General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
What you are missing is the difference between macro and micro.
In our general population and in large groups like the military, new people are always entering as older and sometimes not so old leave. That also holds true in an RPG world.
A small (gaming) group need not follow that rule, and in most cases it does not. In the real world, and in D&D.
I think we just have different views of the macro.
IMC, it's unrealistic to say your party can get a new 9th level mage (or whatever other developed character is desired) anytime they like, because it assumes there's a plentiful supply of them, providing easy access to any party who wants one. IMC, that character would be very rare and hard to find (PC software engineers in the 1970s) or unlikely to change employer (Olympic swimmers), or both (experienced NASA astronauts).
The other part for me is that I want everyone to "earn their stripes" with each character, because it's more fun for everyone if everyone has to earn it.
To you, there's a sufficient supply, so it's OK. Or perhaps you're thinking PC's are exceptional, so allowing in an experienced one is fine. Fair enough, I suppose.
The other viable option I see for your side is to say: "eh, it just works better from a gamist POV to bring in characters with nearly the same level, so I don't sweat where they came from". I think that's where most DM's sit on this issue, thinking it's more important than "earn your stripes" thing.
And that's why I play a game where wizards get better at learning magic by killing goblins.
Maybe you don't think the real world should have anything to do with this particular topic, but I disagree if you mean it should never enter one's head in thinking about DMing.
Of course D&D is not a simulation of anything in particular, but I think it should make sense, be believable, and make serious efforts to have internal consistency/suspension of disbelief.
Therefore, testing concepts against the real world to see if they "feel right" in the game makes sense to me -- and to my partner in this debate, Hereticus.
To paraphrase Wolfgang Baur: Whether or not the rules specify it, a torch shouldn't stay lit under water.
Wow, this is an awesome thread that I've spawned. I don't think I've ever had such a long thread start with me before (excepting story hours, of course).
I appreciate the many differing perspectives that people have been offering, but for those who keep saying, "These are the reasons why it can't work," remember, I'm working on a system with "everyone starts at 1st level" as one of its design goals. That means it will work, because I'll bend the rest of the system to make it work.
So far, here are a few key points of the system in progress as it currently stands. Note that the mixed level aspect has not been playtested yet.
1. Flatter math- a 10th level fighter's total melee attack bonus will probably be 2-4 points above his bonus at first level.
2. Slower (and less overall) hit point gain.
3. Character development making you generally better at more stuff, instead of really good at one thing, as you advance in levels. Pcs still get better bonuses on various things over time, but the numbers stay much flatter than in earlier editions (especially 3e).
4. Sandbox play; practically speaking, this means that low-level pcs can seek out the dragon in the desert if they choose, and it's an adult brown dragon whatever level they are when they choose to challenge it. A further consequence of this is that it's okay for a high-level monster to have, for example, a relatively weak AC; if a hag's skin is as tough as plate armor, its AC should be comparable (around 15 in this system). I guess I'd style this as 1e-style monsters.
Anyway, thanks for all the discussion, I'm watching avidly. I'll let everyone know how it goes once we playtest the mixed-level aspect of the game (gotta test the magic system first with all pcs at comparable level).
I agree with one of the first posters, in 4th Ed, is easier to just add the incremental bonus to everyone than take then away. If the other PCs are level 10, the newbie starts with level 10 HPs, add +5 to attacks, defenses, etc... You can give the level equivalent magic items or not. I'd rather not, so he has to fight for the items and the powers, and it's a good excuse to inherit the old items from the party.
To the people arguing realism for a 1st level character joining the party:
Green soldiers were joining the fight because there were no more veterans. Are there no people over level 1 outside your party?
If being in your party is the only way to reach level 2, then I guess it's "realistic" that people start at level 1. But if being in your party is the only way to reach level 2....
If there're numerous level 2, level 3, level 4 people out there; too many to even notice all of them, why not let someone start off at level 4? (or 1/2 the party level (whichever is lower, if you want to be harsh))
It makes the first session slightly less of an exercise in futility. And it's much more realistic.
1/2 level actually makes a lot of sense. If your party is level 20, even if there're only 300 level 10 adventurers in the whole world, they'll ALL want to learn from you. If you're level 10, recruiting someone level 5 is easy. And it lets the player come up with their own story, rather than needing an excuse for the party to let them join.
FWIW, in our last session of Empire of the Petal Throne we had a new player join the group. He started his character at level 1. He was also the only person to roll dice all session... using his prodigious strength to assist the party (they were presenting the shell of a giant monster to a local city governor as a gift; the men bearing the shell, including the new guy, were faced with the situation of having to hold the 'gift' above their heads while bowing at the governor's approach... this got a bit top-heavy).
Most of the session involved investigating how to lift one PC's curse (he had previously sired a child with an evil goddess, and then when the thing approached him he slew it because of its horrible appearance... so now he's cursed). The new guy is a mystic of sorts, and so contributed a vigil of prayer and fasting to this effort.
__________________ "I despise all weavers of the black arts. Speaking of which, can you pass the gravy?"
Maybe you don't think the real world should have anything to do with this particular topic, but I disagree if you mean it should never enter one's head in thinking about DMing.
Of course D&D is not a simulation of anything in particular, but I think it should make sense, be believable, and make serious efforts to have internal consistency/suspension of disbelief.
Therefore, testing concepts against the real world to see if they "feel right" in the game makes sense to me -- and to my partner in this debate, Hereticus.
To paraphrase Wolfgang Baur: Whether or not the rules specify it, a torch shouldn't stay lit under water.
I'm also the kinda guy who never lets physics get in the way of a good time.
Perhaps some groups have the right mix of veteran players and a non-combat gamestyle. My group likes to kill things on occasion, and its small enough that adding a 1st level anything to a group 5th level+ would be a exercise in futility. So I'd rather break the simulation wall and jump square into gamism and give the player a PC who is moderately effective at his job (at the given level of challenge I'm providing) than have a group of players nurse an infant in the Caves of Chaos until he's earned his man-pants and they can go back to the Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftain...
IIRC, 2ed had some kind of a guideline advising that a replacement PC should be one level lower than either the party average or the lowest level PC (can't recall which).
That said, I am in complete agreement with Thanee. If you're going to start over as a 1st-level character only to rocket to the party's average level in a few sessions, why not just save you AND your DM the trouble and make an appropriately-leveled PC?
Now, to address the OP.
I've always wanted to play a "survivor" type game with d20, but due to scaling HP, combat doesn't seem scary enough.
What I propose is a static amount of HP, equal to CON or any multiple (but likely no more than 3) and that's it - no more HP increases per level. The character's abilities et al improve, but HP remains static.
E6, as mentioned earlier, has the right idea. As you improve in level, your range of abilities increase but your combat ability remains unchanged.
Finally, there was an mini-game in an issue of Dungeon magazine that was a "digital world" - PC's were video game characters. There was a chart therein that allowed PC's to advance how much damage they did with their attack by putting skill points in their combat ability. In this way, no matter what form their weapon of choice took, it did the same amount of damage. GURPS sort of does this as well by assigning each weapon a static bonus to a character's STR stat, allowing for stronger characters to do more damage per swing/thrust of the weapon. Combining the two concepts might allow lower-level PCs to do decent damage even at level 1.
Having monsters with a static to-hit number but include the ability to dodge (like in Palladium - any number over 4 is a hit and the defender must roll higher to avoid the hit) and damage resistance might allow level 1 characters to be on par with higher level characters as well.
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Last edited by Herobizkit; 27th June 2009 at 10:57 PM..
What I propose is a static amount of HP, equal to CON or any multiple (but likely no more than 3) and that's it - no more HP increases per level. The character's abilities et al improve, but HP remains static.
I'm not quite making it that static, but certainly, the number of hit points that a character gets over time will be MUCH lower than in previous editions. A maxed out 10th level dwarven fighter might have 86 hit points IF he rolls maximum on the d10 EVERY TIME he gets to roll, has a maxed out con and maxes out Toughness, as well. The same character at first level would have 23 hp. So the gap, while present, is hardly the huge thing it is presently or in any previous edition of dnd.
Yeah. I like my group: they can turn an odd and potentially deadly random encounter (the monster was random; the bricklayers throwing fusilades of bricks at it to drive it back into the water was an elaboration) into an opportunity for social advancement.
I like their initiative. It makes my job easy.
__________________ "I despise all weavers of the black arts. Speaking of which, can you pass the gravy?"
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4. Sandbox play; practically speaking, this means that low-level pcs can seek out the dragon in the desert if they choose, and it's an adult brown dragon whatever level they are when they choose to challenge it.
I'm not sure why this matters. You could have the monsters be whatever level they are, and let the PC's choose what to pursue or not. That way, it's up to the players what level of challenge they choose -- sometimes, they might want to go below their "max" capability to train up the more junior party members. Othertimes, maybe not.
Part of the fun of playing in a non-level appropriate world is that there's real mystery about what you're facing, and danger.
To the people arguing realism for a 1st level character joining the party:
Green soldiers were joining the fight because there were no more veterans.
"The people" would be me. Just one people here, so likely a very small minority view you probably don't need to worry about.
Anyhow, it's true, of course, that there were many veterans in World War II. The trouble is, the veterans already had assignments. Going back to my example of reinforcing the 82nd Airborne after D-Day, the actual choice was to use newly trained green paratroopers; your alternative could have been done, using only veteran Airborne troopers, but you'd need to cannibalize the 101st, or use British/Canadian/Polish or Para-Marines from the Pacific campaign. It could be done, but it wasn't an efficient choice, given the limited supply and the fact that the supply was already allocated.
My point is, you don't need to assume "absolute unavailability, anywhere in the world" to create the real world situation -- actual history -- that military replacements for combat losses are almost always green.
If you accept a parallel between D&D parties and military units in replacing combat loses, green replacements is the historically accurate "realistic" way to go.
If you don't accept the parallel, OK then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingreaper
If there're numerous level 2, level 3, level 4 people out there; too many to even notice all of them,
Nod, you've realized there's an assumption built into the "bring in experience PC's" mindset -- namely that PC's are a dime a dozen, not special. Like truck drivers with CDL's who are looking for some hours, not Harry Potter and Aragorn or any other "special" hero.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingreaper
why not let someone start off at level 4? (or 1/2 the party level (whichever is lower, if you want to be harsh))
A) I don't like the campaign feel, because it assumes PC's are unimportant and not special. To use your words, "too many to even notice".
B) I don't like the narrative feel. You're short-circuiting the hero's journey to jump to the superpowered bits. Luke Skywalker is less interesting if he is introduced as a full Jedi destroyer of all who stand before. And a lot of high level replacements begins to feel like the party is a temp agency, rather than a band of heroes.
C) Cheapens experience of the other players, and cheapens the value of PC life. I like the idea that everyone has to pay their dues, and any experienced character is important and worth keeping around, rather than disposable whenever you get a new build idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingreaper
It makes the first session slightly less of an exercise in futility. And it's much more realistic.
1/2 level actually makes a lot of sense. If your party is level 20, even if there're only 300 level 10 adventurers in the whole world, they'll ALL want to learn from you. If you're level 10, recruiting someone level 5 is easy. And it lets the player come up with their own story, rather than needing an excuse for the party to let them join.
Yeah, that does make sense. I'm not used to thinking about high levels. The "supers" feel and the accounting drag of all the rules bores me and my friends, so we've never played higher than about 12th.
I'd have to give this type of game a resounding "meh". If I had to play that lowbie, I'd get annoyed very quickly unless I had some cool artifact that made me viable in combat. I don't like playing commoners in a heroes game. It's just not my thing. On top of that, if you have to retool the entire system to make level 10 guys only slightly better than level 1 guys...what the heck is the point!? Just play RAW and keep people within 1-2 levels of each other. Same effect with four hundred thousand times less work.
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I'd have to give this type of game a resounding "meh". If I had to play that lowbie, I'd get annoyed very quickly unless I had some cool artifact that made me viable in combat. I don't like playing commoners in a heroes game. It's just not my thing. On top of that, if you have to retool the entire system to make level 10 guys only slightly better than level 1 guys...what the heck is the point!? Just play RAW and keep people within 1-2 levels of each other. Same effect with four hundred thousand times less work.
I agree with you. From my perspective D&D is a team game of players with characters with near equal power with different things they can do.
I don't believe I'd make it beyond the first week of that lowbie game. I'd get bored as one of the more powerful characters, and frustrated as the lightweight.
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I'd have to give this type of game a resounding "meh". If I had to play that lowbie, I'd get annoyed very quickly unless I had some cool artifact that made me viable in combat.
What if you were viable in combat without a cool artifact?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Gumphrey
I don't like playing commoners in a heroes game. It's just not my thing. On top of that, if you have to retool the entire system to make level 10 guys only slightly better than level 1 guys...what the heck is the point!? Just play RAW and keep people within 1-2 levels of each other. Same effect with four hundred thousand times less work.
Because it's not even close to the same effect.
Besides that, this is just one goal of several in the work I'm doing for this variant.
These scale real nice at the same level, but don't play so well across each other. At the same level, you hit about 50%, for 3 - 7 hits. At 1st to 20th you hit only on a 20, and it would take 20+ hits.
In this instance, at the same level, you can hit on a 12 or higher, and you can take about one hit at 1st, and at 12th level you can take 3 average hits. From 1st against 12th, it still requires a 20 to hit (on average), and the damage dealt would require six successful hits.
In another game like Rolemaster, there is the same reality of defense bonus and high armor type negating almost all damage. There is, however, a 4% chance that you can roll open-ended, get lucky, and "max out" against any level and any armor type with a critical hit. It is significantly less likely, and there are far better resources to deal with it, but that chance still provides for interesting gameplay.
My recommended soluiton would be to tweak the first level characters to be able to hit around 10% to 30% of the time, but only do enough damage that it will take about triple the hits than normal. A simple means to do this would be to provide some sweet magic items, powers, or abilities that would get them up to this bonus to hit. So, in 4e for example, you'd have to get that bonus to hit, up into the +20 attack and damage range. That's one hell of an artifact!
Last edited by ashockney; 30th June 2009 at 03:32 AM..
What if you were viable in combat without a cool artifact?
I'd ask "what was the point of revamping the system?"
Quote:
Because it's not even close to the same effect.
So guys within 1-2 levels of each other being viable in combat is not the same effect as guys withing 1-10 levels of each other being viable in combat? I'm not sure I follow.
__________________ Every time I see the word Pavlov, I salivate. =(
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