wingsandsword
Legend
One thing a lot of discussion on here has me thinking about is, how "big" are character levels. I mean, when I first started playing D&D, the fact that a PC was 1st level and above the lowly 0th level masses was a big deal. Then it got to be that everybody had character levels, and typically more than one of them. The local merchant might be a 2nd or 3rd level expert, that beggar might even be a 2nd level commoner.
The first DM I played under (back when AD&D was still current) assumed that for any character above 0th level, they generally had a 5% chance per level of being known of, at least in passing, by anybody with any connection to the rest of the his civilization (i.e. not including ignorant peasants or people from completely separated civilizations like a distant "oriental" land or the underdark). A 1st level Wizard, in a city he's never been in before, would have a 5% chance of being recognized, or at least his name being familiar, to the local Lord (or his courtiers), or the Priests at the local temple, or to the City Guard, or to the more traveled merchants, just because he is 1st level. 9th level characters were the High Priests of their whole religion in many cases (after all, they can talk directly to their deity with Commune, or maybe even go and directly meet them with Plane Shift), or at the least truly major movers and shakers that controlled major orders or their faith on entire continents. He figured if the Grand Druid of the entire campaign world by the RAW is 15th level, and the highest level Monks and Assassin possible are both notably below 20th level, each level must really mean something. The way he saw it, in the "real world" we probably didn't have anybody who would be above 5th level, and those would be the most elite, highly skilled, and experienced people on Earth.
The old D&D basic sets that only included rules for 1st through 5th level characters gave the same impression. After all, the Big Bad Evil Guy could be *gasp* 5th level! He could cast. . .Fireball, and maybe wipe your whole party out with one spell! Just reaching 2nd level meant you had made a huge step forward, not only from the 0th level masses, but even the smaller masses of 1st level characters.
The old Dragon article about Gandalf being a 5th level D&D Wizard (or Magic User as they were called then, or more like a 6th level Sorcerer by 3.x standards using the same logic of what he did with spells in the books) continued with this idea that once, 4th or 5th level characters were big and mighty.
Then we moved on a few years later. If you look at the RAW for D&D 3.5, a 1st level Rogue or Fighter could be a world-class athlete in the real world. The world record for a running long jump is about equivalent to a DC 30 Jump Check in d20. For a 1st level character with Jump as a class skill, 4 skill ranks, an 18 STR, and Skill Focus (Jump) and Acrobatic feats, that's a +13 right there, and even if it's not a class skill that's +11, if you go with 3.0 where Skill Focus is +2 instead of +3, it's still +10, so on a natural 20 (or as low as a 17), at first level you're making jumps that would get you Olympic Gold in the real world. By "mid levels", even without magic items you can handily shatter those records and be what would be the best track & field star ever born.
High level characters, again, without any magical enhancement, can do things that blatantly violate laws of nature. Going with our Jump example, a 20st level character, 23 ranks, Skill Focus, Acrobatic, and an 18 STR that has been naturally increased every level for a 23 STR, will have a skill modifier of +34 they can break world records on a natural 1, "take 10" and leap further than the best athlete ever born if he was in slightly lower gravity and had been heavily doping with every banned performance enhancer in existence, and on a natural 20 they look like something out of a Wuxia film.
(At least 3.0 had the inherent limit on jumping lengths that prevented this Jump paradox, unless you were a 7th+ level Monk or had magic items or spells)
If you think about how powerful wild animals are in D&D, this idea that "realistic" characters are very low level continues. A lion is CR 3, a tiger, brown bear, rhinoceros or size-huge shark is CR 4. These creatures are walks in the park for even low level D&D parties. A well equipped 2nd or 3rd level party of adventurers could deal with any of those animals, and a single mid level character even without magic equipment and only mundane gear could be in no real danger. How many people in the "real world", with medieval weapons like a sword and shield and some chain mail, would be able to so easily handle themselves in solo combat with any of those animals? I'm willing to bet that there are very, very few who could do such.
Is the so called "sweet spot" even that much of a bad thing? When you step back and realize just how much power a party of a level that they have raised above the "sweet spot" is packing around and that they really should be able to devastate armies, raze mighty castles, and quite possibly conquer realms with the firepower they carry. That scale of firepower might just not be quick and easy to adjudicate at the gaming table.. To me, that "sweet spot" is the time when they get strong enough that they are clearly beyond the power of normal, mundane people, but before their power becomes superheroic, and starts to become the realm of tall tales and farce.
So, when we think of characters who are 5th level as being "low level" and PC's not even coming of age until around 6th level (when they can take their first PrC, which is a perspective I've seen some display about character progression), are we really looking at it from the right perspective about how powerful characters are.
The first DM I played under (back when AD&D was still current) assumed that for any character above 0th level, they generally had a 5% chance per level of being known of, at least in passing, by anybody with any connection to the rest of the his civilization (i.e. not including ignorant peasants or people from completely separated civilizations like a distant "oriental" land or the underdark). A 1st level Wizard, in a city he's never been in before, would have a 5% chance of being recognized, or at least his name being familiar, to the local Lord (or his courtiers), or the Priests at the local temple, or to the City Guard, or to the more traveled merchants, just because he is 1st level. 9th level characters were the High Priests of their whole religion in many cases (after all, they can talk directly to their deity with Commune, or maybe even go and directly meet them with Plane Shift), or at the least truly major movers and shakers that controlled major orders or their faith on entire continents. He figured if the Grand Druid of the entire campaign world by the RAW is 15th level, and the highest level Monks and Assassin possible are both notably below 20th level, each level must really mean something. The way he saw it, in the "real world" we probably didn't have anybody who would be above 5th level, and those would be the most elite, highly skilled, and experienced people on Earth.
The old D&D basic sets that only included rules for 1st through 5th level characters gave the same impression. After all, the Big Bad Evil Guy could be *gasp* 5th level! He could cast. . .Fireball, and maybe wipe your whole party out with one spell! Just reaching 2nd level meant you had made a huge step forward, not only from the 0th level masses, but even the smaller masses of 1st level characters.
The old Dragon article about Gandalf being a 5th level D&D Wizard (or Magic User as they were called then, or more like a 6th level Sorcerer by 3.x standards using the same logic of what he did with spells in the books) continued with this idea that once, 4th or 5th level characters were big and mighty.
Then we moved on a few years later. If you look at the RAW for D&D 3.5, a 1st level Rogue or Fighter could be a world-class athlete in the real world. The world record for a running long jump is about equivalent to a DC 30 Jump Check in d20. For a 1st level character with Jump as a class skill, 4 skill ranks, an 18 STR, and Skill Focus (Jump) and Acrobatic feats, that's a +13 right there, and even if it's not a class skill that's +11, if you go with 3.0 where Skill Focus is +2 instead of +3, it's still +10, so on a natural 20 (or as low as a 17), at first level you're making jumps that would get you Olympic Gold in the real world. By "mid levels", even without magic items you can handily shatter those records and be what would be the best track & field star ever born.
High level characters, again, without any magical enhancement, can do things that blatantly violate laws of nature. Going with our Jump example, a 20st level character, 23 ranks, Skill Focus, Acrobatic, and an 18 STR that has been naturally increased every level for a 23 STR, will have a skill modifier of +34 they can break world records on a natural 1, "take 10" and leap further than the best athlete ever born if he was in slightly lower gravity and had been heavily doping with every banned performance enhancer in existence, and on a natural 20 they look like something out of a Wuxia film.
(At least 3.0 had the inherent limit on jumping lengths that prevented this Jump paradox, unless you were a 7th+ level Monk or had magic items or spells)
If you think about how powerful wild animals are in D&D, this idea that "realistic" characters are very low level continues. A lion is CR 3, a tiger, brown bear, rhinoceros or size-huge shark is CR 4. These creatures are walks in the park for even low level D&D parties. A well equipped 2nd or 3rd level party of adventurers could deal with any of those animals, and a single mid level character even without magic equipment and only mundane gear could be in no real danger. How many people in the "real world", with medieval weapons like a sword and shield and some chain mail, would be able to so easily handle themselves in solo combat with any of those animals? I'm willing to bet that there are very, very few who could do such.
Is the so called "sweet spot" even that much of a bad thing? When you step back and realize just how much power a party of a level that they have raised above the "sweet spot" is packing around and that they really should be able to devastate armies, raze mighty castles, and quite possibly conquer realms with the firepower they carry. That scale of firepower might just not be quick and easy to adjudicate at the gaming table.. To me, that "sweet spot" is the time when they get strong enough that they are clearly beyond the power of normal, mundane people, but before their power becomes superheroic, and starts to become the realm of tall tales and farce.
So, when we think of characters who are 5th level as being "low level" and PC's not even coming of age until around 6th level (when they can take their first PrC, which is a perspective I've seen some display about character progression), are we really looking at it from the right perspective about how powerful characters are.
