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D&D 5E Is WotC ever going to release something high level? Even as UA test material?

TheNoremac42

Explorer
You want a high level encounter?

A group of Empyreans take a day trip to the Material Plane while riding a pack of terrasques. They stumble upon your city and decide to have some fun with the townsfolk.

Roll initiative. B-)
 

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Luz

Explorer
Sure! Here is my notes file, which details the rules for the palace, the doors, and the traps. The traps use the houserule of rolling a Hide versus Passive Perception.

I'm not that familiar with 3e modules, but the dungeon appeared to be monstrously complex and precise in its rules, so I tried to keep its restrictions and whatnot active. Bear in mind that I'm running for a party of level 18s, so the trap damage and suchlike is chosen according to that.

The creatures are tough, since they only exist in my copy of the Game Master 5 app, but I can describe the process. I mainly combined traits with an existing statblock -
so I either modified the Githyanki Knight, or gave the Knight's Psionic trait to the Abjurer and other NPCs from the appendix to Volo's Guide to Monsters. Some tinkering with HP and Damage was then done to raise or lower CR as appropriate. The new statblocks you need are:

Various Githyanki spellcasters and warriors - added the Psionic trait from the Githyanki Knight onto VGtM statblocks.

Duthka'gith, draconic/gith hybrids - Took the Knight statblock, gave it the breath weapon of an Adult Red Dragon.
Duthka'gith spellcasters - Just slapped the traits from above onto a VGtM spellcaster.
Dessrakrul, two headed dragon - gave him an extra Reaction each round, only useable on Opportunity Attacks.
Tl'a'ikith, spectral undead Githyanki - Gave a Githyanki Knight the traits and resistances of a Banshee.
Xam'kras, master of the Ch'r'ai - modified Diviner.
Kr'y'izoth, undead githyanki spellcasters - A lich, reduced to a level 16 spellcaster, stripped of all but one Legendary Resistance, and with a Flamewrath's ability to have the Fire Shield spell last forever.
Synferal, epic fire elemental thing - Imix but with no legendary actions and only two uses of Legendary Resistance.
Vlaakith - a lich, with 473 hp and her proficiency raised to CR25 level. I'll also let her cast any spell in the game, as required.


A lot of other stuff - Fiendish Beholder! Blackflame Elementals! Zombie Githyanki! - I deemed as unnecessary in a 5e context, so I've not bothered to convert.
Just skimming over your notes and its a fantastic conversion, Charles. Nicely done! Reading this sure takes me back to when I ran my players through LQB back around 2004. Good times! Thanks!
 

MerricB

Eternal Optimist
Supporter
I've actually heard people say they enjoyed playing a game of F.A.T.A.L. too. Just sayin'...

:)

I ran two campaigns of 4E to 30th level. We had fun all the way through - and combats at 30th didn't take us that long in the most part. If we had a bunch of min/maxing "how do I get every action and reaction" players, I think our experience would have been different. But 4E is the only version of D&D that I think actually runs fine at higher levels. It certainly worked better than high-level 3E (two campaigns to 16th level and one to 21st level...)

Cheers!
 

Corwin

Explorer
I ran two campaigns of 4E to 30th level. We had fun all the way through - and combats at 30th didn't take us that long in the most part. If we had a bunch of min/maxing "how do I get every action and reaction" players, I think our experience would have been different. But 4E is the only version of D&D that I think actually runs fine at higher levels. It certainly worked better than high-level 3E (two campaigns to 16th level and one to 21st level...)
Okay, cool. Me too. I loved 4e and played the heck out of it for years. Sometimes high level, as well. Hasn't anything to do with my previous response, though.
 

BMaC

Adventurer
High level adventures are like Bugattis; one to eleven adventures are reliable VW Golfs. Both cars are made by Volkswagen; the Golf makes money whereas VW loses money on Veyrons. So why does VW even make the Bugatti? In the case of a Bugatti, it's about marketing and the brand. Ok, so there's so me problems with my analogy. As I said in my original post, the value of an official WotC high-level adventure is that it would show the rest of us how Perkins et. al. would do it.

By the way, thanks to everyone who has posted suggestions. I've put my money where my mouth is and bought three of the suggestions.
 

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