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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9595802" data-attributes="member: 907">I think I've seen one of the designers mention that levels 1 and 2 are intended as "tutorial levels", which is why you gain your core stuff at levels 1, 2, and 3. This is also why those levels zoom by when you're using XP rather than milestones. I don't know if they changed the XP charts and/or encounter guidelines in 5.5e, but levels 1 and 2 are supposed to last 6 medium or 4 hard encounters (of the same level as the PCs) in 5.0. After that you're supposed to spend 12/8 at level 3, and then 15/10 at each level up to 9, and a 17.5/11 at level 10. After that, it picks up the pace with 9-10/6-7 encounters per level (you can find the math <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ItUlzyxBOoe0XQqfDq3TgQsx_hrdWB59Izzcs1oprE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>).It is a presentation problem that this is never made explicit in the 5.0 rules. You have the XP chart, and the XP per encounter chart, but there's nothing that says that the game is supposed to slow down in the 4-10 sweet spot and then speed up at level 11+.There are also some other indicators that the game is supposed to change character after level 10 or so, and not just the description of tiers of play. One of the more notable ones is how spells of level 6+ are treated differently from spells at level 5+. Using sorcery points to create new spell slots as well as using Arcane Recovery and Natural Recovery (the Druid of the Land equivalent) to recover slots are all limited to 5th level spell slots or lower, and the Warlock's Pact Magic only goes up to 5th level slots as well (with Mystic Arcana above that being specifically limited to 1/long rest each). It also takes a very long time to get more than one of each level 6+ spell slot: the second level 6 slot shows up at level 19, and the second level 7 at 20.Another issue of high-level campaigns is that it gets weird with high-level encounters. I mean, yes, it's cool to fight a proper dragon, or a major demon, or maybe a kraken or something. The problem is that you need to keep fighting those things. And that just feels weird. Once you've defeated Thanos, you shouldn't immediately go after his brother Chanos. As an example, look at the first Critical Role campaign. At level 12, the PCs had defeated the Briarwoods, who had taken over the ancestral lands of one of the PCs. That was a pretty satisfying climax. But after that, they needed two more arcs, first the struggle against the Chroma Conclave (which featured four souped-up ancient dragons – they had apparently fought one earlier), and then trying to stop Vecna's ascension and beseeching gods for help with that. To me, those arcs felt kind of tacked on, and most combats felt like they took forever.</blockquote>

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