D&D 5E High Level Adventure Recommendations

[Reynard]

Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage is available on FG and the dungeon levels can be run in a fairly modular way. You could easily start your party on Level 16, which is designed for level 14 characters. You'll then have levels 16-23 to work with, each of which is a large high-level dungeon in its own right. And the adventure in particular is one of the few that may actually work better in VTT because of the difficulty of managing those maps at the table.

Is it any good. Reviews seem mixed.

 

[LordEntrails]

Is it any good. Reviews seem mixed.

Well, I haven't run DoMM but I've done a lot with Undermountain over the years and have read DoMM (and am working on incorporating it into my own Undermountain).

It's good and bad... There are a few things about it that I personally don't like.

• Halaster; I've always been annoyed by this personality, but the fact that he has been retconed alive after he has officially been dead annoys me to no end. I get that he could be used in a fun way, but in most cases I see this overarching all powerful evil but somehow benign or controlling NPC as such a crutch . Anyway, Don't like using him, so I leave him out of my version.
• Level gating; Some over powerful being that doesn't let the characters go to levels that are too dangerous for them. Why? Why would such a creature care? And, to me, levels are a metagame concept that beings in the fantasy world really don't have any concept of. But, this part can easily be ignored.
• The maps/layout; to me the Undermountain is huge. DoMM is not. rather than 300-400 locations per level, DoMM has 2 dozen? That's not the UM to me.
• Along with the level gating and the portals, to me DoMM is much too linear. Even though it is not linear, to me their should be more ways in and around and about. Of course, with 300 locations per level, you need more.

Now, on the good side, it does capture many of the aspects of the classic Undermountain. Such as weird traps, magical fantasy places, and danger. High risk, high reward.

So, my biggest issue is that it's not big enough, but if you want to put the time into it, you can expand upon it.

 

[Reynard]

Well, I haven't run DoMM but I've done a lot with Undermountain over the years and have read DoMM (and am working on incorporating it into my own Undermountain).

It's good and bad... There are a few things about it that I personally don't like.

• Halaster; I've always been annoyed by this personality, but the fact that he has been retconed alive after he has officially been dead annoys me to no end. I get that he could be used in a fun way, but in most cases I see this overarching all powerful evil but somehow benign or controlling NPC as such a crutch . Anyway, Don't like using him, so I leave him out of my version.
• Level gating; Some over powerful being that doesn't let the characters go to levels that are too dangerous for them. Why? Why would such a creature care? And, to me, levels are a metagame concept that beings in the fantasy world really don't have any concept of. But, this part can easily be ignored.
• The maps/layout; to me the Undermountain is huge. DoMM is not. rather than 300-400 locations per level, DoMM has 2 dozen? That's not the UM to me.
• Along with the level gating and the portals, to me DoMM is much too linear. Even though it is not linear, to me their should be more ways in and around and about. Of course, with 300 locations per level, you need more.

Now, on the good side, it does capture many of the aspects of the classic Undermountain. Such as weird traps, magical fantasy places, and danger. High risk, high reward.

So, my biggest issue is that it's not big enough, but if you want to put the time into it, you can expand upon it.

This is the interim game we are playing on FG while we wait for the pandemic to pass, so how extensive it is doesn't really matter. Not do I care about any canon breaking. I am mostly interested in whether it is well designed with interesting, fun dungeoneering.

 

[jayoungr]

I always recommend Palace of the Red Pasha:

DM's Kit: Palace of the Red Pasha - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

DM's Kit: Palace of the Red Pasha - DM’s Kit: PALACE OF THE RED PASHA There is little time to celebrate the victory at the Well of Dragons. The Lord’s A

www.dmsguild.com

It's set in the FR (Calimshan). It's written for level 17, but a well-optimized level 14 group should have no trouble with it.

 

[LordEntrails]

This is the interim game we are playing on FG while we wait for the pandemic to pass, so how extensive it is doesn't really matter. Not do I care about any canon breaking. I am mostly interested in whether it is well designed with interesting, fun dungeoneering.

Yea, I think it would be. I just don't know if I have the right attitude for it as written. But, I do know a lot of other people do enjoy it as written. I'm not sure how to tell you who would and who would not like it.

 

[Burnside]

This is the interim game we are playing on FG while we wait for the pandemic to pass, so how extensive it is doesn't really matter. Not do I care about any canon breaking. I am mostly interested in whether it is well designed with interesting, fun dungeoneering.

Here's my take on it: neither me, nor my players, nor the vast majority of players I think, would have the appetite for a campaign that consisted of a 23-level megadungeon. It's just too much of one style of play.

However, most of the individual levels, taken by themselves or in small groups, are fun, varied, and interesting dungeons. So I think DOTMM is a good resource for cannibalizing dungeons when you need them, but almost unplayable as a campaign (as written).

Playing like 30% of it I think would work very well.

 

[Merifluous]

I'm running DoMM at 15th level right now to capstone Storm King's Thunder (the PCs have done everything but the final encounter, which will scale well to high levels). It's working very well. I'm about to run it via FG tonight for the first time, but my initial impressions are that it will work as well as any adventure could remote because of the map (I was using roll20 to show the PCs the map before anyway).

Expidition to the demonweb pits from 3e is also a good option.

 

[Lidgar]

We were running DotMM through Roll 20 and it was a blast. Good variety in encounters, role play and puzzles.

 

[Reynard]

I have settled on DotMM. I recently acquired a physical copy from a friend, so I don't feel so bad buying the FG version (gawd how I hate double buying everything) and it looks like it is easy enough to make any given level an isolated dungeon someplace in the world.