D&D 5E No One Plays High Level?

[Micah Sweet]

No version of D&D* had substantive strategic scale mechanics. Anything that supported that was built by the players or imported from a different game, and 5E works just as well for that.

*except, again, the Companion set from BECMI and that was pretty light.

Several 3pp games and supplements have, and that counts as D&D to me. My idea of D&D is inclusive of any game largely based on and/or compatible with any of the games published by TSR or WotC, not just those specific publisher's works.

 

[Minigiant]

If high level play is rare, the complexity of it is not the reason; it's the paucity of high level material and support.

Complexity is the reason for the low material and support.

It's hard for most tables to start at high level and not have the first 2-5 session be a drag.

So few groups start very high. TSR, WOTC and 3PP don't strongly support it.

What made 4e the exception but not fully escape was that 4e characters and monsters were easier to run if you don't go out your way to choose the complex options

 

[Reynard]

Several 3pp games and supplements have, and that counts as D&D to me. My idea of D&D is inclusive of any game largely based on and/or compatible with any of the games published by TSR or WotC, not just those specific publisher's works.

Then your complaint makes no sense: 5E supports 3PP material better than almost any edition before (3.x being the exception) and there are tons of kingdom and warfare books by various 3PP publishers, big and small.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then your complaint makes no sense: 5E supports 3PP material better than almost any edition before (3.x being the exception) and there are tons of kingdom and warfare books by various 3PP publishers, big and small.

It's not a personal complaint, no. I do just fine. I just feel those unfortunate souls who, for one reason or another, can't play D&D outside of WotC's published works would benefit from cannons and good massed combat, IMO.

 

[Reynard]

It's not a personal complaint, no. I do just fine. I just feel those unfortunate souls who, for one reason or another, can't play D&D outside of WotC's published works would benefit from cannons and good massed combat, IMO.

Fair enough.

 

[Oofta]

Complexity is the reason for the low material and support.

It's hard for most tables to start at high level and not have the first 2-5 session be a drag.

So few groups start very high. TSR, WOTC and 3PP don't strongly support it.

What made 4e the exception but not fully escape was that 4e characters and monsters were easier to run if you don't go out your way to choose the complex options

What made 4E a pain in the posterior at high levels was that a single turn could take an hour. When every action can trigger a reaction, when there are dozens of conditions you have to track, when every power is unique and needs to be reviewed because some things were open to interpretation .... nope. D&D 4E was not easier to run or play once you got past heroic tier. Not in any game I've ever played and I ran and played in 4E up to 30th.

I try to avoid discussing other editions, but high level 4E was far less functional than 5E in my experience.

 

[the Jester]

Complexity is the reason for the low material and support.

Do you have any evidence for that?

It's hard for most tables to start at high level and not have the first 2-5 session be a drag.

So few groups start very high. TSR, WOTC and 3PP don't strongly support it.

The best way to play high levels is to play up to them. There's almost no support for that either.

What made 4e the exception but not fully escape was that 4e characters and monsters were easier to run if you don't go out your way to choose the complex options

4e epic levels were little more complex than lower levels. Yet there was still almost no support for epic level stuff, and the little bit there was was pretty terrible. (Although that was generally true for the vast majoirty of the 4e adventures.)

 

[Shardstone]

Do players really need more than one 6th 7th 8th and 9th level spell? Tbh i think casters should max out at 15 spells across the board. Thats 2 of 1st thru 5th, one of 6th thru 9th, and one more for flex. Not counting cantrips.

 

[Oofta]

Do players really need more than one 6th 7th 8th and 9th level spell? Tbh i think casters should max out at 15 spells across the board. Thats 2 of 1st thru 5th, one of 6th thru 9th, and one more for flex. Not counting cantrips.

You can have a ton of high level spells if you have access to scrolls and the money to scribe them into your spellbook. Having spell slots available to actually cast them? That's a different issue.

 

[Maxperson]

Cannons take only 3 actions to shoot. One to load, aim, and fire.

Sorry. I didn't realize we were just talking about one of those tiny desk cannons that's really just an oddly shaped gun. I thought we were talking about an actual cannon like you'd see on a pirate ship which isn't going to be loaded in 1 round, let alone 3 actions. And would also take multiple rounds to aim. Firing is pretty quick, though.

A good crew took about 30 seconds or 5 rounds to load a cannon. That's an entire good crew, not one BBEG. One BBEG is going to have to ask the group to hold on for about 10 rounds so that he could load the sucker. Then it took another 30 seconds to aim and fire. One cannon commander in a controlled experiment managed to fire 60 aimed shots in an hour. Of course, he wasn't firing at 4 quickly moving PCs, either.

But the point is evil arch fighter could train minions to fire cannons and firing one himself. pummeling the king's castle with cannonballs and the high level heroes if they try to stop himself.

No. Aiming at a castle the crews could get off one shot every 10 rounds. At the castle. The BBEG by himself would take far longer. And none of them would be able to adjust that aim quickly enough to hit a small group of individuals, which is why they were generally fired into entire advancing armies and not individuals. Unaimed shots were faster and when you had thousands of people who were fairly close together, it was effective since there was a good chance you'd hit someone or even a few someones.