D&D General High Level Adventures Where the World Isn't at Stake

[WayOfTheFourElements]

There are a couple I've used:

• Revenge
• Search for lost information
• Search for ingredients for magic item creation
• Competitions (Whose the best _________ in the _________?)
• Bets with powerful beings (I bet you can't __________; I'll give you _______ if you _______)

 

[LordEntrails]

Now, I disagree that investigation is much fun at high levels. Or even mid levels. There are too many spells that make investigation superfluous.

There's always magic to counter magic

 

[jayoungr]

There's always magic to counter magic

[Uncle] "Magic ... must ... defeat ... magic!" [/Uncle]

Now I want to go back and watch Jackie Chan Adventures. Sucks that they never released the whole thing on DVD.

 

[Dioltach]

A powerful demon launches an attack on the PCs from the past. They travel back in time, defeat it, and it disappears into a time loop. Where it goes mad, plots vengeance against the PCs who trapped it, launches an attack on the from the past ... (Plot taken directly and unashamedly from The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Harry Harrison.)

 

[lkj]

Hm. Endless possibilities here. But a few off the top:

-- Trying to steal something from a powerful entity (demon lord etc.)
-- Trying to slay a high level entity and destroy its organization for reasons of revenge
-- Competing with other high level factions to obtain ingredients needed to achieve godhood
-- trying to revive a dead god that your ancestors used to follow (and of course there are those who don't like the idea)
-- trying to replace a god or potentate with yourself!
-- trying to survive and eventually neutralize a powerful organization that wants you all dead because they think you've become too powerful.

Etc.

AD

 

[Bawylie]

Very often, the first thing you do when you write adventures for high level characters is look through your library of high level monsters. Then throw some stakes on that. And that’s how we get Apocalypse of the Week. It’s a natural outgrowth from monster of the week. And it’s pretty cool.

But high CR monsters aren’t the only way to challenge players. Plenty of nobodies can get up to a lot of mischief. Remember Captain America: Civil War? The antagonist was basically a nobody. Just stirred up some crap by revealing the inconvenient truth.

The Dark Knight is another example of a nobody running around causing trouble. Joker doesn’t strike me as a leveled dude with super-capabilities or wealth. He’s (in that film anyway) just setting values on collision courses and forcing decisions.

You can do the same. Look at your characters’ ideals. Think about how they might come into conflict, then arrange that conflict first. Work backwards from there to find and cast the antagonist who sets all that in motion. You have plenty to work with.

Mercy versus Justice
Help versus Enabling
Safety versus Freedom
Vengeance versus Forgiveness
Nature versus Civilization
Bad Ruler A versus Bad Ruler B in an upcoming election

And of course, armies and armies of undead work at any time at any level.

 

[Lanefan]

Idea 1: Contrive things somehow such that they end up with the PCs left (or stuck) in command of a large army in wartime e.g. a couple of combined Roman Legions fighting the Gauls. The challenges for the PCs then change dramatically: it's no longer about how they themselves can go out and win battles, it's instead about how to keep this army alive and fed and functional and cohesive such that it can go out and win battles. The PCs' concerns become supplies, logistics, chains of command, discipline, morale, and so forth.

When it comes to the actual battles, have the opposition also have high-level help with the idea being that their high-level help and the PCs largely cancel each other out, such that as far as possible the outcome rests on how well the PCs have treated/trained/prepared their army rather than on the abiities of the PCs themselves.

This won't stay fresh for long, but as a change of pace it should be able to give you the equivalent of an adventure or two.

Idea 2: If you're at 20th level anyway you're campaign is probably in or approaching its endgame, and this opens up some new possibilities. You no longer have to worry too much about whether the PCs continue as a cohesive group, for example, if the game's winding down anyway.

This opens up the option of putting the PCs or their goals somewhat more directly in conflict with each other, and of introducing elements toward this end. This would of course depend on the specifics of each PC and each campaign, but say if one PC has a goal or mission statement something like "Defend the monarchy to the death" and another has a goal of "Someday I will sit on a throne as a monarch" it shouldn't be too hard to get those goals to work directly against each other.

(the one who wants to be Queen is secretly approached by a band of usurpers who see her as their leader and replacement monarch; the one who's sworn to defend the monarchy hears quiet whispers of a secret plot against the King, etc.)

You'd need to find a way to somehow make this relevant to each PC, but after that you don't need to do much other than stir things up now and then, as they'll sort it out among themselves. And if they end up splitting apart as a party over this, so what - the campaign was ending anyway.

 

[Shiroiken]

I found BECMI did a really good job of having high level adventures that didn't necessarily involve saving the world/universe. Several involve dropping the characters into situations where the goal is survival. Some just involve stopping powerful foes who threaten their home. To be fair, a lot of these same adventures could be run as lower level concepts, but they work quite well at high level (at least they did in 1E, 2E, and 3E).

My favorite is the Maelstrom, a take on the Odyssey, where the party finds themselves on a boat traveling across an astral sea (a pocket dimension). The only way to get home is to complete the voyage, as magic prevents leaving the plane outside of a specific location (the end of the voyage). Teleportation magics still work, but without knowledge of the pocket dimension it becomes extraordinarily hazardous.

Another good one IMO is Five Coins for a Kingdom. Basic premise is the party is on a section of a city that is falling into the sun. The party has to figure out what's going on, find the five coins (McGuffins), then solve the puzzle that will return the city before everything is burned to a crisp. I honestly can't remember the introduction, so I'm not sure if the characters could just leave on their own (maybe innocents are in danger?).

 

[dave2008]

Often, "high level adventure" seems to imply equally high stakes for the world. While I think the stakes should always matter to those involved in the adventure, I don't think the world needs a weekly threat of an extinction level event for high level D&D to be fun.

So let's brainstorm ideas for high level adventures that do not involve kingdoms, planets or planes getting crushed, or gods getting dethroned/killed and so on.

When I ran a 20th level test recently, I went with this: the newborn child of an Elf Lord and Lady was stolen by the Queen of the Winter Court to raise as a Winter Eladrin. The PCs (one of whom was sister to the Elf Lady) were tasked with going into the Feywild to retrieve the daughter and warn the Winter Queen off from further meddling. The stakes were certainly high for the Elf Lord and Lady (and by the extension the PCs), but the world would have not ended if the PCs failed. Yet it felt urgent and important nonetheless.

What high level adventures with non-world-shaking stakes have you devised or played in? What ideas do you have for such adventures?

Thanks.

You can run ToA without the death curse. I know of a few groups that took at the death curse and ran it that way. Without the death curse, the world is not at stake.

 

[MichaelSomething]

You can always have the PCs make a sandwich...