Advice on running high level adventures

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

The PCs will get out of terrible situations on their own. As others have said, don't take away their cool powers, require their cool powers. Why has no-one ever found the secret thingy? Maybe no-one else ever cast divination to find out what beats its guardian. Maybe none of the earlier groups could teleport. Maybe... I dunno.

Oh, I really like this approach. An adventure not surviving contact with PCs isn't such a bad thing after all! In fact, is a thing to be celebrated.

 

[Fieari]

By the way, the higher the level you go, the trickier it is to find good opponents. I'd like to plug the NPC wiki in my signature for that purpose. Plenty of stuff there. Really. Lots of classed characters, templated monsters, etc. I can't DM without it, really.

 

[shilsen]

By the way, the higher the level you go, the trickier it is to find good opponents. I'd like to plug the NPC wiki in my signature for that purpose. Plenty of stuff there. Really. Lots of classed characters, templated monsters, etc. I can't DM without it, really.

Since Rafael is speaking of 9th lvl PCs, I seriously doubt he's going to have a problem. In my experience, just the MM is more than enough for a campaign going from levels 1-20, especially since you now have the options and mechanics for enemies with classes, templates and hit dice advancement.

Linked to the above is something I've used with a lot of success - creating new monsters with old mechanics. Take a particular monster from the MM, completely change the flavor, and use it with unchanged stats. There are multiple advantages to such an approach. It drastically increases the number of monsters you have available for use, it requires no number-crunching, and it's especially good for facing veteran players with things they've never seen before. There have been some really good threads on ENWorld on the subject. One of the most evocative descriptions I remember was of a graveyard full of unusual undead who were attached to their individual gravestones and possessed spellcasting ability. Mechanically, they were dryads with minor modifications.

A small mechanical suggestion for higher level play too - try pre-rolling stuff. I've been pre-rolling attacks, damage, saves, spell damage, etc. for NPCs for years now. When you've got a dozen enemies making multiple attacks each vs. the PCs, being able to look at a sheet of paper with all their attack rolls and damage makes things much faster. I also keep a long list of d20 rolls, which I can refer to whenever needed.

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

Linked to the above is something I've used with a lot of success - creating new monsters with old mechanics. Take a particular monster from the MM, completely change the flavor, and use it with unchanged stats. There are multiple advantages to such an approach. It drastically increases the number of monsters you have available for use, it requires no number-crunching, and it's especially good for facing veteran players with things they've never seen before.

A small mechanical suggestion for higher level play too - try pre-rolling stuff.

Great practical advice, Shilsen. Thanks again!

 

[shilsen]

Great practical advice, Shilsen. Thanks again!

Sure. I've found threads like these very handy from when I joined ENWorld (way back when 3e was on the way) to now, but they often have a preponderance of broadly theoretical rather than practical suggestions, so I thought I'd redress the balance. I'll see if I can think of anything else.