D&D 4E 4E Leveling

[mudlock]

The first game of 4e I played, I remembered thinking "Wow, my character is awesome!" After all, compared to every other edition of D&D, my 1st level character WAS awesome; he could fight like a hero without worrying that a stray house cat might murder him. He felt many times more competent, powerful, and heroic.

And that same feeling was repeated when my character reached 11th: compared to the same character at heroic tier, he felt many times more competent, powerful, and heroic.

 

[L1qw1d]

I unfortunately frustrated my players in the 9-11 story I generated. Somehow the power generated by the group after a couple people left radically changed the difficulty.

The game, in the beginning, had been story driven, and suddenly they had a munchkin archer, a fluffy and insanely weak druid, and a disinterested tank that had fought with the guys who had left. They hit level 9 and got to the castle, and the game sunk like a stone.

I'd say that if you were going to compare 1st to 11th level, the scaling in power is fairly straightforward but gets more complex. The PC has to have their build DOWN in their heads before they put pen to paper.

I think that is where if a Player is savvy, the similarity to LEVEL in 3/3.5 & 4 ENDS. The gameplay in 4th is less involved so that Feats fill similar categories as many skills in 3rd. In 3rd you could hop and choose and switch just to get more powers if allowed. You could make classes and bloodlines, etc. In 4th this is not the case- but the straightforward tier level is more for emphasizing what kind of archetype you're playing.