Quote Originally Posted by Morty View Post
3E's (and to a lesser degree 4E's) power curve might have been more of an anomaly than anything else. Neither edition knew what to do with it, certainly, though 4E at least tried. 3E scales very poorly from "mostly-realistic hero" to "low-key superhero" and then beyond. Many of the balance problems come from it.

To say nothing of the conceptual problems with your character going through completely different genres of fiction just by beating up progressively tougher enemies. There's a reason that other high-powered games, such as Exalted, generally pick a power level and stick with it.
Then 6e needs to get rid of spells, say, higher than level 5 or 6. It doesn't mesh in any way to have Wish Wizards and Same Ole Fighters at high levels. Cap the progression at the current 12th or 13th level, give martials something to keep up after level 7-8 (on the ToB/PoW power-level, which does good stuff at lower levels, like see invisibility, blindsight, spider climb, etc - interesting and useful level 1-2 spells usable at will, basically).

Because 5e has gone halfway there. You have Fighters who are firmly in the level 1 to 7 paradigm, while casters have lost quite a bit since 3e, but their capstone spells are pretty much as insane as they were before.