Slow Leveling

[Melkiador]

Does anyone know why the leveling seems slow in this AP? It only expects you to be level 7 at the beginning of book 4. At that rate, it sounds like the AP ends around level 13.

It's extra odd, because the default xp track in Starfinder is the same as the fast xp track.

[Luke Spencer]

The AP does end around level 13 (it might be 14 but not sure of the top of my head) and they are designed to work this way, or at least the first one is. Honestly doesn't bother me too much because most groups don't even make it to level 13 let a lone go past that point, plus the DCs for certain checks start to get crazy at higher levels.

[Jimbles the Mediocre]

Probably because there's less content in the Dead Suns AP than some (most? all?) Pathfinder APs. The AP is physically smaller and contains fewer encounters and such.

[Steel_Wind]

Melkiador wrote:

Does anyone know why the leveling seems slow in this AP? It only expects you to be level 7 at the beginning of book 4. At that rate, it sounds like the AP ends around level 13.

It's extra odd, because the default xp track in Starfinder is the same as the fast xp track.

It does end at level 12/13.

Yes, these APs are physically smaller in terms of page count by one-third of that in Paizo's Pathfinder RPG line. That, imo, best explains (at least in part) why there is only a Fast Track in Starfinder RPG.

[Note: This has been discussed elsewhere. Check out those threads Here and Here]

However, there is also the problem of designing an Adventure Path before the rules are complete. It makes encounters, especially higher level encounters, more difficult to design and develop 6-12 months before the AP is to be released.

We saw this difficulty emerge with a similar result in the Council of Thieves AP, where the PCs ended up at the end of that AP at about 13th level. Council of Thieves AP, like this one, was written in the year prior to the release of PFRPG. Now, admittedly, they had a more fulsome set of rules to base their designs upon with just presuming default 3.5, but still - the problem was evident then, too.

If Starfinder is the hit it appears to be, it may well be that we'll get a longer AP (physically) a year from now (up to 96 pages) and that we'll also get a larger level range covered by that AP as well.

Or maybe not. I guess we'll see.

[Melkiador]

The price doesn't seem any cheaper though. Shouldn't less content cost less money.

[Steel_Wind]

Melkiador wrote:

The price doesn't seem any cheaper though. Shouldn't less content cost less money.

Dead Suns is $2 less for both the physical book and PDF.

Dead Suns has a much smaller print run than does an issue of Pathfinder AP, which has a robust subscription level and therefore enjoys lower cost per unit.

[bookrat]

PF APs released way faster than I could complete them. It would take us two months to get through one book, and by then book 3 is out. By the end of book 2 we'd already see the next AP advertised and want to play that.

We didn't get through a single AP in all the run of PF.

With the smaller books and slower release, we actually have a chance to get through an AP.

[magnuskn]

The low level cap made me cancel my preorder at Amazon for the first volume. It's too bad, I was quite excited about the idea of running the AP, but I'm not supporting the idea of only doing low-level stuff. Paizo had enough time to try and balance high-level play for their new system, I hope they have the confidence to let players experience it. In the future, at least.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

magnuskn wrote:

The low level cap made me cancel my preorder at Amazon for the first volume. It's too bad, I was quite excited about the idea of running the AP, but I'm not supporting the idea of only doing low-level stuff. Paizo had enough time to try and balance high-level play for their new system, I hope they have the confidence to let players experience it. In the future, at least.

They made the game in a year and a half.

I think starting off with a low-level campaign so that they'd have something ready by release is reasonable.

[HWalsh]

magnuskn wrote:

The low level cap made me cancel my preorder at Amazon for the first volume. It's too bad, I was quite excited about the idea of running the AP, but I'm not supporting the idea of only doing low-level stuff. Paizo had enough time to try and balance high-level play for their new system, I hope they have the confidence to let players experience it. In the future, at least.

You do know that it is unlikely that the game is ever going to cater to high level play right? No RPG does. Regardless of what the RPG is, since the day I started gaming in 1988 until 2017 none of the games that I played (2nd Edition AD&D to Now, be they fantasy (D&D, Pathfinder) to sci-fi (Saga Edition, Aberrant, Starfinder) to urban fantasy/horror (Call of Cthulhu, Mage: The Ascension, Vampire the Masquerade) to post apocalypse (Rifts, HoE) none of them cater largely to high-level play.

At best high-level play gets some lip service. There are modules (we call them APs these days) that will end in the high levels (typically 14-15) and you might have 1-2 that go high (18-20), but for the most part, that is about it.

12-13? That is the average end point for Starfinder games.
12-13 is also the average end point for Pathfinder games.

AD&D? 10 - 10 was the assumed end point, with only a handful that went above that. There were a few books for "epic level" play, but there were only 2-3 modules that used any of it. (There was actually only 1 module that used it.)

Pathfinder? A few went higher, usually ending around 15 or so, with only one that I know of (Wrath of the Righteous) that went to 20.

Using Mage? A game I actually have my name appear in, in two splat books, all but the very last module didn't even assume characters could ever hit the 5th rank in one sphere, let alone the "archmage" rules that existed, but were never employed for player characters.

Even a game like Rifts, which is the poster child for over-the-top levels of power, ends at level 15 in the book and most plots are for levels 6-8 with only 2-3 going above 10.

High level play just... Isn't fun.

Now I know what you are going to say, that fun is subjective, or that MMO RPGs have been pushing the "max level" cap thing for years, so we should do it in tabletop. The fact is, as a GM? High level play is a freaking nightmare. It isn't about balance, it is about having any kind of reasonable expectation for players.

Lemme explain:

An AP has to be written in a vacuum. Meaning that the Game Designers have to take into account what they think a character might have. This creates HUGE problems, and you have seen those in Pathfinder especially.

In Pathfinder players didn't take ancillary powers? Why? Because it became "common knowledge" that the game expected you to have X, Y, and Z by A, B, and C point. This may, or may not, have even been true initially, but it became the perception of the player base, so Paizo had to build toward it, which eventually made it so that taking anything that wasn't optimal was "bad" and overzealous players started acting like WoW raid leaders by demanding that every player "pull their weight" and "hit their benchmarks" which (for many players) ruined the fun. The APs, however, had to be written for the Lowest Common Denominator and as such followed these trends, because if they didn't, then "any competent player" would cakewalk the AP... Which also is what we see in Pathfinder.

Every new spell level adds a host of problems when it comes to predicting player behavior and the design intention of the developers can cause emergent behavior.

You already see it with things like:

"Perception is the most important skill, I will do whatever it takes to make perception a class skill because perception is the most used skill."

In Pathfinder it was:

"By level X I need to have a +1 weapon, by level Y I need +2, by level Z I need +3. I can't buy a cloak of flying because my WBL states that I only have A amount of money, that money needs to be spent on B, C, and D, because the AP expects me to have E, F, and G, by level H, I, and J."

You already see it in Starfinder emerging:

"You must have a +11 in a Save to have a reasonable chance to avoid an effect by level 10, if you don't then..."

(That last was actually said in my Melee Solarian Guide thread.)

So... Be content with your usual end at 13, or 15, or 16. Be grateful when something goes to 17, 18, 19, or 20 because those are rare. How rare? Even on these boards people did a questionnaire on Pathfinder asking how high games went, and how many people legitimately made it to cap, even hardcore optimizer fanatics were stating, openly, that they never hit 20.

[ryric]

I've run and played in multiple Pathfinder games that went to 20 or higher. I find high level play to be really fun and rewarding.

The low level cap on Dead Suns is disappointing, but not surprising as there is the noted similarity to Council of Thieves. The really disappointing thing is that with the slow release schedule, we likely won't see an adventure for levels 13+ until volume 5 of the second AP at the earliest, which isn't due until April 2019. Unless they see the success of Starfinder as a reason to bump up the release schedule to monthly for the second AP.

[Parimer]

Finished the first book, and the pace seems fine so far. Maybe won't get as high level by the end, but in Pathfinder there seemed to sometimes just be slogs that felt XP grindy. I'd rather they just give hefty story XP rewards (coupled with increased treasure somewhere to keep the expected WBL) if they want to push books to a bit higher level in the future to keep a tighter story. Or just have the PCs start book 1 at a higher level.

[magnuskn]

HWalsh wrote:

So... Be content with your usual end at 13, or 15, or 16. Be grateful when something goes to 17, 18, 19, or 20 because those are rare. How rare? Even on these boards people did a questionnaire on Pathfinder asking how high games went, and how many people legitimately made it to cap, even hardcore optimizer fanatics were stating, openly, that they never hit 20.

Too bad I didn't participate in that questionaire, because in 3.0 and 3.5 I regularly GM'ed campaigns which went to level 20, about four of them. Then I got too busy to write my own stuff and GM'ed/played multiple AP's to conclusion (Rise of the Runelords (twice), Curse of the Crimson Throne, Carrion Crown, Jade Regent (twice) and Wrath of the Righteous. The latter went to level twenty and mythic tier 10, btw.

I am currently running Reign of Winter, which I'll abridge after module five (since that module is the high point of the campaign), after that I'm going to GM to conclusion either Hell's Rebels or Shattered Star, the latter directly followed by Return of the Runelords.

High level play is well alive and if you'd look at the "Which AP's have you played" thread in the AP forum, you will see that there are many more people who have fully played adventure paths to high level.

So, you're wrong. Paizo normally also caters to high-level players. I personally will only buy a campaign which also explores the high level play of this new gaming system, because I want to experience how well balanced things are during an entire campaign up until high level. This is especially important to me since we can infere that the new mechanics from Starfinder might well find their way into a potential Pathfinder 2.0.

An AP which only goes to level 12-13 is not very interesting to me, personally. But I don't speak for the entire gaming community, of course.

[ryric]

HWalsh wrote:

At best high-level play gets some lip service. There are modules (we call them APs these days) that will end in the high levels (typically 14-15) and you might have 1-2 that go high (18-20), but for the most part, that is about it.

12-13? That is the average end point for Starfinder games.
12-13 is also the average end point for Pathfinder games.

Most Pathfinder APs go to at least 15, and many go to 17. Ending at 12-13 is a small minority.

HWalsh wrote:

AD&D? 10 - 10 was the assumed end point, with only a handful that went above that. There were a few books for "epic level" play, but there were only 2-3 modules that used any of it. (There was actually only 1 module that used it.)

1e AD&D had a series of modules, H1-H4, that started at 15th level with the last adventure theoretically for levels 18-100. BECMI had a couple dozen modules for Companion levels or higher (15+), with three modules designed for Immortal level characters that were effectively demigods.

HWalsh wrote:

... even hardcore optimizer fanatics were stating, openly, that they never hit 20.

What does optimization have to do with hitting the level cap? They seem fairly orthogonal to me. In fact, I'd find an inverse relationship more believable, as a high level of optimization leads to greater issues with high level play and the rocket tag issue. Non-optimized PCs are more likely to have a fun high level experience IMO.