D&D 5E (2024) Mearls has some Interesting Ideals about how to fix high level wizards.

[tetrasodium]

In an effort to get the thread back on something approaching the level11+ Moldvey wizard Mearls put out here's what he wrote in one of the posts prior to it. I'm quoting it because it talks about why in 5e that level range collapses onto the GM's boulders at those levels and some of the goals he's setting for himself with this take on level 11+ wizard

Spoiler

High Level of Play, Low Level of Fun
January 8
We never really playtested high level play in 5e. We didn't have the time. Even if we did test it, I'm not sure much would have changed. As our deadline bore down on us, we had to prioritize which parts of the game received the most focus. High levels seemed to be something that groups either figured out and used, or an area of the game that a group ignored. We typically found that if a solution looked like 3e, players approved of it. So, high level 5e looks like high level 3e. Which means that it, like high level 3e, is hard to DM and play.

It's common for most groups to play D&D in its sweet spot, somewhere around levels 3 to 8 or so. Give that it takes dozens of regular sessions to reach level 10, then dozens more to go all the way to 20, I don't think most game groups ever reach those levels even if they want to. Stringing together 30 to 40 sessions before you can start playing at level 11 is pretty rare.

If you do reach high level, your reward is not particularly clear to me. You get more powerful class features and bigger numbers, but the game play itself remains the same. The core cycle of how you do stuff remains static.

Finally, monsters at high level start to break down. The alpha strike problem allows PCs to burn through monsters at a prodigious rate. You have to dip into the topmost reaches of CR to build encounters for characters. If you try playing through levels 11 to 20, you likely run low of monsters around level 16. You still have four levels to go!

The challenge here is that the current system takes the level 1 to 10 progression and keeps scaling it up until level 20. Fundamentally, I don't think that works. I think the games need a new direction.

So, here is what I am building.

A New Cap System​

I want the game to shift quite a bit at level 11. For the first 10 levels of the game, the game's core loop works well. Beyond that point, I think the loop itself breaks down. Here are all the topics I think a design needs to tackle.

Before diving in, if high level play works for you then this project isn't for you. However if you find high level play difficult to manage but the idea of playing at 18th level sounds fun, then this one is for you.

So, here is what I see three core issues with high level play:

• Speed of Play. At high levels, character sheets become character books. The option progression that worked in the sweet spot, say up until level 8, leads to increasingly cluttered character sheets as it layers more and more stuff on to a character. At high level, characters need to focus on the key, powerful abilities that let them take on might enemies and adventure in exotic locations. The clutter needs to go.
• Appropriate Challenges. By my count, there are about 80 monsters at CR 11 and higher in the Monster Manual. That's not a lot for the entire second half of a campaign! Compounding things, the CR system assumes that characters spread their resources out over 20 or more rounds of combat per day. It fails to account for the party's ability to unload their most powerful options and win the action economy. It is very difficult to challenge a high level party with the CR system, and the lack of options puts enormous weight on DMs.
• Worldbuilding. The lack of a clear framework makes it hard to envision how a high level campaign works. From levels 1 to 10, most DMs can envision how dragons, chimeras, orcs, and giants fit into the campaign world. At low levels, you handle creatures that feel like a part of the world. You can see how they fit in. At high levels, the world building shows its cracks. Is a high level dungeon just a hole in the ground with tougher monsters and bigger treasure? Are high level fighters just warriors who swing their swords more often? I think that undermines the feeling of high level play as an epic tier of power. I want high level play to embrace the heroic.

So, where do we start? Here are my first ideas for each point. You'll see details on them as my work begins.

For characters, I am working on an alternate advancement scheme for characters at levels 11 and higher. When you go from level 10 to 11, you hop from your class's advancement table to a new, 10-level advancement table. Casters look a bit like warlocks, with fewer slots and spells but all of those options resting near the top of their power curve. Spells like fireball that sit at the bottom of the power curve (the lowest level version, to be clear - its 27.5 points of damage doesn't do much to epic monsters) displace cantrips.

Martial characters need truly epic abilities to stand out. Roughly speaking, I want to amp up their heroic abilities by liberating them from the grid and breaking the action economy to let them grab the spotlight. For instance, I want fighters to have attacks that assume they can move through a 30-foot radius area and attack everything in there without slowing the game down with 20 die rolls.

For monsters, the level, role, and rank system I've created is scaling up well. The monsters stats might look wild at first glance, but in play they provide a sufficient threat to characters. So far testing is going well. If the system holds up, it'll be much easier to design effective high level enemies.

Finally, for world building I want to create adventure frameworks that give high level gaming a place in the typical fantasy world. Dungeons make sense for levels 1 to 10. What's the equivalent for high level play? I have ideas!

So, that's a new project I'm tackling in 2026. Moldvay and Odyssey continue, with Moldvay rounding into shape. The player's guide is a complete draft, and the DM's guide is coming together. I'll be sharing the toolkits for dungeons and the wilds, along with the bestiary and the magic items, in the coming weeks. The high level project runs in parallel with it.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/high-level-of-of-147689120?utm_campaign=patron_engagement&utm_source=post_link&post_id=147689120&utm_id=61eaac8e-d071-4722-b8a6-18e27da2921e&utm_medium=email

Funny enough some of that is related to the points about simplification for the point of simplification being made by @EzekielRaiden . A subsystem that "looked like 3e" often wound up triggering that collapse onto the GM's shoulders in ways that 3.x did not simply because relevant player side and player impacting supporting elements did not carry over in a form that gave the GM any meaningful system backed support in the resulting simplifications

 

[DEFCON 1]

In an effort to get the thread back on something approaching the level11+ Moldvey wizard Mearls put out here's what he wrote in one of the posts prior to it. I'm quoting it because it talks about why in 5e that level range collapses onto the GM's boulders at those levels and some of the goals he's setting for himself with this take on level 11+ wizard

Funny enough some of that is related to the points about simplification for the point of simplification being made by @EzekielRaiden . A subsystem that "looked like 3e" often wound up triggering that collapse onto the GM's shoulders in ways that 3.x did not simply because relevant player side and player impacting supporting elements did not carry over in a form that gave the GM any meaningful system backed support in the resulting simplifications

Everything Mike said in that post of his that you quoted makes perfect sense. And it easily explains why and how a project he is designing would be made.

The only issue will of course end up being that he's going to print a game that I still personally believe has barely any market. I just don't think most people care about playing "high-level" games because that don't gain you anything substantially over what you get at lower ones. And the people who DO play those games seem perfectly capable and happy to run them using the tools they already have at their disposal and don't need ways to make it easier.

But if Mike wants to try... more power to him! Hope it works out for him!

 

[mamba]

Waiting for a second print run after selling out the first unexpectedly fast tends to limit sales of sold out books.

obviously this assumes they had enough books to not run out… the book still would not sell as many copies every week for the next 50 weeks as it did for the first two

The critical point is that both Dagger Heart and Draw Steel are developing their own ecosystems of 3rd party supplied content.

as does Shadowdark, as does Pathfinder, and probably some others.

Good for them, but I’d still like to see absolute sales numbers, those will pale in comparison to 5e.

Selling more than expected is good, but it tells us very little, maybe they are just bad at estimating, given that they had nothing to go on

 

[tetrasodium]

Everything Mike said in that post f his that you quoted makes perfect sense. And it easily explains why and how a project he is designing would be made.

Agreed entirely so far. Just wanted to get that part cleared up & out of the way.

The only issue will of course end up being that he's going to print a game that I still personally believe has barely any market. I just don't think most people care about playing "high-level" games because that don't gain you anything substantially over what you get at lower ones. And the people who DO play those games seem perfectly capable and happy to run them using the tools they already have at their disposal and don't need ways to make it easier.

But if Mike wants to try... more power to him! Hope it works out for him!

In this part I have some disagreement and think it's because we have very different play styles. Based on some of what I remember from your past posts I recall you playing in games that advance extremely quickly through the levels and those groups needed to make house rules for situations rarely seem elsewhere without Monty haul/AL style players basically pick their lewt treasure like not being able to benefit from 3+rings.

Either way though my games tend to be much slower than average leveling with a lot more sandbox enabled adventuring. Sandbox gameplay campaigns are not some extreme outlier and in the scope of healthy long running campaigns with lots of books around the table they are probably a pretty significant fraction of the whole.

All of that is an important distinction because the missing bits of player side complexity and player impacting complexity that got streamlined away to the shoulders of high level campaign's gms are also often elements that are important for driving player desire to improve their PCs through adventuring well before even nearing high levels. Without those supporting elements and simplicity for the sake of simplicity driving everything it creates a scenario where any complaint about those missing gm support elements getting dismissed with endless "run better encounters" or descriptions of all seeing all knowing freaking hive minds as merely having enemies "acting intelligently" because those sandbox problems don't show up with as much weight in a campaign leaning away from sandbox towards towards fairly linear adventure path style play

 

[kigmatzomat]

In an effort to get the thread back on something approaching the level11+ Moldvey wizard Mearls put out here's what he wrote in one of the posts prior to it. I'm quoting it because it talks about why in 5e that level range collapses onto the GM's boulders at those levels and some of the goals he's setting for himself with this take on level 11+ wizard

Spoiler

https://www.patreon.com/posts/high-level-of-of-147689120?utm_campaign=patron_engagement&utm_source=post_link&post_id=147689120&utm_id=61eaac8e-d071-4722-b8a6-18e27da2921e&utm_medium=email

I think Mearls is off the mark with his comment that "...high level 5e looks like high level 3e. Which means that it, like high level 3e, is hard to DM and play."

What it looks like and what is are different things. Yes, the spells/powers as written are pretty similar but there is a 400%-500% difference in resource constraints which absolutely changes play.

Let's look at the "simple blaster" of 3e, the sorcerer, vs the flexible 5e wizard.

5e wizard 20 gets one 9th spell slot and could know up to 6x 9th spells (without books/scrolls) and could prepare them all IF they want 25% of all their spell flexibility tied up in 9s as they can prepare 25 spells (level+int bonus)

A 3e sorcerer has SIX (6) 9th slots and knows "only" 3x spells. But they ALSO know 31 other spells and have 6 slots for all of those as well. Yes, the spell preparation distribution is fixed by level but it's a huge number.

The 3e wizard has fewer 9th level slots (merely 400% that of the 5e caster) but can have up to 4 different spells prepared, in the Vancian way. The 3e wizard never really prepared "just one" for every spell so it wasn't really more flexible in the middle of a game-day, but they had more flexibility for specific known scenarios.

There is zero way that 5e and 3e actually play the same with such a huge disparity in resources. And this is born out IME by how rarely spells >6th are cast in 5e without angst. Yeah, the 3e wizard would waffle over casting their one Meteor Swarm leaving them only with Summon Monster IX, Gate and Wish (which they will only cast grudgingly).

5e casters sweat blood using that one 9th level slot. Or they do the thing people complain about and use a singular go-to tactic which some GMs find boring.

Can you imagine how much wailing and gnashing of teeth would have happened if 5e24 had given casters even a fraction of 3e spell power? It would have been pitchforks and torches!

Remember, I had a blast running 2e and 3e at epic levels. I would do it again. But I think the class power balance is much better in 5e (and I'd still probably add Bo9S classes to 5e). And that is because 5e casters have so much less power, which impacts game play (in a positive way).

 

[Zardnaar]

I think Mearls is off the mark with his comment that "level 5e looks like high level 3e. Which means that it, like high level 3e, is hard to DM and play."

What it looks like and what is are different things. Yes, the spells/powers as written are pretty similar but there is a 400%-500% difference in resource constraints which absolutely changes play.

Let's look at the "simple blaster" of 3e, the sorcerer, vs the flexible 5e wizard.

5e wizard 20 gets one 9th spell slot and could know up to 6x 9th spells (without books/scrolls) and could prepare them all IF they want 25% of all their spell flexibility tied up in 9s as they can prepare 25 spells (level+int bonus)

A 3e sorcerer has SIX (6) 9th slots and knows "only" 3x spells. But they ALSO know 31 other spells and have 6 slots for all of those as well. Yes, the spell preparation distribution is fixed by level but it's a huge number.

The 3e wizard has fewer 9th level slots (merely 400% that of the 5e caster) but can have up to 4 different spells prepared, in the Vancian way. The 3e wizard never really prepared "just one" for every spell so it wasn't really more flexible in the middle of a game-day, but they had more flexibility for specific known scenarios.

But there is zero way that 5e and 3e actually play the same with such a huge disparity in resources. And this is born out IME by how rarely spells >6th are cast in 5e without angst. Yeah, the 3e wizard would waffle over casting their one Meteor Swarm leaving them only with Summon Monster IX, Gate and Wish (which they will only cast grudgingly).

Can you imagine how much wailing and gnashing of teeth would have happened if 5e24 had given casters even a fraction of 3e spell power? It would have been pitchforks and torches!

Remember, I had a blast running 2e and 3e at epic levels. I would do it again. But I think the class power balance is much better in 5e (and I'd still probably add Bo9S classes to 5e). And that is because 5e casters have so much less power, which impacts game play (in a positive way).

High level 5E casters cant outright kill stuff as easily as 3E. Ir the oops I win factor even if 3E players aren't power gamers/newbies.

Saves are kinda worse in 5E though. Even without spell DC buffing 3E cheese you might actually flunked saves more often in 5E than 3E. -1 to +1 vs DC17-27 saves is kinda worse than 3E. Consequences of blowing said save probably isn't as bad.

Feats like lucky and musician get saved for those stink saves vs Dexterity saves.

 

[Belen]

I ignore internet drivel unless its hitting critical mass.
. No one's really hating on 5.5 that much relative to other cycles. Its more indifference.

I really dislike 5.5. I just do not scream at the windmills about it because DDB allows me to continue with 5.0. Funny enough, recent DDB upgrades have been making 5.0 easier to use on the site after the disaster of the 5.5 DDB launch.

It made need less changes for very few real upgrades. Instead of focusing on an actual revision, we got a few new systems and then a ton of BS changes like the monster types.

I am probably not buying any more 5.5 content. It is not worthwhile. I have been playing 5.5 and the only thing I like was the change to the healing spells.

 

[Zardnaar]

I really dislike 5.5. I just do not scream at the windmills about it because DDB allows me to continue with 5.0. Funny enough, recent DDB upgrades have been making 5.0 easier to use on the site after the disaster of the 5.5 DDB launch.

It made need less changes for very few real upgrades. Instead of focusing on an actual revision, we got a few new systems and then a ton of BS changes like the monster types.

I am probably not buying any more 5.5 content. It is not worthwhile. I have been playing 5.5 and the only thing I like was the change to the healing spells.

Sure theres not really a critical mass of people screaming about 5.5. Not everyone loves it fair enough.

It hasn't provoked mass outrage is the main point. No one really knows how its doing atm.

No one's super passionate about defending it or putting the boot in. I like it but would have liked it more 2014 as its more of the same.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Agreed entirely so far. Just wanted to get that part cleared up & out of the way.

In this part I have some disagreement and think it's because we have very different play styles. Based on some of what I remember from your past posts I recall you playing in games that advance extremely quickly through the levels and those groups needed to make house rules for situations rarely seem elsewhere without Monty haul/AL style players basically pick their lewt treasure like not being able to benefit from 3+rings.

Either way though my games tend to be much slower than average leveling with a lot more sandbox enabled adventuring. Sandbox gameplay campaigns are not some extreme outlier and in the scope of healthy long running campaigns with lots of books around the table they are probably a pretty significant fraction of the whole.

All of that is an important distinction because the missing bits of player side complexity and player impacting complexity that got streamlined away to the shoulders of high level campaign's gms are also often elements that are important for driving player desire to improve their PCs through adventuring well before even nearing high levels. Without those supporting elements and simplicity for the sake of simplicity driving everything it creates a scenario where any complaint about those missing gm support elements getting dismissed with endless "run better encounters" or descriptions of all seeing all knowing freaking hive minds as merely having enemies "acting intelligently" because those sandbox problems don't show up with as much weight in a campaign leaning away from sandbox towards towards fairly linear adventure path style play

I'm pretty sure we do indeed have different playstyles (I'm very much a "don't worry about mechanics, let's tell the story and just futz with any mechanics that get in the way with that as we go"... moreso than advancing quickly being my "thing")... but my opinions on the potential audience for Mike's high-level work I don't see it being as a result of my playstyle really. It's more just observing how the game of D&D has progressed over the last several decades. Despite the game being made that allows for high-level play (Level 20 for 3E and 5E, Level 30 for 4E)... most tables don't seem to embrace it and have never seemed to embrace it. And that is evident based on all the efforts (or lack thereof) people and companies have made to make high-level play a thing.

People use the phrase 'chicken and the egg scenario' to describe the situation (people don't play high-level games because companies do not make product for it, and companies don't make product for it because no one plays it)... but that phrase is really just describing the reality. And we can tell just based upon how few high-level products get made. Because if any company actually saw any of those high-level products of theirs actually sell... they'd make more, because they'd have an audience for it. But if they don't, then they aren't going to. And if more players want high-level material... then they should be buying as much of it that they can that is available... this isn't a situation where they can afford to be picky and choosey. If more people really want WotC to make more high-level adventures, they should have bought Vecna: Eve of Ruin regardless of how they might have felt about it-- just to prove to WotC there indeed is a market for books like that. But based on the fact that that book hasn't blown the doors off of sales records tells us both that not enough players actually care/want high-level material... and that those that do want it have very specific needs which this book did not serve.

And I don't think what I'm suggesting is all that odd or shocking. High-level games come about usually after quite a long amount of campaign playtime, and thus have very specific narrative directions they find themselves in. And thus high-level product have an exceedingly tight window to make their product being the one that would prove useful. And if it's not useful... then no one will buy it. Thus the circle continues.

To be honest... I do not think it is game complexity that makes people not want to run and play high-level games... it is narrative complexity. The story situations that DMs and players find themselves in after X amount of time (weeks, months, years) having played through levels 1 through 12 make the opportunity to continue their stories harder to continue because of whatever whackado areas and situations the characters now find themselves in. And those situations are so whackado and specific to what this party has done that you NEED a DM who is willing to create the further scenarios and stories that work for where that party now finds themselves in. Because the odds of some other company having created a high-level product that actually fits in to the situation the party finds themselves is so long that those companies realize it's probably a waste of their time and money to try.

Which is why they don't. And why everyone across the board just accepts that most games are just going to end before reaching double-digits, and they all seem rather fine with it.

and for other publishers harder to produce product that would actually apply to those very specific narrative situations.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think Mearls is off the mark with his comment that "...high level 5e looks like high level 3e. Which means that it, like high level 3e, is hard to DM and play."

What it looks like and what is are different things. Yes, the spells/powers as written are pretty similar but there is a 400%-500% difference in resource constraints which absolutely changes play.

Let's look at the "simple blaster" of 3e, the sorcerer, vs the flexible 5e wizard.

5e wizard 20 gets one 9th spell slot and could know up to 6x 9th spells (without books/scrolls) and could prepare them all IF they want 25% of all their spell flexibility tied up in 9s as they can prepare 25 spells (level+int bonus)

A 3e sorcerer has SIX (6) 9th slots and knows "only" 3x spells. But they ALSO know 31 other spells and have 6 slots for all of those as well. Yes, the spell preparation distribution is fixed by level but it's a huge number.

The 3e wizard has fewer 9th level slots (merely 400% that of the 5e caster) but can have up to 4 different spells prepared, in the Vancian way. The 3e wizard never really prepared "just one" for every spell so it wasn't really more flexible in the middle of a game-day, but they had more flexibility for specific known scenarios.

There is zero way that 5e and 3e actually play the same with such a huge disparity in resources. And this is born out IME by how rarely spells >6th are cast in 5e without angst. Yeah, the 3e wizard would waffle over casting their one Meteor Swarm leaving them only with Summon Monster IX, Gate and Wish (which they will only cast grudgingly).

5e casters sweat blood using that one 9th level slot. Or they do the thing people complain about and use a singular go-to tactic which some GMs find boring.

Can you imagine how much wailing and gnashing of teeth would have happened if 5e24 had given casters even a fraction of 3e spell power? It would have been pitchforks and torches!

Remember, I had a blast running 2e and 3e at epic levels. I would do it again. But I think the class power balance is much better in 5e (and I'd still probably add Bo9S classes to 5e). And that is because 5e casters have so much less power, which impacts game play (in a positive way).

You are drastically underselling what the 5e caster has and dramatically overstating what the 3x one has. I can't even comment on that without highlighting how you've obviously stacked the comparison to look even worse t using 3.x sorcerer spell slot count and 5e wizard spell list for the comparison & that needs to be addressed first.

Back in 3.x the sorcerer got more spell slots than the wizard (quite a few!) but had a much more limited spel list without the free bonus spells from a subclass.... Sooooo.... Let's ignore all that and make it an easy wizard to wizard comparison because the 3.x sorc didn't have as many S+ tier spells.

The 3.5 wizard has a lot fewer spell slots than you note and which spells slots it had at any time were important. Is had:
4 level 0 slots but those were almost useless beyond disabling regen with a nonscaling acid splash/fire bolt 1d4 of damage if the party didn't have a relevant elemental or aligned weapon.l, but that's an absurd scenario for a level 20 party that took th long road there so we can ignore them from the count.
From there it had 4 specific 1st level spells prepared across four first level slots. "Specific" means that two castings of a spell like shield is only possible if two of those four are dedicated to shield? Outside of some edge case PrC it was not usually possible for a wizard to sub in some other spell.

Next they had 4 specific second level spells across four second level slots with all of the same limits imposed by vancian prep as the first level slots

From there the trend continues all the way across the board to 9th level wher they had been gaining +1 9th level elot per level since 17.

The total number of spells available on their spell book is relevant yes, but it's relevant tomorrow after "a good night's sleep and spending 1hour studying their spell book".
The 3.5 sorcerer had flexible casting as a spells known class but far less available spells and a whole lot fewer A+ / S tier spells

By comparison the 5e wizard has wizard level plus int mod spells prepared of any level and can upcast an S+ tier spell (or any other spell) into any unused higher level slot without the vancian prep restrictions. Add to that the fact that a lot of 3.5 S tier spells buffed a party member or applied debuff/control to monsters when in ways that made the other party members shine bright as heck

The 5e wizard and sorcerer were so different I question if you never played 3m5e to make that comparison by mistake or if it was deliberate obfuscation.