My husband and I almost exclusively play high-level campaigns. We got spoiled on the amazing Epic Legacy features and can't go back. We fight deities, primordials, demon armies, and aliens with advanced technology. In our campaign, the planes between worlds are failing, allowing new worlds to collide. The gods are at war with foreign deities and with each other, since the evil gods see a novel path to world domination. It's a political intrigue story but also provides great epic combat. Much more fun than playing at low levels in my opinion.
I have dm'd and played in both low and high level games and ive noticed for me it's about making the stakes, ive have an 18th level game where we were fighting an ancient dragon and it just wasnt that interesting because the story wasnt done great. On the other hand ive had a low level campaighn where we fought a goblin camp and even for low level characters it wasnt that hard BUT it was set up very well and we all cared about it a lot.
@@howtheygotthere Yeah, it's really about the DM and the chemistry between everyone. If everyone is cooperating to tell a great story, it will be a great experience at any level. I just enjoy the wider variety of resources and features provided by higher levels.
I'm working up to the higher levels My playgroup is just each of us taking turns running campaigns until someone else wants to be the DM So we get a lot of practice playing levels 3-7
We did the same thing, the DM doesn't burn out because everyone DM's! We all agreed on one set of rules and agreed not to give items that were overpowered at low levels.
I count myself super lucky to have a group that enjoys and maturely plays at high level. High level gives you "permission" to do the epic things you imagined doing when you sat down to play D&D in the first place. In our current campaign, we came across a fortune teller who had the infamously game-ending Deck of Many Things. My bard drew 1 Wish. Then the druid drew the Avatar of Death, and his soul was reaped from this world. So I immediately used my 1 Wish to turn back time to before the druid drew his card. (I had that Wish for all of 10 minutes... heart-wrenching!) The DM handled it brilliantly: Time turned back, but the druid was still dead -- his soul still in possession of the Avatar of Death, somewhere on the River Styx. As a result, our campaign now had an epic Big Bad (the Avatar of Death) and a deeply personal high-stakes epic quest (travel to the River Styx and free the druid's soul), both randomly generated by the Deck of Many Things! To equip ourselves for the journey, we contacted a god who needed help defeating another god. But halfway through that mission, we realized god #2 was stronger, so we betrayed god #1 and offered to "help" god #2 usurp the Avatar of Death and take his place as ruler of the River Styx. All for the low, low price of one druid's soul. By questing to replace the Avatar of Death with an even more powerful, more evil god, I'm sure we're creating the Big Bad of some future adventuring party's campaign. But, hey... That's their problem! That's the cool stuff you get at high(ish) level. What a fun game.
Something that I've noticed is that official modules usually go up to level 13 BUT you're stuck in some weird place like Avernus, Icewind Dale, the Underdark, Undermountain, Chult, etc. So you (almost) never have to deal with the weirdest stuff a strong adventurer can do inside a town or in an “open world". Thanks for the advice, Luke. You're great
I did run a group to level 20 with 5e. The most challenging encounter I put them through was the arcane lab with 6 beholders + minions. That suitably prevented the wizard fron getting up to their usual tricks. In the 'final' battle, the fighter more or less soloed an ancient red dragon and then immediated went on to solo Baphomet in 3 rounds. She later did similar to a Tarrasque (though this was after basically becoming the 'new' Baphomet). She earned her nickname: "The All-Slayer"
Martial classes in the endgame tend to be insane with dpr so you have to account for that. One of my players has a knack for builds that deal 100 damage, so i have to account for that when statting out threats as we chug on near 20.
@@ALJessica if you want a powerful Baphomet, I recommend you use the Aspect of Baphomet in Fizban’s. CR 30 and can basically bring itself back to life.
I'm not against negating a characters cool powers. ONCE IN A WHILE. It keeps them on their toes. My campaign has a fighter that's all about the grappling. He grapples everything. That's awesome. But it's also awesome to throw in a character with misty step like abilities once in a while, to really mess up that plan.
I establish political connections with my players party very early on. It helps make the later encounters where they need them feel more natural. For example. My current group came across a prince being held by the same bandits they had been held by (first adventure was a break out scenario). In the next adventure, they rescued his uncle, the king (I day rescued, the king got bored being captured and rescued himself, busting down the door and joining into the fight in the last encounter). After this, they were rewarded with a home, a small amount of gold, and equipment they didn’t get at character creation because it had all been stripped from them before the adventure began. From this point on, they had their own adventures and stories not involving them, but the Royal Family were key players in the story, with members even joining them on adventures from time to time. Eventually, around level 15, the prince turned out to be a would be usurper who had been trying to murder his uncle and cousins, put his father on the throne, and then take the seat for himself later (One player actually asked how long I had been planning that, which was great). The players were instrumental in stopping this assassination attempt, and because the players knew and had interacted with the King and his daughters the entire campaign, it was natural to them that the events happened as they did.
The last campaign I played in ended at level 14, which, incidentally, was the point I realized my Barbarian could leap off a 16 story building, rage in mid-air, do a super hero landing for dramatic effect, and take negligible damage. We were basically superheroes at that point. The session two games later involved an actual appearance of the all-powerful endboss, whom the dm admitted he hadn’t even fully statted out, not expecting us to actually attack him when he tried to kidnap a long-time friendly and beloved npc and threatened us if we opposed him. Yeah, like a group of superheroes is going to let that happen. You could tell our poor DM was making up abilities on the fly for this guy as we used literally every power we had (including finely honed low level tactics like grapple) to separate him from his staff and free her. Which we did. Only to have him magically summon back his staff and just take her anyway. That was the last session. High level campaigns aren’t easy, and honestly I feel for our DM.
Back in the 90's, my table played until we reached Level 36 characters (2nd Edition D&D). It was even harder to play high levels, because back then the DM's were ruthless with PCs and the game system was unforgiven, with many failed saves resulting in straight death. The last battle featured a 2000 HP monster, probably took us a whole day of combat. Trust me, if you have the right DM, you can play almost forever. The only thing, in my honest opinion, that prevents PCs playing high level campaigns is DM burn out.
I once had a group I was running for make 20th level characters. The theme of the campaign I told them was Orcs. They thought I had lost my mind. A few homebrewed orc stats later with orc world shakers. High-level orc tacticians with expertly deployed battle strategies. With their own unique magic system and a not quite averted cataclysm spell, they realized their mistake. The plot basically consisted of an army approaching nearly 25 million orcs invading from 'the north of the world'. The players were forced to make deals with devil for reinforcements. To confront towering north orc generals. Engage in naval battles with Spartan-Norse-style orcs. Even throw down with the ancient bestial spirits called forth by the Orc shamans from before the days of thunder. The death rate was disturbingly high in that campaign but everyone loved it until it fell apart from scheduling issues. The part everybody thought was the most dangerous however was the fact the orcs all had positive intelligence modifiers and could before high-level brain processes. Like critical thinking and advanced strategy. My players had to spend the first few sessions of the campaign realizing that the orcs weren't stupid. Good times.
@@michaelramon2411 I had a lower level group 7-8, that was huntng a bandit camp, and were shocked and had to adjust their methods when they realized that the bandit scouting group they found had a sorceror, a monk and 2 capabile rangers, instead of just generic npc bandits...
@@CaptnJack This seems to be a 5e/Pathfinder difference. In Pathfinder (1e, at least - 2e functions a bit differently), it is incredibly common for enemies to have class levels, especially if they are humanoids. You basically never see CR 1/3 orcs - you see Level 2 orc Rangers or Level 4 orc Barbarians. But it sounds to me like a lot of 5e DMs only use the base statblock of a lot of monsters (and that WotC's books don't offer huge variety in that sense).
I haven't run a high level in 5th yet, so the lair and legendary stuff has not been a thing. But for everything else, I actually have done those items in the past. Once I get my players past around 10-15th level, it is more about the role play than it is about the combat. Building up story lines, yes there will still be combat but the focus is on developing an immersive and dynamic story. Party members are really working to complete personal quests. Overarching story lines are being completed. For example, my Tiefling Rogue who started an orphanage so he could rescue children from the streets. It was actually a school. During the day the children learned skills like blacksmithing or the like. At night, they learned spy craft techniques. Then, as they got older they because productive members of society, while also spying for me. I developed these in the major cities around the realm we played in. This was started at low level but did not come to fruition until around 15th level. It provided much needed information regarding the BBEG we were going up against.
I run 3.5e, and I enjoy being able to use the Epic Level Handbook. My last campaign went to level 22 before the PCs beat the BBEG (Vecna). My current campaign is at level 16, and I expect it to reach level 24 before the PCs beat the BBEG (Tiamat). Some of my players are new to D&D, and they're managing to keep up with the high level play.
Thanks for the tips! This comes at a perfect time since one of my groups is nearing level 12 on a published WotC adventure that's nearing completion. I plan to chuck the official material at that point and create my own (possibly using some DM Lair material of course!). I'll be referring back to this video and others for ideas as I go.
Oh man... Thank you for the rule number 10, its good to see that this is a real problem and not just me being unable to handle my player's character optimizations. All my campaign ended when we reach some level that I am tired of discuss with one player who power abuses, or constant asks for a break in the rules to become even more stronger.
I’m running a high level evil campaign where the players started at level 15 and are now 17, along with super buffs. One of the things I’ve run a few times is them facing an army of 100s of units. I’ll take a stat block like the guard, reduce each individuals HP to 2, and use mass combat rules from the DMG to ensure the army is landing hits when 20 swarm a PC. Player attacks do cleaving rules and AoE is double damage. The players love it when they do 24 damage with their great sword and you narrate how they cut down 12 people with one mighty swing.
Throwing my level 12 PCs into an unexplored land where a map doesn't exist yet and they have to find the BBEG who kidnapped one of their children in order to lure them there. Plenty of wild magic and magic radiation that will alter them the longer they stick around. Different kind of challenge with different stakes than just bigger, badder enemies (although those will certainly be included!)
So, the Idea i'm kind of getting with level campaigns is that it's less like a standard fantasy adventure and more like a superhero movie/cartoon. In those, the main threat usually isn't so just "beat the bad guy". I mean, sometimes it is, but there's usually some other complication. The villain has bombs planted around the city, they could be charging up some super weapon, trying to grab the Chaos Emeralds before the heroes do, etc. Also, you have to keep it interesting. If everyone is just gonna wish away thier problems all the time, it wouldn't be fun. Even Superman got the shit beat out of him in the Justice Leauge cartoon. Sure, he almost always got back up (becuase it's Superman), but it allows tension to happen.
Thanks for the video! I’m worried about my campaign falling flat once we reach mid to high tier play due to my six players out thinking me and doing things I didn’t anticipate. Im worried that continually challenging them is going to take a lot more work to prep content and I don’t want to get burnt out from lots of effort that just gets trivialized. I appreciate this content and would enjoy more topics and help on high level play in the future.
I recently had an encounter where my players were allowed to play lvl 20 characters (time travel shenanigans). It was an absolute blast of a session, with skill challenges, time challenges and the boss mechanics just making it much more than just "throw big spell/attack at the enemy". When I asked my players about the combat afterwards, almost all of them said that the fact that there was much more at stake than just dealing with the two villains, like closing the gates summoning enemies every round, or stopping the four elemental pillars draining souls from the world, or stopping the machine about to reawaken a dead god, it felt alive and challenging and actual like an epic final battle. After that combat ended and both villains were defeated, I left them in the age old "you all find yourselves in a tavern", but this time, as heroes and vanquishers rather than lowly adventurers, feasting and socializing alongside angels, demons, empyreans, and fey etc in the city of Sigil. It felt epic and amazing and the players got this final chance to say goodbye to these beloved characters.
I just wanted to stop In real quick and say,ast Saturday was my very first time dming. My dm hung up the cloak and someone had to pick it up for the sake of us not playing for 6 months. After watching your videos for the last week, I just want to say thank you for all the advice. I used much of it and the first session turned Out ok. It is a home brew due to me never being too knowledgeable about the in depth rules of dnd. Thank you thank you.
this week i made the final session of a one year long campaing, the players were level 14, everyone died in the final epic battle they were fighting along side with the most powerfull dragon of the material plane to recue the granparent of one of the player(who had a super powerfull demon inside him). intead of ignoring the enemies, the players fought everyone of them, got surrounded and all died. The dragon that used to protect the material plane is dead, the orc empire now have a more powerfull than ever arsenal of legendary epic weapons(things that could summon an army), and the player's granparent is forever sealed. more content to the next campaing
I came up with a way to have a ton of skeleton minions. But I know that it would be boring for the rest of the group if we had to go through all of those rolls, so I doubt I would ever do this. That being said, here's the basic setup (I don't want to pull up the specifics of this, so if you want more info, you'll have to do the research yourself). You are going to be a warlock/wizard hybrid. Choose Warforged as your race. Ignore any daily powers. Have a bag of holding, and loot any bones you can get your hands on. For subclasses, choose Necromancer for the Wizard, and choose the Celestial for the Warlock. This gives you a boost to your animate dead spell, and it gives you healing magic. You will take either 6 levels into wizard or 8, depending on whether you want that extra ASI/feat. The rest will go into warlock. While the rest of the party sleeps, you will be casting animate dead on the bones you collect, but you will also have to cast cure wounds on yourself to heal any damage you took from the day's adventuring. So, at level 20, you will have 3, fifth-level spell slots that come back each hour. Using cure wounds with this will heal for 5d8, or an average of 22.5, per spell slot. Assuming you have 16 con, you'll have around 150 health, so assuming you are at 1 health and you get average rolls, you'll need 6-7 spells to heal yourself back up, out of your total of 24. Use the remaining 18 spell slots to control 36 skeletons. Or reassert control on 126 skeletons. The wording of animate dead says "a pile of bones...", so it depends on how many bones your gm says needs to be there to become a skeleton, but since the bones are lighter than the flesh to make a zombie, and since you can fit bones into a bag easier, you can carry the components for skeletons easier than that for zombies. If you wanted to take this to its extreme, you could rest for a bit, and then spend time gathering bones to make an army. Then have your skeleton army carry you around, you give them instructions on where to go, and you spend your whole time each day resting and casting animate dead, to control up to 504 skeletons. Deck them out each with a wand of magic missiles, throw some armor on them, and then watch them all get killed by a singular fireball. Have fun.
4:54 Apparently this happened with Superman comics during a certain part of the golden age. Basically, Supes was so OP that they eventually decided to focus on more sitcom-y stuff. Though, to be fair, even in the modern day the best Superman stories usually involve a non-combat related problem, like terminal illness or issues of morality. That's why Lex Luthor is often an effective villain for Superman, he's a guy you can't just punch and be done with.
I just finished an 8 session level 20 adventure... And my current group wants to go from 1st to 20th level (they just leveled up to 8) so this is very helpful for me I think that I (kind of) got the combat balancing part towards the end of the adventure I ran, but I'm definitely going to need all the advice I can get if we are going to do a good chunk of a campaign at tier 4 play I think the most devious part of that adventure was in the final battle, 5 level 20 PCs vs Orcus, a Molydeus, a red Greatwyrm, 3 deathlock masterminds, 4 death knights One character through magic was able to get a 27 AC, first turn of combat a death knight casts dispel magic, attempting to kill his haste, sorcerer counterspells, mastermind counterspells, wizard counterspells, mastermind 2 counterspells, sorcerer simulacrum counterspells, mastermind 3 counterspells, wizard simulacrum counterspells.... Haste stands.... Dragon casts dispel magic at 8th level on the sorcerer simulacrum, Orcus casts dispel magic at 8th level on the wizard simulacrum, the party has all used their reactions already. It was a dirty trick... But they were fighting a demon lord
Something that I did to a party - not even epic level, 15th - was bring them home. And home had changed! The entire area they started out in; Herkamo's Trading Post, Yarklin Keep, Bastion Storga . . . Now it was known as "Zeffer's Folly". Having moved on to greater things, they'd left their homeland to the mercies of low-level antagonists from their early days. They were now seen as villains, while villains they'd let escape were in charge and seen as heroes.
0:51 that is at least partially the dm’s fault. Divine Intervention doesn’t automatically do exactly what they asked for, it just does something that helps in that department. And Wish is up to the dm if it can Insta-kill something
I ran a 3.5 campaign that ran from lvl 1 and ended at lvl 23. Magic of Incarnum had just come out, and I wanted to play and experiment with the system, and introduce it to my players. We almost exclusively played in the forgotten realms, so I introduced it as a pre-weave system of ancient magic that has fallen out of favor and nearly forgotten. Cyric rediscovered it, and wanted to use it as a source of power that Mystra couldn't cut him off from. Using a ley line that was steeped in Chaotic Evil Incarnum energy, he created a fanatical order of incarnum using followers. They established a stronghold in Narfel. From there they raided villages and turned prisoners into lost. They made alliances with the Hobgoblins of the Giantspire mountains, and began an invasion of Impiltur. The party gets drug into the war, and ends up defeating the Ciric forces. They players were having so much fun that they asked me to keep it going. So the campaign turned into what I call a "National Treasure" style campaign, where the party hunted down additional nodes and increased their power. Eventually they attuned to them all, and challenged the torpid vestiges of the ancient Incarnum gods to gain some of their power. The player's gained divine rank 0, and set about returning Incarnum to the world. Towards the end of the campaign, I found it extremely hard to balance encounters for the party. Either the combat would be in hand in two rounds, or I would halfway tpk them. The party? Beguiler/fatespinner/guildmage. As a Beguiler she had top notch control options. I also ran the risk of any monsters I threw at them becoming a pet. Fatespinner took luck out of the equation. Either bad dice on their end, or good luck on my end. Guildmage gave her access to spells that she normally wouldn't have. Wizard/Psion/Cerebromancer. This player focused on being a Swiss army knife and problem solver. He countered what I threw at the party. Even interrupting my turn and taking an immediate actions. Unseelie Fey Dread Necromancer. She had some nasty pets, and being Unseelie fey floored enemy saves, which made them susceptible to her save or dies. This also combo's with the Beguilers enchantment and illusion spells. She also handled all of the undead that the Beguiler couldn't dominate. Archer? I don't remember the exact build, but fully buffed he could deal over 200 damage a turn. Spellscale Warmage/dracolexi. His main job was to apply some buffs on the archer. He was basically a back up blaster that helped kill whatever the archer didn't insta kill. This was a tough party to Crack. Especially since they were experienced players. They shored up each other's weaknesses extremely well. Ultimately I ended up not worrying too much about challenging them every combat. As long as the combats were engaging and the player's were having fun, it didn't matter. Infact they enjoyed flexing a bit. Still, I had no idea where I would gone next. It was a natural stopping point, and I siezed on it.
As a new DM, this video was really helpful for planning my adventure when my players get higher levels. We are trying Tales from the Yawning Portal but I have been adding my own story arc and tying the dungeons together using a deity and demigod. it's been great and your tips were perfect to help guide me.
I think I'll re-watch this video in two to three years, because we've been playing a campaign for over a year and they're just hitting 6th level next Saturday. But thanks for the information, was about to fall into the pit of "let's just roll the dice and forget about social interactions".
I'm currently running a campaign that has been ongoing for 3 years, and the PC's have reached lv 19. (They are in the end game of the campaign with 2 major Big bads to go). For the most part the players do their part to play responsibly and the game goes really smoothly. I will admit to having one player who abuses their power to disastrous consequence. Twice now, they have dropped Meteor Swarm with no concern about the consequences of collateral damage. The first time it got them exiled from one of the MAJOR cities of the world they had relied on for getting information about things related to the arcane and nearly got one of their troupe executed. The last session I ran, they were caught between the military forces of their OWN kingdom and the forces of one of the PC's brother (who although is right about a corrupt lord, his means to an end could kill innocents). Most of the party tried to prevent loss of life by either incapacitating for disarming the guards from their kingdom who were attacking unarmed workers (mind you, these workers were escaped inmates working for what was perceived to be a threat to the kingdom, so the guards weren't entirely without justification). There were one or two accidental deaths along the way, but for the most part, the party did well of handling the situation on the up and up. Then the wizard dropped Meteor Swarm on the airships being used by the soldiers of their kingdom, decimating 3 out of 4 of them outright, and heavily damaging the fourth. The 3 that were destroyed ended up killing several dozen soldiers of the kingdom, as well as civilian engineers working on them. THEN the wizard gave chase to the 4th airship as it was fleeing in an attempt to stop it as well, but the airship escaped. Now the group in the upcoming session has to face the consequences of the deaths of so many soldiers and civilians who essentially died in the line of duty. I don't forsee it being a very fun session, but I feel as though I can't let this one slide by without serious repercussions. It's true what you said, not every player is cut out for high level game play and this player is constantly either abusing their power, or in many combats, always blows his highest level spells first, dampening the combat for the others. I will also note, when one of his high level powers gets countered in some way, he is not a happy camper lol. I dread running this next session!
I usually DM, and I love my brutal fantasy world. I remember I would DM for adventures league. Adventures league is mostly light hearted and lots of kids are usually there. One day I finally got a good group of adults who wanted to do a campaign with each other. They liked how I DMed and how I keep the action moving. Anyway I have the players role up third lvl characters. There first quest escouting a cart full of supplies from a city to a village. So the quest giver could expand his business. The cart was going to have and older man with his two children a son and a daughter. So at first everyone is getting to know everyone, they are loving the silly old man. His quite by intelligent daughter and the son eager to prove himself. The make way to the village. Halfway to the village the first encounter Goblins. However the encounter started with the goblins dropping a bunch of trees they cut down on the oxen on the cart. Oxen dead cart isn't moving. Players role initiative, my goblins went first and the players still can't see them. The old man looks into the back of the cart and say to the players " Guys we have a-- " just then a crossbow bolt goes through his head, through his left eye and the end of the bolt sticks the eye out. The kids were in the front of the cart they fall out in fear. The party then starts fighting the goblins hiding in the trees and bushes. The party starts taking down the goblins. Once the party gets a breather. They realize the children are gone. They follow a trail of goblin/human tracks. Where they found the boy stabbed to death and stripped of all his valuables. The little girl no where to be seen. Unfortunately since no one have survival or nature as a proficiency. They lose the tracks. Over time they find the goblins hold. They were too late they find the goblins had scarificed the girl to their god and were consuming her. After they bearly killed the goblins I then told them. You have all failed the quest. With the destruction of the cart and killing of the family you were charged to protect you failed. You cannot collect your gold. They took the bodies of the family back to the city and had them buried in the cemetery over there. That was the end of session 1.
Another tip... Watch the "Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn - End of an Era Trailer" Boss shows up with a huge natural disaster. The guys in that trailer also try to use Wish and Divine intervention level stuff on it. The buildup to that was also "Hey guys the MOON is FALLING!" Don't think there's much lv 20 characters can do about that. Even if the good guys kill that thing, everything got exploded and now you gotta deal with that.
I love this video! I’m gonna be honest.. when I started watching your content a year ago I loved the info but not like how you presented it. This is so much more incredible to watch! Keep it up! Thank you!!
My party is approaching tier 3. So this is pretty helpful. I was going of a bbeg who is a terrifying tanarukk with level 20 spellcasting, with thousands of orcs and demons at their command. Now I realise he needs tens of thousands.
My players recently did an encounter with a lich with the stats of a suped up mummy lord. He started off by himself but then I added his minions the next round. The problem was he casted maddening darkness and therefore killed all the minions very quickly. One of my players has a Sunblade to counter the spell from hurting him (although he didn't stick with the other party members, making them subject to Maddening Darkness). Thankfully for me, my players were still having a tough time with him because they couldn't see him and he was extremely mobile. One of my players went down and rolled a 20 on his death save. Then shortly after another one of my players finally broke his concentration for that spell thus saving the other from dying. It was truly an intense fight for everyone.
Highly dependant on the party. I ran an intrigue encounter to my party earlier where they were attending a masquerade under the guise of being someone else. They had a party Awareness - score as well as individual ones and different events would lead to different outcomes. Some of them disappearing for minutes might increase their awareness, while others were visibly looking for secret doors. Some were poor dancers and others target of nasty gossip. Even if faces have high Charisma it does not result in them always getting away with dumfoolery or in NPCs ignoring them. And when at high levels people are associating diplomatic meetings with deities or leaders of entire nations and worlds most powerful mages, no-one simply trusts a guy with a nice face.
@@AdeptScholar It would be if you are trying to force peace between two raging gods. And even that would not cut it through fully, but might persuade them to even visit one another without trying to kill each other.
Pages 244 and 245 of the DMG helped me out a lot a while back, and I improvised a Social hitpoints system from it - succeed on a Persuasion check (a powerful Emperor might have a super-high DC, say 25 or 30) or perform a favourable action, then roll d6+Cha to alter the "HP" of a hostile NPC. Implacable NPCs have high HP, say, 30, irresolute ones have low HP. Crude, but my players seemed to like it on the few times I rolled it out.
Some of these tips are great even for lower level campaigns, i've got a party who's now level 7 and just finished LMoP (it's my first time running a campaign, long story short there were a couple extra adventures thrown inbetween it and some homebrew elements to the story, so it was tweaked a lot to accommodate their level increase) but i adjusted the final boss Black Spider heavily, i basically created a new level 6 character (PC's were level 6 at time of fight) full of spells that should have wiped the floor with the party...yet the bard got the jump on him and cast blindness... the Black Spider did 0 damage...
Archfey-the "ch" digraph here is pronounced as "tʃ" (as in beach or cheese), not "Ark-fey." Same with archrival, archenemy, archdevil, archdemon, archmage, archdruid. All include the standard English "tʃ" pronunciation for the "ch" digraph. "Archangel" is the *exception,* not the rule. There are etymological reasons, but it's basically because we get "archangel" handed down through multiple ancient languages before its arrival in the modern English language. The other words are more modern additions to our lexicon, lifted directly into English as loan words. I'm not a linguist, so just using my best layman's understanding here 🙂 but my pronunciation is accurate, I checked 😅
The power of the characters starts screaming upwards exponentially once you hit about level 12 or so. Every level from there starts to feel multiplicative rather than additive. I had a group that was only level 14 completely obliterate an ancient blue dragon after fighting their way all the way though the dragons lair. Then at level 15 the did the same to an ancient red dragon which also had about a dozen really tough minions with her too AND she had a human sorcerer form they had to fight before she would even turn into the full health dragon.
I threw an ancient white dragon at some lvl 16s just to make them feel good when they curbstomped it. They have beaten an ancient red dragon in power armor and a black dragon greatwyrm with homebrew stats that made it far stronger than the one from fizbans for an example of previous feats
There is a game where a DM has multiple groups playing in the same setting. We don't directly interact with one another but the indirect effects change the world. There is at least one group that is very high level that is made up of LG paladins and they deal with many world ending threats. This means that the group I play in tend to decide to just go for missions in self interest. Like traveling to another plane to steal their spices. The moral is that high level groups don't need world ending stakes. They can continue the shenanigans and do dangerous things like invading planes and defying gods to steal some magical saffron.
I may be a "sweet summer child," but part of me is looking forward to at least dipping my feet into running high level games. Currently designing a CR 30 boss and I'm trying to motivate my lazy ass to write an arc surrounding one of the Elder Evils (Atropus in particular is awesome, fite me).
Never been high lever, once my fighter was at level 11 but that was something like 20 years ago. I remember that he had +3 sword and +2 shield. And I guess he had a armor aswell. But someday I will hit to level 15!
For what it's worth, I'd argue the scheduling issues causing games to fall apart is a big reason why higher levels are neglected. Basically, since 90% of games don't make it past like, level 6, not a ton of attention is put towards it.
One of my favorite high level campaigns was trying to defend the world from a Rob (random omnipotent bastard) calling himself the dungeon master. The 20th level party was doing fine until the final battle vs rob. In the end the paladin, bard, and fighter were dead, the barbarian was permanently stun locked for life, and the wizard was injured badly with all his summons dead. The wizard cast wish and said he wish to destroy the dms soul. The dm slowly smiled and said "That would work on anyone else in this world, but I don't have a soul anymore." And then he left. He won via technicality and new it so he left.
Been running high level for a while now. Adjust to what the players actually want and gravitate towards. (Not even what they 'say' or 'think' they want pay attention to what they actually want) for example You have been leaving multiple quest hooks but even at lv 18 the party prefers to keep their exploits more secret and just go into dungeons and fight monsters. So maybe for this group realize thats what they want EVEN at high levels. Not every high level party becomes famous or brags or enjoys mingling and going to fancy parties. They may not enjoy a world shattering event they are needed to stop. They maybe just want super cool very exotic powerful 'dungeons' populated by LOTS of powerful enemies. This party may say they want to do long term goals like training and creating a series of magic item stores and run a keep. But then they never do that, even when you give them the option they always get impatient and run for the faintest whiff of a powerful dungeon filled with treasure or a dragon to battle, etc This is my campaign. They just want to keep exploring ever more dangerous places, fight tons of powerful (and some weaker) monsters and get more and more treasure. Its what they want, so It's how the game will continue. I give hooks for political intrigue or international disputes with the potential to get their 'keep'. Given a letter of recommendation and told exactly what to do they went elsewhere. They sometimes 'say' they want BUT; They haven't followed up, they DID however immediately rush off with a more subtle hook to enter the deadly monster filled wastelands and find a hidden ruined mage city potentially full of magic items from the mage war 300 years ago. They WANT Monty haul (I prefer this too); ridiculous amounts of treasure and magic items. And adore mystery and exploration. They enjoy social but prefer to keep a low profile about what they have done and how powerful they have become. And usually love interacting with specific interesting NPCs especially master clothing makers, artists, interesting shopkeepers, magic shop keepers, and powerful wizards. They have very little to no actual interest in the nobels, rulers, 'authority' even when they say they do they NEVER actually interact with them and avoid them until absolutely necessary. Rather like the mighty 9 for campaign 2 of critical role actually... They vastly prefer quests like; rescuing the enslaved baby gold dragon and returning him to his mother who it turns out runs a secret freedom fighters town that frees slaves (in a slave having nation). Very much enjoying the exploration and discovery and interaction with the most interesting NPCs, And then becoming allies with her and going to slay a great sand worm that threatens the town, and bringing them supplies and socializing with specific NPCs in that town (The baby dragon, the momma dragon and a couple other interesting ones) keeping the secret of and bringing food and needed supplies and going on big monster slaying quests for/with them but otherwise just visiting and not actively helping them in more 'political/intrigue/spy' and similar longer missions that would probably feel very tedious to them. Saving food in one of the bags of holding for the next visit , etc. See what they have been doing when given the option. If your campaign has world shattering events that the party needs to stop/face ensure the kind of players you have actually enjoy that. Some people might be fine with going to the wastelands and recovering treasure only to find out another very high level group of NPCs actually saved the world. My party would be happy and relieved someone else took care of it I think. I feel logically more than JUST your players should exist to defend and be high level in your world otherwise wouldn't it have been destroyed before they leveled up? There is more than one 'correct' way and I feel observing the actual behavior and desires of YOUR group will be the best way of determining what/how you play at every level of D&D! Also I checked with them they are still JUST as happy with the campaign as at lower levels and always want to keep playing when a session ends and even want extra games from me! In fact they prefer being 'properly powerful and geared' now. Additional advise I can briefly give (in this already massive comment) is to have notes. charts and ideas to easily buff monsters. Use max HP or what I call Boss HP (Boss HP is usually +50% to +300% of MAX HP) know your party if they are too strong add more HP. Add +1 to +5 to enemies AC, Saves, Save DCs. Give monsters more skill proficiencies, tactics in battle. Add bonus actions, reactions, (and of course on true bosses; legendary as he mentioned in the video) Swap out spellcasters spells for better spells. Add spellcasting onto Stat blocks! Etc. And MANY encounters in 1 day! not just 1, many. Harry and disrupt how easy resting is to accomplish. Set things on a timer they are aware of and keep track of every minute and the exact time of the day! Area effects that add risk to spellcasting. Planar dangers and other magical terrain/hazards and effects. What if There isn't 1 Tarrasque! There are 7! They wake to battle for power ranks amongset their kind! Other kaijou type foes. Why is there only 1 Tarrasque? Its not even the most powerful really. Give it at least double max HP for a start..... A higher intelligence and a ranged (thrown object) attack (as a bonus action) would actually make it a challenge for Players with any decent grasp of tactics! Add in other CR25 - 30 foes for strong LV 17 - 20 PCs! Anyways I'm also writing a 5e compatible book that will 100% contain LOTS of support for high level play. Sorry for the longest comment I just wanted to add this in. I hope it helps! Fun video, thanks.
using NPCs is the #1 tip here, generally speaking for open world style games. if the players have zero grounding, no reason to take any stakes seriously, you’re just going to end up with demigod murder hobos. But give them one or two NPCs to care about and suddenly they will go to war for them.
I would rather bot eat bacon, but thank you so much for the tips. I am using them to create a 15th level homebrew world with some preety min maxed charicters
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Ohh! Amazing info... I just DM mostly online/digitally for groups not tied to a specific "campaign" of my own, we have a "revolving door" thing for DMs and players.. so it's a bit tricky... any advise for this type of situations? Regards from Tabasco, México [Land of The Olmecs]!
Hi luke, at one point you mentioned that your high level party destroyed enemies with 5x the deadly threshold. My question: at that time were the PC's fully rested or was it the last fight of the adventuring day (they should have used most of their resources) If the DM only does 1 fight a day I can imagine it'll be too easy for the PC's
High level players have a knack for skipping stuff. And meaningful combat at those levels takes hours. So an adventuring day can be hard to execute without undermining your players skills.
I can't answer for luke but I have run an adventuring day with 2 hard encounters and 2 deadly encounters and then a boss encounter that was 10+ times the deadly threshold and the players didn't have many issues. This ended up being a modified end to OOTA where they simultaneously fought Yeenooghu, a demilich, an adult blue dracolich, an Illithilich, and a skull lord. Partly through the fight they also fought the survivor between Orcus and Demogorgon, which ended up being Demogorgon with Orcus' wand. All of these creatures had their legendary resistances and legendary actions. Despite all of this the players really didn't run into many issues. High level encounters are just not really well balanced in 5e especially with each new book that comes out.
"I paid for the entire Monster Manual, so I'm gonna use the entire Monster Manual"
Players: "Ha I wonder what monsters in this next dungeon since we're so strong."
DM: "Yes"
My husband and I almost exclusively play high-level campaigns. We got spoiled on the amazing Epic Legacy features and can't go back. We fight deities, primordials, demon armies, and aliens with advanced technology. In our campaign, the planes between worlds are failing, allowing new worlds to collide. The gods are at war with foreign deities and with each other, since the evil gods see a novel path to world domination. It's a political intrigue story but also provides great epic combat. Much more fun than playing at low levels in my opinion.
Heck. That sounds cool
I have dm'd and played in both low and high level games and ive noticed for me it's about making the stakes, ive have an 18th level game where we were fighting an ancient dragon and it just wasnt that interesting because the story wasnt done great. On the other hand ive had a low level campaighn where we fought a goblin camp and even for low level characters it wasnt that hard BUT it was set up very well and we all cared about it a lot.
@@howtheygotthere Yeah, it's really about the DM and the chemistry between everyone. If everyone is cooperating to tell a great story, it will be a great experience at any level. I just enjoy the wider variety of resources and features provided by higher levels.
I'm working up to the higher levels
My playgroup is just each of us taking turns running campaigns until someone else wants to be the DM
So we get a lot of practice playing levels 3-7
We did the same thing, the DM doesn't burn out because everyone DM's! We all agreed on one set of rules and agreed not to give items that were overpowered at low levels.
I count myself super lucky to have a group that enjoys and maturely plays at high level. High level gives you "permission" to do the epic things you imagined doing when you sat down to play D&D in the first place.
In our current campaign, we came across a fortune teller who had the infamously game-ending Deck of Many Things. My bard drew 1 Wish. Then the druid drew the Avatar of Death, and his soul was reaped from this world. So I immediately used my 1 Wish to turn back time to before the druid drew his card. (I had that Wish for all of 10 minutes... heart-wrenching!) The DM handled it brilliantly: Time turned back, but the druid was still dead -- his soul still in possession of the Avatar of Death, somewhere on the River Styx. As a result, our campaign now had an epic Big Bad (the Avatar of Death) and a deeply personal high-stakes epic quest (travel to the River Styx and free the druid's soul), both randomly generated by the Deck of Many Things!
To equip ourselves for the journey, we contacted a god who needed help defeating another god. But halfway through that mission, we realized god #2 was stronger, so we betrayed god #1 and offered to "help" god #2 usurp the Avatar of Death and take his place as ruler of the River Styx. All for the low, low price of one druid's soul.
By questing to replace the Avatar of Death with an even more powerful, more evil god, I'm sure we're creating the Big Bad of some future adventuring party's campaign. But, hey... That's their problem!
That's the cool stuff you get at high(ish) level. What a fun game.
Something that I've noticed is that official modules usually go up to level 13 BUT you're stuck in some weird place like Avernus, Icewind Dale, the Underdark, Undermountain, Chult, etc. So you (almost) never have to deal with the weirdest stuff a strong adventurer can do inside a town or in an “open world".
Thanks for the advice, Luke. You're great
I did run a group to level 20 with 5e. The most challenging encounter I put them through was the arcane lab with 6 beholders + minions. That suitably prevented the wizard fron getting up to their usual tricks.
In the 'final' battle, the fighter more or less soloed an ancient red dragon and then immediated went on to solo Baphomet in 3 rounds. She later did similar to a Tarrasque (though this was after basically becoming the 'new' Baphomet). She earned her nickname: "The All-Slayer"
Martial classes in the endgame tend to be insane with dpr so you have to account for that. One of my players has a knack for builds that deal 100 damage, so i have to account for that when statting out threats as we chug on near 20.
Baphomet (atleast from Mordenkainens), is incredibly week. And his cr 23 is not really up to snuff. He is more like a cr 19
@@ALJessica if you want a powerful Baphomet, I recommend you use the Aspect of Baphomet in Fizban’s. CR 30 and can basically bring itself back to life.
@@weepingwalnut you are thinking of Bahamut in Fizban's. Baphomet is a demonlord
I'm not against negating a characters cool powers.
ONCE IN A WHILE.
It keeps them on their toes. My campaign has a fighter that's all about the grappling. He grapples everything.
That's awesome. But it's also awesome to throw in a character with misty step like abilities once in a while, to really mess up that plan.
or project image "hey thanks for making yourself prone with my fake duplicate, hold my spell while you think about your next move"
Grappling oozes is lots of fun!
Usually I don't care for the starter sketch, but I liked this one. :)
I establish political connections with my players party very early on. It helps make the later encounters where they need them feel more natural.
For example. My current group came across a prince being held by the same bandits they had been held by (first adventure was a break out scenario). In the next adventure, they rescued his uncle, the king (I day rescued, the king got bored being captured and rescued himself, busting down the door and joining into the fight in the last encounter). After this, they were rewarded with a home, a small amount of gold, and equipment they didn’t get at character creation because it had all been stripped from them before the adventure began.
From this point on, they had their own adventures and stories not involving them, but the Royal Family were key players in the story, with members even joining them on adventures from time to time.
Eventually, around level 15, the prince turned out to be a would be usurper who had been trying to murder his uncle and cousins, put his father on the throne, and then take the seat for himself later (One player actually asked how long I had been planning that, which was great).
The players were instrumental in stopping this assassination attempt, and because the players knew and had interacted with the King and his daughters the entire campaign, it was natural to them that the events happened as they did.
The last campaign I played in ended at level 14, which, incidentally, was the point I realized my Barbarian could leap off a 16 story building, rage in mid-air, do a super hero landing for dramatic effect, and take negligible damage.
We were basically superheroes at that point.
The session two games later involved an actual appearance of the all-powerful endboss, whom the dm admitted he hadn’t even fully statted out, not expecting us to actually attack him when he tried to kidnap a long-time friendly and beloved npc and threatened us if we opposed him.
Yeah, like a group of superheroes is going to let that happen. You could tell our poor DM was making up abilities on the fly for this guy as we used literally every power we had (including finely honed low level tactics like grapple) to separate him from his staff and free her. Which we did. Only to have him magically summon back his staff and just take her anyway.
That was the last session.
High level campaigns aren’t easy, and honestly I feel for our DM.
Back in the 90's, my table played until we reached Level 36 characters (2nd Edition D&D). It was even harder to play high levels, because back then the DM's were ruthless with PCs and the game system was unforgiven, with many failed saves resulting in straight death. The last battle featured a 2000 HP monster, probably took us a whole day of combat. Trust me, if you have the right DM, you can play almost forever. The only thing, in my honest opinion, that prevents PCs playing high level campaigns is DM burn out.
So true
So true (2)
What is it that the DM did to keep a day of combat engaging? Or was it just stuff to do with their character? (character, as in, IRL)
I once had a group I was running for make 20th level characters. The theme of the campaign I told them was Orcs. They thought I had lost my mind. A few homebrewed orc stats later with orc world shakers. High-level orc tacticians with expertly deployed battle strategies. With their own unique magic system and a not quite averted cataclysm spell, they realized their mistake.
The plot basically consisted of an army approaching nearly 25 million orcs invading from 'the north of the world'. The players were forced to make deals with devil for reinforcements. To confront towering north orc generals. Engage in naval battles with Spartan-Norse-style orcs. Even throw down with the ancient bestial spirits called forth by the Orc shamans from before the days of thunder.
The death rate was disturbingly high in that campaign but everyone loved it until it fell apart from scheduling issues. The part everybody thought was the most dangerous however was the fact the orcs all had positive intelligence modifiers and could before high-level brain processes. Like critical thinking and advanced strategy. My players had to spend the first few sessions of the campaign realizing that the orcs weren't stupid. Good times.
Everyone laughs at the orc until they remember that an orc can earn as many class levels as a human.
@@michaelramon2411 I had a lower level group 7-8, that was huntng a bandit camp, and were shocked and had to adjust their methods when they realized that the bandit scouting group they found had a sorceror, a monk and 2 capabile rangers, instead of just generic npc bandits...
@@CaptnJack This seems to be a 5e/Pathfinder difference. In Pathfinder (1e, at least - 2e functions a bit differently), it is incredibly common for enemies to have class levels, especially if they are humanoids. You basically never see CR 1/3 orcs - you see Level 2 orc Rangers or Level 4 orc Barbarians. But it sounds to me like a lot of 5e DMs only use the base statblock of a lot of monsters (and that WotC's books don't offer huge variety in that sense).
I haven't run a high level in 5th yet, so the lair and legendary stuff has not been a thing. But for everything else, I actually have done those items in the past. Once I get my players past around 10-15th level, it is more about the role play than it is about the combat. Building up story lines, yes there will still be combat but the focus is on developing an immersive and dynamic story. Party members are really working to complete personal quests. Overarching story lines are being completed. For example, my Tiefling Rogue who started an orphanage so he could rescue children from the streets. It was actually a school. During the day the children learned skills like blacksmithing or the like. At night, they learned spy craft techniques. Then, as they got older they because productive members of society, while also spying for me. I developed these in the major cities around the realm we played in. This was started at low level but did not come to fruition until around 15th level. It provided much needed information regarding the BBEG we were going up against.
I run 3.5e, and I enjoy being able to use the Epic Level Handbook. My last campaign went to level 22 before the PCs beat the BBEG (Vecna). My current campaign is at level 16, and I expect it to reach level 24 before the PCs beat the BBEG (Tiamat). Some of my players are new to D&D, and they're managing to keep up with the high level play.
The Epic Level Handbook is still my favourite book!
Thanks for the tips! This comes at a perfect time since one of my groups is nearing level 12 on a published WotC adventure that's nearing completion. I plan to chuck the official material at that point and create my own (possibly using some DM Lair material of course!). I'll be referring back to this video and others for ideas as I go.
Oh man... Thank you for the rule number 10, its good to see that this is a real problem and not just me being unable to handle my player's character optimizations. All my campaign ended when we reach some level that I am tired of discuss with one player who power abuses, or constant asks for a break in the rules to become even more stronger.
Yeah...high level dnd isn't for everyone...
I’m running a high level evil campaign where the players started at level 15 and are now 17, along with super buffs.
One of the things I’ve run a few times is them facing an army of 100s of units. I’ll take a stat block like the guard, reduce each individuals HP to 2, and use mass combat rules from the DMG to ensure the army is landing hits when 20 swarm a PC. Player attacks do cleaving rules and AoE is double damage.
The players love it when they do 24 damage with their great sword and you narrate how they cut down 12 people with one mighty swing.
Throwing my level 12 PCs into an unexplored land where a map doesn't exist yet and they have to find the BBEG who kidnapped one of their children in order to lure them there. Plenty of wild magic and magic radiation that will alter them the longer they stick around. Different kind of challenge with different stakes than just bigger, badder enemies (although those will certainly be included!)
So, the Idea i'm kind of getting with level campaigns is that it's less like a standard fantasy adventure and more like a superhero movie/cartoon. In those, the main threat usually isn't so just "beat the bad guy". I mean, sometimes it is, but there's usually some other complication. The villain has bombs planted around the city, they could be charging up some super weapon, trying to grab the Chaos Emeralds before the heroes do, etc.
Also, you have to keep it interesting. If everyone is just gonna wish away thier problems all the time, it wouldn't be fun. Even Superman got the shit beat out of him in the Justice Leauge cartoon. Sure, he almost always got back up (becuase it's Superman), but it allows tension to happen.
Thanks for the video! I’m worried about my campaign falling flat once we reach mid to high tier play due to my six players out thinking me and doing things I didn’t anticipate. Im worried that continually challenging them is going to take a lot more work to prep content and I don’t want to get burnt out from lots of effort that just gets trivialized. I appreciate this content and would enjoy more topics and help on high level play in the future.
I recently had an encounter where my players were allowed to play lvl 20 characters (time travel shenanigans). It was an absolute blast of a session, with skill challenges, time challenges and the boss mechanics just making it much more than just "throw big spell/attack at the enemy". When I asked my players about the combat afterwards, almost all of them said that the fact that there was much more at stake than just dealing with the two villains, like closing the gates summoning enemies every round, or stopping the four elemental pillars draining souls from the world, or stopping the machine about to reawaken a dead god, it felt alive and challenging and actual like an epic final battle.
After that combat ended and both villains were defeated, I left them in the age old "you all find yourselves in a tavern", but this time, as heroes and vanquishers rather than lowly adventurers, feasting and socializing alongside angels, demons, empyreans, and fey etc in the city of Sigil. It felt epic and amazing and the players got this final chance to say goodbye to these beloved characters.
I just wanted to stop
In real quick and say,ast Saturday was my very first time dming. My dm hung up the cloak and someone had to pick it up for the sake of us not playing for 6 months.
After watching your videos for the last week, I just want to say thank you for all the advice. I used much of it and the first session turned
Out ok. It is a home brew due to me never being too knowledgeable about the in depth rules of dnd. Thank you thank you.
this week i made the final session of a one year long campaing, the players were level 14, everyone died in the final epic battle
they were fighting along side with the most powerfull dragon of the material plane to recue the granparent of one of the player(who had a super powerfull demon inside him).
intead of ignoring the enemies, the players fought everyone of them, got surrounded and all died.
The dragon that used to protect the material plane is dead, the orc empire now have a more powerfull than ever arsenal of legendary epic weapons(things that could summon an army), and the player's granparent is forever sealed. more content to the next campaing
I came up with a way to have a ton of skeleton minions. But I know that it would be boring for the rest of the group if we had to go through all of those rolls, so I doubt I would ever do this. That being said, here's the basic setup (I don't want to pull up the specifics of this, so if you want more info, you'll have to do the research yourself).
You are going to be a warlock/wizard hybrid. Choose Warforged as your race. Ignore any daily powers. Have a bag of holding, and loot any bones you can get your hands on.
For subclasses, choose Necromancer for the Wizard, and choose the Celestial for the Warlock. This gives you a boost to your animate dead spell, and it gives you healing magic.
You will take either 6 levels into wizard or 8, depending on whether you want that extra ASI/feat. The rest will go into warlock.
While the rest of the party sleeps, you will be casting animate dead on the bones you collect, but you will also have to cast cure wounds on yourself to heal any damage you took from the day's adventuring.
So, at level 20, you will have 3, fifth-level spell slots that come back each hour. Using cure wounds with this will heal for 5d8, or an average of 22.5, per spell slot. Assuming you have 16 con, you'll have around 150 health, so assuming you are at 1 health and you get average rolls, you'll need 6-7 spells to heal yourself back up, out of your total of 24. Use the remaining 18 spell slots to control 36 skeletons. Or reassert control on 126 skeletons.
The wording of animate dead says "a pile of bones...", so it depends on how many bones your gm says needs to be there to become a skeleton, but since the bones are lighter than the flesh to make a zombie, and since you can fit bones into a bag easier, you can carry the components for skeletons easier than that for zombies.
If you wanted to take this to its extreme, you could rest for a bit, and then spend time gathering bones to make an army. Then have your skeleton army carry you around, you give them instructions on where to go, and you spend your whole time each day resting and casting animate dead, to control up to 504 skeletons. Deck them out each with a wand of magic missiles, throw some armor on them, and then watch them all get killed by a singular fireball. Have fun.
4:54 Apparently this happened with Superman comics during a certain part of the golden age. Basically, Supes was so OP that they eventually decided to focus on more sitcom-y stuff. Though, to be fair, even in the modern day the best Superman stories usually involve a non-combat related problem, like terminal illness or issues of morality. That's why Lex Luthor is often an effective villain for Superman, he's a guy you can't just punch and be done with.
I just finished an 8 session level 20 adventure... And my current group wants to go from 1st to 20th level (they just leveled up to 8) so this is very helpful for me
I think that I (kind of) got the combat balancing part towards the end of the adventure I ran, but I'm definitely going to need all the advice I can get if we are going to do a good chunk of a campaign at tier 4 play
I think the most devious part of that adventure was in the final battle, 5 level 20 PCs vs Orcus, a Molydeus, a red Greatwyrm, 3 deathlock masterminds, 4 death knights
One character through magic was able to get a 27 AC, first turn of combat a death knight casts dispel magic, attempting to kill his haste, sorcerer counterspells, mastermind counterspells, wizard counterspells, mastermind 2 counterspells, sorcerer simulacrum counterspells, mastermind 3 counterspells, wizard simulacrum counterspells.... Haste stands.... Dragon casts dispel magic at 8th level on the sorcerer simulacrum, Orcus casts dispel magic at 8th level on the wizard simulacrum, the party has all used their reactions already. It was a dirty trick... But they were fighting a demon lord
Something that I did to a party - not even epic level, 15th - was bring them home. And home had changed! The entire area they started out in; Herkamo's Trading Post, Yarklin Keep, Bastion Storga . . . Now it was known as "Zeffer's Folly". Having moved on to greater things, they'd left their homeland to the mercies of low-level antagonists from their early days. They were now seen as villains, while villains they'd let escape were in charge and seen as heroes.
0:51 that is at least partially the dm’s fault. Divine Intervention doesn’t automatically do exactly what they asked for, it just does something that helps in that department. And Wish is up to the dm if it can Insta-kill something
I ran a 3.5 campaign that ran from lvl 1 and ended at lvl 23. Magic of Incarnum had just come out, and I wanted to play and experiment with the system, and introduce it to my players. We almost exclusively played in the forgotten realms, so I introduced it as a pre-weave system of ancient magic that has fallen out of favor and nearly forgotten. Cyric rediscovered it, and wanted to use it as a source of power that Mystra couldn't cut him off from. Using a ley line that was steeped in Chaotic Evil Incarnum energy, he created a fanatical order of incarnum using followers. They established a stronghold in Narfel. From there they raided villages and turned prisoners into lost. They made alliances with the Hobgoblins of the Giantspire mountains, and began an invasion of Impiltur. The party gets drug into the war, and ends up defeating the Ciric forces.
They players were having so much fun that they asked me to keep it going. So the campaign turned into what I call a "National Treasure" style campaign, where the party hunted down additional nodes and increased their power. Eventually they attuned to them all, and challenged the torpid vestiges of the ancient Incarnum gods to gain some of their power. The player's gained divine rank 0, and set about returning Incarnum to the world.
Towards the end of the campaign, I found it extremely hard to balance encounters for the party. Either the combat would be in hand in two rounds, or I would halfway tpk them. The party?
Beguiler/fatespinner/guildmage. As a Beguiler she had top notch control options. I also ran the risk of any monsters I threw at them becoming a pet. Fatespinner took luck out of the equation. Either bad dice on their end, or good luck on my end. Guildmage gave her access to spells that she normally wouldn't have.
Wizard/Psion/Cerebromancer. This player focused on being a Swiss army knife and problem solver. He countered what I threw at the party. Even interrupting my turn and taking an immediate actions.
Unseelie Fey Dread Necromancer. She had some nasty pets, and being Unseelie fey floored enemy saves, which made them susceptible to her save or dies. This also combo's with the Beguilers enchantment and illusion spells. She also handled all of the undead that the Beguiler couldn't dominate.
Archer? I don't remember the exact build, but fully buffed he could deal over 200 damage a turn.
Spellscale Warmage/dracolexi. His main job was to apply some buffs on the archer. He was basically a back up blaster that helped kill whatever the archer didn't insta kill.
This was a tough party to Crack. Especially since they were experienced players. They shored up each other's weaknesses extremely well.
Ultimately I ended up not worrying too much about challenging them every combat. As long as the combats were engaging and the player's were having fun, it didn't matter. Infact they enjoyed flexing a bit. Still, I had no idea where I would gone next. It was a natural stopping point, and I siezed on it.
The skits are back! I'm glad you found a solution to making them easier to make
As a new DM, this video was really helpful for planning my adventure when my players get higher levels. We are trying Tales from the Yawning Portal but I have been adding my own story arc and tying the dungeons together using a deity and demigod. it's been great and your tips were perfect to help guide me.
I think I'll re-watch this video in two to three years, because we've been playing a campaign for over a year and they're just hitting 6th level next Saturday. But thanks for the information, was about to fall into the pit of "let's just roll the dice and forget about social interactions".
the DM Lair: I'm not going to be doing any more skits in my videos. Also the DM Lair: *Puts a skit in his next video*
I was wondering about that. In what video did he say he's not doing skits?
@@INeedaName-cb2qw he mentioned it in a recent livestream, the last one if I'm not mistaken.
Encounter balancing at lv 20 is SO hard. But SO fun when you get it right
I'm currently running a campaign that has been ongoing for 3 years, and the PC's have reached lv 19. (They are in the end game of the campaign with 2 major Big bads to go). For the most part the players do their part to play responsibly and the game goes really smoothly. I will admit to having one player who abuses their power to disastrous consequence. Twice now, they have dropped Meteor Swarm with no concern about the consequences of collateral damage. The first time it got them exiled from one of the MAJOR cities of the world they had relied on for getting information about things related to the arcane and nearly got one of their troupe executed. The last session I ran, they were caught between the military forces of their OWN kingdom and the forces of one of the PC's brother (who although is right about a corrupt lord, his means to an end could kill innocents). Most of the party tried to prevent loss of life by either incapacitating for disarming the guards from their kingdom who were attacking unarmed workers (mind you, these workers were escaped inmates working for what was perceived to be a threat to the kingdom, so the guards weren't entirely without justification). There were one or two accidental deaths along the way, but for the most part, the party did well of handling the situation on the up and up. Then the wizard dropped Meteor Swarm on the airships being used by the soldiers of their kingdom, decimating 3 out of 4 of them outright, and heavily damaging the fourth. The 3 that were destroyed ended up killing several dozen soldiers of the kingdom, as well as civilian engineers working on them. THEN the wizard gave chase to the 4th airship as it was fleeing in an attempt to stop it as well, but the airship escaped.
Now the group in the upcoming session has to face the consequences of the deaths of so many soldiers and civilians who essentially died in the line of duty. I don't forsee it being a very fun session, but I feel as though I can't let this one slide by without serious repercussions. It's true what you said, not every player is cut out for high level game play and this player is constantly either abusing their power, or in many combats, always blows his highest level spells first, dampening the combat for the others. I will also note, when one of his high level powers gets countered in some way, he is not a happy camper lol. I dread running this next session!
I usually DM, and I love my brutal fantasy world. I remember I would DM for adventures league. Adventures league is mostly light hearted and lots of kids are usually there. One day I finally got a good group of adults who wanted to do a campaign with each other. They liked how I DMed and how I keep the action moving. Anyway I have the players role up third lvl characters. There first quest escouting a cart full of supplies from a city to a village. So the quest giver could expand his business. The cart was going to have and older man with his two children a son and a daughter. So at first everyone is getting to know everyone, they are loving the silly old man. His quite by intelligent daughter and the son eager to prove himself. The make way to the village. Halfway to the village the first encounter Goblins. However the encounter started with the goblins dropping a bunch of trees they cut down on the oxen on the cart. Oxen dead cart isn't moving. Players role initiative, my goblins went first and the players still can't see them. The old man looks into the back of the cart and say to the players " Guys we have a-- " just then a crossbow bolt goes through his head, through his left eye and the end of the bolt sticks the eye out. The kids were in the front of the cart they fall out in fear. The party then starts fighting the goblins hiding in the trees and bushes. The party starts taking down the goblins. Once the party gets a breather. They realize the children are gone. They follow a trail of goblin/human tracks. Where they found the boy stabbed to death and stripped of all his valuables. The little girl no where to be seen. Unfortunately since no one have survival or nature as a proficiency. They lose the tracks. Over time they find the goblins hold. They were too late they find the goblins had scarificed the girl to their god and were consuming her. After they bearly killed the goblins I then told them. You have all failed the quest. With the destruction of the cart and killing of the family you were charged to protect you failed. You cannot collect your gold. They took the bodies of the family back to the city and had them buried in the cemetery over there. That was the end of session 1.
Another tip... Watch the "Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn - End of an Era Trailer"
Boss shows up with a huge natural disaster. The guys in that trailer also try to use Wish and Divine intervention level stuff on it.
The buildup to that was also "Hey guys the MOON is FALLING!" Don't think there's much lv 20 characters can do about that.
Even if the good guys kill that thing, everything got exploded and now you gotta deal with that.
I love this video!
I’m gonna be honest.. when I started watching your content a year ago I loved the info but not like how you presented it.
This is so much more incredible to watch! Keep it up! Thank you!!
I found this very helpful, since I’ve been wanting to DM a high level campaign for a little while now.
Really going to have to re-watch this and take notes. I've never run a high level campaign, but I sure would like to and make it fun at the same time.
I did find this mildly helpful, thank you Luke.
My party is approaching tier 3. So this is pretty helpful.
I was going of a bbeg who is a terrifying tanarukk with level 20 spellcasting, with thousands of orcs and demons at their command. Now I realise he needs tens of thousands.
My players recently did an encounter with a lich with the stats of a suped up mummy lord. He started off by himself but then I added his minions the next round. The problem was he casted maddening darkness and therefore killed all the minions very quickly. One of my players has a Sunblade to counter the spell from hurting him (although he didn't stick with the other party members, making them subject to Maddening Darkness). Thankfully for me, my players were still having a tough time with him because they couldn't see him and he was extremely mobile. One of my players went down and rolled a 20 on his death save. Then shortly after another one of my players finally broke his concentration for that spell thus saving the other from dying. It was truly an intense fight for everyone.
The primary antagonists of my campaign are currently an order of liches serving vecna, who i intend to be the final boss
I ran a campaign for 10 years and it became very difficult day by day. for more videos like this.
Haven't gotten there myself yet, but will definitely keep this in mind. Thanks!
Luke, how do you present high-level diplomatic challenges when "Faces" easily have +17 (or even +18) bonuses to Charisma skills in Tier 4?
Highly dependant on the party. I ran an intrigue encounter to my party earlier where they were attending a masquerade under the guise of being someone else. They had a party Awareness - score as well as individual ones and different events would lead to different outcomes.
Some of them disappearing for minutes might increase their awareness, while others were visibly looking for secret doors. Some were poor dancers and others target of nasty gossip.
Even if faces have high Charisma it does not result in them always getting away with dumfoolery or in NPCs ignoring them. And when at high levels people are associating diplomatic meetings with deities or leaders of entire nations and worlds most powerful mages, no-one simply trusts a guy with a nice face.
Persuasion/intimidate DC 30+.
@@AdeptScholar It would be if you are trying to force peace between two raging gods. And even that would not cut it through fully, but might persuade them to even visit one another without trying to kill each other.
Pages 244 and 245 of the DMG helped me out a lot a while back, and I improvised a Social hitpoints system from it - succeed on a Persuasion check (a powerful Emperor might have a super-high DC, say 25 or 30) or perform a favourable action, then roll d6+Cha to alter the "HP" of a hostile NPC.
Implacable NPCs have high HP, say, 30, irresolute ones have low HP.
Crude, but my players seemed to like it on the few times I rolled it out.
My advice is send in a klurichir. Also be sure to keep the vorpal properties of it's melee attacks.
"Be terrifying
Be devious
Be a DM" should be on a t-shirt.
Yes! Tomb of beast I and II also Creature Codex and my personal favorite Tome of Horrors
My group of 6 level 6's can handle 2X Deadly encounters, this is very helpful for my future planning.
Very useful, my party is just about to cross level 10 and I can already feel that they’re having an easier time.
If you go much farther its gonna be a wild ride. Watch how well they are performing and increase challenge as needed even if it takes a stretch.
I appreciate this so much! I have not led a table with the upper levels before, and this is great reference materials.
It awesome that you are making more books for kick starter!
How did you know?! I was looking for tips to run a L20 game next year. Thanks so much for this video!!!
You don't completely suck! Actually your very smart and give good ideas.
I run a 3.5 campaign until lv 46. It was awsome.
Some of these tips are great even for lower level campaigns, i've got a party who's now level 7 and just finished LMoP (it's my first time running a campaign, long story short there were a couple extra adventures thrown inbetween it and some homebrew elements to the story, so it was tweaked a lot to accommodate their level increase) but i adjusted the final boss Black Spider heavily, i basically created a new level 6 character (PC's were level 6 at time of fight) full of spells that should have wiped the floor with the party...yet the bard got the jump on him and cast blindness... the Black Spider did 0 damage...
nice glad to see you putting out more adventures
Oh mighty algorithm take mine comment and feast till your hearts content... this video came in handy as a level 15 + campaign is fast approaching 😊
Thanks for the vid
I run high level games as much as low level ones and the advice you provided helped a lot!
I played a demigods campaign for five years. Best game I've ever played.
Hey algorithm! This guy does not suck!
Munchkin is fun
I’m running 11PCs at level 19 now and I find what you’re saying to be true.
The bad guys do everything the PCs do so true.
Comment for the Algorythm. also signed up for said kickstarter, really looking forward to it :)
Archfey-the "ch" digraph here is pronounced as "tʃ" (as in beach or cheese), not "Ark-fey." Same with archrival, archenemy, archdevil, archdemon, archmage, archdruid. All include the standard English "tʃ" pronunciation for the "ch" digraph.
"Archangel" is the *exception,* not the rule. There are etymological reasons, but it's basically because we get "archangel" handed down through multiple ancient languages before its arrival in the modern English language. The other words are more modern additions to our lexicon, lifted directly into English as loan words.
I'm not a linguist, so just using my best layman's understanding here 🙂 but my pronunciation is accurate, I checked 😅
The power of the characters starts screaming upwards exponentially once you hit about level 12 or so. Every level from there starts to feel multiplicative rather than additive. I had a group that was only level 14 completely obliterate an ancient blue dragon after fighting their way all the way though the dragons lair. Then at level 15 the did the same to an ancient red dragon which also had about a dozen really tough minions with her too AND she had a human sorcerer form they had to fight before she would even turn into the full health dragon.
I threw an ancient white dragon at some lvl 16s just to make them feel good when they curbstomped it. They have beaten an ancient red dragon in power armor and a black dragon greatwyrm with homebrew stats that made it far stronger than the one from fizbans for an example of previous feats
Thank you, i was really needing this
You don’t completely suck. As always, great content. I loved the green screen in the skit. Fun stuff.
1:50 Luke: Over 24
The content: 25
r/technicallythetruth
Stretch goals baby. Stretch goals.
There is a game where a DM has multiple groups playing in the same setting. We don't directly interact with one another but the indirect effects change the world.
There is at least one group that is very high level that is made up of LG paladins and they deal with many world ending threats.
This means that the group I play in tend to decide to just go for missions in self interest. Like traveling to another plane to steal their spices.
The moral is that high level groups don't need world ending stakes. They can continue the shenanigans and do dangerous things like invading planes and defying gods to steal some magical saffron.
I may be a "sweet summer child," but part of me is looking forward to at least dipping my feet into running high level games. Currently designing a CR 30 boss and I'm trying to motivate my lazy ass to write an arc surrounding one of the Elder Evils (Atropus in particular is awesome, fite me).
For the algorithms! You don’t suck.
Never been high lever, once my fighter was at level 11 but that was something like 20 years ago. I remember that he had +3 sword and +2 shield. And I guess he had a armor aswell. But someday I will hit to level 15!
Yay! The skits are back!
I would seriously love to play and run high tier games.
Sending my players to The Abyss. Any advice?
*Lairs & legends sounds like a great D&D like system.*
I do like bacon.
I now want to make a final level 20 bad guy who’s a kobold paladin or illrigger serving Tiamat.
My boss once fell fat on his face. We all got the afternoon off.
nice one Luke :) i never did 13+ campaign , so i appreciate tips
Verisimilitude, love that word
For what it's worth, I'd argue the scheduling issues causing games to fall apart is a big reason why higher levels are neglected. Basically, since 90% of games don't make it past like, level 6, not a ton of attention is put towards it.
Yes, a good point.
I can't wait to get my books.
Excellent! I would give this video three thumbs up if I could.
One of my favorite high level campaigns was trying to defend the world from a Rob (random omnipotent bastard) calling himself the dungeon master. The 20th level party was doing fine until the final battle vs rob. In the end the paladin, bard, and fighter were dead, the barbarian was permanently stun locked for life, and the wizard was injured badly with all his summons dead. The wizard cast wish and said he wish to destroy the dms soul. The dm slowly smiled and said "That would work on anyone else in this world, but I don't have a soul anymore." And then he left. He won via technicality and new it so he left.
Been running high level for a while now.
Adjust to what the players actually want and gravitate towards. (Not even what they 'say' or 'think' they want pay attention to what they actually want)
for example You have been leaving multiple quest hooks but even at lv 18 the party prefers to keep their exploits more secret and just go into dungeons and fight monsters.
So maybe for this group realize thats what they want EVEN at high levels.
Not every high level party becomes famous or brags or enjoys mingling and going to fancy parties. They may not enjoy a world shattering event they are needed to stop. They maybe just want super cool very exotic powerful 'dungeons' populated by LOTS of powerful enemies.
This party may say they want to do long term goals like training and creating a series of magic item stores and run a keep. But then they never do that, even when you give them the option they always get impatient and run for the faintest whiff of a powerful dungeon filled with treasure or a dragon to battle, etc
This is my campaign.
They just want to keep exploring ever more dangerous places, fight tons of powerful (and some weaker) monsters and get more and more treasure.
Its what they want, so It's how the game will continue.
I give hooks for political intrigue or international disputes with the potential to get their 'keep'. Given a letter of recommendation and told exactly what to do they went elsewhere. They sometimes 'say' they want BUT; They haven't followed up, they DID however immediately rush off with a more subtle hook to enter the deadly monster filled wastelands and find a hidden ruined mage city potentially full of magic items from the mage war 300 years ago.
They WANT Monty haul (I prefer this too); ridiculous amounts of treasure and magic items. And adore mystery and exploration. They enjoy social but prefer to keep a low profile about what they have done and how powerful they have become. And usually love interacting with specific interesting NPCs especially master clothing makers, artists, interesting shopkeepers, magic shop keepers, and powerful wizards. They have very little to no actual interest in the nobels, rulers, 'authority' even when they say they do they NEVER actually interact with them and avoid them until absolutely necessary.
Rather like the mighty 9 for campaign 2 of critical role actually...
They vastly prefer quests like; rescuing the enslaved baby gold dragon and returning him to his mother who it turns out runs a secret freedom fighters town that frees slaves (in a slave having nation). Very much enjoying the exploration and discovery and interaction with the most interesting NPCs, And then becoming allies with her and going to slay a great sand worm that threatens the town, and bringing them supplies and socializing with specific NPCs in that town (The baby dragon, the momma dragon and a couple other interesting ones) keeping the secret of and bringing food and needed supplies and going on big monster slaying quests for/with them but otherwise just visiting and not actively helping them in more 'political/intrigue/spy' and similar longer missions that would probably feel very tedious to them.
Saving food in one of the bags of holding for the next visit , etc.
See what they have been doing when given the option. If your campaign has world shattering events that the party needs to stop/face ensure the kind of players you have actually enjoy that.
Some people might be fine with going to the wastelands and recovering treasure only to find out another very high level group of NPCs actually saved the world. My party would be happy and relieved someone else took care of it I think.
I feel logically more than JUST your players should exist to defend and be high level in your world otherwise wouldn't it have been destroyed before they leveled up?
There is more than one 'correct' way and I feel observing the actual behavior and desires of YOUR group will be the best way of determining what/how you play at every level of D&D!
Also I checked with them they are still JUST as happy with the campaign as at lower levels and always want to keep playing when a session ends and even want extra games from me! In fact they prefer being 'properly powerful and geared' now.
Additional advise I can briefly give (in this already massive comment) is to have notes. charts and ideas to easily buff monsters. Use max HP or what I call Boss HP (Boss HP is usually +50% to +300% of MAX HP) know your party if they are too strong add more HP. Add +1 to +5 to enemies AC, Saves, Save DCs. Give monsters more skill proficiencies, tactics in battle. Add bonus actions, reactions, (and of course on true bosses; legendary as he mentioned in the video) Swap out spellcasters spells for better spells. Add spellcasting onto Stat blocks! Etc.
And MANY encounters in 1 day! not just 1, many.
Harry and disrupt how easy resting is to accomplish. Set things on a timer they are aware of and keep track of every minute and the exact time of the day!
Area effects that add risk to spellcasting.
Planar dangers and other magical terrain/hazards and effects.
What if There isn't 1 Tarrasque! There are 7! They wake to battle for power ranks amongset their kind!
Other kaijou type foes. Why is there only 1 Tarrasque? Its not even the most powerful really. Give it at least double max HP for a start..... A higher intelligence and a ranged (thrown object) attack (as a bonus action) would actually make it a challenge for Players with any decent grasp of tactics!
Add in other CR25 - 30 foes for strong LV 17 - 20 PCs!
Anyways I'm also writing a 5e compatible book that will 100% contain LOTS of support for high level play.
Sorry for the longest comment I just wanted to add this in.
I hope it helps!
Fun video, thanks.
when I'm 20lvl I expect to still be challenged because your fighting super badass things
I wish I could be in a high-level group once or twice, just so I can play with all the toys.
Know the capabilities of the player's characters. This is how you appropriately challenge them at all levels.
using NPCs is the #1 tip here, generally speaking for open world style games. if the players have zero grounding, no reason to take any stakes seriously, you’re just going to end up with demigod murder hobos. But give them one or two NPCs to care about and suddenly they will go to war for them.
*Luke is pure awesome .*
I love bacon .
oh five T-Rex that's grate gives the BBG's pet TARRASQUE something to play with
I would rather bot eat bacon, but thank you so much for the tips. I am using them to create a 15th level homebrew world with some preety min maxed charicters
LAIRS & LEGENDS KICKSTARTER - Get notified when the project launches on April 5 ▶▶ www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedmlair/lairs-and-legends
Ohh! Amazing info... I just DM mostly online/digitally for groups not tied to a specific "campaign" of my own, we have a "revolving door" thing for DMs and players.. so it's a bit tricky... any advise for this type of situations?
Regards from Tabasco, México [Land of The Olmecs]!
You're nagating their cool powers!
Hi luke, at one point you mentioned that your high level party destroyed enemies with 5x the deadly threshold.
My question: at that time were the PC's fully rested or was it the last fight of the adventuring day (they should have used most of their resources)
If the DM only does 1 fight a day I can imagine it'll be too easy for the PC's
High level players have a knack for skipping stuff. And meaningful combat at those levels takes hours. So an adventuring day can be hard to execute without undermining your players skills.
I can't answer for luke but I have run an adventuring day with 2 hard encounters and 2 deadly encounters and then a boss encounter that was 10+ times the deadly threshold and the players didn't have many issues. This ended up being a modified end to OOTA where they simultaneously fought Yeenooghu, a demilich, an adult blue dracolich, an Illithilich, and a skull lord. Partly through the fight they also fought the survivor between Orcus and Demogorgon, which ended up being Demogorgon with Orcus' wand. All of these creatures had their legendary resistances and legendary actions. Despite all of this the players really didn't run into many issues.
High level encounters are just not really well balanced in 5e especially with each new book that comes out.
Amazing advice!
Hey algorithm, “This guy doesn’t completely suck”.
High level (+15th level) is the best.
I love bacon!!! Best advice you have ever given!!!
I love leaving angry comments. Angry angry angry! But I love your advice. angry angry!!