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d6 the future of d20?
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<blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1690613" data-attributes="member: 10201"><p>It seems to me that there're two ways of thinking of levels: as a guage of overall power, and as a guage of effectiveness in any given area. What you proposed works just fine for the former: it gives you a shorthand that says "all of these characters are about this powerful". But it's really no different than saying they all have 30d, total, or, in Hero System, saying they are all 200pt characters. D&D does a lot more with levels: not only are all 10th level characters nominally equivalent in effectiveness [i'll just gloss over the imbalances, and we'll assume it's perfectly balanced, for sake of argument], but you know that all 10th level characters can handle roughly the same sort of combat encounter. Obviously, the wizard can't charge up to some monster and start hacking at it, but she can contribute meaningfully to the combat (or at least that's the theory).</p><p></p><p>The same thing isn't guaranteed by simply making sure everyone has the same number of points, or the like. Frex, i converted our D&D3E game over to a derivative of Ars Magica. The big bruiser was already the toughest one in the group, able to deal out and survive damage easily twice what anyone else could. But even the gypsy (weakest character in the group, in terms of toe-to-toe combat prowess) could realistically engage in melee without being smeared. Freed of the constraints of levels and able to build their characters exactly the way they wanted to, this was no longer the case. The big bruiser, while no more powerful overall, put all his points into combat worthiness. More importantly, several of the other characters put almost none of their points into combat stuff. Suddenly, a monster that was a challenge for the bruiser would hit one of the others almost every time, and kill them with one blow. It would be literally suicidal for the non-combat characters to engage in combat. Now, IMHO, that's a feature, not a bug. But if you don't want to have to worry about what happens if you have a foolish player, or smart monsters, then levels can be a feature, ensuring a minimum level of ability in whatever areas the levels cover (combat ability, hit points, and saves, for D&D3E).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think you two may be talking past one another. You are absolutely correct that the mechanical side of D6 adventure design is almost an order of magnitude easier than for D&D3E. However, the planning side *can* be harder for two reasons. First, the wider range of ability levels in various areas means you have to be more careful when choosing opponents/challenges. frex, assuming luck with the dice averages out over time, the toughest D&D3E character (barbarian) will only have around 4x the hit points of the weakest (wizard) at around 10th level. With a purely points-based system, there might be an order of magnitude difference, or more. So now you may need to pick a monster that can give the barbarian-sort a real run for her money, but won't instantly cream the wizard-sort should she get in the way.</p><p></p><p>Second, the wider range of abilities, period, may give you more elements to consider, in general. Taking a simple case, if nobody has a prestige class, you don't have to account for any abilities the core classes don't have, or couldn't have by that level. With a more wide-open system, they might have just about anything.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="woodelf, post: 1690613, member: 10201"] It seems to me that there're two ways of thinking of levels: as a guage of overall power, and as a guage of effectiveness in any given area. What you proposed works just fine for the former: it gives you a shorthand that says "all of these characters are about this powerful". But it's really no different than saying they all have 30d, total, or, in Hero System, saying they are all 200pt characters. D&D does a lot more with levels: not only are all 10th level characters nominally equivalent in effectiveness [i'll just gloss over the imbalances, and we'll assume it's perfectly balanced, for sake of argument], but you know that all 10th level characters can handle roughly the same sort of combat encounter. Obviously, the wizard can't charge up to some monster and start hacking at it, but she can contribute meaningfully to the combat (or at least that's the theory). The same thing isn't guaranteed by simply making sure everyone has the same number of points, or the like. Frex, i converted our D&D3E game over to a derivative of Ars Magica. The big bruiser was already the toughest one in the group, able to deal out and survive damage easily twice what anyone else could. But even the gypsy (weakest character in the group, in terms of toe-to-toe combat prowess) could realistically engage in melee without being smeared. Freed of the constraints of levels and able to build their characters exactly the way they wanted to, this was no longer the case. The big bruiser, while no more powerful overall, put all his points into combat worthiness. More importantly, several of the other characters put almost none of their points into combat stuff. Suddenly, a monster that was a challenge for the bruiser would hit one of the others almost every time, and kill them with one blow. It would be literally suicidal for the non-combat characters to engage in combat. Now, IMHO, that's a feature, not a bug. But if you don't want to have to worry about what happens if you have a foolish player, or smart monsters, then levels can be a feature, ensuring a minimum level of ability in whatever areas the levels cover (combat ability, hit points, and saves, for D&D3E). I think you two may be talking past one another. You are absolutely correct that the mechanical side of D6 adventure design is almost an order of magnitude easier than for D&D3E. However, the planning side *can* be harder for two reasons. First, the wider range of ability levels in various areas means you have to be more careful when choosing opponents/challenges. frex, assuming luck with the dice averages out over time, the toughest D&D3E character (barbarian) will only have around 4x the hit points of the weakest (wizard) at around 10th level. With a purely points-based system, there might be an order of magnitude difference, or more. So now you may need to pick a monster that can give the barbarian-sort a real run for her money, but won't instantly cream the wizard-sort should she get in the way. Second, the wider range of abilities, period, may give you more elements to consider, in general. Taking a simple case, if nobody has a prestige class, you don't have to account for any abilities the core classes don't have, or couldn't have by that level. With a more wide-open system, they might have just about anything. [/QUOTE]
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