I couldn't agree more. One of the things that I absolutely loved about 4e was that it pushed some of the world altering magic to a higher level or into rituals. This made the game so much more...organic and flexible in how one wanted to approach the world building. Of course, there was plenty of short term/range magical wahoo at the tactical level (what with the nightcrawler-esque bamfs of warlocks and High Elves and whatnot), but that was much easier to deal with most of the time.
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D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A: Caster Level, Multiclassing & The Apprentice Tier
- Thread starter Blackwarder
- Start date
I couldn't agree more. One of the things that I absolutely loved about 4e was that it pushed some of the world altering magic to a higher level or into rituals. This made the game so much more...organic and flexible in how one wanted to approach the world building. Of course, there was plenty of short term/range magical wahoo at the tactical level (what with the nightcrawler-esque bamfs of warlocks and High Elves and whatnot), but that was much easier to deal with most of the time.
Re: Apprentice Tier
I don't see the problem with
Level Name 1 Name 2
1-3 Low Levels Apprentice Tier
4-12 Mid Levels Adventuring Tier
Its just a classification.
As to moving class features from level 1 to level 2 or 3 (or higher), it helps with multiclass dipping, helps with dead levels, helps new players learn. The downside does seem to be playing a "non-heroic" character for a couple levels, but Rodneys suggestion is a great one:
Start at 3rd level but with 0xp: you have to play through just as much content (earn just as much xp) as the level 1 character to get to 4th level, you just start with more features.
Much ado about nothing
I don't see the problem with
Level Name 1 Name 2
1-3 Low Levels Apprentice Tier
4-12 Mid Levels Adventuring Tier
Its just a classification.
As to moving class features from level 1 to level 2 or 3 (or higher), it helps with multiclass dipping, helps with dead levels, helps new players learn. The downside does seem to be playing a "non-heroic" character for a couple levels, but Rodneys suggestion is a great one:
Start at 3rd level but with 0xp: you have to play through just as much content (earn just as much xp) as the level 1 character to get to 4th level, you just start with more features.
Much ado about nothing
Sage Genesis
First Post
While this was certainly true in older editions, I'd be hesitant to apply this experience to 5e as well.
When they introduced the tiers, they said that one session would be chargen + leveling up to 2. Then another session would take you to level 3. From that point on, you'd level up every other session until you hit 15. Then it's one more level every three sessions. With a bit of quick math that translates to 41 sessions. If you play once a week, even accounting for holidays and sickness, you'll be maxed out in less than a year.
TSR-era D&D was often glacially slow to level up, especially once you hit the double digits. 3e was remarkably quicker. 4e was a little quicker still, but it also had 30 levels instead of 20, so it still took about two years of weekly play (the DMG suggest a year and a half, but that's assuming you never miss even a single session). But 5e? Man, that's going to be nitro-boosted. Just 41 sessions. People will hit level 20 all over the place.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Sage Genesis said:
It's still more weeks than you spent in class as a Freshman in college.
Folks who can play a single D&D character for much longer than that are pretty exceptional people.
And for those people, there's always the option to E6 the game at any point, introducing new content and advancing your character without changing the math.
Sage Genesis said:
Ahahahhaha, I think that's an awesome proposition. Maybe we'll finally see some demand for high-level adventures and whatnot.
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Nellisir
Hero
I actually quite like this. Apprentice 1-3, Adventurer 1-12 (which dovetails nicely with Older Editions), Epic/Legendary/Champion 1-5 (or whatever)
Psychologically, it feels different. I don't like starting with a 17th level character, but Epic 1 sounds OK.
That would be great! Then they can all buy the level 20-40 book, and because of bounded accuracy it still has a chance to function mechanically. Not that I have personal experience in playing epic level, for me the sweet spot has always been < 10. If the default DDN game extents that feel / playability until 20, that's massive. Not saying the game shouldn't change, or have tiers, it should, but flatter math for me makes those "teen" levels much more appealing, especially if there's a decent chance to actually reach them, and going up every couple sessions is fun IMO. In 4e just levelling up our characters in the builder, with our DM going over our every decision live, in front of everyone, took almost an entire session each time. Ugh. I like the ability to just add a +1 to one or two places, roll your HP (or just add it), and keep using the same sheet. My evoker used the same character sheet for five years. I think I must have printed dozens of sheets, 8 pages each time, for my 4e paladin/ranger.
OTOH not having Fly in the game in any meaningful sense made it not feel very ...exciting. Hey, I can cast "overland flight" using a ritual in real life, it's called Expedia. Siloing good spells and effects like Fly, usable for time periods > 5 minutes per day, into a ritual bucket, made it feel like a cut-scene and the casting time was ridiculous. It was a mechanical hack to avoid having to design powers that worked in 3 dimensions, or balance pillars of play in an organic way. I don't siloing is roganic at all, it's a wall preventing all sorts of neat things from happening in the game. If you need ten minutes to get your party to fly out of the exploding volcano, the DM has no choice but to alter the flow of the lava to suit the game rules, or just kill you. That sucks. 4e Rituals suck donkey juice and ruined the magical feeling of the game for me. If I want to be stuck to the ground, and I can play a game called Warriors and Warriors, not Wizards and Warriors. You cannot balance fly with not flying, except by duration and x/day. 4e nerfed it waaaaay too much, and the rituals were like a slap in the face to proper D&D experience.
Not once in any other edition with DMs have I seen the fly spell ruin an adventure. It's called design the game with 3d in mind, accordingly. That's just one example. There are just so many times when we wanted to do something that was only available in a ritual during combat in the heat of the moment, to react to an in-game event, but oh no, the duration silo'ed that possibility out of existence. It was a lazy hack to remove magic from exciting, real-time situations. Ten minute casting times is good for a cut-scene, but personally as a player, whether it's a videogame or an RPG, I hate cutscenes where I can't control my character. While a ritual is being cast, there is no possibility of combat, narratively (imagine a DM being a dick and dropping orcs on you in the midst of your ritual that you just spent 500gp on...wah waaaah, sucks to be you).
The problem that siloing solves is not worth killing the entire flavour of the game over. It's just another implicit way they forced combat / non-combat time to be strictly separate. THAT would be a dealbreaker for me. The fact that spells now have ritual versions attached to them as an option, is the best way they could do it. But making stuff ritual only was one of the worst design fails of 4e and an utterly detestable atrocity.
am181d
Adventurer
One of my pet peeve's with most editions with D&D is that you have high level casters who can turn themselves invisible and scry to find their enemy a world away and then teleport to them and fly over them and rain down attack spells (or whatever other type of spell they want to cast) from on high. None of which feels like anything I've ever encountered in fantasy literature, television, or films.
I'd much prefer a spell system that severely limits these types of spells, both in their usage and availability.
I'd much prefer a spell system that severely limits these types of spells, both in their usage and availability.
Vyvyan Basterd
Adventurer
You mean content like? "You gain some hit points! Yes really, that's it. Have fun."
No big loss in my experience.
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