D&D 5E Nobody Is Playing High Level Characters

According to stats from D&D Beyond, above 5th level characters start to drop off sharply, and above 10th level, the figures are very low. The exception is level 20, which looks like it's probably people creating experimental 20th-level builds.

Some of them say 0%; this isn't strictly accurate, but levels 16-19 are used by an insignificant number of players. Interestingly, there are more 3rd-5th level characters than there are 1st-2nd level.

D&D Beyond has said before that under 10% of games make it past 10th level, but these figures show the break point as being bit lower than that. DDB used over 30 million characters to compile these stats.

 

[dave2008]

It is very interesting, especially when compared to the number of people around this forum that have completed multiple APs, which typically go up to 10-15. I think it is more evidence on how outside the norm the forum posters are. We are just a rare breed!

 

[JeffB]

You might want to roll the two threads together Russ since there is already some discussion going on about this article.

 

[Morrus]

It is very interesting, especially when compared to the number of people around this forum that have completed multiple APs, which typically go up to 10-15.

How many people is that?

 

[dave2008]

How many people is that?

Somewhere between 5-20, the very definition of the vocal minority we are!

 

[Inchoroi]

My last campaign went all the way to 20, and they spent a long time 15+, about six months. They spent the majority of that time avoiding at all costs the rest of the campaign and just tooling around getting into trouble. They upset a city-state and caused a military intervention, and left a dictator in charge of the city since, even though they're level 19 at the time, they can't fight 15,000 well-trained soldiers. They decided then that, once they finish saving the world, they're going to start their own nation and go to war with the dictator.

 

[RSIxidor]

Really fascinated by that level 20 spike. I wonder if that's people just building level 20 versions of their characters for planning, or people playing campaigns starting at level 20 just to see what it's like, or maybe bringing their characters in an older campaign onto D&DB that are already 20, or something else altogether?

 

[dave2008]

Really fascinated by that level 20 spike. I wonder if that's people just building level 20 versions of their characters for planning, or people playing campaigns starting at level 20 just to see what it's like, or maybe bringing their characters in an older campaign onto D&DB that are already 20, or something else altogether?

I don't use DnD Beyond, but my group typically does one or two level 20 adventures (or level 30 in 4e) just to see what it is like.

 

[TheSword]

There are lots of reasons high level play doesn’t see action: Character fatigue; a poor fun to work ratio; the difficulty of challenging characters; slowed down combat.

Paizo phasing out highest levels from the APs is the strongest evidence I’ve seen that people aren’t interested in it (aside from this data). I guarantee if people wanted them Paizo would make them.

Sweet spot for me is levels 5-11. After that it all starts to get a bit yawn. It helps that there’s nothing stopping players having a keep, lands and armies at any level the dm or player chooses.

 

[Henry]

For us, DM fatigue usually sets in about 7th to 10th level; the even funnier thing is that this hasn’t changed in groups I’ve been in even since AD&D days!