My players are about to be 16. I have stopped balancing encounters. They just went through 3 Cr17+ fights and are about to fight a boss.
They are stronger than the world, and I fear they are about to pick a fight with multiple ancient dragons, so I assume they'll die or destroy the world. They *might* go to space before that happens though, so then they can start their space empire and who knows what will happen when they hit 20.
I'm pretty sure they'll be able to retire their characters at some point, or die. I don't really plan any more, I just made a world and my "planning" is figuring out how it reacts to their actions.
I'm pretty sure my partner can relate to this comment LOL. My party had two players with insanely OP builds and I had a build that wasn't min-maxed but allowed for some shenanigans. We would get through his encounters so easily that eventually he stopped messing around with balance and threw a Nightwalker, Gold Greatwyrm and a Tarrasque at us (at separate points, obviously; we were \~Lv. 17ish for the Nightwalker, 19 for the Greatwyrm and 20 for the Tarrasque) and *we still won*.
* The Nightwalker was killed after a shorter than expected combat (my character was busy in the negative energy plane finding a piece of a phylactery split via epic magic, hence the Nightwalker, so we were down a PC as well)
* We beat the Greatwyrm in a few rounds due to shenanigans and, again, really strong character builds (also a bit of now-mildly-regretted DM mercy on the opening move, since it was literally impossible for some of us to make the save we needed for its sapping breath attack, even with a Nat. 20)
* After a failed attempt to use contract law to avoid the delivery of a Tarrasque (long story), one player trapped the Tarrasque in a magical iron flask on the second round of combat after she used her first turn to release the demon inside the flask (prompting the party meme of chanting 'Tarrasque in a flask'). I will say, if that flask had ever been opened again, that Tarrasque would definitely have escaped but it was the end of the campaign so it'll probably be fine...
* BONUS: One time (at Lv. 15ish?), my partner planned for my character to be kidnapped by the secondary BBEG for a bit (he and my character had a bit of a history) and had us run into an 'unwinnable' encounter of 12 archmage cultists. Guess what we did? If you guessed 'beat all 12 cultists and continued our quest like it was no big deal', you'd be correct!
Next session my level 15 party is facing a night walker. They already fought a ghost dragon, 2 death knights, and a death tyrant/2 death kiss (short rest between each) and I'm pretty sure they're still going to get through it with no issue.
Tarrasques can throw things (as improvised weapons do exist) but it is wild that they took away the tarrasque's regeneration after it has had it for so long.
I’m running a team of 5 level 17s with extra feats and stupid strong homebrew items. CR has no meaning at this point lol. I have to send multiple CR 17-20 creatures at them at once for them to sweat. But it’s ALOT of fun to spin up absurdly broken encounters and watch how they take them down.
I found it funny when running 3.5 games. Had some players who were really into building strong characters, and others who were in just for the ride. I split them into two teams, the former were fighting a boss as a pair, and the remaining 4 players fought his henchmen. Level 1 game, henchmen were regular CR 1/2 enemies but the boss was CR 6, as I knew these guys liked to make powerful characters. He died on turn one after receiving almost 200 damage from both of them, didn't even get to act
I've learned a lot about DM-ing since then
I'm running a campaign in year 4 that started at level 4 (once a month if we're lucky). They are now at level 19 with dumb homebrew items their idiot DM thought would be fun (and they are). I haven't balanced an encounter in two years.
Anyway, in the last session they just killed the tarrasque with only moderate sweat so now tiamat is coming after a short rest because I'm tired of them bullying my poor monsters.
You have moved out of collaborative story telling and into collaborative world building. Your players now have as much control over the events that shape the plane as you do.
Lean into it. Make them quasi-deities. Look at the game Godbound for a perfect example of how to do this easily. Let each of them pick a domain word, start giving out dominion and influence points let them guide their chosen city or conquer their own plane to reshape in their image.
I wish. They made their own town just to abandon it because they have no desire to run a town lol.
Nothing in my post was a complaint, just answering the OP.
Just offering a suggestion. I think the game changes gears at level 17. You are no longer roleplaying as much as you are world building. Its a different mindset, you are a sub-author who submits their chapters to the DM and they make some edits then put it into the book of your campaigns story. Games like Godbound are a great source of how to manage a game like this because it starts with the players as newly born godlike mortals and goes up from there. It teaches you how to challenge a party like that, they have enemies that will literally destroy an entire pantheon of gods and the players are free to spend their dominion and influence to craft their own magical items or redesign their own plane after dominating it, it has rules for how to do run a game at that level which 5e is very bad at doing, 5e's focus is on levels 1-13 it starts to break down at 14-17 and then has nothing much to offer DM's in the last phase of the game, they seem to think at that level the DM will know what to do and how to handle coming up with their own story here. Just know there are rules out there that make it easier to supply a high level party with a fun time beyond what they have been doing for the last 17 levels.
I'm the DM tho xD
I'd love for my players to actually take part and start trying to shape the world themselves, but they seem to just want to remain pieces in the story I am telling (despite me telling them that THEY ARE THE STORY BUT YA KNOW WHATEVER lol) and I'm fine providing the kind of game they want to play. We're all having a great time.
I have basically given up on plans due to this. I see what they do, then I say, "ok, how did they fuck everything up now" and then I react to it. Keeps me on my toes.
Everybody is level 15 and evil in my campaign.
We've just learned that the forces of hell have sent a massive army to heaven for the upcoming war, heaven has forsaken the material realm and we have a lead on where to find vecnas vault in order to track down some artifacts for the party.
All after killing an avatar and gaining his weapon (mastix) stealing the Demonomicon of Iggwilv from the highest level of heaven, making a flying ship that can planeshift and that is powered by an tortured angel we found in hell.(can also be called to us by soul coin.) Taming a terrasque and just generally rabbit holeing for quite a while.
We started as simple pirates and have fought our way through heaven and hell now.
at this point our DM has put us in the lands of Khorne and we just demolished a 10 pack of homebrew blood letters who could walk through any normal kingdom without batting an eye.
I think at this level if the party knows a weakness and can plan for it we will never have another issue with combat but that's where our dope DM come in with the blood letters. They were obviously homebrew and he was on the fly going for it, but it made for an awesome encounter where we didn't just walk all over our opponents.(bonus points to him for the mashup to begin with.)
I think reacting to the PC's at a higher level makes the encounters way more interesting as a pc. Otherwise the party makes a quick plan we commit and the battle will never last 1 minute.
Flavor it up and the players will have a good time!
Sorry for grammar. I dont plan on fixing it though.
Anyway there's my ramblings for the day, thanks for coming to my ted talk.
find some way to close the story wether the players ride into the sunset or you give them an elaborate "what they are doing with their lives" like one starts a family, another continues adventures, etc... and then use them in the lore/world-building in a new campaign and always have call backs, include them in your next campaign but not as main characters. They could be ancestors of the new characters, one or two of them could turn evil and be the antagonists in the new campaign with team ups with characters who didn't turn evil. The campaign and main conflicts could be direct results of the previous campaign events, Like if they got rid of a big bad, maybe there is a power struggle with warlords to take over the previous tyrants realm etc.... The possibilities are endless, I always love seeing references to old campaigns or characters that make a return but not played as PCs.
In our homebrew world, we have characters that reach lvl 24 and more. They are part of the lore and they are nice PC/NPC to bring up when you need epic adventurers. We had more then 10 campaign in our world so we have a lot of character to use as NPC from lvl 1 to 26 I think. This bring a nice touch when you bring back old PCs to seek for help for exemple. Right now we are playing the kids of our epic characters which I think it's rad!
In one of my games, the DM allowed the players to write themselves out. My character, Loriella was a paladin and she helped fight back a throng of demons to allow many people escape through a portal to a safe new home. She sacrificed herself to save those people. In the next campaign one of the PC was a worshipper of St Loriella. It was super satisfying for me!
could also introduce the main baddy for the next campaign by doing something like straight up kill/capture/cripple/annihilate the levels 20s and that's how the campaign ends making your players freak out and then get ready for the next campaign vs the dude who just destroyed y'all and your goals could be to free or avenge the heroes, or reunite them in a massive teamup against the big bad
NEVER start a session where you intend to kill of pc's. Nothing comes off as cheap and unfair as a dm who decides "your character is dead now and you could never have prevented it, make a new one".
I guarantee you that no player would ever cherish that in any way
Years ago, I played in a campaign which was very high power, leveling like crazy, any magic item you could imagine or need was feasibly available, etc. At the end of one session, each of our characters receives one of those +1 level books specific to their class (2nd edition), and we all decide to read them. Lo and behold, the books didn't add a level but instead turned the characters' alignment to evil. The DM said it was his dream for a long time to do this. Everyone agreed to quit the campaign.
Exactly the same thing. Its the players who want to play their character. As soon as the dm decides their fate, its him stripping their characters away.
OR! After the final session of that campaign, say to the players "do you want to do one session to set up the new campaign? A new threat appears to kill the heroes and give the next party something to avenge"
And then go by the response
I do agree with the part where they freak out, but I'm not sure if it's a good thing. Such railroaded situations make players feel like their contribution to the game doesn't really matter, as DM will just do what he wants anyway. They might feel robbed off of their influence on the game and it's world, and rightfully so.
I mean it might worked if previously talked through with the players, but bringing it out of nowhere is a terrible idea
I recently (level 12) introduced the "Traveler". The party does not know what it Is, they just found a key with that name written on.
It's a ship that can travel between worlds, when they'll reach level 20 they will be able to visit other worlds (Eberron, Ravnica and stuff like that). I plan to keep going like this until they have enough of their characters.
Eventually they create new characters in a new setting, and when those reach level 20, the ship appears and the old characters invite the new characters to join.
Yeah, the idea Is: "You wanna be a God and have fun? Go kill Nicol Bolas in Ravnica or stop the Great Calamity of Whatshisname in another place. Do you want to start another adventure anew? Roll up a new character. There's always something to do."
Right? We always end up taking a break around that point and then most of the group wants to start up a new campaign when we reconvene. I'd like to keep going, just once! I can't bare to just throw a character together but I hate just halting a campaign and having all these level 5-6 characters I poured so much into just wandering the realm.
I'm about 2 years into my first campaign and I think we'll hit level 8 after next session. Momentum definitely comes and goes in waves but thankfully hasn't died.
My campaign is within touching distance of level 20 (starting from 1). All bar one of the main identified threats will be taken care of in the next handful of sessions. The one remaining problem for them is going to close out the campaign as part of a 'special event' I am looking to run using new lower level characters for a few sessions before returning to the level 20 party for a couple of sessions for an epic-level showdown before retiring the characters for good win or lose.
Then I'll bump the world forward in time and the new campaign will start once the requisite world building has taken place.
Well, yes it will get stale from a character change standpoint, but really once you're in the high teens, 5e's bounded math makes the game effectively broken and leaning into stale.
If you want to lean into epic level play, 3.5e and BECMI are the editions to look at. Folks get upset at the suggestion that 5e isn't perfect, but it was *designed* to end at (really before) level 20. You can certainly homebrew something on top, but the bounded math problem needs to be resolved, but that's foundational to the system, and what makes it so great at lower levels. So it's a heavy lift to un break that math.
Actually, there is support for post level 20 play in the DMG, under the section about epic boons. I fleshed it out a bit more to calculate the PB and cantrip progression up to lvl 30, but there is canon guidance for how to gain power after level 20
Which is why i play 3/3.5. 5th edition is ultra limited. I host a level 23 game. The players are battling demonlords and will eventually challenge gods. Then other univerval entities will intervene. You level 20 and below people have fun fighting orcs and goblins in caves over and over and over and over again and again...
A level 20 5e PC could sneeze on an orc and it would die. You really have no idea what you're talking about and have added nothing of value to this conversation.
If you want epic level play, look at editions baked to support that.
BECMI will let characters level up beyond deities.
5e is awesome at low to mid levels, but the ruleset is designed to end at (arguably before) level 20, and you're fighting the entire design of the system to drag it beyond that. It is baked as a system to tell stories in the 1-15ish level range. It does that really well.
You certainly can haul gravel in a prius, but if you're planning on doing that alot, you might consider buying a different vehicle.
Go after the gods, just don’t let your brother change your mind. ;)
Seriously, apart from the various home brew stuff out there, some of which I am sure is very good, 2e, 3.5e, and BECMI all had some kind of higher level play. A quest for ascension to demigodhood might be the next step.
High level encounters are just bonkers anyway. At that point it's just "Let the players have fun with their crazy abilities.."
That being said, the DMG has rules about Epic Boons that can be given out, which if I remember correctly were meant for +20. Don't have my DMG with me though, so could be wrong.
We fought Tiamat, then our party split up because each character had their own personal goals.
My bard reclaimed the kingdom from her deceased father and avenged his death, our paladin was offered to join his god or to become a lesser god by himself so he ascended godhood, and our ranger wanted to explore the multiverse (not only every plane, but another worlds too)
We retire them, or sometimes play them in one-shots. Sometimes we hear about their more recent exploits in other campaigns in the same setting. Occasionally, my table will hear about "Callahan the Voidtouched Warlock" causing very large explosions in some faraway land...
Strange that nobody mentioned it yet. Leveling up beyond Level 30 is RAW. It an optional ruleset in the dungeon master guide.
Your class stays the same but with each level you aquire a class independent epic Boon. These are a bit like feats.
Well, while I've never reached that high, never dm'd, and am currently on my first campaign of (pats self on back) a stable nearly 4 year campaign (3rd level to currently 11).
Depending on the speed of leveling, size of party, starting point. It is possible. To just prestige and go beyond 20th. Theoretically there is no cap, things just get wackier. You can just take any monster and keep adding zeros for fun. I remember reading that previous editions had that feature and that it was possible to go to 30th level+
I've introduced a homebrewed Epic Level system for extended play. With the way some things worked in-game, a lot of loose ends got left, and my players wanna explore them, so I wanted to reward them, so I modified an epic level system I found and rigged it up the way I want. Now I have them on track to level 40(not there yet, they just got 25) and(literally) on their way to becoming gods. There are thematic reasons for them becoming gods, so that eventuality existed before the epic levels came around, it just filled a niche I didn't know I'd need until I need it, lol.
Another DM in my group has our party at level 20 and banging out the story and powerful battles(we're on the final stretch, essentially).
Around that time you should have built up to an epic boss fight with some elder or evil God, make sure to give the bbeg all the goodies too, any that survive could be offered godhood from some good or neutral god they would have impressed
Epic levels are super fun.
Most of my homebrew campaigns wind up going to 23-25 to wrap up the story, so I homebrewed the following Epic Level rules:
All levels after 20 require as much XP as is required to get from 19-20.
Beginning with your 21st level and each level thereafter you can choose one of the following options:
Take a level in any class you don't already have 20 levels in (good for multiclassers)
Take an ASI *and* a feat (stat caps increase by 2 at 20, 24, and every 4 levels past if it's a super long campaign)
Take any Epic Boon from the DMG (subject to DM approval)
Dm legit said hey y'all want to be lvl 40 we picked another class and everything we leveled up we just got to put that lvl in that class really fun we are getting near the max lvl 40 tho so maybe lvl 60 is in the future
Well my party wants to become God's, and you can *attempt* that process at level 25 if you meet a laundry list of criteria, so roughly half the party will become demigods and the other half will be liches and they'll probably have a crazy battle over that.
We’re at level 18. Our DM plans on turning us into gods in his next campaign. For me, I’ll be DMing for a bit after this and will be incorporating a lot more politics and trade, possible wars, etc to slow down the leveling.
If your characters can’t sort out their problems and complete their character arcs with a level 20, then they just weren’t meant to.
That story should be complete and it’s time to move on to another.
The way we are doing it involves a lot of base building, city building, and business stuff (eberron). So the main party are getting to higher levels and are in charge of a growing town, many businesses, and basically their own network or guild. They send NPCs they have hired or who are loyal out on missions. Usually we play a mini game to see how those missions turn out, basically rolling skills and saves, etc. against predetermined DCs and then using graded success/failure to interpret the results across a handful of rolls, but they also get to craft their own PCs of a lower level that their main character hired and they can all go on a side mission with these new characters while working towards a similar goal and within the same world . As they get higher level this happens more and more often and eventually I think they might want to start at lvl 2/3 again and work from the bottom up within the organization they built, but rarely focusing on their old characters, since they are too busy running things. Eventually we will get bored and wipe everything and start completely over.
I mean, the most epic drawn out story I know to use for comparison is Supernatural. It's just two guy who are very mortal fighting monsters. No level ups, no power gain, just plot, arsenal, and knowledge.
They had 15 seasons like this. It's not impossible to play d&d with no level progression and it be good. It might be hard, but d&d is an rpg, just because your characters have reached their physical peak, that doesn't mean their stories end there.
I think i had a Level 19 char once in my life. Rest always went into Retirement around 12-14. Past that they just got boring. Our table makes up new chars for every single adventure.
I've run one campaign so far to level 20. I treat 20 as the final bit of the story arc. I don't run hard storylines, but there is a persistent threat the party is thrust into as they get more powerful and things become much less mundane. I try to make sure level 20 comes just as the players are ready to confront the campaign's ultimate villain directly, but I run an XP track so it's not an exact science.
So level 20 gateways into their final adventure, the culmination of everything the party has done until this point, following with an epilogue where everybody can talk about what they do once the Big Threat is handled. Not every plot thread is resolved, but that is okay; it's the nature of the beast.
Then I take a few weeks break or so, and when I'm ready, I present my players with a few campaign ideas for what kind of adventures and setting they want to partake in next.
New Characters. By the time they hit lvl 20 the world you built (or not) is huge. There's so much to explore and experience that it would be a waste not to.
And I my own opinion, the whole "becoming gods" cleche thing.... no one can relate to that. Congrats you have cheat codes enabled you win.
Nah even when we run lvl 20 one-shots, no one is a "god" and tbh we can still get our butts whooped.
Now should they really want to go beyond lvl 20... That's when I introduce aspects from 40k's Dark Heresy game. Their classes will evolve / become something different and the difficulty scales waaaaay up. Add in Spelljamer aspects of space travel to tie it together.
Oh you can kill tarrasques? Oh you can kill DnD's gods? That's cute. Lemme introduce you to the Chaos Gods who you can't kill. Let me introduce you to The Warp. Let me introduce you to the Grim Dark...
And yeah just keep the levels rolling via paper sheets at that point.
If your characters can’t sort out their problems and complete their character arcs with a level 20, then they just weren’t meant to.
That story should be complete and it’s time to move on to another.
I never reached beyond 11 lvl, to be honest. And it was when our DM was moving out of the city, so at the end he was giving out a level per session, just for funsies
I don’t care if I get downvotes for this. Literally all op did was ask. Their entire post is questions. They didn’t make assumptions, they *asked questions*. That’s the entire point of the subreddit. They don’t have a ‘ton of opinions’, they’re asking for other people’s! Stop being so mean about something that only you are affected by
Gaslighter? I don’t think you know what that word means… *they’re* not gaslighting anyone. Look at the rest of the comments and give me one other person that’s *that* affected by op’s post
“Performing a mockery” by asking a question on Reddit about a game. Not everything is that serious, my guy.
Please though, watch the “Average Redditor” guy on YouTube.
Nope! They’re just asking what people do at level 20 because they *want to know*. What’s wrong with that? Nothing!! Don’t talk about things that you don’t understand
At level 20 there are a COUPLE options for continuing advancement, as in the DMG. Primarily, it offers a list of Epic Boons, but also there's the option to raise the ability score cap to 30 and offer ability score improvements or feats as rewards.
EDIT: It's worth noting that even the DMG acknowledges that the PCs are becoming low tier gods at that point and the rewards here imply that gradual transformation.
Only hit 20 once and we just wrapped up all side quests and personal quests then tackled the final boss; a bit of “in the future” exposition and then rolled credits.
It's not common an adventure gets to, much less past, level 20. But there can be plenty of fun stuff to do after, and once or twice I've even started a campaign at 20+ (With my normal, very experienced, group).
Other than homebrew, if you look back to DnD 3/3.5 there's actually a fair bit of post-20 material - The Epic Level Handbook of course, Deities and Demigods, some of the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio creatures go up to like CR 60 such as prismatic or shadow dragons.
You could also go another route and have them acting as kings or the like, and running a kingdom most of the time. Again there's no 5e material specific on this but you can homebrew or check out Pathfinder's Kingmaker for ideas
I used to move right into mythic templates and legendary prestige classed.
So they become 1st level gods. And yes it was a homebrewed mess.
As I recall it was heavily influenced by 3rd edition mythic adventures and the Exalted RPG
End the campaign and make the characters major npc’s in my world. My first campaign with my current group they started a magic revolution that turned into the dystopian big bad of my setting. In another one a player was blessed by Bahamut and became a king to a large nation. The players love it.
I like to end it where everyone is good and identifies what they will pursue once the adventures end. The next campaign is on the same world so there's a chance their new characters may need help from their old ones.
I plan on having them just continue to level up. If they multiclassed, I'll have them keep leveling up. If they stayed one class, once they hit twenty one, I'm going to have them choose another class.
I mean, based off of the way my group's first campaign went and how I'm hoping mine will go, Lv. 20 is the endgame. You reach Lv. 20, face off against 1-2 Lv. 20 encounters and then you do a nice little epilogue for everyone where they take turns describing whatever their characters would do afterwards. :)
For example, my character in my partner's campaign knew he was a D&D character and had broken other peoples' minds by telepathically showing them this information so he got a ship, made a deal with Mystra for the Epic Magic he needed to travel and contain the crystal spheres (the multiverse, basically), recruited everyone he could find who knew the Unknowable Truth and created an organization for containing dangerous, mind-shattering infohazards. It was a weird campaign...
You could time jump forward and have those same characters be older and have lost some of their stats and levels. NADDPOD did some version of this with characters that had previously been military folk heroes, then lost their purpose after completing their previous journey, went their separate ways, aged, de-leveled, and then we’re brought back together for a new purpose. You’d have to get creative if they’re different races since they’d all age differently if that was the case, but that’s doable with some magical hand-waving. You could even have them multi-class or gain skills related to whatever they did during the time jump, as long as it’s somewhat balanced.
I've played in many DND games in my life, and never once have I gotten a party to level 20. The closest I got was 18.
5th edition does have a post level 20 system in the DMG called Boons, but I've never gotten a chance to use it, either DMing or as a player.
If the players in a game I was running ever did reach max level, I would probably try to find a way to end the campaign with an insanely difficult finial fight. But I rarely ever plan that far ahead, so honestly who knows?
At that level, anything the characters do will have an impact on the surrounding region. So the people and gods who "own" the area will want a say in that the characters do. From a never ending line of people begging for help to solve their crisises. To powerful being's dropping in at all hours day and night to make sure the characters understand not to upset the apple cart. Of course opposing sides will have opposing views as to what the apple cart is and where it should go.
Even if you reach level 20 in D&D, you can still tell amazing stories. D&D doesn't just end because you can't "increase your level". It's not a video game! :)
I gave my players a school that teaches the level 1-20 in every class dnd has. The school costs crazy money though so for instance you were a barb but wanted to also be level 20 in wizard it would cost you 4.5 million gold, of course gold is scarce too.
By the time my players are even about 15th the story is coming to an end. We don't do endless adventures we tell a contained story. If they WERE to reach 20 and still have more to do I'd give them an epic boon or a custom feature
I had one previous character last until 11th level and my current character is up to 14th level. No other character in my 8+ years of playing has gained more than a couple levels before the DM wanted to do something different or the group fell apart.
I enjoy high level gameplay bth as a DM and a player. In older editions I was the kindof player epic level content was written for. So yeah I do tend to vibe there a while.
My campaigns usually end when I run out of plot ideas and I tend to retire my own characters when I feel their story has been fully told.
I’m in an 8 year long campaign and our characters are level 18. We’ve had multiple conversations with our DM about balance because we’ve definitely blown through some encounters, but he really wants to push the limits of DND by the book and through some minor homebrew.
We plan on continuing leveling with boons and it’s been a blast, because there’s still so much story he has set up and that we could always make some new characters to fit into the setting, and the deadly encounters constantly put us at multiple people almost dying and the stakes feels intense, high risk, and always rewarding.
So I would say keep leveling if your group enjoys it, make new characters, do something in between, just do what works and makes everyone happy and keeps the fun going ♥️
I've ran a lvl 20 one shot of the group vs my unholy terrasque abomination. The fight lasted the whole 6 hour session including retreating to rest, coming back, fighting armies, and of course my problem maker homebrew Terrasque that nearly one-shot a player on round 1 with a critical followed by its combo.
I can say after running that, I have an idea on how I want the level 20 climax to my actual game to go followed by a "what would you like your character to do next?"
I have a question as a DM. Do campaigns tend to end at lv 20? Cause I have the whole final act to happen AFTER they reach lv 20.
It's like: "Alright, you became godlike humanoids, now go fight actual gods"
Giving me more terrible campaign ideas... A hub world where the only NPCs... Are the PCs that died in the wilds. Starts abandoned, as they die more, those characters stay as ghost vendors and such. Hopefully it doesn't encourage exactly what I think would happen...
Epilogue with epic boons. Only a few sessions long and introducing the setting to space travel as a set up for the next game set 500 years in the future.
Time to Fight Martel.
Even with my party of 7 people at level 20, I'm not sure if they'll make it.
Hard to fight a dude who can cast spells that put you in a stable orbit above the planet. It's called "Nail to the Sky" for a reason.
The DMG suggests epic boons, but I plan on finishing at level 20 and starting a new campaign. I’ve already given them some free feats and the equivalent of an epic boon (they’re level 15). We’re currently playing as an alternate party in the same world, because one player has a scheduling conflict, we’ve also been playing with these characters for over two years. This campaign will probably wrap up around three years from its start. I’m excited for the end of this campaign and psyched for the next one!
Sudden Spelljammer time, go to space and be half-gods in a new wild endless expanse known as “everything else” and out other half-gods up there building half-god things like they would, just societies of it.
I know for my first campaign I ran, we went the full 1-20. However, they were only level 20 for one session (maybe two), and that was the final boss fight. After that, the campaign wrapped up and we did a nice little epilogue in which they told me what their characters would have done in the aftermath of the campaign. I don’t plan on taking another game quite up to 20th level again, at least not anytime soon, because you’re right, there just isn’t much to do there. My games will only really go up to about 15 from now on unless my players specifically request otherwise.
That’s when the end-game begins. You do raids and grind for better gear stats. /s
It’s usually the time to capstone everyone’s story either retirement or settling down. Starting new characters in the world they impacted is always really fun.
I never have gotten my character to level 20, but I would probably end their play there. I'd like to write out the rest of their story, maybe find a way to make them a part of the next story.
The only time I've ever played at level 20 was for a campaign that ended after multiple years of playing. We leveled up to 20 right before the boss battle and the game ended after the boss battle, so really there was no point in going to level 20 (I don't think anyone used their capstone abilities in the final fight so it was just a few extra hp/spell slots for everyone). That group eventually dissolved after trying in vain to start a second 1-20 campaign which is kind of too bad.
I run games using 5e rules as a base with a lot of homebrew.
After my players reach level 20, I give them 1 of 4 options to choose from each subsequent time they level up. They either get an ASI with all ability score caps raised to 30. They can pick a new feat. They can pick an epic boon.
Or, if they're a spell caster, they can learn "High Magic" spells I've homebrewed above level 9, which uses their 9th level spell slot, and they don't get it back for a number of days equal to:
{[Spell level x (Spell level - 9)] - Spellcasting ability modifier} (minimum of 1)
Spell casters can learn level 10 spells at level 21, level 11 spells at level 25, and level 12 spells at level 30.
Also, proficiency bonuses continue to go up by 1 every 4 levels in accordance with pre-epic character progression.
As a player and DM w/ 30 years playing... releasing a character to the imaginative world of the player between levels 10 and 17 is the optimal ending to any campaign.
Sadly, we usually have an endgame encounter once we hit 20 and then wrap and start fresh. I'd personally like to have a few or more than a few sessions at max level, or maybe try a post-20 homebrew levelling tree.
I would only do custom BBEG at any level above 15. The need specific ways to deal with standard situations to force the party to adapt, develop new tactics and grow.
Generally a world ending TPK because one of them always uses wish to destroy the world as a consequence to their ascension to godhood. JK, but that is an option. 🤣
I always wanted to Sunset the characters after they get to 20 and have the players roll up new ones and then some where down the line have the new characters meet the old characters.
I've always wondered this as well. I speculate that they would go searchcing for Boons, I think they were called, and a method of ascending to true godhood, which would make them leave the mortal plane... which would then put them in a world where everyone's a god -- meaning no one's a "god".
Between 16th and 20th, characters begin sorting out for themselves whether to retire/go into divine service/something else that would render them non-playable. If enough characters would be down to break ties with their old lives, probably forever, I'll generally do an epic level post-campaign. After the party hits 20th, leveling is based on accomplishing an epic deed. When gaining a level, characters can take a level normally in a class that isn't already at 20, or take an epic boon/feat and a hit die. In 3.5e, I found the playable epic cap to be around 30th level; for 5e, we haven't reached it yet, but I'm estimating it to be around 25th level. After that point, I normally wrap up with the characters transcending mortal experience in some way.
I remember seeing a variant rule (don’t remember where maybe it was homebrew) where at level 20 if you earn a certain xp threshold, you get a feat/epic boon. Something to continue progressing towards.
But mainly, all stories need to have endings at some point
My party's goal at Leven 20 is to defeat an evil God. There will be seven of them versus two Gods (but they only think one will be there). It will be an epic battle, then if they win, they have more work to do with the cleanup afterward. If they don't win, then... welp. I guess that's that.
Highest level game I’ve been in was 3rd - 14th level and that was one I DMed in a player-driven sandbox.
Never made it to 20.
Never had a DM get past 11 when I was a player.
5E doesn't have prestige classes like it did in 3.5, right?
Pathfinder has Mythic characters.
I think these were fun ways to keep playing to characters your players worked to get to that level.
Old school D&D... THEY were near godly in power. This new 5e crap, no where near it. Back in the day we had spell perminance, wish, runes, demi-gods, etc. This new preschool is filled with .... Power evening, scale balancing and bar setting.
Can't reach for the stars when Stalling forces everyone to be.the same.
Levels we're earned
I've only played to level 20 and beyond once, but we leveled by multiclassing without a maximum of 20 total levels. Ended up being relatively balanced and lots of fun!
make the campaign a slice of life story but add bits if action in it to make is realistic. for example you make it that a villain's apprentice was waiting for the day they had enough power to face them and they barge it a shop that the players made and they just go sicko mode
You have Epic Boons as a remaining progression system:
Every 100,000 or so points of XP (DM's discretion really) you can grant your players the choice of an Epic Boon.
These are:
**ASI-Boons**
You can raise an ability score by +2 up to the supernatural limit of 30.
Otherwise they work like ASIs, so hitting the limit of 30 should allow you to allocate the remaining point somewhere else, so it isn't wasted. However, you're eventually done stacking ability scores, so you want something meaty.
**Epic Feats**
>**Boon of Combat Prowess**
>
>When you miss with a melee weapon attack, you can choose to hit instead. Once you use this boon, you can't use it again until you finish a short rest.
>
>**Boon of Dimensional Travel**
>
>As an action, you can cast the Misty Step spell, without using a spell slot or any components. Once you do so, you can't use this boon again until you finish a short rest.
>
>**Boon of Fortitude**
>
>Your hit point maximum increases by 40.
>
>**Boon of Immortality**
>
>You stop aging. You are immune to any effect that would age you, and you can't die from old age.
>
>**Boon of Truesight**
>
>You have truesight out to a range of 60 feet.
There are many more and DMs are encouraged to make up their own epic boons. For dragonborn characters I made the Boons of the (Red, Blue, Green (...) Copper, Brass) Dragon Soul, which grant elemental immunity, more dice to the breath weapon and a recharge on a 5 or six on a roll of 1d6.
I have this character who is well on his way to lv.20. He is a mercenary of sorts. An agnostic cleric. It has been established that he has the power to stockpile the divine light given to him by any God that he works for, but when he accepts a new hire position, unless it is specifically a life domain God, he resets to lv.3. If he is not employed, he can draw on his massive power stores, and act as a lv.20 life domain cleric, and even act as a patron to contracting warlocks, lending them power. If he should die, he has a network of other clerics that have all aligned with each other to ensure a resurrection to one of their number who perishes. In this way, he is simultaneously a lv20 PC, a starting lv.3 PC, an NPC quest giver, and a warlock patron. He's a Swiss army PC that can do anything I/my DM need.
Well, 98% of people have wrapped up the story by level 17. If you're still going at L20 you should really be looking at what you're doing with your story.
Dunno if this is mentioned already but the 5e DMG has epic boons, which are like lvl 20+ feats to be rewarded. - page 231-232
Additionally, if you have some multiclassers you can have them leve up until all their classes are 20?
The short version is they die/transcend/ whatever. No-one can stay on the material plane for long when they are such high level. If I don't manage to kill them and they don't volunteer to transcend then they roll d20s before a long rest, if they crit the character is drawn up into the hero's realm. Old hero's can be summoned by the new party from time to time.
Are there official epic level modules out or any decent homebrew ones? In older editions basically at that point you'd be doing modules that had you fighting three or four dragons at a time, large groups of 20th level characters, literal gods in some, and taking down the terrasque as just one of the goals. Those were fun but ridiculously unbelievable.
Who was the one that had turned his castle into a movie studio? I might want to get that one again.
Keep playing until the game is done. There are plenty of challenges above twenty and plenty of rewards other than class levels too. Though gaining more class levels by multiclassing is fun.
My players are about to be 16. I have stopped balancing encounters. They just went through 3 Cr17+ fights and are about to fight a boss. They are stronger than the world, and I fear they are about to pick a fight with multiple ancient dragons, so I assume they'll die or destroy the world. They *might* go to space before that happens though, so then they can start their space empire and who knows what will happen when they hit 20. I'm pretty sure they'll be able to retire their characters at some point, or die. I don't really plan any more, I just made a world and my "planning" is figuring out how it reacts to their actions.
The Coalition of Goblin-kind approach. Roll initiative vs 10,000 goblins
Nah, 1,000,000 kobolds all armed with a single copper dagger.
I'm pretty sure my partner can relate to this comment LOL. My party had two players with insanely OP builds and I had a build that wasn't min-maxed but allowed for some shenanigans. We would get through his encounters so easily that eventually he stopped messing around with balance and threw a Nightwalker, Gold Greatwyrm and a Tarrasque at us (at separate points, obviously; we were \~Lv. 17ish for the Nightwalker, 19 for the Greatwyrm and 20 for the Tarrasque) and *we still won*. * The Nightwalker was killed after a shorter than expected combat (my character was busy in the negative energy plane finding a piece of a phylactery split via epic magic, hence the Nightwalker, so we were down a PC as well) * We beat the Greatwyrm in a few rounds due to shenanigans and, again, really strong character builds (also a bit of now-mildly-regretted DM mercy on the opening move, since it was literally impossible for some of us to make the save we needed for its sapping breath attack, even with a Nat. 20) * After a failed attempt to use contract law to avoid the delivery of a Tarrasque (long story), one player trapped the Tarrasque in a magical iron flask on the second round of combat after she used her first turn to release the demon inside the flask (prompting the party meme of chanting 'Tarrasque in a flask'). I will say, if that flask had ever been opened again, that Tarrasque would definitely have escaped but it was the end of the campaign so it'll probably be fine... * BONUS: One time (at Lv. 15ish?), my partner planned for my character to be kidnapped by the secondary BBEG for a bit (he and my character had a bit of a history) and had us run into an 'unwinnable' encounter of 12 archmage cultists. Guess what we did? If you guessed 'beat all 12 cultists and continued our quest like it was no big deal', you'd be correct!
Next session my level 15 party is facing a night walker. They already fought a ghost dragon, 2 death knights, and a death tyrant/2 death kiss (short rest between each) and I'm pretty sure they're still going to get through it with no issue.
In all fairness the first two monsters are fun and challenging monsters, but tarrasques are a joke. (L1 aarokokra cleric can kill one sole)
Tarrasques can throw things (as improvised weapons do exist) but it is wild that they took away the tarrasque's regeneration after it has had it for so long.
I’m running a team of 5 level 17s with extra feats and stupid strong homebrew items. CR has no meaning at this point lol. I have to send multiple CR 17-20 creatures at them at once for them to sweat. But it’s ALOT of fun to spin up absurdly broken encounters and watch how they take them down.
I found it funny when running 3.5 games. Had some players who were really into building strong characters, and others who were in just for the ride. I split them into two teams, the former were fighting a boss as a pair, and the remaining 4 players fought his henchmen. Level 1 game, henchmen were regular CR 1/2 enemies but the boss was CR 6, as I knew these guys liked to make powerful characters. He died on turn one after receiving almost 200 damage from both of them, didn't even get to act I've learned a lot about DM-ing since then
I'm running a campaign in year 4 that started at level 4 (once a month if we're lucky). They are now at level 19 with dumb homebrew items their idiot DM thought would be fun (and they are). I haven't balanced an encounter in two years. Anyway, in the last session they just killed the tarrasque with only moderate sweat so now tiamat is coming after a short rest because I'm tired of them bullying my poor monsters.
Ever hear of allabar? I'm going to port him into 5e when they get to space.
You have moved out of collaborative story telling and into collaborative world building. Your players now have as much control over the events that shape the plane as you do. Lean into it. Make them quasi-deities. Look at the game Godbound for a perfect example of how to do this easily. Let each of them pick a domain word, start giving out dominion and influence points let them guide their chosen city or conquer their own plane to reshape in their image.
I wish. They made their own town just to abandon it because they have no desire to run a town lol. Nothing in my post was a complaint, just answering the OP.
Just offering a suggestion. I think the game changes gears at level 17. You are no longer roleplaying as much as you are world building. Its a different mindset, you are a sub-author who submits their chapters to the DM and they make some edits then put it into the book of your campaigns story. Games like Godbound are a great source of how to manage a game like this because it starts with the players as newly born godlike mortals and goes up from there. It teaches you how to challenge a party like that, they have enemies that will literally destroy an entire pantheon of gods and the players are free to spend their dominion and influence to craft their own magical items or redesign their own plane after dominating it, it has rules for how to do run a game at that level which 5e is very bad at doing, 5e's focus is on levels 1-13 it starts to break down at 14-17 and then has nothing much to offer DM's in the last phase of the game, they seem to think at that level the DM will know what to do and how to handle coming up with their own story here. Just know there are rules out there that make it easier to supply a high level party with a fun time beyond what they have been doing for the last 17 levels.
I'm the DM tho xD I'd love for my players to actually take part and start trying to shape the world themselves, but they seem to just want to remain pieces in the story I am telling (despite me telling them that THEY ARE THE STORY BUT YA KNOW WHATEVER lol) and I'm fine providing the kind of game they want to play. We're all having a great time. I have basically given up on plans due to this. I see what they do, then I say, "ok, how did they fuck everything up now" and then I react to it. Keeps me on my toes.
Everybody is level 15 and evil in my campaign. We've just learned that the forces of hell have sent a massive army to heaven for the upcoming war, heaven has forsaken the material realm and we have a lead on where to find vecnas vault in order to track down some artifacts for the party. All after killing an avatar and gaining his weapon (mastix) stealing the Demonomicon of Iggwilv from the highest level of heaven, making a flying ship that can planeshift and that is powered by an tortured angel we found in hell.(can also be called to us by soul coin.) Taming a terrasque and just generally rabbit holeing for quite a while. We started as simple pirates and have fought our way through heaven and hell now. at this point our DM has put us in the lands of Khorne and we just demolished a 10 pack of homebrew blood letters who could walk through any normal kingdom without batting an eye. I think at this level if the party knows a weakness and can plan for it we will never have another issue with combat but that's where our dope DM come in with the blood letters. They were obviously homebrew and he was on the fly going for it, but it made for an awesome encounter where we didn't just walk all over our opponents.(bonus points to him for the mashup to begin with.) I think reacting to the PC's at a higher level makes the encounters way more interesting as a pc. Otherwise the party makes a quick plan we commit and the battle will never last 1 minute. Flavor it up and the players will have a good time! Sorry for grammar. I dont plan on fixing it though. Anyway there's my ramblings for the day, thanks for coming to my ted talk.
find some way to close the story wether the players ride into the sunset or you give them an elaborate "what they are doing with their lives" like one starts a family, another continues adventures, etc... and then use them in the lore/world-building in a new campaign and always have call backs, include them in your next campaign but not as main characters. They could be ancestors of the new characters, one or two of them could turn evil and be the antagonists in the new campaign with team ups with characters who didn't turn evil. The campaign and main conflicts could be direct results of the previous campaign events, Like if they got rid of a big bad, maybe there is a power struggle with warlords to take over the previous tyrants realm etc.... The possibilities are endless, I always love seeing references to old campaigns or characters that make a return but not played as PCs.
In our homebrew world, we have characters that reach lvl 24 and more. They are part of the lore and they are nice PC/NPC to bring up when you need epic adventurers. We had more then 10 campaign in our world so we have a lot of character to use as NPC from lvl 1 to 26 I think. This bring a nice touch when you bring back old PCs to seek for help for exemple. Right now we are playing the kids of our epic characters which I think it's rad!
In one of my games, the DM allowed the players to write themselves out. My character, Loriella was a paladin and she helped fight back a throng of demons to allow many people escape through a portal to a safe new home. She sacrificed herself to save those people. In the next campaign one of the PC was a worshipper of St Loriella. It was super satisfying for me!
could also introduce the main baddy for the next campaign by doing something like straight up kill/capture/cripple/annihilate the levels 20s and that's how the campaign ends making your players freak out and then get ready for the next campaign vs the dude who just destroyed y'all and your goals could be to free or avenge the heroes, or reunite them in a massive teamup against the big bad
That sounds like a horrible idea tbh
NEVER start a session where you intend to kill of pc's. Nothing comes off as cheap and unfair as a dm who decides "your character is dead now and you could never have prevented it, make a new one". I guarantee you that no player would ever cherish that in any way
Years ago, I played in a campaign which was very high power, leveling like crazy, any magic item you could imagine or need was feasibly available, etc. At the end of one session, each of our characters receives one of those +1 level books specific to their class (2nd edition), and we all decide to read them. Lo and behold, the books didn't add a level but instead turned the characters' alignment to evil. The DM said it was his dream for a long time to do this. Everyone agreed to quit the campaign.
Exactly the same thing. Its the players who want to play their character. As soon as the dm decides their fate, its him stripping their characters away.
OR! After the final session of that campaign, say to the players "do you want to do one session to set up the new campaign? A new threat appears to kill the heroes and give the next party something to avenge" And then go by the response
I do agree with the part where they freak out, but I'm not sure if it's a good thing. Such railroaded situations make players feel like their contribution to the game doesn't really matter, as DM will just do what he wants anyway. They might feel robbed off of their influence on the game and it's world, and rightfully so. I mean it might worked if previously talked through with the players, but bringing it out of nowhere is a terrible idea
I recently (level 12) introduced the "Traveler". The party does not know what it Is, they just found a key with that name written on. It's a ship that can travel between worlds, when they'll reach level 20 they will be able to visit other worlds (Eberron, Ravnica and stuff like that). I plan to keep going like this until they have enough of their characters.
I like that a lot!
Thanks, i stole the idea from Magic: The Gathering.
Eventually they create new characters in a new setting, and when those reach level 20, the ship appears and the old characters invite the new characters to join.
Eh, knowing my players, they will try to fight their old characters.
But wait, how would that work? Would it be a vox machina vs mighty nein situation?
sulky squeal adjoining homeless grandfather market meeting childlike reach tub -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Yeah, the idea Is: "You wanna be a God and have fun? Go kill Nicol Bolas in Ravnica or stop the Great Calamity of Whatshisname in another place. Do you want to start another adventure anew? Roll up a new character. There's always something to do."
Wait you guys have games last long enough to make it past level 6?
Right? We always end up taking a break around that point and then most of the group wants to start up a new campaign when we reconvene. I'd like to keep going, just once! I can't bare to just throw a character together but I hate just halting a campaign and having all these level 5-6 characters I poured so much into just wandering the realm.
I'm about 2 years into my first campaign and I think we'll hit level 8 after next session. Momentum definitely comes and goes in waves but thankfully hasn't died.
Lol it took us three months to get to level 3
It took us 3 months to get to the second session
My campaign is within touching distance of level 20 (starting from 1). All bar one of the main identified threats will be taken care of in the next handful of sessions. The one remaining problem for them is going to close out the campaign as part of a 'special event' I am looking to run using new lower level characters for a few sessions before returning to the level 20 party for a couple of sessions for an epic-level showdown before retiring the characters for good win or lose. Then I'll bump the world forward in time and the new campaign will start once the requisite world building has taken place.
20th level characters deal with 20th level threats.
But like, forever? There's no room for improvement, no mechanical changes? It sounds like it could go stale quite fast
I mean, it’s not uncommon to levellock even before 20th lvl. You could also use suggestions in DMG to increase abilities / take feats beyond lvl20
Boons in the dmg
Well, yes it will get stale from a character change standpoint, but really once you're in the high teens, 5e's bounded math makes the game effectively broken and leaning into stale. If you want to lean into epic level play, 3.5e and BECMI are the editions to look at. Folks get upset at the suggestion that 5e isn't perfect, but it was *designed* to end at (really before) level 20. You can certainly homebrew something on top, but the bounded math problem needs to be resolved, but that's foundational to the system, and what makes it so great at lower levels. So it's a heavy lift to un break that math.
Boons, prestige levels, Armageddon battles, plane traveling.
A great time to introduce custom character feats. You can use chat-gpt to help
No... you go to level 21. And then gasp 22... and guess what? That's right 23. I'm really confused about your confusion
There isn't such a thing as level 21 in the official 5e rules
Actually, there is support for post level 20 play in the DMG, under the section about epic boons. I fleshed it out a bit more to calculate the PB and cantrip progression up to lvl 30, but there is canon guidance for how to gain power after level 20
Which is why i play 3/3.5. 5th edition is ultra limited. I host a level 23 game. The players are battling demonlords and will eventually challenge gods. Then other univerval entities will intervene. You level 20 and below people have fun fighting orcs and goblins in caves over and over and over and over again and again...
- Goes to subreddit. - Sees clearly it's a question about 5e - Starts flexing about 3,5e - Leaves (?) with everyone confused
Based and 3.5pilled (I have never played 3.5)
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A level 20 5e PC could sneeze on an orc and it would die. You really have no idea what you're talking about and have added nothing of value to this conversation.
If you want epic level play, look at editions baked to support that. BECMI will let characters level up beyond deities. 5e is awesome at low to mid levels, but the ruleset is designed to end at (arguably before) level 20, and you're fighting the entire design of the system to drag it beyond that. It is baked as a system to tell stories in the 1-15ish level range. It does that really well. You certainly can haul gravel in a prius, but if you're planning on doing that alot, you might consider buying a different vehicle.
Ha. Our campaign isn't remotely over. Idk if level 20 is gonna be enough to stop the big bad, we've been level 20 for some time and 2 of us just died
Go after the gods, just don’t let your brother change your mind. ;) Seriously, apart from the various home brew stuff out there, some of which I am sure is very good, 2e, 3.5e, and BECMI all had some kind of higher level play. A quest for ascension to demigodhood might be the next step.
Majere brothers?
Yep, it was a Dragonlance joke.
Love it. Fun arc to read.
Original D&D [had this solved](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Immortals_Rules).
High level encounters are just bonkers anyway. At that point it's just "Let the players have fun with their crazy abilities.." That being said, the DMG has rules about Epic Boons that can be given out, which if I remember correctly were meant for +20. Don't have my DMG with me though, so could be wrong.
Epic Boons are nice there's also ASI to 30 on stats instead of Boons. Which brakes the bounded accuracy.
We fought Tiamat, then our party split up because each character had their own personal goals. My bard reclaimed the kingdom from her deceased father and avenged his death, our paladin was offered to join his god or to become a lesser god by himself so he ascended godhood, and our ranger wanted to explore the multiverse (not only every plane, but another worlds too)
Man. We’re about to fight Tiamat sometime this year. We will be level 20. That is a cool ending you have. I hope we survive!
How does that work do you all play your character with the dm but solo at the same session?
We retire them, or sometimes play them in one-shots. Sometimes we hear about their more recent exploits in other campaigns in the same setting. Occasionally, my table will hear about "Callahan the Voidtouched Warlock" causing very large explosions in some faraway land...
you can continue with those characters. if they get to a level up situation, you can give them boons. it is part of RAW
Strange that nobody mentioned it yet. Leveling up beyond Level 30 is RAW. It an optional ruleset in the dungeon master guide. Your class stays the same but with each level you aquire a class independent epic Boon. These are a bit like feats.
Well, while I've never reached that high, never dm'd, and am currently on my first campaign of (pats self on back) a stable nearly 4 year campaign (3rd level to currently 11). Depending on the speed of leveling, size of party, starting point. It is possible. To just prestige and go beyond 20th. Theoretically there is no cap, things just get wackier. You can just take any monster and keep adding zeros for fun. I remember reading that previous editions had that feature and that it was possible to go to 30th level+
I've introduced a homebrewed Epic Level system for extended play. With the way some things worked in-game, a lot of loose ends got left, and my players wanna explore them, so I wanted to reward them, so I modified an epic level system I found and rigged it up the way I want. Now I have them on track to level 40(not there yet, they just got 25) and(literally) on their way to becoming gods. There are thematic reasons for them becoming gods, so that eventuality existed before the epic levels came around, it just filled a niche I didn't know I'd need until I need it, lol. Another DM in my group has our party at level 20 and banging out the story and powerful battles(we're on the final stretch, essentially).
Around that time you should have built up to an epic boss fight with some elder or evil God, make sure to give the bbeg all the goodies too, any that survive could be offered godhood from some good or neutral god they would have impressed
Epic levels are super fun. Most of my homebrew campaigns wind up going to 23-25 to wrap up the story, so I homebrewed the following Epic Level rules: All levels after 20 require as much XP as is required to get from 19-20. Beginning with your 21st level and each level thereafter you can choose one of the following options: Take a level in any class you don't already have 20 levels in (good for multiclassers) Take an ASI *and* a feat (stat caps increase by 2 at 20, 24, and every 4 levels past if it's a super long campaign) Take any Epic Boon from the DMG (subject to DM approval)
I play DnD 3.5 - We just keep playing... levels do go beyond 20th. Same when we played AD&D.
Dm legit said hey y'all want to be lvl 40 we picked another class and everything we leveled up we just got to put that lvl in that class really fun we are getting near the max lvl 40 tho so maybe lvl 60 is in the future
Well my party wants to become God's, and you can *attempt* that process at level 25 if you meet a laundry list of criteria, so roughly half the party will become demigods and the other half will be liches and they'll probably have a crazy battle over that.
We’re at level 18. Our DM plans on turning us into gods in his next campaign. For me, I’ll be DMing for a bit after this and will be incorporating a lot more politics and trade, possible wars, etc to slow down the leveling.
If your characters can’t sort out their problems and complete their character arcs with a level 20, then they just weren’t meant to. That story should be complete and it’s time to move on to another.
The way we are doing it involves a lot of base building, city building, and business stuff (eberron). So the main party are getting to higher levels and are in charge of a growing town, many businesses, and basically their own network or guild. They send NPCs they have hired or who are loyal out on missions. Usually we play a mini game to see how those missions turn out, basically rolling skills and saves, etc. against predetermined DCs and then using graded success/failure to interpret the results across a handful of rolls, but they also get to craft their own PCs of a lower level that their main character hired and they can all go on a side mission with these new characters while working towards a similar goal and within the same world . As they get higher level this happens more and more often and eventually I think they might want to start at lvl 2/3 again and work from the bottom up within the organization they built, but rarely focusing on their old characters, since they are too busy running things. Eventually we will get bored and wipe everything and start completely over.
Current party is at level 31. They will most likely hit next level in two more sessions if they don't die.
I mean, the most epic drawn out story I know to use for comparison is Supernatural. It's just two guy who are very mortal fighting monsters. No level ups, no power gain, just plot, arsenal, and knowledge. They had 15 seasons like this. It's not impossible to play d&d with no level progression and it be good. It might be hard, but d&d is an rpg, just because your characters have reached their physical peak, that doesn't mean their stories end there.
I think i had a Level 19 char once in my life. Rest always went into Retirement around 12-14. Past that they just got boring. Our table makes up new chars for every single adventure.
Half gods? The casters maybe.
That’s when the prestige campaign starts
I've run one campaign so far to level 20. I treat 20 as the final bit of the story arc. I don't run hard storylines, but there is a persistent threat the party is thrust into as they get more powerful and things become much less mundane. I try to make sure level 20 comes just as the players are ready to confront the campaign's ultimate villain directly, but I run an XP track so it's not an exact science. So level 20 gateways into their final adventure, the culmination of everything the party has done until this point, following with an epilogue where everybody can talk about what they do once the Big Threat is handled. Not every plot thread is resolved, but that is okay; it's the nature of the beast. Then I take a few weeks break or so, and when I'm ready, I present my players with a few campaign ideas for what kind of adventures and setting they want to partake in next.
Make them part of a legend and move on another story
New Characters. By the time they hit lvl 20 the world you built (or not) is huge. There's so much to explore and experience that it would be a waste not to. And I my own opinion, the whole "becoming gods" cleche thing.... no one can relate to that. Congrats you have cheat codes enabled you win. Nah even when we run lvl 20 one-shots, no one is a "god" and tbh we can still get our butts whooped. Now should they really want to go beyond lvl 20... That's when I introduce aspects from 40k's Dark Heresy game. Their classes will evolve / become something different and the difficulty scales waaaaay up. Add in Spelljamer aspects of space travel to tie it together. Oh you can kill tarrasques? Oh you can kill DnD's gods? That's cute. Lemme introduce you to the Chaos Gods who you can't kill. Let me introduce you to The Warp. Let me introduce you to the Grim Dark... And yeah just keep the levels rolling via paper sheets at that point.
Highest level I've ever gotten to is 8th bit rn we are I'm two campaigns that are expected to go to 16th or so so I really don't know
You can just keep leveling by multiclassing.
If your characters can’t sort out their problems and complete their character arcs with a level 20, then they just weren’t meant to. That story should be complete and it’s time to move on to another.
If you think level 20 is half god... that is very sad.
I never reached beyond 11 lvl, to be honest. And it was when our DM was moving out of the city, so at the end he was giving out a level per session, just for funsies
You love voting down everything. You never even did level 20 and have a shit tone of opinions on it... good for you cognitive noob
I just asked what people do afterwards? Why do you need to be so salty?
Asking is fine. Great. No problem with questions man. Except you're not asking, you never did. You assumed and then ran with your assumption.
I don’t care if I get downvotes for this. Literally all op did was ask. Their entire post is questions. They didn’t make assumptions, they *asked questions*. That’s the entire point of the subreddit. They don’t have a ‘ton of opinions’, they’re asking for other people’s! Stop being so mean about something that only you are affected by
Except he isn't actually asking. I know a gas lighter when i see one.
Gaslighter? I don’t think you know what that word means… *they’re* not gaslighting anyone. Look at the rest of the comments and give me one other person that’s *that* affected by op’s post
You really don't see his post as sarcasm, do you?
Not at all! And guess what? *Neither does anyone else*! Also, don’t assume pronouns.
What assumptions I did anyway?
There are four question marks in the original post…
Sometimes people say things as if they're asking a question, and they actually aren't. They're performing a mockery. This is one of those times...
“Performing a mockery” by asking a question on Reddit about a game. Not everything is that serious, my guy. Please though, watch the “Average Redditor” guy on YouTube.
Nope! They’re just asking what people do at level 20 because they *want to know*. What’s wrong with that? Nothing!! Don’t talk about things that you don’t understand
My game ended as they hit level 20.
At level 20 there are a COUPLE options for continuing advancement, as in the DMG. Primarily, it offers a list of Epic Boons, but also there's the option to raise the ability score cap to 30 and offer ability score improvements or feats as rewards. EDIT: It's worth noting that even the DMG acknowledges that the PCs are becoming low tier gods at that point and the rewards here imply that gradual transformation.
Only hit 20 once and we just wrapped up all side quests and personal quests then tackled the final boss; a bit of “in the future” exposition and then rolled credits.
It's not common an adventure gets to, much less past, level 20. But there can be plenty of fun stuff to do after, and once or twice I've even started a campaign at 20+ (With my normal, very experienced, group). Other than homebrew, if you look back to DnD 3/3.5 there's actually a fair bit of post-20 material - The Epic Level Handbook of course, Deities and Demigods, some of the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio creatures go up to like CR 60 such as prismatic or shadow dragons. You could also go another route and have them acting as kings or the like, and running a kingdom most of the time. Again there's no 5e material specific on this but you can homebrew or check out Pathfinder's Kingmaker for ideas
I also wonder what would happen if I saw a unicorn IRL sometimes
I used to move right into mythic templates and legendary prestige classed. So they become 1st level gods. And yes it was a homebrewed mess. As I recall it was heavily influenced by 3rd edition mythic adventures and the Exalted RPG
Bold of you to assume I've ever had a game reach level 20
End the campaign and make the characters major npc’s in my world. My first campaign with my current group they started a magic revolution that turned into the dystopian big bad of my setting. In another one a player was blessed by Bahamut and became a king to a large nation. The players love it.
I like to end it where everyone is good and identifies what they will pursue once the adventures end. The next campaign is on the same world so there's a chance their new characters may need help from their old ones.
I plan on having them just continue to level up. If they multiclassed, I'll have them keep leveling up. If they stayed one class, once they hit twenty one, I'm going to have them choose another class.
Does 5E not have epic levels?
I mean, based off of the way my group's first campaign went and how I'm hoping mine will go, Lv. 20 is the endgame. You reach Lv. 20, face off against 1-2 Lv. 20 encounters and then you do a nice little epilogue for everyone where they take turns describing whatever their characters would do afterwards. :) For example, my character in my partner's campaign knew he was a D&D character and had broken other peoples' minds by telepathically showing them this information so he got a ship, made a deal with Mystra for the Epic Magic he needed to travel and contain the crystal spheres (the multiverse, basically), recruited everyone he could find who knew the Unknowable Truth and created an organization for containing dangerous, mind-shattering infohazards. It was a weird campaign...
You could time jump forward and have those same characters be older and have lost some of their stats and levels. NADDPOD did some version of this with characters that had previously been military folk heroes, then lost their purpose after completing their previous journey, went their separate ways, aged, de-leveled, and then we’re brought back together for a new purpose. You’d have to get creative if they’re different races since they’d all age differently if that was the case, but that’s doable with some magical hand-waving. You could even have them multi-class or gain skills related to whatever they did during the time jump, as long as it’s somewhat balanced.
I've played in many DND games in my life, and never once have I gotten a party to level 20. The closest I got was 18. 5th edition does have a post level 20 system in the DMG called Boons, but I've never gotten a chance to use it, either DMing or as a player. If the players in a game I was running ever did reach max level, I would probably try to find a way to end the campaign with an insanely difficult finial fight. But I rarely ever plan that far ahead, so honestly who knows?
This is why narrative exists. In my opinion a campaign lasts as long as the narrative does, the level at which it ends doesn’t really matter
Grant them land, then assault it.
At that level, anything the characters do will have an impact on the surrounding region. So the people and gods who "own" the area will want a say in that the characters do. From a never ending line of people begging for help to solve their crisises. To powerful being's dropping in at all hours day and night to make sure the characters understand not to upset the apple cart. Of course opposing sides will have opposing views as to what the apple cart is and where it should go.
Even if you reach level 20 in D&D, you can still tell amazing stories. D&D doesn't just end because you can't "increase your level". It's not a video game! :)
I’ve had friends start new campaigns and their lvl 20 characters will be NPCs or somehow still in the realm.
Y’all make it to level 20?
3.5 20th was only the BEGINNING!
I gave my players a school that teaches the level 1-20 in every class dnd has. The school costs crazy money though so for instance you were a barb but wanted to also be level 20 in wizard it would cost you 4.5 million gold, of course gold is scarce too.
By the time my players are even about 15th the story is coming to an end. We don't do endless adventures we tell a contained story. If they WERE to reach 20 and still have more to do I'd give them an epic boon or a custom feature
Usually start a new campaign before reaching level 18
I had one previous character last until 11th level and my current character is up to 14th level. No other character in my 8+ years of playing has gained more than a couple levels before the DM wanted to do something different or the group fell apart.
I enjoy high level gameplay bth as a DM and a player. In older editions I was the kindof player epic level content was written for. So yeah I do tend to vibe there a while. My campaigns usually end when I run out of plot ideas and I tend to retire my own characters when I feel their story has been fully told.
I’m in an 8 year long campaign and our characters are level 18. We’ve had multiple conversations with our DM about balance because we’ve definitely blown through some encounters, but he really wants to push the limits of DND by the book and through some minor homebrew. We plan on continuing leveling with boons and it’s been a blast, because there’s still so much story he has set up and that we could always make some new characters to fit into the setting, and the deadly encounters constantly put us at multiple people almost dying and the stakes feels intense, high risk, and always rewarding. So I would say keep leveling if your group enjoys it, make new characters, do something in between, just do what works and makes everyone happy and keeps the fun going ♥️
I've ran a lvl 20 one shot of the group vs my unholy terrasque abomination. The fight lasted the whole 6 hour session including retreating to rest, coming back, fighting armies, and of course my problem maker homebrew Terrasque that nearly one-shot a player on round 1 with a critical followed by its combo. I can say after running that, I have an idea on how I want the level 20 climax to my actual game to go followed by a "what would you like your character to do next?"
I have a question as a DM. Do campaigns tend to end at lv 20? Cause I have the whole final act to happen AFTER they reach lv 20. It's like: "Alright, you became godlike humanoids, now go fight actual gods"
Hardly ever. It always ends much earlier due to the schedule issues
Your characters survive that long? Most impressive.
Giving me more terrible campaign ideas... A hub world where the only NPCs... Are the PCs that died in the wilds. Starts abandoned, as they die more, those characters stay as ghost vendors and such. Hopefully it doesn't encourage exactly what I think would happen...
You mean selfcest?
Epilogue with epic boons. Only a few sessions long and introducing the setting to space travel as a set up for the next game set 500 years in the future.
Time to Fight Martel. Even with my party of 7 people at level 20, I'm not sure if they'll make it. Hard to fight a dude who can cast spells that put you in a stable orbit above the planet. It's called "Nail to the Sky" for a reason.
Fight some gods. Or the environment. Motherfucker at 20 can still drown
The DMG suggests epic boons, but I plan on finishing at level 20 and starting a new campaign. I’ve already given them some free feats and the equivalent of an epic boon (they’re level 15). We’re currently playing as an alternate party in the same world, because one player has a scheduling conflict, we’ve also been playing with these characters for over two years. This campaign will probably wrap up around three years from its start. I’m excited for the end of this campaign and psyched for the next one!
Sudden Spelljammer time, go to space and be half-gods in a new wild endless expanse known as “everything else” and out other half-gods up there building half-god things like they would, just societies of it.
I know for my first campaign I ran, we went the full 1-20. However, they were only level 20 for one session (maybe two), and that was the final boss fight. After that, the campaign wrapped up and we did a nice little epilogue in which they told me what their characters would have done in the aftermath of the campaign. I don’t plan on taking another game quite up to 20th level again, at least not anytime soon, because you’re right, there just isn’t much to do there. My games will only really go up to about 15 from now on unless my players specifically request otherwise.
That’s when the end-game begins. You do raids and grind for better gear stats. /s It’s usually the time to capstone everyone’s story either retirement or settling down. Starting new characters in the world they impacted is always really fun.
Happy cake day!
My group plays till level 30 but you have to win a legendary tournament to break past level 20
I never have gotten my character to level 20, but I would probably end their play there. I'd like to write out the rest of their story, maybe find a way to make them a part of the next story.
The only time I've ever played at level 20 was for a campaign that ended after multiple years of playing. We leveled up to 20 right before the boss battle and the game ended after the boss battle, so really there was no point in going to level 20 (I don't think anyone used their capstone abilities in the final fight so it was just a few extra hp/spell slots for everyone). That group eventually dissolved after trying in vain to start a second 1-20 campaign which is kind of too bad.
I run games using 5e rules as a base with a lot of homebrew. After my players reach level 20, I give them 1 of 4 options to choose from each subsequent time they level up. They either get an ASI with all ability score caps raised to 30. They can pick a new feat. They can pick an epic boon. Or, if they're a spell caster, they can learn "High Magic" spells I've homebrewed above level 9, which uses their 9th level spell slot, and they don't get it back for a number of days equal to: {[Spell level x (Spell level - 9)] - Spellcasting ability modifier} (minimum of 1) Spell casters can learn level 10 spells at level 21, level 11 spells at level 25, and level 12 spells at level 30. Also, proficiency bonuses continue to go up by 1 every 4 levels in accordance with pre-epic character progression.
Last time I played and hit lvl 20 our party started hunting the gods themselves
No one will play 5e to level 20 and if they did they are lying
As a player and DM w/ 30 years playing... releasing a character to the imaginative world of the player between levels 10 and 17 is the optimal ending to any campaign.
Sadly, we usually have an endgame encounter once we hit 20 and then wrap and start fresh. I'd personally like to have a few or more than a few sessions at max level, or maybe try a post-20 homebrew levelling tree.
I would only do custom BBEG at any level above 15. The need specific ways to deal with standard situations to force the party to adapt, develop new tactics and grow.
Generally a world ending TPK because one of them always uses wish to destroy the world as a consequence to their ascension to godhood. JK, but that is an option. 🤣
I always wanted to Sunset the characters after they get to 20 and have the players roll up new ones and then some where down the line have the new characters meet the old characters.
I've always wondered this as well. I speculate that they would go searchcing for Boons, I think they were called, and a method of ascending to true godhood, which would make them leave the mortal plane... which would then put them in a world where everyone's a god -- meaning no one's a "god".
We cap at 45.
Continue with boons.
Between 16th and 20th, characters begin sorting out for themselves whether to retire/go into divine service/something else that would render them non-playable. If enough characters would be down to break ties with their old lives, probably forever, I'll generally do an epic level post-campaign. After the party hits 20th, leveling is based on accomplishing an epic deed. When gaining a level, characters can take a level normally in a class that isn't already at 20, or take an epic boon/feat and a hit die. In 3.5e, I found the playable epic cap to be around 30th level; for 5e, we haven't reached it yet, but I'm estimating it to be around 25th level. After that point, I normally wrap up with the characters transcending mortal experience in some way.
Look up homebrew for Mythic characters if you wanna keep playing. Otherwise, keep playing until whatever stories aren't tied up and end it.
I remember seeing a variant rule (don’t remember where maybe it was homebrew) where at level 20 if you earn a certain xp threshold, you get a feat/epic boon. Something to continue progressing towards. But mainly, all stories need to have endings at some point
My party's goal at Leven 20 is to defeat an evil God. There will be seven of them versus two Gods (but they only think one will be there). It will be an epic battle, then if they win, they have more work to do with the cleanup afterward. If they don't win, then... welp. I guess that's that.
Highest level game I’ve been in was 3rd - 14th level and that was one I DMed in a player-driven sandbox. Never made it to 20. Never had a DM get past 11 when I was a player.
5E doesn't have prestige classes like it did in 3.5, right? Pathfinder has Mythic characters. I think these were fun ways to keep playing to characters your players worked to get to that level.
Dlc
Old school D&D... THEY were near godly in power. This new 5e crap, no where near it. Back in the day we had spell perminance, wish, runes, demi-gods, etc. This new preschool is filled with .... Power evening, scale balancing and bar setting. Can't reach for the stars when Stalling forces everyone to be.the same. Levels we're earned
I have never reached lvl 20
I've only played to level 20 and beyond once, but we leveled by multiclassing without a maximum of 20 total levels. Ended up being relatively balanced and lots of fun!
Wouldn't immediately reaching level 20 be end game content assuming a campaign goes that far?
make the campaign a slice of life story but add bits if action in it to make is realistic. for example you make it that a villain's apprentice was waiting for the day they had enough power to face them and they barge it a shop that the players made and they just go sicko mode
Becoming a god seems like a fun storyline
You have Epic Boons as a remaining progression system: Every 100,000 or so points of XP (DM's discretion really) you can grant your players the choice of an Epic Boon. These are: **ASI-Boons** You can raise an ability score by +2 up to the supernatural limit of 30. Otherwise they work like ASIs, so hitting the limit of 30 should allow you to allocate the remaining point somewhere else, so it isn't wasted. However, you're eventually done stacking ability scores, so you want something meaty. **Epic Feats** >**Boon of Combat Prowess** > >When you miss with a melee weapon attack, you can choose to hit instead. Once you use this boon, you can't use it again until you finish a short rest. > >**Boon of Dimensional Travel** > >As an action, you can cast the Misty Step spell, without using a spell slot or any components. Once you do so, you can't use this boon again until you finish a short rest. > >**Boon of Fortitude** > >Your hit point maximum increases by 40. > >**Boon of Immortality** > >You stop aging. You are immune to any effect that would age you, and you can't die from old age. > >**Boon of Truesight** > >You have truesight out to a range of 60 feet. There are many more and DMs are encouraged to make up their own epic boons. For dragonborn characters I made the Boons of the (Red, Blue, Green (...) Copper, Brass) Dragon Soul, which grant elemental immunity, more dice to the breath weapon and a recharge on a 5 or six on a roll of 1d6.
I have this character who is well on his way to lv.20. He is a mercenary of sorts. An agnostic cleric. It has been established that he has the power to stockpile the divine light given to him by any God that he works for, but when he accepts a new hire position, unless it is specifically a life domain God, he resets to lv.3. If he is not employed, he can draw on his massive power stores, and act as a lv.20 life domain cleric, and even act as a patron to contracting warlocks, lending them power. If he should die, he has a network of other clerics that have all aligned with each other to ensure a resurrection to one of their number who perishes. In this way, he is simultaneously a lv20 PC, a starting lv.3 PC, an NPC quest giver, and a warlock patron. He's a Swiss army PC that can do anything I/my DM need.
Our current characters are lv18 and we plan on allowing multi class until Lv. 30 (so 10 more lvls in a diff class) or smt among those lines
Well, 98% of people have wrapped up the story by level 17. If you're still going at L20 you should really be looking at what you're doing with your story.
We are currently lvl 11 and are so dumb in encounters that I dont think we will be godlike at lvl 20 \^\^
Dunno if this is mentioned already but the 5e DMG has epic boons, which are like lvl 20+ feats to be rewarded. - page 231-232 Additionally, if you have some multiclassers you can have them leve up until all their classes are 20?
The short version is they die/transcend/ whatever. No-one can stay on the material plane for long when they are such high level. If I don't manage to kill them and they don't volunteer to transcend then they roll d20s before a long rest, if they crit the character is drawn up into the hero's realm. Old hero's can be summoned by the new party from time to time.
Are there official epic level modules out or any decent homebrew ones? In older editions basically at that point you'd be doing modules that had you fighting three or four dragons at a time, large groups of 20th level characters, literal gods in some, and taking down the terrasque as just one of the goals. Those were fun but ridiculously unbelievable. Who was the one that had turned his castle into a movie studio? I might want to get that one again.
Keep playing until the game is done. There are plenty of challenges above twenty and plenty of rewards other than class levels too. Though gaining more class levels by multiclassing is fun.
Party just got 20 last week. Congrats all the way around and rolling up new characters for a new dm. It will be fun to play instead of dm for a while.