D&D 5E NPCs above 20th Level in 5E

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

How do you go about designing NPCs above 20th level, or at least above a challenge level of 20, in 5E?
For example, Acererak will apparently be a challenge level 25 NPC. Other NPCs from D&D's past stories have been that high or higher.
How do you go about about designing such an NPC?

 

[dave2008]

How do you go about designing NPCs above 20th level, or at least above a challenge level of 20, in 5E?
For example, Acererak will apparently be a challenge level 25 NPC. Other NPCs from D&D's past stories have been that high or higher.
How do you go about about designing such an NPC?

Just wanted to clarify that Acererak will be a CR 25 monster. That is not the same as a "challenge level" 25 battle.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Levels aren't the same as challenge rating, and NPCs don't have levels (nothing stopping you from creating an NPC with levels, just that that's not how they are initially designed). So if you want to create a CR25 NPC, I'd use the existing guidelines for any other CR25 creature, and probably look at other CR25 creatures to get a good feel about what to include.

For example, a "level 20" NPC isn't going to be a CR20 NPC. They'd be lower than that because a CR20 NPC is supposed to be for 4ea level 20 PCs. That means if you do use levels for your NPCs, you're going to have to not only max out at level 20, but then give a lot more features to make it a CR20, like a lot more HP, legendary actions probably, etc in addition to the class features.

 

[kbrakke]

Ignoring the terminology criss-cross: When I make a very challenging character for my players to fight, I make their combat ability an extreme example of the characters skill. A semi-recent example was when my players were gearing up with their final showdown against a Rakshasa Maharaja who had been antagonizing them for levels. The players were level 24 by this point, so a simple rakshasa would just die. To make him a solo encounter worthy of a story arc ending I made him a very powerful wizard, but not just "a" wizard, I made him the best wizard he could be for scheming and plotting. This meant I wanted his ability in combat to reflect his duplicitous nature. In this way he had made several simulacra of himself (5 others) with a portion of his spellcasting and gave him the ability to swap places with his duplicates. (A combination of the benign transposition and the trickery cleric). So I take two normal medium to high level things (An archmage and a Rakshasa) and combine them with a twist(An archmage rakshasa with a squad of simulacra who buff him and who he can swap places with.)

Another tactic I employ is make a rough approximation of a high level character and then give it some magical twist, either an item that the players can then get, or some unique thing that puts them over the edge of normal PC ability. Legendary actions are a simple start and let the players know that the enemy is like them but more, but not the only way. Another Rakshasa based example. An associate of the wizard confronted the party, she was the brawn. So I started with her being a 20th level fighter. Then I added legendary actions and a unique item. Her sword was a sentient vorpal blade with her dead sister. The players were astonished and frightened when half way through the fight she commanded her sword to fight, and then began to tear in to the PCs with claws and bites while the sword now had its own turn.

So that's what I do. High level character with a twist, or take one aspect to an extreme.

 

[jgsugden]

If you're looking for inspiration, look in your DMG at page 227 for Rewards at 20th level for guidance.

I've already designed character advancement for several classes to take them to 30th level. If I were to put a 'PC class' NPC into the game with a CR above 13th level, I'd use these rules (which I think would track through ~ CR 20 for level 30). They make great use of those 'Rewards at 20th' guidance.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Levels aren't the same as challenge rating, and NPCs don't have levels (nothing stopping you from creating an NPC with levels, just that that's not how they are initially designed).

That's a curious claim. I think you mean "that's not how MM-style NPCs are designed", which is nearly tautological. But the rules for PHB-style NPCs came out first, in the PHB, way before the MM was published. The PHB gives rules for creating "characters", some of which are PCs and some of which are NPCs. The MM just came along later with a simpler form of NPC template, for cases where you want that.

Anyway, if you want a level 20+ NPC, you have two options:

(1) Make him level 20 with a bunch of epic boons; or
(2) Make something up.

You can formalize #2 by writing explicit rules for advancement beyond 20th level (I have) or you can just slap on whatever you feel like (e.g. proficiency in every save, legendary resistance), using basically the MM methodology. Which one you choose probably depends on whether you want your Acererak to be a passive force in the campaign (shows up for the "boss fight" and dies to the PCs in glorious combat) or an active force moving pieces behind the scenes and fighting intelligently. If the latter, you probably want him to be a real NPC with real motivations and capabilities, doing things that PCs could at least in theory do, and it's probably worth thinking up at least some rough rules for how you want characters beyond level 20 to function. E.g. does concentration work differently for them? Do they gain extra save proficiencies? How is his big evil plan going to work, mechanically speaking?

 

[TheNoremac42]

Usually when I make a custom boss battle, I often design the boss as I would a character or take an existing monster and give it character levels. The first one was a lvl 9 death cleric. I even created a pair of celestial goddesses that are lvl 30 characters (Solar is lvl 20 cleric / lvl 10 fighter, while Lunar is lvl 20 arcane trickster / lvl 10 illusion wizard). However, characters have a very low HP pool compared to monsters. That lvl 9 cleric lasted about 3 rounds against a handful of level 4s because he had so little HP. Make sure to follow the charts in the DMG when you're creating new monsters. They make good guidelines.

 

[CapnZapp]

How do you go about designing NPCs above 20th level, or at least above a challenge level of 20, in 5E?
For example, Acererak will apparently be a challenge level 25 NPC. Other NPCs from D&D's past stories have been that high or higher.
How do you go about about designing such an NPC?

Since NPCs don't use classes and don't have levels, there's really no problem that can't be solved here. Just add more Hit Dice, more and stronger attacks, more tactical tricks, and more spells.

Have your epic spellcasters (as opposed to monsters with spells) break any rule on casting you like. To me, there's nothing controversial in having Epic spellcasters break the rules on concentration, attunement or even how many spells you can cast in a round.

 

[BookBarbarian]

If I wanted to create a CR 25 nPC I'd grab an existing CR 25 creature and start tweaking it. Because I'm lazy, and I'd rather copy/paste as much as I can. So I guess I'd start with Tiamat, Orcus, or something like that.

 

[hastur_nz]

Personally I've only run one game to 20th level and beyond, and am not sure I have the fortitude to do it again (but you never know). So when I did, I used more of a "late-4e Epic" kind of approach to my high-level NPC type foes (ala 4e MM2 / MM3 / DMG2), and also key 'monsters', i.e. the BBEG types. The existing Legendary creatures in published 5e books, are woefully inadequate for final-boss types, especially if you don't give them a pile of allies to try and stop the P's just focused-fire killing them immediately. For example, a MM Lich is totally inadequate as a CR21 (level 18 caster) - don't use that as your template!
Basically, it's a lot of work if you want something useful.