Characters of different power levels in Zero to Hero type games

[Blue]

I'm going to ramble a bit.

I started with D&D. It came in a red box. And you stated at first level and you earned every bit of power you ever had, be it levels or loot or things less mechanical. If you died, you likely started back at 1st level even though others around you were unimaginably powerful, say third or maybe even fifth!

But once I started playing regularly (a feat that took a few years) I also starting playing Champions, a superhero game. And my new character was based on 250 points, and their existing character was based on 322 points, but the power caps kept things from being TOO different so they were only a smidge more directly powerful, though definitely more well rounded and will less glaring weaknesses. And then we'd do crossovers with 400 point behemoths that were the first characters players made in the world and no longer actively run. And they were awesome, but as a newb hero I still made a contribution.

So was my introduction to "Zero to Hero" games like D&D and it's opposite, which I don't know if it has a zesty name but basically you come in already powerful and it's just refinements from there, not the incredible spectrum of power that D&D 1 to 20 encompasses.

Now, somewhere along the way, D&D-like games got so that new characters came in at the same or near the level of the party so they could contribute. Needed perhaps when a 1st level character would be toast just to incidental damage in a 12th level session.

So the idea of vastly different power levels faded some in RPGs. But not elsewhere. Hulk, Thor and Hawkeye can adventure together and all make contributions, though in most non-contrived scenarios it's pretty obvious that one of these is not like the others.

Marvel Heroic Roleplay embraces that, and you could play Hulk, Thor and Hawkeye if you wanted. As a matter of fact, it's XP system was not around "character success", and it didn't really contribute to making your character more powerful directly.

Other systems handle this in various ways. In Fate, my character may not be good at combat, but pushing a chair at someone to entangle their legs while my buddy comes in with a killer punch is a perfectly cromulent action, and just as effective if it's a pushed chair, fancy work with a bullwhip, or fey magic. So you don't need to be "good" at something to contribute, as long as you're clever and can help those who are.

And I'm wondering about mixed power levels in zero-to-hero games.

Say I said in a D&D-like game "we've got no XP, you can be whatever level you want to be and can advance whenever you think it's appropriate for your character" ... well, I think the results would vary a lot by table, but there are places it would not be good.

But saying the same with "you're all heroes, in levels 6-10", it's still a wide range but could probably work out well. But simply the lower level characters can't contribute as much, unlike the Fate characters, or the lwoer point total Champions superheroes who still had the same active point caps as the advanced heroes so could dish out the same.

So, in a zero-to-hero type of game, where power levels WILL vary greatly, how do you allow players choice over the power of their character and play with mixed power groups?

Thoughts?

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, I don't think D&D can do it. A higher-level character is just better in every way, than a lower-level one. They have more utility (power), they have more versatility (power), they hit more often (power), their spells are harder to resist (power), they have more HP (power), they have better defenses (power). There's no reason, when given the option to be "between level 6 and 10" to not be level 10.

Now, D&D can certainly have different types of power. Spellcasters have more spells, fighter-types hit harder and faster, scout-types have more skills.

Personally, what I did in a recent game was tell players they can be level 1-4, OR take a template of +1 to +3 to make up the difference. This allowed players to do more like the Supers games do: instead of seeing players who were simply superior in terms of class abilities, we got to see players with more diverse approaches to power, we had vampires, werewolves, half-dragons, half-demons and they all had power parity, but in ways that their respective players found particularly enjoyable and also in ways that were substantially different. Their power levels weren't drastically different, but they felt different.

Using straight-classes, I don't think there's any point to having the party spread over levels. The only benefit that a low level player really gets from running with a high level party in D&D is what video-gaming calls "power leveling", that is: you get better loot and better XP faster so that you can more quickly become on-par with the rest of the party. Outside of that, there's no point to a power disparity. Classes already have that, they're called "roles" and some classes do them better than others, but what you really want is each role performing on par for the party.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm going to ramble a bit.

I started with D&D. It came in a red box. And you stated at first level and you earned every bit of power you ever had, be it levels or loot or things less mechanical. If you died, you likely started back at 1st level even though others around you were unimaginably powerful, say third or maybe even fifth!

But you'd catch up quickly because of the way the exp tables were written...

But once I started playing regularly (a feat that took a few years) I also starting playing Champions, a superhero game. And my new character was based on 250 points, and their existing character was based on 322 points, but the power caps kept things from being TOO different so they were only a smidge more directly powerful, though definitely more well rounded and will less glaring weaknesses. And then we'd do crossovers with 400 point behemoths that were the first characters players made in the world and no longer actively run. And they were awesome, but as a newb hero I still made a contribution.

Yep. Hero was like that, and not just because of power caps. Conceptually, the way powers scaled conceptually vs mechanically also compressed things.

In D&D, a dagger does 1d4 and two daggers do 1d4, and, in concept, it mostly scales like that. Get hit twice as hard, take twice as much damage.
In Hero, each extra increment (normal die or 'damage class') of damage in mechanics terms represented twice the force. A 15 STR character was twice as strong as a 10 STR character, but only did 3d6 instead of 2d6, a hero with the "Strength of Ten Men" had 17 more STR than whatever that base-line one man had. Not exactly going to break the game. Keep that going and you can have quite a profound conceptual gulf between two things without them being quite in-useable in the same scenario. For instance, a +10d/DC difference represents something 1000x more powerful, but in a game were 8d is the low end for an effective normal attack, 18d isn't entirely beyond the pale (a pushed haymaker or move-through might get there, for instance), so, you can have things like...

Hulk, Thor and Hawkeye can adventure together and all make contributions, though in most non-contrived scenarios it's pretty obvious that one of these is not like the others.

... in Champions. Though Hawkeye is going to depend on his gimmicked arrows to be relevant plinking at things that those bruisers can just knock into next week.

Now, somewhere along the way, D&D-like games got so that new characters came in at the same or near the level of the party so they could contribute. Needed perhaps when a 1st level character would be toast just to incidental damage in a 12th level session.

It was always 'needed' in some sense, 3e, I think it was, started doing it systematically and reasonably well, thanks to wealth/level guidelines and make/buy items, among other things. One of those other things was that exp tables didn't grow quite the same way, and everyone got the same xp, so it became pretty normal to for everyone to be right around the same level pretty consistently - 4e & 5e retained that.

And I'm wondering about mixed power levels in zero-to-hero games.
So, in a zero-to-hero type of game, where power levels WILL vary greatly, how do you allow players choice over the power of their character and play with mixed power groups?
Thoughts?

It depends on the game, obviously.

In most versions of D&D, the problem will take care of itself over time, if the zero is careful enough (or the heroes protect him successfully), thanks to the ballooning exp values - the zeroes adventuring with heroes will zoom towards hero that much faster for getting a share of heroic-scale exp.

In 5e, hps are the main issue, BA means the zero can make warm-body contributions that will be welcome enough, but he won't be able to do meaningful damage, and he will die if caught in a save:1/2 AE.
In 4e bonuses/DCs, rather than hps are the main issue, too many levels back (more than about 5), and well you can probably won't be erased by an AE, you will rarely be missed by anything, which'll go hard on you, similarly, your contributions will dwindle to nothing.
In 3.x/PF, of course, it's /both/, you will not be able to touch any of the higher-level DCs, and you will die if anything sneezes on you.
In AD&D and other classic versions, it's weirder. You'll be able to contribute just fine in some areas - because there's no mechanics involved, and level means nothing. You'll be able to hit enemies, because ACs didn't vary a lot, and your saves will suck, by comparison, but that doesn't mean you'll be auto-failing. hps will be a problem if the gulf is in the first 10 levels. 1st vs 8th, you're in trouble. OTOH, 8th vs 18th, not so much, because you generally stop accumulating HD (and thus stacking CON bonus around name level). The rapid scaling of save:1/2 spell damage could inadvertently fry you, though, very easily.

The way items tend to get handed it in all versions but 5e, BTW, could also make things a tad easier on the zero, since the heroes may have a bunch of hand-me-downs for him that'll make a difference. A 1st level character can't do much in a 10th level game, but if you have +3 armor and weapons or a wand of lightning or whatever that no one bothers with anymore, it'll help. Give him a supply of potions of super-heroism, extra-healing, resistance-to-whatever, &c and hope he doesn't explode. In 4e, you could introduce the zero as a minion or companion character instead of a lower-level PC. The theoretical power scale would be comparable (a PC is nominal comparable to an Elite, and XP terms an Elite is equivalent to a 4-level higher standard, which is equivalent to a 10-level higher minion, so a level n PC could be modeled temporarily with a level n+4 companion character or level n+14 minion, enough to jump Tiers), but it'd work more smoothly. Of course, minions die easy, but at least not automatically to 1/2 damage from AEs. Instead of 'catching up level,' the zero could be promoted to PC after a while. But, really, in 3e & 4e it's just easy to create a new character of appropriate level, instead.


Other games that aren't imitators, clones, or fantasy heartbreakers or whatever (which is a lotta games, of course), though, usually don't do the zero to hero thing as dramatically as D&D.

 

[Doug McCrae]

One thing to note about HERO is that, because it's a 'threshold' system, differences in power are even greater than they would be in D&D.

In D&D, a 12d6 attack is 20% better than a 10d6 attack, however 12d6 in HERO is much more than 20% better than 10d6, because defences get subtracted before damage is applied. 12d6 will on average mean 12 points of damage versus a defence of 30, whereas 10d6 only results in 5 points of damage on average, making 12d6 more than twice as good.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer game, which uses the cinematic unisystem, Xander can still contribute to a scene where Buffy is present, even though she has way better stats, because he can spend... I forget what they're called, but they're basically narrative contrivance points. If you're not a witch or a slayer or anything, then you start with twice as many of those points, and you can buy them at a discounted rate to ensure that you always have more of them than anyone else.

I guess the D&D equivalent would be luck. You could make a character anywhere between level 6 and 10, and for every level you start at lower than 10, you get X number of re-rolls per day.

Honestly, though, Bounded Accuracy already goes a long way. The difference between a level 6 character and a level 10 character is maybe +1 or +2 to a couple of rolls, as long as you're not dealing with spells. A level 6 Fighter can still contribute nearly as much as a level 10 Fighter, similar to the Champions example.

And from what I recall, back in the day, the intention was that every player would have more than one character. If your level 12 character died while in a level ~12 party, then your new character would be level 1, but they'd be adventuring alongside the level ~4 backup party until you made it to level 7 or whenever you felt like you were ready to rejoin the high-level group.

 

[Tony Vargas]

12d6 in HERO is much more than 20% better than 10d6, because defences get subtracted before damage is applied. 12d6 will on average mean 12 points of damage versus a defence of 30, whereas 10d6 only results in 5 points of damage on average, making 12d6 more than twice as good.

Defenses are not fixed, one target might have a 30 defense (though that's a bit high in a typical 8-12 DC campaign), another might have 8. You get what you pay for.

 

[CapnZapp]

So, to summarize:

If the game does what it says it does, it works poorly to be the zero.

In games that say they do supers/levels, but in reality doesn't, then it works to be the zero.

D&D editions 3 (and 4 I guess) are the worst games in this regard, since they actively keep the promise: as a hero, you can literally wade through zeroes without ever stopping.

What you need is a game that treats the "twice as strong" case as maybe 20% stronger (numerically speaking).

This makes 5th edition D&D better for your needs, or should I say less bad for your needs, since it remains a game not about your use case.

Also consider Ars Magica in the future discussion, as a game that actively encourages a party with both Gandalf, Hawkeye and a Red-Shirt.

 

[Celebrim]

In Hero, each extra increment (normal die or 'damage class') of damage in mechanics terms represented twice the force. A 15 STR character was twice as strong as a 10 STR character, but only did 3d6 instead of 2d6, a hero with the "Strength of Ten Men" had 17 more STR than whatever that base-line one man had. Not exactly going to break the game.

I wonder what the math of this actually is. Like, what is actually the odds that a 2d6 will beat a 3d6 or a 4d6? What is the odds 3d6 will roll higher than 4d6?

Keep that going and you can have quite a profound conceptual gulf between two things without them being quite in-useable in the same scenario. For instance, a +10d/DC difference represents something 1000x more powerful, but in a game were 8d is the low end for an effective normal attack, 18d isn't entirely beyond the pale (a pushed haymaker or move-through might get there, for instance), so, you can have things like...

So is it the case that 18d6 will roll higher than 8d6 at least 999 times out of 1000? And by comparison, what are the odds that 1d20+8 rolls higher than 1d20+18?

In AD&D and other classic versions, it's weirder. You'll be able to contribute just fine in some areas - because there's no mechanics involved, and level means nothing. You'll be able to hit enemies, because ACs didn't vary a lot, and your saves will suck, by comparison, but that doesn't mean you'll be auto-failing. hps will be a problem if the gulf is in the first 10 levels. 1st vs 8th, you're in trouble. OTOH, 8th vs 18th, not so much, because you generally stop accumulating HD (and thus stacking CON bonus around name level). The rapid scaling of save:1/2 spell damage could inadvertently fry you, though, very easily.

AD&D definitely supports bringing low level characters into the party better that more recent editions.

The biggest problem I'm having with the later editions zero to hero model that assumes replacement characters of the same level as the dead/retired character is conceptually figuring out where those replacement characters come from. When the party was low level, adding a character of 1st-4th level was fairly trivial. The demographics assumed such characters were relatively common, and it was easy to assume the hero was replaced by some local hero. But as the party has leveled up, they've diverged from the assumed demographics more and more and become more and more the 'big darn heroes' of the setting. At this point, character replacement is getting more and more challenging to conceptualize. If the party is six levels deep in the lost hidden dungeon of great doom, and the party is of a level that they are regional superheroes, it becomes harder and harder to hand wave away where this new character with thews of steel came from and why he is here.

 

[Nagol]

I wonder what the math of this actually is. Like, what is actually the odds that a 2d6 will beat a 3d6 or a 4d6? What is the odds 3d6 will roll higher than 4d6?

Reasonably low: about 22% of the time 2d6 will beat 3d6. About 26% of the time 3d6 will roll higher than 4d6.

So is it the case that 18d6 will roll higher than 8d6 at least 999 times out of 1000? And by comparison, what are the odds that 1d20+8 rolls higher than 1d20+18?

It's somewhere in that area, but a bit more extreme. About 99.9978% probability 18d6 wins. 1d20 + 18 vs 1d20 + 8 is really 1d20 + 10 vs 1d20 and the side with the bonus wins about 86.25% of the time.

 

[CapnZapp]

AD&D definitely supports bringing low level characters into the party better that more recent editions.

The biggest problem I'm having with the later editions zero to hero model that assumes replacement characters of the same level as the dead/retired character is conceptually figuring out where those replacement characters come from. When the party was low level, adding a character of 1st-4th level was fairly trivial. The demographics assumed such characters were relatively common, and it was easy to assume the hero was replaced by some local hero. But as the party has leveled up, they've diverged from the assumed demographics more and more and become more and more the 'big darn heroes' of the setting. At this point, character replacement is getting more and more challenging to conceptualize. If the party is six levels deep in the lost hidden dungeon of great doom, and the party is of a level that they are regional superheroes, it becomes harder and harder to hand wave away where this new character with thews of steel came from and why he is here.

OTOH in 5e it works reasonably well to say replacement PCs enter at lowest level for tier.

That is, a level 1 character can't do anything in a level 8 party, but a level 5 character can.

So the level 15 party can find a level 11 refugee or prisoner with damage and exhaustion, and quickly put him to use.

Because xp totals aren't as exponential as in AD&D, however, I do recommend double xp until you've caught up. (In AD&D, it was a feature of the XP system that you almost instantly become only one level lower. Modern D&D isn't designed to accommodate groups with significant level disparity, so they don't feature this to nearly the same level. So add it back yourself)