Advancement even faster?

[BryonD]

But what happens when you want to take your lvl 30 archmage to lvl 31?

They will cover this in The Complete Superepic Handbook.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I think what we're seeing is reflective of the aging demographics of the core group of people who play D&D. Let's face it, D&D is not attracting new players in anywhere near the numbers that it did in the 80's. As usual, D&D is very dependent on its existing, long-time fan base to sustain it.

And what's changed with the fan base? It's getting older. When you're in school, you can afford to spend hour and hours (let alone weeks and months) playing D&D and leveling up. Once you get a full time job and family, other responsibilities serious cut into game time and that means it takes a lot longer (in real time) to level up.

Thus the speed up of leveling.

(I also think that games like World of Warcraft are influencing this decision. Players can level up with 4-5 hours of dedicated game play and that degree of instant gratification can be appealing when combined with months of grinding in D&D)

Yup. Us old fogeys don't have time to waste like those kids do. Anyone who wants to slow down level advancement is ageist! Heck, some of us are so old that if it takes any longer to get to level 20, we won't remember what we did at level 1 anyway.

 

[SSquirrel]

Heck I just hope that 4E can make me want to start playing at L1 again. 3E we got in the habit of starting at L5 just so everyone didn't start the game feeling nearly worthless

 

[seskis281]

So I'm confused...

Is the whole point of RPGing to "level up?"

I've always been a DM who ran longer progression, even in 3.0, sometimes taking many, many sessions to get to level 5-7, let alone higher.

I must have missed something because it seemed like my group and I always had a good time, and the focus was so much on the adventure (story, events, encounters, the characters and their personalities) that leveling up was very secondary. Indeed, with 3rd edition it almost was a distraction during the campaign.

So is this just a philosophical difference on what the focus is or have a missed the boat somewhere that says playing D&D is "won" by who gets to 20th (or 30th) level 1st?

 

[Fobok]

So is this just a philosophical difference on what the focus is or have a missed the boat somewhere that says playing D&D is "won" by who gets to 20th (or 30th) level 1st?

I think you've taken it to extremes, here. The point, as far as I'm concerned, is to watch your character grow. To go from being the simple soldier to the mythical hero. Or to a simple magic student to near godhood. If levelling is too slow, such growth is never seen.

 

[Reynard]

I think you've taken it to extremes, here. The point, as far as I'm concerned, is to watch your character grow. To go from being the simple soldier to the mythical hero. Or to a simple magic student to near godhood. If levelling is too slow, such growth is never seen.

Here's the rub, of course -- in 4E, they are working to get rid of the "simple soldier" and "magic student" archetypes as starting PCs -- 1st level characters are to be exceptional and heroic from day one.

I think the only reason they went with the 30 levels in the same time frame as 20 levels paradigm is that power-ups and level-bennies are fun. they could have just as easily scaled the game back to where dragons only had 100 hit points and made 10 levels the optimal, 1 year of play point and the game still would ahve been fun -- and there'd be the added benefit of players actually getting to play with the characters' abilities for more than 1 1/2 sessions before being loaded down with yet more options.

 

[Fobok]

Here's the rub, of course -- in 4E, they are working to get rid of the "simple soldier" and "magic student" archetypes as starting PCs -- 1st level characters are to be exceptional and heroic from day one.

I think the only reason they went with the 30 levels in the same time frame as 20 levels paradigm is that power-ups and level-bennies are fun. they could have just as easily scaled the game back to where dragons only had 100 hit points and made 10 levels the optimal, 1 year of play point and the game still would ahve been fun -- and there'd be the added benefit of players actually getting to play with the characters' abilities for more than 1 1/2 sessions before being loaded down with yet more options.

First... how does 2 or 3 sessions between advancement translate to 1 1/2? If you can get nearly twice as much play in as most people, then you should still have time to enjoy those abilities.

And, personally, I find doing the same thing over and over again boring. "We just defeated the legions of undead and killed their lich master! Through all that difficulty, I haven't learned anything."

 

[Reynard]

First... how does 2 or 3 sessions between advancement translate to 1 1/2? If you can get nearly twice as much play in as most people, then you should still have time to enjoy those abilities.

30 levels / 52 weekly sessions = 1 level every session and a half or so.

And, personally, I find doing the same thing over and over again boring. "We just defeated the legions of undead and killed their lich master! Through all that difficulty, I haven't learned anything."

Contrary to popular belief, XP isn't actually a measure of what a character has learned. it, like all the subsystems of D&D, is an abstraction designed to make the game fun. ANd just because you have to go on 3 or 4 adventures at any given level, who says those adventures have to be the same? one week you are fighting the lich king, the next you are trying to stop a Thief/Assassin guild war from ripping apart the city, and the one after that you're planning to kill the dragon and take his hoard.

 

[Celebrim]

I think you've taken it to extremes, here. The point, as far as I'm concerned, is to watch your character grow. To go from being the simple soldier to the mythical hero. Or to a simple magic student to near godhood. If levelling is too slow, such growth is never seen.

There is a lot of truth to that, but, less obviously, if the leveling is too fast, such growth is never seen either. The growth isn't defined by the mechanical differences in a comparison between the start and the end. The growth is defined by things that you do, and a certain amount of activity has to occur for the change to have meaningful points of reference. If you level up too quickly, you were never meaningfully just starting out, meaningfully maturing, meaningful coming into your own. It was just sort of dropped in your lap, and there it was.

My experience as a third edition player compared to a first edition player is not even having time to creatively use the toys I have, before getting new toys. I was looking forward not to leveling up, but with overcoming various challenges before levelling up. Part of the fun of Christmas or Birthdays or whatever is that it doesn't happen all the time. I got were I dreaded leveling up, because I didn't feel like I'd proven anything. Great, I just got third level spells. I might cast them five or six times, and then all the sudden I'm getting fourth level spells. I just got a feat, and it hasn't even made a significant difference, and now I'm selecting a new feat. I hated that.

 

[Fobok]

My experience as a third edition player compared to a first edition player is not even having time to creatively use the toys I have, before getting new toys. I was looking forward not to leveling up, but with overcoming various challenges before levelling up. Part of the fun of Christmas or Birthdays or whatever is that it doesn't happen all the time. I got were I dreaded leveling up, because I didn't feel like I'd proven anything. Great, I just got third level spells. I might cast them five or six times, and then all the sudden I'm getting fourth level spells. I just got a feat, and it hasn't even made a significant difference, and now I'm selecting a new feat. I hated that.

See, I never played 1st edition. (Nor, actually, have I played 3rd edition more than like 3 sessions, but I have DMed almost constantly.) Maybe if I had, I'd see things differently. However, I see that my group meets up every 2 weeks or so. Sometimes every week but such pace is never steady. So, averaging once every two weeks, progressing 1 level every 2 months is painful. They lose interest. I would too, in their place. As a DM, I love when they get to the next level of spells, since I can send more interesting things at them, have them try new tactics. Once they get beyond a certain level, I can throw different *types* of story at them, which makes it even better.