D&D General So what is high level play like?

[Vael]

... And how often have you played at higher levels?

Because TBH, while I have played DnD since 3.5, it was only 4e that got to upper levels, as I had a campaign get to mid-Paragon Tier, and we played a few Epic One-shots. And even there, since I did a lot of Organized play in 4e ... I'd say the vast majority of my time playing DnD 4e was below 5th level.

I never got to play past level 6 in 3.5, and I've gotten to 9th or 10th level in 5e twice (Curse of Strahd and Descent into Avernus) before those campaigns wrapped up.

And I wouldn't call myself an irregular player, I've had a stable RPG group that's managed to play mostly weekly for over 5 years now. But between changing campaigns/DMs/Systems ... high level play is something I've not done.

So, first ... is this a common experience? Do you play primarily at low or high levels? How is higher level play different?

 

[TwoSix]

My groups have done a lot of play in Tier 3 (11-16), but we’ve always wrapped up before tier 4 (17+).

I’ve found Tier 3 to be a sweet spot of 5e; character concepts are fleshed out and everyone has gotten the feats they need to realize their concepts. High level slots and rare and impactful, and some of the high level martial concepts have enough power to really differentiate themselves.

 

[Mannahnin]

Quite a bit. In AD&D I think we only ever got up to 8th or 9th once, but starting in 3rd ed I've been fortunate to have a few regular groups in which we regularly played multi-year campaigns up to the top levels. I've played in 5 or 6 games of 3rd or 3.5 which got up to the high teens, 5 games of 4E which did (although in our last couple of 4E campaigns with one group, we started at 11th) and had us all with Epic Destinies and fighting gods by the end, and one 5E game which got up to 18th or so.

3rd and 3.5 unfortunately get quite clunky and slow at higher levels, with players able/having to do a lot of planning and stacking buffs, and for the DM building encounters and keeping track of all the enemy abilities gets really onerous once the PCs are in the teens of levels. I get tempted occasionally to revisit 3rd, but I'd want to do Epic6, I think. The Scry & Die aspect of high level 3E seems to cry out for some house ruling.

4E works fine at high levels, but at the cost of toning down all the most insane magic of high level wizards and clerics in other editions. The game does maybe get a bit slower, with more stuff to track, but not nearly to the extent of 3.x. This was the only edition in which we ever got up to god fighting (except in one official 5E campaign, but we weren't nearly as high level), and the only edition in which I expect to ever kill Vecna while wielding the Sword of Kas in the Hand of Vecna.

5E seems to work pretty well at higher levels. Lots of options, but not all the stacking buffs and contingent effects.

 

[OB1]

I love DMing high level play in 5e both for how gonzo it is and because I can throw whatever I want at the PCs and know they will survive, so it becomes much more about whether or not they can accomplish the objectives that they care about. For example, in one 5e campaign, the PCs discovered that their world was adrift in the Far Realm, and had to journey to the Great Wheel and convince the Powers to bring that world under their protection. In another, they had to steal or secure divine weapons of the gods from the upper planes to fight a monster that had been released in their world which was impervious to mortal weapons and magics and laying waste to cities before society collapsed completely.

The one thing I do in higher levels (15+) is start leveling them up after 1-2 sessions (instead of 3-4), as moving quickly through those higher levels keeps it from getting tedious with the longer, more complex combat encounters.

 

[Oofta]

I've played in and run campaigns to max level, they are a lot of fun. Yes, they get a bit gonzo and as a DM it can be interesting to challenge the group but I've found finding the right balance a bit tricky at all levels. So far 5E is the best experience I've had at high level, it's still a really fun experience. I'd discuss issues I had with previous editions but that tends to lead to edition wars.

I do run my 5E games a bit different than some. I use the alternate rest rules so a short rest is overnight and a long rest is several days to a week, but that's mostly for pacing and because I think it should take a bit longer than overnight to recover. Plane shift is a ritual but requires that you find a pathway first and then it just opens a gate and a couple others.

I would say the only drawback I find to high level play in 5E is the lack of high level opponents, especially humanoids. Look up high level medium sized monsters and most of them are just a lich with a name. It's fun to have that gargantuan ancient dracolich show up (I used a lawn ornament for the mini), but otherwise I end up creating custom bad guys or increasing the level of an existing monsters. On the other hand, the group had a tough time with a handful of frost worms (slightly upgraded version of purple worms), it will be interesting to see how they deal with the kraken and his buddies.

So I have fun with it whether playing or DMing. I don't have a problem challenging PCs as a DM, I enjoy the challenge. High level casters have really powerful spells, but they still only have a handful. PCs have a lot of HP but when you have monsters that does an AOE that can do close to a hundred points of damage that has a save DC in the 20s, that becomes less of an issue.

 

[wedgeski]

My group is at 16th-level right now. This is the closing stage of a multi-year campaign with PC character arcs all coming to fruition, so mechanical challenges are secondary to character/narrative reckonings. That's where most of my attention goes.

Mechanically, there's good and bad. Good, because fast travel, instant problem solving, scrying, divination...they all make my job easy (no mystery is so ridiculous it can't be solved); bad, because a party with even half its resources melts most level-appropriate encounters.

For me, it's all in the encounter design. Multi-stage combats, interesting victory conditions, weird battlefield effects, ticking clocks. You can build a great encounter that doesn't scratch the surface of the party's hit points as long as they have something to worry about.

 

[the Jester]

I looooove high and epic level play, both as a player and a DM, but ONLY if the group earned its levels. Starting at high levels leaves me very unsatisfied; so much of good high level play involves calling on relationships from previous adventures, using connections gained over time, and having weird, off-the-books resources. You just don't get that when you make 16th (or whatever) level characters.

High level play is amazing. The stakes can be much higher, the solutions can be less obvious (or, more likely, as a DM I will throw epic problems at the pcs with no solution in mind), the setting can be anything you can think of. Sure, mid- to high-level pcs can handle hostile environments and big stakes, but there's a difference between "a slaad lord and a handful of lackeys perptrating some scheme" and "slaad tadpoles are falling from the sky, all around the world, and infecting and transforming creatures in only moments". Only one of these has an epic threat and epic stakes and requires epic solutions. (And the slaad rain is an example of an epic threat that I used in my campaign.)

High level play tends to be more player-driven. It's often more "what are you going to do?" and less "here's an adventure for you". It can switch locales and even planes at a moment's notice, so the DM has to be able to improvise to keep up. The players' tools still include "I cast a spell" and "I hit it with my sword", but they now might include "I marshal an army" and "I sell all my precious gems cheap to crash the market" and "I teleport to a small town and destroy it, then threaten to keep doing that at random unless the king backs down".

One common trope that I think is terrible is the notion that every threat should be world-shaking. Sure, once in a while- but really, only ONCE in a while. Just the once. Other epic threats can be more abstract or down to earth, with different (but still massive) stakes, such as an entity trying to extinguish hope itself, corruption taking over a religious or political organization, politics (worldly or planar), first contact with strange entities of prodigious power and inscrutable motivation, natural disasters (imagine your pcs trying to handle a Mt Vesuvius type eruption, or a flood that sweeps across an entire continent, or a fast-spreading plague), creating a prophecy for a future chosen one and setting up the world to produce them at the right time, etc.

It's a real shame so many of you guys haven't experienced good high level play, but I understand how hard it is to achieve. Still, if you ever get the chance, a persistent campaign with long term pcs and troupe-style play (where all the players switch pcs out from time to time) is a great way to do it, with the prime pcs targeted at becoming epic with the others around for when you get the urge for lower level play, is a good way to do it. But I get that that kind of game is rare these days.

 

[R_J_K75]

I wouldn't know. In all the years I've played I don't think we've ever got passed level 10, maybe 12th, but that would be pushing it. Seems at that point players get an over-inflated sense of how powerful their characters are and end up doing something stupid resulting in a TPK. It takes quite awhile to achieve such high levels that our campaigns rarely last that long anyhow due to RL things. Honestly after level 8 or so I find the options characters get becomes somewhat overwhelming, bogs the game down, and I don't enjoy it very much whether Im playing or DMing. I'd like to see D&D cap advancement at level 10.

 

[Teemu]

I've run high level games in all WotC editions. 3.5 is the worst experience because the game becomes so complicated and unwieldy and time consuming to prepare for. 4e is pretty fun, but the game is still faster and snappier in the first ten levels or so, maybe up to the low teens. 5e is a pretty similar experience, although getting the desired level of challenge in fights is much more difficult in 5e than 4e. I don't really enjoy level 12+ 5e because while it is fun to play with very high stakes, combat encounters drag and are much less dynamic and snappy than 5e around levels 5-10.

 

[Stalker0]

I've done 2 campaigns to the high levels (one all the way to 20th), and a few one shot type adventures at high levels.

I think running 5e combats at high levels is much simpler than in 3e, a little harder than 4e. The combats still go relatively quick all things considered. In terms of design, the greatest freedom of high levels is I honestly stop caring about how PCs are going to get through my stuff. I literally just throw the kitchen sink, feeling confident they will figure it some way to overcome. CR is completely irrelevant at this point, again I can use whatever monster or encounter I want. If the fight is actually too hard the PCs can always run....and if not there is always resurrection type options.

I find the number one key to a good high level adventure is some form of ticking clock. You give 20th level characters time and the sky's the limit, literally nothing is too hard for them. But you make it where they have to accomplish the goal in a day.....or heck an hour....and now things get spicy. For example one adventure I ran was an assault on Asmodeus' palace. The players had planned for many many sessions for this, disabling certain security, enlisting a host of angels to hold off the infinite devils for a while, placing a teleport blocker on the complex so Big A couldn't just escape, having a cabal of djinn use their wish powers to block Big As higher level juice for a while, making a deal with Destiny itself so that Big A couldn't just outprepare all of their plans....etc.

All of that amounted to the players dropping in outside of the palace and having roughly 2 hours to take him out before their preparations failed out, enough for 1 short rest.

 

[Shiroiken]

I ran a high level 1E campaign, which worked fine. We eventually ended the campaign with everyone becoming immortals, since I got tired of it. The power level wasn't the problem, it was coming up with interesting challenges without resorting to using Deities & Demigods as a monster manual.

I played a high level 2E campaign that was a blast. It was in college, and we eventually decided to retire our characters and start a new campaign. We felt our stories had been told, and wanted to move on to new stories.

A couple of attempts were made for high level campaigns in 3E. I ran a 20th level one shot, just to test out the system. Our regular DM got us up to higher levels twice before the campaigns ended. In every case it was a nightmare. Casters ruled the day, particularly Codzilla. It wasn't fun to run, nor was it particularly fun to play (unless you were the Codzilla, I guess).

4E was actually well designed to go into high levels. We played a campaign that went all the way to 30th level, and it ran very smoothly. Unfortunately, other than the numbers getting bigger... it kinda felt the same at every level. New powers would occasionally unlock something interesting, but overall it was about dealing more damage to creatures that had more HP.

I've ran a high level 5E campaign, and it ran fairly well. However, I have a very good group that isn't going to abuse stupid tricks or try and circumvent everything with a teleport spell. I also try to take a lot of high level powers into consideration when designing the adventure, so they're useful but not adventure ruining. It's a lot of work, but I still feel it's worth it. I also played in a high level game, and it was easy to play and quite fun.