D&D 5E Level 20 How?

[Nathan Mitchell]

At levels 1-4, you're looking at shaping the fate of a village. At levels 5-10, you're looking at shaping the fate of a city. At levels 11-16, you're looking at shaping the fate of a kingdom. At levels 17+, you're looking at shaping the fate of the Material Plane itself. As a DM, you have to scale up with the PCs. This calls for bigger challenges, and not just in combat.

We are currently in an epic campaign where we have to traverse the Astral Plane and find a Demiplane with an ancient battlefield that has a fortress in the middle with a being of sentient magical energy that eats time itself. We have to get to and navigate the fortress in a reality where dimensions themselves are in flux, walls and gravity shift seemingly at will. A magical storm rages that fires off spells at us while we try find our way around and the creatures that fought the war are found as undead, spectral or magically animated versions of themselves. This is the kind of thing epic characters will find challenging. Let them bring all their magical equipment and class shenanigans. They will need them here!

 

[hejtmane]

The game I ran made it to level 20, and there's not much difference between levels 18 and 20 - the characters are unstoppable dreadnaughts who can stomp over anything you put in their path. If you want a balanced encounter that should make them take notice, I recommend three Solars or a dozen purple worms.

I have a campaign at 18; 2 flying dragons dead group. There is one in tome of beast that gives exhaustion levels as a legendary action even on a save and at range i use night attack and send in the flying elf like ladies that can destroy magical items with a touch yes level 18 ran from the fight. Devil horsemen 4 attacks have animagic field yes pumped out some damage with that and made the magical user irrelevant.; If you want too really mess with them bump up ac and hp. The # of monsters matters as while one big one is generally to easy with some exceptions.

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[kbrakke]

I have run for a while at level 20 or higher, my main thing is: At that level the game should be about your players, which means encounters should have ways to exploit their weaknesses or minimize their strengths. Naturally always having everything be perfectly made to counter them gets tiring, so I tried to have a spread of foes that targeted specific players (It made more sense in story, but I think the idea is applicable in most situations. ). In this way the players had to work together like that hadn't before to emerge from encounters without multiple deaths (And they died ~4 times to get to that point[But they had sufficient resurrection magic that the deaths were setback, not a game ender.]).

In a broader sense, depending on your game you will obviously have to ignore the written guidelines. For example, if everyone has a magic weapon, the effective CR of many monsters is lower. Things like werewolves, devils, and demons are like paper when everyone has a magic weapon. Some creatures which rely on elemental attacks could find themselves neutered by magic items, spells, or class abilities (It was quite the adventure figuring out what to do against a party that has members resistant to necrotic, immune to poison, immune to radiant, resistant to fire, immune to fire, immune to acid, resistant to cold, and could cast absorb elements with every reaction).

Lastly don't be afraid to do whatever crazy thing your heart desires. That worm looks pretty good, though I would personally eschew legendary actions, and instead give it a lair and two full turns. But for the most part you can just try any crazy out, the party will figure it out.

 

[dagger]

Almost to 20 in 5e. I have made it to 20 in 3e but not in 3.5/PF. Made it multiple times in 1e/2e hybrid we run. Leveling in 1e is fast until 9th or so, and even then, if you play all the time, many classes can get really high level.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I know what you're saying, but I still don't think any edition of the Forgotten Realms ever presented a world populated with enough high level monsters to level a party of characters to 20 using typical Medium-Deadly combat encounters as your major source of XP. Sure, you could fly around trying to depopulate the world of dragons, but running into encounters with a bunch of uber-monsters together, or even running into a bunch of uber-monsters, is a real strain on credibility.

I might suggest flipping through the 2e supplement Anauroch or the 2e boxed set Ruins of Myth Drannor (both authored by the setting's creator) before making that assumption; for that matter, the Wyrms of the North series showcases everything from great red wyrms to archmage-level spellcasting dracoliches. The reality is that FR is really too crowded with high-level villains and monsters for credulity; I preliminarily weeded out a ton of those creatures and NPCs in my head just so I could run a campaign without thinking about them.

Reasonably speaking, here are some examples of places where you can run high-level adventures with tons of medium-deadly encounters in the Realms, with explanations of why these threats didn't come after the PCs when they were low level (all using Old Gray Box-timeline setting assumptions):

1) Thay: The Red Wizards are stymied from massive interference in the rest of the Realms by constant factional infighting, but confronting them on their home turf means running into multiple archmages, summoned high-level creatures, and even a rogue demon lord.

2) Anauroch: Too remote and hostile for low-level PCs to explore, the surface contains ancient dragons' lairs, lich-ruled cities, and all sorts of dangerous monsters. There's an entire beholder nation under the desert populated by diverse mind-controlled monsters and ruled by archmage-level spellcasting monsters.

3) The Fallen Lands: The site of old Netheril, these lands contain mysterious castles that are probably full of undead super-casters and their various minions. While they tend to stay at home pursuing gods-know-what research, one might begin posing a threat to inhabited lands OR the PCs might need to venture in to retrieve some ancient knowledge or a needed magic item or artifact.

4) Myth Drannor: The mythal of this ruined city keeps its varied threats contained, but again, the place contains fiends, liches, phaerimm, and whatever monsters the DM feels like including.

5) The lower levels of Undermountain: Contained by Halaster's wards, there nonetheless can be any number of scary threats down there.

6) The Underdark: Enough said.

I tend to run FR campaigns (I've done a few, with the most powerful PCs topping out at 25th-ish level in 2e/3e) as a bit sandbox-y, starting the PCs off with mid-level campaign enemies and then letting them start to discover or inadvertently fall afoul of the schemes of truly high-level villains. It may be a bit cliche to have that 7th-level "end boss" the PCs finish off be the minion of a beholder, which in turn is an agent of the Twisted Rune, phaerimm, or what have you, thereby allowing the PCs to move on to end boss #2 around 11th level and then end boss #3 around 16th level, et cetera, but it does work organically.

 

[Eltab]

At L20 levels of power, you can pick and choose the enemies you engage.
Of course you also have every L15 BBEG gunning for you to obtain your powers for himself, but you can make an object lesson out of one such annoyance for the edification of the others.

What is your group composition? What do they like to fight / do? (The druid wants to turn The Sea of Silt into an ocean? The barbarian wants to defeat a spirit animal and become the 'spirit animal of men'? The Paladin has designs on the Tiamat-Summoning ritual? The Wizard wants to follow Raistin's path to godhood? The Rogue REALLY wants to run a merchant house?) That will tell you what kind of adventures and encounters to design.

 

[hejtmane]

I could drop my group in pretty much one round because all but 1 the wizard has low intelligence saves and no paladin aura to help drop creatures with feeblemind spell quite a few in Tome of Beast have it or do like I do sometimes add custom npc bad guys built using all the same stuff they have access to (yes pure fun from dm side) They get ambushed suprised feeble mind save is going to be between 18-22 yea odds are the only one saving is the wizard and he is now outnumbered and out gunned party wipe level 20 with 7 creatures/npc. Same size as there party if I want to prove a point that I can kill them with ease if that was my goal.

My goal is to give them fights that can go either directions or have chances of killing a player or burn resource so the next fight is that much harder.

 

[jgsugden]

Played several 20th level situations - 2 in campaigns that ran at 20th level for a while, a few more in 20th level delves (one shots).

The best scenarios for 20th level are the ones in which the PCs feel like they're more powerful than the threats around them, but they're still challenged. For example, they may be able to wipe the floor with a bunch of Giants - but can they do it before the giants kill the villagers? What if the PCs have to get through a dungeon in less than 20 rounds before something happens (ritual is completed, etc...)? The PCs are not scared for their own survival, but they still face challenges that they can fail.

My general belief (and the approach I use in my games) is that a low level party (1 to 4) should feel intimidated by threats out there in the world and feel the need to pick their battles. From level 5 to 10 the PCs should feel like fledgling heroes, able to hold their won in a dangerous world and make a difference. From level 11 to 16 they are walking legends that change the fortune of nations and reshape their world. Levels 17 and above don't just stop at shaping their world, they shape the planes themselves with their exploits. When you to adventures at 20th level, the PCs should feel above most mortals. Only the rare, elite foes should really pose a threat to their lives. This is not the view that all DMs take, but it has served me well for a long time over several editions.