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Message: <blockquote data-quote="loseth" data-source="post: 3716517" data-attributes="member: 54535">Regardless of edition, many players & DMs believe that D&D has a sweet spot. They don't agree on where it is. Some (like me) place it low, in something like the 1-4 range, but the majority seem to place it at the mid-levels, giving ranges like 5-10, 6-8 or 9-12. So, I'm wondering:Considering the interaction of game mechanics and player fun in particular (but not exclusively), what makes the mid-level sweet spot so sweet?So far, posters have suggested:B]Lower levels are less sweet because...[/B]…you’re not powerful enough to do useful/interesting things.…you don’t have enough options to make things interesting (esp. mage-types).…you don’t have enough HP to avoid the effects of short bursts of bad luck.…you feel wimpy rather than heroic/you're just 'regular folks.'…the math isn’t quite balanced yet.Higher levels are less sweet because...…the rate of improvement is no longer rapid enough.…the power-ups you get start to distort your play-style & change the feel of the game (e.g. teleport)/magic starts to become too much of an easy fix.…you’re overwhelmed by options/have to keep track of too many diverse powers.…you’re too powerful to be seriously threatened (note: this can obviously be circumvented by presenting newer, bigger, more bizarre challenges, but this isn’t to everyone’s taste). ...you've gone beyond 'heores' and become 'superheroes'/the genre seems to change from epic fantasy to supers in a fantasy medieval world....you are powerful enough that you can just ignore society...PCs start to become unbalanced with regard to each other (esp. spellcaters vs. non).…the PCs have an increasing number of options that can ‘break’ the game or bypass the GM’s intentions in unfun ways (e.g. divinations).…the math gets out of whack. …the characters are under threat from more save or die effects, and from very high damage, increasing the luck factor in combat.…buffs, multiple attacks & whole bunches of modifiers in general tend to slow combat down. …GM prep time gets out of hand and the GM’s ability to run the game on the fly is impeded by the increasing complexity. …the focus swings away from doing heroic deeds toward carefully planning/preparing for heroic deeds. What can you add?</blockquote>

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