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

[Sulicius]

Scheduling should have been at the top of this list.

 

[tetrasodium]

I wonder to what degree 3e epic stuff was kneecapped by the Epic-Level Handbook being for 3.0 and thus being mostly memory-holed by 3.5e (even if I reckon the compatibility problems were probably fairly minor). Oh, and by the explosion of classes in 3.5e which did not have any epic-level support.

I remember owning the ELH and never even seeing 3.0 core books. It wasn't until years later I realized that the ELH wasn't a 3.5 thing. The ELH was probably hamstrung more significantly by focusing on a level range well after the system started and thoroughly broke down. As a simple example, hings like the epic spells would have been much more useful if they were a replacement or parallel option for a lower level range of spells than basically 20+++

 

[Ogre Mage]

The game is harder to manage and balance at that level. PCs have vast capabilities and the enemies who the DM runs against them must be the same. There is a lot to keep track of. DMs typically struggle to balance encounters. There is a considerable amount that is overpowered or even outright broken.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there Nevin, interesting post.

I've run a few high level games that were the end of campaigns and played in a few. Plus I've run some of the "high" level modules released over the years. Isle of the Ape and even one that was for up to 100th level characters that took the players to hell.

...the Abyss...if you are talking about Throne of Bloodstone, although I vaguely recall stopping off in Hell somewhere in that adventure to meet Tiamat so you may well be right.

High level play has a lot of problems some of which I don't think there will ever really be a solution for.

I like to believe most of the solutions (other than enough content) are fairly simple.

1. DM has to be able to pull an elephant out of his ass at any moment because someone might do something he forgot they could do. a few sessions ago had a player take out the mythic magic user secretly making the battle quite even. One spell in the wrong spot and a failed save it all turned. That's high level. you can spend 3 weeks tuning the encounters to prepare for the parties abilities and one mid to high level ability can screw all that tuning up.

Shorter, Epic Level Adventures alleviate this issue. Less prep. Less of an issue if the PCs somehow manage to rollover one of the Encounters.

2. High level games if you play in campaigns generally have consequences. Gods get pissed off about wishes, give thier cleric's miracles, reincarnate thier paladins (or anti-paladins) and send them after you. Hell might get involved, Heaven might get involved. There really aren't many Good High level sources to help inexperienced DM's the first time they step into the meat grinder. Also a lot of DM's and tables, I even did it a few times back in my childhood, decide to run a "high" level game and without the story and the gods and all the other stuff,

I agree with this point. There are not enough resources for such campaigns, especially for inexperienced DMs.

you get the game you hear about on the forums where the mage makes 15 simalcrums and wishes himself out of everything, or the Paladin get the uber relics and becomes completely invincible , or the one secret evil character kills everyone and walks away whistling into the night. Lousy way to end a game that took that much effort. Only the winner get's any satisfaction and even the DM leave the table regretting it.

If a Player ever abuses a rule (in the GM's eyes) that seems to flat out break the game, applaud their ingenuity the first time and just rule it won't work again.
If a Player ever abuses a rule (in the GM's eyes) which is annoying, have that tactic come back to bite them, have enemies use it, have enemies immune or prepped for it, etc.

I have some specific counters for PCs who abuse (GM's discretion) items or spells like Simulacrum or Summoning. But it could be a simple fix of an NPC with a Ring of 3 Wishes (1 wish left) might turn all the Wizard's Simulacrums or the Druid's Summoned Creatures against them.

3. It takes tons, and I means 100's of tons of effort to make sure the characters all have thier niche and that they have the right magic items or DM special abilities to maintain thier niche so that the cleric, or mage or paladin or character with 5 classes doesn't just start taking over the game and making people feel that they aren't needed. Even when you get used to doing it, it's a permanent amount of bandwidth that is always running in your mind. But at the same time at that level every single character at some point is going to take over a scenario and single handedly "hulk smash" your planning and win far faster than you thought possible. And you have to remember at High level's that's the game as intended.

Some gamers are more invested in the rules than others. Some love their tactics more than others. But overall, assuming everyone is the same level, then they all have the potential to "take over the scenario", even if its the power gamers who do this more often. If Players have some experience playing the same character then they should have a decent idea what works for them.

4. Too many people have only played high level where the DM kneecapped everything and tried to run it like a 7th level game and couldn't figure out why everyone hated it. Seriously you guys that do that. tape all but two fingers and try to type. It's the same thing.

Never personally played in a campaign like that, but I would never advocate nerfing the game outside of clear game-breaking exploits - which players probably won't know about unless they frequent CharOps boards.

5. Honestly the only time I've ever had High level play work it was the outgrowth of a campaign where all the guard rails of Gods, and consequences from all the orders and secret societies and even the inhabitants of the characters home towns etc gave the characters all the kinds of things that limit people from doing the things thier players would never do in real life because they worry about families, temples friends or even what thier own party would think. Those games generally can work but they are a lot of work and can make your poor DM nuerotic trying to keep track of all the moving parts of the world.

Agreed. When the DM injected a bit of politics into our campaign, then the PCs were always fighting a battle on multiple fronts and their sheer power doesn't solve every issue.

High Tier: Add running a Fortress/Keep, w. Local Politics
Epic Tier: Add running a Country, w. National Politics
Immortal Tier: Add running a Religion, w. Pantheon Politics

6. Another problem of High level games are the guys that think the bad guys doing the same kinds of things the PC's will do is lame and unfair. For instance if the PC's can teleport, scry and do all the things high level games can do, then thier enemies are going to move stuff in lead lined containers, make feints to get them to the wrong side of the world so they can act while the pc's aren't there etc. This isn't hinky unfair DM Hijinks, it's High level play. You are messing with Villains who take the time to figure out your past strategies and your abilities who will plan accordingly. If you don't like that stuff quit whining and play low level games. Was it unfair hijinks when Sauron Froze the mountains and forced the party to go through Moria? Of course it was nothing is fair at High Level.

Wasn't it Mike Shea who said DM's should "Be a Bastard at Epic".

7. But mostly it's Player overload trying to keep up with spells and abilities

If the amount of PC Options are slowing the game give Players 1 minute to state their actions...otherwise they miss a turn. Dithering = Death!

and 10 times that overload with DM trying to keep up with spells and abilities of the players and all the baddies and trying to remember which moving parts of the world will notice, care and possibly act when the pc's do things. It can be overwhelming.

Keep things to 3 'Bad Guy' factions 'active' at a time (from a pool of 1 faction per PC, with narrative links to that PC). Lets call them A, B, and C. (although I always liked the Greyhawk factions of Iuz (CE), Great Kingdom (LE) & Scarlet Brotherhood (NE) for visualizing things).

The PCs only have time to act against 2 (of the 3 active) factions, the 3rd (their choice) succeeds in its current plot whatever that might be - the PCs won't know (invade territory, assassinate a King, open portal, find an artifact, etc.) and that Faction gets a "power up" - meaning its more difficult next time.

If a faction is temporarily defeated, swap in one of the other factions (if the Scarlet Brotherhood plot is foiled bench them and bring in Rary the Traitor, etc.)
If a faction is permanently defeated (though some elements may escape and join up with other factions later), create a new faction (if Iuz is defeated the Barbarian Tribes to the North amass with a flight of White Dragons and Frost Giants - but who is behind them? Is it Cryonax, Kostchtchie, Father Llymic...or an unholy alliance of all three? )

With this method the GM only has to think how did the PC's Actions affect each Faction or have those actions inadvertently created a new antagonistic Faction.

8. My suggestion to anyone wanting to DM a high level game is start at low levels and then play up. You as the DM will have a much better feel for what everyone can do if you deal with them from 1st level to 15th level than if you just suddenly start at 10th level.

Totally agree.

Unless someone cracks what they tried to do with the epic level handbook in 3rd or pathfinders Mythic Paths (which are much better but still really hinky)

Its coming soon, give me another month or two.

I don't think High level play will ever be a large part of the games played.

It doesn't need to be a 'large part', it just needs to be 'a' part.

Those interested in Epic Tier Campaigns are not looking for "equal representation" with Low Tier or Mid Tier Campaigns, they just want more than a few scraps from the designers; enough to build and sustain a campaign. Maybe that's not possible in the Core Rulebooks, but there is no reason a Player's Handbook 2, Dungeon Master's Guide 2 or Monster Manual 2 could not lean heavier into High and Epic Tier.

 

[DEFCON 1]

To me there's one answer that seems to make the most sense: more people actually care about the stories their PCs experience, not the game mechanics.

All the stories a player can experience can be told at any level of character. You want to experience an outer planar adventure like descending into Avernus? You don't need to wait until you reach 16th level to journey to the Outer Planes... you can do that right away in an adventure book for characters 1-13. Which then brings up the question of why does one need to play a high-level game?

Seems to me... the only real thing you get from high levels that you don't get at low levels are all the game mechanics that are given out at high levels. That's pretty much it. All the narrative about your PC can occur whenever you and the DM want. So unless you truly want to play high level play for the "board game" part of D&D that uses those different game mechanics... everyone else just doesn't feel the need.

There's nothing one gains by playing high level other than using some game mechanics you've never used before. But anything having to do with a character's personality? Their history? The journeys and quests they go on? Their stories? Can be done at any level. So if you start at the beginning of a hero's journey (usually level 1 or 3)... you just keep going until the story is done. And there's no ending level requirement for that.

 

[GrimCo]

Maybe that's not possible in the Core Rulebooks, but there is no reason a Player's Handbook 2, Dungeon Master's Guide 2 or Monster Manual 2 could not lean heavier into High and Epic Tier.

Well, WoTC had 10 years to do it during 5e run, so it's not likely that they'll do it with 5.5.

 

[NN]

Im curious. What playing itch is scratched at level 20 that isnt scratchable at level 12 ?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Well, WoTC had 10 years to do it during 5e run, so it's not likely that they'll do it with 5.5.

Well such a book is guaranteed to sell at least 5% as much as the core rulebooks, which means it will be at least twice as profitable as something like Journey Into the Radiant Citadel.

But I agree with you we are still unlikely to see it.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I remember owning the ELH and never even seeing 3.0 core books. It wasn't until years later I realized that the ELH wasn't a 3.5 thing. The ELH was probably hamstrung more significantly by focusing on a level range well after the system started and thoroughly broke down.

I think continuing class levels after 20 (as the Epic Level Handbook did) is a mistake that's just going to lead to more confusion. A better strategy is to transition characters into Immortality via some simple Templates backed by a small number of (powerful) Divine Boon Slots.

As a simple example, hings like the epic spells would have been much more useful if they were a replacement or parallel option for a lower level range of spells than basically 20+++

Could have been a Ritual style system non-epic casters could attempt (at a risk).

 

[tetrasodium]

If they aren't teaching new DMs how to effectively run a game from 1-20 in the DMG, then WotC has failed new DMs. It's a good thing to publish a later book that expands that teaching and provides more tools for the DMs and players, but such a book shouldn't be where DMs start learning how to run high level games.

In 3e bonus type conflicts started at low levels and was something super important to be aware of by 7th level. There were a lot of buff spells and magic items. Item slot conflicts didn't start happening generally until mid level, but sometimes happened earlier.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that the DR thing was bad, or good?

In my experience DR was just fine, because with feats melee types were doing enough damage that losing 5-15 points sometimes wasn't much of an issue.

Same. Not sure if you are saying it's bad or good.

Those last two started happening at around 5th level in 3e, and were fairly common by 7th. By high levels those things were often trivialized by feats, items and spells.

There is a wide ocean of difference between running a one shot or even a series of pseudo one shots that happens to be done at a high level compared to actually running an ongoing game at high levels that leans closer to sandbox than one shot. The mechanics I mentioned are examples of mechanical hooks and levers that provide the gm with beneficial functional tools for keeping that sandbox from collapsing under the gravitational pull of high level PCs who are equipped like PCs who walked the whole path and played in the hands of players experienced working/growing their characters alongside each other through that whole path.

The default "high level" play in the core books is pretty much committed to accepting that high level play is the exclusive domain of oke shots and collapsing campaigns in the process of rocketing towards the next campaign with new lower level PCs. You keep talking about if the dmg does/can teach a GM to run high level [campaigns]... Because of that acceptance it's impossible for the dmg to teach the gm to do something the system has accepted is a totally unsupported play style that exists well outside the realm of accepted play.

Any book attempting to teach a GM to run high level campaigns that aren't simple one shots and strings of one shots that happen to have high level PCs needs to bring with it the tools needed to support the gm it is attempting to "teach". Unfortunately wotc has so far shown a level of interest bordering on disdain when it comes to significant change and robust gm support.