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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kbrakke" data-source="post: 7151460" data-attributes="member: 6781797">Ending at level 20 was my original plan, but I let things get out of hand as I mentioned in Lesson 5. The threats I had in mind were appropriate to high level characters, and I was happy with the escalation by the end. But in an ideal world I would have just not had them level up as much between things, it would have been something more likeMerrix ~ Level 9Emerald Claw ~ Level 13Rakshasas/Korliac ~ Level 17Belashyrra ~ Level 20With that group I am running a few shorter campaigns to try out new systems, we are currently in the middle of a short 13th age campaign where I intend them to get to level 5 at the end. After that will be another mini-campaign. At this point I don't think I would run a game to level 20 for a while just because I have so many systems I want to try. And I don't plan on running past 20 for a very long time, your marathon analogy is very apt.It was, and it just sorta happened to be that long. We have had a weekly game night for 3 years now, but only started D&D on the second year. And that's pretty much how it continued. We have board game sessions when people can't make it, but every time we're all there we had D&D to run. I used two things. First I made up a higher XP table because I needed to just slow down their progression, and second, I had Epic levels be more like Pathfinder mythic levels, where they got them for significant story events. Each of them were made up by me specifically for the characters and what they wanted to do and or be. So for normal levels above 20, they could multiclass, or they could take an ASI (Or a feat). Epic levels gave them 1d20 for their hit die, and a special thing. For example the Bard got Full of yourself<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">When you polymorph(Through spells like polymorph or true polymorph) you retain your mental statistics unless the creature you turn into has higher ones.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You retain your personality</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You retain all class features and your caster level is one half the of the level it used to be. You gain spell slots based on the multiclassing table after calculating your new caster levels. For example if you had 20 levels in a full casting class, after polymorphing you would have the spell slots of a 10th level caster on the multiclassing table. You would still know all your spells, but only be able to cast the spells you have slots for. If your new form is also a spell caster, you add your caster levels together, treating a result over 20 as a 20.</li> </ul>Because he was spending his time using polymorph and true polymorph, and I wanted to encourage that. He had also discussed the possbility of being a full time solar, and this may have helped encourage him to make the full swap.Our monk was getting in to the planeswalking psionic aspects and was at this point a 20th level Earthbending monk, so this was a nice capstone on top of the capstone. Untapped Power<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You can cast Earthquake once a day without material components</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You can cast Planeshift once a day with a target of self only without material components</li> </ul>Her next epic level let her use Mystic abilities with her Wisdom, and converted KI in to Psi points and gave all her monk abilites a Psi cost.Monster creation is a haphazard process. I spent most of my time thinking about how my specific party would handle the creatures. I didn't really nail it until the very end though with the Dolgunts. It was me thinking about each characters abilities, and making some monsters that were strong against specific sets of abilities. For example, I had dolgaunt lurkers who had high stealth and the rogue cunning action ability, they were meant to jump out, get one good hit on a tank, then flee. Our monk could chase after them and stun them because they had low CON and middle AC. Or the wizard could ready spells to roast them as they came in, but the pure Martials had a much harder time against them. I had another type of enemy that granted it's allies close by resistance to elemental damages. And other such creations. Because they were designed with the party specifically in mind, it ended up working well in that they began to fight against these things much more tactically, and there were many close fights.The other part of making monsters at level 20+ is I started asking "why not" more often. "You can't have a monster with 5 attacks that does 30 damage a hit and potentially erases one of their abilities." "Why not?" "..." and so the Dolgaunt perfect was born. If you have an idea for some crazy effect that sounds cool, it's probably fine. At level 20+ the party can figure it out.Does it work well? Kinda. It really is on a per group/party basis. It was a non-trivial amount of work for me to get the combat to be difficult but not unfair and the story to make sense at that scale. I went through so many weeks of easy combat, it was really only after I stopped caring about how hard the monsters looked, and just tried to make them deserving of the title epic that things started to gel. I also backed myself into many corners with poor planning. If I had just thought about the treasures overall, I think it could have been smoothed out. But to make it work once you get there, just start with something absurd, and then pair is down in play if it's too crazy.I also think 5e is easier to run high level content in than my other main D&D game of Pathfinder. When DMing or playing pathfinder I got the same feeling at level 11 as I do playing 5e at level 28. So in that respect, I think 5e does a much better job managing mental load. Other than unique spells I felt confident that I knew all the player's options both in and out of combat which helped things run smoothly.</blockquote>

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