[D&D Design Discussion] Preserving the "Sweet Spot"

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Without drastically changing the game (e.g. spreading out gains so that one level today equals four widely spaced "sub-levels" tomorrow -- but with fewer perks at each sub-level, players may lose interest. What wizard wants to wait 5 levels to get 2d level spells?) I see really only a few options:

1. With player concurrance, reduce XP awards and treasure. This means you do more adventuring between levels, but you do gain power more slowly. This can be balanced a bit by allowing players to still make their own magic items, and by adding things (power components, other materials) that can add small increments of capability without being new levels or requiring rebalancing.

2. Agreeing to dispense with XP, and just gaining a level when everyone feels it is time. If no one is too greedy with magic, you can adventure forever at whatever your favorite level is.

3. Restart the campaign at the beginning once you reach the level cap. You spend more time at low-mid levels if you never play high levels.

Frankly, I find 1 + 3 to be the best solutions to me -- slowing advancement by the right amount means I'm ready to explore new ideas or a new campaign by the time we start to advance outside the "sweet spot" -- and it still allows the game itself to be built for folks who have different perceptions of what the sweet spot is than I do.

 

[Nellisir]

I think I'd keep advancement the same, but limit advancement in any one class to 10th level. There are good high level spells, though, and casters should retain efficiency at higher levels, so some thought would have to go into that. Removing damage caps from some spells would help, as might spending lower level spells to metamagic higher level spells.

 

[VirgilCaine]

They certainly can be. I generally let the players make a "temple" become their enemy, though. I prefer it when my players set themselves up for death. Besides, I often have "temple wars" going on and off in the background of my campaigns, if they are hanging out in decent sized town/cities.

My campaigns aren't static.

My thinking was that not being able to destroy temples of enemy gods would make any conflict between temples very static...since the enemy can create food and water and cure disease...

 

[pogre]

Good ideas, but to address Wulf's overall problem you have to fix the scale of power progression from bottom to top. You can't "fix" the sweet spot without fixing how that range of the "sweet spot" was created in the first place. IE, the rules as a whole.

Not sure I agree with that. I think you can address how the game changes at 10th level by looking at what changes it. The trick of course is still giving the PCs the sense of progression. Further, I think it is possible in a 3E framework. I don't claim to have the answer, but I reject that it is not possible.

I will admit I have a slightly different view from Wulf in that I do not like an "end game" that marks the climax of the campaign. I start every campaign off with the high hope that it will last for the next 20 years. Wulf's view may be more mature in that it recognizes inherent problems with progression in a truly open-ended situation - I don't know.

However, where our ideas do meet is extending the "sweet spot" to 20th level. I just do not want to stop the campaign there - he does.

Wulf - I'm still thinking about the mechanics of flying a bit. I will give you a more solid answer on that later. I will admit flying is a spell that used to bother me a lot more than it does now.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Ok, I dident read everything, but i read alot of it.

Anyone read Beserk? no really. If you look at how that story is layed out, it give a good templit for how a 1-20 level game could work. The bbeg is basicly a god, but through sheir will, the PCs fight to live on. Inharently its a low magic level campain. The only caster comes into play many many issues into the story. At first, in the story magic doesent exist. Or atleast out of reach. Then bit by bit demons and magic iteams make thier way into the story. You could look at zod as the first fought monster, but soon after, mega huge Killer deamons the size of large buildings are common place. Basicly its done in the way the story is told. Unatutural creatures become more common place as Grafith slowly opens the the demon world into the real world.

anyway its worth a read and is excelent for alwayse increaseing the level of combat.

 

[Plane Sailing]

An alternative which your questions brought to mind is inspired by the 1e games that we used to play and love. In our games levels 6-9 were probably the sweetest spot. As you remember, level advancement used to take forever in those days, and the bad news part of that was that it took months and months of gameplay and hundreds of encounters to raise that level.

But it wasn't that important. Why not?

For us, it was because of all the in-game rewards. Not mechanical rewards that came from increasing class level. Instead it was making money. Getting houses and eventually castles built. Earning noble titles and ruling over the land. Leading armies, founding temples and such.

These were all activities that were intimately tied in with the campaign world, and increased our investment in the campaign world. We were less interested in gathering xps (because there wasn't any benefit immediately in sight!) and more interested in making our mark in the world by gathering and spending money and influence.

So if I wanted to start and run a campaign to try and really hit my old sweet spot, I'd probably start all PCs at 5th/6th level, slow down xp advancement by a factor of 10, and ensure that there was lots of money and social interaction.

If I wanted to write some rules to support this, I'd put a lot of thought into rules for increasing social influence in one or more groups (including how more influence with some groups might reduce your influence in others), and simple rules for running businesses, raising castles, attracting followers, leading troops and so forth.

I've just thought - another thing that I'd do is completely ditch the 'expected wealth by level' guidelines, and throw out all the flavourless '+2 blah blah' magic items.

That way PC's don't end up with a whole bag of +1 this, +2 that, +2 the other items and instead have their rod of lordly might or staff of fire at levels when they can enjoy using them.

I've recently thrown out the 'expected wealth' guidelines in my own campaign, and just allowed the PCs to find cool and interesting stuff in the adventures, and it has worked out wonderfully (the look on their faces when they realised that they had a ring of 1 wish was tremendous, and the point at which they used it was superb).

Cheers

 

[Kaodi]

Gah...

Unfortunately, I don't have time to look at all of the new messages since I was reading this thread last night, but I wanted to post this before I have to go.

I was thinking (as on option), that you could split the spells levels into two, weak and strong (thus spells like magic missile, which people argue are too strong, now are in the right spot), and extending the pattern. So, instead of getting 9th level spells at 17th and 18th respectively, wizards and sorcerers would get the weak 6th level spells at 19th and 20th. The 5th level " game breakers " would be pushed back to 15th or 17th level, depending on if they were accounted weak or strong for their level...
Paladins would get their strong 3rd level spells, same with rangers. Also, maybe you could limit attacks to one per round, and only be able to make more using the one extra at -2 (or -5) to both type mechanic. Anyway, that's all for now. I'll check the thread more thoroughly later.
By the way, NPCs could still use normal progression... especially dragons... this would make dragons *really* mean bastards!

 

[Hussar]

I'll also echo what someone else said above-- I think typical high-level D&D play is a genre unto itself, without any familiar literary analog. I think that's why I have such a hard time getting into it.

You might want to give Stephen Erikson a shot. There's some very good high level play in there.

 

[philreed]

2. Agreeing to dispense with XP, and just gaining a level when everyone feels it is time. If no one is too greedy with magic, you can adventure forever at whatever your favorite level is.

What I've been thinking is an advancement system in which you play a number of adventures equal to your current character level and then gain a new level.

So play one 1st-level adventure and you're now second level. Play two 2nd-level adventures and you're now at third level. Repeat.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I will admit I have a slightly different view from Wulf in that I do not like an "end game" that marks the climax of the campaign. I start every campaign off with the high hope that it will last for the next 20 years. Wulf's view may be more mature in that it recognizes inherent problems with progression in a truly open-ended situation - I don't know.

However, where our ideas do meet is extending the "sweet spot" to 20th level. I just do not want to stop the campaign there - he does.

Well, no. To be honest with myself, the reason I want it to stop is because-- under the current rules-- by 20th level I have long since passed the point of actually enjoying the game.

Prolong the sweet spot and I am certainly willing to play indefinitely.

[EDIT/ASIDE: My wife plays in my current game. She keeps asking me when the game "ends." She likes the game from a tactical standpoint, she likes rolling dice, she likes killing monsters and finding treasure. Yet she can't grasp the concept of a game that doesn't end.]

However-- big however-- actually designing a ruleset that is extensible to infinity without breaking is a much bigger task (read: impossible) than designing to a finite end game.

Any kind of system where the "power ups" are additive breaks eventually.

One might say that it can only work if you flatten the power curve-- but, and this is the reason I started this thread-- there is a point where the curve becomes so flat that the incremental cookie falls below the necessary threshold to maintain (Gamist) player interest.

The only possible solution, an opinion repeated here several times, is to find the apex of that curve and ensure that the game (and the players) matures out of a Gamist experience to a Simulationist or Narrativist experience at the exact right time. Your game might fall apart here. Hopefully it does not.

I'm not satisfied with that answer. I am, at heart, a Gamist, I would like to find a Gamist solution that extends infinitely. I am realizing it doesn't exist.