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.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Put another way, the currently-in-vogue paradigm of one-character-one-campaign is a self-limiting box. Why not break out of it?

I played a lot of "ensemble cast" kind of D&D over the years. IMO this is often a lot better than the zero-to-hero one character per campaign approach. It can be very hard to sustain interest in a character over that long of a stretch, although rebuilding can help as can having the DM focus on a lot of story awards rather than just power boost. In addition, it's can often really push against the secondary reality that the same group of characters would stick together the whole time. In the "ensemble cast" approach, each player has a stable of some PCs but in general the rule is you only have one PC at a time, possibly bolstered by the presence of some allies (often of markedly lower power). This works really well for the right group of players IMO.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Put another way, the currently-in-vogue paradigm of one-character-one-campaign is a self-limiting box. Why not break out of it?

Because it's more work than people are willing to go to, or groups aren't willing to run two different campaigns concurrently, or people can only find one group to join, or...

You act as though gaming and free time are infinitely-deep wells from which one may draw.

 

[ChaosOS]

As someone who helps run a West Marches discord server (set in Eberron), attention spans are what I see cause character swaps. We actually removed the character change and rebuild penalties just because there was a consensus that it didn't really create value to force people to stick to characters they were done with.

 

[jayoungr]

On the other hand, I suspect one of the reasons players get bored is that their characters are not really defined enough by what they actually do in the game.

Do you mean mechanically? As in, "I can make 100 Stealth checks, but my Stealth score never goes up even though I'm practicing like crazy"?

But this is one thing that I find does lead to boredom in D&D. The fact that character progression is mostly on a fixed rail that is independent on what actually happens to the PC in the game.

I'll be honest: the idea of that making or breaking a player's interest, rather than the story your character engages with, is completely foreign to me. Character progression for me is just incidental bookkeeping, not the focus of the game.

 

[Anoth]

I played a lot of "ensemble cast" kind of D&D over the years. IMO this is often a lot better than the zero-to-hero one character per campaign approach. It can be very hard to sustain interest in a character over that long of a stretch, although rebuilding can help as can having the DM focus on a lot of story awards rather than just power boost. In addition, it's can often really push against the secondary reality that the same group of characters would stick together the whole time. In the "ensemble cast" approach, each player has a stable of some PCs but in general the rule is you only have one PC at a time, possibly bolstered by the presence of some allies (often of markedly lower power). This works really well for the right group of players IMO.

That’s a good way of doing it. Personally I liked retainers or henchman. I even had one that had a very high intelligence that became his leader in all but name because he was coming up with the plans. And it’s really fun if there is a chance that one may turn on you.

 

[Don Durito]

Do you mean mechanically? As in, "I can make 100 Stealth checks, but my Stealth score never goes up even though I'm practicing like crazy"?


Gotta be honest: the idea of that making or breaking a player's interest, rather than the story your character engages with, is completely foreign to me. Character progression for me is just incidental bookkeeping, not the focus of the game.

I find in most of the long non-D&D games I've played and run over time, characters have spread and morphed and adjusted to the changing direction of the game. In my Deadlands game the gunslinger decided he was sick of just being a one note character and made the decision that he was going to get religion and start picking up blessed abilities - sort of like the development of the man with no name to the preacher in Pale Rider. In short he multi-classed as cleric but in a system where that was easier to do to the degree that he wanted and didn't penalise hiim for not planning to do that from the start.

In fact this is a common thing in many games, pcs get established in the setting and start morphing themselves around organisations that interest them and taking abilities that reflect them. They join priesthoods or knighthoods and the like. Prestige classes were meant to fill this role in 3E (this IIRC was explicitly stated as one the goals in the 3.0 DMG) but they were desgined badly with restrictive mechanical requirements that needed to be planned for. (And they became generic splats that didn't tie characters to settings.)

I find this is the case in 5E as well. In most games I see players start to get to around level 5 or 6 and they begin flicking through books and thinking about multiclassing. They get to the point where the character is basically established and they start looking for ways to grow or branch out, to learn new tricks and take their character in a slightly different direction.

 

[Ogre Mage]

So the question is, are people not playing high level characters because even though they intend to, they start at level 1 and the campaign dies first? Or are people not playing high level characters because they don't want to (or their DM doesn't want to run games for them)?

The first case is more difficult to deal with, but as far as getting more use out of those levels, I'm a strong proponent of playing adventures and campaigns at the level that makes sense, rather than insisting on starting a character at level 1.

In our case DM burnout has generally been the demise of our campaigns. And I think the difficulty of balancing encounters for high level characters is part of that. The characters are getting really powerful just as burnout from running a long campaign is becoming significant. In my experience, the large majority of DMs can provide a well-balanced and well-crafted challenge for 5th level PCs. But 15th level PCs? In my experience not many can.

I agree that it should not be a given that a campaign start at level 1. My group generally starts at levels 3-5. I think that is one reason why our campaigns usually last till levels 13-16, while the data would suggest most campaigns fall apart by 11.

 

[OldeTalamar]

I am just getting into 5e but I had a level 1 through level 20 Battle Arena made to teach my sons' math on 3e so playing whatever level really is just a state of mind. I plan on making something the same for 5e. Top notch rewards cost millions by the time they were done but they made Billions. Numbers are just a point value followed by however many zeros make your players smile. Level 1 or level 20 combat can be exciting and unique or boring and repetitive depending on players and DM. Now it's hard to make stuff balanced universally at high levels because no 20th level wizard or fighter is the same every 1st level wizard has variation times that by 20 levels. Each DM has to customize to his players if they want that epic feel that's is appropriate to there actual Challenge Rating. That custom variation at low levels isn't so necesary as abilities and unique magical items aren't as varied at low levels as at high levels. Hard to make a balanced published campaign at those epic and legendary levels. Best to make to suit for epic level characters by a DM willing to put the time in.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

That’s a good way of doing it. Personally I liked retainers or henchman. I even had one that had a very high intelligence that became his leader in all but name because he was coming up with the plans. And it’s really fun if there is a chance that one may turn on you.

The other cool thing is that retainers can become PCs if someone finds them compelling enough. One of my favorite PCs, the halfling fighter Buckminster "Bucky" Burrmaster II, started that way. He had a fairly short career from level 5 to level 7 (this was in 2E Greyhawk), having rebelled against the halfling system to be a mercenary and not "respectable." He smoked, drank, wenched, and tore it up like a beast. However, when another retainer who was his friend was one-shotted by a demon, he decided to cash out and get married! Two different PCs were introduced at the wedding and I played his grandson Buckminster Burrmaster IV later on in a different campaign. I love ensemble cast for a more sandbox-style game, but it really demands a lot of the players and I suspect it wouldn't work for folks I play with now.

Another model that works nicely is "A Team/B Team". This is where there's some bigger story going on and players have two characters. However, only one is focused on at a time. They don't even need to be of the same level or know each other, just engaging in related stories.

 

[Umbran]

Trying out a new character and pushing on to higher levels can happen side-along: just roll up a new character and continue with the same campaign.

Put another way, the currently-in-vogue paradigm of one-character-one-campaign is a self-limiting box. Why not break out of it?

In the same session? I think most of us would find the split attention to lessen the experience of play. YMMV.

In different sessions? How much time do you have to play RPGs, that you can play multiple characters in the same campaign and have either of them get any where in reasonable time?