D&D General How important is leveling to the play experience (lvls 2-8)?

[Oofta]

In my campaigns, there are often months, if not years between levels after level 2 or so. I explain it as downtime training, random minor adventures that don't impact the overall story line and so on.

On the other hand even though I plan on going all the way to 20th in my current campaign, I generally prefer lower levels both as a DM and a player. I like, for lack of a better term, smaller worlds and smaller influence. The stories I spin, the connections I build at lower levels always feel far more personal. At a certain point you almost need something earth shaking to justify what you have to throw at PCs. This generally involves travel to other planes, invasions, some kind of catastrophe.

The more I get away from that friendly neighborhood adventurer theme, the less connected I feel to the world I built. Heck, some of my favorite campaigns (played and DMed) had the PCs starting out as kids with little or no offensive capability where the big bad monster was a single giant rat and most big fights involved snowballs.

But I also get enjoyment out of seeing growth and drool over all the cool things I'll get to do someday.

I'm thinking about suggesting a campaign that ends at level 10 for our next campaign but also much slower advancement and going back to the "start as kids" idea. That or start out at a much higher level so that the community I build around the group doesn't fall by the wayside. We'll see.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If you're doing a "Journeyman to Hero" campaign (as opposed to "Zero to Superhero"), how important is the actual leveling to the feel of playing D&D?

Would it still feel like DnD to you if you started at 2nd or 3rd level (whatever it takes to have the archetype and not be totally squishy) and made everything after that buying new improvements? Say, gradually moving you up to say 6th level plateauing, where what's available to buy with xp depends on your initial class and what you've bought before (like feat chains).

If you really like the starting at 0, imagine the rules for that have slightly slower advancement than now to get you to the 2/3 journeyman stage and then what I sketch above kicks in.

Honestly progress is important to a tabletop RPG; levelling is one of the D&D specific things that I don't have in many other RPGs, don't miss in them, but is very much a D&D specific thing. Take levelling out and it's probably a better game but not D&D - depending how much you value that in specific.

 

[Cadence]

Honestly progress is important to a tabletop RPG; levelling is one of the D&D specific things that I don't have in many other RPGs, don't miss in them, but is very much a D&D specific thing. Take levelling out and it's probably a better game but not D&D - depending how much you value that in specific.

I guess that's my question - how does the depend work for you? If it had the same races, classes to start, spell lists, combat, and monsters... would just replacing leveling with piecemeal advancement make it feel non-D&D to you?

I'm also wondering if it feels less different for groups that do lots of multi-classing (where it sometimes feels like they're just trying to buy specific powers).

 

[Lyxen]

Part of it for me is trying to picture what that 20th level BBEG is doing while the PCs head that way in level.

He's not doing anything special about them, they are not even on his radar. They might show up in the radar of his low level accomplices, and then foil them, and therefore appear in the radar of higher level accomplices, and so on, until, when they show up on the BBEG's radar, they are already a bit too high to be stopped easily. This is the standard paradigm and it works well.

If they're a spell caster, what can one do with teleportation and dominate person and all of the scrying spells... The concentration and attunement rules in 5e feel like they do a lot to help this. If the powerful bad NPCs and monsters are around without powerful good guys, then I wonder about why there are castles and armies. If there are powerful good guys, then I wonder about why they're sitting around waiting for the PCs. (I guess this is something the comic books deal with. If there is a silver-age Superman around, then your street level heroes are redundant. If it's a less omniscient superfast Thor at the top of the food chain, then there is a lot more for the street levle heroes).

Noone in the usual D&D universes is omniscient, that would make things way too complicated to manage, and also certainly not as interesting.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I guess that's my question - how does the depend work for you? If it had the same races, classes to start, spell lists, combat, and monsters... would just replacing leveling with piecemeal advancement make it feel non-D&D to you?

The races are pretty generic; the classic Tolkien Plus Gnomes have been used in video games since the 70s and are in loads of tabletop games. And the four "core" classes are very much generic to the point that not having them (or just not being class based) makes it not feel D&D but not having them doesn't feel D&D. And about the only D&D specific monsters I remember are beholders and mind flayers - and I can't remember the last time I played involving a mind flayer.

As for the spells, it's been thirteen and a half years since the single key feature of D&D casting (the fire and forget nature of spells) has been part of D&D so that's gone.

Basically there are two things that to me make D&D at this point. And that's levels and consequence free videogamey hit points.

I'm also wondering if it feels less different for groups that do lots of multi-classing (where it sometimes feels like they're just trying to buy specific powers).

Possibly

 

[Cadence]

He's not doing anything special about them, they are not even on his radar. They might show up in the radar of his low level accomplices, and then foil them, and therefore appear in the radar of higher level accomplices, and so on, until, when they show up on the BBEG's radar, they are already a bit too high to be stopped easily. This is the standard paradigm and it works well.

I don't think I phrased my question like I wanted to. It wasn't what the BBEG is doing about the PCs, its what is the BBEG doing in general. So, I'll try agin.

So, it seems common to have some BBEGs scattered around as the characters reach different tiers (ones that might not even be on the PCs radar at a lower level, and where the PCs might be way below the BBEG's noticing for a long time). So, somewhere out there in the world is a 20th level bad NPC. What is that NPC doing to warp the world while the PCs are moving on? (Say Saruman and Wormtongue going after Rohan, but with a lot more spell slots including things like teleportation). Is there going to be any free thinking king/leader who doesn't have a pretty high level NPC wizard or cleric at their side? Is it worth that king/leader investing in a castle without lots of enchantments or army without a couple of mid-to-high level wizards if the BBEG can just teleport in and drop storm of vengeance? What do all the enchantments to save the king from the BBEG do to anything the players might want to do in the castle? Does each 20th level BBEG have a 20th level good NPC keeping them in check, but without the ability to go take him out (and hence the need for the part)? What does a good 20th level NPC mean for day to day life of the kingdom, or do they have to not use their spell slots for fear the BBEG will show up?

Noone in the usual D&D universes is omniscient, that would make things way too complicated to manage, and also certainly not as interesting.

At first glance, it seems even better about not having the easy to use omniscience (or at least really good scrying/detection) in 5e than in some of the previous editions.

 

[Bill Zebub]

If 3 out of 4 characters don't die before 2nd level, it ain't D&D.

(Kidding.)

 

[haakon1]

If I'm working on a detailed campaign world, one of the things I struggle with is how it all fits together reasonably in a world that goes from the 1st level zeros to the 20th level super heroes.

For the world itself, I do not scale it to the PC’s levels.

Town guards are always going to be 1st level (or 0 level for editions with that), regular wolves will always be regular wolves, and giants and dragons are in the world and scary tough from the beginning, not just once you’ve leveled up.

If you go trying to fight Smaug at second level, I will warn you, but Smaug is there all along, and if you insists on fighting him at low level, the results won’t be nerfed.

If you randomly encounter wolves at 9th level, you’ll see how far you’ve come.

I think this approach makes leveling mean more, and makes for a more interesting world. The fact that it’s completely different from most video game design is, imho, a plus.

FYI, I also typically don’t play beyond about 10th-12th level, as I like more Tolkienesque than DC universe feel to D&D. If the only stuff for you to do is planar fight demigods to save the world stuff, it becomes uninteresting to me to DM.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If you're doing a "Journeyman to Hero" campaign (as opposed to "Zero to Superhero"), how important is the actual leveling to the feel of playing D&D?

Because leveling in D&D is the current method for improvement, it is essential unless you replace it with a different method. There are games as you mention were improvement is based on purchasing better abilities via XP or karma or whatever, others have you roll for improvement if you accomplish something significant, etc.

Would it still feel like DnD to you if you started at 2nd or 3rd level (whatever it takes to have the archetype and not be totally squishy) and made everything after that buying new improvements? Say, gradually moving you up to say 6th level plateauing, where what's available to buy with xp depends on your initial class and what you've bought before (like feat chains).

In most ways, probably it would. You are exchanging a locked in level system for a more dynamic purchase system. I toyed with the idea, were every 1000 XP was used to purchase feats, increase proficiency bonus, HD, higher spell levels, etc.

If you really like the starting at 0, imagine the rules for that have slightly slower advancement than now to get you to the 2/3 journeyman stage and then what I sketch above kicks in.

Sure. Like others have said your improvement is generally horizontal or vertical. You are imaging vertical to a point, and then mostly horizontal when you plateau.

I've developed an L12 variant, based on the E6 idea, but stopping at level 12 and 6th level spells. It is, for many, the peak of heroic before you are really getting into super heroic.

My group has also been developing and playtesting a mod for 5E for over a year now which mirrors many of the things you're discussing. If you want to get links to the shared WIP material, p.m. me and I can send them to you. Some of the ideas there might give you ideas of your own.

 

[jmartkdr2]

There's an alternate rule for Pathfinder 2e where you're proficiency bonus doesn't go up with level (it still goes up with training), and with that in place vertical growth is cut by a third but the rather extensive horizontal growth is maintained - the difference between a 1st level fighter and a 10th level fighter is less about mods (still about a 5 point difference but that's within the 'can hit each other' range) - the main difference is the high level fighter having five extra class feats for better maneuvers and more combat options.

So it's definitely doable. If I wanted to push that narrative in 5e, I'd look more at flattening hit point growth. In base 5e a 1st-level fighter can hit an ancient dragon, but they need to do so 200+ times to kill it. If you can find an easy formula for tightening that, the gap between journeyman and grand master shrinks a lot.

As for levels themselves - it might push it into "not DnD" territory for me but if it's still fun who cares?