D&D 5E How many of your campaigns ACTUALLY ever get to 20th level?

[Sacrosanct]

In 33 years, not one. Highest level PC I ever had was level 16. Couple of low teens after that. 99% were level 10 or below. Not because AD&D breaks down at high levels, but once you get into domain management, the PCs sort of retired and became NPCs. And we all were wanting to try out different classes too.

On the internet, you'd think a ton of people play 20th level PCs based on all the talk around builds. I suspect most people who play 20th level characters either just start out that way, or super fast track the adventure to get there because that's what they want to play.

I don't begrudge people who talk about how awesome a build is when you hit 20th level, but I don't understand it. I can't wrap my head around the idea of playing for years with a PC that doesn't do what you want it to do until you finally hit level 20.

shrug

 

[Emirikol]

I've been playing since 81. We've never had characters get above abotu 14th (htat was our conan 3.5 variant), except back when we were kids (<14) and our characters leveled because we felt like leveling them. There was one 44th level wizard (Merlin). My fighter, Taraz, reached 36th. Rob's Thief made 46th I think, just to out-do the wizard. We got tired of clearing hexes of dragons so we would just roll a d20. If we hit, we killed the dragon. If we missed, we had to try again..then we did up the math. Ridiculous.

Anyways, I think this is another reason why we should see a LOT more stuff for low and mid-level options, rather than putting in excess attention on 20th level stuff.

 

[Jester David]

I had a Pathfinder campaign (Dragonlance) that went from level 5 to 16.
And my current game (Rise of the Runelords) started at 1 and the party is currently 14, and likely to hit 17-18 by the end.

So... no. Never hit 20.

 

[Gundark]

Level 17 or 18 with Age of Worms. The campaign collapsed under the weight of rules bloat at high level.

 

[Li Shenron]

How many of your campaigns ACTUALLY ever get to 20th level?

Never been there.

 

[Tuft]

I played Savage Tide to 20, took about 3 years.

And we had great fun doing it too; This is the campaign that we, the players, asked for halved XP rewards so that our characters would last longer... We played 8-10 h/week during those three years.

And since we liked it so much, nobody tried to break the system or break the campaign - and thus they both stayed unbroken.

We played a lot after the campaign had gotten capped at level 20 - think it must have been for at least half a year.

 

[delericho]

None.

"Shackled City" saw the PCs hit 19th as a consequence of the final encounter.

I've had two other (homebrew) campaigns that made it to 15th, one in 2nd Ed and one in 3.5e. I've also had a few get somewhere between 10 and 12, in both those editions.

But 20th? Never.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah since first gaming (Apart from an earlier one off) 30 years ago, never made 20th. I think we may have made 13th in AD&D once. 10th is 4E for sure. Other than that 7th or 8th I guess.

 

[Psikerlord#]

In 25 years of gaming we got to 20th level only once. And it was our 4e campaign. Typically we only get to around 11-13th at best. I think it is very hard to reach 20th because it takes 1-2 years minimum, and you have to be able to keep everyone interested that whole time... We typically get bored with our PCs or the game long before that time and either restart or play another game system entirely.

 

[Quartz]

Don't forget the need for fully-fleshed NPCs of levels 20+