Low level (like 1st-4th level) D&D5e and high level (13+) require the same accommodations to prevent them from being murder slog fests.
You need to push for alternate routes, give conversations mattering a chance, and have stakes other than player character death on the line.
Or else you risk senseless TPKs, boring punching bag fights, and cheese strategies.
But those things tend to be forgotten about for levels 5-12, where player power and agency is JUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuST right for combat and normal standard ways of tackling issues. Interestingly that's also the levels in which 5e is most popular. People always want to start as close to level 5 (if not level 5) as possible, and the DM starts checking out usually around level 12.
Adventure books have trouble coming up with a narrative after level 12, because the variables that players can achieve are too great to account for to have a storyline that can be followed.
So is this an issue with high level magic and casting in D&D becoming too.... wild in its ability? Spells that clone you with all spell slots that last indefinitely is way out of scope compared to an Ice Storm or a Cone of Cold.....
@pangoriaF While people certainly do play high level campaigns; the game isn’t really designed or intended for play at that level. High levels are something to aspire towards and DMs can use them to imply a world of high level magic the PCs will never wield.
But, honestly, the game isn’t fun at that level for most DMs and players. It is too chaotic, too swingy, and too slow.
@magitism Right now my players are level 15 going on 16. They just finished a big story point where they took 15 levels worth of goodwill from different people and raised an army to attack the Elder Brain fortress.
What has been helping me is that my players LOVE multiclassing, to the point of them not really having spells above 6th level.
@pangoriaF That does help a lot. Are you having many combats per long rest? Challenging the players without risking killing them gets harder at high levels but can be reduced by having a high combat to long rest frequency. 5+ combats.
Takes a certain kind of player to enjoy that much combat all the time.
@magitism So the last big combat day was the war. I told them that if they pulled back and took a long rest, the "war" would be reset.
But they had some stall points where they could get a short rest. That day, led to several times where PCs went down, and were on death saving throws. It was a rough and harsh fight.
It took us 3 months to play through a single day (we started at the end of November and finished in February). By the end of it, my players themselves looked like they had gone through war.
So right now we are doing a palette cleanser, running medium and hard fights only, and having them do exploration and investigation into finding a route underneath a deadly zone to "turn off" the deadly effect in an area. So right now, the adventure isn't about combat.
But I'm looking at where things will be at after this, and what issues they are likely to tackle next, and I'm not looking forward to doing 4 months when they are level 16 just to do a single day. I need an alternative that is not 5+ combats.
@pangoriaF Let me know if you find one. I haven’t. The campaign I am running right now should make it to level 20. But it is a comedy campaign. The focus isn’t on combat, but on preventing a rock star from getting himself killed. It is called Halfling Baked. Think Cheech and Chong meets This is Spinal Tap.
The party will have more and more ridiculous options. But they’ll be using them to find drugs, get in trouble, and try to keep their employer from drowning in his own puke.