Ten Levels

[Username17]

A 4e class comes in at 11-12 thousand words. A good deal of that is the incredible degree of pointless extra verbiage on a 4e class. But even the Crusader class I just made on a dare (which is notably fairly spare on the floating flavor text) clocks in at a bit more than 6k. However, a not inconsiderable chunk of that text is taken up by higher level material that will probably not be used by many players and in any case won't be used for some time by any players.

Secondly, there is a legitimate demand for characters who are phlebtonium-free. But as has been exhaustively established, those characters have expiration dates. However you set up a D&D-like game, there will come a time where a mundane warrior's contribution to the adventure is simply less and less with each passing level as the number of challenges and opponents who require phlebtonium abilities to compete with rise.

Thirdly, I don't think it really makes any sense to even talk about high level play without having kingdom management and mass battles minigames to back it up with.

Fourthly, people want a lot of content they can use. And they also expect there to be a lot of late game content and branching character paths. But those are in direct competition. Every page you dedicate to paragon paths is a page you don't dedicate to base classes. People were more offended by the fact that 4e dropped with only 8 base classes than they were thrilled by the fact that it dropped with 32 Paragon Paths.

---

What this all boils down to is that I think that it would make more sense for the base game to only go up to level 10. This would allow you to compress word counts considerably (I estimate that you'd only need about 4000 words per class, and that's even with going into rather more detail than they do now), allow things to be more "developed", and allow the high level material to come out in a tested and coherent form. Best of all, you could simply discontinue support for mundane characters by making all the Paragon classes have a phlebtonium source.

By simply not making an 11th level of Fighter, the entire argument of what the fucking fuck a Fighter is supposed to do in an epic adventure is neatly sidestepped.

The Paragon Levels book can revolve around kingdom management and armies marching around, and it can provide new monsters and challenges that can challenge people who have those things. The original monster manual can be filled entirely by things which can be faced by the characters in the first ten levels, meaning that you can actually test all of them instead of letting big chunks of the monster manual get filled up with "hypotheticals" based on what you think high level enemies might look like (4e is especially bad at this, with fully 73 "epic" monsters that not even the 4e diehard idiots at SomethingAwful think are the slightest bit playable).

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

Seems workable to me. Most of my D&D games range from level 4-8, and I just use midlevel demons and mages for endbosses anyways.

[Ancient History]

I like the idea of 3-level base classes, which forces characters to broaden their horizons by multiclassing or prestige-classing.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Frank,

I think we should also point out the reason people didn't care about Paragon Paths is that they didn't do dick to change your character. I suspect people would be less upset about less base classes if some of them became Paragon Paths that actually change you (Fighter -> Knight OR Assassin-Warrior, Mage -> Druid OR Necromancer OR Pyromancer, etc). You might be able to get away with less starting options IF your later evolutions are actually meaningful, and not some shit like +1 to psychic damage.

[hogarth]

Of course you can break the game into a low level piece and a high level piece. I'm not sure what the benefit for the publisher is supposed to be, though; presumably some portion of the players just won't buy the high level piece (just like not every D&D Expert player would buy the D&D Companion rules).

Or is the idea that shaving 10 levels off of the Player's Handbook will make it significantly more popular? Because that's sounds like a stretch to me; I haven't noticed any particular correlation between short rulebooks and TTRPG popularity (for any given year).

[mlangsdorf]

If 4e had come out with a PHB that was 75% the length of what they did come out with, but had 16 base classes running through level 10, I expect they would have had better sales out of the gate and better continuing sales (as the game would have sucked less). The sales of PHBII: Paragon would probably have been the same or better.

Basically, the advantage for the publisher is a better designed game that more people are interested in. Cheaper buy-in up front means more initial purchases; a less sucky design means more continued purchases. The top tier stuff may never sale well, but if the first 10 levels are good, I'd expect most people to at least buy the books for the next 10 levels.

[Josh_Kablack]

The last two times I ran 3.x, I said out of the gate "this game world caps at level 10, because that's where spells start to do things that were beyond the powers of the Greek Gods."

I would be all for an edition that did tiers right, by having the initial game focused entirely on the dungeon-delving / exploration / small-unit tactical battles and then releasing the further tiers of realm management / mass battles and divine ascension / immortallity / winning worshipers ascending in later supplements.

[Username17]

Frank,

I think we should also point out the reason people didn't care about Paragon Paths is that they didn't do dick to change your character. I suspect people would be less upset about less base classes if some of them became Paragon Paths that actually change you (Fighter -> Knight OR Assassin-Warrior, Mage -> Druid OR Necromancer OR Pyromancer, etc). You might be able to get away with less starting options IF your later evolutions are actually meaningful, and not some shit like +1 to psychic damage.

I don't think I can agree with that assessment because I remember how the backlash against 4e started before the books even got leaked. A large number of people announced that they weren't going to get the new books until the class list was complete (or at least, had the Druid, Bard, Barbarian, and Monk in it). I find that event very telling, because it means that the fact of reduced classes (or at least, the surety that 5 of 11 classes had gotten the ax) was a deal breaker for people sight unseen.

Now to an extent, people are going to balk at the new edition regardless. Some non-zero group of people are going to wait and see if the new edition is offering them something they want before they run out and buy it. Hell, there were totally AD&D holdouts who refused to go to 3rd edition because they were afraid that rationalizing THAC0 was going to "dumb everything down". And while almost all of them did convert, there are some holdouts even now and you can read a shadzar post if you want to try to follow their reasoning.

But the 4e balking was something exceptional I think. It wasn't that people were merely waiting for good word of mouth before they tried it (good word of mouth that for obvious reasons never actually came). It was that people felt that a game that was only offering 8 base classes was literally unfinished. And in that light, the fact that the 32 Paragon classes were piddly flavorless bullshit that no one cared about didn't even matter because people didn't even read that far.

I like the idea of 3-level base classes, which forces characters to broaden their horizons by multiclassing or prestige-classing.

I have a couple of problems with that. While in abstract I have nothing against putting people on three level "training wheels" progressions before they graduate to having sub classes, prestige templates, or whatever the fuck, I don't think that open multiclassing between super short classes is the way forward. One of the very corest of the core issues is the fact that mundane abilities are simply incapable of mattering at high levels. Open multiclassing promises people that they can keep taking levels of Fighter, Warlord, Ranger, and Barbarian out to 12th level and beyond and still never have a high level ability of any kind.

Another issue is that people genuinely want to have classes that have genuinely distinct resource management systems. And Open Multiclassing is full stop not compatible with that.

So I would support having a class be a ten level railroad that gives a branch choice at level 4 (in a blatant nod to Red Box cutoffs). But I don't think I could support 3e style open multiclassing. It promised things that I'm pretty sure cannot be delivered. It's possible to jigger the rules so that a Wizard/Cleric is as effective as a Wizard or a Cleric, the Fighter is always going to be an expiring character concept. And open multiclassing always promises that you could get something by multiclassing in to Fighter. Which at high level, you can't.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

You couldn't do it using existing classes, or even the existing spell selection or monster distribution. It would require a systematic rethink - and that means basically compressing classes down into action-packed three levels with a few key abilities, possibly picked from a menu of options - but I think it would be viable.

The benefit is you would nip the whole idea of being a "pure" anything right in the fucking bud. You get to a certain level of competence relatively quickly, and then you either have to super-specialize (prestige class) or broaden your horizons (multiclass).

So your Level 3 wizard is not going to be setting the whole world on fire with magic. But a Level 3 Wizard/Level 1 Fighter should be at a combat advantage over a Level 3 Wizard/Level 1 Loremaster. It still might fall apart past 9th level, but at 9th level you've already been through three full classes and should be well-rounded or /very/ specialized.

[Avoraciopoctules]

If you are cutting classes down to 3 levels and you still want characters to be noticeably more powerful at high levels, then you can't have characters reaching the lofty heights of level 10 and just getting some new cantrips or basic swording techniques.

Such a system would probably be better if you did it Black Forest style, with a different tier of classes you are forced to pick from every 3 levels. So at level 4 you can take levels of Warblade or Knight, and you are flat-out prevented from getting Fighter levels unless you want to exchange your levels in Thief or Apprentice for them.

[Judging__Eagle]

I'm pretty sure that the continued work on d20 engines by The Gaming Den has sort of proven that argument Frank.

Koumei's Dungeon Crusade would have been a failure if Koumei tried anything other than the strict power-tier seraration that they did.

Likewise, yours and Kieth's work in Races of War with the Knight and Warrior sort of got the ball rolling with the notion that "a class can have a cut-off date".

Expanding that idea to 4e seems reasonable.

[Aryxbez]

But even the Crusader class I just made on a dare

The Paragon Levels book can revolve around kingdom management and armies marching around, and it can provide new monsters and challenges that can challenge people who have those things.

I thought it was more of a "request" than an actual dare, but hey, if "daring" you will you and others to make more content like that, then I'm all for some Drink or Dare.

Would you have any suggestions what those new challenges would be, including the uses of Kingdom Management and Armies would be to the less imaginative?

Funnily enough, I recall that Paizo had made a comment long while back in some context, about how they could've just made their classes 10 levels and moved on. Which, made me wonder, Why didn't they?! Most people play at that point anyway, and they could just balance their ruleset/setting to that power range, and I'd imagine would work all the better in their favor for profits. Plus, they could then have prestige classes 3-5 levels, an idea I think should be the case in coming future of class based RPGS (in the case of high level content, get the idea of a character with multiple titles, Conan-style).

So yes, I would support the idea of an RPG model that does the 10 levels first, to better test and refine the content, so long as they plan for high level stuff too. Thus, by the time people going little past 10th anyway, they'll have good data to build upon to make a better high level game.

As for Paragon Paths, I suppose so long as doesn't just make everyone just some kind of magic user...as eh, would think that to be kinda lame. Though like with Shadowrun and Street Sam's NEED for cyber/Bio ware, I suppose I could get used to it, when all the things I'm doing are totally BA as all get out.

[ishy]

Thirdly, I don't think it really makes any sense to even talk about high level play without having kingdom management and mass battles minigames to back it up with.
(...)
The Paragon Levels book can revolve around kingdom management and armies marching around, and it can provide new monsters and challenges that can challenge people who have those things. The original monster manual can be filled entirely by things which can be faced by the characters in the first ten levels, meaning that you can actually test all of them (...)

-Username17

The exact value of levels is of course arbitrary. But if you use the same kind of power levels 3.x uses, I always saw Kindom management and mass battles as a lvl 5 - 11 thing.

I don't see the big difference in playtesting either. If you offer the same amount of content playtesting it would work about as well. Unless you write the high level rules later after you've seen how players abused your low level stuff? Or unless you just offer less content?

Basically, other than fuck fighters, I can't see any serious benefits or negative issues with doing this (other than people saying that your game is unfinished upon release). And while there might not be a lot of actual play for the high levels, there is a lot of look at my uber char wank, which does create interest for your game.

[Judging__Eagle]

Thirdly, I don't think it really makes any sense to even talk about high level play without having kingdom management and mass battles minigames to back it up with.

I've had some success using the After Sundown dice engine applied to wargame units, but only as an ad hoc thing where a whole unit gets X amount of dice to perform actions like move, attack, act.

I'm not sure if having a more detailed mini-game than Aftersundown used for Resources (Assets, Finances for example) is necessary, but honestly, I don't think a more detailed mini-game is necessary.

With as complicated a TTRPG can get, there's a lot of good to be said about having simple mini-games within the engine as a whole.

[Aryxbez]

The exact value of levels is of course arbitrary. But if you use the same kind of power levels 3.x uses, I always saw Kindom management and mass battles as a lvl 5 - 11 thing.

In that case, for sake of discussion, the 1-10th levels, should probably be defined as what these power levels would describe, possibly level by level, if truly necessary. For even if they're obvious, might cause an argument somewhere down the road, so it can be useful to have this clarified now (even if most are familiar with 3rd edition definitions of it)

I don't see the big difference in playtesting either. If you offer the same amount of content playtesting it would work about as well. Unless you write the high level rules later after you've seen how players abused your low level stuff?

Well, it's the idea that people are gonna start with the lowest level, and player from there. Especially as preferences go, people are going to be most interested in the low levels. As it sounded, the idea indeed is that low levels being tested first, building a strong foundation, so from there, know what High level content needs to contend with, as well getting used to writing good content for the game. Since as noticed, designers of a game by the end of the edition, are seemingly now getting the hang of writing content for it.

(other than people saying that your game is unfinished upon release). And while there might not be a lot of actual play for the high levels, there is a lot of look at my uber char wank, which does create interest for your game.

Well, most "uber" characters are also likely low level concepts, that they inflate due to not understanding what the numbers and "level" mean. You can show that can have "uber" characters from 1-10th, and then describe to them how truly "uber" 11th+ characters are supposed to be. However, I can see concern with it looking "unfinished", Dragon Age RPG, sucked as it did, flat out told you it was selling the game to you in 1-5 level increments (course it also didn't have effin Grey Wardens!), and that was quite the outrage. Though I think moreso due to lack of content, Frank has said, it'd be ensured there would be a lot of content.

[Username17]

Basically, other than fuck fighters, I can't see any serious benefits or negative issues with doing this (other than people saying that your game is unfinished upon release). And while there might not be a lot of actual play for the high levels, there is a lot of look at my uber char wank, which does create interest for your game.

When the rubber hits the road, people are going to make characters that you didn't expect and play them in ways you didn't expect. Some designers have more insight and others less, but the players are going to surprise you. By the time the PCs get to 10th level in actual play, they are going to look pretty different from the samples you mock up in playtest. Content you write for the later levels before you look at what the charop boards and denners come up with for the characters who are near those later levels are pretty much darts thrown at a board.

Would you have any suggestions what those new challenges would be, including the uses of Kingdom Management and Armies would be to the less imaginative?

You are going to have simple combat encounters even so. A combat encounter would presumably want to be something that can't be taken down by a squad of tiny men but can be taken down by a high level party. So now you're talking about things like Wraiths that are immune to the non-phlebtonic weapons of peons, nightmare beasts that can literally only be fought be small groups in a dream world. But you're also talking about beasts with "GTFO Auras" such as large scale terror, or Wizards with "Have phlebtonium or GTFO" powers like Bavmorda in Willow. Giants with two or even nine more hit dice do not fall into this category. A rather important thing that is to be learned from 3e D&D is that beasts and giants actually just stop getting more threatening - because sooner or later the player characters are going to be pulling GTFO abilities. And then it doesn't matter if it's a legendary dire bear of giantness, it's still just a bear and it doesn't have any abilities and it has to GTFO.

Kingdom Management and Army Marching challenges are a little bit different. You can do some outright wargames and 4X stuff (like Crusader Kingdoms or Age of Wonders). You can also have outright economic challenges like Temple of the Fiscally Irresponsible Elves. You also want to have outright intrigue and simple political theater. It's a fantasy game, so you can have some weird constituencies that you can try to make happy or oppress.

-Username17

[ishy]

Basically, other than fuck fighters, I can't see any serious benefits or negative issues with doing this (other than people saying that your game is unfinished upon release). And while there might not be a lot of actual play for the high levels, there is a lot of look at my uber char wank, which does create interest for your game.

When the rubber hits the road, people are going to make characters that you didn't expect and play them in ways you didn't expect. Some designers have more insight and others less, but the players are going to surprise you. By the time the PCs get to 10th level in actual play, they are going to look pretty different from the samples you mock up in playtest. Content you write for the later levels before you look at what the charop boards and denners come up with for the characters who are near those later levels are pretty much darts thrown at a board.
-Username17

That is what I tried to say with

Unless you write the high level rules later after you've seen how players abused your low level stuff

But even so assuming your designers are competent (rare in the TTRPG field but still), they should know about how the game will be played especially with competent playtesting. Yet certain tricks will of course go unnoticed. But how fast will your playerbase find them? And accept them? How long can you hold off before you write the paragon rules?
How long did it take before people are convinced the monk class is crap? (look at the paizo forums)
What is the standard response if you bring up flask rogues?
If you point out to people that you don't need to meet the prerequisites for bonus feats, they just say nu-uh I don't like that, thus RAW says you do need to meet them.
Look at how suprised people are how non-funcional the vision rules are in the phb.
How can you use feedback if people are willing to ignore what the rules say because it wouldn't feel right?

[Mask_De_H]

So in this hypothetical system, would level-appropriate abilities be granted on a specific schedule, or would advancement be choosing from a series of level-appropriate abilities? If it's the latter, then an open multiclass system that's restricted in the number of times you take it would still work, see: the Apocalypse Engine games (Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, Monsterhearts).

[hogarth]

If 4e had come out with a PHB that was 75% the length of what they did come out with, but had 16 base classes running through level 10, I expect they would have had better sales out of the gate and better continuing sales (as the game would have sucked less).

As far as I know, there is zero evidence from the past 20 years that "lite" versions of RPGs sell more copies than the regular version, and there is a variety of evidence to the contrary (e.g. the 4E Red Box, the Pathfinder Beginner Box, etc.)

The sales of PHBII: Paragon would probably have been the same or better.

This sounds like something a clearly insane person or the writer of the Epic Level Handbook would say. But I repeat myself.

[Mistborn]

The sales of PHBII: Paragon would probably have been the same or better.

This sounds like something a clearly insane person or the writer of the Epic Level Handbook would say. But I repeat myself.

I'll chime in on this the Epic level handbook is fails for a number of reasons but the biggest is that 3e was pretty much complete. Unless your class is shitty level 20 characters are basically epic demigods already.

Slicing D&D into two 10 level pices is far more doable.

[Koumei]

I don't like Alternate History's idea of open multiclassing and tiny classes, because I've seen the d20 games that tried similar things: d20 modern is shit for many reasons, but the classes do play into that. Know Your Role is fascinating, certainly, and if you do that g-fed thing you could do worse than just using that, but the characters very quickly look the same.

Now those games didn't make character classes wildly different, so maybe it wouldn't be the case if there are like 20 class options and they include Necromancer, Warlord, Mystic Monk, Psychic Abomination, Pyromancer and Armed Bear. But it really does lead to the characters starting to look and feel the same, mechanically.

Is it feasible to have all your character specialisation be in that first tier, with 50 odd classes, so that people can play the concept they had in mind rather than sleeping through the first X levels while they wait for Katanamancer to come online? I imagine in doing this, your second tier would actually have fewer options and consolidate them together - Sword Dancer, Warlord, Doom Blade and Katanamancer all become Legendary Warriors of Legend, for instance.

[Ancient History]

Granted, I was talking off the cuff (and likely out of my ass). The general purpose of a basic class is to capture some essential (and common) background ability or abilities. A Fighter hits people, a Hammerer hits criminals with a hammer, a Hammer of Armok hits them with the divinely-fueled hammer of a deity of vengeance. So if you know you want to be a Hammer of Armok to begin with, why do you have to go through steps 2 and 3?

Maybe you could have a build-your-class system, where you take X number of small building-block classes and combine them into one 10-level class, to arrive at something like Frank was talking about but without needing to stat out each one individually. So block 1 might be Fighter, block 2 Specialist (Weapon), block 3 Divine Champion, and you put those together and out pops a 10-level plan for the Hammer of Armok class, just add fluff.

[...You Lost Me]

Maybe you could have a build-your-class system, where you take X number of small building-block classes and combine them into one 10-level class, to arrive at something like Frank was talking about but without needing to stat out each one individually. So block 1 might be Fighter, block 2 Specialist (Weapon), block 3 Divine Champion, and you put those together and out pops a 10-level plan for the Hammer of Armok class, just add fluff.

I do like this. It sounds a whole lot like what Legend did.

[K]

One of the very corest of the core issues is the fact that mundane abilities are simply incapable of mattering at high levels.

While that's traditionally been true, it doesn't have to be that way.

For example, let's say that you have Surprise Attack be an ability that comes in Rogue level 1-3 and it lets a person ignore armor on any attack for some stacking penalty until you rest. This can just be the only ability in the game that lets you ignore armor, and this means that a Rogue/Pyromancer uses it on his Fireblast and the Rogue/Swordmaster uses it on his Riposte and the Rogue/Flamedancer/Emperor/Worldshaker uses it on his Shatterstrike ability that destroys castle walls and armies with a magical earthquake.

At Rogue level 2, you probably just use it on Basic Attack actions, but it remains a relevant part of your build your whole career because it's the only ability in the game that lets you ignore armor and ignoring armor is almost always a good thing.

The only issue is that you can't reuse abilities or make close variants. I'm not entirely sure that this is a good or a bad thing.

[shadzar]

Thirdly, I don't think it really makes any sense to even talk about high level play without having kingdom management and mass battles minigames to back it up with.

Fourthly, people want a lot of content they can use. And they also expect there to be a lot of late game content and branching character paths. But those are in direct competition. Every page you dedicate to paragon paths is a page you don't dedicate to base classes. People were more offended by the fact that 4e dropped with only 8 base classes than they were thrilled by the fact that it dropped with 32 Paragon Paths.

3. certain groups have been trying to explain this point to people for a LONG time.

BECM + I is really two different games, as you leave the initial game when you use Immortals

AD&D with its name level, assigns changes to the way you should be thinking and playing.

there is a nartual point when a group of lowly adventurers surpasses the kings, and you really wonder why they arent running their own kingdoms and such?

though there is a group that jsut wants to play on forever and needs higher and higher numbers for a "level" as some sort of goal. which runs into...

4. what is "late game" really? D&D has never had an end point as you could always add your own content to keep playing even with Basic that stopped at 3 levels. the end of the game is the end of the story, not a set level limit, or a seet turn limit or even time limit. so i NEVER really understood what "late game" was outside of jsut the numebrs provided in the published copyright holder books, but again those can always be changed as you are not forced to stop playing at level 3 in Basic, jsut because that is all that is in the books, and some people have kept playing without Expert set for all these years and have higher than level 3 characters.

a problem is the idea that you need more abilities to continue playing. people are playing for a level grind, rather than what the game is about.

• Story
• Glory
• Treasure

none of those have ANY sort of level attachment. "late game" would be as follows:

Story: when the conclusion is about to be reached.

Glory: when you fel your character has achieved his heroic/name status he was seeking to be known for; or infamy which he may NOT have been seeking

Treasure: when a character has enough money to do what they wanted to do.

glory and treasure could be changed to each other, and both to story if some epic world saving event and plot is had, but odds are story doesnt devolve to the other goals, unless the game and setting has just run its course and the story has finished and just trying to get that certain amount of gold to settle down with, or fame to be written down in a history of something.

what is then, "late game" other than published levels, and why seek to develop the game only around that complete/incomplete set of levels?

some people like to paly lower levels for the sake of the greater challenge and accomplishment as nobodies starting to be somebodies or try many various character, and others want levels of 100 so long as they dont have to stop playing this character.