D&D 5E Challenging High-Level 5e Characters

[Luz]

What are your favorite tricks that keep the threat high but don't take agency away from the characters or the choices the players made in building them?

Some good advice already mentioned. A tried and true tactic that proves effective at any level is blinding the party with darkness (or maddening darkness) and pitting them against opponents who can see through that darkness (anything with blindsight, tremorsense, devil’s sight, etc.). A group of yuan ti nightmare speakers proved extremely troublesome for my high level group, especially when there were other enemy types to contend with. It’s simple enough to negate with a daylight spell (unless no one in the party has that spell), but you can swap one of the nightmare speaker’s spellcasting spells for counterspell to make it more difficult.

I’ve also used a couple of invisible diviner wizards with a mind flayer, but pairing diviners with anything that has a powerful attack that requires a save is very effective. Their portent reactions can really set a party on their heels.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

How is that fun for the players?

I take your point. What's not fun for the players is grindy combats that take a full session (or longer) to resolve. What is fun is a dynamic combat with a sense of genuine peril. At higher level, a character who is dropped to zero hit points is usually back on their feet by the time their turn comes around. Only now they're mad!

 

[LordEntrails]

Reading through all of this and remember other similar threads and discussions it has always baffled me that people think it is impossible or even hard to challenge high level characters. It's just so foreign to my experience.

So I sat back and thought, what do I do to make things challenging for powerful characters? (This can be high magic, optimized, high level characters, or even very good tactical players.)

The first realization about how I do this and why it works is that decades ago I made the realization that RAW is simply a guideline. It's not a commandment. Now, it's important you follow up this realization with another, this does not mean you change the player's expectations of the world (i.e. "the rules"), that you fake die rolls, that you change the results of an action on the fly. Consistency is key to player enjoyment. Players must feel that every time they do X, then Y happens (unless Z happens which negates X or Y). Sleep behaves like sleep, a Finger of Death is a Finger of Death, and a Sword of Sharpness behaves like a sword of sharpness.

Now, what's the first thing I "adjust"? The encounter rating system. It's not that the CR and XP per day are wrong, they simple don't work for every group. You have to adapt to your group. And most groups when they reach high level, assuming they have started the characters at low level and have played through all the levels as a psuedo-normal pace, are much more capable than a default group is per the encounter guidelines.

My last high level group could handle 3-5 past Deadly encounters per adventuring day. But pick up or rotating groups rarely can, regardless of character level.

The next thing I "adjust" are the monsters. I often don't bother for low-levels and minions, but for key opponents, and at higher levels, I almost always do. In part it's why I love NPC source books.

The simplest adjustments are HP, Damage, AC, Saves. But those are not interesting by themselves after you have done them once or twice (i.e. create a goblin brute, or an ogre champion). This makes the combat 'harder' and the opponents 'tougher'. Next is to change up standard spell lists. No reason an acolyte or archmage needs the spells as listed in the MM. Similarly is adding new actions/reactions/bonus actions to 'standard' NPCs. These two makes the encounters unusual, and harder to predict and plan counter strategies. The last major category of adjustments is kind of the last, replace existing abilities with new ones. There is little reason a CR 30 creature needs 45 different possible actions. Remove all the standard ones. If you ever need them, then just do it (Yes, Elminster can cast any cantrip if they ever need it, but don't bother to confuse the stat block with such things). This keeps the uniqueness of the BBEG, but also makes them usable and playable by the DM.

So that's adjusting the NPCs to make the game fun and challenging at high levels. But it's not the only thing needed (and should probably start in tier 2 play). Other things to do are:

• Change the definition of success and failure. Each encounter does not need to be about kick in the door, kill the monster.
• Mix up the terrain. Add hazards and traps. Add elevation & strongpoints.
• Change the NPCs objectives and tactics. Maybe they fight to the death, but what about surrender or flight or a totally different object (kill one specific PC and take their head). Change who the NPCs focus on, and give them the abilities to counter that PC (anti-magic to get the wizard; poison or paralysis for the brute, etc).

The one big take-away from these ideas is variety. Change things up. Not every battle is a fight to the death. Not every success is killing the monsters. Not every orc has the same HP or attacks. Not every fight is about killing the wizard (or the barbarian, or...). Not every encounter is an open field where the Party can pick their own tactics.

And note how I did not set 'rules' like double HP, make damage 1.5 times, now much XP per adventuring day, etc? That's because no two adventuring parties are the same. We can make guidelines, but not rules because different players, characters and DMs will play differently. (And many of the other posts give great guidelines that work for other tables.)

Therefore, each DM needs to learn and develop their own guidelines for each campaign (though if the players stay the same between campaigns this may be very similar from one campaign to the next). What are the tools a DM can use to learn what these adjustments are for their campaign?

The first is hidden resources. These are things like waves or BBEG Stages. Things that the PCs don't know about. Waves are a great resource for a DM to learn how capable a party is. Stages can work too, but imo are critical to foreshadow to the party (otherwise it might just be DM fiat to grant a new pool of HP etc). Waves should also be 'logical'. Another wave of ogres need to come from somewhere. If they don't it will just annoy the players. Something to note, don't always use these techniques; remember the previous take-away? Variety.

The next tool is to understand that not every encounter needs to have a significant risk of failure. The bandits that raid the party camp at night are easily defeated (killed, captured, chased off), but the encounter can be effective for many reasons. Such as; interrupt a long rest, foreshadow their return, set a since of realism that this place is dangerous (if only to commoners), or even just let the high level party feel powerful, etc. This acceptance gives the DM the ability to try something and if it's not the challenge they expected, then no big deal, it was still a useful encounter.

The third to is to realize the NPCs objective may not be to kill the party. A TPK doesn't mean the end. Not at high levels. So the epic beholder and his allies have defeated the party in combat, maybe they refuse to chase a fleeing party because of paranoia of a trap. Maybe the rez the party without their gear and in prison because they have a use for the party (geas anyone?). Again, if the challenges are more complex than kick in the door and kill the monster, defeat is just a setback or new twist to the story that is evolving.

And though not really related to high level play at all, if a DM takes the approach of open play and not having a set storyline, that allows these "errors"/"mistakes"/"problems" to instead just be exciting and unexpected turning points in the story.

The TLDR is:

• Mix things up (NPC stat blocks, terrain/locations, definition of success)
• There is no set recipe that works for every campaign
• Keep the campaign going by keeping the story open to develop as play progresses

 

[Distracted DM]

Reading through all of this and remember other similar threads and discussions it has always baffled me that people think it is impossible or even hard to challenge high level characters. It's just so foreign to my experience.

So I sat back and thought, what do I do to make things challenging for powerful characters? (This can be high magic, optimized, high level characters, or even very good tactical players.)

The first realization about how I do this and why it works is that decades ago I made the realization that RAW is simply a guideline. It's not a commandment. Now, it's important you follow up this realization with another, this does not mean you change the player's expectations of the world (i.e. "the rules"), that you fake die rolls, that you change the results of an action on the fly. Consistency is key to player enjoyment. Players must feel that every time they do X, then Y happens (unless Z happens which negates X or Y). Sleep behaves like sleep, a Finger of Death is a Finger of Death, and a Sword of Sharpness behaves like a sword of sharpness.

Now, what's the first thing I "adjust"? The encounter rating system. It's not that the CR and XP per day are wrong, they simple don't work for every group. You have to adapt to your group. And most groups when they reach high level, assuming they have started the characters at low level and have played through all the levels as a psuedo-normal pace, are much more capable than a default group is per the encounter guidelines.

My last high level group could handle 3-5 past Deadly encounters per adventuring day. But pick up or rotating groups rarely can, regardless of character level.

The next thing I "adjust" are the monsters. I often don't bother for low-levels and minions, but for key opponents, and at higher levels, I almost always do. In part it's why I love NPC source books.

The simplest adjustments are HP, Damage, AC, Saves. But those are not interesting by themselves after you have done them once or twice (i.e. create a goblin brute, or an ogre champion). This makes the combat 'harder' and the opponents 'tougher'. Next is to change up standard spell lists. No reason an acolyte or archmage needs the spells as listed in the MM. Similarly is adding new actions/reactions/bonus actions to 'standard' NPCs. These two makes the encounters unusual, and harder to predict and plan counter strategies. The last major category of adjustments is kind of the last, replace existing abilities with new ones. There is little reason a CR 30 creature needs 45 different possible actions. Remove all the standard ones. If you ever need them, then just do it (Yes, Elminster can cast any cantrip if they ever need it, but don't bother to confuse the stat block with such things). This keeps the uniqueness of the BBEG, but also makes them usable and playable by the DM.

So that's adjusting the NPCs to make the game fun and challenging at high levels. But it's not the only thing needed (and should probably start in tier 2 play). Other things to do are:

• Change the definition of success and failure. Each encounter does not need to be about kick in the door, kill the monster.
• Mix up the terrain. Add hazards and traps. Add elevation & strongpoints.
• Change the NPCs objectives and tactics. Maybe they fight to the death, but what about surrender or flight or a totally different object (kill one specific PC and take their head). Change who the NPCs focus on, and give them the abilities to counter that PC (anti-magic to get the wizard; poison or paralysis for the brute, etc).

The one big take-away from these ideas is variety. Change things up. Not every battle is a fight to the death. Not every success is killing the monsters. Not every orc has the same HP or attacks. Not every fight is about killing the wizard (or the barbarian, or...). Not every encounter is an open field where the Party can pick their own tactics.

And note how I did not set 'rules' like double HP, make damage 1.5 times, now much XP per adventuring day, etc? That's because no two adventuring parties are the same. We can make guidelines, but not rules because different players, characters and DMs will play differently. (And many of the other posts give great guidelines that work for other tables.)

Therefore, each DM needs to learn and develop their own guidelines for each campaign (though if the players stay the same between campaigns this may be very similar from one campaign to the next). What are the tools a DM can use to learn what these adjustments are for their campaign?

The first is hidden resources. These are things like waves or BBEG Stages. Things that the PCs don't know about. Waves are a great resource for a DM to learn how capable a party is. Stages can work too, but imo are critical to foreshadow to the party (otherwise it might just be DM fiat to grant a new pool of HP etc). Waves should also be 'logical'. Another wave of ogres need to come from somewhere. If they don't it will just annoy the players. Something to note, don't always use these techniques; remember the previous take-away? Variety.

The next tool is to understand that not every encounter needs to have a significant risk of failure. The bandits that raid the party camp at night are easily defeated (killed, captured, chased off), but the encounter can be effective for many reasons. Such as; interrupt a long rest, foreshadow their return, set a since of realism that this place is dangerous (if only to commoners), or even just let the high level party feel powerful, etc. This acceptance gives the DM the ability to try something and if it's not the challenge they expected, then no big deal, it was still a useful encounter.

The third to is to realize the NPCs objective may not be to kill the party. A TPK doesn't mean the end. Not at high levels. So the epic beholder and his allies have defeated the party in combat, maybe they refuse to chase a fleeing party because of paranoia of a trap. Maybe the rez the party without their gear and in prison because they have a use for the party (geas anyone?). Again, if the challenges are more complex than kick in the door and kill the monster, defeat is just a setback or new twist to the story that is evolving.

And though not really related to high level play at all, if a DM takes the approach of open play and not having a set storyline, that allows these "errors"/"mistakes"/"problems" to instead just be exciting and unexpected turning points in the story.

The TLDR is:

• Mix things up (NPC stat blocks, terrain/locations, definition of success)
• There is no set recipe that works for every campaign
• Keep the campaign going by keeping the story open to develop as play progresses

I found the hardest thing to meet in OP's criteria were running challenging high level encounters that didn't take two or three hours to run.
Any tips there?

 

[J-H]

Player familiarity with the characters and a table culture that encourages "Know what you're doing before it's your turn, and have your dice ready. Possibly even roll before the DM calls on you."

Some of my players can take 10 seconds to complete a turn. Others take 3 minutes.

 

[tetrasodium]

Reading through all of this and remember other similar threads and discussions it has always baffled me that people think it is impossible or even hard to challenge high level characters. It's just so foreign to my experience.

So I sat back and thought, what do I do to make things challenging for powerful characters? (This can be high magic, optimized, high level characters, or even very good tactical players.)

The first realization about how I do this and why it works is that decades ago I made the realization that RAW is simply a guideline. It's not a commandment. Now, it's important you follow up this realization with another, this does not mean you change the player's expectations of the world (i.e. "the rules"), that you fake die rolls, that you change the results of an action on the fly. Consistency is key to player enjoyment. Players must feel that every time they do X, then Y happens (unless Z happens which negates X or Y). Sleep behaves like sleep, a Finger of Death is a Finger of Death, and a Sword of Sharpness behaves like a sword of sharpness.

Now, what's the first thing I "adjust"? The encounter rating system. It's not that the CR and XP per day are wrong, they simple don't work for every group. You have to adapt to your group. And most groups when they reach high level, assuming they have started the characters at low level and have played through all the levels as a psuedo-normal pace, are much more capable than a default group is per the encounter guidelines.

My last high level group could handle 3-5 past Deadly encounters per adventuring day. But pick up or rotating groups rarely can, regardless of character level.

The next thing I "adjust" are the monsters. I often don't bother for low-levels and minions, but for key opponents, and at higher levels, I almost always do. In part it's why I love NPC source books.

The simplest adjustments are HP, Damage, AC, Saves. But those are not interesting by themselves after you have done them once or twice (i.e. create a goblin brute, or an ogre champion). This makes the combat 'harder' and the opponents 'tougher'. Next is to change up standard spell lists. No reason an acolyte or archmage needs the spells as listed in the MM. Similarly is adding new actions/reactions/bonus actions to 'standard' NPCs. These two makes the encounters unusual, and harder to predict and plan counter strategies. The last major category of adjustments is kind of the last, replace existing abilities with new ones. There is little reason a CR 30 creature needs 45 different possible actions. Remove all the standard ones. If you ever need them, then just do it (Yes, Elminster can cast any cantrip if they ever need it, but don't bother to confuse the stat block with such things). This keeps the uniqueness of the BBEG, but also makes them usable and playable by the DM.

So that's adjusting the NPCs to make the game fun and challenging at high levels. But it's not the only thing needed (and should probably start in tier 2 play). Other things to do are:

• Change the definition of success and failure. Each encounter does not need to be about kick in the door, kill the monster.
• Mix up the terrain. Add hazards and traps. Add elevation & strongpoints.
• Change the NPCs objectives and tactics. Maybe they fight to the death, but what about surrender or flight or a totally different object (kill one specific PC and take their head). Change who the NPCs focus on, and give them the abilities to counter that PC (anti-magic to get the wizard; poison or paralysis for the brute, etc).

The one big take-away from these ideas is variety. Change things up. Not every battle is a fight to the death. Not every success is killing the monsters. Not every orc has the same HP or attacks. Not every fight is about killing the wizard (or the barbarian, or...). Not every encounter is an open field where the Party can pick their own tactics.

And note how I did not set 'rules' like double HP, make damage 1.5 times, now much XP per adventuring day, etc? That's because no two adventuring parties are the same. We can make guidelines, but not rules because different players, characters and DMs will play differently. (And many of the other posts give great guidelines that work for other tables.)

Therefore, each DM needs to learn and develop their own guidelines for each campaign (though if the players stay the same between campaigns this may be very similar from one campaign to the next). What are the tools a DM can use to learn what these adjustments are for their campaign?

The first is hidden resources. These are things like waves or BBEG Stages. Things that the PCs don't know about. Waves are a great resource for a DM to learn how capable a party is. Stages can work too, but imo are critical to foreshadow to the party (otherwise it might just be DM fiat to grant a new pool of HP etc). Waves should also be 'logical'. Another wave of ogres need to come from somewhere. If they don't it will just annoy the players. Something to note, don't always use these techniques; remember the previous take-away? Variety.

The next tool is to understand that not every encounter needs to have a significant risk of failure. The bandits that raid the party camp at night are easily defeated (killed, captured, chased off), but the encounter can be effective for many reasons. Such as; interrupt a long rest, foreshadow their return, set a since of realism that this place is dangerous (if only to commoners), or even just let the high level party feel powerful, etc. This acceptance gives the DM the ability to try something and if it's not the challenge they expected, then no big deal, it was still a useful encounter.

The third to is to realize the NPCs objective may not be to kill the party. A TPK doesn't mean the end. Not at high levels. So the epic beholder and his allies have defeated the party in combat, maybe they refuse to chase a fleeing party because of paranoia of a trap. Maybe the rez the party without their gear and in prison because they have a use for the party (geas anyone?). Again, if the challenges are more complex than kick in the door and kill the monster, defeat is just a setback or new twist to the story that is evolving.

And though not really related to high level play at all, if a DM takes the approach of open play and not having a set storyline, that allows these "errors"/"mistakes"/"problems" to instead just be exciting and unexpected turning points in the story.

The TLDR is:

I think you misunderstood the OP's question of "challenging combat encounters for high level characters that don't take two to three hours to run". Looks like you left out a few,the TL;DR seems to be

• Ignore & recreate the encounter building guidelines
• Ignore & recreate monster statblocks
• Ignore & rebuild movement rules to account for a plethora of hazards traps & strongholds, hopefully just not ones that cause combat to drag on for hours
• Waves of monsters, just hopefully they manage to be challenging without dragging combat out for hours,
• Mix up the goals of the monsters you created to replace. Of course those monsters need to be quite a bit more beefy in order to survive long enough or hit hard enough for goals other than fight to the death to happen & hopefully it can be done wiythout taking hours or shifting the solution about challenging combat to something that is not combat.
• Interrupt the rests players try to take. The question was about "challenging combat encounters for high level characters that don't take two to three hours to run" and this particular perpetual motion machine goes nowhere but "ok now that we finished that interruption, lets take a rest... as we will if interrupted a second third or ourtysecond time "

• Mix things up (NPC stat blocks, terrain/locations, definition of success)
• There is no set recipe that works for every campaign
• Keep the campaign going by keeping the story open to develop as play progresses

The third of these doesn't even sound like it's about combat & the second one might as well admit that everything suggested should be ignored because the GM will need to redo everything from square one again based on PC builds.

 

[Oofta]

I found the hardest thing to meet in OP's criteria were running challenging high level encounters that didn't take two or three hours to run.
Any tips there?

I don't think I've ever had a combat that took 2-3 hours in 5E. Maybe people are doing more action denial things? Discussing tactical detail during combat, which is something I limit? If you have spells that use very large number of dice, I just ask people to use averages. Heck, if your PC rolls a lot of dice for damage or people simply aren't good at math on the fly I let them use average, rounded up.

Speeding up combat is a whole separate topic though and, unfortunately, you can ask people to do things that speed up play and quite often they ignore it. For example, I can roll all my attacks and damage at once because I use color coded dice. Unless I'm playing a hasted high level fighter with an action surge (I don't have that many color coded dice) my turns take roughly a minute or less. So a lot of it just depends on the players and technique.

 

[Distracted DM]

I don't think I've ever had a combat that took 2-3 hours in 5E. Maybe people are doing more action denial things? Discussing tactical detail during combat, which is something I limit? If you have spells that use very large number of dice, I just ask people to use averages. Heck, if your PC rolls a lot of dice for damage or people simply aren't good at math on the fly I let them use average, rounded up.

Speeding up combat is a whole separate topic though and, unfortunately, you can ask people to do things that speed up play and quite often they ignore it. For example, I can roll all my attacks and damage at once because I use color coded dice. Unless I'm playing a hasted high level fighter with an action surge (I don't have that many color coded dice) my turns take roughly a minute or less. So a lot of it just depends on the players and technique.

I've read wildly different things regarding folks' experience of time spent in combat on these forums- but you've never had a level 15+ combat that took 2+ hours in 5e?

If you limit tactical discussion during combat, and limit turn times, that's definitely a curative for long combats- but still, high level combat from my experience is going to take a lot longer due to all the considerations at play: options, stakes, tactics, foes, environment, etc.

 

[Oofta]

I've read wildly different things regarding folks' experience of time spent in combat on these forums- but you've never had a level 15+ combat that took 2+ hours in 5e?

If you limit tactical discussion during combat, and limit turn times, that's definitely a curative for long combats- but still, high level combat from my experience is going to take a lot longer due to all the considerations at play: options, stakes, tactics, foes, environment, etc.

Well it's not like I sit there with a timer, and there have certainly been combats that are over an hour or even encroaching on the 2 hour mark. But more than that with 2-3 or more? Not in 5E. I don't normally throw a large number of foes at people or if I do I use mobs. I always use average damage for enemies and I rarely up HP for team monster, I'd rather increase attack and damage numbers. If there are multiple goals I may break it up into multiple combats. There are a lot of ways to make a combat challenging without making them into slogs.

Or maybe I'm just really bad at keeping track of time.

 

[Distracted DM]

Well it's not like I sit there with a timer, and there have certainly been combats that are over an hour or even encroaching on the 2 hour mark. But more than that with 2-3 or more? Not in 5E. I don't normally throw a large number of foes at people or if I do I use mobs. I always use average damage for enemies and I rarely up HP for team monster, I'd rather increase attack and damage numbers. If there are multiple goals I may break it up into multiple combats. There are a lot of ways to make a combat challenging without making them into slogs.

Or maybe I'm just really bad at keeping track of time.

I do appreciate your replies- I hope my incredulity doesn't come across as rude. I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing!
Can you give an example of an encounter that you've run in the past that really challenged a level 15+ party? Monsters, basic party makeup, basic environ etc.