HELP! Designing a low power game / use XP to buy class abilities?

[Iron_Chef]

Anybody come up with a way to create a low powered D&D game? One where you don't gain massive hit points and ability to dish out damage so quick? Maybe where instead of leveling traditionally, you use your XP to buy new class features ala cart? We still want to use 3.5, but a variation that can achieve what we want without having it affect much in the way of game mechanics outside of character leveling. We are already doubling all the XP level requirements after 2nd level and it's still too fast.

IDEAS
Maybe a 5 level cap on levels?
Maybe no new hit points ever added after 3rd level except by the Toughness feat or a CON increase?

This is something my group wants to experiment with, after having way too many campaigns end in a creative roadblock upon achieving higher levels (9+). We want a way for the DM to come up with challenging adventures easier, where the plots are not just dogpiling high CR monsters on and calling it an adventure, where no one is too powerful to be killed almost instantly at any moment. Where a horde of dire rats are still potentially deadly no matter how experienced you are. You know, to keep the players scared out of their wits and use their brains more than their sword arms without a lot of extra work from the DM, whose prep time is limited.

 

[Tywyll]

This is something my group wants to experiment with, after having way too many campaigns end in a creative roadblock upon achieving higher levels (9+). We want a way for the DM to come up with challenging adventures easier, where the plots are not just dogpiling high CR monsters on and calling it an adventure, where no one is too powerful to be killed almost instantly at any moment. Where a horde of dire rats are still potentially deadly no matter how experienced you are. You know, to keep the players scared out of their wits and use their brains more than their sword arms without a lot of extra work from the DM, whose prep time is limited.

Any kind of adventure can be run that way, if the group and gm are accomodating. have you considered looking at d20 modern? Rules like the Massive Death Threashold really can keep players in line (anytime they take more damage then their con, they save as a fort save versus DC 15 or got to -1 HP immediately). Hell, using those classes versus the 'normal' ones, and making spellcasting classes limited to PRCs or only taking a single level every other level (and therefore forcing multiclassing and the penalty that creates).

Also, you can lower the amount of xp that encounters generate. Reduce it by half or a quater or more, if leveling causes such problems. Personally, I did away with the CR system 'cause it sucks tremendously and that allows for all sorts of things (if you aren't worried about 'balanced' [as if] encounters you can choose to give out the treasure as you see fit, rather then a certain amount based on what they 'should' have by X level).

As for XP for abilities, the only decent stuff I've seen is from Oathbound, the prestige races, though that is fairly highpower.

Regardless of what you do though, the challenge is always in how the PCs interact with the world you create and the stories you tell. I ran a campaign over a year and a half in length, going from 5th to 17th-18th level, where at no time did the PCs ever take for granted their abilities or their survivability. And that was standard DnD (as in, they were nearly tiny gods by the time the campaign ended).

 

[Iron_Chef]

Any kind of adventure can be run that way, if the group and gm are accomodating. have you considered looking at d20 modern? Rules like the Massive Death Threashold really can keep players in line (anytime they take more damage then their con, they save as a fort save versus DC 15 or got to -1 HP immediately). Hell, using those classes versus the 'normal' ones, and making spellcasting classes limited to PRCs or only taking a single level every other level (and therefore forcing multiclassing and the penalty that creates).

Also, you can lower the amount of xp that encounters generate. Reduce it by half or a quater or more, if leveling causes such problems. Personally, I did away with the CR system 'cause it sucks tremendously and that allows for all sorts of things (if you aren't worried about 'balanced' [as if] encounters you can choose to give out the treasure as you see fit, rather then a certain amount based on what they 'should' have by X level).

As for XP for abilities, the only decent stuff I've seen is from Oathbound, the prestige races, though that is fairly highpower.

Regardless of what you do though, the challenge is always in how the PCs interact with the world you create and the stories you tell. I ran a campaign over a year and a half in length, going from 5th to 17th-18th level, where at no time did the PCs ever take for granted their abilities or their survivability. And that was standard DnD (as in, they were nearly tiny gods by the time the campaign ended).

Thanks for your reply. We don't want to shell out money or learn a new rules set, and d20 Modern qualifies as both, even if it is similar to D&D. Yeah, the DM is cutting XP awards (more XP from story/RP awards than for defeating foes unless done spectacularly or they were super-tough) as well as doubling XP needed for leveling. I'm looking for any kind of options to help us reduce the power level, either easy and free solutions out there already or any advice to point me in creating my own using 3.5.

 

[clark411]

Perhaps some kind of advance-through-usage homebrew system.

Assign each statistic, from HP through to Stats and Saves, a value that is required to be met in order for it to advance. Each time the statistic is interacted with in a manner of importance (taking HP damage, passing a Fort save, casting an arcane spell), the character gains a point towards that statistic being raised.

An example of this could be the HP statistic having a value of 50. Everytime a fighter is hit significantly, he earns a point. When he gets 50 points, he earns a higher max HP. After this, the amount of points he gets are reset, and he has to earn 100 points to level up HP.

If you want to make it more simple, simply hand out points that players can divide amongst their stat values after each combat.

If you want to make it more complex, have each "class" have a different set of values for their statistics based roughly on how they normally advance. d10 HD classes have lower values for HP, while Wizards have a lower value for raising their Will saves.

You can slow down advancement or cap advancement by the speed with which you hand out points, and disallow more than X advancements per stat. Beyond that, you can make the rewards minimal in exchange for what they have to do... no one will say advancement is too fast when a 10 HP fighter has to get hit in combat 50 times to raise his hp by his Con modifier... and also has to make 50 fort saves to raise his Fort Save or Constitution stat.

Just an idea, it's free, it's got a bit of logic behind it that could go along quite nicely with a preexisting understanding of the DND system.

 

[Aaron2]

I also have trouble keeping adventures from becoming moster fests at 9+ level. Here's what I've done (or are planning to do)

1-Start characters a 0th level.
2-Make them roll for first level hit points.
3-Cut down on XP awards. Its easy to adjust the XP table to give out 2/3s or 1/2 of the normal XP.
4-Limit treasure and magic items given out. This will make the party slightly less effective and help with #5 below.
5-Try hard to make challenging encounters less than their CR. This will allow them to have good fights without a huge XP payout.
6-Make less effective low level versions of some of the higher level spells; esp. for spells over 6th level where, if they stay low level, they may never be able to cast them. For example, animate object is a 6th level spell. You might want to create a Lesser version of the spell (that only animates small objects) so the players can experience the spell w/o needing to be 11th level.


Aaron

 

[Altalazar]

You could limit the classes they could take - for instance, making every odd level be taken in a class like expert or aristocrat or some other such class that is lower powered and mostly just gives skill points, a bit more hit points, and perhaps a bit of an improvement in combat capabilities. They'd get feats that way as well. But they'd not get the fighter feats as fast, they'd not get the higher level spells and special abilities as fast.

Just a thought.