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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Malacoda" data-source="post: 3634943" data-attributes="member: 6345">To show the flexibility of the system to match the needs of the DM and players, I wrote up an example of a campaign that uses Incremental Levels with a number of options.Campaign ExampleA Dungeon Master and his players discuss their preferences for D&D, and find the following: They all like to start at 1st level, but like to advance up to about 3rd level fairly fast. Low levels are fun and have a certain thrill to them, but constantly being in danger of getting one-shotted grows old. The maximum level they really enjoy is about 10th. At that level you can start to dabble in some serious magic, such as raise dead, a few save-or-die spells, plus spells like teleport. They feel these kinds of magics and the challenges they are suited for overcoming are best faced after much work and adventure. These are capstones to a long career, not stepping stones. They want to use them for a while, then retire. The “sweet spot” for the group is really 5th through 8th. Over those four levels, the players feel they are in their prime, with plenty of cool abilities and good staying power, but not over the top or hard to manage. The group really values a decent array of abilities over seriously powered abilities. Feats are great, and they would rather have more feats than more powerful, higher-level abilities.With this info in mind, the DM puts together the following guidelines for his upcoming game:Characters start out with 2 + Charisma bonus action points, and can have a maximum of 5 + Charisma bonus action points. Each advancement grants 2 action points instead of 1 initially, but this rises to 4 action points per advancement at 5th level. The DM doesn’t want to bother calculating XP based on the normal rules, and so decides to hand out XP based on a per-session model. The DM decides to hand out five advancement’s worth of XP per session at 1st and 2nd level, three advancements at 3rd and 4th levels, and then one advancement per session starting at 5th. This gets them through the low levels quickly, slows them down a bit, then really slows them down at the start of the “sweet spot” of 5th level. At one advancement per session, it will take 40 sessions to advance from the start of 5th level until the start of 9th level. At 4th level, when advancement starts to slow down a bit, the DM allows players to buy an extra feat at each level. At 6th level, he allows them to buy two extra feats per level. The characters get their first ability score boost at 4th level, as normal. Because so much time passes between actual levels, the DM decides to hand out an increase every even level after that.With these rates of advancement, it will take approximately 51 sessions of play to advance from 1st level until the start of 9th level. 40 of these sessions will take place in the group’s sweet spot, yet they will still get an appreciable advance every session of play. By the time a character gets to 9th level, they will have 13 feats, rather than the normal 4 (not including class or race). Despite this fairly massive change on the rate of advancement, very little actually changes in terms of game play. Action points will give the character’s an edge, and at later levels the extra feats and ability scores will enhance everyone’s overall power. The DM can counter this at the higher levels by using slightly more powerful monsters (perhaps normal CR for their level, plus 1, starting at 6th level).</blockquote>

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