Character Level / World Power - Comparison

[Silveras]

But, I confess, I'd still have a preference for using gnolls or bugbears for a tougher rank-and-file rather than giving lots of levels to ordinary soldiers. I know as a DM I can just give XP away as I wish, but I find it hard to believe that there has been enough slaughter to raise entire armies to level 5 without wiping out the populations of the world.

While I agree that legions of 5th level warriors is a bit much, it is not that unbelievable. 3rd level, with a few 5th level "old timers" and 1st level "raw recruits" is a more believable model.

However, your comments also illustrate another problem. Too many people equate XP with "kill points". No killing is actuallty required to earn XP. The XP is awarded for overcoming a challenge, which does not have to mean killing things.

Sean K Reynolds had an interesting discussion on his web site, theorizing that NPCs earned about 1 level's worth of XP per year from ages 20-30. This was earned for facing the normal challengesof their jobs: farmers dealing with bad seasons and chasing off animals that threatened the crops, guards walking a patrol and occasionally breaking up fights, etc.

 

[howandwhy99]

My other game is played primarily online, with a core group of friends who have gamed together for over 20 years. We play over email, on OpenRPG or WebRPG, and have the rare live session despite being spread across the country. We started a couple months after the release of 3e. This campaign matches your description above.

The PCs are currently 5th-7th level, and they are THE heroes of the known world. One of them has acquired an estate from a evil noble that we exposed, and has a great deal of influence in the city. A retired PC is now an NPC member of the Select, a sort of ruling body in the city as the royal family is in shambles. He is 5th or 6th level. There have been many PC deaths, and two near TPKs. Only one fallen PC has been raised.

The PCs are currently roaming away from the main city, and approaching your level 10 description, where they are famous across the continent. They should be working in concert with Kings soon, as they just found a prince who has been missing the entire campaign, and are bringing him home to take his place as King.

howandwhy99, the more I read about your musings on the game the more I want to convince you to take the DMs chair.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Joe. From my initial impressions the new start up is likely to be right up our alley. What's difficult for me is actually running a game I know everyone would enjoy. I'm not trying to play dumb in this thread (seeing as I have been around since 3E came out) it just seems that certain expectations are very different now. It's tough not to forget the past and I routinely need to dredge up my memories from old games to remember exactly how things progressed.

 

[howandwhy99]

In a rationally designed, internally coherent setting ? Sure. But, in addition to the "balance all things" mantra, another was "back to the dungeon". The idea that the vast majority of campaigns consist of little more than dungeon-visits-with-occasional-trips-to-town colored a lot of the design. Settlements are primarily "supply dumps" for dungeon crawls, and their functions in normal society are secondary. Likewise, the pricing structures are, like in 1st/2nd Edition, based on the presumption that adventurers spend a good deal more than residents for the same goods. In 1st/2nd Edition, it was plainly stated that the costs were designed around the gold rush idea; the prices in 3rd Edition lack that explicit statement, but they seem to be holding true to it.

In 1st Edition, you did not advance a monster, you just made a new one. There were no "extra tough" Goblins; instead, there were Hobgoblins. That made sense in terms of grading the challenges on a dungeon level, but it was not terribly satisfying. Players graduated from fighting Kobolds to Goblins to Orcs to Hobgoblins. Often, once you moved on, you never moved back. 2nd Edition started the same way, with tougher monster races pushing around weaker ones. Late in 2nd Edition, the idea of Monsters as characters appeared. It was, in some ways, a welcome change.

In 3rd Edition, the monster advancement rules make that unnecessary. However, I expect most campaigns play the monsters straight from the MM. Advancement is seen as a tool for creating "Bosses" only. Certainly, the time required to select Feats and spell skills for a "stock 5th level Orc Fighter" is prohibitive. However, exactly that is what makes a "believable" world work; just as there are 5th level adventurers, there are 5th level Orcs to challenge them.

I like your point about different challenge ratings being different monsters. It seems that with advancement rules, nice as they are, the gradations in monster power (kobold-goblin-orc-hobgoblin-bugbear-ogre) have been glossed over. They are still sort of in the Monster Manual at different CR's, but it is so slight I wonder how the upgrade in danger really comes off.

I do like have the ability to create say a 5th level gnoll ranger, but she is likely to be one of the tribal (200-300+) leaders and the person they would call on to find any troublemakers. A tribe of 200-300+ 5th level gnoll rangers is a bit over-the-top in my opinion. But if that is what the players expect, how do I create a believable medieval world?

Well, the third thing that the design team had in mind was that most campaigns ran to about 20th level and then stopped. A significant subset went on, but the majority were played over the course of a year and capped at 20th level.

Thus, the Core rules established a 1-20 curve and cap, pretty much. You *could* advance beyond 20th level, using the then-forthcoming Epic rules, but the design team set 20th level as the "end" of normal play.

I don't know if the consequences were as much "unanticipated" as considered irrelevant. The people who would be bothered enough by such oddities are the same ones, generally, as will feel comfortable taking steps to fix them. For the "casual" player (who fits the 1-year, level 1-20, dungeon-delving campaign model), there are probably few questions that come up.

I really can't find a group who can commit to once a week games anymore, though. Even if we could, I doubt any would really want to advance levels 1-20 in a single year. IIRC the 3E ruleset aims for one 4 hour session every week with 4 players. They would then advance once every month as long as they also followed the balancing 1 CR equivalent combat every hour rule. I don't mind the amount of combat, but I do worry that the classes and the #/day powers are balanced off the premise of this 4 combats / day.

I guess I am bothered about these oddities, but neither do I feel comfortable enough to know and instate all the fixes.

That was why I liked the Birthright rules. They did a *fantastic* job of making rulership independent of character level. A 0-level merchant could be just about as effective a ruler as a 10th level Fighter. The ability to work realm-based magic was still tied to character level, but just about all other functions were level-independent.

I haven't really played Birthright, but have heard good things about it. I picked up the "Fields of Blood" book and it looks quickly compatible with clear and consistent rules.

A couple of other posts mentioned level inflation and campaign world demographics. I'd like to think that I could run a game ignoring these presumed demographics and increased world power as I don't really want epic level characters in every large city. I doubt I would place many metropolis at all. Perhaps, these demographics might be consistent within the new Eberron Campaign world? I'm hoping it can help as I am really looking for believability and rationales behind how characters necessarily behave as they do (often based on mechanics like spellbooks, fixed ranges, etc.).

 

[Ogre Mage]

Power Levels

1: Neophyte.

2-4: Still inexperienced, but no longer totally unproven. Characters have completed one or two adventures and shown they can wield a sword or spell competently.

5-8: Veterans. Characters may have established a local reputation or be "minor celebrities" based on their deeds. People turn to them when the problem is larger than just random orc harassment of the town.

9-12: Characters are well-known within their professions. They probably are famous locally and starting to develop a global reputation. The PCs are not yet unique in their level of accomplishment, but they are known to be capable of taking on tough challenges. Even veterans look up to the PCs as individuals who are "going places." This is the lowest level where PCs may establish organizations or strongholds of their own.

13-16: Characters are the "rock stars" of their professions and are now well-known even outside of their fields. High-level nobility know of the PCs and either respect their accomplishments or fear them as powerful enemies, depending on circumstance. This is when extraplanar powers may begin to take note of the PCs existence.

17-20: The PCs are famous all over the world and known in the outer planes. Bards across the land sing their praises. The PCs are capable of handling or initiating world-shaking events.

21+: Epic. The PCs may be on the way to becoming demi-gods. They are famous not just on earth, but across the planes as well. The songs and tales spun about them have become staples of the canon and in time, legend.

 

[Silveras]

I like your point about different challenge ratings being different monsters. It seems that with advancement rules, nice as they are, the gradations in monster power (kobold-goblin-orc-hobgoblin-bugbear-ogre) have been glossed over. They are still sort of in the Monster Manual at different CR's, but it is so slight I wonder how the upgrade in danger really comes off.

Heh... trivia note: Bugbears used to be tougher than Ogres, in 1st/2nd. They were 8HD creatures, ranked up with Trolls in power.

Back in my 1st/2nd Edition (now 3rd) homebrew game world, one thing I did was to realize that I did not have to use every monster everywhere. I made some monsters region-specific. In my world, Gnolls come from the jungles of the Southern continent; you don't see them in my European region, unless they are brought in as mercenaries/bodyguards. Likewise, the Goblins and Orcs of my "European" region are not found together, but occupy separate areas. Before the idea of giving class levels to monsters appeared, I started adding "Superior" and "Elite" Goblins to beef up their challenge as the PCs improved. I quickly adopted the idea of using PC classes for the leaders, once I saw it (in a Dungeon magazine adventure, as I recall).

I do like have the ability to create say a 5th level gnoll ranger, but she is likely to be one of the tribal (200-300+) leaders and the person they would call on to find any troublemakers. A tribe of 200-300+ 5th level gnoll rangers is a bit over-the-top in my opinion. But if that is what the players expect, how do I create a believable medieval world?

Well, the rank-and-file Gnolls can stay with their 2 racial HD. A few "Hunters" (with some Ranger levels) as elites would do well; the occasional Adept or Druid is good, too. The "Organization" line in the MM gives some benchmark numbers for how many "elites" to add to the masses (something that was also present in 1st/2nd Edition). Those benchmarks represent the "generic" encountered monsters; part of the fun of being DM is taking that and tweaking it to suit your vision.

For me, creating a believable world involved reining in the magic, and deciding that 15th level was about where NPCs stopped advancing. By keeping magic rare-but-powerful, I know why it doesn't change the face of society. I also scour the books for other tools. In Unearthed Arcana, for example, I latched onto the Craft Points material. Not only does it help my PCs make things "on the road", but the requirements to take the Craft Masterwork XXX feats helps to make PC craftsmen less able than NPC professionals, unless they invest the time to learn the feats.

I really can't find a group who can commit to once a week games anymore, though. Even if we could, I doubt any would really want to advance levels 1-20 in a single year. IIRC the 3E ruleset aims for one 4 hour session every week with 4 players. They would then advance once every month as long as they also followed the balancing 1 CR equivalent combat every hour rule. I don't mind the amount of combat, but I do worry that the classes and the #/day powers are balanced off the premise of this 4 combats / day.

I play in some PBeM and chat-based games. The key is to make good notes about the passage of time. Players who cannot meet regularly tend to forget whether the previous encounter was still "today" for their character, if it was two weeks ago in real life.

You may also want to look at the Recharge Magic variant in Unearthed Arcana. Instead of having X slots for spells per day, it takes a character some number of rounds to be able to cast another spell of that level. It is a little cumbersome, because you would have to decide where all 3rd party spells fit, but it could relieve some of that concern.

Some groups don't bother tracking XP at all; the DM simply says "You gained a level" at some point. As long as the players are happy, whatever works is good.

I guess I am bothered about these oddities, but neither do I feel comfortable enough to know and instate all the fixes.

Sometimes it takes a while to get that comfortable. I think we all go through a period where we feel the rulebook was written by people wiser than we are.

Here's a sercret: We all make mistakes. Some rule changes just don't work out like we expected them to. Once you feel comfortable taking that risk, and accepting that the thing to do is to try to fix it when it happens, you are ready to start tweaking.

I haven't really played Birthright, but have heard good things about it. I picked up the "Fields of Blood" book and it looks quickly compatible with clear and consistent rules.

A couple of other posts mentioned level inflation and campaign world demographics. I'd like to think that I could run a game ignoring these presumed demographics and increased world power as I don't really want epic level characters in every large city. I doubt I would place many metropolis at all. Perhaps, these demographics might be consistent within the new Eberron Campaign world? I'm hoping it can help as I am really looking for believability and rationales behind how characters necessarily behave as they do (often based on mechanics like spellbooks, fixed ranges, etc.).

I can't speak about Eberron... it does not interest me, and I have not looked. I doubt it will stray far from the a-world-is-a-place-to-find-dungeons, though. The desire for plausible numbers is more suited to simulation games (like Sid Meier's Civilization III mmmm) than to core D&D. That is not to say you can't do it; just that it doesn't fit the design approach WotC has taken so far.

Fields of Blood is Ok, but it is lacking in some ways compared to Birthright. Particularly, it lacks non-landed power bases (i.e., religious, economic, and magical organizations wielding political power without also owning land). For reference, in this thread, I compared Fields of Blood and other similar products.

For my own use, I made 5th/6th level the end of apprenticeship in most classes. It is the point where spellcasters get 3rd level spells. As a visible effect of their growing power, it serves as a good "graduation" achievement. A Paladin's gaining spellcasting and a warhorse, a Ranger's spellcasting or improved combat mastery, and any character taking the Leadership feat and gaining a Cohort are also good benchmark effects.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

However, your comments also illustrate another problem. Too many people equate XP with "kill points". No killing is actuallty required to earn XP. The XP is awarded for overcoming a challenge, which does not have to mean killing things.

Sean K Reynolds had an interesting discussion on his web site, theorizing that NPCs earned about 1 level's worth of XP per year from ages 20-30. This was earned for facing the normal challengesof their jobs: farmers dealing with bad seasons and chasing off animals that threatened the crops, guards walking a patrol and occasionally breaking up fights, etc.

Well, essentially XP are "kill points" in most D&D games, and even more so for soldiers or fighters. You get XP for overcoming significant challenges, not for doing routine or easy things. And, for a soldier, the typical challenge is a battle - overcoming it means defeating foes in battle, which often results in at least some fatalities. (You could have the "infinite level generator" where two fighters go at it and take turns retreating and conceding defeat, but that would not earn XP in my book.) Even if the culture doesn't normally fight to the death, you still need to win a number of battles with an actual chance of defeat in order to levels.

I would amend this to say that as a house rule, one could gain levels in NPC classes (only) by simply doing one's job, even at no significant risk. The adept casting spells to make village life a little easier; the warrior patrolling on guard; the expert practicing his craft and trying new techniques (at the "risk" of materials cost). But this would have to be very slow and not universal - establishing that all middle-aged humans are 6th-level and thus immune to sleep and daze just doesn't sit right with me. But if a PC Aristocrat wanted to spend every fall attending to the estate harvest and other business, perhaps 100 XP or so every year might be appropriate.

I didn't think SKR's article was very good - my idea of a high-level commoner is Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer - someone who, despite lacking any real heroic abilities, has actually faced and overcome a wide variety of challenges that are far beyond the norm. The article was an interesting attempt to justify the outrageous levels of NPCs given in the DMG, but I didn't find it convincing.

Also: bugbears were 3 HD in BD&D and 2E - don't know about 1E.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Hehe, of course, in our game, this is countered by the 15 Level Cleric of Grummish leading the orcs casting dispel on the fly, and the group of 5 7th level fighter orcs with bows peppering you with arrows. Then, the fireballs thrown at you while you are falling by the 12th level sorcerer "lieutenant" of the orcs.

What's the range on dispel magic? Extended fireballs at 12th level: 2*(400+40*12) = 1760 ft, or a third of a mile. Out of reach of bows. Even with Far Shot, you're at ten range increments for a crossbow. If they're out in the open and can't fly, they're slaughtered.

(Sorry getting off track here, and yeah Wizards can forgo evocation and still do okay but the cleric probably does better and scribe scroll really isn't a cure all (scribe scroll costs XP and gold which reduces levels (which reduces the power of spells) and magic items (which increase personal power (HP,spells per day, DCs, immunities, saves). A wizard who makes enough scrolls of fireball to wipe out an army isn't going to be of much use against an encounter of a CR equal to his level with full XP. The one scroll a round thing is going to ensure that, its all about tradeoffs I suppose. )

Scribe scroll doesn't actually reduce levels. It could theoretically slow your rate of gaining levels, but in practice the additional XP you will gain from having additional functionality at the ready means that you will come out ahead. That is, have scribed scrolls prepared = win and gain full XP. Not have scribed scrolls prepared = run away and gain less XP. Net gain, just about every time - the XP cost is really quite small.
A wizard who scribes 100 fireball scrolls to take out an army invests (3*5*1) = 15 XP per scroll, for a total of 1500 XP.

 

[diaglo]

3-4hr/ session; 5 sessions/ week; 50 weeks/ year; for 10+ years

roughly 900hrs of roleplay to gain 1 level... or 1 Real time year


by 4th lvl the PCs (esp the Fighting Men) were Heroes.

 

[Silveras]

Well, essentially XP are "kill points" in most D&D games, and even more so for soldiers or fighters. You get XP for overcoming significant challenges, not for doing routine or easy things. And, for a soldier, the typical challenge is a battle - overcoming it means defeating foes in battle, which often results in at least some fatalities. (You could have the "infinite level generator" where two fighters go at it and take turns retreating and conceding defeat, but that would not earn XP in my book.) Even if the culture doesn't normally fight to the death, you still need to win a number of battles with an actual chance of defeat in order to levels.

That's up to you. The life of a Commoner or Expert is neither routine nor easy in a "plausible" medieval world. Plagues, crop failures, excessive taxation, fires, and more are real challenges to the lives of the NPCs.

If your campaign rewards only killing, and everyone is happy, fine. But it does not have to be that way. There *are* other options.

Encounters, either individually or strung together, reward certain types of behavior whether you are conscious of it or not. Encounters that can or must be won by killing the opponents reward aggression and fighting prowess.
...
Remember, then, that you can offer many different kinds of encounters, including all of the following.
Combat: <description>
Negotiation: <description>
Environmental: Weather, earthquakes, landslides, fast-moving rivers, and fire are just some of the environmental conditions that can challenge even mid- to high- level PCs.
Problem-Solving: Mysteries, puzzles, riddles, or anything that requires the players to use logic and reason to try to overcome the challenge counts as a problem-solving encounter.
Judgement Calls: <description>
Investigation: <description>

Note especially that the problem-solving and environmental encounters seem appropriate for NPCs.

Player characters earn XP at a much faster rate. One in-game day can have 4-5 significant encounters. Three in-game days is sufficient to earn enough XP to level up (theoretically). There may be several weeks between "action days", depending on the campaign, or there may not. A villager, under SKR's model, has one such encounter per month (on average) and requires a year to gain each level.

I don't say I found SKR's system perfect; I am just saying it is not that far-fetched.

I would amend this to say that as a house rule, one could gain levels in NPC classes (only) by simply doing one's job, even at no significant risk. The adept casting spells to make village life a little easier; the warrior patrolling on guard; the expert practicing his craft and trying new techniques (at the "risk" of materials cost). But this would have to be very slow and not universal - establishing that all middle-aged humans are 6th-level and thus immune to sleep and daze just doesn't sit right with me. But if a PC Aristocrat wanted to spend every fall attending to the estate harvest and other business, perhaps 100 XP or so every year might be appropriate.

It is much slower, as I described above.

Also: bugbears were 3 HD in BD&D and 2E - don't know about 1E.

Yep, you're right. I was going by their inclusion as one of the foes in the old module D1, Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Bugbears and Trolls were the "grunts" you had to work past in that one. Pulling out my 1E Monster Manual, yes, they were 3+1 HD then, too.

 

[howandwhy99]

Well, the rank-and-file Gnolls can stay with their 2 racial HD. A few "Hunters" (with some Ranger levels) as elites would do well; the occasional Adept or Druid is good, too. The "Organization" line in the MM gives some benchmark numbers for how many "elites" to add to the masses (something that was also present in 1st/2nd Edition). Those benchmarks represent the "generic" encountered monsters; part of the fun of being DM is taking that and tweaking it to suit your vision.

I like the idea of NPC classes like the Adept, but it seems that they are rarely used. If 99% of the population is using underpowered classes, then the PC's really should stand out in comparison.

For me, creating a believable world involved reining in the magic, and deciding that 15th level was about where NPCs stopped advancing. By keeping magic rare-but-powerful, I know why it doesn't change the face of society. I also scour the books for other tools. In Unearthed Arcana, for example, I latched onto the Craft Points material. Not only does it help my PCs make things "on the road", but the requirements to take the Craft Masterwork XXX feats helps to make PC craftsmen less able than NPC professionals, unless they invest the time to learn the feats.

I feel that some of the problem points in the new rules (mainly magic item creation rules & shapechanging/polymorph) are being highlighted more and more as not only functional, but selling points of the system. Crafting magic items is something I would like the PC's to do, but I would prefer the creation was a significant event within the campaign itself. I prefer to run item creation like a several week/month long ritual that must be completed at the top of some hilltop in the lightning and rain.

Another potential problem area that hasn' often been seen is monster creation by the players. I would love to give the Druid the power to create life. I see them as the old Celtic mystics in a strict secret order (a la Foucault's Pendulum) that has secrets within secrets, higher circles, and ties to the planet and universe itself. And that these ties cross over anything like race or culture. But if I gave this to the Druid class which already has some game-breaking spells and fuzzy abilities like wildshape, I fear I would only be adding another potential area of abuse; the monster creation rules.

You may also want to look at the Recharge Magic variant in Unearthed Arcana. Instead of having X slots for spells per day, it takes a character some number of rounds to be able to cast another spell of that level. It is a little cumbersome, because you would have to decide where all 3rd party spells fit, but it could relieve some of that concern.

I will have to look at this. It sounds interesting, but as a player I don't actually mind the spell slot system.

Some groups don't bother tracking XP at all; the DM simply says "You gained a level" at some point. As long as the players are happy, whatever works is good.

Like I said, mine is more adventure based.

Sometimes it takes a while to get that comfortable. I think we all go through a period where we feel the rulebook was written by people wiser than we are.

Here's a sercret: We all make mistakes. Some rule changes just don't work out like we expected them to. Once you feel comfortable taking that risk, and accepting that the thing to do is to try to fix it when it happens, you are ready to start tweaking.

You're right. I wish they would put this in the core rules. It seems that a certain amount of rule tweaking is necessary for any game. I'd rather that, than an atmosphere of "don't change the rules, they are delicately inter-balanced".

I can't speak about Eberron... it does not interest me, and I have not looked. I doubt it will stray far from the a-world-is-a-place-to-find-dungeons, though. The desire for plausible numbers is more suited to simulation games (like Sid Meier's Civilization III mmmm) than to core D&D. That is not to say you can't do it; just that it doesn't fit the design approach WotC has taken so far.

The campaign guide is actually on its way to me now. I am keeping an open mind about it and will see what interests me when I read it. I'm assuming that it is a world where the DMG demographics are sensible.

Fields of Blood is Ok, but it is lacking in some ways compared to Birthright. Particularly, it lacks non-landed power bases (i.e., religious, economic, and magical organizations wielding political power without also owning land). For reference, in this thread, I compared Fields of Blood and other similar products.

Yep, I noticed this thread earlier. Great job! I just don't expect much in the way of PC-led land warfare or land welfare. (unless that is the direction they choose: hence FoB & MMS:WE for now)

For my own use, I made 5th/6th level the end of apprenticeship in most classes. It is the point where spellcasters get 3rd level spells. As a visible effect of their growing power, it serves as a good "graduation" achievement. A Paladin's gaining spellcasting and a warhorse, a Ranger's spellcasting or improved combat mastery, and any character taking the Leadership feat and gaining a Cohort are also good benchmark effects.

For me, apprenticeships always stopped when you reached zero experience points. I do miss the gradations that came from Spellcasting and certain levels (like Leadership). They felt less arbitrary to me and more like you had reached a turning point in your career. (graduation or retirement, for example)