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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 9163131" data-attributes="member: 996">I feel like there's been a feedback cycle with higher levels. WotC has several times admitted that higher levels got less playtesting, because people didn't play at those levels so much.Fair.But D&amp;D had had a &quot;sweet spot&quot; forever. IMX, with 1e, it was 3-7, excluding Name Levels, entirely.[spoiler=&quot; Embarrassing aside:&quot;] I don't know why I&quot;ve always said 3-7. I can't point to anything at 8th going wrong. 9th, sure 5th level spells, money-pit castles,etc..(Maybe I'd seen that level range on products like modules?)(3rd as the lower bound I still recall, no ones being killed by a housecat at that point, and 2nd level spells make the MU more interesting than casting Sleep 1-2/day and give the Cleric something beyond Cure Light wounds)[/spoiler]3e made 1-2nd more viable, but E6 became a really good idea.[spoiler=&quot;not D&amp;D&quot;]4e, as always, was the outlier, playable at all levels, but even so, WotC only got as far as good Paragon level resources in DMG2. Essentials focused on Heroic levels, where it's new martial/caster-gap-enhanced sub-classes were not that gappy.[/spoiler]5e, of course, made the lowest levels a bit unpredictably deadly, again, and also a bit unsatisfying for classes that don't get their sub-class at 1st, and class balance only gets worse as you level - but while it reverted to a sweet spot, pretty much 3-4th plus Heroic Tier, 5e did lean into it with exp progression.The exp it takes to level, relative to the expected daily exp budget, is lower at 1-3rd and 12+, meaning you spend more actual play time in that sweet spot, even tho you likely start at 1st, and even if you continue some ways past 10th.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 9163131, member: 996"] I feel like there's been a feedback cycle with higher levels. WotC has several times admitted that higher levels got less playtesting, because people didn't play at those levels so much. Fair. But D&D had had a "sweet spot" forever. IMX, with 1e, it was 3-7, excluding Name Levels, entirely.[spoiler=" Embarrassing aside:"][i] I don't know why I"ve always said 3-7. I can't point to anything at 8th going wrong. 9th, sure 5th level spells, money-pit castles,etc..([/I]Maybe I'd seen that level range on products like modules?) (3rd as the lower bound I still recall, no ones being killed by a housecat at that point, and 2nd level spells make the MU more interesting than casting Sleep 1-2/day and give the Cleric something beyond Cure Light wounds)[/spoiler] 3e made 1-2nd more viable, but E6 became a really good idea.[spoiler="not D&D"]4e, as always, was the outlier, playable at all levels, but even so, WotC only got as far as good Paragon level resources in DMG2. Essentials focused on Heroic levels, where it's new martial/caster-gap-enhanced sub-classes were not that gappy.[/spoiler] 5e, of course, made the lowest levels a bit unpredictably deadly, again, and also a bit unsatisfying for classes that don't get their sub-class at 1st, and class balance only gets worse as you level - [I]but [/I]while it reverted to a sweet spot, pretty much 3-4th plus Heroic Tier, 5e did lean into it with exp progression. The exp it takes to level, relative to the expected daily exp budget, is lower at 1-3rd and 12+, [I]meaning you spend more actual play time in that sweet spot, [/I]even tho you likely start at 1st, and even if you continue some ways past 10th. [/QUOTE]

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