D&D 5E No One Plays High Level?

[Alby87]

The video was good, and title not too much clickbaity (in a sense, is not those "You are playing the game wrong" or "You will not belive that..."), some good points too.

5e is one of the most popular edition, and the start for many people, including me. As a DMs, there is little guidance for new ones, but at low level errors don't matter. Forgetting a spell component, not reading well in a spell... happens.

But high level? There is so scarcity of teaching material, you can not simply "try, error, retry" in high level. An error can ruin a campaign. Rules wise the game supports high level (with one caveat: for me, every spell after 5th level should not be a level-up freebie, but should researched or granted with difficult). DMs need a book reference before entering to high level.

To me, a book of this should have:
1)General Advices on running the high level of the game
2)A run down of all spells of the game 6th level and up: What a party with that spell can do in an single phrase, what a NPC / BBEG can do with that spell, common counter tactics. Think of "The monsters know what they are doing", but with spells.
3)Same for magic items.
4)A way to prepare a "DMs Characters Sheet": a mirror of the players' ones but with information that helps a DM during the play, like what a caster could use, the common tactic of a melee player, and so on.
5)Lot of high level adventures seeds to give you inspiration
6)Example of high level encounters, combat and not.

That would encurage people to at least try high level.

 

[delericho]

"No one" is an exaggeration, of course. But high-level play is relatively rare. Though, to be honest, I think that's inevitable:

I'm reasonably sure that the majority of campaigns still start at 1st level. I'm as certain as I can be without being WotC that the vast majority start at a low level. They then run for a while, gain some number of levels, and stop (campaign ends, fizzles out, TPK, whatever). And then a new campaign begins.

That means that the bell curve for play will inevitably skew very strongly towards those low levels.

Finally, although the plural of anecdote isn't data, here's my experience: as a DM of 35 years' experience in every numbered edition since 2nd (and also BECMI), I've had campaigns go into double-figures in terms of PC levels on five occasions: once in 2nd Edition (with some really heavy fudging), once in 3.0, twice in 3.5e, and now once in 5e. The highest-level I've ever seen in play was 18th, in 3.5e - had we levelled up the characters at the end of the final session they'd have reached 19th level.

 

[Minigiant]

Another thing I think besides not making much high level content or advice as well as creating the few produced high level adventures like low level ones despite the change in game features is the lack of PC design to make creating starting PCs at high level easy to create and quick to understand.

Rolling up a level 10 fighter or wizard should be almost as easy as rolling up a level 1 version.

Like @Raith5 said, there was a desire to recreate the mid levels of 3e to recreate that beloved sweet spot.

But that sweet spot was not expanded to low levels and high levels because of legacy and tradition. Low levels were too deadly with too few resources bring. High levels was too safe with too many resources to manage.

It probably would have been best if the max complexity of a character was maintain to that of a mid-level PC. From level 1-20, you get the most 10 things. Spells, Cantrips, maneuvers, masteries, expertise, rages, runes, tricks, etc. As you level, you swap out lower level stuff for high level stuff or upgrade the low level stuff.

Pick a starting level. Choose race, background, and class. Roll Scores. Roll HP. Fill your 10 slots. Play.

From level 1 all the way to level 50.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I've only played high-level 5e in a westmarch, so mostly one-shots.

Was pretty fun, but kinda ridiculous, monsters were pretty much all homebrew, and had insane abilities. One of them was like:

• Magic Resistance, Legendary Resistance, the normal stuff.
• Legendary Action teleport.
• 31 AC at base
• Could cast Shield, Absorb Elements and Counterspell at-will
• Had the Rogue's Uncanny Dodge
• Had the Reactive ability, giving him 1 reaction per turn, instead of per round (So those spells and uncanny dodge were up all the time)
• Had super high saves, I think the lowest was +15.
• Had the Avoidance ability, meaning he didn't take damage when he succeded on a save.
• Had the Foresight spell passively, that was only turned off for a round if he took damage (pretty hard to do).

And that was only phase 1 of 3. I think we were around level 15, and did manage to beat him somehow. He was also the weakest general of the enemy faction, out of, like, six.

The really crazy quests was when DMs just let players stack buffs with Glyphs of Warding, and bring summons, then it was a whole party with True Polymorph, Foresight, 9th level Aid, Simulacrum, riding Ancient Dragons, and with about fifty elementals following.

Fun to play, DMing was a nightmare. I mostly stuck to low level quests.

Edit: I'd say, ironically, that martials were the biggest issue at the non-insane-prep quest, at high-levels and with the homebrew weapons/boons they got, they slaughtered any monster's hp so quickly that casters didn't do as much. I had quests where my 18th level Wizard did basically nothing, DMs mostly made monsters immune to the easy caster tricks, so most of my turns were just spent on teleporting the martials to the enemy, blowing up mooks, or countering debuffs.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

4e had wish?

Bad example on my part (I did say IIRC). The point remains the same, levels were stretched in 4e not really extended.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, for most of the books the elves in question had been exiled by the Valar with an explicit clause of "No help from us!"

But, if you won't give the elves their due, what about the humans and dwarves? Húrin, for example, before he's captured by Morgoth's forces, is standing on a literal hill of orcs and trolls he's killed. And that's just one example.

Day will come again!

 

[nevin]

I've only played high-level 5e in a westmarch, so mostly one-shots.

Was pretty fun, but kinda ridiculous, monsters were pretty much all homebrew, and had insane abilities. One of them was like:

• Magic Resistance, Legendary Resistance, the normal stuff.
• Legendary Action teleport.
• 31 AC at base
• Could cast Shield, Absorb Elements and Counterspell at-will
• Had the Rogue's Uncanny Dodge
• Had the Reactive ability, giving him 1 reaction per turn, instead of per round (So those spells and uncanny dodge were up all the time)
• Had super high saves, I think the lowest was +15.
• Had the Avoidance ability, meaning he didn't take damage when he succeded on a save.
• Had the Foresight spell passively, that was only turned off for a round if he took damage (pretty hard to do).

And that was only phase 1 of 3. I think we were around level 15, and did manage to beat him somehow. He was also the weakest general of the enemy faction, out of, like, six.

The really crazy quests was when DMs just let players stack buffs with Glyphs of Warding, and bring summons, then it was a whole party with True Polymorph, Foresight, 9th level Aid, Simulacrum, riding Ancient Dragons, and with about fifty elementals following.

Fun to play, DMing was a nightmare. I mostly stuck to low level quests.

Edit: I'd say, ironically, that martials were the biggest issue at the non-insane-prep quest, at high-levels and with the homebrew weapons/boons they got, they slaughtered any monster's hp so quickly that casters didn't do as much. I had quests where my 18th level Wizard did basically nothing, DMs mostly made monsters immune to the easy caster tricks, so most of my turns were just spent on teleporting the martials to the enemy, blowing up mooks, or countering debuffs.

Well since 5e decided magic items were bad and tried to limit them most martials don't hit those levels with enough gear to play in the big leagues. And it's really easy to unintentionally over engineer encounters so that mages are useless or even so that martial are useless. Bu

 

[Minigiant]

Bad example on my part (I did say IIRC). The point remains the same, levels were stretched in 4e not really extended.

The real benefit was that 4e planned for its high level OOC spells for use and interaction with the system and not just placed them.

 

[Alzrius]

This is why I've never had a problem. I grew up on anime, still watch it and read manga. When it comes to high-level stuff, I have a thousand and one inspirations for what to do. Hunter X Hunter is essentially the best guide I could have asked for -- it applies logical human exploitation to magical powers to show you what kinds of shenanigans people can get up to, then it shows you what happens when something with an unmatched power shows up and how people respond to it.

The example I'd use is Naruto, as it has countries who've known for generations that military power is ultimately found in individuals of mass destruction. To that end, they set up academies to walk youngsters through the foundations of gaining magic powers, and then assign them level-appropriate missions in small groups to encourage growth. If some die, it's sad, but an unavoidable part of the winnowing process that they need to undertake in order to prevent themselves from being overrun by other countries that are doing the same thing.

 

[Alzrius]

4e had wish?

Not in the first-party materials, but there is an article (i.e. discussion and mechanics) about using wish in 4E in Kobold Quarterly #11 (affiliate link).