Looking for some advice from the community of experienced DMs, please enlighten me with your wisdom :).
I've been running my first D&D campaign for a couple years now, and we will soon be wrapping up the Rise of Tiamat adventure. This group started at level 1 and will be level 15 by the end of Rise of Tiamat. The players are pretty invested in their characters, so I'd like to continue the campaign through level 20 if possible. I'd love for advice and suggestions on good published adventures to look at and/or other ways to handle this. I'm willing to buy additional books/modules if needed so that's not a problem.
Some background:
- I'm not very good at coming up with adventures out of whole cloth, and I have a new baby so my 'creative time' is extremely limited. However, I feel pretty confident in being able to take published material and slightly adapt it for my players, incorporating their backstories, etc. as this is what I've been doing with this group for two years, (I've run Waterdeep Dragon Heist, parts of Ghost of Saltmarsh and Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and now Rise of Tiamat.)
- Our group has an affinity for the Forgotten Realms so adventures that include the politics, history, etc. of interesting areas in Faerun are really great for them, and after spending so much time there they have a strong connection to Waterdeep specifically. However, adapting an adventure written for another setting could be possible.
Some options I've considered:
- The obvious one is taking Dungeon of the Mad Mage and running the group through the last few levels of Undermountain, as this is really the only official 5e material I know of that operates at this high of a level and it's in Waterdeep. The problem is that it's basically just a giant dungeon and I think my players would quickly become bored with that mode of play over many sessions. If anyone has run this adventure I'd love for thoughts on that.
- The last couple adventures from Candlekeep Mysteries are of an appropriate level, but would only pad things out to level 17 before I would need another solution. However we've done a couple of the lower level adventures with another group member as the DM and enjoyed them, so this might be a good stopgap. If anyone has run Alkazaar's Appendix or Xanthoria and enjoyed then please let me know!
- The "Dead In Thay" playtest adventure looks like an appropriate high level challenge that would thematically fit (since the players have already been to Thay once and one of them is cleric of Kelemvor who would love to take a bite out of Szass Tam). However being early 5e playtest material I'm wary of how well this would hold up to current 5e standards and mechanics. (This is different from the Dead In Thay adventure that was published as part of the Tales of the Yawning Portal collection - that is a level 9 - 11 adventure.)
- Tomb of Horrors from Tales of the Yawning Portal is an infamous high-level challenge. However this has many of the same downsides as Dungeon of the Mad Mage - it's basically just a giant dungeon - and similar to Candlekeep it wouldn't take them all the way to level 20 so it would only partially address the overall goal.
- DMs Guild has tons of content that might be appropriate here but there's so much of varying quality that's something I'm curious if folks have specific recommendations for great high level adventures on it.
- Taking a different lower level adventure and significantly reworking it for higher level play. This feels really hard, since it's not just about stat blocks and DCs - these players will have abilities that could probably trivially bypass entire portions of an adventure that assumes lower level play. But if someone has successfully done this, I'd love for some tips.
Did you ever figure out what to run after Rise of Tiamat? I'm currently running my party through Tyranny of Dragons and I'm facing the same tough decisions you outlined in your post.
LOL. I too am coming to the end of ROT and I plan on running both the high levels from that and another campaign for my group. But I'm going to take existing games like Ravenloft and just amping up the adventure to handle the higher-level PCs. Plus I have my own adventure that will be running in Ravenloft worlds of Shadow or a completely original world I am building. We shall see. But all my players have expressed interest in keeping the current high levels going so I get it.
I say if you don't want to homebrew an adventure then up an existing adventure like the mentioned Dungeon of the Mad Mage. However instead of just using the last few levels simply increase all the other levels higher along with the end and make it a new higher-level adventure. Encounter Balance be damned. At this level, gods of DnD stand little chance with 15th or 16th PCs.
For the most part, I am going to depart from these year-long games and be more episodic in 1 to 3 sessions.
Unless a DM wants to have a player hate them, stay away from Tomb of Horrors. That is a PC killer. By that I mean it will at some point murder the group, step on their lifeless corpse, laugh in pleasure, and then bury the PC remains in an unmarked grave.
If you want to play it with copies of their PCs for fun it's a great challenge but do it for fun not part of your game. That is my recommendation. Only because there are a lot of Opps you died moments. They will be lucky if they get a save and then die. Most of the traps are brutal at best.
Those are just a few suggestions.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I live my life like a West Marches campaign, A swirling vortex of Ambitions and Insecurities.
Unless a DM wants to have a player hate them, stay away from Tomb of Horrors. That is a PC killer. By that I mean it will at some point murder the group, step on their lifeless corpse, laugh in pleasure, and then bury the PC remains in an unmarked grave.
If you want to play it with copies of their PCs for fun it's a great challenge but do it for fun not part of your game. That is my recommendation. Only because there are a lot of Opps you died moments. They will be lucky if they get a save and then die. Most of the traps are brutal at best.
Those are just a few suggestions.
Tomb of Horrors is easy cake if you go in with PCs lvl 10-14. If you want to challenge your party I would recommend lvl 8. There are a multitude of things that used to be deadly (1e) and are now just an inconvenience.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
To answer the original question, if you throw in a bit of urban affairs with the trip into the portal of the mad mage, the dungeon can be quite entertaining. I would leave the levels alone and allow a complete cakewalk for the first several. This will keep the legend intact as the party notices the challenges getting progressively harder.
Another reason to keep the levels intact is it lets the party mentor young adventurers exploring low levels dungeons.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Did you ever figure out what to run after Rise of Tiamat? I'm currently running my party through Tyranny of Dragons and I'm facing the same tough decisions you outlined in your post.
I never did actually run anything for this group after Rise of Tiamat. Given my time commitments with a new kid I stepped down from DMing and we've been running Descent Into Avernus with a different party with another group member as the DM, so that has been keeping us busy. The connections to BG3 (which my group has been playing) are a nice bonus. So, all's well that ends well, but certainly still open to people's thoughts on this.
Unfortunately I don't think Dungeon of the Mad Mage would appeal to this group. They *really* don't like long dungeon crawls. If they want to play those characters more, I suspect I'll do what Medros said and just have them run one or two short adventures as "one more job" before retiring.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Looking for some advice from the community of experienced DMs, please enlighten me with your wisdom :).
I've been running my first D&D campaign for a couple years now, and we will soon be wrapping up the Rise of Tiamat adventure. This group started at level 1 and will be level 15 by the end of Rise of Tiamat. The players are pretty invested in their characters, so I'd like to continue the campaign through level 20 if possible. I'd love for advice and suggestions on good published adventures to look at and/or other ways to handle this. I'm willing to buy additional books/modules if needed so that's not a problem.
Some background:
- I'm not very good at coming up with adventures out of whole cloth, and I have a new baby so my 'creative time' is extremely limited. However, I feel pretty confident in being able to take published material and slightly adapt it for my players, incorporating their backstories, etc. as this is what I've been doing with this group for two years, (I've run Waterdeep Dragon Heist, parts of Ghost of Saltmarsh and Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and now Rise of Tiamat.)
- Our group has an affinity for the Forgotten Realms so adventures that include the politics, history, etc. of interesting areas in Faerun are really great for them, and after spending so much time there they have a strong connection to Waterdeep specifically. However, adapting an adventure written for another setting could be possible.
Some options I've considered:
- The obvious one is taking Dungeon of the Mad Mage and running the group through the last few levels of Undermountain, as this is really the only official 5e material I know of that operates at this high of a level and it's in Waterdeep. The problem is that it's basically just a giant dungeon and I think my players would quickly become bored with that mode of play over many sessions. If anyone has run this adventure I'd love for thoughts on that.
- The last couple adventures from Candlekeep Mysteries are of an appropriate level, but would only pad things out to level 17 before I would need another solution. However we've done a couple of the lower level adventures with another group member as the DM and enjoyed them, so this might be a good stopgap. If anyone has run Alkazaar's Appendix or Xanthoria and enjoyed then please let me know!
- The "Dead In Thay" playtest adventure looks like an appropriate high level challenge that would thematically fit (since the players have already been to Thay once and one of them is cleric of Kelemvor who would love to take a bite out of Szass Tam). However being early 5e playtest material I'm wary of how well this would hold up to current 5e standards and mechanics. (This is different from the Dead In Thay adventure that was published as part of the Tales of the Yawning Portal collection - that is a level 9 - 11 adventure.)
- Tomb of Horrors from Tales of the Yawning Portal is an infamous high-level challenge. However this has many of the same downsides as Dungeon of the Mad Mage - it's basically just a giant dungeon - and similar to Candlekeep it wouldn't take them all the way to level 20 so it would only partially address the overall goal.
- DMs Guild has tons of content that might be appropriate here but there's so much of varying quality that's something I'm curious if folks have specific recommendations for great high level adventures on it.
- Taking a different lower level adventure and significantly reworking it for higher level play. This feels really hard, since it's not just about stat blocks and DCs - these players will have abilities that could probably trivially bypass entire portions of an adventure that assumes lower level play. But if someone has successfully done this, I'd love for some tips.
Thanks in advance for your advice and guidance!
Did you ever figure out what to run after Rise of Tiamat? I'm currently running my party through Tyranny of Dragons and I'm facing the same tough decisions you outlined in your post.
LOL. I too am coming to the end of ROT and I plan on running both the high levels from that and another campaign for my group. But I'm going to take existing games like Ravenloft and just amping up the adventure to handle the higher-level PCs. Plus I have my own adventure that will be running in Ravenloft worlds of Shadow or a completely original world I am building. We shall see. But all my players have expressed interest in keeping the current high levels going so I get it.
I say if you don't want to homebrew an adventure then up an existing adventure like the mentioned Dungeon of the Mad Mage. However instead of just using the last few levels simply increase all the other levels higher along with the end and make it a new higher-level adventure. Encounter Balance be damned. At this level, gods of DnD stand little chance with 15th or 16th PCs.
For the most part, I am going to depart from these year-long games and be more episodic in 1 to 3 sessions.
Unless a DM wants to have a player hate them, stay away from Tomb of Horrors. That is a PC killer. By that I mean it will at some point murder the group, step on their lifeless corpse, laugh in pleasure, and then bury the PC remains in an unmarked grave.
If you want to play it with copies of their PCs for fun it's a great challenge but do it for fun not part of your game. That is my recommendation. Only because there are a lot of Opps you died moments. They will be lucky if they get a save and then die. Most of the traps are brutal at best.
Those are just a few suggestions.
I live my life like a West Marches campaign, A swirling vortex of Ambitions and Insecurities.
Tomb of Horrors is easy cake if you go in with PCs lvl 10-14. If you want to challenge your party I would recommend lvl 8. There are a multitude of things that used to be deadly (1e) and are now just an inconvenience.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
To answer the original question, if you throw in a bit of urban affairs with the trip into the portal of the mad mage, the dungeon can be quite entertaining. I would leave the levels alone and allow a complete cakewalk for the first several. This will keep the legend intact as the party notices the challenges getting progressively harder.
Another reason to keep the levels intact is it lets the party mentor young adventurers exploring low levels dungeons.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I never did actually run anything for this group after Rise of Tiamat. Given my time commitments with a new kid I stepped down from DMing and we've been running Descent Into Avernus with a different party with another group member as the DM, so that has been keeping us busy. The connections to BG3 (which my group has been playing) are a nice bonus. So, all's well that ends well, but certainly still open to people's thoughts on this.
Unfortunately I don't think Dungeon of the Mad Mage would appeal to this group. They *really* don't like long dungeon crawls. If they want to play those characters more, I suspect I'll do what Medros said and just have them run one or two short adventures as "one more job" before retiring.