I thought one of the D&D-likes out there basically kept the number of spell slots a caster have throughout levels steady; as they gain higher level slots, the lower-level ones fall off. But I can't think which system it was...
D&D 5E No One Plays High Level?
- Thread starter Retreater
- Start date
13th Age.
TheSword
Legend
Why 10? Why not 11 or 9. It seems very arbitrary.
It seems if you want level 10 characters to be as simple as level 1 characters then you can’t have a system that develops by granting additional abilities. You instead need a system that simply has people get better at doing what they can already do. Problem is, that’s not D&D and it doesn’t sound much fun.
You can make high level casters easier with simpler spell selection. Choose a blaster not a caster with multiple ongoing spell effects.
All of this ignores the real issue why it’s harder to play a high level character - it has nothing to do with abilities or how many spells you know.
It’s all about not having enough information about the world to make rational choices which are what drives high level play - not the amount of damage you can do in a round or the number of foes you can disable.
That is not WotC D&D but it pretty much describes TSR era D&D. Fighters just got better at fighting. Thieves got better at thiefing. Even spell casters, who did expand their repetoires, did not gain a bunch of weird and strange abilities. Druids and Monks were probably the most like modern character classes in that regard.
Anyway, there is no reason why a modern 5E game can't contain the number of options as PCs gain levels and rely instead largely on getting better.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I'm starting my capstone encounter this Saturday for a campaign I've been running since November 2018. The PCs are levels 19 and 20.
In my first D&D campaign, which lasted a little over a year, starting in late 2014, I ran it to level 20 but was using milestone leveling.
The advantage of playing a long campaign with slow (for 5e) leveling is that as a DM I get to know the players and their PCs quite well. In my first campaign, I often found myself ill prepared for what powerful PCs can do.
My main issue with high level play is that most published material I've found just isn't a good fit for my players, who are all long-time, highly strategic and tactical gamers. Most of the "high level" material I've looked at my players can steamroll at the recommended levels. That means that I either have to create the encounters myself or highly customize them. It requires a lot more prep work on my part, which is difficult to keep up with with work and family commitments.
In my experience running 5e, the higher the levels the more important it is to know your players and your characters and it is very very hard to develop a high level adventure that will work for most groups.
Also, unlike my players who have literally had years to master their characters, I find it exhausting to run combats at high levels because of the number of abilities and spells you have to keep track of. I find I have to spend quite a bit of time thinking and planning on the enemies strategies and tactics and develop playbooks of sorts for high level encounters.
I still like high-level play, but in the future, I would likely go for slower advancement at lower levels and do capstone leveling at higher levels. I like the craziness of high-level combats and challenges, but I need a lot more time to prep them. While I would lose the deeper understanding of the PCs, I would have more time to prep the enemies.
In my first D&D campaign, which lasted a little over a year, starting in late 2014, I ran it to level 20 but was using milestone leveling.
The advantage of playing a long campaign with slow (for 5e) leveling is that as a DM I get to know the players and their PCs quite well. In my first campaign, I often found myself ill prepared for what powerful PCs can do.
My main issue with high level play is that most published material I've found just isn't a good fit for my players, who are all long-time, highly strategic and tactical gamers. Most of the "high level" material I've looked at my players can steamroll at the recommended levels. That means that I either have to create the encounters myself or highly customize them. It requires a lot more prep work on my part, which is difficult to keep up with with work and family commitments.
In my experience running 5e, the higher the levels the more important it is to know your players and your characters and it is very very hard to develop a high level adventure that will work for most groups.
Also, unlike my players who have literally had years to master their characters, I find it exhausting to run combats at high levels because of the number of abilities and spells you have to keep track of. I find I have to spend quite a bit of time thinking and planning on the enemies strategies and tactics and develop playbooks of sorts for high level encounters.
I still like high-level play, but in the future, I would likely go for slower advancement at lower levels and do capstone leveling at higher levels. I like the craziness of high-level combats and challenges, but I need a lot more time to prep them. While I would lose the deeper understanding of the PCs, I would have more time to prep the enemies.
Quickleaf
Legend
That's exciting! Nearing the home stretch of your high-level campaign!
Do you have an anecdote you could share about the kind of tinkering / prep you end up doing to run high-level combat or challenges (doesn't have to be combat necessarily)?
This relates to the earlier discussion about the additive complexity that occurs in 5e at higher levels – the context was player abilities, but it applies equally to the standard 5e monster design where higher challenge monsters tend to have increasingly bloated stat blocks with more complex implicit strategies.
I wonder how much a GM or Adventure Writer could "play it where it lies" with 5e, and just tweak things behind the screen (monster design, challenge design, rules unique to the setting/adventure) to mitigate issues related to high-level play, such as the strain on the GM managing vast array of monster abilities/spells/tactics.
the special abilities in 1st edition for most classes were the magic items........
this is probably one of the reasons you don't see much high level material. with high level what challenges one group can be a impenetrable road block for another or a simple send in the followers for the next group. That and with the vast amount of stuff the DM has to plan for it's not uncommon for stuff the DM thinks will be moderate to difficult to either be impossible because players don't have the right abilities or spells or simply get bypassed because the DM didn't consider some spell ability or summoned creature the party has never used before. High level to your DM might be just mid level to me or my DM. If combat and dungeon crawls are the prime game then High level is just pointless. As you said it just slows down combat and the DM has to keep track of pages of abilities and spells. And combat can take hours as every high level character has some get out of jail card or some magic item from 9 months ago that the DM forgot.
grimmgoose
Adventurer
Not the OP, but coming from an adult education perspective, the suggested number of things that an adult can remember at one time is 7, + or - 2. It's called Miller's Law.
Basically the number of things an adult can keep in Short Term memory.
