D&D 5E Nobody Is Playing High Level Characters

According to stats from D&D Beyond, above 5th level characters start to drop off sharply, and above 10th level, the figures are very low. The exception is level 20, which looks like it's probably people creating experimental 20th-level builds.

Some of them say 0%; this isn't strictly accurate, but levels 16-19 are used by an insignificant number of players. Interestingly, there are more 3rd-5th level characters than there are 1st-2nd level.

D&D Beyond has said before that under 10% of games make it past 10th level, but these figures show the break point as being bit lower than that. DDB used over 30 million characters to compile these stats.

 

[Umbran]

@jayoungr that was in regards to the comment someone made earlier about wotc simplifying things trying to cater to the more casual crowd.

Let us remember that 5e was built with the largest playtest ever seen in RPG history.

So, either "the casual crowd" is huge enough that in the playtest they had a dominant say in how things were designed (in which case, yeah, the game should be built that way). Or the design pleased large numbers of folks outside "the casual crowd".

Let us remember that there is not a simple dichotomy (or even simple spectrum) of "casual" to "wants huge numbers of fiddly bits." There are players who are highly dedicated, but not interested in Advanced Squad Leader levels of rules interaction either.

 

[tetrasodium]

Let us remember that 5e was built with the largest playtest ever seen in RPG history.

So, either "the casual crowd" is huge enough that in the playtest they had a dominant say in how things were designed (in which case, yeah, the game should be built that way). Or the design pleased large numbers of folks outside "the casual crowd".

Let us remember that there is not a simple dichotomy (or even simple spectrum) of "casual" to "wants huge numbers of fiddly bits." There are players who are highly dedicated, but not interested in Advanced Squad Leader levels of rules interaction either.

I'm not sure the relevance of market size. Neither my post nor the one that started the tangent was saying that it was a bad choice or that the "casual" crowd is a bad thing, just that wotc may have gone too far in some ways. Earlier I had said that the sweet spot was probably somewhere in the middle. It feels like you might be defending the virtues of a sometimes historically maligned group that wasn't maligned?

 

[Anoth]

But am much as I like high level play. I will concede that many do not like or lack the opportunity. I think the goal of designers should be to make it more accessible. And find a way to get more people playing it. Otherwise just stop the game at 10th level and save space in the players handbook.

 

[Anoth]

I just want to play a high level game with lots of teleporting darn it and Jedi mind tricks.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not sure the relevance of market size.

Um, dude. You make a product to please a market.

Neither my post nor the one that started the tangent was saying that it was a bad choice or that the "casual" crowd is a bad thing, just that wotc may have gone too far in some ways.

How is, "they went too far," supposed be interpreted as not a bad thing?

I had said that the sweet spot was probably somewhere in the middle.

"The sweet spot" as defined by who? You, personally? Then it should be, "they went too far for my taste."

Game design is not academic mathematics, science, or engineering. There is no objective measure of good design. There are two meaningful subjective measures "it pleases an individual" and "it pleases the market as a whole". Thus, the size of the market that is involved in the decisions, and how well it pleases that market, enters the picture.

It feels like you might be defending the virtues of a sometimes historically maligned group that wasn't maligned?

This has nothing to do with the virtues of people. It has to do with the questionable characterization of how WotC came to its design decisions.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Game design is not academic mathematics, science, or engineering. There is no objective measure of good design.

There are certainly objective measures of game designs, both quantitative and qualitative. There are very clear objective differences between, say, Tic-Tac-Toe, Draughts, or Monopoly OT1H, and Chess, Go, or Catan, OTO.

That's part of every D&D edition.

In the classic game, you didn't get many chances to pick your spells known, as a magic-user you found them on scrolls & in books, as a cleric you just prayed for what you wanted to memorize that day. In 4e, you chose or re-trained a power at odd levels, and a feat at even levels. In 3e, there were feat choices every third level, and the option of MCing was prettymuch always open, but 'known spells' was a meaningful choice at level-up only for spontaneous casters.

And not everybody plays casters. And that's still entirely optional as a DM might want to run a game of 5e without magic.

There are only 5 entirely non-casting sub-class options in the PH, out of 40, including the intentionally least-complexity Champion, so if you're not playing a caster, you've already chosen to forgo choice past 3rd level. And, 5e without magic, in the sense of PC casters, isn't viable without a lot of reworking, anyway.

Talislanta: The Savage Land setting for 5e is an example. But it does have an option to go classless in it and let's players pick whatever abilities they want from all the non-casting stuff as they gain levels.

Sounds like a lot of re-working.
...hmmm... Talislanta, you say? ...still "no elves?"

 

[Oofta]

I think whether or not high level campaigns work for you group depends on your campaign setting. In my campaigns the higher level challenges change in theme, but it should. Sometimes the group is fighting an ancient red dragon and his armies who is trying to take over the region. Sometimes they're preventing a powerful lich from ascending to godhood. Sometimes it's a threat that requires them to travel to other planes of existence like the old "Paladin in Hell" drawing.

I ran campaigns up to 30th level in 4E where it was explicitly intended that you were getting to levels where the threat was not just to your world, but crossed multiple planes of existence. Compared to that, high level 5E can be relatively tame.

It's not for everyone, and it doesn't seem like they pulled significant resources in to support the highest levels. In my experience, you need to have an experienced DM who is willing and able to create evocative opponents and scenarios. That's not a slam against WOTC, they had to make a choice of where to focus. I kind of like the freedom it gives me. It seems to me that the people who would most need that support are the least likely to be running the kind of gonzo encounters that justifies it anyway. Which doesn't mean I couldn't create a wish list of things to add to the game, can't everyone?

 

[Anoth]

I think whether or not high level campaigns work for you group depends on your campaign setting. In my campaigns the higher level challenges change in theme, but it should. Sometimes the group is fighting an ancient red dragon and his armies who is trying to take over the region. Sometimes they're preventing a powerful lich from ascending to godhood. Sometimes it's a threat that requires them to travel to other planes of existence like the old "Paladin in Hell" drawing.

I ran campaigns up to 30th level in 4E where it was explicitly intended that you were getting to levels where the threat was not just to your world, but crossed multiple planes of existence. Compared to that, high level 5E can be relatively tame.

It's not for everyone, and it doesn't seem like they pulled significant resources in to support the highest levels. In my experience, you need to have an experienced DM who is willing and able to create evocative opponents and scenarios. That's not a slam against WOTC, they had to make a choice of where to focus. I kind of like the freedom it gives me. It seems to me that the people who would most need that support are the least likely to be running the kind of gonzo encounters that justifies it anyway. Which doesn't mean I couldn't create a wish list of things to add to the game, can't everyone?

yeah. It’s alot of work. And to be honest. I think it is mainly for DM’s that wrote their own adventures and know the capabilities of their PC’s builds. It’s not for DM’s that want to read a module the night before game night. And I am a person that modules are for lazy DM’s OR those that just don’t have the time OR those that customize the hell out of them to make them work and fit into the world. You can’t write an adventure from 1-20 and written for every contingency that a player will do between levels 1-20. That is the problem with writing high level adventures for publication.

 

[jayoungr]

I ran campaigns up to 30th level in 4E where it was explicitly intended that you were getting to levels where the threat was not just to your world, but crossed multiple planes of existence. Compared to that, high level 5E can be relatively tame.

The high-level 5E campaign I'm running (currently level 13) is a world-hopping game, where the PCs travel to different worlds/planes and confront different major threats on each one. PCs nearly had their butts kicked by some high-level oni-spawn in Rokugan.

 

[Oofta]

yeah. It’s alot of work. And to be honest. I think it is mainly for DM’s that wrote their own adventures and know the capabilities of their PC’s builds. It’s not for DM’s that want to read a module the night before game night. And I am a person that modules are for lazy DM’s OR those that just don’t have the time OR those that customize the hell out of them to make them work and fit into the world. You can’t write an adventure from 1-20 and written for every contingency that a player will do between levels 1-20. That is the problem with writing high level adventures for publication.

I think any ongoing campaign is both hard work and rewarding in it's own way. But I sympathize with anyone trying to write a high level campaign for a module. I don't see how it could be done in any way that wouldn't feel like a railroad.

When doing a home campaign I can lay out options and let the players choose their direction which means the campaign can branch in any direction it needs to.