High lv and hp damage/ death

[stoutstien]

For the few players that have played high-level campaigns I was wondering how you view threats based solo on damage.
Say you're in a level 20+ party and have at least 2 full casters in said party. can you think of any reasonable encounter that your DM might for you that threatens you through HP attrition alone? Threat as a reasonable opportunity for tpk.

*Personally I think anything below the two times deadly encounter threshold is reasonable for a well played lv 20 party.

[Man_Over_Game]

For the few players that have played high-level campaigns I was wondering how you view threats based solo on damage.
Say you're in a level 20+ party and have at least 2 full casters in said party. can you think of any reasonable encounter that your DM might for right you that threatens you through HP attrition alone?
*Personally I think anything below the two times deadly encounter threshold is reasonable for a well played lv 20 party.

It really depends on your level of "failure" is.

The Fighter died? Again? I just rezzed him last week!
Two of our bruisers died? Crap. Better teleport out and work on a True Resurrection or something.
Everyone died? What kind of show is this DM running?


That's the real problem. Unless you've gone to great lengths to prevent teleportation, anything short of a TPK is a minor roadbump to the players.

[stoutstien]

It really depends on your level of "failure" is.

The Fighter died? Again? I just rezzed him last week!
Two of our bruisers died? Crap. Better teleport out and work on a True Resurrection or something.
Everyone died? What kind of show is this DM running?


That's the real problem. Unless you've gone to great lengths to prevent teleportation, anything short of a TPK is a minor roadbump to the players.

I'm thinking TPK.
yeah, my reasoning also. without some form of action denial you just can't threaten that party. With clone on the table along with all the fancy Resurrection spells, death is a minor inconvenience at most.

[loki_ragnarock]

Hmm... I imagine there are some shenanigans that a DM can come up with involving disintegrate that could be sufficiently vexing up until level 16, and even veering into vexing at 17+.

True Resurrection and Wish are hella expensive. Like, bankrupt your high level party if you have to do it on the regular expensive. Well, at least defer the down payment on your palace. And disintegrate is low enough level to be used by multiple creatures in an encounter by that point.


Thankfully, I don't think there's but a handful of NPCs and creatures that have access to it, so you're probably good. 2x Beholders is only a medium encounter for level 20 PCs, but you can only do that so many times before people start wondering why you keep spamming disintegrate.



Aside from that? If your villain has the forethought to steal or otherwise acquire the dead body once they down it and deny you access without also destroying it, you're looking at a very rough day. Especially if they're the sort of villain who will intentionally cast Raise Dead to thwart you - and why wouldn't they be - and simply torment the recipient to ensure they have no long rests. That's a bad Tuesday for your high level characters.


So damage by itself is probably a speed bump, but speed bumps can be a nightmare in the right parking lot.

[tsotate]

If your villain has the forethought to steal or otherwise acquire the dead body once they down it and deny you access without also destroying it, you're looking at a very rough day. Especially if they're the sort of villain who will intentionally cast Raise Dead to thwart you - and why wouldn't they be - and simply torment the recipient to ensure they have no long rests. That's a bad Tuesday for your high level characters.

Raise Dead only works "If the creature's soul is both willing and at liberty to rejoin the body," so just don't accept the rez from the BBEG.

[Rukelnikov]

Damage's only threat is TPK, nothing worse. By lvl 16+ that normally means your characters will be alive again it's a matter of how long it's gonna take.

The major problem is losing the magic items, that's why I always Drawmij them I I can.

Having said that, damage alone, no CC involved, can definitely TPK a party.

[loki_ragnarock]

Raise Dead only works "If the creature's soul is both willing and at liberty to rejoin the body," so just don't accept the rez from the BBEG.

Do they know who cast the spell while dead, or do they just hear someone knock knocking at the window, somebody ringing a bell?

I suppose it comes down to whether you'd consider the dead person omniscient, or if they understand only that someone is trying to bring them back.


Not sure what the base cosmology is, there.

[dejarnjc]

For the few players that have played high-level campaigns I was wondering how you view threats based solo on damage.
Say you're in a level 20+ party and have at least 2 full casters in said party. can you think of any reasonable encounter that your DM might for you that threatens you through HP attrition alone? Threat as a reasonable opportunity for tpk.

*Personally I think anything below the two times deadly encounter threshold is reasonable for a well played lv 20 party.

The DM for my current level 20 campaign uses creatures from 3rd party sources, very creative and risky environments for combat, and stopped abiding by the DMG encounter rules a long time ago for combat. Suffice to say, yes, hit point attrition is still a threat to most of our characters (not mine really though cause he's a moon druid but that's a whole different thing) and in fact one of our PCs died in our last session through HP attrition. Our DM is good about keeping the stakes high though which limits the number of rests we can get in a 24 hour period without risking dire consequences.

[Porcupinata]

Do they know who cast the spell while dead, or do they just hear someone knock knocking at the window, somebody ringing a bell?

I suppose it comes down to whether you'd consider the dead person omniscient, or if they understand only that someone is trying to bring them back.


Not sure what the base cosmology is, there.

From the DMG (p24 - "Bringing Back the Dead"):

A soul can't be returned to life if it doesn't wish to be. A soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it and might refuse to return on that basis. For example, if the honorable knight Sturm Brightblade is slain and a high priestess of Takhisis (god of evil dragons) grabs his body, Sturm might not wish to be raised from the dead by her. Any attempts she makes to revive him automatically fail. If the evil cleric wants to revive Sturm to interrogate him, she needs to find some way to trick his soul, such as duping a good cleric into raising him and then capturing him once he is alive again.

[stoutstien]

The DM for my current level 20 campaign uses creatures from 3rd party sources, very creative and risky environments for combat, and stopped abiding by the DMG encounter rules a long time ago for combat. Suffice to say, yes, hit point attrition is still a threat to most of our characters (not mine really though cause he's a moon druid but that's a whole different thing) and in fact one of our PCs died in our last session through HP attrition. Our DM is good about keeping the stakes high though which limits the number of rests we can get in a 24 hour period without risking dire consequences.

3rd party is practically homebrewing and limited rest is more resource than HP attrition.
Of course we can just overload an encounter until you can cause fear of TPK but can it be done without exceeding 2x deadly threshold?

[Rukelnikov]

3rd party is practically homebrewing and limited rest is more resource than HP attrition.
Of course we can just overload an encounter until you can cause fear of TPK but can it be done without exceeding 2x deadly threshold?

Lvl 17 Deadly threshold = 8800

4 Lvl 17 party Deadly treshold = 35200

Thus the cap for 2xD would be a 70400xp equivalent encounter

Divide it by 4 assuming more than 14 creatures, 17600xp, this means:

88 CR1 creatures, or
39 CR2, or
25 CR3, or
16 CR4

Bards for instance are CR2 and can cast Shatter, if only half of them get an action thats 60d8 thunder damage(avg 270) save for half, now they probably won't be able to catch all the party with the Shatters, but even then, if the PCs have a lil bad luck on their initiatives, the demolition crew has a good chance to end them.

Similar tactis for Flameskull or Deathlock(Fiend) at CR4, Firenewts warlock at CR1 probably not as good but may pose a threat too, they have 3d10 Hellish Rebuke, so every one of those that doesn't get one shoted is dealing an avg of 16 damage save for half.

Tbh my initial idea was to drop 2 or 3 Meteor Swarms but Archmage doesn't have it, nor Lich, so I had to go with something smaller.

[stoutstien]

Lvl 17 Deadly threshold = 8800

4 Lvl 17 party Deadly treshold = 35200

Thus the cap for 2xD would be a 70400xp equivalent encounter

Divide it by 4 assuming more than 14 creatures, 17600xp, this means:

88 CR1 creatures, or
39 CR2, or
25 CR3, or
16 CR4

Bards for instance are CR2 and can cast Shatter, if only half of them get an action thats 60d8 thunder damage(avg 270) save for half, now they probably won't be able to catch all the party with the Shatters, but even then, if the PCs have a lil bad luck on their initiatives, the demolition crew has a good chance to end them.

Similar tactis for Flameskull or Deathlock(Fiend) at CR4, Firenewts warlock at CR1 probably not as good but may pose a threat too, they have 3d10 Hellish Rebuke, so every one of those that doesn't get one shoted is dealing an avg of 16 damage save for half.

Tbh my initial idea was to drop 2 or 3 Meteor Swarms but Archmage doesn't have it, nor Lich, so I had to go with something smaller.

I was thinking along the same lines of using a lot of lower CR enemies to take advantage of bounded accuracy but at level 20 it just doesn't work anymore. the party most likely does have some access to very large aoe spells and even on a passed save they can wipe out most NPCs with under 40 HP. 39 bards at only +2 Dex and 44 hp are just not going to get more than a hand full of shatters off before they are wiped out. More realistically they are all going to cast invisibility and try to run away.

[Rukelnikov]

I was thinking along the same lines of using a lot of lower CR enemies to take advantage of bounded accuracy but at level 20 it just doesn't work anymore. the party most likely does have some access to very large aoe spells and even on a passed save they can wipe out most NPCs with under 40 HP. 39 bards at only +2 Dex and 44 hp are just not going to get more than a hand full of shatters off before they are wiped out. More realistically they are all going to cast invisibility and try to run away.

Idk, I think there's a good chance for at least 20 of them to get a turn, if all of them got a turn that's 39 Shatters, it will most likely kill any PC without resistance or immunity to thunder damage.

Consider that a lvl 20 you budget is bigger 12700 * 4 = 50800 * 2 = 101600 / 4 = 25400, and with these numbers of creatures, martials aren't gonna be doing much in order to reduce incoming enemy damage, so it all boils down to if the casters have some spell that can prevent a lot of the enemies from damaging the party, and then, if they get a high enough initiative roll to use said spell before being downed. I think you may be selling hordes of casters short.

[OverLordOcelot]

I disagree with the idea that only a TPK or something close counts as failure completely. Leaving the area and spending a day or more recovering is likely a loss in any meaningful scenario - whatever enemies that are challenging a level 20 party will either complete their plans, improve their defenses, or leave if they suffer a large attack and know that the attackers are off licking their wounds. Sure, if the PCs have no time pressure and the enemies are acting like MMO mobs and just patrolling while waiting for the next pull then you can port-res-repeat indefinitely, but if the enemies are actually doing something then the PCs manage to lose.

For example, if a bunch of demons are swarming at the big city the PCs like and the PCs fail to stop them, teleporting away leaves the city in ruins. If the PCs are trying to kill a particular enemy, they assault her fortress and teleport away, then she leaves the plane to come back later, they've failed to kill her. If the PCs are trying to recover an artifact to stop something big and bad from happening, failing to recover it in time means the big and bad thing happens.

IMO structuring the game such that the PCs never lose unless they all die is not a good way to go. The PCs should have some kind of active goal they're working towards, other people opposing them, and have to worry about timing. If they don't, nothing is going to be much of a challenge until you go slightly to far in threatening a TPK, then everyone is dead and you have to start over again.


That's the real problem. Unless you've gone to great lengths to prevent teleportation, anything short of a TPK is a minor roadbump to the players.

I will note that Dungeon Of the Mad Mage, the only 20th level hardcover that I'm aware of, and all of the AL mods set near/in it, explicitly prevents teleport in or out. So does Tomb of Annihilation, which only goes to level 12 (or something like that). Putting in forbiddance-style effects, especially on enemy strongholds, is extremely common and doesn't actually take more than writing a single sentence to do.


Tbh my initial idea was to drop 2 or 3 Meteor Swarms but Archmage doesn't have it, nor Lich, so I had to go with something smaller.

You can just swap spells on NPCs for other ones on the same class list, it's explicitly allowed in the MM and officially approved of when running Adventurer's League adventures. I can't imagine running tier 2 without doing that, much less tier 4, a lot of monsters have awful spell selections.


True Resurrection and Wish are hella expensive. Like, bankrupt your high level party if you have to do it on the regular expensive. Well, at least defer the down payment on your palace. And disintegrate is low enough level to be used by multiple creatures in an encounter by that point.

Reincarnate is one way around that. You end up with a different body, but you don't need an entire body and it only costs 1/25th of true res. If you can cut off a collection of fingers and store them in a safe place in advance, using regenerate to grow them back, you've got insurance.


Aside from that? If your villain has the forethought to steal or otherwise acquire the dead body once they down it and deny you access without also destroying it, you're looking at a very rough day. Especially if they're the sort of villain who will intentionally cast Raise Dead to thwart you - and why wouldn't they be - and simply torment the recipient to ensure they have no long rests. That's a bad Tuesday for your high level characters.

As other people have pointed out, RAW this doesn't work as the soul knows the alignment and deity of the person attempting to raise them and can refuse to come back.