Let me begin by saying that I don't see this as a bad thing. I remember reading somewhere that many campaigns don't get past lvl 10-12 so I think if the system can encourage play at higher levels then that's a good thing.
I ask this because I'm noticing that many of the Feats and class traits are tied to the PB instead of granting a flat bonus. This means that Feats that used to be borderline OP like Great Weapon Master now do scaling damage instead of a +10 bonus. Alert is another one and I'm sure there are more.
Is this some sort of balance thing or, as I've surmised, is it to encouraging players who want the big numbers to try higher levels of play?
I am fairly new to Dungeons and Dragons. I've only been playing for like a year and a half. I've only finished one campaign and I joined it halfway through. I'm in a handful of others but they're all fairly recently started except for one and it's only halfway through. My point is I don't have a lot of experience to draw upon to make comparisons.
But I will say a gripe I've had is that no one seems to want to play high level games. The difficulty I have a finding a game that will start at level 1 and go to level 20 it's just crazy. Why are there all these levels no one wants to touch? I want to touch them! There's so many cool things I want to be able to do them. Hopefully you're right and more people will have high level stuff going on going forward.
Let me begin by saying that I don't see this as a bad thing. I remember reading somewhere that many campaigns don't get past lvl 10-12 so I think if the system can encourage play at higher levels then that's a good thing.
I ask this because I'm noticing that many of the Feats and class traits are tied to the PB instead of granting a flat bonus. This means that Feats that used to be borderline OP like Great Weapon Master now do scaling damage instead of a +10 bonus. Alert is another one and I'm sure there are more.
Is this some sort of balance thing or, as I've surmised, is it to encouraging players who want the big numbers to try higher levels of play?
One of the earlier interviews with Crawford had him saying that they were hoping to design 2024 in such a way that we would see more games reach tier 4. So, I believe the answer is yes.
Yes, they're encouraging higher level play. Or rather, they're working on not discouraging it.
A problem D&D has is that as you get higher and higher, you get more and more abilities, which makes it harder and harder to account for. Encounter balancing becomes much harder because you're rolling so many dice for different things that reliably saying that you need this level of difficulty becomes impossible. The vase assumptions of the game are also wrong, so things get way out of hand. That's partly why high level play doesn't happen much - the game shakes itself apart. It's doable...but it's not easy.
Then, because few people actually play that high, the designers don't put the support in. Why build monsters and adventures for L20 when everyone stops at about L13? It won't sell. So it doesn't get fixed. Since it's broken, nobody plays it...
They're trying to break that cycle and make high level play viable. Good luck to them, but my opinion is that the game will need an overhaul first. 2024e ain't that. Maybe I'm wrong (and I hope I am), but imI think it needs more than a bit of spit and polish.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Going all the way from tier 1 to 4 is also a significant commitment of time for a group, and a campaign can easily end up falling short for reasons well outside the scope of the game.
As you progress in levels the time between levels tends to grow - despite facing stronger foes. That creates a real time problem where many groups simply don’t survive that long. Think of a HS or college group - you’re only there and involved for 3-5 years and a PC that started at level 1 may well have only reached level 11-14 over the whole time. Even “adult” groups have problems staying together. My current group was together for 3-4 years before I joined, then Covid hit, now we are back again but the store we were playing at closed, so I’m hosting the weekly meeting - except with 6-9 of us total we seldom have everyone due to illness, business, vacations, kids sports, etc. then we run several different campaigns and games so that slows things down further. Back in 3/3.5 days they came out with epic progressions and powers for those that wanted to go past L20 but not many could manage building thru to that level. My epic PCs we’re the result of luck finding games that would let them in and then really turning them into NPCs as I built my world as a place they could reside.
That's part of the reason milestone leveling is a popular alternative; helps cut out the need for filler XP in groups that want a more streamlined progression.
I don't see any specific encouragement to do so. But the options all being there if you want to.
I think this is the best way to look at it. Linkite said it well too, rather than encouraging they just aren't flat discouraging anymore.
At the end, they really don't give a damn how you play. That said, there should be logical options and material for play at that level should people choose to do it. In the first 10 years of 5th, material after level 12-14 was severely lacking and a lot of character options didn't scale well beyond spell level scaling.
So having things continue to progress based on PB makes sense, because it means that a 17th level character is able to do more than a 3rd level character. Giving martials more to do in combat makes sense, because it gives them time to shine. From what is slowly trickling out on the new Monster Manual, making monsters beefier means Martials get more chances to shine in both the intermediate and higher tiers.
Honestly I'm liking a lot of the design decisions in the revision, even though theres a vocal minority who resists any sort of change. It was obvious players were getting stronger, but anyone who thought monsters wouldn't also get more options was silly.
I've been playing the ROT module with a group for over a year now, last session my DM touched on this after I expressed interest in fighting Tiamat after the session. He went on to explain some of her abilities and some mid-fight scenarios, and let me tell you- at a certain point mechanically, the game becomes totally unfair and unpleasnt to play or run for a lot of people. Another touch-stone for this conversation is that once you reach mid level play, youre essentially super heroes and things that would previously require clever thinking and creative solutions, now just requires you to cast fly or banishment.
I've been playing the ROT module with a group for over a year now, last session my DM touched on this after I expressed interest in fighting Tiamat after the session. He went on to explain some of her abilities and some mid-fight scenarios, and let me tell you- at a certain point mechanically, the game becomes totally unfair and unpleasnt to play or run for a lot of people. Another touch-stone for this conversation is that once you reach mid level play, youre essentially super heroes and things that would previously require clever thinking and creative solutions, now just requires you to cast fly or banishment.
Agreed. In the game I'm in, the DM doesn't even ask for Investigation to find traps anymore because I'm at +18 or something obnoxious like that. The only traps that challenge us are the double-traps (you spot one but miss the one it's attached to) or magical traps (we don't have a lot of Arcana Skill) where we THINK we're safe standing 20' away but we're not. Yawning chasm with no bridge? Fly. Crumbling stairwell over fire? Dedicated climb speed or Fly.
I've been playing the ROT module with a group for over a year now, last session my DM touched on this after I expressed interest in fighting Tiamat after the session. He went on to explain some of her abilities and some mid-fight scenarios, and let me tell you- at a certain point mechanically, the game becomes totally unfair and unpleasnt to play or run for a lot of people. Another touch-stone for this conversation is that once you reach mid level play, youre essentially super heroes and things that would previously require clever thinking and creative solutions, now just requires you to cast fly or banishment.
Well the thing to that is, there's just flat out a lot of non-creative thinking at that point too.
For as many things the players can do, so can threats equal of that power scaling. They can also teleport, fly, have access to magic items, etc. More than that the bad guys at that point are Batman-esque in that they have time to prepare. Anti-magic fields, magic circles, areas where things don't work right, dozens if not hundreds of hired help/zombies etc. It's the thing I see the biggest problem of. We just throw single entities at these parties that are increasing in power and the fight happens, ends instantly and the party is like HA WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE.
Smaug works against the people of Lake-Town and the Dwarves/Biblo because for the most part the dwarves are not rocking any sort of magical anything and the critical hit by Bard with the Black Arrow(depending on which version of Hobbit you're referencing, this can vary, I'm referencing the book) takes him out with a seemingly legendary/artifact level Arrow.
If you throw only Vecna at a group of adventurers who are high level, have a boatload of magic items and are prepared? Vecna gets destroyed. I don't like comparisons to Critical Role because I don't think it's fair to compare Critical Role to normal groups but it's a big deal to show that Vecna in that fight had 1550 HP, regenerated 350 HP(50 HP per round) and that fight went for seven rounds. It felt deadly, it felt meaningful because Vecna as a SINGLE entity needs that to go against a legendary party of warriors. It's also somewhat representative of what most tables might look like at the very least in term of table makeup and magic item allocation at that level. Keep in mind that 1900 effective HP Vecna had doesn't even take into account how much missed/Vecna saved or negated during those rounds.
If Vecna had been the 272 HP from Eve of Ruin? Vecna dies in one round. Even with legendary actions, reactions, resistances, etc. Gets OBLITERATED.
I have played several characters from lvl 1 to 20 in a long running game. (game has been ongoing since 1986 and has had dozens of players but only one DM). Honestly the sweet spot seems to be lvl 8-12. High enough to be fun but not so high the turns take forever. With 2024 there are so many options, feats, actions, bonus actions that it takes a long time for many players to complete a single turn (esp casters). Very hard for the DM to challenge a group of 20 level characters. With six of us we were fighting Demon Lords on their home plane in hell, demi gods and even full gods at times. Very small window between too easy and TPK based on dice rolls at those levels
From what is slowly trickling out on the new Monster Manual, making monsters beefier[...]
Are they? I can't say I've been keeping on top of them, but I compared a couple of Statblocks last year and from what I could see, they actually seemed weaker. I mean, I hope I'm wrong because they do need to be stronger (IMO), but they did seem weaker.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It's not.... Maybe for your group... But not all groups.
Some people level by exp... Some by milestones.
If a DM says "we are playing every 2 weeks and each session we will be leveling one level.
That is 10 months to get to 20... Or a year with a few missed sessions.
Now you may say "we don't play like that" or "it's unrealistic "
But some do... And dragons aren't real nor is magic... So we have all already agreed to suspend our disbelief.
Clark Kent goes from a baby to saving the planet single handedly in a 2 hour film....no one questions that.
So yeah... Many of us want to actually play a character to completion.... Even if it is a sped up version... We design a character and we have all these plans for it and the DM grabs the book tears it in half and sets it on fire part way through... And we are sitting there going "but why? I wasn't done yet..."
I see nothing wrong with playing at level 20+. We did it all the time back when I played in 1 and 2E. What is the point of having all these high level abilities if you never get the chance to use them? Just because you are level 20 doesn't mean you automatically have an arsenal of legendary magical items or Wish spells at your whim. Yes you'll steam roll orcs and kobolds, but that is how it is in the books. You're powerful, but you'll still face other powerful adversaries such as the Red Wizards of Thay, Lord Soth or a Drow house looking to sacrifice you to Lolth just because. Having an engaging story and a DM who has an imagination is what makes high level play work. But also being wary of how you give out magic items and certain spells in the game is the other balancing act. I love high level play and would be disappointed in a DM who couldn't run one.
From what is slowly trickling out on the new Monster Manual, making monsters beefier[...]
Are they? I can't say I've been keeping on top of them, but I compared a couple of Statblocks last year and from what I could see, they actually seemed weaker. I mean, I hope I'm wrong because they do need to be stronger (IMO), but they did seem weaker.
The streamlining of monsters to remove things such as spellcasting in favor of a few actions that have some magic effects (see Vecna, for example) certainly seems to have weakened monsters.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
From what is slowly trickling out on the new Monster Manual, making monsters beefier[...]
Are they? I can't say I've been keeping on top of them, but I compared a couple of Statblocks last year and from what I could see, they actually seemed weaker. I mean, I hope I'm wrong because they do need to be stronger (IMO), but they did seem weaker.
The streamlining of monsters to remove things such as spellcasting in favor of a few actions that have some magic effects (see Vecna, for example) certainly seems to have weakened monsters.
Oh, don't get me started. What they've been doing with spellcasting on monsters is one of the worst changes. We're losing both verisimilitude and built-in flexibility. Look at the Fomorian Noble- CR 15 and allegedly an archmage-tier wizard and they've got a whopping 5 casts of spells above 1st level to their name per day, with the remaining at will casts being Mage Armor, Mage Hand, and Prestidigitation. And they didn't even give them a spell attack- their generic attack is hitting someone with a magic stick. I shudder to think what liches are gonna look like in the new MM.
Like I said in the above post I haven't been playing for terribly long but why wouldn't the DM just make things more difficult? Give the bosses and monsters more health and find some stronger attacks to throw in the mix. Some extra legendary actions or make it regenerate or something to throw people off.
If people can just fly over chasms add a condition to the area that makes flying super dangerous so people have to decide it's worth the risk to try to fly across or if they have to find some other way across the chasm that might be less dangerous but more difficult. Just I don't know it seems like the problem is people are married to what's written too much if they are not able to make things work with more powerful players.
The books I have say that people should be free to change things to increase the fun (paraphrased). So why are people just not doing that?
Let me begin by saying that I don't see this as a bad thing. I remember reading somewhere that many campaigns don't get past lvl 10-12 so I think if the system can encourage play at higher levels then that's a good thing.
I ask this because I'm noticing that many of the Feats and class traits are tied to the PB instead of granting a flat bonus. This means that Feats that used to be borderline OP like Great Weapon Master now do scaling damage instead of a +10 bonus. Alert is another one and I'm sure there are more.
Is this some sort of balance thing or, as I've surmised, is it to encouraging players who want the big numbers to try higher levels of play?
I am fairly new to Dungeons and Dragons. I've only been playing for like a year and a half. I've only finished one campaign and I joined it halfway through. I'm in a handful of others but they're all fairly recently started except for one and it's only halfway through. My point is I don't have a lot of experience to draw upon to make comparisons.
But I will say a gripe I've had is that no one seems to want to play high level games. The difficulty I have a finding a game that will start at level 1 and go to level 20 it's just crazy. Why are there all these levels no one wants to touch? I want to touch them! There's so many cool things I want to be able to do them. Hopefully you're right and more people will have high level stuff going on going forward.
One of the earlier interviews with Crawford had him saying that they were hoping to design 2024 in such a way that we would see more games reach tier 4. So, I believe the answer is yes.
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They’ve highlighted, in their previews for the new Monster Manual, that they’ve added more high-level monsters, which also supports high-level play.
Yes, they're encouraging higher level play. Or rather, they're working on not discouraging it.
A problem D&D has is that as you get higher and higher, you get more and more abilities, which makes it harder and harder to account for. Encounter balancing becomes much harder because you're rolling so many dice for different things that reliably saying that you need this level of difficulty becomes impossible. The vase assumptions of the game are also wrong, so things get way out of hand. That's partly why high level play doesn't happen much - the game shakes itself apart. It's doable...but it's not easy.
Then, because few people actually play that high, the designers don't put the support in. Why build monsters and adventures for L20 when everyone stops at about L13? It won't sell. So it doesn't get fixed. Since it's broken, nobody plays it...
They're trying to break that cycle and make high level play viable. Good luck to them, but my opinion is that the game will need an overhaul first. 2024e ain't that. Maybe I'm wrong (and I hope I am), but imI think it needs more than a bit of spit and polish.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Going all the way from tier 1 to 4 is also a significant commitment of time for a group, and a campaign can easily end up falling short for reasons well outside the scope of the game.
I don't see any specific encouragement to do so. But the options all being there if you want to.
As you progress in levels the time between levels tends to grow - despite facing stronger foes. That creates a real time problem where many groups simply don’t survive that long. Think of a HS or college group - you’re only there and involved for 3-5 years and a PC that started at level 1 may well have only reached level 11-14 over the whole time. Even “adult” groups have problems staying together. My current group was together for 3-4 years before I joined, then Covid hit, now we are back again but the store we were playing at closed, so I’m hosting the weekly meeting - except with 6-9 of us total we seldom have everyone due to illness, business, vacations, kids sports, etc. then we run several different campaigns and games so that slows things down further. Back in 3/3.5 days they came out with epic progressions and powers for those that wanted to go past L20 but not many could manage building thru to that level. My epic PCs we’re the result of luck finding games that would let them in and then really turning them into NPCs as I built my world as a place they could reside.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
That's part of the reason milestone leveling is a popular alternative; helps cut out the need for filler XP in groups that want a more streamlined progression.
I think this is the best way to look at it. Linkite said it well too, rather than encouraging they just aren't flat discouraging anymore.
At the end, they really don't give a damn how you play. That said, there should be logical options and material for play at that level should people choose to do it. In the first 10 years of 5th, material after level 12-14 was severely lacking and a lot of character options didn't scale well beyond spell level scaling.
So having things continue to progress based on PB makes sense, because it means that a 17th level character is able to do more than a 3rd level character. Giving martials more to do in combat makes sense, because it gives them time to shine. From what is slowly trickling out on the new Monster Manual, making monsters beefier means Martials get more chances to shine in both the intermediate and higher tiers.
Honestly I'm liking a lot of the design decisions in the revision, even though theres a vocal minority who resists any sort of change. It was obvious players were getting stronger, but anyone who thought monsters wouldn't also get more options was silly.
I've been playing the ROT module with a group for over a year now, last session my DM touched on this after I expressed interest in fighting Tiamat after the session. He went on to explain some of her abilities and some mid-fight scenarios, and let me tell you- at a certain point mechanically, the game becomes totally unfair and unpleasnt to play or run for a lot of people. Another touch-stone for this conversation is that once you reach mid level play, youre essentially super heroes and things that would previously require clever thinking and creative solutions, now just requires you to cast fly or banishment.
Agreed. In the game I'm in, the DM doesn't even ask for Investigation to find traps anymore because I'm at +18 or something obnoxious like that. The only traps that challenge us are the double-traps (you spot one but miss the one it's attached to) or magical traps (we don't have a lot of Arcana Skill) where we THINK we're safe standing 20' away but we're not. Yawning chasm with no bridge? Fly. Crumbling stairwell over fire? Dedicated climb speed or Fly.
Well the thing to that is, there's just flat out a lot of non-creative thinking at that point too.
For as many things the players can do, so can threats equal of that power scaling. They can also teleport, fly, have access to magic items, etc. More than that the bad guys at that point are Batman-esque in that they have time to prepare. Anti-magic fields, magic circles, areas where things don't work right, dozens if not hundreds of hired help/zombies etc. It's the thing I see the biggest problem of. We just throw single entities at these parties that are increasing in power and the fight happens, ends instantly and the party is like HA WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE.
Smaug works against the people of Lake-Town and the Dwarves/Biblo because for the most part the dwarves are not rocking any sort of magical anything and the critical hit by Bard with the Black Arrow(depending on which version of Hobbit you're referencing, this can vary, I'm referencing the book) takes him out with a seemingly legendary/artifact level Arrow.
If you throw only Vecna at a group of adventurers who are high level, have a boatload of magic items and are prepared? Vecna gets destroyed. I don't like comparisons to Critical Role because I don't think it's fair to compare Critical Role to normal groups but it's a big deal to show that Vecna in that fight had 1550 HP, regenerated 350 HP(50 HP per round) and that fight went for seven rounds. It felt deadly, it felt meaningful because Vecna as a SINGLE entity needs that to go against a legendary party of warriors. It's also somewhat representative of what most tables might look like at the very least in term of table makeup and magic item allocation at that level. Keep in mind that 1900 effective HP Vecna had doesn't even take into account how much missed/Vecna saved or negated during those rounds.
If Vecna had been the 272 HP from Eve of Ruin? Vecna dies in one round. Even with legendary actions, reactions, resistances, etc. Gets OBLITERATED.
I have played several characters from lvl 1 to 20 in a long running game. (game has been ongoing since 1986 and has had dozens of players but only one DM). Honestly the sweet spot seems to be lvl 8-12. High enough to be fun but not so high the turns take forever. With 2024 there are so many options, feats, actions, bonus actions that it takes a long time for many players to complete a single turn (esp casters). Very hard for the DM to challenge a group of 20 level characters. With six of us we were fighting Demon Lords on their home plane in hell, demi gods and even full gods at times. Very small window between too easy and TPK based on dice rolls at those levels
Are they? I can't say I've been keeping on top of them, but I compared a couple of Statblocks last year and from what I could see, they actually seemed weaker. I mean, I hope I'm wrong because they do need to be stronger (IMO), but they did seem weaker.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It's not.... Maybe for your group... But not all groups.
Some people level by exp... Some by milestones.
If a DM says "we are playing every 2 weeks and each session we will be leveling one level.
That is 10 months to get to 20... Or a year with a few missed sessions.
Now you may say "we don't play like that" or "it's unrealistic "
But some do... And dragons aren't real nor is magic... So we have all already agreed to suspend our disbelief.
Clark Kent goes from a baby to saving the planet single handedly in a 2 hour film....no one questions that.
So yeah... Many of us want to actually play a character to completion.... Even if it is a sped up version... We design a character and we have all these plans for it and the DM grabs the book tears it in half and sets it on fire part way through... And we are sitting there going "but why? I wasn't done yet..."
I'd love to see people playing to the cap.
I see nothing wrong with playing at level 20+. We did it all the time back when I played in 1 and 2E. What is the point of having all these high level abilities if you never get the chance to use them? Just because you are level 20 doesn't mean you automatically have an arsenal of legendary magical items or Wish spells at your whim. Yes you'll steam roll orcs and kobolds, but that is how it is in the books. You're powerful, but you'll still face other powerful adversaries such as the Red Wizards of Thay, Lord Soth or a Drow house looking to sacrifice you to Lolth just because. Having an engaging story and a DM who has an imagination is what makes high level play work. But also being wary of how you give out magic items and certain spells in the game is the other balancing act. I love high level play and would be disappointed in a DM who couldn't run one.
The streamlining of monsters to remove things such as spellcasting in favor of a few actions that have some magic effects (see Vecna, for example) certainly seems to have weakened monsters.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Oh, don't get me started. What they've been doing with spellcasting on monsters is one of the worst changes. We're losing both verisimilitude and built-in flexibility. Look at the Fomorian Noble- CR 15 and allegedly an archmage-tier wizard and they've got a whopping 5 casts of spells above 1st level to their name per day, with the remaining at will casts being Mage Armor, Mage Hand, and Prestidigitation. And they didn't even give them a spell attack- their generic attack is hitting someone with a magic stick. I shudder to think what liches are gonna look like in the new MM.
Like I said in the above post I haven't been playing for terribly long but why wouldn't the DM just make things more difficult? Give the bosses and monsters more health and find some stronger attacks to throw in the mix. Some extra legendary actions or make it regenerate or something to throw people off.
If people can just fly over chasms add a condition to the area that makes flying super dangerous so people have to decide it's worth the risk to try to fly across or if they have to find some other way across the chasm that might be less dangerous but more difficult. Just I don't know it seems like the problem is people are married to what's written too much if they are not able to make things work with more powerful players.
The books I have say that people should be free to change things to increase the fun (paraphrased). So why are people just not doing that?