D&D 5E The challenges of high level adventure design.

[Reynard]

I’m of 2 minds. I like 4e monsters with bespoke abilities, but I also like the added flexibility of a limited spell list and not wasting all of that space on the stat block. A combination of the 2 is ideal I think.

Take 5e dragons. If you add the lair actions as part of the stat block, that shows unique and interesting dragon magic. I would then be fine with rounding them out with a few spells complying with the spellcasting variant. Then I can use them or not.

I would much rather see the important monsters* -- dragons, devils, abominations -- get bespoke abilities. They don't have to be overly wordy. I just finished two 5E freelance jobs focused primarily on monster design that used this method and the stat blocks weren't unwieldy.

*One exception is powerful undead, since most of those actually were spellcasters in life.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I would much rather see the important monsters* -- dragons, devils, abominations -- get bespoke abilities. They don't have to be overly wordy. I just finished two 5E freelance jobs focused primarily on monster design that used this method and the stat blocks weren't unwieldy.

*One exception is powerful undead, since most of those actually were spellcasters in life.

That is what you get with 5e dragons and their lair actions.

 

[Reynard]

That is what you get with 5e dragons and their lair actions.

I prefer they have abilities outside their lair actions, at all age categories.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I prefer they have abilities outside their lair actions, at all age categories.

What I was saying was give the lair actions to the dragons, period. Lair or not. That would be the type of design you’re talking about, correct?

 

[Reynard]

What I was saying was give the lair actions to the dragons, period. Lair or not. That would be the type of design you’re talking about, correct?

Yeah. There are some interesting abilities in the lair actions.

What I tend to do is focus on bonus actions and interesting reactions, and sometimes big main actions with recharge. I like the bloodied condition reset you see in LevelUp, but am not as enamored with MCDM's "villain actions." But broadly speaking, giving important monsters interesting and impressive -- though not always damaging -- things to do makes those battles memorable.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Yeah. There are some interesting abilities in the lair actions.

What I tend to do is focus on bonus actions and interesting reactions, and sometimes big main actions with recharge. I like the bloodied condition reset you see in LevelUp, but am not as enamored with MCDM's "villain actions." But broadly speaking, giving important monsters interesting and impressive -- though not always damaging -- things to do makes those battles memorable.

I agreed. I will say the “villain actions” just seem like “legendary actions” to me. Did I miss something with them.

 

[LordEntrails]

But having a campaign that is just non-stop epic threats just feels really weird after a while.

This is why I don't have tier 1-3 adventures that are about saving the world.

 

[cbwjm]

I agreed. I will say the “villain actions” just seem like “legendary actions” to me. Did I miss something with them.

They're similar to legendary actions but, going from memory, tend to be usable once, one after the other on consecutive rounds. It has been a while since I looked at them though so they may have changed since I last looked.

 

[cbwjm]

Yeah. There are some interesting abilities in the lair actions.

What I tend to do is focus on bonus actions and interesting reactions, and sometimes big main actions with recharge. I like the bloodied condition reset you see in LevelUp, but am not as enamored with MCDM's "villain actions." But broadly speaking, giving important monsters interesting and impressive -- though not always damaging -- things to do makes those battles memorable.

Bloodied condition reactions were a great part of 4e, I've also ported them into 5e. Great for when I want a monster with a little more hitting power without going fully into legendary actions.

I've also changed something about a monster when they're bloodied, like gaining a firey aura, makes things more interesting and changes the battle conditions a bit.

 

[Baron Opal II]

So, I wrote a handful of high level adventures for TSR back in the day. 2e. The highest level spell I had to account for was 7th. My feedback was quite positive, although not uniformly so. Unfortunately, part of my direction was they were uniformly fetch quests.

The keys include:
The characters are required to use their potent abilities to achieve their goal. Commune, find the path, conjure elemental, wall of force- if you don't have these you fail. Information is minimal to absent.

Travel is non-standard. Not only is it far away, but you don't really know where you are going. Sure, you can teleport, but can you take everyone with you? What level of teleport failure are you willing to risk? Maybe you need to summon a guide to tell you where to teleport to. Can you teleport your whole party, mounts, hench, NPCs and all? You might need two wizards. Combats are mid-air or on floating islands, everyone had better be able to fly.

There is time pressure. Now, here, I actually don't mean you have 5 rounds, or 6 hours, or whatever to complete the entire thing. You may have 5 rounds to solve a particular encounter, but what I mean here is that you have enough time to visit five of the seven places you would like to go. You need to be at the first encounter, and the last, but of the remaining five you only get to visit three. Choose wisely; the party has a number of resources to determine what gives you the best chance to "win" the adventure. Importantly, not visiting one or two of the sites does not cause a loss! There can be levels of victory.

The climatic encounter is not necessarily a combat, or only combat. For one of my adventures I shamelessly stole from the Nordic myths. I took the scene where Thor and Loki visit the lodge of Utgard-Loki; the PCs had to have a boasting contest (OMG, they had so much fun with that), an eating contest with Fire, a drinking contest with the Sea, and a wrestling contest with Old Age. Not that the PCs knew they were interacting with those personifications.

The win-state is gated by role-playing. You have to convince Mimir to tell you where the Gilded Comb is, and what word puts the guardian dragon to sleep. (Or, you could fight it if you wanted. I wouldn't take that from you.)

There is at least one battle with peers. You have to give the combat monsters a chance to monsterize. It's why they show up, and they don't want it to be easy.

Missed one~~

They're not saving the world. Saving the town, city, metropolis, kingdom, people, the Zola Fel, fine. Not the world, because then they can't lose credibly. There always has to be more to protect if the adventure goes sideways.