D&D 5E Level 20 How?

Sword of Spirit · Dec 1, 2016

Greg Benage said:
It depends on the setting, though. In the Old Gray Box FR, the super-high-powered monsters/villains/organizations are already there from the jump. The dwarves have been depopulated by generations of genocidal war and are on the brink of extinction. The elves have bailed. Civilization is scattered and hanging by a thread, with powerful enemies pressing in from all directions, including below (in the North, at least, which is the focus of the OGB setting). Basically, the North has been circling the drain for a while now, so it's not like all these threats just pop up in time to challenge your high-level PCs.

I know what you're saying, but I still don't think any edition of the Forgotten Realms ever presented a world populated with enough high level monsters to level a party of characters to 20 using typical Medium-Deadly combat encounters as your major source of XP. Sure, you could fly around trying to depopulate the world of dragons, but running into encounters with a bunch of uber-monsters together, or even running into a bunch of uber-monsters, is a real strain on credibility.

Greg Benage · Dec 2, 2016

Sword of Spirit said:
I know what you're saying, but I still don't think any edition of the Forgotten Realms ever presented a world populated with enough high level monsters to level a party of characters to 20 using typical Medium-Deadly combat encounters as your major source of XP. Sure, you could fly around trying to depopulate the world of dragons, but running into encounters with a bunch of uber-monsters together, or even running into a bunch of uber-monsters, is a real strain on credibility.

Interesting. I think you could easily run an entire 1-20 campaign set in the Moria-style megadungeon of Tethyamar, which, a couple hundred years ago, was overrun by “legions of orcs, bloodthirsty barghests, and demons summoned by the circle magic of orc adepts and an archmage claiming to be the Great Hlundadim, wizard leader the ancient goblinkin kingdom of Hlundadim.”

That's just one relatively obscure example, of course. It's also interesting that you mention "trying to depopulate the world of dragons," because they may actually come to you. This is a setting where, a couple years previous to the current date (in 1356 DR), there was a Flight of Dragons (or Rage of Dragons) that devastated the Moonsea, the Dalelands and Cormyr. Among those who died was Sylune, Witch of Shadowdale, a 22nd-level magic-user. If something like that happened again, it might give high-level characters something to do for a few sessions.

To emphasize, I do think this works best with suspension of disbelief in a pre-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, or post-apocalyptic setting,* where the high-level threats aren't just waiting off-stage until the PCs are ready for them. The contemporary FR, which seems strangely unfazed by its repeated apocalypses and manages to produce a new threat to the world every Adventurer's League season doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But that's a far cry from supporting the claim that 1-20 campaigns are incompatible with suspension of disbelief.

* I'd characterize the settings I created -- Dawnforge, Dragonstar and Midnight -- as pre-apocalyptic, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic, respectively, and I feel quite strongly they all support credible 1-20 campaigns.

OB1 · Dec 2, 2016

Sacrosanct said:
I just don't know if you need a full book for that and have it cost effective to make. the only other thing I can see is if the next adventure Path is around the Planes, and part of that addresses high level play is included within it.

I'm guessing that this will be the Fall 2017 AP along with the crunch book of expanded class options. Great way both to get PCs out of the realms (in the AP) and an excuse to introduce all kinds of new Circles and Paths and whatnot which could be tied to the planes explored in the AP.

What I think would be really interesting is if the AP visits not just places like the Feywild, Shadowfell, the outer planes and Sigul, but also Greyhawk and Eberron and Krynn and DarkSun (crap can't remember the name of that world).

Charles Rampant · Dec 2, 2016

The planar campaign seems likely to be the Great Modron March, if only because that so naturally forms a combined AP & campaign setting: each time the Modrons head to a new plane, the book provides 10-20 pages of plot and description for it. By the time you've done that a dozen times over, you've essentially got a manual of the planes, with the other planes getting brief one-page descriptions. It isn't impossible to imagine some kind of other Planar campaign, of course, but I don't recall seeing any obvious Planescape call outs in the books so far, other than Hags and the Rule of Three in Volos, Sigil in the DMG, and the various Fiendish politics in the MM. Of those, only the former is really 'Planescape' rather than 'Planar', to be honest.

Funnily enough, a fair few Spelljammer references are starting to crop up - the Morkoth in SKT, and Nautiloids, Giff and Neogi in Volo's. I would not have thought that we'd get Spelljammer before Planescape, to be honest.

MichaelArkAngel · Dec 2, 2016

Saelorn said:
The game I ran made it to level 20, and there's not much difference between levels 18 and 20 - the characters are unstoppable dreadnaughts who can stomp over anything you put in their path. If you want a balanced encounter that should make them take notice, I recommend three Solars or a dozen purple worms.

This is the group I run to a "T"! I am taking them through Rise of Tiamat, but have side quested the crap out of them, only because I think they would get slaughtered by Tiamat at level 14 or so, based on the game.

What I have done is go back through a the roughly 75-80 AD&D modules I have on PDF, and have been taking some of the higher level modules and converting them to 5E. Right now I have them going through a module called "Where Chaos Reigns" and a couple others high level adventures.

They are currently 19th level, and coming up on 20. I am curious to see how they fare with Tiamat at that level, considering its not the "toned down" version in Rise of Tiamat....mwahahaha!!!

Mercule · Dec 2, 2016

I think I had one campaign in 1E that made it to 20th level. Wait... That's a lie. The PCs were retired at 10th or 11th level, then we came back a couple years later and "advanced" them to 18th level, including making one of the PCs a saint (pre-demigod, from a Dragon article). It was fun, for a short run, but that's about it.

In 3E, we made it as far as 15th level before the game system because unwieldy and overly complex. I narrated out the end of the campaign because everyone was starting to drag with the heavy mechanics.

For 5E, we're playing LMoP and PotA, but we're extremely beer-and-pretzels because most of the players have kids (heck, one of the players is my kid) and lots of activities that often make scheduling an issue. The group isn't even 10th level, yet. From what I can see, I'll be ready to be done with the party after PotA and not really want to go any higher.

I'll second [MENTION=6855149]Prakriti[/MENTION] on AD&D. I actually liked it that way and appreciated the change in game focus. I don't really care to see what arch-mages can do in a dungeon crawl. I'd rather see the PCs start doing the mentoring and being the deus ex machina for lesser NPCs and/or troupe-style PCs.

Ancalagon · Dec 2, 2016

What I am curious about is if the level at which the game becomes unwieldy is higher in 5e than previous editions.

Prism · Dec 4, 2016

We play a 20th level campaign 3-4 weekends a year. It has been converted from several editions over the 30 years we have been playing. So far, I would say 5th edition has held together at this level very well and is providing fun and challenge. A few points...

We don't even look at DMG encounter guidelines at this level. We don't really even worry about if the adventure is easy/hard/doable at all. The players guide the story, the DM rolls with it and create situations as required. Its quite combat light as the characters have enough flexibility to avoid and bypass encounters as they wish. The DM is perfectly happy to put the party in a TPK situation if they don't plan well. An example scenario might look like this...

The PCs have decided to kill a Duke of Hell in the service of Bel, to weaken Bel as part of a longer storyline. This duke is currently on the 1st level of Hell, surrounded by an army of several thousand devils and with his elite guard on hand. This is a good opportunity to take him out, however one wrong move and this could easily turn into a bad situation. Go...

5e provides all the tools to allow for this open type of play. The party can work out themselves how to get to Hell, get to the armies location on hell, bypass several thousand lesser and greater devils, defeat the dukes guard, kill him before he can teleport away to his masters (Bels) side and then quickly escape Hell before the whole place descends on them. Of all that, the easiest part is probably the actual fight - getting in and out is the hard bit.

I love this kind of open play. I don't really see how playing at this level can work any other way as the PCs (especially the spell casters) have the capability to completely destroy any DM plans - so best not to plan much at all

OB1 · Dec 4, 2016

[MENTION=9501]Prism[/MENTION] - That sounds like a great campaign! Really appreciate the actual play breakdown you gave. If I may, I think there are three really important rules for high level play that connect directly to your example that I'd like to highlight.

1. It's all about trust between the DM and Players. Playing in a level 20 campaign means having played for 200+ hours with a group, allowing for trust and chemistry to build up between everyone involved. A group with that much experience between them can jump right into a level 20 campaign, but I think it would be very difficult for 5 strangers to do so and have a good time.

2. Bounded accuracy still holds at level 20. 5e still works best when the party works as a Mission Impossible or Special Forces type group working deep in enemy territory to accomplish an objective. They can't fight the whole war, and the fewer encounters that turn to combat, the more likely they are to complete their true objective.

3. High CR monsters actively protect themselves against high level PCs. They employ powerful, corrupt magic users to protect them from teleportation, scrying, and a host of other tricks. They live on planes where they can have even greater control over the environment to give them every advantage possible over their enemies, and get into a direct confrontation only if there is no other choice.

I run a home brew that began in the Next playtest and currently has the PCs at level 12. I expect to bring the party up to level 20 in the next 18 months or so (if they don't do something stupid and get themselves TPKd first). It was right around level 10 when these three rules started becoming critical to my design. I've still been worried about it holding up as they get higher and higher in level, so your post gives me a lot of hope that I'm on the right track!

Henry · Dec 4, 2016

I haven't run above 9th level in 5e yet. I plan at this point to retire our curren campaign i'm running at level 12 or so, because they're nearing the end of the current arc, and I'm starting to burn out a bit. The point at which I have truble challenging the group, or can't come up with an engaging threat, is when I reture the campaign.

Just give them Alexander's choice -- they win, the land is safe, no more threats to conquer. Only instead of Death by Misadventure, it's death due to retirement and natural causes.