D&D 5E How Do You Learn How To Design A High Level Adventure?

• Vary the goal of the encounters. It shouldn't always be kill everything that moves.
• Do what makes sense for the scenario. If the BBEG should have an army, he has an army.
• Send in waves.
• Use mob rules if you have a large number of enemies that in small numbers are not a threat.
• Don't have enemies attack in fireball formation unless you want them to be fireballed.
• Enemies know their terrain and take advantage of it.
• If you're having problem damaging the PCs, up the attack modifier or attack with different energy types. Give your super-soldier orcs +3 swords imbued with demonic energy if it makes sense for the story. If a PC picks up a demonic sword, have the sword try to take them over and kill their allies.
• Attrition is your friend. I regularly have 5-10 encounters without a long rest.
• Have adventuring "days" now and then where the players know there's only going to be a couple of fights before they get a long rest so they can have fun blowing **** up.
• Know your group and what they're capable of.
• Create custom bosses and (as someone else stated) crank them up to 11. Just don't go out of your way to completely nerf the PCs.
• Celebrate their wins. Sometimes the PCs will stomp on your encounters, have fun with it.

Zardnaar said:

The 5E ones don't tend to go that high or work that well when they do

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Myself I look at magical dungeons, Nasty traps, or the outer planes. Sailing around on a poison sea where some magic may or may not work. Overlapping trap effects, insta kill traps, terrain, multiple meteor swarms, power word kill I pull out all the stops.

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jayoungr said:

First, how do you know they don't work well? How many have you played/run?

Second, what do you think was wrong with them? If you can identify what's bothering you about the high-level adventures you know, you might have a clue as to how to make one that satisfies you.


It looks like a lot of your approach is based around taking away the PCs' abilities (poison, deactivating magic, insta-kills). Which some tables like, as a challenge, but it will frustrate others.

Also, insta-kills will work on PCs of any level, so why do you consider them to be a high-level feature? Is it about returning a sense of danger and fragility to the PCs? Do you have the sort of players who get bored if they don't feel like there's a chance of their characters dying in every session?

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Zardnaar said:

Because of resurrection magic which is even more trivial in 5E. That and abundant healing so damage isn't very good at getting the job done.

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jayoungr said:

So what I'm hearing is that you consider it absolutely vital for there to be a strong chance of PCs dying in the course of an adventure--is that right? It's important to note that as a design principle, because it's a style preference that not everyone shares, so knowing that it's a priority will make it a lot easier to design an adventure that you'll enjoy.

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