D&D 5E High Level Adventure Ideas

[Unwise]

A natural disaster devastates a city, like a volcano. Can the PCs stop some key buildings falling? Rescue folks from burning buildings? Fight against a flood to reach the orphanage? There are the occasional elementals and looters appearing and causing problems, but combating them is not the point. It is the damage they are doing and the fact they are stopping emergency workers that is a the problem.

Most PCs will have to think of new ways to use powers to be useful. Killing stuff won't help much.

<edit> Adding a second idea. My campaign was set in the Warhammer world. A few of the players are from Bretonnia, which is a really crappy place with practically enslaved peasants. They decided to overthrow the place in a communist revolution. Was a great mix of intrigue, politics and combat. They had to get the OK from The Empire, to put their minds at ease that such a revolution would not catch on there. They had to talk to the elves to get them to stop giving religious backing and authority to the current king. Recruited some Robin Hood style guy to their cause, along with his merry men. It was a great game. Especially because it is something they chose to do on their own, it was tied into backstories they wrote 3 years ago.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If you're looking for high level 5th Edition stuff, Crpyt of the Devil Lich is still live on Kickstarter!

 

[Reynard]

If you're looking for high level 5th Edition stuff, Crpyt of the Devil Lich is still live on Kickstarter!

See, stuff like this is exactly the problem. it's like people don't think you can do actual adventures for high level characters -- you have to do killer dungeons or god-murdering planar romps or world shattering campaign enders.

The adventure ecosystem of any D&D campaign setting should be able to support high level play that doesn't either fundamentally change or threaten the setting, or demand rule breaking Gygaxian trickery to accomplish.

 

[Quartz]

5E has a distinct lack of high level (13th+) content. I know there is some DMsGuild content but even that is spare.

So, if you want high level adventures for 5E, what do they look like? Planar adventures? World shaking events? Deep dungeons full of Balrogs and liches?

Given that most of the 5e adventures end around 10th-13th, what would a big 12thish to 20th adventure look like?

There's plenty of stuff in Dungeon magazine. Look up Quadripartite, the Shadows of Istivin, and so on.

 

[jayoungr]

I always put in a good word for Palace of the Red Pasha, a level 16 adventure (intended as a sequel to Tyranny of Dragons) that involves infiltrating the pasha's court and searching for the location of a secret Cult of the Dragon stronghold rumored to be located underneath his palace.

 

[jayoungr]

I'm also running a world-hopping campaign that's currently at level 14. It's sort of planar in that the players travel from one world to another by way of portals, but within each world, the adventures typically deal with high-level threats native to that place. So far, the major "bosses" they have fought include a powerful vampire, an oni, a mummy, a lich, some giants, and a few homebrew monsters.

 

[Reynard]

There's plenty of stuff in Dungeon magazine. Look up Quadripartite, the Shadows of Istivin, and so on.

Which issue numbers cover 5E?

 

[Quartz]

Which issue numbers cover 5E?

None, but converting 3E to 5E isn't so difficult.

 

[Reynard]

None, but converting 3E to 5E isn't so difficult.

I mean, I guess? Maybe? It depends?

In any case that wasn't what I was aiming for.