D&D (2024) Do We Really Need Levels 11-20?

[Blue]

Since people do play there, why not support it?

I'm mostly responding to you because you're a great lead in, I'm not picking at your response in particular.

Some people play past 20. Should the developers invest effort into fleshing out those levels in the core books? (Core is where 1-20 is currently supported, so as apples-to-apples so would 20+ in this thought experiment.)

Spells, monsters, post-epic campaign advice -- all in the same page count so displacing current material, and with the same amount of time for playtesting, so that the various tiers are playtested less than they are now.

This shows that there is an cost for supporting it: diluting the time, effort and page count for everything else.

Can I offer an alternative question, based off the Moldvay Basic I started with that only went up to 3rd level:

If I needed to pick the particular level the core books would go to, and expansions could come out for higher levels if there was enough market interest, what level range would I include in core? Again with the understanding that the more level spread, the more diluted the effort and material is due to having a set amount of developer & playtester time and page count.

 

[Demetrios1453]

"Do we really need levels 11 - 20"

Yes.

 

[Zardnaar]

Do they? I might be an outlier here, but I don't particularly enjoy reading about abilities I'm unlikely to ever have an opportunity to use.


Is any aspect of making a character and abilities gained when leveling affected by the expectation that characters will go to level 20? If characters who multi-class are going to miss out on access to high level spells, it doesn't really matter if they were never going to reach high levels to begin with.

Useful for NPCs and people who like high level play.

If I had a time machine D&Ds a ten level game.

Since I don't 20 levels.

 

[GreatestHonor]

Personally believe we do need them. Heck, i believe we need more, and i would say there’s enough interest in high/epic level play to justify rule set being built around them.

 

[TiQuinn]

I think playing high level D&D is an aspirational goal and instead of cutting off higher levels, they should work on figuring how to get more tables to those higher levels.

But that’s just me.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I think playing high level D&D is an aspirational goal and instead of cutting off higher levels, they should work on figuring how to get more tables to those higher levels.

As much as I would pay any amount of money for WotC to invent a way for my DnD groups to stop falling apart due to people having other obligations, I'm not sure that's a reasonable ask

 

[Maxperson]

I've seen various sources saying most D&D campaigns end by the time the characters are between levels 7-10. Assuming this is true, why bother with levels 11-20? Okay, I get it. Assuming most campaigns go no higher than 10, there are still some people who do have campaigns that go that high and obviously they want support for that, but wouldn't it be better to focus on the levels people are actually playing through?

Yes we do. 5% make it to tier 4. 5% of several million people is a LOT of people that play high level campaigns.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes we do. 5% make it to tier 4. 5% of several million people is a LOT of people that play high level campaigns.

Wasn't it 1%?

 

[Maxperson]

Wasn't it 1%?

No. 1% I think was level 20. Tier 4, which are the highest levels, is 5%.

Thread '90% of D&D Games Stop By Level 10; Wizards More Popular At Higher Levels'

Feb 7, 2019

D&D Beyond has released some more data mined from usage of its platform. A couple of weeks ago, it published some stats on the most viewed D&D adventures, from Dragon Heist and Strahd all the way down to Rise of Tiamat. This time, it's a look at player characters by tier of play.

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Tier 1 is levels 1-4, Tier 2 is levels 5-10, Tier 3 is levels 11-16, and Tier 4 is levels 17-20.

Tier 1 contains the most characters created on the platform (as you would expect), followed in order by Tiers 2-4. About 90% of games do not make it...

• Morrus
• Replies: 165
• Forum: *Dungeons & Dragons

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[Maxperson]

I'm guessing the 97% thing is less "97% of players only like 1-10" and more "97% of campaigns only last long enough to get to 10th level or lower."

I'm pretty sure it was 90%, not 97%.