D&D 5E Top Three Tips for 5e at 9th Level

[Reynard]

I have run a lot of 5e over the years, but generally I have stayed closer to my personal sweet spot of 5th level or so. (Note that I have played plenty of 5e games higher than 5th, all the way up to 15th ish).

For my next outing -- an ongoing convention game that offers up to 5 4-hour sessions for folks that play all of them -- I want to stretch a little bit and increase the level to 9th. The setting is a demiplane with a lot of thru traffic, so almost anything is on the table (except undead because setting reasons).

If you were to distill your advice for running 5e at 9th level (or possibly 10th if any PCs level) down to a top three, what would they be?

(Again, just to be clear, I am a pretty experienced 5e DM with 30 years of D&D DMing behind me, who has been running convention mini-campaigns for 5 or 6 years now, so I am not looking for general advice.)

Thanks.

 

[Blue]

Casters have enough spells known/prepared to basically always tag a poor save for whatever you are dishing out, so mixed encounters with creatures with different strengths and weaknesses becomes more important.

Force them to use resources just to deal with things on an even level. 9th level having an encounter with flying-only foes, and other things where they need to overcome the terrain and hazards, are all good. Yes, that's a bit general but by 9th you can really go for it. If their barbarian has nothing ranged but javelins, they can and should still make him viable - you don't have to.

Revivify is a factor - dropping PCs is easy, killing them is harder, and keeping them dead at 9th is near impossible. Your only worries about going full bore at the PCs are a player sitting out for much of a combat, and foes with too much defenses and HPs so it turns into a boring grind. Hit hard. Harder. No really, harder then that. Look, you got the fighter down to 22 HPs. Oh look, he's just been polymorphed into a giant ape and has a new 150-odd HPs. Really, pound on them.

 

[Oofta]

Not that I use all of these all the time, but just to mix things up

• Send in waves, particularly from multiple directions. Make sure that archer in the back gets to have some fun.
• If you want to be mean, ignore the tanks completely (even if it means taking opp attacks) and go for the squishy caster instead. Let some lower level monsters take the hits first, even that annoying pole arm sentinel guy can only stop 1 creature per round.
• Don't be afraid to use the environment against the party. Fog to limit line of site, waist deep water to slow people down and give the enemy cover, pits, cliffs, tiny tunnels with small creatures.

 

[Prakriti]

1. Combat starts to run as slow as molasses. If you plan too many combat encounters, then expect them to take up the whole session.

2. Expertise really comes into its own. Expect a character with Expertise to succeed on every skill check.

3. Good parties will have a solution for everything at this level. Whether it's scouting ahead with Arcane Eye or destroying a boss with Polymorph, you can expect players to subvert your expectations, so try to have as few expectations as possible. Go with the flow, and let each character and their specialties shine.

 

[Stalker0]

Quantity really beats quality. It’s easy for 9th level PCs to knock out specific targets, but lots of weaker monsters can dish out a lot damage. Spells like wall of force and banishment will neuter key monsters.

Toss CRs out the window, my party routinely takes only crs 5 higher and do just fine.

Divinations become quite strong at this point. Contact other plane and commune are very powerful if you do lag time between sessions. Make sure to think about how to approach them

 

[aco175]

I do not use solo monsters unless they have lair actions and are at least 5cr higher than the PCs.

Terrain still affects the PCs with pits and flying to keep the tanks away for a few rounds.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Pregens.

Put some effort into a selection of PCs designed to be worthwhile alongside eachother.

Write up brief backstories, including relations to other PCS, build in lots of reasons to work together and a few sources of tension. You should be able to tie those into Traits&c/Inspiration.

 

[Fenris-77]

Pregens for sure, and especially pregen spell lists. You can curate the lists to avoid the spells that will be auto-win buttons for what you have planned. If you want to be hard core you have a single set of pregens, but if you want to be nice you have maybe 2 pregens per party slot. For a con I'd probably just do a single set to avoid things taking up valuable playing time.

I'll echo the advice above about more complex 3-D combat environments. Those are always cool regardless of level.

 

[Stalker0]

I do not use solo monsters unless they have lair actions and are at least 5cr higher than the PCs.

I would also add that such a solo also needs some kind of teleportation effect or really high mobility. Its too easy for a group of this level to just trap or corner a single monster. Even with a strong solo monster....I still usually throw in the minions.....if nothing else to try and disrupt concentration for the really big spells.

That's another tip....when it comes to concentration, again quantity over quality. A DC 10 concentration may sound easy, but when you have to roll it 3 or 4 times suddenly that failure becomes a real threat.

One last one, always have ranged attacks in a combat. Give humanoid monsters bows, make sure melee monsters are accompanied by something that gives range, whether its a trap or another monster. There are way too many things that can prevent melee monsters from getting to the party...and then your interesting fight becomes boring as heck.

I do think that 9th is the level that as a DM you have to start planning "higher thinking combats". This starts to happen with 4th level spells, but now with 5th level (and more common access to 4th level)….spells that change the battlefield and can neuter monsters becomes more the norm than the rare exception. That's assuming a usual party with a good wizard, if your party doesn't have a lot of spellcasters than honestly 9th is really no different than levels before it. You are planning your combats for the spellcasters, 5th edition didn't really change that.

 

[S'mon]

Don't let them have Animate Objects.