D&D 5E At what level does play become "high level"?

[Guest User]

9th Character level seems a bit low to be called "High Level" for my taste.
I completely agree that 5th level spells are powerful, but access to 7th level spells is when I gauge High level play is in full effect.

 

[Maxperson]

9th Character level seems a bit low to be called "High Level" for my taste.
I completely agree that 5th level spells are powerful, but access to 7th level spells is when I gauge High level play is in full effect.

Yeah. When they divided up the level range into 4 tiers, they screwed up the low, mid and high level ranges. 17th(Masters of the World) is too high to begin high level, yet 11th(Masters of the Realm) is too low. 11th level is the middle of the level range, making it quite literally mid level.

 

[ccs]

In 3x+, around the point where 6th lv+ spells become available is what I always envision.
In AD&D it's the lv where you stop gaining HD as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Stalker0]

I voted 9th. 5th level spells really set the tone for the next several levels and by then you have two or more feats, your second subclass features, etc.

@MatthewJHanson ninja'd me LOL!

This

 

[Maxperson]

This

9th can't be high level, though. It's literally in the middle of the level range, making it mid level.

 

[Blue]

9th you start to change the tone of the game with some of the spells available, but 11th that comes into full swing and all of the single classed characters get a significant power bump. It's also the start of the third tier of play, where threats to regions and continents are on the table (PHB pg 15 for the tiers) - it's where the scope is expected to widen yet again for the party.

Also it's not "very high level", which would be further up.

 

[Blue]

9th can't be high level, though. It's literally in the middle of the level range, making it mid level.

Survey show most campaigns go up to around 10th. 9th seems pretty high for actual play.

Just like NASCAR may drive over 200 MPH regularly, but your average driver would agree that 80MPG is a high speed.

 

[Minigiant]

5e considers 6th level magic and 11th level class features where the truly world altering stuff happens.

11th level is where PC start playing high level.
However I'd see PCs aren't high level until level 15.

 

[Maxperson]

Survey show most campaigns go up to around 10th. 9th seems pretty high for actual play.

That's not really relevant to what is low, mid and high level, though. Otherwise you'd have 1-2 be low level, 3-4 be mid level, 5-6 be high level, and 7+ be epic.

For the game itself, 1-6th would be low level, then you graduate to the more powerful mid range abilities for 7th-12th, then you graduate to the highest levels of abilities at 13-20.

Just like NASCAR may drive over 200 MPH regularly, but your average driver would agree that 80MPG is a high speed.

They go epically fast, yes. And I think the average driver wouldn't say that speed is high until 90. I mean there are commonly speed limits of 75mph on freeways. Going just 5 miles an hour over the average wouldn't be very high speed. I would rate low speed as 1-45mph, mid speed at 46-90mph, and high as 90-135. Anything over 135 is pretty darn epic.

 

[Maxperson]

5e considers 6th level magic and 11th level class features where the truly world altering stuff happens.

11th level is where PC start playing high level.
However I'd see PCs aren't high level until level 15.

That's not entirely accurate. At 11th level they start the very beginning of the Masters of the Realm tier. That tier affects countries and even the world. That last part, plus the name of the tier imply that it's the higher levels of that tier that start impacting the world. Those higher levels lead into the Masters of the World tier, where their actions affect the world and perhaps beyond.

11th level would be mid level and it wouldn't be until 13th or so that they reach high levels and really start affecting the world.