Good evening, Dungeon Masters. I’m Baron de Ropp. WotC research reaffirms what most of us experience:
A typical campaign usually fizzles out after about six or so months, or roughly when party
members reach ninth level. But, what if 5th edition really starts to
shine at these higher levels. What if, at least for veteran players, starting
a campaign at level eleven, were ideal. LOW LEVEL SCALABILITY
I’ve touched on this topic in my feats critique video, but suffice it to say, Fifth edition
D&D has a scalability problem. As player characters gain more powers and
focus in on their character build, the game’s encounters scale to match that power increase. Interestingly though, the rate of this power
increase begins to dramatically slow down as characters level up. To illustrate, let’s explore a typical Human
Fighter Sword and Board’s durability and damage output over time. For Each level’s increase in hit points,
we can track the percentage of that hit point increase relative to the hit points the fighter
had at the previous level. Upon reaching level two, they have nearly
a 50% increase in hit points. By level 3, a fighter has twice the durability
they started the game with. But, this percent change in durability begins
to approach zero after achieving 5th level. In a nutshell, 8 more hit points doesn’t
do much for you if you already have 70 of them. The same can be said for this character’s
damage output across levels. Various class features and extra attacks increase
damage output like crazy in the lower levels, especially the 50% jump in damage output at
level five. But, the third attack gained at level eleven
only increases damage output by 25% compared to the level before. Even worse, after level six, damage output
increases are basically nonexistent. These same diminishing power curves are found
among most other classes as well. Sorcerers gain access to fireball and double
cantrip damage upon level 5, but, after those fiery achievements, sorcerers begin working
their way through some of the most lackluster fourth and fifth level spells in their list. Specifically, none of these new magic spells
bring about the same excitement as a player did upon gaining access to fireball when achieving
level five. In essence, when these characters gain more
crunchy abilities that slow down combat, while also not gaining power at the same rate they
remember doing so in prior levels, players generally become disinterested from the campaign. DM SCALABILITY PROBLEMS
This scaling issue also exists on the DM’s end of the table, but it manifests in a very
strange way. When crafting a game’s central plot, and
preparing it’s villains, we anticipate characters will rapidly grow in power. And, therefore, we create dungeons, villains,
and encounters that reflect D&D’s inherent character growth. But whereas the power level of a 7th level
party isn’t really that much different than an 11th level, it becomes problematic to design
challenges that feel worthy of a technically higher level that these eleventh level character
couldn’t reasonably solve at level nine. Even if we throw an ilithilich or the demogorgon
at a level seven party, they still have tons of options to protect themselves long enough
to escape. As a result, characters who grow up fighting
goblins, then gnolls, then ogres, and finally slay an adult dragon, can’t be overtly threatened
anymore. At least not the same way characters felt
threatened in early levels. But this is an opportunity, not just a problem. HIGH LEVEL SCALABILITY
Abilities and spell selections during mid-level advancement generally force players to make
decisions that broaden their range of options. This contrasts with most early level advancements
which make characters more skilled at a narrow, specific task. Sorcerers realize they can only take so many
permutations of fire flinging, be it firebolt, burning hands, scorching ray, fireball, and
finally wall of fire, before these spells become increasingly redundant. As characters level, they find themselves
making more boring selections to their character’s loadout. But these perceivably boring selections inadvertently
increase a character's breadth of their problem solving ability. So, if characters don’t really gain more
power output or durability, but instead gain abilities which help them respond to more
unique threats in unique ways, but, the slow grind of gaining those abilities is boring
enough to become disinterested in the game, why not just throw more experienced players
who won’t be overwhelmed by it, straight into an 11th level campaign. Characters will have enough options to handle,
or at least retreat from, whatever challenges the dungeon master throws at them. This in turn, means encounter design, dungeon
concepts, and storylines don’t have to worry about those early level power jumps from second
to third level, and again from fourth to fifth level. Not only this, but tinkerer players will finally
have the opportunity to try some of their level 20 build ideas. By starting the game at level eleven or so,
your stories can get extremely wild, fantastical, and creative right from the start. And this solves yet another problem dungeon
masters endure when it comes to game scalability. We don't need to worry about the triflings
of goblins or kobolds to have a convincing long term story. The major threats in your game world’s plot
can immediately be interacted with in a meaningful way, without needing to worry through contrived
low level monster story relevancy. Enemies no longer need to justify their cooperation
with goblins or orcs, who are famously uncooperative, yet would be pressed into an extra dimensional
beings service. If you’d like to help me make more content
like this in the future, please consider supporting me on patreon, or becoming a YouTube channel
member. Thanks for watching dungeon masters, and until
next time, good night.
