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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Quixote" data-source="post: 5818320" data-attributes="member: 694">What if there were a certain level limit beyond which players could not advance, while they remained on the Prime Material Plane?  Imagine a fantasy cosmology whereby nothing living in the mortal realm could be more powerful than, let's say, 10th level.  If player characters want to advance beyond that point, they must transcend mortal existence: they must seek out other planes, other realms, mythic underworlds (i.e. dungeons) and otherworlds and afterlives and fairylands and alternate dimensions where all of the powerful and godlike beings dwell.While the player characters remain in these other realms, they can progress to whatever level exists in that realm.  Maybe beings in they feywild can reach 20th level and access amazing high magic of yore.  Maybe beings in the heavens can reach 30th level and hobnob with the gods.  So long as you remain on that plane of existence, you maintain your power... but if you travel back to a lesser realm, you drop back to the highest possible level for that realm, because you have to limit yourself to exist there.A party of heroes adventures until they reach 10th level.  They become mighty archwizards and noble lords and high-priests and guildmasters-of-thieves.  Then they hear a rumor of a portal to the fey realm, where even greater treasures and magicks than they have now might be found.  So they travel there, and they find that their power grows: they stay until they reach 15th level, at which point they travel back to the mortal realm... and discover that they're back at 10th level so long they remain on the material plane.  None of the powerful magic really works in the mortal realm.  But when they travel back into the feywild again, they're suddenly able to pick up where they left off, 15th level, and they stay sometime longer, fighting magical legends and working up to 20th level.  Then they learn of a transcendent ritual that can transport one's consciousness to the outer planes, where it's possible to commune with the gods and assist their battle against the demons and devils of the lower hells....  This way, the "bigger fish" are effectively siloed off in their own separate fishtanks.  Artificial and gamey, perhaps, but it does have its antecedents in myth and legend.  The rules in other realms are just different.  People don't age in faery realms.  The gods must often take mortal form to descend to earth.  And there is nothing more world-shatteringly epic than some schmuck evil sorcerer trying to break the rules by summoning a 30th level evil god directly into the mortal realm....</blockquote>

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