On D&D adaptations. Which lv range do you prefer?

[Cryomancer]

. I agree that high level stuff feels too ridiculous. The 'parameters' set out by traditional heroic mythology are a good reference point. Think St. George and the dragon, David defeating a giant, Perseus and Medusa, the labors of Hercules.

Well, Hercules become a God and had to "mess" with Atlas and even deal with Cerberus a epic level creature in any edition. On Pathfinder, his CR is 23. But most high level adventures tends to be otherworldly because is hard to challenge players in sword coast.

However, you can have a mid to high level adventure in a more "mundane" world. For eg, imagine a magic-user, a druid and a paladin playing Swords & Wizardry. Starting lv = 6. Which is not medium level, but they quickly reach lv 7. They go adventuring until they reach lv 12~15. At lv 12~15 the paladin/mage establishes a "civilization" in the wilderness and the druid becomes a renegaded druid. They keep managing his new found civilization, and sending hirelings to explore and colonize and some times, when rumors of powerful creatures or artifacts appears, they go investigate to protect their lands. Some thing bad happened, maybe their new lands are attacked by a enemy army, maybe a legendary creature appeared, they at level 18+ do a last adventure saving their lands and are retired. Future adventures will be able to adventure in the locations played by this characters. See, not otherworldly Abyss invading campaign and things that high level characters has consequences in the world for generations.

for party of murderhobos. Be it kobold or dracolich. And that's why you can go on adventures in the city of epic enemies. FUN!

Not truth. You played ZERO video games or TT modules in high level. Is obvious that you have no clue about what you are talking about. Establishing a settlement or leading armies is extremely common on high level adventuring. This when you don't have very large vehicles, like in a Spelljammer high level setting.

BTW, you must be careful when using evokation, mainly fire evocation in a spelljammer ship. But S&W on high level doesn't sounds like murderhobo. - Swords & Wizardry - Page 47.

. So in fact, depending on what route you pick, defeating the Matraich Spider is more like a requisite to even enter the Underdark.

Thanks. But I still think that Underdark appearing in a low level campaign is a HUGE mistake. Worst than this, only the lv4 """"arch""""druids.

Solasta did low level gaming far more interesting. But you are right. Say that low level sucks cuz BG3 is like saying that high level sucks cuz ToB. There are a lot of amazing low level D&D adaptations. Like :

• ToEE - Lv 1~10.
• Dark Sun : Shattered Lands - Lv 3 to 9
• Solasta : Lv 1~10 and lv cap = 6/8 on EA.

I prefer mid to high level, but this games are undeniable amazing.

 

[Gargaune]

pretty sure a level 1 is meant to be a "qualified" practitioner of a class, not a trainee. So, to force an analogy, a level 1 Doctor has just completed medical school, as opposed to a student who'd still be classed as a level 0 Commoner.

I disagree. If you look to the complete psionics book, a psion only starts to attract students at lv 9+ which is called "name" levels. Bellow level 9, you can't even be a teacher.

AD&D 2nd Edition-The Complete Psionics Handbook - Followers

Note that the text uses "neophyte" to refer to low level practitioners.

You might be reading a bit much into it. Per the 5E PHB, pg.11:

A 1st-level character is inexperienced in the adventuring world, although he or she might have been a soldier or a pirate and done dangerous things before.

Now, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere about the "basic training" level 1 vs. the level 0 Commoner in relation to a previous edition, but I can't seem to track it down. Anyone got a 3E handbook on hand to look up an introduction to what level 1 signifies?

 

[Cryomancer]

Per the 5E PHB, pg.11:

But as I've said, leveling in 3e and 2e and on 5e are completely different things. Because 4e had the "tiers of play" and 5e decided to import this BS from 4e. But if you look to for eg, domains of dread, the book uses the word "merely" to refer as a 5th level caster and "acomplished" to refer to a 16th level necromancer.

On 5e, they describle 5th level characters as a "Regional hero". With 190k XP on 3e, you level up to lv 20. On 5e you need 355k to level up to lv 20 and monsters gives way less XP. Levels are much smaller on 5e. Takes much more XP to level up to lv 20 on 5e than to level up on previous editions. And monsters on 5e also are way less dangerous and players has way more HP. For eg, on 1e Succubus could summon demons which her corrupted in the past and there was a chance of summoning a demon prince... It is a small chance, but can turn a easy cakewalk fight into "lets run and never go back here" situation(where the party will probably fail to run from the encounter without lucky)

 

[SoupNazi]

Looks like this thread has devolved into some personal stuff by now, but I'll answer the question in the title:

In computer games, mid and high levels are the best, simply because they offer the most in terms of options and creativity, usually. The games depend on their systems, and those are, in most games at least, fairly limited in the early levels. In actual D&D, this seems (with my limited experience) to be less of a problem, because you make up for it with PC creativity and the DM (hopefully) registering it. So not only straight D&D adaptations - in all RPG games, I prefer the mid-to-late levels, because they allow for more player agency.

I don't actually care what kind of an impossible enemy I am or am not facing - in the end, it's still a game. It barely matters if you start your D&D game as plebs against a super-strong Lich, because the DM makes an excuse for them not to pay attention to you until you grow powerful enough to at least survive an encounter - an in a computer game, the devs supplement that DM role in the same manner.

 

[Mortmal]

Per the 5E PHB, pg.11:

But as I've said, leveling in 3e and 2e and on 5e are completely different things. Because 4e had the "tiers of play" and 5e decided to import this BS from 4e. But if you look to for eg, domains of dread, the book uses the word "merely" to refer as a 5th level caster and "acomplished" to refer to a 16th level necromancer.

On 5e, they describle 5th level characters as a "Regional hero". With 190k XP on 3e, you are on lv 20. On 5e you need 355k to reach lv 20 and monsters gives way less XP. Levels are much smaller on 5e. Takes much more XP to level up to lv 20 on 5e than to level up on previous editions. And monsters on 5e also are way less dangerous and players has way more HP. For eg, on 1e Succubus could summon demons which her corrupted in the past and there was a chance of summoning a demon prince... It is a small chance, but can turn a easy cakewalk fight into "lets run and never go back here" situation(where the party will probably fail to run from the encounter without lucky)

viktor viktor , we already had that discussion in gazebo , tiers always been in ancient d&d editions. The best exemple was becmi . No edition is superior , they all have their niche and use except 4e.

If you want fast and not too rule heavy you use 5E . If you want an illusion of complex builds you go for 3.5 or rather pathfinder , it will be more complex on every aspects, but slow down the game , not everyone wants that .

Now if you look at 2e settings , modules writing, those are considerably superior to anything released recently . The reason is not especially the rules, when you read adventures of dragon magazine today and what is was now you understand the true meaning of decline and its massive massive decline.If people top rated adventures are ancient there's a reason.

I converted a 2e high level module to 5E and never seen my players so satisfied before. Barely had to tweak anything . I say it again everything you could do before in 2e you can still in 5E, bare a few things like some utility spells . The reasons are the dungeon design was better , lot more work and effort was put into them ,more inventive , large descriptions of rooms clever puzzles , and extremely deadly and challenging .
Settings ? You had planescape , you had ravenloft , you had darksun ,birthright, 5e has drizzt and magic the gathering world , oh and some fan fic called wildermount. You know why you like 2e so much viktor ? Because deep in your heart ... you are story fag too !

 

[Cryomancer]

tiers always been in ancient d&d editions.

Where they mention tiers and try to scale the conflict with the player "tier"? There are high level modules with very local conflicts on old school D&D. The most iconic example is Tomb of Annihilation which is a insanely hard module, doesn't matter how 'Pun Pun' and high level your char is.

You also never had power spikes on old D&D. "but when you reach lv 5 you learn fireball and 18, you learn wish". Correction, you can learn fireball IF you find the scroll. You don't automatically learn spells from nothing on 2e. If the DM don't wanna to give a spell to you, you will never find that scroll.

No edition is superior , they all have their niche and use except 4e.(...) you want an illusion of complex builds you go for 3.5 or rather pathfinder , it will be more complex on every aspects, but slow down the game , not everyone wants that .

I agree that each edition has his appeal.

• 1/2e = Immersion
• 3/3.5e and PF = Variety
• 4e = Balance
• 5e = Accessibility

But the game that I an chilling in this thread most is a retroclone called Swords & Wizardry fuck this lockdowns, I an stuck on home from 2 weeks. I wanna go to the gym. And the game is not complex. You have the "lite" version, which is very streamlined and even the most complex bookset is just 144 pages long. The player session is about 70 pages and if you don't wanna play as a spellcaster or a "hybrid" like Ranger/Paladin, you can learn how to play the game by reading about 30 pages. How many pages does the PHB of 5e has?293 pages. Of course, far more art, far more classes and subclasses, but you got my point.

And my greatest problem with 5e is not the focus on acessibility. Is the low lethality. IMO demons needs to be dangerous. Being hit by a critical hit from a longbow needs to kill or at least hurt a lot if you are a "superhuman".

Because deep in your heart ... you are story fag too !

You are probably right. But I an first immersionfag, gunsfag and magefag then secondly storyfag. hu3hu3hu3

 

[SoupNazi]

And my greatest problem with 5e is not the focus on acessibility. Is the low lethality. IMO demons needs to be dangerous. Being hit by a critical hit from a longbow needs to kill or at least hurt a lot if you are a "superhuman".

Ask Snorkack about lethality in 5e

 

[Mortmal]

tiers always been in ancient d&d editions.

Where they mention tiers and try to scale the conflict with the player "tier"? There are high level modules with very local conflicts on old school D&D. The most iconic example is Tomb of Annihilation which is a insanely hard module, doesn't matter how 'Pun Pun' and high level your char is.

You also never had power spikes on old D&D. "but when you reach lv 5 you learn fireball and 18, you learn wish". Correction, you can learn fireball IF you find the scroll. You don't automatically learn spells from nothing on 2e. If the DM don't wanna to give a spell to you, you will never find that scroll.

No edition is superior , they all have their niche and use except 4e.(...) you want an illusion of complex builds you go for 3.5 or rather pathfinder , it will be more complex on every aspects, but slow down the game , not everyone wants that .

I agree that each edition has his appeal.

• 1/2e = Immersion
• 3/3.5e and PF = Variety
• 4e = Balance
• 5e = Accessibility

But the game that I an chilling in this thread most is a retroclone called Swords & Wizardry fuck this lockdowns, I an stuck on home from 2 weeks. I wanna go to the gym. And the game is not complex. You have the "lite" version, which is very streamlined and even the most complex bookset is just 144 pages long. The player session is about 70 pages and if you don't wanna play as a spellcaster or a "hybrid" like Ranger/Paladin, you can learn how to play the game by reading about 30 pages. How many pages does the PHB of 5e has?293 pages. Of course, far more art, far more classes and subclasses, but you got my point.

And my greatest problem with 5e is not the focus on acessibility. Is the low lethality. IMO demons needs to be dangerous. Being hit by a critical hit from a longbow needs to kill or at least hurt a lot if you are a "superhuman".

Because deep in your heart ... you are story fag too !

You are probably right. But I an first immersionfag, gunsfag and magefag then secondly storyfag. hu3hu3hu3

5e has very high lethality at level 1 ,an ogre crit or something similar is deadly, and i dont like that its punishing players unfairly . Then later if you follow official content and modules, players are unkillable, their offcial content is far too tame and designed for people with no strategy. Some stuff like moon circle druid is absolutely unkillable, the druid can shapeshift many times and have an huge pool of hp.
You can still raise the lethality by making the encounters 2x 3X deadly , space out rest and such. Then its not so accessible and i recommend it to experienced DM, trust me in my games lethality is high but i calculate everything in the most autistic ways. Very tactical high level encouters are possible.
I tried something similar to this today Monster Analysis: Vecna the Ascended, Part 1 — CritRoleStats . But with 4 vet , level 19, players only, and they almost did it.

 

[Atlet]

very nice posts S0rcererV1ct0r

we need more rpgs with high level campaigns

 

[Reinhardt]

Your "rpg with high level campaigns" are "summon bigger skeletons" and "cast bigger fireballs" Same shit like low and mid but with IX instead of II or IV and "greater" instead of "lesser".

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I remember Mystara handling epic level adventurers by having them become godlike immortals and by so kicking them at the bottom of the feeding chain again. Since they went from being the most powerful amongst mortals to becoming the weakest among immortals. I never read the handbook for playing immortals so I can't give any details, but it seems to solve the problem with powerful adventurers being just stronger.

BECMI 1983 D&D was the first version of D&D/AD&D to provide any substantial amount of detail for D&D's original end-game of stronghold building and dominion rulership, which were described in the 1984 'Green Box' Companion Set. This alone gives rise to a different sort of adventure than experienced by lower-level adventurers, who in this version of D&D were covered in the 'Red Box' Basic Set and 'Blue Box' Expert Set. Ironically, BECMI then provided a second end-game in the 1985 'Black Box' Master Set, in the form of questing for Immortality, followed by a third end-game in the 1986 'Gold Box' Immortals Set, which contained rules for actually playing as deity-like Immortals. The latter were sufficiently divorced from the normal D&D rules that they were later replaced with somewhat more conventional rules in the Wrath of the Immortals Box Set.

Even leaving aside those later, additional end-games of questing for Immortality and playing as Immortals, the nature of potential adventures changes considerably as characters rise in levels from the Basic and Expert ranges through the Companion and Master ranges. From exploring dungeons and wilderness, the player-characters can now shape dominions, determine the outcomes of major wars, explore the strange and manifold planes of D&D cosmology, and eventually decide the fate of the greatest empires in the Known World campaign setting. Even if player-character advancement is merely a matter of becoming mechanically stronger, there is a qualitative shift in the adventurers they pursue.

 

[Cryomancer]

High level is retarded

High level is the same as low level but with higher numbers

Please. Chose one BS to advocate for. Or even better. Play nwn1 + hotu, play nwn2 motb and then have a more honest opinion. There are no low level spell which can replicate the effects of finger of death, wail of the banshee, stop time, wish, horrid wilting(...) Even with summon monster I~ĨX on pfkm. A Soul Eater can damage enemy WIS which is amazing vs clerics a CR 1 monster can't do the same.

we need more rpgs with high level campaigns

And honestly, I like that we have great RPG's coming from all tastes. We have a amazing low level game called Solasta : Crown of the Magister and epic adventures like PF:WoTR which will focus on a very high level module about a abyssal invasion where the PC would be able to become crazy high level mythic. You also could become a dragon, a swarm who talks, a demon lord.

lethality at level 1 ,an ogre crit or something similar is deadly, and i dont like that its punishing players unfairly(...) You can still raise the lethality by making the encounters 2x 3X deadly

Only on lv 1. And BTW, the Ogre in question has 59 hp. This is enough to soak a literally cannon shot. As a CR2 creature. Cannons do 44 average damage according to this post. A lv 5 barbarian can literally soak siege weapons like ballistas. Low CR creatures and low level players can soak most siege weapons. If your char can survive a fireball, he probably can survive a catapult(8d6 vs 10d6 dmg > https://tanrenew.weebly.com/blog/dd-5e-siege-weapons-dmg ) and this siege weapons allow reflex dex save to avoid damage. Not to take half damage, your low level barb can soak a cannon shot and can evade a cannon shot, despite moving at human speed.

I can get fire giants, dragons and other monsters of the type soaking siege weaponry. Mythic heroes too. But low level ones...

Anyway, I an curious. How you do make 5e more lethal? Do you double or triple the damage? Even maximizing the damage of everything, the game still fells with low to no lethality except on extremely low levels. One aspect which I love on 2e is that after lv 9, you get no more "hit dices", only a tinny amount of HP per level and the CON mod is much smaller.

PS : Completed Solasta EA(5e) without a single party member dying. Only in the hardest encoutners I had like one party member "down" but any heal or stabilization solves the problem. I never completed BG2 without anyone dying except when I soloed.

 

[Reinhardt]

Or even better. Play nwn1 + hotu, play nwn2 motb and then have a more honest opinion.

Nigger, that's exactly what i said - DRAGONS! METEORS! SHIEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
You literally just pew-pew fatter things with bigger fireballs. List me unique spells with new effects which are not "nuke but stronger" or "summon/transform but bigger" high level mages have in your "high level nwn rpg games".

 

[Nortar]

Or even better. Play nwn1 + hotu, play nwn2 motb and then have a more honest opinion.

Nigger, that's exactly what i said - DRAGONS! METEORS! SHIEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
You literally just pew-pew fatter things with bigger fireballs. List me unique spells with new effects which are not "nuke but stronger" or "summon/transform but bigger" high level mages have in your "high level nwn rpg games".

Tbh it seems like a waste of time at this point.
In the end this thread is about preferences, and if someone wants to be a dragon, let him be a dragon, I am not his doctor.
And it's not a singular case, as power creep is a thing.

 

[Cryomancer]

Nigger, that's exactly what i said - DRAGONS! METEORS! SHIEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!(...)ist me unique spells with new effects which are not "nuke but stronger

I give up... There are no difference between summoning a soul eater which damages enemy WIS to summoning a CR 1 mob. Both are the same with bigger numbers and zero thematically and mechanic differences. Dungeons & Dragons should have ZERO dragons. D&D Is only about kobold slaying with a sword in sword coast. D&D should remove every class except a fighter. Magic is all about explosion, Knock? Wish? Stop Time? Finger of Death? Wail of The Banshee? Disjunction? All illusion and divination spells? Dominate monster? Animate Object? Teleport? Are all meteor swarms with different numbers!!! A Wizard using control weather to improve agriculture in his lands and a mindless guy wanting to cause explosions with meteor swarm is the same!

If you enjoy any class that is not a human fighter specialized on sword fighting that can never use alchemical items, magical items bows, crossbows, pollearms(..) you wanna a awesome button!!! And if you enjoy spelljammer, the realms of dread, Mystara, Eberron, Abyss, Planescape, Dark Sun(...) you also wanna a awesome button!!!

In case of thinking that I an serious, please check your sarcasm detector.

In the end this thread is about preferences, and if someone wants to be an dragon, let him be a dragon, I am not his doctor.

I mentioned dragon two times in my last awnser. To mention one of many options that PF:WoTR will allow players to follow. And to mention that mythic creatures soaking siege weapon damage is OK, but not for low CR/low level adventures.

On Wrath of the Righteous, I would probably play as a Lich, then as a Azata, then as a Demon and maybe, I repeat maybe do a Dragon mythic path run. IF a more interesting mythic path, like a Marid or a vampire lord comes in DLC, update or mod, I will play it instead.

 

[Reinhardt]

A Wizard using control weather to improve agriculture in his lands and a mindless guy wanting to cause explosions with meteor swarm is the same!

How often you play as wizard improving agriculture in his land? List of campaigns, please.
HOW MANY TIMES YOUR CHARACTERS PERSONALLY DID IT?

 

[Bara]

How often you play as wizard improving agriculture in his land? List of campaigns, please.
HOW MANY TIMES YOUR CHARACTERS PERSONALLY DID IT?

It's a common enough idea that I've seen multiple campagins get to researching spells for that very purpose if they don't already have some. At least the editions where domains where very much apart of gameplay.

It's not that unbelievable and very much in use if your DM has the care to do it.

 

[Reinhardt]

if

I know about such things but in this thread i see only

demilich with DC 34 finger of death which casts dispel on you

 

[Cryomancer]

List of campaigns, please.

I never played a campaign with heavy focus on "civilization building". However, I mentioned stronghold management and naval combat on S&W, where control weather, control winds and other spells has a lot of uses and Lamentations of Flame princess as games with ZERO flashy spells and magic is very dangerous to everyone but you chose to ignore to talk about a module which you clearly have no clue about.

t's a common enough idea that I've seen multiple campagins get to researching spells for that very purpose if they don't already have some.

On Dark Sun, one of the objectives of some members of the Veiled Alliance is to find a way to make infertile sands into fertile sands in a large scale. In a world where you can transform flesh into stone and vice versa, their idea is not a utopia. The concept of Defilers VS preservers is quite interesting.

 

[Reinhardt]

and magic is very dangerous to everyone

how dangerous?

 

[Gargaune]

Per the 5E PHB, pg.11:

But as I've said, leveling in 3e and 2e and on 5e are completely different things. Because 4e had the "tiers of play" and 5e decided to import this BS from 4e. But if you look to for eg, domains of dread, the book uses the word "merely" to refer as a 5th level caster and "acomplished" to refer to a 16th level necromancer.

On 5e, they describle 5th level characters as a "Regional hero". With 190k XP on 3e, you level up to lv 20. On 5e you need 355k to level up to lv 20 and monsters gives way less XP. Levels are much smaller on 5e. Takes much more XP to level up to lv 20 on 5e than to level up on previous editions. And monsters on 5e also are way less dangerous and players has way more HP. For eg, on 1e Succubus could summon demons which her corrupted in the past and there was a chance of summoning a demon prince... It is a small chance, but can turn a easy cakewalk fight into "lets run and never go back here" situation(where the party will probably fail to run from the encounter without lucky)

There we go, that did it for a search query. DMG, pg. 36, Tiers of Play:

Levels 1-4: Local Heroes

Characters in this tier are still learning the range of class features that define them, including their choice of specialisation. But even 1st-level characters are heroes, set apart from the common people natural characteristics, learned skills, and a hint of greater destiny that lies before them.

So it's down to you how you wanna interpret that. The way I see it, a level 1 Fighter is a Fighter, having already "graduated" from Commoner rather than still attending the Massachusetts Institute of Hitting Shit Hard. He knows how to wield a sword just as a level 1 Wizard knows how to cast spells or a level 1 Cleric knows how to, uh, pray. Not that they're experts in their fields, mind you.

As for 2E/3E, like I said, all I've got is a vague recollection of Commoners counting as level 0 (even in 5E they have CR 0), but I don't have any materials to look up. So fair enough.

 

[Mortmal]

.

Anyway, I an curious. How you do make 5e more lethal? Do you double or triple the damage? Even maximizing the damage of everything, the game still fells with low to no lethality except on extremely low levels. One aspect which I love on 2e is that after lv 9, you get no more "hit dices", only a tinny amount of HP per level and the CON mod is much smaller.

PS : Completed Solasta EA(5e) without a single party member dying. Only in the hardest encoutners I had like one party member "down" but any heal or stabilization solves the problem. I never completed BG2 without anyone dying except when I soloed.

Ah making it more lethal is an art, first you have to assess your group. A group of codexer ubermensch veterans ? Pink haired redditors who barely read the rules and only want an inclusive LGBT+ game to post their cute tabaxi art commision in r/dnd? Maybe a group of your kids, a sight to behold too, rolling over the floor laughing when they hit a trap and die.
You have to adapt , adap and adapt. Use this to calculate encounters follow his guideline D&D 5th Edition Encounter Calculator (kastark.co.uk) , read The Monsters Know What They’re Doing - Ready-to-Use Tactics for D&D 5E . Start with two medium short rest , two medium, short rest, hard long rest. Then if its too easy crank it up to hard ,hard short rest , hard hard, short rest, deadly.For veterans end fight is likely 3X deadly or more depending on their gear. You can also fine tune by making plenty of medium , the purpose is to slowly exhaust their ressources, thats the whole purpose of a dungeon. Then you built up the pressure , a mistake, a misuse of spells could end up lethal.
Cranking up the damage is not enough, you need to make use of the terrain, choke points, high grounds . Make the enemies chase them , the main villain strahd style appearing at the worst moment during a fight at the best strategic location possible, turning a easy-medium fight into a hard fight. Skirmish with him, hit and run , fireball spray, disengage, reappear some encounter later
Then a very important thing is using counters, monsters or casters having debilitating abiltiies . The barbarian with his mighty two handed vorpal sword is unstoppable , soaking damage , raging and hitting most of the time ? A simple frighten condition and he's completely fucked up, he usually fails his wisdom save , so versus a horde of small critters, gibbering mouthers, priests, low level wizards etc who can spam those kind of spell one is guaranteed to land sometime.The wizard is allmighty ? too bad the beholder has antimagic cone and the room is less than 150 feet long, and he has beefy minions to shield him.

If you are ruthless you can make it impossible for them, hitting squishies, hitting downed characters.It's all up to you, but then you see its wrong to say 5E cant be lethal .

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Please. Chose one BS to advocate for. Or even better. Play nwn1 + hotu, play nwn2 motb and then have a more honest opinion. There are no low level spell which can replicate the effects of finger of death, wail of the banshee, stop time, wish, horrid wilting(...) Even with summon monster I~ĨX on pfkm. A Soul Eater can damage enemy WIS which is amazing vs clerics a CR 1 monster can't do the same.

Things like MoTB is probably why many people dislike high-level DnD campaigns. It's mostly just epic-level monster bashing. You do the same things you've done before but on epic level. So you fight some uber-gnolls, uber-trolls and dozens of Red Wizards at once. The issue most people have with it is that such powerful people should do grander things than being cosmic-level murderhobos. In Forgotten Realms king of Cormyr used to be a lvl 20 fighter or cavalier depending on edition. In vidya a lvl 20 fighter is nobody, just another adventurer slaying epic-level mobs.

This is bad for two reasons. First of all it's painfully unimaginative. The developers failed to create an interesting scenario for veteran adventurers. At highest level you don't do quests for the Harpers, you start organizations like that. You don't rescue a princess for a king, you are a king. This is something Kingmaker did well, however the devs failed in making being a King be anything grander than adding some mundane crap on top on being a murderhobo. Similarly, assaulting an epic-level foe shouldn't be simply a bunch of dudes barging into his house and killing him. It should be a final step of an effort of an entire alliance of different individuals. Similar to real wars. King Arthur might be ungodly powerful but eve he needed an army to defeat Lucius. It's again most visible in Kingmaker. Despite being an actual monarch your entire Kingdom is terribly impotent at helping you accomplish anything. The resources of an entire realm amount to getting you some fancy items and some magical protection.
Makes you feel more like Goku than a king.

The second problem is implication for lower level adventurers. The entire point of being an adventurer is getting enough money and resources to become something grander. Becoming a slightly stronger murderhobo doing the same things but more epic doesn't feel grand at all. The actually interesting bits like running some harper-like club, becoming god, being actually respected is delegated to end-game slides.

The problem is that all the stuff that should follow becoming an epic level adventurer is out scope of your typical fantasy RPG, so realistically upon reaching epic levels the game should end and the player should see the following message:

DEAR PLAYER
THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING OUR GREAT FANTASY ADVENTURE
TO COMPLETE YOUR QUEST PLEASE BOOT YOUR FAVORITE FANTASY 4X
NAME YOUR RULER [CHARNAME] AND SOME OTHER CIV AS THE [BADGUYNAME]
OUR BUDGET IS LIMITED, PLEASE UNDERSTAND
BEST WISHES,
DEVTEAM OF YOUR FAVORITE RPG

 

[Reinhardt]

Gangrelrumbler

 

[RPK]

People saying later editions of D&D have high lethality at low levels must never have even looked at the rules for 2e.

go roll a wizard in 2e. You ROLL 1d4 for hp. You roll a 1? too bad. Hope you have a con bonus to hp because you're dead at zero hp, meaning you are dead if you take literally ANY damage.