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

[marimbaguy715]

I think almost all of the options are contributing factors, but I want to push back against this one (and apologies if this has been discussed already, I didn't read all 45 pages of the thread):

The leveling system takes too much time IRL to reach high levels.

If it's taking games too long to reach high levels, it's because in my experience, DMs level their players up at far slower of a rate than the game expects. The 2014 DMG had a blurb on "Session Based Advancement" that laid out how often the game expected players to level up - and it was about once every 3-4 sessions. At that pace, it would take roughly a year and a half of weekly sessions to go from level 1 to 20. Meanwhile, I feel like I often read posts saying things like, "our campaign has been going for three years and we just hit level 8."

I'm not saying that these DMs are wrong for leveling up their players at such a slow pace - as this thread shows, there are many reasons they might want to keep their game at low levels for a long time. But I think saying the system takes too long is absolutely incorrect.

 

[GrimCo]

If it's taking games too long to reach high levels, it's because in my experience, DMs level their players up at far slower of a rate than the game expects. The 2014 DMG had a blurb on "Session Based Advancement" that laid out how often the game expected players to level up - and it was about once every 3-4 sessions. At that pace, it would take roughly a year and a half of weekly sessions to go from level 1 to 20. Meanwhile, I feel like I often read posts saying things like, "our campaign has been going for three years and we just hit level 8."

I'm not saying that these DMs are wrong for leveling up their players at such a slow pace - as this thread shows, there are many reasons they might not want to keep their game at low levels for a long time. But I think saying the system takes too long is absolutely incorrect.

Every 3-4 sessions is 57-74 sessions. Like you said, year to year and a half of weekly sessions. But IRL, sessions are skipped cause number of real life reasons ( work, family, sickness, school obligations, holidays etc). In short, life happenes. Also, sometimes sessions don't move things forward, people spend time chatting and socializing, spend time in game on non adventure related stuff. It all adds up. That 74 sessions can easy span some 3+ years. Same as when someone says that they played for 3 years but they are only lv 8. Campaign maybe is ongoing for 3 years, but they don't play that regularly.

 

[AlViking]

I feel they'd have to change the game in a significant way to increase the number of playstyles catered to.

You could do alot with modular options etc but still it would be quite tricky. The base game starts at high fantasy so high level play exacerbates the issue require far greater modular options to cater to specific playstyles or accommodate certain genres IMO.

Throw in enough modular options and you see to inevitably get broken combos and a lot of confusion unless the modules are mutually exclusive. But at that point if the changes are significant enough you're writing multiple different games to cater to a small minority.

 

[TiQuinn]

Every 3-4 sessions is 57-74 sessions. Like you said, year to year and a half of weekly sessions. But IRL, sessions are skipped cause number of real life reasons ( work, family, sickness, school obligations, holidays etc). In short, life happenes. Also, sometimes sessions don't move things forward, people spend time chatting and socializing, spend time in game on non adventure related stuff. It all adds up. That 74 sessions can easy span some 3+ years. Same as when someone says that they played for 3 years but they are only lv 8. Campaign maybe is ongoing for 3 years, but they don't play that regularly.

But to their point, that’s not the system. That’s the table’s scheduling and playstyle.

 

[AlViking]

Well, for my part I think it's pretty obvious why many people don't play high level D&D:

* Most games start at low levels, and so it takes too long to level up relative to how long people remain interested in a particular campaign/party/PC/playgroup;​

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* The PC builds get more complicated, especially spell-casters;​

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* Most GMs rely heavily on GM authority over the fiction to manage how play unfolds and to control the scenarios they are running, and at high level it becomes increasingly hard to maintain that authority - especially because of how high-level D&D spells interface with the fiction (in this thread, see both @Minigiant's recent posts, and @Zardnaar's post about "needing to be paid" for the effort of GMing high-level D&D);​

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* Various special cases of the previous point: fetch-quests for high-level PCs make less sense; dungeons for high-level PCs don't work as well (eg because walls are less constraining, the traps and creatures get more absurd, etc); high-level PCs are harder for the GM to "prompt" or "manipulate" through scenarios via threats and/or inducements, because of their greater capabilities and self-reliance; etc.​

I think the relative lack of modules and monsters is perhaps a contributing factor, but also is an effect as much as a cause.

I don't think that the reason for not playing high level D&D is because all the mythic scenarios that might be played out at high level are being played by groups who have restatted all that sort of stuff for mid-level PCs.

I agree with the first two points and disagree with the last. As GM I don't need to or want to manage how play unfolds or manipulate my players. It doesn't matter to me how or what they pursue, we work together to figure out motivation and if the scenarios I'm prepping aren't engaging then I need to change what I'm doing and work with my players to figure out what works. I've run games to level 20 and while I've had to adjust to what the players decide more times than I can count I've never had them break the campaign by overcoming an obstacle in a way I didn't anticipate. I just figure out how the opposing side is going to react. It can be an arms race to a certain degree of spell or magical effect countering character spells or magical effects but to me that it a logical outcome of a world with powerful spells. Worried that someone is going to teleport into your private sanctum or scry on you while you're in it? That's why Mordenkainen came up with a spell to counter it. I run a pretty vanilla game with only minor rule changes.

I won't say I could never run into a potential issue with a high level caster, but I can confidently say I have never run into an issue with a high level caster and neither has any GM I've played with.

 

[AlViking]

One less common thing I heard from videos made by people who did play/run for higher levels, is that...the pwoer creep is kinda fake. In reality the way PCs gain power shoots super high in the middle, there is exponential power gain for tier II and early tier III, that makes PCs rollsotmp all level appriopriate challenges. However later, their boosts often don't give them as vast improvements on level by level. Also, level appriopriate enemeis suddenly begin hitting like trucks, their attack bonuses go up so much that high AC builds are suddenly far less effective, their saving throws go up so they succeed agaisnt save or suck or save or die more often (and if not, they use legendary resistance). It produces a "withdrawal" effect, where players were riding high on power for long time, and suddenly leveling up no longer feel satisfying and they easily can feel lest powerful than before.

To me that's a good reason to throw a small army of monsters that used to be a major threat at the group now and then. Potentially simply present the situation and narrate as a group how you would approach it although that's highly player dependent. Not something to do on a regular basis but it's good to mix things up now and then. I also do scenarios where they're the avengers coming in to protect New Kroy City where they started out long ago, a lot of high level play is raised stakes and description. Which is why as I mentioned earlier I think it's a mistake to have scenarios where the characters face an avatar of Tiamat at level 10.

 

[Minigiant]

For what it's worth, I don't think this is true of 4e D&D. I played 4e D&D to 30th level with a pretty experienced group of RPGers who are not afraid of pushing the mechanics. The game didn't break, and that's mostly because its in-combat balance is solid, and its out-of-combat resolution is via skill challenge (a type of closed-scene resolution) rather than via free GM adjudication of the fiction, and skill challenge resolution has no trouble incorporating rituals and other "wacky" magical effects into the framework (as the DMG and DMG2 explain).

I agree.

And I think that is why it was rejected by some. 4e was designed to actually mimic something concrete. So some avenues had to be cut off and other widened.

It's like the designer of LOFP designer said in a recent video I won't post due to swearing, the way many of the designers of D&D over the years has been that D&D is "generic fantasy" without explaining what that is. Then they include dang near anything in the game with little though of how it is replicated or goes together. So unlike a movie or TV director or producer, D&D designers don't think about what kinds of adventures Superman, Batman, and Aquaman would have.

 

[Belen]

It's not about D&D embracing one or two styles.

It's about D&D being built for 1 or 2 styles while including nonsense spells like Simulacrum and Wish which warp the game paradigm, various spells that remove and negate walls and traps that reduce dungeon play, and the accessibility to hazard negating low level spells that no longer factor into combat math or corrupt it.

High level D&D is designed for you to be smart enough to build and understand a high level PC but then purposely play it stupidly to not abuse the resources you get.

D&D was created on vibes. And after level 10, the vibes all start catching up and there are nothing in the core rules to counter all the "cool stuff" you allowed. So DM have to either rush PCs to not give them time to use their resources properly, full their game with custom countermeasures, or get the players to promise to be dumb or ply them with snacks and beer.

Well, if we did not get the folks who complained about detrimental effects of casting high level spells etc, then we'd have seen more balance at high level.

Wish or Simulacrum should be difficult to cast with serious consequences to the caster.

The main problem, I see, with high level play in modern (3.5 and beyond) D&D is that you need a setting with assumptions that support a high fantasy setting with magical cities etc and with lots of other high level people.

If you start at 1st level in a small village with low tech, it is very difficult to see that same world with level 12+ characters. So either the PCs are fantastical abnormalities or there are other high level folks and then how does your setting accommodate what they can do.

WOTC and the industry, in general, threw away a lot of the controls and negatives that restricted high level characters. The end result, is that low and mid level play have little in common with high level.

For me, the only way to run high level games in the settings I prefer is to take the players to the planes or other zones that allow for high level play that does not break the world or setting or throw threats from outside the world or gods to challenge them that may make sense.

The whole no restrictions crowd because "it's not fun to require that someone may age 10 years or I cannot afford to resurrect someone and be incapacitated for 7 days" have killed high level play because they changed the core restrictions that allowed your setting to still make sense.

 

[GrimCo]

But to their point, that’s not the system. That’s the table’s scheduling and playstyle.

I agree, it's not systems fault. But it's one of the reasons high level play is less common in typical 1-20 campaigns. They fizzle out due to real world stuff before they hit high levels. Also, if table isn't using milestone leveling but regular xp progression, every session that doesn't involve combat is session "wasted" when it comes to level progression, especially when you need 20-30-40k exp for new level. Sure, some DM will give RP exp, but i doubt they are giving more than couple hundred exp for rp. In RP heavy campaigns using standard xp, leveling can take more than 3-4 sessions. That one is system fault, since there are no real guidelines on awarding xp for things other than combat (role play, skill use, etc) unlike 4e with clear guide how much exp is awarded for skill challenges.

 

[Minigiant]

The whole no restrictions crowd because "it's not fun to require that someone may age 10 years or I cannot afford to resurrect someone and be incapacitated for 7 days" have killed high level play because they changed the core restrictions that allowed your setting to still make sense

It's totally because Fans don't want to define what the game is supposed to be so you can't define the restrictions.

It's the flaw of "Flavor is free". If anything can be anything and casters can be a caster from 18 different mediums, then a high level player character can't be limited to specific limitations unless you ALL deem ALL characters have that limitation.

But if you a Vancian caster or a Potterverse caster, you know the hard limitations and accept them.