D&D 5E Alternative Leveling Thoughts

[TheWanderingMage]

I had a thought about an alternative leveling system. I personally like a slower progression path, time to really feel the pain of being a low level character so becoming high level is all that more awesome, which lead me to think of an alternative leveling method, that I think would be cool with or without requiring more overall xp...My thought was to add essentially half levels and double the xp requirements.On top of this at every level (or half level) you could choose to either gain a level worth of HPs OR to progress to the next level for purposes of all other benefits. There is no restriction on how many levels you choose 1 or the other in a row, except that by level "40" you have to have 20 levels of HPs and 20 of skills/powers. I think players would self balance the requirements anyways (for instance you could be essentially a level 5 character with level 10 powers, but you would have the HPs of a level 1 character, which would naturally not work out).Any thoughts?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

As long as your players are cool with it.

Me, I get tired of fighting goblins, giant spiders and the rest of the low level stuff pretty quickly. I like 7-11 level a lot as you can battle some iconic DND foes and be very challenged. You also have to figure in how much play people get in. The 'average' game goes less than a year. If that's something your players want then try to get them there and don't stall them out.

 

[Zinnger]

Playing D&D is, well, kind of like having sex. As long as everyone is having a good time you're doing it right. What works for some will not work for others. Some games like a slow progression as you speak of and some want to gain a level every time they play. I know I love gaining new abilities and observing how my character gets better at what he does. If a slower progression is what you AND your players want then what you have outlined seems pretty cool. I'd go with it as a player in your game. But as for me, I would want the xps to come on thick so that I could get the HP to go along with my abilities pretty quickly too. But again, there is no wrong way if you and players are smiling and having fun.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

I recall a milestone mechanic where if a PC was able to accomplish one of their goals or achieved something significant they received either the HP of their next level, 1 class feature from their next level, or the spellcasting ability of their next level. I think I read it from 13th Age but I could be mistaken. You could do this for your half levels and they gain the rest of their level up benefits when they reach their full level. This way players can't progress in a lopsided fashion forever and have 10 levels of features and only 1 level's worth of HP.

 

[SteveC]

I think you might like to look at 13th Age's Incremental Advances, since they're basically what you're talking about. The thing is, you get one of them after each session, so that's not exactly slow advancement.

For my own two cents, I question why you're doing this. If you're a college student who can play multiple times a week, that's one thing, but if you're older and life sometimes interferes with gaming and you're lucky to get in a good session each month, I really have to wonder at it.

If I were a player and you were pitching this to me, I'd definitely opt out now. 18 year-old me would have enjoyed it, but ... that was a long time ago.

Just a suggestion you can fee free to ignore.

 

[jgsugden]

Playing D&D is, well, kind of like having sex. ...

Man, you're doing something really wrong.

Since the 1970s I have been using the same experience system when I DM. It used to be more complex because classes advanced with different experience point totals, but it was essentially the same as I use now. The party advances together when they reach milestones.

I design an adventure. I pick spots along the adventure where it makes sense for the PCs to advance. I design the sections between the spots where I have the party advance to accommodate the level they should be. Sometimes they linger at a level because there is no natural place for them to advance. Sometimes I write short "chapters" and they advance quickly. If an edition has a "sweet spot" where the PCs are more fun, I tend to design longer chapter there.

To me, it is the perfect system. I've never had any problems using it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There is no restriction on how many levels you choose 1 or the other in a row, except that by level "40" you have to have 20 levels of HPs and 20 of skills/powers. I think players would self balance the requirements anyways (for instance you could be essentially a level 5 character with level 10 powers, but you would have the HPs of a level 1 character, which would naturally not work out).Any thoughts?

For a wizard, access to the next level of spells (and additional spells per day) vastly outweighs the benefit of ~10HP (especially if you have a cleric level, and can turn those extra spell slots into Cure spells), and yet there may be times where the weaker character (who chose HP instead of caster level) will survive something from which the more powerful character (all spells, no HP) would perish.

As a player, that's really not a fun situation where you would wish to find yourself. It's also going against one of the major strengths of a level-based system, where you can use the level to give each character a minimum degree of survivability, which would otherwise be a sub-optimal choice if you were playing a free-form system.

If nothing else, I would suggest tying the Proficiency bonus to the hit dice instead of grouping it in with the other benefits. That might give spellcasters slightly more reason to not improve their spellcasting.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

While I don't necessarily want to have my players level more slowly all the time, I would have liked to have spent more time at about level 3. As a DM, there's a lot of great adventure opportunity and great monsters at that level. I found 5th level to be a bit awkward. All the iconic low level monsters were too weak except in very large numbers, but almost everything else I'd want to use is too strong.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I think you might like to look at 13th Age's Incremental Advances, since they're basically what you're talking about. The thing is, you get one of them after each session, so that's not exactly slow advancement.

For my own two cents, I question why you're doing this. If you're a college student who can play multiple times a week, that's one thing, but if you're older and life sometimes interferes with gaming and you're lucky to get in a good session each month, I really have to wonder at it.

If I were a player and you were pitching this to me, I'd definitely opt out now. 18 year-old me would have enjoyed it, but ... that was a long time ago.

Just a suggestion you can fee free to ignore.

I love incremental advances from 13th Age. We use it for 5e. We use it from time to time in 5e. I love to see constant progression with my PCs.