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

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 past the 10th level mark, as the developer notes.

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This chart shows that the fighter is the most common class at all tiers, followed by the rogue. At third place it switches up a bit - the wizard becomes more popular in Tiers 3-4 than in Tiers 1-2, while the cleric and ranger both have a strong presence at lower levels but drop off at higher levels.

You can find the report in the latest DDB development video below.

[video=youtube;4tuIrGLKSik]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tuIrGLKSik[/video]​

 

[ParanoydStyle]

Is this because...I'm guessing that this is because all of the published and Adventurer's League adventures are (as far as I can tell) overwhelmingly 5th level and lower, and most players playing and reporting in officially through D&D beyond are also playing published/AL adventures ? That is the explanation that makes the most sense to me. Especially because (unlike in previous editions of the game) there is precious little difference between a 10th and a 15th level character. You might get access to more powerful spells if you're a magic user or some cool class features in any class, but for the most part the bonus you're adding to your dice is one or two points higher which really does not feel like a big difference.

(Wizard is my favorite class and I am sad they don't get no metamagics no more.)

Anyway, if anyone knows of any high-level oriented content WotC has published, would you let me know about it?

 

[Mistwell]

Is this because...I'm guessing that this is because all of the published and Adventurer's League adventures are (as far as I can tell) overwhelmingly 5th level and lower, and most players playing and reporting in officially through D&D beyond are also playing published/AL adventures ? That is the explanation that makes the most sense to me. Especially because (unlike in previous editions of the game) there is precious little difference between a 10th and a 15th level character. You might get access to more powerful spells if you're a magic user or some cool class features in any class, but for the most part the bonus you're adding to your dice is one or two points higher which really does not feel like a big difference.

(Wizard is my favorite class and I am sad they don't get no metamagics no more.)

Anyway, if anyone knows of any high-level oriented content WotC has published, would you let me know about it?

Dungeon of the Mad Mage. It's their latest adventure, it goes to level 20, and I think it's excellent.

 

[Nebulous]

I personally as DM don't like to run campaigns much past 10th level. At lower level I can ad hoc an encounter easily and throw something together balanced and fun, but as they get higher and higher and higher I have to start tailoring individual enemies and set pieces to present a reasonable challenge, and it gets more time consuming on my prep end than I typically like to do. Of course that's just me, and I'm sure other DMs have no problem with bigger, more complex fights or they enjoy the minutiae of detailed encounter building.

I remember when I ran Phandelver, the 6th level PCs went back a second time with about 20 NPC knights from Neverwinter, and 5e handled this massive group easily, there was no problem at all making it a challenge even with such a skewed CR setup.