D&D 5E XP Chart and High-level NPCs

[Sword of Spirit]

The DMG describes what it means to be a character of different level-tiers. Unless your setting is filled with world-class epic heroes, that means it is assumed there aren't many high level (or equivalent) NPCs.

My solution is to require much more experience to level. Also, you can throw in the fact that adventurers are rare, and assume that NPCs gain their skills through slow and steady practice rather than quick and dirty monster slaying. Consistency-wise, if a PC wanted to spend a year of downtime training, I might award them XP to model the same thing.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Nice points about lack of genre-awareness, in both directions.

Also: In addition to non "basic attack" vectors of defeating such a fighter, I'd just also mention that most high level NPCs aren't going to be tricked out in the way you describe, and a very wide variety of viable PC archetypes would not stand up nearly so well to 1,000 CR 1/8 guards. It's only when you specifically min/max for AC that you can achieve the result you desire.

Even ignoring grappling/overwhelming this fighter though, your math is off: if half the guards Help the other half, you go from 1/400 to 1/40 hitting with a crit (why is that crit dealing just 1 damage, by the way?)

Anyway, I think that most level 20 characters aren't as army-immune as you seem to be implying.

Now I want to run a fighter through this scenario.

Remember that after the first hit, the Displacement goes away, so other archers/crossbowmen no longer get disadvantage unless it's from range. In fact, Displacement is almost redundant against armies this large, because the fighter can and maybe should just drop prone at the end of his every turn. (But that invites counterplay of the archers holding their fire until he stands up, which invites counter-counterplay from him of just remaining prone during the whole fight, since he really doesn't care much about disadvantage. Which invites counter-counter-counterplay from them of sending in a small number of melee warriors, etc.)

I think the fighter is almost guaranteed to lose this fight, but that's why I want to run it. Maybe I can find some combination of terrain and skill use (hiding? disguise self as guard and assassinate the general?) which will allow him to triumph. I'll say for the sake of argument that if either the army's top three officers or 20% of the men die, the army routs and the fighter wins.

In theory 100 CR 1/8 Guards is only a Hard fight for the fighter, but somehow I don't think it would play out that way.

P.S. It seems to me that the smartest thing for the guards to do would be to take his cloak while the other guards shoot the fighter full of crossbow quarrels. That's probably some kind of variant on a Disarm maneuver: attack roll vs. Athletics roll. Low probability of success per soldier but quantity has a quality of its own.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Ten fights in five hours?

Isn't that a little implausible in and of itself?

No, they were all low-level fights and we run fast. There's not exactly much to run on a kobold or a guard.

[MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION], Would you please upload a recording of one of your sessions? I can't even imagine 10 fights in 5 hours (unless they're no-stakes curbstomps with nothing in between), and I thought I ran fast.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

For example if we have 1,000 men fire a volley at a single high level target, here's a DM adjudication that seems reasonable to me: treat half the shooters as Helping the other half. Therefore 500 viable shots have a 1/20 chance of success (advantage counteracting disadvantage from displacement), resulting in 25 hits, which are all critical hits.

Assume 1d6+1 base damage for these archers, or 2d6+1 on crit for a total of 8x25=200 damage in this volley.

Yeah. Even your very impressive fighter will feel that.

I recognize this requires some adjudication, as if memory serves you can't Help at range like that. But... Does it strike you as wildly unreasonable? Punitive? Or a decent way of modeling the situation at hand?

That way of doing it definitely works, but I'd actually use the DMG's optional mob rules for such a situation: since it requires a 20 on the die for anyone to hit, every 20 attackers equals a single normal hit (the mob system ignores critical chance), which means 50 hits for 4 damage, for the same 200 damage result.

Really not much difference, I'm just constantly using those mob rules because I like using large groups of weaker creatures, and not rolling their attacks individually is one of the things that makes that possible.

 

[Sunseeker]

[MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION], Would you please upload a recording of one of your sessions? I can't even imagine 10 fights in 5 hours (unless they're no-stakes curbstomps with nothing in between), and I thought I ran fast.

We're not low level anymore(16+), but next time I run a lower-level game I'll give it a go, never done that before tho.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That way of doing it definitely works, but I'd actually use the DMG's optional mob rules for such a situation: since it requires a 20 on the die for anyone to hit, every 20 attackers equals a single normal hit (the mob system ignores critical chance), which means 50 hits for 4 damage, for the same 200 damage result.

Really not much difference, I'm just constantly using those mob rules because I like using large groups of weaker creatures, and not rolling their attacks individually is one of the things that makes that possible.

But then you're ignoring disadvantage from the cloak of displacement. That's not cricket--it nullifies his magic item unfairly.

Random thought: kobolds with nets would be nasty foes for this fighter. Or kobolds with light crossbows, actually.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

But then you're ignoring disadvantage from the cloak of displacement. That's not cricket--it nullifies his magic item unfairly.

I find it more than fair to have the cloak of displacement, or any other source disadvantage, be circumstantially ignored because I am also ignoring any source of advantage and critical hit chance - which comes out to being more of a benefit to the player overall.

Especially since the cloak of displacement would only apply disadvantage on attacks until one did hit, so even if we applied some quick-fix of doubling the number of attackers needed before 1 hits, that would make it 40 for the first hit, and then each 20 remaining constituting 1 hit, for a total of 49 hits rather than 50 - and I really can't view the difference between 196 damage and 200 damage (or even of 49 or 50 damage, assuming a heavy armor master) as being the line drawn to determine what is "unfair."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I find it more than fair to have the cloak of displacement, or any other source disadvantage, be circumstantially ignored because I am also ignoring any source of advantage and critical hit chance - which comes out to being more of a benefit to the player overall.

Especially since the cloak of displacement would only apply disadvantage on attacks until one did hit, so even if we applied some quick-fix of doubling the number of attackers needed before 1 hits, that would make it 40 for the first hit, and then each 20 remaining constituting 1 hit, for a total of 49 hits rather than 50 - and I really can't view the difference between 196 damage and 200 damage (or even of 49 or 50 damage, assuming a heavy armor master) as being the line drawn to determine what is "unfair."

Doubling the number of required attackers is a bad method of applying disadvantage. You actually need to square it. It takes 400 attacks on average for one to get through, not 40.

You can't use a bad method to justify not applying disadvantage. Those are just two related ways of being unfair.

 

[MostlyDm]

That's why you need to start with Help (or kobolds) to negate the disadvantage ASAP.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That's why you need to start with Help (or kobolds) to negate the disadvantage ASAP.

Yes, I noticed that when you first mentioned Help--that was a good move. I was thinking along the lines of grappling or nets but in this case Help is probably better, although it does cause some problems with initiative order.

Also, flaming oil plus a readied action ("shoot the fighter when he enters the flames") will work too. Bonus points if you have a squad ready to Grapple the fighter and keep him in the flames/drag him through the flames. I'd normally suggest caltrops as but those should probably count as "non-magical weapons" even though they're not weapons, so Heavy Armor Master would make you immune.