D&D 5E Encounters for Level 11+ Characters

[Imaculata]

Speaking of yeti's, I once had my players attend a massive festival at a dwarven town in the mountains. Then all of a sudden an avalanche struck the entire town in the middle of the night. Depending on where the players were at the time of the avalanche, their fate was different. But since they were split up, some of them were buried alive in their tavern rooms, and had to dig them selves out. But to make matters worse, a snowstorm picked up, and yeti's took advantage of all this confusion to attack the town. In fact, maybe the yeti's had caused the avalanche to begin with? Anyway, you have everyone dealing with pitch black darkness, and with the cold, while being attacked by yeti's in the middle of a snowstorm. Now that was scary.

One moment a helpful dwarf is trying to dig them out of the snow, and the next he is suddenly violently pulled into the darkness, and his scream is suddenly cut short. They never found him. Like a scene from the movie '30 days of night', the yeti's tried to split everyone up, and pick them off one by one. It was a nightmare!

If you want to run this idea in your campaign, make sure you have a lot of npc dwarves, and then whenever the players leave one alone, he is gone minutes later. I even played a sound file to give my players an idea what the strange cries of the yeti's sounded like. Some of the player characters will lack the strength to dig themselves out of the snow on their own, so they really need to work together for this. The yeti's can attack from any angle. They can burst through the walls of a building, or lift a dwarf up through the roof of a hut. They never stay to finish the fight, but immediately drag one poor soul out into the cold dark night. They'll play games with the players to try and get them to split up. They are VERY intelligent, and can communicate with their eerie cries, even in the middle of a snowstorm.

 

[iserith]

Deadly Difficulty
7 Manticores

A 30-foot-wide pass of steep, 100'-foot-high rock marks the heart of the hunting grounds of a rage of manticores, newly arrived after being driven from their territory by a young red shadow dragon and its wraith rider. The monsters, led by a gray-maned manticore named Longtooth, stalk the PCs and begin strafing them with tail spikes before dipping behind the safety of the ridge to avoid counterattack. They repeat this attack for as long as necessary before coming into clean up what remains with claw and fang, all the while denigrating the PCs and offering them a swift death if they beg for their lives. If the PCs put up a decent fight, Longtooth offers to spare them further attack and promise of great treasure if they seek out and destroy the dragon and wraith. Longtooth has no intention of letting them keep the dragon's hoard, however.

 

[Zardnaar]

At those levels they can take on things +7 or 8 CLs above the average party level. If you fought liches in AD&D at level 8-10 it makes a bit more sense.

 

[Radaceus]

Random chart from my current campaign, set in FR Swordcoast. I have 7 players at level 8 (I recalculated the encounter XP/Difficulties for 5 players at level 11).

Stone Mountains Random Encounters

1)Random Encounter- Adult Red Dragon
1x Adult Red Dragon	CR: 17	XP: 18,000	
Encounter Total XP: 18,000 Adjusted XP: 18,000 Deadly

2)Random Encounter- No Babysitter (a cave where a young gold dragon is fending off 2 behir, 1 young dragon, 3 wyrmlings, and 1 Behir lay dead)
2x Behir	CR: 11	XP: 7,200Monster Manual p.25
Encounter Total XP: 14,400 Adjusted XP: 21,600 Deadly
vs.
1x Young Gold Dragon	CR: 10	XP: 5,900	
Encounter Total XP: 5,900 Adjusted XP: 5,900 Easy

3)Random Encounter- Orc Warband
2x Hobgoblin		CR: 1/2	XP: 100		
1x Hobgoblin Captain	CR: 3	XP: 700		
1x Hobgoblin Warlord	CR: 6	XP: 2,300	
3x Orc			CR: 1/2	XP: 100		
2x Orc Eye of Gruumsh	CR: 2	XP: 450		
1x Orc War Chief	CR: 4	XP: 1,100	
1x Orog			CR: 2	XP: 450		
Encounter Total XP: 5,950 Adjusted XP: 17,850 Hard

4)Random Encounter- Giant raiding party
1x Cloud Giant	CR: 9	XP: 5,000		
2x Ogre		CR: 2	XP: 450			
1x Oni		CR: 7	XP: 2,900		
Encounter Total XP: 8,800 Adjusted XP: 17,600 Hard

5)Random Encounter- Evil cultist adventuring party
1x Assassin		CR: 8	XP: 3,900	
1x Black Earth Priest	CR: 3	XP: 700		
1x Burrow Shark		CR: 4	XP: 1,100	
1x Gladiator		CR: 5	XP: 1,800	
1x Stonemelder		CR: 4	XP: 1,100	
Encounter Total XP: 8,600 Adjusted XP: 17,200 Hard

6)Random Encounter- Wandering Elementals
2x Earth Elemental Myrmidon	CR: 7	XP: 2,900	
3x Earth Elemental		CR: 5	XP: 1,800	
Encounter Total XP: 8,300 Adjusted XP: 16,600 Hard

7)Encounter- Steam vents(Hard)
1x Efreeti			CR: 11	XP: 7,200	
5x Magma Mephit			CR: 1/2	XP: 100		
Encounter Total XP: 7,700 Adjusted XP: 15,400 Hard

8)Encounter- Steam vents(Medium)
8x Magma Mephit			CR: 1/2	XP: 100		
2x Salamander			CR: 5	XP: 1,800	
Encounter Total XP: 4,400 Adjusted XP: 11,000 Medium

9)Random Encounter- Trading Expedition

a group of 30 Hunters and Mountaineers who are seeking exotic pelts.
one of their group is a Master Leatherworker, who has +1 Leather Armors for sale
one of their group is a Master Bowyer who has a +1 Longbow, and a +1 Shortbow for sale.
One of their group is a Master Smith with several +1 Weapons for sale, and one suit of +1 chain, one +1 chain shirt, and can make dragon scale male

10)Random encounter- The Hermit
an old druid (of the land: Mountain), is worried about some gold dragons in the area, an Adult mother and her young, he hasn't heard from them since the Red Dragon appeared.
He offers a reward of 1xSuperior Healing Potion, the party will scout out the dragons cave 2 days north, and report back to him. 
If'No Babysitter' has already been encountered, the druid will reward the party if they have stepped in defense of the Gold Dragons.

11-12) No Encounter