D&D 5E Advice on dealing with high level characters.

[ArtaSoral]

Hey gents,
So i'm looking for some advice on how to DM for higher level characters. The 5e campaign I've been running for about 2 years now has gotten to level 15 and i'm starting to have alot of trouble dealing with all the powers my PC's are starting to get. Planning encounters that challenge them is pretty difficult, and whats worse is many of their abilities allow them to circumvent any roadblocks. So im looking to see if you guys have any sort of general purpose advice for handling the higher levels.
The immediate issue im dealing with is one of my PC's has the gate spell and the current story arch is calling for them to rescue someone from a dungeon. It seems the gate spell lets him just pull anyone whose name he knows through the portal, aka skip the dungeon. Any advice would be much appreciated .

 

[Cyrinishad]

Basically, they can't skip the dungeon unless you want them to skip the dungeon... There is tons of stuff in the D&D Lore that addresses this issue, from Dead Magic Zones, to Building Materials that prevent Teleportation or Portals, to things that redirect Teleportation or Portals, even the Underdark itself disrupts this type of thing...

Besides the BBEG should see this type of thing coming a mile away... If it's easy for the PCs to teleport in, it's obviously a trap, and the hostage should have max-level Glyphs & Wards spells set to automatically trigger if anyone teleports/gates into where they're being held, most likely killing the person they are trying to rescue, and possibly resulting in a TPK... Any PC that's able to cast a gate spell should be able to deduce that the BBEG would be ready for that.

 

[Stalker0]

So generally you can go one of two ways.

Negate the abilities: For example, a forbidden spell can block gate. And if this is a prison designed for level people, it makes perfect sense that one would be there. Or remember that a planar ruler can deny planar travel in their dominion. So if the ruler approves this prison, they won't let anyone out.

Use the ability: Getting him out is the easy part.. but he has the last piece of an ancient puzzle that sends the party on a new adventure.

In general, a healthy mix of both is the way to go.


One of my best advice is.....really push the clock with high level adventures. With a good amount of rest high level adventures can rip through anything. Once the adventure is on, start the clock, and come up with reasons why the pressure has to stay on.

The world is going to end....oh, did I mention in an hour?


The one thing about high level 5e adventures is...they don't have THAT many high level spells. Keep them going, and once their spells start to run down the challenge will kick up.

Beyond htat...do not be afraid to throw really high CR encounters....like really high. Make hard and deadly your default...high level characters can take it and then some.

 

[Sunseeker]

"The dungeon is magical, gate spells get redirected to random places." and since it's a two-way door...

Frankly, high-level D&D gets a bit silly, so you either have to be a bit silly in return, such as "You are attacked by a platoon of Solars!" or have to handwaive a bit, ie: The dungeon is too magical and your gate spell cannot locate the person."

 

[Stalker0]

One other peace of advice....sometimes its ok to let epic adventurers just be epic.

One of my players most memorable adventurers was when they "went on vacation". They took a break from their high level adventuring (they were like 12th level or something at the time), and were doing odd jobs around the city. And in doing so...took out a lowish level "major" smuggling ring....in like 10 minutes. They got to just break down the door, basically invincible, scaring the crap out of these mobsters. They absolutely loved it.

In some adventures you have to lay on the difficulty. But its good to mix it up with some basic stuff too. Let them win sometimes like its nothing, let them face a "major threat"....for like a city....and just curb stomp it.

 

[Quickleaf]

The immediate issue im dealing with is one of my PC's has the gate spell and the current story arch is calling for them to rescue someone from a dungeon. It seems the gate spell lets him just pull anyone whose name he knows through the portal, aka skip the dungeon. Any advice would be much appreciated .

It really depends on the details.

For example, if this is a king's dungeon on the Material Plane without extensive magical protection, then absolutely let it work... and introduce a complication. Maybe the rescued NPC steps through the gate bewildered, then falls into dismay, saying "but I was *so* close to learning the villain's secret lair from the captain of the prison guard! just another day or two and he'd tell me, I'm certain of it!" or something to that effect.

OTOH if it's an inter-dimensional prison run by devils in the Iron City of Dis, dropping a forbiddance spell to outright prevent gate is totally called for. Or, even better, perhaps successfully casting the gate spell into the infernal prison requires a specific rare spell key...only found in the blackmarkets of Dis.

 

[machineelf]

Sometimes you let them just gate the person out of the dungeon, even if it bypasses some of what you planned. Let them be epic (as a couple of people said above); move on with storyline.

Other times, if you've put in a lot of work into the dungeon and you don't want them to bypass it, oh look there's a Mythal blocking teleportation into or out of the area.

They achieved those high-level abilities and spells for a reason, so let them use them most of the time.

But other times you are going to have to figure out how to give them conflicts that are really conflicts and really challenging. Keep in mind that a high-level wizard BBEG can also use the gate spell to snatch a character away, and put them in a place that negates scrying. There really could be a ton of different ways to make their lives difficult.

Watch some Critical Role and how Mercer deals with his high-level players. That should prove to you that you still can challenge them even when they become high level. The fight with the kraken in the elemental plane of water comes to mind.

I nearly wiped out my party of 15th level players with a beholder fight. They were mostly casters and the beholder kept shutting down their magic. Ancient dragons can be a real problem. I made copies of all the high level monsters from the end of all the adventure paths and put them into a single binder for use later. I essentially created my own high level monster manual from official monster stats. I'm ready to throw any of them at my players down the road.

 

[Stalker0]

I nearly wiped out my party of 15th level players with a beholder fight.

I tell you, I feel like the beholder is one of the few monsters that may be worth its CR at high levels. I too found one to be pretty darn effective against my team.

 

[CTurbo]

lol yep 6d6 Solars ought to challenge your party pretty good


I have been in a similar situation and I held the prisoner in an antimagic field/room so it was impossible to magically travel directly there.

I like creating high level NPC's that I can adjust on the fly if needed.

You can always have the enemies call for backup if your party is tearing through them too easily.

Another thing is to make sure they are NOT well rested for every encounter. One of my current DMs repeatedly makes the mistake of letting us long rest all the time. I get to use my Tempest Cleric's Destructive Wrath nearly every encounter.

 

[Bawylie]

First thing you ought to do is take stock of what your adventurers can do and roughly how often they can do it.

For instance, at 5th level you know they’re attacking twice, got some decent area spells like fireball and lightning bolt, and can probably get some limited flight going.

Figure out what they can do once, what they can do frequently, and what they can do without limit.

Once you know that, you want to think generally about obstacles. The kinds of obstacles their power can overcome. Major obstacles are overcome by the stuff they can do once a day. Generally you don’t want to use more than 3 major obstacles for each of their once-a-day things. That way, they can absolutely overcome one major obstacle easy least, but they get challenged on the next one of the same type. And even more of a challenge on the third.

Let’s look at 5th level flight really quickly. If you’ve got a wizard who can cast fly once a day, you want to put no more than 3 things completely out of reach. They can fly to one no problem, maybe risk a treacherous climb to get another, and maybe they can’t even get the 3rd thing at all.

Next you want to look at the stuff they can do frequently and design moderate obstacles for that. You can use as many moderate obstacles as you like. If your party has access to a decent amount of healing, you can be quite free with the damage you deal. If they can pretty much fly or teleport whenever and wherever, you can have as much distance as you want between points.

In essence, take serious stock of the party’s strengths and design obstacles that tax those strengths.

Maybe they can Gate. But can they Gate exactly how and where they want? What if they need to rescue 3 prisoners instead of one? What if they have the prisoner’s name wrong? At birth they had one name but since adulthood they’ve gone by another altogether. I don’t know.

So tax their strengths. That’s key. Second key is to gatekeep against their abilities. Like just above. If they have the prisoner’s name they can nab him. But if they don’t have the true name, their ability to rescue the prisoner is badly truncated. So their strength is essentially checked by a prerequisite obstacle.

Then mix it up. A major obstacle gatekeeping a moderate obstacle or vice versa. Design like that and you won’t have a problem at any level.


-Brad