High Level Play - Your Experience

[ParanoydStyle]

How many of you have played in and/or enjoyed D&D campaigns that began at (or made it to) higher than 10th level?

My main D&D is 3.5 so that will always be my primary frame of reference for things like how many levels there even are (30, but the last 10 can be safely ignored as virtually no one plays at that level) but let me know which edition you were playing. I'm honestly unsure what level some older editions (AD&D etc) even went up to, although my gut says not 20.

Anyway yeah I'm getting the impression that actually having played D&D with a 11th-19th (or whatever) level party is pretty rare, and I want to see how much that's the case, across the various editions. Thanks.

Oh, I'm not inquiring as to high level 4E games. Not trying to throw shade on Fourth, it's just that level differences are substantially less meaningful in terms of what characters can accomplish outside of combat in that edition than any other.

 

[Immortal Sun]

With a recent game, a DM threw rather high amounts of monsters at us and underestimated our ability to resolve situations, so the vast majority of the game happened above 15th level, and by that point, it was fairly easy to get above 20th and sort of spiraled out of control after that point. We killed a god, on accident mind you and were awarded 1/3rd of it's total XP, a whopping 900k XP each.

Anyway, the short answer is: it's silly. It absolutely, fundamentally throws all efforts at taking a game seriously right out the window, with several babies going out with the bathwater.

For party context, we had a 20+cleric, a 20+druid and a 20+sorcerer. Nothing stood in our way. Nothing could stand in our way save for gods and even they had trouble. Which again, goes back to "we killed a god by accident". It was terribly fun, but terribly silly fun, beer and pretzels was the only way to play at this level. It couldn't not be funny when some god showed up and started talking smack to us.

Technically speaking, level 20 is not the level cap in 3.X. There is no level cap, even discounting the ELH. There are plenty of prestige classes to take up space as well as simply multiclassing.

A number of my other games have gone past 10th, and we can keep sanity on the rails up till about 15th for casters, and well above that for non-casters. But most games ended somewhere between 14 and 17.

That's not to say don't do it. Just don't expect to do it with a straight face.

 

[Odysseus]

As a player I enjoyed the high level stuff we did with 1E, and some of the 3E , upto to about 15th level.
As a DM I didn't like DMing the high level 1E and 3E stuff. With 4E I've done two campaigns upto 30th, both of which I enjoyed. Havn't done any 5E high level stuff yet.
In my experience playing at that level isn't rare ,but can be difficult. Which puts people off.

 

[GreyLord]

I have played High Level Games in all the D&D editions (depending, of course, what you define as High Level, but at least over level 10). Not tons of time for an in depth reply right now, but I'll give a short idea.

OD&D - high level as in 12+ in this game. Compared to the original monster list, you can feel pretty powerful.

Holmes/BX/BECMI - did NOT play Holmes to high level obviously, but grouped with other Basic to Expert sets, have played up to level 14 in BX and over level 36 and immortal in BECMI. Game sort of broke down after went to Immortals.

AD&D - Played level 20+ in AD&D. Things went crazy.

3e - WE played up to level 60 with one Gonzo campaign. Goal was Pantheon slaughter.

4e - Played Dark Sun campaign up to level 30. Most threats of 25+ were still too strong overall, at least how the DM played them. Eventually ended with final battle as a Epic Level Party Wipe.

5e - Get's pretty Gonzo, much like 3e. Crazy and fun if you are into that type of gameplay.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

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[zztong]

How many of you have played in and/or enjoyed D&D campaigns that began at (or made it to) higher than 10th level?

Yes. I'm in two different games have reached those levels several times.

The first game plays adventure paths (AP) starting with D&D 3.5, moving into PF 1, and headed to PF2. At upper levels those APs tend to jump the shark with silly character abilities, implausible settings, weird monsters, and laughable villains.

The second game occasionally uses a level 1-20 AP. The game has been going for decades. It has progressed from D&D 2, to D&D 3.5, to PF1 with no plans to go to PF2 or D&D 5. This game is centered around a mercenary company and it has lots of continuity. Characters are retained. I was just looking at the roster last night. There are 94 characters the highest of which are 21st. The high level characters are generally involved in management and politics, instead of adventuring. They tended to be landed nobility or have other responsibilities. They do occasionally take the field if the company needs to turn out. They are also useful in facilitating the stories told of the lower level characters in that the higher level characters can provide support for travel, special items, and so forth.

 

[pemerton]

I've played AD&D to 15th-ish level. The system doesn't support play at that level very well - the principle opponents have to be NPCs of similar levels.

I've played 4e to 30th level. The system is very robust in my experience of it.

 

[S'mon]

My campaigns tend to run a couple years or more and usually go over 10th, except the 3e campaigns I deliberately capped at 8th.

 

[Maxperson]

How many of you have played in and/or enjoyed D&D campaigns that began at (or made it to) higher than 10th level?

My main D&D is 3.5 so that will always be my primary frame of reference for things like how many levels there even are (30, but the last 10 can be safely ignored as virtually no one plays at that level) but let me know which edition you were playing. I'm honestly unsure what level some older editions (AD&D etc) even went up to, although my gut says not 20.

I've played high level in 3.5 quite a bit as a player and as a DM. I've had 10 or so PCs to 15th-22nd level in 3.5 and had a blast doing so. I've DM'd maybe 6-8 groups that went to levels 14-20 in 3.5. I've played 3-4 in 1e and 2e, but were created that high. In 5e my highest so far as a player or DM is 12th. If you lower high level to 11+, the numbers above double for 3.5.

AS for how high AD&D went, there was no limit. In fact, there was a 2e module that TSR released that was for 18th-100th level.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I have both played and DMed games at high level in AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, D&D 3e, D&D 3.5, and Pathfinder.

Some of those games started at low level and progressed to the high levels naturally, others started at high level.

Focus tends to shift towards spellcasters in all cases. If you are running a game in high levels, or planning to run a game to the high levels, I would suggest to your players that they play spellcasting characters, using hirelings or followers as melee combatants, when necessary.