NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5777059" data-attributes="member: 54710">That begs the question of what "core" means in 5e.  In 4e, WotC really stretched the definition of "core" to the point where I believe it became unhelpful.  If everything is "core", how is a DM to decide what parts of the game to use in his campaign?If you use "core" in the sense of initial PH/DMG/MM in an AD&D/3.x sense, then I'm not sure I agree.  The type of high-ish level play that paragon represents strikes me as a core part of the game.  I would have been annoyed if the 3.x rulebooks had ended at level 10.  That having been said, I think paragon-level play should include mass combat and kingdom-level challenges that are best suited for a supplement.Of course, it appears that 5e is going in an even more limited sense of "core" where the core game is a super-simple BECMI-style version of the game.  I'm not sure whether or not that means we'll see levels split up BECMI-style also.  If it we do, then -- yes -- paragon wouldn't be core either.  ---------Maybe the tiers shouldn't be as tightly connected to levels?  It's possible that tiers are just as much about game style as they are about power level.  I could imagine a game where you had gritty, high lethality, low power style; a heroic style where the players kick a little more ass; a paragon style where the players have access to disruptive magic (fly, invisibility, long-distance travel) and could lead armies and rule kingdons; and a epic style game where disruptive is trivial and the PCs can fight gods and armies themselves.The DM picks the style of game (which can change over a campaign), by selecting the starting level and particular abilities available.  For example, at lower, you could run a gritty game or a heroic game by deciding whether or not to make "heroic" abilities accessible.  In the upper-levels, a game could be heroic or paragon, depending on the access to disruptive magic and mass combat rules.  At extreme levels, a DM could continue running a paragon (or, feasibly, a heroic) game by allowing bigger modifiers without game-changing powers.  Or the DM could break open the "epic" options and allow the characters to run wild.I don't know if these options would really be useful.  (Do people want 25th level characters who are limited to realistic physical combat and limited types of magic?)  But it's interesting to contemplate breaking the "game style" aspect of tiers from the "power level" component.If nothing else, I think this shines a spot light on a potential error in tier design.  If you've designed a tier system and it upgrades power level without also providing access to a new game style, you're probably doing it wrong.-KS</blockquote>

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