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

[GrimCo]

We play a weekday evening. Weekends are much more likely to be taken up by other things, and we like to blow off steam after work.

You play in person or online? Cause, in person, over work week, with relatively young kids, it's out of the question, at least on regular basis, at least for our group. I personally, don't play online. If i can't play in person, i would rather not play at all.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You play in person or online? Cause, in person, over work week, with relatively young kids, it's out of the question, at least on regular basis, at least for our group. I personally, don't play online. If i can't play in person, i would rather not play at all.

Now that several of our group have kids, we mostly play on line. I don't think it would be viable to play in person with kids. Need to either play on line or take a hiatus. I didn't play much between leaving school until becoming semi-retired. I guess the reason I never had games collapse is I never tried to play when there wasn't a realistic amount of time available.

 

[J-H]

I think the main issue is that high level play gets too far divorced from reality. Sure, there’s campaign burnout, but really, I think most people want to play in reality (material plane) or tweaked reality (faewild, shadowfell) but to do high level play, you really need to leave those confines and go SOMEWHERE ELSE. Because, while things like giants and dragons may exist, for the regular world to make sense at lower levels, they have to be rare and hidden and then it’s really kinda logic breaking to have mooks for a 14th level party because why don’t those mooks just take over the world. So they’re buried deep in a dungeon, in some artificial construction, or only revealed in some world breaking occurrence. High level play has to just be boss fight monster hunting in any sensible plane.

The Other Places where high level play makes sense, The Abyss, Nine Hells, or Astral Plane don’t make common sense for the average player. Ok to visit, but not part of their character’s reality, or a place to stay and adventure in, too other. But those other places are where plenty of high level mooks can exist.

You don't have to.
My previous 13-20 campaign (Against the Idol of the Sun, campaign log on GITP) stayed on the material plane. They fought a bunch of humanoid enemies (Aarakocra) with class levels, killed the avatar of their god, etc. The toughest battles were set pieces at each of the temples (they attacked those to slow down the avatar gaining power), with altars that cast spells at intruders until disrupted (stabbing them with a specific weapon, or two or three other methods). One cast Finger of Death every round. Another did a variant Earthquake where the crevasses would snap shut on anyone who fell in after 1 round. I'd have to look up the other two after a while. They were plenty challenged without going someplace more exotic than Aarakocra+Yuan-ti that vaguely resembled Mesoamerica.

If my current campaign proceeds into Throne of Bhaal, they will be in the realms, facing foes with minions such as Fire Giants, high-level monks or mercenaries with +2 gear, drow with class levels + mind flayers + beholders, and the like.

If the complaint is "You have to g outside the MM to do that!" then, yes. I always go outside the MM at least some of the time.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I selected DM burn-out and Other -System support because the two go hand in hand.

If there's no adventures at high levels a DM can use as references, the DM is on their own.

If there's no guidelines for how much magical gear to have at various levels, the CR system breaks down and the DM is on their own.

If there's no material on how to start a game at 5th/10th/15th level, the DM is on their own. This is the gear-by-level issue plus guidance on how to establish the PCs in the game world and to get players comfortable with their characters.

If there's no material on how to prep for sandbox play by the time teleport & plane shift arrive, the DM is on their own.

If there's nothing explaining how divinations should improve a game rather than derail it, the DM is on their own.

 

[J-H]

If there's nothing explaining how divinations should improve a game rather than derail it, the DM is on their own.

Your players actually look at their spell lists and use divinations?
I'm jealous.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure. But 5e high level characters ( tier 4) are powerhouses. Now, depending on the type of setting you run, those kind of characters can be so exceptionally rare that everyone knows about them (think Hercules level) and only very brave and very stupid try to mess with them. In a setting a la FR, where high level characters are dime a dozen and epic++ level characters roam around, sure, level 16 fighter is no big deal in grand scheme of things. I tend to run first kind of settings, where there are maybe dozen or so tier 4 characters in entire setting plus PCs, and most elites are in high tier 2 (like best fighter in the kingdom might be level 5-6, best on the continent might be 9-10). And then you have level 17-18 fighter PC who can b**ch slap them with one arm drunk.

That's not really true. Or it was in 3e and 4e where levels went over 20. In 5e Elminster would only be 20th level, not 34th like he is in 3e. Everyone else would have to be scaled down proportionally as well.

 

[GrimCo]

Did WoTC ever give official stats for Elminster, Simbul and characters like that? Cause if i'm not mistaken, PC and NPC/Monsters aren't following same creation rules in 5e.

And while they did cap levels at 20 by not having concrete rules for epic level games and advancement, beside epic boons, that unofficially just means that once you hit lv 20, you are done with game. You are top kahuna, big boss. Easy retirement unless there is world ending stuff you need to sort out.

 

[the Jester]

It looks like where we don't see eye to eye is on what constitutes support, or how important that support is. You seem to be placing a lot of what counts as support onto published adventures. I'm placing the lion's share of what constitutes support onto the tools for me to run high level. I don't run much in the way of published adventures, so they don't mean nearly as much to me.

I feel like published adventures are what (or should) show a DM how to use all the tools they're provided with- for example, a good high level adventure should show how to incorporate high level pc abilities in it. It should assume and require that they have high level resources to navigate the adventure. Otherwise, a DM (especially a novice to high level play) might just make an adventure that could be a low level adventure if you swapped out the monsters for lower level foes.

 

[Minigiant]

I keep going back to the idea that PCs and MOCs should have no more that ~7-8 things and just replace old stuff with new stuff.

Fighter

1. Mastery: Weapon
2. Mastery: Weapon
3. Mastery: Armor
4. Mastery: Skill
5. Action Surge: Action
6. Tactical: Save
7. Tactical: Move
8. Tactical: Skill
9. Subclass Thing
10. Subclass Thing

Wizard

1. Cantrip
2. Cantrip
3. Cantrip
4. Spell
5. Spell
6. Spell
7. Spell
8. Spell
9. Subclass
10. Subclass

To me, the vancian W/X/Y/X/1/1 thing is too much to starting at high level, balance, and creating public adventures.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think the simple fact that people tend to start at low level has more impact on the overall dynamic than it is given.

If "choose the starting level" was given prominence in all DM guidance about starting new campaigns, and a reasonable number of official campaigns started above 9th level, high level play would become less rare.

As it is, while both versions of the DMG mention the possibility of starting at higher level, it isn't given any prominence, and therefore falls into the category of all the other rules people don't know about because they haven't read te DMG.

It should also be more prominently player facing. "Ask your DM what level the campaign will start at" should be part of the step by step character creation rules. Technically it is in both versions, but it isn't prominent and focuses more on the fact that the DM might tell you to make a higher level character that on player initiative to get this number.

In my group, it is pretty standard to start at varying levels, and when we are gathered to discuss the campaign a player always asks what level we will start at.

Usually we start at 1st-5th level if we intend a campaign to go long. Starting above that is generally done for one-shots or what I call "theme adventures" (where everyone makes a character based on a particular theme, and there is a single adventure intended to be completed in 15 sessions or less).