Over my Head with this High-Level Stuff

[Allanimal]

I'm DMing a 3.5 game that has been going for several years now. I started out in the group as a player, and have since taken the reins as DM. We've been going since 3rd level and the other PCs have just reached 15th (though none of the original PCs are still alive, there has been much overlap for great continuity). I've played plenty of D&D and other RPGs, but never at this high level. I am finding it difficult to build a good adventure with encounters that aren't either cakewalks or overwhelming festivals of PC death and carnage.

I spend a lot of time crafting NPCs that would be a challenge and it doesn't leave time to really fluff out the story between and behind the encounters. We do have an alternate campaign that we switch to, which helps give me time to prepare, but I would like to have something already prepared to fill in the gaps between the fragments I have to address the PCs backstories and goals.

So I am turning to you - can you recommend some published adventures for 15th-level mid-op adventurers? Bonus points if it is long enough to reach 18th-20th. Even better if it fits well into Greyhawk and isn't too Drow-y (I'm not a big drow fan...). If it involves ships &/or pirates, one of my PCs would be really happy.

tl;dr: not enough time to prep good adventures for a 15th level party. Can you recommend good adventures to throw at them? Pirates a plus.

Thanks for your help.

[DrMartin]

part 8 of the Savage Tide adventure path (Dungeon magazine 146) begins with characters at level 15 and deals with pirates - you may have to adjust things a little bit 'cos there are other 7 episodes before that :D it is also set in Greyhawk, sort of.

the adventure path goes up to episode 12 (ending with dungeon 150), bringing the characters up to 20th level. it quickly stirs away from exotic piratey shenanigans for more "classic" extraplanar adventure in the outer planes.

[Allanimal]

Cool, thanks! I'll check it out.

[bekeleven]

The following applies at most optimization levels under GitP standards:

At levels 1-2 games are really random rocket matches of rocket tag, where a crit or just a good hit can fell any party. Spellcasters use resource management to keep up, holding onto most spells until needed.

Around levels 5-8, HP tends to level out, combat gets more sloggy, even lasting a few rounds rather than a few actions. Martials manage their HP as a resource.

At higher levels, casters get save-or-dies, martial characters optimize (1shotting opponents is their "save or die") or get left behind, and the game turns into rocket tag again. But since die bonuses are higher (1D20+15 instead of +2) it's a bit less random, often turning into initiative tiebreakers. Campaigns can turn into resource management, holding onto the expendable answers until the right time.

Yes, designing combats becomes much harder. It's often possible to look at both sides, compare initiative counts, compare spells remaining for each, and say "Mate in twoTPK in two rounds."

The secret to designing combats at this stage is remembering that challenging encounters are far less important than encounters that feel challenging.

[nedz]

Rocket tag can be avoided. E.g. I recently ran a couple of encounters which lasted 10-15 rounds at level 1 and I've run ~30 round combats at level 14. The trick is to use units of 20-30 opponents, terrain and tactics rather than 1 big opponent — so one, or even several, opponents may be one-shotted, but they are just one piece of the problem. Use of varied terrain and tactics, as well as a variety of opponents, is important or the game will bog down.

[DrMartin]

Rocket tag can be avoided. E.g. I recently ran a couple of encounters which lasted 10-15 rounds at level 1 and I've run ~30 round combats at level 14. The trick is to use units of 20-30 opponents, terrain and tactics rather than 1 big opponent — so one, or even several, opponents may be one-shotted, but they are just one piece of the problem. Use of varied terrain and tactics, as well as a variety of opponents, is important or the game will bog down.

this +1! for real - especially stay away from the classic "boss fight", or fight of many against one. action economy/action denial is king. If you absolutely have to have a single tough opponent, insert out of turn reaction, lair actions, or give it more initiative counts (akin to more round of actions every round) or it will just be a punching bag.

[Bronk]

The secret to designing combats at this stage is remembering that challenging encounters are far less important than encounters that feel challenging.

I agree with this quite a bit! If your players are stomping your encounters because they're doing a good job with their characters or teamwork or anything else really, and they're having a good time, I'd say go with it. In that case, you can let them know either in character or out that they were in real danger, but they were just that good.

[noob]

"this +1! for real - especially stay away from the classic "boss fight", or fight of many against one. action economy/action denial is king. If you absolutely have to have a single tough opponent, insert out of turn reaction, lair actions, or give it more initiative counts (akin to more round of actions every round) or it will just be a punching bag. "
Even lvl 17 wizards casting disjunction then wail of the banshee while you have an hard time seeing it because it dispelled all your see invisible?
He is not really a punching bag since he is frail and is crazily dangerous.
As a plus he is a balanced encounter for level 17 characters.
If you instead use multiple level 13 wizards or the level 11 wizards casting SR: no spells and rays of fire as fast incantation a team of level 17 characters can be overwhelmed fast while being against a balanced encounter.
If you want a dangerous boss Never use a big monster(even dragons with fp = fp of team +7) because they are completely underwhelming compared to full casters in balanced encounters.

[Aharon]

Rocket tag can be avoided. E.g. I recently ran a couple of encounters which lasted 10-15 rounds at level 1 and I've run ~30 round combats at level 14. The trick is to use units of 20-30 opponents, terrain and tactics rather than 1 big opponent — so one, or even several, opponents may be one-shotted, but they are just one piece of the problem. Use of varied terrain and tactics, as well as a variety of opponents, is important or the game will bog down.

Wow! How long does one of those rounds take in real time? Usually, fights in my games need to be over after 4-5 rounds, because those can easily last an hour real time, and we also want some RP encounters and/or exploring.

[HammeredWharf]

If your party is mid-op, I doubt a premade adventure would help much. The ones I've used were very easy on the players.

In high-level games, attempting to be "fair" is hard on the DM and pointless from the players' perspective. In the end, the players don't know how you made these monsters, what their CRs are or which templates you used. So, if you don't have time, just make up something awesome. It doesn't have to follow the rules exactly. Yes, so now this lizard guy can cast Dinosaur Stampede and has an AC of (party's attack + 15). Why? Because Dinosaur Stampede is cool and he would die too quickly otherwise. You know that, they don't. Give him some other cool druid spells and call him a druid. They'll probably believe you.

3.5E has a huge amount of monster creation rules, but most of the premade monsters seem to come right from the [redacted] of their creators. Using the broken and stupid monster creation rules in an attempt to create something balanced is futile. Also, since everything is broken already, your players will believe you even if you put them against something completely ridiculous from time to time, so there's that.

Now, of course playing by the rules, using some premade opponents and fair customized characters is very nice from time to time and helps to make the game more believable. However, you don't have to do it constantly for the game to be fun for everyone involved.


Wow! How long does one of those rounds take in real time? Usually, fights in my games need to be over after 4-5 rounds, because those can easily last an hour real time, and we also want some RP encounters and/or exploring.

I just DMed a lvl 19 fight. It lasted 1 round in-game and four hours IRL. Every character (except the monsters, which were "fair" this time) had around three to eight rounds' worth of actions. The fight involved two dozens of monsters and its CR was over 40 according to a CR calculator. One PC almost died and everyone was quite satisfied in the end. I guess. I wouldn't want to do it again, though.

[Katana1515]

Cant speak for others but I usually have some build up to the big 20+ round behemoth encounters, so players will turn up expecting it to be the whole session, after another session or 2 of RP/Exploration.

My preferred trick is to use multiple waves of enemies, keeps a sense of pressure going and you can adjust on the fly if things are looking too easy or too hard. In addition to smart use of terrain, try and make it so that the object of fights is something more than just "murder the other team as quick as possible," that forces PC's to think about how they spend their actions and makes fights more memorable. Also they then have to spend actions grabbing the maguffin, saving the hostages, using walls of force to stop a cave in etc etc giving your antagonists more time to shine.

[nedz]

Wow! How long does one of those rounds take in real time? Usually, fights in my games need to be over after 4-5 rounds, because those can easily last an hour real time, and we also want some RP encounters and/or exploring.
The low level ones took a couple of hours, the higher level one most of a weekend. I don't run this sort of thing all of the time — only when called for.


I just DMed a lvl 19 fight. It lasted 1 round in-game and four hours IRL. Every character (except the monsters, which were "fair" this time) had around three to eight rounds' worth of actions. The fight involved two dozens of monsters and its CR was over 40 according to a CR calculator. One PC almost died and everyone was quite satisfied in the end. I guess. I wouldn't want to do it again, though.
Yep — high level play can get like that.

Cant speak for others but I usually have some build up to the big 20+ round behemoth encounters, so players will turn up expecting it to be the whole session, after another session or 2 of RP/Exploration.

My preferred trick is to use multiple waves of enemies, keeps a sense of pressure going and you can adjust on the fly if things are looking too easy or too hard. In addition to smart use of terrain, try and make it so that the object of fights is something more than just "murder the other team as quick as possible," that forces PC's to think about how they spend their actions and makes fights more memorable. Also they then have to spend actions grabbing the maguffin, saving the hostages, using walls of force to stop a cave in etc etc giving your antagonists more time to shine.

I do these too.