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Published High Level 5e Campaigns?

So we all know in RAW our characters can achieve level 20. It's right there in the books. Strangely, I'm only finding campaigns which start at 1st level, then fade away between levels 12 and 14. I'm not sure if I am to take that to mean "our system is broken at the higher levels, lets avoid that" or "we don't think there's a big enough market for that", but, well, there it is. Is anyone aware of a published campaign which starts in the high single digits and goes to 20? Is 5e's CR system unable to generate appropriate encounters for higher levels? I can't be the only one looking for high end, non-homebrew, campaign materials, can I?
I believe "Out of the Abyss" is the current highest level campaign WotC has print published for 5e, but that goes up to 15. The next best thing if you're looking for "official" non-homebrew is Adventurer's League content, a lot of which expands on their print published content to go beyond the final levels from the adventure (eg. fighting more demons from OotA). Most of these can be found on DM's Guild:&nbsp; <a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?keywords=Adventurer%27s+League&amp;manufacturers_id=44&amp;x=0&amp;y=0&amp;author=&amp;artist=&amp;pfrom=&amp;pto=" rel="nofollow">https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?keywords=Adventurer%27s+League&amp;manufacturers_id=44&amp;x=0&amp;y=0&amp;author=&amp;artist=&amp;pfrom=&amp;pto=</a> Some people are speculating that everything WotC is doing lately is geared more towards high-level play (eg. connecting worlds through the Radiant Citadel, bringing back Spelljammer, and reintroducing Vecna who has a connection to most of the 5e adventure stories), so we might see some published high-level content soon.
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keithcurtis
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Discussion of 5e's playability at high level is likely outside the purpose of the forums, but this marketplace search is Roll20-centric and might help somewhat: <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?tag=Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons:5E|Starting%20Level:High&amp;category=Games:Adventures" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?tag=Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons:5E|Starting%20Level:High&amp;category=Games:Adventures</a>
Thank you both.
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Loren the GM
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Also, here is a reddit post I made about a year ago that outlines campaigns that go into Tier 3 and Tier 4.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/paszmk/high_level_tier_3_and_4_campaigns_and_adventures/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/paszmk/high_level_tier_3_and_4_campaigns_and_adventures/</a> &nbsp; I am sure there are some new ones since this was posted, but it should get you started looking. Several of the non-WotC campaigns have Roll20 versions, or are available in digital forms with virtual tabletop maps and tokens to build it yourself.
Thank you for the link. To this: "due to WotC/DnDBeyond play data that we've seen with most campaigns ending before level 10)." I'm fairly certain that that play data is skewed heavily by the fact that there are no high level campaigns (especially official ones) for people to use without searching high and low or rolling their own.
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Edited 1656344172
keithcurtis
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Actually, WotC did extensive market research before creating 5e, and although the data itself has never been made public (WotC funded the research after all), some of the conclusions were. One of them was the general life span of campaigns. Their design and marketing has been guided by this research. I would say the scarcity of high end adventures on the Marketplace has been guided by this rubric. There's just a lot more demand for low to mid level adventures. So the supply of these is high.
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Brian C.
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keithcurtis said: Discussion of 5e's playability at high level is likely outside the purpose of the forums, but this marketplace search is Roll20-centric and might help somewhat: <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?tag=Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons:5E|Starting%20Level:High&amp;category=Games:Adventures" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?tag=Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons:5E|Starting%20Level:High&amp;category=Games:Adventures</a> There is a bug in the marketplace search that makes D&amp;D 5e a logical OR with the rest of the search, so you get everything 5e. This search doesn't restrict to 5e, but almost everything at high level is 5e anyway. <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?tag=Starting%20Level:High&amp;category=Games:Adventures&amp;sortby=popular" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?tag=Starting%20Level:High&amp;category=Games:Adventures&amp;sortby=popular</a> Also the OP might want to look at "epic" level as well. <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?category=Games:Adventures&amp;tag=Starting%20Level:Epic&amp;sortby=popular" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?category=Games:Adventures&amp;tag=Starting%20Level:Epic&amp;sortby=popular</a>
Thank for the info Keith. I'm honestly willing to challenge WotC's findings due to the temporal nature of research. :) Do I think high level campaign offerings should be the majority of content available? No. Do I think they should have been the first content released on the market? No. Do I think there is now a market for a few official high level campaigns? Sure do. In many discussions I've had, the consensus was that the draw of the game is to play heroic characters. What's more heroic than epic level characters? Also, knowing that most campaigns peter out at levels 12-15 (sorry peter), that means MANY players have these level characters ready to go. If these forums had polls I'd throw one up for "Would your group be interested in a campaign for epic hero adventurers, taking the characters from level 12 to level 20?" - I bet there would be pretty solid support for it. Finally, with the WotC team having the deepest understanding of the rules, I believe they would do the best job at delivering a balanced experience for the greatest amount of character diversity. Thank you again for all the information everyone! It has been quite helpful.
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Manny L.
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I'm totally with you on this, Curtis. Myself and the groups I play with really enjoy higher level content. We recently finished a DnD 5e Forgotten Realms campaign that took them from 1st level all the way up to 19th-level. I'm also running a DnD 3.5 campaign (see below, The Savage Tide) which is currently at 17th-level and will go to around 25th-level. Slightly off-topic -but- I do also own books that allow you to play to 30th level in DnD 5E. There are a few flavours of these knocking around but I've gone for Epic Legacy by 2CGaming. Even if you "only" play to 20th-level, you'll find a ton of content in there to give you fantastic ideas, as well as truly challenge your party. Our end-game boss was about as epic as it gets and all the players loved it. Now, back to your original question, which appears to be "where are all the high-level DnD games?". For exclusively 5E material, here's what I know of: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1. City of Brass 5E (Frog God Games): Easily takes you from 1st through to 20th level. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2. Rappan Athuk 5E (Frog God Games): A gigantic spawling series of interconnected and extremely deadly dungeons, going from 1st through to 20th level. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 3. Adventurer's League : A lot of these give options to scale up. A few we've played include The Lich-Queen's Begotten (11th to 16th level) and To Wake the Leviathan (11th to 16th). I recommend grabbing a copy of the latest Adventurer's League Content Catalogue which shows you their massive list of adventurers. Here are a few that are for 17th to 20th: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;a. DDAL07-15 Streams of Crimson &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; b. DDAL07-16 Pools of Cerulean &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; c. DDAL07-17 Cauldron of Sapphire &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; d. DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night You'll get the most content from DIY and conversions of older editions of DnD: 1. Trawl through previous versions of DnD, and do the conversion yourself: there's quite a lot of content for higher-level gameplay if you're willing to do the work. I've done this myself a few times and it's pretty easy to convert older versions of DnD to 5E. Here are a few samples for you: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; a. ADnD H1-H4, "Bloodstone" series : kicks-off at a level 15 and ends at level 18. Optional rules to let you run H4 at level 100 for truly ridiculous gameplay! (Yes, we did that back in the day). &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; b. ADnD R6, The 384th Incarnation of Bigby's Tomb : levels 15-25 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; c. DnD 3.5, Hellstone Deep : levels 18-20 2. Check back-issues of Dungeon and Dragon Magazine. WOTC also released short adventures which you used to be able to download for free from the DnD archives (although these are now hard to get at , to be fair). Many of these can work as seeds to larger adventures or can be tied together. Some examples: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; a. DnD 3.5, Black Rain : level 16 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;b. DnD 3.5, Force of Nature : level 18 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; c. DnD 3.5, Icy Heart : "high level" (I would suggest 16/17) &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; d. DnD 3.5, The Thunder Below : level 17-20 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; e. DnD 3.5, War of Dragons : level 18+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;f. DnD 3.5, Dragon Magazine 152, Essence of Evil : level 20 3. Take a lower-level game, with a theme you love, and push it up to the level you want to run it at. This doesn't always work well as you do have to consider the enhanced capabilities of a high-level party. But it's great fun, I can tell you from experience! Many of the old Planescape modules are great for this as they tend to take place in already "tough" environments such as the Abyss, so are fairly easy to bump up to high-level play. The ADnD "S" series of modules is also great for this as, again, they're meant to be hard from the outset so are easier to scale up. I'm planning to convert and run S3 - Expedition to the Barrier Peaks as my next DnD 5E high-level module, for levels 18-20. This will be the gateway module to take my group to Epic level play in 5E. 4. Run more high-level content: the more high-level content you run, the more experience you and your players will get with that content, which will make it easier for you to do 1,2 &amp; 3 above :-) 5. Finally, there are some adventure paths that have been released from 3.5E onwards that go from levels 1st through 20th. This might be the best solution. For example: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; a. DnD 3.5, Shackled City Adventure Path : levels 1 to 20. Begins in Dungeon #97 and concludes in Dungeon #116. Can also be picked-up as a combined book/pdf I believe. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; b. DnD 3.5, Age of Worms Adventure Path : levels 1 to 20. Begins in Dungeon #126 and concludes in Dungeon #135. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; c. DnD 3.5, The Savage Tide Aventure Path : levels 1 to 20. Begins in Dungeon #139 and concludes in Dungeon #150. Written by the folks who went on to found Paizo. Has related content in Dragon magazine and free downloadable maps etc from Paizo. I'm currently running this adventure path. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; d. DnD 3.5, The 3-book "Drow War" series (Mongoose Publishing): starts you off at 1st level and you end up in the giddy heights as a level 30 adventurer! I hope that helps you to some extent, and good luck!
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Brian C.
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Years ago I did a 5e conversion of Age of Worms and posted it to the EN World site. You can get it there, and it tells where to get the 3.5 PDFs.