Your favourite level to PLAY at?

[S'mon]

My best experiences playing and GMing are definitely at levels 5 & 6. I picked 5th, but it varies by class - for Wizards 5th is awesome, for Sorcerers & Fighters, not so good. Of course it's also good to work up to these levels if possible in a tabletop game (PBEMs may be better off starting at 5th, esp in a one-shot), at least from 3rd, preferably from 1st. IME the game gets less fun after 8th, which oddly was not my experience of 1e! Although 3e is much more focussed on "supporting" high level play, in practice that usually means "bigger dungeons with bigger numbers", which for me is a pain to GM and yet doesn't offer a significantly different play experience than 1st-3rd. Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters/Immortals I reckon had the right idea - different types of play at different levels is the way to keep the game fresh & exciiting.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

That bulge in the "sweet spot" is making me all tingly and satisfied.

 

[S'mon]

Where can you have the players travel through time and space to Earth to rescue Jesus from the machinations of Pazuzu by cutting off his (Jesus') head, fight Abyssal Paragon Tyrannosaurs (just to have an excuse to use all 6 T-Rex minis that I somehow have collected), and kill two Overgods while destroying three artifacts in the process?

Epic.

You can do that at 10th-12th, no problem, a la Queen of the Demonweb PIts. Actually you could do it at 6th, if you statted the "Abyssal Paragon Tyrannosaurs" right, and the reduced number crunching would probably make it more fun.

 

[S'mon]

Eight level is where the PC's are at the height of their martial prowess, right before raise dead and teleport fall into their hands to diminish the spirit of adventure and exploration.

Hmm. Excellent point. Would eliminating those spells keep the spirit alive longer?

 

[S'mon]

I picked 12th.

Can have the cool abilities by then.

Can face the cool monsters like demons and liches by then.

And iterative attacks are still only a minor nuissance when it comes to dragging out combat.

You can stat demons & liches to be fightable at 6th or so, though. IME I actually tend to hate 12th for pretty much the reason you state - it's where the PCs are coming up against the real big bad monsters & encountering the uber NPCs, but without the overwhelming PC-power of level 15+. CR 10 monsters are often incredibly deadly. 10th-12th I always call the Death Levels due to the extreme PC mortality rate. I'm sick of seeing cool, well-developed PCs fed into the Death Levels meatgrinder. A political type game might be fine at 12th, but I do not enjoy 12th level dungeoneering.

 

[S'mon]

That bulge in the "sweet spot" is making me all tingly and satisfied.

The bulge is very noticeable, ain't it? I actually really hope WoTC would pay this some attention. The inevitable conclusion to me is that WoTC (essentially Monte, I think) got it wrong when they made higher-level gaming the D&D 3e standard, with XP tables that force you quickly up to high level (11+). What most people most enjoy is that well-known sweet spot. Rather than complex tweaking of levels (tweaking the sweet spot?) what should be done is to revise the XP tables & default demographics to facilitate play at this level. Eberron seems to have worked on the NPC demographics (no Wiz-20s under every bush), and there are a reasonable number of CR 5-8 monsters, but the standard 3e XP table is still there and still causing trouble for GMs & groups who prefer mid-level gaming in a mid-level world.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

The bulge is very noticeable, ain't it? I actually really hope WoTC would pay this some attention.

I'm positive that WOTC did a lot of research on this topic already.

The standard 3e XP table is still there and still causing trouble for GMs & groups who prefer mid-level gaming in a mid-level world.

Well, I think it's better for WOTC to design a system that is relatively "flat" across most levels, to cater to the most people. It's much easier for you, the GM, to slow down XP awards to prolong the tweaking of your personal sweet spot.

But as it stands now, the table actually does account for this. You pretty rapidly advance to 4th level, and already prolongs 4th through about 9th (IIRC). If you have looked at the "Chi-Rho" method of awarding XP, and you compare that table against the existing table, you'll see what I mean.

Wulf

 

[S'mon]

It does promote advancement to 4th and 4th-9th is slower, but still very fast (IMO). Advancement through to 13th or so though is much slower because typically at those levels PCs are dying a lot and being Raised or Res'd -1 level. Advancement seems to pick up again around 15th as mortality slackens off.

 

[Darmanicus]

I chose 7th however anywhere between 5&7 is cool. You're pretty funky by then but not THAT funky.

I'm playing 18th at the mo and whilst it's a blast, there is SOO much to remember.

 

[drothgery]

The bulge is very noticeable, ain't it? I actually really hope WoTC would pay this some attention. The inevitable conclusion to me is that WoTC (essentially Monte, I think) got it wrong when they made higher-level gaming the D&D 3e standard, with XP tables that force you quickly up to high level (11+).

Did they? ENWorld is a community where most of us have a lot of exposure to earlier editions of D&D, and preconceptions that can't help but affect us. Despite that, ~30% of the respondents said they favored gaming in the 10-20 range, which was pretty much unplayable in 1e/2e. A similar survey taken in, say, 1994 (about 5 years post-2e launch) would probably have favored lower levels much more strongly.