that's going in the "preemptive house rule nerf" pile.

It is quite a bit better than Flametongue actually. Having played with both of these in the same adventure, VW are not attunement, and as you mentioned do not take a bonus action to turn on. Those things are a pretty big deal in play.

Like you said Flametongue is arguably the BEST Very Rare weapon in 2014 and VW is substantially better and only Rare.

They also don't light you up like a beacon.

 

[ECMO3]

If it's that obvious to me that a +3 shield will ruin encounters, why isn't it obvious to WotC?

A +3 Shield is Very Rare, which is about right I think and TBH that is not a very big deal in play (at the level we are at). Not nearly as big a deal as the Vicious Weapons.

I think I have a 21 AC with a +3 shield (it was 22 before I unattuned to the Cloak of Protection), but monsters are regularly beating that at this level.

Don't get me wrong, it is better than the 18 I would have without it, but it is not nearly as gamebreaking as other less Rare items.

 

[ECMO3]

@ECMO3 - any character deaths or is everybody still rocking the characters they started with?

No deaths. As mentioned earlier we do have a house rule that going to 0 and being healed raises exhaustion one level and early on we did have players rocking exhaustion pretty regularly. I think I had 3 levels at one point, which as primarily a Rogue made be very inneffective with a -6 to attacks.

 

[Distracted DM]

I'd agree that flat +1/2/3 items are pretty powerful- I try to make sure that they're attunement nowadays; there's no "+1 sword no attunement," I usually give it at least a little extra bonus (usually inspired by d4caltrops excellent random tables) and make it attunement. Items with powerful features, I'll try to avoid giving those +#'s bonuses... my mechanically-minded players are always on the lookout for them though because of how drastically they increase their success rates.

 

[ECMO3]

It also says 'certain' magic items, and wearing them implies clothing items. I guess you technically wear swords when they're in a scabbard but for game purposes you wield them.

It specifies what it applies to:

You can't wear more than one of certain magic items. You can't normally wear more than one pair of Footwear, one pair of gloves or gauntlets, one pair of bracers, one suit of armor, one item of headwear or one cloak. The DM might make exceptions.

So swords (and rings) are fine barring a houserule.

 

[Stalker0]

So we are circling a lot around the magic item issue, so lets try and break it down.

1) First question (knowing nothing about the module), is did the DM provide magic items based on the module recommendation or treasure tables, or was this from the standard tables in the DMG....etc etc.

2) The 10 rings, while obviously that is a LOT of rings, I mean realistically the vast majority of those aren't going to have an impact in the majority of fights, and rarely will two rings work together to produce an even larger effect. Probably the biggest factor is that the entire party would have fire resistance or cold resistance, as normally with those items one member is looking good but everyone else gets cooked and the pressure is still on.

3) WOTC can make all the claims it wants about assuming the game has 0 magic items....but they themselves NEVER go with that assumption in there modules. Magic Items are always found in the modules, and so to me the high level game does assume a baseline of magic items and shoudl be balanced around such. I have no issue with the game being "playable" at those levels, but it shouldn't be the baseline when its quite clear in actual play magic items are assumed. Just as a dm with a boatload of items should have to adjust harder encounters....dms that provide no magic items should have to adjust to easier ones.

4) Perhaps the OP could provide us more insight into what other magic items the party had. The rings are a nice boost but I don't think they are game altering in the way some people here think, but depending on what else they had access to I could see the concern.