D&D General Why does D&D still have 16th to 20th level?

[MerricB]

20th level seems like the natural endpoint because there's not really any spells higher than 9th level.

There doesn't seem much point continuing to level up a caster beyond that - how do you top Wish really?

Having extra spell slots is useful.

And there are potentially other abilities you could create for higher levels.

But I agree that a large part of it comes from that they've hit the highest level of spells, so it's about time to stop!

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

"synergy with the 20 sided die" makes sense from a marketing perspective but not from a game design perspective. Maybe that's the crux of it: stopping at level 20, rather than at level 14 or level 30, has nothing to do with how people actually play the game, but just because it's a game that uses a 20-sided die for a lot of things. They'll actually design most content for play up to 12/13th levels, and if individual groups/dms want to homebrew up to 20 then great. smh

I cannot remember ever hearing that 3E went to level 20 because "it fit with a d20". Nor about 5E.

 

[Yaarel]

Levels above 20 shift in scope. In the Master tier, one might be leading armies. In the Immortal tier, one might being leading worlds.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

We just finished one game at level. We had only one story left at level 20, but we managed to play once at that level.

We finished a Krynn game that ended at level 17.

We're currently playing a game at 14th level that will likely reach 17-18.

My last 3e FR game when to level 18.

Some of our games end at lower levels, but many of them go into the 4th tier.

 

[Blue Orange]

I think it is part of a marketing thing to stop at 20, possibly originally unconscious though I'd be surprised if marketing people hadn't thought of it by now. Round numbers fit neatly in people's minds (we have ten fingers after all), the d20 is symbolic of D&D and of nerd-dom in general, and if you roll a d20 for everything why not cut levels off at 20? Few characters were above 20th level to begin with--I think Elminster was 26th in 1st ed and 29th in 2nd--and it was always kind of an 'off the charts' level.

I mean, if they chopped it off at 17, everyone would be like, "well, what about 18?". Stopping at 20 everyone can go, "OK, they had to draw the line somewhere."

FWIW, high levels did become relevant in the old goldbox series of computer games due to magic resistance--the printed magic resistance was calculated at 11th level (one of Gygax's stranger decisions) and went up and down by 5% from there, so so you'd have large numbers of 90% magic resistant monsters (custom ones since high-level demons had spell-like abilities they couldn't code in at the time) that were hard to reliably cook with a delayed blast fireball at 20th level (almost one-half chance of resistance) but went down easily at 30th level (magic resistance ignored).

 

[ph0rk]

Levels above 20 shift in scope. In the Master tier, one might be leading armies. In the Immortal tier, one might being leading worlds.

In 3/3.5 martial types sat on their hands for the most part in those scenarios. With the modern skill system, you either build around statebuilding from the start or you don't do it (or you have high level spells, and states are built around you).

In editions prior to that, followers just came with the levels, but no longer.

 

[Oofta]

Honestly I effectively cut out the first two levels when I DM and tell the players to make 3rd Level PCs. The first two levels just don't give you much at all to work with and PCs can die too easily.

To hear people talk on this forum it's nigh on impossible after level 3, so how am I supposed to fulfill my quota of PC deaths per campaign if I eliminate the first two levels?

 

[Reynard]

To hear people talk on this forum it's nigh on impossible after level 3, so how am I supposed to fulfill my quota of PC deaths per campaign if I eliminate the first two levels?

It's hard after 3rd, it's impossible after 5th.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

As a DM, i enjoy the challenge of adjudicating15th+ level charactets. But only if the players have played their characters up to that point. High level PCs are complex with a lot of capabilities; in my experience players who just roll up a 17th level PC can't play it worth a darn and they always die quicky (i might be a killer DM who enjoys optimizing monsters).

i only have experience with these types of games in 3/3.5 edition D&D.

 

[see]

I believe the codification that all characters go up to 20th level started with 3rd edition, because the game engine was called the d20 system and there's an opportunity to have another 20 show up.

Every class's experience table in AD&D 2nd Edition explicitly went all the way to 20. 3rd edition's PHB most likely went to 20 in order to match the in-PHB range of AD&D 2nd, rather than because of any die size or system name tie-in.

(It is true that demihumans in 2nd edition were generally cut off at a maximum of 15 without using the provided optional rules [Dwarf, fighter 15; elf, mage/ranger 15; gnome, illusionist 15; half-elf, bard U/ranger 16; halfling, thief 15]. However, advancement for multi-classed demihumans seriously slowed down relative to humans after the XP tables hit the constant-XP section anyway [since multiclass XP was divided]. When a human wizard finally reached 20th level [3.75 million XP], a dwarf fighter/thief would be 15/12, an elf ranger/mage would be 14/14, and a half-elf cleric/fighter/mage would be 13/13/13, with only the dwarf of those examples having been stopped by any of his level caps [as a thief]. So the demihuman level limits only really impinged on typical [i.e., multi-classed] demihuman PCs after you reached the point where a single-classed thief or bard hit 20th level, at 2.2 million XP. Which is to say, even without the in-DMG optional rules right next to where the level limits were printed, demihumans were generally able to advance all the way through a "20th-level" AD&D 2nd edition campaign, as defined by the levels the human PCs got to.)