D&D 5E (2024) Let's Write A High Level Adventure

[Marc17]

Huh. This is not my experience at all. I think it is more common for the GM to pick a module that fits the campaign in play, based mostly on the level of the PCs.

That's how I do it. I still use my old TSR modules and make a point to the ones I have not run before. The final treasure vault of my recent 5.24 pirate game was S2 - White Plume Mountains. IN my magical school campaign I ended up using Saltmarsh, A1 - Slave Pits of the Undercity, the BBEGs from A4 - Slave Lords, B6 - The Veiled Society, L1 - The Secret of Bone Hill, S4 - The Lost Caverns of Tsojanth, T1 - Village of Hamlet, and RPGA1 - Rahasia (?). Plus, during schooling, the school's Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was mentioned complete with artifacts in the school museum, but they never picked up that hook. All altered some to be worked into the plots they were interacting with.

 

[Tonguez]

Well, by 16th level it's very difficult to nail down exactly what the party has or doesn't - and that can be a huge swing on the adventure design. ... It's one of the reasons I've always thought high-level adventures need to be tailored to the play group

I agree that High Level play often does require tailoring adventures specific to a play group, since no combination is ever the same, but I do think that there are some principles of high level play that can be used as a foundation.

Thats one of the reasons I really liked Lair Actions and Regional Effects as a DM tool that shifts the focus away from just PCs bashing monsters towards consideration of the wider environment, action economy and tactical decision points while maintaining the creature's overall theme. Regional Effects by covering a range of a mile or more shift the encounter our from direct confrontation towards consideration of wider approach, exploration and atmosphere.

At high levels, the party is going to have increased mobility of Flight and Teleport, powerful divinations, terrain control magic, and huge AoE options—so the encounter has to be dynamic and respond accordingly and in 3 dimensions.
1 Teleports should trigger defences or arcane backlash and vertical movement and aerial defences should be built in as a standard feature, the entire encounter space should be primed to shift and adapt.
2 Divination can still give information, but it should be vague and include misdirects as well as clues.
3 Terrain Manipulation and AoE attacks can both mitigated in a dynamic encounter by leaning in to dynamic shifting terrains and spreading multiple non-combat objectives that force PCs to make decisions on which objectives to address first - direct damage of the BBEG, stop the ritual, save the NPCs, disable the teleport etc.
4 Resource renewal is pressured through multi-waves of attack, environmental hazards, and choices that deliberately cost spell slots, HP, or magic items to bypass. Magic items can be integrated into the story as keys, batteries, or puzzle components that need to be sacrificed, rather than just power-boosters.
5 And finally the Creature itself should change using layered defenses, minions, traps, mobility, power-ups and entire phase transformations.

 

[Reynard]

1 Teleports should trigger defences or arcane backlash and vertical movement and aerial defences should be built in as a standard feature, the entire encounter space should be primed to shift and adapt.

Or make teleports a feature of navigating the place. lots of powerful beings have access to teleport, many even at will. Make it a feature rather than nerfing it.

2 Divination can still give information, but it should be vague and include misdirects as well as clues.

Again, nerfing high level abilities is the opposite of what would make a good high level adventure. Include puzzles or whatever that REQUIRE long lost knowledge you can only get through powerful divinations.

 

[JamesLFlowers]

So this past session our DM, who is the hell spawned child of a mad genius and a evil demon, setup the encounter to happen in an extraplanar region of chaos. And being chaotic, the environment kept changing. One round, everything slowed down, the next magic stopped working, etc. The look on the spellcaster's face when his spell fizzled out inches from his fingertips was hilarious. My understanding was he had a chart and rolled at the beginning of each round, combat or not, for the effect. Some were beneficial like healing, some were horrible, most were just annoying like gravity turning sideways. While the party won in the end, we got a bit hammered and things were a lot more interesting than normal. Just goes to show that the trick to making high-level players work (the party is 5 players, level 17-19) is not all about the CR of the opponent. The DM said the hardest part for him was remembering the opponent was just as impacted as the party