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<blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7724884" data-attributes="member: 6778044"><p>Yes, but not in the way you describe.</p><p></p><p>First off, in AD&D and now 5e, the system does stay fairly static, and when you level up it does increase your effectiveness. Monsters don't increase in difficulty themselves, although you tend to challenge more difficult monsters. In contrast 4e was designed so everything scaled. Your AC, attack bonuses, etc. were all higher at 10th level than 1st, and the monsters scaled with you.</p><p></p><p>So my campaigns have (always had) very, very slow advancement. Levels 1-3 are fairly quick, you're learning your craft, and I like that many of the classes don't gain their archetype until 3rd level. After that, level advancement slows to a crawl in my campaign. Two years of play might get to 5th or maybe 7th level, and after that it levels off even more.</p><p></p><p>One of the reasons is exactly what you describe. It presents a world where a skilled team of adventurers succeeds not because of increasing power, but because of good use of the power they have, and finding solutions. Research, alliances (including with enemies), finding legendary items, etc. are all a big part of the play.</p><p></p><p>The sense of achievement is constant, and I'd argue, lasts much longer than most campaigns. Why? Because the goals are different. Instead of one of the major goals being advancement, and the acquisition of new powers, the goals are firmly rooted in the setting and the adventures themselves. Success is measured by...success.</p><p></p><p>WotC has talked about trying to expand the sweet spot, but I think the best way to expand it is to not leave it. If the adventures, the goals, the stories, and such are compelling, then achievement is through the success of the adventures (and they are never 100% successful).</p><p></p><p>I have had players that have played the same character for 6 or more years. With the ever increasing speed of level advancement in the rules, most characters level-out of the game now in as few as several months. </p><p></p><p>A mechanical or rules-based reward system really isn't needed. Although I tend to have more magic items in my campaign, most of them are consumables of some sort or another. Wands still have a finite number of charges. Which means that they also don't typically always have the same options all the time. For several adventures, they had a <em>wand of fireballs</em> which obviously affected their tactics. As the few charges were used up, they started saving it for "the right time" and switched to different tactics and abilities. So their "abilities" are always changing, based on what they have available to them, among other things. With most of them being temporary, it has a built in mechanic to encourage further adventure to gain new "abilities" without having to worry about their power level as much since they aren't permanent.</p><p></p><p>It also means the abilities are not given as much importance by the players. They don't define their characters, they are just tools. Instead, the characters are defined more by their personality and actions, their relationship to the world around them. Yes, there is nothing stopping any campaign from doing this. But when you remove the level-ups, many of the "cool" special abilities, then the focus shifts away from those cool special abilities.</p><p></p><p>To look at it a different way, when character gain special abilities, players want to use them. They often get annoyed when they don't come into play as often as they'd like, or if circumstances reduces the effectiveness, or removes their ability to use them altogether. But when the special abilities come from a magic item, and is known to be of a limited number of uses, they look for opportunities to make the most of that ability, and it's very cool when they get the chance to use it. Then it's done.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I highly, highly recommend considering slow (or even no) level advancement. We also have level limits based on ability scores, they are more restrictive than AD&D, and ASIs only give you a +1 to an ability, so in many cases you're limited to a maximum level. And yet parties of 5th - 7th level characters still do take on dragons and such. A further step is to carefully consider what abilities to keep, modify, or remove/replace altogether. </p><p></p><p>I still buy every D&D book for ideas and such, but rarely use any of the new races, classes, etc. For a game company, publishing new stuff obviously makes a lot of sense. That's their business. But it doesn't mean we need to get caught up in all of the new stuff ourselves. Just because Power Creep might exist in the publications themselves doesn't mean it has to affect my campaign.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ilbranteloth, post: 7724884, member: 6778044"] Yes, but not in the way you describe. First off, in AD&D and now 5e, the system does stay fairly static, and when you level up it does increase your effectiveness. Monsters don't increase in difficulty themselves, although you tend to challenge more difficult monsters. In contrast 4e was designed so everything scaled. Your AC, attack bonuses, etc. were all higher at 10th level than 1st, and the monsters scaled with you. So my campaigns have (always had) very, very slow advancement. Levels 1-3 are fairly quick, you're learning your craft, and I like that many of the classes don't gain their archetype until 3rd level. After that, level advancement slows to a crawl in my campaign. Two years of play might get to 5th or maybe 7th level, and after that it levels off even more. One of the reasons is exactly what you describe. It presents a world where a skilled team of adventurers succeeds not because of increasing power, but because of good use of the power they have, and finding solutions. Research, alliances (including with enemies), finding legendary items, etc. are all a big part of the play. The sense of achievement is constant, and I'd argue, lasts much longer than most campaigns. Why? Because the goals are different. Instead of one of the major goals being advancement, and the acquisition of new powers, the goals are firmly rooted in the setting and the adventures themselves. Success is measured by...success. WotC has talked about trying to expand the sweet spot, but I think the best way to expand it is to not leave it. If the adventures, the goals, the stories, and such are compelling, then achievement is through the success of the adventures (and they are never 100% successful). I have had players that have played the same character for 6 or more years. With the ever increasing speed of level advancement in the rules, most characters level-out of the game now in as few as several months. A mechanical or rules-based reward system really isn't needed. Although I tend to have more magic items in my campaign, most of them are consumables of some sort or another. Wands still have a finite number of charges. Which means that they also don't typically always have the same options all the time. For several adventures, they had a [I]wand of fireballs[/I] which obviously affected their tactics. As the few charges were used up, they started saving it for "the right time" and switched to different tactics and abilities. So their "abilities" are always changing, based on what they have available to them, among other things. With most of them being temporary, it has a built in mechanic to encourage further adventure to gain new "abilities" without having to worry about their power level as much since they aren't permanent. It also means the abilities are not given as much importance by the players. They don't define their characters, they are just tools. Instead, the characters are defined more by their personality and actions, their relationship to the world around them. Yes, there is nothing stopping any campaign from doing this. But when you remove the level-ups, many of the "cool" special abilities, then the focus shifts away from those cool special abilities. To look at it a different way, when character gain special abilities, players want to use them. They often get annoyed when they don't come into play as often as they'd like, or if circumstances reduces the effectiveness, or removes their ability to use them altogether. But when the special abilities come from a magic item, and is known to be of a limited number of uses, they look for opportunities to make the most of that ability, and it's very cool when they get the chance to use it. Then it's done. Anyway, I highly, highly recommend considering slow (or even no) level advancement. We also have level limits based on ability scores, they are more restrictive than AD&D, and ASIs only give you a +1 to an ability, so in many cases you're limited to a maximum level. And yet parties of 5th - 7th level characters still do take on dragons and such. A further step is to carefully consider what abilities to keep, modify, or remove/replace altogether. I still buy every D&D book for ideas and such, but rarely use any of the new races, classes, etc. For a game company, publishing new stuff obviously makes a lot of sense. That's their business. But it doesn't mean we need to get caught up in all of the new stuff ourselves. Just because Power Creep might exist in the publications themselves doesn't mean it has to affect my campaign. [/QUOTE]
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