D&D General Is it right for The Pcs to choose to not go up to 6th level straight away simply because they'll be too strong for several very good adventures?

[LuisCarlos17f]

Sometimes I have thought about two pillars of leveling up. One would be the power rank, like a PC in a videogame, and the other would be the knownledge, where the PC has learnt a lot of things, "unlocking slots of skill trees" but the "power rank" wouldn't change.

 

[commandercrud]

I require months of downtime training for PCs to level. They could have the XP but not level until they decide they have the time, usually between major story arcs.

 

[aco175]

Overall, if the table wants to stay low level then it is fine. They will only continue to accumulate gold and magic above their level. I would be tempted to split the party with some of the henchmen and other followers becoming another low-level party under the higher level party.

 

[Reynard]

5E is supposed to be designed in such a way that one level won't break the PC interactions with an adventure's challenges. What adventures is the GM planning to run that being 6th rather than 5th level makes them no longer usable? That doesn't ring true to me.

 

[Mannahnin]

Mods, can we get this moved to the Older Editions forum, or the subject fixed to mark that it's for 1E AD&D? Some folks seem to be missing that, and it's causing confusion.

As for the original question, certainly they can hold off, but IMO the DM should just be able to upscale the difficulty on the modules a bit. Add a few HP to the monsters, etc. It's really not a big deal to be one level over the recommended. @JMISBEST , as you've already noted, these characters seem to already be a bit more powerful than average with their high ability scores and multiple monster companions, so the DM would theoretically be tweaking a little already.

 

[JMISBEST]

5E is supposed to be designed in such a way that one level won't break the PC interactions with an adventure's challenges. What adventures is the GM planning to run that being 6th rather than 5th level makes them no longer usable? That doesn't ring true to me.

Its 1st edition, a lot of the adventures The GM wants to use come from Roleplaying Magazines from The mid to late 80's, these adventures always came with a recommendation as to what The Characters levels should be, and some adventures were designed to include 1 or more members of 1 or more class's, and The GM doesn't feel confident in his abilities to adapt them for higher level characters

1 example of the 2 things I mentioned earlier are as follows. The 1st is that it was recommended that the adventure Beacon at Enon Tor be done by 1st level characters that had some experance, and the 2nd is that back in 2,004 I made A 1e DAD version of The Fighting Fantasy Gamebook City of Thieves were it was recommended that at least half the group were Fighters, that their were no Paladins or Rangers, that only 1 of The Pcs isn't Human and that if the group contained A Thief then he or she should be of a higher level then the other members of the group

 

[TheSword]

Its 1st edition, a lot of the adventures The GM wants to use come from Roleplaying Magazines from The mid to late 80's, these adventures always came with a recommendation as to what The Characters levels should be, and some adventures were designed to include 1 or more members of 1 or more class's, and The GM doesn't feel confidant that he can adapt them for higher level characters

1 example of the 2 things I mentioned earlier are as follows. The 1st is that it was recommended that the adventure Beacon at Enon Tor be done by 1st level characters that had some experance, and the 2nd is that back in 2,004 I made A 1e DAD version of The Fighting Fantasy Gamebook City of Thieves were it was recommended that at least half the groups were Fighters, that their were no Paladins or Rangers, have only 1 Pc that isn't Human and that if the group contained A Thief that he or she should be of a higher level then the other members of the group

Yeah, any adventure that relies on a specific gimmick or the absence of a specific spell, probably doesn’t belong on my list of must run adventures.

The Greats take this kinda stuff into consideration.

 

[JMISBEST]

Mods, can we get this moved to the Older Editions forum, or the subject fixed to mark that it's for 1E AD&D? Some folks seem to be missing that, and it's causing confusion.

As for the original question, certainly they can hold off, but IMO the DM should just be able to upscale the difficulty on the modules a bit. Add a few HP to the monsters, etc. It's really not a big deal to be one level over the recommended. @JMISBEST , as you've already noted, these characters seem to already be a bit more powerful than average with their high ability scores and multiple monster companions, so the DM would theoretically be tweaking a little already.

To be honest it didn't occur to me that because these characters are already a bit more powerful than average with their high ability scores and multiple monster companions that the DM should already be tweaking a little, I guess its starting to show that the last time I played or GM'd 1st edition DAD was almost 20 years ago

In case your wondering by this I'm referring to 2 things, the 1st is that even though the last time I played or GM's 1st edition DAD was in July 2,002 I didn't actually stop making adventures for people I knew that did use 1st edition DAD to use until April 2,007, and the 2nd thing thing I'm referring to is the fact that the group I mentioned a few days ago hasn't yet had their 1st game

Also I just realized that on several occasions I forgot to put in 1st edition DAD, and as a result its likely that I gave the impression that I hadn't played or GM'd any edition of DAD in almost 20 years, but I have, just not 1st edition. Sorry

 

[dave2008]

5E is supposed to be designed in such a way that one level won't break the PC interactions with an adventure's challenges. What adventures is the GM planning to run that being 6th rather than 5th level makes them no longer usable? That doesn't ring true to me.

They are running 1e, not 5e.

 

[Reynard]

They are running 1e, not 5e.

Gotcha. Jumped the gun.