Which level cap do you prefer?

[Dragonblade275]

Dragonblade - The multiclassing idea is pretty smart. I should have thought of that. =)

Thanks, Rycanada. I actually think that by doing it this way, you could even cap the overall level at 12th without too much trouble.

The other ideas that have been suggested that I like are changing the XP requirements for each level and perhaps the idea about using the D20 Modern spellcasting rules (though I'm not familiar enough with them to say, but so far it sounds good).

If I were to change the XP requirements, here's what I'd use.

LVL XP
1 0
2 3,000
3 12,000
4 30,000
5 60,000
6 105,000
7 168,000
8 252,000
9 360,000
10 495,000
11 660,000
12 858,000

This changes the formula for XP from

XP = ((LVL^2)-LVL)*500 to XP = ((LVL^3)-LVL)*500.

It's a cubed progression instead of a squared progression. If that's not slow enough, I'd also cut the XP awards in half from 2nd to 6th level. And, in half again from 7th to 12th level.

I might still allow extra feats to be bought with XP, too. Don't know, though.

The idea of a level cap is interesting. I actually like it very much. Not sure if I could get my players to go along with it, though. And, the main player didn't like the my alternate XP progression chart, either, because of the exponential increase in XP required for each level.

I'm running The Shackled City, right now, anyway. So, alternate XP progressions aren't really a factor in an out of the box campaign. Next campaign I hope to run is the 3.5 revision of the original Dragonlance. That one will need an adjusted XP table because characters in the old days didn't gain levels nearly as quickly as in 3.5.

 

[Li Shenron]

I've been over this before in my 6th-level epic rules design thread.

More recently, there was the discussion of D&D changing by design every 5 levels. My players love playing this way, because you don't get into wonky superhero stuff, you really stick to the "We're awesome but lord of the rings awesome" kind of stuff. We've been playing with the 6th level cap for ages.

But I'm thinking of changing the cap to 10th, but I want to keep the magic level about the same.

You should have mentioned this in the first post!

So do I understand right that the two options are these:

1) allow all core classes, cap them at 6th level, continue advancement with your "epic" system

2) ban Wiz/Sor/Cle/Dru, cap all others at 10th level, continue advancement with your "epic" system

If this is the case, I think that before banning the 4 spellcasters you should address the idea from your setting point of view. This of the consequences not having ANY of them in your world (although this changes with your HR system, which I don't know): for instance, magic items are created only by Bards and Warlocks. Healing potions are created only by Bards, so they will probably be extremely rare, etc.

I would probably vote 1) as it is a less dramatic change, but YMMV.

You could also consider a hybrid approach, where you cap everyone (without banned classes) at 10th level, but you also cap spells, so that for instance all spells beyond level 3 do not exist. Spellcasters use higher spell level slots (4th and 5th level) to cast spells of lower levels, eventually metamagicked.

 

[Dragonblade275]

You could also consider a hybrid approach, where you cap everyone (without banned classes) at 10th level, but you also cap spells, so that for instance all spells beyond level 3 do not exist. Spellcasters use higher spell level slots (4th and 5th level) to cast spells of lower levels, eventually metamagicked.

This idea sounds good, too. Keep the slots, but only allow actual spells of third level or lower... possibly with metamagic.

Very good.

This would work well with spell points, too. Just more spell points at levels above sixth instead of 4th (or higher) level spells.

 

[Maldor]

Maldor, my players LOVE getting more and more and more and more feats, but otherwise staying at the cap. Getting to the cap is like saying "Hey, we've made it, we're badass, now we're going to get more versatile."

hey if both you and the players love it go for it but make sure they like the cap thing i just got bored with it but i never thought of 6-12 level or any levels really as the sweet spot i see levels as part of the game the closes thing the game has to a goal (not counting fun becuase thats a out of game goal) but then thats me.

 

[mhensley]

How many sessions of play does it take for your group to get to 6th level?

 

[Ry]

Despite their love of story and roleplaying, they act like a bunch of freaking commandos once the dice hit the table. By regular xp rules, they typically do about 1 level per 6hr session - that's if I play it totally straight. Next game I'm planning on doubling the amount you need to gain a level but including my system for problem-solving XP to make up (some of) the gap.

 

[The Levitator]

By regular xp rules, they typically do about 1 level per 6hr session - that's if I play it totally straight. Next game I'm planning on doubling the amount you need to gain a level but including my system for problem-solving XP to make up (some of) the gap.

Holy Moly! You guys get in 13 encounters in a session? I thought we had a lot of encounters by averaging 1 an hour! And we use DM Genie with its autoroll feature, and I've been told by a lot of players that our combat flies. To make it even faster, we have a 12 second real time rule (you have 12 seconds from the start of your turn to begin declaring actions, or you are considered delaying). For us, a 6th level, 4 person party, fighting 4 equal creatures (8 combatants total), in a fight that lasts 10 rounds (our average, we do a lot of outdoor encounters on really big maps), takes about 20-30 minutes. I think that means we average resolving the average combat round in less than 3 minutes. In a 5-6 hour session, we typically spend between 2 and 2 1/2 hours in combat, with the rest being storyline and roleplay. I don't think the group would like much more combat than that, but even if they did, I don't think we could get 13 encounters in per session unless I just lined them up back to back and skipped a lot of detail in between. Levelling is a bit slower for us because I give 50% of Core for killing creatures, and give the rest as roleplaying EXP. So my players probably level on an average of around 15-17 encounters/level.

I guess I'm a bit of a speed freak, so I'm always looking for ways to speed up combat. I thought that the combination of using DM Genie and its autoroll feature and our 12 second rule made it about as fast as possible. I mean, we don't even throw dice and we don't get through 13 encounters per session. I would love to hear more about how you are able to run combat so quickly. I don't want to derail your thread though because I really like this idea of going epic at an earlier level. Feel free to PM me with tips on running combat faster. In fact, I like your level cap idea so much, that in our new campaign that just started last Sunday, we are going to try capping at 10th. We don't usually go beyond 12th or so normally, partly because the party levels up a little slower than Core and partly because we feel like the game bogs down (in combat) after 12th level. I thought that we would dip our toes in the water first and try capping right around the time we would normally be wrapping up a campaign and try pushing it a little further past with the cap idea and see how the players like it.

It will be a while before I'll be able to report our experience, as we only game every other week. So the party levels up about once per month or so. 3 of us are old-timey gamers ('78, '80 and '81) so we prefer a slower progression. I was tempted to try out the 6th level cap on this campaign. But I have triple digit hours into the design of this campaign, and was too afraid to throw something new in that might throw a wrench in our gears by needing to get used to a new way to progress. Overall though, the group unanomously likes the idea!

 

[mhensley]

Holy Moly! You guys get in 13 encounters in a session?

That's only if all of your encounters are EL = party level. It seems like the trend is to have fewer encounters of higher EL.

I'm kind of surprised by the speed of leveling for his group though. If he plays every week, his group hits the ceiling after a month and a half. That would be far too short a time for me as either a player or dm. But if he only plays once a month, its about right IMO.

 

[The Levitator]

That's only if all of your encounters are EL = party level. It seems like the trend is to have fewer encounters of higher EL.

That part I get, though I think I must approach experience a little differently than many DM's. My players don't need 13 encounters to get the EXP per se. Not every encounter earns my players EXP. I prefer to throw more difficult encounters on average at my players than the DMG suggests. But I try to balance it out with easy encounters, that while they don't really earn the party EXP, gets the number of actual encounters closer to the 13/level guide.

The DMG has a guide of

Easy: 10%
Easy if Handled Properly: 20%
Challenging: 50%
Difficult: 15%
Overwhelming: 5%

My guide is more like

Easy: 20%
Easy if Handled Properly: 20%
Challenging: 30%
Very Difficult: 15%
Overwhelming: 15%

I like to spead things out a little more evenly than the DMG I guess.

 

[Drowbane]

... none of the above? I'd offer to run Star Wars and steal all your players.

Cheers, -- N

QFT