High Level Play info, where is it?

[hitchhike79]

In our current campaign we just reached level 14 and holy cow the game is very different.

You know how you picked your class to do those cool things that a Rogue/Bard/Sorcerer... etc does?
Well.... honestly before lvl 9-10 you are more or less half-assing it when you really look at it.
After about lvl 10-12, you are that person you originally thought up all those weeks and months ago.
You are death, you are laughing when you see a dragon, punting ogres for fun and and and...

The spells you learn are game changing, the damage being done would wipe out most seasoned and well equipped adventurer in those early levels.
Your skill checks and abilities are just down right amazing and you hardly fail at checks. (Until the DM cranks things up like ours has... ****er)

I know most of the info out there is written to the first 10 lvls because thats 80-90% of the play out there.
I just want to see if anyone has info on high level play info and if there isnt much out there, then lets start section for that.
(i have searched but it seems to rather elusive)

I am playing an abjuration wizard and perhaps im one sided but after watching the Rogue, Paladin, Ranger and even our Druid just wreck over and over, its hard to deny the power we are wielding.

Thanks

[sithlordnergal]

I mean, yeah that's kind of what high level play does...And it only gets crazier the higher you go. As an Abjuration Wizard, I'd try to get Simulacrum. If you guys reach high enough levels to cast 9th level spells, grabbing Wish and True Polymorph will be beyond game breaking and game changing. Wish lets you get a Simulacrum for free, and True Polymorph can let you turn it into a perfect copy of yourself with full HP and the ability to regain spells. A copy that retains its personality...meaning it can be argued that it will still follow your commands. So yeah, that sounds about right to me.

[hitchhike79]

I mean, yeah that's kind of what high level play does...And it only gets crazier the higher you go. As an Abjuration Wizard, I'd try to get Simulacrum. If you guys reach high enough levels to cast 9th level spells, grabbing Wish and True Polymorph will be beyond game breaking and game changing. Wish lets you get a Simulacrum for free, and True Polymorph can let you turn it into a perfect copy of yourself with full HP and the ability to regain spells. A copy that retains its personality...meaning it can be argued that it will still follow your commands. So yeah, that sounds about right to me.

I mean, yea all that fun lvl20 stuff sounds great, but really thats absolute end game stuff.
Simulacrum is super cool, but kind of played out and ive only heard of what you could do... not what people have actually done.

The lvls 13-18 are going to be very long for us i assume and there really isnt much info out there, for one as a party or two myself as a wizard.
I am more or less assuming its all the same control the battlefield and whittle things down, but we are already seeing that most of your damage spells do crap for damage.
Your melee attackers unless they are rogues(gods of higher level play so far) are getting destroyed up close, even if they can hit hard they are getting hit back twice as hard or more.
We are really having to redo much of our tactics and plans. This may just end up being the start to a thread i start since there doesnt seem to be a lot of high lvl play experience posted... that i have found. (still looking)

[Hellpyre]

Your melee attackers unless they are rogues(gods of higher level play so far) are getting destroyed up close, even if they can hit hard they are getting hit back twice as hard or more.


We are really having to redo much of our tactics and plans. This may just end up being the start to a thread i start since there doesnt seem to be a lot of high lvl play experience posted... that i have found. (still looking)

Your melee skirmishers should probably be looking for opportunities to shore up their defenses if they are taking too many hits, and they should all be roughly competitive with rogue damage output over the course of a turn (although doubling up on sneak attack dice with reactions does get very strong at high levels).

Redoing tactics when new capabilities come online is always a good idea. Contingency, for example, can be a major life-saver. Contingent Resilient Sphere if you go, say, prone with armor donned can be a great panic button for combat. Passwall makes for great ambushs. Modify Memory can drastically shape the direction of social encounters towards whatever you desire.

For teamwide tactics, an overview of your party's subclasses would probably be helpful.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

In our current campaign we just reached level 14 and holy cow the game is very different.

You know how you picked your class to do those cool things that a Rogue/Bard/Sorcerer... etc does?
Well.... honestly before lvl 9-10 you are more or less half-assing it when you really look at it.
After about lvl 10-12, you are that person you originally thought up all those weeks and months ago.
You are death, you are laughing when you see a dragon, punting ogres for fun and and and...

The spells you learn are game changing, the damage being done would wipe out most seasoned and well equipped adventurer in those early levels.
Your skill checks and abilities are just down right amazing and you hardly fail at checks. (Until the DM cranks things up like ours has... ****er)

I know most of the info out there is written to the first 10 lvls because thats 80-90% of the play out there.
I just want to see if anyone has info on high level play info and if there isnt much out there, then lets start section for that.
(i have searched but it seems to rather elusive)

I am playing an abjuration wizard and perhaps im one sided but after watching the Rogue, Paladin, Ranger and even our Druid just wreck over and over, its hard to deny the power we are wielding.

Thanks


That's super cool. Sounds like your DM is doing a great job of letting you all enjoy your new abilities. In a bit he/she will probably bring in some Lich's riding their dracoliches to strafe you all with breath weapons and disintegrate spells.

[LudicSavant]

In our current campaign we just reached level 14 and holy cow the game is very different.

You know how you picked your class to do those cool things that a Rogue/Bard/Sorcerer... etc does?
Well.... honestly before lvl 9-10 you are more or less half-assing it when you really look at it.
After about lvl 10-12, you are that person you originally thought up all those weeks and months ago.
You are death, you are laughing when you see a dragon, punting ogres for fun and and and...

The spells you learn are game changing, the damage being done would wipe out most seasoned and well equipped adventurer in those early levels.
Your skill checks and abilities are just down right amazing and you hardly fail at checks. (Until the DM cranks things up like ours has... ****er)

I know most of the info out there is written to the first 10 lvls because thats 80-90% of the play out there.
I just want to see if anyone has info on high level play info and if there isnt much out there, then lets start section for that.
(i have searched but it seems to rather elusive)

I am playing an abjuration wizard and perhaps im one sided but after watching the Rogue, Paladin, Ranger and even our Druid just wreck over and over, its hard to deny the power we are wielding.

Thanks

One of my current campaigns is at level 17 currently. DM has been doing a fantastic job of upping the ante and keeping things challenging despite letting us use all our insane, totally world-changing abilities.

[hitchhike79]

Your melee skirmishers should probably be looking for opportunities to shore up their defenses if they are taking too many hits, and they should all be roughly competitive with rogue damage output over the course of a turn (although doubling up on sneak attack dice with reactions does get very strong at high levels).

Redoing tactics when new capabilities come online is always a good idea. Contingency, for example, can be a major life-saver. Contingent Resilient Sphere if you go, say, prone with armor donned can be a great panic button for combat. Passwall makes for great ambushs. Modify Memory can drastically shape the direction of social encounters towards whatever you desire.

For teamwide tactics, an overview of your party's subclasses would probably be helpful.


Yea i really need to figure out what i want to do with contingency, right now i have it saved as a misty step for a second burst of movment/evasion if needed.


As far as subclasses we have myself as an Abjuration Wizard, focused on crowd control. Wearing medium Armor at times I can tank in a pinch due to a gift/curse of a Halaster Blackcloak during an early trip into the Undermountain (long story). He also gifted a large list of extra necromancy spells that are not normal 5E, nothing OP but very undead focused spells.
Primary damage dealing coming from summon steelwind strike, summon greater demon and animate objects (other than cantrips)

We have our very Arcane Trickster Rogue who is often our primary scout, damage dealer and in a pinch tanks due to rogues being gods late game it seems. There really isnt much i can say about her except shes evasive, huge damage dealing and pound for pound i feel our strongest character.

Then there is or Hexadin (Hexblade Warlock, Paladin of eh?), swinging two handers for max damage and crits. He has built it primary for damage so while he does "tank" his AC isnt top notch. His spells are mostly buffs and backup heals along with evasion. Very straight forward and when he needs to nova oh boy

Our healer is a Circle of Dreams Druid whos playing a very fun healer, who when things go bad he has polymorphed into a giant ape to smash face then come back for heals. This along with his control spells, heals and great spell list has been a clutch in much of the game. Also has one of the best spells we have used right now, Heros' Feast.

Lastly a newish addition we have a Monster Slayer Ranger, who does ranger stuff and has been figuring himself out as a new player to DnD but really coming in with some great tactics. He has had some great uses of Silence and spike growth to make some HUGE impacts early on that has been absolutely game changing. On top of drawing aggro often and getting beaten to a pulp (happens a lot for some reason).


Anyways thats us in a snapshot and its a blast but challenging on a whole new level these past few levels.
We have just hit 14 so everyone is pretty much fully fleshed out now for abilities so it will be interesting to see how the DM throws the next curve ball for us.


Lastly, yes our DM has been awesome about cranking it up to a knife edge of survive encounters or TPK. He is learning at this level of play as well, so its been a lot of fun changing things up on him as best we can. He has already thrown in hooks in certain storylines where once we are lvl 20 that we need to come back to fix the "real problem/big boss".

This is where i think all these questions came from, the game with proper dialing is very very enjoyable but very challenging at high levels, i feel we need some focus on it here and document it.


Thanks for your input.

[Hellpyre]

Yea i really need to figure out what i want to do with contingency, right now i have it saved as a misty step for a second burst of movment/evasion if needed.


As far as subclasses we have myself as an Abjuration Wizard, focused on crowd control. Wearing medium Armor at times I can tank in a pinch due to a gift/curse of a Halaster Blackcloak during an early trip into the Undermountain (long story). He also gifted a large list of extra necromancy spells that are not normal 5E, nothing OP but very undead focused spells.
Primary damage dealing coming from summon steelwind strike, summon greater demon and animate objects (other than cantrips)

Animate Objects is pretty solid, but Summon Greater Demon has a higher set-up cost than the value it gives back at this point. Looking at the rest of team, you may deal better with encounters where you can set up abjuration effects (Glyph of Warding, Symbol, etc.) In advance and kite enemies back to them. There are some serious control spells available to you by this point that merit consideration. Irresistable Dance is a great way to hold enemies in place for a bit, with at least one round without a save. Upcasting Hold Person or Hold Monster to hit most of an encounter will let your damage dealers, especially the Hexadin, go wild on crits. If you see an encounter coming, don't feel bad about bre-buffing with some of your lower-levelled spell more liberally. Fire Shield + Mirror Image will very respectably improve your survivability if you do things that get you targetted.


We have our very Arcane Trickster Rogue who is often our primary scout, damage dealer and in a pinch tanks due to rogues being gods late game it seems. There really isnt much i can say about her except shes evasive, huge damage dealing and pound for pound i feel our strongest character.

Rogues deal a lot of damage, especially when the DM lets them hide more easily. Her best contribution to combat is probably to get in, sneak attack, and Disengage away when she's done. You may do well supporting here by creating safe retreats for her with spells like Greater Invisibility, various Wall spells, or even Stone Shape.


Then there is or Hexadin (Hexblade Warlock, Paladin of eh?), swinging two handers for max damage and crits. He has built it primary for damage so while he does "tank" his AC isnt top notch. His spells are mostly buffs and backup heals along with evasion. Very straight forward and when he needs to nova oh boy

Hexadins tend to do a lot of damage each rest, but then burn out pretty quickly until the next rest when they do. How many levels of Paladin did they take? 2? 6? 7? It makes a lot of difference in what tactics are open to them. Eother way, I'd recommend they invest in a sword n' board set of equipment for added defense when they need it more than they need damage.


Our healer is a Circle of Dreams Druid whos playing a very fun healer, who when things go bad he has polymorphed into a giant ape to smash face then come back for heals. This along with his control spells, heals and great spell list has been a clutch in much of the game. Also has one of the best spells we have used right now, Heros' Feast.

Healers are always nice to have, but most healing is best out-of-combat. You may want to talk with them about coordinating spell combos for stacked effectiveness - Spike Growth/Entabgle and Darkness dropped together can lock down the battlefield very well, and with Readied actions you can assure that they drop together.


Lastly a newish addition we have a Monster Slayer Ranger, who does ranger stuff and has been figuring himself out as a new player to DnD but really coming in with some great tactics. He has had some great uses of Silence and spike growth to make some HUGE impacts early on that has been absolutely game changing. On top of drawing aggro often and getting beaten to a pulp (happens a lot for some reason).
If they get hit a lot, it may do to try and keep them farther back from the fighting, peppering foes with arrows until the monsters have been split by the fullcasters of the party.

Overall, you don't seem to have anyone built to be a damage sponge, so kiting around spell-induced Difficult Terrain and setting up favorable retreats is probably going to be the safest routes open for encounters those are applicable for. I'd also pick Dimension Door over Misty Step for Contingency in general, although I recommend something more defensive as a choice overall. Contingent Resilient Sphere or Wall of Force are both excellent options for emergency defense, and Contingent spells can also be use to set up powerful attacks if you give up the defensive layer - Contingent Cloudkill on casting Forcecage is a hell of a way to deal with a large threat once you've hit level 13, as you have.

[solidork]

For us, it's actually been the non-combat stuff that has changed the most. Yeah you do more damage now, but stuff like Scrying, Commune, Teleport, Modify Memory, being able to cast Sending lots of times, etc. completely reshape how you approach the game and what is possible.

Like, our Abjuration Wizard just got Simulacrum and he's excited about it because he can leave it in charge of the city he rules. If something happens it can Sending us and we can teleport there and deal with it.

At one point we were playing an arc based around my retired Cleric who went back to lead his tribe. Using Scrying and Sending he found out about a rampaging horde of Gnolls, tracked them and organized a coalition of old allies from all over the High Forest. Every time we had a day of downtime I had to try and figure out how I was going to use my 6+ castings of Sending and 2+ castings of Scrying that day and it wasn't easy.

Recently on my Warlock we were ambushed by a bunch of orcs led by an Archdruid. We tried pretty hard to dissuade them from fighting us, but they were convinced we were their enemies and we ended up slaughtering them easily, except for the archdruid who escaped as an Air Elemental. We ended up getting into an argument about if we should have just teleported away to spare their lives. Anyways, my Warlock has Scrying and Speak With Dead at will, so I used Disguise Self to talk to the Orcs we killed and find out about them and then over the course of the rest of the day cast Scrying 6x times and found out where the Orcs are based, who they are allied with, what their leadership dynamics were, etc.

One time we got jumped by a bunch of devils and our Abjurer rolled low on initiative. Everyone in the party took their turn doing something and then our wizard just used a high level Banishment to banish all of the enemies and the fight was over. It was honestlly a little disappointing.