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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Laurefindel" data-source="post: 8986661" data-attributes="member: 67296">TL;DR: If large amount of hp is the problem, you're better off limiting hp than condensing features.I tried once condensing all 20 levels-worth of features into 10, with mitigated success. I had a thread here about that that I could find if you want.Quite a few people enjoy high-level play the way it is, as posters above can assert, but I too have observed that campaigns (including my own) typically end around level 11-13, sometimes going up to 15-16 at best (often with the last three or four levels rushed up because the campaign is about to finish).I think the problem exists on many levels but the one you seem to be addressing is the fact that high-level characters have a naughty word-load of hp. That's fine insofar as high-level threats deal naughty word-load of damage but with 5e generous hp recovery, it can feel like the campaign needs a daily end-of-the-world threat or world-shattering event to challenge the PCs. Part of that is attributable to the DM's style of play but in their defense, whatever way they were running the game was working perfectly fine until the PCs hit the double-digits levels.Modern campaigns play very fast (compared to my old AD&D campaigns). The DM barely has any time to adjust their style to the power-level of PCs, and PCs barely have the time to start being efficient with the resources they have before they gain new ones. In theory, stretching all 20 levels over a higher number of games and longer amount of time would solve this but for a multitude of reasons, we rarely play regularly with the same characters for 5 or 6 years in a row anymore. Heck, it's hard enough to keep a stable group for more than two years...Mathematically condensing all 20 levels into 10 brings another issue; the default D&D progression works fine until level 9-10 but if the levels are condensed, PCs gain twice the features in the same amount of time, which upsets the DM's expected way of running the game at low and mid levels. I believe the key is to treat each tiers of play differently, but I haven't yet found a satisfying way of doing so. In my last campaign, I openly slowed level progression but gave two levels on each "level-up". After 5th level, they would only gain one hit die worth of HP (they could choose the best when double-classing). It had the unforeseen effect of making Constitution disproportionately important. If I had to redo it, I'd make 1-5 RaW, levels 6-11 gaining two hit dice but adjusting constitution only once, and gaining only one hit die (plus Con) per two levels from 12th level on.This is obviously broken if you try to play high levels as if the PCs had full hp. The point is that such high-level PCs don't need an invasion of demons or a flight of dragons every second day to feel challenged.</blockquote>

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