High Level Play - The Eternal Question

[prabe]

I had a couple of segments on my Talk Show this week about Deadfall, WOTC's latest adventure which starts at 11th level, and my own tips for running high level 5e games.

One argument that completely falls apart for me is the "there's not enough high level support for D&D 5e or more people would play it" argument. This is false in a lot of ways:

• The core books all go to 20th level and have content for all those levels including lots of huge CR20+ monsters.
• WOTC has now released four high-level campaign adventures: Rise of Tiamat, Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Vecna Eve of Ruin, and now Deadfall. There are plenty of high-level adventures.

In my opinion, high level 5e is a pain in the ass. Mostly this comes from the massive shift DMs have to take to keep the story interesting and challenging as the characters gain new world-breaking abilities. This starts as early as level 7 when we start to see huge monsters banished on a single bad saving throw or polymorphed into a gopher or whatever. DMs have to really rethink what adventures really are as characters travel up the levels and that takes a lot of work. Also, the game slows way down which makes table management harder.

I have more thoughts and tips for running high level stuff in my video:


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I also bet @mearls may have some thoughts about it.

I think most of the people who are complaining about the lack of stuff focused on high-level play are at least implicitly complaining about the quality of the stuff that's out there. The fact that high-level play is really difficult (plausibly shading to impossible) to publish good adventures for is also, well, a fact.

 

[prabe]

I think that argument that I typically see is twofold.

1. That scenarios were not there at release, as you say this has been partially solved now though 4 adventures is not a ton. IIRC Rise of Tiamat (the one out on release) only goes to 15 which is generally considered just the start of high level play and 5e had poor monster balance in the early days (just like 4e!). Both Vecna and Deadfall came out over 10 years after 5e's initial release. That is a pretty big gulf.
2. There is not a lot of support for teaching GM's how to design and run there own high-level content, something like the Epic Level Handbook for 5e would have done wonders. Maybe the DMG has some decent advice, though I have not read 5e's iteration, 3.5's did I think.

There's not much help for the GM looking to run for high-level characters in the 2014 DMG. I've barely skimmed the 2024 version, there might be more there (but I wouldn't be inclined to bet on it). The Game Master's Guide for Tales of the Valiant (plus the Player's Guide 2) at least have some material, IIRC; I'll have a more solid opinion on that once I've run a ToV campaign to high-ish levels.

 

[Argyle King]

I enjoy "high level" play in games where either the power curve is less or the game is built around more horizontal (for a lack of better words) growth. Generally speaking, I prefer high-level heroes to be leading armies rather than solo-fighting armies.

While I can (and certainly have) enjoyed high level play in D&D (and other similar systems where character growth is more vertical amc about stacking more +N,) I think it becomes a bit old-hat when every story is another race to save the world/universe/multiverse.

Sometimes, the most fun stories are as simple as villagers fighting goblins in the woods. Other times, I want the thrill of a castle siege or giving an opposing ship a broadside barrage. Magic, fantasy, and all of that stuff is cool and I like it, but I don't like when it is so over-the-top that it takes away from the risk/reward proposition of an adventure or makes it feel like the characters are so far above the game world that they become disconnected superheroes.

I also feel that there comes a point where, if I want to play a Supers game, I would rather just do a Supers game. Even then, there's a point where too much power isn't as interesting to me anymore.

 

[Lanefan]

The thing is, it's really hard to support high level play with published material because it should reference the entire campaign up to that point. It should be the culmination of what has come before. High level adventures should be very tightly tailored to the specific pcs involved. A generic epic level adventure might be a great adventure, but is it great for a specific group?

This is a good point. By the time any campaign gets to high level* it's awash in - and somewhat slave to - the played-through lore, backstory, and character history that got it to this point.

Which means high level adventures probably need exactly zero backstory or included lore, as the GM's just going to have to strip it all out anyway. Just a site or premise, a map, some foes, and maybe a baked-in mission or goal will do, and leave it to the GM to drop this into the ongoing campaign as best seen fit.

* - unless it started at high level, but that's a corner case.

 

[Vrindlevine]

Which means high level adventures probably need exactly zero backstory or included lore, as the GM's just going to have to strip it all out anyway. Just a site or premise, a map, some foes, and maybe a baked-in mission or goal will do, and leave it to the GM to drop this into the ongoing campaign as best seen fit.

Aye. I have a suspicion most high level scenarios running at any given time are nearly 100% homebrewed (i.e. not published).

 

[GrimCo]

I do this stuff all the time, both when I primarily used DnD and now using a system that is at the very least DnD adjacent, I never really felt it was bad at it. Most of that faction/plots/social what-have-yous involves roleplaying which basically every system is good at. I would say the greatest factor in that sort of content is the GM, players and scenario, not the system.

I do it too, but i prefer more system support for that kind of play. Some mechanical buttons and lever for both player characters and DM. Just role playing it doesn't cut it for me. D&D being not really good means it doesn't activley hinder it, but sure as hell doesn't give you tools for it.

I enjoy "high level" play in games where either the power curve is less or the game is built around more horizontal (for a lack of better words) growth. Generally speaking, I prefer high-level heroes to be leading armies rather than solo-fighting armies.

+1 on both counts. High level characters are movers and shakers of the world. They command, they lead, they manage and they rule. Horizontal growth is one thing D&D and class based system similar to it generally lack. Characters that develop new skills, new abilities in other areas, more broad and rounded skillsets in general, but at the same time, they don't get more HP, better saves, better attack bonuses (in short, they don't get harder to kill).

I also feel that there comes a point where, if I want to play a Supers game, I would rather just do a Supers game. Even then, there's a point where too much power isn't as interesting to me anymore.

Yeah, playing Superman sounds awesome. Until you have party of Supermens. Then it becomes real boring real fast.

This is a good point. By the time any campaign gets to high level* it's awash in - and somewhat slave to - the played-through lore, backstory, and character history that got it to this point.

Which means high level adventures probably need exactly zero backstory or included lore, as the GM's just going to have to strip it all out anyway. Just a site or premise, a map, some foes, and maybe a baked-in mission or goal will do, and leave it to the GM to drop this into the ongoing campaign as best seen fit.

* - unless it started at high level, but that's a corner case.

From personal experience, most high level games, both ones i played/DMed, or someone i knew played/DMed, started out in teen levels, or at least in that 8-10 range and then went to teen levels. Games that went from 1 to teen, let alone high teens or 20+ were exceptions, not the rule.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I have run 2e and 3e into the low 20s. I played in a 5e game that got to 20. We started at low levels and played through and it takes years. My groups are stable and can play for years. But success is not "getting to 20", it comes at finishing the plot arc the GM envisioned. I played a lot of 3-month games in 1e & 2e where the gm ran a couple of modules to the end and it was good.

But the thing is....people don't have to start at 1st level. They can start at 3rd, 5th, 13th or 15th. That seems to have happened a lot more in 1e, 2e and 3e. A lot of those 3-month games were modules either designed for tier 3-4 or adapted them.

I dont know if its a self-fulfilling prophesy or what, but people don't seem willing to try it in 5e because they are destined to fail. And they can fail because it is a skill. Just like running 1st-3rd level characters without TPKing is a skill. All of gaming is different skills.

High level play is different play. And that's good, its yet another flavor in the neverending gobstopper of d&d.

Unless you have murder-hobos, a tier 4 party is often tolerant of "people being rambunctious" and seeks to de-escalate with words. Until they decide words aren't working and do something ... impactful. Maybe the fighter challenges a barbarian tribe set up a "gauntlet" then the fighter beats them all into the ground. Or the druid "invites" a lake to move a different noble's territory. Or the bard sings a song about consequences and surrounds a recalcitrant noble's manor house with a barren 600 acre plain of razor sharp obsidian.

Sometimes it goes wrong for PCs, like when the monk doesn't think through how many arrows a large goblin horde with bows will be able to shoot at the monk as the monk ascends the hills surrounding the goblin camp. (Answer - enough that even with disadvantage, crits happen every round)

These are all good stories, both in game and after the game. Why rob yourself of them?

 

[kigmatzomat]

Aye. I have a suspicion most high level scenarios running at any given time are nearly 100% homebrewed (i.e. not published).

Ehhh...that depends. We finished up a 1-20 5e campaign last year.

It was a mix of Ghosts of Saltmarsh + Court of the Shadowfey + Princes of the Apocalypse. Yes, the GM rebalanced the encounters but the story, locations, even monster themes stayed the same. Without ruining anything, in his version, the GoSm & CotSF events were the result of minions of PotA. So yeah, back stories shifted some but it worked well.

PotA came out in 2015, a year after dnd 5e, and it is a 1-15 campaign.

 

[GrimCo]

We started at low levels and played through and it takes years. My groups are stable and can play for years

It's also about session length and frequency of play. My current group, in this composition, plays since 2014 when we added last member, without him, we are stable group since 2008. So long time. Back in the day, when we were all university students, we managed to play 50ish 4-5h long sessions a year. Some years, even more. But, as we grew older, carrers, marriages and kids came, sessions became shorter, frequency of play became sparser. Pretty much similar to most groups i know. When you play bi weekly at best with shorter sessions, getting from 1-20 takes couple of years. In that span, people grow tired of their characters, campaigns loose momentum, the fizzle out. And that's if you are lucky and group stays together, but life happens, people take breaks from game for various reasons. Even playing campaign from start to finish is rare, doing one from 1-20 is even rarer. At least in my experience, YMMW of course. So groups that want high level play, start at least in late tier 2, more frequently in early tier 3 and go from there. Starting from high levels has it's own challenges. Characters are more complex, with more buttons and levers to push and pull. Balancing encounters is also more art than science at that point ( how to make it challenging, but also not turn it into slog fest).

Like you said, tier 1/2 and tier 3/4 are almost like 2 different games.

 

[Maxperson]

• The core books all go to 20th level and have content for all those levels including lots of huge CR20+ monsters.

The issue is variety. A huge chunk of the high level monsters are just some variety of dragon, giant, undead, or fiend. There is a far greater variety of monsters to pick from at low levels