Dungeons & Dragons to Publish First High Level Adventure in Five Years

Dungeons & Dragons' upcoming Planescape boxed set includes an adventure for 17th level characters.

Dungeons & Dragons is returning to high level character content for the first time in a half-decade. This week, Wizards of the Coast released new details about Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse, their upcoming box set focused on the classic Planescape setting. Included in the announcements was a description of the new Turn of Fortune's Wheel adventure, which will be featured in the boxed set and is about the party unraveling a plot to "undermine the rules of reality." The new adventure is made for Level 3-Level 10 characters, but also includes a bump to Level 17 at some point in the adventure. 

Turn of Fortune's Wheel marks an interesting milestone for Wizards of the Coast, as it marks a rare push into high level adventure content for the publisher. While Dungeons & Dragons includes rules for character building up to 20th level, official adventures tend to only focus on low and mid-level play. In fact, Turn of Fortune's Wheel marks the first time that Wizards has published "Tier 4" content (that is, adventure content made for Level 17-Level 20 characters since the 2018 adventure Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. That adventure remains the only 5th Edition adventure published by Wizards of the Coast that has included a push to Level 20. 

One of the more consistent criticisms of the D&D design team is that it often neglects higher level play. Various representatives of Wizards of the Coast have noted that only a fraction of D&D players ever venture into Tier 4 play, with surveys indicating that only 10% of D&D players have had a campaign that passed Level 10. We'll note that Wizards does publish high level content for its organized Adventurer's League and third party publishers often venture into high level play for 5E, but it's still unusual to see an official campaign book head this high. 

Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse will be released on October 17th.