D&D 5E No One Plays High Level?

[Reynard]

For those with experience in the following games, how would you rate or summarize high level play in each?

D&D 3.0
D&D 3.5
Pathfinder 1E
D&D 4E
D&D 5E
Pathfinder 2E
LevelUp A5E

 

[Vael]

Yet to play or DM past 10th level here. Campaigns just tend to peter out, or if we're running a pre-published, the bulk of them barely go past this level (have played through Curse of Strahd, Descent into Avernus and Dragon Heist).

 

[grimmgoose]

As a forever-DM, I find high-level play to be mostly miserable. I still do it, because I love my friends and they all enjoy high-level campaigns, but man are they a drag.

It's just really hard for me to get invested in the stakes of a high-level campaign. I just prefer lower-level, "grittier" style of play. And that's not even counting the mechanical challenges of late-stage 5E, either.

 

[nevin]

I also have to note that most DM's, myself included that I've seen that enjoy High level play, don't play to win. If the game continueing and being fun is your win then you might enjoy high level play. If you are looking for some DM "wins" against the players then you'll probably hate high level play. Because honestly high level play is so unpredictable that the players may stumble on things you think are easy and one shot your perfectly bad guy that took you 15 hours to design. (lesson: don't spend 15hours designing one perfect bad guy. :-( )

 

[Maxperson]

I haven't gone to the highest levels in 5e, but I've played and run multiple games that have progressed to the top of Tier 3 (level 16).

Personally, I find tier 3 play to be a lot of fun. There are really only a few problematic spells (like simulacrum), but I haven't played with anyone who actually tried to abuse them.

Heh. Going to what @nevin said about using the good stuff for NPCs, too, I just finished a campaign at 18th level. The BBEG was a high level wizard who in the final fight, knowing the PCs tactics and abilities, laid out an initial fight to stop them. There was a high level equivalent red wizard of thay in the group, but also a simulacrum of the BBEG. He gave it good magic items, including a con 19 item to mitigate the loss in hit points. After they with a lot of effort beat that fight, they encountered the simulacrum's simulacrum which had a few others with it and no magic items. It was just there to do some more damage and use up some more limited resources. Only then did they reach the still full up BBEG and his group. They barely survived the fight, but they did win and the struggle made it all the more sweet at the end. They knew that they had earned it.

 

[Dausuul]

The DM's Lair posted this video recently ...

In it, he discusses reasons why few people play High-Level 5e D&D.

I've been DMing for 30 years (starting in 2nd edition AD&D), and I can say that the highest level reached in any of my campaigns was around 12. My wife, who discovered the game during the 5e era, asked me recently why our games don't get to higher levels. She is beginning to feel discouraged that she'll never have a character who will be able to use "really cool abilities."

While watching the DM's Lair video, I had an epiphany: I don't think high-levels are now (or have ever been) intended to be played. It's like buying a Powerball ticket when the prize has reached $500M. It's aspirational. It's the story of the American dream - "if you just work hard enough, you too can become Jeff Bezos."

Realistically, it's never going to happen, but it's an extra power fantasy grafted on to your existing power fantasy of playing D&D.

Sure, there are going to be a handful of people who have played 18-20th level who are going to post here to prove me wrong, but I think those of us who frequent these boards have an exceptional level of interaction with the hobby.

What do you think? Do you think high-level play is actually important to the game? Do you think it's just in the book for nostalgia or window-dressing for power gamers?

High-level play is rare, partly because it is much more difficult to DM, and partly because most campaigns wrap up or fizzle out long before they get that far.

In 30+ years, the highest I have ever gotten in a normal campaign is mid-teens. I have played a few ultra-high-level games, but they were more in the line of "let's see what it's like to play level 18+ characters," where we created characters already at those levels. It's entertaining to try that, but it's also a strain on everyone involved, because the players are not used to managing such complex characters and the DM is not prepared for what those characters can do.

 

[Oofta]

I haven't gone to the highest levels in 5e, but I've played and run multiple games that have progressed to the top of Tier 3 (level 16).

Personally, I find tier 3 play to be a lot of fun. There are really only a few problematic spells (like simulacrum), but I haven't played with anyone who actually tried to abuse them.

I think part of the reason I've never had an issue with high level play is partly 2-fold. First, I'm not above banning or limiting some high level spells. Second, my players are there to make the game fun for everyone, so if we find something is making the game unenjoyable for others we discuss it. Simulacrum likely hasn't come up because it wouldn't be fun, or maybe the groups I've been in just haven't been powergamers.

I keep hearing about these game breaking spells, and sometimes casters do awesome things. But it's never come close to game breaking, even if it did nerf a specific encounter. Nerfing specific encounters now and then is just part of the game at all levels of play.

Or maybe it's just that I don't need earth shattering campaign arcs. Things that are bad for the region? Opening a portal into Jotunheim in the city the PCs grew up in? Sure. But it will never be world ending because the PCs can always fail and I don't want to create a new campaign world.

 

[Nebulous]

Well, I only run games, don't play, but I find by 10th level the PCs are absolutely as powerful as I want to see them, spells are unpredictable, class powers are strong, and figuring out balanced encounters is difficult. It starts being way more work for me than I enjoy, so if I'm not enjoying the game, they won't either. I have run up to 12th level and that's really as high as I like to go, aside from a handful of one-shots high level. Honestly, I really love 1st-2nd level, I never skip those, I utilize the low levels and we greatly enjoy it. Furthermore, in my last campaign we found that the PCs had tons of magic items they'd accumulated they just forgot about once we started doing inventory one day, but by the last few sessions of the campaign it was too late to effectively use most of them. It seemed like anything that wasn't baked into the statblock and used regularly got jumbled to the bottom of the loot list and ignored.

 

[Reynard]

I think part of the reason I've never had an issue with high level play is partly 2-fold. First, I'm not above banning or limiting some high level spells. Second, my players are there to make the game fun for everyone, so if we find something is making the game unenjoyable for others we discuss it. Simulacrum likely hasn't come up because it wouldn't be fun, or maybe the groups I've been in just haven't been powergamers.

I keep hearing about these game breaking spells, and sometimes casters do awesome things. But it's never come close to game breaking, even if it did nerf a specific encounter. Nerfing specific encounters now and then is just part of the game at all levels of play.

Or maybe it's just that I don't need earth shattering campaign arcs. Things that are bad for the region? Opening a portal into Jotunheim in the city the PCs grew up in? Sure. But it will never be world ending because the PCs can always fail and I don't want to create a new campaign world.

Even ultra high level campaigns can have personal stakes instead of world ending ones.

 

[el-remmen]

The highest level campaign I have ever run reached 12th level and that felt perfect because the focus of the game was resolved and the ending involved the PCs going on to do their own things based on events in the game itself.

In the 5E variant I am occasionally working on 17th level is the highest, but class ability distribution is different.