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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 4629877" data-attributes="member: 22424">I suspect most people played at those levels because that was where the game worked best.If the vast majority of the play-time occurs in those levels, I don't think it matters too much.(And, with 4e, I'm quite confident that the bulk of the play time will drop into a similar range, although not for the same reason. It's simple math, really: most campaigns start at first level, run for a while and then stop. Most groups will blow through the early levels very quickly, and the probability of the campaign fizzling over time (and hence levels) increases. So, a great many campaigns will fold before 30th level, and so the majority of the play time will still be spent in a subset of the level range. Quite what the numbers are is not yet clear, of course.)However, I do agree that there were problems with the high-level range in 3e (less so with the low-level range, and don't get me started on epic play...). Part of this is that earlier versions of D&D changed as the game progressed - once characters reached 'name' level their rate of advancement slowed (fewer hit points, fewer skill advances, fewer powers). The game became more about accumulating followers and in-setting power, titles and land.In 3e, the game still shifted as you entered high-level play, but the mechanics didn't change. Characters still accumulated hit points, skill points and everything else at the same rate. This, coupled with the differences between 'good' and 'poor' advancements (and the associated stats, which would also be boosted at different rates) led to problems with the math - a Cleric could make a Will save on a 2, where the Fighter needed a 20.With 4e, the designers have restored explicitly stated tiers (last seen in BECM D&D, I believe), and 'fixed the math' to remove the massive difference between the 'good' and the 'poor' progression. This probably means that the game works significantly better (mathematically) across the whole level range. However, because both the dice roll modifiers and the target DCs advance at almost exactly the same rate, +1/2 per level, a lot of dice rolls at any level now boil down to "roll a 10" (which begs the question: why bother tracking the modifiers at all?). This may have the consequence that the game either lacks the same replayability as older editions, or that more campaigns fizzle out more quickly as people get bored more quickly and want to play different characters. It remains far too early to tell whether this is the case or not, and how much WotC can alleviate this with splatbooks (which constantly add 'new shiny' to keep people interested).</blockquote>

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