D&D General Level 1-20 and the gulf between aspirations and reality

[Tony Vargas]

"What do you mean that I get Fireball at 3rd level instead of 5th?! That makes no logical sense! /nerdragequit"

Nah, you'd still get fireball at 5th level, it'd just be a 5th level spell.

Tradition often overrides what makes for a more intuitive or elegantly designed modern game.

13A, "love-letter to D&D" that it is, still did respect a lot of tradition, perhaps a bit lampshaded at times.

 

[Lanefan]

Personally I think 20th level is more for daydreaming than actual play.

You forget the other main reason for 20th+ level: to provide worthy "boss" foes for teens-level adventuring parties.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You forget the other main reason for 20th+ level: to provide worthy "boss" foes for teens-level adventuring parties.

Doesn't apply to 5e, where an 'Arch-mage' casting 9th level spells is CR 12.

 

[Aldarc]

Nah, you'd still get fireball at 5th level, it'd just be a 5th level spell.
13A, "love-letter to D&D" that it is, still did respect a lot of tradition, perhaps a bit lampshaded at times.

It seems like that the math of a levels crunch would actually put fireball as a level 3 spell acquired at level 3 and not at level 5, which would be for 5th level spells. But who knows? Maybe fireball is too potent for 3rd level and best relegated for levels 4-5 depending on how one spreads the spells.

And each session is a level. So the default assumption is a 10 session, 10-level campaign. I think Schwalb's estimate of what a manageable campaign looks like is pretty bang-on.

Agreed.

 

[pogre]

So why not design the game around thirty levels? How about forty levels? Why have spells be every odd level? Why not have ten spell levels that are spread across ten levels? That seems easier to understand for newcomers.

I likely betrayed my bias in my earlier post. I lean more towards ten levels. You can get a good campaign in that amount of time. And if you got the SotDL route and just have every completed adventure be a level, then that's 9-10 adventures in that time, especially since level 10 is meant to represent BBEGs like the Demon Lord. Then you can roll up new characters and go through the process again.

But I also understand that the preference for you and your group is twenty levels and by no means do I want you to believe that I am discounting it. People obviously have different preferences here and I don't think that this is the sort of preference that has a right answer.

I largely agree with you. I think the game should be open ended - no level limits at all.

With SotDL that's a great approach and I like that game. I play a lot of other RPGs with short ten to fifteen session arcs. However, I also enjoy longer campaigns and have come to embrace the zero to superhero motif of D&D.

 

[ad_hoc]

It does depend on the campaign in question.

Perhaps, in some poster's campaigns, 20th level is less "you can save the world every day", and more "it's time to save the world. That seems to be how the 5E DMG defines it. At tier three, the DMG says that players should expect to save regions, not the world entire.

However, in most campaigns, it is possible, and, often, narrative-appropriate, to save the world around 15th level.

Though in the PHB it says that Tier 4 (level 17+) is for saving entire worlds or the multiverse itself.

I've seen, here and there, people posting about their level 20 characters doing mundane things. Seems silly to me.

I recently wrote up some downtime rules. One person responded "Arena Fighting doesn't look like much of a challenge to a level 20 Barbarian".

I think a good number of people who want to or do play at these very high levels still want to play narratively as though they are lower level. They want their level 20 character to compete in city brawls. Their character is a demi-god, and a whole party of them can challenge gods over the fate of the multiverse. But they're concerned about challenging Joe Fighter at the local competition.

 

[Larnievc]

My group is close to cracking 13th in the end run of OOTA.

None of them have played characters 1-high level and they seem to be enjoying the novelty.

It’s taken us 18 months to get there so they have been drip fed their abilities.

 

[Retreater]

In my 30ish years of gaming, I have not DMed or played in a game that started at 1st level and went much beyond 10th level. I've completed many published campaigns in a variety of systems, but nothing that went to truly high levels.

 

[werecorpse]

My group is close to cracking 13th in the end run of OOTA.

None of them have played characters 1-high level and they seem to be enjoying the novelty.

It’s taken us 18 months to get there so they have been drip fed their abilities.

If you and they want to continue the game a bit it’s very doable while sticking in the same vein. I am running OOTA at the moment and the party are approaching 12th level but it went off the rails when the original party got wiped out around the time they arrived at Gracklstugh at about 4th level, then the replacement party got wiped out down to 1 PC. So now the party group consists of some duergar, a goblin etc. I adapted some of the adventurers league stuff and combined it with DMs guild Gracklstugh revised. The adventures around Szith Morcane Unbound & Assault on Maerimydra revolve around the theme that Grazzt has guessed what is coming and is setting up to avoid it.

 

[werecorpse]

In my 30ish years of gaming, I have not DMed or played in a game that started at 1st level and went much beyond 10th level. I've completed many published campaigns in a variety of systems, but nothing that went to truly high levels.

I think given the dearth of pre published campaigns that go to high level unless you play pathfinder adventure paths to completion most high level stuff is homebrew. Some of the pathfinder adventure paths do the campaign to high level pretty well. I’ve run a half dozen campaigns that started at 1st and ended between 15th-21st level. It’s also easier to get there if you have a small group as a group of 3-4 high level PCs is easier to manage and requires a less devastating threat than a group of 6-8.

But imo one of the slightly unsatisfying elements of the published 1-20ish campaigns is that the characters are really only involved in one story. That can be fine sometimes because then you just make up a new character for the next story. Ie Desra the elvish warlock battled the Princes of Apocalypse now he retires after his year of adventuring and Bomba the Dwarven rogue will go to Chult to save the world from the death curse.
Back in the day the same character ventured into the caves of chaos, then into the unknown, defeated the Slave Lords, solved the mystery of the ghost tower of Inverness, released Strahd from his curse, slew the hill giant chieftain, entered the desert of desolation etc. it felt like your character had numerous different stories to tell when they finally retired at 18th level.

But I’m getting way off topic here. As I’ve said above imo the game actually isn’t that well designed for the levels 11+ nor is it well supported for these levels. To make this work homebrew is most of the answer.