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<blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 7928260" data-attributes="member: 70468"><p>Right now it’s just something I’m mulling. It’s like old-school D&D where dungeon levels are tied to hit dice, but I haven’t yet determined how that would work in my campaign. One possibility could be that dungeon level is roughly equivalent to the weighted average creature level of the creatures on the wandering monsters table for that level.</p><p></p><p>To help add a bit more context, so it’s not like I’m just moving the goalposts: I’m also doing a few other old-school things. The above is still just under consideration, but things I am doing already include restocking my dungeons and <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon" target="_blank">Jaquaying</a> my maps. My players wanted an exploration-focused game, so exploration is very much a thing in this campaign. Restocking in particular helps keeps things dangerous, so attrition becomes a thing as you explore the dungeon.</p><p></p><p>From a setting perspective, it leans more swords and sorcery than high fantasy. There aren’t a lot of higher level NPCs, and powerful creatures like dragons haven’t been seen for a long time. I’m a non-linear progression (200 XP × next level), so early levels go quickly but latter ones more slowly. If someone really wanted to ding 20, it’d take about three years worth of sessions, assuming we met every week, which we don’t. Since we’re using a rotating cast of PCs, it is more advantageous to level up several characters than just one.</p><p></p><p>Those characters we’re rolling up to test proficiency without level are really just another group in their expedition, and depending on which way we go, one group or the other will get converted, and then everyone will be available for adventuring (when they’re not locked to an exploration party).</p><p></p><p></p><p>There’s a tension between wanting to populate dungeons based on what makes sense in the world and following this old-school design, which I haven’t reconciled. The appeal to me for using proficiency without level is it gives me a much wider range of creatures to use in my environments. It also makes more sense for my setting, which doesn’t have a lot of higher level things in it.</p><p></p><p></p><p>As I noted above, attrition helps deal with that. If you want to get down to where that level 7 loot is, you have to survive getting there. Additionally, since this is a sandbox campaign, the CRB does recommend giving out more than the normal amount of loot under the assumption the PCs will miss some of it. If mine actually managed to pull that off, I’d feel fine letting them keep it since it wouldn’t be easy. In practice, my PCs probably end up with less loot than they should have. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite9" alt=":eek:" title="Eek! :eek:" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":eek:" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kenada, post: 7928260, member: 70468"] Right now it’s just something I’m mulling. It’s like old-school D&D where dungeon levels are tied to hit dice, but I haven’t yet determined how that would work in my campaign. One possibility could be that dungeon level is roughly equivalent to the weighted average creature level of the creatures on the wandering monsters table for that level. To help add a bit more context, so it’s not like I’m just moving the goalposts: I’m also doing a few other old-school things. The above is still just under consideration, but things I am doing already include restocking my dungeons and [URL='https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon']Jaquaying[/URL] my maps. My players wanted an exploration-focused game, so exploration is very much a thing in this campaign. Restocking in particular helps keeps things dangerous, so attrition becomes a thing as you explore the dungeon. From a setting perspective, it leans more swords and sorcery than high fantasy. There aren’t a lot of higher level NPCs, and powerful creatures like dragons haven’t been seen for a long time. I’m a non-linear progression (200 XP × next level), so early levels go quickly but latter ones more slowly. If someone really wanted to ding 20, it’d take about three years worth of sessions, assuming we met every week, which we don’t. Since we’re using a rotating cast of PCs, it is more advantageous to level up several characters than just one. Those characters we’re rolling up to test proficiency without level are really just another group in their expedition, and depending on which way we go, one group or the other will get converted, and then everyone will be available for adventuring (when they’re not locked to an exploration party). There’s a tension between wanting to populate dungeons based on what makes sense in the world and following this old-school design, which I haven’t reconciled. The appeal to me for using proficiency without level is it gives me a much wider range of creatures to use in my environments. It also makes more sense for my setting, which doesn’t have a lot of higher level things in it. As I noted above, attrition helps deal with that. If you want to get down to where that level 7 loot is, you have to survive getting there. Additionally, since this is a sandbox campaign, the CRB does recommend giving out more than the normal amount of loot under the assumption the PCs will miss some of it. If mine actually managed to pull that off, I’d feel fine letting them keep it since it wouldn’t be easy. In practice, my PCs probably end up with less loot than they should have. :o [/QUOTE]
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