One thing that concerns me about 4E is the idea of going up 30 levels in the same game playing time it take to go up 20 levels of 3.5E. There is already a part of me that thinks things go too fast in 3.5E. Sometimes, my characters don't even get a chance to use their newly acquired feat, spell, etc., before going up a level and getting another new thing. In earlier editions, characters seemed to have more game time to try out and even get bored with their abilities, spells, etc. before a new level arrived. It made the new level very that much more anticipated. It seems that 4E is increasing the number of feats, spells, etc. that you get at each level while also increasing the pace at which you go up levels. This is worrisome to me. However, the "two minds" title refers to the fact that I can't deny that I have never really been that frustrated with reaching a new level! In other words, I am opposed to the faster leveling in principle but I understand and have shared with other folks the joys of fast leveling. So, am I part of the problem? And what are the responsibilities of the designers? Should they give us what we want (or the majority want) or should they protect us from ourselves, knowing that faster is not always better?
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One thing that concerns me about 4E is the idea of going up 30 levels in the same game playing time it take to go up 20 levels of 3.5E.
Unless there is some specifically stated evidence I'm unaware of, there has been no correlation between 20th level 3.X edition and 30th level in 4E. In fact, I am pretty sure that it's been stated that the two level progressions do NOT align in such a manner.
I started out playing 1st edition. When I bought the 3.0 PH, DMG, I about fell over when I looked at the XP system. We converted our characters from 2nd edition (we started playing D&D again when they announced that 3.0 was coming out) and briefly tried their XP system.
Ok, done with that....
I debated about how to change it to my liking. Eventually I came up with 3 systems and let the players choose. All were much slower, similar to 1st edition.
We decided to take the amount of listed XP for a level in 3.0 and multiply it by that level. The total is what one needs to advance. I like it. Nice and slow, just the way we wanted. Not for everyone, but it was for us.
Ok, a quick enworld search revealed this...
http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e#rules
Chris Perkins on the rate of advancement: power level is increasing (although not by a "startling" amount); 20th level in 4th Edition is a little more powerful than 20th level in 3rd Edition. However, you'll reach 30th level in the same time you used to reach 20th level --
"The way character advancement works now, it takes fewer encounters to gain a level, but it takes roughly the same length of time to reach 30 levels in 4th Edition as it takes to reach 20 levels in 3rd Edition. The rate of level advancement is still being playtested, however, so the jury's still out on whether the final game will work this way.
One of the goals of 4th Edition is to make high-level play as fun, balanced, and manageable as low-level play, and to make high-level characters as easy to create and run as low-level ones. Comparing high-level 4th Edition characters to high-level 3rd Edition characters is not an apples-to-apples comparison because they're built very differently. However, there isn't a startling increase in overall power level from a 20th-level 3rd Edition character to a 20th-level 4th Edition character "
Will there still be XP? How will it work? "We still have XP, very similar to now... It's not an exponential power curve anymore. You go up more smoothly."
Levelling up geared towards every two or three sessions.
Personalizing and specializing your character is amped up, it’s one of the most powerful things about 4th edition. If you’re a barbarian, you’re not a frenzied berserker. If you’re a barbarian, you’re a barbarian for your entire career. The frenzied berserker and bear warrior will be at the very end (source).
David Noonan -- "Plus I had a nice, meaty design assignment to work on. Suffice it to say that I'm working on a significant customization choice your character makes midway through his or her career--and it's a choice that'll evolve over, say, ten levels or so. More on those when I get 'em written."
There will be rules akin to the retraining rules in PHBII - they don't like the idea of people planning their careers from level 1 to 30.
I believe that the level advancement will be just about the same as 3ED. There's no confirmed basis, but just conjecture.
In Races and Classes, it was said that choosing things for your character was fun. This points to a faster progression, as you get to pick more options.
In 3ED many classes had dead levels, which lead to faster leveling, but now that every level brings something new, it would slow down to allow each character to enjoy new options.
So, +1 and -1 equals status quo. However, this will probably still be very dependent on DMs and players to get together to figure out how fast to proceed.
I added to my previous post about 4th edition level advancement.
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"The way character advancement works now, it takes fewer encounters to gain a level, but it takes roughly the same length of time to reach 30 levels in 4th Edition as it takes to reach 20 levels in 3rd Edition. The rate of level advancement is still being playtested, however, so the jury's still out on whether the final game will work this way.
Also, it's been said that leveling up happens every three sessions:
## Levelling up geared towards every two or three sessions.
So, basically, you have a constant: Time X, such that:
3.5 level from 1 to 20 = X = 4.0 level from 1 to 30
So, in 13 encounters in 3.5, you go up in level. So a 3.5 encounter can be described in terms of X as
1 Encounter = X/260
Granted, not all encounters measure the same length, unfortunately. Also, that's a purely encounter filled game, so one should allow an extra half of the time for RP, and change it to
Average Encounter Time = X/520
Now we've been told that in 4.0 rounds are shorter, but there are more rounds in a fight. Given the amount of 8 in 3.5 (which is what we average usually, regardless of level), that means that a round, in time, in terms of X is
Average Round Time = X/520/8
or
Average Round Time = X/4160
So, if X is one year of games, with one game a week at 8 hours, allowing for 6 breaks a year, means that we have 46 games a year times 8 hours or
X = 368
Average Encounter Time = 42 minutes (That seems low... perhaps I've been rushing my games. I apologize. Food for thought.)
Average Round Time = 5.3 minutes
Granted, that's given a four person group and they know the rules fairly well. It also doesn't allow for bonus XP, nor death XP penalties or making magic items. It also only gives 50% of the time to RP.
But back to the task at hand. So, if X doesn't change, it means that the amount of time per level is
X = 368
Time per level = 368/30 (I'm allowing for RP to be mixed in since there's now a Roleplaying Combat Mode now)
Time Per Level (4.0) = 12.2667 hours
Now, I've heard that the average monster has about 3 to 5 rounds in them, and a boss will last about 20 (I got both from the link above.) So, given that it'll take the same amount of encounters to level, that means that you'll have 360 encounters at an average of 4 rounds, and 30 encounters at an average of 20 rounds.
Which means that given the time per level, you've got 50% again given to RP (which, yet again, may be much due to the RP Combat Mode, or your play style);
6.1335 hours to play 12 4 round encounters and one 20 round encounter, or
6.1335 hours = 56 rounds
or
1 round = 6.57 minutes
Granted, this means that a session is suppose to be 4 and a sixth hours long. I haven't really been able to check that as of yet.
Hope that helps. Also hope that in the time to post this someone didn't already answer it.
EDIT: Above I mention that there are more rounds in 4.0. That's wrong. I'll now flog myself
One thing that concerns me about 4E is the idea of going up 30 levels in the same game playing time it take to go up 20 levels of 3.5E. There is already a part of me that thinks things go too fast in 3.5E.
Amen, brother. Amen.
I like fast leveling when playing a computer RPG. I like slow leveling when playing D&D. I think 3rd ed levels too quickly, personally, though I also think 1st edition could be a little extreme in the opposite direction. My preferred pace is about 5-6 Dungeon magazine adventures required to gain a level, but that's only b/c I write up the adventures afterwards and so like to space it out. When I'm playing w/ someone else, I let them level up faster than I personally prefer.
I like fast leveling when playing a computer RPG. I like slow leveling when playing D&D. I think 3rd ed levels too quickly, personally, though I also think 1st edition could be a little extreme in the opposite direction. My preferred pace is about 5-6 Dungeon magazine adventures required to gain a level, but that's only b/c I write up the adventures afterwards and so like to space it out. When I'm playing w/ someone else, I let them level up faster than I personally prefer.
I have never really understood why people like to slog through levels - but then I suppose people who like that wouldn't understand why I like to gain levels fairly rapidly.
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Here is how I would do the math.
3.0 - A level for every fourteen encounters.
4.0 - A level every ten encounters or so.
As an aside, I think leveling in 3.x is just a little too fast at low levels and just a little too slow at high levels, when individual encounters take longer and foes are more difficult to defeat. So all in all it balances out.
If 4.0 is a level every ten encounters, I think it will be too fast. Especially speaking as someone who has no desire to see his players ultimately challenging gods for their thrones.
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I have never really understood why people like to slog through levels - but then I suppose people who like that wouldn't understand why I like to gain levels fairly rapidly.
I wouldn't dare to speak for everyone else who likes slower leveling, but for me its about character development.
If you can run a charcter from 1st-X level (where you would normally retire them) do you want to reach X ASAP so you have all these cool powers/items/etc or do you want to create a character that will be remembered for a long time. To an extent, I THINK everyone has a mix of the above two. Where you exactly fall depends on your play style.
Example: I ran a group from 4th-26th level in 4 semesters in college. Over the course of the campaing we got to really develop the characters such that they were a shared, memorable experience. Towards the end, the players had started referring to each other by the PC's names and D&D themed gag gifts were the norm. I actually had players get a little misty eyed when the campaign ended due to impending graduation. For me, seeing the PC's develop like that was a highpoint in my DMing career.
Its harder (for me) to get the same sense of accomplishment when you blitz through the levels. If we had more years before graduation, and it wouldn't have caused havoc with wealth/level, I would have slowed down the XP advancment to prolong the experience.
I'm a fan of epic level play ::tries to dodge shots from anti-epic players:: so I was estatic to hear they would cover up to 30th level play. But when they stated that you can reach 30th level in 4E as fast as 20th level in 3.xE I was a little disappointed. Again, that feeling is merely because I think the character advancement was a little fast in 3.X, so I was very worried about 4E advancement.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I have never really understood why people like to slog through levels - but then I suppose people who like that wouldn't understand why I like to gain levels fairly rapidly.
Hi, FabesMinis.
Personally, I like a slower advancement, for two reasons: after a while, a player gets to understand his or her character's abilities and limitations pretty well. There comes a time when a party just gels, falling together into a coherent organization. When a particular type of threat comes along, they know who's going to take point, what everybody's job is, and how to cover their weak areas.
But that takes time in the field. The slower the level advancement, the easier it is for a party to come together at lower levels. Which I've found makes for a more satisfying game.
Aside 1
As far as that cleric's player is concerned, turning undead is a useless class feature.
The second reason: name some great player characters from 1st Edition. It's easy. Mordenkainen, Erac's Cousin, Tenser. They're famous. The same is true, to a lesser extent, with 2nd Edition.
3rd Edition? Not so much. PC's are more transitory, and more disposable.
Because in 1st Edition, you could play a character for ten years or longer. There was a lot of adventure to be had, and a lot of yourself that you could pour into the character during it all.
In 3rd Edition (and a little more so in 3.5, because 3.5 PC's are, level-by-level, stronger in 3.5), the character goes from first hit-point of damage to 20th Level retirement in 200 - 270 encounters. Dungeon could print an entire adventure path, a party's start-to-finish career, in 12 issues.
Enthusiastic groups of players could plough through an adventure path in a year. Then roll up new characters for another year.
Aside 2
Now, I want to explicitly state, I don't think that rapid level advancement is a bad thing. I'm not saying that people --like FabesMini-- who prefer it are wrong. I'm saying that rapid advancement produces effects that I'd prefer not to see in the kind of campaigns I run, nor the characters I play.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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(Well, that was certainly a long post. I'll post this question seperately, so's it doesn't get lost.)
For people who favor slower advancement: how do you handle placement of magic items. Adventures as written give out a whole bunch of stuff, pretty regularly and rapidly. If it takes your party, say, three times as much experience to get from 3rd level to 4th, do you just spread out the same treasures over three time as many encounters?
If you run modules as written, your players will have mountains of loot by the time they hit 8th level. Which means they'll be tougher than typical 8th-level parties. Which means they'll be facing tougher, higher-XP baddies. Which accelerates the experience point curve.
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For people who favor slower advancement: how do you handle placement of magic items. Adventures as written give out a whole bunch of stuff, pretty regularly and rapidly. If it takes your party, say, three times as much experience to get from 3rd level to 4th, do you just spread out the same treasures over three time as many encounters?
Outside of the RPGA I do not think I have ever run a mod as written. I give out less treasure and make people work for it. I try to prolong the mod or weaken the final encounter to match the slower progression.
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I play in a long running monthly game which is going into its 5th year. My star character (most of us have two running around) is only level 10ish. He's pretty much retired, as he founded his own territory which he rules over. Adventuring is no longer a thought or priority, also its too dangerous. The progression on this campaign is great, and I've had time to really develop the character into my most memorable to date. So yeah, I like slow leveling.
My regular weekly group has been together (in some form) for 10+ years! Their high level characters are now 15+, and hearing tales of how much they accomplished is staggering. If you translate what they did into 3.5 they should be well into level 30+ if not 40. Unfortunately the campaigns these days seem to move very fast, sometimes to the point where some characters feel disposable. I'm not a fan at all, so if 4.0 speeds up leveling, something drastic will be required.
As for magic items, the monthly game DM has balanced it perfect. We've gone for months without any significant treasure. Then, we find a huge horde which makes up for anything missed. He hands out treasure based on our needs, or as part of a plot device. "Oh, we have to raise an army to fight against the invaders? Good thing our ally told us of this weapons cache, now if only we can defeat these monsters guarding it." He's mostly too generous with some of these hordes, but he doesn't mind because he knows we look forward to his game every month, treasure or not.
Thanks Chris, I can definitely see your point of view there. Well made; good to see the pros and cons.
(Well, that was certainly a long post. I'll post this question seperately, so's it doesn't get lost.)
For people who favor slower advancement: how do you handle placement of magic items. Adventures as written give out a whole bunch of stuff, pretty regularly and rapidly. If it takes your party, say, three times as much experience to get from 3rd level to 4th, do you just spread out the same treasures over three time as many encounters?
I don't. I pretty much leave the treasure alone, and this gives my player some freedom not to pinch pennies.
In Adventure Paths run at their natural rate of advancement it seems pretty much obligatory (at least at our level of capability and willingness to optimize) to spend every gold piece on the most directly essential adventurer stuff.
Cut the advancement sharply, leave the treasure alone, and you can (and I do) have PCs making donations to the orphanage, refusing to take things because they're tainted by evil, equipping NPC allies, returning loot to the families of the victims it came from, keeping art because they like to look at it, and buying feather-token trees because it's really neat to leave a big tree at your campsite. (That one's become a recurring background point, actually). And the player is a lot less fanatical about finding every single bit of treasure. The PCs don't seem overequipped to me. (I don't do EXP so I don't worry about knock-on effects on EXP gain.)
If your players don't react that way, you'd want to cut the treasure. Not proportionally, though. Three adventures still use up three wands of Cure Light Wounds, not one, even if the PCs don't go up levels during them. I've seen estimates that expendables should be 20-30% of the budget, so if you were previously giving 1000 gp and cut advancement in half, you'd want to give 600-650, not 500.
Mary
Only as a personal opionion--
As a player I loathe the 3rd Ed. advancement rate. Part of the problem is that I don't enjoy high level play, so it's an unstoppable rush out of the part of the game I like into the part I don't like, leaving me feeling cheated. But it's also just too hard for me to develop a character when they go from humble beginnings to earth-shaking power in four months.
I've seen the "new toys" vibe in people I play with; at least one of them tells me that the new toys are acting as a substitute for the fun he might get from character development in a slower game.
I wish I could figure out a way that Adventure Paths could be written for more than one advancement rate. My work responsibilities don't allow me to write my own scenarios right now, but every AP game we've begun has been destroyed by advancement. (I'm seeing the first signs in my Pathfinder game, and I'm really sad--it's been a great game so far.) It's possible to insert a side module between episodes, but for Pathfinder that's been particularly hard because the adventures are rather tightly linked. And with +3 levels per module you still have most of the bad effects of fast advancement even if there's a pause between modules.
I've pretty much quit playing because this problem bothers me so much as a player. It's a bit less upsetting as a GM, so I'm only GMing now.
If 4th is faster than 3rd that, in itself, will guarantee I never play it. Making high level play easier and more enjoyable would help, but still not enough to make up for my inability to develop a character who changes that fight.
Mary
I have never really understood why people like to slog through levels - but then I suppose people who like that wouldn't understand why I like to gain levels fairly rapidly.I wouldn't dare to speak for everyone else who likes slower leveling, but for me its about character development.
If you can run a charcter from 1st-X level (where you would normally retire them) do you want to reach X ASAP so you have all these cool powers/items/etc or do you want to create a character that will be remembered for a long time.
Its harder (for me) to get the same sense of accomplishment when you blitz through the levels. If we had more years before graduation, and it wouldn't have caused havoc with wealth/level, I would have slowed down the XP advancment to prolong the experience.
Well, you did a great job speaking for me before I could get back to this thread. I stretch out the levels b/c my principal enjoyment from D&D these days is actually writing up the adventures and related matter afterwards. The adventure--typically w/ me as both DM & player (heresy, I know!)--is really just a means to an end. That end is the written adventure and campaign materials I write up. I started this about 20 years ago, which is when my playing w/ actual groups tapered off, due 1st to graduate school, and then later to other demands on my limited free time. D&D has become a creative outlet for me, where it began originally as a social outlet. I guess I get the social part from these boards, in a way.
All that said, I wouldn't dream of imposing that kind of slow leveling on a group of other players. They'd flay me alive...and when I do get to play w/ a friend, it averages out to about 2-3 adventures to gain a level. Which he finds acceptable.
For people who favor slower advancement: how do you handle placement of magic items. Adventures as written give out a whole bunch of stuff, pretty regularly and rapidly. If it takes your party, say, three times as much experience to get from 3rd level to 4th, do you just spread out the same treasures over three time as many encounters?If you run modules as written, your players will have mountains of loot by the time they hit 8th level. Which means they'll be tougher than typical 8th-level parties. Which means they'll be facing tougher, higher-XP baddies. Which accelerates the experience point curve.
I don't change the treasure placement, even though I favor slower advancement. There are a few ways I prevent them from becoming obscenely rich at too early a level, though. One, my characters tithe part of their income to support a new city-state I created as their campaign home; two, rather than change the grossly stingy handing out of skill pts per level in 3.x D&D, I let them train in various skills. Class skills cost x per pt, general skills cost y, and specialized skills cost z. They're actually quite expensive in my system, so it's slow going there too. That's the gist of it, though I have other ways to tie up their money.
We've been playing our characters for about 5-6 years I'd say (actually longer but with breaks in between). My original post towards the top of this thread indicated the level of progression I use. For most this is really slow. We are now 11th level. We savor every level advancement because it is rare. Character development is far more important.
Once in awhile someone complains (slightly) about the advancement rate, as it gets to be more and more each level. But, all in all, everyone feels it has been worth it.
Magic item and wealth acquistion has never been an issue. The challenges we get are level appropriate (some a little high). I use a lot of modules and have linked them together to help form a large scale campaign. I use the modules pretty much as written unless I come across something that doesn't make sense to me or I think is pointless, underdeveloped, or silly, then I make changes. I also make minor changes to customize it to fit into the overall campaign storyline.
In regards to treasure, I keep it the same for the most part. I look at each encounter and check to see if the amount of wealth given for that encounter matches the 3.5 rules. If it does (usually it does and is on the high end), I don't change it. If it is to high, I reduce it. I keep most magic items the same (assuming they fall into the 3.5 rules for the encounter challenge). If there is to much, I remove the least desireable items (from the DM point of view, not players). If something is to powerful, I downsize it just enough.
Excess wealth, be it magic or coin is not really a problem. The players I have are great and are more interested in character development (roleplaying) than they are being powerful. We give a lot to the temples (the campaign is built around religion) and in turn I give out Faith points which players use to get prayers answered, assistance in a bad situation, defy the odds of death, etc. The Faith Points are not a save for all thing but do minimize deaths somewhat.
My players would probably give wealth and magic to their temples without receiving Faith Points in return....I award it to give them something worthwhile in return, reduce fatalities, and reduce the amount of magic items each PC has. So really, for us, it fixes a lot of issues.
Also, I don't care for how easy it is to make magic items or increase their abilities. Rather than take a +1 sword and turn it into a +3 sword and merely pay the difference between the two, I charge full price for the weapon being improved. In this example, they would have to pay for a +3 enchantment.
In addition, I haven't had to deal with it yet, but I also plan on making greater magic items (say +4 and higher) being available only by certain members of a given faith or organization. This limits the chances of PCs acting on a whim and getting a lot to easily. Getting such enchantements is possible but would require the PC to belong or more likely to at least serve them (quest) in return rather than simply drop a few pretty coins from a dragon lair.
The bottom line for a lot of DMs making slow advancement work is....
1. You have to have good/understanding players with the same goals as the DM.
2. If the players are power hungry sorts the DM needs to find the individual balance which keeps things in line for their campaign, their fun and that of the players.
It's all an experiment. Some ideas work, others crash and burn. What might work with one group won't with another, and vice versa.
At the speed of advancement from 1-30 will be, who's to say an "Epic Level Handbook" won't be released to go beyond 30th level?
Given the target audience they want to attract, it'll only be a matter of time when this same audience will shout for "Level Cap Increase, please!" and we'll be seeing books for 30th+ advancement.
Man, this 4th Edition is like a horrible car wreck. You know it's really bad, but you can't stop looking. That's how I feel about it. I've already decided on two things:
1) Read all 4E material and gripe about it
2) Play it as it was meant to be played: no RP, just make the damn character and blow through the Monster Manual as fast as you can...make new characters, rinse, repeat...
I'll tell you guys how that goes. At the rate WotC says 4E will be on faster combat and play, we should literally finish D&D itself (who would've though that was possible?) in about a month. Assuming they haven't ditched monster templates
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At the speed of advancement from 1-30 will be, who's to say an "Epic Level Handbook" won't be released to go beyond 30th level?
Given the target audience they want to attract, it'll only be a matter of time when this same audience will shout for "Level Cap Increase, please!" and we'll be seeing books for 30th+ advancement.
If I had even a hope they would provide a 4E ELH then I might be more willing to invest in 4e. Unfortunately, one aspect of their stated "epic play" is god slaying by 30th level. What else could there possibly be after that? Killing the god slaying monsters? A new campaign setting where "divine" beings are the normal NPC's? Both ideas seem a little far fetched to me. I sincerely doubt that's going to happen.
I can appreciate the desire to end a campaign by ascending characters, and in theory have no problem with it if it fits the end of a campaign. But when it's presented as a method of ending the campaign by an enforced level cap it bothers me.
Don't be surprised if nothing follows after the act of deicide.
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1) Read all 4E material and gripe about it
2) Play it as it was meant to be played: no RP, just make the damn character and blow through the Monster Manual as fast as you can...make new characters, rinse, repeat...
So in other words you have volunteered to become a troll.
Great addition to the conversation there sport.
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Regarding the excess wealth from slowing advancement: I've read a lot of good suggestions on what to do with the extra wealth from this thread (tithes, rejecting evil items, donations, etc) and I want to implement those. Has anyone ever experimented with organization creation/stronghold building for PC's?
For instance, we have a (IMO) good book on stronghold building with the Stronghold Builder's Guide. Alternatively, I've found the relatively recent introduction of affiliations in the PHBII or guilds/businesses in DMGII to be a useful idea to really develop a character. Has anybody used these resrouces?
I would like to slow my next (non-adventure path) campaign's advancement by about 50% My brother, wife, and I hit on the idea on limiting the amount of gp that can be spent on equipment to about 50% of the character's wealth. With the slowed rate, I figure this should give the PC's something to sink their roleplaying teeth into. The equipment % might have to shift a little as the party obtains/consumes consumables, but it seems like a good idea.
Any thoughts would be most welcome.
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The new leveling paradigm seems interesting. I've always been more partial to games where the characters start out strong and only get better slowly (GURPS or most super-hero games, for instance), so D&D's leveling system, where the magic-user starts out with his one spell and 1d4 hit points was always a bit of a hurdle for me (even if it has changed a lot since those days).
I like the sound of slower advancement. Several times during 3.X campaign play, the party would 'outlevel' ideas I wanted to use, that didn't really scale up adequately.
While the concept of 'Epic' play is interesting, I don't think the 3.X Epic rules really fit the bill. Perhaps the 21-30 levels will be able to better handle that concept than the open-ended nature of the current Epic rules. The idea of fighting gods initially turns me off, but the gods of myth were occasionally challenged by mere mortals (Ares receiving a greivous wound during the Trojan War, for instance), so there is certainly precedent for the idea. If I run any 4.E games and they get anywhere near the 21+ mark (our games rarely get past 8-12, as our group doesn't really handle play past that level well), I'll probably stick to throwing them against dragons and demon-lords and the like, rather than actual dieties-that-clerics-worship.
I'm not too fond of the idea of playing in a game-world where your Clerics god could get ganked by one of the high-level NPCs that you pissed off last week. "Ha ha! You ruined my extortion of the king and unmasked my spies in the merchants guild, but I *killed your god!* Take that!"
Forgotten Prince....In our campaign we have just gotten to the point where strongholds are of interest to the PCs. The Paladin in our group was appointed a leadership position of a knighthood of Heironeous she saved and thus the run down stronghold came with it. She will be rebuilding the stronghold, members, and purpose of the organization.
The wizard is going to build a stronghold, using the Stronghold Builder's Guide from WOTC. We went through and calculated costs and size and found it very easy to work with.
The larger issues will come from my (DM) point of view. Taxes, hiring, acquiring permission from other rulers, etc.
The stronghold/organization ideas are great for roleplaying and getting players out of the idea of kill monster/acquire treasure. If the stronghold/organization idea is to work, it will require the PCs to be more stationary then they may be use to...I think this is a good thing.
I'd make a list of monthly expenses that are required, such as upkeep, taxes, wages, etc. along with anything the stronghold will earn as well. This should help sort out expenses and how much treasure needs to be set aside for the overall project.
Organizations are great for adventure seeds and roleplaying. If the PCs get into it a lot of depth to the characters will be added.
I'm pretty ambivalent about levelling up rates. But for those of you on either side of the fence, is this something you really worry about? I just can't imagine anyone getting really worked up over the issue, as XP and loot gain are so easily adjusted by the DM. There are rules lawyer players who like to calculate how much XP they've been given and then whine if it doesn't match up with what the DMG recommends but...well, screw them. DMs shouldn't be enabling that kind of attitude anyway.
The problem with 3.x level advancement is that eventually every PC/NPC/monster ends up with too many abilities/feats/skills/spells to keep track of or use intelligently. The faster the advancement, the worse this problem becomes (esp. for the DM--after all, the player only needs to understand one PC's tactical options). IMO, if fast advancement is the norm, the advancements must be incremental--for example, in Sandy Peterson's Call of Cthulhu, advancement did not result in more more abilities, just better skill in using them. To cite more recent examples, Oblivion and Mass Effect also have good levelling schemes which gradually unlock a limited number of special effects. I don't mind fast levelling, so long as the options awarded don't become overwhelming.
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1) Read all 4E material and gripe about it
2) Play it as it was meant to be played: no RP, just make the damn character and blow through the Monster Manual as fast as you can...make new characters, rinse, repeat...
So in other words you have volunteered to become a troll.
Great addition to the conversation there sport.
Maybe he thought someone was getting lonely under the bridge? ;)
I don't see that as trolling (depending, of course, on how it's done). At least then he would have an honest opinion (assuming he finds something to gripe about) that is based on experience. I would look forward to such reports, to be honest, as I have no intention at all of even going that far.
I was browsing the WOTC release schedule for 2008 and noticed the three adventure series:
H1 Keep on the Shadowfell
H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth Adventure
H3 Pyramid of Shadows
H1 is for levels 1-3, H2 for levels 4-6 and H3 for levels 7-10.
Sounds like they are really serious about the fast level gain.
Three dungeons and you're into Paragon levels.
So does that mean 6 and you're Epic?
And after 9 or 10 dungeons you'll be the new gods?
Seems a little too easy!
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I was browsing the WOTC release schedule for 2008 and noticed the three adventure series:
H1 Keep on the Shadowfell
H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth Adventure
H3 Pyramid of ShadowsH1 is for levels 1-3, H2 for levels 4-6 and H3 for levels 7-10.
Sounds like they are really serious about the fast level gain.
Seems about on par with Pathfinder.
0.0
For people who favor slower advancement: how do you handle placement of magic items. Adventures as written give out a whole bunch of stuff, pretty regularly and rapidly. If it takes your party, say, three times as much experience to get from 3rd level to 4th, do you just spread out the same treasures over three time as many encounters?
I've mentioned this before, and it generated some interest: I make all characters pay the full xp cost for any permanent magic items they keep. This tends to slow advancement and also keep item tallies in line with level (unless some idiot refuses to keep any items at all, or spends all his or her xp on items, but those issues can be dealt with as well). As a side benefit, it explains why NPC wizards are willing to spend hard-earned xp to make magic items that they then sell for mere gold: those NPCs don't spend the xp anymore; the person buying the item does.
Some correlaries:
(1) Gold becomes a lot less important, which suits our style of play; no one I game with is an accountant. We can keep a much more haphazard account of wealth, and a character can spend 10,000 gp on a big party, for example, without automatically becoming woefully underpowered for his level thereby. This is a great way to RP character development as well--what does your character spend his gold on, if it all doesn't have to go into magic items?
(2) Some PCs will inevitably go for minimal items, to keep retained xp as high as possible. To counterbalance this tendency in some of my players, I use action points (per the SRD). This has a second important effect: fighter-types tend to rely on items more than sorcerer-types, and also make more dice rolls on average. Therefore, action points benefit fighter-types a bit more than sorcerer-types, and action points thereby balance the two types out again.
This did wonders for our 3e/3.5e games, making the "feel" a lot more like 1e/2e. Hopefully I can do something similar for 4e, if we make that switch.
Hmm. So another stomping on history (the H-Series were originally four high-level Battlesystem/2e hybrid modules, the first set on Greyhawk, the other three inexplicably moved suddenly to the Forgotten Realms)...
Ummm, no. H stands for "Heroic." Apparently, D&D adventures will be assigned designators based on their tier ("P" for Paragon" and "E" for epic).