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@shaclown7721

8 ай бұрын

Glad you started using foundry too. It's an amazing system that's fully moddable and it has no subscriptions! It'a a 1-time purchase and it's for you to keep indefinitely! I wish companies would still do this, instead of being greedy A holes.

@jerredhamann5646

8 ай бұрын

Automated dice rollers work well to add rolls used it on my bugbear assassin beserker

@gregorygordonhuey5144

8 ай бұрын

I regularly run level 15+ encounters for a westmarches server. I never count on the the CR system as a 'last word' in encounter difficulty. Just don't. Instead know what your party can do, and plan accordingly. Always have additional foes waiting in the wings. Always vary the type of threats & challenges to the PC. Always have one or more pre-boss-encounters so that the party is not 100% fresh off a long rest before the main boss encounter. If the PCs manage to skip many of the pre-main-fight encounters, then those skipped foes can join the main fight. The game is absolutely not broken at higher levels, and no, high level spells & abilities do not 'ruid the run'. Quite the contrary, they give each PC a moment to shine as exceptional. You say that the PCs gathering info or preparing for an encounter can drastically alter the difficulty / deadliness level of the encounters? Well, duh! Yes - and the is EXACTLY how it should be. This is a strategy / tactics game. There are often high rewards for being smart/clever. If the game was not this way, then it would be a broken game. In my opinion, the party that does not gather prior info / preparing for a tough encounter - when easily able to do so - deserves a TPK to teach them a lesson. One more point about CR: The CR of a foe is often how deadly that foe is when fought in a 'dumb' manner. Many foes, if fought intelligently (exp: ancient sun dragon in a force cage with the swarm of insects AoE spell in effect) are far, far less challenging than the CR would indicate. THIS IS THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE. If the game did not reward clever play, then it would suck. Know your players, know what they are likely to think of, and be prepared. At best that will cover about 75% of the time. You might think your encounter sucked because the PCs gained an easy win through being clever and/or well-prepared. Ask your players what they thought, and probably most will have loved it. To paraphrase Patton - if you find yourself in a fair fight, then you have made a grave miscalculation. When possible, fights should be won ahead of time through preparation. If players don't want their PC raised deaded, they can just say 'the soul is unwilling to return from beyond'. If they do want them brought back, then they are not done with that PC, and are probably glad the death was not permanent. Don't knock that game system because players get a choice - that goes for raise-deading, and everything else. There are plenty of ways for PCs to 'loose' without dying. The party should have a laundry list of goals beyond "don't die". They could fail to achieve one or more of those goals - perhaps irrevocably. Re: combats taking a long time: If the problem is players that don't know their abilities/spells/etc - then easy solution - each turn has a max time limit (exp: 1 min), but do not include the time for the DM to settle matters like saves vs AoEs. THIS WILL TEACH PCS TO PLAN THEIR ROUND AHEAD OF TIME. Seriously - I promise - you cut the slow wizard off, and the next game they will start planning their next turn as soon as their current one ends. You only play for 4 hours? Yes - PCs get more complex - this is also a good thing. Every player is responsible for knowing their PC. If needed, as above, impose a max time per turn - incentivize players learning their PCs. Math-phobia? Does adding numbers and dividing cause trouble? Those who can't handle it can get a calculator - or god forbid - learn the math. For cases where there are many dice are to be rolled, get a device that automatically electronically uses a RNG to roll and sum a bunch of dice. It can take as long as typing "roll 20d6" and hitting CR. The foes are not your (the DM's) characters. You are not 'getting screwed' when they are defeated, sometimes easily. High-level play is awesome. If hope WotC does not 'fix those issues' because those things you complain about are often features of the game that many others like.

@PaulDige

8 ай бұрын

Hey Luke. I'm starting up a D&D 5th Out of the Abyss game at level 3, as well as a sandbox. Both are expected to go beyond level 20 but you know how that goes. One forever DM to another... You interested in playing for once?

@snarzetax

7 ай бұрын

🤦I fundamentally disagree with just about everything you've said here.

At the end of a level 21 session just last night, when I thanked the GM for all his hard work (traditional in our group), I commented that it must be pretty hard for him to come up with scenarios for us at this level. He laughed and said no, it was actually easier, because he was no longer worried about accidentally killing us all off.

@SimonClarkstone

7 ай бұрын

To quote anothe DM: "Now I have a chance to use the really Fun parts of the _Monster Manual_ ."

@brixen0623

7 ай бұрын

I feel this lol

@RoninXDarknight

7 ай бұрын

There are so much more interesting things to do to player characters than kill them :D

@michaelnurse9089

7 ай бұрын

At which point, you should have said "We want to die more".

@martainroth2588

7 ай бұрын

In the keep on the borderlands it was originally run at conventions. The deadliest encounter was the giant frog. A 4d6 bite attack averages 14 points but can be 4-24 points. So one high roll can easily kill a 3rd level character.

Once I DM a party from level 6th to 30th, it was a Drow campaign that ended up with three characters achieving godhood status, it was played with 3E/3.5E rules, and the Epic Level Manual. This campaign took us almost two years of playing, and up to this day is the most memorable story we ever played.

@opa-age

7 ай бұрын

The Epic Level Manual is still one of the coolest DnD books ever. I still have mine.

@billyscenic5610

6 ай бұрын

Exactly. People worrying about power levels never had a good DM. It's all about the story not who can do the most damage in a round.

@bustertn2014

6 ай бұрын

I both ran a major campaign and actually played 2 PC's over a 15 year period. I was the main DM but every guy in our group would periodically run a module or two etc. We finally finished in the low 50's. This took off and on sometime in 2000 in 3rd and moved into 3.5. It went on for roughly 12 years. I will never forget that group. We ended up founding a city. One buddy wrote a book/manual for it. Another drew all of our characters and City Crest etc. It was awesome. I still have all the paperwork on it along with all the PC's.

@theundeadbeholder284

6 ай бұрын

@@bustertn2014 Is amazing to look back and remember those times, right? I did played (almost exclusively as DM) for twelve years, playing weekly. I remember very fondly a party of characters that turned Scornubel into a metropolis! hahaha during a series of adventures that took us like three years to play. Nowadays we live very far from each other, even in different continents. It is unlikely that even with the help of technology would get to play together again.

@lihanchai154

6 ай бұрын

I wonder if we'll ever see Epic levels again. Whether it be some kind of 5.5E or a new 6th edition.

I think the secret to running high level adventures lies in the transition from low to high fantasy. Individual encounters may be trivial but there are plots that go beyond CR numbers. Destroy a dangerous artifact, negotiate peace between warring kingdoms, fight off an invasion force from a different plane or world (Dark Sun invades Forgotten Realms, imagine the power of defilers' magic!), create and rule your own city or kingdom, defeat an overpowering threat like a lich, demon lord or a god... If you shift the focus beyond killing monsters and gathering loot there are countless possibilities that are beyond the capabilities of mere single-digit-level adventurers. Maybe it's because I played back in the 1st/2nd Edition days but it seems like the published adventures are just the starting point for the game. Each DM and group of players has to expand and flesh out the world into their own unique collection of stories. This is how the game has thrived for the last 50 years. Look at the campaign begun in the Against the Giants series. What looks like a simple dungeon crawl can become a stealth assault against increasingly physically superior foes. This leads to the Underdark and an expedition into an alien realm where the PCs do not have easy access to support or supplies and infiltrate an entire city of hostile drow (both new content introduced into the game). Then they travel to a completely alien realm, the Abyss, to defeat or even kill a demon lord/goddess preparing to invade their home world. Oh, and remember: it's not a (D&D) party until the Raise Dead scrolls are tapped.

@radagast25a

8 ай бұрын

That is correct. I've been running the same campaign world since 1976. A game master is NEVER playing AGAINST the players. The game master is playing WITH the players. You are creating a world - a living play if you would - where you know the world in its entirety and the players only know their own characters. I can't imagine feeling that the players defeating what I have created (now to be fair, I have a campaign WORLD, not a campaign, and some of my adult players have been playing over 30 years, while my two teenage groups have played about a year.) was me losing... that is beyond me. He seems like a nice man, but I am not going to be subscribing, this just appeared in my feed.

@VBFilms

8 ай бұрын

Indeed. I Dm a campaign of 4 13 levels and they obliterate most of the combat scenarios. But when they are trying to turn a whole city to change their political direction, it requires more than just combat. In a way the higher levels made it more fun for me as a DM since I get to flesh out the world on a larger scale. It's not just about a monster, but what if that monster is linked to the citys infrastructure or economy. If they kill it, they anger the government, but help the poor. Things like that.

@blackwind743

7 ай бұрын

Literally the only way high level games work is a lot of fudging the dice and liberal use of deus ex machina. There is no shame in this. If this makes you uncomfortable, running high level games is not for you. It is very simple. Don't make it harder than it needs to be. That being said, you have to know when to intervene with these tools or there's no point playing the game to this level anyway.

@HeavyTopspin

7 ай бұрын

There's tons of easy fixes to overuse of raise dead and resurrection, whether it's a limit on number of times, a forced saving throw to make it work, or simple level or stat loss. If the DM has managed to take the party up to high levels, they're definitely experienced enough to find a good homebrew solution that works for their player group.

7 ай бұрын

I always remember Superman. He is invincible, unkillable, superfast, flies, has laser eyes, sees and hears everything... But he still cant win everything. If you want to challenge your high level players, be Lex Luthor to their Supermen

Dm'ing at a high level can be tricky, but there's a few things to remember to make it much more manageable: 1. The stakes are higher than just adventure for the sake of adventure and complex enough that you can't just wish them away. Levels 15+ is the point where you can absolutely threaten entire nations or the entire world, and while a wish might be able to delay the artifact-powered portal from the Abyss opening for a day, they still have to address the root cause of the issue. 2. If you want to challenge the party, make them fight on your terms. Whenever given the opportunity, a competent party that knows what they're up against will prepare accordingly and likely punch well above their already considerable weight. Your parties will carry a reputation by their deeds and actions, and a potential foe can reasonably know about their residences, servants, common tactics, and so on. Using spells to obsfucate identities, locations, and other information where it would make sense to do so also helps avoid parties shortcutting things too hard. 3. Look to previous editions for additional high level content, particularly 2e and 3e. A personal favorite I reccommend for any prospective DM is 3.5's Elder Evils, a compendium of cosmic horrors that will threaten the stability of any setting they happen to wander into. You'll have to do some legwork with conversions and the fine details of the plot, but the concepts and setpieces provided can make even a 20th level party sweat. 4. Always remember: There are fates *far* worse than death.

@MonkeyAndChicken

5 ай бұрын

All very good points. And I'll go further to say that if you're relying on spell power and monster hit dice to challenge the *characters*, you're missing a huge part of the DM skillset, which is the ability to challenge the *players*. Puzzles, social role-playing challenges, political conundrums, and strategic (even delegation and management!) challenges are equally difficult and fun no matter how OP the PCs might be with their swords drawn. It's a fantasy world. You can adapt non-combat elements from any story genre- murder mysteries, procedurals, spy thrillers, heist stories, horror, etc- and make them work in fun ways that have nothing to do with Challenge Ratings. Also, nobody should be able to ruin "hours of prep" if you're a clever and flexible DM. 90% of your encounters shouldn't require a story-on-rails to make sense, and your game plan should be modular and flexible enough that an element that gets bypassed early on can be swapped and plugged in later. I feel like the "new" approach to 5e that I see on the internet has removed a large portion of the storytelling freedom that we used to play with, in favor of rule-hacking and cookie-cutter adventures. It shouldn't matter if everything follows "rules as written", especially if it kills creativity... what matters is that the story the party tells together is as fun and transportive as possible. The fewer dice you roll, the more fun you typically have.

@willyvereb

5 ай бұрын

Another, albeit small, note. While not so sexy as rolling 10+ dices at once you got a myriad methods for digital dice rolls that automatically add the numbers together. Some are a bit of an expense but tell that to the D&D fanatic who just bought their hundredth dice. Generally it's a balance between free/bland and paid/fancy. Use whatever works for your party the best. In the end this doesn't resolve everything regarding rolls taking up time but it's been decades since people realized that videogames effortlessly sidestep the rolls issue and we have many iterations of methods trying to eliminate it. Again, minor tangent-

@Ghorda9

5 ай бұрын

instead of having them stop a portal, just have the abyss open up anyway and have them fight off hoards while the moon itself is revealed as the "big bad".

@chazzerine7650

5 ай бұрын

Wishing away the Abyss for a day huh? A long rest is 8 hours long, he can just keep casting it for his entire life.

@Ghorda9

5 ай бұрын

@@chazzerine7650 not if the god that grants wishes gets eaten.

when you have two different group of players, it becomes crystal clear that you can't trust the encounter calculators. You'll soon realize that one party can kill basically anything while the other struggles with easier encounters. Sometimes it's a "skill issue" and sometimes it's because one group has all the OP subclasses or knows about optimizing the crap out of their characters

@ANDELE3025

8 ай бұрын

Be honest. Have you actually tried a session or two with the by RAW 4 to 8 encounters and followed the by CR stats table from 274? Because unless you are comparing a group with a 4 elements monk, whip dex champion fighter, melee scout rogue pre-17 and storm sorcerer going for fire spells only vs sorcadin, elf barb-bm (or rune), div-lifer or arcana MI cleric and just for good measure mercers chrono wiz or the recent luna sorc as if the first party survived to 15 or 17, they are capable enough to use their resources as efficiently (and if you did, yay, you know that the resource to dpr gap is that you just have to make 1 hard encounter a regular pack of brown bears to bridge the distance). Different people tho, thats why page 1 of the DMG should be longer as different people and personalities ask for styles of play.

@willmena96

8 ай бұрын

@@ANDELE3025 I sincerely tried to understand your point, but I wasn't able to do it 😅 it's probably because this isn't my first language. What I can tell you is that I've ran the same adventures with different players and the results are pretty different because CR doesn't take into account the amount of healing, damage or other abilities a party can use and because everyone plays the game in a different way. A calculator can't do that, I have to do it by myself

@ANDELE3025

8 ай бұрын

@@willmena96 Except CR table uses the daily resource average and assumes a 80% hp heal over the day (because any resources not spent on damage are generally spent on at best equivalent over time but usually resource less efficient yet better action economy panic heals). So no you dont need to do anything beyond plug (up to daily xp) and play. Its why rez and immunity to damage type that players cant overcome is so CR expensive if recalculating a creatures stats/modifying, to keep it consistent. So congratulations on admitting that you never opened the book and instead randomly plugged in monsters.

@willmena96

8 ай бұрын

@@ANDELE3025 I don't know why you're so hostile to me, but I'm talking about official modules. It doesn't matter what I do, it's just the way they're written

@ANDELE3025

8 ай бұрын

@@willmena96 Projecting much? And i don't care that you ran radiant citadel or skipped 3/4ths the daily encounters in CoS, fact remains the CR calc+daily encounter vety much does tell exactly how much a party can take.

For wish, I don’t twist the wish, I just follow the guideline that it can make a single 25,000 gold item. It also says the wish can fail. If the wish feels more valuable than 25k, it fails.

@coinslot321

8 ай бұрын

almost the same thing for me. if your wish is around 25k or replicating a lower level spell boosted to 9th level, then it works no problem. the higher value above 25k you go, the more twisty the wish becomes.

@jimmyrepine8952

8 ай бұрын

In the Wish description it says you can cause a creature to miss/fail a save the previous round. Going further back in time past that is outside the parameters and I would say it would fail (referring to the wish commented on in the video)

@trently89

8 ай бұрын

I love twisting the wish spell, and I make sure my players know that they can use it for anything, just know that if used to warp reality there's a likelihood it will be twisted, especially if the wish comes from a fiend or hag. They like that, but I RARELY let the spell just fail. It would feel TERRIBLE to waste your ONE AND ONLY 9th level spell slot, so I've NEVER let the spell fail but only had it cast a few times, each with their own set of consequences

@noid1978

8 ай бұрын

The wish spell has always been up to DM discretion. So it can do anything but like a stage the bigger the way the more likely could something bad can go wrong.

@trently89

8 ай бұрын

@@noid1978 absolutely agree

I get around things like using wish to remove the hags that you mentioned by using contingency spells. Especially in that situation, where the target is a group of high level casters, they would be able to anticipate this sort of thing and have a contingency plan. "Any spell trying to undo our release from our prison triggers an antimagic field around us." Then the spell gets wasted. Several of my big bads already have them as standard equipment. Things like "If I fall below 5% of my hit points I get teleported to X location" and one of my always around somewhere bad guys uses Clone constantly. Whenever you kill her she wakes up in her clone and continues her plans AND if she actually dies because someone killed her clone ahead of time her contingency spell kicks in casting reincarnate on her corpse 5 days after she dies... high level campaigns are still very doable with a little planning. It helps if you have 32+ years as a player and a DM. Then you can anticipate 90% of what your players will try.

@jamesmars9767

5 ай бұрын

Honestly, with the hag scenario, the "what if something *worse* happens because of them not getting released" is such an easy tool to work with.

@dereklong801

5 ай бұрын

The hag solution is that Wish only puts one back per Wish. And he shouldn't be giving out items with multiple wishes on it.

@trafalgarlaw8373

4 ай бұрын

"If you just have 3 decades of experience than its easy" yeah no shit bro, good advice

@jamesmars9767

4 ай бұрын

@@trafalgarlaw8373 To be real, one does not need 3 decades of experience. They need to know the system they're working with and take a step back to think things out, remembering that actions have consequences I used to freak out when parties went off the rails, but then I remembered that there's a whole world outside of them and whatever immediate thing I wanted them to deal with. Hags are kept from returning? Oh well. Their actions can easily have caused some other issue to crop up. Perhaps the Hags were keeping something else in check. Perhaps the way the Wish worked out caused some greater threat to appear, which is what neutralized the Hags threat. Ya got options, especially when they use something finnicky like Wish.

Also, do not forget that adding tactics that the monsters can use can change the challenge rating. Such as setting up ambush sites, or darkness when the players do not have the ability to see in the dark. murder holes with archers behind them. Attacking from a distance down a long hallway that has active traps in it.

@duncanharrell5009

6 ай бұрын

Ah, the classic Tuckers Kobolds!

On the math thing, DnD and other games that use dice for damage made me better at fast math through sheer repetition and practice. I can now break down any addition problem into a 'what combo of numbers equals 10' question near instantly, and from there just add the 10s and tack on the remainder. Very similar to just tracking HP by 10s. It takes practice, and it's not how we were taught math in school for sure.

@cp1cupcake

8 ай бұрын

I completely agree with this, I even know a teacher who taught D&D in order to teach his kids how to do math faster and better. For higher numbers though, the group I played with before Covid would just use a phone dice roller for larger numbers so they don't have to do the math.

@hardcorenacho1020

8 ай бұрын

100% Agree, you also use the pythagorean theorem alot. If a dragon is 20ft away from you and 30ft in the air will a spell with a range of 60ft hit it?

@christianemden7637

8 ай бұрын

@@cp1cupcake it might even instill a real life use for math in those students.

@sebbonxxsebbon6824

8 ай бұрын

Area effect of fireball for higher math. Poor mathematicians should not play Magic Users! @@christianemden7637

@helixxharpell

8 ай бұрын

How old are you? Not being an ole grognard ass engineer but I've seen how kids are being taught math these days. It's very confusing & doesn't prime a young memory for future use. Not tooting my own horn here but.. As a DM, the old math memory method helped me to break down math into visualization. I've overheard my players sometimes whisper... "How did he add that up so quickly?" Little do they know my memory is sooo bad that I keep the post-it-note company in business ! 😅😅

One thing I do with monster hit point tracking is add instead of subtract. I just total how much damage they take and once it hits their total--Boom! Done. It's a lot faster and easier than subtracting.

@jimmyrepine8952

8 ай бұрын

I saw a video that spoke that people have an easier time adding than subtracting, and it was a mental thing everyone deals with.

@dmeep

8 ай бұрын

Its a good tip i started doing this aswell and i found the encounter manager in dnd beyond cumbersome so i use pen and paper for initiative and write the mob names with initiative in front and total hp after and then just run add the dmg up until it matches the total hp. subtracting took longer then just adding and pen and paper was faster then using the app.

@Lemurion287

8 ай бұрын

@@dmeep I use a Pathfinder Combat Pad for initiative tracking. I write AC and total HP on my scratch pad.

@mke3053

8 ай бұрын

You can always add levels to monsters.

@nobodyimportant72

7 ай бұрын

One bonus to adding instead of subtracting is that it certainly makes it easier "hiding" how much more damage a monster or something can take (if it wasn't already known). If you want "secret information" and start with a 100 hp now someone (DM) has to keep track of that and do more math every time the PCs roll damage with a value they actually know. Maybe they keep track of how much damage they've done but that doesn't help much.

Alternately, as a GM, you can give the players a magic item that gives them a once a day teleport, lock the barbarian behind a force cage, and let the player feel awesome getting free with an item they think you forgot about.

@UtopiaBorderPatrol

5 ай бұрын

Another powerful item might just make the game even more imbalanced though. Why limit the teleport to such a situation? The barbarian players I know would use it to straight teleport next to the spellcaster main baddy and smash him to pieces...

@Damini368

5 ай бұрын

@@UtopiaBorderPatrol Then they can’t complain when you lock them behind a force cage if they had an out and used it. Locking them behind a force cage when they don’t have a way around it is legitimately unfair but making them take a minute to think about the powerful spellcaster that may have force cage and strategize their resources is what, in my opinion, makes the game fun. If they teleported to the boss hoping to take him out before he had the chance and failed, then they get to face the consequences.

@Herbalizer28

5 ай бұрын

giving players solutions to problems might work once, or twice, but then it becomes dull because you remove all the risks..and there are so many other game breaking spells..you can't give them solutions for all of them..

I guess my group is pretty unique in this aspect. We used to play Epic D&D a lot in 3.5 so we have a really fun time just nuking each other. They love finding ways to try and 1 shot my high level enemies and we laugh when I instakill them in return. They actually thought Tomb of Annihilation was too easy so I had to actually create new traps and make the existing ones more deadly. One guy went through 9 characters by the end of it.

@OgdenM

6 ай бұрын

Lol, you reminded me of the one time I did the Adventurers League and they were doing the Tomb. The DM was supposed to have premade characters of the appropriate level and didn't. So, all the other players had to dig through their characters and one of them gave me a level 1 or 2 char to play... which of course was WAY to low for Tomb. And then someone else found a lvl 5 after I already started playing the lvl 1 Well, we hit a trap that would insta kill ANY of us and there didn't see to be away around it besides triggering it and having one of us die...the trap was a one time thing. (I think we had a low investigation roll) I had the lvl 1 char just walk right into the trap and sacrifice themself. Then I had the lvl 5 one just happen to wander into the room in the dungeon whistling a jaunty tune and he joined the party. The DM was a bit staggered at how I played it and that I just utterly ruined that trap that way. But, it was really his fault for not being prepared. And he could have easily said "no, you can't do that." I did ask first. :-) That lvl 1 was gonna die in the first monster encounter anyway.

@IkaikaArnado

6 ай бұрын

High level play is for more mature players that are all on the same page. If someone is actively trying to break the game it won't be fun.

@CountDVB

2 ай бұрын

I think this may just how much a gap there had been in terms of generations and play.

Our high level campaign has a very interesting fighter of all things. The player is good at narration and using their fighting maneuvers to play out the coolest most cinematic moves. Magic users are unwieldy but a good old hack and slash character is actually still very cool

@RyanWBL

8 ай бұрын

A martial party is much easier to run than one with any casters. Pretty much all of the complaints about tier 4 play is due to spells.

@paulgibbon5991

8 ай бұрын

@@RyanWBL And 9/10 times, it's due to the wizard specifically.

@arandomcheese

7 ай бұрын

My only high level campaign was all martial and half casters and it worked out great. Everyone was balanced and powerful, but nothing never really felt broken.

In my opinion, you might have more GMs willing to do higher level campaigns if WotC would do some work and *show* inexperienced GMs how to run such games.

@michaelnurse9089

7 ай бұрын

Exactly the point of the video. But they are NOT going to do that because market research says that won't sell.

@billyscenic5610

6 ай бұрын

They did. There have been many many materials on running high level campaigns.

@MultiCommissar

6 ай бұрын

WotC no longer has staff capable of that kind of mechanical rigor. All they do today is hire people who remove one thing or another because it's suddenly racist.

@billyscenic5610

6 ай бұрын

@@MultiCommissar You were right up until "racism"

If players wanna wish away a major event like releasing the Hags I'd inform them that would effectively turn back time to that point so everything they have gotten like xp, levels, equipment, money, an etc all gets revert back to that point. Because they had such a huge impact on the world we gotta play out the alternate time line. Basically use the spell against them without needing to twist in monkey paw like, just point out the reality of getting exactly what they wish for no twist.

@DocEonChannel

8 ай бұрын

My reply would have been that the Wish spell isn't that powerful - but your version is a lot funnier!

@blkgardner

7 ай бұрын

According the 5e Player's Handbook, the Wish spell either auto-fails, monkey-paws, or only partially works if you ask for something worth 25,001 or more GP, 301' long or longer, or if you wish to be immune to a single specific spell for 481 minutes or longer. The DM has discretion, but if the party wishes for 25,001 GP and you DON"T teleport to an ancient dragon's lair, that's on the DM. Likewise, if the Wish spell is used for anything other casting an 8 level or lower spell, the caster sufferings serious consequences, including a 33% chance of losing the ability to ever cast "wish" again.

@mytotim8978

7 ай бұрын

The boss creatures also should have resistance or even immunity to wish and other similar spells, because if they are less powerfull than the players, they are not a threat.

@kiearawagner7901

6 ай бұрын

@@mytotim8978 Pathfinder kinda alludes to this with some entities. Demon Lords, Gods/Goddesses, Empyearn Lords, and other entities of greater power are just unaffected by the power of Wish. In the fifth book of WOTR, Baphomet managed to gain enough power that he could deny Wishes from ever working within his domain, including trapping a Runelord within it. So, there are easily some creatures and entities who are just powerful enough to flick off the effects of a Wish and not be bothered by it. Granted, most adventuring parties will likely never encounter such beings as most games, for some odd reason, never go past 10-12, odd.

@anothersquid

6 ай бұрын

I'd have wished it to "yeah, the hags are not released, because they were never imprisoned. new time line, now they are the overlords"

I have only DMed one 5e gamer, but ive been DMing 3.5 and Pathfinder for quite a few years, and i have a few tips for all you coming after me. First off we agree on that armistice, some spells need to be limited, like wish, find out the problem features of your system and get the group to agree that those things are banned. Second, be varied in the types of challenges, if all they do each settion is killing monsters, not only may the game get a little stale, but they get really good at it, both in and out of game, so when you do things that need a lot of variety, like investigations, hunting, fetch quests, look up the five essential quests (i think it was called). And third and most importantly, do some tests, i use the 5 encounter system, where the first encounter is just a ballpark guess on how strong they are, then depending on how well they do, increase or decrease the difficulty by 50%, so if they get an ass whooping, make the next encounter half as hard, or if its a cake walk make the next one harder. Then the third encounter is in the middle of the difficulty. Now that you have a good sample size, you should be able to gauge how strong the boss is, so the 4th encounter can be half as hard as the 3rd if not a little easier then that, to get some reprieve and a moral boost before the boss, and that would be the 5th encounter. I make the boss the strongest, somewhere a little above the hardest encounter in this chain, when i do things like this, i get a good balanced difficulty curve, well...better then if i just went in blind. An additional bonus is that this curve follow the interest curve, where stakes start out low in act 1 (encounter 1 and 2) then the darkest hour where the heroes face defeat (encounter 3), but then they find their courage and build up the strength (encounter 4) to finally overcome the grand evil that is the final boss of this encounter chain. A nice mini heroes journey if you could call it that. Still, things will go sideways, but that is the nature of the game, so am gona give you a little bonus tip since you got this far down. Dont worry about making a perfect game, because you cant do that by yourself, its a collaborative effort to play DnD, and in the end, you have all gathered to have a good time, and sometimes loosing may be more fun then winning. As long as you are all having a good time, then there is nothing to worry about.

My DM once used Forcecage on the players. He didn't do the smart thing which would be to split the party, the caster used the cage to trap half our party with his champion. The idea of a cage match was really cool. On a side note, when the wizard was low on health, our GM raised his arms like the wizard was lifting his staff and everyone went, "Oh no!" as he broke his staff in half.

As someone who has been homebrewing everything since day one because I play with a 6 player group, CRs which are calculated for a party of 4, barely applies to them. So swarming my players with minions and using legendary actions with monsters has been pretty much my go to. Ever since Tasha's every player has the ability to maximize their action, bonus action and reaction. So the first point has never been a problem for me. There's been times where they've struggled with a moderate encounter because of bad rolls and other times melted through stronger encounters just by sheer luck. I don't particularly care either way. Its funny to me. I'm only there to account for the skills it might take to defeat a monster or finish a quest. The rest is literally a game of dice. I've seen a player of mine roll 3 nat 20s back to back, only to then miss every attack following it for the next two turns (they had extra attack, so that's six attacks given two weapon fighting). Honestly, the thing about forcecage. Just give your monsters proficiency in con saves and a good con score. You'll teleport out of it. You're the DM. You know ALL the things about your PCs. If you really want to challenge them, you can. As for power word kill, eh? Who cares. You want to waste your highest slot to kill one enemy bellow 100 hp? Go for it. At that high levels, I don't even bother with bosses below 450 hp. Sure, your fighter and paladin can nova damage them and get them down to 100 hp in two rounds and THEN you may power word kill them but that's why there are minions with and before the boss. For the wish spell? Run wish the way it is supposed to. There's still a reasonable chance to lose it. Maybe your players aren't really interested in dealing with the hags and would rather wish them away. Sometimes you put a lot of effort and time into something that is only fun for you. But if you want to monkey's paw it, I'd say, sure. Only if the next idea or encounter is fun for them. Simple as. Sometimes skipping entire adventures is the way to go. The game is supposed to be fun and if wishing away a problem or encounter is fun for them. Eh, who cares? I can probably think of something else. Now if you mention that they have magic items that let them cast wish? I don't know why you'd allow that. Wish should ONLY be accessible through the spell in your world. No rings of wishes or any of that nonsense. As for players hating receiving what they dish out, tough luck. I will never use the best spells or abilities in the games against them but I will 100% give them a challenge. I as the DM know that my job is to both challenge the PCs and ultimately lose every fight. As much as I want every monster to show their abilities, if they lose their turns or get taken out early. Meh. I win when the players win. Simple as. And if my players get stunned or incapacitated by doing something they could have avoided, it is not my responsibility. They're adults. Not children. I always hint about the power of monsters and warn them in ways I can without metagaming. If they still follow through, it isn't my fault. D&D is supposed to be fun and the fun of the DM is also a big thing. Players always get to dominate the monsters. So once in a while the player getting shut down isn't a big deal imo.

@dwpetrak

8 ай бұрын

Sounds like you are a better DM than the presenter because you understand the game better. I'm guessing you have played longer than he has as well.

@this_epic_name

8 ай бұрын

I was just thinking about how dice rolls can so drastically affect a combat's difficulty. On the spectrum of difficulty from cakewalk to TPK, it seems like most encounters a moderately-seasoned DM would brew up can span the entire spectrum; whether the encounter is a cakewalk or results in a TPK can come down to dice rolls. I think that's one of my biggest problems with the game -- I feel the design needs to be tweaked so that the range an encounter can cover on that spectrum is more narrow. In other words, an encounter I put together that **should** be very difficult can realistically only swing (based on dice rolls) from moderately difficult up to deadly -- basically putting some bumpers on it so it won't be a cakewalk and won't be a TPK. My feeling, though, particularly given the spells present in the game, is that this would basically be impossible without removing a major system from the game, like AC. But I agree with everything you've said, the general gist of which is "let your players have fun." I know that when I'm a player, I care a little less about the challenge of combat and a little more about doing cool stuff my character can do. That also extends to other PCs doing cool stuff -- reveling in their awesomeness and/or assisting them in their cool stuff. So, from that perspective, as long as my players are having fun, it's a win for for me.

@MatijaReby

8 ай бұрын

I agree with the sentiments too, babysitting players is really not the way to go, it feels more like a player vs. DM situation than an actual cooperative game. If a player gets stuck in a Forcecage, the other players have very reasonable ways of getting them out. If you're a DM that is scared of a TPK, then you should not be complaining that there isnt enough challenge to the game either. Just make a backup plan of high level clerics casting a ritual that returns the players to town if they die or make them RP/fight through the underworld to ressurect themselves and just pull out all the stops. The villain will be better due to how powerful he is, the party can plan out how to counter their abilities next time, I think its more fun than pretending that whole part of the game doesnt exist. Wish will always be the thing everyone points to, but just freaking apply the inability to cast it on everything if the wish is too demanding, even if its an item. If they want to waste an item wish on a normal effect, cool, I gave you the item and expect it as such, but if you wanna mess around with fate, you better be ready to accept the consequences. From what I know it even works like that RAW, but noone realizes it?

@nikcantsnipe

8 ай бұрын

@@this_epic_name It IS a game of rolling dice. I used to be super scared about unreliability of the dice and how swingy particular encounters would be because of them but they kinda balance themselves out over the levels. At low levels, it could lead to a tpk but at high levels not only do the players have high enough hp to tank any damage but also their to hit bonuses and spell saves are pretty good. Regardless of swingy the dice it. But it is still funny to see a nat 1 come up. I love rewarding creative play or using combination tactics (for spells) or items. I often tend to hand out inspiration for that. We have a rule of up to 3 DM inspiration points per session and they have to be used and cannot be hoarded. That makes the game fun for both me and my players. They're constantly looking for new ways to earn inspiration. That keeps me on my toes. I enjoy the little dance that comes out of it. At the end of the day, dnd is about collaboration and fun.

@nikcantsnipe

8 ай бұрын

@@dwpetrak I don't know about "better DM" or if you're being sarcastic. But I'm definitely very involved and I suspect the reason a lot of KZread or live play DMs have these problems is because they're playing with their patreon supporters and their actual/online friends while also scripting and uploading videos to KZread. Which probably doesn't allow them to be as involved as you could be with a group you've known for a while and have a normal 9-5.

I agree with all your points and just wanted to add regarding point 6. I think this is where we feel the loss of save or die spells. In 3.5 Save or die was how you kept things dangerous without just always bashing up against enormous HP pools at higher levels. With them gone or neutered so much they might as well be, this is where we end up, so much HP inflation that combats grind to a halt. Restoring these, especially from about level 15 on, would also help with the Math point made as well. Your last two points, while valid issues, aren't anything for WOTC or Paizo or any other TTRPG dev to fix, those are table situations.

@waaaaaaah5135

8 ай бұрын

I play a homebrew of 3.5, never knew that 5e outright removed/nerfed save-or-die spells. Seems to me that it should make a comeback then

A big thing that makes high level so random is simply that different DM award manic items differently. If DM 1 gives out tons of magic items, high end creatures become far easier. If DM 2 is more reserved about magic items, the CRs hold up better.

@andrewdemarco3512

6 ай бұрын

which is why magic items should ahve actually had proper rules and been made as a balanced part of the game instead of feeling like an afterthought and "DM fiat" of how they work. Some sort fo standrdization of what might be available where (for example in pathfinder different sized settlements have different gear available), how much things actually cost, rarities that actually line up with pwoer levels, etc. It is like they released half a game and expect DMs to homebrew the other half. 5E is the worst D&D/PF version I have ever palyed, and I ahve played 3.0. 3.5, 4, PF1, and PF2. All of those systems are better defined and mroe fleshed out rules systems than 5e.

@MrGreensweightHist

6 ай бұрын

@@andrewdemarco3512 There is no way to balance them. DM's have to make that call. It is just part of being a DM. Make the rules too ridged and you stop having an RPG, you just end up with another board game.

@andrewdemarco3512

6 ай бұрын

@@MrGreensweightHist previous editions of the game actually had rules for cost and availability, and for the most part thus worked fine so I'm calling BS

@MrGreensweightHist

6 ай бұрын

@@andrewdemarco3512 Cost and availability are now, and always have been, rough guidelines, not rules, that MANY DMs did not follow.

Dark Sun kinda has an answer to this. When casting, you choose between 2 paths, destruction or preservation. If you're destructive, you sap the life out of a creature or the land around you, and cast the spell. If you're a preserver your spells dont require life force, but they take twice the amount of time to cast. Now your PCs are stuck in a dilemma. Level 17? Want to cast a spell? A powerful spell? Hope you like using life force to do it. Don't want to kill for it? Well, looks like the spell goes off on your NEXT turn. Its brutal. And beautiful.

@ivynbean

8 ай бұрын

Great setting it’s a shame it’s not updated to 5e

@darthkek1953

6 ай бұрын

@@ivynbean one of the best otherworldly settings they ever did. Decades since my game time in it, but I remember being a psionic insect gladiator...

@federerlkonig330

5 ай бұрын

@@ivynbean maybe it is a good thing. Imagine Dark Sun magic having to fit 5e's magic's rules. Like they did with Dragonlance, ignoring the whole Curse of the Magi...

@parttimed.m.1111

Ай бұрын

​@ivynbean even if it was it would be water down so much it would be unrecognizable

As a DM, I actually love when my players get OP as hell, because it means I can get that much more creative and deadly with the things I throw at them. In my first campaign ever, had an OP wizard player who wanted to use the Fly spell to bypass fights...so I created a small Beholder dungeon, a system of tunnels lined obsessively with spikes. They fought the Beholder in a spherical room lined with spikes, and it was epic as hell. They depended on various flying spells and items they'd gotten, and were still struggling to stay in the air...because, you know, Beholder. Rather than stay "inside the box" and have your stuff be broken by players, know what your players have access to and find situations where their OP ability serves to negate some equally OP shit the enemies were doing. Also, you can always just use anti-magic fields, or whatever other spell-cancelling stuff you make up. You're the DM; you're limited only by your creativity.

@CruxBlender

8 ай бұрын

If your base line for broken is the 3rd level spell fly then I would advise against playing at hight level. You touch on another issue of high level play, the game devolves into playground antics. Players saying they can do X only for the DM to say actually you can't because I say so. I don't personally find that type of gameplay to be fun.

@josh___something

8 ай бұрын

That's kind of the crux of the argument though. DMs have to (or get to, if you enjoy it) make creative and unique landscapes for combat. Something that isn't encapsulated by CR. Creative endeavors take a lot of time and effort, and the range of options that high level players get make it even more intensive to find that sweet spot. While your players get a wider array of options with each level, a GMs toolkit gets "smaller". Challenges will be invalidated by the use of a spell or a feat, and they have a *LOT* of those in the tank. At the extreme end, you'd have to make something that can possibly withstand all of these without shutting down the players outright... Meanwhile, the players' only limit is their resources, and their creativity. High level spellcasting has the ability to solve a LOT of problems, and not in the fun way (see:wishing problems away).

@guardrailavender

8 ай бұрын

Hey, look! A good DM who understands that he isn’t actually helpless in the face of full caster PCs!

@themetalone7739

8 ай бұрын

@@CruxBlender It was just an example, and the advice I gave covers WAY more than that one situation. Literally got a campaign going right now where I've convinced my players not to use the Wish spell, because I added a faction of ancient dragons that watches over the "timeline" and ensures fate unfolds as it should. These dragons would view something like Wish to be breaking the timeline, and would work to undo it. It's all about how you present it...if you say "you can't do this because I'm the DM and I put an anti-magic zone here," then yeah that comes across as school-yard crap. Players are cool with it as long as you're creative with your presentation, and you give them logical reasons to do things a certain way.

@szymonskalka3319

8 ай бұрын

Couldn't agree more. Players can be a real inspiration when it comes to building encounters. Especially if you've got a really cunning enemy to portray. Imagine a Kobold that gets a headband of intellect.

I had an idea I thought would be fun. It would be to have a dungeon crawl with a party of high level players. The twist would be as your characters take damage instead of loosing health they get tired, they use up skills, there armour gets damaged as do there weapons. They essentially delevel. The start of the game the monsters are powerful but essentially quite simple to deal with. Soon after large boss monsters come out to protect there home and after that enemies get weaker and weaker as the real boss gets out all the remaining monsters. Instead of evil warrior you are dealing with jeff the accountant who adventures on the weekends. Ultimately at the end the final final boss is a level 1 goblin with amazing human...monster resource skills. With the final result being the goblin dying, the party failing or the goblin convincing the adventures to join him. He offers dental and a competitive benefits package. The goal of the dungeon master would be to make sure the monsters stay fun while getting weaker.

Hello! I started playing D&D in 1978 with the OD&D box set, and started DMing (a still semi-active) 1E setting by December, 1979. I agree with your comments on running a high-level adventure, and I have run in 5E and have my own qualms with Encounter levels. But, I particularly wanted to go back to your comments on the usage of Wish... In the early 1980's, both the Dragon and Polyhedron laid out some guidelines for Wishes, and they certainly assist in dealing with the situation, although 5E mechanics would need some alterations. Here is what I give my characters (and, yes, I run an Oerth campaign): PH, pg. 94: The Wish spell should be clarified by the following conditions: --The wish must be directed so as to achieve a single, specific end. --The caster may not wish another creature dead (see spell description!). --The caster may not alter an historical event; the past may not be changed although a current result might be altered. --The caster may not counter the edict of a deity. --The effect of a wish may not exceed the power limitations of a 9th level M-U spell or 7th level Cleric spell. --A wish is objective, impartial and consistent, and uses the most direct means to achieve a result. As an example of possible limitations, if one wished for 1,000 to 5,000 gold pieces, said coins might appear directly in front of them [overuse of wishes of this nature might bring deital attention…]. If they wished for 10,000 to 100,000 gold pieces, they might come into possession of a map or be transported to a dungeon complex where that much currency resides (guarded by traps and monsters, most likely!). If they were to wish for 10,000,000 gold pieces, then they might be transported to Tiamat’s hoard and face the dragon queen and her five consorts in Hell! A wish for more wealth than this might result in being transported to the surface of a planet with molten precious metals on the surface (instant death). A Wish may only resurrect one creature per wish if used for that reason [but might heal 3 creatures or cure serious up to 6 creatures; based on spells per level]. A Wish cannot bestow immortality; nor can it bring back one who has died from old age [although their spirit/soul might be accessed] (see: DMG, pg. 15). A Wish to increase an ability score is limited to one point for one ability score per wish up to a value of 14. Any wish used to increase an ability score one point from 14 up to 16 does so at 50% per wish (my personal rule). Any wish used to increase an ability score above 16 (including each power increment above18 for Strength) does so at 10% per wish (see: DMG, pg.11; & Polyherdon #17). Thus, to raise Strength of 14 up to 15 requires two wishes; to go from an Intelligence of 17 to 18 requires ten wishes. Note that the “character” (as opposed to the player) will be wishing to be raised in ability in a specific trait: i.e., “I wish that my intellect was increased” or “I wish that my physical strength was greater”. A wish used to increase hit points will bestow one point per level of the character up to their allowed maximum, which may not be exceeded. Thus, a 10th level fighter who wished for greater hit points (from a Ring of Wishes, for example) would get a maximum of ten points; this occurring with each wish up to the point where their class maximum for their current level was reached. Again the “character” would be wishing for something like “increased physical durability”. The DM must be careful to separate the perceived character ‘milieu’ from the player ‘meta’. Wishes are very powerful castings (believed to draw upon a Demi-Plane of Probability, akin to the Demi-Plane of Time), and should remain limited in availability. In all of Oerik, there are perhaps ten magic practitioners capable of using a wish spell (incl. Basiliv, Bigby, Mordenkainen, Otto, and Tenser), maybe four liches, and a quasi-deity or two. Only four or five rings with wishes are currently in active play. Also, remember that casting the Wish spell (not using one already stored in an item) ages the magic-user 3 years (DMG, pg. 13). I would allow a wish meant to subtract aging to restore as if an elixir of youth (i.e. 2 - 5 years), making it unprofitable for such usage by an actual caster [So, if Mordenkainen cast a Wish and then used a second Wish to reverse aging, he would age a base 6 years, and then regain a random 2 - 5 years!].

I discovered quickly that once your players get polymorph, you'll never be able to truly prepare for an encounter as a DM. I had a dog companion get polymorphed into a shark and just absolutely destroy the aboleth I had built up to. Very fun and memorable (and the wizard succeeded all enslaved attempts) but it's hard to create tension when spells just get ridiculous.

@FrostSpike

8 ай бұрын

Sounds like aboleth got really unlucky or was tag teamed by the party too down in the depths. I don't know what CR the dog companion (or the party) was but let's assume it was polymorphed into a CR 5 Giant Shark and went one-on-one fin-to-fin with the CR10 aboleth. The shark has got a 10 ft. swim speed advantage so the aboleth couldn't escape its jaws - and maybe it was slightly injured so the shark got Advantage on each +9/3d10+6 attack vs. AC 17 due to Blood Frenzy.The shark would be doing, on average, about 21.45 HP damage per round. The aboleth has about 135 HP, so would be able to survive 6 rounds of combat with the shark taking chunks out of it. (That's assuming too, that the aboleth doesn't have any currently enslaved creatures that it can use a Psychic Drain on to top itself up by, on average, 10 HP per round, if it did, it would be able to last 11 rounds of combat. Aboleths almost always have heaps of enslaved creatures in their retinue that they don't mind burning through either as front-line cannon fodder or rear-guard life-batteries.) The aboleth itself makes 3 tentacle attacks per round at +9/2d6+5 vs. AC 13. It's going to be doing around 3x 12.9 HP or 38.7 HP per round on the giant shark. As the giant shark has about 126 HP, it would take just 4 rounds to kill the shark (and turn it back into a dog - assuming the shark would actually fight to the death once it started taking a beating.)

@RyanWBL

8 ай бұрын

The beauty of concentration spells is they only hold up as long as the caster can concentrate. Took me a while to figure this out but upping the damage output of my encounters as my group gets into tier 4 has made a huge difference.

@hotbeefman69

8 ай бұрын

@@FrostSpike very much a case of RNGesus guiding the combat. I was using lair actions to pull people closer. Psychic drain to sustain, tail swipe when targets were within range. Divination wizard, plus a bard with gate, plus a well timed polymorph. If enslave would have landed on the wizard it would have been a different battle. Some times portent wins the game...

@FrostSpike

8 ай бұрын

@@hotbeefman69 So the polymorph of a dog companion to a shark wasn't really too much to do with the defeat in the grand scheme of things? It was a case of a aboleth going up against a very high-level party (Gate being a 9th level spell - not sure how it was being used here... to bring in an another adversary for the aboleth?) and not being able to run away into the depths where the party might be unable to i) see it and/or ii) pursue it? Aboleths are only CR 10 after all.

@hotbeefman69

8 ай бұрын

@@FrostSpike My apologies I meant dimension door not gate. Sorry, it's been a while since I've run 5e. I believe they were level 8 and there were only 3 PCs.

My last DMing was the Pathfinder 1st Edition adventure "Wrath of the Righteous", Paizo's Mythic Campaign. This was a rather wild experience, given how much action economy the tabletop Mythic system gives the party. By the time we got to the 3rd of 6 books, we just ruled to "Earthbound" the non-mythic encounters. The party would slam through them in 1 round typically, so instead, we just treat them like trivial encounters in the Super NES game "Earthbound", to help the pacing out a lot. Thankfully the party was very light on spellcasters (Paladin, Gunslinger, Bard, Ranger), which limited the risk of Wish/Miracle spell situations. They did still create some amazing bypass solutions, that I gave them tons of credit for. And there was some crazy combat moments too, like the Paladin taking on the gladiatorial champion in the Abyssal City solo (instead of with the party) and still winning. I will say this though: Gunslinger is too strong. That was the biggest combat problem I had to try and solve, because dear god have a 30ft range of rolling attacks (not spells) vs Touch AC is too powerful.

There doesn't need to be an equivalency between DM and Players. If a PC is force caged for the entire encounter, he literally has nothing to do but sit and watch everyone else play. The DM's cool monster being force caged is disappointing, but its not like the DM sits at the table with nothing to do for the next hour. Its not a competition that needs to be fair and even. The point is to have fun, not to "win."

As a DM, you never “waste” your time preparing a session if the characters do something else. You can use that session another time.

@NeverlandSystemPixie

8 ай бұрын

This...

@the11thhour14

8 ай бұрын

Yes, and I’ll stick to my guns when they argue that the winter forest map I spent 10 hours on doesn’t belong in the desert region I didn’t finish in time lol 😂

@the11thhour14

8 ай бұрын

In all honestly though, I actually agree with you mostly, however I once spent 60 hours making a multi-level map (12 buildings, 2-3 levels each, fully designed at 10k resolution for Foundry. Working stairs, lighting, animated doors, and handcrafted roofs…all designed to look, feel, and play like you just entered a real modern day 2d video game….they saw it at the end of the session….once…..they said….”cool” and then never went back. Might I add that this was the town they took over and I expected to get ALOT OF TIME SPENT THERE. I set it up so they could grow it and setup the empty buildings however they wanted. As someone who frequently makes 2d and 3d maps for Foundry, I know what I’m getting into though. So yes you’re right with conventional prep work, but if you’re like me and enjoy making cool stuff that takes a super long time, be prepared to accept that you’re risking your prep work not getting used. Would highly suggest keeping organized folders where the assets can be reused for future campaigns or similar locales.

@Zanji1234

8 ай бұрын

:) reason why i don't use foundry and other stuff and are mostly theater of the mind@@the11thhour14

@luminous3558

8 ай бұрын

@@the11thhour14 So just communicate the idea to them? At the end of the day its a game and there will always be a limit to immersion, telling your players that you made a lot of content in that area seems more than fine.

I just started dabbling in DnD so have never seen this myself but it sounds an awful lot like what you'll see a lot in video games where the players optimize the fun out of a game. Some of my favorite roleplaying experiences are with deeply flawed characters that had glaring weaknesses that could be exploited. As long as you trust you DM/game master to not overly exploit them it gives them a great knob to play with.

@RobBCactive

7 ай бұрын

Yep, I had that same thought on optimisation. The dice/RNG on attacks, damage and enemy saves, also induce player frustration. Having luck in bursts to change a situation that you then can adapt to as a new challenge is more fun. It sounded like much of the problem is what we'd call grinding. So in the 9 dungeon lords, if defeat of 2 triggered an attack on a homebase, that can call on allies the party could work together at a critical point bringing things to a climax. The escalation of hags, without resolution of the first campaign challenges could have felt overwhelming.

The Gaming Style is important here. Is it DM vs RPC (like in this video) OR is it Story focused? The good thing with a DM is he/she is a human. E.g number of monsters or hp of the mosters are not known - if the story says RPC will have huge fight... just make a fun one planning it dynamically adding and reducing as it fits. Forcecage - let them show they captured someone they love that they have in there (illusion?) If a critic is rolled, the Boss has 1 hp left - maybe the story would be better with one less making it an epic kill!? My fun as a DM Comes from a fantastic story, twists, plots, fantastic NPCs showing up. If you give the RPC a very visible defeat 1-9 the mind gets bored at step 4, make something happen with the rest let the suddenly be gone in a huge rift, half the town lost. Where? Dead? Avoid foreseen things. Wish can change things, let it be the reason why they are gone. Just take the prepped work and add it the new line masked with the new Wizard Astrospace Council... Flexible and having fun is my reason to play and be DM.

I agree with a lot of your points. One thing I would also say is that, as a DM you want the game to be challenging, but you also want it to be FUN. That's a tricky balancing act. A few years back I was playing in a high-level game where the DM had us facing monsters that had a 1x a day Plane Shift spell. Obviously it was meant so the monsters could get away if necessary, but the spell can be used offensively, so being smart they did exactly that. Two PCs vanished to another plane, and neither had any way to get back. After the battle the entire scenario ended up being temporarily shelved while we left the dungeon, figured out where they were, and went to track them down while their players spent two sessions basically doing *nothing.* The DM regretted doing that, because it ended up being seriously un-fun for everyone involved. In the end, DMs, don't be so attached to making encounters tough and challenging that you wreck players' enjoyment. Nothing is less fun in-game than doing nothing. A dangerous battle is one thing, but beware of anything that gets rid of PCs. Ironically, death is more fixable in Dungeons and Dragons than some other effects.

I guess I am cut from a different cloth. I have always stood firmly in the approach (as a player and GM) that villain NPCs have possible (and probable) access to the same tactics, strategies, items, magic abilities, etc as the players could. I like being worried as a player that an evil wizard could use force cage or time stop against me and the other players. I think this is why lean more toward OSR style of play.

@MaledictusPod

8 ай бұрын

I've been DMing for over 20 years now, and I feel the same way you seem to. I flat out tell my players at session zero that they are welcome to bring whatever broken builds, tactics, etc to the table so long as they understand that doing so also means they will face similar challenges to what they are presenting me. Because of that, my players don't even use counterspells and are reluctant to use battlefield control spells, as they don't want those used against them.

@u4iadreams

8 ай бұрын

Old School Renaissance is the way forward for pen and paper role playing. Modern D&D is a video game simulator.

@gritgrimdark

8 ай бұрын

@@MaledictusPod that’s why I also like old school play. There aren’t enough mechanics to create a “broken build,” just stats, items, dice rolls and the players’ wit and resourcefulness.

@gritgrimdark

8 ай бұрын

@@u4iadreams yeah, we got a taste of the video game simulator in 3.5 and it became very obvious with 4.0. I enjoyed 5.0 when it first came out, but after experiencing many of the issues that I had with the two previous editions, I looked elsewhere and back to my rp roots.

@snieves4

8 ай бұрын

THIS. Ive been applying classes and abilities monsters pick up for decades. Orcs are nasty if you play em right.

Referr to Sly Flourish’s concept for lightning rods. It’s a hit stick monster to focus those huge spells onto. The characters feel awesome while still being resented with a challenge

@this_epic_name

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, and it doesn't even have to be a monster -- it can be some situation that needs to be resolved. Modifying victory conditions from "kill the thing" to something else that depends on skill checks or movement or 'capture the flag' (see CR C1 encounter with a kraken) can be key for higher-level encounters.

@bolognagiri6443

7 ай бұрын

@@this_epic_name this is perfect. The Heroes Feast adventure that wizards just put out does this perfectly. You don’t have to beat the enemy. You just have to stop them.

2e Dark Sun introduced the Character Tree - one main character starting at level 3, secondary characters at level one. Every time a character used in an andventure, one other character leveled too - and a player could have a number of those characters, chose which one to use in a module. I introduced this concept into all my games. Sometimes having part of a story running at the same time, so the players could have say - a low level recon mission, getting the information the main characters need. Star trek adventures makes use of a similar concept too for example. This is a way of having the players having a bit of variety. They could phase out one of those for some sessions, just to let appear the mighty guy again from their exile on the spire of heaven (a monk did this to assist his party who just reached name level in a final efford to beat a BBEG...) Companion and Master play of BECMI give great options of what characters can do too - or look beyond D&D, Pendragon by Chaosium gives rules for building dynasties/familiy trees... Think of a Dwarf and an Elf suddenly meating their long gone human or halfelven/halfling/whatever greatgrandson... Shannara is just like this... I think this can be fun...

I've ran three games in DnD 5e. My first two went from 1-20, the third game is now at level 18. I've just sat here for the past twenty minutes nodding my head at every single thing in this video... It's nice to hear the same perspective from a DM that has experienced the same things. When I discuss these types of things on Reddit, I just get players that preach in favour of the massive power creep and crazy spells, but have no idea how much work goes in behind the scenes to make sure a game with those things in it can function at all. Edit: to your final question: no WotC won't do much (if anything at all) to fix these things. These issues are too embedded in the core mechancis of the game. You'd have to seriouslly nerf spells across the whole game; maybe even change the action economy in favour of monsters slighlty (legendary actions help, but there needs to be something else). There also needs to be a lot more advice on how to run high level encounters. My best encouters are when I have multiple things go on at the same time: enemies with bonus actions, reactions and legendary actions + minions + lair actions + some other mechanic / goal going on. I have to get really creative with my game to remotely challenge my party. 99% of what happens in my game is taken from 3rd party and then homebrewed further. WotC's inability to tackle this problme is one of the main reasons I've convinced my table to move to PF2e after we finish this current game.

In my campaign, there is no reason to avoid high-level playing. Actually, I even made the rules wider and level 20 isn't the end of the line anymore. I started a whole campaign, based only on Lost Mines of Phandelver, and we came far beyond this. Homebrew is the key. It is always the key. Only to work with what the books give us is working with almost no creativity. The books are but a mere base for a world full of adventures. Don't let them be the only answer. Let them be the start of everything else. We are over 40 sessions now, most of them over 9+ hours playtime. We're deep in the third arc and far from over yet.

@WolforNuva

8 ай бұрын

This is certainly the way to do it - but imo running low levels is still the better experience overall. It is a lot of work and guesswork that goes into my homebrew, a lot more effort to run the game at these higher levels and that's not something that everyone wants to or even can put into their campaign. Low levels also means quicker encounters, so I can include more without feeling like I'm dedicating whole sessions to less important encounters, and also it's easier to justify encountering monsters or threats around that would be worth the player's notice. High level play can be fun with the work put in, I'm currently running a campaign with level 24 characters and enjoying it, but it does often make me miss running for lower levels.

On people getting bored with their characters, I would say part of that also is that D&D does not give you many choices after third level. There isn't much to actually look forward to in terms of character advancement. Because leveling up can be kind of boring, that leads to people wanting to just make a brand new character. On whether WOTC will address complaints about high-level play in their next edition, they have done nearly 10 "playtest" documents and have not indicated that is a goal of theirs, and the entire "playtest" has entirely been player facing, not aimed for the DM. So I think that's our answer right there.

@DocEonChannel

8 ай бұрын

This is what I've been saying since, oh... about 2016 or so. ;)

@viktorgabriel2554

8 ай бұрын

a good way of fixing that is for people to stop going for builds and people to go for character rolling for stats is an amazing start when it comes to that

Do Vorpal Blades still automatically chop off heads on a Nat20? I had several adventures end early because of a lucky roll.

Great example of this occurring at under lvl 10: I was playing a lvl 8 smite-happy vengeance paladin and the cleric had blessed my weapon to do double damage on the next hit (carried over from a previous encounter). The campaign is around 3 DMs and groups of players preventing a demon invasion and had us killing stronger and stronger demons while we each sought out a McGuffin. The last line of demon defense for this McGuffin was a well armored CR13 (cant remember the name) demon that was supposed to surprise us. We not only passed the surprise check but also all rolled high initiative while the DM rolled a 2. The fight starts off with the Bard landing a Tasha's Hideous Laughter spell and knocking the demon prone and laughing. The ranger lands an attack that ends the laughter, but the demon is still prone. The cleric then buffs the party expecting a slug-fest of a fight. I was next, then the wizard, then the demon... I run up to attack while I still had advantage and rolled a natural 18 which was a hit with that double damage. I then started preparing my damage dice until someone mentioned that I should try to fish out that 20 just in case... Next roll, a natural 20. After everything was tallied up, the DM sighs and says, "describe your *ending* attack..." Meanwhile the wizard player was bewildered because he didn't even get to take a turn. We ended up finishing 30-40 minutes early that night because that encounter plus some RP before and afterwards was campaign checkpoint for the evening.

WotC has said in their last couple of interviews that rebalancing monsters and adding upwards of 80 more monsters that fill the gaps of CR, is 100% on the table and will be in the next "edition". I definitely want to believe them, but I'm only cautiously optimistic that this could be pulled off successfully. One of my favourite adventures was a level 30 game for 3.5 where you had to fight against time itself. Wish wasn't powerful enough to last more than an hour and you started the session fatigued. The module was brilliant, and was so difficult to pull off, but it worked. I sympathize with you having a player you had to get to agree to not change characters in the middle of a session. Have a player who only plays PCs with a death wish so he can then go to another character he's been wanting to try out. I also recall playing in a game where the boss battle took three game sessions because of how extensive it was.

@sethsee3788

8 ай бұрын

They just released a 300 page adventure that spans level 11-20 where the players travel through all 9 layers of hell to free souls from Asmodeus himself. It contains 50 high CR monsters and stat blocks for all the Archdevils of hell. It's pretty sweet, I've read through it and want to run it. Unfortunately WotC didn't put a shred of effort into promoting it despite it being written by one of the leads of the first two Baldur's Gate games. Regardless, it exists and it's pretty neat high level content!

@oldbmstuff

8 ай бұрын

@@sethsee3788 What adventure are you talking about? It sounds like Descent into Avernus but I'm pretty sure that's for levels 1-14

@Edino_Chattino

8 ай бұрын

@@oldbmstuff Chains of Asmodeus

@sethsee3788

8 ай бұрын

@@oldbmstuff It's called Chains of Asmodeus, on DM's Guild. It's pitched as a self-contained adventure for levels 11-20, but is also presented as a potential sequel to Descent into Avernus since it shares a similar setting.

@willmena96

8 ай бұрын

WoTC: yeah, so buy our new books that totally fix everything we released previously. You just need to give us a few hundreds of dollars and have a lot of trust in us :D

I think I believe a lot of what was mentioned in the video especially with new gms. For more experience homebrew gms, it’s a bit more easy to run high level adventures.

I've been running a 1-20 "campaign" with the same group (though some people rotate in and out) for the better part of six years now. We're at level 15 right now and are in the final arc. My players have yet to show signs of getting bored or frustrated. My secrets: 1. have pow-wows often about how everybody is feelin about the game. 2. I made this a mega-campaign that was composed of several mini campaigns at each of the four tiers of play. when each mini-campaign ends, the next one begins in the same world, but a time skip has occurred. At this next tier I give my players the option to either make a new character, or keep their old one. This has been super fun because old characters who were retired get to become integral parts of the world's lore and makeup, usually as NPCs that don't really join in on the fighting, but instead have become famous entrepreneurs, leaders, or celebrities. One of my players famously had his tier 1 character found the world's first fast-food restaurant chain, and in every tier since, the restaurants have been appearing in increasingly ridiculous locations. 3. The world changes. The time skips are for more than flavor. The tier one campaign was a low-magic, swords and sorcery campaign, while this tier 4 campaign is basically high fantasy due to my players in previous tiers making the world safer, allowing for advances in magic-technology and higher learning. But the brighter the light, the darker the shadow, and in world where more and better resources are available to everyone, this will inevitably include the bad guys too. My group is about to enter the territory of a Wizard King who's been gathering an army of magicitech-augmented minotaurs in the freezing hellscape of the North Pole. TL;DR: Break up your campaigns into tier-sized chunks, give your players the ability to change characters, talk things out a lot, and give your world the ability to evolve and rise to the threat of your adventurers.

I really like your videos! I prefer shadowrun as a system myself but most of the points about story telling etc. still apply. Regarding your last point though, I think there's a solution. It's a common technique in tv and film to have two plots in parallel - an A and B plot - that might or might not be interrelated. In a TTRPG having two plots also has big benefits. The two plots don't need to involve the same characters (but they could) and it doesn't need to have involve the same players (but they could). So, having two plots doesn't just make things more interesting because you can (if the two plots involve the same group) end one story without dropping the ball, thus continue the journey of the heros together without having to re-hook. Simply have two main story lines - when plot A concludes, make sure you're well in a new plot C before you kill the big bad of plot B. Having plots in parallel also can solve the "i want to make a new character" and the "there are unreliable players" problem. If you know there's a player who can only be around every other month or so, just acknowledge that, set up a different plot with a different group of characters and switch back and forth - the two groups could be separated by time for instance, with one leaving notes and hints to the other in future.

Been running D&D since the early 80's. Never has the been an issue with high-level play for me or my groups. I agree that 5e is dumbed down and geared towards the players never losing or dying, but currently running two campaigns (one at level 13 and the other at 18th level), and still haven't had any major issues with high level play. Guess maybe because I have been doing it a long time, have homebrew rules, and rarely (if ever) go directly from a published adventure/module. I can see though, that new DMs trying to do minimal prep or stick to a published adventure may have a problem juggling the biased ruleset of 5e.

@chazzitz-wh4ly

8 ай бұрын

New to DMing with only a handful of sessions under my belt, and I noticed some issues with the rules being heavily biased towards the players. I haven’t attempted anything high level, but I see that a lot of homebrewing and house rules will need to be set at the beginning next time I run a campaign. Currently just running things as is with low level characters while making adjustments for future games.

@willmena96

8 ай бұрын

I don't know you or your group, but you're almost saying that you don't have problems because you use house rules and you don't use the official adventures. That means you're doing great because you've fixed what needed fixing, not because the game is already well balanced. Or at least that's how I see it haha. A new DM probably tries to stick to the book, so it's harder to manage a high level campaign because they don't have the experience to fix the issues that come up, so it's easier to just end the campaign and start over than to create another 16th level party after the first one got TPKd or idk

Imagine being in a game where you leveled up to or earned the wish spell only for it to be neutered to a gold dump because your DM has no imagination and sucks at balancing.

Long time GM (almost 30 years) new to high level DnD 5e. I have found that just giving big monsters a legendary save or two can really make a difference in the "fun factor" had by all. In the end, we are story tellers, and in most stories, heroes win. Use the books as a guide line, and the system as a medium for your story, rather than the be all end all. You'll be much happier. Remember, that big bad, you spent hours and hours making, weeks, months, or even years building to, is meant to die...

@colonelcabbage

7 ай бұрын

I think this got lost in the video. The earlier points made it seem like player fun and DM fun were confrontational ideas. As a DM you are trying to create a fun adventure for everyone including yourself. The joy of the DM should be from the players being challenged but ultimately succeeding. You can certainly enjoy running the monsters, and get frustrated when one gets shut down before it can do its cool thing, but you aren't a player, and beating the PCs isn't the objective.

Overall D&D feels like it was meant to cap out around level 9-12. When BG3 announced the level cap was raised from 10 to 12, a lot of people complained it wasn't higher. I pointed out one scenario, The War of the Lance, and the Heroes in that war. Those modules went from level 3 to level 12. The Drow modules (Against the Giants through Queen of the Demonweb Pits) were levels 6-14 overall. And these were campaigns that were your characters basically retired when they were done. Back in the 1e and 2e days, you'd find a ton of modules for levels 1-3, even more for levels 4-7 (which is probably the peak experience for D&D) and then a good amount from 8-12. After 12 there weren't that many, because there's just not a lot of content for those levels, not by comparison.

@Eirkyr

13 күн бұрын

Original D&D, as in the LBB printing in 1974, effectively ended character advancement at Level 10. They stop getting full hit dice, attack bonus, improvements to saving throws, etc. And it was a common complain among players back in those days at Gary Gygax's table that they would just retire their characters after achieving those levels. They became lords and powerful wizards and settled down, becoming NPCs in the setting.

AD&D had some great and challenging high level adventures! The planes can make many spells worthless! Combat encounters are done with experience, stuff like challenge rating isn't very useful, especially at higher levels!

@badnewsBH

8 ай бұрын

The Inner Planes were a neat set of places to explore, with all sorts of challenges. Outer Planes? Gods gonna getcha! 😆

There have been times I've flat-out had to tell my players "No, I'm not going to just let you skip to the end." In one game (not D&D) the characters had access to a LOT of different powerful abilities, and one character could open small gates. During a scenario they found an enemy base and their target was buried deep under it. They started playing around with the idea of just gating down to the bottom level (or at least near it, since they had another character who could do the equivalent of going ethereal in D&D and scout). They agreed when I said no, thankfully, and didn't give me any lip about it. In the end it turned into a memorable fight that they talked about for a while, and much in-game information was retrieved that they wouldn't have gotten had they just skipped it all. It's meta-gamey, sure, but I've told my players that when I spend hours working out scenarios I'd appreciate it if they didn't try to use cheat codes to try and get around them. If they want their characters to use their wits, if they want to use the environment to their advantage then then that's awesome. But no, they're not going to TP past everything and go to the bad guy's lair. The way I treat wish in-game is that it's a 9th-level spell, meaning it's very powerful but it can't completely alter reality, only partially. The description even says "You undo a single recent event by forcing a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn)." It can't change time beyond that. Want to make it so you didn't open that door and alert all the dungeon monsters of your presence? Fine. Want to make the main bad guys never have been born? Not going to happen.

@mal2ksc

7 ай бұрын

Let them try. That's what the "Colville Screw" is all about: let them stealth past almost everything, but when they finally fail, everything they bypassed converges on them simultaneously.

@Evil0tto

7 ай бұрын

@@mal2ksc But that's meta-gaming too, assuming they'll fail. I enjoy it when my players think of a fun and clever way to avoid a fight, but "I sneak past everyone" isn't that.

@mal2ksc

6 ай бұрын

@@Evil0tto You don't have to assume they'll fail. If they manage to succeed in spite of everything, then congratulate them and move on. Re-use the prep work they never saw somewhere else, or in another campaign arc. But they rarely will, they can only stay on a hot streak for so long before the clunky fighter in plate mail trips, sounding much like a bag of tin cans rolling down stairs, or something similarly disastrous happens. I have had a situation where a 10-Charisma monk managed to bluff his way into and pretty much through a Duergar compound because the player just kept rolling insanely well, bringing the other two party members with him in chains that weren't locked, and only getting detected one room from their goal by a creature that couldn't speak and alert everyone. I knew I was going to run the exact same scenario for another group a week later, so I was more amused than annoyed when the Deception checks kept succeeding. Then the party took out the boss having killed just one minion along the way (and two more in the boss fight). I tried to converge everyone at that point, as the boss was enabled to call for help, but the party won the fight first and used Gaseous Form to slip right past the converging guards. It was a terrible plan, the odds of it working were similar to calling a dozen consecutive coin tosses correctly, but it _did_ work and it was absolutely hilarious because both I and the party acknowledged in real time that this should not be happening. The group that ran it a week later got out with the mission failed and two party members dead (there were four of them too, versus the three of the first run).

1:51 talking about a single spell changing an encounter reminds me of how our last (level 8) campaign ended.. we just got out of a fight in an arena with a solar beam in the middle of it. the beam deals roughly 170 unresistable radiant damage when you enter or start your turn in the beam. the two bbeg came down and stood just outside the beam and called for guards to arrest us. combat was just about to begin with several guards, the two bbeg, and the two solar dragons they use as mounts. dm asks us if we wanted to do anything before the combat starts (giving us time for final preperations and a chance to talk our way out). now, heres the key note.. i was still concentrating on a "gust of wind" spell from the end of the previous fight (used it to knock two of our party out of the mentioned beam of light). so before anyone said anything else i say "i want to rotate the angle of my gust of wind to knock both bbegs into the beam of light". dm looks at their low strength save scores and rolls.. both bbegs fail and get launched into the beam dying instantly. this canceled the whole combat as the magic rings the bbegs were wearing reacted with the solar beam and blew up the star and first two planets... so we all had to run for our lives (we were on a space station out near the 4th planet). dm just kinda deleted the encounter notes he had and was like "welp, with that y'all won. gg". lol note: i didnt expect it to work, nor did i expect it to kill both instantly if it did work. i kinda expected at least one to pass the save and the other to take massive damage and be really weakened to make the fight easier.. if i knew it'd kill both i may not have done it.. though it was funny at the time when both just flew in and poofed out of existance and then the star starts going supernova.. was kinda a "woops.. uh, lets gtfo" moment

This is why 2nd edition was the best. I once ran a premade module named "Throne of Bloodstone." If you never heard of it, you should look it up. I had to do alot of improvising, but it was alot of fun. I never had a problem running high level, high magic adventures. The more game knowledge you possess, the easier it is to handle the players.

To be able to challenge PCs at very high levels (17-20), the only solution I've found is to give monsters class levels.

@chazzitz-wh4ly

8 ай бұрын

I had a similar thought. In games like Guild Wars, mobs had the same abilities and skills as the players, with some exception of monster skills. I always found this to be a great design choice, because in a world with magic and professions, why would monster be limited? Why can we not have deadly goblin heroes at level 20?

@thajocoth

8 ай бұрын

@@chazzitz-wh4ly One of the bosses I had this one party fight when they were level 18 or 19 was a Sorcerer 20 / Mystic 10, and his 5-6 minions in that combat were all level 16 Warlocks (with the boss as their patron). The boss also had an alternate beast form when he dropped to 0hp. That was the only combat in the entire level 1 to level 20 campaign that somebody actually failed a death saving throw during... So it gave them some challenge without killing them, which is good. I try to aim for an average difficulty of "it _probably_ won't kill them".

@jimmyrepine8952

8 ай бұрын

One of the ways, I agree. then again, I add class levels to most of my monsters.

Wish is a unique and powerful spell - you should make it so rare and only available through items or quest rewards that it’s a huge choice to use it, and if they want to use it to get rid of the hags, that’s okay and you should go with it

Any change you'll support rol20 as well as Foundry? I imported a module but there was a lot of extra work (worth it as your modules are excellent) but I can be a lazy dm....

Does someone know what spell(s) are "banned" in Rise of the Tiamat? 11:30

#8, that is why i love D&D Beyond. It takes into consideration any/all bonuses/disabilities and adds/subtracts it from the dice roll

Largely speaking, levels is a problem. You can't run a module, eg. Lost Mind of Phandelver then move the same characters to Dragon Heist. If you complete one module, you have to start a new campaign with new characters. I'm GMing Shadowrun 3e campaign. Players get to keep the same characters from one campaign to the next.

@bradleyhurley6755

8 ай бұрын

Shadowrun becomes somewhat problematic at some point. You can only have meaningful progression to a certain point. I also don't think most shadowrun games are really one campaign to the next. Most of them are just a serious of adventures, some of which might be connected. Which I think D&D needs to do more of. They really need to start having adventures, more so than trying to have campaigns. A campaign in D&D locks you into it for at least 2 years if not longer. WotC needs to relook at the products they put out. It is an issue that you can't go from one campaign to the next or even one adventure to the next. At least with games like Shadowrun, it doesn't matter which adventure you run first you can jump to any other adventure to run second. This is technically possible in D&D, just not in the current format that WotC provides. But you do have to do more work with switching out encounters and upgrading the boss. At the sametime, Shadowrun is always turned on the deadly dial and Combats are generally the same as the last 5 combats which are going to be the same as the next five combats. If you are lucky there is going to be some variation, but its mostly going to come down to you get shot at and you shoot back.

@NickTheCat_DieGoettlichenZehn

8 ай бұрын

You, in fact, can. I started a whole campaign, based only on Lost Mines of Phandelver, and we came far beyond this. Homebrew is the key. It is always the key. Only to work with what the books give us is working with almost no creativity. The books are but a mere base for a world full of adventures. Don't let them be the only answer. Let them be the start of everything else.

@bradleyhurley6755

8 ай бұрын

@@NickTheCat_DieGoettlichenZehn Lost Mines of Phandelver doesn't really count because it is a starter adventure. But you can't play through Out of the Abyss and then jump into Descent into Avernus and then jump into Wild Beyond the Witchlight. First, that's probably a good 6 years to begin with. But by the time you reach the end of Out of the Abyss, your characters are already so high level that the DM is basically going to have to redesign all of the encounters for Descent into Avernus, and by the time you finish both of those, you have ran out of levels to go through Wild Beyond the Witchlight. Where in a game like Shadowrun, you could play one of the adventure modules, jump to a different one, then go to a third one, and your character would have leveled up only slightly. The order of those adventures don't really matter. A shadowrun adventure is like 1/2 the size of a D&D campaign. You can homebrew stuff, but at that point, it defeats the purpose of buying adventures. I think The adventure anthologies are still among the best selling products for WotC. There aren't a lot of people that like the Campaign format, and trying to do a campaign is where all the problems come in. It is a lot easier to write a single adventure than it is trying to keep players on a railroad from the start of a campaign book to the end. Not to mention the adventures could be ran in like 2-3 game sessions where campaigns take 2+years.

@NickTheCat_DieGoettlichenZehn

8 ай бұрын

@@bradleyhurley6755 I made it possible to include Dragon Heist, and the whole OotA is already planned, too. The level concepts and set systems of the books and adventures and so on cannot stop me from adapting everything I wanna include so my players and me will have the most fun out of it. As I said, the books and all should be seen as a base, not a bible. People who want to use them word by word as a full fledged game manual, those people I consider lost in rules. It isn't half the fun you can get with homebrew. And even in LMoP they say you can change as much as you like. They literally tell you to homebrew. I never saw it as rules like you have with a mere board game. People even change rules for board and card games on the fly, so D&D or PnP in general should be no exception. To change levels and what is bound to level ups and stats is nothing but a little play around. More fun that way (at least for me and us).

@RottenRogerDM

8 ай бұрын

@@bradleyhurley6755 How short are your sessions? LMOP took my Adventure League group 4 sessions of 4 hours. Witchlight was 40 hours. Descent was 50 Hours. However Storm King's Thunder is 23 sessions and going but the sessions are only 2.5 hours long?

1:30 Do you think this is due to the expected challenge levels of encounters being truly hard to predict, or variance, i.e. the rolls making the encounter very hard or very easy at high levels?

The thing is that most of the campaigns have a module series for each tier but they haven't been collected in bound volumes. I played Adventurer's League for all of 5E and got a somewhat different experience because DMs can supplement the campaign book. Tier 4 is really a whole new game and it's mostly "Can we use our words first?". 😂 I have 20th level Cleric/Sorcerer and in many ways am less powerful bc I decided to multiclass and more powerful because of how many levels I have in those classes. My biggest shock is that my most useful magic items are the lower level ones. Yes, I have Staff of the Magi and Staff of Power but those are largely just final battle tools and my most useful magic item is the Robe of Eyes I got at level 8. 🤷🏾‍♀I retired the character when she finally died a few months ago and will be using her as an important NPC in a future campaign. Another aspect of playing very high levels is that you end up with so much money and honestly I don't think many DMs plan for what players are gonna do with their treasure aside from the magic items. My Cleric/Sorcerer is fabulously wealthy, in good standing with several factions across Faerun, and is even minor nobility in Mulmaster. She owns a manor in Mulmaster and has a griffon mount named Thunderbeak. Even with all that I still have about 85% of the total treasure I've earned so far. I mean, I could really cheese it and buy hundreds of healing potions, anti-venom, etc but I have a feeling the DM may start think about encumbrance if I did that. 😭Honestly, having a rich & famous character made me start feeling like I was burdening a very busy and important person with low level matters. Like, after defeating a god please don't call me to deal with another lich. If I could say anything to WoTC about Tier 4 enemies it would be to look beyond liches, demiliches, and starspawn. Give me some new kind of hag or maybe even just some really smart goblins(Ravnica's Izzet goblins are my fave!).

You aren't invalidating their characters just because the boss is immune to cheap tricks. It's actually a pretty well established RPG encounter rule. If the boss could be defeated so easily they probably wouldn't be a boss for long. This is particularly true of ones that use magic, they know what magic can do and would protect themselves accordingly. Also, plan shifting an enemy doesn't win the fight, it simply delays it.

In the time of 3rd ed there was a rather popular hack known as EL6, or Epic Level 6. It stopped the class progression at 6th level, but more XP could still be gained and spent on feats. The main thing was removing spell levels 4 and above. While the bounded accuracy of 5E fixed a lot things the high level spells still break any adventure. I think that an EL6 for 5E could work just as well.

@Kanjejou

8 ай бұрын

As a Gm I didnt do it as hard (because player wanted to get their class features) but used an EL10 limit? you still "kind of" reached lvl20 in class feature (but all numerical gains are locked at lvl10, no more extra attacks no more sneak attack biggening ETC...) but then gained mostly feat and spell slot max level was locked to 5 level so I was giving more low level spell slots to caster classes...(lvl11 giving another lvl1 slot lvlv12 giving an extra lvl 2 slot ect...) and making higher level of spell limited to arcane monster or combined spell casting(two spellcaster burning each least half the cost of the spell they want to cast (so lvl6 spell require at least 2 3lvl slot from people), thus they are more of an investement and its a team effort fromt eh good or bad guy if they arent super caster like lich dragon or extraplanar beast/beings... It did reduced the absurde power gap between martial and caster, and made half caster or third caster less meh (since they didnt lose their max level spell slots as true caster but had way less ressources). also kept multiclassing min maxing in check more. also keept most high level monster challenging even if they were only a big beater like adult dragons(that are mostly big stats but nothing else). of course everybody wasnt super happy about it. mostly true caster (sorcerer wizard cleric and druid) and rogue (locking sneak attack at 5d6)felt a bit bad at first. But the higher difficulty made them happier int he long run.

In the 3E and 3.5E era, the primary DM of our area / group began dealing with a player base that only cared about winning instead of having fun. In the next story arc, two sessions in, the GM had easily dealt with the problem by simply making it almost entirely undead enemies with appropriate, low level spell use, and terrain setup to hinder heavier melee players from being useful. The entire game group stopped playing a month later. (This worked because the group was exploiting sneak attack and pierce damage, undead are immune. Many players had no weapons that could even hurt the enemy.) This wasn't even a high level campaign, but one that ran from level 2 to (end at) 6. Like in so many other aspects of life, "fun" is more important than "winning" but few see this.

I’m currently in year 2 of running 8 people through the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, going from level 1 to 16. Just about every point you touched on is everything I’ve been dealing with. Great video.

I like how pf2e just makes the attacks stronger instead of giving more attacks. There's no game breaking caused by players looting weapons from enemies because that's what the encounter math expects them to do.

Even in older editions, high level play always breaks down after a while. And the only thing that can challenge a high level party (mages in particular) is another high level party with high level mages. Typically, I retire characters at between 9th-12th level. After that point, it's very hard to maintain it as a game and how many world shattering events are they going to have to face in order to get the experience points to keep climbing levels. Also, forcing retirement at 9th-12th level makes real sense. The characters have become famous and have come to the attention of the powers that be in their realms---so they will be given lands in a border region to protect, or be asked to found a wizard's college, or have a temple they need to manage (if anyone has read Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet--there can be a lot involved in this to keep a high level priest busy), or maybe the rogue winds up starting a thieves guild of their own, or perhaps a guild of thief takers and bounty hunters.

@mdpenny42

8 ай бұрын

In a similar line of thought, older versions also tended to assume, even encourage, moving characters on to the "you are now sufficiently well-recognised [i.e. high-level] to be given your own fiefdom/army/castle/wizard school/temple/thieves' guild/[whatever] to command or control" scenario . Not all players or GM's necessarily like this, as it perhaps restricts players to one town or city, and the same group of NPC's, but it does change the focus from "roll on the next BBEG/end-of-adventure Boss" (and this is perhaps where some of the balancing issues stem from - having to continually ramp up the power-level of individual opponents).

@andrewlustfield6079

8 ай бұрын

@@mdpenny42 When I was much younger, we pushed characters to really high levels. While we all loved those characters, the game wasn't much of a game after a point. Any combat encounters was--- "we're fighting 12 dragons? Okay, spin the wheel of death--how are we going to kill these guys?" Admittedly, this was back in 1st edition days when magic was far less abundant but much more powerful when you did encounter it. In 1st and 2nd ed, I'd rather fight a dragon than a lich. In 5th ed, this has been significantly nerfed. Unless your goal is to make a pantheon, it's time to retire and start a new group at first level. And even if it is--godhood is just another form of retirement, where the characters have even less direct involvement in the world---they have worshipers and a realm in the outer planes and they are still tied to a place that's more removed from the world. So they still become NPCs. The question isn't whether the characters ultimately retire, it's how far do you want to push past the point where the game is still a game? The best adventuring levels are still 1-7---yes you have some abilities, but a party of orcs can still be something to fear. Especially if they are using a lot of traps. Once you get into higher levels, not much in the world is going to touch you. So what's the point?

@mdpenny42

8 ай бұрын

@@andrewlustfield6079 I wouldn't disagree with you - it's just that the "kill one Big Bad, level up, kill a new, Bigger Badder" seems to have become more prevalent.

@andrewlustfield6079

8 ай бұрын

@@mdpenny42 I agree--that's definitely more prevalent. It's a video game approach to storytelling that leaves a lot of unexplored territory. I would say this is one of my biggest critiques of the style of play that has developed in more recent iterations of the game. There's a video game tone when crafting characters--just in the way feats and stackable abilities work. It's dizzying. The combat resembles a video game aesthetic. If that's what you're after--there's nothing wrong with it. My approach is different. First, my games are more grounded--so more 13th Warrior, LOTR, Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon, and less Arcane. The setting it pretty low magic. Story wise, for instance, I've been drawing influence from shows like Rome and Deadwood. Both are excellent if you haven't seen them. Thematically, I would say it's heroic gritty with significant horror elements. I also use multiple baddies instead of one big bad one, all with their own agendas. They may be working on the same goals, but for very different reasons, or they might be working against one another. Or their aims might not intersect at all--it depends on the faction. One thing is certain--evil in my world is active and is going to come and get you. It has consequences and doesn not pull punches. So it's never at a safe remove. And if the players do something that upsets one of their apple carts, the baddie will do something to interfere with the players. It's a different style of gaming. The easiest way of describing it as it's a narrative sandbox with a tapestry of story possibilities. For me as a DM and as a player, this is a much richer experience than you can get from any video game. It's why I play D&D.

I haven't looked at the DMs guide in a while, but in v5.5 I really hope they put a bigger emphasis on explaining action economy in the encounter building section. High level spells is always going to be a tug of war between making PCs feel like awesome superheros and trivializing content. The only solution there, as for as I can imagine, is for each group to come to its own decisions on which spells are banned, nerfed, and/or modified. Action economy on the other hand is something that's fixable and tweakable entirely on the GM side. It makes encounter building easier when you understand it (though it takes a fair amount of experience to get a feel for, and will vary based on the specific party). Beyond simply explaining the concept in the future DMG, I think systematizing things like minions, legendary actions, or even multiple BBEG turns per round could go a long way towards making encounter design easier.

Just finished up DMing a Campaign of Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Characters got to 19th level and we spent a lot of time above 12th level. From a game mechanics perspective, I think the biggest things to “fix” are certain game or encounter breaking spells and over all monster/encounter balancing.

At level 10 I had 2 encounters take 3.5 hours. The encounters were essentially back to back. The only real reason there were two encounters was to give the Gloomstalker/fighter PC to take their 6 attacks on level 1 and have it meaningful. After 3.5 hours, the combat was still mostly trivial thanks to being able to summon creatures. I'm not sure how much more dangerous I could have made the encounter. It certainly would have only added to the 3.5 hours.

@cp1cupcake

8 ай бұрын

While I certainly have seen combats which turn into slogs regardless, I have found the length of time of a combat is more determined by the players than the DM. When I learned D&D, one of the axioms was to have your turn planned out before it happened, to the extent of rolling attacks and damage before your turn came around. I joined mid campaign once where the players were all playing on computers/phones instead of what was going on, to the extent that the DM had to do a recap of the last round at the start of every player's turn, and then the player would ponder on what action they should take. The DM's jaw dropped when he came around to me and I started by saying something like "so I should at that guy hitting touch AC 30 for 24 damage on the first hit....."

@bradleyhurley6755

8 ай бұрын

@cp1cupcake my 3.5 hour combat didn't really have anyone pondering what to do for long. I'm not a fan of actually rolling before your turn because there are things that can change that. I don't know if it really matters.

@bradleyhurley6755

8 ай бұрын

@cp1cupcake my 3.5 hour combat was just a 3.5 hour combat. It may have been bad encounter design on my part. But it was balanced lol. But people not planning ahead is the worse. I would have been upset with the players

Good timing! Do you know WoTC has justvreleased "Chains of Asmodeus" with high level campain in 9 Hells on DMs Guild? :D Almost 300 pages in PDF book and it looks fantastic!

@kevinradigue729

8 ай бұрын

Yep, about to get setup for running it ! ^^

I would say the new one is probably going to 4.75 or 5.5 depending on your view point. They may make some changes by bringing back old favorite mechanics but no major ones. A lot of the problems you mentioned are hard coded into any game besides a narrative one with just a dice to determine success. Even then you have to scrap classes, benefits, penalties, knowledge of 1001 dances, etc.

I started a campaign nearly four years ago where I established that there were about half a dozen different demigods on the island they were at who may or may not be hostile to the PCs' plans, so the PCs did the predictable step of viewing this as a checklist of things they had to knock out one by one. Similarly, when running Rime of the Frostmaiden for a different group, the PCs in that group wanted to hit every town in the Icewind Dales to knock out their individual quests, which the module discourages (it's basically once the PCs have done about 4-6 of these quests, they need to move on to something more challenging and interesting). The "Complete all X challenges" is one of those things that sounds good in theory (coming from MMOs and the like) but can make the story at the table get dull real quickly.

Wish has never been a problem for me to adjudicate. First your wish problem is covered in the spells description. "You undo a single recent event by forcing a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish spell could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s critical hit, or a friend’s failed save. You can force the reroll to be made with advantage or disadvantage, and you can choose whether to use the reroll or the original roll." If releasing the hags was not a roll made in the last round by the players or anyone else it cannot be undone. Next is the Wish spells prime purpose is to duplicate the effects of an 8th level spell or lower, it cannot do things that 9th level spells do. So when players ask for anything I ask myself is if that is reasonable for any 8th level spell I might let the players create. Or can I use an existing spell as a base to create a similar effect to what is asked, and that means that a saving throw is often in order for the monster, or it will have a limited duration. Teleport is thwarted by the forbiddence spell, Lichs lairs should always have this warded as well as any powerful spellcasting monster. The only tip to using powers like this is you get into the paper rock scissors aspect of the game, and players hate having their powers thwarted like this on a regular basis so use these things sparingly and only in situations that make sense. As for Forcecage... yeah I've banned that one after I hit my own player with it.... I really thought the disintegrate happy wizard would free the barbarian, taking up their action and losing a high level spell slot. but nope that did not happen. So yeah the ruin the fun spells are just banned. WoTC will fix no issues, I've put enough time into my own homebrew to resolve them at my table so I dont need One Dnd

@bradleyhurley6755

8 ай бұрын

First rule of D&D Read the spell description, because what you think is an overpowered spell, was probably just a misread spell. I think in earlier D&D wish was a lot more powerful. But its 5e version isn't exactly game breaking if used by the rules. The Second and actual first rule that should be followed when playing D&D is never assume Player A is going to help Player B. In this case it may just be the player didn't know there was something they could do to help the Barbarian. Which is Rule #3, don't assume a player knows how to solve a problem that their character would know. Off the top of my head unless I look at the Forcecage description, I think you can teleport out of it, but I don't remember if you can teleport into it. And I don't recall if there is any way to destroy it. But if my Wizard doesn't have the forcecage spell, I could easily assume he has no idea of how to help the Barbarian even if I the player would know. Bonus Rule #4.... Don't assume your players are going to have a specific spell available. Context, we were playing in a game and a player cast detect magic as a ritual. The DM later had the bad guy that we had to defeat/kill/turn in to authorities turn invisible... we were dumbfounded on how to find him for a couple of rounds, we didn't know which direction he had went. The entire time the DM was expecting the player to cast detect magic to find out where the bad guy was without realizing the player could only cast it as a ritual. Also a reason why you should plan ahead and not just randomly decide to make your bad guy do something in the middle of the game that requires the PCs have specific things to deal with.

@scetchmonkey007

8 ай бұрын

@@bradleyhurley6755 In my forcecage example The player knew how their disintegrate spell worked they used it all the time, to blow holes in walls, walls of force and where experienced enough to know they could use the spell to free a barbarian in forcecage, they just thought that putting up their own wall of force to divide the bad guys was a better move until the bad guys dimension doored to the other side and kept up the fight. So I'll simplify your rules. Rule #1: Do not make assumptions on the players behalf. Rule #2: Any assumption you make on the players behalf will not happen. Rule #3: when in doubt refer to rules one and two. Thus banning the problematic no fun spells is a better move than working through them with assumptions.

@bradleyhurley6755

8 ай бұрын

@scetchmonkey007 I will agree with you that if a spell is truly causing problems in your game, you should ban it. I also think sometimes DMs ban spells that aren't really that big of an issue. For instance, I once had a DM ban heat metal. Which with the amount of damage my fighter was doing per round, the druid was not going to be OP by using heat metal. There are also clever tricks to do with Forcecage. Granted you can only do them once before it feels bad. One possibility is to let the players use their resources while someone is trapped in the forcecage only to find out he can in fact teleport out and then polymorth into a larger threat after the PCs have used resources. In terms of using it against your players, I'd just say just don't. You don't need to ban a spell to keep you from using it yourself.

@scetchmonkey007

8 ай бұрын

@@bradleyhurley6755 When I ban a spell I often replace it with something else. The concept of trapping a creature in a force cage is a cool concept so I'll rework things to allow it in a non broken way. IE Force cage is 7th lv and allows no saving throw, no concentration. So the first thing I ask is do I nerf the spell at its level or retool it. And a single creature 7th level disable spell is not worth the spell slot at 7th level if I made it a save to avoid or added concentration. So instead I retooled Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to be able to be upcast to trap larger creatures with its saving throw and concentration. Lv5 for huge, lv6 for gargantuan. Still worth the spell slot, and fullfills the same function as forcecage, without the broken no save and duration. Plus they can push around the creature in a bubble which is kinda fun. Always retool spells for more fun, A cloud giant guarding the ancient Blue Dragon the party was hunting ending up taking a bubble ride off a mountain top with this new change.

While three +17 campaigns is impressive, it's still a super small set of data points. Maybe the reason why it's hard to DM that level is because we simply don't get the experience to work through the differences and interactions at that level. And the RAW CR is broken across all the level because there are simply too many variables in any encounter to design a reasonable systematic balance rating. As for the Wish spell, well that would be something that more playings at that level would allow the DM the experience to know that such 9th level magic (and associated items) needs to be much rarer in the world; possibly even non-existent. Just because it's in the book doesn't mean it needs to be in your world.

Here are my solutions to some points you mentioned. 4:51 You can simply say no. Wish allows you to say no if they want to skip your work. Also you can punish them for using the tools you gave them against you by not protect them against wishs downsides. 5:18 Also teleport and plane shift aren’t really a problem as you can still create threats. You just need to prep accordingly. If they can bypass encounters using teleport they need to put in efforts to get the informations they need or they may end up where they don’t want (also the spell can fail because of spells like private sanctum or forbiddance). If you want to counter planeshift it is kinda your fault (as the tuning forks are still in your control). If they wish for planeshift you can twist the use so they end up in Sigil and you have a bunch of adventure potential there in form of premade adventures (or if you homebrew you can place them in a similar situation). 5:43 If this is the case you played with the wrong people. Its kinda like the situation with create water in the lungs of your enemies because of rule inaccuracies. If they use high lvl spells you as a Dm are also allowed to use them. 6:54 Create one scenario where a spell or combo works before the bbeg. Then preap accordingly to counter the spell combo. If they ask you why, let them find out about the scrying spell. Bring the characters back to life and let them restart. 7:40 Start introducing other challenges into the mix. Maybe a tribe of dwarfs life in the dessert and they need something like food. The dwarfs have something in their archives to alleviate some pressure in the fight against the bbeg. Dwarfs are stubborn so they won’t accept just food from the nearby farmlands, also they won’t move as the place is holy to them. Now your players need to rehabilitate the dessert so the dwarfs can get food. The players start terraforming the region (plant growth, control weather, similar magic). If the reason why the dwarfs are hungry is tied to the bbeg and the dwarfs are protected from the magic of the players because of their faith you create a challenge without combat for spellcasters. Martial characters need some more support via magic items or using certain tools or skills to aid the casters. Maybe they protect the casters when researching from manifestations of the bbeg. Granted martials have a bigger problem in high lvl play then casters but the Dm can adjust to that. 8:22 If you argue with the inexperience of a Dm, your argument is invalid. As this is also a problem at lower lvl play (Shadows, Pact tactic, Suggestion, Command, Sleep). If a first time Dm wants to play high lvl adventures it simply doesn’t happen. 12:11 This simply is a false statement. Orcust the demonprinz has various abilities to outride kill anyone who dares to drop below 100 HP. With his ability to summon night walkers he is f*cking terrifying. 12:38 Have the bbeg chase them down. 13:43 Nothing a timer can’t fix. 1 minute per turn (not counting resolution). The Dm gets 1 min for each group. If there are questions the game is paused. So there is no problem there. 16:45 Play with standardized rolls or use computers to roll a lot of dice at once. 18:17 Introduce a one time shop to your players allowing them to change class and or race. Use dream of the blue valley to change the campaign. Or start at a higher lvl. 19:36 Sequester is another great spell to jump into new adventures. Just set the trigger to: when a certain word is spoken and the world is about to end the spell ends. Now you have a set of adventures perfect for a series of onslaughts against gods. You can of course combine all those solutions to create the perfect toolbox for you. If you have something to add or question I happily answer them. Have a nice day AEther

I once played with a 3.5e DM that disallowed Time Stop and Wish spells like this: the archenemy can use them too. As soon as you start these spells you get an arcane intuition that the big bad can do the same but worse -- in fact he already Wished to be able to preemptively get these spells cast for himself in the event someone tried to use this magic against him. So with this warning we never used those spells in the big climactic battles. We had fun using them other times.

My campaign just hit it's 1 year mark a couple months ago, and has started entering high level play. I believe I lucked out on players, as all of mine are more interested in roleplay and story than power. So none of them are super optimized and things are still a threat to them. At this rate, we will hit level 20 and they will still be threatened by goblins!

@archersfriend5900

8 ай бұрын

How?

I agree with point 2, having high level spell casters in a previous campaign, it was impossible to make well meaning fights. The illusionist wizard can utilize their level 6 and 13 sub class features to lock people in blocks of ice that dont deal damage but can prevent air from getting into the trapped area, suffocating people to death. I have banned illusionist wizards from my games because of this.

@jimmyrepine8952

8 ай бұрын

It is not impossible to make well meaning fights. And... I would suggest reading the ability again (it's 14th level btw)- making part of the illusion real is a bonus action. And most importantly... The object can’t deal damage or otherwise directly harm anyone.- suffocating someone does not work RAW.

@dmeep

8 ай бұрын

@@jimmyrepine8952 i think the argument is that its not directly damaging them its indirectly harming them (active strangulation vs passive suffocation) and its more a RAI then RAW but that is up to the GM at the table in the end. Also not all creatures need air to function but only fighting the types that do not might feel repetitive

@jimmyrepine8952

8 ай бұрын

Maybe it is a matter or perspective, but I do not consider suffocating something indirect.

Idk what I did to then, because I ran a module for three players that went from levels 15-20 (yes we started at 15) and I almost TPK’ed them twice. Some of it was just lucky dice rolls on my end, but they struggled to the bitter end of that campaign. And no, I didn’t throw dragon armies or tarrasques at them, just a decent amount of high CR encounters (not all combat encounters btw), and made sure they understood that spell components that cost money or were consumed still mattered.

I think a lot of those issues are ultimately un-fixable, and some are easily fixable. Characters will always get more complex, players and dms will always tend to grow tired of the story and characters. Some of those are fixable though - use a calculator and a dice roller for math, while the creation of higher level encounters is something that comes with experience. While WOTC could (and i tentatively hope would) improve on their monsters, the wide variety of character builds and abilities will always require some DM customization of their monsters and encounters. Spells are in a weird spot. While there definitely are outliers like wall of force and forcecage that need to either go or change, some spells are just too important to the fantasy, like teleportation, and completely negating those kinda defeats the purpose of being a high level caster. Its also worth noting that past a certain point, the DM also needs to DM and stop making plans in a vaccume - if players have ways of circumventing travel, than planning around them traveling is faulty from the get go, in much the same vein that trying to challange a mid level party with hordes of minions is silly due to the advent of AOE. Where WOTC need to improve is in monster design, and by extension, the CR system. Other than those, i think a lot of these issues are ingrained into any iteration of DND, pathfinder, and other power fantasy TTRPGS.

@armorclasshero2103

8 ай бұрын

A lot of this wasn't an issue in older editions, because the power curve was flatter.

Lizards of the Coast isn't fixing anything.

@thedrummingminstrel8906

3 ай бұрын

DnD players just have to look at what Wizards have been doing to Magic for the past 5 years, and they'll see all the "fun" that's in store for them lmao.

Very good video and very good points man. Subbed and like the video, keep it up!

Right before Covid hit, we started a CoS campaign. Spent most of lockdown playing it over Discord and our characters stopped I think around level 10. We played another campaign for a bit, but took a break from it and the same DM in our group who ran CoS got Van Richten's guide and wanted to do "Curse of Strahd II: Dread Domain Boogalo". Three people came back as their original characters, I came back as the son of my character, and three others (we have a big table) came as 100% new characters. We were all level 12. We just finished that campaign this month after MANY months of play. Dear god was the last battles against the forces of Azalin Rex et al a slog. Molasses, January, uphill, both ways, no shoes. Having a huge table doesn't help, but Action, Bonus Action, multiple attacks, ki points, big spells, reactions, pets, you name it. It burned our DM out. He was done. We still had a handful of "fun" domains to work through at 17 but he speed tracked us to 20 just so we could finish out the story. So yeah, at a certain point, the narrative was done, we needed to just kill the big bad and end it all. Now, we're going BACK to my campaign that was paused previously......and they're all level 12. I picked up lot of tricks and I hope I can put them all together to make this all not be so sloggy.

#3 Seems weird. One of the complaints I've seen about Paizo's Pathfinder 2e, is how the game's balance system causes "monsters to scale with the players" which makes the game not fun for them... "why do I level up if I'm just going to be fighting enemies who are balanced for my level?" *Shrugs* I suppose it's down to preference... and it's easier for lower level characters in 5e to crush higher CR monsters due to the poor balance _of_ high level monsters.

@bradleyhurley6755

8 ай бұрын

Why would anyone expect to fight things that aren't balanced to their level? Sounds like they just want to play an MMO.

@chazzitz-wh4ly

8 ай бұрын

I figured if I ever get there, I’d have monsters with class and abilities too. They have access to just as much as the players do but with more of a cap. My favorite game, Guild Wars, does this to some extent. Both mobs and players have access to the same skills and classes, monsters more limited. Combat is challenging and can be deadly if mistakes are made, but so rewarding when you get through it.

@RonJomero

8 ай бұрын

Monsters don't scale with players in pf2e. There are multiple levels of different monsters for multiple levels of players and those levels go up as players do. You won't be running into a level 17 goblin, for example. Not unless he was homebrewed to be some goblin-demilich or something. I will say this though as a side note, a level 17 player who swings his weapon at a goblin and rolls a natural 1? They will still kill the goblin and not "whiff." (Sliding critical scale is awesome) As a GM who played 5E for years (and many others) I am still shocked at just how balanced PF2E is, even at high levels. My group (who are also all veteran GMs) agrees that they have a hard time believing just how the "math works out" every time.

@aralornwolf3140

8 ай бұрын

​ @RonJomero , They weren't talking about goblins... they meant _all_ monsters in general. A level 15 party is expected to fight level 15 monsters +/- a few levels. In 5e, as the encounter system is incorrect. What is a level 15 party supposed to defeat? I think 3 or 4 CR 7 monsters, by the book, are supposed to threaten a level 15 party. At the same time so does a single CR 20 monster, right? The person's complaint was, let me rephrase it, "when I level up, I want to feel like I leveled up.. to feel stranger." Except, the player does get stronger as they level up and the expectation, harking back to 49 years ago, is higher level characters stop dealing with orcs, goblins, etc. and start dealing with much more dangerous threats as they increase in level. This expectation was built into the Exp and Treasure rewards. A level 15 party needs >1,000,000 Exp to level 10... fighting monsters that only provide 30 to 100 exp, each, makes no sense... even more so when the party is only getting pocket change in monetary/item rewards. It's not worth their time. *Shrugs* It's possible Bradleyhurley is correct and they just wanted to play like its an MMO and enjoy going to "lower level areas" and feel like a boss....

@bradleyhurley6755

8 ай бұрын

@chazzitz-wh4ly you have to be careful using monsters with classes as they can quickly tpk your party.

Character death being nonexistent isn't just a high level thing... That problem starts at level 3.

As someone who GMed a D&D 3.5 group from level 1 - 21 before the campaign ended, I just accounted for the notion of smart play. (I had the general campaign layout pre-planned and adapted things accordingly en route.) Players -want- to test limits. They -want- to experiment. It's no longer the Arthurian Legend in levels of power: It eventually becomes Matrix-like levels of power. Also ensure that the party and you want to play the same TYPE of game and are willing and able to cooperate to help that happen. Some people want to kill and disregard story or vice versa. Baldur's Gate III is an EXCELLENT example of allowing players to overcome or bypass challenges in a variety of ways! Let people feel clever and properly rewarded for acting wisely and using their resources!

Oh I immediately knew two things to do in that wish scenario. You can't get to one of the overlords because he's sealed away, but he's still sending spectral monsters out to do his biding. The only ones who know the ritual to break the seal these days? The jarred servants. Let them have the wish and the benefits of being better prepared. On the side, everything they gained after that point? Lost, all the story work you set up? Put a few twists in them and reuse parts later or make them retread parts with a completely different tone to it all as now the hags weren't there so the context of it all is different. Basically edit the notes in a few places and put them back into your stack where it's appropriate.

The “problem” of high level spells breaking the game can be solved by paying and GMing Mage the Ascension (or Dark Ages Mage) from low to high Arête levels. Mage is a game where magic can literally do anything that the players and the GM can imagine. There are balancing mechanics to this such as paradox, but most importantly it gets you out of a D&D mindset and gets you thinking in terms of reality warping with interesting gameplay, mechanics, and consequences. It could give you ideas as to how to run high level D&D. It’s like Uncle Iroh said, “Wisdom is best pulled from multiple sources. If it comes from one place it becomes rigid and stale.” Stop just playing D&D. It sandboxes your thinking and obviously it’s becoming rigid and stale. Play other games and learn to think outside the D&D box.

@trently89

8 ай бұрын

Oh yea that solves my high level d and d encounters, group, were just gonna play a different game! Because that makes sense!!

@strwrbttlfrnt

8 ай бұрын

This isn't the time or place to recommend games to solve solutions as much as i find other systems better i can admit that changing systems is not the answer because they enjoy dnd they don't want to learn a whole new system because of one flaw in the system. It would be a waste of time and money for them

@trently89

8 ай бұрын

@@strwrbttlfrnt thank you. I fully agree 5e has quite a few flaws that the GM needs to compensate for that other better written RPGs don't have and GMs shouldn't have to fill in missing pieces left by lazy or incompetent designers (not all). HOWEVER that being said, I still love d and d 5e and would gladly solve the problems I find in the game and make it enjoyable to my players than offer to just say I know you wanted to play d and d 5e but they have some rules that are jacked up so we're gonna play something else instead. As a GM I see overcoming those problems and making the game fun despite of those mistakes as a challenge and feel good when players still have a good time

"dungeons and dragons under monetized", Wizards of the Coast CEO Cynthia Williams. Hell no WotC is not going to fix anything with the new edition I will be surprised if it isn't worse than the convoluted bloated mess that 5e is.

Our group decided to solve this problem simply: all characters are capped at level 15. There are no 8th or 9th level spells accessible to characters, and also not to most monsters, although items might be able to invoke them (we've had an anti-magic field amulet), and collective action of powerful spellcasters can also generate 8th and 9th level effects, but generally not quickly so the only way they'll see combat is by means of scrolls or Contingency or making magic items. Spellcasters still get the 8th level spell slot at level 15 but there are no 8th level spells to learn. The slot can only be used to upcast or to participate in a group casting (the only way 8th/9th level spells can be cast, slowly). We can still have broad, expansive campaign arcs, they just culminate in set pieces that use 7th level spells rather than 9th level spells. It also makes the first three levels meaningful again, as there will necessarily be a lot of development before level 5, which is when the party really becomes capable of doing something about the larger problem. Then we wrap up before the power gap between spellcasters and martials becomes unmanageable. The main down side is that this means there aren't enough Ability Score Increases to go around _and_ still use Feats (we figure the ones at level 4 and level 8 are going toward a 20 in your primary stat, and level 12 is now very late in a career), so we also add one free Feat, roughly midway through level 5 after the newly empowered party accomplishes a major campaign milestone. This also mitigates the "5th level lasts forever" problem, as a well-chosen Feat feels an awful lot like gaining a level, making it a bit like "level 5 and a half". To get them back on track for high level service (if we cared), they could skip the ASI at level 12, having already been granted at level 5½.

A bit late to the video, but I have a comment on the math thing. I love doing math, to the point where I start trying to invent new ways to do crap when I get bored sometimes. Even for me, adding up 6 dice for damage isn't really fun. It's not hard, but it can be tedious, and tedious is not what I'm looking for in the middle of combat. Which is why when I started DMing an online group, I made sure to pick a VTT that will automate as much of the math as possible. Adjudicating and applying 8d6 save for half is really easy when you just have to make sure your players select the right targets and press a few buttons.

I like it when high level adventures are design around the high level adventures, but it does require powerful high level abilities to be powerful while still balanced in their high level context :'D Anyway yeah, one of reasons I prefer other systems than 5e since I actually run games until high levels generally

The main story arch in the campaign I am running will be up until lvl10-12 depending on what the players do. After they have rid the continent of the tryanical king, i could Increase it to a lvl 16 campaign with intoducing in plane war and combat, with lvl 17-20 being reserved to a "god war" where the party are effectivly trying to become a new panthion of gods.

something my DM did was introduce something he called Arcane immolation and Divine necrosis, further things such as time and downtime plays a big part. The arcane immolation is simple yet very deadly for instead of spell slots you get more destabilized the more spells used and the higher level the quicker you your characters soul heated up. Going over a threshhold they start to suffer permanent reductions to attributes and that threshold is then also permanently lowered. In effect a caster can burn themselves out over time forcing the player to use magic when it really matters and not it being a party trick flinged around cause they might not have cooled down enough for a fight should it ever occur. And no a long rest did not remove all of the heat it actually took 3 days to cool down to 0 from being at the max threshold. In a sense it is an adoption of Battletechs heat system for their weapons. Divine Necrosis works by having ''the healer'' forced to be aligned with a god or patron for it is them that restores the flesh. However the more healing done the less effective it gets and necrosis sets in, Ever wonder where zombie plauges come from? yeah it is not only necromancers it is from abusing divine powers too. The more someone is healed the more attention is drawn to them by the rivals of that god and eventually... they intercept and that holy paladin suddenly goes feral for brains. Praying at temples and leaving offerings to our gods or patrons would reduce the necrosis but it is a long process. At this point the party needs to rely more on other medical items but watch out for he also used a toxicity system akin to the witcher games. Too many potions and you die, This makes the medicine skill very valuable and it also acts as an incentive for us players to plan our attacks. Couple this together with a DM timetable for how quickly the arc progress and also leaving hints at how much time they got left with a couple of sidemissions that could extend the period Well... sometimes the heroes do come in too late~ oh yeah i forgot to mention this small but major change, long rests only restore hitdice that are used in shortrests and 10% hp unless cared for by a medical practioner, then you get 20% per long rest. All in all we are using much more items and skills than normal, we also pay for more services and are mindful of how we travel and where. Teleportation gets us A to B quick but it heats us up really quickly while taking a trip on a ship takes longer but we can fully recover during this time It is a lot of dice for sure but we live in the digital age where quite frankly lots of these dicerolls can be automated in order to speed up the game when needed and above all help keeping track of your status.

Another example (from a session I ran) of a single spell making a big difference: A 7th-level party (Bear Totem Warrior, Scout, Ancients Paladin, Transmuter and Moon Druid) ran into a bunch of sword wraiths, including a commander. The Transmuter cast Slow, turning what should have been a deadly encounter into a cakewalk. When I ran the adventure a second time I replaced the sword wraiths with a single bodak. It SHOULD have been an easy encounter. It was not. The Totem Warrior went down at the end of his first turn, and the scout at the start of his second. The party all survived, but boy were they scared!

I have been running a game from level 1 to currently 23 (using a 3P supplement). I've never used CR as an indicated to design encounters the players would just walk over all the enemies. What worked was looking at the PCs averages to hit, AC, saves, HP and damage output. For enemies you can use the creature stats as guides for powers and attacks, then restat them to match the players. As for higher level games taking longer, well, if your Players are clever, they will be dishing out some serious damage, and doing their best to boost their AC, resistances and saves avoid it. The only thing that's more complicated is the sheer amount of abilities, feats and spells you have access too. Learning a new character can take a few sessions to break in a high level.

I ran into this a couple of weeks ago. There were 6 characters in the party, as our group is quite large. It so happened that my character, a 10th level devotion paladin, and a half-orc barbarian were close to each other; she's the heaviest hitter, my character tanks well. We got into a combat with yuan-ti; two of their signature abilities are suggestion and some sort of fear ability. Two of them used their spells on said barbarian, and both bounced. Why? Well, it so happens that paladins of that level emanate an aura in a 10' radius that makes everyone within it immune to fear and charm effects. The DM wasn't best pleased.

I tend to limit access to wish specifically, either by tieing it to an item or haveing a in world reason to limit it (usually a time/fate based deity)

We did a long running high level campaign back in 2nd edition and it was fine. Of course, we didn't use any books or pre-made campaigns - the DM would just have a rough idea of what state the world was in and created adventures 100% based on the players decisions. You want to tack down that vampire in the city? Sure, you will end up in limbo fighting an entire clan. Good thing your brought that over-powered rod of resurrection - you'll need it. I think the cure to this issue is role playing. Also, as the DM, just remove the line at the end of the force cage description "This spell can’t be dispelled by dispel magic." and make it dispel-able as long as you are outside of the cage "This spell can’t be dispelled by dispel magic by those who are trapped inside of the cage." - by players and NPCs. This will add more dynamic combat options and make the encounter more fun.

Ive not played D&D for quite some time now, basically down to circumstances and lack of friends to play with. This makes me wonder just how much the game structure has changed from when I was DM'ing, with, wait for it, edition 1 ruleset and books. Yep, The original first edition Dungeon Masters Guide, Players handbook, and Monster manual still sit on my shelf and it was with those I last ran a campaign around 20 years ago! (I've had those books since circa 1980) Can't remember what level my campaign ran up to on those rules, the campaign notes etc are knocking around somewhere in a drawer, must dig them out to see.