D&D 5E What Should the Maximum Level Be?

[S'mon]

I cannot express enough how terrible an idea I think this is, nor how strongly I feel that way.

This is a great way to lose every single group (okay, maybe just the vast majority of them) that is currently playing above 10th level and would like to convert.

For God's sake, there is no reason to release the game in an incomplete form.

If I run a high level game with gnome druids and half-orc barbarians fighting frost giants, there is no reason why I shouldn't have everything I need to convert on day 1. NO REASON.

The whole crappy "let's save some mainstays for later" approach pissed off a ton of folks about 4e. You COULD NOT play a gnome, half-orc, barbarian or druid on day 1... in fact, you had to wait for a year.

Likewise, if you wanted to use certain classic monsters- REALLY CLASSIC- like frost giants, gold dragons, ankhegs, etc., you had to wait a year.

Let's not. Please, let's not.

Don't hold back, tell us how you really think.
Do people still convert ongoing campaigns from one ruleset to another? Every time I've done it, or seen it done, the campaign has crashed and burned, so it didn't occur to me this would be an issue. It seems far better to stick with your current ruleset and convert material at the GM's side.

 

[delericho]

I'm all for open-ended levels, but this poses a possible problem for divinities. It doesn't make sense to have 87th level wizards running around when the greater god of magic is a 40th level wizard.

This is, indeed, an issue. Actually, I thought WotC got their level range and deities spot on with 4e - the gods were killable, but only by the highest level PCs and if the circumstances were just right. (Certainly, it was better than 3e with both gods and epic levels having systems, those systems being almost entirely incompatible, and neither being very good.)

The only real way I can see the system working with both open-ended levels and fixed stats for gods is if the game also declares that characters who reach or exceed level X (for an appropriate value of X) are, in fact, already gods themselves. In which case, that 40th level "greater god of magic" may well have lost his mantle once that PC wizard hit level 41.

I'd like to see a continuation of tiers, but spread out a bit. Something like this:

1-10: "Adventuring" tier
11-20: "Heroic" tier
21-30: "Paragon" tier
31-40: "Epic" tier
41-50: "Legend" tier
51+: "Immortal" tier

I used to agree, but I think I've become a convert to the "tiers as treasure" idea that has occasionally been mooted here. Because while the solution you suggest has a certain elegance, the truth is that very very few people play at high levels - so few that they're not worth WotC's time supporting them. But those same levels are the ones most in need of support, and so without it fewer people play, and so...

Basically, anything above level 13ish in 3e and above 20ish in 4e is largely wasted space for the majority of groups, because while it's nice to dream of those capstone powers you'll eventually get to wield, and drool over those awesome monsters the DM will eventually throw at his players, the reality is that you probably never will get to use those powers or monsters. As Rel says, far better for the game to help make you awesome now.

 

[the Jester]

Don't hold back, tell us how you really think.
Do people still convert ongoing campaigns from one ruleset to another? Every time I've done it, or seen it done, the campaign has crashed and burned, so it didn't occur to me this would be an issue. It seems far better to stick with your current ruleset and convert material at the GM's side.

If the goal is to regain lapsed D&D players, starting off by making it easy to rejoin the fold is absolutely necessary.

The whole "Keep playing your own ruleset" flies in the face of WotC's goals with 5e. They want to get people who gave up on D&D to come back. An incomplete game is going to get those people to take a look, shrug and go back to their old system rather than taking a look, exclaiming "Wow!" and joining the ranks of 5e players.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

20 has always seemed like a good number, especially when using the d20 system. Let 20 be the highest mere mortals can ever become. Epic level play can still exist. It would be decidedly beyond the range of normal mortality.

 

[Stormonu]

Don't hold back, tell us how you really think.
Do people still convert ongoing campaigns from one ruleset to another? Every time I've done it, or seen it done, the campaign has crashed and burned, so it didn't occur to me this would be an issue. It seems far better to stick with your current ruleset and convert material at the GM's side.

Yep - converted a 2E group to PF just a few months back.

 

[Lanefan]

A quasi-cap for PCs around 12th level is fine, with advancement set to very slow during those 12 levels; and with support for higher levels beyond 12th mainly aimed at DMs for NPC design purposes.

Lanefan

 

[Plaguescarred]

I prefer 20 Level is a cap because its low enought to get through at considerable speed and high enought to feel you reach an epic level.

 

[A'koss]

The more I think on it, the more I'd like to see a level cap at the higher end of the scale (like 30). But it's important that if they decide to go that high (or higher) that those rules are developed the rules for the foundation levels. What I don't want to see is WotC running into the same problems they had when developing "Epic Level" rules after the fact, where the core of the game wasn't designed to accommodate them.

And at the end of the day it's easier to place a level cap on an individual campaign than it is to remove one.

 

[ren1999]

A'koss, that is the very reason why the designers need to have an initial cap so they can set the highest parameters of play. It doesn't matter if characters exceed that level cap or ability cap. It does matter to accessory and adventure writers though.

 

[delericho]

For God's sake, there is no reason to release the game in an incomplete form.

Well, except that it is impossible, practically speaking, to release it in a complete form. The problem is that D&D has both a very deep level range and a very large breadth of material. So, while you're probably right that releasing only levels 1-10 initially means that you lose every group playing at higher than 10th level, the same is also true if you exclude specific races, classes, etc etc.

If the game supports levels 1-20, the trade-off is probably that it can support maybe 8 races and a dozen classes. Drop to levels 1-10, and you can probably double that. Either way, you lose all the groups playing level 10+, or all the groups currently with a Half-orc, or all the groups currently playing with a Dragonborn. You cannot have all three (well, strictly speaking you can - you just have to sacrifice groups with an Elven character).

The Core Rulebooks of the game will always, necessarily be 'incomplete' - at least in the sense that they can never support everything that has been published for the game in near-40 years. WotC have to choose where to draw the lines.