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

[Deset Gled]

And the other characters of the party?

- It's assumed that after the party has been adventuring together awhile (i.e. long enough to reach a high enough level where this discussion matters) there is significant camaraderie between them. What is personal to one is of at least some importance to the others.

- Someone asking for help is a standard adventure hook. There's no reason why that someone can't be someone in the party. Seriously, how many entry level adventures basically boil down to "run this errand for a high level NPC"? Why can't the one of the PCs be that person now that they're of significant level?

- Another underlying assumption is that the heroes are actively looking for adventure and want to work together. If a character is more on the mercenary side, they can be motivated by promises of payment, glory, and treasure, just like any other adventure. OTOH, if a player chooses to actively ignore problems that aren't directly related to them, they're going to have trouble with D+D in general.

- Don't ignore the metagame. After an adventure where the party saved the world from hordes of undead and the cleric got a chance to shine, it's a nice change of pace to focus on the thief for a session or two.

 

[Lanefan]

There's a whole world of difference in the stakes between "extinction level event" and "knocks down a kingdom". "End of the world" is even higher stakes. But fair enough.

I guess I am not certain where you want the stakes at. You can run any adventure with epic pcs, but a simple dungeon crawl or "rescue my husband, he got lost in the mine!" kind of thing won't feel very epic.

Exactly - just because the characters are 'epic level' doesn't mean the adventures have to be; or not all of them anyway.

So yes, they could come back from some world-saving dramatics and then during their downtime be asked to rescue some trapped miners - and done right the trapped-miners adventure could be every bit as tricky for them as saving the world was last month.

The problem I sometimes find in my own campaigns is that high-level storylines tend to take on a life of their own, where one thing leads directly to the next* with no end in sight (unless I want to artificially end them early, which I'm not sure would satisfy anyone).

* - sometimes through a greater or lesser degree of railroading but more often through the players-as-PCs simply realizing what the next logical step is and getting on with it.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Some problems which require high-level PCs may not necessarily be world-ending. Examples --

--Asmodeus has trapped the soul of a good and holy paladin in the lowest level of The Nine Hells. His church implores the PCs for help.

--A wizard has detected highly unusual energy readings in the Astral or Ethereal Plane. She asks the PCs to investigate.

--An heir to a powerful kingdom asks the PCs to investigate five suitors who want to marry her. The suitors all appear to be high level NPCs.

 

[Reynard]

Some problems which require high-level PCs may not necessarily be world-ending. Examples --

--Asmodeus has trapped the soul of a good and holy paladin in the lowest level of The Nine Hells. His church implores the PCs for help.

--A wizard has detected highly unusual energy readings in the Astral or Ethereal Plane. She asks the PCs to investigate.

--An heir to a powerful kingdom asks the PCs to investigate five suitors who want to marry her. The suitors all appear to be high level NPCs.

Good list!

You could tie A and C together pretty easily and it would make for a fun, epic but ultimately "low stakes" adventure.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

This is where I think utilizing the planes is hugely useful. How many tier 4 challenges (whether a creature or otherwise) can plausibly exist on a world without putting the world at stake? Not many. On the other hand, the planes are infinite and there is room for all sorts of crazy high-level challenges out there. And those challenges can be as weird or as a straightforward as you like. You can have a planet (or demi-plane) that seems just like your home world, or you can have one that is outright bizarre.

The thing is, unless your characters are going to be focused on solving the single major menace to their world of this generation, you basically need the planes to give them a way to half-way plausibly level to 20th.

 

[robus]

The thing is, unless your characters are going to be focused on solving the single major menace to their world of this generation, you basically need the planes to give them a way to half-way plausibly level to 20th.

Also a great way to keep things nice and fresh for the players - as I've found.

 

[S'mon]

This is where I think utilizing the planes is hugely useful. How many tier 4 challenges (whether a creature or otherwise) can plausibly exist on a world without putting the world at stake? Not many.

I can't say I've experienced this at all. A CR 17+ monster does not need to be a world ending threat.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I can't say I've experienced this at all. A CR 17+ monster does not need to be a world ending threat.

My statement was sloppy. What I'm getting at is if you grab a list of challenges that are likely to be challenges for a high-level party, you are mostly going to end up with things that are going to have a huge impact on the world. There are some ultra-powerful monsters that are just hiding out in a swamp somewhere molesting a village, but most of them are are an existential threat to at least a large area.

 

[S'mon]

My statement was sloppy. What I'm getting at is if you grab a list of challenges that are likely to be challenges for a high-level party, you are mostly going to end up with things that are going to have a huge impact on the world. There are some ultra-powerful monsters that are just hiding out in a swamp somewhere molesting a village, but most of them are are an existential threat to at least a large area.

I like settings like Golarion and (to a greater extent) Wilderlands that seem built to accommodate Terrible Threats just randomly hanging out all over the place.
With Wilderlands my maps at level 1 included CR 21+ threats like the lair of the ancient black dragon Matriarx which the PCs often ended up fighting 19 levels later! But there were also CR 21+ threats that had a big impact on the campaign, like the Black Sun leader Borritt Crowfinger (Lich) and the demigod Empyrean Kainos Warbringer. In both cases the threats were known of for years before PCs fought them.

 

[Lanefan]

My statement was sloppy. What I'm getting at is if you grab a list of challenges that are likely to be challenges for a high-level party, you are mostly going to end up with things that are going to have a huge impact on the world. There are some ultra-powerful monsters that are just hiding out in a swamp somewhere molesting a village, but most of them are are an existential threat to at least a large area.

Maybe.

But consider something like the Balrog in LotR. Sure the Dwarves dug it up and it slaughtered them, but outside of Moria few had ever even heard of it - including other Dwarves, as Gimli learned to his sorrow. It wasn't an existential threat to anyone, really, other than those it had already killed.

Going into an old mine and killing off some big ol' badass creature (and all its little henches!) that isn't (yet) a major threat to the surface world seems like just the sort of adventure the OP was looking for.