D&D 5E Looking for Campaigns for 14+ level PCs

[TaranTheWanderer]

@OP: what are the player character's goals? I'd just homebrew stuff from what they want to do. Plane hopping and Underdark stuff works for high level adventurers. I have Queen of the Spiders from AD&D. I just read through old adventures like that to get ideas - use the maps and the plots and then fill it in with appropriately challenging monsters.

Also @dave2008 is your picture from the Death Gate Cycle novels? It looks super-familiar...

 

[Reynard]

One thing to note: it's okay to let the wizard (or cleric or whatever) autowin an encounter by burning a high level slot if you try and stick to the encounters-per-rest metric. It's even better if you can trick them into burning the good stuff BEFORE the climactic fight. The real problems arise when high level characters get to nova because the GM decides only to have one or a couple encounters between rests.

Give them a clock. Make it too dangerous to rest. Create consequences to pausing the action. No sleep til Brooklyn.

 

[robus]

Looking at how I modified a level 5-6 adventure (Tower of Golden Scales, a free pdf) for level 10-14 (spoilers I guess):

Stone Dwarves - increased number from 2 to 3. Increased damage. Kept to-hit, AC (18) & HP (85).
Plant zombies - increased number from 4 to 12. Increased damage. Kept to-hit, AC (13) & HP (52). Had them claw out of the ground in 2 waves, though as it turned out the PCs did not use any AoE.
Earth elemental - increased number from 1 to 2.
Vrock - increased number from 1 to 2.
Chasme - increased AC (+2 I think), to-hit (+5), hp (x2) and damage (x2)

The earth elementals & vrocks weren't much of a fight; the others worked well as a challenge. The plant zombies were the most dangerous. The 'Greater Chasme' was the only one I increased hp (or AC), to make it a mini-boss.

Glad that's working for you. With the amount of damage my players seem to dish out, if my monsters didn't win initiative they'd pretty much be done by the time their turn came round. I given my rolls they rarely win initiative...

 

[robus]

Then they are not really CR 3 anymore though, right?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's the way to go; I'm just sympathizing with Paul about how BA doesn't really work as presented...or, it does, but having a ton-load of low CR mooks hoping to roll 19 or 20 really slows the game down.

Yep - that's why I call them augmented. I just modify to bring the threat I need (at this stage I don't really bother with encounter guidelines, I just create what feels right - it freaked one of my players out when I revealed that in casual conversation! )

 

[dave2008]

Absolutely. If you were writing said high-level mod for publication, though, what are the "safe assumptions" you would make?

Personally a I think WotC should create different encoutner guidelines for different types of groups. I actually have a post on this forum somewhere we I made a revised encounter budget for more skilled/advanced/tactical/better equipped groups.

 

[dave2008]

@OP: what are the player character's goals? I'd just homebrew stuff from what they want to do. Plane hopping and Underdark stuff works for high level adventurers. I have Queen of the Spiders from AD&D. I just read through old adventures like that to get ideas - use the maps and the plots and then fill it in with appropriately challenging monsters.

Also @dave2008 is your picture from the Death Gate Cycle novels? It looks super-familiar...

Sorry, I don't remember

 

[S'mon]

Really? The Banishment spell really ruins that situation for me... :/

With Magic Resistance and multiple foes, I've not seen it 'ruin' a fight. It can terminate a single-monster fight very easily though. Against a quartet of Nalfeshnee it usually gets one, then the caster has to maintain concentration the rest of the fight vs those nasty pig-bites.

 

[S'mon]

It also makes the fights slower and harder to keep track of when you have half-a-dozen stat blocks to keep track of.

4e DMG recommends 3 monster stat blocks for a typical fight. That's a decent guide for what DM's-brain can readily handle.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

It is! I found it! I will stop distracting from the conversation now...

 

[S'mon]

It is not so hard for a group of mooks to roll a 15-16 which is the highest they would need to hit my player with the highest AC.

My Wednesday group, the weakest mooks were the CR 3 plant zombies with +5 to hit. They needed anything from a 12 to hit the AC 17 Rogue (who was swiftly at 2 hp) to a 20 to hit the min-max Ftr/Rog/Warlock with Shieldmaster & Medium armour master or the Eldritch Knight when using Shield. Funnily enough I got several hits on the latter two, the dice were loving me.
Very high AC PCs in 5e can be an issue, but I never see a whole party with high AC, so keeping the squishies alive is an issue.