D&D 5E Have you experienced very high-level (18+) play in 5e? Tell me about it!

[psychophipps]

Is this a defense of WotCs decision to dumb down state blocks, or merely your personal anecdote?

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I am close to violently opposed to "dumbing down" pretty much anything. I'm furthermore quite annoyed that the Death Knight and Black Guard are ridiculously nerfed in their stat blocks.

That said, my post was indirectly in response to an earlier post about a bunch of supposed hardass pipehitters getting beat like your grandma's carpets on Saturday while trying to point out that the aforementioned pipehitters are not a solo event.

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[dave2008]

Is this a defense of WotCs decision to dumb down state blocks, or merely your personal anecdote?

CapnZapp, I would suggest that, whatever WotC design intent is/was, it was not to "dumb down" stat blocks. That has a strongly negative connotation that I don't think you intend. It implies, at least to me, that those who use the standard stat block are dumb as well. I would suggest that they (WotC) have offered simplified or modest stat blocks that take a degree of system and rpg mastery to get the most out of.

Personally, I don't think any edition of D&D, or any rpg I have ever played or owned, has had monsters that cover all of my needs. So I guess I have always assumed I would need to tailor them to my needs. For that I find 5e very accommodating, more so than any edition of D&D I've played (1e, 4e, & 5e). Now, if that is a result of them making the stat blocks simpler, than for me it was the correct move.

I find this even more true with high level play. It is, for me, fairly easy to adjust 5e monsters to accommodate different threats.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

This is precisely the DMs job.

Of course you can ignore the rules for encounter building, CRs, rest mechanics and adventuring days if you want, and throw EL 30 combat encounters at your 1st level party for lols if you want but you're playing a very different and likely very short and frustrating game.

I must have missed the part where it says that. The only thing it says in the DM basic rules is that you should build encounters that your players will enjoy, with guidelines for evaluating how difficult an encounter might be (relative to party level), and a warning to be careful when using monsters that are a higher level than the party.

What constitutes fun for the players is a matter left for the DM to determine. If you think they'll enjoy a tactically complex situation, and it's important that their chance to prevail remain within some narrow window of probabilities, then that's on you (and you should remember the magic items when you go to design the encounters). If your players prefer an organic world, where that level 10 giant is still level 10 regardless of whether the party is level 2 or level 20 (and regardless of what magic items they have), then that is also an option. The book doesn't actually say that you should play one way or the other.

What it does say is that the DM plays the NPCs, describes what the PCs observe within the world, and adjudicates uncertainty in task resolution.

 

[koga305]

This has been an interesting thread so far! My PCs are about to hit 16th level and I'm certainly starting to notice some differences. The biggest issue for me has been having characters pull out some obscure ability that I wasn't counting on that completely solves a problem, or gives them access to information I wasn't expecting them to have.

I'm curious - those with high level parties, what magic items do they have access to? Here are mine:

Dwarf Fighter (Battlemaster) 15
+1 Battleaxe
Javelin of Lightning
Bag of Holding
Raven Tattoo (homebrew item: cast a non-instantaneous sending 1/day)

Tiefling Paladin (Vengence) 6/Warlock (Fiend) 9
The Moonstone Blade (sentient +2 greatsword; has 6 spell points to use divine smite or cast some paladin spells on its own initiative)
+1 Rod of the Pact Keeper
Tome of Leadership and Influence (used)

Halfling Monk (Shadow) 9/Cleric (Grave) 6
Hat of Disguise
Blessing of the Raven Queen (homebrew divine boon, grants +2 Constitution, immunity to necrotic damage, and the ability to cast resurrection spells, which most clerics in my setting lack)

Elf Cleric (Tempest) 15
Iron Horn of Venya (really a Horn of Valhalla, but Venya is the domain of his god Kord)
+1 Longsword of Speed (same ability as a Scimitar of Speed)
Mithral plate mail

Half-Elf Monk (Four Elements) 14/Druid 1
+1 Spear
Ring of Shooting Stars

I have tried to avoid granting too many "plus" items, especially armor class boosts (although I know the Fighter would love to see an increase to his AC, as it's been 20 since level 5 or so). My party certainly doesn't fit [MENTION=6871120]valarmorgulis[/MENTION] 's idea about everyone having +2 items. Even with the items they've already got, our Tiefling is nasty accurate with eldritch blast (between a 20 Charisma and the +1 from his rod), and with his eldritch spear ability I know I can't use monsters that approach over a long distance, as he'll tear them to shreds before they can get to the PCs.

 

[valarmorgulis]

Maybe WotC knows what the average magical item layout is for high-level groups, but I doubt even they know.

Still, after a couple of decades of magical items being handed out like candy, I expect that many groups still are fairly lenient with them.

 

[Celtavian]

I'm figuring WotC has reached the point where they know they can't design encounters to challenge experienced min-max groups with all the bells and whistles, so they've gone with a fairly low level baseline. They just leave it up to experienced DMs to increase the challenge to a level that suits them and their players.

 

[Celtavian]

I feel it's necessary to point out that most DMs simply fail at being devious enough for the true nastiness of many high-CR opponents to come out.
Take a Balor, for example. It has a genius IQ, the ruthlessness of Stalin, the strength of a dozen men and leads entire demonic legions into battle. The chances of this guy (or lady) waking up one morning and saying to themselves, "Today I'm going to stand in the middle of a room and push myself at a high-level PC party like meat into a sausage maker" is somewhere between slim and nonexistent. You see, this bad boy has everything the DM needs for victory in it's flavor text, i.e. that aforementioned demonic blanking legion.
So now that the PCs are neck deep in minor demons on the ground, have aerial forces swooping in and beating them about the head and shoulders, and endless ranged blasts from various nasties (demons have zero regard for blue-on-blue as long as the Balor's objectives are being met) *then* the General shows up to punk down the 1 or 2 battle-weary survivors for the foot on entrails selfie.
Similarly, you should never see "Just a Death Knight". You should see a ravenous horde of undead of all types, various evil allies, and the Death Knight waving it's sword to give battle orders looking like a total badass on it's Nightmare on the nearest rise.

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Or they ignore the minor demons, use Sharpshooter which reduces all range and cover penalties to non-existent, then focus fire the Balor from a 100 plus feet away. Because I tried this and that's what my players did. It was pretty annoying. It certainly didn't feel right to have the mighty demonic legion leading (gotta love that flavor text because it means so much mechanically) balor having to hide like a baby kitten from the ranged attackers. It looked so great in action.

 

[koga305]

Or they ignore the minor demons, use Sharpshooter which reduces all range and cover penalties to non-existent, then focus fire the Balor from a 100 plus feet away. Because I tried this and that's what my players did. It was pretty annoying. It certainly didn't feel right to have the mighty demonic legion leading (gotta love that flavor text because it means so much mechanically) balor having to hide like a baby kitten from the ranged attackers. It looked so great in action.

I've not got ranged specialists in my (15th level) party, but I suspect they would go for a similar tactic. One of the heavy melee guys (a Paladin/Warlock) has misty step and dimension door to get up close through any layer of minions, and the two monks use fly and Shadow Step to achieve the same effect. The Cleric doesn't have to worry about range, as he can drop maximized Call Lightnings pretty easily from long range. It's a real challenge to not have a solo monster focus fired with my group.

 

[psychophipps]

Or they ignore the minor demons, use Sharpshooter which reduces all range and cover penalties to non-existent, then focus fire the Balor from a 100 plus feet away. Because I tried this and that's what my players did. It was pretty annoying. It certainly didn't feel right to have the mighty demonic legion leading (gotta love that flavor text because it means so much mechanically) balor having to hide like a baby kitten from the ranged attackers. It looked so great in action.

So how many Quasit (anything Large or bigger should have a pet Quasit) and/or Vrock saves did they go through? What happened when the Glabrezu guards cast darkness in four different locations and the Balor's teleport put him into a random different one every single turn? When one of the PCs failed a Vrock save (probability is like gravity, at the end of the day it has no friends), how did they fair as several large demonic beasties pounded on them at advantage?

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[Valetudo]

I havent really looked at 5ths higher level demons, but dont they have teleport spells anymore?