With the move to 5e, I think WotC should take another look at the use of tiers, and also at the level-range in general.
In theory, I think the adoption of explicit tiers in 4e was a good thing. However, I think they went wrong in three ways:
1) They never explictly stated what the tiers actually meant. If they'd adopted a shorthand like "Heroic = Black Company, Paragon = Aragorn, Epic = Achillies", they would have made things a lot more concrete, and given their adventure writers, in particular, some notion of what characters should be doing.
2) They didn't support Epic properly. This was especially tragic because this was the tier most in need of support. And that was because...
3) The complexity of, well, everything went up with level and with tier. At low levels the number of powers was quite manageable, but by low Paragon characters had a huge number of options, and at Epic they were even worse. This made 'jumping in' at the higher levels not really practical without significant experience with the game.
For 5e, then, I would suggest the following:
- Introduce a Beginner tier, probably running for 5 levels. Beginner characters should
not have the fragility of low-level 3e characters, but they
should have reduced complexity. I'll get back to that.
- Instead of numbering the levels 1-20, 1-30, or whatever, instead number them by tier: B1-5, H1-10, P1-10, E1-10.
- In the Beginner tier, character start with a reduced number of powers. As they gain levels, they gradually pick up new powers. However, once they reach level B5, they
stop gaining new powers. From then on, they pick up
upgrades to their powers. That way, new players get to learn the system, but Epic level characters don't get swamped with dozens of options (most of which are too low-level to be of much use anyway). Obviously, there would also need to be a mechanism to retrain powers that are no longer wanted as time goes on.
- When a character enters a new tier, all of his powers should automatically upgrade to the new baseline for the tier. Basically, the start of a new tier should effectively be a 'clean slate' for the character. (Indeed, each power could potentially have seven 'stages' - Beginner, Heroic Base, Heroic Upgraded, Paragon Base, Paragon Upgraded, Epic Base, and Epic Upgraded.)
- Provide easy rules for starting play at the start of any tier. It should be as easy (and as valid) to jump in to the Paragon tier as to the start of the Beginner tier. How many times do you really want to start off as the fresh-faced farmboy?
- Provide a mechanism for groups to extend their favoured tier
beyond the stated top level. If the party are happy being the Black Company, and don't really want to become Aragorn, why should the game force them to make that upgrade, just because they've reached level H10? (Basically, this is the E6 notion from the 3e era, just baked right in to the game as a whole.)
- The Starter Set, should cover then cover the Beginner Tier. The Core Rulebook should cover at least the Beginner and Heroic tiers; it would of course be preferably to cover the full level range, but that might be too much for one book to handle - better to cover it in pieces and do it well, than to do too much badly.
Thoughts?
