E6 or other Level Limits

[carrdrivesyou]

So I am in an E6 campaign, and I am unsure how I feel about the hard limit. For those unaware, E6 means that level 6 is the level cap, similarly to E8, E10, etc.

I recently did some research and found that most games end by level 10 or so, with a steep dropoff again after level 14. I am curious as to why this is?

Was the game not meant to be played at higher levels? Do DMs just get tired of running? Do groups fall apart? Does the plot just finish out? What is the cause of such low level limits?

[Sigreid]

Combination of reasons including people just wanting to play a new character.

[stoutstien]

So I am in an E6 campaign, and I am unsure how I feel about the hard limit. For those unaware, E6 means that level 6 is the level cap, similarly to E8, E10, etc.

I recently did some research and found that most games end by level 10 or so, with a steep dropoff again after level 14. I am curious as to why this is?

Was the game not meant to be played at higher levels? Do DMs just get tired of running? Do groups fall apart? Does the plot just finish out? What is the cause of such low level limits?

The reason behind epic style games and why normal games usually don't see higher levels of play are similar but not necessarily the same.
Most epic games still have progression past the level cap but limits HP and spells where are two issues people have as you get into higher tiers. Most epic games are set to prevent X level spell in the particular game. 6,9,and 12 are common limits because of this.
Some tables are unhappy how higher level spell change the game so they cut them out.
A common practice is to stop levels but still hand out boons, feats, and such past the cap to allow progression In a linear fashion compared to exponential growth due to new spell levels(polymorph).

I'm personally a big fan of Epic games for players who want to play the same characters for a extended time.

[GlenSmash!]

Campaign fatigue is another killer of high level play.

[CheddarChampion]

In addition to class balance issues (I don't want to go into detail or derail the topic), at high levels everything becomes harder to keep track of:
#1 Player characters' abilities (especially with spellcasting and multiclassed characters)
#2 History of the campaign and how to proceed
#3 Monsters available to the DM and all their powers/mechanics
#4 Situations that are actually threatening to the party

At lower levels but the same length of campaign, only #2 becomes a difficulty. So everything runs more smoothly at lower levels/e6/what have you.

[Jophiel]

Having an E6 or similar limit helps keep the world dangerous without getting ridiculous. Dragons and giants don't become rote and you don't need to bust into extra-planar threats or lich kings on a regular basis. Plus there's a ton of lower level critters you can use that most campaigns/players never seen to see.

[Reevh]

I feel like past level 16 or so, characters just become so powerful that fights that aren't world ending horrors are no longer challenges, and it starts to feel a bit weird when every fight is 5 Goristros.

[Keravath]

I think there are several reasons that make higher level campaigns less common.

1) Boredom. Not with the campaign but with the character. Some folks get tired of playing the same character for a long time. They want to try different things but if they are playing in only the one campaign once a week then devoting a year or two of game time to the one character to reach high levels of play can be challenging.

2) Complexity.

a) As characters level up they have more options. More spells, more abilities, more ways to interact with other players, NPCs and monsters. Some folks hit a limit in what they can handle around 6th level spells. They find it more difficult to keep track of everything they can do and then decide quickly how to respond to situations presented in the game. Lower level characters are simpler and some folks just don't like the complexity and options in higher level play (others love it though).

b) There are far more monsters available to the DM and so encounters, what monsters or NPCs can do, all become more complicated. Spellcasting NPCs can TPK a group if the characters roll badly even if the encounter was supposed to be easy on paper. Some folks find this less enjoyable to play and some DMs find these types of encounters to be more difficult to create and run.

3) It challenges the DM far more. Creating a fun, challenging, high level campaign is far more difficult than a typical level 1-10 campaign. There are epic monsters to encounter, you need an overwhelming world arching storyline, something that engages and motivates a small group of high level characters (unless your table wants to get into wars, politics and armies a la Game of Thrones). Why are these powerful characters out adventuring anyway? This usually involves large scale threats with time limits requiring the party to take immediate action. It can be done and done well but it takes a particular kind of DM to create a storyline like this and have it play out in a fun and exciting way. Some DMs won't find this fun or they can't come up with a good concept/plot hook that will naturally feed in from their existing campaign. However, 5e is actually much better for high level play than previous editions.

[Lyracian]

So I am in an E6 campaign, and I am unsure how I feel about the hard limit. For those unaware, E6 means that level 6 is the level cap, similarly to E8, E10, etc.
I recently did some research and found that most games end by level 10 or so, with a steep dropoff again after level 14. I am curious as to why this is?
Was the game not meant to be played at higher levels? Do DMs just get tired of running? Do groups fall apart? Does the plot just finish out? What is the cause of such low level limits?

I think others have covered the main reasons for it. Most of the published books let you take low level characters up to mid level which is a restriction.

For me while high level games are nice occasionally you seem to end up with the Wizard, or cleric, being a swiss-army-knife of spells that solve most of the problems. A Wizard with Fireball is impressive but when they can sling one every encounter and more it can be difficult to balance the game.

Personally I like using E6 as the base line for the world. 90% of people will be restricted by that which helps to limit what effects Magic has on our Fantasy world. When you have the campaign end a little bit higher then they get to become the most powerful heroes in the land and save the Kingdom (or what ever).

[MoiMagnus]

So I am in an E6 campaign, and I am unsure how I feel about the hard limit. For those unaware, E6 means that level 6 is the level cap, similarly to E8, E10, etc.

I recently did some research and found that most games end by level 10 or so, with a steep dropoff again after level 14. I am curious as to why this is?

Was the game not meant to be played at higher levels? Do DMs just get tired of running? Do groups fall apart? Does the plot just finish out? What is the cause of such low level limits?

+ The game was meant to be played at higher levels, though it was not meant to be played at higher level by everyone.
+ DMs getting tired of running and groups falling apart (usually because end of the year / peoples moving / ...) are big reasons.
-> If you plan to play at high level, you should probably start at level 4 (which I do), if not level 6. Assuming veterans, you can maybe start after level 10, but if anyone is somewhat new to the system, they will be overwhelmed by the complexity.
+ Plot finishing out is not a problem. It is used as a clean way to finish a campaign, but it does not constrain the group to end the campaign here. If anything, that's healthy for a campaign to not have the same "main villain" at low level and high level. You can even put a break in-universe, where the PCs split for few years before teaming up together again (with possibly some new characters if some players got bored of their PC).

Also, world-building for high level is... difficult. One reasons E6 exists is that high level spells can really mess up your world. This mean high level campaign are either:
+ Inconsistent: You take an approach similar to video-games where the NPCs don't get access to some of the PC mechanics and spells, or only have access to them when convenient. This works quite if your group is here to be cinema superheros, with all the shortcuts blockbusters takes to make that possible.
+ In an setting where peoples put an absurd amount of time to develop and ensure consistency with the rules.
+ Homebrews so that the rules are compatible with the universe. (Example of simple homebrews: additional clauses to resurrections, omnipresence of anti-divination artifacts in the world, ...)

[JackPhoenix]

E11.

High enough to get interesting abilities without getting too out of hand, powerful enough to be able to not die instantly the moment a lich or bigger dragon as much as look at you, and you actually get a capstone if you stand with a single class up to level 11: 3rd attack as a fighter, IDS as a paladin, a single 6th level spell per day for full casters, reliable talent for rogues.... and if you don't, you have more space for multiclassing.

[DeTess]

I recently did some research and found that most games end by level 10 or so, with a steep dropoff again after level 14. I am curious as to why this is?

Was the game not meant to be played at higher levels? Do DMs just get tired of running? Do groups fall apart? Does the plot just finish out? What is the cause of such low level limits?

There can be a bunch of reasons. players getting bored of the campaign can be one, the story just naturally ending at that point is another. Another factor could be the type of campaign you're playing. Once a certain level is reached, certain campaign concepts just stop being workable because of spells or other abilities just bypassing everything. For example I'm currently running a campaign that'll probably top out at level 11 or 12, and I made it clear in advance that we'd never go past 12 simply because past that the numerical power of the players wouldn't really fit with the world anymore. If the campaign would continue on past my currently imagined end point, then I'd likely hand out boons or other things to give them some other form of power progression.

That's not to say campaigns that go to high levels never happen. The campaign I was in before ran all the way to 20, and it was fun. The world had also been designed so that there would always be threats to challenge us and problems to overcome even when we where basically demi-gods, so that worked, but not every campaign-world can sustain play at such a level, and it's fine to have an earlier cut-off or set a hard limit on level.

[Jerrykhor]

Hmm not to be insulting but i always thought some of these are pretty obvious. If a DM plan for his campaign to end at level 10, then it ends at level 10. Is not a question of whether the game was meant to be played at higher levels. If the DM wanted a high level campaign, he could make it work. But of course, if you plan to run a level 1 to 20 campaign, you'd better have lots of content, and a group of dedicated players who can commit to the schedule, because it would take about 5 years of weekly sessions for that to happen. DM fatigue is also a thing, even to those that really enjoy DMing.

Scheduling is the hardest part in D&D, people always real life issues get in the way, whether its work, studies, marriage, kids etc. Sometimes its the DM himself having issues. Personally, I've only ever finished one campaign that ended at level 13 (started at 5). It lasted for 2 years+. Even then, there are always the occasional flakey players, but we just move on without them.

As for E-whatever, am not a fan of them, especially E6. To me, the game only starts proper at level 5. People use the 'high level spells break game' as an excuse, but I've yet to see it in play.

[mythmonster2]

It's worth noting that the original E6, in 3.5e, still had progression once you reached level 6. You'd just get feats instead of level-based things. You could possibly do something similar in 5e, too.

[HPisBS]

I once had the chance to play E5... it was a hard pass for me.

I've played until level 12 in two concurrently running campaigns. It's never felt like we just steamrolled things, nor did I ever get bored with my characters, both of which I stuck with from the days I joined. Rather, getting those high-end abilities, and looking forward to the next ones I'd be getting, was a fair amount of what kept me excited to come back for more each week.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who claims it's too hard to make interesting stories and/or challenging encounters past __ level just lacks imagination.

[Jerrykhor]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who claims it's too hard to make interesting stories and/or challenging encounters past __ level just lacks imagination.

My sentiments as well. Am lucky to have a DM who knows what he's doing, never a dull moment at my current level 14 campaign. But alas, not everyone can be good at DMing and writing encounters, right? We can only try.

If as a DM you're only thinking of how many Ancient Dragons you can throw at your party, you're doing it wrong. High level play is more than just combat. Powerful people have more influence, social position and resources. They should be doing more than just fighting skirmishes. There's so much that 5e don't have the rules or mechanical support, such as strongholds & followers, crafting & enchanting, plane-hopping and more.

Just look at MCU Thor. He is a definitely way beyond a typical level 20 character in terms of power level, but there are still problems that he can't punch his way out of.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I've run three or four campaigns from 1st to 20th level and back in 3rd edition designing encounters for high level play was quite exhausting especially when three of those campaigns were for a group that has played together every week for a decade, we've gotten very good at off the wall by the seat of our pants tactics give us some fore knowledge and a chance to prepare and oh boy. High level play in 3rd edition was often a game of rocket tag with the first round of combat often deciding the battle with the rest being clean up or retreat I didn't have a problem with the story, the only story problem is 'how does this guy have an army of 10th level fighters?' I had an evil campaign whose end results were the impetus for the main arc in the next campaign. The evil PC's blinded by their greed and ambition fell into the trap of the true enemy and put the world in ultimate peril which their next characters had to clean up.

So for a Pathfinder edition campaign, I didn't want to run another campaign where the ultimate stakes were the world, I didn't want it to be short either, I wanted some longer story arcs So I decided to try out my own E6. Now advancement didn't stop at sixth level, Per tradition they'd still gain feats every I think I put it at 7,000xp. I designed a series of feats to let them lean upwards towards 8th level abilities.

Skill Beyond Your Years
Prerequisite: 5th Level(feats being at 1st, 3rd and 5th in pathfinder)
Benefit: Your Maximum Ranks For Class Skills Rise by 2. This feat can be taken once.

Open Minded(actually a feat I took from somewhere else)
You are naturally able to reroute your memory, mind, and skill expertise.
Benefit: You immediately gain an extra 5 skill points.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times.

Magical Talent
Prerequisites: Ability to cast spells.
Benefit: Treat your key casting ability score as though it were four higher for the purpose of bonus spells. This applies to only a single class that you choose when you take this feat.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. It stacks with itself. This feat cannot provide spell slots higher than you can already cast.

Ability Training (General)
You spend time honing one of your Abilities
Benefit: Choose one Ability Score; you gain a permanent +1 bonus to that ability score.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times, however, it may only be taken twice for each ability score.


Just to name a few I also made feats to let you get certain class features you were a couple levels away from.

Grand Deeds
Prerequisites: Gunslinger 6th.
Benefit: You are considered 7th level for the purpose of determining what Deeds you can perform.

Master Combatant [Combat]
Prerequisite: Epic(3rd)
Mastery of your craft has increased the effectiveness of your fighter special abilities.
Prerequisite: Fighter 6
Benefit: You acquire Armor Training 2, and your Bravery increases to +3.

So advancement didn't stop, it was simply closer to how Epic play is in 5e with boons rather then epic levels. I even had a system for ritual casting in order to perform certain high level spells done in a similar manner to epic spells in 3rd edition.

This meant I could focus more of my time on story and the world, I was able to make the framework for three different arcs and rather then have they be level tiered, this is the low level arc this is the mid level arc this is the high level arc. It was sand-boxed. They decided which arc they picked up. I had the Émigré Manuscript arc involving a terrible book with horrible ritual magic inside it, the liberate the Dwarven homeland arc and the put the ancient evil they accidentally unleashed back in the can ark. It consequently ended up a party of all Dwarves so they naturally gravitated towards the Dwarf ark. They also successfully stopped the ancient evil from being unleashed so that ark was paused and When they had to take out CR 11 dragon at part of the plan to liberate the Dwarven homeland they prepared went on adventures to gather the items they needed and earned that )**)*@ victory.

It was far easier to do a long running campaign with lengthy story arks, side quests and mini-adventures without having to unrealistically up the enemies involved or the issue of the party out leveling them. Or the party being required to do THIS THING because it was the only thing I had prepared. Level limitations gave the party freedom to choose what they did and still have a challenge because they never became walking gods.

Because D&D was such a lethal game I set up a kinda strike system instead of dying you got a strike and some permanent injury the rogue for instance ended up with an automail style arm. And the gunslinger end up with an eye patch.(at three strikes you died)

3.X Edition did not have the bounded accuracy of 5e. In 5e edition if you toss in a dozen CR 1 creatures into a fight the PC's are having with a CR 10 creature when their 9th level it makes a difference. But in 3.5 they can probably ignore them they'd only hit on a natural 20. High level characters in 3.5 could take on an army head on and not break a sweat, The climatic boss of a campaign that ended at 10th level in 3.5, probably wouldn't even warrant being a foot solider against the Big bad of a 20th level party. 5e isn't balanced that way, low level guys are more then speed bumps or walls to high level guys.

If not for that house fire and some other life craziness that kept me from DMing(but not playing) for a couple years. I'd probably have run that E6 campaign through all three of those arks. As it happens I only finished the Dwarven homeland arc. But it still ran for a couple years and we all had fun with this different style of play.

5e is balanced far differently then 3rd edition, this is a topic that really belongs in the 3.5 forum. As the way I see it, 5e doesn't necessitate it. You're 20th level wizard has five spells slots of sixth level and above in 5e not 20 or so depending on his intelligence. By comparison 5e is like playing E11 in 3.5, the spell slots and abilities past that point are very limited by comparison.

But with our group now using 5e. I don't see the need for any kind of EX system. I can plan a campaign for 13th level give or take. If I want to up the challenge of an encounter I can throw in a bunch of low-level mooks and know they'll be able to hurt the party. The hindrance to charging a headlong army is not that fighting a battle with a hundred low-level combatants would be incredibly tedious(3rd edition). Its they'd be overwhelmed and killed.

[HPisBS]

I've run three or four campaigns from 1st to 20th level and back in 3rd edition designing encounters for high level play was quite exhausting...
...
5e is balanced far differently then 3rd edition, this is a topic that really belongs in the 3.5 forum...
...
The hindrance to charging a headlong army is not that fighting a battle with a hundred low-level combatants would be incredibly tedious(3rd edition). Its they'd be overwhelmed and killed.

TLDR: 5e is pretty balanced, even at high levels, largely due to bounded accuracy and scarce high-level spell slots.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

So I am in an E6 campaign, and I am unsure how I feel about the hard limit. For those unaware, E6 means that level 6 is the level cap, similarly to E8, E10, etc.

I recently did some research and found that most games end by level 10 or so, with a steep dropoff again after level 14. I am curious as to why this is?

Was the game not meant to be played at higher levels? Do DMs just get tired of running? Do groups fall apart? Does the plot just finish out? What is the cause of such low level limits?

Level 10 is pretty much the last level my groups touch as 5e gets even more unbalanced as you go past there. So many classes are either haves or haves-not.

It's almost like they built 5e to be a 10 level system and then tacked on level 11-20. Look at those capstones... lol

My groups also use a lot of Homebrew now days, the Homebrew we make and use only go to level 10. Without the issue of higher levels, you can balance out the lower levels really well. My Fighter/Spell-less Bard remake has been a hit. Don't have to worry about the fighter getting more attacks than others so they can actually have real class features.

TLDR: 5e is pretty balanced, even at high levels, largely due to bounded accuracy and scarce high-level spell slots.

This is wrong. So very, very, wrong.

5e is more balanced than 3e as everyone can do at least 1 thing, but the classes are nowhere near balanced. Casters and Rogues are way more useful than classes such as the fighter.

[Yora]

It's almost like they built 5e to be a 10 level system and then tacked on level 11-20.

Which has always been the case. Which is why many high lelvel spells are weird. And trying to carry those spells over to each new addition doesn't make things any better.

[sithlordnergal]

So I am in an E6 campaign, and I am unsure how I feel about the hard limit. For those unaware, E6 means that level 6 is the level cap, similarly to E8, E10, etc.

I recently did some research and found that most games end by level 10 or so, with a steep dropoff again after level 14. I am curious as to why this is?

Was the game not meant to be played at higher levels? Do DMs just get tired of running? Do groups fall apart? Does the plot just finish out? What is the cause of such low level limits?

An E6 game in 5e? I don't see that being very fun at all...mostly because a character in 5e is basically an NPC until level 3, and generally lack interesting or fun abilities until level 5. In an E6 game that would put you one level away from you cap. Plus it usually removes the second class feature of a lot of subclasses. Instead you get some boons instead of actual abilities. Though I bet Warlocks and Monks would do really well, particularly Fiend Warlocks with access to Fireball twice per short rest...the one time I'd advocate playing a Warlock over a Sorcerer.

As for why there's the drop off, its a combination of reasons:

• Players get tired of playing a single character. My current group has players who use about three to four different adventurers, bringing them in and out of the game when they wish
• DMs do get tired of running in the same world eventually
• The plots usually finish around level 10 to 13, especially if you're using hardcovers
• It can take a loooong time to reach those higher levels, and sometimes groups just don't stay together that long
• Encounters become exponentially harder to create. I find this to be a weak reason, but it is true.
• Some DMs have the 3.5 mindset that "High level Wizards will break the game!" This was a concern in 3.5, not as much in 5e. High level wizards can do damage, but not nearly as much as a 3.5 wizard can

While all the points in that list are valid, I think player boredom, finishing plots, and encounter design are some really big reasons. Most plots can be finished by level 10, provided you started at level 3 or 4. In fact, most 5e hardcovers were designed to be played from levels 1 to 10, so it sort of makes sense to end there.

On top of that a lot of players get bored with characters after a while. My own group of players have a reserve of about 3 to 4 different PCs that they can swap in and out of the story with ease. They also take those other characters on little side missions in order to keep those characters at a high enough level to have them be usable. That way if they're not feeling up to playing their bard, they can just use their paladin for the dungeon instead.

And finally encounter design is the final hurdle. As I said above, I find this to be a rather weak argument. A good DM should be able to find, or create, a decently challenging encounter. That said, its still a valid argument. At lower levels encounters are pretty easy to design because the party has so few resources. All you really need to worry about is what sort of CR you're throwing at them in order to avoid throwing some unwinnable encounter at the party.

At high levels, its not even a matter of finding monsters with a high CR at that point. You have to balance monsters on top of a plethora of character abilities, spell casting capabilities, magic items, ect. And to make it worse, at really high levels no two parties have the same weaknesses. Case in point, if you have a party with a level 20 zealot Barbarian, then straight damage will never be enough to cause a full TPK, where as a party with an Oath of the Ancients Paladin with 20 Charisma will laugh at all of your spell casters.

[HPisBS]

This is wrong. So very, very, wrong.

5e is more balanced than 3e as everyone can do at least 1 thing, but the classes are nowhere near balanced. Casters and Rogues are way more useful than classes such as the fighter.

That's not what was meant, but I can see why you'd think it was. The subject being balanced was PCs of __ level against whatever the dm throws at them, not all PC options against all other PC options.

Nobody can look at, say, a RAW Beastmaster, then at a Lore Bard or Battlemaster and go "These options are totally equal." lol

[Nightcanon]

My sentiments as well. Am lucky to have a DM who knows what he's doing, never a dull moment at my current level 14 campaign. But alas, not everyone can be good at DMing and writing encounters, right? We can only try.

If as a DM you're only thinking of how many Ancient Dragons you can throw at your party, you're doing it wrong. High level play is more than just combat. Powerful people have more influence, social position and resources. They should be doing more than just fighting skirmishes. There's so much that 5e don't have the rules or mechanical support, such as strongholds & followers, crafting & enchanting, plane-hopping and more.

Just look at MCU Thor. He is a definitely way beyond a typical level 20 character in terms of power level, but there are still problems that he can't punch his way out of.

There's no particular reason why becoming a powerful person in-world and getting away from skirmishing and into politicking and the like shouldn't happen in an E6 game, too. Indeed, court intrigue is probably more interesting when you can still die from being poisoned or ambushed by a squad of crossbowmen in the minstrels' gallery. Ultimately, you still need a plausible reason for what all the threats that you are facing at 17th level were doing when you were toddling around at second level. 20+ level fighter Thor may struggle against problems he can't punch his way out of, but his 20+ level wizard pal isn't going to be stopped by much.