Remove Expected Wealth Levels

[FireLance]

Either way, with items or without you are still on a bonus treadmill and have to keep up in order to be of any use. How bout ditching the need for tons of tems OR 'just because' bonuses and reducing overall numbers bloat?

I believe that in a manner not unlike the "what the customer wanted" swing cartoons, the "PC progression math" of 4e started out with a rather simple objective that gradually got more and more complicated.

The first, rather simple idea: To make adjusting monsters on the fly easy for the DM, increasing a monster by one level should increase its attack bonus and AC and other defenses by 1, and its hp by a number (6 to 10) according to its role.

Step two: This creates a 29-point difference between a 1st-level monster and a 30th-level monster. In order for the PCs to keep up, they need to gain about +29 to attack rolls and AC and other defenses between 1st to 30th level.

Step three: Level-based increases should take care of some of the difference. We'll go with a rather simple 1 point per 2 levels, instead of a more complicated formula like 2 per 3 levels or 3 per 4 levels. That takes care of 15 points, leaving us with 14.

Step four: Ability score increases would further close the gap. 3e gave +1 to an ability score once every 4 levels. To make it easier for the players to remember, we'll give out a +1 to two ability scores at every level ending with "4" or "8", and at the start of the Paragon and Epic tiers. That makes +8 to two ability scores, which accounts for another 4 points, leaving 10.

Step five: Traditionally, we also have enhancement bonuses from magic items. Since they can now go up to +6, that leaves just 4 points. We'll have a variety of methods to close the final 4 points: some feats, some item bonuses, some powers, etc. Most players would have one or two of these, and even if they don't, a four-point gap probably shouldn't be crippling.

So you see, if they were willing to use more complicated formulae for monster math or PC level-based increases, we wouldn't "need" magic items to balance the math: a 2/3 progression (+20 over 30 levels) would reduce the "required" bonus from magic items from +6 to +1, and a 3/4 progression (+22 over 30 levels) would eliminate it entirely.

 

[BobTheNob]

I absolutely hate the way 4e handled it, and wouldn't ever have that. I like the idea of no chart at all and depending it on game type and challenges.

I will be honest that in the early days of 4e I had my reservations but I followed the DMg very closely and have to say that early to mid heroic it was just fine.

Toward mid paragon it had just turned into a pain. It was more like work ensuring party members were kitted up. As a dm I'm a big believer in enjoying the dming experience and stressing over keeping everyone's gear up to date, as you need to in 4e, just became painful.

It was at this stage in our game that dmg2 came out with inherent bonus. So, the party got captured, repreatadly tortutred/resurrected/tortrued/resurrected for the next ten years and spent the next adventure escaping a city in a pocket dimension. Long story short, it was a good chance to clean slate equipment and start up with inherent bonus.

It changed everything for the better. Equipment was still interesting (they still found loot that did stuff) but I was no longer stuck in the equipment cycle nightmare. So much better.

 

[Lwaxy]

Good point about the tracking, but usually the groups I'm in, with few exceptions, don't have an abundance of enhancing items to begin with.

 

[airwalkrr]

The point has been brought up (or at least implied) that 4e had the design goal or expectation that a 1st level character fighting a 1st-level monster would have roughly the same chance to hit as a 30th level character fighting a 30th level monster. This would keep the playing field level for characters facing "appropriate" monsters. As has been pointed out, after heroic tier, it was the experience of many that the design goal was not being accomplished very well and required a lot of work on the part of the DM to keep things on an even footing. Various "patches" to the game were eventually seen as necessary by a large number of players (I hesitate to say a majority, but I can make an educated guess that it was) to keep things on the level.

This, more than anything else is the primary reason I am advocating the elimination of character wealth guidelines. The truth of the matter is the WBL chart is a means to ensure players have the right bonus to hit and the right level of defense. It really does not take into account players who take utility items over +X to hit. Any seasoned player knows that the first item you try to acquire is the highest +X to hit and +X to defense in the game. Everything after that is an afterthought. The work involved in keeping the math balanced can end up being both a "magic item tax" and a "feat tax" to keep the game balanced and is needless work for both the DM and the players. If only we were to get rid of this idea that certain items are "needed" to compete at high levels and base the game almost exclusively on character ability vs. monster ability I think it would be a welcome change to the vast majority.

And just to be clear here, I am not necessarily advocating for the complete removal of +X items to the game. We can keep them so long as their availability is tempered by a judicious DM. However, I am saying that we really need to dispense with the notion that at any given level, these items are intrinsically necessary to a character. If a DM decides that he wants to give out an item with a bonus to hit, defense, or ability scores, that should be his prerogative and a way of giving the players an edge, not a necessary element to balance the game.

What I ultimately want is a game that works just as well at any given level whether you have a certain level of wealth or not, and that the presence of valuable items, magic or not, are tangible means of the DM rewarding players. Magic items should go back to being useful and treasured, not expected and necessary.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Not really, no. 1e and 2e both had +n weapon but neither was really set up to require a PC to have them simply to make the math work out. Rather, ACs had a cap. Nothing had an AC better than -10 save for some very special exceptions. Since characters' ability to hit better ACs improved throughout their careers, they were always gaining on the best ACs possible. So with the exception of needing certain pluses to hit for certain creatures, 1e and 2e were the editions least dependent on magic weapons for achieving the "right math" in combat.

The math in AD&D, as you indicated, is truncated. Once you truncate bits of it, anything can happen. In high level AD&D, the game totally changed, and generally you couldn't get past +3 weapons (with a handful of exceptions). Make 3E or 4E limited to +3 weapons spread out over the whole set of levels, with ACs that scale slower, and you'll get the same exact effect--it's broken math, but obscured by other elements.

As for my feelings about said tidbit of information, it's a sorry thing that the developers have to make a house rule for the entire gaming community and add it as an afterthought in a later publication, one that not everyone bought no less.

However, despite my previous statement, AD&D is not nearly as broken as this quote would indicate, carried to its logical conclusion. By that logic, AD&D would be expressly the epitome of "sorry", but it most definitely is not.

Guys, you can shelve the 4E (and 3E) drive by shots and still make really good arguments for separating items from the math. Why don't you try that? Meanwhile, I'm out.

 

[billd91]

The math in AD&D, as you indicated, is truncated. Once you truncate bits of it, anything can happen. In high level AD&D, the game totally changed, and generally you couldn't get past +3 weapons (with a handful of exceptions). Make 3E or 4E limited to +3 weapons spread out over the whole set of levels, with ACs that scale slower, and you'll get the same exact effect--it's broken math, but obscured by other elements.

I think that, clearly, we have different definitions of "broken" math. I don't believe there's anything wrong with a little give in the gears. Balancing the math around a knife's edge, in my opinion, is more "broken" than a little give and take in the math because the game loses tolerance for variations. In AD&D, it was OK to adventure with some significant gaps in levels or stat abilities, but the more a game gets balanced on the knife edge, shooting for some designer's idea of a "sweet spot", the less it tolerates that sort of play and I think that's a terrible shame.

 

[airwalkrr]

billd91 brings up an excellent point, although it is tangential to the primary discussion (which is getting rid of wealth-by-level). I would love to get back the ability to drop a brand new character into the game at 1st level with other players who have been playing for a while who are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th level without necessarily feeling like the 1st level guy is going to be ineffective and not enjoy himself. It has always been my experience that players appreciate characters that they build from the ground up more than characters created at higher levels who do not have the luxury of developing organically. Removing a "you need this much wealth to play" barrier would go a long way towards making this kind of scenario possible again.

 

[drothgery]

billd91 brings up an excellent point, although it is tangential to the primary discussion (which is getting rid of wealth-by-level). I would love to get back the ability to drop a brand new character into the game at 1st level with other players who have been playing for a while who are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th level without necessarily feeling like the 1st level guy is going to be ineffective and not enjoy himself.

Get back? This never existed in any edition of D&D, despite lots of people trying to do it pre-3e.

 

[D'karr]

billd91 brings up an excellent point, although it is tangential to the primary discussion (which is getting rid of wealth-by-level). I would love to get back the ability to drop a brand new character into the game at 1st level with other players who have been playing for a while who are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th level without necessarily feeling like the 1st level guy is going to be ineffective and not enjoy himself. It has always been my experience that players appreciate characters that they build from the ground up more than characters created at higher levels who do not have the luxury of developing organically. Removing a "you need this much wealth to play" barrier would go a long way towards making this kind of scenario possible again.

This never really existed in the game in any consistent workable form without a lot of "handholding" by the DM. I know it was "advertised" as the way to do it but it was as much a lie then as it is now.

Throwing a 1st level character in with a party of 5th level characters was usually suicide. Even more pronounced if the party was at higher levels. If the party was within 3 levels it was somewhat workable.

 

[billd91]

This never really existed in the game in any consistent workable form without a lot of "handholding" by the DM. I know it was "advertised" as the way to do it but it was as much a lie then as it is now.

Throwing a 1st level character in with a party of 5th level characters was usually suicide. Even more pronounced if the party was at higher levels. If the party was within 3 levels it was somewhat workable.

At really low levels, it could be a challenge, but not at all insurmountable. After getting a few hit dice under the belt, however, things widened considerably. We had 4-5 level differences without much issue. I think we also had a gap as wide as 6 levels at one point with an 8th level character and 14th level character in the same party.
Of course, level disparities tended to disappear given the XP progression...