Why 40th level?

[shadowoflameth]

The 4E dungeon master's guide includes XP. rewards for encounters up to 40th level (pg. 120), but player characters only advance levels up to 30th (pg. 121). If, as the DMG says, the intent is for encounters of party level plus 4 levels to be 'hard' (pg. 57), even if you allow for a party of six 30th level characters, that would make a level 34 solo (at 195,000xp.) far above the target reward of 114,000xp. It would also be a very hard encounter, and these are the most powerful characters available by the core rules.

Why then have xp. rewards for 30th level characters if there is never going to be advancement beyond that point? As it is now, if you get to 30th and gain even a million more experience points, you are still 30th level.

Kill a ranger balor riding the terrasque? still 30th level.

My feeling is that either there will soon be an expanded level range to play, or another use for that experience. Perhaps a 4E Savage Species, or Deities and Demi-Gods is in the pipeline.

 

[fba827]

true, 40th may be overdoing it. But you could still, for instance, have a party of level 29 going up against level 34 (or higher) encounters or something. and those level 29s would still want the exp for it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Think of it like this: levels up to 36 or so are perfectly understandable, and after that they probably thought it cheap or silly to end the table thereabouts.

In other words, don't read too much into those three-four "extra" lines...

 

[Byronic]

Better too much then too little. Also look at it this way, you can always play a game where you all start as level 30 divine demigods.

 

[frankthedm]

I would guess the encounters have xp listed up to level 40 JIC:

• The players wind up facing 40th level non solos in the place of a level 30ish solo.
• The players have more power than a typical D&D game.

either that or since the table goes into the 30's, the designers finished the 30's.

 

[Roger]

It's perfect for those times when you want to run two dozen PCs through an epic encounter.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[Prism]

Aiming for an encounter up to 4 levels higher than the party level is about right for an unplanned fight where you aren't especially prepared for a specific creature and you have a few other encounters that day

At these levels we often find that the major fights are often expected and we sometimes have several adventures looking for artifacts, items and allies to help us defeat a specifc monster. I expect our DM would at those levels put us up against a level 40 encounter and expect us to plan appropriately. If we were to fight Orcus for example I would expect a few elite balors and high level undead to be in the room with him, maybe pushing a 36th level encounter. Tiamat with several dragons could get to 40.

Would this work in 4e?...no idea yet but I'm glad the table continues to suggest that it might be

 

[Dice4Hire]

It's perfect for those times when you want to run two dozen PCs through an epic encounter.


Cheers,
Roger

Yeah, nice of the designers to take DM insanity into account.

 

[Danceofmasks]

This is D&D ... insane DMs are sort of inevitable.
Also, there have been several humungous battle interactives at cons already (in 3.5e), so it could happen in LFR.

 

[Lizard]

The level cap will be raised in the expansion.