D&D 5E Anyone else hoping that the next campaign book WotC releases is 15th to 20th levels?

[GameOgre]

Nobody is trying to prevent you from having fun, we're just explaining why it doesn't make business sense for WotC to release any high-level adventures when they could instead use their time and Resources to develop a low to mid Level adventure that will be of interest to a much larger target audience.

What a crappy design for a game then.

Ok guys I have this new game where you play a epic hero and go from 1-20th level! Yeah it's great right! We even FIXED the games issues so that that magic level range is now from 1-20th instead of 4-9th! Heck yeah!

The best D&D EVAH!

We nerfed casters so at high levels they don't get too many spells and made it so getting to high levels is so awesome you get key parts of your class at the high end! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

We will be releasing GREAT adventure Paths for it to! So your adventurers can accomplish epic things and experience the entire 1-10th level play..maybe even higher like 14th level! YEAH! YEAH!

We will not be supporting the higher level play once again though because it doesn't make any real sense for us to as most people only play levels 1-10.


I thought the entire reason they changed soooo much of the game was so that the 1-20 game was now THE SWEET SPOT?

If it's still 1-10 then why did they have to screw with the entire game system? Why not just made the game 1-10?

Like seriously.........a lot of the changes to the game people accepted as the price for fixing the 1-10 issue. To find out now that the same issue is there and the 10-20th level game is going to mostly remain unsupported. Well ok then have a good one.

There are too many great role systems out there to play one where almost half the game is unsupported and considered not worth it by the very company that makes the game.

 

[OB1]

I am hoping we get a higher level campaign, and I expect that fall of 2017 will see an AP and Rulebook geared towards advanced players.

My dream scenario is that we will see and Advanced Players Handbook and Planescape Adventure Path. The Planescape campaign will start in FR with characters 12th-14th level, then move to Sigul where it can act as both an introduction to the great wheel and also include stops into other prime material locations such as Dark Sun, Ebberon, Greyhawk, Krynn, etc. The APHB will support and enhance this with optional rules for veteran players.

Given that there will by then be 6 APs for newer players to choose from covering a variety of threats, I think it will be the perfect time to expand the scope a bit and differentiate product meant for beginners and veterans.

But if not? If WoC continues to focus on beginning players? That's fine with me, I'm enough of a veteran to create my own campaigns and threats for Tier 4 characters. The core rulebooks do a great job of supporting that already.

 

[nswanson27]

What a crappy design for a game then.

Ok guys I have this new game where you play a epic hero and go from 1-20th level! Yeah it's great right! We even FIXED the games issues so that that magic level range is now from 1-20th instead of 4-9th! Heck yeah!

The best D&D EVAH!

We nerfed casters so at high levels they don't get too many spells and made it so getting to high levels is so awesome you get key parts of your class at the high end! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

We will be releasing GREAT adventure Paths for it to! So your adventurers can accomplish epic things and experience the entire 1-10th level play..maybe even higher like 14th level! YEAH! YEAH!

We will not be supporting the higher level play once again though because it doesn't make any real sense for us to as most people only play levels 1-10.


I thought the entire reason they changed soooo much of the game was so that the 1-20 game was now THE SWEET SPOT?

If it's still 1-10 then why did they have to screw with the entire game system? Why not just made the game 1-10?

Like seriously.........a lot of the changes to the game people accepted as the price for fixing the 1-10 issue. To find out now that the same issue is there and the 10-20th level game is going to mostly remain unsupported. Well ok then have a good one.

There are too many great role systems out there to play one where almost half the game is unsupported and considered not worth it by the very company that makes the game.

Yeah now that i think about it that way...
Did this phenomenon of player base numbers surprise WotC? If not, why weren't they up front with this information when they started 5e? The more I think about this, the less impressed I am with WotC on this front.

 

[BMaC]

It's also cynical on the part of WotC to have spells and character progression to level 20 but not support it--either because the game actually breaks past level 10 or they don't think the average consumer is smart enough to run it past level 10.

 

[Uchawi]

I don't believe most players or more importantly WOTC has the interest. Overall the story and experience is the most important, and it is easier to address that via a new adventure and starting over. Attempting to take on the baggage from a previous one with high level characters is difficult.

 

[nswanson27]

I don't believe most players or more importantly WOTC has the interest. Overall the story and experience is the most important, and it is easier to address that via a new adventure and starting over. Attempting to take on the baggage from a previous one with high level characters is difficult.

Most is not all. I for one would be very happy with even one series that's completely independent from any other story line.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...either because the game actually breaks past level 10 or they don't think the average consumer is smart enough to run it past level 10.

What's cynical is presuming that only those two explanations for why most people don't play higher-level stuff are possible.

 

[eayres33]

I've read through the thread, but still haven't heard a good reason why two years and 4 AP's in that nothing has reached the 20th level.
You created a game that goes to the 20th's level, shouldn't at least one of your AP's reached that level by know?

 

[BMaC]

What's cynical is presuming that only those two explanations for why most people don't play higher-level stuff are possible.

Hold on a second, I didn't say anything about players. I'm talking about WotC. As for why most people don't play higher level games, part of the answer to that question clearly is that it's not supported!

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Hold on a second, I didn't say anything about players...

I didn't say that you did.

As for why most people don't play higher level games, part of the answer to that question clearly is that it's not supported!

I've always been interested in this situation, ever since it became the widely accepted truth during the 3rd edition era (because my experience before that point involved only the groups I could personally be a part of, since I'd not found discussion places on the internet nor moved to places with dedicated gaming stores, and in my group at the time the AD&D game worked just fined at any level, including when we played characters in the 50s and up).

What interested me most, but in a kind of morbid watching a train wreck and can't look away sort of interest, was 5th edition and surveys asking about why campaigns end and what the desire about campaigns were. People reported campaigns ending in the middle levels for a variety of reasons, and the desire for campaigns to be able to get further up the levels than that.

So WotC incorporated ideas into 5th edition that aimed to facilitate campaigns getting further along in levels by way of solving, or at least reducing, the things that were reported to end campaigns. Then they gave us all some time to play the game, and surveyed campaign ending points happening and desired to happen again.

And, somehow, for some reason, despite all the things changed that remove the majority of reasons why "nobody plays high-level", the information said clearly that campaigns were still ending in the mid levels.

So now WotC is choosing to acknowledge that a lot of people just don't play high level stuff - they can, it works, nothing is actually stopping them, they just don't play high level stuff - and are leaving it up to the (according to the survey data) few of us that actually do play high level stuff to work it out for ourselves, which is a viable solution for at least a significant portion of the people with interest in high-level play because all the tools needed are provided in the core rule books, and by the time characters get up to high levels we've already got loads of bits and bobs from having played whatever adventures (home-brewed or bought) got the characters up to those levels upon which to base further adventures.