Ten Levels

[tussock]

I don't think it's particularly fair to compare the Wizard's daily spellbook powers with the Fighter's at-will effects. A Wizard who can DimDoor once is not as good as a Fighter who can DimDoor every round, all day. I'd go so far as to suggest at-will powers can be up to 6 levels better than daily stuff, and having at-will 3rd- and 4th-level instantaneous spell effects isn't bad at all for a high level character.

Though, obviously I'm wrong because Warlocks have better than that and still aren't great. Limited number of actions you can use per day and all that, Wizards really only use the top 3 levels of spells when it matters and the rest are just background noise, etc, etc.

[virgil]

double post

[virgil]

With those standards, jumping to another planet or dominating hordes with a winning smile are not out of reach. I acknowledge that there are people who will flip tables and quit when presented such actions without the support of phlebotinum, and largely accept that.

I totes mentioned Mass Charm Monster. And no, I didn't describe clone exactly, but Kratos certainly didn't have his original body on hand when he brought himself back. Summoning an army of monsters and death clouds isn't stopping time, it's summoning an army and throwing out death clouds; while stepping between the seconds as done in Thief of Time is definitely time stop. While power word: kill might be bad to you, I think it's higher than 5th level when you make it mass. By the logic you're using, nobody's high level.

Dude: if you think making a saving throw and/or having Evasion involves a 9th level spell effect, I don't even know what to tell you.

I fvcking admitted that was a miss on my part.

This is needlessly nit-picky and obstructively reductionist. The final message is and should be that I'm perfectly fine giving the Charles Atlas character the following: time stop, wail of the banshee, foresight, clone, resurrect self, mass charm monster, weird, mass hold monster, mind blank, iron body, freedom, and polymorph any object (only way I can think of recreating Flex's Pentagon trick). My list of isn't supposed to be all-inclusive, so don't harp on me for not making an entire class. My examples and sources of inspiration are supposed to be just that, inspiration.

[Username17]

Time Stop is a high level effect because you can conjure shit during it. If you couldn't conjure things, then the fact that you couldn't affect anything that already existed (on account of it being frozen in time) would make it suck. In Vampire, they hand out Time Stop as a medium level ability and it is terrible, because you can't summon anything so it's just a cool special effect and a high cost for a small movement boost.

Yes, "killing a dude" can be scaled to any level by arbitrarily claiming that this particular form of "killing a dude" bypasses the defenses that creatures of Level X are expected to potentially have. So theoretically a "mundane" character can have a level appropriate "killing a dude" type ability. Except, generally not because the actual "killing a dude" abilities that people tend to want to give to mundane characters are generally loaded with implicit limitations.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

I acknowledge that there are people who will flip tables and quit when presented such actions without the support of phlebotinum, and largely accept that.

I totes mentioned Mass Charm Monster. And no, I didn't describe clone exactly, but Kratos certainly didn't have his original body on hand when he brought himself back.

Kratos didn't need to create a new body because you automatically get one in the afterlife. His self-resurrection is the equivalent of waking up in one of the Outer Planes as a Petitioner and simply traveling back to the Prime. Hypothetically, he remains native to Hades and thus has the Outsider subtype. Any character can do this in D&D. It doesn't require any sort of magic. It just requires the petitioner to locate a portal. It also requires that he be sufficiently bad-ass enough to retain his identity after death, but that's still not a spell effect. It's something automatic.

[virgil]

Kratos didn't need to create a new body because you automatically get one in the afterlife. His self-resurrection is the equivalent of waking up in one of the Outer Planes as a Petitioner and simply traveling back to the Prime. Hypothetically, he remains native to Hades and thus has the Outsider subtype. Any character can do this in D&D. It doesn't require any sort of magic. It just requires the petitioner to locate a portal. It also requires that he be sufficiently bad-ass enough to retain his identity after death, but that's still not a spell effect. It's something automatic.

There is no 'hypothetically' here, because Kratos retains the ability to come back if killed again, which isn't something petitioners can do (especially off-plane).

When Frank mentioned that mundane power sources can't keep up because DMs will have their sensibilities offended and take the most restrictive interpretation possible, I didn't think he included himself in that list. Of fvcking course Charles Atlas can't keep up if you proactively define their abilities to be as insignificant as possible. I'm not the one putting a limit on John Carter's leaping, that's you. If you want to jump to the Moon because you're fit enough, so long as you're at the right level, hold your breath and go right ahead. The BBEG who just used plane shift to his pocket dimension is surprised that McFighter beat him there? He took a shortcut.

[Username17]

When Frank mentioned that mundane power sources can't keep up because DMs will have their sensibilities offended and take the most restrictive interpretation possible, I didn't think he included himself in that list. Of fvcking course Charles Atlas can't keep up if you proactively define their abilities to be as insignificant as possible. I'm not the one putting a limit on John Carter's leaping, that's you. If you want to jump to the Moon because you're fit enough, so long as you're at the right level, hold your breath and go right ahead. The BBEG who just used plane shift to his pocket dimension is surprised that McFighter beat him there? He took a shortcut.

If you have John Carter leap to the moon, you undo his character more thoroughly than if you just tell him that on level-up he unlocks psychic powers. If you have him PrC out into Psionicist, then he's still John Carter, after he has become psychic. If you just have him leap through space, his character is unrecognizable.

Telling people that their low level character concepts have to get high level abilities without giving them some sort of phlebtonium to explain the breakthrough is more insulting to the players than just force feeding them some phlebtonium. I don't even know if you think you're being accommodating to the people who want to play John Carter, Conan, or Tarzan, but you're seriously not. You're telling the player that you're going to shit all over their character concept and never even tell them why.

If you have Conan spontaneously perform high level actions without any explanation or added phlebtonium, you are transforming the game into Axe Cop, which is completely not what the people who signed on for Conanesque characters want or expect.

-Username17

[virgil]

If you have John Carter leap to the moon, you undo his character more thoroughly than if you just tell him that on level-up he unlocks psychic powers.

John Carter literally develops psychic powers and has mind blank in the first book when he levels up, and the only phlebtonium he got was practice.

[sabs]

And being from a different planet, that reacts to the Mars environment diffrently than local martians.. IE Superman's phlebotnium.

[virgil]

And being from a different planet, that reacts to the Mars environment diffrently than local martians.. IE Superman's phlebotnium.

His telepathy is never explained as an inherent reaction to the Martian environment, but entirely through practice with the natives. Hell, his astral projection and subsequent eternal life is even more inexplicable; he just falls asleep and wakes up with those abilities.

[Username17]

And being from a different planet, that reacts to the Mars environment diffrently than local martians.. IE Superman's phlebotnium.

There is an absolutely vital distinction between John Carter's phlebtonium and Clark Kent's. And that is that John Carter's is "human physiology", meaning that he is stuck with a fundamentally familiar and mundane source for his jumping powers. And that is why he can never jump to another planet. When he trains in Barsoomian Psionics, he is not similarly limited on abilities he gets from that source.

Both John Carter and Clark Kent have the "are from a different planet" power source that gives them amazing jumping powers. But John Carter has a mundane version of that power source and it will never ever let him hover or leave the atmosphere, while Clark Kent has a non mundane version of that power source and he can potentially ratchet it up to hovering or interplanetary travel. John Carter also has access to a non-mundane power source of Barsoomian Psionics, and it is entirely plausible for that to give him the ability to hover or travel between planets.

Which is exactly the entire point. John Carter can at the same character level as Superman fly up to the Moon and blow it up. But because John Carter has an originally mundane character concept, he has to take levels in Psionicist and do it Tetsuo-style. While Clark Kent has an originally non-mundane character concept and could plausibly just keep taking more levels of the Cape class until flying up and blowing up the Moon was simply a thing he could do.

But for all the players who make John Carters or Conans or whatever, you must get them to jump ship and start developing psychic powers or learn magic or drink hydra blood or something. Because that is the only way they are ever going to drill through the atmosphere and destroy the Moon.

-Username17

[virgil]

If you have Conan spontaneously perform high level actions without any explanation or added phlebtonium, you are transforming the game into Axe Cop, which is completely not what the people who signed on for Conanesque characters want or expect.

You're conflating changing levels with changing expectations and overly fast advancement. John Constantine's entire world is light on the explicit evocation, and him teleporting and throwing fireballs like candy is a change to how the setting functions; so phlebtonium is not immune to changes without explanation. The same goes for power level; as everyone will look at the game askew when knocking through walls jumps to lunar destruction with nothing in-between, regardless of whether it's a Charles Atlas or Merlin.

Setting expectations are an important feature. Conan's entire setting presumes there are no phlebtonium-free powers greater than him, and even the phlebtonium is limited such that Conan is a threat. If you're playing a setting where characters can jump to the Moon after sufficient push-ups, they are not going to be surprised when their PC gains this ability. Conan in the Naruto-verse is a fundamentally different Conan, because now there is an established precedent for where his levels will go; and people who sign on to Conan are signing onto his entire setting unless you tell them.

EDIT: It's just as disruptive to bring in Professor X to your Shadowrun game as it is to bring Conan to your M&M game.

[Username17]

If you have Conan spontaneously perform high level actions without any explanation or added phlebtonium, you are transforming the game into Axe Cop, which is completely not what the people who signed on for Conanesque characters want or expect.

You're conflating changing levels with changing expectations and overly fast advancement.

No. It literally does not matter how "fast" advancement is, because if you continue to have advancement you will eventually get to any particular level you care to name. And there exists some level that has in its assumptions of character abilities things that cannot be justified with Conan's character concept unless you add some phlebtonium in the meantime.

You can keep niggling over numbers and precise amounts of cognitive dissonance you or your friends would supposedly accept, but it seriously doesn't fucking matter. There exists some finite level that Conan cannot compete at without a phlebtonium injection or a violation of his character concept. And with continuous advancement of whatever speed, that level will eventually be achieved.

I don't give two rat fucks how high you personally would accept Conan jumping without getting some magic before you personally called bullshit. The fact is that there is a finite limit at all, which means that at some level you have to either:

• Inject Phlebtonium into the character.
• Retire the character.
• Allow the character to underperform like a 3e Fighter.
• Stop the advancement of everything like you were playing 4e.

You don't get to have a fifth option, because there is no fucking fifth option.

Conan's entire setting presumes there are no phlebtonium-free powers greater than him, and even the phlebtonium is limited such that Conan is a threat.

This is completely wrong and I suggest you go back and read some actual Conan stories and stop embarrassing yourself.

-Username17

[virgil]

You can keep niggling over numbers and precise amounts of cognitive dissonance you or your friends would supposedly accept, but it seriously doesn't fucking matter. There exists some finite level that Conan cannot compete at without a phlebtonium injection or a violation of his character concept.

That's only true if his concept is defined as "doesn't go beyond level X," which is a defeatist stance for you to take. There exist enough 'mundane' inspirations (Flex, Kratos) that can be expanded to incorporate well into the levels where the game breaks down, and which point who the fvck cares that he'll need a phlebtonium injection. It's like worrying about artificial hearts for the elderly expiring after 100 years of continual use.

This is completely wrong and I suggest you go back and read some actual Conan stories and stop embarrassing yourself.

Like the time he fought a dark god, who was a MacGuffin plot threat defeated by feeding him a wizard? Or all of those great warriors and laser-wielding monk-things that he takes down with an axe, who are certainly not actually better than him since he's alive and they're dead?

[Foxwarrior]

Virgil: You're being a bit sideways about it, but it seems like you're advocating a game system with a setting-appropriate level cap, but epic advancement rules that start out ridiculous and only get sillier from there. Why don't you just say so, rather than first going on about how some settings have maximum power levels, and then switching to an argument about how "mundane-themed" powers can be advanced arbitrarily?

[Avoraciopoctules]

But for all the players who make John Carters or Conans or whatever, you must get them to jump ship and start developing psychic powers or learn magic or drink hydra blood or something. Because that is the only way they are ever going to drill through the atmosphere and destroy the Moon.

This is a point I think I can support. I've been talking about adventure game protagonists as the kind of non-inherently-supernatural PCs I might be interested in playing, but I am totally fine with a game where they have to embrace some kind of magical power-up to be effective at a new level of challenge.

There's nothing wrong with a character initially in an underdog position finding and capitalizing on new sources of power until they are easily capable of dealing with challenges. I cannot think of any "mundane" character concept I'd play that would shy away from a magic power boost just because 'it would be magic'.

[Wrathzog]

So, being Kryptonian is getting assistance, but having a dragon fly you somewhere isn't? That's a really counter-intuitive definition.

Technically Yes, and Yes, Absolutely. Earlier in the thread I go on about how awesome English is but right now we're kind of failing eachother. The key point is that it's about Context.

It might be easier to think of it like this: A Summoner can "disable" traps by summoning angry monkeys or "unlock" a door by summoning a rhinoceros (I have no clue how to spell that, thank you spellchecker) but the only thing written on his character sheet is "Summons Animals."

Emergent Behavior from clever use of your powers is part of the game. So, when Dragon Uppercutter uses his class feature of Uppercutting Dragons to enhance an intimidate check to coerce a Dragon into being a temporary mount, that's part of his power set even if it isn't Explicit.

The "very brink of insanity" as you've just described it is just some 3rd and 4th level spell effects with maybe a caster level of about 10. When you're using hyperbole of the supposedly crazy outer limits of what you want that you don't even think you can get other people on board with... you are still describing a character who is 10th level on the outside.

Then let's keep going and jump straight to 9th level spe...oh, virgil already did that. high five man. and Frank responds with... dismissing them or by bringing up bad implementations.

So... when do we stop moving the goal posts here? I would like a definitive target.
Because if your target with High Level D&D is to not have any limitations at all, then yeah, I guess we're never meeting up anywhere because you're over in infinity land while I'm stuck playing with real numbers.

[Username17]

So... when do we stop moving the goal posts here? I would like a definitive target.
Because if your target with High Level D&D is to not have any limitations at all, then yeah, I guess we're never meeting up anywhere because you're over in infinity land while I'm stuck playing with real numbers.

That is because as long as you keep allowing advancement, you are in fact in infinity land. Meanwhile, mundane power sources are always limited to playing with real numbers.

Yes, you could make advancement so slow that you didn't hit the mundane cap until level 50 or some shit, but you'd still eventually hit the mundane cap. The non-mundane would still be uncapped and could keep gaining levels without further phlebtonium injections. If you keep gaining levels, then eventually your thousand foot leap will be small. With D&D's constant power doubling every two levels, that thousand foot leap will be tiny really quickly, but if you slow rate of advancement down all you're doing is increasing the number of levels before obsolescence kicks in. The fact of mundane obsolescence doesn't change.

There will be some level in which the place to go to is a castle on top of the clouds or another world entirely, and then your mundane leap will not be enough to matter. It could be over a thousand feet or even over nine thousand, and it still won't be even close to what you need to even continue playing the game. You can quibble over level numbers or allowed mundane jump distances, but in the abstract it doesn't fucking matter: the limits exist and they will be reached.

Sooner or later you have to draw a line and say: "Get some fucking phlebtonium past this point". I favor drawing that line at level 10, because then you can hide the fact that you are drawing such a line in a "tier shift" by having base classes end and handing out Paragon Paths that simply happen to come with phlebtonium. But you could draw the line at level 8 or level 28 if it pleased you aesthetically to do so. But you do need a line, because real numbers cannot ever go as high as infinity can.

-Username17

[Schleiermacher]

But Frank, the game doesn't go to infinity in the first place. Maybe it could, even though it never really has done so in a functional way, but why do we even want it to? 20 levels, which is the cap 3e gave us, is easily enough room for a wide variety of power levels, probably more than any one setting needs. And even if you don't think 20 levels is enough, there has to be a cap somewhere, whether it's 20 or 30 or 50. Uncapped progression leads only to incoherence.

So for our purposes, if it's possible to make a mundane power source relevant at level 20, that's a win condition. Now, I happen to agree with you that it most likely isn't possible to do that, but by not even recognizing what Wrathzog is saying I think you are being disingenious.

[hogarth]

You can keep niggling over numbers and precise amounts of cognitive dissonance you or your friends would supposedly accept, but it seriously doesn't fucking matter. There exists some finite level that Conan cannot compete at without a phlebtonium injection or a violation of his character concept.

That's only true if his concept is defined as "doesn't go beyond level X," which is a defeatist stance for you to take. There exist enough 'mundane' inspirations (Flex, Kratos) that can be expanded to incorporate well into the levels where the game breaks down, and which point who the fvck cares that he'll need a phlebtonium injection.

Yes, why would you need phlebotinum to fuel your powers when you could be like Kratos and get your powers from totally mundane sources like gorgon eyes, phoenix feathers and divine artifacts? Uh doyyy!

[John Magnum]

How the fuck is Kratos mundane at all? He is literally a fucking god and he walks around with magic powers. For that matter, he walks around with a different set of magic powers in every game. Yeah, he's a muscly dude who kills things with swords, but why is he even being mentioned in a "mundane characters" thread?

Anyway, Schleiermacher, the issue isn't getting a mundane source to some arbitrary number of levels. The problem is getting it to the same level at which the phlebotinum-empowered sources finish leveling up.

[Avoraciopoctules]

How the fuck is Kratos mundane at all? He is literally a fucking god and he walks around with magic powers. For that matter, he walks around with a different set of magic powers in every game. Yeah, he's a muscly dude who kills things with swords, but why is he even being mentioned in a "mundane characters" thread?

People don't perceive him as a "Magic Guy". They perceive him as a "Badass who beats up Magic Guys and takes their stuff"

[violence in the media]

How the fuck is Kratos mundane at all? He is literally a fucking god and he walks around with magic powers. For that matter, he walks around with a different set of magic powers in every game. Yeah, he's a muscly dude who kills things with swords, but why is he even being mentioned in a "mundane characters" thread?

People don't perceive him as a "Magic Guy". They perceive him as a "Badass who beats up Magic Guys and takes their stuff"

"People" are retarded.

[Schleiermacher]

Anyway, Schleiermacher, the issue isn't getting a mundane source to some arbitrary number of levels. The problem is getting it to the same level at which the phlebotinum-empowered sources finish leveling up.

Right. And if that level is arbitrarily high, then you obviously can't do that because mundane power sources intrinsically have limits and phlebotinum-based power sources do not intrinsically have limits, they only have whatever limits you impose on them.

But if character power caps out at or before the mundane conceptual limit* anyway, then there is no problem.
* Not the actual real-world mundane conceptual limit, in case it needed to be said. The "Conan and Cuchullain" fantastical-mundane conceptual limit.

Now, in D&D that point is not at level 20. That is both obvious and indisputable. In my experience it is at about level 10, if the supernatural characters' abilities are used to maximum effect then it is lower.

But in a game that spread out the GTFO abilities a little more instead of handing them all out from level 3-9, that gave mundane characters some Nice Things and imposed some judicious limitations on supernatural abilities, I don't see why the mundane power sources couldn't hang in there until level 15-16. Past that point, character capabilities are so inextricably bound up with the abilities that I'd want to remove or redesign that before I can tell you if mundane characters can still remain relevant then, we'd have to discuss what play at those levels should even look like. The only thing I'm resonably certain we can all agree on is that "like level 16, but with bigger numbers on everything" is a non-starter.
[/i]

[John Magnum]

Okay, that's what everyone is calling "the 4e solution", where you cap phlebotinum-enabled characters and make your entire game "low-level". It's a functional idea, in the sense that it can eliminate the disparity, but TGD loathes that idea absolutely and many people who might accept a game built from scratch operating under that paradigm would nevertheless still hate the idea if you attempt to convert D&D to that paradigm because people like having a game where characters can get up to extremely ridiculous shenanigans.