D&D General Why does D&D still have 16th to 20th level?

[FrogReaver]

Yep. We did, but a lot of those used other platforms like Zoom and Discord, AND as soon as we were vaccinated, we dropped it like a hot potato. It just wasn't as good visually as being at the table and seeing the figures. It wasn't as good auditorily, as online sound is very limited, so you can't have more than one person talking at a time without losing a lot, and if 3 try to talk... When our in person games started again, it was like a breath of fresh air.

If you've been following the Pandemic thread here, you'll see a lot of posts about folks who have dropped or will drop online play and run back to live play.

Sure, but that just means it mostly depends on when the snapshot of D&D Beyond Data was taken.

 

[Charlaquin]

The same could be asked to you - do you have any data that suggests that is not the case?

IMO. If you want to convince people you don't just point out they don't have data, you show them the data that shows otherwise.

I mean… The D&D Beyond data. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best data we have at the moment. If one wishes to dispute it, one should have evidence.

 

[Maxperson]

I’m pretty sure they control for this by only counting characters whose sheets are regularly updated - not something you’re likely to do with a character you’re just building to test a concept.

Do you have any data for that or are you just guessing?

Seriously, though, if you listen to Adam Bradford talk about that chart, he says that they have X number of characters on the site to look at. He doesn't mention anything about limiting it to only active characters.

If you actually look at the encounter building guidelines, the progression curve is mostly pretty flat after 11th level. It takes about 6 medium encounters to get to 2nd level, 6 to get to 3rd, 12 to get to 4th, 15 to get to 5th-10th, 18 to get to 11th, and 10 to get to 12th-20th. Moreover, even if groups aren’t typically following those guidelines, the “updates” they look for aren’t just level ups. If the characters are being played with, their HP totals should be changing, they should be gaining new equipment, spending and earning gold, etc. If they aren’t doing that, it makes sense not to count them.

If you go by what the video mentions, they aren't looking for anything but what levels the characters on their site are.

For sure. Data collection is hard, lots of things can skew the results. But for the most part, I think their methodology is solid, and in the absence of data suggesting otherwise, I’m inclined to believe that their data is fairly representative. At least to the point that I don’t doubt the significant majority of campaigns end before 11th level.

Except that right off the bat, they aren't representative of anything other than the limited subset of people that play online. So they're "fairly representative" of only that, not general D&D players.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, but that just means it mostly depends on when the snapshot of D&D Beyond Data was taken.

It was taken in 2019, before Pandemic. They'd have seen a surge and now a drop-off that will continue as more people become vaccinated and/or comfortable being in live groups again, both of which we have no numbers for.

 

[Malmuria]

If the PHB stopped at level 10 the spell section would only include levels 1-5, as in b/x. Combined with the shorter class descriptions, let's say that frees up about 50-60 pages. With those pages you could include more races/classes/backgrounds, more lower level spells, or, my preferred option, a mini-dm primer and some more monster stat blocks, so that the PHB would include all you need to at least get started.

Then you could have an advanced book where the classes could go levels 11-20, feats, prestige classes, class variants. This would be more extensive and robust than anything in the current players handbook, and so worth the money for players wanting a more complex, higher level experience. More importantly, as many of you have been saying high level play involves a fundamentally different kind of gameplay than lower levels, and this book could give player options and dm advice and tools to make that happen (strongholds, high level sandboxes, planar adventures, guide to high level villains and lairs, etc).

I've never gotten to high levels, but for me levels where an existing ability simply scales up (for PCs or for monsters) is not as exciting (improved divine smite, higher cr destroy undead, multiple attacks, etc). In the fiction, you could be 10th level fighting frost giants, but if you abstract the math its very similar to being 3rd level fighting ogres.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean… The D&D Beyond data. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best data we have at the moment. If one wishes to dispute it, one should have evidence.

Faulty is faulty. They aren't even representative of the average D&D player to begin with. I can dispute their numbers on nothing more than that. Their numbers are useless for determining how D&D players as a whole play the game.

 

[Maxperson]

If the PHB stopped at level 10 the spell section would only include levels 1-5, as in b/x. Combined with the shorter class descriptions, let's say that frees up about 50-60 pages. With those pages you could include more races/classes/backgrounds, more lower level spells, or, my preferred option, a mini-dm primer and some more monster stat blocks, so that the PHB would include all you need to at least get started.

Then you could have an advanced book where the classes could go levels 11-20, feats, prestige classes, class variants. This would be more extensive and robust than anything in the current players handbook, and so worth the money for players wanting a more complex, higher level experience. More importantly, as many of you have been saying high level play involves a fundamentally different kind of gameplay than lower levels, and this book could give player options and dm advice and tools to make that happen (strongholds, high level sandboxes, planar adventures, guide to high level villains and lairs, etc).

I've never gotten to high levels, but for me levels where an existing ability simply scales up (for PCs or for monsters) is not as exciting (improved divine smite, higher cr destroy undead, multiple attacks, etc). In the fiction, you could be 10th level fighting frost giants, but if you abstract the math its very similar to being 3rd level fighting ogres.

It would be MUCH more costly to do that. It's more cost effective to put it in one book and add races and such later in other books like they've been doing.

 

[Charlaquin]

Do you have any data for that or are you just guessing?

I’m not guessing, I’m believing the data that we do have.

Seriously, though, if you listen to Adam Bradford talk about that chart, he says that they have X number of characters on the site to look at. He doesn't mention anything about limiting it to only active characters.

If you go by what the video mentions, they aren't looking for anything but what levels the characters on their site are.

Haven’t they said elsewhere they filter out characters that aren’t regularly updated when analyzing D&D Beyond data?

Except that right off the bat, they aren't representative of anything other than the limited subset of people that play online. So they're "fairly representative" of only that, not general D&D players.

Sure. The question then is if people who don’t play online are a statistically significant portion of the player base (I would guess yes, though probably still a minority), and if so, are their habits different than people who do play online, in terms of what levels they typically play at (I would guess no.

And yes, I am guessing at those things.

It was taken in 2019, before Pandemic. They'd have seen a surge and now a drop-off that will continue as more people become vaccinated and/or comfortable being in live groups again, both of which we have no numbers for.

It would be really interesting to see if this was the case or not!

 

[FrogReaver]

Sure. I don’t think this is a point in favor of high level campaigns being more common than the D&D Beyond data suggests though.

I measure a high level campaign as a campaign that ends at high levels.

If you have 10 groups who started and ended their campaigns at high levels at various times then you are going to have something that looks like this in the data:

Group 1's high level characters count as active high level characters for January.
Group 2's high level characters count as active high level characters for Feburary.
Etc.

(Note: Characters have to attain high level and keep being played to count as active)

Of those 10 high level groups you are only going to show only 1/10 were campaigns that end at high levels. We could accurately say - there's only 1 high level campaign going on at any point in time - but that's not really a piece of information anyone cares about.

I’m pretty sure they control for this by only counting characters whose sheets are regularly updated - not something you’re likely to do with a character you’re just building to test a concept.

Sure. I think that would exclude test characters - probably a few real characters as well but probably minor.

If you actually look at the encounter building guidelines, the progression curve is mostly pretty flat after 11th level. It takes about 6 medium encounters to get to 2nd level, 6 to get to 3rd, 12 to get to 4th, 15 to get to 5th-10th, 18 to get to 11th, and 10 to get to 12th-20th.

That kind of backs up what I was saying. If you start at level 1 then in encounter terms as you defined above - about 40/212 of your time is played at level 16-20. That means only maybe 20% of high level campaigns would be counted.

Moreover, even if groups aren’t typically following those guidelines, the “updates” they look for aren’t just level ups. If the characters are being played with, their HP totals should be changing, they should be gaining new equipment, spending and earning gold, etc. If they aren’t doing that, it makes sense not to count them.

But that's the problem right, we don't actually know how they are doing it.

For sure. Data collection is hard, lots of things can skew the results. But for the most part, I think their methodology is solid, and in the absence of data suggesting otherwise, I’m inclined to believe that their data is fairly representative. At least to the point that I don’t doubt the significant majority of campaigns end before 11th level.

Do you know what their methodology actually is? Because what I've read of it they have some good ideas, but not enough to back up the claims that people here use their data to make.

 

[FrogReaver]

I mean… The D&D Beyond data. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best data we have at the moment. If one wishes to dispute it, one should have evidence.

and I mean.... If one wishes others to accept D&D Beyond data as backing certain claims then they should have evidence that it's able to be used to accurately make the claims with it they want to make.