E6: The Game Inside D&D

rycanada said:

For my campaign E6 usually means no filler combats. Does that make sense?

Click to expand...

Yeah, it makes sense. I just feel as a player, I would much prefer a longer progression chart rather than knowing my "numbers" are going to be capped relatively soon (unless you slow the rate at which you award XP). More cookies the better IMO.

You could even tweak the progression chart after 6th to allow for faster advancement than as written in the PHB.

The numbers cap really ain't so bad in actual play, but I can understand it from a sell-it-to-the-players perspective. Ask them what they can do with 10 feats

Man. With 10 feats, you could actually be a decent mounted warrior without having to cut things to the bone.

The .pdf is exactly the stuff on the first 2 posts

Click to expand...

OK. Thanks. I thought there was more stuff in the pdf. I'm good to go then.

Quasqueton

You know, with considerations of race lately, I realized that E6 makes Sleep a bit more useful, and, thus, elves' immunity to it.

Quasqueton said:

I still can't get the pdfs to work. I even tried download from the wiki page. And since no one else has said whether they've successfully downloaded the files lately, I'll assume the problem is at the other end.

Oh well. E6 looks interesting, but I can't get the rules.

Quasqueton

Click to expand...

Yeah, the PDFs worked fine for me, it must be on your end.

GlassJaw said:

One thing we talked about is choosing the power range you want (the sweet spot) and then stretching that power range over a larger number of levels.

The main issue I have with E6 is that if 6th level is supposed to be the level of epic heroes, then how come they get there so fast? Why not increase the time it takes to get there over say, 12 levels instead? You can slow down the rate of advancement while still giving the characters more feats, abilities, whatever

Click to expand...

I assume you've read post 37, 58, 62 with Grmstaff's similar idea. I think 1 of the reasons for keeping it RAW until 6th and then capping is to keep the rules changes as simple as possible. Rycanada has stated in previous threads he wanted to limit changes to new feats. I am sure an extended progression (or slower xp) and more feats as you level up (say, a feat every level) would work. It would just require more changes to remember and more effort from the DM if you use modules. Now, you really just have to change any higher CR monsters and any npcs over 6th level. But if you change the system you will have to change most of the npc's and monster because a 3rd level character in your system is not the same as a standard 3rd level.

My take on the "Epicness" of 6th. In E6 the best-of-the-best (aka: epic heros) are still mortal. They can't casually take on adult dragons singlehandedly, and 100 orcs are likely to kill them (these happened IMC at 15th level). So while technically "epic" it doesn't have the same meaning as a 21st level EPIC HERO. Thus, I have no problem with every village having a 6th level character (usually older folks with physical stat penalties).

I once read a thread about how, if you didn't use the training time between levels rules, a pc could go from 1 to 20 level in a couple of months. 4 encounters per day x 13 encounters per level come out to 60 days (or so). Basically it comes down to the DM controlling the pace of the game. If you don't want them to be 6th level when they're 18, just don't give adventures every few ingame days. Let them have lives between adventures.

Nimloth said:

I once read a thread about how, if you didn't use the training time between levels rules, a pc could go from 1 to 20 level in a couple of months. 4 encounters per day x 13 encounters per level come out to 60 days (or so). Basically it comes down to the DM controlling the pace of the game. If you don't want them to be 6th level when they're 18, just don't give adventures every few ingame days. Let them have lives between adventures.

Click to expand...

QFT. The "weirdness" about PCs vs NPCs is that pcs strangely get hit with monster after monster, and that these monster seem to mysteriously scale with the party's power, providing them even more challenge and improvement.

Of course, Npc aren't that lucky. Most of them will fight orcs till the day they die, just like Aragon in LOTR Or they will face something far too strong for them and get killed off. So high level npcs are still relatively rare. But high level pcs are there because they are blessed by fate (the dm)

In my games, what typically happens is I have occasional comments like 'you get ambushed about 4 days in by a bunch of yokels. You kick their asses and keep moving.'

Or actually play it out, if it's a little closer, and have the highwaymen surrender when they realize how absolutely boned they are.

Or have the party notice people skulking in the woods who try to then flee, because: 'Uh, Steve, see that one guy?' "Yeah?" 'He has freakin rocks orbiting his head. I say we pass on this group.' "Well, I was going to comment about the woman with the glowing sword, but yeah."


I figure it's a filtering thing; either people can tell the PCs are obscenely more powerful, so the PCs only really deal with bigger challenges, or you simply gloss over the minor stuff like you do bodily functions.

This system strikes me as very appropriate for Dark Sun and,to an extent, eberron. I say to an extent because there is some fairly scary that your supposed to be able to take. But mostly I like the thinking. It also strikes me as old school Greyhawk, you kno before it was high-magic.

rycanada said:

To Imp, Geoffrey:
...
I think that's the E6erron approach, from what those guys have said (where are those guys? Where are the E6 campaigns?)

Click to expand...

Right here!

That's the approach I'm taking. The cap represents that a Hero is a Hero with varying degress of ability between them, as opposed to earth-shattering power or invulnerability (human with more HP than 6 warhorses, for example).

Most towns don't actually have heroes protecting them, but every 3rd or 4th does. In a big city like Sharn, there's plenty of master craftsmen making awesome magic items or whatever, but outside the big cities, the monsters rule.