D&D 5E Anyone else hoping that the next campaign book WotC releases is 15th to 20th levels?

Wizard spells go all the way to 9th level. They even take up pages in the Player's Handbook. It would be nice for WotC to release something for high levels. It's unlikely given that their release philosophy mirrors a MMORPG where you get two DLCs a year and reroll characters to play them.

nswanson27 said:

Agreed. What's particularly confusing about that argument is that even if THEIR table doesn't get to tier 4, why are they treating other people's fun so lightly, since it's clear that there are that do get that high and strongly wish to continue.

Click to expand...

Nobody is trying to prevent you from having fun, we're just explaining why it doesn't make business sense for WotC to release any high-level adventures when they could instead use their time and Resources to develop a low to mid Level adventure that will be of interest to a much larger target audience.

Prakriti said:

Yep. In the same way that a Drow is CR 1/4, where-as a Drow Elite Warrior is CR 5. There's no reason why goblins can't have elite warriors or powerful mages of their own. So, in an adventure for levels 1-10 or 15-20, the first encounter might be against regular old goblins for the level 1 version, but Chosen-of-Maglubiyet goblins for the level 15 version: CR 12 shamans who have bathed in the blood of their god. It's just a matter of designing an adventure that supports both narratives, which, as a creative-DM type of person, sounds pretty easy to me.

Click to expand...

I'm of the opinion that anything above 10th level should kind of be a big deal in the game world, a mover and shaker. 5th edition requires hordes of things to challenge any remotely solid party. Its going to seem a little silly to kick in the door, and fight 6 10th level goblin fighters supported by a rando 12th level goblin wizard. After you blast through this group in 1-2 rounds, a group who by all right should be known far and wide, you kick in another door to fight another goblin archmage, and a couple more high clerics. All blade fodder for a 15th level group, because 5th edition's monsters are all built to be speedbumps. Who the hell were these nameless guys? Why were these goblin superheroes just basically sitting around picking their noses and playing cards? Where were they when the party was out committing goblin genocide when they were level 7?

5th edition suffers from weak ass monster design in that the game pandered too much to low levels. Nothing is challenging enough to act as a solo unless you run it 10CR above party level, because non-legendary monsters are just weenies without enough HP or damage to be a threat on their own. 4E had a decent idea when it decided that certain things were for the big boys and maybe you should be higher level than 3-4 before you start slaughtering giants by the truckload. We need to get some solo/elite generic critters back into play if they actually want to focus on play past 11th level or so.

You have to write adventures differently for high level, taking into account abilities like resurrection, teleport, scry. Hell, even speak w dead. A high level adventure shouldnt look like a low level one with bigger numbers. I hate in computer games where the level of everything always scales to you. Oh hey, here's some epic rats and 6 liches in the old haunted shed! Bring me back 12 Fenrir Wolf tails and I'll give you 1,200,000 silver pieces. Also if you deliver this letter to my neighbor he may have an old rusty +4 axe laying around!

Sorcerers Apprentice said:

Nobody is trying to prevent you from having fun, we're just explaining why it doesn't make business sense for WotC to release any high-level adventures when they could instead use their time and Resources to develop a low to mid Level adventure that will be of interest to a much larger target audience.

Click to expand...

Well in this case it is the tip of the pyramid. It is indeed small, but it is not non-existent.
Also, I don't think non-support of endgame does wonders to their PR to the broader audience. I know it doesn't for me.

An epic level sourcebook would be cool, but no, I personally have no interest.

DMing a high-level module is exponentially harder, what with all the spells/magic that the players can unleash (which can be adventure-wrecking), let alone having to manage multiple complicated monsters.

It's not that it can't be done, but it's hard to do it in a sellable way.

Motorskills said:

DMing a high-level module is exponentially harder, what with all the spells/magic that the players can unleash (which can be adventure-wrecking), let alone having to manage multiple complicated monsters.

It's not that it can't be done, but it's hard to do it in a sellable way.

Click to expand...

Simpler times, simpler game....

Motorskills said:

DMing a high-level module is exponentially harder, what with all the spells/magic that the players can unleash (which can be adventure-wrecking), let alone having to manage multiple complicated monsters.

It's not that it can't be done, but it's hard to do it in a sellable way.

Click to expand...

That hadn't stopped WotC, or TSR, in the past from at least trying to produce high-level adventures/supplements. Some of those efforts have been lackluster, some very fun, and even the ones that weren't very good at least showed a willingness to experiment with high-level play, show DMs what the designers think works at that level, and provide those DMs who prefer high-level play some tools for their games.

MonkeyWrench said:

That hadn't stopped WotC, or TSR, in the past from at least trying to produce high-level adventures/supplements. Some of those efforts have been lackluster, some very fun, and even the ones that weren't very good at least showed a willingness to experiment with high-level play, show DMs what the designers think works at that level, and provide those DMs who prefer high-level play some tools for their games.

Click to expand...

I own several of them, and some of them are indeed pretty good. (BECMI M5 is the stand-out IMO). But it's still a commercial challenge in these days of deliberately-spaced output.

Motorskills said:

I own several of them, and some of them are indeed pretty good. (BECMI M5 is the stand-out IMO). But it's still a commercial challenge in these days of deliberately-spaced output.

Click to expand...

BECMI was the best time for high-level support, since the overall capabilities of a high-level character in that system were more predictable thanks to things like the spell list for the game being considerably shorter than the Advanced D&D game's spell list at 12 (ish, thanks to a few accessories adding spells) or less spells of each spell level for magic users and druids, and less still for clerics.

I loved it, and for a long time I felt that TSR picked the wrong game line to call quits on in the early '90s.