4th Edition and the Immortals Handbook

[Upper_Krust]

Hey guys!

Sort of just wanted to talk about one way of using QP in 4E (work in progress naturally).

Anyway, at the moment I am thinking that the best way to represent it is to divide XP by 1000 to get QP.

So a 30th-level PC (1,000,000 XP) would have 1000 QP, and thus a potential:

1000 casual worshippers
100 devoted worshippers
10 lay clergy
1 cleric.

However, after 30th, instead of continuing the core XP progress (albeit in QP) instead I think doubling the amount of QP needed for each level makes the most sense.

This way a Level 40 Demigod would have 1,000,000 QP and a potential:

1,000,000 casual worshippers
100,000 devoted worshippers
10,000 lay clergy
1000 clerics.

Greater Gods have up to 1 Billion QP which sort of takes us up to a typical planetary limit.

So lets apply some history. The Roman Empire (at its height) probably reached around 64 Million people (yes I'm rounding things for brevity).

That means a total of 64 million QP to be spread throughout the Pantheon.

Lets take a defacto average spread of 50% for the Primary God(s), 25% Major, and 12.5% for Minor and 12.5% for Least.

32 Million QP is something like 45th-level. So Jupiter might be Level 45 at the height of the empire's power.

Below him, we probably have a bunch of maybe 16 major gods with a spread of 16 million QP between them. So they would average about 40th-level with a spread of about 38th-42nd.

Below that we would have the minor gods with something like 256 deities over a spread of 33rd-37th level.

Lastly we would have about 4000 heroes and quasi-deities in and around 28th-32nd-level.

If we contrast that with the Norse at the height of their power, and its difficult to get accurate figures but I would guesstimate a potential maximum of 1 million people circe 1000 AD. Then to get the same split we drop everything down by 6 levels.

Thus, Odin would have been 39th-level, the major gods would have been about 34th-level (36th-level for Thor lets say), the minor 'gods' would be about 29th-level.

From there you could, if you so wished, plot out modern religions such as Christianity (2.1 Billion), Hinduism (900 Million), Scientology (500,000), Jedi (500,000) and so forth. Although, as I mentioned before, far be it from me to go there.

While an interesting optional idea, I am not too sure of the merit of the idea with regards detailing the gods. Primarily due to the fact that most people will probably want to use them in their own campaign world rather than historical Earth at some pre-ordained time period. So it might be better to assume a roughly traditional view of the pantheons and give them all the same initial power.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Okay, so I outlined previously the base idea of QP in 4E. Of course theres always a catch.

In this case its with regards how we assign rewards for encounters.

If we keep the current XP tables for rewards (ie. where Orcus is worth 155,000 XP...which would equal 155 QP) then we run into a situation whereby you need more encounters at each level to 'level-up'.

Exactly how much more is tricky to work out, but along the following lines:

30-34th = 100 Encounters (on average x2.5 more than normal)
34-38th = 800 Encounters (x20 more than normal)
38-42nd = 6400 Encounters (x160 more than normal)
42-46th = 51,200 Encounters (x1280 more than normal)
46-50th = 409,600 Encounters (x10,240 more than normal)

This sort of feels right for immortals in that it would eventually start to take years, decades and eventually centuries to just ascend one level (outside of Worship Points that is). Which would account for why 10,000 year old immortals were not 10,000th-level.

Assuming 300 Encounters equals a mortal heroes adventuring lifespan (30 years - between 20-50 years old). Then...

35th-level Quasi-deity = 80 years or more
40th-level Demi-deity = 460 years or more
45th-level Lesser deity = 4620 years or more
50th-level Greater Deity = 46,860 years or more

We could probably round that to 100, 500, 5000 and 50,000.

This would be the defacto Power Point progression. Worship Points would be potentially faster or slower - but also run the risk of losing QP from negative events.

Any comments on the advancement rate - is it too slow? Would you house rule against it if I included it as standard?

 

[beej]

Currently, 30th-34th is manageable, but the rest will take quite a bit of time. I think realism should take a step back in favor of enjoyability here. IMO, just encourage the DM to narrate the events from a deific sense of time (ie, there could be 100 years instead of 1 month in between adventures, downtime could be like a year, or something like that).


I do like how the QP system is working right now, though. The numbers seem sound.

These are my initial opinions, mind. I'll take another look at them in a bit, and try to make a more detailed reaction later.

 

[poilbrun]

I would house-rule them.

Currently, we have 2 sessions per month, each in theory lasting 10 hours, but in reality a lot less (socializing at the start, stopping to feed and wash the baby, and of course dinner), so probably around 15 hours a month. This means that characters gain about a level per month (a bit less for the moment because the players are still getting used to the 4e ruleset).

Going to level 30 will take us 2 year and a half, considering that we keep up at this rythm (both for sessions and levelling speed). If the levelling speed stayed the same above level 30, that would mean in my case that we would reach level 60 (the end of the system) in five years. Given the lure of starting new campaigns, I don't think we'd reach that level even if our playtime does not change, but in theory, this is how long it would take.

So while the system would be good in a realistic way, in true play, you would be designing material that I would not ever get the chance to use. A bit like 3e, where my highest level characters were 32nd level...

 

[Center-of-All]

Yes, I'd agree with polibrun here. I personally really like the 10-encounters-to-the-level aspect of 4E, and would likely change your assumed QP progression to something similar.

While an interesting optional idea, I am not too sure of the merit of the idea with regards detailing the gods. Primarily due to the fact that most people will probably want to use them in their own campaign world rather than historical Earth at some pre-ordained time period. So it might be better to assume a roughly traditional view of the pantheons and give them all the same initial power.

Yes, I agree with this completely. Tying them to real world figures is just a bad idea, I think.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey all!

Thanks for the feedback so far on this. I see the problem with instigating this as standard.

Conversely though, the obvious method of gaining 10% of a creatures QP upon its defeat actually gives a slightly faster advancement rate than the core game if we assume that a number (if perhaps even the majority) of encounters will be versus higher level opponents.

For example a 30th-level Party would gain 800 QP (effectively 800,000 XP) for a Level 33 Solo encounter (ie. Orcus) instead of 155,000 XP.

Each level up is doubling the XP, while in the core rules XP doubles every 4 level increase. Now, of course under the QP system you would need double the QP/XP anyway, but its the difference thats important.

Let me see if I can explain it simply.

By the Core Rules, if you only ever fight Solo Monsters 4 levels higher than the PCs then it will take the party 5 such encounters to level up.

By the QP rules, if you only ever fight Solo Monsters 4 levels higher than the PCs then it will only take the party 3 Encounters to level up.

If you go 5 levels higher then its something like 4 encounters versus 1.66 encounters.

I suppose thats not really a problem as long as you don't go beyond the +5 level cap.

 

[beej]

Hey U_K!

If I understand this corrently, we need double the previous level's QP to level up. May I ask why you decided on this? The required QP gain would grow exponentially, a curve that 4e, IMO, avoids like the plague.

Since we'll get to 1000QP by 30th level, how about if you mirror XP gain from there (ie, You need 2250QP for 31st level, 3750QP for 32nd, and so on)?

 

[poilbrun]

I may have missed something, but why does defeating Orcus grant 800 QP and not 155 (if 1 QP = 1000 XP)?

Also, maybe just a nitpick, but in your example above, you say "If a 30th-level party defeats Orcus...". A 29th-level or 31st-level party would get the same amount of QP, right?

I find beej's idea an elegant way to expand the XP system, by simply reusing the XP table in the PHB...

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey U_K!

Howdy beej mate!

If I understand this corrently, we need double the previous level's QP to level up. May I ask why you decided on this? The required QP gain would grow exponentially, a curve that 4e, IMO, avoids like the plague.

Since we'll get to 1000QP by 30th level, how about if you mirror XP gain from there (ie, You need 2250QP for 31st level, 3750QP for 32nd, and so on)?

The initial idea was for a marriage of XP and QP - sort of killing two birds with one stone. With XP no longer used for item creation and so forth, that meant that the actual numbers involved for XP are irrelevant - in that they don't mean anything outside of themselves. Whereas if we transpose QP over XP, QP also gives us the number of worshippers and so forth.

If we simply extrapolate XP above 30th-level (and its a slightly confusing process let me add) then you cannot make that meaningful link between worshippers and XP because the table starts high (1 million) and increases very slowly. So you would have to do lots of jumping through hoops (square roots and so forth) to get everything to fit.

If, the other option you mentioned, we retrofit the 1-30 XP Tables onto 31-60 (and this was my initial thought as well) and just simply call the new table QP instead of XP, then we run into another set of problems. Firstly the number of worshippers ascends from 1,000 to 1,000,000 over the course of 30 levels, when we want it to cover that amount over 10 levels. Secondly, the Monster XP needs to be rewritten anyway - so you may as well go along with my doubling option to begin with.

At this juncture there doesn't seem to be a mathematical 'holy grail' that answers all the problems without requiring any changes.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey poilbrun mate!

I may have missed something, but why does defeating Orcus grant 800 QP and not 155 (if 1 QP = 1000 XP)?

Simply because under the QP system a 33rd-level PC would have 8,000 QP. Since each encounter of the same level is 1/10th the necessary amount then Orcus at 33rd-level would be valued at 800 QP.

Also, maybe just a nitpick, but in your example above, you say "If a 30th-level party defeats Orcus...". A 29th-level or 31st-level party would get the same amount of QP, right?

Correct, that was a mistake on my part, but the idea was to show that if you keep battling notably tougher encounters, that using the QP system you would level up faster.

I find beej's idea an elegant way to expand the XP system, by simply reusing the XP table in the PHB...

Thats what I initially thought. However it runs into two problems.

1) The worshipper totals using that system are completely out of whack.
2) The official monster XP values over 30 then need to be rewritten.