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

[Zardnaar]

This is kind of a chicken and egg question, though, isn't it? If high level stuff is rare and often bad when it does get published, of course people who play at high levels are going to have to home brew.

Theres been a handful printed in Dungeon magazine. A few were good.

Labyrinth of Madness in 2E was interesting but has a reputation as a deathtrap dungeon. Its not ad bad as Tomb of Horrors.

We tried it but had a fatality in the first or second room.

1E had the last Drow one lol 10-14 and Tomb of Horrors as the big selling high level adventures.

Highest level printed in saw for 1E was 20 iirc highest we played was 12-14 adventure in Dungeon iirc.

3E highest we played was 21 with another Dungeon adventure. They had 1 at level 30 printed.

WotC said theres only 1% play lvl 15+ iirc.

4E technically had high level play but its power level is more level 3-10 stretched over 30 levels. Half those levels supported were essentially a waste of space.

Basically they made the product. It dudnt sell well comparatively or was buried/rare in Dungeon.

Paizos soaked their production back as well.

They're essentially impossible to write or very difficult. 3E had 3 high level APs. 2 were considered great.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Another thing that would be useful in selling high level adventures is redefining the "Tiers of Play", giving them names that clearly tell you what to expect, and then making likelihood of starting at higher levels more front and center.

Here's an idea. Since D&D makes so many different starter sets nowadays, how about one that that starts at like 11th level?

Players with experience are used to starting at 1st level. DMs are used to starting at 1st level. When you start at 1st level it is way less likely you'll play high level than if you start there!

The only way for this to happen is for WotC (or someone else with lots of name recognition and market share--maybe popular streamers) to make it front and center. If Critical Role started a campaign at 11th level, I bet lots of new people coming into D&D would be interested in that too. But WotC can do it in how the books are presented. First, you really do need a high-level starter set, since you can't really use a starter set without reading and absorbing most of what's in it. On the other hand, apparently a lot of people just reference the PHB+DMG, rather than reading and understanding what's in it. Both the 2014 and 2024 PHB have a sentence or two about potentially starting at higher level, but none of them put it front and center, so it makes sense that new players don't really even think of that as an option. It needs to be right there in the section about having a section zero or discussing the campaign--not in the character building chapter. There should be campaign decision steps, things like theme, etc, and one of the first and biggest ones should be campaign level. Something like this:

Step 3: Determine Campaign Level.
Every campaign starts at a certain experience level, represented how much adventuring experience, training, and raw power your characters might bring to the campaign. The DM should select a level that best fits the type of themes and settings to be explored. Starting at single-digit levels should never be assumed. From highest level to lowest level, the categories of campaigns are are described below.

Planar Champions (Levels 17+)
Characters at this level typically adventure out on the infinite planes where the sorts of threats needed to challenge them are found. They face...

World Heroes (Levels 11-16)
At this level, your characters are probably some of the best known heroes of your world. You are likely to face at least one world-endangering threat during the campaign. Your adventures might involve overthrowing or founding nations or facing ancient mythic foes. It's very unlikely that your adventures will be isolated to a particular location or region, as you'll need to range far and wide to face the sorts of challenges appropriate for these levels. You might...

Champions of the Realm (Levels 5-10)
Characters at this level are quite powerful, and usually treated with at least some degree of respect by the authorities. The kinds of adventures they participate in can include almost all of the classic D&D threats, including high level foes like dragons and liches with enough lead up. At this level, it's quite possible that your adventures might be limited to a certain nation, or centered around a city, where you face threats and problem limited to that region...

Real Adventurers (Levels 1-4)
Characters that start at these levels have learned the skills necessary to be an adventurer, but are still gaining experience with the world. They typically are only well-known in locations they've personally visited, not across a nation or region. Local authorities and petty criminals can still pose a credible threat to these adventurers...

(See what I did there by listing high level first and making the hypothetical reader go through the list before they get to low level? That's what you have to do to reverse (or in this case, just expand to offer more options) role-playing generations of tradition.)

Put that in the PHB, make a starter set at level 11 or so, have popular streamers start at high level, and people will play it.

 

[Parmandur]

Another thing that would be useful in selling high level adventures is redefining the "Tiers of Play", giving them names that clearly tell you what to expect, and then making likelihood of starting at higher levels more front and center.

Here's an idea. Since D&D makes so many different starter sets nowadays, how about one that that starts at like 11th level?

Players with experience are used to starting at 1st level. DMs are used to starting at 1st level. When you start at 1st level it is way less likely you'll play high level than if you start there!

The only way for this to happen is for WotC (or someone else with lots of name recognition and market share--maybe popular streamers) to make it front and center. If Critical Role started a campaign at 11th level, I bet lots of new people coming into D&D would be interested in that too. But WotC can do it in how the books are presented. First, you really do need a high-level starter set, since you can't really use a starter set without reading and absorbing most of what's in it. On the other hand, apparently a lot of people just reference the PHB+DMG, rather than reading and understanding what's in it. Both the 2014 and 2024 PHB have a sentence or two about potentially starting at higher level, but none of them put it front and center, so it makes sense that new players don't really even think of that as an option. It needs to be right there in the section about having a section zero or discussing the campaign--not in the character building chapter. There should be campaign decision steps, things like theme, etc, and one of the first and biggest ones should be campaign level. Something like this:

Step 3: Determine Campaign Level.
Every campaign starts at a certain experience level, represented how much adventuring experience, training, and raw power your characters might bring to the campaign. The DM should select a level that best fits the type of themes and settings to be explored. Starting at single-digit levels should never be assumed. From highest level to lowest level, the categories of campaigns are are described below.

Planar Champions (Levels 17+)
Characters at this level typically adventure out on the infinite planes where the sorts of threats needed to challenge them are found. They face...

World Heroes (Levels 11-16)
At this level, your characters are probably some of the best known heroes of your world. You are likely to face at least one world-endangering threat during the campaign. Your adventures might involve overthrowing or founding nations or facing ancient mythic foes. It's very unlikely that your adventures will be isolated to a particular location or region, as you'll need to range far and wide to face the sorts of challenges appropriate for these levels. You might...

Champions of the Realm (Levels 5-10)
Characters at this level are quite powerful, and usually treated with at least some degree of respect by the authorities. The kinds of adventures they participate in can include almost all of the classic D&D threats, including high level foes like dragons and liches with enough lead up. At this level, it's quite possible that your adventures might be limited to a certain nation, or centered around a city, where you face threats and problem limited to that region...

Real Adventurers (Levels 1-4)
Characters that start at these levels have learned the skills necessary to be an adventurer, but are still gaining experience with the world. They typically are only well-known in locations they've personally visited, not across a nation or region. Local authorities and petty criminals can still pose a credible threat to these adventurers...

(See what I did there by listing high level first and making the hypothetical reader go through the list before they get to low level? That's what you have to do to reverse (or in this case, just expand to offer more options) role-playing generations of tradition.)

Put that in the PHB, make a starter set at level 11 or so, have popular streamers start at high level, and people will play it.

You realize that the PHB and DMG already do this, and suggest starting at Level 3 as the norm...?

 

[Zardnaar]

I cant realky write a decent high level encounter. I suspect I may have the most experience running at higher level ECMO3 is an exception for 5e.

Its an art form. You need to know the monsters well, maximize terrain and probably extra planar effects.

My campaigns ending at 13. Each "random" encounter is essentially the PCs getting hit with a piece of the abyss for 20d6 damage or a meteor swarm missile. That then spawns a low or medium encounter.

They have to deal with 3 fixed encounters each a high encounter.
Final boss fight rulebooks out the window its a double high encounter. Plus abyssal effects. Campaign end so TPK may not be unheard of.

If I had a tier 4 design all the gloves come off. Hidden Archmages with meteorswarms CR 15+ + minions. Hordes of CR2-4 with spells, 4-6 mooks with counterspells. Brutes are gonna backed up either CR12 archmages with customized spell lists. Brutes start at CR8.

PCs are getting hit with command/hold/Tasha's. 3 NPCS with 12d6 AoEs and large initiative modifiers who cares take 36d6 damage. If players are using spells from Tasha's and Xanathars so are the NPCs. Spell DCs will be in the 20-25 range.

 

[Clint_L]

Step 3: Determine Campaign Level.
Every campaign starts at a certain experience level, represented how much adventuring experience, training, and raw power your characters might bring to the campaign. The DM should select a level that best fits the type of themes and settings to be explored. Starting at single-digit levels should never be assumed. From highest level to lowest level, the categories of campaigns are are described below.

Planar Champions (Levels 17+)
Characters at this level typically adventure out on the infinite planes where the sorts of threats needed to challenge them are found. They face...

World Heroes (Levels 11-16)
At this level, your characters are probably some of the best known heroes of your world. You are likely to face at least one world-endangering threat during the campaign. Your adventures might involve overthrowing or founding nations or facing ancient mythic foes. It's very unlikely that your adventures will be isolated to a particular location or region, as you'll need to range far and wide to face the sorts of challenges appropriate for these levels. You might...

Champions of the Realm (Levels 5-10)
Characters at this level are quite powerful, and usually treated with at least some degree of respect by the authorities. The kinds of adventures they participate in can include almost all of the classic D&D threats, including high level foes like dragons and liches with enough lead up. At this level, it's quite possible that your adventures might be limited to a certain nation, or centered around a city, where you face threats and problem limited to that region...

Real Adventurers (Levels 1-4)
Characters that start at these levels have learned the skills necessary to be an adventurer, but are still gaining experience with the world. They typically are only well-known in locations they've personally visited, not across a nation or region. Local authorities and petty criminals can still pose a credible threat to these adventurers...

I know that these sorts of tiers appeal to lots of folks. I hate them. I think that threat inflation leads to boring, predictable stories where the stakes no longer really matter. And I think that's why so few campaigns run to high levels: the stakes have become unrelatable.

Above all, I do not do world/universe/multiverse ending plots. Maybe I would if I was ending the campaign and wanted to commit to potentially never using that setting again with that group of players, but otherwise, the stakes could not be more fake.

I just build stories out of the character's backgrounds and choices and then adjust the threats to their character level. So, for eample, in my home campaign the characters are finally getting around to revisiting the estranged father of a party member; I've known for awhile that he is in trouble with a local consortium, but since they are now level 7 the goons strong arming him will be trolls instead of ogres, etc.

 

[saviirkad]

My own experience, which is limited, I started DMing in 2018 and my first campaign is just now nearing its end as a full lvl 1- 20 campaign. I've had other games end earlier than that, it's just the one I'm taking all the way to 20. I'm a big cannibalizer, like molding and rewriting official and third party content to fit my own adventures and world and story.

What I've found, as just my own experience, was this worked really, really well until about lvl 12ish. It's not that I ran out of material to cannibalize, or that the material shifted in quality because I was pulling from different third party writers. Same writers as I was gleefully reworking before, and I've spent way too much on third party content, I've got more than enough content to pull from.

It just became harder and harder to get things to fit my own story and world. It became easier to create from scratch, or rather, to build off of what has already been established but without the aid of external material. I'd like to think it's because I've improved, but once I get back to the lower levels, I'm right back to cannibalizing content with ease and preference.

So, while I have an academic interest in lvl 13+ content, at this point I just don't think I have any need or use for it.

 

[DragonLancer]

The only problem I find with high level play from the DM's side of the screen is being aware of what spells and abilities your player's characters have access to. You need to be aware so that you can adapt what you are writing or modifying to accommodate for those weird way out spells/powers. If they have access to 3rd party books it can get even worse.

 

[Reynard]

My 2024 campaign is very intentionally moving quickly toward high level play. We started at 3rd but every few sessions we level up just so we can get to those levels with some context and player familiarity with abilities.

I ran a super successful high level con game, so I am not worried about encounter design. I'm more worried about other elements of play impacted by high level abilities.