D&D 5E No One Plays High Level?

[Mort]

I am currently playing in a 5E campaign that just hit 13th level. We transitioned from the same game in 3.5 so I have a solid comparison.

I would never play 3.5 at the level we're at again. It is simply too complicated and unbalanced. It was horrible. The DM was excellent and had decades of experience and we almost had a mutiny.

I would happily play in a 3.5 high level game, but, having DM'd through 20th level, will not every volunteer to do so again. The amount of work required was absolutely exhausting.

 

[Dausuul]

I see this WAY too much, DMs who think starting at high level is something JUST NOT DONE. I get annoyed by that, as I find high level play the most fun.

As for the stuff earlier in your post. I do think high level 5e play presents challenges - but if there is a good push to overcome them - then the play, for me, is just that much more rewarding (at the higher levels).

I believe that starting at levels above 1 should be normal and encouraged -- I can't remember the last time I kicked off a game at 1st. As a DM, I hate dealing with PCs who are practically made of glass, and I'm not much happier playing one.

That said, when you get to really high levels, I think there is much to be said for leveling up through play, simply because it gives both DM and players time to get used to the complexity and power of top-tier PCs. 5E is much, much better than 3E in this respect, but it's still a big adjustment.

 

[darjr]

I love high level play. I can mostly relax, put my foot to the floor and give it all the gas.

The PCs are so capable.

Had players at the City of Brass fighting some huge demon who swallowed them and they smashed a staff to get out.

Had players in the far realm fighting a god and ignoring the tiny brain eaters. Till one took over the fighter who had Black Razor, he asked me if he could still run his fighter, I said yes, he looked at his friends and said “payback time!”

I had players blinking in and out of different hostile planes, one second being immolated, the next being frozen solid, the next turned into piles of chrickets.

I had a group accidentally teleport high above the plane of fire in the plane of air, none of them could fly at that moment. Flying fire giants lifted off the sea of lava to meet them as they fell. The dwarf sounded his horn of Valhalla and him and a cadre of Viking warriors fell to their doom taking out many many giants as they fell.

I had players face a giant mountain of meat, starting the fight several miles away. By they time they got close enough they were down a simulacrum and a couple meateor showers.

 

[nevin]

Then reach high level and kill that fool until a more affable god of death arrises.

Absolutely and then figure out how to fix the world when souls stop going where they are supposed too because no one is in charge of death.

 

[darjr]

The thing is high level play should not be like lower level play. They need those abilities.

 

[nevin]

I believe that starting at levels above 1 should be considered normal and acceptable -- I can't remember the last time I kicked off a game at 1st. As a DM, I hate dealing with PCs who are practically made of glass, and I'm not much happier playing such a PC.

That said, when you get to really high levels, I think there is much to be said for leveling up through play, simply because it gives both DM and players time to get used to the complexity and power of top-tier PCs. 5E is much, much better than 3E in this respect, but it's still a big adjustment.

i don't think there is any significant difference in starting at level 1 or level 3 from a learning your character point of view. I chuckle at the idea of a 5e character being considered like glass since I started out playing mages in 1st ed though. You really have to play a game where for 3 levels your character hides if at all possible as thier first action to truly understand glass.

 

[Dausuul]

i don't think there is any significant difference in starting at level 1 or level 3 from a learning your character point of view. I chuckle at the idea of a 5e character being considered like glass since I started out playing mages in 1st ed though. You really have to play a game where for 3 levels your character hides if at all possible as thier first action to truly understand glass.

I played wizards back then as well. They weren't glass, they were tissue paper. Once I had the idea to buy a couple of war dogs, and my role in a typical fight was to say to "Sic 'em, boys!" and then run the dogs while my actual character hid and occasionally threw daggers.

As far as learning your character, the only time I'd expect a significant difference between 1 and 3 is with total newcomers to D&D. But when you're talking about the difference between 10 and 18, it's a whole different kettle of fish.

 

[TwoSix]

But when you put the use of that spell into the DND ecosystem you are using ask yourself, what is the god of death going to do when he/she finds out you are avoiding your fate? Remember these high level spells are "reality" altering or "breaking the rules" of some god or even the creator. Wizards are powerful because their spells can change reality. There are entire races of outsiders who's job is to protect the flow of reality. If it were the greek pantheon the moment you wake up on your body, I'd imagine a guy whispering to hades, and then his reply "Release the Furies!". Or it's common magic for high level mages and all the other high level mages, rich mages, rich nobles, rich thieves etc, have all been waking up in thier prepurchased bodies and our mage who thinks he's smarter than everyone else is going to have fun at the DM's expense.

So you seem to be arguing for extrapolating narrative consequence from problematic spells as a balance method?

I don't find the juice worth the squeeze, myself, but I'm sure it can work in the right game.

 

[the Jester]

If you don't want people teleporting hither and yon there are plenty of solutions. Use spells like inner sanctum or forbiddance to stop teleportation. Ban or limit long distance teleportation if it's an issue or just introduce a new ritual that redirects teleporters to a cell somewhere.

Discuss it with your players of course, but if the options are between limiting long distance teleportation or modifying it so that it's not as simple as snapping fingers and not playing high level then I don't think it's a problem with the game. D&D is all about making the game your own and sometimes that may mean accepting a handful of limitations.

It's not about limiting teleportation and plane shifting and whatnot, it's about writing adventures to accommodate them. 3e was pretty good for this, especially the stuff in Dungeon Magazine. But a high level game run by the RAW, that allows all the high level abilities, is hard to run. Some guidance for DMs who haven't gotten experience doing so might help encourage them to try it.

Or don't change a thing and give them a reasons why saying no is not an option. People can always decide to not fight the BBEG, not delve the dungeon, not stop the crisis. Spells don't change that.

A big part of high level play, in my experience, is gaming out the consequences of pcs' choices from earlier in their careers.

 

[Clint_L]

It's not, but there is also no reason to waste half of the level budget on nothing, when there is only one reason the high levels become impossible. And that's high-level spells. There is nothing game-breaking about a lv16 Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue.

Like, DnD4 went to level 30 without the issues that 3e and 5e have. Clearly the higher levels were meant to work there.

I wish we could have these discussions minus the hyperbole. Clearly high level games are not "impossible," nor automatically broken, because they happen successfully. Go watch Critical Role and you will see lots of high level games. Many people on this forum play in them. The game is, in fact, designed to work at high levels and does for many people. There are specific balance challenges, so let's discuss that.

I get why some YouTubers think they gotta use clickbait titles and arguments. But that doesn't mean we have to embrace hyperbole here, or our discussions go nowhere.

Edit: we know the main reason why very few campaigns get to high levels: it takes a long time and most campaigns don't last that long, for a whole variety of reasons. Perhaps one idea would be for WotC to offer more guidance on starting a campaign at high levels; this could be explored in the new DMG.