Awards other than XP

Umbran · Mar 20, 2019

TaranTheWanderer said:
I've always hated how fame and power were connected to level. Why does a PC have to be 10th to own a Fortress? Low level NPCs have riches(dukes and kings) and fame, so why can't PCs?

Remember that, in 1e, how strongholds came only as the character got significant amounts of game-mechanical power? Trying to take their power was a risk, because they were powerful enough to personally clean the clocks of people who tried to take it away from them. And, typically, characters who were kings and rulers were high level NPCs, not schlubs.

As a GM, you can have a low-level character owning major property. But in a game where individuals can have sufficient personal power to take down an army of low-level warriors, you do have to consider *how* these low-level characters maintain their position. How do they keep the loyalty of the high-level characters that protect them?

Brashnir2 · Mar 20, 2019

I'm not sure how well it would work in this edition (I suspect you could find a way to make it work), but one thing I did in 4th Edition was I printed up a whole bunch of different cards that I would hand out to the players that they could use to gain some sort of effect, at which point it was expended.

Card ideas for 5E:

Gain Advantage on a Roll
Impose Disadvantage on a Roll
Add a Die to a roll (card could be a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, etc)
Spend a hit die to regain HP without taking a rest
Regain 1/2/3 levels of spell slots
Gain an extra bonus action on a turn
Gain an extra reaction in a round
Re-roll all 1s on damage

...and so on.

Though this may be tricky for you since you said you play on a virtual tabletop. In person though it added a lot to our 4th edition games, and the expendable nature of them means the power increase will only be temporary.

TaranTheWanderer · Mar 20, 2019

Umbran said:
As a GM, you can have a low-level character owning major property. But in a game where individuals can have sufficient personal power to take down an army of low-level warriors, you do have to consider *how* these low-level characters maintain their position. How do they keep the loyalty of the high-level characters that protect them?

Yeah, but if the OP is restricting levels to 4-7th, it means elite guards hired by Kings or wizards are all going to be about that level so you won't have that typical high-level discrepancy. You can have a small army of 2nd level fighters and it will be protection enough against an adventuring group.

BacchusNL · Mar 20, 2019

I think there have been plenty of really solid suggestions on alternative rewards, but one thing that popped into my head when I thought about a prolongued campaign at a certain level would be that it could be fun to weave a parallel story into your campaign that revolves around a different party, which they also play from time to time. It could create an interesting behind-the-scenes narrative, and solve some issues players might have with playing the same char over and over without growth or progression in the classic sense.

Umbran · Mar 21, 2019

TaranTheWanderer said:
Yeah, but if the OP is restricting levels to 4-7th,

The OP opened the question more broadly than that: "Also note that it doesn't matter if the PCs start at 3rd or 13th. "

I'm noting that it may matter what the levels and level ranges are, for some rewards. In some cases you may be handing them less of a reward, and more of a plot complication, depending on the situation.

TaranTheWanderer · Mar 21, 2019

Umbran said:
The OP opened the question more broadly than that: "Also note that it doesn't matter if the PCs start at 3rd or 13th. "

I'm noting that it may matter what the levels and level ranges are, for some rewards. In some cases you may be handing them less of a reward, and more of a plot complication, depending on the situation.

Yup, I agree. I did miss that part about 3-13.

Reynard · Mar 21, 2019

This thread has been very helpful in thinking about what the things are in the game that bug me and potential solutions for those things, so thank you all.

One thing I sort of came to while discussing it with a friend is that the big problem for me is the pace of PC capability and complexity increase and how that impacts verisimilitude, world building and adventure design as a coherent thing. I realize that the NO ADVANCEMENT thing is a tough sell, and was thinking of ways to find a middle ground and think I might have stumbled upon one.

So, the leveling mechanism is sort of a hybrid between milestones and "earned" leveling. The idea is that it takes a number of XP "tokens" equal to the level you are aiming for to get it. You spend these, so your total is always going down. You get one token for showing up, so every player in a session gets a token. If the session happens to be the end of a successful adventure, the players all get a bonus token. Also, once per level, a player can individually earn one token for reaching a personal milestone, resolving or advancing a subplot or other "role playing" things. If you are killed, in addition to whatever else it costs you must pay a token to get raised, and things like major alignment violations, breaking your paladin vows or whatever can also cost you a token. The idea is that PCs will level a little more often than once every number of sessions equal to their current level. If you started at third, for example, characters should reach 4th in 3 session (assuming a complete adventure in there). When they are 10th, it is going to take more like 7 or 8 sessions, depending on number of discrete adventures and subplots, etc.. What this does, and why i think it might help solve my problem, is it increases the time between levels as the PCs gain them, so there is time to explore those levels -- both from the players' perspective but also as a DM. Having 3 months or so to really get into what an 11th level part is and can do is more appealing to me than dealing with the quick leveling and wonky CR (and therefore XP) calculations of such characters.

Thoughts?