Is spell dmg worth at high levels?

[MaxWilson]

Results for the combat challenge (Team Fighter-ish, for comparison with Team Caster):

Due to some unusual stat rolls, I wound up including a Warbearian (Barbarian 1/Celestial Warlock 11) in the party instead of my intended 3 Fighters, but I played the Warbarian very fightery, even where this wasn't tactically optimal. E.g. he mostly used his spell slots on Armor of Agathys before combat and Cure Wounds after, instead of chucking Synaptic Static or Hypnotic Pattern, and this almost got him killed against the Skulks (he got critted three times in one round and hit three more times on top of that, by Skulks, after the Giant Ape was already dead--if the Skulks had continued attacking him they would have killed him, but since pop-up healing isn't a thing in my universe, I decided it made sense for them not to do that, and to instead switch to taking down the Moon Druid's wolves). Anyway, the upshot is that I basically wasted his beautiful 18/18/17/15 array playing him basically like any other Barbarian except without Rage, and that's fine because this is Team Fighterish--so nobody complain about rolled stats skewing this experiment.

Unusually for me, I used PHB initiative rules (IGO-UGO) instead of my normal WEGO rules, in order to keep the results more relatable to other people. For the same reason I also used spell slots instead of spell points, and Legendary Resistance instead of TSR-style magic resistance.

The results were... surprisingly unsurprising. Nobody died, everybody ended the final fight healthy (the Battlemaster did end up under a Mass Suggestion to "Kneel before Zod!" but this was dealt with afterwards), nobody used any hit dice (I wanted to avoid using them because I don't allow short rest healing in my game), and the Moon Druid used up a 6th, two 5th, two 4th, and three 3rd level spell slots, so from the outside it may look like it was straightforward--but the experience of playing through was more intense and there were times when I felt like a character death or maybe even TPK was possibly in front of me. And maybe I just got lucky on the dice, or maybe (as I've found before) 5E PCs have more defensive depth than is readily apparent, and can go quite a long way on what appears to be "almost empty."

Anyway, I had a party consisting of the following (parenthesized numbers are the original stat rolls before adjustments):

Human Forge Cleric 1/Arcane Archer 11. Str 12 Dex 20 (15) Con 14 Int 14 Wis 14 (13) Cha 9. Sharpshooter, Alert. Used his Forge Cleric power to give the Battlemaster a magical Hand Crossbow +1, so they would both have magic weapons. Alert was hugely impactful for taking out threats before they could act.

Spoiler: Comments on Arcane Archer

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I was hoping Arcane Archers would surprise me and be better than I thought, but nope, the combination of Int-based saves and magic-based arrows (affected by Magic Resistance) plus only being able to use one arrow per round meant that unlike Battlemaster's Trip Attack, the Arcane Archer's Shadow Arrow never did me any good in any combat, although I may have forgotten to use it in a couple of fights. Curving Shot was occasionally useful on round 1, but overall I would have been better off with a Samurai in this particular set of fights so that I could actually gain advantage (using RAW for unseen ranged attackers instead of my normal houserule "only melee attackers gain advantage for being unseen") instead of hoping that I was going to gain advantage for me and all my buddies, and then being disappointed when Shadow Arrow failed again. Also, magic weapons turned out to be unimportant except in fight #2. [Yes, yes, I know that I wrote the fights, so at some level I must have known magic weapons weren't going to be important, but I tried to forget the details while designing this party. -Max]

Human Battlemaster 12. Str 14 Dex 20 (18) Con 14 Int 11 Wis 14 (13) Cha 10. Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, Alert, Defensive Duelist, Skilled (Athletics and +1 to Dex). Got a lot of mileage out of Trip Attack + Action Surge (attacks at advantage) in the non-Huge fights. Didn't wind up using Skilled at all. Alert was again key to the rocket tag playstyle.

Jorasco (Mark of Healing) halfling Moon Druid. Str 8 Dex 12 (10) Con 12 Int 11 Wis 14 (13) Cha 10. Resilient (Con), Warcaster, Healer. Got a lot of mileage out of Healer. Didn't get a lot of mileage out of Resilient (Con) and Warcaster because in the cramped quarters, I wound up making the monsters attack the low-AC glass cannon fighters more, or sometimes the warbearian if he charged into the fray.

Lyrandar (Mark of Storms) half-elf Barbarian 1/Celestial Warlock 11. Str 20 (18) Dex 16 (15) Con 17 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 20 (18). GWM. Didn't get much mileage out of Mark of Storms (just one fight against the Death Knight where he pre-summoned an elemental, but lost control when the Death Knight went out in a 65 HP blaze of fiery glory explosion, and took another 32 HP of damage putting down the elemental). Got a lot of mileage out of Armor of Agathys and Cure Wounds V. Took Counterspell but forgot to use it against the neogis, didn't need it against the Glabrezu.

Fight summary:

1.) Beholder. Supernova from two Alert fighters wound up shutting it down hard. Battlemaster got Charmed when it was no longer relevant; Arcane Archer managed to avoid getting turned to stone or zapped with disintegration. Took some minor damage from Enervation but that's all, healed it with Healer and Second Wind, take a rest, moved on.

2.) Nycaloth and Glabrezu. Again, supernova from two Alert fighters killed the Glabrezu before it could even do anything, which was glorious in a way except that I was very conscious that this was really just a form of gambling--relying on luck, instead of having contingency plans. But that's the Fighter way, so heal the minor damage (if there even was any, I forget), take a rest, and onward we go.

3.) Dragon fight was pretty tough for the Arcane Archer, since the dragon breathed on the whole party (both Fighters took full 65 HP of damage) and then the dragon focused the Arcane Archer with several tail attacks in a row and took him down. Warbearian healed the Archer back to consciousness (it only took a few HP of healing because the dragon had only barely knocked him out, something like 104 damage vs. 99 HP, so the Warbearian's gamble to use only 2 dice of celestial healing paid off) and they killed the dragon. Shadow Arrow would have worked against the dragon except, y'know, Legendary Resistance. And Blindsight actually, but Legendary Resistance anyway.

After this fight the druid spent his first spell slots of the session: one 3rd level slot for Aura of Vitality. Combined with Healer, Second Wind, and etc., this put everyone back at full health (plus temp HP from the Warbearian's Celestial powers). Rest, then Druid summons a couple of Quicklings with a 4th level slot to help with the next fight (since they're apparently getting tougher), and the Warbearian summons an Earth Elemental (would have picked Fire but there's no source of fire here or sufficient fuel to make one), and then onward.

4.) Yeti and Chasmes. This fight was kind of interesting. Because I don't normally play with PHB initiative, I hadn't fully realized how annoying Chasme drone was, in that since you don't make the save and fall asleep until the start of your turn, other people can't be ready to wake you up if necessary, because on their turns you haven't fallen asleep yet! I think that's kind of dumb from a game fiction standpoint, but it did complicate this fight. I should have used Menacing Strike from the Battlemaster to keep the Chasmes at bay until the Abominable Yeti was dead, but instead I just supernova'ed the yeti and got lucky. Nobody got their HP maximum reduced, nobody got critted into oblivion by the Chasmes, although I think I got unreasonably lucky on those Con saves. C'est la vie.

The Battlemaster didn't even Action Surge in this fight, intending to save it for the next fight so that the party wouldn't have to short rest and lose the Quicklings (to keep more spell slots available for Aura of Vitality later on). After the fight, the party continued onward immediately.

5.) Death Knight. Again, Dex 20 + Alert plus some lucky rolls let the fighters (and the quicklings) supernova the bad guy before he could act, but he still had a few HP left. Out of spite, he chose to spend his last action throwing a 20d6 fiery explosion at his own feet, killing the quicklings, damaging the PCs, and breaking the Warbearian's concentration on the Earth Elemental, which has to be put down after landing two good solid punches right in the Warbearian's ribs (32 HP of damage IIRC).

The party rests and heals with Healer/etc. and another Aura of Vitality, then the Warbearian casts Armor of Agathys and the Druid casts Conjure Animals V and they continue. (Druid has now spent a 5th, 4th, and two 3rd level slots.)

6.) Giant Ape + dozen Skulks. Long story short, the fighters took out the Giant Ape quickly but the Skulks were much more trouble than I-the-player anticipated and exactly as much trouble as I-the-adventure-designer could have hoped. The Warbearian charged in to melee the Giant Ape like a Fighter would instead of bombarding with Synaptic Static like a caster would, and a result he took over a hundred HP of damage from the Skulks (including three crits for 4d6+2d4+4 each). The wolves managed to pick off two Skulks due to their offsetting advantage from Pack Tactics, but if the Moon Druid hadn't used his bonus action to drop out of elemental shape and cast Erupting Earth, I don't know what would have happened, could maybe have been a TPK (although I think it wouldn't have been a TPK right then, since the fighters had Alert, but it could have led to TPK later on if the other PCs were dead or dying). The Warbearian had killed one Skulk via Armor of Agathys V when it opportunity attacked him on his way to the Giant Ape (and the Giant Ape actually killed itself by hitting the Warbearian, taking it from 150/157 damage to 175/157 damage), and wolves had killed two, so the the Moon Druid killed four out of the remaining 9 and left five others with only 7 HP each, and the fighters were able to dispatch them swiftly despite disadvantage.

Short rest, re-cast Armor of Agathys, conjure 16 more wolves (down: two 5th, two 4th, three 3rd level slots), onward.

7.) Neogis and Star Spawn Manglers. It's getting late and I'm tired so I'll just say: killed the Manglers on round 1 Trip Attack/Action Surge/etc. supernova (part of the strategy was to burn resources ASAP so that if Enslaved, the Enslaved fighters couldn't supernova the party), Barb spent a Rage and charged into combat, grappling a neogi to get its attention. One Neogi used Fear to try to disperse the party including all the wolves; Barb got frightened and Arcane Archer got paralyzed, but Battlemaster was able to kill the neogi concentrating on Fear and then Indomitable and lucky dice helped him resist two Enslave attempts, and Warbarian managed to break the Hold Person paralyzing the Arcane Archer, although not until after the Archer had lost its turn. Warbearian probably should have Counterspelled the Fear or Hold Person V, but I forgot. Another Hold Person managed to paralyze the Warberian, then the other neogi finished itself off by hitting the paralyzed Barbarian (Armor of Agathys), and... oops. Looks like I accidentally made it five Neogi Masters in that encounter instead of four. Anyway, then someone killed the Hold Person caster (the wolves had been rampaging around biting everybody fairly equally) and then both Manglers and all five neogis were dead.

The fights were getting harder and harder so even though the party was still actually quite healthy, they short rested in order to regain action surge, superiority dice, etc. This required re-casting Armor of Agathys and losing the wolves, so after resting, the druid spent its 6th level slot to summon four Quicklings, and then they continued.

8.) Mind Flayer Arcanist + Githyanki Supreme Commander. Arcane Archer shot at the Arcanist, got blocked by Shield spell, Action Surged to grapple (suceed), shove prone (failed), shove prone (success). Githyanki Supreme Commander triggered a tentacle attack with its legendary action, which hit, but the Arcane Archer rolled a 15 and made the save. Long story short: the Battlemaster finished it off at advantage and shot up the Supreme Commander pretty good, the Supreme Commander tried a Hail Mary play and cast Mass Suggestion on everybody ("Kneel Before Zod!" to demand worshipful genuflection), and it got 3/4 Quicklings and the Battlemaster, but not the Moon Druid, Arcane Archer, or the Warbearian, and this was enough to quickly kill him before he got another actual turn--although now that I look closer at the Supreme Commander's Teleport action, I suppose that could have been useful to him if I were going by the strict RAW on Extra Attack/Readied Action (whereby the Arcane Archer would only get one shot, not three, even though an Eldritch Blast caster would get three) but I don't think it would have changed the outcome, and that RAW is stupid anyway. 3:1 is just too big a numerical disadvantage to overcome.

I assume that after the Supreme Commander was dead, the other PCs eventually found a way to make the Battlemaster stop kneeling, perhaps by chucking the Supreme Commander's body where the Battlemaster could no longer see it/sense its presence.

TL;DR Fighter-ish party had incredible single-target DPR, finished small fights quickly, struggled against swarms. Rocket tag.