Well, you're probably going to find that the PCs start to just bulldoze through every encounter including the boss because they're much higher level than the enemies they're up against.
But it's basically a mega dungeon crawl, for the entire f'n module. Not much social aspects. So not for everyone.
But basically high levels aren't done for 2 reasons, most groups fizzle out by level 10-15, and it's just hard to balance things in the 17-20 stage once you get access to 8-9th level spells.
Because of the power level adventures at tier 4 tend to be different from those at lower tiers.
Someone has taken an artifact to the plane of fire and we need to go through 47 steps to get there? No - just plane shift without level 20 wizard. Adventure is over in 20 minutes. So these tend to have to have more of a Superman approach.
Superman is essentially a god among mortals (similar to level 20 characters) and so to add excitement to the stories they tend to either hamstring him (oh look - everyone has kryptonite) or give him moral dilemmas (you can beat the bad guy or save the civilians, not both). If it is just a stand up fight like you would do at levels 1-5 there is no way he wouldn't win. The other option is to keep the power of the enemies climbing. But if you do that you need dozens of enemies to challenge Superman (or a level 20 character) where were they until now? Why aren't they ruling the planet or have already achieved whatever goal they want?
So usually there are two ways - either the campaign becomes quite political relying on conversation rather than brute force or contrived circumstances wherein one object can be achieved at the cost of another. This is usually quite a large tonal shift and not for everyone.
The second option is to expand the world. (WoW does this with until now unknown new continents! Games usually use it by travelling to different planets or dimensions). This then lets you keep going with the usual brute force methods but does usually have a narrative disconnect, like I said earlier.
Also as Mjames_74 said, usually it takes groups years to get to level 20 and they are either bored or just split up due to real life. So the amount of people that would buy a level 20 adventure would likely be quite low compared to the level 1-10 adventures.
Yes, unfortunately nearly all the official adventures do not go up to 20. They have mentioned 2 reasons for that.
1) High level adventures aren’t as popular and don’t sell well since most groups don’t play that high. Although this risks circular reasoning of not selling high level adventures so few groups play level so WotC doesn’t sell them, etc.
2) Groups that play high, WotC has found, tend to have the campaign highly customized to PC interests & goals, so published adventures are less useful. Unlike at low levels, at high levels it’s usually very specific to each particular group.
I’m not sure I totally agree with their reasoning, but it makes sense. Plus, as mentioned above, the DMs Guild has tons of great adventures of all levels.
I am currently playing a 13th level wizard and stuff gets hard even at that level. 7th level spells are very very powerful. In addition if your DM is at all creative, you end up with wierd things. For example Legendary Resistance (Will Saves) 1/day. Nice little perk, but the more of these you got the harder it is to play.
I am a big fan of high level campaigns but I don't think an official module could achieve satisfying level of play.
A campaign for 20th level characters needs to be driven by their ambition, their desire to change and make the world as they see fit. Sure, there will be encounter here and there but you can't contain a group of high level characters within the frames of an "adventure". The DM can give them goals but they will have many ways of achieving them.
It helps if you have a setting where there are other high level characters. In Forgotten Realms, getting to 20 is a stepping stone. There are many spellcasters, both arcane and divine who exist on that level and once you reach it, you get to rub shoulders with them.
If you create a homebrew setting where level 20 is max and maybe one or two people in the world have it then no wonder that players who reached 20 have nothing more to do.
Personally I find it easier to make things harder (rather than easier) for higher level encounters. So you can always take an adventure you want to run and just alter the combat to suit your PCs level.
So you can always take an adventure you want to run and just alter the combat to suit your PCs level.
Although that is true, the reality is that if you want to DM, WOTC gives you lots of examples of low and mid level adventures to use to get a sense of where things should be for that level range. But other than Mad Mage, which is an edge case and not a typical adventure, they have given us zero examples of how one would even construct the top tier of play (levels 16-20). How is a DM -- even one experienced at the lower and mid level game -- to know just exactly what to do to make the adventure written for level 10s, play like it's made for level 20s?
If you want examples of challenges, puzzles, encounters, and level designs for a level 1-5 party, there are tons of them... several just for that level (LMOP, Dragon Heist, Icespire), along with a number of others that have content (of varying length and quality, to be sure) designed for lower levels (all the "adventures" that go from 1-something, which includes Storm King, Tomb, Strahd, and more). So as a DM you have lots of examples to crib from. There are almost as many for the level 6-15 game, including several of those mentioned, plus Tiamat and a couple of others. But if you want an example of how to even run a level 16-20 game, you have one, and only one, edge-case scenario -- Mad Mage. If that one is not your group's cup of tea, you have nothing to crib from.
I guess my point is, sure, "make things harder," but the question is how? A DM who has never run anything at that level has almost nothing to use as an example.
Whereas, if I wanted help making a level 1-5 scenario, I could look in a dozen different books for ideas.
yes and going off topic slightly - no one can *do it well* because CR has been broken for ages! - Then you have the *Hero leveling* thing which is 20 ++++ with no *Hard rulings*
So i have been looking at every single adventure/modual - and NONE of them reach max level of 20 - is there a reason for this?
Same with roll20
Will it break those games if i draw them out TO level 20? etc
Well, you're probably going to find that the PCs start to just bulldoze through every encounter including the boss because they're much higher level than the enemies they're up against.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
then why have a cap of 20? ;)
There is one:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace/adventures/waterdeep-dungeon-of-the-mad-mage
But it's basically a mega dungeon crawl, for the entire f'n module. Not much social aspects. So not for everyone.
But basically high levels aren't done for 2 reasons, most groups fizzle out by level 10-15, and it's just hard to balance things in the 17-20 stage once you get access to 8-9th level spells.
Try the DMs Guild. Lots of high level (Tier 4) content there.
ahhh thanks for that :)
Because of the power level adventures at tier 4 tend to be different from those at lower tiers.
Someone has taken an artifact to the plane of fire and we need to go through 47 steps to get there? No - just plane shift without level 20 wizard. Adventure is over in 20 minutes. So these tend to have to have more of a Superman approach.
Superman is essentially a god among mortals (similar to level 20 characters) and so to add excitement to the stories they tend to either hamstring him (oh look - everyone has kryptonite) or give him moral dilemmas (you can beat the bad guy or save the civilians, not both). If it is just a stand up fight like you would do at levels 1-5 there is no way he wouldn't win. The other option is to keep the power of the enemies climbing. But if you do that you need dozens of enemies to challenge Superman (or a level 20 character) where were they until now? Why aren't they ruling the planet or have already achieved whatever goal they want?
So usually there are two ways - either the campaign becomes quite political relying on conversation rather than brute force or contrived circumstances wherein one object can be achieved at the cost of another. This is usually quite a large tonal shift and not for everyone.
The second option is to expand the world. (WoW does this with until now unknown new continents! Games usually use it by travelling to different planets or dimensions). This then lets you keep going with the usual brute force methods but does usually have a narrative disconnect, like I said earlier.
Also as Mjames_74 said, usually it takes groups years to get to level 20 and they are either bored or just split up due to real life. So the amount of people that would buy a level 20 adventure would likely be quite low compared to the level 1-10 adventures.
Yes, unfortunately nearly all the official adventures do not go up to 20. They have mentioned 2 reasons for that.
1) High level adventures aren’t as popular and don’t sell well since most groups don’t play that high. Although this risks circular reasoning of not selling high level adventures so few groups play level so WotC doesn’t sell them, etc.
2) Groups that play high, WotC has found, tend to have the campaign highly customized to PC interests & goals, so published adventures are less useful. Unlike at low levels, at high levels it’s usually very specific to each particular group.
I’m not sure I totally agree with their reasoning, but it makes sense. Plus, as mentioned above, the DMs Guild has tons of great adventures of all levels.
I am currently playing a 13th level wizard and stuff gets hard even at that level. 7th level spells are very very powerful. In addition if your DM is at all creative, you end up with wierd things. For example Legendary Resistance (Will Saves) 1/day. Nice little perk, but the more of these you got the harder it is to play.
I am a big fan of high level campaigns but I don't think an official module could achieve satisfying level of play.
A campaign for 20th level characters needs to be driven by their ambition, their desire to change and make the world as they see fit. Sure, there will be encounter here and there but you can't contain a group of high level characters within the frames of an "adventure". The DM can give them goals but they will have many ways of achieving them.
It helps if you have a setting where there are other high level characters. In Forgotten Realms, getting to 20 is a stepping stone. There are many spellcasters, both arcane and divine who exist on that level and once you reach it, you get to rub shoulders with them.
If you create a homebrew setting where level 20 is max and maybe one or two people in the world have it then no wonder that players who reached 20 have nothing more to do.
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InsiderPersonally I find it easier to make things harder (rather than easier) for higher level encounters. So you can always take an adventure you want to run and just alter the combat to suit your PCs level.
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Although that is true, the reality is that if you want to DM, WOTC gives you lots of examples of low and mid level adventures to use to get a sense of where things should be for that level range. But other than Mad Mage, which is an edge case and not a typical adventure, they have given us zero examples of how one would even construct the top tier of play (levels 16-20). How is a DM -- even one experienced at the lower and mid level game -- to know just exactly what to do to make the adventure written for level 10s, play like it's made for level 20s?
If you want examples of challenges, puzzles, encounters, and level designs for a level 1-5 party, there are tons of them... several just for that level (LMOP, Dragon Heist, Icespire), along with a number of others that have content (of varying length and quality, to be sure) designed for lower levels (all the "adventures" that go from 1-something, which includes Storm King, Tomb, Strahd, and more). So as a DM you have lots of examples to crib from. There are almost as many for the level 6-15 game, including several of those mentioned, plus Tiamat and a couple of others. But if you want an example of how to even run a level 16-20 game, you have one, and only one, edge-case scenario -- Mad Mage. If that one is not your group's cup of tea, you have nothing to crib from.
I guess my point is, sure, "make things harder," but the question is how? A DM who has never run anything at that level has almost nothing to use as an example.
Whereas, if I wanted help making a level 1-5 scenario, I could look in a dozen different books for ideas.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
yes and going off topic slightly - no one can *do it well* because CR has been broken for ages! - Then you have the *Hero leveling* thing which is 20 ++++ with no *Hard rulings*