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

[Paul Farquhar]

constant

I think this is the storytelling problem. You need to run 4 consecutive Endgames, not just one, to get from 16 to 20,

 

[Vaalingrade]

By using an incredible amount of narrative fiat. Superman never beats luthor because he can't kill him, and Luthor always finds a way out of jail.

That doesn't work in most dnd games. The PCs find the bad guy, and immediately kill them....and your story is over. These kind of power imbalance scenarios you see in comics only work because the author forces it to work, when you give players agency these scenarios immediately fall apart.

Or because most superheroes aren't homicidal maniacs, unlike PCs.

 

[Jer]

The big problem with high level games is that many people do not run high level games. They run low level games using high level mechanics.

This is IMO the key takeway. Except I'd phrase it as that many people - perhaps most - do not want to run or play high level games. They want to have the same game experience they've been having for 10-12 levels just scaled with more power. And while you can do that ooh boy is it going to be hard.

High level games in D&D - even back in the BECMI days but definitely from 3e on - are a different game from low and mid level games. High level games are superhero games - and as someone who moves back and forth between superhero games and fantasy games, I like that and my group likes that. In a superhero game[*] you don't generally assume that when you have a threat in LA and the characters are in New York that you're going to to make their travel across the US from one coast to another a central part of the game - it's not actually a problem to solve nor is it usually a part of the narrative. They have resources, they tell you how they're using them, and you either narrate that bit or let them narrate it and move on to the next part. High level D&D is a lot like that - if the adventure is on the moon then you ask the players "how are you getting to the moon?" and they'll usually have an answer. If they don't, well, you probably already know that they don't and you've got an adventure planned to get them there - because one thing that is very different in high level play than in lower level play in D&D is that if you don't know your PC's capabilities they can surprise you with an adventure ending ability/magic item that you didn't know they had and now you've got 4 hours of gaming time and nothing prepped for it. (High level improv is fun for me, but I understand why lots of folks do not like it.)

In a lot of ways high level play is liberating IMO - I can come up with whatever nonsense I want and the PCs have the resources to bat it back at me. But again, that's because I also like to play and run superhero games, and running fantasy superheroes can be quite fun, even with the 5e ruleset (which isn't what I'd go to for a more traditional supers game by any means).

[*] I mean, unless you're into that particular flavor of low level superhero game. Or it's the 90s and you're playing Heroes Unlimited.

 

[Oofta]

It's possible. I sent them to the Underdark. But you are still in the situation of every fight being either a boss battle or not worth the effort of setting out the counters.

I disagree every fight needs to be a boss fight, and after the first couple of levels there are times when I'll narrate easy fights.

And if you are going to narrate it, you might as well just let them teleport.

Nah. Because if they could teleport they would. If they going from A to B not knowing that a rift has opened up (therefore meaning I'm not going to narrate) I've now revealed some new threat they have to deal with. Even if I do narrate, frequently it's because I want to set a tone and theme. You know, story telling shite.

Sure, but the thing is earth-shaking catastrophes and weird alien dimensions get old real fast.

Which is why I switch it up. Threats can be extremely dangerous that only affect a region, others affect a different plane in a way that could bring danger to the mortal realm in the future if you don't stop it. I'm sure if all I did was dungeon crawls that would get old real fast for me as well, so I don't use them. If I can't come up with unique locations and ideas for high level campaigns I don't see how I could come up with them for low level campaigns either.

IT's not that I can't do it - I have done it. But it was tedious (at least for me as DM), and I was glad when it was over.

Then it's not your cup of tea. Don't blame the system if some aspect of the game doesn't work for you.

 

[Stalker0]

In a lot of ways high level play is liberating IMO - I can come up with whatever nonsense I want and the PCs have the resources to bat it back at me. But again, that's because I also like to play and run superhero games, and running fantasy superheroes can be quite fun, even with the 5e ruleset (which isn't what I'd go to for a more traditional supers game by any means).

Yeah from a DM's standpoint, this is probably the "easiest" part of running high levels. I build my encounters based on pure creativity, not having a clue how my party is going to figure things out or survive the encounters.

hehe I still remember I did a dungeon with an adamantium golem in an anti-magic field that was with a horde of devils. The golem was effectively immune to damage, and teleports were shut down in this particular area. The party eventually used the actor feat of all things to win, they heard one of the devil give the golem an order, and then in a perfect mimicry of the devil's voice said, "golem, kill all devils and take no further orders until you are finished". The golem drove the devils out of the field, and the party wiped them out one by one as they ran out.

Afterwards my players asked, "so how did you think we were going to handle that?" And I just looked at them and shrugged, "you all have the big boy pants on, no training wheels from me anymore"

 

[Maxperson]

Which is pretty much impossible to do at high level whilst still retaining some semblance of realism. If there is anything capable of challenging a 20th level party roaming the countryside, how is it it hasn't slaughtered all the commoners?

As @Oofta said, the journey isn't to the local grocery store. It's across vast expanses of another plane or some other fantastical place.

 

[Maxperson]

It's possible. I sent them to the Underdark. But you are still in the situation of every fight being either a boss battle or not worth the effort of setting out the counters.

And if you are going to narrate it, you might as well just let them teleport.

Sure, but the thing is earth-shaking catastrophes and weird alien dimensions get old real fast.

@Oofta said "Sometimes I want the journey to be part of the challenge." The key there is "sometimes." Not all the time. Sometimes the journey is fantastical and part of the challenge. Other times you are teleporting to another city or setting to undertake some mission.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The narrative is the big issue. The mechanics work after a fashion. It's coming up with an entertaining story that involves beating up six Thanos before breakfast that is difficult.

Pretty much a symptom of D&D's combat addiction.

They pretend Social and Exploration are pillars of the game, but they're really just nubs they're contractually required to pretend are there when the designers actually just want you to have six fights before breakfast (after which, you sleep 8 hours) instead of having a few interesting skirmishes, solve some puzzles, interact with each other and NPCs, follow clues, complete a 3 act structure and THEN fight Thanos as the topper for the story.

And then maybe some better variation between climax bosses between arcs.

After all, the Avengers don't fight Thanos every week. They fight Kang (okay, there's a lot of Kangs, but the point remains), Ultron, Annihilus, Galactus, Graviton, Zemo, and of course each other for no good reason.

They also get to fight other guys besides universe busters because the writer isn't so pressured to 'challenge' them ad DMs let themselves become. They recognize it's fun to just kick Shocker, Mandril, Whiplash, Toad or other lower level dudes in an interesting situation.

D&D has just fostered a cultural belief that PCs have to be fighting for their lives on a flat, grid-ready surface with no stakes but death and no motivation other than 'they're bad' at all times to be valid as D&D.

 

[Minigiant]

D&D fans can't agree on what 14+ level characters are.

And neither WOTC nor TSR (Nor Major 3rd parties) are willing to bite the bullet and define high level characters.

So we end up with high level characters doing low level stuff with bigger numbers and getting bored.

 

[Jer]

Pretty much a symptom of D&D's combat addiction.

They pretend Social and Exploration are pillars of the game, but they're really just nubs they're contractually required to pretend are there

I will say - one thing about high level D&D in general in my experience and it holds in 5e is that you might only have a single battle in a session. Or possibly no battles at all. Not that the whole session will be a giant battle, but the opposite - that most of the session will be leaning on the exploration and social parts of the game.

Which as I've said before in D&D in general, and 5e is no exception, those two "pillars" are mostly a framework for improv. So you can have entire sessions - or even adventures - where the obstacles put in front of the PCs are removed through the use of their spells, magic items, knowing who to talk to and when, and skill rolls without really having anything you might think of as a combat.

That is not going to be a satisfying game for a lot of people. But honestly - the supers games I play run pretty much the same way. When you get outside of combat everything boils down to asking the player to roll a die, add a number, and then improv a result. There's nothing special about D&D 5e in that regard (except that 5e could really use success levels on checks - I've hacked in my own but having binary success/fail checks on ability checks makes 5e more annoying than it should be compared to other games in that regard).