Tiers as Treasure

[Raith5]

I like this idea. I have always disliked that prestige classes and paragon paths came at set levels. I would like to see PC and PP stem from real campaign interactions rather than a set level, ie when a PC Paladin serves his deity or meets a Paladin of a set order, then the PC can instigate obtaining the PC/PP. This would be more organic and fits in with the general thrust of the OP of decoupling mechanical and organic aspects of campaigns.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Doesn't sound like any edition of D&D I ever played, and not a way would ever choose to play. For myself, I want to see my char go up in levels & get more "things" to do, fight tougher foes. No interest in being 1st level for more than the briefest of time. Certainly not 6,000 adventures!

 

[I'm A Banana]

As a player, if I didn't want to start going vertical again yet, could I choose to remain at a lower tier for longer?

It's sort of like: "Can I choose not to gain a level? Can I throw away my magic items?"

It would seem a bit of a conflict to keep folks at different tiers. If you're Zero Tier and all your friends are Heroic Tier (or Epic Tier, or whatever), they're going to be clearly and obviously stronger than you. So this lies more at the campaign-level kind of decision. It's pretty obviously unbalanced to have a god in a party of rat-killers, or a rat-killer in a party of gods.

So while I don't think anyone would or should STOP you, it's probably not the greatest idea, from a party-balance standpoint (generations of fighters-who-hit-things alongside wizards-who-terraform-reality have shown that this kind of dichotomy really rubs some folks wrong). Of course, you're probably broadly compatible with each other, if the math is flat enough -- a high-Heroic tier and a low-Champion tier character are different classes of characters, but their numbers aren't TOO far apart. Heck, if you LIKE linear warriors/quadratic wizards, maybe your wizards can become immortal lich-kings in the Epic tier, but your fighters are limited to Heroic tier, and if they want to get stronger, they'll need to multiclass. I don't like that idea as a baseline, but it is something this option would enable -- some folks could conceivably get a Tier while others did not. Unbalanced, but if balance isn't a big concern for you, sure, why not?

For myself, I want to see my char go up in levels & get more "things" to do, fight tougher foes.

Sounds like it should work for you then! Within a tier, you get more things to do and fight tougher foes as you level up, and when the DM gives you a new tier, you fight EVEN TOUGHER foes, and continue to get new things to do and tougher foes to fight.

It's not automatic, but that's sort of the point -- you can always make it automatic for your games (max out a tier, move on to the next), but someone who never wants to bother with the other tiers doesn't need to. And D&D can still broadly assume the transition happens at some point, statting out monsters and assigning spells based on where they sit in the tier structure. Granting wishes and fighting the Terrasque sounds Epic, but a Fireball and killing Gnolls sounds merely Heroic (and possibly even Zero), and long-distance Teleporting and fighting most Demons sounds more in line with Champion (for example; not suggesting that they have to be that).

 

[Argyle King]

It's sort of like: "Can I choose not to gain a level? Can I throw away my magic items?"

.

Not exactly... The choice being given is vertical growth or breadth of options. (On a side note, I don't like having to make that choice.) If I'm a level away from getting one of my current options to expand and give me some of the choices I want and then the DM suddenly decides the group is going to shift into vertical mode, that potentially bones me out of a choice I wanted. I might want to delay myself a level to get the breadth, and then just catch back up to the rest of the group on the vertical scale later.

That's one thing I would potentially find bothersome about this idea. There may be times when I'm forced to choose between an option I think is cool and an option the system (or the DM in this case) says I need to have to remain relevant in the game. That is exactly the problem that a lot of feats (and magic items in some circumstances) currently have.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Johnny3D3D, I think the idea of tiers as treasure is the opposite of the choice you posit.

Instead its, you are heroic tier and have reached the point where vertical advancement is over, you have to broaden your character.... then when the GM awards the next tier it becomes 'hey, you can vertically advance again, or continue to broaden your character.'

If each tier came with a built in vertical increase to start with the choice in each tier becomes to either specialize or generalize.. with both being viable due to the math being restricted into a subset of levels. You no longer have the generalist lose ground against the specialist over 20 or 30 levels... instead you are, at worst, 5 levels behind.
This still makes the specialist feel special, but playing a Bard no longer is full suckage.


Expanding this some, monsters could be classified by Tiers instead of levels.. not saying that you would never encounter an epic threat as a hero, but they would be scaled appropriately for the tier based math. Ganging up as a Hero to take on a Champion threat would be something the group would plan for and approach with caution. Having an Epic threat show up would be a critical indicator that the heroes should run away

This style also fits into the 'plug in options' idea of 5e. The entire setting could be dialed to any of these tiers and creating a completely different feel. Athas could be written as Heroic, Greyhawk as Champion, etc..


Also I agree with Frostmarrow, having just watched 'Wrath of the Titans' you see a 'demi-god' doing things that a 'normal' human just cannot {blocking a Chimera's fire blast with a flimsy wooden picnic table}. Having scaling effects would be a good way to limit the spell lists/options while still having Epic feeling to the higher level adventures {preferably not just a 'deals +1W'... something cool!}

 

[Argyle King]

Personally, I would strongly prefer the game as a whole to be less vertical and less linear. I also prefer things such as strongholds, allies, and etc to be the result of the in-game progression of the story and campaign rather than being made part of the leveling or tiers scheme.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm a level away from getting one of my current options to expand and give me some of the choices I want and then the DM suddenly decides the group is going to shift into vertical mode, that potentially bones me out of a choice I wanted.

Ah, sorry if it was unclear, but when you're increasing vertically, you can also increase horizontally. It's not a choice between one or the other. It's simply saying that, at a certain point, vertical stops, until the DM/group says otherwise.

So it's never a choice between vertical and horizontal. It's "you get both, or you get only horizontal." If you're a Level 10 Hero, and the DM gives out Champion Tier, you also become a Level 1 Champion. There's no choice about going vertical, you either do it when you gain a level, or you don't.

Personally, I would strongly prefer the game as a whole to be less vertical and less linear. I also prefer things such as strongholds, allies, and etc to be the result of the in-game progression of the story and campaign rather than being made part of the leveling or tiers scheme.

That's exactly what tiers-as-treasure does, though. It means you as DM can give out a reward rather than having it come automagically at level X (and if you want, you can build it in for level X, too).

Let's not get too caught up in the particulars of what getting awarded a keep (or followers or a companion or whatever) does. Think of those things as fluff. Your DM awards you Heroic Tier and maybe you get an NPC sidekick that mostly stays off-screen. Or you get Champion Tier and maybe you get a castle that you can return to after an adventure, but rarely interact with otherwise. You get Epic Tier, and, somewhere out there, folks are building temples to you. None of this has to affect much of the actual play. Or it can, if you want to use the Realm Management Module and the Follower Piety module (or whatever), to add some more detail to these fairly abstract ideas.

All this idea really says is that when you are a Champion, you are something more than what you are when you are merely a Hero, or merely a Zero. You're in a different class of reality. Your soul is bigger. You are more favored. You are better than folks, simply because of what you are. It's sort of the difference between Gandalf and Samwise. This isn't just a difference of level, it's a difference of innate nature.

That never has to come. You could be Emperor of Everything without being anything more than a Zero (since, y'know, most people are probably Zero-tier, and being Emperor of them is largely more a matter of being born right, being lucky, maybe having good military commanding skills).

 

[Argyle King]

Ah, sorry if it was unclear, but when you're increasing vertically, you can also increase horizontally. It's not a choice between one or the other. It's simply saying that, at a certain point, vertical stops, until the DM/group says otherwise.

So it's never a choice between vertical and horizontal. It's "you get both, or you get only horizontal." If you're a Level 10 Hero, and the DM gives out Champion Tier, you also become a Level 1 Champion. There's no choice about going vertical, you either do it when you gain a level, or you don't.



That's exactly what tiers-as-treasure does, though. It means you as DM can give out a reward rather than having it come automagically at level X (and if you want, you can build it in for level X, too).

Let's not get too caught up in the particulars of what getting awarded a keep (or followers or a companion or whatever) does. Think of those things as fluff. Your DM awards you Heroic Tier and maybe you get an NPC sidekick that mostly stays off-screen. Or you get Champion Tier and maybe you get a castle that you can return to after an adventure, but rarely interact with otherwise. You get Epic Tier, and, somewhere out there, folks are building temples to you. None of this has to affect much of the actual play. Or it can, if you want to use the Realm Management Module and the Follower Piety module (or whatever), to add some more detail to these fairly abstract ideas.

All this idea really says is that when you are a Champion, you are something more than what you are when you are merely a Hero, or merely a Zero. You're in a different class of reality. Your soul is bigger. You are more favored. You are better than folks, simply because of what you are. It's sort of the difference between Gandalf and Samwise. This isn't just a difference of level, it's a difference of innate nature.

That never has to come. You could be Emperor of Everything without being anything more than a Zero (since, y'know, most people are probably Zero-tier, and being Emperor of them is largely more a matter of being born right, being lucky, maybe having good military commanding skills).

I misunderstood the original post. Thanks for clarifying.

Personally, I wouldn't want to just think of those things as fluff though. I don't feel they should only be part of the background. If I have allies (or enemies even) that should be a tangible part of the game. Likewise, if I have a castle or land, I don't want that stuff to only matter during a certain mode of play. If that's part of my character, it should be part of my character no matter if I'm slaying kobolds in a dungeon somewhere or trying to woo the daughter of an influential noble.

I would prefer that my character earn those things in play, and in a way which is consistent with the ebb & flow of the campaign's story rather than have those things rewarded as a function of level and/or as a function of treasure parcels. If I successfully conquer, claim, or build a castle, I feel that should become part of my character. Fluff and the mechanics of how the game work should compliment each other; not be at odds or feel like two separate parts of the game.

You had mentioned allowing less abstract treatments of those things via modules. That makes me feel better. However, I'd prefer having a core (and a set of ideals upon which the game is built) which is capable of consistently handling what I want to do whether what I want to do includes going solo or includes gaining allies or maybe wanting to do a little of both. I think having a flatter power curve will help with that. However, a lot of the ideas I've heard about how 5E might (or should) work still seem to have some of the obstacles 4E had for me when trying to tell the some of stories I want to tell and when trying to build some of the worlds I want to build.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I don't think the tiers as treasure idea means that the only way for a PC to 'own' a keep is to be granted Champion tier, however I could see the keep in Champion tier being more than fluff and have an effect on the PCs power/influence.

For 3x I had developed a skill and feats variant paladin that bled over into the Cleric class. One of the things I came up with was a feat tree that the character invested in roadside alters, village prayer huts, and eventually temples. These locations added to the clerics influence, directly in the case of spell power, and tied them to the land in some way.
This also had an interesting side effect that, when chasing down a divine caster BBEG, you would want to go consecrate their unholy locations in order to leech their power. Of course, they could do the same to you.

In the 'heroic' tier, someone trashing your roadside alter simply meant you had to build a new one.. or perhaps you had more than you 'needed' for your level. When you got a temple it would be similar to 'champion' tier in which a location becomes more central to the campaign story.

All that to say, I have no problem with the idea of a Heroic PC taking up a keep or settling an arcane university.. but think that the Champion tier would have mechanics that leverage these 'fluff' items into a more integral part of the character.... which coincidentally would be an increase in complexity of the game.


Another thought struck me about the OP... with this system you could more readily show the seasoned warrior adventuring with the fresh faced farm kid. The seasoned warrior will have more breadth, but still not be so mathematically superior to the farm kid.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Personally, I wouldn't want to just think of those things as fluff though.

Yeah, I'd probably want to drill down a little bit on all those, too, but for the basic game, handling them abstractly and distantly is probably smart -- keeps those folks who don't really want to worry about it from having to schlep the baggage just because they want to be mighty!

I would prefer that my character earn those things in play, and in a way which is consistent with the ebb & flow of the campaign's story rather than have those things rewarded as a function of level and/or as a function of treasure parcels.

Well, this would be more like awarding an artifact or something -- not part of randomly rolled treasure, or treasure-by-level, just something the DM chooses to give out (or not) when the DM determines it appropriate, when the DM and the group WANT that change to be introduced to their game. Wording it as "treasure" makes it really easy to give it out as a reaction to things that happen during play: save the village, maybe you'll get a Tier! That level of precise choice is one of the big strengths of the idea, I think!

However, a lot of the ideas I've heard about how 5E might (or should) work still seem to have some of the obstacles 4E had for me when trying to tell the some of stories I want to tell and when trying to build some of the worlds I want to build.

How's this idea do that? I'm eager to make it better, since it's just an initial brainfart.