Did you retire characters at name level?

[Nifft]

Yeah, never got that high back in the day, but since only ther casters really got much out of 11-20, I can't imagine sticking it out that long

ISTR that Fighters could automatically kill their level in weak critters. Am I remembering the wrong edition?

Cheers, -- N

PS: Was this the origin of "minions"?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Rarely if ever do I retire characters.

I stop playing them:

1) if they've been killed

2) the campaign in which they existed ends

 

[frankthedm]

ISTR that Fighters could automatically kill their level in weak critters. Am I remembering the wrong edition?

Cheers, -- N

PS: Was this the origin of "minions"?

1E and maybe Basic Fighters could take a number of attacks equal to thier level against foes with less than 1 hit die. Or maybe it was foes with 1 hit die or less. That made Hobgoblins and Gnolls notably more signifigant foes compared to kobolds and goblins [and maybe orcs].

It was the origin behind minion rules along with cleave, Greatcleave and whirlwind attack.

 

[tankschmidt]

I answered "rarely, if ever."

Name level adds a whole new dimension to the game: clearing land for your stronghold, making moves for political power, starting wars. That was some really fun stuff, especially if several PCs teamed up and all marched on a common foe. In general, we usually ended up retiring around level 14-15 or so, so some new blood could get in on the fun.

EDIT: With regard to experience advancement slowing down to a crawl, we counted (perhaps incorrectly) tax revenues and lands acquired by conquest as experience, so maintaining a large fiefdom would net you some big bucks/EPs.

 

[EricNoah]

Never got that far. . .

Me either. Decades of playing Basic and Advanced and 2E and I think the highest level any PC ever got was 7th-8th level. But then I guess I did DM a disproportionate amount compared to playing...

 

[Jhaelen]

Yes and no; we didn't retire the characters at those levels because we were no longer gaining HD or Cool Stuff, we retired them because by the time we got a PC to 9-11th level it was 18 months or so since we began the campaign and we were ready for something else. Also, the prospect of level progression slowing down to basically nothing was just too daunting. Only twice or three times in 20 years of pre-3E did we ever have PCs that reached 9-11th level, starting from 1st.

This. Pre-3E noone I've ever played with managed to get higher than level 12. Most characters died before raching name-level. I'd say about one third of those that did, decided to retire (often after a near-tpk).

 

[sinecure]

We quit at level 15 cuz everything broke down with the game after that. We played 2e edition and it didn't really have name levels.

 

[jdrakeh]

There should be an option for "Never" because in the editions of D&D that I prefer, "name level" starts at Level 1

 

[Voadam]

I never retired a character.

I played more than a few high level games above name level.

 

[Lanefan]

For us, it's not so much a question of retiring individual characters but entire campaigns at about that level, mainly because it takes us a very long time to get there and there's not much story left to tell once we do (and the DM's creativity tank is empty). Also, the wealth accumulation gets out of hand...when a character's been through 25 adventures and thus has received 25 treasury shares, they get pretty durn rich!

Lanefan