D&D 5E The BG3 Effect. Control and Paralyzing 5.5 Meta?

[Zardnaar]

As some if You know I'm running 3 groups. I ended up with that many due to large numbers of newer players. I ran them through Stormwrack Isle and Sunless Citadel.

Games are now level 3 and 8.

Several spells in 5.5 seem to have been influenced by BG3. Thaumaturgy and Command come to mind.

The BG3 Meta seems to revolve around the wet condition, throwing things and fire acuity/control builds. And imposing vulnerability. Then you do honor mode and then try honor mode solo.

Most of those things are not applicable to 5E but a lot of combos still work. Generally most games don't go to level 12 but BG3 does. In BG3 S tier classes are generally Fighter. Cleric, Bards and Sorcerer with specific archetypes and the rogue (except a dip) being on the bottom.

Most of these new players are BG veterans. 5/6 or 4/5 players have played the game. If they haven't they know about it. Alot of those skills are transferable.

What I'm seeing. Lots of spellcaster heavy parties. 4/5 in group 1 and 3/5 group 3.

Group 1 Level 8

Dragon Sorcerer (lightning)
Way of Fists Monk
Bladelock Warlock
Light Cleric
Glamour Bard

Group 3

Land Druid
Berzerker Barbarian
Pact of Tome/Good Stuff Warlock
Lightning Sorcerer (4th one I've seen in 4 games 5.0 and 5.5)
Fae Ranger

Group 2 is 2E.

With changes to 5.5.

Lots more movement mundane and magical. Light Cleric spirit guardians+ glamour bard dice.

Lots more control spell being used. Command, Tashas Hideous Laughter, hold person and blindness being big offenders. Often twinned. CR 14 critter got 1 action off the other might being stun locked for most of it after they mopped up minions via wall of fire and forced movement.

Level 12 stress test. Kinda similar with upcast hungers of hadar, another lightning sorcerer and twinned hold monsters. Alert feat generally allows manipulation of initiative.

Anything lacking counterspell or a good wisdom save is going to get wrecked basically. One combat I added 4 counterspellers. It lasted over 2 hours.

Other change is true strike. Doesn't look to bad at first but it scales. And cantrips can be quickened. After you cast a twinned hold monster spell. Shillagh can also be involved via feat, tomelock or an actual Druid casting it.

I've also mentioned Chromatic Orb and how it works with advantage to hit via innate sorcery. What else grants advantage? Paralysis. And blindness (blindness, hunger of hadar). Also prone point blank. Sleep and Tashas grant prone.

Hex, command,sleep and tashas can easily be acquired via feat. Druid has sleep.

Spells that have attack rolls and are useful in 5.5. Sorcerous Burst, True Strike, Chromatic Orb, Scorching Ray. If something gets paralyzed free critical hit. Double rolled damage. At 6 dice of damage Chromatic Orb has a 92% chance of bouncing. Level 1 Chromatic Orb deals 6d8 damage vs paralyzed. Level 4 spell slot it's 12d8. 4th level scorching ray +hex it's 30d6 danage vs paralyzed. Level 3 barbarians critical is 10d6+5. I have compared Chromatic Orb to chain lightning at level 6 slot. This is before paralyzed is a thing.

If something isn't paralyzed it's getting hit with command/blindness/Tasha/sleep etc. With critical mass of spellcasters and spell regaining. One group has 20 level 3 and 4 spells available. Same level other groups only going to have 15. They're not running out any time soon in any reasonable number of encounters. I'm not doing 6-8. 4-6 is fairly typical usually 4-8 enemies per encounter. Rarely few eg 3 or more (10-20).

Any get paralyzed is basically a death sentence. If the enemies aren't getting paralyzed they're getting stun locked in effect sometimes literally stunned. Spellcasters will rush into melee to cast true strike, sorcereous burst, Chromatic Orb.

Spellcasters are interested in magical Daggers with any extra dice attached eg d4 or d6. Vs Paralyzed Sorcererous Burst 4d8+4 crits with exploding dice. Shillagh + true strike 2d10+2d6 radiant+ wisdom modifier. Flametongues and vicious weapons are great. BG3 +1d4 ones also good.

This is with reasonably new players as well. 1 very experienced player per group, 1 has 5 years experience in group 1.

The new players are mostly playing whatever they want. Charisma based spellcasters have a huge appeal 5.0 and 5.5. Great wizard extinction continues. At level 10 the cleric can make the foes vulnerable to a damage type sigh.
Vulnerability stacks with critical hits. Sigh.

 

[Quickleaf]

One thing D&D almost never handles well is stun-locking mitigation / soft counters /making it engaging.

You mentioned increased mobility in 5.5 combats? I think that's in incredible win. With your experience running 5.5, what do you attribute that to? Because it would seem to be antithetical to frequent stun-locking.

 

[Zardnaar]

One thing D&D almost never handles well is stun-locking mitigation / soft counters /making it engaging.

You mentioned increased mobility in 5.5 combats? I think that's in incredible win. With your experience running 5.5, what do you attribute that to? Because it would seem to be antithetical to frequent stun-locking.

Spells like jump, various class abilities and weapon masteries.

Even without cheesing it eg ping ponging the spirit guardian cleric around if you really want to do it it's not hard.

Everyone can get jump spell (or any lvl 1 cleric, wizard, druid, enchantment, divination, necromancic or illusion spell) for example if they're willing to pay the opportunity cost.

Things like glamour bards, world tree barbarian now exist along with old favorites. Any spellcaster can get misty steps and buff their prime attribute.

 

[HappyHubris]

BG3 also gives insane item inflation that can trivially allow you to CC the toughest bosses in the game. Helm of arcane acuity is broken, and even without that you're not limited by attunement item limits.

My DMs were struggling before the new monster manual and indeed lower-significance encounters can get completely trivialized by something like upcasted Tasha's Hideous Laughter or a simple Hypnotic Pattern. The results are just way out of line with the resource investment.

Not sure how to rebalance, but it is a bit of a challenge. My intuition is to make hard CC very expensive and instead proliferate softer CC like movement slows. Or give enemies multiple actions (instead of multiple attacks) and allow CC to remove actions, not agency.

 

[DarkCrisis]

As a DM to make peace with 5E and 5.5 you just have to realize that the player characters are vastly overpowered. Add in people who want to Minmax and well... you just have to live with it or convince them to try a different edition or game.

It took me a long time to learn that 5E isn't 3rd or even 2E. It's not meant to cause any form of grief if it can help it. It's to tell stories where the Big Damn Heroes kick ass for 10 levels and then you start over.

 

[Horwath]

As a DM to make peace with 5E and 5.5 you just have to realize that the player characters are vastly overpowered.

funny, in the newest campaign, sure we are 3rd level now, the DM is wiping floor with us, every fight, at least 2 out of 5 PC are rolling death saves, in one fight we were several times at 4 out of 5 out. luckily not once were both healers/casters out.

after every fight we look like we went 12 rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime.

 

[Azzy]

funny, in the newest campaign, sure we are 3rd level now, the DM is wiping floor with us, every fight, at least 2 out of 5 PC are rolling death saves, in one fight we were several times at 4 out of 5 out. luckily not once were both healers/casters out.

after every fight we look like we went 12 rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime.

This is also my experience as both a player and as a DM.

 

[HappyHubris]

funny, in the newest campaign, sure we are 3rd level now, the DM is wiping floor with us, every fight, at least 2 out of 5 PC are rolling death saves, in one fight we were several times at 4 out of 5 out. luckily not once were both healers/casters out.

after every fight we look like we went 12 rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime.

It's almost like DMs can alter encounter balance to hit their desired outcomes!

 

[Horwath]

It's almost like DMs can alter encounter balance to hit their desired outcomes!

exactly, so PCs aren't overpowered towards the game, only worry is how classes and feats are compared to eachother.

 

[jgsugden]

This is not the first time the D&D scene had to face waves of optimization. In the early 2000s the message boards (including here at Enworld) became flush with optimization threads that covered how to build the most effective PCs. Some focused on DPR. Some focused on stunlocks. It became the norm for DMs to need to prepare for an optimizer (or several) as a part of preparing for a new group.

My advice at the time, which worked well for me, as well as others that really put in the effort, was to focus the games away from combat for a bit and give the PCs a chance to engage with the world outside combat.

You can lure them into a storyline with a combat ... but if you create an engaging storyline that can't easily be resolved with pure violence, it will start to shift their way of thinking about the game. I find the best way to start this is to give them a simple mislead from an NPC that doesn't make any sense given what the PCs had learned - and which prompts them to 'solve the mystery' by recognizing the inconsistency. The endorphin bump from solving a mystery, even a simple one, is not insignificant.

In essence, you're trying to get these BG3 players to stop clicking through the dialogues as fast as they can and instead slow down and appreciate the quality of the dialogue and non-combat challenges in the game - and realize there is more to the world than the combats.

Some good techniques for this are to have NPCs use some of those combat skills the PCs have collected in interesting ways outside combat. For example, Hex, which can be cast at 90 feet, gives a target disadvantage on ability checks. I had a Warlock character that used Hex to give guards disadvantage on wisdom ability checks, to give grappled foes disadvantage on strength or dex, etc... One NPC was being brought up for (bogus) charges before a member of royalty, and due to a well times Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter, he was seen as being disrespectful of the crown in a way that resulted in his immediate punishment.

Get them to find the uses of their spells outside combat and shift a little more focus in that direction. Then, as they advance, they'll start looking at options for spells that have more utility outside combat.

As for in combat right now - let them be successful. Let them dominate. That is what they want to do ... so give them what they want. Players that go through this phase often get a little bored with it and start looking at other options. If you've developed the more robust mindset in them to value the other sides of the game more, you should start to see less combat optimization and more total game optimization - meaning a wider array of abilities and less focus on optimizing combat.