Forked thread: Treasure & Advancement Rates

[Raven Crowking]

Wouldn't satisfy anyone:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/270458-silver-baton-torch-stub-t1.html

Reasonable people may disagree about how easy or difficult it is to find the treasure. In fact, the difficulty is going to change from group to group. However, IMO, the current discussion on that topic is too abstract to be interesting or informative.

The problem is not that it "wouldn't satisfy anyone"; the problem is the repeated implication that it reasonably should; that anyone not satisfied is reacting vicereally rather than rationally; that they simply cannot accept facts.

I don't know much about training times.

If it helps; characters need to find a trainer, and then pay that trainer so that they can train for 1 to 4 weeks. The time required to train is a function of how well the DM decided they played to their class archetype, with those acting out of that archetype taking longer to train than those who cleave to archetype.

The longer you have to train, the more you pay.

(This can create another devil's choice: Recover the treasure now, so you can pay for training, but lose the XP? Or gain the treasure now, so that you can pay for training, but gaining no XP for it?)


RC

 

[Gentlegamer]

And AD&D 1e wasn't a game designed to rocket to level 20. . .

EDIT: Does anyone have a link to the WotC market survey prior to the release of 3e? I seem to recall that one of the reasons that it was made easier to get to level 20 was that it was very uncommon to play higher level characters in earlier editions, according to their market survey. I could be wrong about that, but I'd like to check.

Speaking just for OAD&D, going by the XP charts and Gary's own testimony, the "end game" for characters was generally expected to be 14/15 or so. Not a hard cap (there was theoretically unlimited advancement for human characters), but that was generally the point when characters would retire, only to come out for special adventures. Gary deliberately 'flattened' the advancement rate after 'name' level in AD&D after his experience with OD&D, which had linear XP level widths that mad it pretty easy to have 40th level characters. He wrote about this in Dragon.

As for AD&D 2nd edition, the XP charts went only to 20th level (lacking the '+X experience required per level afterword' note from the OAD&D rules). So that editorial choice seemed to create a expectation that those 'end levels' ought to be reached, and more frequently, as indicated in the WotC survey.

 

[Gentlegamer]

A note about training: I'm pretty sure Gary said that for his campaigns, he permitted high level characters to gain levels without training, counting their adventuring time as 'on the job training' for name level and above characters, if I remember correctly.

 

[the Jester]

If it helps; characters need to find a trainer, and then pay that trainer so that they can train for 1 to 4 weeks. The time required to train is a function of how well the DM decided they played to their class archetype, with those acting out of that archetype taking longer to train than those who cleave to archetype.

The longer you have to train, the more you pay.

Ehh. A quibble: If you played your archetype well, you could train yourself but it took twice the standard time. Also, once you were 'name' level, you didn't need a trainer.

 

[Bullgrit]

Reasonable people may disagree about how easy or difficult it is to find the treasure. In fact, the difficulty is going to change from group to group.

Correct. That's why going through any adventure and trying to identify what treasure can be found won't satisfy anyone in this kind of discussion. The silver baton example shows this.

I don't know much about training times. How does your analysis account for them?

Pretty much can't.

But, many people didn't use the training rules at all. (Gygax himself didn't use them -- he wrote the adventures I took the data from.) People either didn't like them, or didn't know about them. Many people came to AD&D1 from Basic D&D, and BD&D didn't have training up rules, (PCs leveled up on the fly like OD&D, AD&D2, D&D3, and D&D4).

So, either take the training rules into account (as some want) and figuring the leveling rate is impossible, or ignore the training rules (as some did) and at least have some kind of measure for the leveling rate.

Bullgrit

 

[Raven Crowking]

Ehh. A quibble: If you played your archetype well, you could train yourself but it took twice the standard time. Also, once you were 'name' level, you didn't need a trainer.

Quibble accepted.

So, either take the training rules into account (as some want) and figuring the leveling rate is impossible, or ignore the training rules (as some did) and at least have some kind of measure for the leveling rate.

It is not rational to assume that, by not taking relevant factors into account, one achieves a useful measure. Nor, again, are the training rules the only relevant factor that needs to be taken into account.

As a side note, as I have said previously, I think that a deeper analysis could be done which does take the factors I have described into account. Because Bullgrit did not do so, it doesn't follow that it cannot be done.

And, again, the statements of the designers of both 1e and 3e can be taken as "some kind of measure for the leveling rate" -- a far more accurate one, IMHO.


RC

 

[Lanefan]

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]: Apples and oranges. Treasure in a tournament module is a means of scoring for standings; characters in a tournament don't have to be given XP to reach the next level. They start where the GM places them, as pregenerated characters of a given level. There are a few tournaments that assume Part X is directly followed by Part X+1 (A3 and A4), but this is not always the case. And even in the A3 -> A4 transfer, the characters are assumed to start A4 in a fresh (if unequipped) state. So, no, not particularly relevant.

::blink::

I never said anything about tournaments. My frame of reference (which may not have been obvious) was and is ongoing campaign play, where level advancement matters.

Reading the rest of the thread, it seems you're the only person talking about tournament play.

What is referred to as 'pixel bitching' today used to be known as playing the game.

Just wanted to give this line another shout out on the way by...

... Turnbull's Monstermark ...

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] What is this? I've never heard of it.

3. Campaign play includes XP attrition due to many reasons, included, but not limited to, level drain, curses, certain magic items, death, failure to have enough gold to train, failure to find a trainer to train, etc.

Campaign play also (usually) includes x.p. for things not done in the adventure itself - encounters en route to and from, x.p. for interactions while in town, x.p. for things done on the side, dungeon or mission bonuses in some houseruled systems, and so forth; all of which tend to mitigate the x.p. attrition factors you note here.

That said, if you've found enough of the treasure to make this a valid exercise then you've certainly got enough gold to train, so strike that one off the attrition list.

Lan-"all of this is hypothetical anyway, I haven't given x.p. for treasure in my life"-efan

 

[Nagol]

<snip>


What is this? I've never heard of it.

Monstermark was a mathematical model/system to determine the relative difficulty of creatures published in White Dwarf #1 though I think it has ancestors in earlier publications.

 

[Bullgrit]

Unnecessary snark deleted by self.

 

[Raven Crowking]

::blink::

I never said anything about tournaments.

Looking back, I'm not sure why I directed that at you.

I do know, though, the reason I brought up the nature of the modules. The Q thread suggests that the higher levels of the characters in the next round is evidence of Q/B's analysis being correct. There is also a strand of (perhaps not obvious) assumption in Q/B's analysis that the setup of a 1e tournament module is analogous to the setup of a 3e non-tournament module, or is representative of the norm for ongoing campaign play.

As for Monstermark, it is an alternative XP system that appeared in White Dwarf. EDIT: Nagol beat me to it!

Campaign play also (usually) includes x.p. for things not done in the adventure itself - encounters en route to and from, x.p. for interactions while in town, x.p. for things done on the side, dungeon or mission bonuses in some houseruled systems, and so forth; all of which tend to mitigate the x.p. attrition factors you note here.

Sure. And that extra material takes time to accomplish, which is the point. Especially if you are making up for losing two levels of XP from a vampire's touch.

No one is claiming that X+Y =/= Z in 1e, but rather that X =/= Z, whereas in 3e there is a much clearer corollary between X and Z, by design. And that corollary is even stronger in 4e.

This is not a "good" or a "bad" thing; the games per RAW are different. That they are different, OTOH, is a good thing IMHO. It means that there is more than one game to appeal to more than one type of gamer. I honestly don't understand the need to convince others that, essentially, game play per RAW has not changed.

1e is not a rocket to 20th level if you follow the RAW, and the B/Q analysis doesn't actually demonstrate what the norms of 1e levelling were. Conversely, 3e was explicitly designed so that characters could level at the same rate throughout their adventuring career.

Viva la difference!

That said, if you've found enough of the treasure to make this a valid exercise then you've certainly got enough gold to train, so strike that one off the attrition list.

As the Lareth the Beautiful example demonstrates, it isn't always that easy by 1e RAW. In some cases, having the gold to train means taking it without getting XP for it (because you already have the XP to need it!). And it is not necessarily easy to go train and assume that the treasure will still be there for you afterwards.

(And, even if it were, and nothing happened in the meantime, the DM using the 1e guidelines would be unlikely to give you full XP value for it, anyway....and, as there is no longer any risk in gaining it, might give you 0 XP.)


RC