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Experiences Running a 20th Level Multi-5e Game

by Mike on 16 March 2026

Nine years ago I talked about my first experience running D&D 2014 from 1st to 20th level. Recently I ran an eighteen month long 1st to 20th level 5e game set in the City of Arches. It began while the City of Arches sourcebook was still in draft and, by the time we finished, the book was in people's hands all over the world.

We began this campaign using Level Up Advanced 5e as our core 5e variant. Neither D&D 2024 nor Tales of the Valiant had come out yet and I wanted to try something different than D&D 2014. About halfway through, when those other 5e systems had come out, I opened up the campaign so players could shift their characters to those other systems if they chose. Some chose to switch, some didn't. One new player brought his D&D 2014 character in. We didn't have any Tales of the Valiant characters but we did have three D&D 2024 characters, three Level Up Advanced 5e characters, and one D&D 2014 character for the rest of the campaign, up to 20th level.

I learned a lot from this campaign and I wanted to share my most noteworthy experiences.

Running Multiple 5es Worked Fine

You'd think it would be a huge mess to run three separate 5e variants at the same table but it worked fine. It helped that I employed one of the most powerful lazy GM tips: not giving too much of a shit. Sure, the rules sometimes clashed but we worked through it. Drinking a potion was a bonus action for some characters but an action for others. The differences between characters and their rules weren't hard to figure out and we all got a laugh out of them.

Rarely did it matter that we had a mix of 5e characters. Players enjoyed their own PC rulesets and the rest of the mechanics worked fine. We did ignore a bunch of Level Up Advanced 5e rules after a while since they didn't affect most characters. Supply didn't matter too much and we never played with weapon breakage or masterwork weapons.

Otherwise, everything ran fine with characters from multiple 5e systems – no weirder than running characters from one system with a lot of subclasses from different sources.

Running this “3x5e” campaign proved to me that D&D 2024 and all the other 5e variants are compatible enough that I don't think we have to worry about it.

Mashing up all this great 5e content from so many different publishers is what I call embracing the beautiful mess of 5e. 5e is a resilient RPG platform with hundreds of publishers and thousands of products. We GMs can use them all together to build the 5e we want for our table.

Luck and Doom are Awesome

While no players used Tales of the Valiant for their characters, I did use two features of Kobold Press's take on 5e in my game, which have now become staples in every 5e game I run: luck and doom.

Luck replaces inspiration in 5e. Instead of awarding inspiration, characters gain luck once per turn when they miss on an attack or saving throw. They can carry up to five luck points at a time. If they get a sixth luck point, they roll 1d4 and that's how many luck they have. They can use one or more luck points to add +1 to a D20 roll or use three luck points to re-roll a D20 roll.

Luck is completely player-facing so now it's an element of the game I need not worry about except to ask if players have luck when they're close to hitting a target or not. It's fantastic.

Luck takes away the pain of missing consistently because however poor you do, you’re always gaining luck. It’s a great little upward beat on the downward beats of failing attacks or saves.

I also brought in Doom Points from Tales of the Valiant into my 3x5e game (and now all my 5e games). I called it "Dreadful Blessings" to give it some in-world flavor. You can read all about Dreadful Blessings to learn more about how they work.

Dreadful blessings completely changed my relationship with high-level 5e. I no longer need to worry about all of the characters' gamebreaking mechanics because now, I too have a gamebreaking mechanic to ensure boss monsters meet their intended impact in the story. And, most importantly, players liked it. They recognized the value of it and also enjoyed it when they managed to burn away a boss's dreadful blessings – something I never saw players bother to do when facing monsters with legendary resistances.

I used dreadful blessings all the way to 20th level and every major boss they fought met their intention in the fiction – they were deadly and scary without feeling cheap.

Forge of Foes for Improvisational Monsters

I used a lot of Forge of Foes guidelines to improvise monsters during my game and they worked great. Forge of Foes let me improvise monsters often and care less when they got ripped up with powerful character abilities. Usually some core stats and a single special feature was enough for non-boss monsters.

Modern Monsters Hit Hard

I also used a lot of monsters from the 2025 D&D Monster Manual and they held up well. Monsters from the D&D 2025 Monster Manual monsters pour out damage and they're easy to run. The 2025 Monster Manual was one of my favorite RPG products of 2025.

I'm Ready for Something Lighter

I love 5e and I really enjoyed my 20th level 5e game but I was ready to run some lighter RPGs like Dragonbane, Dolmenwood, Shadowdark, 13th Age, or Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Our group ended up with Dragonbane which I love and I'm still running my Tales of the Valiant game, of course.

I’m sure, when I'm ready, I'll be running 5e again.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here is last week's question and answer.

5e Threats of Death

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Last week I also posted a YouTube video on Journey to Valera – Dragon Empire Prep Session 59

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Add layers of monsters to dungeons and lairs. Who hunts the hunters?
Include two or three factions to dungeons so players have groups to work against other groups.
Mix scenes and pacing between combat, exploration, and roleplaying.
Try both offering your own game summary and having players summarize. See which works for you.
Roll with unexpected comedy.
Scale monsters so they meet their fictional intent. Are they as dangerous as they should be?
Refine the tools you need to run your game. Enjoy the ritual of prepping them before a session.

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