Power curve and high level parties

[Yora]

I started my first browsing through 5th edition and one thing that I noticed is that characters seem to be very beefy (with short rests and full healing at long rest) and that the vast majority of "mid-range" monsters now appear to be mostly classed as CR3 or lower, with a few going up to 5. Beyond that point there seem to be only dragons, demons, giants, and similar boss monsters left.

How does this play out in practice? Are 8th level characters already what you could consider high level characters?

[MrStabby]

Hmm. A bit.

A related thing is that encounters with a single enemy tend to be very easy relative to the XP they give so a good mid-level encounter is not a CR8 monster for a level 8 party but instead multiple CR3 monsters.

I agree that CR6+ is certainly getting to the "rarely seen" category of creature, where multiples are found they are probably in a specific area of the world. This does mean that for high level encounters you are looking at:

Rare monsters individually of note
Multiple combatants
Things that mimic class levels or have class levels

So you might have a party of 4 level 8 characters take on 10 druids, or one clay golem, or possibly even an archmage. Or something monstrous like a Nycaloth.

Your observation is right though, that you are looking at the weird and strange for single enemy encounters beyond this level.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Mr. Stabby is right. The default assumption is that most combat encounters will feature a number of enemies roughly equal to the size of the party. And mid-high level PCs are pretty durable, even with the '6-8 encounters per day' assumption. That's probably a good thing, as a DM can always throw more monsters in to make it harder, whereas there are fewer levers to pull if the starting point is too hard for a given group.

[Yora]

In the past I usually capped PCs and NPCs at about 10th level, mostly because of how higher level spells affect the game world. While 5th edition looks like it avoids option creep and tactical complexity bloat at higher levels quite well, seeing the majority of classic monsters reassigned two levels lower on average and a scarcity of mid-range creatures makes me think this might still be a good idea.

I have a big bunch of custom creatures for my setting for B/X which would need converting (which looks pretty easy to do, though), and using MM monsters as reference benchmarks seems like a wise idea with a new and unfamiliar system.

[Ninja_Prawn]

That's fair enough. A lot of people say the game gets less fun after 11th level. It's worth remembering though, that low-CR enemies remain a threat to high-level PCs thanks to bounded accuracy.

Let me run through an example real quick...

Say you have 5no level 10 PCs, so your thresholds are... 3,000/6,000/9,500/14,000

4no CR5 monsters is a deadly challenge. Four drow elites, four elementals, three trolls and a hill giant. Or 1no CR7 and 2no CR5s. A drow mage and two elites, a mind flayer and two enslaved gladiators.
But then, 1no CR15 monster is also a deadly challenge. A purple worm or adult green dragon.
...Or 10no CR2s, maybe a swarm of wererats. That's only a hard challenge, and probably easier than the maths implies. They're still relevant though, and can't be ignored in a mixed-CR fight.

[mephnick]

In the past I usually capped PCs and NPCs at about 10th level, mostly because of how higher level spells affect the game world. While 5th edition looks like it avoids option creep and tactical complexity bloat at higher levels quite well, seeing the majority of classic monsters reassigned two levels lower on average and a scarcity of mid-range creatures makes me think this might still be a good idea.

High level spells still basically destroy any setting that isn't ridiculous high fantasy, so if that was your problem in past editions I'd say stick to a level cap for 5e as well.

[Doug Lampert]

High level spells still basically destroy any setting that isn't ridiculous high fantasy, so if that was your problem in past editions I'd say stick to a level cap for 5e as well.

Or just eliminate all level 6+ spells. The slots still exist and can be used, but only to upcast. You'll need to decide what to do about warlocks "this is not a level 6 slot" slots, I'd probably just convert them to slots. There may be problems for some other classes, but you've got till level 11 to spot them coming and write house-rules.

5th edition it is EASY to not have the really high level spells. Just don't allow them and make higher level casters upcast. Casters when played well still won't be excessively weak, and the half-casters and third-casters aren't hurt at all.