Adapting Low Level Adventures For High Level Games

Turning Level 3 into Level 18

Feb 19, 2026

The crowdfunding for The 10th Doomstar continues so my mind keeps on going back to my experiences with high level games. One ever present complaint about any D&D like game is that there is little support for high-level adventure when compared to low level adventures. And its a valid complaint! Most campaigns don’t last long enough to reach high-level gameplay and one-shot adventures are more approachable when the PCs are easier to immediately comprehend (aka, less complex because they are low level). But I’ve found that its not too hard to adapt adventures for high-level gameplay! As an example, I’ll be primarily discussing the Star Wound of Abaddon for DCC. But I’ll also provide a list of various DCC adventures that you could easily bump up 3-5 levels and use with minimal changes.

Picking the Correct Adventure to Adapt

First off, you can’t just apply a veneer of “A pLaNe Of ChAoS” to every adventure. If you attempted that with Keep on the Borderlands, it would feel quite contrived. So eschew adventures that are filled with bandits and goblins. Look for more wild adversaries that are more “proactive” in their threat. This generally means that a level 1-2 DCC adventure probably wouldn’t work terribly well. However, funnels are just made different so they might. But a level 3-4 adventure is probably still going to be easier to turn into a level 8 adventure.

Its also smart to pick adventures that aren’t just “gold hunts”. Pick something that offers a threat to something larger than just the PCs. While Keep on the Borderlands might qualify in this sense, that adventure lacks built in “proactiveness” from the monsters so its still not a great option.

The Changes To Make

The PCs may now have abilities that let them easily fly around, banish or bind demons, grants massive blessings. But try to keep things simple. Bump up the damage that enemies deal. Either increase their number, bump their AC, bump their HP, or some combination. You are homebrewing so you need to make the right changes for you gaming group. Whether its DCC or OSE, the game master should know the approximate capabilities of the PCs and what can threaten them.

Add new abilities to monsters as needed. You don’t need to plan out everything ahead of time though. Its perfectly fine to realize that what should be a tough monster needs a little extra juice mid-combat. Have a flaming shield burst around them to raise AC, grant fire resistance, and make melee more risky. Grant them a new life drain style ability. Or simply give them an extra attack that round that “you forgot to do earlier”. Your much more likely to accidentally have weaker than expected enemies than stronger than exacted. You’re trying to bump up the threat level, after all.

Magic items might need a boost as well. A +1 sword is not too exciting at level 8, as compared to level 3. Keep what’s there and just make it a bit stronger.

The Star Wound of Abaddon - What Made It Easy to Level Adjust

Very little needed to change! I made the kind of adjustments as described above. I didn’t add any encounters or any enemies. I tried to keep conversions simple so I just would give a +X to attack, damage, and AC. Then also add some extra damage dice to attacks for tougher enemies.

As apart of an ongoing campaign, I described the adventure as set on an alien world that the PCs teleported to. That gave me the room to make up weird “environmental effects” as needed. In practice, I was converting this, mostly on the fly, to a level 18 D&D 5e game. Quite a difference from level 3 DCC! Various excuses let me surprise my players with needing to roll to cast spells and suffering from the “cosmic perversions” table that this adventure contains.

The “Special Encounters Within The Wastes” sidebar and the Void Moth let me force the PCs from flying over every single encounter. The ability to fly can put a damper on a lot of dungeon threats and let players avoid overland travel. Flight is something that you really have to consider with high level adventures. Flying monsters or bad storms can help a lot in non-dungeon areas.

Other Adventures With Potential for High Level Adjustments

For this, I’m including any adventure that is level 4 or lower that I feel would be easy to adjust with only the type of adjustments as I described above.

Got any tips of your own for adapting adventures to different levels?