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

[Staffan]

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

I wonder to what degree 3e epic stuff was kneecapped by the Epic-Level Handbook being for 3.0 and thus being mostly memory-holed by 3.5e (even if I reckon the compatibility problems were probably fairly minor). Oh, and by the explosion of classes in 3.5e which did not have any epic-level support.

 

[CrashFiend82]

I have run a few high-level campaigns, and first I would not start at level 1. I get the idea behind it but they really feel like to different circles that are "nearly" impossible to square. First a single high-level PC, mainly casters, could destroy entire kingdoms. The threats just feel "off", leading to everything being Saved the World, which gets old quick. I start at 10, mainly because the power jump in 5e from 10 -11 feels similar to 1 - 3. It gives the players a bit more time to find their legs before throwing crazy stuff at them. I also run things on the "Planes" both DnD and MTG.

I did rachet up the threats hard. Reskinned dozens of monsters and wrote dozens more. The combats ran long at first but over time got almost as fast as lower levels. Soon it wasn't hard to really challenge the characters, but it got crazy gonzo in all th best ways. Fighting off hordes of vampires, crazed angels, kingdoms of ogres ruled by Oni and Djinn. Fighting through Hell to save friends, jumping to weird layers of the Abyss, fighting forgotten gods with massive armies in Acheron, or t ying to "survive" the madness of Canceri.

I love it as a GM mainly because I don't have to worry about balancing encounters at all. I just come up with bat-crazy ideas and see what happens. I went overboard a few times, the Ancient Black Dragon Stone golem made them run and trying to "hold off" a crazed Solar and his "minions", a bunch of 5th level angels had them near death and felt amazingly epic.

I am more excited to try again in 2024 with the new encounter rules and monsters. I think dropping the Saves for most conditional attack effects will be great and simply giving B, P, S resistance along with the better Legendary and old Mythic rules should be awesome

 

[nevin]

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

fair but it seems like save the universe is the default mode these days. But perception is not always reality

 

[Maxperson]

I've run a few high level games that were the end of campaigns and played in a few. Plus I've run some of the "high" level modules released over the years. Isle of the Ape and even one that was for up to 100th level characters that took the players to hell. High level play has a lot of problems some of which I don't think there will ever really be a solution for.

1. DM has to be able to pull an elephant out of his ass at any moment because someone might do something he forgot they could do. a few sessions ago had a player take out the mythic magic user secretly making the battle quite even. One spell in the wrong spot and a failed save it all turned. That's high level. you can spend 3 weeks tuning the encounters to prepare for the parties abilities and one mid to high level ability can screw all that tuning up.

I agree that the ability to improvise is important. That's one of the things I enjoy about playing and running high level games. I view this as a plus, not a minus.

2. High level games if you play in campaigns generally have consequences. Gods get pissed off about wishes, give thier cleric's miracles, reincarnate thier paladins (or anti-paladins) and send them after you. Hell might get involved, Heaven might get involved. There really aren't many Good High level sources to help inexperienced DM's the first time they step into the meat grinder. Also a lot of DM's and tables, I even did it a few times back in my childhood, decide to run a "high" level game and without the story and the gods and all the other stuff, you get the game you hear about on the forums where the mage makes 15 simalcrums and wishes himself out of everything, or the Paladin get the uber relics and becomes completely invincible , or the one secret evil character kills everyone and walks away whistling into the night. Lousy way to end a game that took that much effort. Only the winner get's any satisfaction and even the DM leave the table regretting it.

Consequences, sure. But you get consequences at all levels. If your 1st level fighter punches a guard, there will be consequences. It's really unlikely that gods will get upset at wishes, though, unless your wish is hostilely aimed at their church or something.

3. It takes tons, and I means 100's of tons of effort to make sure the characters all have thier niche and that they have the right magic items or DM special abilities to maintain thier niche so that the cleric, or mage or paladin or character with 5 classes doesn't just start taking over the game and making people feel that they aren't needed. Even when you get used to doing it, it's a permanent amount of bandwidth that is always running in your mind. But at the same time at that level every single character at some point is going to take over a scenario and single handedly "hulk smash" your planning and win far faster than you thought possible. And you have to remember at High level's that's the game as intended.

First, niche is overrated. I've played in and DM'd for several campaigns where everyone was the same class. Who your character is as a person and what personal goals you set are more important than being the only one who can pick a lock or whatever.

Second, if you have someone who is really good at picking locks and the wizard or whoever decides to take that ability, that player is quite frankly a jerk who doesn't need to be at the table. And he's incompetent to boot. A competent player doesn't pick an ability someone else at the table is good at. He picks an ability that shores up a party weakness.

Third, because of 1 and 2, it doesn't take much effort at all to make sure the players are happy. Just don't play with incompetent jerks.

4. Too many people have only played high level where the DM kneecapped everything and tried to run it like a 7th level game and couldn't figure out why everyone hated it. Seriously you guys that do that. tape all but two fingers and try to type. It's the same thing.

This I have no experience with. The several DMs I've played to high levels with never did this. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I have no idea how common it is or not, only that I've never seen it happen.

5. Honestly the only time I've ever had High level play work it was the outgrowth of a campaign where all the guard rails of Gods, and consequences from all the orders and secret societies and even the inhabitants of the characters home towns etc gave the characters all the kinds of things that limit people from doing the things thier players would never do in real life because they worry about families, temples friends or even what thier own party would think. Those games generally can work but they are a lot of work and can make your poor DM nuerotic trying to keep track of all the moving parts of the world

I couldn't make out what you were trying to say here. Would you repeat it with a bit more clarity please?

6. Another problem of High level games are the guys that think the bad guys doing the same kinds of things the PC's will do is lame and unfair. For instance if the PC's can teleport, scry and do all the things high level games can do, then thier enemies are going to move stuff in lead lined containers, make feints to get them to the wrong side of the world so they can act while the pc's aren't there etc. This isn't hinky unfair DM Hijinks, it's High level play. You are messing with Villains who take the time to figure out your past strategies and your abilities who will plan accordingly. If you don't like that stuff quit whining and play low level games. Was it unfair hijinks when Sauron Froze the mountains and forced the party to go through Moria? Of course it was nothing is fair at High Level.

This is another people problem that I haven't encountered yet. For some reason all the players that I've played high level with understand that high level enemies have resources, too.

7. But mostly it's Player overload trying to keep up with spells and abilities and 10 times that overload with DM trying to keep up with spells and abilities of the players and all the baddies and trying to remember which moving parts of the world will notice, care and possibly act when the pc's do things. It can be overwhelming.

Now THIS I have encountered. Maybe 20% of the players I've played with avoid(ed) wizards and other complex classes. Some of them I got to try those classes at low level and they discovered that it wasn't as bad as they feared. Those players went on to love all of the classes at all levels, but a lot of those 20% never would and I didn't push them.

8. My suggestion to anyone wanting to DM a high level game is start at low levels and then play up. You as the DM will have a much better feel for what everyone can do if you deal with them from 1st level to 15th level than if you just suddenly start at 10th level.

110% agree. It's much better to play up to high level than to start there. At least until you are very familiar as both DM and player(s) with high level play.

I wouldn't hesitate to do a high level one shot with my group, but I wouldn't dream of doing the same with new/beginner players, or with players that I don't know.

Unless someone cracks what they tried to do with the epic level handbook in 3rd or pathfinders Mythic Paths (which are much better but still really hinky) I don't think High level play will ever be a large part of the games played.

The epic level handbook was great in theory, but really poorly executed. High level play should be a decent number of pages in the DMG to teach DMs how to go about it and what the pitfalls are. Epic play can and should be in a separate book that they actually take the time to do right.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Absolutely. I've only done two save the world high level campaigns in the last 20 years. Those are rare for a reason, and that reason is that if the PCs fail, I don't have NPCs sweep in to the rescue. The world ends. High level play done organically from low to mid to high levels, tends to work itself out and be fun without world threatening crises.

 

[Maxperson]

I do miss the days when a mage had to spend a week or more memorizing all their spells if you got to that level. I may sound stupid but it really drove home how bad off you were going to be if you chose wrong. It's why I laugh at all the threads on how wizards are overpowered. I tend to play casters and in high level games I find I'm more often whining I didn't memorize the spell I need than ending the DM's great plan. I suspect most of those guys have either never played a caster at high level or played where thier DM didn't make them right down their choices and force them to stick with them.

Yep! I'm really glad that they didn't give the wizard those anything spells/abilities that let them cast spells they didn't have prepared out of their spellbook.

 

[nevin]

Maxperson's quote. sorry. (edit) Absolutely. I've only done two save the world high level campaigns in the last 20 years. Those are rare for a reason, and that reason is that if the PCs fail, I don't have NPCs sweep in to the rescue. The world ends. High level play done organically from low to mid to high levels, tends to work itself out and be fun without world threatening crises.
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I think the point got missed. It's ok if they fail. That just sets up the next game with the world in worse shape. The problem is if every game is a save the world, or universe game then it just becomes the pc's job. Clock in save the world clock out. a bit boring.

It's also why game's where every challenge the pc's face is level appropriate are boring. Sometimes the hero's should kick the bandits ass and have a great night in the inn celebrating. Sometimes they should run in fear trying to decide which slow NPC they are going to sacrifice to the thing chasing them. (you know you don't have to outrun the bear just not be the slowest in the party. ) Anything that is done all the time just becomes normal.

 

[Maxperson]

Running high let gameplay without just treating it like a high level one shotis a totally different skill set that needs a lot of mechanical support that usually only starts becoming somewhere in tier2 of play andsn't really have it's value start to bloom until the solar death ray of tier3 starts charging up. Having a book to provide those mechanics targeted at gameplay earlier than the ELH did would be a reasonable thing.

If they aren't teaching new DMs how to effectively run a game from 1-20 in the DMG, then WotC has failed new DMs. It's a good thing to publish a later book that expands that teaching and provides more tools for the DMs and players, but such a book shouldn't be where DMs start learning how to run high level games.

Here are some very low hanging examples that probably don't need much context

• Take the old bonus type and slot conflicts. Prior to that level range above players just don't have enough magic items for those things to provide much in the way of functional value. For a game that is going to continue but longer than seven to ten though it becomes super valuable but needs to start being in place long before it's needed on order for players to work and plan around limitations in ways that allow for meaningful horizontal growth before the wheels start coming off the system. Without that shift from vertical to horizontal growth∆ I'm tier2 you wind up with PCs blasting past the system's capabilities by the time they get to high levels & the game turns into one of holding the system together rather than weaving s story together.

In 3e bonus type conflicts started at low levels and was something super important to be aware of by 7th level. There were a lot of buff spells and magic items. Item slot conflicts didn't start happening generally until mid level, but sometimes happened earlier.

• Old style per attack flat DR/$thing where it can take something about the PCs (ie alignment/race/etc) or what the weapon itself is made from. At low levels it's ok to just add more hp bump the ac or whatever... As levels progress though it adds room for horizontal advancement and foes that can laugh at someone's metaphorical plus five holy avenger§ analog without completely shutting down everyone else who might have a +0 or masterwork weapon made from a special material. Bob can still use Link's masterwork, it's just not capable of trivializing foes the other perty members can contribute to

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that the DR thing was bad, or good?

In my experience DR was just fine, because with feats melee types were doing enough damage that losing 5-15 points sometimes wasn't much of an issue.

• Old style per attack flat resist/element(s). Similar to DR with spells but adds a category of horizontal growth. A +0 or +1 weapon that includes a d6 of a given element might not be as good as s +2 +3 or whatever, but it's going to be reliable in the vast majority of situations till you start reaching edge cases.

Same. Not sure if you are saying it's bad or good.

• Those last two need to start before they are needed to allow prep that feels more organic than a sudden shift to some kinds of New game plus.

Those last two started happening at around 5th level in 3e, and were fairly common by 7th. By high levels those things were often trivialized by feats, items and spells.

 

[Maxperson]

Higher levels get less play because most people don't find them as fun to play as some of the lower levels. As a DM, it's more work on my part to keep track of creature abilities and hit points during combat that doesn't actually add to my enjoyment of the game. It's also a bit more difficult to actually challenge the players because of the myriad of abilities they have at their fingertips. For the players, they keep having abilities piled on them that it can really slow down their turns.

It's trivially easy to just start a game at level 10, so I don't think the problem is DMs getting burned before the campaign can progress to higher levels. I think most people just look at those higher levels and say, "Meh. No, thanks."

That's an assumption that doesn't have any solid evidence that I've seen. A lot of games fall apart for a lot of reasons that don't have to do with fun, and a lot of DMs are therefore not experienced at running high level games, and any lack of fun is very likely to be the fault of the DM, more than the players just don't like it.

I'm sure some don't like it, but it's a large assumption to think that most don't.

 

[Maxperson]

are they doing this now?

Failing or putting it in?

While the 5e DMG is actually a very good book with regard to what is in it, I don't think it really does a good or even decent job at teaching high level play. I'd give WotC a D grade. I have no idea if they improved in the 5.5e DMG as I don't yet have it. The increase in planar information, though, gives me some hope that they improved, though I doubt they went higher than a C grade.