D&D 5E Why Do Higher Levels Get Less Play?

[Paul Farquhar]

It's a self-fulfilling prophesy that people won't play high levels if every GM had to figure out high level play on their own

In order for WotC to teach people how to play at high level they would have to know how to do it themselves. I do not believe they do.

 

[Clint_L]

High level play doesn't have to be saving the world. Remember it's all relative to your enemies. It could be saving the city. Or it could be as my current game is trying to find the lost soul of a PC.

I totally agree! But those plots work just as well with lower level characters, so doing them at 20th level just seems like more work.

I feel like the 20th level encounter should be the big blow-out. I don't mind spending three hours on a combat when it is the ultimate epic battle of the journey. And then maybe the party reunites every now and then on a special occasion, when only they can deal with a new epic tier threat. But my storytelling intuition is that, once the group has made it to that big blow-out, it's probably time for a new journey. Which could happen at epic levels if you want to shift to a more personal story arc or something, but is (to me) more appealing with fresh characters.

 

[Kichwas]

In one set of places I read that DnD often skips level 1-2 and starts at 3. I think I even saw that recommended in the new 5.5 player book. In other places I read that games rarely go past level 10.

That means you're all getting a very cropped down experience.

How is that at all tolerated?

If a Pathfinder level 6 is the equivalent of level 8 in DnD because of that skip - well that's often the point where the game I run or play in are just starting to pick up steam and move into the main story arc. But you guys are almost done with your characters before you've even learned their names.

Is it just not true that people tend to stop at DnD level 10 or skip 1 & 2?

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

Heck, even 3e, which had a whole book on epic-level stuff, didn't publish a single epic level adventure.

Not true. There were 2 epic level adventures published in Dungeon magazine (Stormlord's Keep and the Quicksilver Hourglass). Also the third part of Mongoose's Drow War was entirely epic level (21st+).

 

[Micah Sweet]

In my old 4e campaign the party made it to about level 15 or so, then we took a break from 4e to go back to editions we were more happy and comfortable with. About a year later I ran a one-shot (more or less) in 4e featuring the same PCs at about level 28 to provide closure to their stories.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Did WoTC ever give official stats for Elminster, Simbul and characters like that? Cause if i'm not mistaken, PC and NPC/Monsters aren't following same creation rules in 5e.

And while they did cap levels at 20 by not having concrete rules for epic level games and advancement, beside epic boons, that unofficially just means that once you hit lv 20, you are done with game. You are top kahuna, big boss. Easy retirement unless there is world ending stuff you need to sort out.

They did in 3e. Not sure what if anything happened on that front in other WotC editions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

High level play doesn't have to be saving the world. Remember it's all relative to your enemies. It could be saving the city. Or it could be as my current game is trying to find the lost soul of a PC. I agree though the Marvel movie of save the world every movie save the universe every third move get's freaking old. It's far more fun to have a high level game trying to wipe out the assassains guild or trying to deal with that pesky magic user/devil who keeps wishing reality wonky.

To be fair, there are plenty of Marvel movies with stakes lower than, "save the world".

 

[DrJawaPhD]

In my experience the only reason high level DnD isn't played very often is that groups fall apart due to other obligations (not due to the poll options of losing interest and wanting to start over).

Any time I have actually gotten to play high level DnD it has been awesome. It's just a rare occurrence for a group to stick together long enough to get there.

 

[the Jester]

Not true. There were 2 epic level adventures published in Dungeon magazine (Stormlord's Keep and the Quicksilver Hourglass). Also the third part of Mongoose's Drow War was entirely epic level (21st+).

Ah, I never saw Stormlord's Keep- it must have been in one of the few 3e era Dungeon issues that I missed.

As for Mongoose's Drow War, I was only counting WotC material; I'm sure there might have been any number of third party epic things that I never saw.

 

[mamba]

They need to teach the DMs how to build high level campaigns in the DMG or they have failed at their job in teaching new DMs.

are they doing this now?