D&D General Adventurers in Faerun-The Book of Low and Mid Level Adventures?

[Reynard]

Which ones, and how do their sales compare to those mentioned above?

We could just start with most of Brandon Sanderson's work. Most of his stuff is high fantasy powered fantasy by any definition.

In fact, im a little suspect of WoT being on your low power fantasy list. As I recall, there's world shaking power in the hands of the protagonist and villain.

 

[Parmandur]

Personally, I would rather have no adventures in setting books. If I want an adventure I’ll buy an adventure, if I want a setting I’ll buy a setting.

Well, these are less "Advenfures" and more "pre-built sets of Encoutners with nice maps"

 

[Laurefindel]

The fact that published adventures stop at level 11-13 makes a lot of sense to me. In my experience, and in what seems to be many others as well, level 11-13 is the tipping point where the game starts to need to cater to your specific party composition, powers, and playstyle, in order to provide engaging, challenging, and somewhat coherent game material. By that point, PCs have many so options that planning for all possible options becomes impossible.

Also, a single adventure covering levels 1-20 would either be massive, repetitive, or leveling at an even faster pace than the already break-neck speed of published adventures. To be done well, a single adventure would probably have to cover 13-20 alone.

So it’s not so much that it’s difficult to write adventures for characters levels 13-20, it’s that it’s progressively harder to write an adventure for an unknown number of characters probably between 3 and 6) of any of the 12 character classes and corresponding subclasses, who may or may not have access to certain key spells, and with an unknown bagage of magic items.

At this point, publishers tell DMs “we showed you how to do it and your players have what it needs to make it to level 20. Here, we even made a handful of high-level monsters for you to use in a jam and to show you what we have in mind, so that you can make your villains and monsters since you know best how to challenge your group. If you’re not up to it or if it doesn’t sound fun, it’s cool, here’s another 1-13 adventure.”

Honestly, I can respect that, but I wish it was said more plainly.

 

[Reynard]

The fact that publish adventures stop at level 11-13 makes a lot of sense to me. In my experience and in what seems to be many others as well, level 11-13 is the tipping point g point where the game starts to need to cater to your specific party composition, powers and playstyle, in order to provide engaging, challenging, and somewhat coherent game material.

Also, a single adventure covering levels 1-20 would either be massive, repetitive, or leveling at an even faster pace than the already fast pace of published adventures. To be done well, a single adventure would probably have to cover 13-20 specifically.

So it’s not so much that it’s difficult to write adventures for characters levels 13-20, it’s that it’s progressively harder to write for an adventure for an unknown number of characters between 3 and 6 of any of the 12 character classes and corresponding subclasses, who may or may not have access to certain key spells, and an unknown bagage of magic items.

At this point, publishers tell DMs “we showed you how to do it and your players have what it needs to make it to level 20. Here, we even made a handful of high-level monsters for you to use in a jam and to show you what we have in mind, so that you can make your villains and monsters since you know best how to challenge your group. If you’re not up to it, it’s cool, here’s another 1-13 adventure.”

Honestly, I can respect that, but I wish it was said more plainly.

I agree, but there could still be more support for GMs. Show them how to make effective high level encounters that are fun and engaging. Talk about what kinds of challenges become trivialized by different kinds of high level abilities, and how to use those high level abilities instead of nerfing them. there is absolutely room -- need, even -- for a high level adventures book, even if it is just a big section of some "DMG 2".

 

[Parmandur]

We could just start with most of Brandon Sanderson's work. Most of his stuff is high fantasy powered fantasy by any definition.

In fact, im a little suspect of WoT being on your low power fantasy list. As I recall, there's world shaking power in the hands of the protagonist and villain.

Wheel of Time does get pretty epic...about Level 12 or 13, I reckon.

Sanderson often has high-powered magic, but his world also operate with entirely powerless characters being juat as important, D&D doesn't model it well.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Show them how to make effective high level encounters that are fun and engaging.

In order to do that, they would have to know how to do that. WotC aren’t holders of secret lore. If the experienced players on this forum don’t know how to do it neither does WotC.

 

[Laurefindel]

I agree, but there could still be more support for GMs. Show them how to make effective high level encounters that are fun and engaging. Talk about what kinds of challenges become trivialized by different kinds of high level abilities, and how to use those high level abilities instead of nerfing them. there is absolutely room -- need, even -- for a high level adventures book, even if it is just a big section of some "DMG 2".

Yes, I agree that there could be more support, but I’m not sure if that support should come in the form of a high-level adventure. A section in a DMG2-style book, or a dedicated make-you-own-high-level-adventure book, or even a series of essays and guides on a website like D&D beyond, would work better IMO.

 

[Laurefindel]

In order to do that, they would have to know how to do that. WotC aren’t holders of secret lore. If the experienced players on this forum don’t know how to do it neither does WotC.

True, fans can barely agree on how to run levels 1-13, I bet that no two groups would do 13-20 the same…

That said, WotC could provide examples on how they would do it with the experience and wisdom that they have, and their expectations on how their game should work mechanically speaking.

 

[Reynard]

Yes, I agree that there could be more support, but I’m not sure if that support should come in the form of a high-level adventure. A section in a DMG2-style book, or a dedicated make-you-own-high-level-adventure book, or even a series of essays and guides on a website like D&D beyond, would work better IMO.

If it were up to me, I would like a dedicated High level handbook with all those discussions and rules material, then a bunch of one page adventure and encounter seeds, and maybe a singular high level "one shot" to put all the pieces together.

 

[mearls]

So why design it that way? If leveling included elimination of (now largely useless) low level options as you gain the high level options, then the workload for everyone would go down.

Lack of time, really. Were I to hack 5e for better high level play, I think I'd try to build content for both DMs and players. So maybe something like this:

• Classes go to level 10 as normal
• For level 11+, the DM picks a campaign style and the classes get features that speak to that

5e as currently built assumes that same flow of play and core play loop from levels 1 to 20. I think that's a fundamental mistake. Earlier versions of D&D had it right in that the game needed to change in a fundamental way (shifting from adventuring to domain management) to remain interesting.