How I Fixed High Level D&D
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
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In this video I'm talking about how to fix high level D&D, or at least I did it for my games.
We'll talk about what is high level D&D, go into the specifics of why it breaks, the various fixes we can apply and more. Enjoy!
DnD Shorts, Dungeons and Dragons, XP to level 3 with Davvychappy, potentially a bit a Critical Role with dungeoneering, tabletop community next to tabletop RPG, dungeons and dragons, Fjord, Beau, Jester, Yasha, Caleb, Nott, 5th edition dragons, 3.5e, dungeon dudes, DM GM, dungeon master, game master tips sprinkle a bit of Caduceus, Mollymauk in the Mighty Nein. Matt Mercer.
I use a few different things:
1. Swarms. If it has a stat block, you can turn it into a swarm. Goblins, Kobolds, City Guards, Zombies, Skeletons, Werewolves, Archers, Spellcasters, Demons, whatever... One hit point pool, One Initiative Roll, One or two special attacks depending, Multi Attack with the number of attacks cut in half when the swarm's hit points drop by half, The swarm's space is Difficult Terrain, etc... Standard Swarm Mechanics. You will have to be creative in how you describe combat, A bit more... Theatrically. For example, lets say you use the Guard stat block. Say you want ten Guards, each has 11 hit points giving your Swarm or Guard Unit 110 hit points. For each 11 hit points that your players "Remove", you describe them as killing one enemy. Even though the swarm only has one hit point pool, you want your players to feel like every single enemy they kill matters. Now you can challenge your players with 20, 50, even a hundred or more enemies without messing up Initiative or slowing the game to a crawl. The trick is entirely in how you describe it. Also, every swarm or unit needs commanders. This is where you use your "special" units. Spellcasters, things like that. Don't ignore those Special Attacks either. What's more interesting, a zombie horde that strikes you a couple times, or a zombie horde that strikes you, grapples you and tries to bite you with it`s cursed bite?
2. Take a lesson from videogames. Instead of just using things like Legendary Resistance or Legendary Actions, use other things like having to Destroy the Magic Pylons, Shatter the Eldritch Obelisks, Kill the Cultists, Stop the Ritual, Avoid the Environmental Effects, Deal with all the Minions, etc... All while trying to fight the BBEG. A big mistake that a lot of the DMs I`ve played with seem to make, is trying to run a simple "vanilla" encounter for high levels players. It rarely works. If it`s just a Monster Stomp, then why would it be interesting or challenging to a bunch of godlings? Even monsters like the Terrasque are rather boring(and die easily).
3. Use appropriate tactics and strategies. Think Tucker`s Kobolds. A book I can highly recommend is "The Monsters Know What Their Doing". This is a big one. You can make any encounter either boring or awesome for any level of play, just by how you use those monsters. Monsters that just mindlessly run in to attack and thus die easily are boring. Monsters that use preparation, cover, tactics, traps, knows when to retreat and to advance, knows how to cover each other, and back each other up. Now THAT'S both interesting and challenging! Even for high level players. This one thing alone can make your players blow through almost all of their resources in a single battle, just trying to keep a lid on all the chaos! It works especially well on spellcasters.
Use a combination of these and you will never have any real trouble challenging your players at any level.
this should be pinned
I came up with the same swarm idea, but I use it for a different purpose. I use it to thematically balance monsters and armies. In stories a dragon can kill an army, a hero can't fight an army, but a hero can kill a dragon. So once human enemies group up, they act as swarms against PC's but monsters can get free AOE where one attack hits every soldier at once. Now a tarasque doesn't die to 200 peasants with shortbows, but a PC can, like in the stories.
@@Thunderdumpe Sure, absolutely you can do that! You can do almost anything you want with it. The Entire secret to using swarms is Entirely in how you describe it! It becomes a narrative tool, that you can put math to. How you do that is entirely up to you!
Lets use zombies. No, a hero can't attack the entire swarm at once with a sword, but they can attack the closest zombie. If each zombie has 22 hit points, then if the player does that much or more damage, just "kill" or remove one zombie from the horde or swarm. You have to describe it as single combat, even with the shared hit point pool for the entire swarm. This still works narratively, because only so many creatures can be close enough to the heroes to attack them at any one point in time, as represented by multiattack. The way you Describe it each zombie only got one slam attack, but there are so many zombies that the player gets hit multiple times.
Let me ask you a question, whats scarier, getting hit with a zombie`s slam attack?, or getting grabbed and eaten by a horde of zombies like in the Walking Dead? So, you just give your swarm of zombies special attacks, an auto grapple on hit and a cursed bite on top of the multiattack Slam attack. Just that right there, you have now recreated the show The Walking Dead in DnD, mostly. Die while under the effects of the curse, and come back as a zombie. Yes there are healing spells and remove curse, but the players better make sure they don't die before those can get used... The catch? You have to describe it that way.
Another thing you can do is either add more enemies, or use enemies that amplify a pc's weakness. My 3 lvl 20 players curbstomped a balor and took its lunch money; however, before that, 3 CR 8 frost giants were beating them so bad, I almost pulled a deus ex just to keep them alive. The mistake a lot of us make with hi-level campaigns is that we focus on enemy CR instead of enemy tactics. Remember: sometimes, quantity is better than quality.
Numbers, táctics, strategy
You migth even be able to kill a party of lvl20s with enougth goblins
@@LordDany Tucker's Kobolds are a classic for a reason.
@@ShinyGoldSteelix yep
Eh. A party of 10th level players can curbstomp a Balor, depending on how many PC's there are. Adding more enemies or deliberately trying to make things harder arbitrarily, is boring and not creative, in my opinion.
what strategy did you have the giants do? looking at their statblock, i dont see why a simple fireball didnt solve their problem
That Wish montage was art
I should give my editor a raise
I find a good way to balance the ethereal plane is not to populate it, but to underline its sheer emptiness. By for example, the longer you spend in it at a time, the more dreadful the silence begins to feel. Until eventually resulting in the player slowly losing sight of the material plane as they are consumed by nothing. I’ve found it builds a lot of tension around even suggesting the spell’s use.
As someone who can’t/has little motivation to get a game at all, i found this guide extremely informative and highly effective in my daily chill time.
For Etherealness, just say the Wizard or architect of that dungeon used Private Sanctum over its entire length...
Private Sanctum prohibits **planar travel.** The Ethereal Plane is another plane. It also prevents Plane Shift and Blink.
4:12 not gonna lie, time pressure is a pancena for a great amount of D&D problems
I'm engaging with the video, to let the algorithm know that I want this pushed to others and I want more of this. I swear I am not a bot.
love you totally not a bot!
@@MonkeyDM I used Wish to make myself a Human 😂
Ooh, look. A response. This post drives interactions! I bet lots of other people will like it and watch it and make lots of money for our corporate overloards.
I am engaging with this comment, which in turn helps push the video.
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Alternative for Similacrum: have it reserve the spell slot, and have all similacrum share the spell slots of the original instead of having their own spell slots.
Suddenly, you get a hardcap on how many similacrum any caster can make, no matter how many times they copy themselves. Further, put the similacrum under the DM's control as NPCs (they act like the original and obey them, but the longer they last the more they develop an independent personality, goals & other deviations).
It seems like people forget the other planes exist. Some of them are prime locations for making areas that tax high level characters, especially spell casters. Yes, they have all these spells and abilities, but if you have to use half of them just to be able to survive in the plane of fire, and THEN deal with whatever the high level BBEG has for you, well... And as for the Ethereal plane issue, you just need to setup the danger of the plane being something that doesn't happen immediately and can be done in short bursts. But going overboard by being there for long periods of time or multiple times in succession can bring the attention of the more dangerous aspects of that realm. And if the planes aren't working for you, then take them to a new more dangerous setting entirely. D&D does have precedent for interconnected realms. Just add your own to the list.
Probably the most useful video about "High Level" I've seen in years
He really likes that clip with the sun over the city
he really does :)))
I paid 5$ for it, imma use the hell out of it haha
@@MonkeyDMfair enough
You just rule that the longer you remain in the ethereal plane, the more likely you're going to attract a trapper wanderer of the ethereal plane. Maybe call it an, "Ethereal Walker" These creatures will show up when the DM secretly rolls a 90 or better on a d100 and the DC drop by 10 for every minute you spend in there. One minute goes by, you roll for a 90 or higher. Another minute goes by, you roll for an 80 or higher. Another minute, roll for a 70 or higher. This goes on until the pass the DC. The first time this happens, it might be just one Ethereal Walker, but each time there are more.
I just turned Rests into a resource, 2 shorts and a long in a 24 hour period. Literally can’t rest if they argue I just drop an absolutely spine crushing encounter on them. Also I threw out the idea of”balance” a few years ago. If my players want to constantly rest every encounter is going to be planned for accordingly. This is all info I give freely in advance. My campaign has been going for 2.5 years, 7 players
Ethereal Plane: It’s dangerous, but not constantly. You have to be very stealthy.
Here's my opinions on the spells mentioned and how I would deal with them:
Tiny Hut & Equivalents: DISPEL MAGIC LMAO
Dealing with simulacrum has several ways. Don't let wish cast simulacrum, or put the wizard on a time constraint or party limit for an encounter so they can't bring all the simulacrums with them, like a bridge that would collapse if more than 8 people were on it, then the platform behind them explodes and all the simulacrums die or smt. Also having the BBEG keeping tabs on the players could also shut down some of their shenanigans, like 'oh shoot they are casting simulacrum, i know this trick, i did it myself! *intense counterspell noises* (or have the BBEG also stroll up with 500 simulacrums, then they just go like 'yeah no im willing to compromise if you are' and tell the player that they can both put away the simulacrums before the fight so they don't just immediately get nuked by 500 meteor swarms for a TPK)
How to solve etherealness: Shrodinger's Phase Spiders. At any moment there is both infinite and zero phase spiders on the ethereal plane, it all depends on when the party enters the place and how the DM was feeling at that moment
For Wall of Force, yeah no the spell is really good and some encounters need to be changed to account for it, but just giving the villain misty step or burrow speed could help nerf the spell for solving encounters, and it can even flip the table on the party by cornering them using the very wall they summoned
glibness exists i guess, we love cheesing social encounters (just don't do that much checks during the encounter, have it be mostly RP focused and not based on rolls)
I gave wish a bit of a rework. Wishes can be handed out at lower levels, but they require a sacrifice most of the time in the form of magic items. Sometimes the wish could backfire or outright fail if the wisher attempts to get something beyond the capabilities of the deity granting the wish, and that means they lost something for nothing. It causes the players to think about their wish to avoid backfiring, so they would undershoot the wish a bit. Alternatively, COUNTERSPELL
Thank you for this, I really needed this.
A nice nerf on wish that I told my players about in sess 0 (I'm a lawyer):
"If any of you ever use the Wish spell, we're stopping the session right then and there. In the beginning of the next session, the spell will resolve EXACTLY as phrased."
They're level 15 as of now, 4 years later, and I can't wait to see if one of them dares to use it.
Best used to access any 8th level spell without needing components or time. Not worth risking losing Wish for other types of casting. Your nerf seems harsh tbh
Wdym by "exactly as phrased", monkey pawing won't produce unique results, just something that technically fits the request and is often very convoluted. In what sense is "exact" applicable?
You know, since the wish spell does not have any character limit, I could probably hire someone to produce a monstrously long 2000 page contract detailing a list of absurdly broken requests and force you to go through them all lest you are burdened with massive penalties each time these items do not function as requested. It would be extremely tedious for you, (not for me though. I would state "I would like to state my wish as defined in the document stated below)
Or you could just let me resurrect my dog without any negative side effects.
Why would you need to monkey paw everything?
@@terry_the_terrible Yes this whole 'fix nerf' betrays a real breakdown in trust and fun between DM and players. Play it a bit loosy goosy and let the spell be powerful but not broken.
@@tsavinBreakdown in DM and Player trust is a classic (i.e. got big if not started in 3e) DnD end state.
If you have a situation where the DM is not actively trying to screw you (The Player, not just the PC) over; well then, heh heh, guess you're not playing *real* (3rd edition) DnD.
Props to the editor. Truly based 💪🔥
Lol I also realized the high level dnd isn't broken. It's just some of those high level spells are. One small quick change and it can be rebalanced. Though the "other" problem is stakes, which was touched in the video and man that DM really went ham on "trauma" lolol
2 years since last vid? Worth
😂
Had a DM that had all 9th level spells come with a level of exhaustion. Described it as pushback for warping reality.
Small Glibness note: a Bard that uses Magical Secrets to learn Telekinesis could also use Glibness to make all their Charisma check to grab things and creatures equal 15+½ their proficiency bonus from Jack of all Trades.
That's not how simulacrum works sage advice made it clear along time ago that the sim counts as you for the purposes of not making extra simulacrum. Only one sim per character is allowed. It's still quiet powerful but infinite sims is not possible
In regards to Glibness counting what you say being regarded as the truth, no King is just gonna give you the crown because you "truefully" declare yourself the rightful heir. People tend to like having power
"Quantity has a quality all its own" is a great take away. Nerfing players makes them feel bad in ways upping the encounter tends not to.
Let them be fully rested for the final fight. Let them to force cage your dragon, then maze something with legendary resistance, then cripple your melee mobs with plant growth, or spellcasters with sleet storm, or whatever. Let them feel extremely powerful, but still plan to have enough left after all that to have a close fight.
Have played the majority of my games over level 10, have never had an issue
I've made two things in my world, first, The world escalates with them which is not my favourite, but its the only way to control them, following your magic sword example, once they arrive, the security, traps, rumors become more dangerous, even for a high level party, and if they take it, enemies will come for it because they also want it.
Second, inevitables and the DM avatar, (the avatar was the lore and rumors the players made themselves), there are locations like an AMAZONIAN FOREST with an inevitable guardian in it, only active if "something destroys the forest at a big rate". And the avatar, its an old wizard that overcame the gods and doesnt want other messing with its achievement. So, if a lvl 20 pslelcaster party starts breaking reality like crazy, inevitables come to do their job (check old lore), or the avatar just come and stop them (never happened). My high level parties have enjoy the world so far. Even meeting gods, fighting evil and blowing things up.
My DM once gave my Fighter a weapon that can cut holes into the etheric plane. Once I wrapped my head around what that meant, I realized he basically gave my fighter Etherialness as an ability. We were only level 7.
I abused this so badly that we trivialized a major quest and walls were never an issue. I'm pretty sure he would have nerfed it but I ended up breaking the weapon to save a player, it was powered by a 300g diamond. He told me afterwards that it was a huge relief to him that I broke the broken item, lol. The things I do for roleplay.
My fix for Simulacrum is that you cannot cast it on yourself. So the Wizard cannot Sim themselves but they can still SIm another party member, and the Sim cannot Sim itself, stopping the self replicating army part. The work around is to have two party members both with Simulacrum, they each cast it on the other, whose SIms then cast it on the other Sim, etc.
I've found that throwing in a band of a few hundred Genoese crossbowmen (backed with a handful of wizards casting Counterspell) can take the starch out of almost any party...
It's noticeable how much of this based on nerfing spells for full casters. Martials still kinda fall off for finding ways to influence their environment beyond hitting things
@BestgirlJordanfish martials have their power in consistency, tankiness and non reliance on magic. spellcasters at late levels are gonna get silvery barb, counterspell, dispell, silence, feeblemind, anti magic zone etc tossed at their faces or just outright get ambushed by invisible creatures and knocked out if not careful.
martials don't deal with any of that, they just get super high action economy with consistent dpr that can hardly be negated. (at worst some creature has a non-magic resistance which at that level their weapons or they themselves usually have some property to overcome that)
Sure casters break the game in a more easy to understand over the top way, but encounter wise you'll find yourself over prepped to deal with magic only to see your boss get 1~2 turned by the martials anyway
I'm surprised you didn't mention 'Disintegrate' on Wall of Force and Forcecage.
Thank you for the Tipps. But I have another idea.
The main problem is very obvious at 13:44 - you want to catch the interest of your players.
But they are level 17+, they are demigods, kings, ultra wizards, cult leaders, whatever.
After reading the book from Jonah Fishel et al. I came to the conclusion that the solution is to change the meta from reactive to proactive. I expect players with level 17-20, that they have plans how to rule, form, shape or protect the world they are living in.
We are far too used to the idea that the badies are hatching evil plans and the players have to react to this. We need to make players more responsible for their campaigns and give them agency.
I mean, if you were a level 20 doctor, scientist, general, president, ceo - you would have plans what to do with your power, you wouldn’t have to sit at home and wait for danger to knock on your door yet again.
One of the reasons the big-bad chose this location for their lair, is that there is a mountain here on the Ethereal plane 😁👍
I made epic battles on hex maps that turned until regular combat when the party got close enough to attack or get attacked.
After combat they have to re-asses how the battle is going and what they are going to do next.
There are a few other spells that break the game such as maze which in most cases eliminates an enemy from the map practically as long as the caster wants him out of the way
Teleport spell is the worst to deal with, especially if the party gets Helm of Teleportation as random loot xD
Here are some balancing things I've done that seem to work, some of which are just old school ways of doing it:
- Combat Rounds now last 1 minute - nerfs spells to an acceptable level without banning any AND makes combat faster. Ironically.
- Dungeon crawling works like combat - players take their turn, monsters / dungeon takes their turn. Each are limited to those three actions and makes you consider anything you do more.
- Ethereal creatures can /only/ be hit by weapons with the 'magic' property and if I a player passes through an ethereal creature the player ages 1d6 years. Other monsters can only take damage when a specific damage type is used if they are higher CR than others.
- Force the spellcasters or ANYTHING that uses a spell to memorize spells before going into a dungeon or encounter. Why? Because it forces them to consider what to use and be creative with those rather than having access to an infinite god level amount of spells.
- Long rests last one week of in game time.
- Short rests allow you to replenish a spell slot or missed spell by spending a hit dice.
Low level combat:
- 1 type of monster or 2 types of monsters
- mix and match monsters for different puzzle like results.
Mid level combat:
-2 types of difficult monsters
- as many low level monsters as levels in the party.
- mix and match for interesting puzzle like results.
High level combat:
- as many low level monsters as possible
- as many mid level monsters as player levels
- one large monster that either:
- - Is boss level powerful (equal in action economy and abilities as the partys level)
- - has enough enemies to ensure the party can't get to them too fast
- mix and match for interesting puzzle like results.
As GM, remember that the world likely won't wait for the party to keep up with them. Normally, however, let the party recover since many classes - mostly casters - simply are built with the assumption of daily recharges!
I love Forcecage. I use it against players all the time, it's one of the easiest ways to guarantee they spend spell slots. When they use it on me, I've won! They used a 7th level slot, and I have one less monster to manage lol
Easiest method of dealing with a spellcaster simulacrum is to just use a variation on the old rule of "they only get half their class levels". Just make it so that a simulacrum gets their spellcaster level treated as a half-spellcaster level. Still a reasonable amount of spell slots, and the big epic spells are restricted to the actual PCs in the party. After all, a martial simulacrum is significantly worse than the PC equivalent, so the caster simulacrum should be as well.
Another thing you can do for Etherealness is make your dungeon's walls extend into the Ethereal Plane. Explain it as something unexplainable
Personally, my approach to the Ethereal Realm is to treat it the same as the Nevernever form the Dresden Files novels. It looks like a reflection of the place on the material plane it borders, but it may be partially to totally different, and the more you get far from the entry point the more the differences are pronounced, until you are lost in a different place alltogether and coming back to material means possibly getting on the other side of the globe or on another plane. Also ghosts, night hags and other things live and travel there. If you're familiar with 40k, I likened my descriptions of deep ethereal to the Warp, with only a little less mind-bending. I had the players roll on the madness tables from Steinhardt's (great book BTW) the whole treck too.
I didn't recognize you without your glasses in the thumbnail, still lookin good tho
Oh no you are inside a wall of force healing yourselves....**pulls out 3 blades of disasters**...finally, I always wanted to try this spell
Etherealness: Yeah. That's the point.
Maybe it's because I played tabletop D&D 2e that I'm more sympathetic toward allowing and encouraging these potent uses of abilities, though I still ban (nearly) infinite loops.
@8:34 I think my solution would be to say that, where there are large numbers of creatures in the real world, large numbers of ethereal creatures are also there in the Ethereal plane, and the creatures in the Ethereal plane often mirror the attitudes of those in the material plane. That way, they can do the cool stuff in towns and whatnot, but when in a dungeon where there’s lots of bad creatures in the material plane there will be a lot of bad creatures in the ethereal plane
The delivery on "creating new trauma" had me burst out laughing xD
1) Time limit, indeed time limit is thing that balances out the magnificent mansion spell. 2) Dungeon design, create a story that limits the most broken spells of bypassing the dungeon itself even teleportation can be used to travel into the dungeon the dungeon itself is semi closed system. 3) Use powerful monsters as regular enemies, How to chalenge party of level 20 throw two balors into regular mobs along side other demons, then my players really have to fight tooth and nail and use all their high level resources to try to survive the onslaught.. and not to mention Special CR: 30 monster as a boss. at the end of the dungeon.
I just delete 8th and 9th level spells from the game and limit 7th level spells to once a week. (or once every 7 long rests)
Long rests require food, space, and supplies. Like BG3.
That fixes MOST of the problems.
Another way to counter Etherealness is to just have important areas and walls that block you off from those areas also extend into the Ethereal Plane. That way, you can't so easily bypass a dungeon just by existing.
My game master negotiated a few spells away with me such as (wish, power word kill and time stop) in turn he game me a ability that’s less powerful but more based on character law
rather than banning spells, alter how they are cast or work. for one thing, anything larger than a tent should not fit well in your average dungeon. for another, what resources is being spent casting them? how rare are they, and how can they be collected? things like that. if a spell causes problems for your game(and you are confirmed as a reputable, skilled DM) there are ways around that that do not remove the spell from play. Edit; Am reminded the Mansion is accessed by portal, and should thus need to be limited in it's use by other things that physical size. like, maybe some solid attack breaks the carved-ivory portal used to summon it, IN ADDITION to dealing damage to the character.
Nicely edited 👍👍👍💯💯💯
For the Ethereal Plane in my campaign i was thinking of taking inspiration from Murderer: Soul Suspect. Make some souls trapped in it trying to find solutions and making the plane have it's own walls and own story. Also some souls trapped there were trapped so long that they become corrupted and deadly, if you're in an ethereal plane you are a pray for the corrupted spirits that can suck your souls giving the caster a debuff that will last until they can find a healer specializing in the Ethereal Medicine and Souls Healing.
Effectively making Ethereal plane in old ruins a stealth section if they wish to use it.
Great video man we need more of these. Le meilleur youtubeur de dnd
Fill the ethereal plane with ghosts of the same, or maybe lower, CR that the dungeon would have had you face. Fallen enemies or heroes that died in the dungeon.
If you think that simulacrum isn’t broken if theirs just one of them , then I’m willing to bet $20 dollars that you’ve never been in a camps where someone was using it
The mistake was having all the high level players fighting the DM, when in fact they should be challenging each other.
One of my biggest pieces of advice for DM's that want to try and run high-level games, but are afraid to do so, is to just TRY running high-level *one-shots* more often. Establish expectations with your players, and be prepared for things to get a little wacky and out of control, at least the first few times you do it.
I think one of the biggest reasons DM's struggle with running higher-level games is, in part, due to a lack of experience. Many DM's just rarely ever get to see a game reach the higher levels naturally, so they don't really gain that experience and don't know what to expect or how to run things at those levels. Experience is one of the greatest teachers, so if you don't experience play at those levels enough to learn, then it's going to be more difficult for you.
Run a 20th level one-shot every now and then, and don't take it too seriously. Use those one-shots as a learning experience so you can better run games at those levels in the future.
I pretty much changed Wall of Force and Forcecage to be able to be damaged. It takes a while, but at least it's not game breaking anymore.
The personal side of character is very important in my opinion, I've been DMIng beyond level 20 for over a year and the biggest thing that has held the game are personal stakes and the hatred players have for the BBEGs
On a mechanical level I've taken a mixed a approach, I did ban and weak some spells but also part of the meaning of such level is to do crazy nonsense so I most times just let players solve situation on a whym, not everything Thay want tho because otherwise the game loses meaning - a thing I do that I likely a bit controversial is I reserve the right to make changes in how things react to spells and powers, sometimes enemies will break from Forcecage or force wall just because that's nonsense they can do, but always at a cost
1:46 That's SO COOL!
this is genuinely just a good video
Ethereal Plane has monster in it so just have it were the longer the player is useing Etherealness the higher chance they start being hunted in the Ethereal Plane and some monsters can fallow you out
Peak editing skills🔥🔥🙏
I just make harder bosses and dungeons that have some of the counters for my players, this is the idea from my players not me but it helps me let them still have fun at high level.
I'm convinced that there should be (and there probably already is) a different TTRPG balanced around the idea that the player characters start out as "gods" to begin with. D&D just seems really broken and it's kind of a shame that players will intentionally want to "break" the game in this was like its a video game or something lol. Super simple solution is just steal resolution mechanisms from other TTRPGs that won't really be impacted by this high level stuff - but I'm convinced the players really just want to break and cheese it anyway so it wouldn't make them happy LOL.
Everyone is different I guess. I never manipulate creatures or events, just because D&D created Marvel Superheroes who wear armor and robes. The only time felt it was appropriate was when it was supposed to be a stronger version of a particular monster, like a Master Vampire, which may now be the Apex Vampire. If they want to go ethereal and go through walls, so what? They can't memorize the dungeon, and they would be moving blindly anyway. Find location spells are the same way. As for gods, Tiamat is a goddess and we saw her stats. They weren't all that impressive for a CR30 Fiend. I haven't seen Vecna's except in 2e.
Imho, high level dnd is easier than mid and low level. If you plan ano adventuring day correctly and control the party's access to material components and magic items, it will all be okay. Tested this several times and it was a great challenge for the players everytime. Except for monks... Those just don't keep up
The Ethereal plane is not empty. Ethereal duplicates (like the wall of a dungeon) have solidity. Pushing through requires a strength check equal to the DC of the real world item. Etherealness shouldn't be treated as a free pass.
One other thing to remember - high level PCs are *known*. They are inpactful enough that any villain looiing to mess with them will naturally plan for their abilities. So it's nore sensible that the GM ve tailoring encounters to target weaknesses or nullify advantages.
I want to throw down one more spell to add to the list- I don’t think it’s truly overpowered but it does somewhat fall into that whole quick travel category: Phantom Steed. 1 hour long steed that can move 100 ft (200 ft with dash) and can be chained as a ritual to make new ones makes for fantastic overland travel options. Unless there’s traps along the ground odds are most things can’t keep up with them and you can easily bypass many encounters with it. At high levels this is used when teleportation isn’t needed or possible or just to travel the land itself
Why would high level characters skip encounters. That seems a lot like not playing the game. Yippie!
O@@archersfriend5900only if you play combat as sport. When you do combat as survival with real risks of consequences then its just smart play.
I think most of the broken things you can do with these spells are confined to the internet and rarely, if ever, raise their heads at the table. The simple, universal solution, is to ask the player if it is their intention to spoil the fun for the DM and other players. If it is then fine, they leave the game, if it not you as the DM just need to explain how doing what they intend will spoil the fun for you and the other players and they will not do it.
That being said there is a lot you can do as a DM to prepare and plan for these spells when the players get them. Wall of Force has never been a problem for me as a DM. Forcecage? Just make sure any boss you don’t want trapped has a bonus action teleport and a very high charisma save. Etherealness? Just make spells that teleport or transport you to other planes not work. (See Dungeon of the Mad Mage and Tomb of Annihilation for examples.) This is a common solution for controlling/limiting characters at high level play. In fact as a DM you control all the power as to how far you are prepared to allow players to go with their shenanigans.
I dont tailor emcoumters
I build the world to be there waiting
Meaning even lvl 20 party can get beaten
I can't find the 'thumbs up' button the press it. This isn't a joke. It's literally not showing up on my screen.
But thanks for the spell suggestion fixes.
Only thing you missed, and maybe it's not that common, but the length of combat is quadrupled.
I see many players who, even though they've played that character all the way to 20, they still get analysis paralysis and aren't really well-versed in what their character can do. As they level up, they only add to their arsenal, not trade off or change a feature.
What I've found is some players, though invested the day of and totally having fun at the table, just don't think about their character or look at their sheet until the start of the next session.
Now give all those players all the options a level 20 has. Ya ..
I think you overestimated the emptiness of the Ethereal Plane. That is the realm of ghosts and other incorporeal monsters, and Night Hags and other dream-related monsters. By older lore, it would actually be reasonable to find some elementals and genies looking around there too, since it is the transitive plane for the Inner Planes. Then too, Wall of Force does not have to be the only barrier that extends into the Ethereal Plane; Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum can serve as a template for more permanent blocking effects, old lore says that lead plating blocks ethereal travel, and it would be fair for a DM to say that any place or object invested with sufficient psychic significance cannot be bypassed through the Ethereal Plane (don’t try to get through terrain altered by a legendary monster’s regional effects using Etherealness, for instance). All this besides the Ethereal Plane being inaccessible from any of the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane, or demiplanes! It shouldn’t be too hard to cook up some adventures where Etherealness will not bypass too much.
I appreciate this! I’ve been tooling with ideas to put a bit of a spell burn cost in the form of narrative effects for spells that cause partial/temporary shifts to different planes - i.e. players possibly getting haunted, having to make sure their soul is bound to a home plane, essences of objects resisting shifts, etc. nothing that sidetracks midcombat or causes a ton of extra rolls, just that there are costs to bending reality to your whim!
@@scryptid_ You’re welcome! Have fun with the ideas. If you want more, maybe look at some of the 2e Planescape books; they are fairly cheap on Dungeon Masters Guild, and you won’t get more detailed information on the Planes anywhere else. Much of that information is provided exactly to ensure that interaction with those planes is not too simple and is suitably engaging for players.
ACKS already does that.
And tbh ADnD 1e, Original DnD (with Chainmail) and their retroclones too.
Simulacrum In my world has no spell slots ever.
As a 1E Pathfinder DM, it pains me to see things have "Cast at higher level" rather than scaling with caster level. The REAL spell that breaks campaigns is FLY. FLY is a 3rd level spell. It's available to level 5 wizards. Wizards who can make scrolls or wands of FLY. Now imagine the mounted fighter on his flying horse, using a lance for X2 damage while avoiding the pitfalls.
Tuny hut and marvelous mansion... The enemies see this amd set up ambush. They establish traps and aoe effects for when the players emerg. They set up barriers to hide behind and gather reinforcements. For the game breaking spells... Talk to your players. If they want to break tour game wirh their spells, don't run them through high level play.
Enough goblins can take them. This is nog Pathfinder
What if the astral plane is non-euclidean? Then exploration is basically useless, because they can't map it to the actual dungeon.
YESS! Please, keep going with the long videos, you're the first dnd creator I've discovered and I love every one of your videos ＼(°o°)／
this video is the result of playing with people who want to 'win' in d&d. yall need to be better players and dms.
I shall not tell you how, but with a barbarian, you can guarantee intimidation with a certain race😂 anything and everything by the way, including ancient dragons I fucking was a level two and fucking scared the shit out of a ancient blue dragon
I fixed it by switching to Pathfinder 1 at the end of 3.5.
13:07 killing a Tarrasque grants 155 000 XP, not 46 800!?
in my l20 campaign, our DM is hitting us with critical emotional damage and some of us are actually getting crippled by it so I suppose that's another route to go 😅
One of the problems I have been experiencing is magic items can help spellcasters have DCs above 20 and that means you can't use monsters below CR 9 or so because some of them may have some saves of +0 or +1 and at that point some spells because auto success
Use lots of them and space them out so one spell can't hit more than one or 2.
Is that not the point of being absurdly high leveled ? To mind control weaker creatures without them even having a chance to retaliate ? I kinda view this as the scaling of Turn Undead
@@MisterNicNacNoc if monsters at middle CRs regularly have +0 in certain saves that are common, they may as well not roll. This is one of the flaws of d&d 5e's proficiency system. At low levels when DCs are 15 or so there is still that chance of a lucky roll. The game is designed to not have magic items, so that means players where rarely ment to have DCs over 19 at lv 17, so to have a DC of 21 essentially makes the game break some
Does anyone have an idea on how to deal with a lvl 14 Runesmith fighter bloodhunter mix who does over 100 dpr after setting up for a round that ends any normal encounters within 3 turns?
a full video
I also noticed (and prefer) this
Youre cute and handsome and I love DnD. I love this channel. Just saying. You deserve compliments too
Just say simulacrums can’t cast simulacrum and wish, it’s the perfect fix
tbh i think wish shouldnt be able to be learned. It can only be found.
" force cage Doesn't need concentration" who wants to tell him about the 2024 printing?
Could've just said "I switched to Pathfinder 2e" and the video could've been 3 seconds long