D&D (2024) If Your Builds Not Online By Level 6 Dont Bother?

[Cap'n Kobold]

How robust and accessible is high level Adventurer's League stuff?

Speaking only for the group I'm a member of:
On any specific AL day, there will generally be 1-3 games running. There is a requirement that at least one of these games be open to new players, which means it must be a Tier 1 or Tier 2 game. (AL allows new characters to be started at 5th level.)
This means that there can only be a Tier 3 or 4 game on a day where there is already another game running.
Even with that though, most DMs run Tier 1 or 2 games generally anyway, so Tier 3 or 4 games are rarer than even the above restriction will indicate.

In terms of character builds, AL characters will often level up to the max for that Tier (Levels 4 or 10,) and then stay at that level, with the player just choosing to not level them up further. Therefore if a character has a specific build or interaction that it will be built around, it will generally be designed to be online at either level 4 or 10.
(AL allows characters to be rebuilt however, which may take the pain away from levelling to the point where a specific build does come online.)

 

[aco175]

But if most games end before level 10 and a plurality end before level 7....the fact that in 5e you don't really come into your own until at least 3rd level and usually closer to level 5-6 isn't exactly ideal. It means the majority of any player's experience is build-up, with comparatively far less payoff. (Especially the way I see people run the game, where 1st and 2nd level are not a breeze, but take forever to finish...)

Maybe a solution is to make more classes so that the builds are a single class with cool powers at 3rd and 5th level? I always like the 4e swordmage, but to try and build one in 5e is more of a pain to me. If I really wanted, I could build a class that does this so I do not need to try and multiclass one and maybe still not have what I really wanted.

The problem with this is that making all new classes is a pain and work for both players and DMs and most are overpowered.

 

[Horwath]

First level is like the tutorial. You start there if you've never played the game before. Otherwise you skip it and start later.

I typically start campaigns at Level 2 even with brand new players.

I would say that 4 levels are tutorial, 5th level is IMHO best to start, hell, even for new players, just suggest Fighter(champion) and Rogue(Scout) as character builds, Bear barbarian works also.

 

[evilbob]

Absolutely not. I've never, not once, seen a DM who gives their players the choice of whether the group starts at 1st or 3rd or whatever else.

Just to validate Zard's post, his experience is also my experience. Level 3 is either the starting point, or it happens within 3 sessions.

 

[mellored]

But my paladin 6/monk 14 has +11 to all the saves!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Maybe a solution is to make more classes so that the builds are a single class with cool powers at 3rd and 5th level? I always like the 4e swordmage, but to try and build one in 5e is more of a pain to me. If I really wanted, I could build a class that does this so I do not need to try and multiclass one and maybe still not have what I really wanted.

The problem with this is that making all new classes is a pain and work for both players and DMs and most are overpowered.

Oh, you certainly won't hear arguments from me on that front. I believe 5e is missing somewhere between five and twelve class-fantasy archetypes. Some of them are shared with 4e; some with PF1e; one isn't even from D&D, but rather a thing influenced by D&D (specifically, Final Fantasy).

 

[AlViking]

While additional rule support that supports higher level play would be welcome: It is not required. You can run successful adventures through 20th level that are exciting, interesting and entirely within RAW.

What is needed in many groups is training on how to build and run high level games that are not just attempts to "level up" low level games. Even published adventures run afoul of this challenge.

Too many DMs try to run a high level adventure in the same way that a low level adventure is typically built. They present the same types of challenges as low level play and there is frustration because there is magic available that negates the challenges. In turn, the DM negates the availability of the magic. That makes players feel like their choices in development are being invalidated - which is true. The DM, in these instances, ends up dictating the game. That kills a game fast.

A murder mystery works at level 1 or 2 ... but once you can speak with dead, most murder mysteries should be pretty darn easy to resolve. If they're not, it is because the DM is selecting to make the spell worthless in that instance - which feels like a DM taking away a player's toys. That is not to say that being true to the story will always mean a corpse will have valuable information ... just that it inherently feels like the DM is taking away the player tools almost all the time when the corpse does not give up information as the spell is designed to do. A little bit of a player ability being confounded is probably fine ... but if every time you want to use an ability it is negated by the DM because it is too useful - the game crashes.

This type of evolution of the game where challenges become trivial needs to happen. If the PCs have a magical solution that makes it easy to travel, to make money, to help people ... let it happen as a DM. Let them enjoy the free use of their powers. It makes them feel like powerful figures. If they're constantly forced to struggle to do everything they never get that chance to really feel powerful - which is a big part of higher level games.

Then, start to focus on the types of problems that these magics do not solve in one easy blow. An example is a political situation. You have a society of 250,000 people with 75,000 wanting to break up the society and form a smaller society of their own, another 75,000 that want to change the balance of power so that everyone has the same rights and another 50,000 that want the status quo not to change. There is no magic solution that just solves that problem. You can look to books, movies and TV series for inspiration for these types of storylines.

This type of evolution challenges your typical dungeon design. Fighting your way through a 40 room dungeon to get to the MacGuffin at the end does not make sense when the PCs can magically scout it out and then teleport to the end ... unless the DM takes away their toys. To that end, most dungeon delving needs to be rethought and different approaches need to be used, such as anticipate them teleporting to the focal point they need to engage and design the encounters so that enemies come to them in waves while the PCs do what they need to do or wait for something to happen.

Use "Yes and" improve mentalities to make the story work where you build upon what the PCs do rather than negate it.

TLDR: Games work at higher levels when DMs run higher level games that make sense. They fail when DMs try to run low level games at higher levels - and players get bored while the DM is constantly frustrated.

I've run and played in multiple campaigns that went to 20th level now, maybe I'm just a weird outlier but while it can be difficult to run high level campaigns you learn by doing. I do let magical solutions work if it makes sense but to take Speak with Dead as an example, how many shows and movies are there where the victim doesn't know who the assailant was? There's a whole sub-genre of mysteries where the dead person is a ghost trying to find their killer. Meanwhile there are plenty of reasons the dead body may not have an answer from the jaw being smashed as a prevention to it was dark and they were caught by surprise.

I would like more high level monsters, especially humanoid ones but I can always change the description of specific monsters or come up with my own. Running high level games can be challenging but worth it. But this isn't really staying on topic, perhaps more for another thread.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Just to validate Zard's post, his experience is also my experience. Level 3 is either the starting point, or it happens within 3 sessions.

Technically not the same thing as I was talking about, though that part too is something I see very rarely. Specifically, I was saying that I've never seen a 5e DM (or, indeed, all that many DMs in general) who let the players pick what level the campaign starts

Numerous DMs, both in games I actually played and games I simply tried to join, started at 1st level. Anything else was an exceedingly rare change. (One campaign was meant to start at 5th, but it died a typical death for PbP games unfortunately.) And essentially all of those DMs made gaining even level 2 a multi-session affair.

I have spent more play-hours at levels 1-3 (and that primarily at 1 or 2) than I have at any other level or even pair of levels. Consistently. Whether the DM was a friend or a stranger, didn't matter. (At least with the friends, I tried to encourage them to consider playing at higher levels. It never, ever worked, but I at least tried.)

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's that few campaigns last longer than X number of sessions before something or other happens to take it down.

Hence, we should be designing games such that well before that point, most character setups should be active and online.

Just adding to this WotC era D&D (all of them) have painfully slow combat and D&D in general has mechanical character development that is on rails with at best a few switches.

Apocalypse World by contrast was explicitly designed for campaigns of about a dozen sessions with strong character focus and development. It can be done

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

A single classed Eldritch Knight doesn't really come online until lvl 7... Sad.