D&D 5E Why Do Higher Levels Get Less Play?

[Hexmage-EN]

It's already common knowledge around here that higher levels don't get much use. Instead of asking if we need those higher levels, I'd rather ask what it is about those higher levels than is making them less utilized to see if these are problems that can be remedied to make higher level play more appealing or not.

 

[Desdichado]

Seems like it's missing the main option; the game doesn't scale well and is too tedious to enjoy at that level, even if you want to.

 

[TiQuinn]

If I had my guess, I think it's this:

1) The game feels more complex at higher levels, with more things for the players to do and remember, and more things for the DM to do and remember. More creatures with lair actions, legendary actions, legendary resistances, more complex spells, maybe more complex actions on the player's side (?).

2) There's no easy way to say - "We're going to start a high level game. Roll your characters and make them 15th level." The game almost assumes that there's an accrued knowledge and mastery to each level.

3) Perception that high level play is harder, there's less support, and the monsters aren't as well written. Some of this may be true, some of it may be just what people have heard, but it kind of has a self-fulfilling quality to it.

 

[the Jester]

Other.

The way I see it, there are basically two reasons. The first is that groups often don't stay together long enough to make it to high levels. (As a corollary to that, high level games are much harder to play well and much less rewarding if you're not playing them from low levels to high- it's much harder to know a high level character's tricks if you haven't learned them over the lower levels building up to the higher levels.)

The second is that they just aren't well supported and haven't been since, frankly, 2e. 1st and 2nd Edition had a fair amount of high level support in the form of adventures, monsters in the base MM, etc. Since then, we've seen far fewer high level adventures, and most truly high level foes have fallen out of the basic monster books (when was the last time Tiamat or Demogorgon was in a Monster Manual? 1e).

Heck, even 3e, which had a whole book on epic-level stuff, didn't publish a single epic level adventure.

It's a bit of the chicken and the egg problem, IMNSHO.

 

[Andras]

The problem I have is you play one adventure and level up. So you blitz through the levels in no time and are done.

 

[Maxperson]

Other.

The way I see it, there are basically two reasons. The first is that groups often don't stay together long enough to make it to high levels. (As a corollary to that, high level games are much harder to play well and much less rewarding if you're not playing them from low levels to high- it's much harder to know a high level character's tricks if you haven't learned them over the lower levels building up to the higher levels.)

The second is that they just aren't well supported and haven't been since, frankly, 2e. 1st and 2nd Edition had a fair amount of high level support in the form of adventures, monsters in the base MM, etc. Since then, we've seen far fewer high level adventures, and most truly high level foes have fallen out of the basic monster books (when was the last time Tiamat or Demogorgon was in a Monster Manual? 1e).

Heck, even 3e, which had a whole book on epic-level stuff, didn't publish a single epic level adventure.

It's a bit of the chicken and the egg problem, IMNSHO.

3e had supported high level play, though. The epic handbook was very poorly done, but high level play started before you became epic and there were tons of high level monsters, spells, magic items, etc.

4e went to 30th and had a lot of high level monsters from what I heard, what made that edition's high levels poorly supported?

5e is the only edition I've played where high level has been poorly supported.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

As for PCs getting too complicated at higher levels, I really think that creating a character sheet more like a monster statblock would help players keep track of what they can do in a turn versus lumping it all in to a features section on the character sheet. I personally format my own character sheets that way, and the one time in the last few years that I used a more standard character sheet I found I had a harder time keeping track of my character's abilities.

 

[ezo]

All but these to IME:

• DMs aren't interested in using high CR antagonists like demon lords
• DMs lose interest in long-running campaigns and want to make new ones

 

[Scribe]

Because the best part of the game does not improve with more and more and more and more.

Its there, in the early levels, or depending on system, immediately.

 

[AlViking]

If you look at high level monsters you have basically the option of fiends or dragons. Want a high level humanoid and the only option is a high level wizard that they copy and paste a few dozen times. That and for some reason characters can be high level but other than the wizards I just mentioned almost all of the high level monsters are at the very least large with most being huge or gargantuan.

Want to run a campaign where your enemies are dominated by humanoids like I do and you have to constantly reimagine monsters or create your own which not everyone is good at. Add in lack of module support, which I can understand.