But they don't have me, you guys do. What I'm going to do now is pick the collective brains of the Den for ideas on system elements and setting elements, and line them up until we have a workable system. Some ideas I'm going to come up with on my own, since a workable base line is needed.
Hopefully, we'll make something decent. (As opposed to Mearls' "Have anything you want, and pay me for giving you none of it.")
So, back to the 'feel' of the game. What I gather is that a vast majority of the players like the Conan level of play. They like being challenged by wooden walls, moats and puppies. They want to be able to put a dirt farmer in a leather suit and give him a sharp stick and be a bit intimidated. The absolutely love counting how many javelins they are carrying, how many fiendish frogs there are in a pond, and weather or not it is a good idea to charge since they could drown before killing anything.
But they don't like it all the time. They also really like it when their character becomes more powerful. Many of these players want wild animals, town guards and environmental hazards to become less meaningful problems as they adventure. They adore leveling up, and love it when challenges of yesterday can be a walk tomorrow. The want to be able to punch hydras in the mouth and make it cry.
To that end, tiers of play are an important design consideration. What is essentially important is making sure that player's characters are always in the same tier relative to each other. A huge problem in the current D&D setting is that martial characters are designed to stay in the same tier their entire existence, while magical characters go up. We know this fully, but it has to be spelled up to some people who get drapes over their eyes. It has to be dealt with, and it has to be dealt with right at the beginning.
There Will be Heroic Tiers each representing a major paradigm of power in the characters. A character that reaches a certain level enters that Tier.
Characters all Must Advance in Tiers with everyone else, or stay behind.
That isn't to say that characters shouldn't improve if they don't want to, just that when the party witch can make a flying broom stick, everyone else should be able to have an all day over land flight ability. When the druid can make the ability to climb cliff faced mountains and leap across chasms virtually all the time, every other character should be able to do so as well. When the cleric can walk through walls, the other characters should be able to bypass them just as easily.
As Frank noted once upon a time, each full caster's spell levels have this quirk. Each has in it a set of new tactics and counters. Charm Person is a first level spell, and note that the prime defence against it, Protection from Alignment, is also a first level spell. Cause Fear and Remove Fear are also first level spells, both a tactic and counter pair. At spell level 2, clerics get Hold Person and Remove Paralysis, while at spell level 3, wizards get Haste and Slow. There are many other tactic and counter pairs in the spell lists, and it paints this interesting picture where each spell level represents a Tier of Adventuring.
If we're going to keep Vancian style casting, setting up Adventuring Tiers so it encompasses two characters levels works out nicely:
- Levels 1 and 2 are Schmuck Levels: Bags of rats and a pack of dogs is a challenge for these characters. An elf or orc soldier is likely a level 1 character, 2 if they are a sergeant. Quickly overcoming a locked door is a challenge, but the right skill set or some Barbarian Diplomacy will just work when time is abundant. Characters will run from angry farmers, and castle moats are an effective deterrent.
Magical powers should be about as good as mundane equipment.
Life is cheap at this level, and it would probably be a good idea to make it easy to generate characters. - Levels 3 and 4 are Adventurer Levels: A pack of wolves won't be a danger to these characters, but something powerful and exotic like Hell Hound would be. Elite Soldiers belong here, and monster races should start showing up as well, like ogres and nagas. Appropriate environmental challenges include choppy lakes, bomboo shoots, rickety bridges, forest fires and a burning house. Under water adventuring should be possible here.
Magical powers at his level should clearly make mundane equipment look like crap, unless it's a modern tech level setting. (Magical Light Spell > Flashlight)
At this level, characters have the toughness and might to survive losing encounters, so some more time consuming character generation options should be available. Leadership abilities should be available as well, so that characters can take part in the war mini-game. - Levels 5 and 6 are Heroic Levels: At this point, it should be pretty clear that the mundane is being left behind, unless it's a high tech setting. Fighting (or becoming) werewolves and vampires becomes possible here, as well as mythical stuff like Medusas and Hydras, nasty stuff like trolls and giants, and cool stuff like unicorns and baby dragons. Appropriate environmental challenges are things like the crater of an active volcano, at sea in a hurricane, a collapsing sky scrapper, and getting to that castle on a cloud. You won't fight armies of level 5 characters, though the King may be a fifth level (or higher!) character. Ninjas are also part of this tier, since they are fucking magnets, which are miracles, which are magic. Fights at this level should look like wuxia films choreographed by Micheal Bay.
The town guard should be a joke to you, as spells like Invisibility, Flight, Fireball, and Suggestion are available.
Characters will be quite powerful and interesting, and lets not forget the investment people put into getting this far. Resurrection should be available here. - Levels 7 and 8 are Epic Levels: Characters at this level are awesome. Things from the Schmuck Tier shouldn't be an issue for these characters. This includes money, carrying capacity, stone walls, locked iron doors, getting lost and drowning in water. Long distance travel shouldn't be an issue either, because this is where all day flight comes online. Short range teleportation should also show up at this level, turning every fight into a crazy weeaboo anime fight. The ultimate expression of achieving this level is killing an adult dragon and taking it's hoard of gold (Where do they get it all?). Other massive entities, like castle golems, are also appropriate. Planar crossing magic should also be available now, if not sooner, since it won't be long before the material plane doesn't have challenges for these characters without killing off the low level world.
