L4W Discussion Thread III

[Mal Malenkirk]

I was going to suggest making that a d3, but that's fine with me. Have fun, Ren!

Yeah, I kind of forgot about you, there. Sorry.

 

[KenHood]

I've got Hadarai in 'zombie mode' right now, but I'd like to get an actual player to replace his character. The party needs a leader-type.

 

[dimsdale]

PROPOSAL: Dimsdale gets a new character for every position that Renau1g holds whethter it be DM, charactrer, or judge.

just kidding

 

[renau1g]

Ha, that'd only be 5 then. No judging here

 

[CaBaNa]

Discussion: Third Characters, and upping the ante...

When are third characters coming along? I hear a lot of DM's needing players that aren't free yet... Not that it's an emergency, but wanted to hear opinions.

Also,
Kicking around some ideas for upping the ante;

Raise the amount of XP all characters receive.

or

Third Characters can be paragon tier.



I know that they are extreme, I just want to get conversation started, and this isn't a proposal... yet.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Well, there should be some thrill in being amongst the first L4W to reach paragon. I don't like people just starting there.

But the game could handle a faster advancement rate. I'd prefer increasing the amount of XP granted by monsters and challenges than upping the time XP on that front.

 

[garyh]

My thoughts:

- I don't think we should allow third PC's until PHB3 is out, at the soonest. There's also the issue of what do you have to do to get a 3rd PC. 2nd PC is 1st PC to level 2. Do you have to have earned 4 levels to get a 3rd PC, maybe? I'd mentioned before cashing in a certain number of DM credits (to be determined) so that those taking three adventure slots will at least have had to give some adventure spots back to the community.

- Starting at paragon is not something I want to see. It would cheapen all the characters starting at heroic.

- I wouldn't be opposed to faster advancement. I haven't really considered which would work better, increased time XP or multiplied monster/challenge XP.

 

[renau1g]

Well...increasing monster/challenge xp provides an incentive for groups to post more frequently as the can kill the monster sooner and level up quicker (providing the dm can keep up the pace), but time xp works better for when a dm drops a game (2 x recently) and the group sits on their hands for a month. You could just increase both... that's satisfy both.

Because as you kill stuff faster you'll actually get less time xp, but if you increase it's amount the group killing things faster won't be penalized.

 

[stonegod]

I wouldn't be opposed to faster advancement. I haven't really considered which would work better, increased time XP or multiplied monster/challenge XP.

We had a long discussion about this when starting LEB 4E. We eventually went with doubling XP awards. This has several consequences, however:
- Fewer encounters to level (5 instead of 10 usually)
- Which affects treasure parcels (one reason we went w/ our vastly different treasure system).

 

[Lord Sessadore]

One thing that I'm a little concerned about with upping time XP is that it becomes much harder for DMs to anticipate how much XP their adventure will give, and also to figure out treasure in advance (assuming they don't want to just give piles of time XP, which would also need to be increased the same as time XP or scrapped for something like LEB has).

Increasing monster/kill XP makes it easier for DMs to know how much XP their adventure entails and to have a better idea of how much treasure will be involved.

Either way, I wouldn't mind a faster advancement. How has the increased XP been working out for LEB so far? I keep meaning to head over there and get involved, but there's this thing called time ...