D&D 5E (2024) High Level 5.5E: Building Encounter Chains

[Reynard]

My 5E 2024 (5.5E) campaign is reaching its climax. The PCs are currently 15th level, and depending on whether they decide to tie up some loose ends, or decide to rush the BBEG, they will either be 15th or 17th level for the "final battle". A detail that may be important: there is no cleric in the party.

One thing that a player brought to my attention was that the way the game has been going, the PCs have pretty much been able to Nova any big fights. I got in a bit of a rut where I was doing singular set piece encounters instead of adventures proper, so the party almost always had full batteries for any battle. The player in question wants to have their resources stretched and forced to make decisions about when to use their best abilities, when to rest, etc. I am happy to oblige -- but while I have done lots of work to figure out how to design high level enemies to make the fights fun, I have not had as much experience with high level attrition.

So I thought I would ask for some advice. With 4 15th level PCs, including 3 casters plus a battlemaster fighter, how many encounters between rests should I plan for in order to stress their resources? What level of difficulty? How many enemies should I aim for, and/or environmental challenges? What KINDS of enemies? That sort of thing.

I wish I could tell you what the next adventure looks like, but this is a pretty player driven game and frankly they have not given me much indication which direction they plan to go next. The BBEG is a powerful archmage who rules the nation they live in, with literal armies as well as summoned creatures at his command. There is also a potential situation with a Great Wyrm Red Dragon they can either fight or negotiate with or try and dominate with their Orb of Dragonkind (though they will have to weaken it and use up its Legendary Resistances in order to get this to work). And then there is a massive map full of weird potential adventures (all undefined) if they want to try and level up and/or acquire more tools to fight the BBEG. So lots of potential options, but nothing solid to prep with at this time.

tl;dr: Help me figure out what a 15th level 5.5E encounter chain to stress resources looks like. Thanks!

 

[ZeshinX]

I'd probably start with said archmage really noticing that the PCs are gunning for him, and taking a far more personal interest in stopping them. Not confronting them himself per se, but certainly begin sending "strikes" at them (an assassin or two, summoned minions, a small commando strike force...all done as surreptitiously as possible to start if said archmage generally doesn't present himself as outright evil to those he rules). BBEG could even treat with non-allies. That great wyrm red dragon for instance....if BBEG knows the PCs have that Orb of Dragonkind (I'm sure scrying is no trouble for an archmage), I'm sure the dragon would benefit from knowing this and, with offers of treasure, magic, perhaps even a whole village/town/city for the dragon to have as his own, will receive regularly tribute from....not a hired thug, but BBEG could make "and offer the dragon cannot refuse" to harry the PCs (not be willing to fight to the death, but certainly add to the PCs troubles in addition to below).

If said BBEG isn't some monstrous tyrant his subjects utterly despise and would normally help the PCs, I'd have BBEG start rallying his subjects against said PCs. Declare the PCs outlaws, twist some good deed (or deeds) they have done to make it appear as some horrible massacre, and make it illegal to support them. This will reduce the PCs access to resources within that nation. Nowhere is safe for the PCs. Everyone is a potential spy/enemy. Resting becomes extremely risky. This can possibly (or likely) generate an underground movement or rebellion among BBEG's subjects, with the PCs either leading it or inspiring/supporting it (which may help the PCs dealing with BBEG's armies....perhaps a fun Braveheart, "My island!!!" moment).

I suppose that's not a direct chain of actual encounters, but that's where I'd personally start and build on that.

 

[Reynard]

I'd probably start with said archmage really noticing that the PCs are gunning for him, and taking a far more personal interest in stopping them. Not confronting them himself per se, but certainly begin sending "strikes" at them (an assassin or two, summoned minions, a small commando strike force...all done as surreptitiously as possible to start if said archmage generally doesn't present himself as outright evil to those he rules). BBEG could even treat with non-allies. That great wyrm red dragon for instance....if BBEG knows the PCs have that Orb of Dragonkind (I'm sure scrying is no trouble for an archmage), I'm sure the dragon would benefit from knowing this and, with offers of treasure, magic, perhaps even a whole village/town/city for the dragon to have as his own, will receive regularly tribute from....not a hired thug, but BBEG could make "and offer the dragon cannot refuse" to harry the PCs (not be willing to fight to the death, but certainly add to the PCs troubles in addition to below).

If said BBEG isn't some monstrous tyrant his subjects utterly despise and would normally help the PCs, I'd have BBEG start rallying his subjects against said PCs. Declare the PCs outlaws, twist some good deed (or deeds) they have done to make it appear as some horrble massacre, and make it illegal to support them. This will reduce the PCs access to resources within that nation. Nowhere is safe for the PCs. Everyone is a potential spy/enemy. Resting becomes extremely risky. This can possibly (or likely) generate an underground movement or rebellion among BBEG's subjects, with the PCs either leading it or inspiring/supporting it (which may help the PCs dealing with BBEG's armies....perhaps a fun Braveheart, "My island!" moment).

I suppose that's not a direct chain of actual encounters, but that's where I'd personally start and build on that.

Thanks for the response, but what I am really interested is the nuts and bolts of high level 5/5E encounter design, in order to get to a point where resource attrition matters and players feel like they are making meaningful choices with regards to what abilities to use in any given round of any given fight.

 

[Tigris]

So from the XP needed from levelup you kinda get that the game expects to have:


6 normal fights and 2 short rests per long rest. (Because 3 of those days you csn fit in at level 15 then they are 16)


From what I have seen many people recommend doing 1 deadly (now hard?) encounter instead of 2 normal ones, but I am not sure if thats ideal. In general predictability makes ressource spending easier. So having 1-3 encounters per short rest will make decisions harder for your players than always having 1 deadly encounter.


In general I would use the same mechanics/techniques D&D 4e used against alpha strikes. (One of them is combat difficulty /amount variance) some others are:

• Use "minions" weak easy to kill enemies, but dont tell players ehich enemies are minions. This way if they alphastrike from the beginning withour having information about the enemies they may waste a strong attack on a weak enemy
• Then mix different strong enemied together. If all enemies are weak then its one thing. But if some strong enemies are between then its harder to predict.
• Lurkers. Have enemies being stealthy/invisible and enter the combat later. They can go for the backline/squishies and add further unpredictability "oh its only 2 enemies so they have to be strong" well not if there are additional lurkers
• Or you csn just hsve some enemies join the fight later. Deduct some of their XP because that is easier thsn all at once.
• Then mix in from time to time some encounters which sre easy as well. (So easy medium and hard encounters), so players may then waste strong spells on a weak encounter or be in a strong encounter more weary thst this may be an easy encounter and dont go all in from the beginning.
• Use enemies with different strong defenses (like high AC and con save, but low reflex and wisdom). If an enemy has a really good constitution saving throw (and players dont know through metagaming so maybe change monster names), then they may waste a high level spell if they just try to go for a constitution save on that enemy. So it may be saver to first test the waters with a bit weaker spells.
• In general use rather more enemies, 5.5 eithout xp multiplicstor allows that. And with action economy its still most often harder to fight many enemies than a single one.
• Make the enemies make good use of the environment. Luke some enemies are hidden behind cover, or coming out of the ground when combst starts etc. Such that sometimes combst start (without surprise) with enemies alresdy next to the casters. So they need ressources to get away from them.
• Use some enemies from time to time to throw players off. Like sn enemy with a single legendary resistance (using it early) since they now might think thats the big thread / the boss. Or minions which resurect once. (Like really low health enemy, but they have the nechanic to be resurected once). And dont tell the player they resurected/reflavour it just say "it took a heavy blow but its still standing!"
• Have some non combst like skill challenges which harms the players when they dont succeed so they want to spend ressources there as well.
• Maybe even use an illusion (+ an invisible enemy) at some point, maybe they waste ressources on the illusion.
• As mentioned above if players dont know if there is 1 fight or 3 fights until next short rest (or 3 fighrs or up to 9 fights until next long rest) their ressources planning becomes a lot harder.
• Maybe have some other (sub)objectives in a fight. Like hsving to stop a ritual and while its running more adds come every turn. Or having a magical device which halfs all damage while its still active (for players and enemies) so one needs first to get rid of that before bursting.

I hope this helps a bit

 

[zakael19]

Given your very brief description of the party makeup There's 4 (?) major resources you need to stretch, right?

• Spell slots.
• Per rest abilities (short and long)
• HP & HD
• Magic items (this is the ?)

For the first, you probably want enemies that demand rapid overwhelming response from the party and deplete slots (including via CS?). Some of the BBEG's Mage servants? Standoff - maybe even flying, can rain spells down, might have magical defenses that need to be worn through. That or threaten the casters with knives in their back. Killers under invisibility or the like right in their backline, snipers taking aim at the big threat, etc.

For the second, you need to sustain tempo. If they need to make choices about Short Resting now or not; or if they have space to long rest, that handles that mostly? Of course you know your PCs and if they need that space to short rest some it can be there.

HP and HD, again killers in the backline or snipers (spell or direct) or whatever, and some big but maybe a little less tanky monsters or whatever for the Fighter? Stuff that gets to that potential 1/3rd HP per attack routine.

Environmental stuff can give cover for reduced damage from your parties spells, or force them to do movement and make hard choices about how vulnerable they are in turn. Or do the sort of "red spot" like a computer game where on an initiative order something really bad happens.

 

[Reynard]

Given your very brief description of the party makeup There's 4 (?) major resources you need to stretch, right?

• Spell slots.
• Per rest abilities (short and long)
• HP & HD
• Magic items (this is the ?)

The party has magic items, but not oo many that have charges or are otherwise limited use.

For the first, you probably want enemies that demand rapid overwhelming response from the party and deplete slots (including via CS?).

What is CS? Counterspell?

Some of the BBEG's Mage servants? Standoff - maybe even flying, can rain spells down, might have magical defenses that need to be worn through. That or threaten the casters with knives in their back. Killers under invisibility or the like right in their backline, snipers taking aim at the big threat, etc.

For the second, you need to sustain tempo. If they need to make choices about Short Resting now or not; or if they have space to long rest, that handles that mostly? Of course you know your PCs and if they need that space to short rest some it can be there.

No rests at all. The point is to have them have to choose what to use. Note that this is based on a player request.

HP and HD, again killers in the backline or snipers (spell or direct) or whatever, and some big but maybe a little less tanky monsters or whatever for the Fighter? Stuff that gets to that potential 1/3rd HP per attack routine.

Environmental stuff can give cover for reduced damage from your parties spells, or force them to do movement and make hard choices about how vulnerable they are in turn. Or do the sort of "red spot" like a computer game where on an initiative order something really bad happens.

What about numbers? How many enemies? What CRs?

 

[AlViking]

It's going to vary a bit from one group to the next but I plan between 3 and 6 encounters between long rests almost all of the time. With 5.5 this is a bit easier to implement - all you need to do is interrupt their long rest which simply requires something happening that causes them to roll initiative. So the group doesn't have a safe place to rest because they are attacked (even an easy fight will do) or because of some other hazard. You can also implement a ticking clock since you must wait at least 12 hours before you can take another long rest.

In other cases it's because they're storming the metaphorical or real castle and there simply is no place to rest, they're deep behind enemy lines and constantly interrupted by random patrols and so on. As far as what to throw at them, that's a bit tougher because it's based on current themes and what makes sense for the party. I've thrown everything from a small army of constructs or a large construct supported by soldiers to half-dragons of various breeds to all sorts of aberrations, fiends and a large group of humans (or whichever species made sense) with multiple casters backed up by support troops. It's always just depended on where they are and what made sense for the enemy to employ.

Something else I keep in mind is that if there have been encounters with the enemy, they will be on high alert and at higher levels I assume the enemy knows that people can hide away using spells. The tiny hut is great but it's not like intelligent enemies are going to ignore the fact that you're camping on their doorstep. Mordenkainen's Mansion is even better but if your tracks suspiciously disappear into thin air it's logical to assume you will return.

I generally avoid solos and if I do I set up the environment to greatly favor the solo and give them opportunities to disengage if they need to do so, but most of the time I simply don't do a single monster - there may be one enemy much higher level but they'll have support. That and try to mix up the encounters, have some where the group just has to survive a gauntlet or protect something or someone for n round or similar. But that gets into general encounter design which is it's own topic.

 

[Reynard]

Do the 5.5 encounter budget rules actually work? Or should I continue to rely on the LevelUp ones?

 

[BenjaminPey]

They do work (at least at the levels I've used them, so up to 10th), and they don't even need you to take short rests into account, you simply build the whole day like it is a single encounter and you can then throw all these monsters at your players in whatever order and numbers you want.

 

[AlViking]

They do work (at least at the levels I've used them, so up to 10th), and they don't even need you to take short rests into account, you simply build the whole day like it is a single encounter and you can then throw all these monsters at your players in whatever order and numbers you want.

If you do everything all at once, I'd recommend coming from multiple directions, spread out or even appearing in separate rounds. Otherwise there are too many AOE damage or control spells that can stop them cold.