D&D 5E The challenges of high level adventure design.

[Stalker0]

So here are the general "categories" of high level things to consider:

Raw Powaa
This is just the raw amount of awesome the PCs can bring into your combats. A few ways to handle this:

• Narratively: As mentioned before, its perfectly fine when a high level party encounters a mundane threat to just put the dice away and have everyone describe how utterly badass they are. For some players, this is actually way more enjoyable than the "real combats".
• More encounters: More attrition is generally needed at high levels.
• Time Limit: Probably one of the most important things to me at the high levels. You give a high level parties a week, almost nothing can stop them. A day, they are kicking butt. An hour....ok now things are interesting.
• BBEG is never shown until the end: The real BBEG should never be accessible until the very end. Either they are locked away in some planar vault (aka REALLY locked away), or the party doesn't even know who the actual BBEG is (though be wary of divinations in this respect), or they defeat the BBEG who then turns into the REAL BBEG (ala final fantasy style). If you do anything less than this, just expect your BBEG to get snipped along the way.
• The end place neither needs to be epic or mobile. If the adventure resolves around a static place, you are just opening up the door for epic shenanigans to ruin your day. So either the place needs to be suitable epic so that normal high level shenanigans would not work (like Asmodeus' palace or something), or it needs to be a place that can shifts or move around so the party can't just target it.

Divinations
well used divinations can be very powerful and potentially adventure disrupting. A few things to consider:

• Create a problem without a known solution: Part of the fun of DMing high level adventures is....you don't have to have everything worked out. Feel free to create puzzles that you don't know the answer to, in your head you go "I honestly don't know how to get into this thing" and then let the players flex their high level investigatory and divination skills to try and find solutions.
• Mysteries are the means, not the end. The classic murder mystery does not exist at high levels, its just too difficult. Instead, make that the B plot, a side thing that leads to the real adventure.
• If a divination doesn't work, have a good reason why. Spoiling a divination is fine once in a while to shake things up, but if your ham fisted with it, it will just deflate the party.
• Counter divination: What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If your party is using divinations to sniff out the BBEG, no reason they can't use the same. Feel free to create traps and scenarios specifically tailored to the weakness of one of your party.....as the BBEG of course has learned about their most important threats.

Teleportation

• Nothing is linear at high levels. Just throw away the linear dungeon at high levels, it doesn't work well. Instead go for a "need X things" approach. Example: A dungeon where you need 6 keys from 6 different rooms to open up the planar door (not a regular door, high level parties would smash that, has to be some crazy space door). Now make those 6 different rooms exist in 6 different planes. Now, make one of the door only exist in the past. Ok now we are talking!
• Move away from Space towards Time. Getting to the X place is no problem...but the party also must get there by X time. This combined with good time pressure can add a nice element, or it can slow the adventure down to allow for more proper pacing.
• Use Teleport blockers sparingly. Having an entire dungeon teleport proof is a bit meh....having one small room in a dungeon proofed can be a nice play.

Consider a series of high level adventures versus a "campaign". To me the biggest issue with high levels is the "campaign". Having 1-3 adventures at high levels with some world ending threat....sure its a ton of fun. Trying to do another 10-15 sessions....well now your having to up the ante all the time, and it makes world building a lot more difficult. High level is the endgame, there is no issue with just pushing the game till its natural end.

 

[Mort]

I think a lot of DMs looking for a module want to have the problem and solution given to them. While a lot of the solutions may be flexible, they also need to have guidelines for what the writer was thinking. I'm not sure I would buy an adventure that did not offer at least one solution for the problems.

The problem with that, in my experience, is that if the adventure provides a specific solution - MANY DMs will treat that as THE ONLY viable solution and will block other viable options (seen it happen WAY too often).

For a high level adventure, the adventure should provide an example solution but make it clear that it is just an example. High level PCs will have many, many options, the DM should accept (better yet encourage) any viable option the PCs come up with.

 

[Maxperson]

Another design difficulty I can think of for high level adventures is that it is very difficult to wear down high level character resources, and high level characters going Nova is an order of magnitude more disruptive to CR than low or mid level characters going Nova.

If you change the rest times it helps a lot. Going once long rest per week or long rest when the DM says you get one makes it a lot easier to wear down high level resources. Players are a lot less likely to nova if they don't know what will happen before the next long rest.

 

[Reynard]

Consider a series of high level adventures versus a "campaign". To me the biggest issue with high levels is the "campaign". Having 1-3 adventures at high levels with some world ending threat....sure its a ton of fun. Trying to do another 10-15 sessions....well now your having to up the ante all the time, and it makes world building a lot more difficult. High level is the endgame, there is no issue with just pushing the game till its natural end.

I explicitly wanted to discuss this at the adventure scale rather than the campaign scale because of the conversations that prompted this thread. Campaigns are a whole different problem altogether, high level or otherwise, but are easier to provide solutions for because you can set the rules of a campaign from the beginning. Stand alone adventures presumably occur within the context of a campaign and so changing the rules just for an adventure isn't necessarily a viable solution (although we have seen adventures do it, just not well IMO).

 

[John R Davis]

Gate was an interesting spell because, as in the adventure I created, if the deity is in its home plane it can stop Gates from opening.

 

[J-H]

I explicitly wanted to discuss this at the adventure scale rather than the campaign scale because of the conversations that prompted this thread. Campaigns are a whole different problem altogether, high level or otherwise, but are easier to provide solutions for because you can set the rules of a campaign from the beginning. Stand alone adventures presumably occur within the context of a campaign and so changing the rules just for an adventure isn't necessarily a viable solution (although we have seen adventures do it, just not well IMO).

What do you find most problematic at high levels?
-Damage output
-Party hit points
-Divination/info gathering
-Teleportation/Mobility
-Something Else?

 

[Blue]

I like this and hope to use the idea if my group ever gets to high level without wanting to start a new campaign. The idea that all the goblins disappear once the PCs are level 5 or giants once the PCs are level 10 breaks belief and throwing something like this may move things along and allow for players to improv some.

I agree. Also I've found it's good to remind the players that they have been getting more powerful - when monsters advance to match PC leveling, sometimes there's not as much of a feeling of growing more powerful. The occasional one sided fight, especially like "remember when we had problems with one ogre and now we just wiped the floor with four of them" is a great thing for making them feel heroic. And then even beyond you keep the foes in the world but dont' spend time zooming to the per-action level of comabt which takes up valuable session time for a forgone conclusion.

 

[Mort]

If you change the rest times it helps a lot. Going once long rest per week or long rest when the DM says you get one makes it a lot easier to wear down high level resources. Players are a lot less likely to nova if they don't know what will happen before the next long rest.

Right.

The key with high level adventures (also with low level ones, but it's not quite as important) is to NOT allow the PCs to completely dictate the pace of play.

If the adventure fails to do that the staggering amount of resources high level PCs can muster will completely overwhelm it.

 

[Reynard]

What do you find most problematic at high levels?
-Damage output
-Party hit points
-Divination/info gathering
-Teleportation/Mobility
-Something Else?

Maybe I'm not being clear:

The purpose of this thread is to identify the design challenges in creating high level adventures for a general audience that some people suggest makes the prospect difficult or impossible, and then engineer solutions to those problems.

I personally don't think it is an insurmountable difficulty, although there are certainly some specific aspects of high level play that need to be considered.

 

[Minigiant]

Why not? What are the nigh-insurmountable design challenges for a 17th level dungeon? What are some potential solutions to those challenges?

Why not? I mean I wouldn't do a lot of it, but I don't see why it couldn't work.

The assumption behind dungeon design is the crafter is much stronger or powerful than the PCs so much that the obstacles are challenges.

5e doesn't have level 30 stuff.