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.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Perhaps part of adventure design for high level should be less about attempting to present a "story", and more about presenting and tracking NPCs, goals, and likely events related to those, and then you can just sit back and see what the players do. Have NPCs react and attempt to accomplish their goals, and just see how the PCs likely foil them.

 

[Salthorae]

Is there a D&D 5e spell that allows the caster to be in another location and take actions, including interacting with objects in that remote location?

Project Image lets you do all the things that Luke does in LTJ... except touching Leia's hand.

 

[palikhov]

Majorityof people play in 1-10 lvl modules. Majority of modules are for 1-10 lvl characters....

 

[Eltab]

Is there a D&D 5e spell that allows the caster to be in another location and take actions, including interacting with objects in that remote location?

Mage Hand (but with rather short range).
Maybe a combination of spells, such as Clairvoyance and Telekinesis, would get the effect you want.

 

[jayoungr]

Is there a D&D 5e spell that allows the caster to be in another location and take actions, including interacting with objects in that remote location?

If you have a familiar, you can have the familiar do some things for you. That's the best I can think of.

 

[Anoth]

Is there a D&D 5e spell that allows the caster to be in another location and take actions, including interacting with objects in that remote location?

I think the game really tries to avoid creating bathroom psychics.

 

[BigBadDM]

One perspective here is AL leagues.
I have two characters created on DND beyond for home-brew games.
I have 7 characters created for AL leagues on DND beyond.
Nearly all of the AL Characters are between levels 3-6. I have only one Tier 3 character.
Finding a table for Tier1 for AL is extremely easy.
Finding a table for Tier2 is harder and fill up fast.
Tier3 tables you can find about once every 3 months.
and Tier4 tables are really difficult except every 6 months or so.
I live in Seattle also, so the community is quite large.

Most of the AL players I know use dnd-beyond for character creation as it simplifies and discourages 'cheating'

 

[Sword of Spirit]

One perspective here is AL leagues.
I have two characters created on DND beyond for home-brew games.
I have 7 characters created for AL leagues on DND beyond.
Nearly all of the AL Characters are between levels 3-6. I have only one Tier 3 character.
Finding a table for Tier1 for AL is extremely easy.
Finding a table for Tier2 is harder and fill up fast.
Tier3 tables you can find about once every 3 months.
and Tier4 tables are really difficult except every 6 months or so.
I live in Seattle also, so the community is quite large.

Most of the AL players I know use dnd-beyond for character creation as it simplifies and discourages 'cheating'

That’s some really useful insight, and if it is even moderately representative it would have a lot of impact on the numbers we are seeing.

 

[tetrasodium]

That’s some really useful insight, and if it is even moderately representative it would have a lot of impact on the numbers we are seeing.

it probably is. In in south east florida (west palm beach area) & my experience having run a lot of AL at a nearby FLGS* with what used to be the printshop next door as a room filled with tables for various TCGs plus a night for d&D (mostly AL), a night for anything (they get boxes of stuff & use some of that room to stage & sort stuff before shelving on the slow day), & weekends for anything but there is a tcg event lots of the time on weekends.

 

[atanakar]

I'm not surprised by the numbers in the OP. Usualy campaigns crash because of player conflicts, TPKs, lack of interest. Not sure I can add anything new except to say that none of my campaigns (since 1981) have gone beyond level 12. The average for campaigns I DMed and played in is level 8-9.