Meaning of Levels, Throughout the Editions

[the Jester]

It's difficult to convey without shared terminology. XP total + GP total of all resources may best convey what I'm talking about by character level. It is not class level, CL (& ECL) being a d20 construction, though something similar to my meaning I lifted it to use for pre-d20.

What are you talking about? Characters always had levels. That is what "level" means on your character sheet.

I'll agree that characters with more wealth and resources are more powerful, and that characters of the same level were not always balanced against one another in early editions, but that's entirely orthagonal to the discussion. "Level" has several accepted terms in each edition of D&D, and character level has always been one of me.

You have me baffled here.

 

[howandwhy99]

What are you talking about? Characters always had levels. That is what "level" means on your character sheet.

I'll agree that characters with more wealth and resources are more powerful, and that characters of the same level were not always balanced against one another in early editions, but that's entirely orthagonal to the discussion. "Level" has several accepted terms in each edition of D&D, and character level has always been one of me.

You have me baffled here.

Not casting Baffle here. I was simply trying to clarify that class level wasn't the same thing as overall quantified character power or what in 3E & 4E is called character level. 3E didn't have as balanced a power level by CL as 4E now does. Trying to convert back 4E classes to previous editions means taking into account those changes in design. In those earlier versions class level did not equal character level.

 

[S'mon]

Hmm, I'm not sure that I buy "baseline orc/goblin = minion" in 4e. Maybe for goblins, but orcs are pretty tough now (they've been growing in toughness since 3e, though).

I took the weakest version listed in the 4e MM.

 

[kinem]

On the BECM games, the conversion guide in the back of the Rules Compendium suggested levels 1-12 were equivalent to the same levels in AD&D. After that, 3 levels in BECM were equivalent to 1 level in AD&D. So a 1st level Fighter is a 1st level Fighter in either system, a 10th level Cleric is also the same, but a 19th level Magic User (BECM) is a 14th level Magic User (AD&D). I believe I've seen a different, also official, level conversion somewhere else.

Huh - must be where my own rule originally came from. But it does seem to work for me, so it's not like I just adopted it because the guide said so

 

[the Jester]

I took the weakest version listed in the 4e MM.

Sure, but I don't know that "weakest" = "baseline" with 4e monsters. It's a very relative thing and hard to pin down.

 

[Lanefan]

In those earlier versions class level did not equal character level.

True for multiclass characters. In 3e your char. level is the sum of all your class levels. In 1e-2e the concept of "character level" really didn't exist: a 5th-Fighter/4th MU was just that, a 5-4 F-MU; about equivalent to a 6th overall but not really.

With single class types the two level types match.

Lan-"amused that characters with no class can still have class levels"-efan

 

[Votan]

IIRC, in a thread on Dragonsfoot Frank Mentzer said you can double the levels on an AD&D module to determine the appropriate character levels in BECMI.

Does that still work after the first half dozen levels? I'd start think that an 18th level BECMI character would be a lot tougher than a 9th level AD&D character. The spells in BECMI are a lot more balanced but the raw damage would seem to overawe the opposition. . .