D&D 5E L&L 3/11/2013 This Week in D&D

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Man, I don't think anyone is forcing you to go up in level.

Don't want to level up? Don't do it. Rest at the sweet spot. E6 the thing. This ain't rocket surgery, just stop doing the thing that you don't want to do anymore.

I think you, and others, are missing the point. No one here seems to be advocating removal of the level system. Also, as I understood the point originally made, it's not that 20 levels should equal 20 'kewl powerz!" It's that if you are going to grant 10 class abilities over the course of a career, then make the class 10 levels, not 20. Or even worse, 20 class abilities that are clumped in groups of 2-3 while leaving other levels dead.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ah, yeah, I think I basically agree with that. Like I said, if someone wants to not gain powers for a while, they can plateau it at any point.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The only good reason I've ever seen for dead levels is because that's how it works out when you standardize the level chart. That is, because everyone is on the same scale for XP and levels, maybe the stuff the fighter gets at 4th and 6th is just too good to let him have stuff at 5th. And you don't have any good way to split the 6th level stuff up compared to what all the other classes get at 5th, and are really attached to having those 4th and 6th level things happen.

However, confronted with 20 levels of that, my instinct would be to compress the chart down into 10-15 levels, so that everyone still gets something at every level. If that means that every now and then someone lags behind by a level getting something especially sharp, so be it. It probably gets compensated for elsewhere in the leveling.

The real point of dead levels is to a mere sop to making people feel like they are progressing when they aren't really. That's why video games use them so prolifically. Of course, that's a powerful sop, which is we keep seeing it. It does have a handling cost though.

 

[GX.Sigma]

The point of leveling has ALWAYS been to get more 'juice' for your character, always. This structure is the primary reason D&D has been so popular through the years and what has distinguished it from games based on BRP (RQ), Traveler, and many other early RPGs which either entirely lacked that feature or where it was much less explicit. It is just that back in the day when ALL a fighter's class was about was hitting harder and being tough getting a +1 to-hit and another 1d8 hit points WAS a class feature.

I don't know what you mean by a 'broader focus' in other words. Cool abilities might have been a little less granular for some classes, but there was no focus on anything else. D&D's entire focus has always been on leveling and IMHO I don't see it having any really different feel now than in 1975. In fact the 'focus' of 4e is vastly broader than OD&D, B/X, or 1e, which were all entirely about a party of adventurers delving down into a dungeon and gaining treasure and bennies.

4e is very focused on tactical combat. In 4e, getting better at fighting means getting a new power, or getting a new feat, or whatever.

Skill use in 4e is not the focus of the system. It's there, but it's not the focus of the system. In 4e, getting better at a skill means getting +1 to a skill.

When I play/run 5e, I do not want combat to be the focus of the game. It will be there, but it will not be the focus of the game. Getting better at fighting shouldn't be much more than just getting +1 to fighting.

However, I know that not everyone has that preference, so I would like to leave it open to each individual to choose their own complexity level. Thus, the system Mearls describes in the article (every level, you choose whether you get something new, or get better at something you already do) sounds good to me.

 

[Obryn]

As a 4E fan, I feel like it's understandable that other fans feel like Next isn't going their way, but I also feel it's something inevitable. 4E is an edition that thrives on being "more" - to be part of a "a bit for everyone" edition, it would need to be stripped down of some of its parts, and that edition would be a worse 4E than the one we have already is.

I just wanted to say - excellent post. Well said.

-O

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

4e is very focused on tactical combat. In 4e, getting better at fighting means getting a new power, or getting a new feat, or whatever.

Well, you may have focused your 4e game on combat. I don't focus mine on that, though some of my 4e games have been quite heavy combat ones, that was a group preference. Others have featured more limited combat. And yes, getting better at fighting generally includes getting something new, though its not true that 4e characters always get some new combat thing. Often the player has a choice.

Skill use in 4e is not the focus of the system. It's there, but it's not the focus of the system. In 4e, getting better at a skill means getting +1 to a skill.

Getting better at anything generally involves some bonus to the d20 improving, that's all d20 system's core shtick. I don't know why you say skill use is not the focus of the system either. I think skills get used more often and have a deeper impact on the game than any power. My players at least will roll a skill check at the drop of a hat. Heck the biggest problem I have is they're tossing dice left and right yelling out what skill check they're up to practically every 5 seconds and I have to run herd on it. In 4e IMHO skills are a major factor in defining characters. Much bigger than powers, most of which are combat tricks anyway. Utility powers can be significant, and there are feats and rituals too, etc, but the most basic way that the player shapes how their character relates to the rest of the campaign world is which skills they're trained in.

When I play/run 5e, I do not want combat to be the focus of the game. It will be there, but it will not be the focus of the game. Getting better at fighting shouldn't be much more than just getting +1 to fighting.

However, I know that not everyone has that preference, so I would like to leave it open to each individual to choose their own complexity level. Thus, the system Mearls describes in the article (every level, you choose whether you get something new, or get better at something you already do) sounds good to me.

I think I don't really have a huge problem with Mearls' basic concept, characters progress by getting 'stuff', or 'powers', or bonuses to checks (combat or otherwise). I'm not even sure what COULD be controversial about that. Honestly I didn't really find anything much to argue about in this latest L&L. Even so I have issues with the selection of things that characters get and how those things work, and how they relate to the core system. But yes, its all a matter of taste. I'm relatively sure Mike can handle implementing the mechanics fine.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As a 4E fan, I feel like it's understandable that other fans feel like Next isn't going their way, but I also feel it's something inevitable. 4E is an edition that thrives on being "more" - to be part of a "a bit for everyone" edition, it would need to be stripped down of some of its parts, and that edition would be a worse 4E than the one we have already is.

I had to go back and read it again after it was quoted...

Yeah, I think there's another way. The "go through the problem to the other side" way. You make a game that is even more intensely a distillation of what can be so good in 4e, but which can easily be lacking as well due to equivocal design and presentation. A game so good when perfected that it stands above all previous offerings. No, not everyone will play that, any more than they will ANY one single given game, but if making a better game matters at all, then the best game is best. So go for the best.

 

[Libramarian]

I liked both Elder scrolls games, both enabled the creation of interesting characters (for a computer game). But there are two issues: enabling interesting choices and enabling game meaningful choices. The later refers to choices that by some calculation increase the power of the character. If you choose a feat or power that doesnt increase the power of your PC then it is not really meaningful within the game even though it is interesting to you the player. I think in the game Skyrim they did a really good job of making perks (basically feats) in the game which you got each level, really game meaningful because even though everything scaled, perks in certain strengths of the character increased in power faster than that. So you felt that you were doing your archetype was being expressed really well!

I don't think everything scales in Skyrim. It's kind of weird. I once found a Master level lock on some island way in the far north and I thought "oh sweet, if I manage to get this open with the lockpicking minigame I'll find some awesome treasure and be ahead of the game for my level" but then when I finally cracked it open inside was like the standard low level treasure parcel of a potion and a few coins. That was really lame. You can't scale treasure to the level of the character but not the obstacles! Also I think the giants are not scaled to your character, but other enemies like bandits are. But you're right about how the skill perks in Skyrim relate to the dead level issue.

Right, if you have the same character and the same sorts of challenges then there's no point in just having bigger numbers. It might be OK if you are literally playing Gygax-era pure dungeon-crawl where "Ohhhh, now we can dare to go to the 5th dungeon level!" is the goal, but nowadays? People want to have characters where the mechanics of the game can give them some support for character growth. If that includes 'kewl powerz' so be it!

Your tendency to assume that your preferences represent the majority is getting tedious, Abdul. Mocking classic D&D dungeoncrawling is one thing, a lot of people who've been playing RPGs for a very long time and take the hobby too seriously do that, but you've got to stop implying that only a very few people are interested in this style of play. This is not true. The OSR is a significant part of the current D&D landscape. The classic D&D pdfs are dominating the RPGNow rankings, and IIRC one of the major stretch goals for the Pathfinder MMO was the tabletop release of a megadungeon (partly designed by Frank Mentzer no less). The OSR is hugely influential on the design of DDN. Two OSR bloggers that I am aware of are paid consultants for the design team (Zak S and RPGPundit). You need to update your perspective of the situation or you're going to be the grognard soon

 

[Pour]

Two OSR bloggers that I am aware of are paid consultants for the design team (Zak S and RPGPundit).

Zak S from D&D With Porn Stars? Ugh, he hates 4e. Great... Do you think they brought in 'representatives' from any other editions or movements? I mean the designers involved with multiple editions come in, supposedly, with an objective view to the rules, but does it at all seem odd to hire consultants with agendas or gross and obvious bias? Do we know who the other consultants are?

 

[Obryn]

Two OSR bloggers that I am aware of are paid consultants for the design team (Zak S and RPGPundit)

It's only taken one post, and my opinion of Next has gone from, "I'll give Core a shot," to, "If Tarnowski's involved, I'm not interested."

-O