Interestingly, me and one of my players are sorta having this argument, in an extremely passive-aggressive fashion.
I'm running the WLD right now. Through no prompting of my own at all, the players are staying in areas that were "set" for characters of 7-9th level. They are at 9th level. By RAW, they should have levelled by now. But I'm not using XP, I'm levelling them when it's good for the balance/fun of the game. They are already running over most of the encounters, since they are at the highest cusp the place was created for, and they have somewhat more equipment than normal (not overly much, truly).
The majority of my players are fine with that. They are having fun with the encounters/combat, are enjoying their characters evolving, etc. Two of them (brothers, btw), are somewhat less enthusiastic. Not surprisingly, one is a "powergamer". And by far the most "effective" character. They are antsy about the lack of levelling lately.
I think they believe it's because they think I think I can't handle high-level play. That's not true, it's because them being higher level would really make the current part of the dungeon a complete cakewalk. I -do- think they are at about the best levels of the game, but I did know that they'd go all the way to 20th level when I started running the WLD, and I assume they will. But anyway. One of the brothers, perhaps to assuage his brother's desire of even more extreme powergaming, perhaps to show me that high-level wasn't that bad, decided to start running a game, in which we'd -start- at 20th level. With all WotC books available.
Well. I made my character, and I doubt we'll play for very long. When started from low-level, I do think playing through level 20 can remain in the sweet spot. Most "killer" high-level characters don't have a very high survival rate at lower levels, so it remains balanced.
I'm running the WLD right now. Through no prompting of my own at all, the players are staying in areas that were "set" for characters of 7-9th level. They are at 9th level. By RAW, they should have levelled by now. But I'm not using XP, I'm levelling them when it's good for the balance/fun of the game. They are already running over most of the encounters, since they are at the highest cusp the place was created for, and they have somewhat more equipment than normal (not overly much, truly).
The majority of my players are fine with that. They are having fun with the encounters/combat, are enjoying their characters evolving, etc. Two of them (brothers, btw), are somewhat less enthusiastic. Not surprisingly, one is a "powergamer". And by far the most "effective" character. They are antsy about the lack of levelling lately.
I think they believe it's because they think I think I can't handle high-level play. That's not true, it's because them being higher level would really make the current part of the dungeon a complete cakewalk. I -do- think they are at about the best levels of the game, but I did know that they'd go all the way to 20th level when I started running the WLD, and I assume they will. But anyway. One of the brothers, perhaps to assuage his brother's desire of even more extreme powergaming, perhaps to show me that high-level wasn't that bad, decided to start running a game, in which we'd -start- at 20th level. With all WotC books available.
Well. I made my character, and I doubt we'll play for very long. When started from low-level, I do think playing through level 20 can remain in the sweet spot. Most "killer" high-level characters don't have a very high survival rate at lower levels, so it remains balanced.