What's with the obsession with "High Level" D&D?

[Gx1080]

Ok, I have been here for a while but I have never understood this. Why you guys seem to consider so important a game mode that:

a)Is almost completely unsupported by the source material.
b)Not many people actually get to play.

I mean, wouldn't be easier to simply cut the game to level 16 or so and let people run adventures at level cap? I mean, the kind of godhood of high level D&D seems to be suited for a supplement, not the main rules.

[Tumbling Down]

a)Is almost completely unsupported by the source material.

What source material?

[Kaelik]

Because it's fun, and because you suffer from confirmation bias.

We talk about low level D&D/mid level D&D as much or more, you just don't throw a hissy fit when you see it.

[Josh_Kablack]

Most contemporary superhero comics probably count as source material for teen level D&D play. I mean the Avengers usually include a guy who goes and beats up Frost Giants for fun, a guy with every single magic armor attainable by wish plus multiple post-wish economy suits, a paladin shield-specialist who got a pity artifact, and the guy who's on par with those three by virtue of high Strength alone.

[Koumei]

High-level D&D has more problems, so we discuss those problems more. We discuss the problems of low-level D&D less because there aren't as many to talk about.

Talking about the game in general, I'm pretty sure there's less talk about the actual high-level stuff (because most gameplay happens at the lower levels).

That said, high-level is fun, so despite the problems it's certainly worth keeping.

Also, you may have noticed that a reasonable number of actual classes produced by the Den cap out at 10, 12, 15 or whatever. And some of the later ones just have big empty patches in the later levels ("Stuff that follows a clear progression keeps progressing, otherwise it needs some special abilities added but I'm paralysed by not caring very much.") and has "At level twenty, you win the game" as shorthand for "Nobody cares".

So you're basically wrong on every aspect, including the "You talk/care about it too much and pay it needless respect" premise and the idea that your proposed solution isn't basically being used in some cases already. So this thread has achieved... increasing my post count. One more step towards [Overlord].

[K]

People want to play high fantasy, and in DnD high fantasy is invariably connected to high level.

Now, that doesn't have to be true. You can have world-altering high-fantasy consequences to your low-level adventures, but people seem to be a lot more comfortable killing dog-sized rats at low-level.

Therefore, people want to fix high-level. Its the only way to play high-fantasy.

[Gx1080]

Fitst, it was a real question.

Second, ok. Wanting to play high-fantasy is a valid argument.

But then it begs the question: What D&D should emulate? Because a common complain is that D&D doesn't do X or Y genres well. I think that is occasionated because is the first TTRPG of many people (just like WoW is the first MMO of many people), but still want to know.

[Aryxbez]

a)Is almost completely unsupported by the source material.

What source material?

I believe he's talking about how in D&D's history, it's always basically capped out at level 10th or so? Despite that the pinnacle of achievement was like owning a castle for fighters, there are adventures which PC's take on Gods/Demon lords. So even the "source material" for D&D had high level stuff.

Unless of course, talking about source material in the form of our media, which we do have a decent bit of actually. Such as superhero comics, shows like One Piece, games like God of War, hell even western mythologies like the tale of Hercules (even Arthurian mythos had some cool stuff). However, then you might be one of "these" people, who just scream things being "NO TOO AMINA!!", that's just supeheroes, despite that the genre encompasses all kinds of power levels, as D&D does. Albeit like to think not, given I don't recall any shadzar-ness in this poster.

Sure, I like low level stuff as well, games I like to play are just chock full of it (Fallout series, Shadowrun, Fire Emblem, Elder Scrolls series). However like most, in my area, low level is the most popular to be played, and unfortunately, so is Pathfinder. Really, I'm rather tired of the low level fantasy, and want to get into the more high level stuff, but would like a playable game with it, not full of massive bookkeeping problems, among many other imbalances. Conceptually, High level is friggin AWESOME! don't really care to see more people just wanting to dilute fantasy down to only boring amount of low level crap. Sure as hell don't need more of that, that's what we have the likes of Fantasycraft, Pathfinder, and even to a misadvertised extent, 4th edition.

Although where I want to ideally start with higher level D&D currently, is 14th level equivalent and onward.

EDIT: Sounds like D&D in its past has always strove for low to mid levels, and even what wizards believe to be their "best edition yet" has struck as not going past 10th in its most powerful capabilities? Seems like they're rather set for 1-10th level range unfortunately, as much as I would want to see the other higher level ranges get represented too, sounds like that's what it should go for (which means, can't be fighting "gods" in the way that 4th edition likes to make you think you can, or even the MOON).

[Chamomile]

Just because the villains are called gods doesn't mean they're actually on par with D&D gods. It's been mentioned before how the actual adventures of Thor from the Norse myths are, like, a twelfth level adventure. I don't know much about God of War, but I don't think Kratos ever demonstrates any ability that would put him past ~15th either. Hercules was definitely not more than about 8th level.

[Lokathor]

If there were a few sketched out adventure outlines for DnD versions of those myths it'd sure go a long way towards explaining to people why there really isn't much actual high-level stuff to look to for adventure design.

[TheFlatline]

High-level D&D has more problems, so we discuss those problems more. We discuss the problems of low-level D&D less because there aren't as many to talk about.

It kind of reminds me of physics and the issues of Quantum Physics and Relativity.

They both sort of work in their respective areas, but there's a gap somewhere where one breaks down and doesn't flow into the other.

What we need is a Unified D&D Theory.

[TheFlatline]

Just because the villains are called gods doesn't mean they're actually on par with D&D gods. It's been mentioned before how the actual adventures of Thor from the Norse myths are, like, a twelfth level adventure. I don't know much about God of War, but I don't think Kratos ever demonstrates any ability that would put him past ~15th either. Hercules was definitely not more than about 8th level.

God of War Kratos at one point (in the second one at least) throws the Colossus of Rhodes or whatever it was supposed to be physically a good distance. He's generally sub-10 with moments that break even shit that epic level does.

[talozin]

a)Is almost completely unsupported by the source material.

This is more because over time "the source material" has more and more become the previous editions of D&D, which, surprise, surprise, don't have much high level stuff in them, because historically, it's been shit.

The original source material includes stuff like Harold Shea traveling to Asgard and teaming up with Heimdall to help the Norse Gods prep for Ragnarok. It includes Moorcock's Elric, a man who bargains with demon lords as a near-equal and makes use of his epic powers of sorcery to destroy armies. And it includes Zelazny's Corwin, whose mastery of dimension travel is so complete that "I travel to the demi-plane of diamonds and strip-mine it" is an actual thing he does.

[hogarth]

Ok, I have been here for a while but I have never understood this. Why you guys seem to consider so important a game mode that:

a)Is almost completely unsupported by the source material.
b)Not many people actually get to play.

I mean, wouldn't be easier to simply cut the game to level 16 or so and let people run adventures at level cap?

To be honest, I doubt most people care about it too much one way or the other. The only one around here who really gets excited by OVER 9000 play is Lago Paranoia, as far as I know.

[Koumei]

God of War Kratos at one point (in the second one at least) throws the Colossus of Rhodes or whatever it was supposed to be physically a good distance. He's generally sub-10 with moments that break even shit that epic level does.

And in one of the "Like God of War, but ___" games, Bayonetta goes into space, beats up a god so big she has to clamber over it like Shadow of the Colossus, and kicks it into the Sun. With her attacks having several infinitonnes of force per square inch.

High level D&D should definitely be like Bayonetta. Including the nudity.

[TheFlatline]

God of War Kratos at one point (in the second one at least) throws the Colossus of Rhodes or whatever it was supposed to be physically a good distance. He's generally sub-10 with moments that break even shit that epic level does.

And in one of the "Like God of War, but ___" games, Bayonetta goes into space, beats up a god so big she has to clamber over it like Shadow of the Colossus, and kicks it into the Sun. With her attacks having several infinitonnes of force per square inch.

High level D&D should definitely be like Bayonetta. Including the nudity.

The more damage you do the less clothes you have on?

Interesting.

[darkmaster]

So nudity makes you stronger on this planet...

[the_taken]

God of War Kratos at one point (in the second one at least) throws the Colossus of Rhodes or whatever it was supposed to be physically a good distance. He's generally sub-10 with moments that break even shit that epic level does.

And in one of the "Like God of War, but ___" games, Bayonetta goes into space, beats up a god so big she has to clamber over it like Shadow of the Colossus, and kicks it into the Sun. With her attacks having several infinitonnes of force per square inch.

High level D&D should definitely be like Bayonetta. Including the nudity.

The more damage you do the less clothes you have on?

Interesting.

At some point, metals just don't offer protection anymore. Even Adamantine stops working, since Green Lantern Batman's gaze bypasses all Damage Reduction.

[shadzar]

the problem with high level is attachement to characters. people jsut cant give up ont heir pet character and play a new one or start a new game with another one.

attachment is fine when you are playing, but all things come to an end. Bob the Barbarian isnt the only character you can play...and not all other characters you play must also be barbarians or Bobs.

people have lost sight of the story and only think of the games and levels due to the supreme level grinders that is J-RPGs or what i call carnival rides. those games where in order to progress you must be this level to continue (you must be this tall to ride this ride).

if you actually think about the story and game needs, you can stop thinking of things based on such high levels and remove levels form the game, or make the sotry fit within a smalelr level range and complete the story of this group of adventures at anytime.

what were their goals setting out? to rid the kingdom of this evil and return home a hero? is their home and families still there? why dont they return with their wealth and live a happy life with their family?

LotR sets a great adventure in motion with a story to complete. sure Samwise could have done other things, and maybe some of the fellowship did have more adventures such as Bilbo being a part of Frodo's adventure. But the world is full of people for Middle Earth, where many more could have done things after. in RPGs there is not just one world but many, so other than continue on that world after some years have passed for one groups adventure, you can start a new one and take on new stories...but people get too attached to that one pet character they cannot stop using it and must have more and more levels.

[Lago PARANOIA]

From a game designer perspective, there's a real hope that if you can get high-level play working it means that you can get the lower-levels working as well.

Which makes intuitive sense, but I still say that this ain't necessarily so. I consider 4E D&D essentially unplayable at really low levels so even if they fixed the epic levels (which are also unplayable) it would still leave the first levels of the game a pile of suckage. When I run 4E D&D I try my damnedest not to start players are a level lower than 7.

[Judging__Eagle]

I think the real reason we want to play high level games is that they're one of the few types we get to play, and now that some of use have played 20+ years, we're sort of tired with level 1-7 games. Where PCs are breaking into transhumanism, but still identifiable as mortal and vulnerable.

Also, keeping in mind the nature of diverging lines made from tiny initial points; having high level play being able to be created well means that you've also figured out how you want low level play to look as you wanted it to.

Meaning holy crap, you've found one of the holy grails in storytelling, since you've probably had to look at the fundamental issue of Timing. Whether directly, or not, you've had to look at how things change, and take time, and you want your system to output results that you think it should output, however it's only code, it does what you told it to, not what you think it should do; garbage in garbage out.


Without Timing you can't even have character, or story; let alone action, excitement, tension, suspicion, awe or entertainment. Which are all things we're very much looking for.

[FatR]

Why high-levels DnD? Because there are a shitton of systems that do low-powered fantasy, but not very many that do high-powered fantasy (and these tend to be either gimmicky non-mainstream systems or utterfail). Also because the desire to cover at least most of the fantasy genre with one system is perfectly natural, and there are alot of fantasy books where people have far too high levels of mojo to put them next to Conan.

[RobG]

Im running an 18th level 3e game right now (2+ years so far) and Im running out of anything reasonable to throw at my players. The mechanics are bad at this level but ive fixed most of that. The problem is that the tasks are so big. Its hard to keep the setting together when the party can alter the world so dramaticly. Arcanis being the setting in this case.

Examples
(Last quest) Raid the main temple of Seluwe in Panara to steal an artifact and raise a dead elven God.

(Current quest) Disguise yourselves as Devils or Celestials and go to the abyss. Kill Balors until the currently invading Demons are sent to another plane.

(Next quest) Kill the last Altherians and steal the wealth of an entire country.

There's only so much of this that can go on before you just win D&D.

A high- level setting that's robust enough to handle this kind of power level would be ideal. I have no idea how to go about writing one.

[Krusk]

I assume when someone complains about the source material not supporting something, they mean "Peter Jacksons Lord ofthe Rings movies".

To that extent, i agree. High level dnd does not support aragorn, legolas, gimli or frodo.

[Archmage]

Its hard to keep the setting together when the party can alter the world so dramaticly...A high- level setting that's robust enough to handle this kind of power level would be ideal. I have no idea how to go about writing one.

Your setting has to be big, too, and entire planes have to become as expendable from a plot standpoint as tiny farm towns were at low levels. The Abyss has an unlimited number of layers, and there are a theoretically-infinite number of demiplanes and parallel primes crammed into the multiverse.

On the other hand, if you don't want to run a multiverse-type game and want to focus on the events of one prime material plane and its inhabitants forever, I'm not entirely sure what you do either. The fact is that the King of Greatlandia becomes as irrelevant as the Mayor of Mudfarm did eventually, unless Greatlandia is some kind of planar trade hub or crossroads.

I think this is one of the reasons several people around here have suggested that the MtG setting should be used as a default D&D setting -- at some point, you quit playing Prodigal Sorcerers and Benalish Heroes and everyone is a full-fledged Planeswalker.