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I see it as two ways.
1. You widen the time between the adventures, adventure 2 happens 2-3 weeks after nr 1, 3 about 2 months after 2, etc.
2. It's quite possible to level that fast, because of the speed in which they handle the adventures they adapt, they learn fast. It's perfectly understandable to me that they gain their powers that fast they have faced harder challenges and survived, they've learnt a lot faster. See it as getting a crash course in 2 months very intense versus a nice easy pace at more than a year.
I do not have leveling problems with the AoW. I give out the prescribed rewards, run the adventures as they are written, and things work out just fine. The point is to have fun. That means getting new levels with accompanying powers. There is no need to put logic into the mix, anymore than you would to explain how a fireball could possibly work. It's a game.
I know you're looking for suggestions for intervening adventures, but like the others who've responded, I'm going to recommend that you reconsider.
Some of the adventures really need to follow one right after another - the Hall of Harsh Reflections leads right into the Champion's Belt, for example. I believe this is particularly true for the later adventures.
I'd recommend that you talk to the players in your group about this problem, and explain that if you run these adventures as written, the PCs will level up very quickly compared to other campaigns you've run in the past, and campaigns you intend to run in the future. That takes care of half the issue, which is setting different expectations for those participating in this campaign.
Then, I'd recommend that you think about the PCs as people who were somehow destined to take on the task of trying to save the world from the Age of Worms. Insert hints of a prophesy in documents they find with Bazol during Champion's Belt. Have Manzorian comment on the fact that they have a special fate. Alastor Land shows up later in the adventure path and makes some comments to this effect; modify them as needed to fit with these other hints and prophesies. Even if PCs die and are replaced, they can all still be a part of this shared destiny, it's just that some (the replacement PCs) were a little late getting to the path they were meant to follow.
I know you're looking for suggestions for intervening adventures, but like the others who've responded, I'm going to recommend that you reconsider.
Some of the adventures really need to follow one right after another - the Hall of Harsh Reflections leads right into the Champion's Belt, for example. I believe this is particularly true for the later adventures.
I'd recommend that you talk to the players in your group about this problem, and explain that if you run these adventures as written, the PCs will level up very quickly compared to other campaigns you've run in the past, and campaigns you intend to run in the future. That takes care of half the issue, which is setting different expectations for those participating in this campaign.
Then, I'd recommend that you think about the PCs as people who were somehow destined to take on the task of trying to save the world from the Age of Worms. Insert hints of a prophesy in documents they find with Bazol during Champion's Belt. Have Manzorian comment on the fact that they have a special fate. Alastor Land shows up later in the adventure path and makes some comments to this effect; modify them as needed to fit with these other hints and prophesies. Even if PCs die and are replaced, they can all still be a part of this shared destiny, it's just that some (the replacement PCs) were a little late getting to the path they were meant to follow.
look at Custer... the man was a general within a few short years of leaving westpoint. sometimes people rise to lofty heights very quickly whereas others can take years,decades even, to rise to the same kind of levels. Just remember that AOW and indeed all the AP's aint just a series of adventures strung together but a campaign that could lead to epic play when it they're completed.
if you are using the training times for leveling then you will need to space the individual adventures out more otherwise the characters will never have the time to train, but IMO and has been stated in this thread, advancement through experience is a bit like on-the-job training and as such the relatively short period of time between the characters first arriving at the whispering cairn to ruling over the principality of redhand just reflects the enormity of the task they've undertaken, after all it aint every day a character slays a god now is it...
Actually there is a lot of place to include downtime in AoW. Especially at lower levels. Your players can easily take a week off between TFoE and EaBWK. In HoHR your players can take time between excursions in the Sodden Hold and Zyrzog's cave (drow one day and Zyrzog two days after). Nothing prevents the characters from helping Allustan rebuild DL. When they get to Magepoint they are not on a time crunch.
My point is...you can always make things slow down a bit. True some adventures need to be squeezed together (LoLR and KotR and ItWF and DoaNA are two that players should not take to much time off).
As for the wizard getting the shaft...Not sure about that one completly. Like I said, the opportunities for downtime are there, you just to recognize them for what they are.
Kendrik, I couldn't have possibly articulated my feelings any better than you did on this matter! I, too, have a 20-year+ campaign ongoing...and I'm watching characters that were in the first or second "generation" of my setting being completely outstripped (in terms of XP and overall power) by relative striplings in the 3.5 world. In the AoW finale, I remember text saying something to the effect of "the PC's, at this point, should be more powerful than [sic] TENSER...."
! :O !
Ahh, our instant gratification society.... ;)
It's quite delicate in this case. My GH campaign has been running for nearly 20 years now, and I find it hard to change every fundamental in the world because D&D edition changes. Most of the new rules where introduced smoothly, except for the experience rules, which make me feel much like a video game.
:Warning Spoiler:
Don't forget that after the PC's escape with Dragotha's phylactery they should be given enough time to rest, research, craft magic items, etc before they reach the Wormcrawl Fissure. The AoW is not on a strict schedule, after all. A delay of as much as a year seems reasonable at that point.
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In this 20+ year campaign, have the characters been rushing forth without pause the entire time, or have there been periods of relative peace & calm when the heroes couldn't find a crisis no matter how hard they tried? I appreciate the scale of time that can come about from building up long-favorite characters. Sometimes though, change takes great leaps forward, especially in dynamic times. If you want to slow it down for your campaign, that's your call. It might be better though if you take key plot points, locations, encounters and relocate them into a plot that better supports the pace you & your group are used to. Or you could also talk with your players about the changes in the xp/level system and ask their opinions on such rapid climb to power. If you are planning on bringing details from your previous campaign, you might retro-actively change some of the npc's/previous pc's to be higher level to represent their longer careers.
I absolutely agree that the adventure paths advance too quickly. That's the main reason I haven't ran the Shackled City or the Age of Worms. The 3E XP system and the adventure paths create 20-year-old epic-level PCs, and I find that completely ridiculous. How can a DM create a sense of grandier and greater things to come when a party that has adventured together for a year or two can challenge or even take out the Circle of Eight or even Kyuss or Iuz himself.
If I remember correctly, the Age of Worms was origianally slated for 20 issues/adventures but ended up being only 12. IMO, the designers realized that the 3E XP system wouldn't allow 20 challenging adventures before reaching 20th level. As a DM, I would have no problem if the next adventure path simply granted a level per adventure (screw the math, just state the advancement at the beginning of the AP) and the time between and during adventures spanned a character's entire career.
Honestly, that's the only way I'll ever DM one.
Hi there from France,
I'm having problems with the levelling pace in Adventure Pathes. I'm really fond of these adventures and the overall storyline, and my players are currently in a mine under Diamond Lake, barely trying to survive. But my point is : "How can anyone explain why young adventurers (1st level) can besome epic in one or two years ?"
I know it's because of the current D&D experience system, but I definitely can't include it in my GH campaign. How could I explain to my players that most PNJ never get beyonf level 12 in 50 years whereas they gained 15 leveles in one year ?
Thanks in advance.
Torgan
-- http://www.torgan.net/
-- Age of Worms statblock provider @ therpgenius.com
So what have you never had a human character get over 12th level because by the time 50 years have passed humans are in the late 60s early 70s
Yeah its true, the new version of the game definitley caters to the preconceptions of your average 14 year old. I don' have anything against the kids but hey I walked in their moccasins, but they haven't walked in mine, :)
Look at the starting ages as well, they are way young. These might be more realistically medievel than modern. I remember being 14 and thinking not only that I knew everything, but that I could learn the really hard stuff in a short amount of time. It just aint true.
Anyways, I see the natural break points as the gaps between the TFoE, and the RtBK, RtBK and HoHR, and Champions and What is it called the one with the dragon and allustan. Hmm maybe I am too old!
If you put the evidence in there right you can have long gaps in between these adventures very easily.
If I were going to skip some of the AoW and replace it with Red Hand (I am running this now and its good, but the average battle is a good bit less challenging than HoHR for instance where if the PCs don't plan specifically to battle a mind flayer they are in big trouble), Anyways, I would use Red Hand in place of Blackwall, Harsh Reflections, and Champions Belt, then go right into The Gathering of Winds, You might be able to run Champions Belt with alot of modification after Red Hand, anyways, depending on the average character level.
Then I would probably have the PCs surprised that Rakinian is in league with the Cult they faced off against years earlier in TFoE.
anyways, thats my 2 cents.
Oh yeah, in terms of monsters and therefore PC abilities Red Hand and Age of Worms certainly lead PCs in different directions.
In Red Hand, having a druid in the party is a great advantage, same thing with Rangers and Bards, having a party with some Stealthyness all around is really good here, and the Party must have Archers.
In AoW the most important thing the PCs need is a Cleric With good Turning abilities. Paladins are also great, and its nice to overlap two turning attempts at the same time and hope someone gets lucky.
The worry is that after setting their characters up to fight mainly Hobgoblins and Dragons with a smattering of undead and evil outsiders, that putting them up agains something like the spire of longshadows is a TPK waiting to happen.
While I agree with Bavix, my response is: "what else could Paizo have done?"
Even 20 adventures could occur in 1 or 2 years of game time, and a lot of players would not enjoy being forced to take several-year breaks in between adventures. Really, the issue at hand is that the APs go from 1-20 instead of 1-10. A lot of people want the AP to take their PCs from first to epic, so I don't see much of a solution here.
This is not a hard problem to fix.
Alot of background is given on Diamond Lake, the Free City and other areas. I run adventures in between the AP games; I still add stuff for it to be AoW related.
Slow down the xp altogether. I run 2-4 sessions between each AP adventure, and give the PCs just enough Xp to be where they need to be when thye get to the adventure.
i was worried that my groups wouldnt advance quicke enough. i think that the characters in AOW are encountering a whole lot of nasties in a relative small area. in my FR campaign a lot of time is used to travel around taking a lot of time. the AOW a largely centrallised with handy telepotation hooks to get the pcs to the locations quickly. i for one am looking forward to my group reaching epic levels for once as this has never happened except in old red box dnd.
You just gave me an idea, MonkeyX!
After the PCs reach Magepoint, instead of teleporting to the Spire of Long Shadows, they will travel there by horse/boat/whatever. That outta at least take a month, right? Traveling back might take a month as well, although they'd likely just teleport.
You know, I think a lot of people are forgetting something...THIS IS A GAME. The whole point is it's not like real life. If I wanted to make my PCs take years of time to gain a new ability, I'd teach at a medical school.
I mean, it doesn't exactly make an interesting story to have your character fighting 4 gnoll raiders once every 3 months, just so he's not level 2 until a year from now. Or, alternately, getting so little XP from a given gnoll that he basically has to commit genocide on the species and supplement it with plenty of roleplaying XP.
Just relax, hey?
Hi All,
Ultimately, there is no “right” answer to the leveling issue. Each approach is valid based on the type of campaign each group enjoys playing. I run for two different groups of players. My well-established group prefers a more steady advancement pace overall. My newer group enjoys more rapid advancement. Both styles add flavoring and tone to each campaign. Both approaches are equally valid and fun.
I have not yet run AoW, but I have read it through completely and it does seem that the players’ characters do need to be close to the minimum suggested levels. So whatever choice concerning advancement a group makes, as the GM one needs to be certain that the characters are prepared to face the challenges as they emerge. That, or the GM needs to have a solid understanding of how to adjust the difficulty of the encounters so as to not overwhelm their parties.
Just my two cents for what they’re worth. :-)
Good gaming,
Mark
I have never had a character reach Epic level.
If you want to slow things down, try to have 7 PCs,
insert other adventures, increase the deadline for each
next adventure, and add quests for things.
They have to go to the coast to buy a Wand of Identify.
Certain rare spells are written on tomb walls.
Certain Prestige classess can require special teachers.
Me, I'm playing the modules more or less as written.
You're quite right, Torgan - the 3rd Edition XP system is designed so that a party of four characters will gain a level approximately every 13 encounters (given that the encounters are of an appropriate level for the characters). But there's no reason you have to play it that way, if you don't want to. Just give less XP, so that your party advances at a level you're comfortable with. Of course, this means that you will need to run other adventures in between.
I think that was the main question Torgan was asking - what other adventures might be suitable for padding out the AoW? Perhaps we could all give some suggestions?
I guess it depends on the group.
Everyone in my group is in their thirties and have other committments. When I was 12 I'd game every weekend for 6-7 hours and during the summer it was a daily event. I guess leveling once every 50 hours of play wasn't a big deal. In the summer that was once a week if we didn't do anything else. If I did that now it would take 5 months to go up a level, if we managed to game every week.
For me the pacing is fine. The players get a sense of reward quite often, and it will only take us 2 years to get through the entire adventure path. Yes it doesn't make sense that you have an 18 year old beating down a god, but then again it doesn't make sense to be beating down a god.
I guess if you want to delay things more, then you have alot of work in front of you to get things ready. I only wish I had that much free time.
Jason
I think there has been plenty of suggestions about where to insert adventures/sidetreks so my comment is just about game speed.
I run two campaigns for different groups at the moment, each is fortnightly meeting at best. One I play strictly by the rules exp wise and one I give out about 1/2. I have 3 players in both groups and they are aware that one is a 'fast' game which incidentally is very much a quest based -must discover and stop the uber bad guys many levels higher -type game. The other is a 'slow' game which the characters drive the plot and there is less of an overarching thread so the characters are often taking time off to do other things. Both work, they each have a differnt feel which is good IMO. Try the breakneck speed AP, in my fast game the roleplaying is very internal- the group models their character personalities on the marines from Aliens, very funny sometimes.
How old was the great (and undoubtedly high-level) hero Roland when he died? What about Alexander the Great? Sometimes the times call for men who develop their skill slowly over the course of decades, and sometimes heroes are made by the great trials out there. You're the DM--if you want the former, you just have to figure out a way to slow down the plot. If you want the latter, then use AoW as written. If your players are experienced, it shouldn't be too problematic from a strictly game-play point of view to speed through those lower levels--they already know how to play them, after all.
But most of all, enjoyez le jeu!
We're playing a homebrew game right now, and the DM is handing out XP like candy. After most sessions, we've been gaining a level. It feels too quick, we don't have time to get used to new abilities and feats before we get even more new ones.
AoW (and, for that matter SCAP) would take my group several sessions per module, based on previous experience. They are in the middle of a 'mini-scenario' I have been running (the adventure outline is about 28 pages, but only unique monsters & NPC's are statted, the rest reference the MM) and have taken four sessions already! There's at least another 2-3 sessions' worth of play in there when we get back together after our hiatus. At most, by the end of the scenario they may have gained two levels.
IMO that isn't too fast for what they will have been through.
Admittedly, XP and levelling in 2e were at a slower pace than in 3.xe, which might be why some people have problems with the new edition.
How old was the great (and undoubtedly high-level) hero Roland when he died? What about Alexander the Great? Sometimes the times call for men who develop their skill slowly over the course of decades, and sometimes heroes are made by the great trials out there. You're the DM--if you want the former, you just have to figure out a way to slow down the plot. If you want the latter, then use AoW as written. If your players are experienced, it shouldn't be too problematic from a strictly game-play point of view to speed through those lower levels--they already know how to play them, after all.
exactly what i was trying to say earlier!
now dont get me wrong, i'm not new to the game, i too have been playing for more than twenty years and am still in a group with the same guys i started out with all that time ago. GH has always been our prime choice for our campigns and yes the things that are happening in the new AP's have far reaching consequences for the world as a whole, that does not mean that we, as DM's and indeed as players too, should not be afraid of change.
But most of all, enjoyez le jeu!
I agree that the issue is really with the 3E experience system. A deliberate design choice was apparently made to make leveling much faster (I rememebr doing the math when the edition first came out and coming up with leveling being about 20x faster). I surmise this was done after viewing the popularity of various extremely popular computer roleplaying games (the Diablo series comes to mind) that developed a lot of their addictive quality by having characters constantly improving.
I've been playing for 20 plus years as well (though not in the same campaign), and after the typical amount of nostalgic resistance, I've just decided to embrace the new system. As others have said, neither way is inherently better than the other. They're just different. One is like taking a long hiking trip along the Appalachian Trail, and the other is like riding a rollercoaster. Different experiences, but both fun.
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The problem is the mechanics are all intrinsically linked. 13.3 encounters of an equal level to the PCs mean average level to go up a level assuming 4 players (sounds like a TOotS script). These encounters should give appropriate treasure so the PCs have about average treasure for their level. If you start fiddling the system breaks. Like squeezing a balloon, make it shrink in one place it enlarges elsewhere :)
The APs are odd anyway as they suggest 6 PCs and not 4. However, consider the following example. You reduce XP earned by/to x%. Lets be extreme and say XP is only 10% of normal (NWN did this to function as a computer game given how fast combat is when real time). Now, this means you would also have to reduce treasure to 10% of normal, otherwise the PCs have way too much gear and balance goes out the window. Fine with treasure, not fine with NPC gear. If you reduce that they are less effective and worth less XP, then you end up trying to balance everything again. And it goes round in circles ad nauseum.
An alternative is training times for levels and feats, to try to slow down chronological advancement. This doesn't work either though, we tried it when 3.0 came out. The problem is when an adventure is a large dungeon, say 3rd to 5th (Forge of Fury is what we where playing). The final encounters are for 5th but as the PCs haven't trained they are still 3rd or 5th with no new feats. They are weaker than the should be, so if they do succeed should they earn more XP as the encounters where more challenging? Basically it stops being fun for the players, merely because as DM we feel that it should take ages to level because we have hang ups from first and second edition or that is how things are in the "real" world :) They aren't of course, clever people tend to learn quicker or some people are more predisposed to certain skills, thus the old XP bonus in 1st and 2nd edition for having high stats.
Even if you use no training, instant levelling, and 3.5 as is it is still problematic. Item creation and scribing scrolls into spell books springs to mind. The way round it is to manage players expectations, and the only way to do that is to know the campaign arc from start to finish before you start.
When we first played 3.0 and started with Sunless Citadel I knew the adventures in the path would be tenuously linked with easter eggs at best. As such players happily took feats knowing they would have lots of downtime between adventures, and could take as much time as they wanted between adventures.
With Shackled Citys I told them until level 12 there would be time, not unlimited be probably enough, post 12 events run away with themselves (Soul pillars onwards). As such the PCs have avoided item creation feats beyond class ones, such as Scribe Scroll for wizards.
When I run AoW I will advise against it completely. Basically I will give them fair warning, up to them then :) If they want to waste feats they won't get to use as much at least my conscience will be clear.
If the passage of time is that important though, and delayed advancement is too, and it is too difficult to adapt to it in 3rd, just go back to playing 1st or 2nd edition. Or as those editions lacked balance anyway play third as you will and firefight when problems arise. Players end up with too much treasure just destroy it, rob it, fudge the saves etc. The gist is I seriously doubt you are going to get 3rd edition level and treasure mechanics, and the elapse of time, to fit in with a philosophy that is fundamentally linked to 1st and 2nd edition play. Anyway, good luck with whatever you do but I advise looking forwards and not backwards otherwise your game could atrophy as it becomes less and less compatible witha core 3.5 expectation.
As I read threw all the postings, I found many good ideas & answers. I do agree that killing a god (thou minor) @ the age of 18 (human age) is very unlikely @ best. With that said, it is a game and must be played for the enjoyment of those involved.
If you want to bring reality into the game, remember that a campain that allows a party to go from first to epic levels is going to bring PC's up @ a much faster pace in most cases. If this was a 20 year campaign this evil cult would continue to gain allies @ a much faster rate then 4 PC members could take them out. So that in and of itself is also a problem if you are looking at bringing reality into the game.
My group is only @ the Champion's Belt, but I have managed to stretch the time line out & will continue to due so where ever possible. Many of the ways to do that are mentioned above and so due not need to be reiterated. Though I dislike some of how the module was handled, overall it has been very fun to date. So as they continue to say over & over @ Dungeon Magazine Headquarters " we learn each time we create these super modules and each one will continue to get better". We could all go back and forth on the pros & cons of the different systems, but the super module is finished being written. So for the love of the game enjoy.
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look at Custer... the man was a general within a few short years of leaving westpoint. sometimes people rise to lofty heights very quickly whereas others can take years,decades even, to rise to the same kind of levels. Just remember that AOW and indeed all the AP's aint just a series of adventures strung together but a campaign that could lead to epic play when it they're completed.
I can follow you to a certain point: but weren't Custer's rash actions, his overzeal, and first of all his lack of experience his downfall? (I out myself as not being an expert for american history)
Rising so fast is where my sense of belief is overstressed, for PCs are exactly *not* the persons who are supposed to fail so miserably. When are they supposed to gain feats or new spells, especially if one adventure is so closely linked to the next one?
I know that the only realistic possibility of playing an AP is to play all adventures in the sequence presented. I pondered the same question the starter of this thread asked. I didn't come up with a perfect solution, either.
The only alternative would be to insert adventures of your own which is made twice as hard by the fact that it is to perfectly fit into the plot without obviously being a "prolongation"...
I still don't like it this way, but I fear it is the only way to play it...
Greetings from Germany,
Günther
P.S.
Talking about Roland or Alexander the Great: You can add Herakles/ Hercules, Odysseus et alii.
Most of them already spent a life before hitting main stage. Some of them tricked superior opponents. It is made quite clear that Odysseus didn't have a fair chance in open combat against the Cyclop - he tricked him. Hercules' main feat was his giant strength, hardly a feat you have to earn hard between level 1 and 20. Besides his father was the pantheon's main god...
Finally Alexander: he was a tactical genius, he was power driven, and some more things to discuss. Was he a dragon slayer, though? Did he fight his way up from level 1 to level 20?
I still think that a slow rise is more "realistic" (if there is any such thing in a fantasy game), even though I see the appeal to players (by the way my players only know a slow rise, and 2nd edition players didn't know it any differently, either).
From a plot point of view..there is no reason why the first 2 adventures can't occur and then then tehre be a gap of several years as they consolidate.
You could also distract the characters while in the free city, there is no reason that the return to diamond lake couldn't be another year or two. Its stretches the plot a bit sure but the age of worms has been 2500 years in the making, a few more won't hurt.
On the other side, popular fiction is full of stories of youths getting their trial by fire early in life. Some notable examples:
1. From the Belgariad by David Eddings..Belgarion goes from 14 yr old farm boy to god slayer and lord of the west.
2. From Magician by Raymond Fiest..Tomas goes from kitchen boy to godling in a few years, his friend Pug becomes the greatest magician in 2 planes in the same amount of time.
3. From Star Wars by George Lucas..Luke Skywalker goes from moisture farmer to Jedi Knight in 5 years.
4. From the books of swords by Fred Saberhagen..Mark goes from Millers son to Prince in a few years
5. From the song of fire and Ice by George Martin..Jon Snow goes from bastard boy to head of the NightWatch in 2 years
6. From the Krispos series by Harry Turtledove...Krispos goes from starving farmboy to Emperor of videssos in a matter of a few years..
7. From the sharpe novels by Bernald Cornwall, Richard sharpe goes from petty thief drafted into the British army to Colonel in 15 years.
The point is, rapid success of a protagionist starting from low origins is a classic narrative exploit. Eric Mona and his merry team have happily used that in plotting the age of worms narrative. The town of diamond lake is the perfect setting if you wanted to start characters of low origins. They might have actually have special gifts via DNA (ala Skywalker or Belgarion) not initally appparent or just win through sheer luck and determination (richard sharpe).
In any case, if you accept magic existing on the D&D standard level, then you can easily accept that there are some fated individuals who gain power rapidly.
I view it as Istus or AO putting some new hidden pawns on the board to balance the machinations of Kyuss (who has probibly cheated the rules to ascend) and so fate places obstacles in his path so as to make the game fair again.
Ah reality and fantasy mixing in one conversation. How I forget the odd bedfellows these conversations create.
Ok first thing first. I have played rpgs and D&D in particular for 21 years now, so I am by no means a newby to the game. On the other hand, one of my long held complaints about 1st and 2nd ed (along with the Palladium system, although that is a whole other discussion for another forum) is that leveling took forever. I mean it is great for those folks whose parents didn't move every 5 years and had 20 years to hang out with the same friends in the same campaign (and I don't mean this sarcastically, I really envy Vin Disel and his life long half-elf character or what not). However for guys like me that moved every couple of years it meant that I never played a character who was higher than one or at most three levels above the starting level (highest character I ever played was like 6th level). That is until 3rd ed came out. I mean the main reason myself and frankly hundreds of thousands of folks came back to the frankly morbound D&D was because of 3rd ed. It is like driving a Ferrari after having road around in the passenger seat of a horse drawn buggy. It is sleak, fast, and sexy. It also allows a group of friends like my own, to run a different campaign every year or two. I have played in about three complete (1st to high levels at least 12th or so) campaigns since 2000, a feat in all likelyhood impossible under the old system. That has meant that I have experienced 3 different game masters and three completely different campaign worlds. WAy more that I could have before. While I did not get that long deep love for a single character that can only grow over a 20 year life span, I instead got a wide love for my interesting and varried characters who spanned worlds that little resembled eachother. This is cool. It also frankly sells books, so how are we going to fault them for it eh? Would we prefer that TSR was backrupt and invisible and D&D a continued morbound game breathing its dying breathe with hundreds of unsold 2nd 3d supplements clogging the back shelves of gaming stores across America? I may be harsh here, and by no means do I want to open the nasty can of old vs. new, but really I so prefer to see the vibrance and excitement that 3rd ed in all its faster, smoother, more aggressive style as opposed to a system that had frankly seen it's good rules days pass with the Reagan administration (or at least Bush the 1st).
Anyhow back to AOW. In my campaign, my players have only played for 6 sessions so far and as of the 4th session have completed the 1st canned adventure. They are currently dealing with downtime issues and have just arrived in the city of greyhawk to deal with some research and other individual interests. Looking at the timeline I have been following so far they still have yet to start the next adventure. I am finding it very easy to add side adventures with them discovering a collapsed mine underneath the old Ugo Fant Manses (the mine was inhabited by the remains of 13 miners who died in the collapse some 150 years earlier, the last pages of their journal, and a powered up gibbering mouther that scared my players to death and caused a TPK). They have also speant time trying to buy the mine property, have set up an auction date to purchase the mining rites to the long closed mine, have researched Filge, Smeck, the Ebon Triad, and a bunch of other stuff at the libray of Wee Jas in the Free City (the cleric is a cleric of Wee Jas, the other player, there are only two, is a LN Paladin of Hextor, a cool group for this campaign). In fact if I don't kinda hurry things up thery won't make it to the TFOE for another full session, meaning a full 7 gaming sessions and over a month of in game time passing and only the first adventure being completed. On the other hand I have set the dates for the Champions Games for the week of Brewfest (they started the game on the 2nd of Reaping) and so that does put a time constraint, although it was purposful, I could have set it for Richfest and put a years worth of time between the start and the Champion's Games just as easily.
By the way I believe from reading all of the adventures (it has been some time since I read some of them) that there are ample opportunities to add in a large amount of downtime in between or even within some of the adventures. One poster mentioned that it might take the characters a month or so to travel from Magepoint to the Spire of Long Shadows. I would counter that that trip alone could take years, quite literally. I mean compare it to the trips of Bilbo, Frodo, or Marco Polo. Bilbo took what a few months, Frodo 18 months, and Marco Polo whose trip from central Asia to China took it seems anywhere from about 3 years to possbily 7 or 8 years. I would say Marco Polo's trip is a good foil for the characters trip because they have to travel from just off the center of the known world (Magepoint) to a unknown Spire that has been lost for ages within a unforgiving, mythic, and rather unfriendly Jungle far, far to the South. Even if they were to travel from Magepoint to the Free City by horse back (my players go by cart, so it could take them a week or so) and from the Free City find a ship to transport them south, they might be hard pressed to find a ship that would take them straight to the Amedio Jungle. More likely they would travel for a month or two to Keoland, from there book passage to the Hold of the Sea Princes (or more likely travel overland due to those two nations animosity for eachother), the take possibly as long as a year or as short as a few months to book passage on a vessel which was willing to travel to Amedio Jungle. More likely they could find a vessel in a shorter time, perhaps a few weeks or a months time, travelling to Sasserine and from there travel by foot to the Spire, after hiring guides, and porters. A realistic approach to such a trip would place the timeline for it at somewhere around a year or so, if you include foul weather holding up passage, long route to avoid pirates, Sauhuglin, and other sea monsters, and just the specifics of finding passage to such a remote place. So adding the trip back (which would probably be faster as Greyhawk City is a citythat it would be much easier to find passage to) You could easily make this adventure span a longer period of say 1-2 years, and that is without any serious side adventures, if you are willing to have Tenser withhold a teleport spell (maybe the pictures dont work well enough, maybe the area has a dimensional lock effect, maybe he is just to paranoid to teleport them, whatever). This of course is only one example of many in which you could expand the scope of AP in terms of time.
And remeber about sea voyages. They may seem at first to be really fast because hey you move all day and night and can go right there! No Mountains! But most vessels plying the seas will be merchant vessels of one type or another, and therefore will in all likelyhood stop at most all major and many minor ports of call. Most medieval vessels will also not be inclided to leave the sight of land as they have limited navigational skills, and no means of getting help in casse of trouble. So just imagine how long a voyage would take if say they got passage from Greyhawk City direct to Sasserine on the understanding that they stop at the ports of Hardby, Safeton, Highport, Blue, Gryrax, Gradsul, Sanduchar, Seaton, Port Torvin, Monmurg, & Port Toli to trade for goods, food, repairs, and just frankly to walk on land for a little while. Give a good week or so per port and you have a long voyarge ahead of you.
Sorry for the long post, I am damm verbose some days.
Sorry to add more, but speaking to the idea of people growing quickly in skill in real life look at artists or writers or even musicians. Many of these people produce their finest works, their masterpieces, in a relatively small amount of time, most likely based around their early to mid 20s. While there are many cases that dont follow this pattern (Goya, Picasso, Matisse, ect.) Look at those cases that do follow it. I mean look at Van Gogh. To Quote Wikipedia: He (Van Gogh) produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings) during the ten year period before he committed suicide. Most of his best-known work was produced in the final two years of his life. In the two months before his death he painted 90 pictures.
If you study him you can study his most famous works, all now worth $20,30,40,50 million by the month or week in which he painted them in his last 2 years of life. Here is a man who virtually remade the entire art world, and produced some of what are truely the most amazing and powerful paintings ever put down on canvas in a time period shorter than what it takes to get an associates degree. While he was trained for years ahead of time (off and on in between training to become a priest and what not) you could say that his "adventuring" says in painting lasted only a few key years, with 2 particular years being the equivilant of a lifetimes worth of another master artists work.
Just my two cents.
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Sol, you are definitely right when you complain that real life and fantasy get mixed up: everyone has a different image of what his fantasy world should be like.
It seems as if my world sticks a bit closer to real life, than most D&D fans would like it to be. It's one of the benefits of D&D that you as a DM can decide which way it should feel as long as your players are happy with this, too.
Back to your examples, especially the fiction ones: you are defintely right in this, too, but nevertheless you miss my point. I don't know all of the examples you mentioned, but I know that there is e.g. a distinct difference between Raymond Feist fiction and George R. Martin.
One is high fantasy the other due to a lack of a better expression "grim fantasy" that feels very real, basically a lower magic setting than your usual D&D.
I tend rather towards George R. Martin than to Raymond Feist. And for that reason a PC could rise to the head of the Night Watch in two years, and still his combat prowess (like in Martin's book) wouldn't rival an experienced veteran fighter.
I take it that you are rather a lover of high fantasy. The amounts of magic to be acquired necessitate a quick rise in power (if you don't accept extremely long life times as Blackstaff/ Elminster in Forgotten Realms).
I love the Forgotten Realms, but I tone down some of its magic when it is too much for my taste. My group is happy with it (in fact it distrusts "high magic" very much, a different thread).
You love the 3rd edition feel the way it comes out of the books. Your groups were/ are shorter lived.
I play with the same group for more than five years by now, some of them being absolute D&D newbies upon joining. For these reasons I want them to not rise too quickly.
You see, there are as many points of view as there are D&D players around the world. ;-)
I just wanted to side with the starter of this thread who was bashed because of his opinion I share. Maybe this is just a Europe thing, too. :p
Greetings from Germany,
Günther
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P.S.
And so I have to add something, too. :p
All comparisions between real life and fantasy fail when you take the D&D game system into account. ;-) It is a great game system, but it was never supposed to resemble real world.
In a real world a sword hit is a sword hit, a spear thrust a spear thrust. And if you hit Achilles at the right spot of his feet or Siegfrid at a certain spot at his shoulder, both die as every other mortal. Even Hercules/ Herakles dies by doning a mere poisoned shirt - and yes, he was a God's son.
In D&D a single sword hit kills a first level character, maybe a second class character, that's it. Afterwards you need more and more and ever higher magic boni in order to achieve something like this. And even then resurrection is a valid option available in most campaigns.
On the other hand your PCs eventually are able to fight a fair fight with dragons, arch demons, or even gods (something I abhor!!), withouth having to count on a lucky hit (as the later to be leader of the Night Watch in his fight against one of the icy undead creatures north of the Wall in Martin's novels. Remember the scene when he covers in fear, barely able to lift his sword?).
It is here where at last every real life comparisions fail.
Why do we start discussions like this anyway? ;-)
It is always pointless, for every poster can quote his favourite piece of fantasy that does it differently... And as you, Sol, said: things really get messed up when you start to compare real life to fantasy. ;)
Yes things do get messy when comparing fantasy and reality, Guennarr, you are absolutely right. I also would not be suprised if there is a notable differance between the playing styles in the U.S. and in Europe, just from my travels overseas.
I don't want to come off as bashing anyone as I feel that each DM approaches his or her own campaign with the best interest of their players and their own likes and dislikes in mind. That is the strength of the D20 system, that it allows for versatility. I mean if you want to really push reality in your fantasy games then go and buy Expeditious Retreats wonderful series on Magical Medieval City and Society of Western Europe. These books are really great and talking about how magic would effect tax systems, harvests, peasent vs. lord relationships, and other minutia that the vast majority of players and DM's are probably not all that interested in, but I happen to love to think about, although I only rarely apply them to my game (see my Economics in the Champions Belt post for an example of this).
As far as a magic system, I am playing fairly medium fantasy, with a strong grim and dark streak running through it. I have played campaigns in high magic worlds, and have played in an extreme low magic campaigns before, and love them both equally if differently. Right now I am running the AOW mostly as written and therefor it is what I would consider a medium magic world.
Yah Ressurection. Hmm I have yet to tackle that nasty bit in my campaign. I might take a page from a old friends campaign and make it a life for a life kind of balance, especially when dealing with the Church of Wee Jas ( one player is a Cleric of the Ruby Lady). In the end I tend to almost kill my players characters but they seem to manage to escape alive without me fudging the dice. We shall see though how they will do in the AOW, it has some nasty encounters.
Yah Ressurection. Hmm I have yet to tackle that nasty bit in my campaign. I might take a page from a old friends campaign and make it a life for a life kind of balance, especially when dealing with the Church of Wee Jas ( one player is a Cleric of the Ruby Lady). In the end I tend to almost kill my players characters but they seem to manage to escape alive without me fudging the dice. We shall see though how they will do in the AOW, it has some nasty encounters.
This is another easy one to solve. Allow raise dead and ressurecion but raise the cost of the material component. If it costs 50000gp to resurrect someone and not 5000gp..it certainly makes it a much rarer experience. I also liked how in second edition it aged the caster. Not something every NPC is likely to want to do. That's how I deal with high magic worlds. Increase the cost and change the availability. It exists but will cost you bad.
OK, so here's a couple of suggestions for "side treck" adventures. I've used a couple myself, and ditched most of the ideas simply because my group only has 3 PC's and is generally leveling at about the right level for us all.
Mad God's Key - Dungeon 114, 1st level, but could be advanced a bit to run after / during Whispering Cairn; a neat mixture of city and wilderness adventuring (I started my campaign with this one)
A Dark and Stormy Knight - pdf on the wizard's site; 1st level and pretty basic, but a simple filler for low level (I tied it in plot-wise by adding a hermit on top of the cairn, who became a mentor to one PC).
Fiend’s Embrace - Dungeon 121, 4th level, a race to get a cloak Graz’zt made from the skin of a pit fiend for Iggwilv.
Fiendish Footprints - Dungeon 122, 6th level, lots of hobgoblins and a vampire guard an evil item called the Fiendish Foot, an item of terrible necromantic potential.
The Forsaken Arch - Dungeon 120, 7th level, kinda cool mystery at the start, with a lot of wilderness as well as a big dungeon, you could lower the challenge a bit and run it earlier.
Caverns of the Ooze Lord - Dungeon 132, 8th level, contains cultists of that old demon Jubilex.
And Madness Followed - Dungeon 134, 9th level, Call of Cthulhu meets D&D style adventure, I'm about to run it between Hall of Harsh Reflections and Champion's Belt - a quick-fire run to the wilderness and back before the games begin!
These are mainly all Grehawk-specific adventures, and can all be tied in to the Age of Worms with a bit of creative work from the DM - I just use a similar style of clue-dropping, even make up the odd extra typed up note, picture etc, so (hopefully) it looks the same as any of the other adventures and is not obviously a side-quest.
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Hello Sol,
when it comes to magic, my current group is extraordinary if not even unique! Both of us surely mean the same thing when talking about low magic D&D. My players compare everything fantasy to the LotR movies, and even then undead armies as in Return of the King were too much for them!
So actually we had a major discussion a few weeks ago. Reason: the party's spell caster threw his first fireball. Problem: He hit both players and monsters. After that we discussed benefits and disadvantages of "weapons of mass destruction" (they meant area spells). No worries, they finally understood that you cannot switch engines in a game system without risking unbalancing the whole game.
But to your question:
Yah Ressurection. Hmm I have yet to tackle that nasty bit in my campaign. I might take a page from a old friends campaign and make it a life for a life kind of balance, especially when dealing with the Church of Wee Jas ( one player is a Cleric of the Ruby Lady). In the end I tend to almost kill my players characters but they seem to manage to escape alive without me fudging the dice. We shall see though how they will do in the AOW, it has some nasty encounters.
As coincidence wants it there was a Dragon article on exactly this topic. There were several approaches all of them aiming at increasing difficulty of resurrection. All of them made sense in a roleplaying sense and didn't feel like rising obstacles for your players.
Have a look into this year's april issue #342: "Beyond the Pale" by Rodney Thompson ("Six new ways to put the fear of death back into your PCs").There was also a nice article from Eric Mona in which he described his first experiences in the second adventure path. Many of his party's PCs perished which caused him to use drastic measures, circumscribed as "godly intervention" (2nd attempts on throws etc.). Quite readable, showing that even the profs out there face the same problems we "normal" hobby players out there face.
Hope there is some help in this for you.
Greetings,
Günther
P.S.:
Different playing styles in Europe and USA? No.
Different traditions of fantasy: Yes.
Fanatasy as we know it from D&D and modern fantasy authours (let's call it post Tolkien) certainly differs from the old fairie tales and sagas many people here still grew up with.
But people who play D&D sooner or later adapt to the settings. And then there is just the usual discussion of role vs. roll playing. ;-)
Erm.... Alexander was 33 when he died, 22 when he took the Throne and was on campaign for 11 years.
I will have to check those articles out Guennarr. I have yet to have ressurection be a big problem in any of my campaigns. In my last campaign only two three PCs died. The first when they were to low level to ressurect, the second in a raid on a Imperial Treasury Vault (can we say Magma Para-elemental smooshes puny Monk up against a wall), in that case the character was ressurected. In the last case a character died and was ressurected. It seemed to work out well without diminishing the campaign.
What I meant by my statement about gaming in Europe, is that although I have had very minimal contact with European gamers, I have looked at many of the RPGs coming out of Europe. They tend to follow a different path than most American RPGs. Now I must admit that this is a limited list, but I am thinking about games like WFRPG 1st and 2nd edition, KULT 1st,2nd,3rd,& 4th editions, and other heavy, dark and rather story specific games that originated in the late 1980s/earl 1990s. Now I don't want to hijack this thread, but these games (which as I understand WFRPG is played heavily in Europe and almost not at all in the US) are of a fairly different sort than most US rpgs. I think Call of Cthulhu and the early Vampire games were the closest American games got. Maybe I am just talking out of the wrong end of my body though.
By the way Hastur I will have to check out a few of those adventures, it has been to long since I read them all. In my AOW campaign so far, the side adventures are things I am just writing up as they are based around individual character backgrounds and interests. But I am about to get another campaign started (I am crazy or what) and am going to be building it using Dungeon Adventures so I will have to check those ones out.
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I will have to check those articles out Guennarr. I have yet to have ressurection be a big problem in any of my campaigns. In my last campaign only two three PCs died. The first when they were to low level to ressurect, the second in a raid on a Imperial Treasury Vault (can we say Magma Para-elemental smooshes puny Monk up against a wall), in that case the character was ressurected. In the last case a character died and was ressurected. It seemed to work out well without diminishing the campaign.
So far I had two resurrections in my campaign, too.
To my delight the first one happened the one time I couldn't attend and let my most experienced player dm the group (he DMs his own group). He let the monsters kill his barbarian, the main fighter in our group. It drove the wits out of the other players (most of them D&D first time players who hadn't experienced a PC's death during the two years of playing in my group). When the second player died (two 4th level fighters just can't stand up to a 9th level wizard!), I felt that resurrection almost got a normality, though. Somehow I would make sure that I wouldn't let them down again.For that reason I lean very much towards the proposals in that Dragon Article: Make resurrection only possible at certain points (holy sites, places close to a certain plane etc.), or make it more costy in rule (not in monetary) terms.
What I meant by my statement about gaming in Europe, is that although I have had very minimal contact with European gamers, I have looked at many of the RPGs coming out of Europe. They tend to follow a different path than most American RPGs. Now I must admit that this is a limited list, but I am thinking about games like WFRPG 1st and 2nd edition, KULT 1st,2nd,3rd,& 4th editions, and other heavy, dark and rather story specific games that originated in the late 1980s/earl 1990s. Now I don't want to hijack this thread, but these games (which as I understand WFRPG is played heavily in Europe and almost not at all in the US) are of a fairly different sort than most US rpgs. I think Call of Cthulhu and the early Vampire games were the closest American games got. Maybe I am just talking out of the wrong end of my body though.
Pooh! You hit a weak spot with that. I don't even know what WFRPG is! ;-) But then Europe isn't a coherent country anyway. Players in Spain or France surely play different games than e.g. in England.
My first rp experience was with D&D. Here in Germany there were some variations on that theme (Midgard, and "Das schwarze Auge" (The black Eye)), basically spins offs or at least heavily influenced variants of D&D. Only DSA is comparably wide spread by now.
Apart from DSA most players of my age used to play Shadowrun, Battletech, and of course D&D. Not that much difference there, is it? ;-) I heard about a rpg called "Engel" (angel), stressing the role playing aspect. A french friend told me that it was very heavy on story telling. Otherwise your flgst in Germany mostly offers american rp products and of course DSA.
You are right, though, when it comes to popularity of different rp "blends": apart from D&D and DSA, most rp games here are story teller games. People who think themselves to be grown out of roll playing, often favour story teller system games.
I was introduced to "Vampire: Dark Ages" just two weeks ago. It was fun, the rules made sense and were easier to grasp, but the game also spends much more emphasis on the story telling skills of the DM, and it is more intrigue and use of skills than melees as in D&D (during that one session!!).
I heard that there was a boost of role playing in the U.S. lately. Unfortunately I didn't feel that much of it here, although the LotR movies certainly motivated some players into joining my group (in order to find out that not ever fantasy world feels the same as Middleearth ;-) ).
From my experience a lot of the pace also invovles the player's game styles. Most of the people I run are more interested in the story than their level compared to the NPCs.
For example, the group I am running has just finished WC after 9 sessions. In game, close to 3 weeks have gone by. They have spent time meeting NPCs and getting to know some of them. One character is renovating the abandoned mine with his own funds. He plans to open a shop and hire someone to run it while he is away. While the party is third level, it is not so important to them. Instead they are focusing on the story. My group has commented how WC seems to flow into 3FOE. One player even said that it felt like he was reading a book.
Wow I have never even heard of DSA or the Dark Eye (I am right about the connection right) and I guess it is Germany's most popular RPG. Dang. I will have to read up on it more, as I don't think I have ever seen any of the books, or if I have I must have passed over them. How is it? What arethe setting and rules like?
WFRPG is Warhmmaer Fantasy Role Playing Game, the RPG version of Games Workshop's Fatnasy Battle Game. It was only a limited success back in the '80s, although I really like it for it's dark, dark setting with people falling to chaos all around you and the known world infested with twisted chaos. I also enjoyed it's realism, with its profession based classes, I have tried a few times to bring over to D&D but have been to lazy to finish converting all the rules. It is published out of England where it is supposed to be vastly popular.
I have played the storyteller sysmtem games off and on since about 1997. I have found them to be fun with the right group, although Vampire can quickly descend into bickering and infighting the likes of which only the NHL or World Cup usually see. :) I do have a certain fondness for the old Werewolf the Apocalypse and something of a cryptic liking for the arcane and troublesomely ruled Mage the Ascension. Anyhow I am mostly playing D20 now, although I do try to place some additional emphasis on role playing and on using social skills. One of the main reasons I picked the AOW was that I had been reading it, month after month, and then finally came upon the adventure - the Prince of Redhand. I liked it so much upon reading it that I called up my friends the next day and set up for us to start the campaign. And the rest, as they say, is history.
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(...) Most of the people I run are more interested in the story than their level compared to the NPCs.
(...) My group has commented how WC seems to flow into 3FOE. One player even said that it felt like he was reading a book.
Hello Thraxus,
then you are to be envied (at least by me). ;-)
About half of my players heavily lean towards miniature combat, and the other half prefers roleplaying or a combination of both.
If I manage to give them an almost filmish/ bookish show, I catch their attention well enough in order to draw them deeper into the story plot.
Unfortunately all of us spend a lot of time at work, and/ or have families. Meeting once a month for D&D is a real luxury.
Of course it depends on how much time you spend on preparation. There is almost always a direct connection between immersion of your players into the game, and your preparation (i.e. if you are not a natural talent or DM D&D for decades. ;-) ).
I found that Monte Cook's article series in Dungeon is a huge help, same as reading some of the Dragon/ Dungeon stuff's exploits, or some first hand experiences on other sites online.
Actually my first non DM'ing D&D session in about twenty years was one year ago. Nothing worse than just knowing your own DM'ing style!
Greetings,
Günther
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Wow I have never even heard of DSA or the Dark Eye (I am right about the connection right) and I guess it is Germany's most popular RPG. Dang. I will have to read up on it more, as I don't think I have ever seen any of the books, or if I have I must have passed over them. How is it? What arethe setting and rules like?
WFRPG is Warhmmaer Fantasy Role Playing Game, the RPG version of Games Workshop's Fatnasy Battle Game. It was only a limited success back in the '80s, although I really like it for it's dark, dark setting with people falling to chaos all around you and the known world infested with twisted chaos. I also enjoyed it's realism, with its profession based classes, I have tried a few times to bring over to D&D but have been to lazy to finish converting all the rules. It is published out of England where it is supposed to be vastly popular. (...)
You are right: "The Black Eye" is just my translation of the game's name "Das Schwarze Auge". I just found out online, that it is available in english, too, being called "The Dark Eye", though.
My *short* impression about DSA: it is a clear sibbling of earlier D&D editions, but in the meantime it developped a lot of features of its own. I never played it, just read in some of the books. For that reason just so much: Setting and game are combined, there is just the one world of Aventurien. Of course it contains a class system, same as D&D.
The feeling of the game world is considerably more medievalish than e.g. D&D. There is a novel line (also just german) that was added, quality of the books I read ranging from mediocre to quite good. The world is smaller than e.g. Faerûn, is quite thoroughly developped, though (and is still the size of a continent). One of the few books I bought was some kind of encyclopedia on Aventurien, very detailed, very rich in showing historical connections in this world.
Here is considerably more information on the game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Schwarze_Auge
Some (unfortunately german) overview on regions and regional supplements:
http://www.fanpro.de/dsa/avent/Karte/index.html
The first time I was on a large scale roleplaying meeting, was about two years ago. It is probably not very representative, but there were two D&D tables (of the RPGA Germany), a few Shadowrun tables, about a dozen Battletech tables in the subfloor rooms, and more than fifty DSA tables! ;-)
I still prefer D20, the rule system is great, the availability of OGL contents or supplements of other companies is by now indispensable for me. Still I like to have a glimpse into that encyclopedia and borrow from it for my campaign.
Btw. I think I still saw quite some ads on Warhammer RPG during the 90ies (I just didn't know that abbreviation). I never met someone who played it, though.
Back to the Adventure Path. ;-)
My group was very D&D inexperienced when we started. For that reason I made them consciously ascend slower in level. If you don't have enough time to have a closer look into the PHB, there is only one way to learn better how to play your PC: in game - and of course that takes longer (if you don't want every adventure to be lethal or obviously PC protective).
By now both they and I got used to a slower progression (me being used to 2nd edition progression anyway - see discussions above). In the meantime I found a compromise that should work out: level progression at half speed which would still prolong the adventure path by about 12 adventures... :p
Greetings,
Günther
Intersting stuff about the Dark or Black Eye. I assume, sorry I just have to say it, that a Black Eye does not mean the same thing in German as it does in English (ie. a bruising around the eye often from a punch). If it does, man could that lead to a lot of bad gaming puns.
As far as level progression, to get back to the original post and all, I think that a slower level progression when done correctly is fine. My good friend ran a LOTR D&D game recently, set just after the last ship left for Valinor. He of course radically changed the magic system, and added Paragon racial levels for both our charactes (I think the Human Paragon really conveys the feeling of a Dunedain and the Elf Paragon really does a bang up job of giving the feeling of a tolkien style elf). He also isgnificantly slowed the level progression, tossing the exprience system completly and just leveling us when he felt like it. It meant that we went from 3rd or so level to about 12th level over 25-30 sessions, or about 1 level for every 3-5 gaming sessions. In all the campaign lasted about 2 years and we only leveled up about 9 times. This for me was to slow. I did not like the slower pace as I enjoy the mental task of increasing my characters broad base of skills and abilities as well as jut increasing his standing and power. It fit the overall feel of the game though, as the third and fourth ages saw much less powerful warriors than the earlier ages, only a few of which (the Maiar mostly) could really be considered upper high level characters (although I would probably make them 0th level divine and slightly epic and all that).
With that experience under my belt, I feel that a faster pased leveling system is preferable to me as a player and thus I am using the typical 3.5 exp system.
I would not say this is a power gaming choice, but instead a wish for change and development of my character not just in terms of personality and experiences but also in terms of stats. Ie. if I started studying military in the game, I want to have the refelcted in some Knowledge (military) ranks. By the way I always add that skill as a house rule. Great for leading men into battle or understanding what is going on in a battle, or finally understanding a foreign army or command structure.
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Intersting stuff about the Dark or Black Eye. I assume, sorry I just have to say it, that a Black Eye does not mean the same thing in German as it does in English (ie. a bruising around the eye often from a punch). If it does, man could that lead to a lot of bad gaming puns.
It is good that there is nothing like a game called "Blue Eye" in english, for its german translation "Blaues Auge" has the same meaning as Black Eye in english. ;-) You see they didn't call it "The Dark Eye" for no reason when they published the english version of the game...
(...) He also isgnificantly slowed the level progression, (...) This for me was to slow. I did not like the slower pace as I enjoy the mental task of increasing my characters broad base of skills and abilities as well as jut increasing his standing and power. (...)With that experience under my belt, I feel that a faster pased leveling system is preferable to me as a player and thus I am using the typical 3.5 exp system.
I would not say this is a power gaming choice, but instead a wish for change and development of my character not just in terms of personality and experiences but also in terms of stats. Ie. if I started studying military in the game, I...
As I wrote above, my group consists of some people who never played D&D before. For that reason a slow level progression made perfect sense. It took them more than a dozen meetings to advance to 2nd level, but they never cared, for they were busy enough to understand the potential offered by the rules. When I felt that they were ready for levelling up I informed them that all of them had risen by one level. Three years later they reached 4th level and ever since then I kept on tracking XP seriously.
Changing to normal XP progression would be "overhastening" (as oddly as it might sound): they got used to a slower rhythm of levelling up. Even those players who are more experienced, don't care that much about it. Especially because all of us feel that we are not that much into high level play so eventually the party would retire sometime after reaching the lower two digit levels.
It is up to everyone's taste. I perfectly understand that more experienced groups like yours rather crave for the developping potential of D&D. Now that my group got to know the "joys" of medium levels they wouldn't love low level PCs either, I guess... ;-)
Greetings,
Günther