Against the Idol of the Sun: A 5e high-level campaign log

[J-H]

Thanks!
For the first two "new to D&D" players I took a break and did a couple of one-shots set in the same general setting, one at low (3rd-5th) level and the other at 11th level.
I lost one of the two at the 3rd level (13-14 year old, his phone was more interesting) but gained his mother instead, whose first was at 11th level.
For the most recent addition, we just helped him build his character at...17th? level. He had played D&D back 20-25 years ago, so he had at least a general idea of how things worked. We did steer him away from playing a strength-based 4 Elements monk, though...

D&D Beyond is a big help, in that it lifts the mechanical load of doing calculations and figuring out where and how to document things on the character sheet. Luckily, one of my players has all the content, subscribes and shares it, and is competent at dropping magic items into other people's sheets to reflect custom magic items I've handed out and extra attunement slots. This takes away the headache of documentation, and just leaves people figuring out what to do and what their character options are.

Saqwam's player is around 16 and has onboarded himself pretty well and uses DND Beyond. He's throwing out Soul Cage and Finger of Death, and then of course just discovered the true power of True Polymorph.

His parents (mom played Rivkah, dad now playing Troudar) are not as tech savvy AND don't put in before-game prep time to research things at all.
What I ended up doing for both, albeit at different times, was making a single page reference sheet. If you're not used to the action economy of 5e, even a high level Fighter can be hard to keep track of.

Here's what Troudar's looks like:

Spoiler

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I deliberately put the Bonus Actions at the top, because he wasn't using Fighting Spirit. Now he is.
We are still having to remind him of options like Action Surge.
I think he pretty much has "which dice are used for what" down at this point. He needs more dice, though.

It takes a few sessions to really get used to a high level character.

For what it's worth, when I do a PBP and make a high level character in a vacuum, I'm usually not very optimal with that character until I get to play it... and I have plenty of experience DMing (only a moderate amount playing).