WOTC's research on gaming groups

[Geoffrey]

Thanks to everyone for the info, and thanks to Morrus for the excellent link!

 

[Monte At Home]

I'd be interested to hear what besides PrCs in 3e encourages character growth and development beyond 10th level or so. Clearly BAB, improved spellcasting, and the like aren't different, so those aren't appropriate answers, unless I'm missing something. Perhaps the exclusion of racial level limits is one such design.

Well, first off, even if it was only Prestige Classes, that'd be a pretty big step. In case you haven't noticed, they're kinda popular.

But other things include:

Hit dice progressions that don't stop at 9th or 10th level.
Multiple attacks that increase beyond 13th level
Opening up AC so that it doesn't stop at -10
Opening up saving throws so the progression has no limit
Ditto with skills
A far more balanced mix of spells above 5th level
8th and 9th level cleric and druid spells
More than 2-3 feats worth taking

Could we have done more? Sure. Some classes need more interesting class abiltilies in the teen levels. More monsters need to have much higher ACs.

Some of the things you potentially suggest, however, could potentially discourage multiclassing. (Requiring, say a BAB of 15+ means a fighter/wizard can't get it until 10/10 level.)

 

[DDK]

First off I'd just like to say that there's plenty of reason to go past tenth level, however like Monte just said, there could be more. The best example, IMO, is the rogue. The worst example is... hrm, toss up between the paladin and the ranger. The paladin getting all those remove diseases is just... stoopid and boring. Some more smite attacks, now that'd be good!

Although, beyond tenth level, I reckon the best idea is to have a pool of abilities to choose from like the rogue and simply balance them to the individual classes. Now THAT would be cool.

Well, first off, even if it was only Prestige Classes, that'd be a pretty big step. In case you haven't noticed, they're kinda popular.

Ok, as a side note, I simply *have* to ask this. Whatever happened to your stance on PrC's? I remember going, "Yay! Monte agrees, there are too many PrC's!" and then in every book you put out, there are more and more PrC's...

Catering to a market is all very well and good, but whinging about it beforehand and THEN catering to it is... well...

 

[Monte At Home]

Ok, as a side note, I simply *have* to ask this. Whatever happened to your stance on PrC's? I remember going, "Yay! Monte agrees, there are too many PrC's!" and then in every book you put out, there are more and more PrC's...

Catering to a market is all very well and good, but whinging about it beforehand and THEN catering to it is... well...

Please remind me where I said that additional prestige classes are bad. As the designer of the first few prestige classes, and the guy who wrote the article on how to design them, I find it weird that I would have taken the stance that people should stop making them.

I can remembering saying that many prestige classes are bad (particularly in the early days). And I can remember saying that obligatory (filler) prestige classes are bad. I can even remember saying that certain types of prestige classes (those geared solely for one class, for example) are bad.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Well, first off, even if it was only Prestige Classes, that'd be a pretty big step. In case you haven't noticed, they're kinda popular.

But other things include:

Hit dice progressions that don't stop at 9th or 10th level.
Multiple attacks that increase beyond 13th level
Opening up AC so that it doesn't stop at -10
Opening up saving throws so the progression has no limit
Ditto with skills
A far more balanced mix of spells above 5th level
8th and 9th level cleric and druid spells
More than 2-3 feats worth taking

Could we have done more? Sure. Some classes need more interesting class abiltilies in the teen levels. More monsters need to have much higher ACs.

Some of the things you potentially suggest, however, could potentially discourage multiclassing. (Requiring, say a BAB of 15+ means a fighter/wizard can't get it until 10/10 level.)

Perhaps d20 has just made me forget everything else, so I take these things for granted.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I certainly don't have any problems getting my players to want to go above 10th level; they love all the options out there and simply PrC out of the classes that start to get boring after 10th (which is really just the fighter).

It is more work for the harried GM once you get above 10th. I like to include monstrous opponents with class level boosts to hit the right challenge ratings and that takes prep time. What would really make high level play more feasible is high-quality bad guy preparation software.

 

[Wolfspirit]

In the past two years, my play group only had one campaign that got to above level 10; I think we all got to about 14th level. The groups I've DMed for have only gotten to about level 5 tops, before half the group would have time conflicts and have to drop.

One of the problems with my play group is that we keep starting new campaigns. This is partly due to switching DMs, or having half the people move, or the campaign just plain starting to suck. I don't think my friends really have a qualm with higher levels, it's just coincidence that we don't get there.

 

[Alzrius]

Someone should have told the designers this, then. Essentially the game supports levels 1-10, and now 21+. The highest prerequisite for a feat is BAB 9+, (2) BAB 8+, and (2) Spellcaster level 12th+. Prestige classes are about the only nod to 10th-20th levels.

Spycraft has feat chains that require character leves all the way up to 18th.

I'd be interested to hear what besides PrCs in 3e encourages character growth and development beyond 10th level or so.

On the mention of feats, I wanted to point out that most people seem to think that feats designed with intrinsically high-level prerequisites are somehow unfair. The reactions to seeing such high-power-with-high-prerequisite feats seem to be "now my DM has more to give his high-level NPCs to screw us over!" or "It's gonna take me forever to get that!" I vaguely recall that there were quite a few people on Monte's message boards who had trouble swallowing the concept of the Eldritch feats he introduced in the BoEM series.

Ironically, this is probably the attitude taken by a large degree of the people who complain that there isn't any real reason to push past 10th level.

The way I see it, things like Eldritch feats are exactly what the game needs more of. High-level (and epic level, but thats beyond what is being discussed here) should be when your character has seriously started to become unique. You've had progressively more levels, more feat choices, more bonus ability points, etc., to branch out from something common. It's natural that better, stronger options should be open to you then, things that lower-level characters are in awe of, or even don't fully understand.

And of course, thats not even taking into account things like prestige classes, and new spells, but thats beyond what I was talking about.

On a related note, my own campaign ran from February 2000 to March 2001, but not during June-August 2000 since we were off on summer break. We had about four players, though "guest" players came and went semi-regularly, and the campaign stopped around 13th level.

I suppose it takes the wind out of what I was semi-ranting about above to mention that I fell pretty much perfectly in the research demographic.

 

[el-remmen]

My own group has played in the same campaign for nearly 2 years (22 months) - and the last group I ran before that was three and a half years (under 2E rules).

I have never liked "starting over" clean since I design pretty long-term campaigns.

I have not used the standard XP awards in 3E however - not including the dwarf that lost two levels the average party level (in my current game) is about to be 7th.

That is about a level every 7 sessions (we play every other week for 6 1/2 hours) seems about right to me - we have no intention of starting over any time soon (unless a total party kill occurs).

Interestingly, my 3.5 year 2E game had the highest level PC be 7th level. . . before there was a total party kill. . . We played that game every week - but had a few instances of 1 to 3 month hiatuses - so with about the same frequency of my current game when you spread it out.

 

[d20Dwarf]

I don't think I've ever been involved in a campaign that ran past 12th-level or so, even when we started at 5th level. Things like +1 BAB and 1 more rank in a skill just aren't very exciting. Aside from prestige classes (and I'll throw a nod in here for legendary classes), there just aren't that many exciting options for levels 10-20.