Meek to mighty... in a month

[FitzTheRuke]

Is the attempt to erase the "five minute work day" from D&D going to result in the opposite problem, the "meek to mighty in a month"?

By which I mean, if the party can handle 3 or 4 encounters in a day, they are going to get quite a bit of experience in a single day quite likely raising a few levels a week. The problem with this is the characters appear to go from bumbling beginner to the best swordsman/cutpurse/spellcaster in the land in only a few short months.

Here is how I see the 4th edition designers' attempt to avoid this problem:

Increasing travel time by cutting down on teleports, etc.
-- One of the best ways to pass time in any editon is the time it takes to get places. This allows for a "catch up" period when the characters are not adventuring. This really is only effective in heroic teir I suppose.

Increasing the competence of first level characters
-- The competence of 4e first level characters suggests that they may actually have years of experience already, even a first level. With a good solid base to their training, picking up extra tricks (read powers) along the way is simply a matter of tweaking an already functional skill set. Therefore, they already were incredibly skilled compared to "normal" people.

Smoothing the power curve
-- It's not like any character can really tell the difference between having a +6 attack and a +12, for example. In the world of the game the third-party observed contest between a 4th level fighter named Jack and a 10th level one named Greg would likely be described, "Look at them fight! Ooh I think Greg's got the edge in the skills department!" So it's not like the difference is immediately apparent.

Otherwise, they might suggest that the DM pass time between adventures, in various ways.

What do you think?

Fitz

 

[Gort]

I must say, I do love the return of travelling - well, at least the extension of travelling. A lot of creatures - animals, for instance - only really make a great deal of sense to encounter out in the wild, and if players are only going to be in locations of interest like castles, dungeons, wizards towers, and crypts because they teleport between them instead of walking, those encounters are gone.

There are also lots of situations you can set up in the wilderness that don't make a great deal of sense in a dungeon - the dungeon would have to be specifically designed to cause the situation, while in the wild it can just happen cause that's the way the terrain turned out.

I take a bit of issue with your second statement - a 1st level character doesn't necessarily have to have "years of training". Sure, that's a fine concept for a character - the grizzled armsman who's seen it all. But I still think the transition to 1st level could be any number of things - being the chosen of the gods, having a great destiny, making a terrible pact with terrible forces beyond man (see warlocks), or simply being extremely naturally talented. Keep in mind that 1st level characters are at the bottom of a massive ladder. What they have is potential rather than vast skill per se. See the example "human guard" in the monsters threads for example.

I've been playing an old RPG lately, called Pendragon. It's Arthurian legend so you're all playing knights, and the game models families, running estates, histories, and so on. The way it works is you have your group adventure for the year, then you have something called the "winter phase", where you do all your personal stuff, like adventuring solo (you just roleplay this with the DMs permission) and running your estate. What this does is makes sure characters get a chance to age and raise families and invest and all that kind of long-term stuff - you don't just spend a week adventuring solidly and hit level 20 at the end of it.

Of course, the result is a race for glory before your pitifully short human lifespan expires, but that's as it should be

Elves and dwarves might make that troublesome though, with their hundreds of years lifespans.

 

[Revinor]

By which I mean, if the party can handle 3 or 4 encounters in a day, they are going to get quite a bit of experience in a single day quite likely raising a few levels a week. The problem with this is the characters appear to go from bumbling beginner to the best swordsman/cutpurse/spellcaster in the land in only a few short months.

I think it was always a case. I don't think that number of encounters per day is important - even in 3e, if you put dense encounters (every day an encounter or two), you will get players to 20th level in few months in-game time.

3e had time sinks which prevented this from happening - IMC magic item creation was most time consuming. Scribing spells was another big time sink. Travel times could be also used for that, but phantom steed was helping a lot, teleport was solving the problem - but anyway, not every campaign require huge amount of traveling.

Biggest question here, why are you worried? D&D is not for simulating any kind of 'fantasy reality' from books/whatever - it is not even able to simulate it's own world. Player rules are different from rest of the world rules. Just because some NPC took 20 years to get 5th level wizard, doesn't mean that players have to do it same way. Adding artificial time sinks can hide the problem, but problems stays the same (characters will advance to 20/30lvl in few months of activity time, with any amount of time sinks not advancing them even a slight bit). Advancing from 1st to 10th in a week and then travelling on the ship for half a year does not make advancement rate 1.5 levels a month.

I would suggest you forgetting about the issue. Players are like very aggresive exchange option players - they gamble everything on knockout products, being able to gain 10x money in week, but having 90% chance of losing everything (dying in case of PCs). Other people invest in safe bonds, getting 5x return after 40 years, with 0.001% of losing the money (NPCs in this case). I think it is more fun to play aggressive version of investors, rather then pension fund.

 

[keterys]

One of my first 3.0 games involved the party levelling from 1 to 20 in approximately a month of game time... nothing new here, moving right along.

 

[Wiman]

My first impression based on your assumptions (which are on the money) is that characters are already mighty.....perhaps saying the mighty to the mightiest may be a better description. 4e definately goes back to the "players are heros" of earlier editions which in my mind is a good thing.

 

[FourthBear]

I think this is best taken care of in the DM's campaign design. There's no reason that each adventure in a campaign has to follow immediately on the heels of the previous. That's certainly one way to do it, but if so, the DM shouldn't be surprised at the rapid pace of advancement. I would suggest significant downtime between not only adventures, but even between encounters within an adventure. Exploration, research, social interactions, training, vocations and many other things can happen at the table that aren't level-appropriate challenges that need to be considered for advancement.

Of course, the other way to manage it is simply to adjust the number of XPs that characters receive for challenges. You could even apply a sliding scale, perhaps 1 for 1 in the Heroic Tier, 1 for 2 in the Paragon Tier and 1 for 3 in the Epic Tier, if you want advancement to slow as you go up in levels (as per 1e and 2e). Or dispense with XPs entirely and have the DM give out levels as seems appropriate to the pacing of the campaign.

 

[Engilbrand]

A lot of people seem to think that 1st level means "weak and inexperienced". That may have been the case in other editions, but not in this one. Normal people can basically just be treated like minions. They're the ones who are weak and inexperienced. The 1st level characters have had their "Hero genes" activated. I'm thinking about just telling players, "For most people, as long as you hit, you can do any amount of damage to them up to killing them. You want to break the farmer's arm? You can do that. Snap his neck? You can do it. Knock him unconscious? Fine. All that you have to do is hit AC and you're good to go." Won't they be surprised when they try that on a retired adventurer?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Also, I still think people are viewing the power-level of the characters in comparison to 3e. The characters are only as powerful as the world around them and that world in 4e is QUITE POWERFUL.

Yes, level 1 characters in 4e are more survivable, but hardly overpowering or mighty when compared to monsters they would face at their level.

 

[dm4hire]

I agree, it shouldn't matter how long or little it takes. It really is up to the individual DM and his players. With the new emphasis on the planes it would seem that most likely the higher a PC gets the more likely they will turn toward even more grandeur things, whether that be running a kingdom which would slow them down, traveling the planes to one day become a god themselves, or whatever. As long as everyone is having fun it shouldn't matter how long it takes to advance.

 

[MaelStorm]

I think in the DMG there will be guidelines for starting directly at PP or ED.

With the tier-system it opens the possibility to focus more on a tier you like.

If you want a fast progression or a low progression in 4E you can do it too, it's easy. You can tweak XP by doubling/halfing the points you need for leveling up, or by reducing/increasing encounters, etc.

I think this is one of the advantage of the new mechanic in 4E.