D&D 5E Why is level 5-10 the "sweet spot" in D&D

[Hussar]

Pinning down the "exact" sweet spot is going to vary considerably from group to group. It depends so much on the system mastery skills of the players, the number of PC's at the table, system mastery of the DM and probably all sorts of other stuff I'm not mentioning.

I think the point is, whether you say the sweet spot is 3-13 or 5-10, that means that most of the game is largely superfluous. From low double digit levels onward, the game doesn't get played, and the low end of the spectrum is basically skipped through as fast as possible. I mean, isn't the assumption that you're going to hit 3rd level by the end of the second or third session? Basically levels 1-2 are just background building. The game doesn't really start until 3rd.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Yes. Levels 1-2 aren't very good, both because of character frailty and limited options (not everyone has their theme/sub-class). Once you hit level 3, you FEEL like your character is a hero and can handle doing heroic things. I've only played/run to level 10 (after 17 months), but as the PCs get more powerful, so do the challenges. Concentration and Attunement do a fantastic job of keeping magic from dominating and breaking the game, while Rituals allow for magical solutions with limited resource loss. My current campaign is set to go to about level 17, and while I expect a few difficulties (because there always are), I'm not afraid of my campaign falling apart.

During my optimization research, I was told repeatedly that there is a point in 5E where the casters begin to dominate, but it was never specifically described when that was.

 

[Psikerlord#]

IF the sweet spot is now 3-12, I think that is a significant improvement over 5-10 - that's 9 levels instead of 5

To everyone who plays 5e: Is this true? I have no idea.

For me personally, there is too much damage and hit point inflation past 10th level. I would say the sweet spot is 3-10, but I still enjoy 1-2 also. I don't mind that PCs are a bit fragile at first, I think it should be that way. By 3rd you really feel like you've progressed. I believe the game works extremely well - without feats, or with a handful of feats modified - from 1st thru to 10th.

 

[I'm A Banana]

IF the sweet spot is now 3-12, I think that is a significant improvement over 5-10 - that's 9 levels instead of 5

To everyone who plays 5e: Is this true? I have no idea.

It's a complex answer.

First, in 5e, not all levels are created equal. Following the XP model, you don't spend as much game time in LV 1 or LV 2 as you do in LV 5 or LV 7. So in terms of "quantity of sessions where PC's are fragile or mighty," you're looking at a small number.

Second, 5e maintained some of the best lessons of 4e, and one of those is "low-level PC's should be able to survive, and high-level PC's shouldn't be able to cast a few spells to make all their problems go away." So even though you have fragile and mighty characters, the ends of the bell curve are closer to the center.

5e also iterated on 4e's design, though. See, 4e was designed to (in an ideal scenario) extend that "sweet spot" through all 30 levels of play. Level 1 or Level 30, you would have some non-dominant resources that helped you survive. This is part of the reason for 4e's tight math...but also part of the reason that 4e could feel like a treadmill, because sometimes it felt like the only thing to increase was the size of the numbers, not the actual play experience. So 5e brought back "fragile low-level" and "powerful high-level" play, though with a magnitude toned down from pre-4e editions.

So some degree of frail-to-powerful arc is really part of the fun of gaining levels for a lot of players, and if you try to make the whole game the "sweet spot," it mostly just feels samey, like being 20th level doesn't really mean much.

With that said...

I think the point is, whether you say the sweet spot is 3-13 or 5-10, that means that most of the game is largely superfluous. From low double digit levels onward, the game doesn't get played, and the low end of the spectrum is basically skipped through as fast as possible. I mean, isn't the assumption that you're going to hit 3rd level by the end of the second or third session? Basically levels 1-2 are just background building. The game doesn't really start until 3rd.

I think cramming the "zero to hero" arc into ~10 levels would've made a lot of sense, but 20 levels are a brand thing in D&D, one thing that sets it apart. 10 levels would've been a significant change, and, I imagine, would've left some people feeling mightily irate at a PHB that only went to level 10 for each class (even if each level was conceptually a bigger change), no matter how impractical a full 20-level spread tends to be in practice.

If I had my iron-fisty druthers, D&D would presume 10-level play and after that come things like rules for domain management (founding your own fortress / chapel /wizard college / thieves' guild), prestige classes, and epic world threats that used binary blocks to encourage higher-level dungeon-delving (think: you can't hurt the werewolf without silver).

But that might not even be good, so I can't blame them for sticking with 20 levels just like they stuck with "The Monster Manual will be an alphabetical list of various creatures with short descriptions and a stat block" and with under-utilized ability scores and all sorts of other personal bugaboos.

 

[Ancalagon]

I know that in my entire gaming career, I've only had one high level character, in a high level game. (if you must ask, 2nd ed gnome illusionist/thief. *very* versatile, level 10/12 or something like that). The game really felt different, with potent spellcasters and lots of options - the GM's answer to our party's almost crushing power was having the temple of Helm where we were to be besieged by an army from the abyss, as no mortal force could realistically threaten us.

But appart from that exception, *every game* - and this is with different groups too - ended at level 9-10 ish. So when I see powers at level 14, 17 etc I barely read them because part of me goes "well that will never happen". So had the game ended at level 10 with 5th level spells, I would have felt oddly disappointed, but not that concerned.

 

[discosoc]

Magic, and similar effects start to really become a bit overbearing for most GM's after about level 10 or 11, due to the way that levels higher than that can so frequently bypass things we normally associate with as challenging. Lord of the Rings, for example, wouldn't have worked well as a story if Gandalf had access to teleports and massive damage spells quite like a d&d caster would.

Really, if you look at any fantasy story, it all takes place within constraints found in levels 1-10ish. Except for superheros, which have a firm grip on the level 20 style games. What's missing is the stuff between 10ish and 20. So the GM flounders a bit because he can't use the great encounter ideas he has knowing trivial things like travel and gravity really don't mean anything anymore.

Honestly, just look at pre-published adventures and campaigns to get an idea of just how pervasive the problem is. In 5e, we have about 3 campaigns that go up to about level 15, and even those last few levels are generally tied into the mad dash to the finish where the new power levels have limited ways of impacting day-to-day adventuring. Curse of Strahd goes to 10, if I remember right. But there's historically a ton of 1-10ish stuff out there.

So again, the next time you wonder why so many people love tier 2, just try and think about the last time you saw or read a fantasy story that involved level 15+ style magic and abilities. Odds are good it was either a superhero comic or the story focused on a "chosen one" type character who is truly unique in power (certainly not a group of 5 such characters).

 

[discosoc]

I think cramming the "zero to hero" arc into ~10 levels would've made a lot of sense, but 20 levels are a brand thing in D&D, one thing that sets it apart. 10 levels would've been a significant change, and, I imagine, would've left some people feeling mightily irate at a PHB that only went to level 10 for each class (even if each level was conceptually a bigger change), no matter how impractical a full 20-level spread tends to be in practice.

They could have just toned down the overall power level, and kept the 20 levels. Players who love to be able to min/max and run roughshod over encounters would probably hate it, but they're generally better served with Pathfinder or 4E in the first place.

Also, 20 levels really isn't a brand thing that I'd consider sacred. Until 3e, most classes started topping out at 12 or 13, and some even had straight up restrictions in place that prevented you from advancing unless non-xp conditions were met. For example, 2e druids can't actually go beyond 11 without taking the place of another druid (usually 9 in the world at any given time), can't go beyond 12 without taking the place of another archdruid (usually 3 total), and can't go beyond 15 without replacing grand druid (only 1).

Fighters got "capstone" type abilities at around 10, which is when they attracted followers and could manage a keep or castle or tower or something. Thieves had actually rise through the ranks of a thieves guild to get past certain levels, etc.

My point is, pre-3e may have had 20 levels on the chart, but the core game really didn't expect characters to go too far past level 10. And if/when they did, those extra levels were supposed to be really special and well-earned.

 

[Hussar]

But I think the point is that even if those high levels were almost never used they were still in the books. A sort of never achieved carrot for players. Or, at least rarely achieved. Leaving them out would have been pretty controversial. It's kinda like dropping gnomes. Sure most people don't really care but there's always that one guy in every group that does.

One does hope though that we see some domain management rules at some point which I think would go a long ways towards making high levels more viable.

 

[S'mon]

Because those are the levels Gygax and Arneson intended play with something approaching the modern playstyle.

In oD&D when you are low level most of the game is about NPC management. Can you and your team of armed and dangerous schlubs raid and rob the dungeon. The wizard has one spell at level 1 - and the fighter falls easily. Instead you bring a collection of fighters and as many war dogs as you can to do your fighting. The level 1 five PC party was never intended to work in oD&D - you instead went in mob handed and your most important stat was Charisma because it controlled how many hirelings you could bring with you.

At level 5 the wizard had fireball level spells. The fighter was on the verge of the next attack - and had enough magic items to put them on a whole different level to the hirelings you had with you. Meanwhile the 0th level hirelings were by this point chaff that monsters would one-hit without breaking a sweat and would be foolish to enter dungeons which 5th level PCs would find challenging. Which meant that from level 5 to level 9 the intended mode of the game was adventuring as a small team of PCs - strong enough that the wizard didn't just die to a stray blow, and against opposition hirelings couldn't handle.

Level 10 was the soft-cap. Almost all classes (let's not talk about the 1e Monk) gained land and followers. And stopped gaining hit points (seriously, go back to your AD&D books and check). The game after that point was intended to be domain management and the highest level PC in Greyhawk was Sir Robilar at IIRC level 13. PCs did sometimes go adventuring - but it was intended to be a change from the normal course of play.

2e largely removed the hirelings from prominance in 1e meaning that post-2e you were intended to play levels 1-4 in the same way as levels 5-9 despite them having been playtested for a very different game.

3e then removed the endgame. Unlike AD&D 3e decides, without thinking about it. to remove the level soft-cap and assumes you can keep playing levels 10 to the utterly un-playtested level 20 in exactly the same way you were intended to play levels 5-9. It did, however, improve the 1-4 experience at the cost of lowering the end of the sweet spot for this style of play (there's a reason E6 was a popular version).

5e at least thought about levels 10-20 and tapered off the way casters gained power. It has a better 1-4 experience than 3.X or especially 2e - and a better 11-20 experience than 3e. But this doesn't change the underlying fact that there were meant to be three related games cross-fading into each other and by 3.0 it was reduced to one single game. And mysteriously the sweet spot of 5e is exactly where oD&D and 1e intended you to play that game and not one of the other two that were a part of D&D. Funny, that.

Good post Francis. I would point out though that Moldvay Basic (1981) discourages GMs from allowing 1st level PCs to employ retainers (the guys who will go into dungeon & fight for you, whose
number is limited by your CHA), even though the PCs may well have plenty of cash to do so. This even though Moldvay Basic 1st level is at least as lethal as OD&D. I think this is the origin of
Fantasy Effin Vietnam.
Looking at the Moldvay text, it seems that he didn't want newbie players using NPCs as a
crutch, but for the game as written IMO it was bad advice and helped set things on the
path to 2e/3e+ retainerless style of play. Then Mentzer has the introductory PC adventuring solo
- until he meets Aleena, who has also decided to go solo into the Caves of Bargle! The phrase
'Darwin Award' comes to mind.

Looking also at examples of play, the PC group in the Moldvay combat example take fatalities in their encounter with hobgoblins. So do the (AIR) retainerless group in the 1e DMG example of play from 1977. So it seems to go way back.

 

[S'mon]

I'll third this one right here. The math just doesn't really favour higher level games. Not the game math, but the "math of juggling real life". Presume 4 sessions/level (ya, the first couple are faster, but, the later ones are slower, so, it balances out). That's about 1 year of weekly play to get to level 10. Most people's lives aren't stable enough to commit to more than one year for campaigns. This has been true going all the way back to the WotC play survey in the 90's. I can't imagine it's changed since then.

I think my experience across multiple campaigns definitely matches this. My Mentzer Classic game is just reaching 1 year of weekly play, around 50 sessions; the Thief & Cleric are 10th level - Thief started at 1st a year ago, Cleric started ca level 4 in June 10 sessions later. The Magic-User who had been played solo previously is 11th, and the Fighter who started at 1st a year ago but missed a bunch of
sessions is 7th. Classic Rules Cyclopedia recommends level up every 5 sessions, and my
game has been very close to that in practice.

I'm about to start playing in a monthly Out of the Abyss campaign, 5e is more like 2.5 sessions/level by default so around 35 sessions for 1-15 if the first 2 levels go fast. We're playing monthly
so that's 3 years of play, hopefully that will work out.