D&D (2024) Do We Really Need Levels 11-20?

[Maxperson]

In the olden days we had character classes that were difficult to qualify for if you rolled your stats legitimately: Bard, Ranger, Paladin. A lot of pages were dedicated to these special edge cases because they were aspirational for players. Similarly, powerful artifacts were rarely seen.
I have had players who are disappointed that they never achieve high level play (levels 11+). In my experience, it's a false hope. The game isn't as fun as you would think at those levels. It's slow, it's not usually well balanced or playtested.
I think the game would be better served by the assumption that those high levels are a different experience. You play through levels 1-10, then levels 11+ are one shots. You skip around to "check in" on your retired characters at occasional moments when they face extreme challenges and big moments.
I'd probably also put it in a separate book with guidance for running these challenges.

That's really up to the DM. I have had a great time running 3e and 5e at high levels, and my players have a blast as well. I think a lot of DMs keep trying to run the game the same way at high levels as they do at low levels and that doesn't work.

 

[Remathilis]

Ha! My guess you'd be even more turned off that hitting level 7 can take 3 or more years of playing! Getting to11th level (which was a 3.xE game) took 5 years of playing for 5 to 6 hours every other week. (Anyone interested can download the compiled and revised complete story hour in PDF form here - but warning it is longer than the Lord of the Rings ).

None of those things (skills, combat, magic and HP) may improve if you don't go up a level, but improving mechanically is only one area of the game. Improving your position in the setting, finding magical items, building relationships and bastions, exploring the world, its politics and societies, pursuing individual goals are more important to me in designing an engaging campaign, personally - and has the benefit of an organic feel rather than a straight mechanical advancement (which also comes with time).

Don't get me wrong, I love getting to level up or telling players they have earned enough XP to level up, it is jut not the focus.

But to each their own.

I played 2e where we didn't level for a literal year. These days I prefer a slow but steady level. 5e is too fast, but I don't have a decade to devote to one character anymore

 

[CreamCloud0]

i think 11-20 class levels do need to exist, but i wonder whether they need to exist as basegame content, 1-20 character progression, 1-10 class progressions.

alternately, i could see a system where you distil the classes down more, remove subclasses and convert their ideas into more fleshed out but standalone 1-10 progression of class concepts, you don't just have 'the fighter 1-10' you've got 1-10 progression for the champion, the battlemaster, the eldritch knight, the warlord and the defender.

 

[MGibster]

The 2024 PHB, for what it is worth, straight up recommends just starting new characters at Level 4.

Seriously? What page? I gotta lock eyes on this.

 

[Weiley31]

I personally feel there should be options for both. That way you cover people who feel 1-10 is the sweet spot and ones, like me, who still prefer the whole 1-20 course.

I mean, ya still got options for low level play outside of regular 5E as well. You have Free League Lord of the Rings 5E you can cherry pick from, Adventures in Middle Earth 5E (if you did like I did and went on a internet journey to buy out of print books), or stuff like Everyday Heroes+The Rules Compendium book.

And there's some "rare" stuff out there for high level 5E play.

 

[Maxperson]

Seriously? What page? I gotta lock eyes on this.

It's not level 4, it's level 3 and it's on page 43. It says if the group is seasoned, they recommend starting at level 3.

 

[leozg]

Maybe if the game wasn't so broken in high levels, there would be more people playing it.
Previous edition have 30 levels and I had less problems DMing high levels back there than now. My players also enjoyed more.
Epic levels were a different game, you could do a lot, but the goals and challenges changed. I don't see it now. Now a 10+ level char can just do more and more with no real meaning.

 

[Parmandur]

Seriously? What page? I gotta lock eyes on this.

I'll double check later, but it is in the character creation overview IIRC.

 

[Remathilis]

The 2024 PHB, for what it is worth, straight up recommends just starting new characters at Level 4.

Can you cite that?

 

[Distracted DM]

And yet that is after the 2014 rules were specifically designed to make getting to 20 feasible in a school year of semi-regular play.

Getting from 11 to 20 was specifically made very quick so that you wouldn't spend more than an adventuring day in each level, to give you a quick experience of high level play but not actually spend a lot of time in it, apparently because it's a PITA.

It seemed like it was only done because they had to, for legacy reasons. The real gameplay is between 5-10, and they made it 6+ adventuring days per level there.