WotC Jeremy Crawford Interview: High level play. By Christian Hoffer

[darjr]

Crawford says games generally go to about tenth level and that it was true of 3rd and 4th edition.

However, while Wizards' data indicates that most players don't play high level D&D campaigns, that doesn't mean that the designers don't want to support high level play. "It's still important to us for support to exist for the higher levels," Crawford said. "In addition to players who have campaigns at those levels, what we have found (and this has actually been reinforced in our most recent UA surveys) we'll get people saying, 'You know what? I've never played at those levels. I'm not sure I'll ever reach Level 20, but it's still important to me what my class feature is going to be up there, because it's aspirational.'

Dungeons & Dragons Explains Lack of High-Level Adventures and Future Plans to Support High-Level Characters

Most Dungeons & Dragons campaigns never reach a high level, but that doesn’t mean that Dungeons & Dragons has plans to abandon it. At Gen Con earlier this month, ComicBook.com had the chance to speak with Jeremy Crawford, the lead rules designer of Dungeons & Dragons. Over the course of forty...

comicbook.com

 

[Moonmover]

All quite sensible.

I wonder about Crawford's comment that in the upcoming Planescape product, players can "jump" to a high level. Why not just start them at a high level?

 

[Stormonu]

I gave up on D&D play past 9th-12th level a long time ago. After perusing the Epic Handbook in 3E, that just confirmed I have no desire to DM the game pretty much past 10th level.

I'm not going to stomp on others who do high level play, but I'll pass on any such books and content myself.

 

[Mort]

I gave up on D&D play past 9th-12th level a long time ago. After perusing the Epic Handbook in 3E, that just confirmed I have no desire to DM the game pretty much past 10th level.

I'm not going to stomp on others who do high level play, but I'll pass on any such books and content myself.

Easy to burn out on 3e high level Dming. I ran a campaign to 20th and was completely exhausted by the end!

I haven't done a 5e campaign that high, but have run several high level (15-20th) 1 and 2 shots. It was A LOT less exhausting than it was in 3e - at least IMO.

 

[Raiztt]

All quite sensible.

I wonder about Crawford's comment that in the upcoming Planescape product, players can "jump" to a high level. Why not just start them at a high level?

IIRC it's a module that has a big jump in level in it's final act or climax - which is a little unusual I think as far as modules go.

 

[Teemu]

All quite sensible.

I wonder about Crawford's comment that in the upcoming Planescape product, players can "jump" to a high level. Why not just start them at a high level?

It can be very overwhelming to pick up a brand new high level character. It's easier if you first ease into it by playing a few levels in the lower tiers, and then later make a jump to the very highest levels.

 

[Parmandur]

I gave up on D&D play past 9th-12th level a long time ago. After perusing the Epic Handbook in 3E, that just confirmed I have no desire to DM the game pretty much past 10th level.

I'm not going to stomp on others who do high level play, but I'll pass on any such books and content myself.

Crawford seems to be saying that is where mot people are at, for sure.

 

[Oofta]

I have no issues running high level campaigns, my current group is currently 20th. While the main campaign is wrapping up, I have a few ideas for "mini" campaigns at 20th level to run. Not sure if we'll do those right away though.

This the second one I've run and I played in another. This version works fine at higher level, although fights do take quite a bit of time.

 

[OB1]

I've run 2 5e campaigns to 20th level and in both found the best moments of the campaign came in Tier IV. I've found the amount of support from WotC to be just about perfect for those games, with most of the material coming out of the PHB and MMs, allowing me to tailor make the adventures at that tier for my specific group. So in general, I think it's great that their committed to supporting higher levels via PC abilities and powerful monsters.

 

[Incenjucar]

Level 21-30 in 4E was good times, just needed a bigger grid.