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

[Baron Opal II]

One way I went wrong, ironically, was making a fetch quest for a classic dungeon. Fortunately this was before I wrote the above adventures. The cleric cast earthquake which collapsed some, but not all, of the dungeon. The cleric and wizard used divination magic to isolate the rough quadrant the item was. The wizard conjured an earth elemental and had it swim in the stone until it found the item and brought it back.

This taught me that the goal can't be just getting an item. You need to talk to something, Mimir in his well, the Three Fates, gaze into the Infinite Mirror on top of Skybride Mountain, whatever.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't know what to tell you. I have lots of experience running high powered games (in various systems and genres) that haven't relied on the save the world trope. I've done that too, of course, but it isn't necessary. But if folks can't imagine how that could be, I won't lecture.

Perhaps you would enlighten us.
The entire point of the thread is to discuss ways to craft good high level adventurers, if you have some alternate styles you use that haven’t been discussed please share.

 

[Reynard]

Perhaps you would enlighten us.
The entire point of the thread is to discuss ways to craft good high level adventurers, if you have some alternate styles you use that haven’t been discussed please share.

To be clear, that wasn't the intent of the thread. The intent of the thread was to talk about specific design challenges and solutions for those challenges in producing high level adventures for publication. That intent has long since been forgotten for a more general, theoretical discussion on high level adventures and campaigns.

One example of a high level adventure unconnected to the fate of the world: a young prince ran off with his lover, who turned out to be a fairie maiden of the Winter Queen's court. The mortal family asked the parry to retrieve him, and so the powerful PCs had to travel to Fairyland and negotiate with the Winter Court and deal with faerie politics and true wuv.

 

[cranberry]

Just a quick perspective from someone who isn't a professional game designer.

When I'm building a high level adventure, I try to think of my players abilities and select monsters that can counter their abilities, or at least not be devastated by them.

I also think about the action economy, and adjust accordingly.

Finally, I often alter a monsters stats, as many of my players have years of experience, some as DM's, and they've all read the various monster manuals.

And when taking this into consideration, I keep in mind that the PCs are stronger than I think they are...

 

[J-H]

One way I went wrong, ironically, was making a fetch quest for a classic dungeon. Fortunately this was before I wrote the above adventures. The cleric cast earthquake which collapsed some, but not all, of the dungeon. The cleric and wizard used divination magic to isolate the rough quadrant the item was. The wizard conjured an earth elemental and had it swim in the stone until it found the item and brought it back.

This taught me that the goal can't be just getting an item. You need to talk to something, Mimir in his well, the Three Fates, gaze into the Infinite Mirror on top of Skybride Mountain, whatever.

I'd call that a success, unless you invested a lot of prep time into the dungeon. I bet the players all felt good about using their abilities cleverly to solve the problem efficiently.

Except maybe for the martials. I'd probably have had a complication like "the earthquake spawns some unhappy greater earth elementals that grapple the casters" or uncovering an unknown lair of something moderately powerful, or something like that.

 

[Reynard]

I'd call that a success, unless you invested a lot of prep time into the dungeon. I bet the players all felt good about using their abilities cleverly to solve the problem efficiently.

Except maybe for the martials. I'd probably have had a complication like "the earthquake spawns some unhappy greater earth elementals that grapple the casters" or uncovering an unknown lair of something moderately powerful, or something like that.

This is even more off topic than usual for this thread but:

Having systemic built in (rather than GM fiat) consequences, side effects and costs for magic use (at all levels) would help solve the martial/caster divide.

 

[Pedantic]

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.

I'm generally in agreement here, with the notable exception of dragons, who I generally prefer be spellcasters, in addition to enormous murder-lizards. I like the dragon as the apotheosis of PC ability. I like dragons as terrifying beasts precisely because they can do everything PCs can do.

 

[cbwjm]

And when taking this into consideration, I keep in mind that the PCs are stronger than I think they are...

I always err on the side of caution when really I should remember this when creating my adventure scenarios.

 

[Quickleaf]

@Reynard I was thinking a bit more about what distinguishes high-level D&D adventures (you gave 15th+ level as an example), and that's around when more of the "spells with consequences" – resurrection, contact other plane, teleport (errors) – become available.

An interesting design choice for a high-level adventure might be to assume the party is involved in casting one of these spells towards the beginning, and then dealing with the fallout. For example, the Bard or Cleric resurrecting a NPC who has been dead for 50 years and then the Bard or Cleric having to go the rest of the adventure without being able to cast spells & disadvantage.

Obviously, it would need to be handled with more nuance – give the impacted PC some narratively cool "carrot", not just "stick" & make the NPC meaningful – but these spells are one of the rare instances in D&D where "spells with consequences" still exists. And that looks like both a design opportunity to showcase a cool power, and introduce a unique type of challenge into a high-level adventure.

There's flaws with this approach: needs to have a certain class represented in the party, could be seen as too punishing by some groups, is more of a spice to add on rare occasion rather than a design feature to consistently rely upon – but I think those are surmountable, and there may be something to the idea.

 

[Reynard]

@Reynard I was thinking a bit more about what distinguishes high-level D&D adventures (you gave 15th+ level as an example), and that's around when more of the "spells with consequences" – resurrection, contact other plane, teleport (errors) – become available.

An interesting design choice for a high-level adventure might be to assume the party is involved in casting one of these spells towards the beginning, and then dealing with the fallout. For example, the Bard or Cleric resurrecting a NPC who has been dead for 50 years and then the Bard or Cleric having to go the rest of the adventure without being able to cast spells & disadvantage.

Obviously, it would need to be handled with more nuance – give the impacted PC some narratively cool "carrot", not just "stick" & make the NPC meaningful – but these spells are one of the rare instances in D&D where "spells with consequences" still exists. And that looks like both a design opportunity to showcase a cool power, and introduce a unique type of challenge into a high-level adventure.

There's flaws with this approach: needs to have a certain class represented in the party, could be seen as too punishing by some groups, is more of a spice to add on rare occasion rather than a design feature to consistently rely upon – but I think those are surmountable, and there may be something to the idea.

That's interesting. I don't know how you would contrive the situation such that there is no way the party can long rest at that level. it might make a cool climax to lower level adventure, though: the quest was to get a 50 year dead individual ressurected and the party delivers the corpse to the cleric capable of doing it, but just after the casting the BBEG shows up to capture the ressurected and the cleric and the PCs have to protect them until they can get a long rest and wipe the floor with the bad guys.