How High Level Should the Core Book Go?

[Sirot]

20 is a fine number. Anything past that create too much content that is not reached by a a majority of players (if reports are to be believed).

 

[Raith5]

I like 30 but with a slow increment of power.

Rules for followers/leadership should come in about 15th.

I think epic style play should not have a cut and dried level with the same mechanical elements as 4th ed. It should something that evolves gradually in campaign play from level 20 or so, where if you serve a god or faction in play you get a power from that god, if you fulfill some destiny then you get a power, for example.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I like the idea of 10 levels to flatten the power curve. This also keys into the "heroic tier" mentality of 4e that it looks like Monte and crew seem to be pushing. Perhaps levels 11 to 20 could be achieved in a further paragon/epic tier book for those that want to do that sort of adventuring.

However, while 10 levels looks low, if you layer 10 levels of racial abilities, 10 levels of class abilities and 10 levels of theme abilities across those 10 levels, then I think you have the richness of 20plus levels of play but compressed into the more mathematically manageable sweetspot of conventional D&D play. High level play is its own richly erratic beast up to and including 3e while 4e paragon/epic play made it a little more accessible but still I believe has issues. A reduced level count for core is perhaps the best way of tackling this.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Stormonu]

Well, if this is any indication, there's a steady drop-off of interest in games past 10th level.

I think there should be a starter set that covers up to 5th level, then an expanded book that easily fills things out to 15th-18th level and just gives guidelines past that, with no hard level cap.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Considering the number of classes they're shooting for, 10 levels might be realistic.

That's still a fair bit of play time. If it's anything like the current 13 encounters/level, and less than 3 encounters/sessions, that could be about a year of weekly play. Of course, they could make advancement a little slower.

Single-digit levels are also those at which 3.x and AD&D tended to work a bit better, before the casters got too wildly overpowered. And 5e is promising to be very backwards-looking.

 

[Tallifer]

Put the epic stuff in another book. It would mean fewer powers and feats to clutter up the AEDU classes.

 

[Ichneumon]

Twenty levels is fine. It helps the system maintain shallow power gradients, and gives campaigns a fair chance of going from one to max. I wouldn't be surprised to see a maximum of ten levels in the first PHB, with the rest to follow in a subsequent one.

They just gotta keep the XP progression linear, and con bonuses out of the hp/level.

 

[The Shadow]

Somewhere between level 10 and 14 is where it should stop.

Then, have different modules depending on where the group wants to go.

Some kind of mythic module for those who like amazingly powerful protagonists and one module that is more about characters gaining reach in the world (domain management and stuff like this).

Very much this.

People just fundamentally don't agree on what high-level play should be like. Heck, I could go for either of those modules, depending on the type of campaign. And that's fine.

I wouldn't mind if the first PH just went to level 10 (or 9, if you want to be *really* old-school). The high-level modules could be in a different book, really.

I could see an Epic module that culminates ultimately in godhood (with an Immortal module beyond that). A Mythic module that goes deep into the whole Hero's Journey. And a Reign module about starting and maintaining your own fief or even kingdom.

Any or all of those could be used in combination, even.

 

[The Human Target]

10.

It seems like the vast majority of games I have ever seen or heard about don't generally get beyond level 10-ish in whatever edition, no matter how much they play.

I'd rather 5e reflect what most people actually do.

 

[Serendipity]

You know, if the plan is to do the standard 2 and 3e thing of arbitrarily capping the whole works at twenty, then just shave those last five levels off and make the cut off point fifteen. It limits power creep and you can get most of the good stuff in the game that way. For people who want lower power games, this can work in their favor too.
Also, later expansion wouldn't be broken into generic 'epic' categories at that point, which (for some reason) turns a lot of people off. Esp. after the 4e implementation, if Wizards is going to do something similar to the epic tier, I'd like to see it supported. (Really, epic is NEVER supported. Aside from the companion/master series, it's never been supported.)
But for the core game, top it off at 15.