D&D 5E Is WotC ever going to release something high level? Even as UA test material?

[Zardnaar]

Well, judging from history, I'd say no, people won't.

As was mentioned, the Pathfinder modules top out at 15th level. And they have what, a couple dozen AP's under their belt now? If people were going to get tired of lower level D&D modules, I'm thinking they would have done so by now.

Lisa Stevens and co have done interviews on this and a lot of what they do was shaped by how well issues of Dungeon magazine sold. Basically the later issues of an AP like Age of Worms or Savage Tide sold less than earlier ones and they had trouble with people contributing higher level adventures just like TSR did. Most gamers did not complete an AP either apparently.

It was also implied that a certain setting when put on the cover also sold less that other cover. That setting was implied to be Eberron, its why Golarion is their only setting they have done for Pathfinder.

 

[S'mon]

I've been running a home brew campaign for about two years now. Players are level 16. I find that I have to spend a lot more time on game prep. Much of that extra time is due to having to really try to war game how things will go with all the higher level abilities and spells.
I still find it difficult to calibrate encounters and challenges.

Why do you do that? Don't you like being surprised?

 

[S'mon]

Also: confession, I live in Ireland and getting Kobold, Goodman, or Froggod shipped here is pricey and because I'm an old man I despise .PDFs. For example Tome of Beasts shipped to Ireland is about $100. I don't mind paying a preimium for a hard copy if it's good.

I bought my ToB at Orc's Nest, London. They do mail order. If they don't have it try Leisure Games.

 

[S'mon]

Lisa Stevens and co have done interviews on this and a lot of what they do was shaped by how well issues of Dungeon magazine sold. Basically the later issues of an AP like Age of Worms or Savage Tide sold less than earlier ones and they had trouble with people contributing higher level adventures just like TSR did. Most gamers did not complete an AP either apparently.

Pathfinder/3e is way way clunkier than 5e at high level, though.

Talking of Pathfinder, level 11-15 PF adventures (basically the back half of near every AP) make
great level 14-20 5e adventures.

 

[Zardnaar]

Pathfinder/3e is way way clunkier than 5e at high level, though.

Talking of Pathfinder, level 11-15 PF adventures (basically the back half of near every AP) make
great level 14-20 5e adventures.

And BECMI runs better than 5E at higher level but back in the day there was a big drop off in sales form the BE part of BECMI to the CMI part of it and the C part at least had some supporting adventures.

3E is clunkier than 5E but 5E still doesn't run that well at higher levels. 5E PCs are very tough around level 5 and it goes downhill from there. THe problems are across every edition of D&D. Briefly the main problems.

BECMI more or less same as 1E after level 15. Best D&D level 10-14 perhaps.
1E. Lack of high level opponents in MM, game doesn't function that well above lvl 10 due to power of the PCs relative to expected opponents (epic levels are really 10-14)
2E. Lower powered than 1E, gains 2-4 levels over 1E otherwise same problems
3E, to complex to broken
4E to complex, to slow and grindy
5E. Monster to weak, PCs to uber, CR system is lol.

 

[DaveDash]

I've been running a converted City of the Spider Queen and the group is almost finished at level 17. They will reach level 18 before the end.

It's been fun, but I don't think I'll run another high level game after this. I find it hard to balance encounters and maintain that feel of exploration that you get level 1-10.

It's also a lot of hard work generating all those high level creatures and NPCs, because there's not a lot of official ones. One good thing though is a lot of lower CR creatures are still usable at higher levels.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've been running a converted City of the Spider Queen and the group is almost finished at level 17. They will reach level 18 before the end.

It's been fun, but I don't think I'll run another high level game after this. I find it hard to balance encounters and maintain that feel of exploration that you get level 1-10.

It's also a lot of hard work generating all those high level creatures and NPCs, because there's not a lot of official ones. One good thing though is a lot of lower CR creatures are still usable at higher levels.

Did you convert the Drow undead yourself?

 

[DaveDash]

Did you convert the Drow undead yourself?

Yeah.

I have about hmm 30 pages of conversation material for this module, because there isn't a lot of content in 5e in the CR10-20 range. Revenants for example are in the game but they're CR5, whereas there's a need for a lot of CR6, 8, and higher CR revenants in the module.

It's not the end of the world, but it was a lot of work creating higher level monsters, only for them to die in 1-2 rounds. Especially brutal when you spend an hour or two creating a high CR drow cleric or mage, only for her/him to be hold person and killed in one hit by the Paladin.
High level NPC's in particular cannot be created with Players Handbook rules because they're ineffective. They need to be created with monster rules. A CR17 NPC needs at least 300HP to survive one round of combat.

 

[Hussar]

Lisa Stevens and co have done interviews on this and a lot of what they do was shaped by how well issues of Dungeon magazine sold. Basically the later issues of an AP like Age of Worms or Savage Tide sold less than earlier ones and they had trouble with people contributing higher level adventures just like TSR did. Most gamers did not complete an AP either apparently.

It was also implied that a certain setting when put on the cover also sold less that other cover. That setting was implied to be Eberron, its why Golarion is their only setting they have done for Pathfinder.

I know that I've seen [MENTION=42043]Eric[/MENTION] Mona comment that as soon as they put pretty much any setting name on the cover of a Dungeon magazine, sales dropped considerably. Didn't seem to matter what setting it was.

Makes sense, really. I've seen it mentioned that about 50% of DM's homebrew. Which makes setting specific stuff less appealing than generic.

But, yeah, it's not like any edition of D&D has ever really supported high level play outside of a few odds and sods here and there. Not a huge surprise that 5e is no different. I call it the "One Year Effect". Basically, the odds of a campaign going wahoonie shaped increases pretty much exponentially every session after the first year. Most people can get through a one year campaign. But the odds of real life, school, work, whatever, just reaching up and smacking down a campaign rises dramatically after that first year.

I always stand in awe of people who talk about their 8, 10, 15 year long campaigns. I've never had a GROUP last that long, never minding a campaign.

 

[Maxperson]

The game supports going to all twenty levels. Not every individual adventure is designed for it, but you have all the tools to play to level 20, and a bit beyond with the stuff in the DMG. You just don't have premade plot for it. You have the mechanics, magical items, monsters and even some setting details (high level play tends to include planar travel and godly beings). That's support. There's just not an adventure for it.

And this isn't being apologetic. This is being realistic. There's not enough of a market demand for pre-made adventures for high level PCs, and that's backed by both research and previous sales patterns.

I've been buying D&D products since 1e and I can't remember seeing a high level product that was any good. It might help if they tried putting out a quality high level product before saying that there's not enough demand for it. People talk and compare notes before buying things.