I have been running a campaign for about 2 years now using The Odyssey of The Dragonlords with a Percy Jackson twist but it only goes to level 16 and my players (and I) really want to go all the way to 20. Any suggestions???
If all the BBEGs are dead (I never heard of Odyssey of The Dragonlords), then either grab a Campaign designed for Level 20, or look at the last two years and see if you can add another layer of BBEGs, that used the previous BBEGs as actual deputies to themselves?
It is possible that the old campaign is dead, and these new BBEGs are in another location so PCs need to travel to the new area/world/plane.
The obvious solution if you're homebrewing is to establish that the BBEGs in it were just the real BBEG's henchmen, and now they have to go defeat the real BBEG. I've never played that module (or even heard of it until now), so I can't really offer more in-depth advice on that, I'm afraid.
Alternatively, if you want official materials, you could look at some of the higher level adventures from the anthologies. Tales from the Yawning Portal's final adventure apparently does L17-20. Others you could use and just up the encounters so they're still a challenge in Tier 4.
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Considering the level, I’d not say the BBEG was an underling. I’d let the party have the win and that moment of triumph for defeating the bad guy. I’m all for peeling back layers, but eventually it gets kind of contrived. I’d put in a new bad guy that’s not even related, or just tangentially related. Maybe the party did something along the way to really anger some cosmic entity — if you have a few sessions left, you can try to work it in to one of them. Or pick some strange unresolved plot thread from when they were level 4 or something and say the butterfly effect they set off them is just now coming back to them.
Or the BBEG was actually fighting on 2 fronts — the PCs and this other force. Just the party didn’t know it. But this other force is a different kind of bad guy. It gives the other side a reason to be powerful enough to challenge the party.
At this level, the party is on par with the most powerful beings in the multiverse. It could easily stand to reason they’ve attracted the attention on one or more of them. So I’d try to make it into basically a whole new campaign with the same characters.
I have been running a campaign for about 2 years now using The Odyssey of The Dragonlords with a Percy Jackson twist but it only goes to level 16 and my players (and I) really want to go all the way to 20. Any suggestions???
Yes. Give up homebrew/home made stuff and choose one of the dozens of modules for High level players from Basic and AD&D. Those adventures are the best and very challenging. For example "Test of the Warlords" or " Twilight Calling" for 18+. Yikes!
I have been running a campaign for about 2 years now using The Odyssey of The Dragonlords with a Percy Jackson twist but it only goes to level 16 and my players (and I) really want to go all the way to 20. Any suggestions???
Yes. Give up homebrew/home made stuff and choose one of the dozens of modules for High level players from Basic and AD&D. Those adventures are the best and very challenging. For example "Test of the Warlords" or " Twilight Calling" for 18+. Yikes!
Stuff designed for D&D from the 80s will likely not convert cleanly without a fair amount of work, and rebalancing it to correctly challenge a 5e group will probably be at least as difficult as just rolling one's own.
I cannot speak as to the quality of any of those old modules, nor how they compare to the new ones that way (I've never been a canned adventure person), but they were very likely designed around a different style of play than modern campaigns.
Yes. Give up homebrew/home made stuff and choose one of the dozens of modules for High level players from Basic and AD&D. Those adventures are the best and very challenging. For example "Test of the Warlords" or " Twilight Calling" for 18+. Yikes!
Running converted modules from AD&D is basically "homebrew inspired by", the game systems are just far too different. Which is not to say that using older adventures for inspiration is a bad idea, but it really isn't applicable for mechanical difficulty. In any case, high level D&D generally needs a lot of homebrew, simply because there's so much variation in party capabilities, so I suggest inventing stuff. Typically by that level you're dealing with planar adventuring that involves interaction with planar powers.
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I have been running a campaign for about 2 years now using The Odyssey of The Dragonlords with a Percy Jackson twist but it only goes to level 16 and my players (and I) really want to go all the way to 20. Any suggestions???
If all the BBEGs are dead (I never heard of Odyssey of The Dragonlords), then either grab a Campaign designed for Level 20, or look at the last two years and see if you can add another layer of BBEGs, that used the previous BBEGs as actual deputies to themselves?
It is possible that the old campaign is dead, and these new BBEGs are in another location so PCs need to travel to the new area/world/plane.
The obvious solution if you're homebrewing is to establish that the BBEGs in it were just the real BBEG's henchmen, and now they have to go defeat the real BBEG. I've never played that module (or even heard of it until now), so I can't really offer more in-depth advice on that, I'm afraid.
Alternatively, if you want official materials, you could look at some of the higher level adventures from the anthologies. Tales from the Yawning Portal's final adventure apparently does L17-20. Others you could use and just up the encounters so they're still a challenge in Tier 4.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Considering the level, I’d not say the BBEG was an underling. I’d let the party have the win and that moment of triumph for defeating the bad guy. I’m all for peeling back layers, but eventually it gets kind of contrived.
I’d put in a new bad guy that’s not even related, or just tangentially related. Maybe the party did something along the way to really anger some cosmic entity — if you have a few sessions left, you can try to work it in to one of them. Or pick some strange unresolved plot thread from when they were level 4 or something and say the butterfly effect they set off them is just now coming back to them.
Or the BBEG was actually fighting on 2 fronts — the PCs and this other force. Just the party didn’t know it. But this other force is a different kind of bad guy. It gives the other side a reason to be powerful enough to challenge the party.
At this level, the party is on par with the most powerful beings in the multiverse. It could easily stand to reason they’ve attracted the attention on one or more of them. So I’d try to make it into basically a whole new campaign with the same characters.
Yes. Give up homebrew/home made stuff and choose one of the dozens of modules for High level players from Basic and AD&D. Those adventures are the best and very challenging. For example "Test of the Warlords" or " Twilight Calling" for 18+. Yikes!
Stuff designed for D&D from the 80s will likely not convert cleanly without a fair amount of work, and rebalancing it to correctly challenge a 5e group will probably be at least as difficult as just rolling one's own.
I cannot speak as to the quality of any of those old modules, nor how they compare to the new ones that way (I've never been a canned adventure person), but they were very likely designed around a different style of play than modern campaigns.
Running converted modules from AD&D is basically "homebrew inspired by", the game systems are just far too different. Which is not to say that using older adventures for inspiration is a bad idea, but it really isn't applicable for mechanical difficulty. In any case, high level D&D generally needs a lot of homebrew, simply because there's so much variation in party capabilities, so I suggest inventing stuff. Typically by that level you're dealing with planar adventuring that involves interaction with planar powers.